BROKEN BELLS NOMINATED FOR A VMA
August 03, 2010
MTV has just announced the nominees for the 2010 Video Music Awards, and the video for Broken Bells “The Ghost Inside” has received a nomination in the Best New Artist category.
For more on this video, and the vfx moco work I shot for it, see the article below.
For more on this video, and the vfx moco work I shot for it, see the article below.
BED AND BREAKFAST THE MOVIE
July 11, 2010
June and July were spent shooting a romantic comedy feature film starring Dean Cain, Brazilian superstar Juliana Paes, and Bill Engvall. It’s a sweet film that an extremely talented group of people pulled together to make with very limited resources, and a lot of hard work. The results were better than any of us imagined they would be.
The story revolves around a man (Dean Cain) who’s been converting his inherited house into a bed and breakfast. When the rightful owner (Juliana Paes) arrives from Brazil to lay claim to her property, chaos ensues. But soon the two realize there is much more to their new relationship than a property dispute.
Because the crew was very small, the schedule very tight, and the equipment very limited, I shot this film in a way that wouldn’t have been possible 6 months ago. Digital capture was the only option considered due to budget restrictions, so I chose the Red MX camera because it allowed me to shoot under very low light levels without noise, and make the most of the beautiful natural light at the main location. This approach required a lot of coordination with the AD department and the production designer, in order to shoot at the exact right times and ensure the set decoration was always complimentary to the light. The lighting package that we did carry consisted mostly of Kino Flos, a few small HMI’s, and about a dozen 2k or smaller tungsten heads.
I chose to shoot the movie exclusively with Zeiss standard speed primes, which at a f2.1 maximum aperture might seem like a strange choice when trying to make the most of natural light inside practical locations. However the f1.3 Zeiss super speeds are much more limited in choice of focal length, and I wanted to have the most flexibility I could. Plus carry lenses wider than an 18mm, and longer than an 85mm. I selected this older Zeiss series because they are a bit softer, warmer, and have more character than the glass being made today for lenses like Cooke S4’s and Zeiss Master Primes. The camera package came from Keslow Camera, who I feel has the best Red camera packages available. All of the footage was captured at 4k, and in such a way as to be prepared for a DI and theatrical release prints.
We moved extremely fast in order to accomplish director Marcio Garcia’s vision. Every day we shot 6 to 10 pages, and were often approaching 40 setups a day. In spite of this, we were able to maintain extremely high quality visuals with a lot of beauty, movement, intimacy, and comedy. The camera, lighting, and grip crews were stellar and what they were able to pull of in no time, with too little manpower, was incredible. The most surprising thing to me personally was that even with such a tight schedule, we were still able to get 6-10 dolly shots a day.
12 CAMERAS CAPTURE GLEE LIVE AT RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL
June 03, 2010
Glee has been an enormous hit show for Fox, continually earning very high ratings and critical acclaim. It was also recently nominated for 19 Emmys, and earlier this year won the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy Television Series.
Following the end of the television season, the cast went on tour for a 13 show live version of the series. The live performance consisted of songs from the years episodes, and new scenes performed by the cast on stage or on giant video walls. The structure more closely resembled a rock concert than a musical - complete with thousands of screaming fans.
Glee Live turned out to be a much bigger hit than anticipated, with some shows selling out in as little as 30 seconds. After the first few performances proved to be so successful, the producers considered the possibility of creating a DVD version of the experience. The biggest challenge of such an undertaking would be that the run of the show was very short, with only 4 cities planned to host the event. Fortunately, director Meiert Avis and producer Jeremy Alter at Pusher Media were up to the challenge of an extremely compressed timeline.
