It looks like the films are going to be amazing, if the trailer is anything to go by.
Wednesday, 13 October 2010
Monday, 11 October 2010
I love 35mm
I was editing a dance film that Rolfe (of Creativesunshine) directed and shot a little while back. As usual, it started off as a small idea but ended up being shot on 35mm. Legend. Choreographed and conceptualized by Paul Kitson
Here's the edit I did (I didn't grade it or do the titles, just the offline)
It's so nice to work with such rich footage. I played around with a few grading ideas, and even though it was TK'd to Prores 422HQ, it just had soooo much information to grade around. Really lovely stuff.
Here's the edit I did (I didn't grade it or do the titles, just the offline)
It's so nice to work with such rich footage. I played around with a few grading ideas, and even though it was TK'd to Prores 422HQ, it just had soooo much information to grade around. Really lovely stuff.
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Thoughts wrap-up for Parkour Tour
Wow. Ok, that was a whirlwind. A total blur of driving and shooting and driving some more, with some amazing cities and amazing people thrown in. My previous post was really short because I was really busy when I got back, then straight-away flew off to Poland a few days later, then had two editing jobs (one shot on juicy 35mm Fuji Eterna 500T).
So here are more details. I was a DoP on an 18-day, multi-country shoot for Catsnake, Bethesda and Splash Damage's new game called Brink. It's like a really cool evolution of Enemy Territory (more on this a bit later).
The aim of the shoot was to produce a Parkour video in each city we visited, all of them featuring the very well-known freerunner, Daniel Ilabaca.
I was contacted by Stephen Follows, the inimitable producer from Catsnake because of a previous parkour film I'd previously made with the founder of Freerunning, Sebastien Foucan (who we met up with again while in Paris).
The idea behind getting me on board was to get films with a more obvious 'filmic' feel, as opposed to a lot of the freerunning videos out there, which, while certainly amazing, have a tendency to share similar filming styles (with a LOT of fish-eye usage). Hopefully I brought something different, but still dynamic to the table. The other camera guy on the shoot was Scott Bass, a capable freerunner himself, and insanely tall. At the start of the shoot we both had very different ideas on how things should be done, but after a few days we really started working well together. By the end of it, I think we both got some amazing footage. (A note well worth mentioning, a parkour video that Scott shot with two amazing freerunners has garnered over 1.5 MILLION views on youtube. That's impressive. It's a damn cool video.)
We (Scott and myself) were both shooting on 550Ds, while Dan Andrews manned an EX3 for the behind the scenes stuff (which will also be cut into weekly episodes, and perhaps eventually into a longer 30min piece, but I'm not too sure). Scott was using the 15-85mm f4.5-5.6 lens. What sharpness for the price! I was using a Canon 24mm 1.4L II (my favourite lens), a Canon 50mm 1.4, a Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro, and a Tokina 11-16mm.
I just got my Lightcraft Workshop FaderND (77mm for the 24mm and the Tokina) a few days before the shoot began, and it made a WORLD of difference. Our shoots were very ad-lib, impromptu and run-and-gun. I know I used three terms to describe the same thing there, but it really was running a lot of the time. I guess it's the nature of free-running... it's impulsive and depends on the environment. It makes for amazing film, but is also difficult to film (we had about 8 hours in each city to film, with little to no recce time - we thankfully had local guides (who were all awesome!).
The FaderND really let me get just the right exposure, while almost never changing my aperture. I'd decided along with Stephen Follows, for both artistic and technical reasons, that we should shoot most things wide open to lessen the moire you get when shooting the 550Ds at 720p. So most of the time, I shot at 1.4 or 2.0. It's really so easy. Also, so good to just get those perfect tiny little tweaks. Sometimes the camera's 1/3rd stop options are a little too clunky, and you want something just a little more fine.
Another bonus I noticed is, like any polariser, it increases the saturation of what you're shooting... so while you're shooting on a seriously flattened out picture style, you still get pretty natural looking colours, while getting that extra highlight detail for grading (contrast and in-camera sharpening turned to zero literally give you an extra stop of highlight detail, but also give you washed out colour that's difficult to grade to look natural). Hey, we can't all shoot on Alexas all the time, can we?
While in Cologne, the giant games convention Gamescom was on, and we got to meet the creators of Brink, and even play against them in a pre-production version. It was on x-box controllers, and I found myself constantly wishing for a mouse and keyboard (coming from a pc gaming habit formed in the mid-90s). It's a really fun multiplayer FPS with some interesting freedom of movement... parkour style climbing and vaulting over obstacles.
I wish I had time to write about each city... they were all cool, and like I mentioned earlier, the local Parkour guides we met were all amazing too. I have to run now, perhaps I'll bulk up this entry later into some epic essay on the tour.
So here are more details. I was a DoP on an 18-day, multi-country shoot for Catsnake, Bethesda and Splash Damage's new game called Brink. It's like a really cool evolution of Enemy Territory (more on this a bit later).
The aim of the shoot was to produce a Parkour video in each city we visited, all of them featuring the very well-known freerunner, Daniel Ilabaca.
I was contacted by Stephen Follows, the inimitable producer from Catsnake because of a previous parkour film I'd previously made with the founder of Freerunning, Sebastien Foucan (who we met up with again while in Paris).
The idea behind getting me on board was to get films with a more obvious 'filmic' feel, as opposed to a lot of the freerunning videos out there, which, while certainly amazing, have a tendency to share similar filming styles (with a LOT of fish-eye usage). Hopefully I brought something different, but still dynamic to the table. The other camera guy on the shoot was Scott Bass, a capable freerunner himself, and insanely tall. At the start of the shoot we both had very different ideas on how things should be done, but after a few days we really started working well together. By the end of it, I think we both got some amazing footage. (A note well worth mentioning, a parkour video that Scott shot with two amazing freerunners has garnered over 1.5 MILLION views on youtube. That's impressive. It's a damn cool video.)
We (Scott and myself) were both shooting on 550Ds, while Dan Andrews manned an EX3 for the behind the scenes stuff (which will also be cut into weekly episodes, and perhaps eventually into a longer 30min piece, but I'm not too sure). Scott was using the 15-85mm f4.5-5.6 lens. What sharpness for the price! I was using a Canon 24mm 1.4L II (my favourite lens), a Canon 50mm 1.4, a Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro, and a Tokina 11-16mm.
I just got my Lightcraft Workshop FaderND (77mm for the 24mm and the Tokina) a few days before the shoot began, and it made a WORLD of difference. Our shoots were very ad-lib, impromptu and run-and-gun. I know I used three terms to describe the same thing there, but it really was running a lot of the time. I guess it's the nature of free-running... it's impulsive and depends on the environment. It makes for amazing film, but is also difficult to film (we had about 8 hours in each city to film, with little to no recce time - we thankfully had local guides (who were all awesome!).
The FaderND really let me get just the right exposure, while almost never changing my aperture. I'd decided along with Stephen Follows, for both artistic and technical reasons, that we should shoot most things wide open to lessen the moire you get when shooting the 550Ds at 720p. So most of the time, I shot at 1.4 or 2.0. It's really so easy. Also, so good to just get those perfect tiny little tweaks. Sometimes the camera's 1/3rd stop options are a little too clunky, and you want something just a little more fine.
Another bonus I noticed is, like any polariser, it increases the saturation of what you're shooting... so while you're shooting on a seriously flattened out picture style, you still get pretty natural looking colours, while getting that extra highlight detail for grading (contrast and in-camera sharpening turned to zero literally give you an extra stop of highlight detail, but also give you washed out colour that's difficult to grade to look natural). Hey, we can't all shoot on Alexas all the time, can we?
While in Cologne, the giant games convention Gamescom was on, and we got to meet the creators of Brink, and even play against them in a pre-production version. It was on x-box controllers, and I found myself constantly wishing for a mouse and keyboard (coming from a pc gaming habit formed in the mid-90s). It's a really fun multiplayer FPS with some interesting freedom of movement... parkour style climbing and vaulting over obstacles.
I wish I had time to write about each city... they were all cool, and like I mentioned earlier, the local Parkour guides we met were all amazing too. I have to run now, perhaps I'll bulk up this entry later into some epic essay on the tour.
Installation art and sculpture
Ah... waking up at 5am on a Saturday. I love how empty the streets are. As winter approaches, it's now dark at 5am. It was really uncharacteristically cold too.
Just shot a little piece over the weekend, featuring Nancy Durrant (Visual Arts editor for the Sunday Times). It's a little to-camera piece where she shows us around an arts exhibition called Bold Tendencies, held on the top two floors of a disused Peckham multi-story car park (South London).
We got some lovely shots, and the little film should go live on Tate Channels soon, and perhaps other places after that.
Directed and produced by Alastair Moore, with me doing the DoP role. It was nice actually having extra people to flag off light and hold reflectors etc.
We were very lucky: the weather predicted clouds and rain, and we got sun until we wrapped at around 14:00.
I used the 24mm 1.4 most of the time, it's just the best lens. I think I use it for about 80% of my shots, it's so versatile, and at f1.4 it has such shallow depth of focus that I don't feel a pressing need to go to longer lenses just to blur the background.
Bold Tendencies can be seen here: http://boldtendencies.com/
Just shot a little piece over the weekend, featuring Nancy Durrant (Visual Arts editor for the Sunday Times). It's a little to-camera piece where she shows us around an arts exhibition called Bold Tendencies, held on the top two floors of a disused Peckham multi-story car park (South London).
We got some lovely shots, and the little film should go live on Tate Channels soon, and perhaps other places after that.
Directed and produced by Alastair Moore, with me doing the DoP role. It was nice actually having extra people to flag off light and hold reflectors etc.
We were very lucky: the weather predicted clouds and rain, and we got sun until we wrapped at around 14:00.
I used the 24mm 1.4 most of the time, it's just the best lens. I think I use it for about 80% of my shots, it's so versatile, and at f1.4 it has such shallow depth of focus that I don't feel a pressing need to go to longer lenses just to blur the background.
Bold Tendencies can be seen here: http://boldtendencies.com/
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Parkour shoot in Europe was awesome
I wish I'd been able to write more detailed blog posts on the road, but my laptop broke on about day 2, and I've been living zen-like and unconnected for a while.
I was DOPing on a parkour tour, shooting in 8 cities around Europe with the incredibly skilled and talented Daniel Ilabaca.
Got some AMAZING shots. Films will be released in a drip-drip fashion, approx one a week or something, from around mid-October.
For more details, check out
Probably one of the best things about the tour was just seeing how friendly and good all the people in the parkour community are. What a privilege to meet all those people.
I was DOPing on a parkour tour, shooting in 8 cities around Europe with the incredibly skilled and talented Daniel Ilabaca.
Got some AMAZING shots. Films will be released in a drip-drip fashion, approx one a week or something, from around mid-October.
For more details, check out
Probably one of the best things about the tour was just seeing how friendly and good all the people in the parkour community are. What a privilege to meet all those people.
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Motion Capture, Music videos, Visual effects and Opera
Been relatively busy the last couple of months with a range of projects. I've been working a lot at Pixelkitchen doing editing and visual effects work and tests for a few projects. I did all the onlining except for the grading of a feature length documentary "Living with the Tiger", hopefully coming soon to a festival near you (it's really worth watching).
Currently playing a lot with other vfx like integrating 3d elements with live footage, creating realistic smoke, compositing in AE. All that fun stuff that ends up amazing but can take days to realise.
Also shot a few things with Creativesunshine below.
A music video for up and coming singer songwriter, Lee Martin:
a dance video for Jack Mackenzie, an exceptionally talented choreographer and dancer:
nd a behind-the-scenes video for a motion capture project at the AWESOME Centroid in Pinewood studios:
And another behind the scenes shoot for the Holland Park Opera, a new realisation of Verdi's La Forza del Destino, directed by Martin Duncan and choreographed by Paul Kitson. It looks incredible:
Currently playing a lot with other vfx like integrating 3d elements with live footage, creating realistic smoke, compositing in AE. All that fun stuff that ends up amazing but can take days to realise.
Also shot a few things with Creativesunshine below.
A music video for up and coming singer songwriter, Lee Martin:
a dance video for Jack Mackenzie, an exceptionally talented choreographer and dancer:
nd a behind-the-scenes video for a motion capture project at the AWESOME Centroid in Pinewood studios:
And another behind the scenes shoot for the Holland Park Opera, a new realisation of Verdi's La Forza del Destino, directed by Martin Duncan and choreographed by Paul Kitson. It looks incredible:
Monday, 24 May 2010
Balloon Test shoot
This test evolved out of the convergence of wanting to test a few things; ideas, location and gear. I think it turned out really well. Eventually I'll grow up and make a film with a story. Haha.
So as you'll notice if you read earlier posts, I got a CPM Film Tools camera rig so I can attach all manner of dodats, dohickys and thingamajigs to the camera to make it more awesome. I know it doesn't need to be more awesome, but it just makes it easier to use. More on specific gear later (I'm holding off writing about it because there is so much already on the internet - very little of it is concise though).
We attached a Bartech follow focus to the rig. Now because I don't have any spacers to raise the DSLR off the baseplate yet, we simply attached the follow focus motor+gear assembly to the top rail so it hung down. The Bartech is cool because you can set in and out points for the focus, so you don't need to worry about lenses without a hard stop (like most Canon EF lenses which'll spin forever). It can be quickly calibrated to move incredibly slowly for very fine focus pulls, if you ever need that sort of accuracy. I didn't for this, but it's nice to know it's possible. Hanging it off the top rail worked perfectly.
We used big, heavy rubber-filled steel rods, because my pair of top carbon fibre rods were too short (more on order). This absolutely killed my arms. Not recommended. Get aluminium or carbon fibre.
The other thing I was testing personally, was the hand-holdability of the rig. In short, it kicks ass. Amazingly stable, and when using the lighter carbon fibre rods, I can shoot for hours. If the rig gets too built up though, you really can't manage it for long unless you get much longer rods and set up a shoulder mount (which I plan to do in the future). I just dislike shoulder mounts for walking, as it seems to transmit a lot more force to the camera through your shoulder. Though it is amazingly stable for if you're standing still. I guess it's all about a personal preference, until you can afford a steadicam.
The only lens used was the Canon 50mm 1.4. I don't lust after the Cosina (ahem, sorry, "Zeiss") ZE or ZF lenses. There are lust-worthy lenses out there... but those are not them. Though they do look ever-so-slightly easier to pull focus with. I honestly don't have a problem with the Canon lenses, prefer the superior optics of some of the lenses, DEFINITELY prefer the speed of the lenses: none of the Cosina ZE or ZF rebranded lenses open up wide enough for really sweet shallow depth of field.
So as you'll notice if you read earlier posts, I got a CPM Film Tools camera rig so I can attach all manner of dodats, dohickys and thingamajigs to the camera to make it more awesome. I know it doesn't need to be more awesome, but it just makes it easier to use. More on specific gear later (I'm holding off writing about it because there is so much already on the internet - very little of it is concise though).
We attached a Bartech follow focus to the rig. Now because I don't have any spacers to raise the DSLR off the baseplate yet, we simply attached the follow focus motor+gear assembly to the top rail so it hung down. The Bartech is cool because you can set in and out points for the focus, so you don't need to worry about lenses without a hard stop (like most Canon EF lenses which'll spin forever). It can be quickly calibrated to move incredibly slowly for very fine focus pulls, if you ever need that sort of accuracy. I didn't for this, but it's nice to know it's possible. Hanging it off the top rail worked perfectly.
We used big, heavy rubber-filled steel rods, because my pair of top carbon fibre rods were too short (more on order). This absolutely killed my arms. Not recommended. Get aluminium or carbon fibre.
The other thing I was testing personally, was the hand-holdability of the rig. In short, it kicks ass. Amazingly stable, and when using the lighter carbon fibre rods, I can shoot for hours. If the rig gets too built up though, you really can't manage it for long unless you get much longer rods and set up a shoulder mount (which I plan to do in the future). I just dislike shoulder mounts for walking, as it seems to transmit a lot more force to the camera through your shoulder. Though it is amazingly stable for if you're standing still. I guess it's all about a personal preference, until you can afford a steadicam.
The only lens used was the Canon 50mm 1.4. I don't lust after the Cosina (ahem, sorry, "Zeiss") ZE or ZF lenses. There are lust-worthy lenses out there... but those are not them. Though they do look ever-so-slightly easier to pull focus with. I honestly don't have a problem with the Canon lenses, prefer the superior optics of some of the lenses, DEFINITELY prefer the speed of the lenses: none of the Cosina ZE or ZF rebranded lenses open up wide enough for really sweet shallow depth of field.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Shooting with Sebastien Foucan
It was really amazing to get a phone call from a certain producer running FreerunningTV.com, a new website dedicated to high quality videos of freerunning.
Two days later I was shooting with the man himself, Sebastien Foucan (who freerunning fans already know, and everyone else has probably seen doing insanely amazing stuff in the chase sequence of Casino Royal with Daniel Craig hot on his tail).
We discussed a lot about Freerunning having a more centred, philosophical, thinking side to it. Of course, there are amazing tricks and amazing kinetics, but I wanted to make a video unlike other freerunning videos I've seen so far. I think it worked. You can see the trailer below, and the full video on FreeRunningTV.com
I shot it all semi-handheld... essentially I bolted the camera to a tripod and used the tripod itself as a handheld stabiliser. Not ideal, and a Steadicam Pilot would be nice, but it worked very well.
Two days later I was shooting with the man himself, Sebastien Foucan (who freerunning fans already know, and everyone else has probably seen doing insanely amazing stuff in the chase sequence of Casino Royal with Daniel Craig hot on his tail).
We discussed a lot about Freerunning having a more centred, philosophical, thinking side to it. Of course, there are amazing tricks and amazing kinetics, but I wanted to make a video unlike other freerunning videos I've seen so far. I think it worked. You can see the trailer below, and the full video on FreeRunningTV.com
I shot it all semi-handheld... essentially I bolted the camera to a tripod and used the tripod itself as a handheld stabiliser. Not ideal, and a Steadicam Pilot would be nice, but it worked very well.
Friday, 7 May 2010
New CPM Filmtools Rig
I'm really excited. Just took delivery of a new camera rig from CPM filmtools. Carbon fibre rods and really strong injection moulded struts etc. The build-quality is just incredible for the price-point – everything just feels really solid, yet lightweight.
Unfortunately I don't have time to unpack it and build it up now, I've got an edit looming over my head.
Here's a quick photo of it still in it's wrapping.
Unfortunately I don't have time to unpack it and build it up now, I've got an edit looming over my head.
Here's a quick photo of it still in it's wrapping.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Real solutions turning to dogma
Something I find frustrating is when a solution to a particular problem, through popularity, becomes the de facto standard among the mouth-breathing masses.
Case in point here: Nikon lenses on Canon DSLRs for video. Now before anyone decides to flame (if anyone is reading this), hear me out.
When the 5D mark II first came out, it had this awesome 1080P mode that everyone wanted to use, but no manual exposure control. And all the Canon EF lenses have electronic aperture controls, so it's really quite a bad combination for people who want to set their exposure exactly how they want it.
Some clever people realised that older (and some current) Nikon lenses still have manual aperture rings, and used adapters to mount them on the 5D. Problem solved. Good lenses, manual aperture control. Bingo. A good hack.
But this is now not necessary as Canon have released firmware that lets you set the exposure manually. It was never necessary on the 7D. Or the 550D. Hack not required any more.
But, still so many people shoot with Nikon lenses on these cameras. And aside from the popularity argument, which is never a good reason to do ANYTHING, I can't think of a single reason why...
