Here is a little sneak peek at the behind the scenes of the 2012 Sxymma Calendar photoshoot! What’s Sxymma you ask? Only the hottest calendar you can get your mittens on for 2012!
Check out the 2012 SXYMMA Calendar HERE.
Footage was filmed by Elliott Vasilla and Luke Brooks. Thanks Gents! Also a thanks to Camera Electronic for letting us try out their new Cobra Crane.
More from the calendar soon, until then check out www.sxymma.com
At Paramount Studios today in Hollywood, the much anticipated press release took place and Canon have revealed their new EOS C300 cinema video in front of the film industry elite.
The camera can come with either a PL or EF mount but not both unfortunately. It utilises a Super 35mm sensor and allows for timecode, has HD-SDI outputs and two CF card slots. So its a big step up from the 5D and designed to compete with the other digital cinema cameras out there. The general consensus seems across the net at the moment seems to be that Canon have arrived with too little, too late, for too much.
You can read plenty more about the announcements today on the Planet5D blog here: http://blog.planet5d.com/2011/11/canon-announces-new-canon-eos-c300-video-camera/
You will also want to keep an eye on what Jared Abrams is posting on WideOpenCamera: http://wideopencamera.com/blog/
As you all know Vincent Laforet is a full fledged Director of Photography now and very close to Canon, s of course he has been out shooting with the C300 before its announcement to test it in the field. Check out this film Mobius below along with some behind the scenes. I absolutely love the film. The style of the story is exactly the kind of story I love. Check it out.
Mobius from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.
Mobius :: Behind The Scenes from Blake Whitman on Vimeo.
I’ve always wanted to strap my 5DMKII camera to a car and record something. Well my new car rig enables me to do exactly that! I recently put together a rig for taking still images of a car at low walking speeds (more on that later), but I wanted to step things up a bit and build a rig that was more secure and could handle filming while driving around!
So this image above is it! It’s my new 5DMKII Car video rig. I guess it isn’t limited to the 5DMKII of course, that’s just what I happen to use. It took a while to research it and find all the compatible parts to do what I wanted, but I’m very happy with it. (Filmtools in Los Angeles sell an almost identical version but it was too expensive to buy and ship to Australia.) I can reconfigure the rig to be attached to just about any part of the car. My main goal was to be able to attach it to the bonnet, and the side doors for filming people inside the cabin. This was going to be one of the solutions for filming some car chase sequences in the short film “The Manuscript” that I’m currently shooting. We may not be using it for that anymore, but I certainly have plenty of uses for it and the ideas are still coming in.
Sucking on the bonnet are 3 x Avenger Pump cups one of which you can see above. I have the ones with a baby swivel pin so I have more flexibility.
Then to hold the arms, I use an Avenger D200B black grip head on each pump cup. The arms/rods they hold are 20″ Matthews arm. They are thinner and lighter than the typical C-Stand arms but they still fit into the grip head.
Then at the far end of each arm/rod shown above, there is another grip head, so thats 6 all up. Then into the grip head goes my cheese plate below.
This Cam Caddie Scorpion EX Cheese Plate has twenty-one 1/4-20 mounting holes and nine 3/8 mounting holes. I have mounted 3 Avenger 5/8″ studs to it underneath which will drop into the grip heads on top of the rig and just about make it complete.
On top of the cheese plate I just grabbed one of my tripod ball heads to hold the camera. This one is the Manfrotto 322RC2 grip action ball head. A ball head was important so I can level the camera. Trying to get the car rig itself perfectly level would take a lot of fiddling.
You will notice another suction cup product sitting on the bonnet in this photo above and the first photo. I was playing around with this on the day and I actually placed it there for a bit of extra support incase. It was a Fat Gecko mount. I don’t normally use it though.
So anyway, here’s a quick little video of me testing the rig. I strapped my 5DMKII with a 24-70mm 2.8L lens onto an adjustable 322RC2 ball head. I placed a circular polariser on the lens to help me see through the windscreen without any glare, and I also placed a variable neutral density filter over the top so I could open the cameras aperture right up to 3.5! I did this to send the background out of focus and make it a bit more visually interesting and appealing.
