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Thanks guys.
@Kyle Gentz - I'm using an unholy combination of RedRock Micro (mostly on zooms and lesser used lenses), Shoot35 (on the majority of my glass), and Duclos hard fitted delrin on Leicas.
Heat and Camera Care
I just finished up some post work on The Haun Solo Project's "Addicted" music video that I shot back in April. It's a good lead in to something I've wanted to discuss here in this thread, heat and camera care. I'll also have some "beauty shots" of the Scarlet basking in the sun from the shoot here.
This was Lindsey Haun's concept and she directed it. I've known and been friends with her for well over half my life. Shooting this video has been something we've talked about doing for some time. She's currently on this season of HBO's True Blood.
I served as Director of Photography, Digital Colorist, and Visual Effects Sup/Artist on the project. It was an interesting and challenging shoot. We shot for two days at two locations I've wanted to shoot at for some time out in the desert. A factory and abandoned brothel out in the desert. Then we had one day in Hollywood for the therapist and insane asylum scenes. All full shooting days. Lots of on the spot decisions and problem solving transpired due to the not so ideal hot weather conditions.
It wasn't uncommon for the Red Scarlet to be in the harsh daylight for long periods of time. I attempted to compensate for the sun tan my camera was getting by having an umbrella on set at all times. In the photo above you'll see my little portable camera cart (it's a Multi-Cart with the foam injected wheels). I also had an umbrella over my lenses and RedMags. I took good measures to keep things cool, but sure enough on day two the Scarlet overheated after a 12 minute take. It was well over 100 degrees outside. The camera shut down. Then when powering up the camera immediately shut down. If you find yourself in this situation remember to stay calm. This is only the second time an Epic or Scarlet has overheated on me and this was a rather extreme situation when it comes to temperature by leaving the camera on for so long in such high temps. Here's what I did. I immediately told the cast and crew that we needed a 10 minute break for a tech issue. Everybody ran back to crafty and the shade, so I'm sure they didn't mind that much. I then buit a quick shade around the Scarlet (couldn't move the camera from this setup just yet), took out a full can of air, and gave the Scarlet a full camera air massage through all the vents. I pampered her with compliments and whispered how slender she looked. Physically I could feel the camera was cooler to the touch. I did wait a full 10 minutes prior to rebooting though, but once that timer was up everything was back to "normal" and we shot out the last two hours of the day.
Due to the difficulty of shooting with a couple dozen people in the middle of nowhere, the need for high mobility, and budgetary constraints I didn't have a DIT or even my Mini Dity station on location. I opted to have enough RedMag SSDs on hand and deal with it after the fact. In this case it was fine as I knew I was handling the post side of things. Also I brought a few extra batteries just in case. No power at all this far away from society.
Another issue overall was the dusty enviroment. I made sure whenever there was a moment to keep the camera clean through blowing, sucking, or wiping depending on what was needed. I shot most of this on primes and was swapping lenses a ton. Zooms were used though obviously. On the homage to the "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" shock sequence I used two follow focus units on a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 to pull both zoom and focus by hand. Something I haven't done without a motor in a long time. Same deal for the zoom on Lindsey's face within the Brothel but using the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. I used one other zoom, the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 on the very wide establishing shot of the Brothel with Husbear in the foreground.
Lighting for exteriors and interior of the Brothel and Factory was pretty simple broad daylight and occasionally the use of 6x6 bounce panels to add some fill and even use as a key for a couple of the Brothel interiors. The interior homage to the Twin Peaks soap beating scene is an example of that which was used to produce that rather hard shadow on the wall. The interior Therapist Office was very different however. Depending on the shot it was either a 3 or 5 light setup. A couple blending with ambient daylight from the window that's never really seen. It was diffused through shear cotton and looked nice for a couple angles. I used tungsten and dichroic filtration, daylight flouro, and daylight LED for that interior with some colored filtration for warmth and cool. The idea was to have a somewhat colorful yet also dark scheme for that setup, which was a good thing due to the simplicity of the set. The Asylum was a 200W flouro china ball and a bit of fill from an LED camera left.
I only had six days for post work and finish. Pretty tight deadline. Lindsey performed the edit using Final Cut Pro using Quicktime proxies I made. I then relinked the .R3Ds back using RedCine-X Pro and tightened the edit up in Adobe Premiere Pro. The color correction and grade was achieved through RedCine-X Pro, Adobe Speedgrade, Adobe Premiere/After Effects, and Magic Bullet Looks for some special flare and vignette work. It was a fairly delibrate choice to go higher key with all the "crazies" for instance to produce more a dream-like feel. Comps, paint fixes, and additional blending of CG elements was all performed through After Effects. There were 22 paint fixes and that took the majority of the post time for me. No way around that. I refer to that as "ass in chair" time that just has to happen. The end composite was really the only tricky shot due to the wild non-moco tilt and tracking/blending 3k 48fps elements together. There is a 3D element added to the Therapist's Office of a picture frame with a shot of the Brothel on the wall to help fill out the set and also elude more towards the sort of mental insanity concept on display here. There wasn't too much post cropping/reframing and I usually don't like doing that, but it's there on a few shots to match head size and balance edge elements a smidge on a few wides.
