What is this, a house for ants?

One of my friends is working on developing a children's series and needed help shooting some miniatures for the opening and some cutaways. Since I've shot several miniature sets before, I was asked to help light and shoot the buildings. The series is a puppet driven concept with the pilot already shot and an almost completed teaser trailer, so it was just a matter of matching the look that had already been established.

This was a bit of a challenge, as the space we had to shoot in was a tiny, side office space that already had equipment stored in it, so everything was a tight fit, as you can see in the picture to the left. This makes it difficult to precisely place lighting and also limited us on the placement of the set relative to the background, which makes it harder to sell the "far off in the distance" look. We solved some of that by adding a light atmospheric haze that helps push that background farther away since it's "fading" off into the distance. The haze has to be very controlled, however, as it builds up fast in such a small space and we didn't want it too apparent in the foreground.

One of the fun things was that we were shooting both day and night scenes, so got to light for the two times of day. I always enjoy a good miniature that has built-in lighting, as it makes it feel that much more alive. Since this show utilizes puppets, I think the hand-crafted look of these sets also fits the overall visual aesthetic where we aren't going for absolute realism, but more of a fantasy-enhanced version of the puppet reality.

We shot on the Arri Alexa Classic, using my set of Sony CineAlta prime lenses for a look that is very comparable to Zeiss Ultra Primes, but at a fraction of the cost. We had a set of 3 Zeiss Super Speeds on hand as well, but not in the focal lengths we wanted.

Overall, it was a fun shoot with good people, even if the small space did provide some lighting and plane separation challenges. I did have to be careful when operating on the moves, as when shooting miniatures the small movements and possible vibrations get amplified, so you want to take things nice and smooth, keeping a careful eye out for anything that might make the shots look too much like miniatures.

SDCC 2016

Another year, another San Diego Comic Con. As in recent years, both Nobility and Space Command had panels. What was different this year is that Nobility has a finished project, with color correction, sound mix, and FX complete (or nearly complete). The panel was well attended and the footage looked the best it has yet. This year, we even managed to get Doug Jones in on the panel.

Nobility panel and screening

For the Space Command panel, they had to use the entire length of the table! The panel was huge! Hey, wait...is that Doug Jones again? That guy is everywhere! Unfortunately, I had an appointment to keep and was unable to make it to this panel. They debuted the opening 6 minutes of the film. The VFX were not quite complete from what I've been told, but it's a start. This movie is extremely FX heavy so the post process has been excruciatingly slow, as they're working on a very small budget for what they're trying to pull off. But they're still at it.

Space Command panel. That's a full lineup there!

This year, Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter had a signing. Dave Seeley designed the movie poster and was kind enough to let us do a signing in his booth. I'm pretty sure nobody cares about getting my signature, but it was fun nonetheless. The film is in the final stages of the sound mix and color correction, so the director says he's aiming to premiere it at the Action on Film Festival in early September.

(left to right): Robot Fighter lead Tracey Birdsall, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Marc Hawes, not-appearing-in-this-film me, and (just offscreen) Neil Johnson.

Other than that, at one of my meetings I received some great news about Mystic Cosmic Patrol, the pilot I shot last year. It seems that there is some definite interest in it, with a deal very, very close to happening. As we all know, nothing's certain until the ink dries (and even then plans change), so I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that project. It was one of my favorite things to shoot and possibly my favorite end product, as it looks fantastic, sounds great, and is hilarious. I'm usually very reserved in my praise, but this is a show that I'd tell everyone I know to watch.

Well, that's it for Comic Con. It wore me out, but I had a lot of fun and my meetings went well. Here's to hoping I'll have some other new projects to showcase at next year's SDCC!

Mid-January update

I'm still working on pre-production for the short film I'm shooting at the end of the month. We're getting the equipment orders put in and finalizing details. Tomorrow we have a read-through of the script with all the keys and will be making sure we have everything ironed out for the shoot. Everything seems to be coming together nicely and I'm excited to get this made.

