We just wrapped shooting on the MCP50 Installation video for Qualcomm Incorporated. The video is a how to on installation of the MCP50 system and provided a few interesting challenges. First and foremost was space. Since the product is installed inside the cab of a truck there isn’t much room to move around, not to mention light and film.
We brought in JFO Production to provide lighting and a gaffer for the shoot. Trevor Elliot showed up in a 3 ton truck and did an amazing job lighting the set/truck both inside and outside.
We shot the project on our Panasonic HPX-250 P2 camera since it’s small size was advantageous for shooting in such a limited space. This was our first corporate production with this camera since purchasing it in mid December and we were not disappointed at all with it’s performance. The camera gave us amazing images and as we recorded in 10bit AVC-Intra we have the latitude to push the signal around in post where needed.
We also brought in Michael Bruggemeyer as the camera operator and Director of Photography on the shot. Michael is a joy to have on the set and brings a wealth of knowledge to any productions.
We shot most of the day in the truck and finished up with a few truck exteriors and shots of the tools required for doing the install.
The project is currently in post production and will be completed by mid January.
With story concept well underway I left the brainstorm session to get some sleep. Being through this process before I knew that Friday night would be my last chance at a full nights sleep until this iron man version of filmmaking was over. I fell into dreamland with the visions of a knockout 1940′s looking fem fetal who was lifting a cheek to squeeze one out.
I awoke in the morning to check my email and read the script that the writer, Marianne Bates, had worked on all night. Although I was still uneasy about the flatulence part of the equation there were some laugh out loud moments while reading. The script was complete with the hard boiled slang that is to be expected from any self respecting film noir project. After a few hours of gathering music and sound effects that would be needed I headed down to the first location to start importing the footage.
I arrived on set and started getting footage from the camera crew. The film was being shot entirely on DSLR cameras so there was a bit of a challenge to post production. When working with these cameras you need to shoot audio on a separate device since the on camera audio is far from usable. Luckily we had an amazing location sound crew that gave me all the separate tracks plus a mix channel that was being mixed on the fly. For the most part this allowed me to use just that mix track which saved a lot of time in post. I set up the portable editing suite and started importing and syncing image to sound.
Here’s a quick tip for you. If you’re going to do a DSLR workflow I would suggest having an assistant editor on the project to sync footage for you while you edit. Not because you’re “The Editor” and this work is below you, but because it will save you time and allow you to concentrate on the cut. I did not have an assitant so it was up to me to do it all.
When I had caught up to the crew on importing the footage I had an idea for the murder scene in the film that was being shot by the second unit. I asked the 2nd unit director, Christopher Francis, to get me some shots that I wanted in the scene to build some tension. I asked for closeups on hands, faces etc… and boy did he deliver.
When I was out of things to do on location I headed back to the shop to start cutting things in the edit bay. This was the first time I pulled the color from the shots and started looking at the images in black and white. I immediately knew that if nothing else, this would be a beautifully shot film. I have heard is said that the measure of the cinematography in a film is if you can stop on any frame and then hang that frame on the wall as a piece of art. This film achieved that in my opinion.
I decided that instead of cutting the film on one timeline I would split it into scenes and cut each scene as it’s own entity. This was both a good and bad idea. On the good side it allowed me to let each scene tell it’s own story, sort of like a chapter in a book. The down side will come a little later, I don’t want to still the beans (pun intended) just yet.
A I was happily editing away when more footage arrived at the edit bay. I stopped editing and began importing that footage. Remember what I said about having an assistant? This was where I really needed it. Nothing like stopping the creative flow to start doing technical stuff. This footage contained the scene in the interrogation room and when I started cutting the segment where the female detective, Theresa Lane, is interrogating the female lead, Cristyn Chandler, I had limited coverage on it. I basically had a wide shot and a closeup, both 2 person shots. I had no closeups as singles on either actor. This turned out to be a very happy accident.
Unknown to me the closeup single shots were still on a card that was in one of the cameras on location. Not knowing this I assumed that the coverage I had for this scene was the wide and closeup 2 shots, nothing more. So I worked with what I had. The scene transitions from wide to close to break up that action. I had my doubts on if this would work, but after I roughed in the shots, it worked amazingly well. In the scene there is tension that builds between that characters and this not traditional, maybe even a little odd, juxtaposition of the shots added to the tension. The difference in framing was enough to make it not quite a jump cut, but enough to make it feel a little… tense.