One of their first calls was to director of photography and frequent collaborator Craig Kief. While originally considering shooting the show exclusively with Red One MX cameras, the decision was made to shoot multiple formats to satisfy a few very specific purposes. The primary camera system Kief chose was the Panasonic Varicam 3700. One reason for that choice was because there are very few options when it comes to 35mm long zoom lenses. They are all very slow, usually with a maximum aperture of about a f6.7, and not nearly long enough – with the longest lenses topping out around 600mm. Radio City Music Hall is a large venue, and some of the camera positions would be over 150 feet away from the talent. 600mm would be nowhere near long enough to achieve dramatic closeups. With B4 mount box lenses, Kief was able to choose 12.5mm - 1100mm, f2.8 image stabilized zoom lenses from Fujinon for two of the cameras to accomplish everything from medium wide shots to ECU’s. This long focal length is the equivalent of a 2500mm lens on a super 35 sized sensor. Also, 4 of the Varicam’s would be replacing existing standard def camera positions the show used to capture the performance for display on the video walls, and broadcast style HD cameras would be a more seamless transition for the shows existing infrastructure.
A Red One MX camera and a Canon 5D Mark II were also used to capture the show. The Red was deployed to record a wide shot of the show in 4k, which could then be used to create digital camera moves in post. The 5D was used on a Steadicam in the auditorium to capture audience reaction shots in extremely low light levels. 6 Varicam 3700’s were used on sticks scattered throughout the front of house. Other Varicam’s were used on a second Steadicam in the audience, to capture performer interaction in the aisles, a 30 foot crane on the stage, plus a handheld position and a third Steadicam backstage.
The team had only two days of prep in LA, and another in New York beginning as soon as they stepped off the red eye flight. So in only 3 days, Craig assembled a crew of 24 operators, assistants, and technicians to staff the camera department, and managed to navigate through several creative and technological hurdles the venue presented at the last minute due to it’s large size and unique logistics.
The crew worked under a very ambitious schedule on the day of photography. In only 6 hours the 12 cameras were in place, and 3/4 of a mile of cable were run throughout Radio City to feed all the monitors, paintboxes, and the shows live video switcher. The cameras were all controlled by DIT JM Hurley, who maintained consistency through the use of a Sony reference monitor and a waveform. Director Meiert Avis viewed all of the cameras through 3 quad split 40” HD monitors, which were fed with HD-SDI signals from the mounted cameras, and Cam Wave wireless HD transmitters for the rest. He called the shots in constant communication with the operators through noise canceling headsets.
The crew consisted primarily of New York locals, including lead 1st AC Brett Walters. Two of the Steadicam operators came from LA, including Craig’s longtime operator Nick Franco, and operator/DP Charles Papert. All were invaluable in accomplishing the enormous task, as were the Radio City crew lead by Joe Faretta, the technicians and managers at LVRHD Rentals in New York, and Camera Support in Burbank.
This was Craig’s first opportunity to use the Varicam 3700’s in such a way, and he was particularly impressed with their high latitude, clean sharp images, extremely low noise, and huge amounts of shadow detail. The lighting on the show was very high contrast, with lots of color depth. However, after being optimized by Craig and JM, the Varicam’s performed amazingly well in this very challenging live situation.
Everyone was extremely happy with the footage that was captured, and the production itself. The project is currently in post, where a workflow revolving around Final Cut Pro is being used to handle the multiple formats.
CHALLENGING VISUAL EFFECTS WORK FOR CLINT EASTWOOD, BEN LOVETT, AND BROKEN BELLS
May 12, 2010
This spring brought with it several visual effects heavy jobs.
HEREAFTER
Scanline VFX recently asked me to work on their latest Clint Eastwood film, Hereafter. Eastwood’s longtime vfx sup, Michael Owens, needed to create a sequence where the audience peeks into the afterlife. To create this world, we shot greenscreen elements in a very unconventional way. First we filled the stage with smoke, I shot a 20k straight into the Optimo 24-290 zoom lens creating an enormous flare, and then we dollied the camera in a variety of moves through groups of extras with nothing but the faintest of tracking marks. Certainly not how you traditionally shoot chroma key! It was a unique challenge that was a lot of fun to shoot, and turned out very well. I also shot additional elements for a variety of other scenes throughout the film.
BEN LOVETT
I recently photographed a music video for artist Ben Lovett’s new album. In the video, an older version of Ben sheds himself of his literal and personal baggage as he sails in a surreal vessel to a stormy end. I chose to shoot the project on a Red One with the new MX sensor, which had just been introduced a week before. My longtime relationship with Keslow Camera was key to obtaining this highly sought after upgrade, shortly after it arrived to them.
