BEST OF 2011
January 11, 2012
Every year, Viewfinderframes.com polls studio executives, producers and creatives for their top 10 short films, commercials and/or music videos. This year they chose Eye Of The Storm as one of their top 10 for 2011.
And Yahoo Music recently announced that OK Go is number 8 on their best music videos of 2011 list.
And Yahoo Music recently announced that OK Go is number 8 on their best music videos of 2011 list.
OK GO AND AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER
December 18, 2011
This months American Cinematographer is out now, and features an article about the OK Go promo I shot earlier this year.
The video brought together the band and the Muppets in an epic collaboration to promote the release of The Muppets movie in theaters, and the Green Album - a tribute to the music of the Muppets with covers performed by OK Go, Weezer, The Fray, My Morning Jacket, and others.
Click on the magazine to read the article, and click here to watch the video.
The video brought together the band and the Muppets in an epic collaboration to promote the release of The Muppets movie in theaters, and the Green Album - a tribute to the music of the Muppets with covers performed by OK Go, Weezer, The Fray, My Morning Jacket, and others.
Click on the magazine to read the article, and click here to watch the video.
CAMERIMAGE NOMINATES 'EYE OF THE STORM'
October 31, 2011
The 2011 Camerimage International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography has nominated ‘Eye Of The Storm’ for the best cinematography and best music video awards. The Golden Frog is the highest international award for cinematography.
AMC AND THE MUPPETS
October 30, 2011
AMC Theatres is now projecting a spot I shot for them in all 5000 of their theatres nationwide. It’s one of their silence is golden messages, and features Kermit, Piggy, Fozzie, and the gang. Check it out here
VISUAL EFFECTS MONTAGE
June 10, 2011
Just added to the reel is a montage of some of the best visual effects work I’ve contributed to.
RIGHT NEXT DOOR
May 27, 2011
I recently completed principal photography on the feature film Right Next Door. The film is a thriller which combines psychological and action elements. The majority of the story takes place in one room, where a brother, sister, and babysitter are trapped by their very disturbed older brother. This is the directorial debut of co-directors and writers Nick Brandt and Lisa Hamil.
The shoot was extremely fast paced - with only six days scheduled at a house in Los Angeles, and another six days on stage in a bathroom set where the kids are imprisoned. Every day we shot at least eight to ten pages, with a few days going over twelve pages! Everyone was fully committed to the pace though, and we never worked longer than 12 hours, never sacrificed quality, and very rarely had to make tough choices on coverage to make our days.
My general goal with the photography throughout the house was to keep things lively and captivating because the audience will be spending a lot of time in the bathroom with the kids. Whenever the scene and blocking supported it, I used as much camera movement as possible. One of these scenes in particular comes at the beginning of the film, as the family and babysitter converge on the kitchen in a chaotic, frenetic manner. One by one every member of the family enters and leaves the scene, introducing all of the characters, their personality traits, and foreshadowing events to come. Nick, Lisa, and I worked closely with the actors for quite a while, blocking and refining the action to form a ballet of chaos. Then I covered everything handheld, dancing with their movements, handing shots off from one actor to another, and making subtle shifts to convey the energy of each character.
My lighting at the house varied greatly from bright and cheery to very dramatic. The only rule I made for myself was that everything had to feel natural and as unlit as possible - even when being a little expressionistic. One of my favorite scenes takes place in a bedroom, where the older brother has tied up the babysitter’s boyfriend. I wanted the scene to be contrasty, implicating danger with every shadow. We scheduled the scene at a time of day where the light was nearly perfect in the room. All I had to do was add one HMI from outside one of the windows, and occasionally bring in a beadboard for fill. While I was setting up one of the shots looking towards the window with our HMI, we caught the most beautiful lens flare. We didn’t touch a thing, brought the actor in, and captured a spectacular moment for the scene. A very happy accident. For another very intense part of the story, I lit the entire scene with a single daylight balanced CFL, and a china ball for a glow on the back wall. I loved the dirty cool green harshness of the CFL for that moment - It fit the mood perfectly.
The bathroom set was an intense week for everyone. The set was built to the same scale as a normal bathroom, so three actors and a camera didn’t leave room for much else. Fortunately we could fly most of the walls out, but we tried to avoid doing so as much as possible due to the time consuming resets, and the fact that we wanted the bathroom to feel claustrophobic. As the movie progresses and the characters situation becomes more bleak, I used longer lenses to compress the room even further. I tried to never shoot wider than a 32mm, and was able to use everything up to a 100mm. I also changed the geometry of the room and composition of the shots in subtle ways to up the tension. For example, I had the art department to move one of the walls in a few more inches, making the set even smaller, and forcing a little bit of one of the actors to disappear behind it. Then I had another actor similarly composed on the other side of the frame. This made it feel like the bathroom was slowly devouring them.
Lighting the room was a challenge because the story dictates the only window in the room be a skylight. The only other natural source of light came from a couple of wall sconces next to the mirror. I relied heavily on small kinos and 1k fresnels with chimeras from over the set walls. Also a challenge due to a sloping ceiling piece. Then I would bring in fill from a floor unit - usually a 4x4 kino bounced as a booklight, or a china ball. In general I kept the bathroom fairly dark and moody, varying the level of contrast with the intensity of each scene.
One scene in particular was extremely dark - when power is cut off to the room, and the only source of light is some moonlight from above. I really wanted the darkness to be visceral and depressing. This was the final straw for the kids. So I took advantage of the camera’s exceptional underexposure toe, and shot with less light than I ever have before. It looked fantastic, haunting and slightly impressionistic. Catching just enough detail to convey where the actors were emotionally.
Our camera was a Panavised Red MX, which I rated anywhere from 320 to 800 ASA. I chose Primo prime lenses because I loved their contrast, speed, and color rendition. I felt they were a bit too sharp though, so I also carried a Schneider Classic Soft the whole time. The camera performed flawlessly, even with our crazy unforgiving pace, and during a freak spring heat wave at our location which coincided with an air conditioning failure.
Shooting this film was a great experience. Everyone brought their best to the table in order to finish the marathon with an exceptional movie at the end. I was particularly fortunate to have my very small crew staffed with my best people... all coming together to support our effort, and see Nick and Lisa’s vision come to life.
The shoot was extremely fast paced - with only six days scheduled at a house in Los Angeles, and another six days on stage in a bathroom set where the kids are imprisoned. Every day we shot at least eight to ten pages, with a few days going over twelve pages! Everyone was fully committed to the pace though, and we never worked longer than 12 hours, never sacrificed quality, and very rarely had to make tough choices on coverage to make our days.
My general goal with the photography throughout the house was to keep things lively and captivating because the audience will be spending a lot of time in the bathroom with the kids. Whenever the scene and blocking supported it, I used as much camera movement as possible. One of these scenes in particular comes at the beginning of the film, as the family and babysitter converge on the kitchen in a chaotic, frenetic manner. One by one every member of the family enters and leaves the scene, introducing all of the characters, their personality traits, and foreshadowing events to come. Nick, Lisa, and I worked closely with the actors for quite a while, blocking and refining the action to form a ballet of chaos. Then I covered everything handheld, dancing with their movements, handing shots off from one actor to another, and making subtle shifts to convey the energy of each character.
My lighting at the house varied greatly from bright and cheery to very dramatic. The only rule I made for myself was that everything had to feel natural and as unlit as possible - even when being a little expressionistic. One of my favorite scenes takes place in a bedroom, where the older brother has tied up the babysitter’s boyfriend. I wanted the scene to be contrasty, implicating danger with every shadow. We scheduled the scene at a time of day where the light was nearly perfect in the room. All I had to do was add one HMI from outside one of the windows, and occasionally bring in a beadboard for fill. While I was setting up one of the shots looking towards the window with our HMI, we caught the most beautiful lens flare. We didn’t touch a thing, brought the actor in, and captured a spectacular moment for the scene. A very happy accident. For another very intense part of the story, I lit the entire scene with a single daylight balanced CFL, and a china ball for a glow on the back wall. I loved the dirty cool green harshness of the CFL for that moment - It fit the mood perfectly.
The bathroom set was an intense week for everyone. The set was built to the same scale as a normal bathroom, so three actors and a camera didn’t leave room for much else. Fortunately we could fly most of the walls out, but we tried to avoid doing so as much as possible due to the time consuming resets, and the fact that we wanted the bathroom to feel claustrophobic. As the movie progresses and the characters situation becomes more bleak, I used longer lenses to compress the room even further. I tried to never shoot wider than a 32mm, and was able to use everything up to a 100mm. I also changed the geometry of the room and composition of the shots in subtle ways to up the tension. For example, I had the art department to move one of the walls in a few more inches, making the set even smaller, and forcing a little bit of one of the actors to disappear behind it. Then I had another actor similarly composed on the other side of the frame. This made it feel like the bathroom was slowly devouring them.
Lighting the room was a challenge because the story dictates the only window in the room be a skylight. The only other natural source of light came from a couple of wall sconces next to the mirror. I relied heavily on small kinos and 1k fresnels with chimeras from over the set walls. Also a challenge due to a sloping ceiling piece. Then I would bring in fill from a floor unit - usually a 4x4 kino bounced as a booklight, or a china ball. In general I kept the bathroom fairly dark and moody, varying the level of contrast with the intensity of each scene.
One scene in particular was extremely dark - when power is cut off to the room, and the only source of light is some moonlight from above. I really wanted the darkness to be visceral and depressing. This was the final straw for the kids. So I took advantage of the camera’s exceptional underexposure toe, and shot with less light than I ever have before. It looked fantastic, haunting and slightly impressionistic. Catching just enough detail to convey where the actors were emotionally.
Our camera was a Panavised Red MX, which I rated anywhere from 320 to 800 ASA. I chose Primo prime lenses because I loved their contrast, speed, and color rendition. I felt they were a bit too sharp though, so I also carried a Schneider Classic Soft the whole time. The camera performed flawlessly, even with our crazy unforgiving pace, and during a freak spring heat wave at our location which coincided with an air conditioning failure.
Shooting this film was a great experience. Everyone brought their best to the table in order to finish the marathon with an exceptional movie at the end. I was particularly fortunate to have my very small crew staffed with my best people... all coming together to support our effort, and see Nick and Lisa’s vision come to life.
INTERACTIVE LIGHTING FOR JORDIN SPARKS 'THE WORLD I KNEW'
April 02, 2011
The latest video from Jordin Sparks was released today as a tie in to the movie ‘African Cats’. The video brought together the same creative team behind Eye Of The Storm – producer Kris Eber, director Chris Alender, myself, visual effects supervisor Wes Ball, and production designer Bill Lakoff.
The video uses magical realism styling to tell the story of Jordin being awoken in her tent in the middle of the African Serengeti by a fairy, which guides her across the moonlit plains. After the fairy leads her out onto a cliff, it disappears over the horizon, ushering in the sunrise.
Many of the shots in the video were fully realized in camera, but most of the shoot involved photographing Jordin and various set pieces on bluescreen. In order to help blend the foreground elements with the CGI fairy and sunrise, I used interactive lighting. To create the fairy, I had the electricians rig a 1k globe to the end of a boom pole. While one electrician would move the light around Jordin, simulating the flight path of the fairy, another would pulse the light up and down with a dimmer. In post, the vfx artists created a similar pulsing light emanating from the fairy, added a bit of lens flare, and voila. It looks like the fairy is really next to Jordin.
For the sunrise effect I had the grips rig a 6k Barger Baglight with full CTO to an 8 foot long Fisher jib arm on a dolly. In the shot, Jordin walks out to the edge of our cliff set piece and looks out to where the horizon would be. At the perfect moment, the jib rises up from behind a flag, opening the light to Jordin, and continues up to its 11 foot final height to simulate the shadow of the horizon and the movement of the sun. At the same time, dimmers controlling our moonlight colored lights and overhead 20x20 spacelight softbox dim down the moonlight, and bring up most of the spacelights – thereby completing the effect by eliminating most of the blue night look, and raising the overall ambient “skylight” to a daytime level.