Lighting
Thought I'd share some thoughts and quick notes on some lights I'm considering. I'm nuts about different types of lighting and I'm in the market for something new. If you were at NAB or Cinegear this year you probably noticed that there's a lot of new, new-ish, and old favorites being showed off. Lot's of directions you can go with light these days and many options out there. Light in general often comes down to a personal choice once you hit some technical marks. Me personally, I'm looking for something strong and daylight balanced.
Profoto 800W & 200W Air HMI
These are very appealing to me. Mainly the 800 watt unit. Crisp, clean, and colorful HMI light all in a very tidy and compact package. I already own a few Profoto 2400R kits that we use for texture photography and stills. They are clearly designed to go up against the K5600 800W Joker. Profoto's balast design is very smart and compact. The ability to control the lights via "Air" to dim to 50% power wirelessly is pretty nice as well. I really like Profoto's Cine Reflector accesories and the ability to use the new HMIs with existing Profoto modifiers. They also have developed tungsten units as well.
NILA NH, JNH, Boxer, and SL LED
I have many mixed feeling about LEDs. Especially since one of my set has since gone extremely green over time. However, I really like what NILA is doing when it comes to their units. I'm interested in the NH and Boxer primarily. The NH and JNH are comparable to a 200W HMI in output. The only difference between the two is the JNH can be attached to each other to create light grids. The Boxer is close to an 800W-1200W HMI. They also have a newer model of the Boxer that's weather sealed for outdoor use. One thing I really, really like about NILA LED lights is their extremely rugged build quality and extremely blocky design. I can see 3 or 5 of these in a nice compact kit and having a good deal of fun setting up strange configurations quickly. You can control the units through the panel on the rear or setup a DMX controller. THey also have built in mounting points for Chimera softboxes to attach to them.
HIVE Plasma Lights (LEP)
I'm very excited about HIVE's lights. LEP tech promises high quality, flicker free, and cool to the touch light output. They currently offer three flavors of lights. The Hornet Fresnel; 575W HMI equiv., the Wasp Par; 400W HMI equiv., and the Killer Maxi; 1.2K HMI equiv.. On top of that they can retrofit other Fresnels and Lekos to use their LEP tech for a pretty affordable price. Bulb life is listed at 10,000+ hours, but you can likely get away with around 30,000 depending on how much color drift is acceptable to you. I like "single bulb" sources that are cool to the touch. I'm leaning towards these at the moment.
Happy Independence Hump Day!
@Kyle Gentz - I'm using an unholy combination of RedRock Micro (mostly on zooms and lesser used lenses), Shoot35 (on the majority of my glass), and Duclos hard fitted delrin on Leicas.
Heat and Camera Care
I just finished up some post work on The Haun Solo Project's "Addicted" music video that I shot back in April. It's a good lead in to something I've wanted to discuss here in this thread, heat and camera care. I'll also have some "beauty shots" of the Scarlet basking in the sun from the shoot here.
This was Lindsey Haun's concept and she directed it. I've known and been friends with her for well over half my life. Shooting this video has been something we've talked about doing for some time. She's currently on this season of HBO's True Blood.
I served as Director of Photography, Digital Colorist, and Visual Effects Sup/Artist on the project. It was an interesting and challenging shoot. We shot for two days at two locations I've wanted to shoot at for some time out in the desert. A factory and abandoned brothel out in the desert. Then we had one day in Hollywood for the therapist and insane asylum scenes. All full shooting days. Lots of on the spot decisions and problem solving transpired due to the not so ideal hot weather conditions.
It wasn't uncommon for the Red Scarlet to be in the harsh daylight for long periods of time. I attempted to compensate for the sun tan my camera was getting by having an umbrella on set at all times. In the photo above you'll see my little portable camera cart (it's a Multi-Cart with the foam injected wheels). I also had an umbrella over my lenses and RedMags. I took good measures to keep things cool, but sure enough on day two the Scarlet overheated after a 12 minute take. It was well over 100 degrees outside. The camera shut down. Then when powering up the camera immediately shut down. If you find yourself in this situation remember to stay calm. This is only the second time an Epic or Scarlet has overheated on me and this was a rather extreme situation when it comes to temperature by leaving the camera on for so long in such high temps. Here's what I did. I immediately told the cast and crew that we needed a 10 minute break for a tech issue. Everybody ran back to crafty and the shade, so I'm sure they didn't mind that much. I then buit a quick shade around the Scarlet (couldn't move the camera from this setup just yet), took out a full can of air, and gave the Scarlet a full camera air massage through all the vents. I pampered her with compliments and whispered how slender she looked. Physically I could feel the camera was cooler to the touch. I did wait a full 10 minutes prior to rebooting though, but once that timer was up everything was back to "normal" and we shot out the last two hours of the day.
Due to the difficulty of shooting with a couple dozen people in the middle of nowhere, the need for high mobility, and budgetary constraints I didn't have a DIT or even my Mini Dity station on location. I opted to have enough RedMag SSDs on hand and deal with it after the fact. In this case it was fine as I knew I was handling the post side of things. Also I brought a few extra batteries just in case. No power at all this far away from society.