Check it out…
P.S. I didn’t really pull the handbrake, thats just me being stupid. Get used to it.
So hopefully you will be seeing some really cool on-board camera footage soon from brodiebutler.com!
B.
Recently a buddy of mine Elliott Vassila help me film a fun little promo video for Flawless Nightclub in Subiaco, Western Australia. The video was to be showcased on the home page of their new website which went live over the weekend. Above is a screen grab of the new site with my video embedded and it all looks hot!
Make your way over to the website and check it out (http://www.theflawless.com.au/) and you can watch the video directly below:
Flawless Nightclub, 298 Hay St Subiaco from Brodie Butler on Vimeo.
We shot the whole thing on a Canon 5DMKII and a 7D. The lenses were mixed between a 14-40mm L, a 16-35mm 2.8 L, 24-70mm 2.8 L and a 70-200mm 2.8 L.
We used a monopod to keep the camera steady for a lot of shots as it’s very difficult to navigate through a busy nightclub with a tripod. My Glidecam HD4000 paid a visit to this project too. You will notice some of the smooth gliding style shots in the video and using the glidecam is how I achieved that. There was even a lot of hand held involved too.
Obviously it is next to impossible to light something like this, so a lot of shots use only natural light from the nightclub, shot on an ISO that was probably a bit higher than we would like. Some of the shots though are lit quite nicely and we escaped with nothing but an on-camera LED light. The one I use has magnetic filters you can add to it to achieve a warm tungsten feel or a cooler daylight balanced colour temperature. An example of this is the shot below of DJ Jackness. You can see a nice blue rim light behind him on the left hand side, and then his skin tones are brought up quite nicely on the right hand side. The blue light was already setup as part of the nightclubs lighting, so I switched that on and it looked great. To bring up Jacks skin tones and illuminate his face, I used the tungsten filter on my simple LED light panel. In this case, I actually got Elliott to hold it off camera to the right. From my still photography I’m a huge fan of off-camera lighting, and a little bit of off-camera lighting worked an absolute treat here too.
Screen grab from the video at 01:48
Till next time…
B.
Photo By Ian Greenwell
Photography certainly isn’t on the back burner for me, I’m very much keeping it alive but I have been dividing my time up to pursue my love of filmmaking and allowing it to take up a larger portion of my schedule. Most recently I have signed on as the Director of Photography for a short film here in Perth called “The Manuscript” directed by the Perth Film Network founder, Debbie Thoy.
The film is about… well.. just wait and see! It’s an action-comedy and it’s actually not that short. It will probably end up being a 30-45minute film which so far has taken up 14 days of filming and we still have quite a few to go. It’s been pretty intense so far and a steep learning curve for me, but thats what I love. I learn fast then I step up.
So as the DOP, I’m in charge of the camera and lighting departments. I guess one of the hardest things starting out was that film lighting was completely foreign to me. Light is light, and it’s pretty universal to understand, but film lighting equipment and the tools used are very different to still photography. So being able to know and have a “feel” for all this was a hurdle I had to jump over quickly.
When I’m taking pictures I know exactly how many Watt seconds of light I need for certain situations and I have experience with a lot of different types of flash systems big and small to know how to achieve what I want. It all changed a bit with this film though. I had to learn what each of the lights we had could do, how much power they each had, and what that would equate to on camera. I’ll post more about the lighting in a later post including what we used and how we used it.
Another hurdle that I’m still slowly making my way over is the language barrier. The film industry speaks in a completely different language to the photographic industry and they have silly little names for everything. I usually pick these kinds of things up very quickly, and I had to. I still consider myself quite a newbie in this field so to work effectively on a film set with over a dozen other people this is something I had to pick up fast as well as understanding the roles of all the other people including my own.
I hate handheld but sometimes it’s warranted and easily possible with HDSLR cameras. Here’s me going handheld for a quick and tricky over the shoulder shot of Priscilla Forder playing the role of Chantel, one of our main characters.
Photo By Ian Greenwell
Obviously with me behind the reigns, this film has been shot on a HDSLR camera, the Canon 5DMKII. We used my camera for the entirety of the film and had a backup 7D just incase but we also intend on using it to shoot some slow motion. The downsizing to 720p for the slow motion was something we had to live with as we were unable to obtain a better alternative, and the slow motion shot is a crucial one! I’ll be making a post about the camera gear we used very soon!
