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Posted (edited)

Here's my piece 'Luthier'. It's the making of a classic guitar by an artesanal luthier.

Shot on Aaton XTR XC + T2.5 Cooke Varokinetal 9-50mm lens + Kodak Vision3 500T and 250D. Processed and scanned on a Scanity (4K) by Cinelab London. I made the live recording of the music in the theatre using a Rode NTG4+ mic into a Zoom F3 recorder. The music was composed by Jeremías (the guitarist/luthier) and is called 'Aida' named after my mother that passed away a couple of Decembers ago.

The why: finding out this talented busker was also a luthier, I asked him to make a guitar for me with the idea of filming the whole process. Both the guitar and the 'piece' are intended as a family heirloom. I can't play a note myself! I want to pass the guitar down on the one hand and have the 'filming' as a testament to my 'art'.

I hope you have a bit of time to watch the piece. I will be entering it into the very modest Gibraltar Visual Arts Spring Festival in some months time. If I win it will pay back some of the costs I incurred and that's good enough for me haha.

Watch at 1440p on YouTube for the best quality! Thanks for watching if you do watch!!!

 

Edited by Stephen Perera
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Posted

Hey thanks for watching the piece much appreciated…..yes Tyler saw your piece back in the day we had a conversation about it haha….on instagram I think we spoke. I’m going to do a long edit for myself where all the steps appear this edit is shorter so people don’t get bored haha

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Posted
2 hours ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Beautiful, everything in it! A very special heirloom. Really hope you win.

How did you sync the footage with the audio?

Well done!

Hey Jon you mean the footage of his performance where it looks like I had 4 cameras going?

Well, I asked him to play the piece 4 times and I moved the camera to 4 different positions. I started with the long shot, then a closer medium shot a then close side shot and a behind shot. I matched the music to the different camera positions and then cut the music in the slight pauses he made to change rhythm etc. he played the piece very similarly so that helped immensely. 
The performance was very moving being there in an empty stage filming him. The theatre staff were clapping after he finished! 

What we did was the only way for me, alone, to film him as if I had 4 cameras going. I used the theatre lights and spotlight to light him up and metered the main light and let him come in and out of shadow knowing the 500T would perform. I used up a 400ft mag for the theatre section alone.

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Posted

Oh and I received a Cineonlog ProRes 444 scan from Cinelab London which I brought back from the UK weather look to more Mediterranean look by altering the curves and not much else hahaha. As it’s film, not much to do to bring back the colour to what was pleasing and expected. No LUTS or faffing around finding ‘a look’. I had to tame the grain on the dark backgrounds in the theatre was about it. Oh and I added as if I had a pro mist filter on the camera with DaVinci for a bit of ‘romance’ on the lights around….bloom basically.

It was all scanned on the Scanity at 4K. In the past I had Arriscans at 2K but this time round I opted for the more affordable Scanity with the help and advice of both Cinelab London and people in this forum when I was thinking of what to go for.

I hope this piece inspires people in here to go for it and shoot a personal project with our beloved Kodak if nothing else. It doesn’t come more basic than how I shoot. It’s just my eye on the eyepiece, a tripod, a Sekonic light metre and no monitors on the camera or anything…..and an idea in your head.

 

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Posted
9 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Lovely film that was great! Did you see my Luthier film?

 

Scrooby's experience of watching Tyler Purcell's movie recalled watching David Mullen's spectacularly-shot Jennifer's Body for the first time; here, Scrooby knew by second ninety-five that this material couldn't be presented any finer. TP maintains a beautiful pace throughout using a finest-arranged edit. This is a Ferrari of a movie from a technical wizard. This movie, & Stephen Perera's movie as well, are what we're all about here : First-rate Storytelling.

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Posted (edited)

I really don’t know what you’re saying Jeff haha. Scrooby? That’s a small village in Nottinghamshire historically significant for its association with the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in America…according to the internet haha…..please expound on your latest comment @Jeff Bernstein

Edited by Stephen Perera
Posted

Hi Stephen and congratulations for your work. It's not the first one I watch from yours, although it's the first one in color. A little technical question: which light had been used in the sequences in the luthier's lab (for example at min. 1:10 circa)? It's not the small framed lamp only, is it? And which stock was it?

