Lightning in a Bottle at an Affordable Price Point

By Shane Hurlbut, ASC and Derek Johnson

Lance Maurer and his team at Cinnafilm developed the Dark Energy Suite, a revolutionary texture management system I used on Act of Valor, The Last 3 Minutes and The Ticket. It vaporizes compression, noise and artifacts from HD footage and adds textured film grain to it. This is how I was able to seamlessly cut film and the Canon 5D MkII together on Act of Valor. Killing the HD compression and using the same grain quality between the 5D and film was the recipe for success.

This was originally only available through a tower of power suite, but now this lightning in a bottle is more affordable via an Adobe After Effects plugin that supports footage up to 2048×2048 resolution. Dark Energy processes and neutralizes HD noise and compression and adds textured film grain to HD footage via two powerful modules: Anti Matter and Matter.
 
Anti Matter
Dark Energy is your ally for better looking images and can be used a few different ways. It allows you to compensate for underexposed footage, HD noise and lousy codecs, improving your image and expanding the range for the colorist. After removing grain, the footage can be sharpened in Anti Matter. Then the footage can be colored prior to using the Matter module.

Matter
Dark Energy Matter puts a new esthetic power in your hands, the ability to add grain and texture catered to your specific story. You are able to dial in the amount of texture to your HD footage.

Using Anti Matter and Matter together, you are able to vaporize HD compression, add texture, and match the look of different cameras in your cut.

Here is an example from The Ticket using Dark Energy. (Click the images to view larger versions.)
 

 

Non textured

Textured

Non textured

Textured

Tutorial on Using Anti Matter

Here is a quick overview for using Cinnafilm Anti-Matter plugin in Simple Mode so you can get an idea of how it works. We used screen shots from a great video tutorial that Cinnafilm has put together. There are also demo videos available on their website.

Cinnafilm offers a 30-day trial for Dark Energy here: http://darkenergyforaftereffects.com/. It is only available for PC at this time.
 

 

Simple Mode Example:

Use footage that is in its native form. The plugin has a Cineon Converter for Log files.
 

Example: Super 16mm scan

 
Making sure you are in Full Mode, start by dragging and dropping the effect onto your footage in After Effects. You will see three small profile boxes appear, color coded for each channel of RGB.
 

 
Working in the Spatial Mode is where most of the noise reduction will happen. You will use the Temporal and Sharpen settings as a refinement.
 

Control Panel for Dark Energy Anti-Matter

After you drop the filter on your footage, click Analyze and three profile boxes come up.
 

 
Each time the box moves, it will automatically give you a new noise profile. You can also view by channel only. Using the sliders on the left for each channel, adjust the filtering result and bring back details that may have gotten lost.

Adjusting sliders and filtering noise

 
As you work on the image, it is a good habit to turn the fx box on/off so you can see the detail.
 

FX on and FX off

Once you are happy with the overall effect of the Spatial filter, you can turn on the Temporal and Sharpening modes and make additional refinements.
 

Using Temporal and Sharpening modes

 
The key is to use the Spatial filters in a way that you are not losing too much detail when removing noise and balancing that with the Sharpening function to restore the details that are softened.
 
The final step is the Denoise Refinement. This helps bring back grain into your image. It is a mix of all of your refinements with the original image and helps retain the filmic look.
 

Final result with grain added back in using the Denoise Refinement mode.

Conclusion:

This texture device allows you to mix tons of formats. Shoot five or six different camera systems and monitor their compression. You can remove HD noise and tailor your compression, sharpness and texture each format to have them seamlessly cut together. The digital medium is looking too clean and is lacking the gauze of motion picture film. Use this powerful tool to take your imagery to the next level. Bring back the gauze and texture your footage to tell your story.

What is your experience with texturizing processes? Have you used Dark Energy?

On Need for Speed, we have a location that takes us 2.5 hours to get there. The location should be shot in the morning, but because of the crew’s turnaround the night before, we cannot get there until 8am. Sunrise is 6am, so we do the best we can to work with it. You have to say, is the location worth it? This one is absolutely worth it. You compromise the light to gain the big picture, a location that the audience will be blown away by. You do not worry that the light is not exactly how you envisioned it. Making a film is about compromises. Period. If you don’t approach a movie this way, you are being a little naive. It is all about making those compromises and turning them into a positive, every time!!!
 

“The Tools for Finding the Best Time to Shoot”

I use a variety of apps to educate me on where the sun is no matter where I am shooting on this wonderful planet. My first choice is Helios, but it is pricey. This is a very advanced program. I have not been able to figure out all of the uses yet because there are so many.
 

 
My second choice would be Sun Seeker. This app enables you to do some of the same things that Helios can do, but with a cheaper price tag.
 

My fail-safe, always accurate, never let me down tool is SunPath. Unfortunately, you now need a PC to run the thing since Apple upgraded to the new operating system. It is, hands down, the best program. You use a compass to guide you, not your iPhone.
 

“Shaping the Light”

 
• Back Light
I would always try to look for a back light orientation for your scene. This enables you to shoot for a good amount of time without the light changing. As the light gains its height in the sky, I just slightly rotate my actors to match that rotation, always keeping them back lit. The reason for this is that frontal sunlight can be very harsh at times. It can make it very difficult for the actors to keep their eyes open without squinting. That never looks good unless you are Clint Eastwood and it works like a million bucks. HA HA!!! You can bring a bounce in to fill or use as a key light, which is passive. This means using the sunlight, the same source that is back lighting the actor, not adding another light into the bounce. I love all types of bounces no matter what output I need from it.

• Clay coat is a bounce that is like 12% grey. This makes the bounce less forceful and makes your actor’s skin not sheen as much. This can be very important in dealing with beauty close ups.
 

12×12 Clay Coat

 
• Bleached Muslin would be my second choice. Again, it is not as reflective so it gives you a more indirect feel and is softer overall.
 

 
• Bead Board is something I use when I want to go handheld on a walk and talk or get in there really close with the actor’s eyes. I walk with the camera and the actors in a ballet to get the right kick angle from the sun.
 

 
• Ultra Bounce is the material I use to reflect light from greater distances. It has a kick, but not too bad and delivers a soft feel, just more direct and much more punchy.
 

6×6 Butterfly Ultra Bounce

 
• Negative Fill
Just using a bounce can work great, but there are some times when you want more mood in your scene. That is when you use what is called Negative Fill. During the day, light is all around us. It is coming from the sky, from the horizon, from the ground, you name it. I use large solids, which are black in color, for wider shots and then 4 x 4 solids for close ups that I can work in as a ballet dance with the bounce. Usually I work the bounce. I have a grip doing the negative fill as the actors move if I am not operating.

When shooting a wide shot, I try to shoot them at the most perfect time. Let Mother Nature do the lighting and the contrast control for you. For the medium shots, I bring in 12 x 20 clay coats to reflect a key light source and a 12 x 20 and a 12 x 12 solid for negative fill.

This negative fill can sometimes be a frustrating process because of the daylight coming in from all over. Shaping this light to your liking can feel a little too stylized if you hit it with too much contrast, so beware. If you are in an alley or around tall buildings, then you can get away with steeper contrast. But if you are out in the open, I find that creating a contrast of about 2 to 2.5 stops down on the negative fill is good and plays nicely with almost any scene.
 
• Side Light
Working in the ability to block a scene where your actors land in a side light scenario is always very pleasing as well. This is done by orienting your actors in a way that they are lit with one side of their face keyed by the sun. Getting this just right is what I learned from Herb Ritts, that perfect angle of light which shapes the face in a way that is beautiful. If you are shooting this kind of light in the morning, then I would shoot the close ups first, while the sun is still in their eyes, before it goes skull eyes. I am sure that you have seen this before. It is when you shoot outside when the sun is too high and the actors look like skeletons because they have these deep shadows in their eyes when the light is too toppy.
 

 
You can jump out wide and dial your contrast down in post when you are not looking at their faces so close up. If the light ends up going out of their eyes while you are shooting the close ups and mediums, then you can always go to some diffusion to be able to smooth that transition into their eyes a bit. I always feel that this looks lit, and I try to set myself up for success with getting in there first up. Block the scene so you know where your actors are going and where the wide shot will work. From there, systematically take it apart and start on the money shot, which is in the emotion of the scene on your actor’s faces.

So much of this is going with your gut and what you like. Some people would start with the wide shot and then work their way in and light the mediums and wides. I feel that works very well too. However, I find that sometimes I have to do so much to make that look good that I should have just shot it at the right time. It is much faster. You decide.
 