Another issue overall was the dusty enviroment. I made sure whenever there was a moment to keep the camera clean through blowing, sucking, or wiping depending on what was needed. I shot most of this on primes and was swapping lenses a ton. Zooms were used though obviously. On the homage to the "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" shock sequence I used two follow focus units on a Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 to pull both zoom and focus by hand. Something I haven't done without a motor in a long time. Same deal for the zoom on Lindsey's face within the Brothel but using the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS. I used one other zoom, the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 on the very wide establishing shot of the Brothel with Husbear in the foreground.
Lighting for exteriors and interior of the Brothel and Factory was pretty simple broad daylight and occasionally the use of 6x6 bounce panels to add some fill and even use as a key for a couple of the Brothel interiors. The interior homage to the Twin Peaks soap beating scene is an example of that which was used to produce that rather hard shadow on the wall. The interior Therapist Office was very different however. Depending on the shot it was either a 3 or 5 light setup. A couple blending with ambient daylight from the window that's never really seen. It was diffused through shear cotton and looked nice for a couple angles. I used tungsten and dichroic filtration, daylight flouro, and daylight LED for that interior with some colored filtration for warmth and cool. The idea was to have a somewhat colorful yet also dark scheme for that setup, which was a good thing due to the simplicity of the set. The Asylum was a 200W flouro china ball and a bit of fill from an LED camera left.
I only had six days for post work and finish. Pretty tight deadline. Lindsey performed the edit using Final Cut Pro using Quicktime proxies I made. I then relinked the .R3Ds back using RedCine-X Pro and tightened the edit up in Adobe Premiere Pro. The color correction and grade was achieved through RedCine-X Pro, Adobe Speedgrade, Adobe Premiere/After Effects, and Magic Bullet Looks for some special flare and vignette work. It was a fairly delibrate choice to go higher key with all the "crazies" for instance to produce more a dream-like feel. Comps, paint fixes, and additional blending of CG elements was all performed through After Effects. There were 22 paint fixes and that took the majority of the post time for me. No way around that. I refer to that as "ass in chair" time that just has to happen. The end composite was really the only tricky shot due to the wild non-moco tilt and tracking/blending 3k 48fps elements together. There is a 3D element added to the Therapist's Office of a picture frame with a shot of the Brothel on the wall to help fill out the set and also elude more towards the sort of mental insanity concept on display here. There wasn't too much post cropping/reframing and I usually don't like doing that, but it's there on a few shots to match head size and balance edge elements a smidge on a few wides.
Lighting
Thought I'd share some thoughts and quick notes on some lights I'm considering. I'm nuts about different types of lighting and I'm in the market for something new. If you were at NAB or Cinegear this year you probably noticed that there's a lot of new, new-ish, and old favorites being showed off. Lot's of directions you can go with light these days and many options out there. Light in general often comes down to a personal choice once you hit some technical marks. Me personally, I'm looking for something strong and daylight balanced.
Profoto 800W & 200W Air HMI
These are very appealing to me. Mainly the 800 watt unit. Crisp, clean, and colorful HMI light all in a very tidy and compact package. I already own a few Profoto 2400R kits that we use for texture photography and stills. They are clearly designed to go up against the K5600 800W Joker. Profoto's balast design is very smart and compact. The ability to control the lights via "Air" to dim to 50% power wirelessly is pretty nice as well. I really like Profoto's Cine Reflector accesories and the ability to use the new HMIs with existing Profoto modifiers. They also have developed tungsten units as well.
NILA NH, JNH, Boxer, and SL LED
I have many mixed feeling about LEDs. Especially since one of my set has since gone extremely green over time. However, I really like what NILA is doing when it comes to their units. I'm interested in the NH and Boxer primarily. The NH and JNH are comparable to a 200W HMI in output. The only difference between the two is the JNH can be attached to each other to create light grids. The Boxer is close to an 800W-1200W HMI. They also have a newer model of the Boxer that's weather sealed for outdoor use. One thing I really, really like about NILA LED lights is their extremely rugged build quality and extremely blocky design. I can see 3 or 5 of these in a nice compact kit and having a good deal of fun setting up strange configurations quickly. You can control the units through the panel on the rear or setup a DMX controller. THey also have built in mounting points for Chimera softboxes to attach to them.
HIVE Plasma Lights (LEP)
I'm very excited about HIVE's lights. LEP tech promises high quality, flicker free, and cool to the touch light output. They currently offer three flavors of lights. The Hornet Fresnel; 575W HMI equiv., the Wasp Par; 400W HMI equiv., and the Killer Maxi; 1.2K HMI equiv.. On top of that they can retrofit other Fresnels and Lekos to use their LEP tech for a pretty affordable price. Bulb life is listed at 10,000+ hours, but you can likely get away with around 30,000 depending on how much color drift is acceptable to you. I like "single bulb" sources that are cool to the touch. I'm leaning towards these at the moment.
Happy Independence Hump Day!
... great pictures, Phil! Keep up the awesome work! Already looking forward to your next post 
