The Twelve Films Project

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).

The November Documentary - The New American Farm

I've decided to expand on some of the ideas from my first documentary, Farm To Trailer, and take a look at how consumer interest in words like "local", "organic" and "sustainable" has allowed small, family-run farms to flourish in the last couple years.  

Austin has a huge farmer's market scene (there are at least 8 markets in the Austin area every weekend) but what's really helping these farms grow and sustain is the fact that more and more restaurants are going out of their way to source their ingredients locally.  While it's great that individuals go to the markets to buy local produce, proteins and locally made goods like Charcuterie, it's the large orders from the restaurants that are really keeping the farms viable.

I'm going to be talking to a few of the local farms here in Austin as well as some of the chefs from restaurants that source locally.  One of the first people I thought of when I came up with this idea was Sonya Cote, the chef at East Side Showroom.  She sources about 96% of her ingredients locally and makes some amazing food.  Her menu changes daily (each menu has a stamp at the top, telling you what day it was made) and she loves the thrill of the hunt.

Last night, myself and Paul Toohey went down to East Side Showroom to start shooting.  We shot some timelapse of her kitchen at work as well as footage of bartender Jason Stevens mixing his amazing drinks.  Paul and I sat down at the bar, whipped out our 7D's and shot for a couple hours as Jason made some amazing drinks.  For me, he made a Pimm's Cup (one of my favorite drinks) and it was truly magical.

Going forward, we're going to be interviewing Andrew Wiseheart from Contigo and one or two other chefs here in town about their love of locally sourced ingredients.  As for the farms, I've got Kris Olsen from Milagro Farms booked and we're hoping to get the rest of the farms booked for interviews over the next few days.

October - Instant Lovers

 

Here's the October film, the music video for DEANO's first release, "Instant Lovers", the title track from his new album which will be available later on this year.  Enjoy.

My next gear addition

With the November film looming on the horizon, I've stepped back to look at my gear and see what's missing.  The fact that it's a documentary means that I'm going to be doing a lot of interviews (more than any of the other docs I've done) and the one thing I'm missing is a good microphone.  I've used a couple mics in the past, but the one that's stood out for me was the Rode VideoMic.

It's a good, solid mic that is great for recording dialogue or interviews.  I'm going to be purchasing a few accessories to go along with the mic that are going to help in different situations.

The first thing I'm buying is the Rode Dead Cat Wind Muff.  I've used the Rode VideoMic in windy situations and the included wind screen doesn't do much to cut the sound.  The Dead Cat is supposed to go a long way to cutting removing the wind sound.

As I sometimes end up shooting these interviews on my own, I'm going to get the Rode Mini Boompole in case I want to frame the interview a little further away from the camera (and the microphone).  I can set up the Rode VideoMic on the boom, put the boom on a light stand (using a boompole cradle) and run a long mini cable to the camera.

I think this setup is going to work well for me.  Planning on ordering it soon as I need to get a head-start on the November film.

October - Music Video BTS

Here's a quick Behind The Scenes video from the Instant Lovers music video shoot from last week.

Enjoy...

October - Post Production

I've been cutting for the past two days and the music video is shaping up nicely.  The 60fps footage looks amazing and I've decided to make almost 100% of the performance, slow-motion.  With all the water splashing around, it just looks soooo cool and really dynamic.

The song is pretty short and we shot a TON of great footage.  At 2:30, "Instant Lovers" is on the short side of the spectrum and so every shot has to count.  The first day was spent going through each shot and marking anything that was visually great.  Once I was really familiar with the footage, I started building the timeline.  The first 15-20 seconds of the video take place before the song starts and sets up the "story", such as it is, so I put that together first, getting things going.

Once the open was built, I got the performance stuff cut in and then went back through and started cutting in the "hot girl" stuff.  This is meant to be a funny video, so not only am I trying to make a cool, well cut music video, but I'm also trying to cut it with an eye for the funny.  The performances from the band and from Natalie Monsanto (as my hot girl) were very funny, so it was just a matter of finding the right tempo and placement for the scenes.

