Hey Guys,

Well, I finally got some of my work up. I shot a film last December on the Canon XL2, 24p, with the mini35 adapter. This is the trailer for it:

http://www.savefile.com/files/5483618

I've also uploaded the opening to my reel, highlighting the films I've done recently. Not all these were shot with the mini35 though but I hope you enjoy them anyway.

http://www.savefile.com/files/2401891

Thanks,

Josh

Josh,

Great work all around. I like the trailer, and I like the reel as well. For the trailer I thought the pacing was nice - just hinting at the story. The acting and camera work was very nice also - and that mini35 really does help.

The reel showed a very nice range. Are these all pieces you directed? DPed? Are the shorts or features? Where do you show them?

I really liked the look of "Soldier's Farewell." What was that shot on?

Again, good job, and welcome to the boards.

Thanks Barry. They are all pieces I've directed. The Star Wars was DP'd by me but the rest were other DPs. They're all shorts, ranging in length from 11 mins to 45. And they haven't really been shown anywhere quite yet.

American Tragedy, Star Wars, and Summer's End were all shot on the GL-1. Soldier's was shot on the XL-1 believe it or not, with some color correction done in Avid Xpress Pro. 12:01 was shot on the XL-1s, 30p, with the mini 35 system on it and Beautiful Lie was shot on the XL2 24p with mini35.

Glad you enjoyed it.

Looks good man, I really want to try that mini35 out. What kind of lenses did you use?

Please tell us which lenses and who you rented the mini-35 from.

any technical problems?

Josh,
The picture looks good and all falls nice in place; camera work, directing, shoots blocking and not lastly editing. Sorry but I could not help noticing a dark spot on the 1/3 lower right side of the image on some shots. Was it some dust (on the filter just behind the lens)? or what? Did you notice? Were those Zeisses?

Accidental post.

We rented the Mini35 setup from TCS, Inc. in New York City. I believe we got a set of Zeiss primes.

Dan, yea, there is some dust or something that got on the lens, though, we believe it was on the back part of it. We were using a monitor, but we also had all the information from the camera on the monitor, and coincidently, it covered up the spot, so I didn't discover it until editing. Just a little lesson, always check your picture on a clean monitor with no other info on it.

bin there.... (otherwise the picture is very nice).

Hi Josh,

The trailer looks awesome! I especially like the lighting in the morning bedroom scene and the NY street scene-any tips on how you lit that? Also about the that dark spot, can't you manually take it out frame by frame in photoshop or something? At least for the CU's of your lead... I think it'll be worth it if it's going on the big screen. Reminds me of that movie "Unfaithful" (disturbing, but good). But yeah, nice backlit scenes, love those, and can't forget, great music.

-Koa

I like the music too a lot, is it specially composed for this film? Sounds a lot like music from Thomas Newman.

The first music cue is from Road to Perdition, which was composed by Thomas Newman.

The NY-Street lighting was all done with natural light. The morning bedroom scene was a combination of natural light from the window and some enchancement done with an Arri 650. And another light source on her face..., probably a Arri 300 directed at the ceiling and bounced down on to her.

We can do the photoshop thing. The whole movie would be a pain, but perhaps on the close ups.

Awesome stuff Josh! Iwas really surpised to find out that A SOLDIER'S FAREWELL was shot on an XL-1, did you shoot it Interlaced? Also I saw where you did color correction in Avid Xpress Pro, but did you use any other effects/programs to get that great end result?

Thanks alot,
Chris

Actually, A Soldier's Farewell was shot before I was convinced of shooting interlaced. I had a friend who had been doing it that way for a long time, but I was never ready to commit on my own projects (now I wish I had). But no we shot it non-interlaced.

As for the color correction, it was only that. No other effects or anything. On certain projects, I like to bump the contrast, it really makes the color pop and it served the purpose on this film. So, other than color correction in Avid, we didn't do anything else to it.

Josh I already told you in another thread where you posted this, but I'm gonna say it again: beautiful work! Really!
Nothing short of beautiful!
And very professional results!
People who have you as DP are very lucky.

Looks great! Looks so good I'd hate it to get lost w/ that smudge. You can fix easily enough in After Effects or even in your editor.

I fixed it in the trailer.. here's what I did:


original : http://www.twodogfilms.com/fix/Image19.jpg

fixed : http://www.twodogfilms.com/fix/Image19-fixed.jpg

matte : http://www.twodogfilms.com/fix/matte.jpg

Either load your exported finished file, or put this in your existing edit (and then reexport - try to cut down on any many full compressions as possible).

Just load the matte image as an additional track. Set the composite mode to ADD and set the track opacity to 3 or 4% (experiment with this). I used a value of 2.5 and it's barely noticable (still there, but much better). Find a happy medium of balancing out too much bright and white and getting rid of the smudge.

If in doubt, here's a screenshot of what I had (ignore the 2nd entry on the timeline of your wmv file - I should have removed it (not needed)).

http://www.twodogfilms.com/fix/Image19-process.jpg

Best of luck!

Josh I already told you in another thread where you posted this, but I'm gonna say it again: beautiful work! Really!
Nothing short of beautiful!
And very professional results!
People who have you as DP are very lucky.

Thanks Mathieu! I actually was not the DP on these films though, I was the director. So, I should say that I am very lucky to have worked with the DPs I have. They've been great. I'm very involved with the visuals of the film but I have to give credit to them.

Wow Patrick. Thank you very much. I'm still very much in the editing phase, but when it comes time to color correct and master I'll look into your technique. Thanks for taking the time to do that. Much ablidged.

Not a prob.. hope it helps!

The first music cue is from Road to Perdition, which was composed by Thomas Newman.

For the audio, where the music pics up and becomes more epic sounding, what track or composer did that? I have to know, I can't get it out of my head. btw, great work!

It's by a band called E.S. Posthumous. The song is called Nara. You can check it out here: http://esposthumus.com/buy.html

very cool stuff. just bought the cd.

Josh,
Did you make the Mini 35 or you bought it?

We rented it from TCS Inc. in NYC. Wish I could buy one...