Last night we had a cast, crew, and friends/family screening for Mystic Cosmic Patrol, which is a television pilot that I shot last year. We screened two of the three episodes and got a great response. Not only did we have an awesome cast (Chris Masterson, Timothy Jo, Laura Monaco, Chris Candy, Chelsea Tavares, and Tim Russ), but a great crew and production team. It was nice to see a lot of them again and I was very pleased with how the final product turned out. I tend to be a pretty harsh critic of my work, but even I liked it. Hopefully, we can find a studio that enjoys it as much as the audience at the screening did. This was my favorite project to shoot and ended up being my favorite completed project as well, so I'd love for it to get a series order.

In other news, the recently released January issue of Talent Monthly Magazine is loaded with projects I worked on. It features interviews with Tracey Birdsall (Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter, At the Edge of Time), Aaron Jacques (Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter, Starship Rising), Barry Corbin (At the Edge of Time, No Country for Old Men), and Stephen Manley (Rogue Warrior: Robot Fighter, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock). The issue also debuted the poster for the movie Rogue Warrior, pictured below.

Tracey Birdsall (center), Daz Crawford (left) and Aaron Jacques (right)

Stan Lee's Comikaze 2015

This was a pretty busy convention for me this year. Space Command had a panel where they debuted a new trailer with some of the completed FX work and rough color correction. Part of the cast was there for a Q&A session and panel. They also talked about their plans for more upcoming films.

I also attended another panel for Triborn, a project that I'm discussing coming on board to shoot. It's an original science fiction property and has some great names attached. For being a small, independent production, there was a pretty good sized crowd in attendance.

The big event, however, was the premiere of Nobility. The guys have really been working hard in post to get this thing finished and we were able to screen a near-final cut of the film. It was well received and there were a lot of people there to see it. Here's what people were saying on Twitter after the showing:

Comikaze was a good convention and it was a real pleasure to have participated in a couple of the projects that were featured there. Hopefully I'll be back again next year with more projects to share with the world.

Arriving at the show!

Space Command panel.

Nobility invite only panel, with Star Trek's Walter Koenig.

Nobility screening Q&A

The crowd is gathering for the Nobility premiere screening.

Waiting for the Nobility premiere to start.

Mystic Cosmic Patrol principle photography wrap

Well, we wrapped on the first 3 episodes of Mystic Cosmic Patrol.  It was a lot of fun seeing the hilarious script brought to life by the actors.  On our final day, it was threatening to rain and we had some outdoor scenes to shoot, but the weather ended up working out and we got everything done.  There are still some miniatures to be shot, but principle photography is done and the footage is off to the editor.

Unfortunately, the last two Nobility pickup days overlapped with this project, so I missed out on that, but it sounds like they managed to get it handled fine.  Now I've got a little down time before my next feature begins towards the end of the month if all goes to plan.  So I'll leave you with another picture that doesn't really give anything away.

Nobility (continued)

After another nine days of principal photography, we wrapped on Nobility.  This was my first full two camera shoot (three cameras on one day!) and I'm starting to see why some DPs hire camera operators for all the cameras.  It can be a bit tricky to know what exactly all the cameras are getting when I'm busy operating one of them and not able to closely supervise the others.

Lighting was a big challenge on this project, as the sets kept changing and I'd come back in the morning and have to light a completely new space.  Our lights were minimal and I had no gaffer or G&E crew, so it was all me.  We managed to make it work and even wrapped early a couple days, partly in thanks to our director and 1st AD running a tight ship.  They kept things moving, but were always willing to give me an extra minute or two to move lighting around if I needed it, which I greatly appreciated.

We shot RED Scarlet for most of the shoot, with a little bit of Epic Dragon tossed in and we even dusted off a RED One MX for a couple days.  Due to it being a low budget affair, I couldn't afford to hire my normal 1st ACs so we got a revolving door of random guys.  I ended up pulling my own focus for a good chunk of the time (as the ACs were pretty green), but we also got a couple really good guys that I would certainly consider hiring on future gigs.

It was a pleasure working with our very talented cast and Walter Koenig was hilarious.  I'm curious to see what they do with this in post and am looking forward to seeing the San Diego Comic Con trailer they are cutting for the Nobility panel.  This, along with Space Command (which I'll post about soon), makes two projects that I'm shooting that have panels at San Diego Comic-Con this year.  I'm really excited to go and check them both out.

A couple pictures here of Walter Koenig: