LOL - online teen drama series

[ricforster]

Have just shot the two latest episodes of my web drama series "LOL" on the Red One.

Episode 4 is up on the website:
http://www.lolseries.com
and Vimeo:
http://www.vimeo.com/4050236

Previous eps (and hence the recap) were shot on Sony HDC-1500's, recording to XDCAM HD 1440 x 1080p. This was my first time shooting on the Red but I think the quality is great and a definate step up. We used the Zeiss SLR lenses.

Would love to hear what you guys think - cheers.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Looks like a lot of hard work went into this, Ric. How has the response been?

That Jaz girl looks little bit like LC from The Hills.

 

[Tolin]

Looks like an online version of Skins

 

[ricforster]

Cheers guys. Yes - I suppose it is a bit like Skins!

The response has been good on the whole. There are some teenage fans of it keen to see more, so that's been really cool.

We had some issues with the Red when shooting night scenes. Was unfortunately pretty underexposed and when I pushed the footage in post I got some nasty vertical lines in the grain. Thankfully, a little plugin called NeatVideo has smoothed a lot of it out. I will dig out some before and after pictures.

We did another shoot this past weekend, again with the Zeiss lenses. It was a very minimal lighting setup but still, in my opinion, looks great. It's amazing what this camera can do!

 

[ricforster]

More stills:

 

[Obin Olson]

nice bro

 

[ricforster]

update on LOL

update on LOL

So this project was completed last year, shooting 20 episodes in total. Approx 4 mins each. Episodes at www.lolseries.com

Thought I'd share a few more frame grabs from our RED footage. Shooting on this camera gave me so many options.

Most of the footage was lit with minimal / available light, and I think the sensor really shines in the outdoor scenes. Gave us tons more production value, way beyond the budget.

Thanks to the RED team and North Yorkshire Camera Hire!

A few different DOPs worked on the grabs below - James Nolan, Adam Etherington and Andrew Litt

Grabs resized in Photoshop - a few with slight colour correction / added contrast.

Really looking forward to shooting my first feature on this camera, hopefully later this year.

 

[ricforster]

More frame grabs:

 

[ricforster]

And even more...

 

[ricforster]

Final bunch...

 

[Peter Mosiman]

nice stuff bro. looking forward to checking out the show tomorrow

 

[ricforster]

Cheers Peter. Be great to hear what you think of the show - and see if you notice the change in cameras! Some of the first eps are XDCAM...

Need to get it online in full 1080p, but my Macbook is struggling with the larger proxies!

 

[Cail Young]

FYI Ric, the vertical lines thing is a black balance issue 99% of the time - can be tough to see on the set, though.

 

[ricforster]

Thanks Cail, good to know - I'll look out for that next time.