Screenings at fti fremantle
 

Copied from the facebook for West Aussie readers.

BOOTLEG- written and directed by Johnny Ma, nominated for two WA screen awards (cinematography S.P. Becker and sound Jon Jenkin) is being screened this friday tomorrow along with

TRESPASS, directed by Damien Giglietta (shot on the SI2K) and

THE DEAD WASTES (believed to have been shot on the RED) and Love thy Zombie (hilarious zombie spoof), directed by Wade K. Savage. ( I can personally attest to "Love Thy Zombie" being entertainingly watchworthy ).

Come along and supprt upcoming local film makers!!!A night of inspiring Films, food and drinks

Location:FTI cinema at 92 Adelaide Street Freo.
Time:7:00PM Friday, February 26th

Added: FTI is on www.fti.asn.au and I think is phone 93351055.

First Person Shooter.
 

The end-product of this no-budget Tropfest entry can be seen here :-


YouTube - First Person Shooter

For first time director, Ed Love, this was a learning adventure with a steep coal face. The story had heart.


The final production vision looks very flat. The original camera files looked much better. One day, I might talk Ed into doing another HD edit from the original files, properly colour-graded. Due to the deadline looming and some things needing changing, Ed had to do another final edit in SD from the VTS files of the DVD-Video disk he had been given as the end-product to send in.

Given more time, I would like to have made a helmet mount for the mini head and used it as a POV camera for the videogame-in-dream sequence. However available time and resources did not permit.

Hand-holding the heavy SI2K recorder unit/camera out in front like a handycam and trying to do an over-the-shoulder follow was a little bit difficult for an old codger. At that time I did not have a side-finder otherwise I would most certainly have used it.

The final sequence in the park on the rock was a desperate rush against fading light. The high overhead POV was forced by the location, - all houses and streets behind when the setting was meant to be bushland. This was achieved not by a ladder or elevator, there wasn't any to be had with no budget, so desperate measures came into play.

The camera head was gaffered onto the foot-end of a redhead light stand. The lamp spigot just happened to be a neat fit into the tripod-handle hole of an old Miller head which was tilted almost to its limit to get the pole about 80 degrees towards vertical. The three legs on the stand made it rather difficult when doing the reverse in-the-tree shot.

Needless to say, the whole ten-minute cobble-up was uncontrollable, which is why the father-son hug thing near the end was so rough.

The teenager's bedroom was tight to work in. We were not to move stuff outside. As the sun went down the light did change and somebody turned on the ceiling fan when things got hot - with my light still gaffered to it.

Lighting was poverty chic. CFLs in two old portrait-studio photoflood parabolic reflectors, two garage worklights, some blue gels to calm them down a bit.

I had given the director the pre-emptive advice about the ethos of not starving his volunteer crew. However when he sprung for our vittels and we bogged right in, after a minute or so, we observed he and his lead actor sat off a short distance away starving themselves and we felt a bit churlish. - It was a genuine no-budget shoot. It was a sweet story which deserved a lot better treatment than we were able to give it.

I came in on it after the young actor who helped with "Fox Featherweight", "Seeking Closure" and "I Belong To The Shadows" suggested the director approach me when his original cameraman bailed.

I felt obligated to my actor who volunteered on the other shoots as this one would help his showreel. What I did not know was that he had resigned from the project because of work and school committments otherwise I would not have taken this on. His replacement came on board with just 24 hours to learn the part and after having moved from interstate with his family.

Please be gentle. I have never made claims to being a competent cameraman and know even less about lighting.

Back to school
 

Here in the west, today - a different adventure.


We took two SI2K camera/recorder units up to a high school which offers a media option for its students. The purpose was to demo the cameras and to practice hooking up sound via a MixPre and setting levels.

November/December over two days, I will be directing a short for showreels of two actors who have assisted pro-bono on several projects.

One of the students will assist as boomswinger/sound mixer, the other will undertake a third supporting acting role. Others may be there as observers, one teacher will be crewing either as camera assistant or camera operator, the other as assistant and tutor/chaperone.

It is sobering to consider that by the time the most committed of these young people attaches professionally to a project, our cameras, maybe even the ARRI Alexa will be obsolete relics, the speed at which technology is advancing.

David Newman, CTO at Cineform, whose codec is at the core of the SI2K system, in the days of his youth schooled at W.A.I.T., which became Curtin University, here in Western Australia. It is good to be able to name drop locals who have gone on to make good at the forefront of their particular specialty.

