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  • 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 :)

Need For Speed: Undercover

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Brook Willard

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I don't bother making many footage posts, but this one's unusual enough to make it worthy.

All shot in 4K 16:9 at 29.97fps. There's a LOT of aggressive grading over the top to make it look more like video/a video game.

Here's the trailer.

Jeff Seckendorf DP'd it... all tungsten with an 80B. Great looking stuff, very dramatic.

The car candy was outrageous.
 
That's really cool looking stuff Brook.

Curious about shooting at 29.97. Was the whole spot 29.97? Is that more standard for video games vs. 24fps? What was their reasoning? It's interesting to see stuff that dramatic and aggressively graded at 29.97.
 
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I'll need to get clearance before I go into any specifics, but it wasn't an ad as much as the narrative portion of the video game. High budget, very high production value.

As I understand it, the 29.97 decision was based on the fact that video games generally render at 60p. I'd speculate that it'll help visually tie the game to the narrative.
 
Ah very cool, thanks Brook. I agree 29.97 didn't look bad! :)

Definitely a 'new' look for narrative work - right in line with Jim Cameron's 48fps.
 
Need For Speed

Need For Speed

Here are a few more details on the Need For Speed shoot.

The initial concept was that we shoot the narrative elements and that narrative would then inform what the game will look like. EA provided basic reference footage to the director, Joseph Hodges, then he designed sets and I designed light to push that as far as we could go. At first the idea was we would shoot it all very flat and EA would process it to make it look like the game, but as we moved forward it became clearer that we could shoot exactly what we thought the game should look like, and then post would have to do very little work, and that's pretty much what happened.

We created a graded cut of all the edited narrative elements and delivered that as a 720 QT color reference. We also delivered dpx files in raw color, which the VFX house then matched to the reference and added their spin, the slight color shifts, some flaring, etc. The car footage, which is all CGI, will match the narrative.

EA's initial delivery requirement was a 720p edited master. After testing a few various HD options, including the Genesis, I offered up the Red (having no experience with it). As soon as the folks at EA heard we could deliver them a 4k project, it became a no-brainer.

The 29.97 was an EA requirement, which did create a few headaches in post that Plaster City dealt with really well. I shot 1/48 shutter speed, and that helped ease the 29fps look a lot.

The 80B filter test was simple...we tested all the 80's thru 82 and chose the one that was the best trade off for reducing noise vs stop loss. I'm looking forward to doing some more extensive tests with the blue filters, but basically I just treated it as if I got stuck with a boatload of daylight film.

I didn't do extensive lens test, but we did look at all the usual suspects. I ended up choosing the oldest set of Zeiss primes that I could find at Keslow Camera and then took two new Angenieux zooms. Although the color didn't match between the primes and the zooms, the contrast was pretty close. We did a few shots with the Red short zoom, but nothing that had to match into the primary footage. I'm looking forward to testing the old Cooke Speed Panchros, as I think they'd be a great match for the camera.

None of my camera crew had any prior experience with the Red and they all did an amazing job. Dan Turrett and Dave Richert operated, Jay Levy and Bobby Brown pulled focus. As you can tell from the OP, Brook managed the files. My old friend Eric Mofford produced and put the team together.

We shot three cameras, with two running pretty much on every shot. Although there were a few small glitches, they basically ran fine for the week. We were forced to use the drives because we shot 29.97.

The theatrical trailer is in theaters nationally this month, and the game will be released in mid-November. Look for an article about the project in the October issue of American Cinematographer.

Overall, a very fun project.

Jeff Seckendorf
Director of Photography
www.snaproll.com
 
Hey Jeff,
Good to see you here on the Reduser board. I still have fond memories of taking a course in Maine from you (about 12 years ago!). It was great fun and challenging...and I learned a lot from you that I still use today. Eric is an old college bud of mine. Say hi for me.
Ken Willinger
 
Don't really know how old, but they were standard speed 2.1's. Much nicer than the speeds. Everything new looked too contrasty.

Jeff

Matt Garrett said:
the Cooke Speed Panchros are indeed beautiful on the red.
What was the oldest set of zeiss they had?
Click to expand...
 
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