Now, before the Nikon fanboys flame me about the superior quality of their lenses, let me finish. Canon and Nikon both have fantastic lenses. The high end of both marques are very good indeed. Nikon do currently have some amazing NEW lenses out that are super sharp. They are putting Canon's lenses to shame. Examples would be the new Nikon 24mm 1.4, and the Nikon 14-24mm zoom. They are drool-worthy lenses. Specifically the 24mm 1.4... it makes me wish Nikon would make a good video DSLR that does 1080P. I cannot stress enough how good this new Nikon lens is. It's almost indescribably good. It makes me Canon 24mm 1.4L (version 1) lens look really poor at the very wide apertures.
Problem is, it's one of Nikon's new lens designs with no manual aperture ring. Same for all the really diamond-cuttingly sharp new Nikon lenses. The ones with manual aperture rings are all really old optical designs. Good, but nothing compared to the new ones. So yes, Nikon has a bunch of truly spectacular lenses right now, but you can't use them on a 5D with an adapter.
So, it boils down to this. You can use old optical designs on a 5D with an adapter and bathe in the associated cool-factor lent to them by the mega-mastery of the new lenses that you can't use. Or you could just use Canon lenses.
In short, I'm saying it makes no sense from an optical point of view. It can make a difference if you consider price, because a lot of those old Nikon lenses are cheap on ebay. And still good enough to be usable. But you cannot even compare them to some of Nikon's new lenses, which cost sometimes 10x as much.
Case in point here: Nikon lenses on Canon DSLRs for video. Now before anyone decides to flame (if anyone is reading this), hear me out.
When the 5D mark II first came out, it had this awesome 1080P mode that everyone wanted to use, but no manual exposure control. And all the Canon EF lenses have electronic aperture controls, so it's really quite a bad combination for people who want to set their exposure exactly how they want it.
Some clever people realised that older (and some current) Nikon lenses still have manual aperture rings, and used adapters to mount them on the 5D. Problem solved. Good lenses, manual aperture control. Bingo. A good hack.
But this is now not necessary as Canon have released firmware that lets you set the exposure manually. It was never necessary on the 7D. Or the 550D. Hack not required any more.
But, still so many people shoot with Nikon lenses on these cameras. And aside from the popularity argument, which is never a good reason to do ANYTHING, I can't think of a single reason why...
Now, before the Nikon fanboys flame me about the superior quality of their lenses, let me finish. Canon and Nikon both have fantastic lenses. The high end of both marques are very good indeed. Nikon do currently have some amazing NEW lenses out that are super sharp. They are putting Canon's lenses to shame. Examples would be the new Nikon 24mm 1.4, and the Nikon 14-24mm zoom. They are drool-worthy lenses. Specifically the 24mm 1.4... it makes me wish Nikon would make a good video DSLR that does 1080P. I cannot stress enough how good this new Nikon lens is. It's almost indescribably good. It makes me Canon 24mm 1.4L (version 1) lens look really poor at the very wide apertures.
Problem is, it's one of Nikon's new lens designs with no manual aperture ring. Same for all the really diamond-cuttingly sharp new Nikon lenses. The ones with manual aperture rings are all really old optical designs. Good, but nothing compared to the new ones. So yes, Nikon has a bunch of truly spectacular lenses right now, but you can't use them on a 5D with an adapter.
So, it boils down to this. You can use old optical designs on a 5D with an adapter and bathe in the associated cool-factor lent to them by the mega-mastery of the new lenses that you can't use. Or you could just use Canon lenses.
In short, I'm saying it makes no sense from an optical point of view. It can make a difference if you consider price, because a lot of those old Nikon lenses are cheap on ebay. And still good enough to be usable. But you cannot even compare them to some of Nikon's new lenses, which cost sometimes 10x as much.
Friday, 23 April 2010
A Spring video with the new 550D
Ok, so it's not so new anymore. But I shot this about a month ago, and it's doing really well on Vimeo. Have a look. I wrote a bunch of details about it too.
This is a short that evolved out of a camera test. The whole thing was a collaboration between Creativesunshine (a production company that specializes in movement and dance on-screen) and myself (eager to test out the new 550D). Our lovely actress: Nikita Mitchell nikitamitchell.com
So, I brought along a few nice lenses (Canon 50mm 1.4, Canon 24mm 1.4, Sigma 12-24mm). I also had a 100mm 2.8, but never used it because the other lenses gave us the coverage we needed.
I don’t have a Z-finder or an LCDVF or anything, so I was quite concerned about pulling focus and even just setting focus, but to be honest, this hadn’t proved to be a problem. Maybe the wider screen of the 550D lets you see just a little better. If I look closely, I can see if something is in/out of focus. The brightness of the screen was no problem either. It wasn’t the brightest sunny day (thin thin veil of cloud sometimes), but it was bright and the screen kept up. That said, a monitor would have been handy for the very low angle shots (we rehearsed the take, but then shot blind as I couldn’t follow the small screen at that speed).
