Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

Our new short "Best If Used By..."

Christopher Barrett

Christopher Barrett

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 30, 2010
Messages
1,518
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
Chicago
Website
christopherbarrett.net
While I was out in Hollywood at Reducation last May, I happened to meet a couple writers / actors who were also from Chicago, Aemilia Scott & Ed Flynn. They hit me up a few months ago after finishing the script for a short called Best If Used By. It's a dark comedy about a woman who doesn't know quite how to say goodbye to her recently departed boyfriend.


The script was awesome. Our crew was awesome. Performances were beyond awesome. We had a friggin awesome time. Shot over 6 days... mostly in either a grocer's back cooler or outside in freezing Chicago.


Stills below...

BIUB_Still_001.jpg


BIUB_Still_002.jpg


BIUB_Still_003.jpg


BIUB_Still_004.jpg


BIUB_Still_005.jpg


BIUB_Still_006.jpg


BIUB_Still_007.jpg


BIUB_Still_008.jpg


BIUB_Still_013.jpg


BIUB_Still_009.jpg


BIUB_Still_010.jpg


BIUB_Still_016.jpg


BIUB_Still_011.jpg


BIUB_Still_012.jpg


BIUB_Still_015.jpg


BIUB_Still_014.jpg



A Cam my Epic, B Cam on my R1. ISO 1250. Cooke Panchro/i lenses (usually around T4).... except... house with christmas lights + car at night was on Leica R Summilux 35mm @ T 1.4
CB
 
Seems the look is a perfect match for the story's tone... really well done.
 
Christopher the stills look great. I look forward to seeing the short.
 
These look great Christopher. Looking forward to seeing it and what you do with the grade! =]
 
Great work. That looks fantastic Christopher. Color and night shots are awesome!
 
I had the Allstar mount on my R1, and really liked it... but wanted to be able to use my Canon Glass on the Epic, so I'm just using the PL and Canon mounts. I like the Leitax adapters on the Leica R's (great stuff!). I swapped mounts out in the back of my truck because I knew I'd need more speed than the Panchro's 2.8 for that one shot.

We totally lucked out on locations...
 
Really nice looking grabs Christopher. Subtle and effective. Just a quick question if you don't mind. How'd you guys tackle audio on the project? I need to pick up some "big boy" audio gear real soon and curious what people are finding success with on projects like this.
 
Very, very nice pictures, Christopher! Looks like a very emotional story.

Phil Holland said:
Really nice looking grabs Christopher. Subtle and effective. Just a quick question if you don't mind. How'd you guys tackle audio on the project? I need to pick up some "big boy" audio gear real soon and curious what people are finding success with on projects like this.
Click to expand...
Uh, you can always hire a pro who already owns lots of gear...
 
Chris, very nice work! I am curious to know if you went for a "Look" in camera or if you just white balanced in a certain way? Or are these touched up in post? I really appreciate the look you achieved, very nice.


Phil, fwiw,in ascending order, I am a fan of:

The Zoom

this from Tascam:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/404262-REG/Tascam_HD_P2_HD_P2_Portable_Stereo_CF.html

And then this badboy is what I am looking to purchase next:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...evices_702_702_High_Resolution_2_Channel.html
 
Jeff is right... The Sound Devices 702 is a great piece of gear. Records pristine audio to CF card and can pass audio through to my Epic via the Wooden Camera A-box. Rode NTG-3 shotgun on a K-Tek boom finishes the nice trio of audio gear...

Good stuff Christopher.
 
The Low Down...

I did scouting shots with the director at the main location and brought out the Epic and Cookes. Back at the ranch I balanced out the footage to neutral... the sodiums in the store coming out to about 4250k -15 tint. Then I set up all my different light sources and hung a grey card on the wall... played with different gels until I got as close as possible to the location's ambient color balance.... 1/2 CTO Plus Green on the HMI's, 1/4 CTB Plus Green on the Dedos and lamped the Kinos 3daylight : 1tungsten and threw green on them too. This all gave me a really consistent ground zero. I set the color balance on the Epic and R1 to 4250k -15 tint (I think the R1 would only do 4280 maybe). All the footage looked really clean on monitor.

We used a lot of available light, the soft overheads really lending a nice heaviness to the overall feel. Grip kept putting low Kinos just under camera to fill the shadows and I kept turning them off. Our lighting kit consisted of a couple Joker Bug 800s, 3 Kinos and a half dozen Dedos. These were really all used for accents.

After the shoot, the director and I sat at my Mac really fine tuning all the color in RCX before outputting ProRes for her to edit (my Wave panel made this fly). She really wanted a garish, saturated look in the store. I wanted a soft green feel to the cooler, we used blues in other areas to keep it somber, left the hospital mostly neutral and let the night exteriors remain naturally green/orange. The grip and I had a drawn out argument over whether this one Joker on the night exterior behind the grocery store should be gelled green or orange. I won of course :)

As for tonality... I brought all the really deep blacks down to zero but didn't crush anything. I lifted the hilights to nearly clipping and applied a soft S-Curve to the mid tones. RC2 / RG2 on everything.

We had an amazing crew who donated their time... 6 days on a brutal shoot. 4 were overnights (8pm -7am) and we were almost always in freezing environments.

If you ever need a high end sound guy in Chicago, hire Mario Coletta at Chicago Sound. I believe he had a 788T nestled in his monster sound cart.

I loved having timecode audio and I'm actually looking at either the 702T or 744T for my smaller productions.

This was so much fun! It's my second narrative fiction piece and I'm totally hooked! And it seems my niche is dark comedies written and directed by women.... LoL.

Ton o crappy iPhone BTS here.

The FaceBook Page. Like It! Like it NOW!

Thanks for all the comments!
CB
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top