 

“Not Using Natural Light”

On the The Rat Pack, I lit almost every shot during the day with HMIs. These are daylight balanced lights that match daytime Kelvin color temp, which is around 5500 Kelvin. I would either bounce 18Ks off 12 x 20 Ultra Bounces or drive 18Ks through light grid or full grid diffusion frames. Then I would add a searing back light with a mirror board off the sun, or an 18K spotted in. Sometimes a 7K Xenon was needed. This was the look and feel of this movie. Rob Cohen, the director, wanted the character’s life to be a stage. So every time you saw them, they had the perfect key light, back light and fill level. Most of my other films have been more naturalistic. I don’t choose. I go with the director’s vision and the best way to tell the story.
 

18K Fresnel

7K Xenon

“Smash Cut to the Codex Onboard S Recorder”

The Fort Knox of recorders has arrived and it is built like a brick house. The Codex S Recorder has been approved to capture all Arri RAW, Canon RAW, and soon Sony S65 footage. It is incredibly lightweight and gives you assurance that your negative is under lock and key.

 
The Codex onboard S recorder ties into the C500 4K pipeline via single link and dual link 3G SDI cables. It records the Canon Cinema Raw to the rugged 512 Solid State Codex Capture drives, which hold up to 30 minutes of 4k footage. The onboard S recorder can be powered via 12-34 Volts Lemo, XLR, P-Tap, or AC power. It can also be controlled remotely or from a tethered computer.
 

Canon C500 with Codex onboard S recorder and Red Element rig

“The Canon Asia Tour”

Po Chan and I traveled around Asia together late last year for Canon Singapore showing The Ticket, produced by Hurlbut Visuals. Canon asked Codex to come along and give a demo and a keynote on their recorder and their Vault system. I hung out with Stephen Ceci (Codex Guru at Digilab Services) and really got a deep understanding of how good this system is and how advanced it is as well.
 

Stephen Ceci with C500 and Codex onboard S recorder

Po Chan talking about the love story between art and science in “The Ticket”

Q & A session on the Asia tour

Inspiring filmmakers in Kuala Lumpur

 
They have what they call a virtual file system (VFS) within the recorder that captures meta data and allows you to edit it before creating deliverables. I know this because I had to take advantage of this feature on a Ford Taurus job that I shot with Mouse McCoy and Bandito Brothers. It was a spot for Dubai and they needed it to be delivered at 25p.
 

Mike Svitak operating the Arri Alexa with Codex Onboard M recorder on Ford Taurus

Arri Alexa on 40’ Jimmy Jib with Codex onboard M recorder

 
We went through the post chain of Bandito and they told us to shoot it at 24p. I set all of my cameras and all of the recording decks to 24p. On the third day of shooting, Bandito came back to us and said that the post house in Dubai now wanted it at 23.98. The first word out of my mouth was unpublishable!!! Then I asked Stephen, “What can we do?” This is when he went into his techno speak and lost me at “we will….”

HA HA. In laymen’s terms, he said that it was no problem. Due to the virtual filing system, you can go right in there and change it to 23.98 without re-shooting. That was huge since we had already shot two of our three days. It was so easy.

Codex VFS

“The Workflow That is Codex”

Their workflow “thinks” like a human being and not a rocket scientist. Here is a breakdown of their workflow:

“Need for Speed”

Now that I have been in production with these S recorders for over 20 days, it has been a trailblazing experience. We are putting the C500 and the Codex recorders in places that many never thought of and at speeds never traveled. With this Codex has had the most amazing customer service, which for me in the trenches and dealing with day to day filming is absolutely essential.

First challenge:
We would like to smash into a C500 at 90 mph, running at 120fps – a simple task if you were rolling film. Crash box, Eyemo and ROLL CAMERA. When film goes through your gate, it has already been exposed before the car hits it, so if the camera turns off, at least you have the impact. Not so with digital. The S recorder is still writing the file, so if on impact your camera gets taken out, which ours did, maybe 20 times so far, we are missing the impact point. Codex immediately addressed the first issue by writing code literally overnight in London and sending it via email. We had to shut off the door trigger because on impact the slightest gap in the door opening would cut the recorder. Once this was installed we had great success. With our GEO Film Group crash housings, the cameras have been able to take a licking and keep on ticking.
 

2nd AC Robert Campbell sets up GEO crash boxes for a stunt

After the stunt

Checking the C500 in the GEO crash box after impact

Codex S recorder in a GEO crash box in standby mode

 
Second challenge:
The color of the scroll wheel. We are on the bleeding edge of technology with this film. On a daily basis we employ over 28 cameras to every action sequence, not shooting all at the same time, but the ability to leap frog from one system to the next is how we keep our speed. Pushing the record button on the C500 and knowing that it is talking to the S recorder is seen with color – amber, in standby, ready to record mode, and then red when recording. We quickly learned that with so many decks and cameras that in the heat of battle, sometimes amber looks like red, whether it is being hit by hard sun, or just way up on a crane, somewhat out of sight. Another call to London and within 24 hours they had written new code that Stephen Ceci helped us with to change the wheel from green in standby ready to record mode to red for record. This big difference in color has made our camera etiquette so easy and much more idiot proof. Green usually signifies that you are in playback mode, but we rarely play back so we made this choice. This is a forward thinking company. Codex has worked with us very efficiently to make the day to day set experiences so much smoother.
 

Steadicam Operator Jody Miller with a C500 and Codex S recorder in green standby mode

Shane Hurlbut, ASC operating a C500 and Derek Edwards pulling focus. Codex S recorder is red for rolling.

“Conclusion”

With so many recorders putting all of the 0 and 1’s together, I have to say if you have the budget for this deck, then it is a no brainer. This is your PRO solution.

Now Alexa has introduced their new camera, the Alexa XT with the Codex deck built inside. I think this statement says it all.

Arri Alexa XT

Shooting Need for Speed

 
Thank you for your interest. This survey is now closed.

Enjoy more Need for Speed behind the scenes shots below.
 

 
Need for Speed photos by Derek Johnson
 

Enjoy the podcast, and thank you to James DeRuvo at doddleNEWS.
You can stream or download the podcast here.
 

One cart of 15. Camera count on a normal day on Need for Speed is 28, making the impossible possible fast form factor.

The Why, The Where and The When

to Move the Camera

Using a Dolly

 
Many of you have asked me to write a post on camera movement that encapsulates the three questions of: Why, Where and When. Motion is a very powerful tool in telling your story. It can create tension, evoke tears, make you laugh and keep you on the edge of your seat. I love moving the camera, but only if it helps the story. Moving a camera just to move it is not a good rule. Read the scene and ask yourself how will movement make this better? How will it support your character’s Emotions?
 

“Your tools to move”

 
We will be looking at one of my movies that I have not really discussed much to date. It is one that I am very proud of. Once I start watching it, I can never stop, always a good sign. Mr. 3000 was a film directed by Charles Stone in which we used many ways to move a camera. For the next few weeks, we will discuss their usage in different scenes. We will show a sequence from the film. Then we will discuss the choices that we made.

Let’s start with our first motion tool.

The Dolly: This tool has been around since the beginning of cinema in one form or another. It is a very useful device to support your camera system.

 
You cannot only move left or right with it; you can also use its boom, which evokes other feelings into your shots. My favorite dolly is a Fisher 10. I love the way it moves, inherent support and stability. There are many dolly manufacturers available, but this is my first choice.
 

Mr. 3000

 
WHY: I wanted to immerse the audience in Stan Ross’s (Bernie Mac’s) headspace and his emotions. Good storytelling is always about the emotion. Stan had just come out of retirement. He has a huge ego. He was named Mr. 3000 for the 3,000 hits he supposedly made. Three of these hits were later taken away. As a result, he did not get into the Hall of Fame. He comes out of retirement to get his three additional hits and to make history.

His first post-retirement game and his first at bats do not go the way he hoped. He strikes out, swinging like he had never held a bat before. He comes home after this game, depressed, down and somber. He turns on the television to see what Sport Center thought of his performance. Stan surfs the many networks hoping to find some good news, but it never comes.

WHERE: We are in his living room. He is eating some leftover Chinese food while he clicks his remote control. He finds that every single sports channel shows him flailing at bat. Everyone is making fun of him; he is a joke on every channel. As he takes this all in, we start to dolly around him, starting in front and then moving right to left. I wanted to use a circle track. This would show the emotions that he was feeling. The announcers’ comments were sending him in a downward spiral. Why not evoke that emotion with a spiral move? Now this is where it gets interesting. We establish that he is absolutely alone with a wide shot. I used moody lighting to fit his mood, dark, depressed. Two practical lamps and a TV light effect and some deep kitchen lighting in the background are all that illuminated his world.
 

WHEN: As we start our spiral, he is watching Tom Arnold and the boys discussing his lackluster performance on the TV when all of a sudden we pass an out of focus figure in the foreground, which then reveals that he is now in a room with Tom Arnold and the boys. They are all talking about him, but they are not only on the TV; they are also in his living room.
 

 
I loved this whole idea when Charles Stone approached me with this concept. As a result, I added the spiral move and I think it is a one, two knockout punch. The spiral move keeps going to the back of his head. We never throw focus to Tom and the boys. All of this is in Stan’s head, so that is what stays in focus.
 

 
To give the move the spiral effect, we could easily have just moved around him, but what if we inject a zoom in to all of this? Now, we get a spiral effect that is more three-dimensional. We keep our move going to reveal more people in his living room until we end full frontal on Stan in an extreme close up. He picks up the remote and clicks it off. We immediately cut wide and see that his living room is empty.
 

 
The power of one move, one great concept to go into Stan’s emotions, puts the audience right there. This is an example of why you move, when you move and where you move.

In the coming weeks, we will demonstrate how to use a character’s Emotions to motivate your Motion. When it comes from the heart, you never will go wrong with movement.
 

 
What interesting dolly moves have you used to tell your story?

Next motion maker will be the Crane. Stay tuned.

In our second post on the Blackmagic Cinema Camera, we are going to look at some workflow options for getting both the CinemaDNG and ProRes files out of the camera and into the NLE of your choice. Keep in mind there are many factors that dictate how you will approach post workflow – storage space requirements, speed, hardware, software, quality and final delivery – just to name a few. (Here is a link to our first post on the camera.)
 
 
A Bit about ProRes and DNG files:

The advantage of working with ProRes files is that you can get going right out of the box. The files are easy to work with, no transcoding necessary, and at 10 bits, the file size is smaller to deal with. This format does not have to be color graded (the camera applies a burned in LUT), but you can adjust it with limited range. Once you have your media, import it directly into your editing application and go. Round tripping is not necessary.

One of the big deals with BMCC is that it comes bundled with DaVinci Resolve and that gives you an immediate way to work with RAW files. In most cases, you will not be able to edit natively in RAW format.

The 12 bit uncompressed RAW opens the door to freedom and creativity with color grading. The dynamic range is outstanding. If you have never worked with RAW format, this camera offers a great opportunity for testing the waters. However, one caveat to this format is storage space – it needs A LOT.
 
 
Workflow for Blackmagic Cinema DNG files:

Here are the basic steps for round tripping from DaVinci Resolve to FCP7 and Premiere Pro CS6 (steps are same for both):

Open DaVinci Resolve and start a new project.
 

 
Import CinemaDNG files into DaVinci Resolve.
 

 
Choose Conform to see timeline. (You may choose to do a basic color correction at this point.)
 

 
Click the Delivery Tab and select the Use the Easy Set Up option and export to Final Cut Pro. This also works for Premiere Pro CS6.
 

 
Render out your media. You will be making low-resolution proxies that your NLE can manage.
 

 
New Proxy file for editing. (Each clip in your timeline will export as an individual proxy file.)
 

 
You can now import the proxy files into your NLE of choice. For this example, we will use Premiere Pro CS6 and Final Cut Pro 7.

In your NLE, create a new project and import your files. Make your edits in the timeline and save project.

In Premiere ProCS6, export as Final Cut Pro XML. In Final Cut Pro 7, export as XML.
 

 
Back in DaVinci Resolve, use the Conform Panel to import the XML file.
 

 
Make sure you deselect “Automatically import source clips into media pool.” This is what will relink your original CinemaDNG files.
 

 
Your edit is now relinked to the original CinemaDNG files for final grading and delivery.

To include After Effects in the above workflow, one option is to work with those shots that need effects separately. Export those clips to AE and do the necessary work. Then export the final composition as a standalone clip. When you import it back into Premiere Pro or FCP, you can replace the old clip with the new one.
 
 
Using DaVinci Resolve:

DaVinci Resolve comes with a configuration guide. You will need a high performance graphic processor and other requirements to get the most out of this software. Part of what makes this camera and software package so exciting is that you have the option to shoot for cinema and export for cinema.
 
 
Other Options:

Other alternatives are to open the CinemaDNG files as an image sequence in Adobe After Effects. Make your adjustments and then render it out as a movie. In Photoshop, open one image. Then make your adjustments recording a Photoshop Action and apply those adjustments to the rest of the images in that sequence. Here is a link – http://adobe.ly/OmYthD – to instructions on how to record an action in PS. You can then Export via Media Encoder as DPX, H.264 or Quicktime. In Premiere Pro, you could also assemble converted DNG files (as TIFF or JPG) and finish your edit there.
 
 
Adobe CinemaDNG Converter:

Adobe has a free download to convert your DNG files so they are accessible to process in a variety of software. (This may be more useful to photographers.) Camera manufacturers use different RAW formats, which can make it challenging to open the files.

You can find more information and download the converter here: http://adobe.com/dng.

In the minds of many, there are basically two legitimate camera cart systems—Yager and Backstage.

Well, make room for the third… Inovativ.

Recently, I shot a promo for HBO’s enthralling television series “Game of Thrones” and had the opportunity to put the Inovativ Echo cart through its paces in a real set environment on 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, CA.

Steadicam Operator Dennis Noyes (left) and DP Mike Svitak (right)

 
This might not be the most important feature of this cart, but I can’t tell you how many pairs of sunglasses that have been scratched or smashed sitting on top of a camera cart. The Inovativ cart has a handy drawer where you can stash your personal items safely out of the way of the equipment. Moreover, it locks, so when we are shooting on the crowded open-air mall, I know my items are secure.
 

Combination locking drawers on top and bottom

 
And that’s not the only thing that locks! The wheels lock as well. A reliable function here, one that is extremely unreliable in the two other carts mentioned earlier.
 

Locking wheels

Hydraulic disc brakes

 
The first thing my 1st AC Andrew Laboy did was raise the top shelf of the cart to accommodate large Steadicam cases, which also gave him a better vantage for pulling focus on a 17” monitor.
 

1st AC Andrew Laboy pulling focus

 
We needed a cart that was small and nimble for this job. I’m really looking forward to using some of the other Inovativ carts in the future.
 

Inovativ Echo on location, 3rd Street Promenade, Santa Monica, CA

Click here to enter for your chance at 30 Days of Giveaways

Click here to download The Music Bed App in the App Store

Below is a quick tour of how it works using an iPad.

Once you have logged in, the home screen comes showing the menu bar on left and current featured artists. When you select an artist, a list of their songs comes up with a player.
 

 
Get Music brings up a search window.
 

 
When you touch a button, different search options are available to select, offering a more refined search for the type of music track you are looking for.
 

 
Once you choose an artist from the search, you can listen to the track. You can also create wish lists that can be shared or emailed.
 

 
Playlists are another option for finding music. These offer a variety of tracks relevant to the description provided about the playlist.
 

 
From here you can see what kind of license is available for a specific track and apply for the license directly within the app.
 

To get started, create an account and download the app for your iPhone and/or iPad. Then check your email for a 10% discount off your first purchase.

Click here to enter for your chance at 30 Days of Giveaways

Click here to download The Music Bed App in the App Store

The Music Bed

“What Do You Like?”

Let’s start with the basics.

KeyLight: This is the first thing you start with and this light will dictate all of your other levels of exposure with your back light and fill light. Deciding on the quality of you key light will be your choice. You can use hard light or soft light, or in this case we are showing you a book light in our lighting example, which is a very soft source. Where you position this light is up to you as well.

Back light: Some like a heavy back light in certain situations. Others like the subtlety of a back light at night, where it barely etches your actors out of the dark background. All of these choices establish your style. I try to not repeat my looks, and I am constantly challenging myself to light differently, lighting that will be unique to the story. Challenge yourself. Move out of that comfort zone. Remember that abyss I talked about jumping off just to see what it looked like on the way down? This is what I was talking about.

Fill light: It is my favorite training tool because it is what shows you every detail. Or you may choose to suppress the fill to the point where your audience has to squint to see. Now you might be thinking, “OK, what I see is what I get on the monitor.” Yes, but what is that measurement? Take the few seconds it takes to get out there and read on your light meter what you see and respond to. Log that in your memory or a book with the scene number. I always draw a quick crude lighting plot of where things are located. That way you are good to go. I have burned myself too many times by not doing this, and I sit in the theater beating myself up over not taking those few seconds.

“How to Train your Eye”

 
Key Light

• Set up a Book Light or a simple key light that you can position. Get this to your liking and then read and record it in your book, along with the position.

Reading the Key- Book Light

Key Light

 
Back Light

• Set up a light behind a model and slowly increase it until it is where you say, “I love this.” Go over and read it. Put that in your book, with a little diagram of where the back light is located.

Reading the back light

Back light

 
Fill Light

• First, flag the Key Light so that it will not affect your bounce until the bounce card is collecting light from the key light source. Move your fill card in slowly. Don’t add a light into it yet; we are training your eye. Now, you can look on your lighting monitor or your LCD to gauge it. We call this passive fill. Passive fill is light that you are collecting and bouncing from a white card that is filling your model in, not from a light aimed at it.

Passive Fill-Moving Card

Fill Light

 
You are moving your fill card toward your model, and it starts to collect the fill light. Stop the fill card once you like the level of fill on your model’s face. Go in there and read that. Now put that value next to the fill bounce in your book.

Reading the Fill

 
Once you have that measurement, you can back your fill card out of the shot, put it over camera and match the measurement from what you just wrote down in your book. How do you match that? By using a light meter. You can continue to do this with a bounce and a light into it, or use a Kino Flo. See, you can use anything you want now because you have a measurement of what you like.
 

“Finding your Fill Ratio”

You have just figured out what you like, so now we have to find out what that ratio is to the Key Light. If your Key Light is reading a 4.0 stop and your fill is reading at 1.0, then you are a very moody lighter and like 4 stops down on the fill. If you read your fill at a 1.4 and 5/10th’s, then you are a less moody lighter. All of these levels can easily be adjusted to help tell your story. The fact of the matter is that you have just trained your eye to what looks good to you, and now you have a way to measure it.

Finding Fill Ratio with Meter Readings

Final Set Up

Back, Key and Fill

“Selecting Your Light Meter”

There are many light meters to chose from that will fit your budget. I started out with a Minolta back in my gaffing days, then moved to a Sekonic, and now find the Spectra IV as my go to meter. For your review, I have selected a group of meters that all read foot candles.

The light meter is a powerful tool in figuring out how intense your lights need to be. I think I have used this example before, so if you have read it, I will bore you with it again to prove this point. Every light has an output measured by foot candles. Having a light meter that reads in foot candles is so important for this very fact. Let’s say you are lighting a night exterior and your back light moon source is 150 feet away. Foot candles is the only form of measurement that will tell you if the light you are thinking of using will be bright enough. Once you get some experience, you will just know your lights and what they can do. This is the process of being a cinematographer. Experience, experience, experience. How do you get that? By getting out there and training your eye and by making mistakes. I have given you the road map to get out there and tune your eye. Itʼs time to get BUSY!!!!!!!

Mole Richardson Product Catalog with FootCandle Chart

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Equipment used for this blog post-

Cameras:
Canon C300
Canon D Mark III
Blackmagic Cinema Camera

Lenses:
Canon 85mm Cinema Prime
Canon 24mm-105mm

Lighting:
Redhead – Backlight, Diffused
Book Light: Blonde, Bead Board Bounce, 1/2 Frost Diffusion, Gel
2 Light Fay – Fill, Gel

Bead Board for Passive Fill Card Example

Variac Dimmers

Monitor:
HP DreamColor

Spectra IV Light Meter:
For Foot Candle example video

Editing Software:
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

Music provided by: The Music Bed

Crew:
Jose De Los Angeles: Gaffer/Lighting Technician
Derek Johnson: Camera Operator C300/Grip

Model: Monette Moio

Shot at: Revolution Cinema Rentals

In order to be a well-rounded audio engineer, it is crucial that you understand the tools available to you. I would like to begin by breaking down the audio equipment available and teach you their purpose, limitations, and some tips on learning how high quality audio is recorded. A good place to start is with an introduction to wireless systems.

A wireless system is a piece of equipment that allows you to take a sound source (microphone) and send the audio wirelessly through the air to a receiver instead of physically tethering that source microphone to its destination (a mixing console) with a cable. The benefit of wireless technology is that it allows the sound engineer to capture a source of audio that may not have been attainable in the past. We use wireless systems on talent when we are not able to get a boom microphone in the shot as well as to occasionally plant a microphone that will allow us to get a better ambience in a scene.

One of the debates that I always get when working on jobs is the highly opinionated question of WHEN to use them. On many productions, I receive phone calls from coordinators or producers that will begin right away by telling me how many wireless systems I need before they even begin discussing the details of the shoot. Even though I always take this information into consideration, it is very important as the sound mixer on a job to fully understand the details of the shoot you are working on – not just how many wires.

Producers may understand the sound process, but may not fully understand the equipment requirements for the job. A great example of this would be a job that I worked on that required me to bring eight wireless systems to wire talent. After discussing the shoot in more detail, I learned that there were indeed eight talent in the shoot, but they were NOT going to be there at the same time! Had I not backtracked and asked my employer for more details, I would have had to charge them for additional wireless systems that would not have been needed. Instead, I brought a basic package with two wireless systems and a boom and never even brought the wireless out; the boom happened to be my best option for capturing sound on that particular job.

Zaxcom TRX900LA Digital Recording Wireless Transmitter

It is still important to know when it is required to use a wireless system and when it is not. The main thing to consider when deciding to use a lavalier is whether or not the audio matches the camera perspective. Camera perspective is very important in order to make sure that your audio matches the framing of video. We have all seen videos on YouTube that were made with smart phones as well as DSLR cameras using the internal microphones built into the camera. If you listen to the audio, it will sound extremely distant and very noisy. This happens because the ambient noise apparent in the room is so prevalent that it can take precedence over the actual source of audio you are trying to capture. Unlike our ears, which are subconsciously told by our brains to cancel and filter out noises while focusing on the voice of an individual, a microphone instead captures everything it hears (even if it means the main focus of the video is overshadowed by the sounds of traffic or even a fan in the room). However, due to the directionality of certain microphones, the patterns of how they capture audio can help to deviate extraneous sound that is not the primary focus.

Wireless systems and lavaliers are important in keeping consistent sound tracks when working on productions like, but not limited to, documentaries, reality shows, and multi-camera television/film productions. An ENG Sound Mixer or Boom Operator may run into difficulties if there are multiple cameras with varying frame lines, lighting difficulties due to staged or practical lighting, and noisy locations which can greatly diminish the probability of getting a clean and usable audio track. If you are not able to get consistent audio with a boom on these types of gigs, it may be beneficial for you to use a lavalier that will allow you to have a consistent audio track for each person that is wired.

Interference and audio dropouts are another factor to consider when using wireless systems and can be a sound mixer’s worst nightmare. Make sure you read and fully understand the manual that comes with your wireless system in order to learn how to scan and select frequencies that are clear and open in your location. Without doing this fundamental step, you can run into situations where the wireless may sound perfect and have optimal range, only to find out that ten minutes before you are required to roll, something has since been turned on that wasn’t before, and is now interfering with the wireless frequencies you selected! Always complete this “Final Check” right before you are ready to go!

In the next blog post, I will be talking more about the process of wiring talent as well as set etiquette of an ENG sound mixer.

—

Thomas Popp is the owner of Video Mantis Inc and Popp Sound, LLC. He has been mixing sound for film and television for 15 years and has also been a guest speaker for Hurlbut Visuals during their DSLR Boot Camp events. His interactive E-book, entitled Down to the Wire, aims at giving enthusiasts a go-to reference guide to learn set etiquette and wiring techniques to capture high quality audio on set. It is available now for iPad, and will be available for both iOS and Android platforms soon.

When I picked HP DreamColor Solutions Architect Greg Staten up from LAX, it came to my attention that he was only in LA for a few hours. He had come to LA specifically for this interview! We rushed back to the office, where Kevin, Jose and Brad were finishing with the set-up, and dove straight into the interview. The thing I remember most about Greg was his passion and his nerdiness, and I mean that in a great way. Like many of us filmmakers who obsess over certain pieces of gear or technology, Greg is equally dedicated to producing a great monitor. He’s fascinated with what his clients are doing with HP’s products, and he’s always looking for improvements. When I asked him what he liked most about his job, he said that it was seeing the excitement and the possibilities clients have over these monitors.

After finishing the interview, we had a little time left before Greg’s flight, so the whole crew, Greg and I sat down for Saturday lunch at Father’s Office. I just want to conclude with a thank you to Greg for taking the time to do an interview with us. Thanks to my crew for coming out on a Saturday and thanks to HV for providing the resources for this little project!

Greg talks about the development of the HP DreamColor Monitor from real world experiences, like watching Shane and his needs in the dust and dirt of shooting Act of Valor.

Credits
Julien Lasseur – Director
Kevin Anderson – Camera Operator, Grip
Jose De Los Angeles – Camera Operator, Gaffer
Brad Flick – Sound
Kathryn Lang – Editor

Just a quick note to let you know that I joined host Paul Antico on the NeedCreative Podcast again this week. Really great show. We talked about the art and science of cinematography and then did a mini-workshop. I go into story scenarios and how I would light and lens them.

Some of the topics covered include: shooting handheld versus on a dolly or sticks; working with scopes versus your eye; the critical importance of a light meter; lighting with the newest digital cameras; 4K cameras; what we are using on Need for Speed; knowing the role of the DP; and “lightmares.” Then he put me on the spot with scenarios like shooting a fight scene between lovers in a parked car, a character’s journey through their past, and shooting a country music video on a porch.

Listen to podcast episode 37, “Hurlbut Returns”:
AAC/MP4 Audio File –
http://traffic.libsyn.com/needcreative/NeedCreative_Episode_37.m4a

iTunes -
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-needcreative-podcast/id539359582

You can subscribe to the NeedCreative podcast feed directly in the iTunes store.

Thanks again to Paul. Enjoy. Also check out Episode 36 with Rodney Charters, ASC.
 

One of the seminars presented by Vincent Laforet was “Deconstructing The Demo: How to Stand Out in a Saturated Market.” I heard from many people who took their reels down for scrutiny. Vincent was honest in his feedback and gave great advice. You have to be brutally honest. I had Lydia, my agent and the editor as my feedback team, and their advice about order and which spots to include was hard to hear. So much of what you create is held close to your heart. You want to show everything, but short and sweet is simply the best advice I can give.

I am writing this post in response to your questions about your demo reels. Please DO NOT send requests for reel reviews, as I just don’t have the time. If you would like this to be part of our next educational bootcamp in the fall, please email Anne Gaither at anne@hurlbutvisuals.com.

Now here is my progression as a budding cinematographer. I am going to dig into my vault to do this. Most of the reels are on tape. Did you say “TAPE?” Yes, I have been around for a while!
 

“The Montage”

This is essential until you get enough content so that the content can stand alone. It took me about three years to lose the montage and move on to just showing commercials and features.
• Making a good montage starts with the music. You need something that assists your visuals, not too powerful to over shadow, but like a good soundtrack to a film.
• I would suggest that the montage is not more than three minutes long. Pick your most cinematic shots, best composition. Movement is huge.
• It is best not to have people talking, if possible. This can be distracting. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but do your best. If you are trying to show how you light interviews, see if there are moments before you call action; grab a serendipity piece.
• If you shoot a lot of interviews, ask your talent to do some poses that you can use for your reel. Maybe add a slider move to it. Showcase your lighting and unique composition, instead of a talking head. Voila. Magic!!!
 

“Rule of Thumb”

KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). Try not to over-complicate a reel. Too much flash and quick cuts will make it seem like you are trying to hide something. Treat your reel like telling the story of what makes you tick. Convey your personality, your expression as an artist. This is so important to make it your own, so that your style comes across.

Another bit of advice I can offer is to show the stuff you like to shoot. This is paramount in positioning yourself. I love story and lighting assist photography, not the “look at me, look at me” style of photography. So with this in mind, my reel shows exactly that – shanehurlbut.com

If you do not have it on your reel, you will not be able to compete with others who do. Believe me, I have tried and failed. Getting to know who you are as an artist and respecting that is all about experience and maturing as a filmmaker. It doesn’t come easily. It didn’t for me.
 

“The Archives”

Here is a little taste of my second and third reels. I could not find the tribal music montage that started my DP career, so you will have to settle for my hokie 90’s opener that was shot in my house, as well as the B & W beauty montage. Some worked and some did not, but overall, it got me to where I am now. Music videos are where I began, so most of my montages are shots from videos done in my career. They are a great creative expression, so try to shoot these babies, even if you create them yourself. It can be so experimental; it is what gave me my fearless nature. We would try stuff just to try it. Lots of failure, but when it hit, WOW!!!, did it shape me as a cinematographer! Check out the Filter video, “Hey Man Nice Shot.” We shot this video on 16mm, processed it, then printed it, then made an inter negative off of the positive, then printed it again. Then just for the hell of it, we did it all over again to see what would happen.
 

 
I am also including two reels from Mike Svitak, DP, and Bodie Orman, DP, both on my Elite Team, who are in the earlier stages of their careers.
 

“The Reels”

Bodie Orman has worked on several films and hundreds of commercials with me. He was selected as my loader on Act of Valor because not only did I know he would rock that job out, but he would also crush the four jobs above his pay grade as well as the six below it. He saw many of the images that he was responsible for composing and exposing on AOV. After that film, he told me that he wanted to pursue his DP career. I gave him my full support. This is really what the Hurlbut Visuals mentorship program is all about, being immersed in a creative, teaching environment where you are thrown into the ocean and you either sink or swim. Bodie swam!!!

Please enjoy his reel. I feel it has the perfect mix of cutting style, music that assists the imagery, and a nice sense of composition that illustrates what his character is as a shooter.
 

 
Mike Svitak has worked with me since he was a film loader on Semi-Pro. He was selected to be a 2nd A.C. on Act of Valor because I knew that he could do it all — operate, compose, clean, download, build, and handle the splinter unit. He had impressed me with his short film that won a Best Emerging Cinematographer Award at the ASC. His great attitude, mixed with a never say die mentality, makes him shine. When I was hired to shoot Deadfall, he was the first person who came to mind to deliver the 2nd Unit snowmobile chase. I knew that Mikey would rock it out and put the camera in those unique places. His reel has a very interesting concept on how to integrate interviews into abstract imagery. Many of you have asked how to do this, and I think Mike’s stab at it is very unique and inventive. Please enjoy Mike’s reel.
 

 
I love his color palette and choice of composition. This is what sets both Mike and Bodie apart. They have a very unique style and presence to their photography and framing. Please enjoy!!!

Po Chan:
Plato said, “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” I agree with Plato wholeheartedly because music is a very important element, or I should say “nutrient,” in my life and my work. A perfect example of this is the music that I chose for The Ticket.

While I was writing the script, I was repeatedly confronted with a dilemma. How could the meaning of my story, all the theories and feelings that I wanted to express, be conveyed only in physical movement and dialogue? That was not enough. I needed more room, another dimension. It was then that I realized that a song with well-written lyrics is what I needed.

So after I finished the script, I turned to my dear friend, The Fishermen Three, an amazing singer and songwriter. He has a very similar take on the feeling of love. I presented him with the script to see if the story would make his heart sing.

A few weeks later, he came back to me singing “Those Kisses.” I cried because I knew that this song would “give a soul to my story, wings to the characters’ minds, flight to my imagination and life to The Ticket.”

It was like a fairytale come true that The Fishermen Three had created this perfect puzzle piece to complete The Ticket.

As a filmmaker, I understand that sometimes it may not be possible to have someone create original music for our films. There are still many ways to find the right music for our work. For example, in my first short film The Last 3 Minutes, I fell in love with a song called “Oh Shenandoah,” which is public domain. I had a remarkable musician, Tim Godwin, perform a brand new version of the song for me.

Lydia Hurlbut:
As a child, I had the privilege to be raised by two parents who were musicians with classical music always playing in the background (Wagner, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart etc.). I rebelled as a teenager by listening to 1980’s heavy metal, which irritated my Dad to no end! (AC/DC, Metallica, BonJovi, Zepplin, Rush, Ozzie, etc.) Now my taste in music has shifted and broadened. I love everything from Linkin Park to Sarah McLachlan. Po is absolutely correct in her belief that music pervades both life and work. Whatever the genre, it is a refuge during difficult times and something that we use as a memory marker. A song always brings you back to a certain point in your life. For filmmakers, music is a critical choice that will be with that work of art forever. It is important to do research and make a wise decision.

What if you are on a strict budget or maybe a composed score isn’t exactly what you need? Here is another great option for music. Hurlbut Visuals recently discovered a music licensing resource, The Music Bed. (They are also one of our newest sponsors for 2013.) Shane met the guys behind The Music Bed while speaking at Masters In Motion this year in Austin, Texas. The two founders are filmmakers themselves, and they developed the company from their passion for seeing filmmakers’ productions go to the next level by providing high quality music. There is a fee for each song and you must obtain a license from them, but it is another alternative to Royalty Free Sites. Their music library is full of diverse music: scores, composed cinematic pieces, indie rock, singer/songwriter, etc.

