The Twelve Films Project

The November Film - LOCAL

 

Here's the November film, LOCAL.  This was the hardest of the 12 Films so far, but I have to say, I think I'm more proud of this than of any of the other films.  This film could not have been made without the outstanding work of Paul Toohey, Chris Walker, Caleb Hay, Melissa Porter and my wife Julie.

And, or course, a HUGE thank you to everyone who participated in the documentary.  Couldn't have done it without them.

I can't believe there's just one film left...

November - Update

I finished shooting the new documentary on November 11th and sat down to start transcoding the footage.  I ended up with roughly the same amount of footage for this doc as I've had for the past 4 films which was daunting.  I had about 11 hours of interviews and a whole lot of b-roll and so the transcoding took a couple days.  Fortunately Plural Eyes made short work of synching all the interviews which ended up saving me a lot of time.

Over the last week, I've been going through the interviews, watching them and marking where the questions start so I can navigate them easier when I'm editing.  I got all of the interviews marked and ready to cut last Friday, so I started cutting over the weekend.  As of this morning, I've got almost 25 minutes cut together and it's looking good.  I'm hoping the total running time for the doc is under 40 minutes, but we'll see.  There's so many interviews and so much great stuff that I may try and get most of it in.  The craziest part of this is, if I just brought some other aspects of the local food movmember into the doc and went out and shot 3-4 more interviews, I could have a feature film, no problem.  I don't have time to do that now, but I'm seriously considering it, maybe once the 12 Films are done.

Overall, I'm done with the shooting, but this week I'm going to try and get out to Springdale Farm to shoot some time lapse for the opening titles and maybe some other little odds and ends.  I need to have the interviews cut by Friday so I can hand it off to my sound mixer Cary Daniels out in Los Angeles.  While he's working on that, I'll be cutting in the b-roll and working on the opening credit sequence.  I'm actually having music written for this by Chris Walker who recorded a lot of the location sound.

I've also decided to change the title of the documentary.  "The New American Farm" is a cool title, but the scope of the interviews and the content that I got doesn't really support that and so I'm working on a new title.  Once I figure it out, I'll post it up.

Some New Gear

I've been talking about new lenses a lot lately and I wanted to also talk about some of the other new gear that I've recently bought.  Primarily, a new support system for my slider.

Anyone who watches my movies knows that I love a good slider shot, and I had come up with an inexpensive support system for my Glidetrack Hybrid.  I bought a couple mid-weight light stands and put Manfrotto quick release plates on the top.  While this worked, even the mid-weight stands got a little wobbly, and if you tried to extend them up past about 5 feet, it was unusable.

I decided to buy another set of the Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod legs to use as the support.  Since I won't be using my tripod at the same time as the slider, I can take the head of my current tripod off and put the quick release plate on it (and do the same with the new legs) and voila!  I'll have a much steadier support system.  I'll also have more flexibility as the tripod will go higher (if you extend the center column) than the light stands and it will go lower than the light stands were able.  All in all, it's a much better choice.

I also decided to invest in a reflector kit.  Too often I'm in a space where I need a little bounce or fill and don't have the lighting or time to really get it right.  So I bought the Interfit 5-in-1 reflector kit.  The coolest part about this kit is that it comes with a bracket that allows you to mount the reflector on to a light stand, so I'll still have some use for the light stands that I have.  It's a 42-inch (in diameter) reflector that comes with Gold, Silver, White, Translucent and Black.

I decided to pick up another battery as I've been shooting more and more and find myself running low in the field.  I had experimented with some off-brand batteries and some of them are good and some are crap, so I just went ahead and got a new Canon battery which I'm sure will work great.  

Picked up some lens cleaning supplies and some other odds and ends, but I'm most excited about the new slider support.  I'm directing a piece for a local restaurant today and it'll be the first time that I get to try it out.  And I'm sure whatever the Decemeber film ends up being (seriously, I have no idea right now), there will be a little slider in there too...

PluralEyes

So this is gonna be a quick post about some software that I should have tried a LONG time ago.

As an editor, I've had to synch audio by hand for a long time.  If we shot an interview with two cameras, we'd normally record the audio into one camera and then synch the audio in a timeline later.  As it turns out, I got really good at doing it and so it's just how I always did it.

Now that I'm shooting primarily on DSLR, you have to record all the audio separately and synch it later.  Since I was already used to doing it by hand (so to speak), I never really looked into the PluralEyes option.  I was an idiot.

My current sound guy had been telling to me to give it a try and, with about 10 hours of interviews for my new documentary staring me in the face, I went ahead and downloaded the free 30-day trial.  I put all the audio/video on a timeline in Final Cut Pro, opened PluralEyes and hit the "synch" button.  What would have taken me 20-30 minutes was done in 3 minutes.  I was sold.  I immediately went back to their site and spent the $150.