I got the first cut finished this morning and started sending cuts to my camera guy and fellow beard-wearer, Paul Toohey.  He came back with some good notes and ideas and so I spent today cutting and cutting and cutting.  Around 2:00, I had a pretty solid cut of the video and so I started playing with color correction and managed to get everything CC'd by 4:30pm by using Magic Bullet Looks and the 3-Way Color Corrector in Final Cut Pro.

The version of the song that I'm cutting to isn't the final master of the song, so I'm waiting for Dean to deliver the finished master before I can finalize the cut.  The song itself won't change, but the mix will be cleaner and better all around.  I'm hoping to get the final mix by the beginning of next week so I can get the video up.  It's probably about 95% done, with some little tweaks and edits here and there.  

In the meantime, I think I'm going to cut a little behind the scenes from some of the footage that we shot while setting up and between the takes...there's just so much amazing footage from this that I don't want any of it to go to waste.  I know I keep talking about this, but this was the most fun I've ever had on set.  I've enjoyed making all of these 12 Films, but this one will probably end up being my favorite.  But I've got two more to make, so maybe I should hold off saying that...

This weekend is Julie's birthday, so I might try and cut the BTS video tomorrow and post it up.  The next post will probably be the video itself...can't wait for everyone to see it.

October - Instant Lovers Music Video

Shot the music video, "Instant Lovers" for the band Deano & The Dangerous on Tuesday.  Austin has been going through a pretty brutal heat wave this summer with a record number of days over 100-degrees.  So, of course, on the day I plan to put an entire band, their equipment, myself and my crew in a swimming pool, a cold front decides to ride through town, dropping the temps to about 75 and bringing a pretty chilling wind with it.  It was a pretty brisk start to the day, but once the sun came out, things got a little more comfortable.

Got to the location at 8am along with the crew.  We had some breakfast (breakfast tacos & Starbucks, nothing better) and then got to work unloading the gear and setting stuff up.  We were shooting in a familiar location as I had shot there before when I directed the web spot for Verizon a couple months ago.  That was a night shoot, so I figured, why not use it during the day?

We had to set up the drum kit in the pool which was a lot more work than any of us really thought it would be.  Deano (the drummer) got in first and then I stripped down and got in to help.  Once we got the bass drum filled with water and balanced it on a couple of cinder blocks, it was all good.

We got the band and our actress (the lovely Natalie Monsanto from my short film, Sketch) in make-up and wardrobe and got the first shot off around 9:45am.  The band was really into the idea, an homage to the music videos of the 80's and 90's, but with a satirical twist.  I wanted it to feel like David Lee Roth would feel at home in this video, and I think he would.

Almost everyone from the Layover shoot made it out for this one and I'm really happy with this crew that I've put together.  I've managed to start working with them on some of my corporate shoots and I'm hoping to keep the band together, so to speak...it's a really amazing group of people.

We shot the video with two 7D's (mine and Paul Toohey's) along with a couple GoPro cameras which we used mostly in the pool for underwater shots and good close-up stuff.  I wanted this to have kind of a hightened, dreamy feel, so I sped up the song by 250% and then shot the performance footage at 60fps.  

Once you re-conform the 60fps to 24p, all the slow-motion footage synchs up and it looks amazing, especially since everyone is splashing around in the water, rocking out.  Both the 7D and the GoPro have the 60fps setting, so it makes it easy.  I did the same thing on the Stars Fall music video, but only with some of the green screen footage.  I loved the way it looked so much that I decided to try making it a big part of this music video.

The lead singer (Morgan Sorne of the group Sorne) had to leave by 2pm, so we shot all of the band stuff first.  We mixed it up, shooting 24fps and 60fps with the 7D first and then jumping in the water to shoot the GoPro.  Here's a frame grab from the GoPro...I think you can see how much fun we were having.

Once the band stuff was done, we turned everything around and shot Natalie's stuff.  She plays the requisite "Sexy, sex-bomb" in this video, but with a little twist that you'll get to see when the video comes out...she's pretty damn funny and such a good sport.  We basically tortured her for a couple hours for very little (actually zero) pay.

I got my usual sunburn, especially since I was in the pool all day, shooting the GoPro.  My shoulders, back and arms got a good, solid base of pink.  I'm slathering aloe on myself while I type this one-handed.  Totally worth it.

The video will probably be up sometime next week...certainly before the end of the month.