The following is a short playlist of some of Shane’s favorites on the site that you can listen to. If this is of value, they have offered a 20% off coupon code on your first order. Coupon code = shanehurlbut  (This offer expires April 15, 2013)

1. Please Help Me. Band: A.M. Architect

2. Unspoken. Band: A.M. Architect

3. The Autumn Took Its Forest Bride. Band: Aural Method

4. Better Now. Band: Bombay

5. Syncopy. Band: Bombay

6. Dutch Music. Band: Bradford Nyght

As a filmmaker, your story and budget will ultimately dictate the musical choice. How have you chosen the music for your work?

“Just Shoot with the Baby”

My philosophy is to shoot first, then test. That sounds counter-intuitive, but putting the camera in real life shooting situations educates you on what you need to test. Go in not really knowing what the camera can do or what it can’t do. JUST SHOOT!!!!
 

“The Screen Test”

We arranged a screen test to shoot a scene with the camera. You will not hear any audio because it is restricted. We put it in conditions in which many DSLRs would falter. Late afternoon light, hot skies and all handheld on a shoulder rig.
 

 
I love that this camera fell into a nice color palette and delivered pretty good skin tones, as well as holding the sky. Some of it felt a little clippy in the over exposure, but again, I was going to eye and trying to figure it out. I would say that I exposed a little hot. Many people told me not to starve this camera of light, but I think I went a little too far. With that said, the image holds up for a $3K camera. We color graded the scene with Davinci Resolve, which is included when you purchase the camera.
 

Davinci Resolve Interface for Color Correction

“What is my Secret Sauce for the BMCC?”

On the internet, I quickly witnessed that the images looked incredibly sharp and had a very large depth of field. The camera’s sensor is a 4/3 chip, which matches super 16mm film pretty closely. I was immediately transported back to my music video days. I remembered all of those Super 16mm Zooms that I used along with my Zeiss prime set. I went on a search and found my go to Zooms that lensed Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and the Rolling Stones, which were the Canon 8-64mm zoom, the Zeiss 10-1 and the Canon 11.5-138mm zoom. These babies vignetted a little but the glass looked creamy, which I did not see on the internet. It looked filmic. GOLD!!!!
 

Sensor comparison

Black Magic with Canon 8-64mm Zoom

Canon 8-64mm Zoom

Canon 11.5-138mm Zoom

 
The Screen Test was not shot with these zooms. The light bulb in my head had not gone off yet, but what I did do was to use my favorite old lenses to kind of do the same thing. The Kowas were pulled out of the closet and slapped on this baby, and the proof is in the pudding; they looked off the chain. They are 35mm lenses, so with this cropped 4/3 chip, your 50mm is like a 100mm. The widest lens I have in my Kowa kit is a 15mm and that would feel like a 30mm, so getting wide with this glass was a challenge. I think the test works well with them.
 

Blackmagic camera ready for testing

“Give Me Shallow”

The other thing I knew I had to do was shoot around a 2.0 on all my day exteriors so that I could keep a shallow depth of field (DOF) and make it look more like the DOF you get with 35mm. If I was going to shoot my day exteriors in between a 2.8 or a 4, I would shoot at a 2.0 on the BMCC. If you want your stuff looking awesome, this will be absolutely essential. The quickest way to show your hand of cards with a 4/3 chip camera is to have endless DOF.

To address this, Letus and the Master Cinema Series has developed a cage system and a 35mm adapter ring that snaps onto the lens port. This will give you the perfect look and feel of 35mm and the creamy filmic quality I have been talking about, and it fits right into the MCS 2.0 rig system.
 

Blackmagic in the MCS 2.0 ShoulderCam configuration with Alphatron EVF

The new Blackmagic Letus cage with 35mm adaptor

Letus 35 Ultimate lens adaptor

“Bring in the IR NDs”

We also noticed that you will need to use IR NDs with this camera above a ND 1.2. After the ND 1.2, the image got very brown in the blacks and felt very muddy. To keep this shallow DOF outside, you will need Tiffen IR NDs so that you can minimize this problem. Unfortunately, you cannot get rid of it with color correction. You can make it less, but it is baked in there.
 

“BIT Depth”

The camera seemed to have a good amount of BIT depth, but we felt with the flat RAW file, we needed to infuse a ton of color into the image to bring it to a normal looking image, which is cool, but it did not fall right in quickly. So plan on a little more color correction time. You won’t have to do as many power windows to fix all the blown out highlights and deep shadows because of this camera’s 13 stops of latitude, which is great.
 

Raw

Color Corrected

“The Camera Needs a Cage and Weight”

The BMCC is a very light camera, very much like all the DSLRs. Please remember what I have said in the past — you will need to weight this baby appropriately. The MCS 2.0 ShoulderCam will get you all dialed in with the right weight and ergonomics to be able to shoot.
 

MCS 2.0 ShoulderCam

Director Scott Waugh and Shane Hurlbut, ASC using the MCS 2.0 ShoulderCam

 
Because the camera’s output is only SDI, the MCS 2.0 EVF adapters have been made to accommodate the AlphaTron, which is SDI in and out. These EVFs are sweet with this system.
 

MCS 2.0 EVF adapter for the Alphatron

Alphatron EVF

 
This is part one of a three part series on the BMCC. In the following weeks we will release more tests that show its latitude, light sensitivity at night, noise level, etc. Stay Tuned!!!!

Equipment used for this test:

Camera:
Blackmagic Cinema Camera with Panavision Mount

Lenses:
Kowa: 20, 25,32,50mm for Screen Test
Canon: 8-64mm Zoom for IR Test

Filters:
Tiffen WW IR ND and Tiffen WW ND

Battery:
Dionic 90 Anton Bauer

Monitors:
Small HD DP-6 Monitor

EVF:
Alphatron

Rigs:
MSC 2.0 ShoulderCam
MCS BMCC Cage

Support:
O’Connor 20-60 Head
O’Connor Standard and Baby Sticks

Editing Tool:
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

Music:
Licensed through The Music Bed
Please Help Me. Band: A. M. Architect & Through the Eye: Les Enfants

Lighting:
Supplied by Paskal Lighting

I’ll be on at 1:00 with insider information on getting the best out of the new 4K Canon arsenal, Canon 1DC tests, post workflow and etiquette — how the elite team rolls out. Other great speakers from Duclos Lenses, Digilab, Bertone Visuals and Canon round out the day.

Space is limited, so I recommend signing up now at the link below. Hope to see you there.

Register now

I had the pleasure of talking lighting and cameras with one of my mentors, Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, at the Revolution Cinema Rentals Open House last weekend.

Revolution Cinema Rentals presents: Education & Demonstration Fest
Saturday February 23rd at 1pm – 5:30pm
1102 Arroyo Street in San Fernando

Schedule:
1 to 1:20 – Introduction from Q

1 to 2:30 – Shane Hurlbut, ASC

2:45 to 3:15 – Tim Smith*, Canon USA

3:30 to 4:00 – Paul Duclos, Duclos Lenses

4:15 to 4:45 – Patrick Ready, Digilab

5:00 to 5:30 – Gianluca Bertone, Bertone Visuals

*Speaker subject to change

Register here
 

When I shoot film, I use specific stocks that are either daylight or tungsten based to react to blue daylight color temp at 5500 Kelvin or 3200 Kelvin for tungsten. I never set my digital camera to either one of these settings. On some cameras, it is your only choice. One reason I have gravitated towards the Arri Alexa and Canon cameras is not only for their incredible sensors, but also because they understand this fact. You can rotate the wheel in WB mode on a Canon or on the Alexa in a sub menu to scroll to your look.
 

While working with one of my favorite directors, Maurice Marable, we were doing a spot in an underground parking garage. When you went with the color temp of the lights that existed in the space, the mood was blah, no depth, no dimension. I got on the scroll wheel of the Alexa and cranked it down to 2700 Kelvin, and Maurice was like “Wow, that looks bangin!!!” Just the simple use of this tool can create a whole other chapter in the way you light.
 

2700 Kelvin on the Alexa to take something that looked ordinary at 5500 Kelvin because that was what AWB gave us.

“Embrace Every Color You Can”

In Hollywood, for decades we have “Hollywooded” every night scene on streets. We went in there and re-globed all the street lights with tungsten 500 watt globes on a street which typically were HPS (High Pressure Sodium) and hung 2k open face tungsten lights to the street lamps so that the color was correct.
 