When I’m shooting visual effects work meant to be composited later, I try to create as much of the look in camera as possible. For example, it always looks better to do a real dolly move than to do a digital push in. I’ve also gone so far as to built complex interactive lighting rigs with moving lights (the concert lighting type), programmable strobes, and DMX controlled shutters – all controlled by a lighting console with timecode to ensure perfect timing to the plates. Obviously there are times when you have to compromise, or something can only be accomplished in post. But if we can do it on set, it’s certainly my preference to.
Take a look at Jordin Sparks ‘The World I Knew’.
The video uses magical realism styling to tell the story of Jordin being awoken in her tent in the middle of the African Serengeti by a fairy, which guides her across the moonlit plains. After the fairy leads her out onto a cliff, it disappears over the horizon, ushering in the sunrise.
Many of the shots in the video were fully realized in camera, but most of the shoot involved photographing Jordin and various set pieces on bluescreen. In order to help blend the foreground elements with the CGI fairy and sunrise, I used interactive lighting. To create the fairy, I had the electricians rig a 1k globe to the end of a boom pole. While one electrician would move the light around Jordin, simulating the flight path of the fairy, another would pulse the light up and down with a dimmer. In post, the vfx artists created a similar pulsing light emanating from the fairy, added a bit of lens flare, and voila. It looks like the fairy is really next to Jordin.
For the sunrise effect I had the grips rig a 6k Barger Baglight with full CTO to an 8 foot long Fisher jib arm on a dolly. In the shot, Jordin walks out to the edge of our cliff set piece and looks out to where the horizon would be. At the perfect moment, the jib rises up from behind a flag, opening the light to Jordin, and continues up to its 11 foot final height to simulate the shadow of the horizon and the movement of the sun. At the same time, dimmers controlling our moonlight colored lights and overhead 20x20 spacelight softbox dim down the moonlight, and bring up most of the spacelights – thereby completing the effect by eliminating most of the blue night look, and raising the overall ambient “skylight” to a daytime level.
When I’m shooting visual effects work meant to be composited later, I try to create as much of the look in camera as possible. For example, it always looks better to do a real dolly move than to do a digital push in. I’ve also gone so far as to built complex interactive lighting rigs with moving lights (the concert lighting type), programmable strobes, and DMX controlled shutters – all controlled by a lighting console with timecode to ensure perfect timing to the plates. Obviously there are times when you have to compromise, or something can only be accomplished in post. But if we can do it on set, it’s certainly my preference to.
Take a look at Jordin Sparks ‘The World I Knew’.
DONALD GLOVER 'FREAKS AND GEEKS'
February 28, 2011
Childish Gambino is the rap artist alter ego of actor Donald Glover, from the NBC show Community. He recently released the song ‘Freaks and Geeks’, and commissioned director Dan Eckman to create the music video. Dan and Donny’s idea was simple, elegant, and strong. One long shot in a warehouse, starting super wide, and moving all the way into a closeup - giving Donald the best chance to showcase his strengths as a serious performer, and talented musician.
In order to accomplish their vision, I chose to shoot the shot from a 30 foot Technocrane on dolly track. The camera travelled about 50 feet during the 3 and a half minute song. I also hid an invisible slow zoom into the move, starting with a very wide 24mm lens, and ending on a more flattering, yet crisp and dynamic 70mm lens. We shot the video on a Canon 5D which we chose for a variety of reasons including speed, post turnaround, and budget, but mostly because of the phenomenal look achieved by it’s shallower than super 35 depth of field. It really makes Donald pop off the screen, and gives what would normally be a fairly plain white wall a compelling look. All of this was accomplished on a shoestring budget as a fun project amongst friends. Special thanks to my crew, Keslow Camera, Zilla Lighting, and Active Remote for donating your time and equipment to us!