Photo By Ian Greenwell
Thanks to some help from Camera Electronic we had all professional Canon L Series glass to go with our 5DMKII. The main lenses used were the 24-70mm 2.8 L, the 70-200mm 2.8 IS L, and the 16-35MM 2.8 L. These are my favourite lenses to shoot with in stills and motion. I cant work as fast as I like to with prime lenses, but I still love primes.
Here’s me being me, sporting one of my Arri leather gloves, crucial for setting up and adjusting lighting equipment to prevent burning my skin off.
Photo by Elliott Vassila
Below is Taufan one of our camera assistants operating the slate / clapperboard. For those that don’t know this is used to sync the audio and the video together in post production, because they are both recorded on independant systems. The audio recorded by the 5DMKII is used for nothing more than a reference for the real audio recorded by a sound professional, which in this case was Peter R. McIntosh.
Photo By Brodie Butler
Have to place a big thank you to Camera Electronic, who as per usual have been extremely supportive of me and this production and have helped us out with equipment and continue to do so. Thanks Saul, Howard and all the team. Don’t forget guys, when you can’t afford to buy it, Rent it! You can rent just about anything off the showroom floor from Camera Electronic, and I know they’ve got a competitive price if you’re ready to buy.
Stay tuned for more in-depth posts about the camera and grip equipment we used, as well as the lighting!
B.
Here’s another great example of some serious rising talent here in Perth. This is a music video I filmed in a single shot on my steadicam for Jack Perejuan’s song ‘Ghosts’ featuring Lois Mackay. Jacks a very creative and talented young artist who I’ll certainly be watching out for in the future.
It took a lot of rehearsing and quite a few tries to get a whole take, and it was very difficult to get it close to perfect but we managed to get one that Jack was more than happy with.
The video was shot on a Canon 5DMKII and a Canon 16-35mm 2.8L lens, all sitting on top of my Steadicam rig. You can read more about the camera rig and see some behind the scenes photos in a previous post Behind The Scenes Filming Jack Perejuan’s Single Shot Music Video
Here’s the video. Unfortunately the quality is a little compressed.
Enjoy.
B.
The camera settings used for video on DSLR’s are much different to what you would use for still photography and it’s important to set the camera up correctly for each one to avoid the pitfalls. We need to remember the 5DMKII and other video capable DSLR’s are designed to be still cameras, so we need to transform them into a digital film camera. After shooting with these HDSLR cameras for almost 2 years now on an assortment of films, music videos, corporate and BTS videos, and gathering tips from the leading industry experts, I have found the best settings to turn your still digital SLR into a digital film camera.
So this is how I setup my Canon 5DMKII. The settings also apply to the 1DMKIV and 7D, but the menus are different.
Well this is the one thing you asbolutely have to do in order to be able to take video in the first place. When the 5DMKII is shipped video mode isn’t enabled so you have to go into the live view settings and make sure stills+movie is selected.
So you’re standing there behind the camera, the scene is set, you’ve set your framing and pulled your focus, and you’re just about to go for a take… then… the live view mode switches off! It’s really annoying and it frustrates the Director who is watching on. It can really upset the flow of things that are happening, and if you make your way to a professional film set, this is something silly you don’t want happening.
This has happened to me a few times and theres a couple things I do to get around it. Firstly, you can extend the auto power off setting so the live view mode will be engaged longer. I have mine set to 4 minutes. I change it depending on what Im shooting, but I never go longer than 8 minutes.
It’s important not to leave it too long or turn it off completely as the camera will get hot, and more heat can lead to more noise and although I have never experienced a camera over heating you may very well be contributing to that happening.
This is an important one for still photography as well as video. The LCD screen can be your best friend or your worst enemy. When you have an LCD screen that is constantly changing its brightness as you move around it is going to throw you off your game. It’s going to trick you into thinking your image might be overexposed or underexposed, and you’re going to regret it afterwards when you load up the footage on your computer.
