CineVera Demo Reel
 

Check out our new reel. We're a new film production company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, consisting of myself, and my amazing DP, Chad Terpstra. Our website will be up next week Wednesday. But please check out our reel. We shoot on the HD100 with the Brevis 35mm adapter and Nikon primes.

We're really excited about getting our work "out there." I hope you like it.

720pHD:
http://www.cineverapictures.com/video/CineVeraV1-HD.mov

or a smaller version:
http://www.cineverapictures.com/vide...V1-800Kbps.mov

Enjoy!

Thank you Brian. I enjoyed watching the reel. It's great to see others doing some really great cinematic work, and especially nice to see the results when a talented DP, gaffer, grip, focus puller and camera operator are all working in sync.

Chad is of course a prolific member here at DV Info Net.

I'm sure there will be lots of questions on the technical aspects of your and Chad's work. I'm looking forward to reading the answers.

Brian (and Chad)

I really enjoyed that reel. It's a showcase of excellent cinematography and lighting.

I have to ask, is Chad using a follow focus with the brevis?

Its refreshing to see some HD100 footage like this.

Thanks for sharing

Drew.

Thanks guys. Glad you like it. We're really looking forward to the possibilities this summer might bring. Pretty much all of the footage on the reel was shot in the months of March and April immediately following the receipt of the Brevis in late February. -Three shorts, a 24 film fest, and a friendly helping of "just for fun" shooting with fellow filmmakers. It's been a great start to the year.

Drew,

I use a follow focus whenever I can but don't own one just yet. I'm still waiting to see what Dennis's design turns out to be like. I have been borrowing a friend's RedRock & rails for a few larger shoots. On the other shoots my ever-patient AC utilized some very fancy masking tape & colored markers... Or worse yet just some gaffer tape on the focus ring that points to a particular screw on the lens for different marks. But it works when you're in a pinch.

I'm hoping Dennis's FF gears are easier to set up because that's the main slow down when you don't have a gear for each lens.

Awesome
 

I thought that was really cool. Nice job guys. I really loved it. You guys really inspire me. Was that Sigur Ros for the music?

How were the the last two shots of the man and woman lit (closeup two-shot, then a little farther back... both on the street).

Thanks! Looks excellent!

Regarding lighting throughout... what lights did you use? what brand, type and wattage?

Again, thanks!

Beautiful work! Brevis seems to really pay off - how does it compare to RedRock?

JVC ProHD can really produce some beautiful pictures. I think you should send this reel to JVC to be features on their ProHD showcase site. Keep up the gret work!

Chad (and Brian),
I finally get to see some of your work. nice...

For the slo-mo when the actor throws the papers in the air, did you use shake for time-remaping? that looked almost as smooth as my HVX overcranked.

Nice reel, I really like the city stuff, and the couple in the car.

Phil

Oops. I think we forgot to mention that there are some HVX shots sprinkled in here. I own the HD100 and most of this reel uses it but some of our just-for-fun shooting we used an HVX. I think both cameras are great and I'm glad I can shoot with either. Sorry we didn't mention that sooner. So you can compare for yourselves here are the HVX shots:

- Guy sweeping in hallway (1:00)
- CU on glasses (guy runs away) (2:00)
- guy in church staring at camera (blue eye is lit) (2:44) - I did a secondary CC on this one to really make his eye pop (deepened the blue).
- Slow-mo running down red hallway (2:53)
- Phone with blue background (2:55)
- Church steeple time-lapse (2:59)
- guy throwing papers (3:04)
- last shot (streak of light on face) (3:12)

The rest is the HD100. The 540p50 HDV option actually works quite well for slow motion. You do have to calibrate the Brevis for it either way because by default you can see moving grain at 1/100 shutter. I'm pushing for getting an oscillation speed control on the outside of the Brevis so it would make the process a piece of cake. I think Dennis mentioned he's working on something.

I'll let Brian talk about what lights were used. You can pretty much name a brand or kind of light and it's represented here.

We'll be doing a film test in a few weeks so hopefully we'll soon be able to cite shots that are 16mm. Who knows, the quality may be closer than you'd think.

yes sir! we were looking for a powerful and emotional song, and we were psyched to land on this one.

And Jack, for the lighting on the streets, that was all sun and clouds, with no gripology. But we were careful to put them under an awning, to use as negative fill.

In general, our lighting package changes every time we shoot. For some of the night stuff, we used several 2k Mighties and various other Arri fresnels. There were other days that we had several broken-down Lowel DP lights. The car shots are lit with a florescent tube with one backlight (a 650 with color on it, I believe). The shots in the warehouse were lit primarily by a 1k chinaball.

Thanks for all the kind words. It means a lot to us.

Beautiful work. Nice camera movement and excellent lighting.


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Really great! Do you recall any special setup info. about the shots outside the bike shop ? (1:19) These struck me as extra nice. Are you using the stock lens as the relay, or do you have a special setup? Any special info. on CC and edit program? Thanks, and once again, great job!

I'm using the stock lens for now. The shots outside the bike shop didn't have anything special on them. I had an ND.9 and a polarizer on the Nikon lens (135mm). Other than that we just made sure they were in the shade. I *may* have had black stretch level 1 on (with TC3 otherwise) but I'm not 100% sure.

As far as CC goes I always do a bunch of it to make sure the footage looks its best. It's one of my favorite parts of the process and I'm really excited to try Final Cut Studio's Color program. It's just what I've been waiting for. Currently I use Natress Film Effects levels for luminance changes and FCP's 3-way color corrector for most color things. FCP actually has nice controls for secondary color corrections already and I've started using them more and more. I've attached a before and after of the HVX shot with the guy in the church (JT_raw.jpg). Before I pulled the blue of his eye up it wasn't nearly as stunning.

Also since you mentioned the bike shop I attached a before/after of the guy's CU. As you can see it was approaching over-exposure originally but since I used the zebras when shooting I made sure nothing clipped and there was enough information to work with. I'm hoping with Apple's Color program I'll be able to pull even more detail from the shadows. It's tricky when you try to get faces looking right and have detail in black things at the same time.

Actually now I got to playing and came up with another version of the bike exterior with just a bit more detail in the shadows. I let up on the blacks and pulled down on the gamma in Nattress. The face looks about the same (same curvature) but the shirt has just a bit more to it. It's pretty subtle but probably every little bit helps. What do you think?

http://www.cineverapictures.com/stills/HW_afterB.jpg

I agree; subtle, yet nice adjustment. I had failed to mention how nice the opening shot is. ( Church pew ) Super smooth and very nice! Any info. on this one? How would you say the Brevis compares with the Letus? I know it does not have the 1.9 magnification factor that the Letus does. I just thought it would not be that nice using the stock JVC lens. If Brevis develops a relay, that could be very interesting....Anyway, fantastic job!