added 4 April 2002
The Making of "Exclusive," Part One:
Affordable Matte Box and Filter Solution for XL1S Filmmakers
an article by Don Berube
Reprinted with permission. Originally located at http://www.noisybrain.com/onloc1_01.html
In September 2001, filmmakers Daniel and Donald Berube of noisybrain. Productions formed a creative alliance with Writer/ Co-Producer Daren Firestone to produce a five-minute narrative short entitled "Exclusive". Written by Firestone and directed by award-winning broadway Director Scott Schwartz (Jane Eyre, Batboy-The Musical, TICK... TICK... BOOM!, Godspell NYC 2000), this short film centers around a seven year-old Jewish girl grappling with her religious identity. Based on a true story, the film takes place in an outdoor pool at an exclusive country club, where the young protagonist must hide her religion from her friends and herself. The story tackles the difficult topics of prejudice and identity with originality, insight and humor.
"Exclusive" was shot entirely on MiniDV by Director of Photography Donald Berube, using the Canon XL1S with various CANON and third-party accessories. Adam Geiger, a veteran underwater cinematographer, was also on location to film underwater scenes. bronislaw Karol, a friend of Dan and Don's and an established gaffer and now cameraman, lent his support as Don's primary A.C. and second cameraman. All on the crew were excited about Canon supporting the project and having the opportunity to work hands on with Canon's newest professional MiniDV camera.
Donald Berube: "When Daren, Dan and I decided to move forward with the production of "Exclusive", we were anxious to utilize the new CANON XL1S miniDV camcorder for the look of the image. The XL1S is well known for its' ability to capture high quality digital video onto miniDV cassette tape. Since our story centers around three young girls in an outdoor swimming pool during the day, that meant that I would be faced with a lot of bright sunlight, which would constantly change as the shooting day progressed. With the XL1S, I knew I could tap into the camera's new image setup controls as well as make use of the new customizable image and white-balance presets. I also chose to make use of the new Canon 16x XL IS II lens, which is very sharp in focus and resolution."
"As the story is an intimate dialog between three small children as they swim about in an outdoor pool, I knew there would be a lot of reflections on the surface of the water. To minimize reflections in the water around the children, I needed to use a good circular Polarizer filter. Furthermore, we wanted to add to the “film-like” quality of the Canon XL1S image in any additional way we could. I felt that a subtle, Soft Diffusion filter would help to achieve this. The two main filters I decided to utilize were Tiffen's Black Diffusion FX and UltraPol Polarizer filters. We wanted to keep the focus on the three children and their facial expressions, while minimizing the distractions of the sometimes cluttered background in the image. That meant that I would need to minimize the Depth Of Field. However, to expose the image corrrectly under the bright sunlight, I would have to use a smaller aperture to allow less light to pass through the lens, which would in effect produce more depth of field than I desired. My goal was to be able to minimize the depth of field throughout all of the shots."
"As a rule of thumb, miniDV cameras tend to possess an inherently high depth of field, largely due to the smaller size of their CCD imaging devices. Since there were a lot of objects and extras moving about around the pool, I wanted the shots to have a shallower depth of field, with the background being more of a wash of color, instead of being completely in focus. The Canon 16x XL IS II lens has an internal Neutral Density filter which enabled me to cut down on the amount of light passing through the lens. That allowed me to use a wider aperture, helping to reduce the depth of field. For the scenes in the pool, the UltraPol Polarizer filter effectively minimized reflections and would also slightly decrease the amount of light passing through the lens, which actually helped in maintaining a wider aperture when the early afternoon sun was hitting us hard. During these brightest portions of the day, I would also incorporate an additional Tiffen .3 Neutral Density filter to maintain the wider aperture. Some of the establishing shots included wideshots of the landscape surrounding the pool and the blue sky. For these wideshots, I incorporated a Tiffen .6 Graduated ND filter to balance the difference in exposure levels between the sky and the foreground."
"In order to hold these 4x4 glass filters in front of the lens, I needed to use an external matte box system with integrated filter slots. These filter slots needed to accomodate the Tiffen 4mm glass filters I would be using. Also, the slots had to be able to rotate, so that I could maximize the effect of the Polarizer filter. The rotating capability would also help when shooting wide landscape shots, so that I could match the soft edge of the Graduated Neutral Density filter to the horizon. I chose to use the Lee Filters Lightweight Video Hood. This system is comprised of two rotating filter slots with a bellows type of sunshade. Bellows systems are usually most effective in preventing ambient light flares, as you can adjust the length of the bellows, much like an old squeeze box accordian. The point in my using the Lightweight Video Hood was that the budget for this project was very low and I found this system to be affordable and quite capable."
"Overall, I was very happy with the performance of the Lee Filters Lightweight Video Hood, especially when you take into account the low cost of the system, which lists for $495 retail. This matte box is designed to clamp on to the outside diameter of a lens, and the diameter of the lens mount opening is 95mm. Since the outside diameter of the Canon 16x IS II lens is 89mm, an 89.1mm to 95mm adaptor ring is required, which allows the 95mm opening of the Lightweight Video Hood to mate properly to the 89mm outside diameter of the Canon 16x lens. This adaptor ring is available from Lee Filters for about $60. For those who do not have a need for rotating filter slots, Lee Filters also sells their Wide Angle Lens Hood, which is basically the same design as the Lightweight Video Hood, without the rotating filter capability. The Wide Angle lens Hood lists for an even more affordable $298 retail. The Wide Angle Lens Hood is normally designed to accomodate the more affordable 2mm resin-type filters, which Lee Filters also sells. Lee Filters also sells the Wide Angle Lens Hood equipped with 4mm filter slots at no extra cost, which I understand can be obtained upon special order with an additional week or so of turnaround time. One thing I would recommend is to wrap some 1" black paper camera tape around the filter slots to prevent any stray ambient light leaks, especially in bright sunlight."
"This being said, the Lee system performed quite well for our short film. One advantage of the Lee system is that it is a bellows system, rather than a fixed, hard box lens shade. The Lee matte box system also folds to a very compact size and a nice durable soft case is included to keep it well protected when not in use - small enough to fit in most camera bags. In summary, the Lee matte box system is an affordable and versatile tool for the filmmaker on a limited budget."
On to Part Two...
Written by Don Berube
Thrown together by Chris Hurd
