Gravity Defying - Skate Video

[Mitch Martinez]

Hi All,

http://vimeo.com/13559206

I shot my first semi-pro skateboarder recently at FDR skate park in Philadelphia.


Feedback and comments are greatly welcomed. Cheers!

Screengrabs:

http://vimeo.com/13559206

 

[J.K.Dibbets]

Nice footage man. Although I wish you could have captured your close ups with some longer lenses. Your close ups where pretty rad though. But this would have been awsome to make use of dof here. Sometimes you see people use it way to fast but in some shots it felt like a missed opportunity, you feel so too? Sometimes shallow and sometimes deep like in your wide shots.

Also some grading didn't match from cut to cut. Which is no critic, just wonder why. Because of the different glass maybe or was it a choice? example: from 0:31 to 0:32 it just skips to something different. From 0:32 to 0:34 it looks entirely different too me at least.

But it was very much fun and energetic to watch.

 

[Mitch Martinez]

Hi JK,

The shoot itself was super run & gun so to do close ups with long lenses when the skater was really moving fast in the time crunch we had to shoot it in simply wasn't in the cards. Those shots definitely could be nice.

For the color, this was used as a test for working with CS5 for me. I've been with FCP since 2003 - so I was trying it out with Premiere to see how it all worked. If I had to do it again, I'm sure I'd do it differently (and better). I worked directly with the r3d files in the Premiere timeline instead of transcoding via Red CineX. I could have done a lot better job matching color temps if I had.

Also, the environment itself had some color temp shifts between the hard sunlight shots and then the varying shadows under the I95 bridge.

All in all, I'm happy with it for what it is. Glad you liked it and thanks for checking it out! If I shoot skateboarding footage again, I'm sure it'll be even better next time. Learn from each experience.

Cheers!

 

[Brian Timmons]

Nice shooting and cutting Mitch.

It's nice to see 2K footage looking this nice.
Sometimes I get scared shooting at that res because of it's
relative softness and compression artifacts.

This footage looks quite nice though.

Did you see a big difference in image quality
between the RED 18-50 and the 10mm S16 Angenieux?

Again nice work.

Brian Timmons
britim-media

 

[J.K.Dibbets]

Hey Mitch. Really really cool man. I understand your reasons, thank you for the explaination. It looked really good btw...the fact that you manage to use this gear in skating is a great thing in itself. And that your figuring out the absolute best way to make full use of it's quality...respect! I would love an adobe cs5 workflow also. I'm sure not many people will ever directly feel the minor minor difference between shots (and maybe even enjoy that), that's the cool thing about posting this stuff on such a profesionally targetted forum. Thnx.

 

[Mitch Martinez]

Sometimes I get scared shooting at that res because of it's relative softness and compression artifacts. This footage looks quite nice though.

Did you see a big difference in image quality between the RED 18-50 and the 10mm S16 Angenieux?

Here are my thoughts... don't be scared to shoot 2k - but when you shoot 2k, have a reason to do so.

For me, that reason will pretty much always be the overcranking shots at 120fps. With that, I usually try to go for a higher shutter speed which might help with the perceived sharpness even though the pixels are no more (or less) sharp than at 1/48. There's also a good chance with a lot of the slow motion shots I do in 2k might be outdoors with a stopped down lens - which can also help since a bunch of glass out there can go soft when the aperture is all the way open. If you want to see more samples of 2k footage I shot, check out the "Caress" and the swimming video that's on my vimeo page. www.vimeo.com/stamphill/videos

All in all, give it a shot and see what you think.

For the Red 18-50 and the Angenieux S16, the one thing that I'm majorly not crazy about is the fact that the 10mm Angenieux is a fixed focus lens. It's supposed to be so wide that even at a fully open aperture that everything is in focus... From what I've seen, that might not be entirely accurate. Wide DOF = yes, but I would LOVE to have a focus ring on that lens. Still, for the price I paid on ebay it's well worth it when I need a really wide shot in 2k. It's wider than I could ever get with a 35mm or S35mm lens since the 2k is cropping in on the 4.5k sensor. The image quality definitely okay for me and they cut well together between the RED lens and the Angenieux. I can post some comparison shots from a single position shot with the two lenses. The Angenieux performed great and I really liked the lens flare it got as the skater was going around the circle.

The 18-50 lens, I still love with all my heart and hope to keep it in my kit for a good amount of time. With the exception of the 17-50 lens that came out well after I bought the 18-50, we'd be hard pressed to find a better cine zoom (or variable prime) for the price.

 

[C. Jagan Mohan]

Nice work.