We used ND to keep the aperture wide open… between 1.4 and 2.8 depending on the blur we wanted. We used tiffen 4×4 filters in a matte box which we just attached to the front of the lens – no support rods were necessary on the relatively short lenses. I will be buying some in the near future for flexibility though. We had a .6 and a .9. We had a couple of other filters along for the ride which we didn’t use.
The field of flowers was some park in Wimbledon… I don’t know the name and lost my bearings on the way. The patch of flowers was smaller than it looks though - clever framing makes it look bigger.
Camera movement was handled by a small skateboard dolly and a tripod and a little mini-crane or boom rather. The tracking shot of her twirling around was actually hand-held because we didn’t have time to set up the dolly again for that shot. For the boom, a monitor would have been reeaaally useful – because again, we rehearsed a few times and then shot blind. It’s impressive the results this can yield though, if you’re not too much of a control freak. I find monitors on-set can slow down a production immeasurably. Much faster work can be done with a DoP the director trusts. That’s how it was here, and the whole thing was very fast and the results are fantastic. Occasionally we’d go over a take to check it was the right idea, but generally, it went very fast.
FCP Training
The camera aided this speed - it’s actually really easy to use. After everything is set to manual, all the settings are easily changed with the Q-button, while things like aperture and ISO are easily changed as they have their own buttons. I missed the rear dial control of the 5D and 7D for about 5min. After that, I really didn’t care. I even kind of like the button approach of the 550D. It’s pretty much impossible to nudge a setting like you can do with the rear control wheel.
A kelvin white-balance would be useful, but just using the old video trick of a white-balance on something white works even better, even if it takes a second to switch to photo mode, take the photo, set the WB to that photo, then go back to video. Auto WB is surprisingly good on this camera though (though I didn’t use it on this occasion).
Camera settings wise: I just used the camera’s Neutral colour settings – none of the superflat or custom picture styles. It looked amazing straight out of the camera. I was really tempted to use it ungraded (beautiful soft look), but just added the tiniest hint of saturation, warmth and contrast to make it pop a touch more.
I didn’t run into any of the overheating issues some folks have. I don’t know if it’s because I’m using that fast Transcend 16gb class 10 SD cards… buffering is never a problem. Maybe too much buffering exacerbates the problem? Consequently I have run into a heat issue… but even then, it was surprising after reading how ‘bad’ it was. I was shooting in a dance studio. It was really hot and really humid (after a class of 30 or so had been dancing for two hours). I was shooting almost continuously without turning the camera off for about 30min when I got a heat warning. I simply turned the camera off between takes, and it went away. Perhaps with summer coming, it’ll pop up more… but I think if you just power-down between takes, it’s probably a non-issue. Also, if you work with people who’re used to film and not HD video… they are used to a little downtime between shots.
Training guide
This camera can also roll really quickly - very useful. I can snatch shots (like the final shot) where everything just looks lovely and it wasn’t a planned take.
I have found with the higher-resolution or bigger screen (wider, so more of the 16×9 shot over more pixels), that following focus is really not so tricky. I’ve shot a few things with unpredictable movement in the past week, and just followed it myself (no separate focus puller), by just turning the lens barrel (no follow focus rig). It’s not a perfect solution. A good follow focus rig would be much easier. And a good focus-puller pulling between measured marks with actors hitting those marks would be ideal. If the actor missed the mark, a nice 7-inch monitor would be nice, with peaking, to help the focus puller. But in a non-ideal world where you’re shooting fast and light – it’s actually possible to focus just on this screen.
We knew we would be slowing down a lot of the shots to give it a sort of imaginary, light, lyrical quality (I always need slow-motion to be motivated… otherwise it’s gratuitous). So we shot most of it at 60fps (some at 50fps to see if there was a noticeable difference in the motion. Shutter mostly stuck at 125 for ‘natural’ motion blur (the whole 180 shutter thing). Some of the faster movements we experimented with higher shutter speeds. I can’t remember which ended up in the video. Jello-cam just didn’t really seem to be a problem. So long as the footage is stabilized somehow (even a hand-held stabilizer or a shoulder rig or even a picked up tripod) makes a world of difference. Quick pans or rotational instability causes horrid jello-cam… just don’t use either, and you’ll be fine. I’ve never been a fan of whip-pans anyway.
Editing… I did it before I got the FCP plugin, so I just used an MPEG Streamclip batch to convert the files to Prores 422. Then I conformed them all to 25fps in Cinema Tools, then started editing. Colouring just done in Colour (wish they’d change the name to a less common word – would help in searches. Same as Motion).
That’s about it. If anyone has any questions, I’ll get back to people when I can.
This is a short that evolved out of a camera test. The whole thing was a collaboration between Creativesunshine (a production company that specializes in movement and dance on-screen) and myself (eager to test out the new 550D). Our lovely actress: Nikita Mitchell nikitamitchell.com
So, I brought along a few nice lenses (Canon 50mm 1.4, Canon 24mm 1.4, Sigma 12-24mm). I also had a 100mm 2.8, but never used it because the other lenses gave us the coverage we needed.
