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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 :)

RED MX with Lomo Anamorphics - ALL MINE Little Red

D'Arcy Foley-Dawson

D'Arcy Foley-Dawson

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Music Video for Australian band Little Red. RED MX with Lomo Anamorphics, photographed by Jeremy Rouse. RED MX Kit provided by RED Camera Hire in Melbourne Australia, thanks to Chris Lansell.

I haven't done any projects on RED in a while so this was the first on the MX sensor - and I must say I absolutely love it. It's like a whole new camera.

And the Lomo's.... damn it's hard to imagine shooting with anything but Anamorphic glass from now on! So much character.

Full credits on the Vimeo page.

 
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Lomo-tastic :)

Nice look - even without the flares etc, just the feel of normal shots is really nice.

Can you share any details (types of Lomo used etc?).
 
Thanks for the kind words everyone!

@Andy: not much to say, we just used the 35mm, 50mm and 75 T2.5 Lomo Anamorphics. The DP Jeremy used a doubler on the 75mm for some telephoto stuff like some cutaways of buildings. The 35mm, although a lovely lens, is unfortunately very very soft. Even for work of this scale ie. broadcast, it's so much softer than the others you'd have a hard time cutting it in with them. In fact I think only one shot in this final cut is from the 35mm.

We also had issues with infrared, the talent's black pants would register as a purpley-chocolate. I'm not sure if this is just with the iris wide open (I'm not a DP!) but it's very tricky to fix in the grade. We simply didn't have the budget to fix it, it requires some major windowing and keying, sometimes even it would need to be done frame by frame. But I kind of like it as a happy accident - it gives it a slightly surreal feel! (Or it just looks like we graded for browney low contrast shadows, which we did :)

So yeah, they are absolutely amazing lenses but you definitely want to do some testing first if you have the time and money! (We didn't!)

@Tim: we shot a little bit in the city, Treasury Place and the Rooftop Bar; quite a bit around Docklands; and all the suburban stuff in East Ivanhoe.
 
D'Arcy Foley-Dawson said:
We also had issues with infrared, the talent's black pants would register as a purpley-chocolate. I'm not sure if this is just with the iris wide open (I'm not a DP!) but it's very tricky to fix in the grade.
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Too much ND, no IR filter. Classic symptom.

Those Lomos are nice though, we have a feature shooting with them right now. Gorgeous stuff.
 
Thanks for the details. The Roundfronts have added a really nice look to the job. I've heard the 35mm isn't as good (not used it myself). I know some people prefer the Squarefront 35mm to use with the Rounds (I have Squares in preparation for a project later this year), but they do flare more (which is why I asked the initial question about Lomo type used :)

Trouble is, in merry old England, we don't get that nice lighting aide called 'the sun' much (LOL), so a lot of the great exterior shots aren't as 'creamy' as some of the great Lomo/Ana exterior work we see from warmer climates (ie Oz or LA).

Anyway, as already said - great job done by all on this promo, I presume the Label/artist were happy!
 
something about lomos and a RED, it becomes this crazy amazing combo. the imperfections of the glass, to how much the sensor/camera can put out. great work, looks amazing.
 
Your Vimeo credits are incorrect.... Lomo Anamorphics = Sovscope not Cinemascope.... glad you shot anamorphic. Really fit the theme.

GREAT PLOT! Something most music vids forget to have... really nice work. Thanks for posting the link.


Shame about the 35 Roundfront being too soft to use...my Squarefront 35 is really sharp, even wide open. Try a set of those the next time your shooting... I'd love to get your opinions of those compared to the Roundfronts
 
thanks everyone!

@andy: yeah sorry to say my knowledge is a bit limited, i know that there are roundfronts and squarefronts but i don't really know what the effective difference is! but the 35mm is definitely soft. don't get me wrong, i actually prefer a slightly soft look, and they definitely would suit a more dreamy, surreal look. they're hazy and they flare like a mofo. but you'll really struggle to try and cut them with the longer lenses. and yep, the harsh melbourne sun helps! we were quite blessed with the weather.

@tom: agreed, something about the two together just works and i'll definitely be pairing them up again in the future.

@kip: thanks for the compliment. absolutely sick of shooting music videos with just people playing instruments [HOWEVER it's fun to work it in if it suits the story, as in this instance he's playing guitar to try and get the attention of other survivors!]. i mean hey you gotta work right and sometimes that's what the client wants.... but yep it's great to have a chance to do something more cinematic.

ps. never heard of sovscope! :) obviously this was finished in 2.35!
 
