latest Instant Film, shot with DVX100/Mini35
 

We haven't quite gotten last weekend's Instant Films up on the webpage yet, but I have put up my offering on my goofy .mac homepage in the meantime.

It was shot on the DVX100a and the Mini35 with a set of elderly Zeiss Superspeeds, between T1.4 and T2. As part of the Instant Films festival, the script was handed to me on Saturday morning and was completed and screened 36 hours later. I didn't have my usual editor on this one so I added that duty on to my others as director and DP (plus one more unusual credit, which you will have to watch to the end to get!). This meant two hours sleep for me over the weekend...suffering for the art!

Hope you like.


http://homepage.mac.com/chupap/Film/...Theater28.html

Excellent! I really enjoyed that, Charles. It's hard to believe that you put that together in two days!

I noticed that YOU played the sax solo on the sound track?!

Yep, can't get anything past you Ken!

I had mentioned to the composer that in case the score happened to call for it, it would be fun to lay down a sax track as a novelty (although I wasn't sure how we would make that happen within the time period).

He brought over his digital 4-track, and right when I was in the death throes of the edit on Sunday night, some 90 minutes before the screening was scheduled to begin, I broke away and recorded the sax track in my bathroom. I can't say that I was in much of a mellow musical mood at that point--manic, sleep deprived and flying on adrenaline is not conducive to feeling a groove--but it worked well enough!

Ha, well it worked at this end. Actually it reminded me of the end music in "The Conversation", where Gene Hackman is left playing the sax in his destroyed apartment.

How great is that movie? Love it.

APPLAUSE . . . . .. . !

Charles . . . I'm speechle . .. . . .. that's a first!

The humour and the social commentary on the "workings" of democracy - no change since its inception back in Athens eh? People will do anything to canvass support . . . well YOUR movie's got my vote anyway! .. . Ho, now there's a bit of an Brit irony . . .

Loved the sax solo - I'm a mug for sax solos!

Grazie

Somehow the fact that you shot this with the DVX100 + Mini35 went right past my attention. I realized you used the Mini, as you recently purchased one. Was this your first crack at using the DVX100 with the Mini? How do you feel the Mini performed for you on the DVX versus the XL1?

Ken:

I actually shot a 30 minute short for a director friend right after receiving the Mini and the DVX100a. It was a pretty elaborate 9-day affair.

I like a lot of things about the DVX, and it doesn't seem to lose much clarity with the Mini, even through its own lens. I like the extra control that the DVX affords picture-wise over the XL1s as well as the feature set and self-contained nature of the camera (i.e. built-in XLR's etc), but honestly I still prefer the color pallette and smooth tones of the Canon. Honestly, I find the DVX to be a noisy camera in 24p mode. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the XL2 as I think it might be just the ticket for me.

However, I haven't shot a thing with the DVX without the Mini yet! That will be a novelty for me, weird as it seems.

Charles I thought that the camera work was really great. I was wondering what kind of dolly/hydrolic arm or other device you used to get the nice dolly right/boom down when the two characters are talking in the living room behind the book shelf.

Also, what kind of lighting were you using along with the DVX100 with Mini35. I have a vx2100 and everytime I see dvx 24p I start figuring out how I can sell my cam and get a panny.

thanks, greg.

Greg:

The first two shots of the film (title sequence) were done on a Losmandy/Flextrak dolly; the rest of the moving shots were done on Steadicam.

The primary lighting for this film were a 1200 and 575 watt HMI par, two Gyoury lights (small dimmable fluourescents) and a couple of Kinoflos, plus one or two small tungsten units.

The opening scene was the two Gyoury's, one as backlight, the other as the TV light (working the dimmer to create flicker). The walk-and-talk through the "office" (actually a basement room in a house) was ambient daylight plus existing MR16 ceiling spots, with a half-corrected daylight/tungsten China ball Gyoury setup that was handcarried alongside the camera for fill.
The second half of the office had one Gyoury flying above the window on the right as a key for the aide character, and the other down below the frame on the right as the candidate's key light. The rest was ambient.

