RED Komodo in the house

Well, it's going on about a year and a half since I got my Komodo, and I've been using it on a variety of shoots, including as a b-cam to an Alexa Mini LF for a large FCA series of commercials, driving and location plates for a bunch of TV shows, and lots of commercial and product spots. I really like this small form factor (which makes the Alexa Mini feel huge!) and how it sips batteries. It's lightweight enough that I can toss it on a small DJI RS 2 gimbal and fly it around. No need for a giant Ronin 2 or Mōvi Pro all the time (though they certainly still have their place and get used!). This is a nice system and I'm really looking forward to shoot a bunch more projects with it.

Having come up as an AC, I make sure that the accessories are ones that work well, even if they cost a little more than the competitors. So I've ended up testing out a few different components before settling on my current kit. It's not worth the frustration of dealing with a sub-par piece of kit just to save a few bucks.

CURRENT KIT:

RED Komodo

(4) 256GB ProGrade CFast2 cards

Angelbird CFast2 reader

(4) BlueShape BP-955 batteries and charger

(2) Bebob Micro 98Wh Gold Mount batteries and charger

(2) Core SWX Nano 98Wh Gold Mount batteries and charger

Tilta Gold Mount adapter

Core SWX Gold mount adapter

Canon RF to EF adapter

Hot Rod Camera RF to PL adapter

Kondor Blue cage

Kondor Blue 15mm lightweight bridgeplate and 12" dovetail

Smallrig 16" 15mm iris rods

SmallRig wooden hand grips

SmallRig shoulder pad with dovetail

Bright Tangerine Misfit Atom matte box

Arri LMB matte box

Formatt-Hitech Firecrest Ultra Cine Superslim IRND set (ND 0.3-2.1)

Sigma 18-35mm F1.8 EF mount lens

Tilta Nucleus-M two motor follow focus

SmallHD DP7 Pro monitor

Portview BM5 iii WR 5.5" high bright monitor

Manfrotto 509HD head on Manfrotto 536 carbon fiber sticks

DJI Ronin RS 2 Pro

DJI Ronin 2

Rogue Warrior premiere, some music videos, and more!

A lot's happened since my last update, as I've been busy with numerous projects. First off, I shot a music video for Karmin for her track Love Is Louder off of her upcoming album. We shot that at the YouTube Spaces on a RED Epic Dragon with Canon CN-E prime lenses. The camera lived on a Steadicam for the shoot. The final edit just got locked and I'm quite pleased with how this turned out. I'll share the video once it comes out.

Next up was a lyric video for Emii's track Wait. It was kind of a rush job, as they decided late into the schedule to change from a standard lyric video into a lyric/music video hybrid. Since the song had a hard release date, we rushed in to get this shot and it was an ambitious concept with lots of set changes and wardrobe/makeup changes. We shot RED Epic MX with Sony CineAlta lenses. The camera spent a good chunk of time on a Ronin. I'm not totally thrilled with the color grade, as the turnaround was so fast that I was unable to sit in on any of it.

Moving on, the science fiction feature film Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter had its premier this last weekend at the Action on Film Festival. It was pretty well attended and I enjoyed seeing some of the cast and crew for the first time in almost a year and a half. The movie went through some extensive rewrites and subsequent reshoots in the time since we wrapped principal photography, so it was interesting and surprising to see the final product, as I was not involved in the shooting of those additional scenes. Here are a couple pictures from the night.

Rogue Warrior premiered on the opening night of the Action on Film Festival.

A big chunk of the cast, and then me on the left repping the crew.

Screen 12. Same screen where the festival debuted the last two features I shot for Neil Johnson.

Lastly, Action on Film also screened the DC Comics fan film, Fair Fight, which I shot 2nd Unit DP. Due to other obligations, I was unable to attend that screening. Fair Fight has also been invited to screen at another film festival, so it sounds like it's being well received.

A few more screen grabs

And here's a few more screen grabs from my shoot in Indiana.

Also, I spent this past week working on a shoot out in Palm Springs. We shot primarily outdoors for four days, with the temperature getting as high as 115° F! So how did we keep cool(er)? By grabbing a pool umbrella and creating a makeshift camera cart mobile shade station!

Nike Run Club spot

Working with director of photography Chris Saul, I b-camera operated and second unit DP'd this spot for Nike. It's the one that's playing in Nike stores and was shot in the "sideways" 9x16 aspect ratio for use on the store displays, which utilize screens with this same orientation. We had a lot of fun and I'm happy to be able to now share the finished video.


NIKE from Chris Saul on Vimeo.

The Resistance: additional screen grabs

Here are a few other screen grabs from the action short, The Resistance, I recently completed.

The nameless "men in black".

Letting the shot go Daredevil dark.

Since we only had one side to our "alley", we flipped our set and lighting to reuse the one wall we did have, playing it as the other side.

A little water is always nice.

Since we didn't have a real alleyway, I let the background go black and added in some haze to help hide what was really back there. Also, the atmospheric haze picks up some of that back light and helps pop the actress off the dark background.

A7S shot. It's a little mushy, but for the quick edit it'll do. I really like the color difference between the two practical lighting sources.

The Resistance

I just finished up action short for an actress looking for some additional material for her demo reel, as well as getting a story concept developed. While I had tons of gear at my disposal, the time we had to shoot was short and the crew extremely small, so I tried to keep it as simple as possible.