I don’t have a Z-finder or an LCDVF or anything, so I was quite concerned about pulling focus and even just setting focus, but to be honest, this hadn’t proved to be a problem. Maybe the wider screen of the 550D lets you see just a little better. If I look closely, I can see if something is in/out of focus. The brightness of the screen was no problem either. It wasn’t the brightest sunny day (thin thin veil of cloud sometimes), but it was bright and the screen kept up. That said, a monitor would have been handy for the very low angle shots (we rehearsed the take, but then shot blind as I couldn’t follow the small screen at that speed).
We used ND to keep the aperture wide open… between 1.4 and 2.8 depending on the blur we wanted. We used tiffen 4×4 filters in a matte box which we just attached to the front of the lens – no support rods were necessary on the relatively short lenses. I will be buying some in the near future for flexibility though. We had a .6 and a .9. We had a couple of other filters along for the ride which we didn’t use.
The field of flowers was some park in Wimbledon… I don’t know the name and lost my bearings on the way. The patch of flowers was smaller than it looks though - clever framing makes it look bigger.
Camera movement was handled by a small skateboard dolly and a tripod and a little mini-crane or boom rather. The tracking shot of her twirling around was actually hand-held because we didn’t have time to set up the dolly again for that shot. For the boom, a monitor would have been reeaaally useful – because again, we rehearsed a few times and then shot blind. It’s impressive the results this can yield though, if you’re not too much of a control freak. I find monitors on-set can slow down a production immeasurably. Much faster work can be done with a DoP the director trusts. That’s how it was here, and the whole thing was very fast and the results are fantastic. Occasionally we’d go over a take to check it was the right idea, but generally, it went very fast.
FCP Training
The camera aided this speed - it’s actually really easy to use. After everything is set to manual, all the settings are easily changed with the Q-button, while things like aperture and ISO are easily changed as they have their own buttons. I missed the rear dial control of the 5D and 7D for about 5min. After that, I really didn’t care. I even kind of like the button approach of the 550D. It’s pretty much impossible to nudge a setting like you can do with the rear control wheel.
A kelvin white-balance would be useful, but just using the old video trick of a white-balance on something white works even better, even if it takes a second to switch to photo mode, take the photo, set the WB to that photo, then go back to video. Auto WB is surprisingly good on this camera though (though I didn’t use it on this occasion).
Camera settings wise: I just used the camera’s Neutral colour settings – none of the superflat or custom picture styles. It looked amazing straight out of the camera. I was really tempted to use it ungraded (beautiful soft look), but just added the tiniest hint of saturation, warmth and contrast to make it pop a touch more.
I didn’t run into any of the overheating issues some folks have. I don’t know if it’s because I’m using that fast Transcend 16gb class 10 SD cards… buffering is never a problem. Maybe too much buffering exacerbates the problem? Consequently I have run into a heat issue… but even then, it was surprising after reading how ‘bad’ it was. I was shooting in a dance studio. It was really hot and really humid (after a class of 30 or so had been dancing for two hours). I was shooting almost continuously without turning the camera off for about 30min when I got a heat warning. I simply turned the camera off between takes, and it went away. Perhaps with summer coming, it’ll pop up more… but I think if you just power-down between takes, it’s probably a non-issue. Also, if you work with people who’re used to film and not HD video… they are used to a little downtime between shots.
Training guide
This camera can also roll really quickly - very useful. I can snatch shots (like the final shot) where everything just looks lovely and it wasn’t a planned take.
I have found with the higher-resolution or bigger screen (wider, so more of the 16×9 shot over more pixels), that following focus is really not so tricky. I’ve shot a few things with unpredictable movement in the past week, and just followed it myself (no separate focus puller), by just turning the lens barrel (no follow focus rig). It’s not a perfect solution. A good follow focus rig would be much easier. And a good focus-puller pulling between measured marks with actors hitting those marks would be ideal. If the actor missed the mark, a nice 7-inch monitor would be nice, with peaking, to help the focus puller. But in a non-ideal world where you’re shooting fast and light – it’s actually possible to focus just on this screen.
We knew we would be slowing down a lot of the shots to give it a sort of imaginary, light, lyrical quality (I always need slow-motion to be motivated… otherwise it’s gratuitous). So we shot most of it at 60fps (some at 50fps to see if there was a noticeable difference in the motion. Shutter mostly stuck at 125 for ‘natural’ motion blur (the whole 180 shutter thing). Some of the faster movements we experimented with higher shutter speeds. I can’t remember which ended up in the video. Jello-cam just didn’t really seem to be a problem. So long as the footage is stabilized somehow (even a hand-held stabilizer or a shoulder rig or even a picked up tripod) makes a world of difference. Quick pans or rotational instability causes horrid jello-cam… just don’t use either, and you’ll be fine. I’ve never been a fan of whip-pans anyway.
Editing… I did it before I got the FCP plugin, so I just used an MPEG Streamclip batch to convert the files to Prores 422. Then I conformed them all to 25fps in Cinema Tools, then started editing. Colouring just done in Colour (wish they’d change the name to a less common word – would help in searches. Same as Motion).