ALWAYS set your LCD screen to a manual setting, somewhere around 4-5 I find works best. That way your screen is always a constant brightness, and you have a consistent tool to make decisions from. The trick here is to get to know your LCD screen like the back of your hand. When I shoot, I know if my image on my LCD screen looks a tad bright and overexposed, I know I’m pretty much dead on the money. It may not be a completely true representation of the actual image, but if you know how your images relate from your computer screen to your cameras LCD screen, you’re set.
Peripheral illumination will drive you mad. This is a big one, especially on wider zoom lenses. If you zoom in and out on a scene in Live view, you will notice the exposure changing, especially around the peripheral of the lens(around the edges). What this feature is designed to do is correct vignetting caused by lenses, even though it has become quite popular and photographers tend to add vignettes in post anyway these days. When I shoot video though, I know exactly what I want my exposure to be for the whole frame, I set it, and I dont want the camera trying to correct anything. I want a nice consistent exposure throughout the frame. So turn this puppy off!
For me, I haven’t noticed the slightest bit of difference between these two settings when shooting video, but keep in mind that I haven’t exactly done the most elaborate testing on this particular setting. There have been reports that color space is irrelevant when shooting video and I think I tend to agree based on what I’ve seen. One of these reports comes from Vincent Laforet who is very close to Canon and one of the leading industry evangelists when it comes to HDSLR filmmaking. Some other industry experts such as Shane Hurlburt ASC seem to think that Adobe RGB achieves much nicer skin tones. I’ll leave this one up to you to do your own tests, and use what works for you. So I can’t say for sure, but Id like to put my money on the fact that if you are reading this post, this issue probably isn’t even of any concern to you.
For the record if you’re curious, mine happens to be set to Adobe RGB.
Picture styles give you some flexibility with your HDSLR video footage. You should already know the the 5DMKII and other video capable DSLR’s compress the footage into the H.264 finishing format which is a highly compressed codec. It’s kind of like taking a picture in jpeg form. So much like a jpeg, this gives you very little flexibility in post production. What you shoot in the camera is what you get. You cannot un-sharpen your footage in post production and letting the camera sharpen for you will just accentuate any defects that you have which you do not want. It’s also very hard to remove contrast but it is actually very easy to add it. So using the picture styles we can create our own User Defined preset to remove the sharpening, contrast and even saturation performed by the camera to give us a flatter, less saturated image. If you aren’t doing any post production and what you shoot is what you publish, for example for photojournalists, then a simple neutral picture style may suffice. If you do like to edit and grade your footage then you should go for something a little more advanced like below.
This is how my camera is setup. I actually set a User Defined picture style, and use the Neutral picture style as the template to start with with. I then remove all of the Sharpening by setting it to Zero. I don’t want the camera to be doing any of this. For contrast and saturation I remove one and sometimes two stages down from zero as shown in the image above. I often play around with the settings depending on what I’m shooting, and how much flexibility I need in post production.
Not so long ago (Apr 2011) Technicolour and Canon got together to produce a new picture style that enables DSLR shooters to shoot a lot more flat and give them more flexbility with their footage in post production. Since the camera isn’t shooting RAW video, it’s important to try record with as little contrast and sharpening as possible. It’s very easy to add contrast and sharpening in post, but its very difficult to take it out. You also don’t want this tiny little camera trying to do more processing than it has to.
This Technicolour picture style gives a much flatter image than you can achieve with the basic picture styles and is quite good for serious DSLR filmmakers. See more information about the Technicolour Picture Style Setting for Canon HDSLRs HERE
Some people say to disable this but it isn’t necessary. It won’t affect anything in live view mode or when you are recording. When you scroll through your video clips, it will display the highlight alerts in the thumbnail that you see on the back of the camera, but it won’t show you the highlight alert when you play the video back. I turn it off, the alerts bug me.
The Auto Lighting optimizer is another trick the camera has up its sleeve to try and help you. For video however, it isn’t much help, its more of a nuiscance. As I said before, we don’t want the cameras help. The last thing we need while shooting video is for the camera to decide something isn’t right with your exposure, and try to correct it. That’s going to ruin your video. This function helps to bring out shadow details and improve your dynamic range which can be great for stills. Not so much for video. Disable it!
