Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

First RED Shoot - Retrograde

Cody Cuellar

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
71
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Website
www.redskypictures.com
Hey everyone,
So I've just wrapped my first RED shoot. It was a short film which we submitted to The Doorpost Film Project last week. I produced and DPed the shoot and raised enough money ($5,000) for the entire shoot and got to use RED finally. I spent a good day getting grips with the camera, settings, and features, and then shot the whole film over two days.

I used Zeiss Super Speed glass and was fairly happy with them for the most part until I started realizing how bad they started to bloom when opened up all the way. Since I was shooting mostly 120FPS, I went with the 16mm format prime set. I didn't realize the severity of the softness/blooming until the second day, after half the film had wrapped, so a few of the shots suffer from the softness. I'm not sure which model they were, but they were the ones that had the triangular Bokeh. I'm not sure I liked that much and will next time either try Ultras or a the hexagonal 35mm format set of Supers (or if budget permits, Cooke S4s).

The whole film was a one month turnaround from pre-production to submission in order to make it into the competition. I'm overall very happy with the results of the project and am excited to see how it does in the competition. I've posted some stills from the shoot. Let me know what you think and give me tips and insight on my lighting/cinematography.

My grip/gaffer was the only one on set getting paid and was giving me the worst attitude and was completely not helpful and would just complain and not do what I was asking for a lot of the shoot. I would have been happier w/ the project had my grip not gone all bi-polar on me. I've really learned the importance of having a good grip that you get along with! I'll never make that mistake again (although he seemed really cool before the shoot). It makes it very difficult to get the lighting you want when pressed for time when you don't have someone happily doing what you need them to do.

Anyway, feedback on the stills would be great, thanks!

More stills can be found at http://s972.photobucket.com/albums/ae205/iceblueorbitz/Retrograde%20Stills/
 

Attachments

  • Ambulance-INT-Reverse.jpg
    Ambulance-INT-Reverse.jpg
    66.6 KB · Views: 0
  • Ambulance-Int.jpg
    Ambulance-Int.jpg
    57.4 KB · Views: 0
  • Bedroom-Wide.jpg
    Bedroom-Wide.jpg
    47.1 KB · Views: 0
  • Check-Jay's-Eyes.jpg
    Check-Jay's-Eyes.jpg
    57.5 KB · Views: 0
  • Money-Shot.jpg
    Money-Shot.jpg
    57.4 KB · Views: 0
Colors look rich and saturated with a nice feel to them, lighting looks on the money, good result all in all, not bad for a first project...
 
Thanks Rudi! I forgot to add - we were extremely fortunate to have the project professionally color corrected on a Baselight system at Prime Focus Studios, Hollywood by the lead colorist Bryan McMahan. And another question I have is what have you guys seen as a benefit of having a DIT on set? I did not have the budget for one, so I did all camera set-up and media management, but what have you guys gained by having a DIT on set?
 
Our film was accepted into the 2010 Doorpost Film Competition as a Merited film! We're now in the running to advance to round two, which would mean writing a new script. The top 5 scripts each get funded $40,000 to make that film. Anyway, check out the full short film at http://www.thedoorpost.com/hope/retrograde and let me know what you think. I want some real harsh feedback on the cinematography. I haven't heard any constructive criticism yet, and I'm only trying to get better, so lay it on me!
 
Back
Top