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The Terminal - Sci-fi micro pilot w/Nikon Lenses

Matthew Bennett

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Happy to finally have a RED short to post here!

We shot this a couple of weeks ago in an old warehouse here in Toronto. A crazy, no budget shoot as usual, just grabbed some local actors and had a little adventure with a generator, an 1K HMI, a couple of kinos, a RED, and a bag of Nikons.

Here's the results:

Vimeo for a quicker load:

http://vimeo.com/2272191

150mb quicktime h264 at 480p:

http://www.qmediasolutions.com/guest/CAMERA_TESTS/TERMINAL_edit2_FINAL_h264.mov




Terminal-Still_1.jpg


Terminal-Still_3.jpg


Terminal-Still_4.jpg


I hope you all are entertained by it. We're shooting another part here in Toronto next week, will post that as well.
Absolutely loved grading the 16bit Tiff images, what a joy.
 
Looks great!

Graeme
 
Matt, did you do all the mo-graph and comp work? I absolutely loved all that! You captured the perfect balance of high tech flash and low tech practicality! I wish I your instincts for a project I'm putting together, you obviously have a better grasp :)

Great work dude! Where is this going? what are you doing with it now?
 
Matt, did you do all the mo-graph and comp work?

Yes, thanks for the nice comments. Mostly cut and paste from found material.. readers of popular science magazine will probably notice a slightly scarier version of the large hadron collider in there..

Re: lenses, we used a bunch of old nikon primes, a real grab bag of old lenses. Used a 100mm portrait and a 24mm a lot.. some foggy old 17mm 3.5 in there too...

Craig, thanks for the note, yes, the 'chase' was the most underdeveloped muscle in this piece.. something I would storyboard next time in a more time rich situation...
 
Mostly cut and paste from found material.. readers of popular science magazine will probably notice a slightly scarier version of the large hadron collider in there..

Regardless, I love the look and feel, and you knew how to achieve it. I give you "mad props" :)
 
I liked this a lot Matt. I didnt know you were working on a sci fi flick. I thought you were doing a drama with the D90. :)

How long did it take to turn this all around? When did you start?

Good job.
 
m-duke.. I would have posted it on the andro forum, but just didn't seem apt..

Actually this was all quite spur of the moment, I sort of wanted to do an idea like this for a while, and then we had a RED package for a Monday after a weekend rental, so we just got some actors and went for it.
We're going to add to it a little with another shoot next week, and see what happens, continue to explore the idea, etc..

As far as turnaround, the RED workflow is actually a little faster than andromeda, simply because you can do in-out TIFF rendering in redcine... saves major time.

So, we shot on a Monday(3 weeks ago), and then in about four/five full edit shifts I had the cut you saw on Vimeo.

thanks for the nice comment!
 
I thought the story and logic had some weaknesses but your execution was pretty good. It's got a real polished sheen for something thrown together pretty quickly, impressive.
 
Yeah. I had a feeling the Red workflow was superior to the Andromeda's. How much different would this have looked with an Andro/M2 combo do you think? Bokeh, shadow rolloff/dynamic range. Is it a world apart or just a city apart?
 
In this exact same situation the m2/andro combo would have died... just wasn't enough light to go around.

If your'e shooting m2/andro, the ideal situation is to be outdoors, in full light, stopping down the dvx to at least f5.6 but hopefully f9, and then using really fast lens with big barrels, otherwise the bokeh won't look as good.
But the d-range and bokeh from that setup is actually good competition at 720p... its just incredibly limiting on what you can actually shoot. When you compound that with all the other indie factors of scratching out locations, access to actors, etc, etc, it makes a really good looking andro/m2 shoot kind of like going to the moon...

To sum up, its like the RED on its worst day is equal to the M2/Andro on its best day.

I say screw the m2, just shoot stock DVX lens, and compose/light the 2-D crap out of everything, and have a great tight story with an incredible sound mix, and you can be a contender...
 
I thought the story and logic had some weaknesses but your execution was pretty good. It's got a real polished sheen for something thrown together pretty quickly, impressive.

Thanks, any exact notes on the logic?

We're going to shoot a bit more in a couple of days, we're introducing an interesting arc, and also some more ambitious effects we've cooked up..
Can't wait to show it to you guys..
 
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