Hotels, hotels, hotels

Been a busy month doing hotel corporate work. I just got back from a week in Las Vegas where we shot some corporate events using Canon DSLRs and a Sony FS7. I stayed on the Canon 5D MkIII with a Canon 70-200. Being a live corporate event, we didn't have the opportunity to light and we had same day turnarounds on the videos, but it turned out pretty well all things considered. Below is one example of what we produced (we made 4 spots total).

 

Besides that, a few other hotel spots came out. The video from the Four Seasons Health and Wellness shoot last fall came out. We shot this on the Alexa Mini with Sony CineAlta PL lenses. The color grade is a little flatter than I would have done, but overall I like it.

Last month we also shot some interviews at a hotel, but while there took the opportunity to shoot a little promo video as well. While the interviews were lit, all the hotel promo stuff was shot in a working hotel and we couldn't light it. Still turned out decent, I must say.

When I wasn't working on hotel stuff, I was busy with pre-production on a nature documentary that I've had in the back of my mind for a couple years now. I met with some experts on the subject and have been researching more about this particular animal. Right now, I'm not 100% certain how I'm going to approach funding and producing this project, but will be looking at grant opportunities and making sure I've done all my homework.

In parallel, I've also been working on the outline for a feature length screenplay that, like the above documentary, I've been thinking about for years. I figure that if the idea has stuck with me this long, then I better do something about it. The outline is progressing nicely and this will be the year I finally get the thing written.

Back in the camera world, I also went out with a couple new RED owners (Scarlet-W and Epic-W) and did a little training with them, helping them to learn how to better use their cameras as well as some tips and tricks for setting up and getting the most out of their RED cameras. We had a great sunset that made for some fantastic cityscape shots.

Local rental house EVS had the new Canon C700 in for a few days to play around with. While I couldn't take it out and shoot with it, I did spend a good amount of time playing with the settings and getting used to the menus and buttons. As far as usability, I think the controls were well thought out, with logically arranged settings and quick access to the things I use most. I really like the design of the camera, so hopefully their sensor and processing pipeline lives up to the high marks I give the ergonomics and user interface.

The Untimely End of Ms. Xiang: a few additional images

Here are a couple more screen grabs from the short film I shot up in Truckee, CA, just north of Lake Tahoe. For the outdoor scenes, I was inspired by Fargo (the television series), which I just finished watching the second season shortly before shooting this project.

The schedule was incredibly aggressive, so I unfortunately didn't get time to shoot a couple drone shots that would have been great to have. Oh well, maybe next time.

Even though the director had some very specific input on the majority of the shots, this is one that they let me have that I really wanted. Probably the most "Fargo" of all the shots in the short.

Overcast skies provide a very nice soft light.

Found the perfect location, Sunshine Organic Herbs, for the scene where our character procures some, errr..."herbs".

This was a tough one to knock out. Dark clouds came in and we were quickly running out of daylight. I wish we could have rolled this one about 15 minutes earlier, when the light was perfect and there was a tiny bit of snowfall.

Probably my second most "Fargo" shot of the film.

It isn't easy to make a flat, unadorned background look appealing, so I flagged it off to try to get it to fall a bit darker and less conspicuous. Key light provided by a Mole Junior daylight LED bounced into the ceiling, with a 4x4 Ultrabounce returning some of that key as a fill.

The Untimely End of Ms. Xiang short film

I just got back from shooting a short film the past 3 days up north of Lake Tahoe. We shot on location, in the snow, which is quite a change from my usual warm Los Angeles weather. While it's always more challenging to shoot in colder weather, the shoot went surprisingly smooth, which is a good thing, as the script was ambitious in both content and page count (27 pages), and the director liked to come up with technically complex camera moves that I tried to accommodate as much as possible, which requires creative solutions with crews as small and budgets as tight as we were dealing with.

We ended up shooting on the Canon 7D Mark II with Canon L-series zoom lenses. I opted for a 16-35mm and 24-70mm, keeping in mind that the sensor crop would give me enough zoom without needing to add on a 70-200mm. Having conducted some tests with the 7D, I was aware of the tendency to get the dreaded "jello" frame if the movement was too erratic, so made sure that the handheld shots, even when the director wanted more energy, were somewhat subdued. Using any of the pre-installed looks, the camera tends to crush the blacks and clip the whites, while saturating colors way too much. After doing some testing, I ended up installing Technicolor's Cinestyle profile on the camera, which gave me a much flatter image with better dynamic range and more realistic colors. It wasn't my favorite camera to shoot with, but fit within our budget and, when lit properly, gives a decently cinematic image.

Although the director and I had prepared a fairly comprehensive shot list in pre-production, a lot of the shots got tossed out the window and changed on set, so a lot of flexibility was required. While I think we managed to get a decent rendition of the director's vision, I'll keep in mind for our next project together to make certain to get a stabilized gimbal or hire on a Steadicam operator, as those tools would have made my job a whole lot easier, though probably neither were within the camera budget for this film.

Mixing up that daylight key with the warm incandescent fill of the "house" lights.

It was challenging to balance our actress's dark skin inside a car with the bright white snow outside, but I let the brightest clouds clip just a little and went with it.

Probably my second or third favorite shot of the movie.

Mole Studio Junior (x2) daylight LED with full CTB doubled up for the background, and the key light provided by the house's walkway lights plus a 650W Tweenie Fresnel panned slightly off from about 30 feet away.

Another Fargo-esque moment.

China ball wrapped with bleached muslin on the lamp side (black duvatene draped on the back side to keep the light off the wall), and two Mole 1K Baby Baby fresnels bounced into the ceiling to provide ambient and fill.

Nobility pickup day #1

Yesterday we got some pickup shots for Nobility.  It was a pretty easy day, as we only had a couple shots to get to cover some newly rewritten dialog.  Small crew, one set.  Our original director was not available, so our 2nd Unit Director Alex Vesely stepped in and did a great job.  We should have two more pick up days coming up in the near future.

Behind the scenes shot as Alex (right) directs Adrienne Wilkinson.

Anomalies teaser

A friend of mine was working on a sci-fi/action webseries idea and needed some help developing it a bit further.  I gladly agreed to help and we got to the point where we decided to shoot a teaser trailer to help potential investors get an idea for the look and feel we were going for.  So we put together a one day shoot and shot a bunch of little scenes.  The short teaser turned out pretty well and should be useful as my friend pitches her idea.  The working title is Anomalies, though the actual title may change down the road. I directed the trailer and shot on RED Epic MX with Canon EF lenses.