I'll never go back...

Fader ND

One of the biggest problems that I've had in shooting outdoors is the bright Texas sun.  Most days, when I'm shooting outside, I have to close the aperture down to f13-f16 (sometimes f22!) in order to get a good exposure.  Doing this means there's very little depth of field which is one of the reasons I'm shooting with the film lenses to begin with.

The best way to fix this is to put ND filters in front of the lens.  ND filters are essentially dark glass that makes you open the aperture up to get a good exposure.  Usually, you have ND filters that screw on to the front of the lens.  You can stack the ND filters, one on top of the other, making it darker and darker so you can open the iris.  The issue with this is, if you're shooting video and moving around, you can end up taking time figuring out how much ND you want in front of the lens.

In comes the Fader ND filter.  With the Fader ND filter, you screw it on and then rotate it one way to increase the ND and the other way to decrease it.  This allows for quick adjustments and shallow DOF, which is what we all want.  I used one today (my buddy Paul has one for his camera), shooting at Richardson Farms, and I loved it.  Mine should arrive next week and I can't wait to strap it on.

My two new lenses (the 11-16mm Tokina and the 24-70mm Canon L-Series) both have 77mm filter sizes, so I went ahead and got the 77mm version.  My two primes both have 58mm filter sizes, so I may order another one later on if I feel like I might need it.  To be honest, I haven't busted out either of my primes since I got the new lenses, but they may end up on my camera for a job that I'm directing next week...we'll see.

UPDATE: My buddy Paul Toohey made a good point last night which is that, since the 58mm filter size on my prime lenses is smaller than the 77mm filter that I bought, I can just get a step-down ring and use the Fader ND on my primes as well.

Talking about lenses

I posted about a new lens I got (the Tokina 11-16mm f2.8) a little while ago and was very excited to pick one up.  While I used it a little on October's Instant Lovers music video, I really got to use it today, shooting for my November film, and I'm kind of in love.

One of the biggest issues I had when shooting my other two docs (as well as Bryce Gilmore's reel) was shooting in kitchens.  For the most part, kitchens in retaurants are tight spaces with people working in close quarters.  There's not a lot of room to step back and get nice wide shots with a longer lens.  The Tokina provided some amazing views today and I was able to put the camera in some interesting places and get a lot of the action.  Here are some quick frames, not color corrected or graded, just so you can see what I'm talking about.

I'm sure it's hard to tell from these shots, but the kitchen at Contigo (where I shot on Thurday) is pretty cramped.  But the Tokina really opens it up and makes it seem quite spacious...it's similar to the trick that New York real estate agents use when they photograph the cramped apartments and make them look huge.

Now that I've got my wide-end handled (heh), I've been looking at improving my zoom lens.  Currently, I'm using a Sigma 18-250mm zoom which goes from f3.5 (at the widest) to f6.3 (at the longest).  Stopping down that much when you zoom in makes it almost impossible to shoot in low-light situations without upping the ISO and getting a lot of grain.  Plus, if I'm rolling as I zoom, you see the image get darker as it zooms in and the iris closes.  Not a pretty look.

As a Canon user, I'm always drooling over the L-Series lenses and one in particular, the 24mm-70mm f2.8, has been winking at me a lot lately.  So I finally took the plunge and bought one.  It's my first L-Series lens and I can't wait to use it.  I'm mostly excited that I'll have a fast zoom that is a constant f-stop so I can zoom while rolling without the image getting darker.  The icing on the cake are the optics in this lens.  Canon has always been known for their lenses and they don't get any better than the L-Series.  This is one of the best-reviewed zoom lenses that Canon offers and I think it's going to get a lot of use.

The other lens that I'm buying is the Rokinon 8mm f3.5 fisheye.  I had been borrowing my dad's fisheye for a long time and really fell in love with what you could do with it.  While it probably won't get as much use as any of my other lenses, it's a great trick to pull out of my bag when I want to do something fun or weird.  

The Rokinon is an inexpensive lens because it's 100% manual...focus and aperture, so it's not a great lens for taking still photos.  But for video (or time lapse), it's pretty awesome.  I've talked to some people who own them and they say that it's a sharp lens, even around the edges, at f3.5.  That lens arrives next week and I'm sure I'll find a place for one or two ultra-wide angle shots in the doc.

I still have my mid-range primes (28mm f1.8 and 85mm f1.8) which serve me very well.  I don't think I'll be upgrading those any time soon.  The new L-Series lens is arriving on Friday, so I'll be able to use it on all my shoots next week (shooting Mon-Fri for the new doc).