In order to accomplish their vision, I chose to shoot the shot from a 30 foot Technocrane on dolly track. The camera travelled about 50 feet during the 3 and a half minute song. I also hid an invisible slow zoom into the move, starting with a very wide 24mm lens, and ending on a more flattering, yet crisp and dynamic 70mm lens. We shot the video on a Canon 5D which we chose for a variety of reasons including speed, post turnaround, and budget, but mostly because of the phenomenal look achieved by it’s shallower than super 35 depth of field. It really makes Donald pop off the screen, and gives what would normally be a fairly plain white wall a compelling look. All of this was accomplished on a shoestring budget as a fun project amongst friends. Special thanks to my crew, Keslow Camera, Zilla Lighting, and Active Remote for donating your time and equipment to us!
HEREAFTER IS NOMINATED FOR THE VISUAL EFFECTS OSCAR, AND WINS BIG AT VES
February 01, 2011
The Academy recently announced that Hereafter has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. It also just won the Visual Effects Society Award for best supporting effects in a feature film! Congratulations to Michael Owens, Joe Farrell, and everyone at Scanline VFX!
AMERICAN CINEMATOGRAPHER
January 11, 2011
The January issue of American Cinematographer featuring Lovett’s ‘Eye of the Storm’ is available now! Read the full article here
HEREAFTER IN CINEFEX
January 10, 2011
Hereafter has been featured in a fantastic 10 page article the current issue of Cinefex magazine about the work that went into creating the incredible visual effects scenes depicting a tsunami hitting Hawaii, and what people experience in the afterlife. There’s also a great mention of the work I did which contributed to these scenes.
DISNEY'S PROM
November 30, 2010
I recently shot a campaign for a new movie called Prom from Walt Disney, due to be released this April. While I can’t give away any details about what we shot right now... I will say that it is unlike anything a film studio has done before to promote a movie.
Some of what I photographed has even ended up in the trailer, which you can currently see projected in front of the movie Tangled, or here in this YouTube clip.
We’re responsible for the scenes where the cast speaks straight to camera. The rest of the film was beautifully shot by Byron Shah.
Some of what I photographed has even ended up in the trailer, which you can currently see projected in front of the movie Tangled, or here in this YouTube clip.
We’re responsible for the scenes where the cast speaks straight to camera. The rest of the film was beautifully shot by Byron Shah.
YO GABBA GABBA
November 30, 2010
The biggest kids show on television is Yo Gabba Gabba - and I just had the opportunity to shoot their live tour at LA’s Nokia Theatre. It’s a fast paced, energetic, and highly technical show which we captured for Pusher Media using a combination of a 30 foot Technocrane, Steadicam, handheld cameras, and cameras with stabilized super long lenses.
I chose to shoot the show with Panasonic Varicam 3700’s, after having a great experience with them earlier this year on Glee (see the article below). The lighting plan for the show includes a wide array of sources including HMI and LED moving lights, color changing LED’s, various tungsten fixtures, xenons, and giant video walls. Certainly a high contrast challenge for any camera to handle, but the 3700’s hold up incredibly well with the way I paint them, and I had a full day with the lighting designer Mike Baldassari (Nine, Sex and the City 2) to finesse the lighting to camera before shooting. The show looked great as is - but we took it to a new level by refining cues, colors, movement, and adding fixtures to augment the audience and theatre architecture.
I chose to shoot the show with Panasonic Varicam 3700’s, after having a great experience with them earlier this year on Glee (see the article below). The lighting plan for the show includes a wide array of sources including HMI and LED moving lights, color changing LED’s, various tungsten fixtures, xenons, and giant video walls. Certainly a high contrast challenge for any camera to handle, but the 3700’s hold up incredibly well with the way I paint them, and I had a full day with the lighting designer Mike Baldassari (Nine, Sex and the City 2) to finesse the lighting to camera before shooting. The show looked great as is - but we took it to a new level by refining cues, colors, movement, and adding fixtures to augment the audience and theatre architecture.