Ben’s video will be made up of heavily stylized animation, most of which will be computer generated, but with many foreground elements generated directly from an innovative keying technique we used on a bluescreen stage. The new MX sensor is perfect for this type of work due to it’s dramatically lower noise level, and increased latitude.
Ben’s costume was outlined in key parts with fluorescent tape. Parts of the props were also highlighted with differing colors of fluorescent tape, paint, and even dyes. I lit these fluorescent elements with Kino Flos containing blacklight tubes from behind camera. Everything else in front of the bluescreen was mostly silhouette. The activated fluorescent pigments as photographed will be used to generate moving keys in After Effects. It was very odd working on a set with no lighting other than blacklight and chroma blue Kinos. It was almost overwhelming being flooded with so much blue, and occasionally some people would have to step outside to give their eyes a break.
During compositing the bluescreen silhouettes will be placed into CG background plates, along with a few 3D models, and the fluorescent keys will be replaced with completely different colors. The finished piece will be somewhat reminiscent of Sin City, but will bring the style to an ambitious new level.
BROKEN BELLS
Broken Bells is the new musical collaboration between James Mercer of The Shins, and artist/producer Danger Mouse. For the music video for their song “The Ghost Inside,” the director, Jacob Gentry, wanted to create an environment in outer space similar to classic sci fi movies from the 70’s like Star Wars, Alien, and 2001. To accomplish this we used real model spaceships photographed from a motion control rig in front of a greenscreen. This method is exactly how filmmakers created spaceflight in nearly every film since the late 60’s, until recent years when CGI began to improve so dramatically. Now it is a technique that is almost never used.
The main difference between the model work for this video and that of the older movies is that today, once the footage is captured it is composited using computers instead of going through a photochemical process. This saves a considerable amount of time and work, and gives a lot more freedom to the visual effects compositors.
We shot multiple frame accurate passes with the moco rig, which became composited together to create scenes where the hero’s spacecraft docks with another ship, stops at a intergalactic toll booth, dives through an asteroid field, and ejects an escape pod towards a nearby planet. To add drama to the shots, I often used a probe lens or a periscope to create the impression that the ship was flying very close to the camera. Our 3 days of model photography generated around 15 visual effects shots, which were edited into live action sequences shot by the first unit on sets built to serve as the spacecraft interior, and a planet the hero visits.
UNDERWATER AND SUPER SLOW MOTION FOR DISCOVERY CHANNEL
April 19, 2010
I just finished shooting a pilot for Discovery Channel which required some specialized techniques.
The show follows a pair of engineers who design cool things. One of the machines they built was meant to work in water. To capture this, I chose a Hydroflex housing with a Sony HD camera to shoot underwater. Although the development and testing phases took place in a pool, I still wanted them to look natural and bright. So I lit the scenes solely from above water, creating ambiance and shimmering shafts of light. When shooting underwater I use a flexible dive rig which allows me to quickly shift between the best configurations for operating tracking shots, and normal panning and tilting. Hydroflex housings are unique in many ways, and in this case were the only choice for this camera which allowed video to be transmitted to video village so the directors could see what they were getting.
Another machine the guys designed was meant to smash through things like glass, melons, a wall, and an MMA fighter. To properly capture this, I used a Phantom HD camera running at 1000fps. The Phantom is a brilliant camera which captures it’s footage in a raw format to digital files. But for this particular project I needed to integrate the Phantom footage with DVCPro HD cameras running at 24fps. So once the directors were happy, we simply transferred the select takes to that format in real time on set – bypassing a more complicated and unnecessary post workflow.
Lighting to 1000fps is always a challenge. It requires about 5 1/2 times more light than what’s required for 24fps. So where I would normally use a regular 1,000 watt light, I have to use the equivalent of a 50,000 watt light. To remain creative, and not just light for exposure, is difficult for many people but second nature for me.