Typical Cobra Head street lamps

2K Open Face Tungsten Light

 
Then, all of a sudden, moonlight would show up in urban areas. I am not a big fan of moonlight in urban areas. This is my creative choice. I feel that in reality, moonlight would never reach into these lit areas. I sit at home and really observe moonlight in my pool at night. It is all powerful when it is full and it has even created shafts in our woods, but there is not an HPS street light for miles, let alone a hundred. But I did not always have this view. I followed what my mentors were doing and they were changing lights out in stores so that all the floʼs were either daylight or tungsten. They were balancing all their color. They were using moonlight as a very blue source and making all street lights white, tungsten. THAT WAS THE 80′S and 90′S. So I did the same.
 

Night exteriors in Macon, GA on Need for Speed

On location in Macon, GA for Need for Speed

“John Stockwell Changed Me Forever”

When I was selected to lens Crazy/Beautiful for Touchstone and Disney, Director John Stockwell told me that he wanted this to be a real film. Not Hollywood. He wanted the audience to feel like two teenagers from different sides of the tracks who slowly fell in love. What that feels like, the emotions and inconsistency of being a teenager in love. Not calculated, never planned, just going for it. He wanted to do it with a small crew. He wanted to do everything practically. This changed me as a cinematographer overnight. I love when a director has this power. He opened my eyes to doing things completely differently, not how it has always been done in the past. I was the past, and I was jumping on board with this mindset and throwing everything that I had been taught out the window. Now this was scary, but I wanted to test myself as an artist.
 

“The Power of a Reference Book”

When John and I sat down to discuss the look and feel of the film, he said that he wanted this film to show Los Angeles in a different way. Everyone had shown the glowing beaches, warm, poppy colors, etc. Letʼs show East LA how it is and letʼs lens Pacific Palisades the same way. Well, if you have ever been to this region of the west coast, you know that warm, poppy colors, and high contrast has never touched the Pacific. It is bald, gray blue skies, foggy, filtered sun and an ocean that is gray and cold. He gave me this very small reference book that he felt was the movie in 80 pages. It was called HiroMix.
 

HiroMix: inspiration for the color palette of Crazy/Beautiful

I have used this book for reference on about eight of my movies. It was written by a young Japanese female photographer who takes self-portraits using very unique composition. This is because she never looks through the eyepiece of the camera. I was like, WHAT!!? Her composition was off, but beautiful. It was haphazard, inconsistent, yet fragile. Exactly like a TEENAGER. I have a teenager at home and that is spot on. This was our inspiration, a teenage Japanese photographer who never looked through the lens. I AM IN!!!
 

“With My Marching Orders”

So with these marching orders, I set out to deliver just that. We tested different types of film stocks and lenses and came up with a ridiculous cocktail. We used a tungsten based film stock for all day exteriors and interiors. It was rated at 320 ISO and I exposed it at 32 ISO. The over exposure delivered the look that John and I wanted. It was difficult at first to get my head around this stock being stretched the way we did. But after the first week, I really understood its power and how its look was just so unique. It was how LA looks to John and me. The blue, green, cyan color palate worked incredibly well.

Pacific Palisades: Filtered sun and blue/gray tones

Interior shot: Tungsten film stock 320 ISO exposed at 32 ISO

“Urban Lighting and Using It to Help Tell Your Story”

We had a lot of nights on Crazy/Beautiful and John wanted them to look real, not that Hollywood thing that I have been talking about. He wanted to use what was there and augment it to be able to expose the negative. He wanted it to feel like it was happening right then and there. This was a daunting task in 2000. We did not have the arsenal of lights of many color temps at our disposal. The idea of lighting a movie from Home Depot was looked down upon. So to turn this negative to a positive, I pulled from my parents’ inspiration.
 

Kirsten and Jay in the car driving. Love the off frame. Teenager style.

“The Farm was my Training Ground

for Cinematography”

I look back on my career and so much of my Mom and Dadʼs fearless nature, along with my Dadʼs incredible common sense, flows through me on every decision I make as a cinematographer. My Dad worked at Cornell in the agronomy division. He worked as a professorʼs assistant in bringing all their creations to life. Whether it was sweet corn, field corn, wheat, red kidney beans, soy beans, you name a plant and he had a big part of building all the hybrids that farmers plant today. He could make anything work, stuff that just blew my mind as a kid. You would look at the situation that he was up against, whether the plow broke, combine jammed, truck stuck in the mud or that tractor that needed a makeshift winter shelter so that he did not freeze his tail off while he blew snow out of the driveway. Most of the time, you would never conceive his cocktail of different materials to create what he did. Remember how I told you that your PUNT or plan B needs to be better than plan A that you had eight weeks to figure out? Well, this is where I got my training. He was a master at the “Cob Job” as he called it. It worked, was built like a brick house, not sexy, but it did the job. You probably think I am side tracked, but every story has a reason.
 

“Building your Own Lights Because They Didnʼt Exist”

The problem was that I needed an exposure increase from the HPS street lights that lit most of LAʼs streets. My light meter said .07. That was three stops under what the lenses that we selected could deliver. This is when I channeled my Mom and Dadʼs training and went to a very good friend for help.

David Pringle owns and operates Luminys Systems. It is an amazing company that has helped me tell my stories for over two decades, back to when I was a budding gaffer slinging cable and setting lights. I asked him if he could build some wacky lights for me. He was all in. “What the hell do you want to build, Shane?” He has my passion and reminds me so much of my Dad, the way he just makes it work. I want to build these lights that donʼt exist. “OK, what are they?” I want to mount lights to street lamps that are the same wattage and color temp and do it in a way that you cannot see it.
 

David with the 200 watt HPS

The mad scientist’s table. I was so funny. David would just pick them up with bare wires while they were on and make adjustments with a metal screw driver. He is so my Dad!!!

The WTF look soon came across his face. Then his engineer Ashot Nalbandyan, who is just as crazy and as passionate as David, pipes up. We can do that. Let me throw something together. They built this incredible light that was a 400 HPS light that hid right behind the Cobra head street lamp and it delivered a 1.4 on my meter from 25 feet away. I was in the pocket. I could not go crazy with the light being too powerful because the area would look over-lit compared to the background streets, so we had to keep it close. These lights were so kick butt. I use them on everything I do. They weigh less than 3 lbs and crank out the light in the exact color temp of the street lights.
 

“Why Stop There?”

Letʼs keep creating. “Well, what else do you want?” How about Mercury Vapor and Metal Halide? He said that shouldnʼt be a problem. So two weeks later, I showed up at his shop and he had all of the prototypes laid out for me to analyze. It looked like Frankensteinʼs lab. David and Ashot were like mad scientists. They developed the first strobe that could truly be used in motion pictures. They were called Lightning Strikes. They are so user friendly and look exactly like lightning. Then they started to make lights that mirrored the look of the sun as a source, which when you see them is exactly that. They call them SoftSuns and when they strike on, itʼs HOLY SMOKES – that is a beautiful light. I could go on and on about his company but here is their website. Now I am getting sidetracked.

 
Based on our creations from Crazy/Beautiful, he made all types of these fixtures so that you can tell your stories with realism and accurate color temp. I have tried for years to match them with tungsten and HMI sources HPS (High Pressure Sodium), MH (Metal Halide) and MV (Mercury Vapor) with gel from all of the manufacturers to no avail. Nothing matched; it was always slightly off. It killed me.

200, 400 and 100 watt HPS Urban Practicals at Luminys Systems

“Need for Speed”

My next film has a ton of night street racing and I knew I would need to call on Luminys Systems again to build more lights. I wanted to take the ones we built and make them a little better, more focused, more compact.
 

The design of MH 800 watt fixture at Luminys Systems

The way the lights work is that they are all color coordinated with plugs and Pelican cases that house the ballasts. You buy the lights from Home Depot. The ballasts are in the head, so it makes them very heavy and hard to grab, hard to use, and hard to focus. So what David and his engineering team did was to take the ballast out of the head and put it into a waterproof Pelican case. Then from there, they add a 50 foot head extension, which connects to the light source. The light source is put in a lightweight aluminum reflector that pushes the light out in an open face spread.

All the ballasts and connectors are color coded so that you cannot plug a 1000 watt HPS ballast into a 400 watt HPS light. Dummy proofed!!! HA HA!!!
 

Color coded labeling system for the lights and ballasts

“Keep it Light”

What makes these lights so powerful is not just their incredible color temp and design, but the fact that they absolutely weigh nothing. They are all made out of lightweight aluminum that also acts as the reflector. So you can mount them with gafferʼs tape if you have to and I have. I photograph them all the time, never hide. They are practical and give you the punch required with little power consumption.