Highlight tone priority tries to hold and supress highlights in order to capture more detail. Sounds great but its another recipe for disaster when shooting video. Reports say that it can increase the noise levels in your image and can also create some unwanted banding. There are some further more technical issues with this that I wont get into, partyl because I dont even understand all the real technical mumbo-jumbo. Its been a common practice by many shooters I know to disable this feature.
Noise reduction involves softening the image and you don’t really want that. I do my best to avoid noise in my video but if I am going to experience noise I prefer to let my computer handle it in post production rather than letting my little camera try to do it on the fly.
This is definitely worth a mention here. Something very important to remember when setting the ISO of your camera for shooting video is that the lower the ISO does not neccesarily mean the lower the noise. Tests have been done to prove that when shooting video only, the best ISO settings to use are multiple of 160.
The ISO levels in ascending order of noise levels are:
160, 320, 640, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1250, 125, 250, 500, 1000, 1600, 2500, 2000, 3200, 4000, 5000, 6400.
I tend to cap my ISO at 1600 on the 5DMKII. Once you go over that it starts to break down and the noise really kicks in. Noise is the last thing you want because it is just going to get compressed and be accentuated even more in the codec these cameras use. For the 7D I tend to cap at 1600 as well, but sometimes even 800. I don’t believe the 7D sensor can perform as well as the 5DMKII.
For more information see my post titled Best ISO Settings when shooting video with your 5DMKII.
If you camera has an Auto ISO feature, turn this off! Again, you don’t want the camera calculating things for you on the fly as it will ruin your exposure during a take.
Happy filming!
B.
Check this out! A teleprompter solution that uses an iPad and it’s perfect for use with HDSLR cameras since it’s a rather lightweight unit itself.
In the image above I have my Glidecam HD4000 with a SmallHD DP6 monitor attached at the base (not connected in this photo). Then on the top I have my 5DMKII with a 24-70mm L lens and an iPad teleprompter! obviously the iPad is missing, I dont own one of those yet and one was to be provided for this job. The teleprompter is a ProPrompter HDi Pro2 available from http://www.bodelin.com/proprompter/product_hdi_pro/.
The trick to get this mounted was that I needed to raise the camera high enough, So I could add the teleprompter and still be able to move the whole setup backwards over the cheese plate of the glidecam, far enough in order to be able to balance it properly. Having a teleprompter and an iPad hanging off the front of a Glidecam would tip it faster than you can say “ohh $#%*”.
So as you can see, I have my Manfrotto sliding plate adapter sitting on the Glidecam cheese plate. Then on top of that I have a Manfrotto quick release plate adapter which is then connected to the baseplate and rails that mount the teleprompter. Then on the very top of the base plate is where the 5DMKII is mounted.
There’s probably a more glamerous solution but that’s what I managed to create with the parts I had, and it worked fine. It’s also a nice modular system. I can remove the whole unit using the quick release plate so that way I dont have to move the sliding plate and lose my balancing point. This is great for transporting it, and when i ned to set it up I dont have to re-balance anything. If I need to put the rig onto a set of sticks (tripod) then I can remove it using the sliding plate quick release instead. Then it will slide straight into my manfrotto 504HD fluid head. If I bring it back to the Steadicam though it will require a fairly quick & simple re-balance.
Now there is no way you are going to be able to operate this handheld, so thats where the Steadicam Merlin arm and vest comes in handy. All up I think I had about 7-7.5kgs (16 lbs) of weight. That’s including the 5DMKII (810g), 24-70mm lens (950g), the monitor, glidecam itself, and of course the teleprompter. For the Steadicam merlin arm this was no issue. I believe this is the same arm used on a bigger brother version so it can handle the weight no problem at all, however it was getting very close to the limit. I have read about guys flying up to about 18 pounds with their Steadicam Merlin arm and vest. The recommended weight limit advertised with the merlin is about 3kg (7lbs) but this is referring to the handheld part of the unit, not what the actual arm and vest can hold. Personally I’m not a fan of the Merlin Steadicam, but the vest/arm is a winner!