My main light source for the high speed work was a 4‘x25’ light bank which the grips built. We filled the bank with a row of 20 - 2k blonds, which we would sometimes switch off here or there to create falloff. Additional lighting came from a variety of other tungsten sources, HMI’s, and a bank of 6 Image 80’s. The lighting and grip packages were supplied by longtime collaborator Zilla Lighting.
PARAMORE UPDATE
March 31, 2010
Parmore’s video “Brick By Boring Brick” just reached 12 million views on You Tube alone. That’s about 650,000 views per week. A massive hit.
The video is a surreal trip made by an innocent girl through the bunny hole into a world full of fairies and demons. We photographed this very ambitious video in one day on a stage. We hung a 30’x180’ bluescreen across two walls of the stage, which the art department built 3 sets in front of, one at a time. My lighting was done primarily with balloon lights from above, a dino hung from a condor, and several 12 lights on the ground through layers of diffusion and 2 - 12x20 light grids.
There was very little performance to capture since the vast majority of the video is the story of the little girl. Two cameras captured that story, one from a 30’ Technocrane with a small Optimo zoom lens, and the other grabbing long lens closeups from static positions.
Every single shot was a visual effects shot, so post took nearly 2 months to complete. Nearly every shot has extensive background plates and set extensions. A few of the shots from within the practical sets only have multiple levels of color grading and filters applied, while some other shots are nearly all CG, with the only foreground element being the girl or one of a handful of other characters. Interactive lighting helped to sell the effect in one scene where the girl encounters a group of fairies floating around her.
BOYS LIKE GIRLS PEAKS AT #5 ON VH1
March 31, 2010
Boys Like Girls “Two is Better Than One” featuring Taylor Swift peaked at number 5 on the VH1 music video charts after a 10 week run.
The video tells the story of a small town teenage couple who fall in love, and then fall apart. About half of the video contains the story elements. The other half is performance with the full band.
Photography took place over 3 days, in various locations around Nashville. I shot the story elements with a Super 8 camera from Pro8mm in Burbank. I selected a variety of about 5 Kodak and Fuji stocks, including some reversal. My intention was to shoot none of the film “normally.” So I used various techniques including flashing, speed ramps, flash frames, lens flares, long exposure times, and push processing. All of the Super 8 was shot handheld in a cinéma vérité style. Telecine was performed at Pro8mm, and transferred directly to ProRes HQ files.
The performance was shot in dramatic contrast to the story beats. While the narrative was mostly warm, soft and natural feeling, shot primarily outside in organic environments around a small town in the country, the performance footage was high contrast, crisp, and industrial. We shot it in an enormous warehouse, surrounded by machinery, and backlit with a bank of tall windows. I used a Red camera shooting 4k with a set of Ultra Primes to get a crisp, high contrast look. I also used color contrast by lighting the band with soft warm light, and keeping the backgrounds quite cool. Every performance shot incorporated smooth movements, accomplished with a 30’ Technocrane. Some of the movements were small and subtle, while others were wide and sweeping. Nearly everything in the warehouse was shot wide open at a f2 to drop the backgrounds out of focus.
Pro8mm was so impressed with the quality of the Super 8 footage we shot, and the juxtaposition with footage from a Red camera, that they published an article about the music video, invited me to speak about the piece at a seminar, and regularly screen the video for potential clients, and at their informational classes.
PARAMORE VIDEO IN ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
December 11, 2009
This week, Entertainment Weekly Magazine featured Paramore’s “Brick By Boring Brick” video on it’s Must List.
FLYLEAF 'AGAIN' IS THE #1 VIDEO IN THE COUNTRY
November 30, 2009
Flyleaf “Again” is the number 1 video in the country according to Yahoo! Music Videos.
R&B VIDEOS HIT #1 AND #2 ON BET
August 31, 2009
Not normally a genre I venture into – 2 hip hop/R&B videos have just reached high marks on BET.
Mishon “Just a Kiss” is a video I shot for director Meiert Avis. After several weeks of climbing up the charts, it has hit the number 2 slot at BET.
Pleasure P “Under” has been in the number 1 position for a couple of weeks. I shot the underwater portions of the video for DP Maz Makhani.