For Katie's house, which was all shot at night, a 12x12 grifflon frame was put up outside the sliding doors that you can see in the background, and the 1200 was bounced into the griff to create a white blowout to simulate daylight. Normally this would have been dressed with some sort of blinds to break up the solid white panel, but we didn't have anything on short notice. A 4x4 daylight Kino was set as an edge light to continue the window light feel. The window above the sink had a 4x4 frame of 216 diffusion placed against it, and the 575 illuminated it from behind to glow that window and create a key for most of those scenes. A Gyoury was used for different setups as a fill light to taste, and highlighting various other bits of the kitchen.

Overall a pretty simple lighting plan--we had a lot to do without the lighting taking over!

Charles, how much comment do you want? Do you really want us to nitpick or just the general stuff? I saw a couple of things that in retrospect might have been a little different. But that was more into continuity than anything else.

48 hrs? Kick butt for the time frame. Still a great job. BTW, nice Sax.

No, pick away! There were certain things that we knew about and couldn't take the time or deal with after the fact, and I'm sure there were other things that I haven't seen, so I'm curious to hear what you saw, George.

I can't believe you can pull something like that off in 48hrs. Now that I feel totally pathetic and inadequate, I'm going to go crawl into bed and not get out for a few days.

But before I do that, congratulations - it was great!

Imran, IMHO, we are very fortunate to have Charles amongst us, have a look at this lot:

http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0660435/

. . . . "I feel totally pathetic and inadequate . . " don't feel that bad.

Charles, thanks for all your support,

Best regards,

Graham

Haha - yeah I've seen his IMDB. Say, we should start a Charles Papert fan club...

Done!

OK, like I said, nitpicky...

1) Lead is a sleaze. Will do anything, sleep with anything. So, not sure he would have looked up and off doing that one last thing. I would expect him to try to gauge Kate's reaction. Hey, that might be his next campaign manager. That would help sell the last bit even better.

2) Katie, on phone and in office. Kate in person. Obviously a nickname, but noticed the change.

3) Kate says apartment. Could be from interior (looks more like a small starter house), but exterior shot lead to believe it was a house. And the exterior was framed funny too with part of the roof off frame?

Nitpicky. It was excellent. 48 hours? You guys did well. Can tell you guys are pros.

George, good notes!

I see your point about the "look away" from a character perspective; I think we were just playing it for the comedy more than anything else at that point. If he had just stared at Kate the whole time, it might have been a flatter moment. Perhaps even he has his limits, and that was just a bit beyond? I think in retrospect, he might have scrunched up his face with a grimace, then peeked at Kate to (as you say) gauge her reaction, then responded to her "unbelievable" with a puzzled glimpse down at his body as if to indicate "what's wrong with it?". However, at 2 a.m., I'm not too surprised that didn't occur to me!

Kate, Katie; as you say, a nickname.

Yep, you are right about the apartment line . It was written that way since there was no location chosen in advance; when we were shooting (in a house) I thought briefly about it and decided it wouldn't be that obvious either way. I had always intended to have an establishing shot of the exterior, but we didn't get to it on the shoot day (Saturday) so I sent my assistant editor (and DVI regular) Nick Hiltgen out late in the day on Sunday to shoot a house in my neighborhood, after picking one out from digital photos that my girlfriend scouted around the neighborhood. I liked the "white trash"i-ness of that house, and figured that was more important than matching the apartment line (there weren't any great or appropriate apartment buildings in the neighborhood, and time was running out). As far as the framing, I asked Nick to get wide enough to get the foliage around the house, but I'm not sure if I get the part about the roof being framed out...the shot IS off level, which had more to do with Nick stealing the shot before the owner of the house caught him (which happened while he was rolling!)

So the one other continuity thing that plagued me a bit was the bolo that the candidate wore; in the first scene, it's hanging low and swinging around crazily. We pulled it up for the next scene (after much discussion) and then even higher for subsequent scenes.