At this point I had all but the last scene cut and that footage was on the way from the last location as the crew was wrapping. Little did I know I was in for a interesting little musical surprise…
Over the last couple years I have had the pleasure of working with a group of San Diego filmmakers that are known as The Amalgamated Grommets. We have produced a few short films for various festivals and I have been amazed at the quality of work that comes out of this conglomeration of highly talented people. I am even more amazed that we keep putting ourselves through the process for nothing more than the joy of doing it. That’s right, we don’t get paid for it. In 2010 we turned out a short film titled “The Heiress Lethal” that not only won awards, but was also honored with the chance to be screened at the 2010 Cannes film festival in France. So this is the abridged story behind the film.
Cast and crew of "The Heiress Lethal"
The film was made for the San Diego 48 Hour Film project. For those that don’t know, here’s the details of how it works. First you throw caution to the wind and agree to making a film in 48 hours. Next you stoke up the fires of courage and sign up. Then you get the rules…
Each team must complete a film of 5 to 7 minutes on 48 hours.
On Friday evening the tams met and you pull a film genre from a hat.
After every team has a genre you get the element that must be included in the film.
When it came to pulling a genre we pulled Film Noir. At one point someone asked me if I thought that genre was an advantage or a disadvantage. To tell the truth I think it’s both. Why? Because it is such a recognizable look and feel. If you do it right people will love it, do it wrong and everyone will know that it was done wrong. So you better do it right.
The teams approach to creating a story is fairly simple. A couple weeks prior to the project we submit short ideas for a concept within the genres that could be pulled. When I say short it’s a one to two paragraph treatment of a story idea. Now the we never have enough treatments to cover all the possible genres and every time we seem to draw a genre that has no treatment for it, this time was no different. The team was gathered together around a table and the ideas started to fly.
At some point it was suggested that our female lead be the murderous wife of a bean company executive who suffered from an extreme case of flatulence. Yep, we were making a fart movie. Needless to say this did not sound like a great idea to me. Being one that has never been a fan of “bathroom humor” I was somewhat appalled by the fact that we were making a movie like this. Despite my repeated pleas that we had fallen to the lowest common denominator of comedy, we went forward with the concept… Boy was I ever wrong!
We have just added a new camera to the mix with the purchase of a Panasonic AG-HPX250. The camera moves us out of the tape based workflow and into a tapeless environment. The camera records to the P2 card format and shoots in numerous high definition video formats and frame rates. This includes 10 bit, 422 AVC-intra. This makes it a great camera for green screen work due to the wider spectrum of color signal it records. The HPX250 also comes with an amazing 22x lens which will make it a great tool for those long lens situations such as press conferences and event videos with speakers in large rooms.
So far we have used it on a 1 web video project for ZeroWatse USA where it performed amazingly in a natural light situation. We have also shot a couple episodes of BariatricTV.com with it and it’s given us wonderful images under studio lighting conditions. And since BariatricTV shoots on a weekly basis we’re well on out way to recouping some cost by forgoing purchasing video tape.
The bottom line is that we are very impressed with the performance of the camera. We would love to put it to work on your next video production.
In every editors life there comes a time where you need a wet, drippy lens. Our time came when editing together a promo spot for San Diego’s NBC affiliate NBC7 San Diego.
In the final shot of this promo we have a snow boarder that throws show up towards the camera and we end on a landscape shot to drop the logo over. When we first cut it together though it was missing something. We needed a wet drippy lens from the snow that was kicked up, and we didn’t have it. The shot that we ended on looked like the one in the image above. Nice, but not what we really wanted.
So what’s the solution? Make a wet drippy lens and add it in post. We set up a shot with a piece of glass hung from a C-Stand and another C-Stand behind it with a sheet of black construction paper. We also wanted to match the sun in the original shot so we used an on camera light to get some highlights on the top part of the glass. From there it was just a matter of rolling the camera and using a spray bottle to mist the glass. We wound up with a piece of video that looked like the above image.
Back in the edit bay it was just a matter of dropping the wet glass shot over the landscape image and then applying an Add composite mode to it. The results were even better than expected.
To have a look at the finished composite just have a look at the promo by CLICKING HERE
We just started production on an product installation video with Qualcomm Incorporated. This video will cover the installation of their MCP50 truck tracking and communications product. The project is scheduled to shoot in early January with an end of January deadline. One of the most difficult aspects of this project will be shooting inside of a very small space. The majority of the the video will be shoot in the cab of an 18 wheeler.
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