That’s about it. If anyone has any questions, I’ll get back to people when I can.
DSLRs and misinformation
I see there's a lot of misinformation out there regarding DSLR cameras, specifically from video people. Generally they say things like 'the compression is terrible', and 'not broadcast quality' blah blah.
HDV for instance, is not the best quality either, and it gets used on TV (not a lot, I know). Same with footage from things like EX1s and EX3s. These people are essentially spreading stories to make people doubt the quality of these new systems that they tend to not own. They are trying to artificially create a 'pro-quality' distinction between DSLRs and their kit.
5Ds all the way down to 550Ds record with a 47megabit per second data rate. For a basic comparison of how much information there is, HDV records at either 19 or 25Mbps... about half the information! Even EX3s on the 'high quality' setting only record at 35Mbps, meaning DSLRs record on average a 3rd more data than even EX3s. Of course there are tons of cameras that record at much higher bitrates, but then we're looking at really expensive cameras. HDCAM or anything that compresses to a 4:4:4 format, or anything that records a raw image will definitely beat these cameras both in edge detail and number of line-pairs recorded. But they are significantly more expensive for very little perceptual gain in quality.
This 'pro' 'non-broadcast' stuff just annoys the hell out of me because of how blatantly untrue it is. H.264 doesn't make 'square blocks' on a high-resolution monitor. I've checked both on my 24' full HD screen and a £20,000 Cinetal colour grading monitor. It's nonsense.
You might have heard 'House MD' recently shot an entire episode on 5Ds? Don't tell me that the top people working on the top show in the world would shoot on something that was 'not broadcast quality'.
All that misinformation aside; there ARE issues with these cameras. It's too easy to set high shutter speeds, so people tend to slip-up and record jerky motion. It does have a problem with moire - creating strange swimming patterns with thinly-spaced repeating lines (stripy shirts, brick walls etc.). But note that this problem is not limited to DSLRs, all video cameras get it to a point. 10 years ago, it was just a rule... moire happens, shoot around it. Now at least we can throw backgrounds a tiny bit out of focus to avoid it. Aliasing (stepping on diagonal straight lines) is also a problem... but not much of a problem at 1080p. It is a more significant problem at 720p. Buy a cheap camera (550D) and buy an L-lens with the difference you saved on a 7D. When Canon eventually release a video-optimised camera based on a larger sensor, you'll sell your 550D for a fraction, and still have the good lens. If the lens doesn't fit, L-lenses have good resale value. Win win.
Just my thoughts on what's real and what is misinformation. If I'm significantly mistaken about any aspect of this, let me know – mistakes are where we learn.
HDV for instance, is not the best quality either, and it gets used on TV (not a lot, I know). Same with footage from things like EX1s and EX3s. These people are essentially spreading stories to make people doubt the quality of these new systems that they tend to not own. They are trying to artificially create a 'pro-quality' distinction between DSLRs and their kit.
5Ds all the way down to 550Ds record with a 47megabit per second data rate. For a basic comparison of how much information there is, HDV records at either 19 or 25Mbps... about half the information! Even EX3s on the 'high quality' setting only record at 35Mbps, meaning DSLRs record on average a 3rd more data than even EX3s. Of course there are tons of cameras that record at much higher bitrates, but then we're looking at really expensive cameras. HDCAM or anything that compresses to a 4:4:4 format, or anything that records a raw image will definitely beat these cameras both in edge detail and number of line-pairs recorded. But they are significantly more expensive for very little perceptual gain in quality.
This 'pro' 'non-broadcast' stuff just annoys the hell out of me because of how blatantly untrue it is. H.264 doesn't make 'square blocks' on a high-resolution monitor. I've checked both on my 24' full HD screen and a £20,000 Cinetal colour grading monitor. It's nonsense.
You might have heard 'House MD' recently shot an entire episode on 5Ds? Don't tell me that the top people working on the top show in the world would shoot on something that was 'not broadcast quality'.
All that misinformation aside; there ARE issues with these cameras. It's too easy to set high shutter speeds, so people tend to slip-up and record jerky motion. It does have a problem with moire - creating strange swimming patterns with thinly-spaced repeating lines (stripy shirts, brick walls etc.). But note that this problem is not limited to DSLRs, all video cameras get it to a point. 10 years ago, it was just a rule... moire happens, shoot around it. Now at least we can throw backgrounds a tiny bit out of focus to avoid it. Aliasing (stepping on diagonal straight lines) is also a problem... but not much of a problem at 1080p. It is a more significant problem at 720p. Buy a cheap camera (550D) and buy an L-lens with the difference you saved on a 7D. When Canon eventually release a video-optimised camera based on a larger sensor, you'll sell your 550D for a fraction, and still have the good lens. If the lens doesn't fit, L-lenses have good resale value. Win win.
Just my thoughts on what's real and what is misinformation. If I'm significantly mistaken about any aspect of this, let me know – mistakes are where we learn.
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