Thanks again for checking it out so carefully, George, you might have a future in script/continuity! (oh, and as far as "us guys"--the crew was largely not pro, with the exception of the camera dept who were buddies of mine & working union guys. And I have yet to draw a paycheck solely as a director, but I'm working on it!)

I didn't realize how nasty the compression was on that file, so I put up a larger/better one at the same address.

Sorry to those with a slow connection!

George,

Charles is definitely not to blame for the establishing shot (or inset shot) of the house It was actually the second time grabbing that shot. I shot it once (with a 24mm) but it was to close and when we went back to get the wider shot (with a 18mm lens) the neighbors started milling around and the person who's house I was shooting was not happy with me (with that much glass I must have looked like paparrazzi), and I was more interested in getting the shot then getting shot so I didn't check the bubble before I dove into the car and scurried off.

I too am curious as to what you mean by framing though. If it's seeing that much of the roof, we wanted to be able to see that spinny thing on top with the wires, otherwise the house doesn't look quite so white trash.

Nick, no blame needed ;) I have not re-reviewed it, but I think I remember part of the roof cut off (overscan issue?) I missed the message, but that might be because I grew up near all of that. :) I would have expected the whole house in frame, so it was not what I expected. And when the script said 'apartment', I went "huh?"

I get the rush with 48 hours and no chances for retakes (or need for body armor if you had stuck around.) As for them looking at you, in my neck of the woods, I would go back and look to see if you got the still (as in moonshine) in the picture too. ;)

George,

I checked it out on line and maybe it was an undersacan issue, totally didn't check out your location (I'm from Snellville, went to UGA, moved out here) The guide that I got for getting the shot was "think white trash, like georgia or something..."which you know, hit's kind of close to home but whatever. I maybe heading back that way for a bit in a few months for some work, who do you work with over there?

Nick,

I work for myself and my wife in the video realm. Just really started and have only done cheerleader and band videoes (Collins Hill). I am working on Spirit Drum and Bugle Corps season video (shot, editing, production (I hate sync rights research!), and dishwasher). I have also started the next cheerleading and band video. ;) 4 years of 1hr plus sports performances at the consumer level.

Otherwise, I work for a subsidiary of that 'small' airline here in town as a OS/hardware systems engineer/architect.

No kidding? (I'm getting way off topic)

I went to Brookwood (collins hill was a couple years old when I graduated)and a lot of my friends marched with spirit (we were all drummers), I saw a short on IFC about Cadet's that was realy interesting I wish I could remember the name it was in their shorts collection if you get IFC you should check it out as I'm sure they'll rerun it. Are you interested in moving into a more cinematic area or more concerned with the bottom line right now?

To get back on topic there is a guy renting out the mini 35 with the dvx adapter in atlanta now... Drop me an e-mail if you get the opportunity so we don't hijack Charles' thread.

P.S. congrats on moving up to trustee...

Just to inform you fine folk that all of the films from Instant Films 15 are finally up on our website (www.instantfilms.tv); I recommend "The Swidge", "Folksy" and "The Perfect Candidate".

"Swidge", which was written by Instant Films regular James Gunn (who spends his time inbetween festivals writing little flicks like the two "Scooby-Doo" movies and "Dawn of the Dead", etc), is also featured on the front page of the Shorts section of iFilm. Other than being pretty darn hilarious in my opinion, it's also the first Instant Film to feature stop-motion animation (how is THAT possible when you have only 36 hours to make a film?!)

In the 2nd scene (walk and talk through the office) which was shot with a steadicam, how were you able to maintain focus shooting at f1.4 or f2.0? Did you simply try real hard to maintain equal & non changing distances between the actors and lens, or was there in fact a focus puller - and if so, how the heck do you pull focus when there is a steadicam involved? Lastly, what lens was being used? ie., 24mm, 28mm.. .

Thanks for your response.