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ps. never heard of sovscope! :) obviously this was finished in 2.35!
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In a nutshell Sovscope is what the Soviets called their version of Cinemascope... Solaris' 2:35x1 cinematic process in the tech data of IMDB states "Sovscope" as it's process. I like the way that sounds... something very international about it.
 
I really love the look you and your team achieved. I'm interested in getting that same look for an upcoming project of mine. Could you please tell me a little about what you did during shooting, filters, settings etc. and in the DI to achieve it? Also, i am debating to shoot anamorphic or not. I love the look of anamorphic however i'm ambivalent because it leaves very little if any room to repo a shot up or down if needed. Did you experience anything like that and do you think this is a concern worth having if i'm shooting 4k and finishing at the most in 2k?

Thanks
Jason
 
Jason Richter said:
I really love the look you and your team achieved. I'm interested in getting that same look for an upcoming project of mine. Could you please tell me a little about what you did during shooting, filters, settings etc. and in the DI to achieve it? Also, i am debating to shoot anamorphic or not. I love the look of anamorphic however i'm ambivalent because it leaves very little if any room to repo a shot up or down if needed. Did you experience anything like that and do you think this is a concern worth having if i'm shooting 4k and finishing at the most in 2k?

Thanks
Jason
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Hey Jason. To be honest, there's not much to tell about the shooting. Certainly didn't use any special filters, just ND and pola. No special settings, in fact we didn't even have a DIT, this thing was very low budget and guerrilla as hell. We had a tiny, skeleton crew. Cam dept consisted of DP, 1st AC, a grip and gaffer. (Although wearing my Producer hat, I do wonder if I should start trying to budget for a DIT in future low budget projects.) As has been noted, having a clear day helps achieve that crazy flaring! I think one of the most important things is location scouting and selection, doing your research and knowing what time of day will be best for each location with regards to the position of the sun. More than anything this influenced how I structured the shoot.

Of course, the most important factor in achieving the right look is having an extremely talented, capable and experienced DP who you can work well with!

With regards to the DI, again it was important to work with a talented, experienced colourist. In the colour grade we tried to go for a more pre-DI, colour timed look. Although the end result does come across a bit stylised, I think it still retains a naturalistic feel. It's a bit of both. Overall it's a very simple look, much more simple than I usually go for. The shadows are a chocolate brown, and the highs have a gold-bronze tint. It was important to have that golden-bronze tint to the sunlight throughout the whole video, so the sun always feels a bit low in the sky. This character is the last man alive and so it should feel a bit like a perpetual sunset, his existence is coming to an end. Then the trick became to get all the blues to a point where they balance out with the golden tones, stop it from feeling too much of a monochromatic wash; but at the same time not have those super saturated cyans that scream "modern DI". The interesting thing is, in our part of the world we get a lot of bushfires in summer, and whenever there are bushfires raging the colour of the light actually becomes the golden-bronze you see in the first minute of the video. Quite honestly, it may look stylised but that is literally how it looks, it's crazy. So on another level, even a subliminal one, it contributes to an end of days feeling for me. Much more than the cliched cold desaturated look often associated with post-apocalyptic scenarios.

You raise a good point regarding racking shots in post. Personally I also usually do quite a bit of racking, and if I'm shooting a 16:9 frame or thereabouts, I'll crop and finish at 2:1 or 1.85 or 2.35. I can be quite fussy about headroom! So it was interesting shooting native 2.35 for the first time. But I have to say, aside from some skateboarding shots where the talent is bobbing up and down quite a bit, I never had an issue with framing. I think actually shooting in scope natively might result in getting the perfect headroom in-camera, because it's such a drastically wide frame, it will force the photographer into choosing the best composition straight away. But once again, it all comes down to working with a great DP with a great eye, so full props to my man Jeremy.

The last thing you want to be aware of is when shooting anamorphic you're not technically shooting 4k, you're only exposing about 3k horizontally of the sensor. And you have to deal with the inherent loss of horizontal resolution when stretching your digital negative x2. Before I did this project I found that a bit annoying. BUT - take my word for it, it's totally worth it. You get an amazing image with so much character, you won't care about sacrificing a few pixels off what is already arguably the best digital motion picture sensor available. One of the biggest lessons I've learnt recently is that technical things like resolution are far less important than getting a good image with character. Worry about emotional impact first and foremost! Lomos will contribute hugely to that. So my advice is absolutely go for it and shoot anamorphic!
 
thanks for the in depth response. I look forward to seeing more of your RED work in the future. Have you ever worked in LA by chance?

J
 
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