Pre-colonial Zulu television drama series

[Justus de Jager]

*EDIT*

Below is a clip of the screen grabs I posted earlier:

https://vimeo.com/386135976


I am currently blessed enough to be DP'ing an epic Pre-colonial Zulu drama series.
Unfortunately this will be for local release in South Africa only.

Shot on my Epic Dragon at 6K with Zeiss Superspeeds. Below are some ungraded images (new screenshots added)

 

[Dominik Muench]

amazing work !!!

 

[Andy White]

As always, it looks great!

Amazing that it's without a grade... I like the look

Shame we won't see it (in the UK) -but maybe Netflix will pick it up (they seem to be having a lot of non US/UK stuff at the moment).

Anyway, I digress - excellent work, post moving footage/trailers etc when you can. Makes me wish to get back into live action again - currently stuck in CGI animated projects... I will escape soon! LOL

 

[Kristin Stewart]

Wonderful work ! Why no international release ?

 

[Nick Morrison]

Dude looks sick! What ISO you shooting at? And with what OLPF?

 

[Akin A]

Great stills!

 

[Justus de Jager]

amazing work !!!

Thank you Dominik!

 

[Justus de Jager]

As always, it looks great!

Amazing that it's without a grade... I like the look

Shame we won't see it (in the UK) -but maybe Netflix will pick it up (they seem to be having a lot of non US/UK stuff at the moment).

Anyway, I digress - excellent work, post moving footage/trailers etc when you can. Makes me wish to get back into live action again - currently stuck in CGI animated projects... I will escape soon! LOL

Thank you Andy! I always appreciate your feedback.

Regards

J

 

[Justus de Jager]

Wonderful work ! Why no international release ?

Thank you very much Kristin.

Not any that I know of currently but maybe they have plans to do so in the future

Kind regards

Justus

 

[Justus de Jager]

Dude looks sick! What ISO you shooting at? And with what OLPF?

Hey Nick.

Thanks man! Hope all is well in your world

I hardly ever shoot without the standard OLPF. Haven’t used any other on this project. My ISO pretty much would be 500, 640, 800.
Very few occasions Have I gone outside those. Also using quarter Hollywood black magic from time to time

Regards

Justus

 

[Patrick Acum]

Ungraded! Looks epic already! I'd be interested to hear more about your lighting for night time exterior set ups

 

[Nick Morrison]

Hey Nick.

Thanks man! Hope all is well in your world

I hardly ever shoot without the standard OLPF. Haven’t used any other on this project. My ISO pretty much would be 500, 640, 800.
Very few occasions Have I gone outside those. Also using quarter Hollywood black magic from time to time

Regards

Justus

Looking great dude. Amazing stuff.

 

[Justus de Jager]

Ungraded! Looks epic already! I'd be interested to hear more about your lighting for night time exterior set ups

Thanks Patrick.

It’s been a tough ride this far in regards to the night shoots. Our schedule is super packed and we are literally shooting 10 to 12 pages per day. The environment is also super tough. I made a point of lighting very lightly, using smoke to light up the night and just a light fill on the actors and then use the actual fires as the key light. It becomes super laborious at times but we have hav no time to have big lighting set ups. I would typically have my only 6K HMI with CTO and a diffusion frame or bounce placed somewhere in the far back between trees, lighting back towards camera around 45 degrees just enough to edge out the actors and pump the background with haze. Then i’d Use a closer side fill 2.5K HMI bounce on a poly side on to the actors and ask them to carry the torches on the other side...haha.anyways, it’s been an interesting journey and we never have time to think about it or re light it.

One thing I noticed is that I do prefer warming up the HMI’s quite a bit. I’m not a fan of that electric blue moonlight I see so often, and I tend to shoot the camera around 3800K at least if not 4000K here and there and I try to get enough exposure to use an IR6 or so in front of the lens. But that is not always possible.

Kind regards

Justus

 

[Justus de Jager]

Looking great dude. Amazing stuff.

Thanks man, I really appreciate it!

 

[Neil Abeynayake]

Whoa...... this is beautiful work Justus. What many people do not know is, it is not so easy to get these kinds of skin tones from people of African or dark skinned Asian origin. It is not the cinematographer's fault as much but the sensor and color science is calibrated to Caucasian skin tones. So, it is the experience and attention to detail of the DP that makes content look this good. As we can see here Justus had done this with his knowledge, experience and grace.

Thanks for sharing. If you happen to have some free time on your busy schedule, adding a few lines of how each shot was achieved would add more value to your post.

Good luck on your series.

 

[Justus de Jager]

Whoa...... this is beautiful work Justus. What many people do not know is, it is not so easy to get these kinds of skin tones from people of African or dark skinned Asian origin. It is not the cinematographer's fault as much but the sensor and color science is calibrated to Caucasian skin tones. So, it is the experience and attention to detail of the DP that makes content look this good. As we can see here Justus had done this with his knowledge, experience and grace.

Thanks for sharing. If you happen to have some free time on your busy schedule, adding a few lies of how each shot was achieved would add more value to your post.

Good luck on your series.

Thank you for the kind words Neil. Very much appreciated!

Kind regards

Justus

 

[Justus de Jager]

Some new screen grabs added

 

[Andy White]

Some new screen grabs added

Looks excellent

Who needs a grade, I like the look of the shots as they are.

 

[Justus de Jager]

Amazing grabs Keep going !

Thanks Arvydas!

 

[Justus de Jager]

Looks excellent

Who needs a grade, I like the look of the shots as they are.

Thank you again Andy!!