Web Series "PINK" Shot w/A1 and Letus
 

A couple months back I uploaded some test footage shot with my A1 and the Letus35 FE. We did this for a new show I was planning to produce and direct, and now that show has been shot and is in post-production.

The project is called "PINK" and will premiere online Tuesday 09.04.07 on Myspace, YouTube and the Official "PINK" website.

www.myspace.com/pinktheseries

Attached are four 1920x1080 JPEG frame grabs from the Avid timeline. These were all shot with the A1 and Letus35 FE setup at 1080 HDV 24F 1/48th shutter using Custom Preset #3. Nikon SLR lenses were used with Letus - a 24mm, a 50mm and a 85mm.

These shots are from some flashback scenes in the show. So you'll see a warm, contrasty look to reflect a past era. Color correction was done within Avid using the built-in three-way corrector, and also Magic Bullet Colorista. Additional film look was added using Boris Continuum.

I'll post the actual show(s) here once they start to run online. Rollout is one three-minute show a week for 10 weeks. This is more or less a "pilot", so we need to build an audience to allow the show to continue.

Please check out the premiere on September 4th!!!

Thanks,
Blake Calhoun

Blake, those look great!

I recognize your lead on the myspace page... not sure where I've seen her before though.

Good luck with the series man

Thanks for the note! Lead is Natalie Raitano. She starred on the TV show "V.I.P" with Pamela Anderson.

The grabs looked great, but they look out of focus

they do look out of focus.....

Thanks, but I assure you they are not out of focus. Only thing you might be seeing is the JPEG compression of the frame grabs (and of course the Letus shallow DOF).

is a TV show debuting on the web considered a TV show? am i getting too old to sort through nuances of the vernacular? or am i simply confused?

looks nice, though.

I've always interpreted TV as television, so I've changed the title of this thread from "New TV Show PINK Shot w/A1 and Letus" to "Web Series PINK Shot w/A1 and Letus" to avoid any further confusion.

The top two are obviously in perfect focus. However, the focus in the bottom left image is on the rifle, not the eyes, that may have thrown him off. The bottom right image *might* be front-focused by a smidgeon, but even if it is, I've seen worse focus accuracy on primetime television.

Well, "Web TV" is a phrase we're using because when you say "Web Series" some folks don't seem to get it. Of course I guess some folks aren't sure about "Web TV" either. :) In the end you're watching a dramatic show on the Internet versus your TV, however, if you have an Apple TV you could watch it off YouTube on your TV - so is that TV? Not sure. Thing is too, we will likely make the show available on DVD so you can watch it on your TV in the end... but, all confusion aside, "Web Series" is fine and I've actually called it that for a while (but also use "TV" some).

About the focus, Daniel pretty much nailed it. The two images with the girl holding the rifle on the ground are actually crane shots that are "dollying" into her - so parts of the gun and her face slowly creep into focus as the shot moves closer (and the other parts go out of focus - purposely so of course), then finally settle on her face. I just chose frames as the shot progressed.

Remember, using the Letus you have VERY shallow DOF, sometimes only an inch or two depending on the focal length.

The other thing to note too, is all these shots have motion in them - either by the camera or the actor. So, you might catch a frame where there is slight motion and it looks slightly soft. But again, none of these shots are out of focus at all.

I'll post the actual show on September 4th and you can see for yourself. :)

Thanks for checking out the stills.

-Blake

New Web Series "PINK" Now Online (shot w/A1)
 

The new web series "PINK" that I've mentioned in a few previous postings is now online and ready to watch...

Easiest place to see it would be YouTube:
www.youtube.com/pinktheseries

Also can watch on Myspace:
www.myspace.com/pinktheseries

Or, on the Official website:
www.pinktheseries.com

Show was shot with the Canon XH-A1 in 24F HDV. We also used an HV20 as a B camera in a few situations and for some underwater shots. Also used the Letus35 FE adapter in many scenes.

"PINK" is a serialzed dark-comedy that will run for the next 10 weeks with a new webisode premiering each Tuesday. If you're interested you can subscribe to it on Myspace or YouTube (and we'll be on iTunes shortly too).

Lastly, we will make the show available for higher-res download (i.e. HD) in the future, and a DVD will be produced as well.

Hope you like the series. I was very pleased with the performance of the A1.

Thanks!
Blake Calhoun

lol - i realy liked the preview for the second episode! :)

Looks dang good....left me wanting more.

Thanks for the comments. I hope folks enjoy the show. Having the A1 made it affordable to produce and still give it a high-end look.

Nice work, Blake. It's nice to see budget tools being used for professional quality material. You're doing the kind of thing I was hoping someone would do on the net years ago.

Great job Blake! I hope you cut a deal with YouTube so you can earn some ad money... Revver.com will do that for you, but unfortunately they don't let you delete your own videos (just in case you want to, that is).

Thanks for checking out the show guys. Our mission on this was/is to produce a web series that could just as easily be on HBO, Sci-Fi, or Showtime, etc. In other words, just because it's online doesn't mean you have to make it look or feel cheap.

Of course we are an indie production, so funds were/are limited compared to some of the other larger scale web series out there - and so that's where the XH-A1, the HV20 and the Letus really helped a lot.

We've shot 10 episodes and are currently in post on them all. Depending on the audience we can build over the next few months will determine how many more, if any, get made (we have scripts for the next 10). So far we're off to a pretty good start though. :)

BTW, Eugenia, good idea on Revver. I've been considering uploading there too...

Thanks again,
Blake

It looks like your FLVs on your website are missing the meta data. You can get a free injector @ http://www.buraks.com/flvmdi/.

I think the meta data is missing because your player does not allow scrubbing or show the proper playing time for me. I have tested it in Safari and Firefox on the mac. Will test it on a PC when I get a chance.

Overall I am enjoying the series and hope the next webisodes are a bit longer :)

Thanks for sharing!

Hey Josh, you are correct! I'm working to resolve the issue. On PCs the files play fine, but no counter, etc. But on older Macs, the audio doesn't work. On Intel Macs the audio is fine. But, should have new Flash files up soon.

Of course it all works fine on YouTube and Myspace. But, the video quality is better on my main website.

BTW, the second episode is online now! And they don't get any longer. It's deliberately a short form serialized show. :) On YouTube you can watch them via the "Playlist" and they'll play back-to-back.

www.youtube.com/pinktheseries

Thanks for watching!

Great stuff, Blake! Nice consistent look with that Letus. Good script and editing. Can't wait for #3!

Well if you need some help or something with the encoding lemme know :) I also sent you a message on your my space profile that contains my email address. I will be waiting for the next show :)

Hi Blake,

If you are using Avid to generate the FLASH file the lack of indexing is not a bug. I had that issue as well and finally got the answer that the version of Sorensen they are using does not index and that if I need that functionality then I would have to purchase the full version.

Chris

For the record I use Sorenson 4.5.6 Full Version and it still does not put in the meta data. I use both the Mac and PC version and have the same results. Luckily the Tool i linked to above does not take long at all to run and has a batch feature and is free.

Thanks for the info Josh,

A money saver for me!!

Chris

Overall Sorenson is still great and the compression it does is very good. I mainly got it because the Adobe Encoder from Premiere left me wanting, Plus I needed batch. Ive been meaning to email Sorenson about this "bug" or lack of feature but just havent had time but I should make some. I guess I should also note I have the educational edition which saved me some money but when loading it I do not see it marked as a special educational version or anything. I had also asked the sales people if there was anything left out of the edu edition but they had said no.