Will post furthur on this topic as it evolves.

Went out to Christmastree Well south of Perth today with owner of a campervan who wanted to give it a drive to see if anything was going to fall off. Took the camera in case anything interesting stuck its head up.

I expected to see a racehorse goanna but was too slow powering up the camera to pick off the one we did see immediately, so had to make do with frogs in the dam assassinating mosquito larvae and some Carnaby's black cockatoos.

Here's the happy snaps from the moving vision.

Lens. Angenieux "Compact" zoom 17 -75.

Got home and found I had a bush tick near my left eye in one of the roadmap wrinkles like an old bobtail goanna.


1. 2.
3. 4.

1. Black cockatoo pair.
2. Black cockatoo "sitting nit" ( on watch) while partner has a bit of a chew in the leaves to left out of frame.
3. Open dugout pond.
4. Open dugout pond.

Yeah, I know - I am a slack cameraman. I should have moved until the cockie was in the skypatch but the trip was on a time limit and to prove the car.

The Carnabys cockatoos mate for life. Due to habitat loss and land clearing, they are likely doomed because in addition to habitat loss, illegal birders and smugglers chop open the nest trees and the birds, likely to not find a suitable new one - ( hollowed and rotted out in just the right way with an overhang ) - just won't breed and just grow old together.

The dugout dam may be for fire-fighting water source. The government well is about 30 metres distant.

We had our first shoot day for "Bail On Me".

Here's some grabs. Images are not graded yet. Gavan, our DOP is going for a depressing flouro colour look of juvey detention centre or lockup.

1.2.
3.4.
5.6.

Brendon in pre-court interview.
Brendon enraged in holding cell.
Clare the caseworker.
Clare the caseworker doorshadow reveal.
Paul the unkindly warder.
Unrelated - Holodomor Memorial Service. ( Shot on EX1 as roving cam. Main cam SI2K.)

Lenses used?

Lenslist :-


CP Ultra T* 9mm, 12.5mm, 16mm, 25mm.
Angenieux 17mm - 75mm zoom.
Kinoptik 5.7mm in confined workspace.


Sound via Rode NTG-1. Mix-Pre.

I meant, lens in correlation to the thumb # above, such as...

1: xxx (like CP Ultra 12.2mm)
2: yyy

etc...

Alex.

Now you've got me. As writer and director ( although missing in action a fair bit of the time due to security issues within the location ) I went big on faith with my crew so the details are not burned in. So there are vague recollections.

1. 12.5mm CP Ultra T*.
2. 16mm CP Ultra T*
3. 16mm CP Ultra T*
4. 17mm - 70mm Angenieux zoom at 22mm. - for stylised montage.
5. 16mm CP Ultra T*

6. Holodomor memorium is extra-curricular on Sony EX 1. Lighting conditions, early twilight. Lens at about Z30 wide-open.

Thanks Bob.

Why not shoot everything with your Angenieux zoom, though. From a brief look, it appears the sharpness equals CP primes?

The decision to shoot with the primes ? I am not certain. I think the DOP, Gavan O'Sullivan's decision was driven both by the lack of available suitable light and the camera having just enough to go with. In their sweet spot, I think they are a bit sharper than the Angenieux. The frames above except for 4 and 5 were not shot by him, so should not be held representative of his work.

We had two 650watt fresnel and a 2K fresnel available but no scrims. The SI2K had enough from the ceiling flouros and a 240watt incandescent equivalent CFL in an 18inch parabolic reflector at 0db to get the oppressive look he wanted with the Ultras wide-open. He bounced this off the wall for a faint soft fill. He was after a flat, soul-less institutional look. The walls are actually high shine satin gray.

The Angenieux was used in the case worker's shots to enable faster working for a sequence of stylised images. He was shooting silhouettes against windows covered with scrim style drawn roller blinds so the lesser light passing of the Angenieux was not an issue.

These will intercut in an opening montage with the juvey detainee and prison officer walking through various corridors, CU foot shot (socks as shoes confiscated for safety), CU crooked fingers in top of jeans ( belt confiscated for safety) to intercut with vision of the visiting case worker after her arrival in her interview room getting her papers ready.

I don't know Gavan's plan for the actual drama vision. I think he may be crushing the blacks a bit and just tidying up the grade. He was light metering and colour temp metering ( high science for me ) with his film gear for most of it, so it is all consistent, except for the stuff we did after he had to depart on other tasks.

I think as far as he is concerned the SI2K is as close to a film camera as video has gotten in his hands-on experience so far and he is treating it as a film camera.

For the montage, I think he will be both crushing the blacks harder and desaturating.

Yes, I think Si-2K is terrific, still holding its own against all the newest cams out there.

Lighting: have you used LED lights with SI2K?

There are fantastic small on-camera Z96 lights now available from China for about $70 each. Their light looks better than the 126LED lights I'm currently using. I'm awaiting delivery of 4 of them. My idea (aside from using them individually as keys/fills), is to make a 4-light block, which probably will rival Litepanels 12x12 at just 25% the cost. Not sure about CRI on those, but just eyeballing, the light quality seems fine.

For fresnels, it appears Sola12 's by Litepanels are the first viable LED choice - although I personally have no first-hand experience with them, and price is insane.

Alex.


I have not tried LEDs yet. Still using traditional lighting. I have a biggest boxful of CFLs and batten holders to make up about 3 x 1200watts incandescent equivalent worth. I just haven't got round to holesawing all those holes and tracking down the broad aluminium doorframe extrusion to make up the rims of the boxes.

Here's a link to the Tropfest entry local film maker Andrew Pheasant directed last year.

YouTube - games

Finally got around to ordering and fitting the P+S parts for the camera base for using quick release mounts ( Panasonic SHAN TM-700 ) on an old Miller LPT tripod. Wishing now I had done it it much sooner instead of procrastinating.

No more swearing and cursing with head bent under trying to get that wretched thumbscrew to match up and wobbling the camera to take the load off the thread from jamming tight, whilst trying not to drop it.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

Original message deleted. Attempt to upload a readable file. Short story - a handwritten note with important focal length settings had been scanned to .jpg by crewmember but the file would not open and the original paper page was lost. I uploaded it to dvinfo.net and was informed that the file was a .psd incorrectly tagged as a .jpg file.

This enabled me to convert the file to a bmp in Premiere Pro. This probably represents an abuse of dvinfo.net but hopefully Chris will afford me this one indulgence as it got me out of a bit of a jam in shooting background plates with correct lens focal length settings.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

Bob, you can always shoot a troublesome file over to me as I'm also a graphic designer with all the associated software.

Andrew

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

Andrew.

Thank you for your kind offer. Regards from here in the West.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

No worries.

Best regards from over here in the east where we flood every now and then. :-)

Andrew

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

Floods. Up on the hill I don't have to fret about getting my feet wet, only roasted or hit by small tornados. The hill across the valley has a peculiar shape and in the right weather conditions it inteacts with something, A rotor comes off on the southern end and by the time it hits the high ground here, it becomes a mini tornado.

They always seem to follow near to the same path and the bush where they go is all trashy with trees leaning over onto others, so it has probably been going on since time way back. In the same weather conditions, the kerosene stink from the airliners passing overhead descending into Perth reaches the ground about 3 minutes after they go over.

It was mostly bushland up here when I was a kid living down in the bottom of the valley. You would hear the yet unborn tornados go over. There was no strong wind noise as such, just a sort of changing hollow tone to the environmental sounds you hear on a windy day. Then about five minutes later you would hear things cracking and being broken up on the inland hilltop. Now I live up high in the zone along with a lot of others.


However, we had ourselves a little earth-tremor under my patch about 3km to north-west from the place last week. The birds all went deadly quiet for about an hour or so. Didn't notice anything at the time but checked up today and found the earth did move ever so slightly at the right time and date.


A bit off-topic perhaps.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

Interesting with the animals. Over here I noticed that in the month or two over Christmas, the piles of dirt from ants digging were popping up over lawns (2 or 3 inches high) like I'd never noticed before. The ants were up to something.

Then we got the floods in January: not quite almost as high as the January 1974 floods but worse for the city.

Weird, eh?

Andrew

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

Ants have been weather forecasters for years.

The birds are a bit weird. The magpies and other birds we have over here have a distinct breeding season.

About two months ago, there was a trace of rain.

The place went nuts for about two days. In broad daylight, a female bandicoot crashed into the big front window with a male in hot pursuit. The magpies started their breeding season territorial arguments and brood behaviour for a day or so. The wood pigeons, which are among nature's most randiest creatures got stuck into it.

