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.

October update

This past month has been yet another super busy one filled with work; a few shoots and lots of pre-production on some upcoming projects.

While it hasn't been released yet, I was very happy with the music video I shot for Karmin, Love Is Louder. I always jump at the chance to shoot in black and white, so was excited when the director and I agreed to go monochromatic. I was also encouraged to frame the performance bits in a "Mr. Robot" style. Hopefully this track will get its video release soon, but for now I'll just leave a few screengrabs.

Another fun project this month was shooting a lifetyle spot for Four Seasons. I utilized an Alexa Mini with my Sony CineAlta PL primes, with the camera jumping between a DJI Ronin, tripod, Dana Dolly, and handheld. We only had access to the hotel for a single day, so we kept the shot list simple and I had a team prelighting the subsequent scene while I was shooting. That allowed us to knock out a ton of locations within the hotel, before going to a second location to grab a couple last shots. I don't yet have any of the footage from that shoot, but will get some images posted up once I get my hands on it.

Most of the rest of my shooting month consisted of corporate interviews and a couple live performances (one dance event, one concert event). Since those were pre-lit venues, I didn't bother grabbing footage since I was more of a camera operator lead, as there was no lighting input from myself.

Besides the days shooting, I had some productive meetings for a couple projects, including a feature length documentary that we'll hopefully start shooting in December. I also attended Stan Lee's Comic Con (formerly known as Comikaze) where Nobility had a panel and I sat in as a panel member on a Low-Budget Filmmaking & Building a Team presentation. Usually I prefer to be behind the scenes making things happen, rather than in front of a crowd, but it wasn't too bad. The panel was centered around the award winning DC fan film, Fair Fight, that I co-DP'd a couple months back. I did manage to get a couple pictures from that, at least.

Last bit of news is that I decided to jump back into the camera market, as I miss having something where I can just go out and shoot whatever I want to, so now my business partners and I have a new RED Epic-W on its way. I'm excited to put the new Helium sensor through some tests to see what it can do. It should offer a lot of flexibility, giving us the ability to record everything from 2K ProRes up to 8K RAW (and all sorts of options in between). The payments have been made and things are shipping, so the kit should all arrive soon.

Joseph's Toiletries commercial released

The commercial I shot for Joseph's Toiletries last year has finally been released, so now I can share the final video with you. I love shooting in black and white, so this was a lot of fun for me. We shot on RED Epic Dragon and Canon C300 with Canon EF lenses.

The video can also be seen from their website splash page: https://www.josephs-toiletries.com/ edit: The video has played through its lifespan, so isn't on the splash page anymore.

CareerBuilder.com commercial

I had one day off from the feature I'm shooting, so what better thing to do than camera operate on that day?  It was a pretty easy shoot and we had 4 cameras: 2 RED Epic Dragons, a RED Epic MX, and a RED Scarlet MX.  Shot on Arri Master Primes, a Canon Cine zoom, and an Angenieux zoom, all in a candy store.

Built up my RED Dragon with an Arri Master Prime.  I think I need a set of these.

Preproduction and a shoot in Dallas

I've been busy lately with preproduction for a series pilot of a show called Mystic Cosmic Patrol, a throwback to the Japanese Power Ranger style of television, but with humor aimed more towards an adult market.  The concept and script are pretty fun, so I'm excited to get this project made.  We had a tech scout today and will begin shooting mid next week.

In between prepping for that show, I made a quick trip over to Dallas to camera operate an Asahi beer commercial.  It was a fun shoot and we got to build up my Dragon with a nice Arri/Fujinon 45-250mm lens.  My AC had a Heden Carat wireless focus unit and I was pretty impressed with the responsiveness and smoothness.  I've been looking around for a nice wireless FF, so this may have to become a piece of my kit.

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:
 

ZEFR launch party

Single day shoot in a parking lot.  We had a 12x12 silk that we used to bounce sun back at the actors and virtually the whole things was shot at 300FPS.  I had never had the chance to do the whole Mentos in Coke thing before, so it was a lot of fun seeing the geysers of soda exploding everywhere.  Shot on RED Epic with Canon zooms.

Real Estate commercial

I spent a week up in Seattle shooting an ad for a commercial real estate developer.  We shot on RED Dragon with a set of Zeiss Super Speeds MkII.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could shoot 6K HD on the 18mm without any noticeable vignetting.  The fast lenses came in handy in some of the large spaces we were shooting with a minimal lighting package.

The Dragon sensor continues to amaze me.  Highlight rolloff is beautiful and I have had to readjust how I view the onboard monitor, as what I see gives me a different result than the Epic MX sensor did.  There is so much more detail in the shadows that I never would have captured before.  I'm super happy with the upgrade so far.  The only downside is some magenta noise in the shadows at higher ISO, but RED apparently has a fix coming in the next week.  In testing, I saw some magenta noise at 800, so I tried to rate most of this shoot around 320-500 ISO to keep the noise levels to a minimum.