Keeping in mind that we'd be shooting night scenes, I opted to use the Sony FS7 for it's clean image at higher ISOs, though I ended up running it at 800 the whole time, with only a single shot at 1600. The other reason I shot FS7 was due to us also using a DSLR on a Ronin. Knowing that the A7S offers great low light capability and matches well with the color science of the FS7 (this shoot isn't getting a color grade, so matching in camera was fairly critical), it made sense.

Since I knew that we'd be a small crew (myself plus two others), I wanted to avoid swapping lenses, so elected to use the Zeiss 28-80 T2.9 Compact Zoom. That would cover the full range of what was needed and would also match nicely with the Zeiss 18mm ZE lens on the Ronin/A7S setup.

This shoot was made possible by local rental house EVS: http://www.evsonline.com/

This is what we used for the alleyway scene.

Our alleyway created in the area pictured in the previous photo.

Top lit with a 650W fresnel through 4x4 opal, with another 650W top lighting the far background and a Source4 dimmed down and shot through 1/2 CTB for a back edge and to bring out the boxes on the shelving. A 1x1 LED lightpanel bounced off a 2x2 foamcore provides some front fill and an eye light.

Don't mess with a girl and her knife.

A7S on Ronin, utilizing practical lighting.

Same lighting setup as the third picture, just flipped.

Nike store - The Grove Mall, Los Angeles

Last August I posted about a Nike shoot I worked on. I had heard that it was playing in stores a couple months back and finally had some time to make it down to the local Nike store to check it out. Oddly enough, I couldn't find it playing on any of their tall aspect ratio store screens (which all seemed to be displaying shopping portals, not video), but a cropped version was playing on the giant wall of screens right behind the checkout.

It was pretty cool to see some of the stuff I shot on that big of a screen. I just wish I could have seen it the way it was originally intended to be displayed. I know it was shown in the full tall aspect ratio at another store, as the main unit DP showed me a picture, so perhaps I need to drop by a different location. Either way, it's still cool to see my work playing at Nike.

Nike Store at The Grove.

Sorry for the terrible color balance. I took this with my phone.

More Nike BTS

Our key grip Gino Nix sent me a few behind the scenes pictures he took of me at work on the Nike shoot, so I thought I'd share. A-Cam Op/DP was Chris Saul. B-Cam Op/2nd Unit DP was me.

Me (left) and Chris Saul (right) on the gator about to chase some the runners.

Me (left), director Martin Desmond Roe (center), and Chris Saul (right) talking through our next shot.

About to shoot off of the gator while standing.

Shooting with the Ronin in the rain, I decided to be my own umbrella operator.

About to pursue some runners through the street after a wetdown.

Nike shoot

This past week I operated the B-Cam/2nd unit DP'd a Nike spot produced by Dirty Robber. Since we were shooting for Nike's displays, which are widescreen televisions rotated 90°, we also turned our cameras on the side, resulting in a 9x16 aspect ratio. That was a fun aspect ratio to shoot in, as it's not something I normally get to do.

While the A-Cam was handheld and operated by Director of Photography Chris Saul, my B-Cam was mounted on a DJI Ronin the entire time. It was quite the workout with the additional weight of the gimbal and I did a lot of running (forwards and backwards) with the unit. At times I'd use an Easyrig, but since it can add a lot of bounce, I just used my arms when running.

The spot was shot on RED Dragons with Zeiss Super Speed lenses in 6K HD.

In the rain. Photo by @emmahollyjones

Director Nick Frew looks over my shoulder as I get a sweet sunset shot.

Director of Photography/A-Cam Operator Chris Saul gives me a break from operating the Ronin rig.

And that's another wrap!

Today we wrapped on principle photography of the latest feature film I'm shooting.  We got to shoot in some fantastic locations, from the abandoned towns of Salton Sea and fields of grass in Malibu, to a bit on a soundstage and the basement of an old hospital.  Mostly shot handheld on a RED Epic, with some small pieces on a Panasonic GH4 riding the DJI Ronin.  While I've flown my Dragon on a Ronin, I have to admit that something small like the GH4 is much easier to hold for longer takes.

While I've already begun some basic pre-production for my next shoot, now that I'm wrapped on this I can really dig in.  Although it's a smaller project (teaser trailer for a Kickstarter campaign), it is ambitious, should be a lot of fun, and we have some really cool shots lined up.  Once that's all done, it's likely straight into another feature, currently scheduled for early May.  Gotta keep shooting!

Nothing quite like natural sun right before sunset.  That soft, golden light is beautiful.  Too bad it doesn't last a couple hours longer.

Trammell Crow additional shoot

I've been very busy the past few weeks with shooting a science fiction feature.  During my two days off this weekend, I went up to Seattle to shoot a few more elements for the Trammell Crow job I did six months ago.  According to the weather, we were supposed to have rain, but got lucky and managed to only get lightly sprinkled on for a couple minutes at most.

We shot on Epic Dragon again with Zeiss Super Speeds.  For this segment, we wanted to capture the movement and energy of Seattle, so rigged the camera up on a DJI Ronin gimbal so we could move freely without the burden of a Steadicam.  The Ronin worked nicely (this was my first shoot using one) and the client was so pleased with what we were getting that they trusted us to get the last few shots and left early.  All in all, a good shoot.  I love the Seattle area and wish I had a little more time up there to explore, but had to get back to Los Angeles to wrap up the final week of the feature.

Here's a quick little peek at a couple timelapse shots: