Two New Reality Tests on the RED...

[Biagio Messina]

Edited together two more mini-scenes from our initial tests with the RED:

http://www.jokeandbiagio.com/scream...anedra-and-casting-director-dana-lynne-tomsic

These were shot in the same fashion Adam talks about here:

http://reduser.net/forum/showpost.php?p=464198&postcount=2

These early tests proved to us a DP like Adam could go on a long lens and roll his own focus.

My color correction was rather hasty, but for me the real gold is in the shallow DOF. To be able to pull focus between two people sitting about 24 inches apart, while standing 5 feet away, I think is pretty awesome.

Thanks for having a look,
Biagio

 

[Rakesh Jacob]

Looks great! The focus pulls are scary good

 

[Ace]

Biagio, I would be inclined to say it looks great, but to be perfectly honest, when I see 35mm shallow depth of field photography I tend to think scripted narrative and not quirky reality TV.. But Im sure the videoish visual language we're accustomed to seeing wears off once we get into it. But it looks a bit too good, or maybe the focus pulling is a bit deliberate and distracting or maybe it needs a deeper DOF... I guess once you start putting on the funny music it may seem different.

I always had a hard time percieving shows like "Laguna Beach: The real OC" as "real" simply because they looked too good. So yeh. Id feel more comfortable watching this genre with a deeper DOF for the main parts, and the shallow stuff can be left for the more intimate CU shots.

 

[Liam Hall]

The VF is great, so self pulling is no problem, shooting run and gun with a fully rigged Red One - particularly with a zoom - is quite another thing. Still, beats going down the gym

 

[Biagio Messina]

Thanks for your comments, guys!

@Rakesh, yeah, Adam was channeling his focus pulling from some other dimension. I don't know how he does it. He just "lands" it...great, but obviously requires a lot of skill.

@Ace...this is a really good point and something I have to consider. I do think some shows would probably suffer from an "over-cinematic" look. What I'm hoping to do is find the right documentary series or docusoap that can handle a more movie-like approach. I do agree that an extremely "real" show like a Cops or Repo Men would probably feel totally wrong shot in this style. But I'm hoping a lot of docusoaps that strive to feel "nearly" scripted (especially the ones that aren't scripted but just shot well) could benefit.

@Liam No kidding! I applaud him for running around with that thing on his shoulder!

More tests on the way, and eventually I plan to have a big blog post about all of our experimentation with the RED for doc/reality style shooting.

Best,
Biagio