Dennis:

Focus pulling was indeed involved on that shot (the end of which involved the male actor passing within a few feet of the camera, which required a significant rack). Having to work with a "set and forget" distance in 35mm is a major restriction on shot design, and in my mind starts to defeat the purpose of going to the expense and hassle of using a Mini35 in the first place..."we couldn't do the shots we wanted, but at least the ones we did get had nice shallow focus!"

Fortunately there was a thread started recently that addressed this very issue.

I believe the lens on that shot was a 25mm Zeiss Superspeed, and the following shot (also Steadicam) was a 35mm.

Thanks for the link on remote racking - very interesting.

One final question, I know most of your work with the mini35 has been with the XL1s and most recently the DVX100 - what is your preferred method for establishing "good" or "proper" exposure levels in camera? I've found the exposure meter in the VF of the Canon to be towards the hot side and I've tried using zebra stripes as a guide but that isn't too great either - any insight would be much appreciated, thanks!

Dennis, I apologize--for some reason I seem to have spotty performance with email notification, so I didn't see this question.

I would say that I don't have hard and fast rules for exposure, it's one of those "feel" things. I prefer to use a well-calibrated broadcast monitor, but if one is not available (run-and-gun situation, for instance) I will rely on the viewfinder or LCD. Although their rendition of brightness and contrast is always suspect, I find that one can at least recognize over-exposure (complete loss of detail), so I open up until this happens and then stop down the appropriate amount from there. What that appropriate amount is depends on the shot.

Zebras essentially do the same thing--I just find them a bit distracting to have in the frame (my eye tends to jump to them as "moving" objects), similar to having too many on-screen displays like timecode, etc.

Sorry this is so vague...!

Rooney and Bueller?
Ferris fan?

some great jokes there...
actors did great, nice job!

Yeah, the writer (who also writes on a slightly successful TV show called "Will and Grace") stuck those Ferris references in there as a lark. After the fact, he was so surprised with the results of the film and the others made at the same time that he felt a bit embarrassed that he hadn't spent more time writing the film--he thought it was just a quickie exercise. The idea behind Instant Films is not just getting films made in 48 hours; we promote the best possible filmmaking that can be done in that period (and for little or no money).

The lighting was truelly amazing and the scenery was profesional. The only problem the movie had was its originality and its Continuity PRoblem. The screenplay could be a little bit more original and it was like looking to a teen serie or something, not something adulst would watch.
The continuity problem can be adress to the use of 1 camera in most of the conversations. You did a great job doing this but the movie needed more action in certain cuts, especially close ups. To give you an example: the girls says something, then you introduce a reaction close up, then you go back, the other person begins to talk, reaction close up, etc etc. You could have introduced more action there by using more 'over the shoulder close ups' and more mixed audio conversations in which a person si suddenly abrupted in his conversation instead of the normal ' talk-listen-talk-listen-talk' conversation.

I found one obvious problem in the scene of the trio. The blond girl once says ' I would vote for you' and suddenly a weird wide shot is introduced. NO continuity there.

Things I like: The opening scene was amazing, the lighting, qwuality of the audio, overall set-up.

The overall quality was great for a 48 hour movie, seriously. Anyone who can do this kind of work in 2 days, you have to know what you are doing.

Anyone who can do better, let's see it.

Was there more than one camera used? Certain Edits seem like there were 2 cameras. If not, that's some really good re-acting and editing.

Charles..... Great job. I think everyone here wishes they had your experience and maybe even life.

Single camera only Bob. The actors were pretty good about matching their action.

I had to really go meat-and-potatoes (aka simplified) with the coverage on the last scene to get the shooting day done, it was getting pretty late. Hence the somewhat simplistic approach (and the unplanned "jump cut" when the candidate heads out the door).

Jose:

I think you were suggesting cutting away to reactions during someone else's dialogue--I believe the film has plenty of that. I tightened up the dialogue as much as possible with that method. Also I'm not sure which wide shot you are referring to. Perhaps you have confused that with the moment where the blonde girl suggests that the other two clean her house for her, which then cuts to a wide shot with dirty dishes in the foreground...?

Well, Charles...... You da man then. Good re-acting too as I guessed, really good.