Bye, go on, do more!

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Adriano Cimino said:

Hi Stephen and congratulations for your work. It's not the first one I watch from yours, although it's the first one in color. A little technical question: which light had been used in the sequences in the luthier's lab (for example at min. 1:10 circa)? It's not the small framed lamp only, is it? And which stock was it?

Bye, go on, do more!

Adriano I used available light and the little lamp you see and a Neewer lamp I have attached. Very simple set up. Obviously he needs light to work in so I thought it was ok to have OBVIOUS light on the scene albeit I erred on the more artistic side of lighting so to speak. It’s not like I can get away with chiaroscuro on this one hahah.

the Neewer lamp is affordable and can be controlled by the phone nicely. I shot on 500T which is balanced to 3200k so I had the Neewer at about 2700k to push in some warmth. I run out of 500T at the end and u see a very obvious switch to 250D which went a lot warmer in comparison but I thought the guitar is done so wanted to switch it up visually…..maybe not a good idea hah

very kind of you to take time to watch the piece I didn’t think anyone would much bother.

IMG_7232.jpeg

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Posted
12 minutes ago, Stewart McLain said:

Really enjoyed this, Stephen!  Looks beautiful.  Thanks for sharing the production details too. 

very kind of you to watch....its quite fascinating watching a guitar come to life.....
Other than what I've said it was just camera on tripod in his small workshop. Filmed from April to December in all sorts of heat during the summer! I shot 1800ft in total. 4 cans of 400ft and 2 of 100ft. Quite an expense but hey, it's a family heirloom....f*ck it

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Posted (edited)

Scroob's new bright idea is to create a forum for Premium Members, each of whom, who wants to, will have their own subforum, in which they can place their films to be watched. Scroob, who doesn't film movies, has no horse in this race; Scroob is simply transmitting the idea. Best wishes, all.

 

Oh yes. Wouldn't it be cool if Daniel D. Teoli Jr. had his own forum, in which he could distribute his infinite riches throughout however many subforums of his imagining? Order, order everywhere.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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Posted
18 hours ago, Stephen Perera said:

Hey thanks for watching the piece much appreciated…..yes Tyler saw your piece back in the day we had a conversation about it haha….on instagram I think we spoke. I’m going to do a long edit for myself where all the steps appear this edit is shorter so people don’t get bored haha

Right! I remember thanks for sparking my scatterbrain! LOL 😛

Did you get VO with the guy? He seemed like someone who may have a good voice. 

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Posted
14 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Right! I remember thanks for sparking my scatterbrain! LOL 😛

Did you get VO with the guy? He seemed like someone who may have a good voice. 

well the idea is he will explain things on the longer, full edit I will do of the process the shows all the steps but this one is the edit I will out out there if not people get bored

Importantly, thanks to YOU @Tyler PurcellI could do this project 'cos you sent me the prototype? 3D printed battery mount thing for my Aaton so I could have a modern v-mount battery to run it!!!

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Posted
10 hours ago, Stephen Perera said:

Importantly, thanks to YOU @Tyler PurcellI could do this project 'cos you sent me the prototype? 3D printed battery mount thing for my Aaton so I could have a modern v-mount battery to run it!!!

So happy it works well! We will have a finished version sometime out in 2025, we're just waiting for the fancy printer. 

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Posted

@Tyler Purcell it works perfectly well. Obviously we have identified the weak point being the resin tab that the camera screws in to hold but so far so good! The amount battery is heavy but that doesnt seem to bother it as there is enough of a 'rest' for it in the camera metal build. Obviously I'm not explaining myself well to anyone that doesn't know this camera but YOU know what I mean.

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Posted (edited)
32 minutes ago, Stephen Perera said:

 

SP, thx for reupload. Best wishes. (P.S. My "likes" don't register on YT.)

 

 

 

 

Edited by Jeff Bernstein
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