I guess that for when breeding season climate is not right, there is a Plan B written into their genetic memory somewhere. They may well cope better with climate change than us.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

At last, Damien Giglietta has posted "Trespass" a horror short made here in the West of Australia. Here it can be found :-

YouTube - ‪Trespass (2009)‬‏

Re: Ramping and slo-mo in post.
 

If anyone has some advice could you tell me if it is possible to get a smooth slow-mo in CS5, ramping down would be even better. Here is the clip. The rampdown and freezeframe I want to do in the very last shot. The pacing is a bit weird. It is to fit an underscore.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhiE4a3Xrrw

For the sake of satisfying curiosity, after a fade to head title over black, this clip, a rough assembly, is what the first clip leads into. Warning to the sensitive, two words of offensive language in dialog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgUP0_yoPC4

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

The two links above will now be dead-ends. My apologies. I had a little bit of a mishap when reposting an adjusted clip. I will post the new link here soon.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

My furthur apology for not posting the new link. I had hoped to replace one of the clips on an old link but could not make it happen.

Re: Lee chambers and "make it short" media program .
 

Here is a link to a short clip of a film-making program brought to the Roleystone District High School in Western Australia, by Lee Chambers, visiting Canadian academic, director and more recently, author of a published novel,"The Pineville Heist".

With director of photography, David Lemay, the students were involved in a small filmed production worktitled "Hugh Jackman Saves The World."

The project was shot on 16mm motion picture film, 50D and 250D, (I think) with an ARRI SR2 camera furnished by Murdoch University, one of the four institutions in or near to Perth, Western Australia.

I took the SI2K camera along for them to also have a look at and shot some behind-the-scenes. David had a look at it and the "look" ( low contrast ) was chosen by him for a few test frames and remained for the rest of my bit of behind-the-scenes imaging for the day.

Originally to be shot outdoors on the sports ground, the project had to moved indoors as the rain poured down.

Behind-the-scenes shooting with an SI2K might be overdoing things a bit, however why not as it was already set up.

Anyway - here is the link :-

‪BEHIND THE SCENES OF "MAKE IT SHORT" PROGRAM 2011.‬‏ - YouTube

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

After a while, the short movie "Trespass" has been posted on youtube by director Damien Giglietta. As I understand things, it was the young gun team's first venture outside of film school.

It was shot on Steve Rice's SI2K, then a loaner demonstrator from P+S, who were building a camera for him. The camera I now have.

Here's the clip.

Trespass (2009) - YouTube

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

Damien Giglietta has posted his secondlast project, "Two Minds" on YouTube. It was shot on Steve Rice's SI2K. I was there for the most of it, bothering the cameraman by making sure he used a focus chart on his static setups instead of going by eye and LCD screen.

It was shot with default look selected, then in the final grade a sallow mood appearance was given to it.

The sound and dialogue needed a lot of work as there was a demented cutting machine working in the factory unit next door - on a Sunday. The noise next door started off with loud music from a workshop radio. They managed to persuade him to use a ipod player and headset which the soundie provided. Then he started the machine.

WARNING. There is some profound language and gore.

TWO MINDS (2010) - YouTube

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

This is a bit of a double post. I also mentioned this furthur down on the cineform threads.


The teacher in charge of overseeing the students at Roleystone District High School's "Smarter Than Smoking" contest project has advised me recently it finished up well. I am advised they took out two of the main awards of the awards evening; best filming and best overall advert! Good finish all up.

Their ad will apparently be presented in some of the local cinemas and be part of an ongoing anti-smoking campaign.

They shot on my SI2K in DVR2, used camera audio for synctrack for some shots and camera-mute double-system for others. They recorded audio to Zoom H4n digital recorders using Rode NTG3 mikes, had some loaner fresnel lights and flouros, and did post in Final Cut Pro on a Mac.

The pic below is from last year when Steve Rice provided a show and tell about the SI2K system at the high school.


FOOTNOTE: That is not Steve Rice instructing on the camera.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

For the sake of prepping a concept rush of a small corporate shot by Darling Films last year, I did my own assembly of the footage which had thus far been shot.

There's a few little things would need to have been done with motion tracking, vertical pan and scan and garbage matte effects to correct my preferred takes which were not always the best ones.

ROLEYSTONE REAL ESTATE TEST ASSEMBLY. - YouTube

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

A little clip from what we have recently been up to in W.A..

FOURNIER AIR-TO-AIR IMAGES - YouTube
Getting some practice in before flying a 3D rig sometime next spring if all goes to plan.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

hard stuff in the air hey Bob, you only used one gyro, I believe you need two to get it real smooth, there's some pretty good home made rigs for small cams using bungie cords some aluminium plate and a couple of handles on this forum, mainly for chopper work ,though, you were in a fixed wing for this shoot?

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

Hello Adam.


One gyro only, a deficiency driven as usual by economic circumstances. As you correctly suggest, three axis stabilisation will only come with a gyro pair set at an angle relative to each other. The single gyro in the fore-aft direction under the camera head to conserve workspace. The camera was handhled for similar reasons.

We will be trying another rig in future which will be more elaborate. In all instances the camera head is being operated remote from the recorder unit which is strapped to the cargo retention on the floor.

We are unlikely to be using a helicopter for cost reasons.

We were in a small fixed wing, a Maule M5, the one in this clip.

BOB GRIMSTEAD'S MAULE 2 - YouTube

Among the reasons the owner-operator chose it was for the fact that door-off ops for this aircraft are legal and it makes probably the best camera ship of four-place light singles.

All three doors down the right side could feasably come off but for camera purposes, the rear cargo door and rear right side passenger door removal is more than adequate. Compared to the Cessna singles, the Maule's two wing struts are placed conveniently furthur forward relative to the available camera position and aircraft apparently has a generous centre of gravity envelope.

Wind buffet inside was not a problem for me.

My handling of the camera was the main problem and choice of lens. My personal preference is to be as close to both the subject and background as I can be and that means long lenses. That brings problems of stability and controlled movements of the camera. I fiound that I was fighting the gyro during follows of loops from a parallel flightpath.

Maintaining separation and other safety aspects come first for us which limits some of the more photogenic but less safe courses the camera aircraft could be flown on.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

A bit of enjoyment learning the shortcomings of long lenses for air-to-air work in practice for 3D next year.



Lens. Sigma-for-Nikon 50mm -500mm f4 - f6.3 zoom.
Handheld Mini head on cable with KS8 gyro.
Subject aircraft. Fournier RF4D.
Camera aircraft. Maule M5.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

I have had the opportunity to play with a latest build of DVR2 SI3D and it is sweet with some more seriously useful new features. It is good to have the assurance of something which just switches on and works predictably.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

The local Roleystone District High School, Roleystone Community College, borrowed my SI2K, sticks and some lights to shoot their entry in the 2011 "Smarter Than smoking" TV commercial competition.

They have put it up on Youtube. Here it is. They won best cinematography for it. They also took very good care of my gear and it came back without a scratch.



They didn't use the SI2K for 2012. I understand they were possibly going to have access to a RED Scarlett. There has been diversity of equipment they have seen and touched. For "Hugh Jackman Saves The World" directed by Lee Chambers from Canada, an ARRI SR2 Super 16mm film camera and film stock was used.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

A bit of a way to spend a Friday night. Lighting test shot on SI2K.

SI2K. Living Rough.
 

I don't quite see RED Epics, Scarlets and ARRI Alexas doing this sort of thing without protest.

The SI2K P+S docking recorder body just happens to be the ideal countermass for the remote camera and an ENG lens on a small jib arm which has been modified for parallel movement. The carryhandle hooked over the rear handle of the jib arm just fine with vicegrip pliers on the jibarm handle to stop it from sliding off and some polish cloth added between to stop the paint being scratched.

There is more to be done to it yet, like proper bellcrank ends instead of crude holes and bolts pretending to be proper pivots wobbling all over the place shaking like a wet dog. The jibarm was a gift horse, not to be examined in the mouth too diligently. It was converted to proper parallel movement by adding a draglink from bottom of the rear camera tilt lever to the centre support.

Re: Cadillac. Teaser from way back.
 

Because the original web addresses to the teaser trailer and the behind the scenes clip referred on page three of this thread no longer work, I have reposted the teaser clip to here :-


I am not sure how long it will stay up as there may be some rights concerns over the underscore if youtube matches it to something.

Re: SI2K in Western Australia.
 

I woke up this morning at 4am, tossed and turned trying to nod off again. Circadian rhythms are a bit disrupted from a few early mornings and an overnighter. Blame film craft. So, as I have always wanted to do a timelapse of our City, here it is. Sadly the clouds came over the sun so there was no hillshadow sweep across the coastal plain or down the towers. Another day perhaps.