Worried about just how much weight the little gimbal on my Glidecam could handle I contacted Glidecam and found out that I should be ok. They advertise the Glidecam can only really handle 4-10lbs, but that is purely just the camera weight. So only up to 10lbs on top of the Glidecam. The total weight of the whole unit should not exceed 18lbs which is about 8kgs. So this rig is pretty much running on the limit. I wouldn’t want to be adding any more weight. Being a fairly heavy rig though makes it so much more stable, and a bit easier to fight wind and keep your verticals when moving around.
Unfortunately I don’t have any images to share of the actual unit in use. This teleprompter was borrowed for a gig, so maybe I can get my hands on it again and give a further in depth look at it.
Anyway, just thought it might be of interest to some people out there.
B.
Local Perth rising star Jack Perejuan contacted me recently to help him film his latest music video for a new song of his called Ghosts featuring Lois Mackay. A video that was to be shot in real time, in a single take, with no editing. It wasn’t some simple point and shoot exercise either, Jack had integrated camera spins and plenty of movement. I sure do like a challenge! This was all designed to be a steadicam shot so we could maintain fluid motion through the whole video. This isn’t Jacks first music video done in a single shot either, he has adopted it as a style for all his videos which makes each one a lot more fun and challenging!
So to pull this off, myself and a handful of assistants had to learn all the moves and you can see us all in the photo below taking instruction from Jack (right).
This is my thinking pose. You will notice I’m actually already wearing the vest & arm during rehearsals, that way when we needed to start filming it would only take 5 seconds to attach the camera rig.
This photo below shows the hustle nature of the shoot. You can see everyone desperately trying to stay behind the camera as to not be seen, Jack is undergoing a wardrobe change, and I’m moving backwards filming Lois.
And here’s me with the steadicam out. I actually tilted the monitor slightly towards me so I could view the monitor with the sunshade on. I actually balanced the whole rig like this because I knew it was going to be tough to see the monitor outdoors. The sunshade worked well enough that I could manage, but outdoors is still a bit of a pain, and sometimes it would be showing my own reflection. I don’t want to see myself!
My Steadicam consists of a Merlin Steadicam Vest & arm coupled with a Glidecam HD-4000. I have my SmallHD Dp6 monitor mounted to the bottom powered by LP-E6 batteries (5D battries) and up top I can use any assortment of HDSLR cameras. For this shoot I was using my 5DMKII complete with Genus Mattebox and shooting on a 16-35mm 2.8 L lens. (more about my steadicam here and here)
Above you can see me in a rather awkward position letting everyone else have a quick look at the winning take we just shot.
The video should be release online on August 1st and I’ll be sure to post it along with more behind the scenes video on how we did it.
Till then, Peace!
B.
Recently I officially became a Director of Photography (DOP) here in Perth, Western Australia working under Director Mark DeFriest and you can read my behind the scenes look at my first day right here. I even include some tech talk and explain the lighting. This first DOP experience lasted over two whole days of filming and my previous blog post only covered day one, so here comes day two!
Day two brought us interrogation scenes! Whoohoo! I love a good interrogation scene, and we had to film three. Once again I was lock & loaded with my 5DMKII rig complete with SmallHD DP6 monitor pictured below.
Above is my 5DMKII riding the back of my 70-200 2.8 IS L series lens, complete with a B+W UV filter. The lens is connected to a basic Genus baseplate with rails and theres a Genus follow focus unit sitting on the rails but not being used. (it was fitted to suit the 24-70 lens but not this lens).
Below you can see up close the SmallHD monitor and the beautiful Sergio standing in while we refined the lighting so the talent can prepare themselves off the set.
Ok so here’s the setup. You’ll love this. To light this scene I actually used some old studio lights I own. As in still photography studio lights, and they certainly needed some dusting off after I pulled them from the dark depths of my garage. These lights were only some cheapies(Visico Lights) I bought years ago before I could afford all my Elinchrom gear. They need power and they didn’t get a huge amount of use but still worth the purchase, and they never failed me! Go China! Anyway… these lights have constant 150W modelling lamps built into them, and after setting up a test interrogation scene in my garage, it turned out that was going to be all that we needed!
Shooting on the 5DMKII shooting at 25fps, with a shutter speed of 1/50th and ISO640 I was able to get about F5.6 which was perfect.
The other reason we ended up using those lights, was because I had a beauty dish to fit them, and the beauty dish was exactly what we needed for our main light above our interrogation table. We struggled to find anything else suitable in the short time frame we had, so knowing I had the beauty dish, I carried out a full simulation in my garage to see if it would work. It did! We still had some other lights on hand as a backup such as a 4-bank Kino flow, some Redheads and a Dedo.
In the image above you can see the main light with a beauty dish hanging above the table thanks to a boom stand. The boom was stretched out as far as it could go so we could keep the stand out of frame while we shot a wide tracking shot of both actors. On the left in the background you can see another light which was acting as a backlight for Matt who was one of our actors. The black rectangles are cutters, they are hanging off C-Stands thank to some handy grips from Bunnings (USA: Home Depot). These were placed to fine tune where the light was going. I had to try cut down the amount of light hitting the walls because I didn’t want the whole room illuminated, and this is also why I placed these backlights nice and high.
Now here’s me closely listening to the Directors wishes…
Here’s another shot of the setup but here you see me operating the camera at the back there. You will notice we have the camera on a Dolly, and the rails stretch the entire width of the room so we can track the camera left and right as desired. This was for our master shot, something nice and wide to establish our scene.
Ok last shot…
Here’s a similar shot to before, but we have our actual actor in here now. You will notice the addition of a recflector on the table. This particular shot when our actor had to stand up was getting a little bit too dark so I wanted to bring some fill light in to illuminate his face just a little bit more. Just the tiniest bit of fill light can work wonders and in this case a bit of reflection from our main light worked a treat.
So there’s a rough break down from day two of my debut DOP experience. Now I have to get back to editing some other goodies due on the blog soon! Drop me some questions below if you like!
B.
June 25th 2011 marked the day when I officially became a DOP (directer of photography) where I was involved with some Elite Showreel scenes for Producer Debbie Thoy from Wizard Corporation Productions. I’ve been active in the world of moving pictures for just over a year now, producing my own short films, working on a small budget feature film as well as music videos but recently I had the opportunity to step-up and take the reigns as an actual DOP under the direction of professional director Mark DeFriest. What a fun experience that was, and hopefully the first of many.
Read on for all the behind the scenes photos and details…
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Well I have to say I never expected to be getting emails from Los Angeles filmmakers and old high school buddies sending me their “well done” praises. My little muck-around short action film that I did with Elliott Vassila (watch it here) triggered an incredible amount of feedback and to be honest I am truly very humbled by all the positive responses, not to mention completely suprised by it all. It’s been an excellent source of motivation for what I’m about to mention below.
Elliot and I set out just to create something for the sake of creating, and to use some special effects for the sake of using special effects. I beleive that to improve and progress as a photographer or filmmaker you have to get out of the house and shoot as much as you can. Thats when you learn.
So what was intended to be a weekend bit of fun and testing, has turned into something a bit more. Since its been such a positive result, I am happy to say we are definitely going to be filming more of these and we are starting this weekend! Elliot and I have recruited some extra talent and throwing in some extra little stunts too. So stay tuned in the coming weeks for another instalment of … well.. whatever this is. Maybe we need a name.
Thanks everyone and I hope you enjoy the next one.
B.
A day with local Perth singer Johnny Ruffo
Today I wanted to share a couple of images I did for Johhny Ruffo, a seriously talented Perth singer who's in the middle of putting his first album together. I've been lucky enough to score a preview of a few of the tracks and I think Johnny will be someone to watch out for!
Getting Accurate Colours using ColorChecker Passport and Lightroom
Now using a grey card can help you achieve a correct white balance, and will also help remove any colour casts that may be present in an image. However, what if you want to go one step further and take full control over all your colours in your image? Make sure your RAW files are converted accurately. Well let me show you how I do it. I use the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport.
Testing my HDSLR Car Rig for video
I've always wanted to strap my 5DMKII camera to a car and record something. Well my new car rig enables me to do exactly that! I recently put together a rig for taking still images of a car at low walking speeds (more on that later), but I wanted to step things up a bit and build a rig that was more secure and could handle filming while driving around!