The shoot was directed by series creators Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz. Connection with the audience was key for them, and in addition to the songs everyone knew word for word there was a lot of direct interaction with dance alongs, characters in the aisles, rapping, balloons, bubbles, and streamers. All of which we perfectly captured. Keep an eye out for it soon on DVD (for your kid’s sake!).
BED AND BREAKFAST OPENS IN 100 THEATERS
November 07, 2010
Bed and Breakfast, the feature film I shot last June, opens this week in 100 theaters across Brazil. The US release date has not been determined yet.
INNOVATIVE STOP MOTION COMMERCIALS
September 17, 2010
In September I completed a seven day commercial shoot for The Spanish Lottery, directed by Yuval Nathan with Acme Filmworks. Yuval is a brilliant stop motion animator, who has figured out a way to animate live actors. One of the three spots we completed features a woman in a forest who interacts with animals, skips across a stream, and swings from vines - all of which are created from props meticulously moved one frame at a time.
The majority of the first commercial, titled 'Ecological', takes place in one wide shot, with the actress lying on a blanket on the forest floor while the animated world moves around her. To capture this, we rigged the camera from the soundstage grid directly above the set. The camera we chose was a Canon 5D Mark II, shooting in RAW stills mode, because of it's extremely high resolution and color depth. I also made good use of the camera's Vista Vision-like shallow depth of field for the two closeups in the spot - something which is unique to the 5D because of it's larger than Super 35 imager. For lenses, I used the new Zeiss CP.2 series, shooting the wide shots on a 21mm or 28mm, and closeups on an 85mm. These lenses have great glass in them, and produce crisp clean images with great contrast and a neutral color rendition.
My lighting approach for the spots was classic beauty lighting. I used large soft sources to give an etherial glow. My general approach was to bounce a 20k, and several 10k's, 5k's, and 2k blondes into a few 20x ultrabounces surrounding the set, and then mold the light further with large solids, nets, and diffusion. Since Ecological takes place in a forest I brought in a direct soft sunlight from a 20k, broken up with branches and diffusion frames. Each spot also features a moving light, such as the sun moving through branches, which I accomplished by mounting a baby 5k without a fresnel lens to a doorway dolly.
The majority of the first commercial, titled 'Ecological', takes place in one wide shot, with the actress lying on a blanket on the forest floor while the animated world moves around her. To capture this, we rigged the camera from the soundstage grid directly above the set. The camera we chose was a Canon 5D Mark II, shooting in RAW stills mode, because of it's extremely high resolution and color depth. I also made good use of the camera's Vista Vision-like shallow depth of field for the two closeups in the spot - something which is unique to the 5D because of it's larger than Super 35 imager. For lenses, I used the new Zeiss CP.2 series, shooting the wide shots on a 21mm or 28mm, and closeups on an 85mm. These lenses have great glass in them, and produce crisp clean images with great contrast and a neutral color rendition.
My lighting approach for the spots was classic beauty lighting. I used large soft sources to give an etherial glow. My general approach was to bounce a 20k, and several 10k's, 5k's, and 2k blondes into a few 20x ultrabounces surrounding the set, and then mold the light further with large solids, nets, and diffusion. Since Ecological takes place in a forest I brought in a direct soft sunlight from a 20k, broken up with branches and diffusion frames. Each spot also features a moving light, such as the sun moving through branches, which I accomplished by mounting a baby 5k without a fresnel lens to a doorway dolly.
Once the lighting was finished, Yuval and two other animators would go to work moving the props and the actress around the set one frame at a time. Each wide shot took a full day and a half to complete.
The animation software which Yuval uses records the still frames directly to a Mac Pro via a USB connection to the camera. After each frame was captured, it was immediately transferred into a Final Cut Pro workstation by an editor so the animators could double check their progress.
The finished commercials are truly unique pieces of art, and they push the envelope of what's possible with stop motion. To watch Ecological, click here.
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, 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.
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.
Take a look at the visual effects work from the video on my visual effects montage.
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.