Honda 2000 watt Putt Putt Generators

 
A 1500 watt spot MH sport fixture puts out the same output as a 4K HMI Par light. Par lights costs $500 a day to rent. This one costs $100 a day and doesnʼt require another $60 in gel to try and get it to match. I sprinkle these things around my street light scenes, giving depth and dimension that would not normally be there, all powered by a couple of Honda Putt Putt gennyʼs. KISS.

“The Ultimate Camera Test”

The Director, Scotty Waugh, wanted to test all of the latest digital cameras that have come out recently as well as some that have been around for four years, which is rare. He wanted to find his emulsion. I am tested out, so we are going to take a break from tests for a while. Stay tuned for four upcoming posts that will start with the Blackmagic camera in a few weeks.

We tested:
Sony F65
Sony F5
Arri Alexa
Red Epic
Canon 1DC
Canon C500
Blackmagic
GoPro Hero 3
35mm Film

“Color Correction”

What was immediately clear was that film was not the right choice for this project. We could not mold it and shape it into our vision. I sat blown away in the Technicolor DI suite with Mike Sowa, our colorist at the wheel. The digital file had more data, more information, more latitude, and more color depth. I am not sure if the film scanners are keeping up with the latest technology because of the impending demise of 35mm film. That is very sad. I have lensed 17 features through an eyepiece, not an electronic viewfinder. In those 17 features, my light meter, not a wave form, guided me through my quest.

“The Crossroads”

It was the name of one of my favorite bars when I went to Emerson, right down the street from my dorm at Fensgate. Crossroads was a place I visited to talk about film, the art of the medium, how organic it is, the structure, the gauze that it lays over the image, whether it be grain or just plain magic. It has fueled incredible Oscar performances and brought so many great films to life.

I sat looking at the image on the screen and I cannot get the look that I like with my go to tool for 20 years. So, I second guess myself, which is not a good thing to do. I must be pushing it to a place that I should not go. Yet, when I view the ultimate tool that we have chosen to be our A camera, it looks exactly how I want it to look. It took two turns to the right, one to the left and BAM!!!! Our vision screamed off the screen.

When I lensed Deadfall in the winter of 2010 after just finishing Act of Valor, I went back to film. We were shooting snow in the wintertime and I wanted the latitude of film to deal with all of the extreme conditions we would be under. The Alexa had just come out and was not really tested, so the Director Stefan Ruzowitzky and I decided to go with film. I have to say that the speed at which I was able to move was incredible. Light meter in hand, no cables, monitors, black tents, etc.

I trusted my instinct on film and its emulsion attributes. This is exactly what our digital cameras are, another film emulsion. You have to pick your emulsions, not singular, because specific cameras have their unique benefits, their unique emulsion. So trying to use their best aspects and not being locked to one emulsion to shoot your movie is paramount. I would never do that if I were shooting film. I would use daylight balanced film outside, then use faster daylight for dusk, dawn, and day interiors, as well as tungsten for night interior and exteriors.

“Becoming Fearless”

If there is one thing that I am, it is a risk taker. My wife, Lydia, always asks me, why do you have to always push the limits? I respond that it is in my DNA. My parents wondered the same thing. My son practices this every day. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. By the way, GOD has a sick sense of humor. I took many risks on my features and music videos. I remember on Crazy/Beautiful, the studio could not understand why I was rating a stock at 32 ISO when it read 320 ISO on the can. Technicolor had never pulled a film three stops before but that is what I did on Deadfall. I love trying new things and testing myself as an artist. Will this work? I really have no idea sometimes and that is the exciting part.

When Act of Valor came along and we decided to shoot 70% of the film on an untested still camera made by Canon, we never missed a beat because it was right for the movie, right for the SEALS, right for the emotions, and right for the budget. This is the fearless nature that I talk about. When you can see it on a monitor exactly how it will look, when you are in the DI suite on set, you can BE ABSOLUTELY FEARLESS!!!

As a cinematographer, many of you have been in this situation, whether you choose to talk about it or not. Standing there with your director and discussing the look of the scene is one of the most important conversations. Our creative collective agreed that our actor would be silhouette. I expose it that way, dailies come back and everyone is blown away on the day. They love it. It feels right, and the feedback is amazing.

Six months later, I am in the DI suite with the director and he asks me if we can bring some detail up in his face. Ouch! “I thought you were going to go semi-silhouette,” he said. I know in the back of my mind we said silhouette, which to me means absolutely no detail. I had a close up, but there was nothing there. We tried a power window here and there, but all of it felt mushy.

Smash cut to on set dailies, on set color and you are now seeing a very close representation of the image that will be in your DI suite in six months. Right then and there, you can talk about it. The director’s idea of silhouette might be a little different than yours. It might be a semi-silhouette feel. However, you can have the discussion and immediately plot a creative course. When the director wants it dark and moody, you can be really daring because what you see is what you get. So I light it where you have to squint to see them. The director immediately says, “But maybe not that dark, I want to see their faces, their emotions.” Ha! Ha!

The mystery is gone, the organic process removed. Is this a good thing? I have to say I was pretty fearless with film, but I do take things more to the edge with the digital medium because of this one fact.

Roger Deakins said that he felt very much the same way, that he is much more of a risk taker with digital and that he felt that the Alexa was taking his creativity to new heights because of it. This man is one of my most trusted mentors. I look at each frame that he creates in shock and awe. He has inspired me my whole career.

“What to make of all of this”

I have to say that with technology changing faster than most of us can keep up, I view it as believing in yourself. Trust your instincts and go for it; throw it out there. Make mistakes. That is how you grow as an artist. Push yourself to be uncomfortable. I hate comfort. I need to feel that I am on the edge of a cliff and the wrong exposure or the wrong execution will send me off, into the deep abyss, and then I do it to see what that deep abyss looks like.

Black Magic Cinema Camera

Blackmagic Cinema Camera with vintage Canon 8-64mm glass

Marc Margulies with the Canon C500

Canon EOS 1DC with Panavision Primo glass

Sony F5

Arri 435

This is how we rolled out the GoPro Hero 3!

While I was working at Hurlbut Visuals, Lydia came up with the idea of interviewing our sponsors for the blog and gave me the opportunity to direct those spots, as it was my dream to direct.

Our vision was to tell the story of the people who create the tools that we use to tell our own stories. So the quest began! I stumbled across the very unique story of two of our sponsors, Wes Phillips and Dale Backus from SmallHD. During our discussions of how we were going to conduct the interview, being that they were located all the way out in North Carolina, I heard the incredible story of how they succeeded in winning the legendary “Doritos: Crash The Superbowl Contest” not once… but twice and then how they used their earnings to fund the growth of SmallHD! Wow… as soon as Wes told me the whole story, I called Lydia and said, “We gotta make a documentary about this!” and she was all in.

A couple of months after my discussion with Wes, I found myself flying to North Carolina with a 5DMkII, a 24-70mm l series, a 70-200mm l series, some batteries, cards… and that was it! Managing the very small budget I had to work with, the funds that SmallHD provided went towards a motel, airfare, and a rental car.

Barrett, Wes’ brother and also the head of video marketing for SmallHD, along with Tim, another SmallHD employee, served as my entire crew. Only using one joker light with a chimera and a Lowell pro light, we scrounged up what gear SmallHD had and began interviewing everyone from the guys who worked in the shop to Wes and Barrett’s father, who is now working for the company.

If there is anything I took away from this experience, it was that everyone at SmallHD really loved working there. It was like being welcomed by this big family that is striving to constantly innovate and push their products to the next level. With indie filmmaking, your team and your support is absolutely crucial and SmallHD opened their doors and made the filmmaking process into something very enjoyable. Even the interview subjects had to be substitute gaffers. If anything can be said about indie filmmaking, it is that if you have the support of people like SmallHD and Hurlbut Visuals, you can tell great stories.

SmallHD
Wes Phillips – CEO
Dale Backus – CTO
Reed Phillips – Business Development/Dad
Barrett Phillips – Director of Creative Management
Nick Dimondi – Friend and Collaborator
Laura Phillips – Former Customer Support/Wes’ Wife

Produced, Directed and Photographed by Julien Lasseur
Executive Producers: Shane Hurlbut and Lydia Hurlbut
Editor, VFX Director and Sound Mixer: Matthew Macar
Camera Assistant and Gaffer: Barrett Phillips
Camera Assistant, Boom Op and Grip: Tim Cheek
Music: Quantic