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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 :)

Summertime - very low budget NYC indie feature film

Nice work- really beautiful. I'm looking forward to seeing more. :)

Everything really adds up together to make these images sing- composition, wardrobe, locations, lighting.

You mentioned that you mostly used available light and some "home depot lights" did you replace any of the bulbs in the practicals, or did you just supplement with the lights you had? And for the shots with the floros- did you just use the existing bulbs, or did you replace those as well?
 
We almost always replaced the bulbs in the practicals, carrying everything from 25 to 500w. We also had those silver reflector worklights which we fitted with 500w bulbs and bounced for the closeups. Or we just put a practical with a nice diffusing shade offscreen, that was enough most of the time.

For floros we didn't exchange anything but carryied two flouros everywhere for a makeshift kinoflo.

cheers, Xax
 
Nicely done. :)

As far as color temp / balancing goes- did you shoot mostly towards the tungsten range when in mixing lighting? From some of the shots, the exterior does not look very blue- but that might be from the grade on the footage.
 
Thanks!

When shooting inside, we set the camera to 5000K and let the orange light go orange. No need to overcorrect in this film... And in mixed lighting, we mostly used 5000 as well. Looked the most natural to us in the end. Also we graded the outside stuff towards a warm summer look, hence the title :)
 
Thanks for the info- the colors are great. :)

BTW- I also really like the look of the S2 lenses on the Red- the "less then perfect" lenses really help the Red to produce images that feel more organic and less digital IMO.

With your choice of the S2's did you feel that you had enough light with you, or were you sometimes wishing for more light or faster lenses? (The S2's are T2 correct?)
 
Yeah, the S2 really look great, especially on faces.

We shot our first RED project on superspeeds, I thought that they were - especially the 18mm - a tad too soft for my taste, and not charming soft like the cooke s2s, but mistake-soft... so I wouldn't shoot superspeeds wide open anyways, which eliminates the 1.4 f-stop... so 2.0 is good enough for us and the RED needs more light all the time anyways. We lit conservatively with our light meters set to 250 so we keep noise down at all times.

Our story and locations were quite small so we always had enough lights (at some point we had over 15 500w bulbs haha, 5 USD each!) and outside you can stop down to raise the definition of the lenses a bit... the lenses performed really really great and we are very happy with them. I would even chose them over the very modern and sharp RPPs although we still would have to test them after all.

Also, the lenses render bokeh a lot smoother than modern lenses to my taste... I'd shoot on RPP's or Master/Ultra Primes immediately if on 35, but the RED...

Also the Cooke S4s was to my opinion the bridge between film and RED a bit, we were quite happy with them on our RED and they aren't too "digital", although I didn't really like the flares. The good thing about them is their barrel of course and how they are designed mechanically. Our rehoused set is a bit harder to work with due to quite a small barrel size.

Keep the questions coming :)

They are T2.3 and T2.2 which boils down to f2.0 (although I get confused with T and f stops)
 
XiaoSu Han said:
Yeah, the S2 really look great, especially on faces.
Click to expand...

Very true- and this project shows that off well. :) It is making me seriously consider getting a set ...

XiaoSu Han said:
We shot our first RED project on superspeeds, I thought that they were - especially the 18mm - a tad too soft for my taste, and not charming soft like the cooke s2s, but mistake-soft... so I wouldn't shoot superspeeds wide open anyways, which eliminates the 1.4 f-stop... so 2.0 is good enough for us and the RED needs more light all the time anyways. We lit conservatively with our light meters set to 250 so we keep noise down at all times.

Our story and locations were quite small so we always had enough lights (at some point we had over 15 500w bulbs haha, 5 USD each!) and outside you can stop down to raise the definition of the lenses a bit... the lenses performed really really great and we are very happy with them. I would even chose them over the very modern and sharp RPPs although we still would have to test them after all.

Also, the lenses render bokeh a lot smoother than modern lenses to my taste... I'd shoot on RPP's or Master/Ultra Primes immediately if on 35, but the RED...

... Keep the questions coming :)
Click to expand...

I agree. do you have a frame grab from a scene where you used the 15x 500w bulbs? Also, I assume that you were using the photoflood / edison style (E26) bulbs- did you opt for the daylight style (4800k) or the tungsten style?

Oh, and for the subway shot, was that a stolen location, or did you actually manage to get it secured? If it was stolen, how did you go about filming there with the Red- what was that experience like?
 
You can see most of the bulbs in that Steadicam scene in the trailer, it's not full though...

They were the E26, and we chose Tungsten ones.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/19621-REG/General_Brand__ECT_Lamp_500W_120V.html - we had slight problems though to match regular bulbs which are at something like 2900w, hence the unbleached muslin to bounce. That worked quite well.

Yeah we stole it, we did it quite often already... Just director, two of us, actress, cover the RED in ready-mode while going in, wait for the right moment for the shot, uncover, shoot it, go :)

We did it in London, Hong Kong, NYC, never got stopped. Just keep a low profile and it's easy :)

cheers, Xax
 
XiaoSu Han said:
Yeah we stole it, we did it quite often already... Just director, two of us, actress, cover the RED in ready-mode while going in, wait for the right moment for the shot, uncover, shoot it, go :)

We did it in London, Hong Kong, NYC, never got stopped. Just keep a low profile and it's easy :)

cheers, Xax
Click to expand...

Nicely done- it would have been fun to see you all in action. I'm glad it all worked out for you. :)
 
Just this past week I got rid of the last of my 250w and 500w incandescent photoflood bulbs, because I haven't used them since I got compact fluorescents.

I mostly use SP105/50/MED and FE-US-55W/50 from Replacementlightbulbs.com

They're 5000 degrees Kelvin, don't draw much power or generate much heat, and last a very long time. A single 55w for $15.75 is rated to last as long as 2,666 BCA photoflood bulbs for $10,104.14!

I also grab 42w bulbs in 2700k and 6500k from Home Depot to get some warmer/cooler colour temperature options when mixed in with the 5000k bulbs.
 
Fun- thanks for sharing. :)

Maybe it is the Youtube compression thing- but I like your grades on the stills you posted earlier better ...
 
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