dino g
Well-known member
As many of you know on this forum, I have done 5 complete movies with Chivo and 2 others partially and many many commercials. I do not consider myself his only DIT, but for sure one that has had a lot of experience working with the man. What you may not know is that it was RED that hooked me up initially with him and as such I have tried to pay back by sharing what i have learned working with him over the years, how he has pushed the technology and made this camera more useable. remember if chivo did not take a chance with red in 2007, david fincher would not be using it most likely as he was the one that pushed david to use it and we all know what happened as result of that. many of chivo and davids great ideas were incorporated in the very fabric of epic/dragon and the workflow.
first if you do not know, he is a great man beyond the craft. a kind and funny man that spends much of the down time on set telling extremely funny stories about his experiences. it is quite a good time. so I will share with you all, on the night after the celebration of best picture and best cinematography some facts about birdman and how it almost went EPIC/Dragon.
In 2012 we did three movies with terrence malick, Knight of Cups, Voyage of time and one that does not have a title, (well not publicly anyway). Doing a terrence malick movie is like showing up to a big rehearsal room with an instrument that you are proficient on and sitting down with other artists that have brought their instruments and everyone just jams for 8 -10 hours. terry and chivo are the leaders of this jazz band and everyone follows their lead. it is at the same time maddening, exhilarating, painful and pleasurable. what it is not is structured. what birdman is, is structure to the nth degree. so in order to pull off the feat of a one shot, one lens movie, an extraordinary amount of time needs to be dedicated to contemplating every single second of the movie. moreover, that process can not be done with standins and substitutes. it must involve the real deal people and the real tools.
so after chivo does 2 back to back malick movies, has a bit of a rest for the holidays, strings togethers some commercials, then he is off on the voyage of birdman. the tag line was the unexpected virtue of ignorance, but it should have been called, the opposite of malick. inside/outside, lights/the sun, 1 shot/5,000 shots, choreographed narrative ensemble/unscripted semi controlled chaos. to watch chivo literally do a 180 turn on a dime for the third time, < in my experience> - ( tree of life & to the wonder then 180 to gravity then 180 to KOC & Project V then 180 to birdman) was surreal. how this genius can wrap his head around such diametrically opposed methodologies is truly inspiring.
I get a call from chivo asking me to help them with birdman. he tells me they are going to shoot in LA, it will be one shot and that they need to rehearse for a few weeks before the start and they want to evaluate cameras. chivo knows from experience that from time to time i am able to get in touch with jim and jarred and present a case for accelerated beta-testing. we did it with epic and to the wonder ( besides pirates, we were the first to have an epic outside of RSH when I took two to paris in nov of 2010 in a very hush hush super secret mission).
here are some shots of someone you may recognize with one of those cameras, note the Red31 accessories...Dec. 05, 2010 Mt St Michel, France.
so here we were feb of 2013, dragon on the horizon, but no definitive date. chivo wanted to go dragon for the dynamic range and size, but, will it be done in time?...a series of meetings and phone calls and 1,000's of emails resulted in the reality of dragon not being available in time for an late march early april shoot. however i can assure you that the entire movie was shot with an epic with the real actors in an undisclosed location to prove out the concept, so even though that version was only a rough draft, it does exist under lock and key and most likely will never see the light of day.
the bottom line is that a red camera was used in the run up to the feature production. it was essential at the very beginning because of the scope of work and the shortness of time. the takes were long, the epic was configured in a light weight form factor and the camera performed as it was designed. not sure there was an alternative at the time.
here are some bad, unfocused, hurried cell phone shots of the camera March 14, 2013
notice the lines on the floor and the pipe and drape...that was the theatre...
chivo and alejandro and the actors worked hard and it paid off last night. it was an unbelievable experience, so powerful and inspiring to watch them all work, one could imagine that it was going to be a big hit. i want to use this public forum to thank them for letting me be involved even if it was only for a brief amount of time. when you think about that movie redusers, know that your tool of choice had a hand at making it work.
shout out to mark bain and tyler geckner-zoeller for helping me configure the camera and help make it happen, also otto nemez and robert keslow.
enjoy,
dino
first if you do not know, he is a great man beyond the craft. a kind and funny man that spends much of the down time on set telling extremely funny stories about his experiences. it is quite a good time. so I will share with you all, on the night after the celebration of best picture and best cinematography some facts about birdman and how it almost went EPIC/Dragon.
In 2012 we did three movies with terrence malick, Knight of Cups, Voyage of time and one that does not have a title, (well not publicly anyway). Doing a terrence malick movie is like showing up to a big rehearsal room with an instrument that you are proficient on and sitting down with other artists that have brought their instruments and everyone just jams for 8 -10 hours. terry and chivo are the leaders of this jazz band and everyone follows their lead. it is at the same time maddening, exhilarating, painful and pleasurable. what it is not is structured. what birdman is, is structure to the nth degree. so in order to pull off the feat of a one shot, one lens movie, an extraordinary amount of time needs to be dedicated to contemplating every single second of the movie. moreover, that process can not be done with standins and substitutes. it must involve the real deal people and the real tools.
so after chivo does 2 back to back malick movies, has a bit of a rest for the holidays, strings togethers some commercials, then he is off on the voyage of birdman. the tag line was the unexpected virtue of ignorance, but it should have been called, the opposite of malick. inside/outside, lights/the sun, 1 shot/5,000 shots, choreographed narrative ensemble/unscripted semi controlled chaos. to watch chivo literally do a 180 turn on a dime for the third time, < in my experience> - ( tree of life & to the wonder then 180 to gravity then 180 to KOC & Project V then 180 to birdman) was surreal. how this genius can wrap his head around such diametrically opposed methodologies is truly inspiring.
I get a call from chivo asking me to help them with birdman. he tells me they are going to shoot in LA, it will be one shot and that they need to rehearse for a few weeks before the start and they want to evaluate cameras. chivo knows from experience that from time to time i am able to get in touch with jim and jarred and present a case for accelerated beta-testing. we did it with epic and to the wonder ( besides pirates, we were the first to have an epic outside of RSH when I took two to paris in nov of 2010 in a very hush hush super secret mission).
here are some shots of someone you may recognize with one of those cameras, note the Red31 accessories...Dec. 05, 2010 Mt St Michel, France.
so here we were feb of 2013, dragon on the horizon, but no definitive date. chivo wanted to go dragon for the dynamic range and size, but, will it be done in time?...a series of meetings and phone calls and 1,000's of emails resulted in the reality of dragon not being available in time for an late march early april shoot. however i can assure you that the entire movie was shot with an epic with the real actors in an undisclosed location to prove out the concept, so even though that version was only a rough draft, it does exist under lock and key and most likely will never see the light of day.
the bottom line is that a red camera was used in the run up to the feature production. it was essential at the very beginning because of the scope of work and the shortness of time. the takes were long, the epic was configured in a light weight form factor and the camera performed as it was designed. not sure there was an alternative at the time.
here are some bad, unfocused, hurried cell phone shots of the camera March 14, 2013
notice the lines on the floor and the pipe and drape...that was the theatre...
chivo and alejandro and the actors worked hard and it paid off last night. it was an unbelievable experience, so powerful and inspiring to watch them all work, one could imagine that it was going to be a big hit. i want to use this public forum to thank them for letting me be involved even if it was only for a brief amount of time. when you think about that movie redusers, know that your tool of choice had a hand at making it work.
shout out to mark bain and tyler geckner-zoeller for helping me configure the camera and help make it happen, also otto nemez and robert keslow.
enjoy,
dino
