Blackcell (paintball commercial)

[Greg Johnson]

Hey everyone, I'd love to hear your comments on these little clips I did.

 

These clips were for work, we released a new product line and I wanted to make a little hype piece mini-series. There isn't really any story, or pacing, it's just montage and action mostly.

 

I had just bought a little hand made 35mm lens adapter that allowed me to attach my Nikon lens to my HVX-200. I shot almost all of it with a fixed 50mm E series lens. We shot each video in under 2 hours so they're a little rough, but I think the mood is kinda cool (at least for a paintball video.) The first video is just random shots, the second is the little action sequence.

 

Please check them out:

 

Blackcell 1 - WEB - 480P - 720P

 

Blackcell 2 - WEB - 720P - 720P

 

The first video I shot a 1/1000th shutter speed at 24 and 60fps so the camera really picked up the cheap ground glass wiggling around in the adapter. I almost like it in this instance, but it's super noisy none the less. The second video I shot everything at about 1/100 so it's less noisy but I think it lost some of the mood the first video did.

 

Thanks for checking them out,

 

- Greg

Edited November 17, 2006 by Greg Johnson

[Rolfe Klement]

some nice shots in there - the foley of the gun shots could be louder

 

but nice mood and nice shots and beautiful location

 

thanks

 

Rolfe

[Scott Lynch]

I thought the composition and color was really nice, althought I agree with you about the grain, I think that if it wasn't vibrating it might be less distracting, think about investing in a higher quality ground glass?

 

-Scott

[Chaz Buhrmann]

These are great. I also loved the composition, not a bad shot in there. The GG in the first clip is a little distracting. The second clip is a lot nicer. Chuck a better adapter on there and you're set.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

The vibrating effect from the lens is actually really cool, I thought. And I think, if used for the right purpose, it could be a tool for future shoots.

 

To me, at times it has the look of film being projected into a telecine box and picked up by a 3CCD camera. That look of the ground glass I guess is what it is. But it adds "character" to your piece and really gives it a different look that isn't necessarily bad if you're OK with people asking you how it was done...you just gotta act like it was intentional ;)

 

Oh, btw, what'd you do to get the color scheme.

 

I assume it was all done in post, but if anything was done in camera, I'd like to know.

 

thanks!

 

Jon

[Robert Ducon]

I paintball, so this is nice to see.

 

Where did you shoot this? Great area!

 

At first, the first video's vibration is distracting (in open areas, such as the sky) but soon you forget about it when the action occurs. Very cool.

 

Is the grain I see all because of the glass used?

 

You just made me fall in love with 35mm lenses all over again. It's great to SEE the results of someone's work with a 35mm lens and adapter, not just hear theory. Too cool.

 

Here in Canada, there are new TV adverts looking to recruit people into the military. They're dark and gritty, much like these - realistic.

 

 

Good work! Let us know if there is more down the road.

[Brandon McCormick]

Loved it. Great look to it.

 

I am also interested on how you color graded it.

[Martin Yernazian]

Great job my friend defenetly really good.... the grain was distracting but I agree with Jonathan this could be used for another shots

good work

[Jesus Sifuentes]

Felt as if I were in a video game. Wicked tempo and blending the elements.

[Greg Johnson]

Wow! Thanks so much for the comments, I really appreciate them!

 

To get the color I just used the 3-Way color correcting tool in Final Cut. DVCPRO HD has some pretty wicked color space to play around with.

 

First there were some things that were beyond my control: Everything out there is super weathered and desaturated. I shot both videos on gloomy days so the contrast ratio was wasn't high.

 

Using the filter in Final cut I crunched the blacks, and boosted the mids and highs tell I felt it looked cool. Then if there was too much saturation left over after the boosting I just turned it down. I'd be happy to provide screen shots if you're interested.

 

We shot these at Bauer, UT. Which is south of Toole, and North of Dugway proving grounds. It's a ghost town of an old mining / smoldering facility. Now it's mostly used for Paintball and Air-soft games. It's actually a really dangerous place, asside from being a super fund clean up site it's got a lot of mine shafts and cliffs. Makes for really fun games though.

 

Again thanks for the comments!

 

- Greg

[Robert Ducon]

Thanks for getting back to us Greg! Glad you liked our comments ;)

 

Another question - that music! It fit perfectly.. what was it, or did you make it and with what?

 

Cheers!

[Greg Johnson]

Thanks for getting back to us Greg! Glad you liked our comments ;)

 

Another question - that music! It fit perfectly.. what was it, or did you make it and with what?

 

Cheers!

 

 

Most of the music was assembled loops from this library: Liquid Cinema

 

I think I may of used a few others from apple. Then most of the ambient sound was from my sound effects library.

 

- Greg

[Robert Ducon]

Okay, I'm buying that! My work is in the genre similar to this paintball video.

 

That 35mm lens and the slow-mo really assisted too.. great combo in addition to the D.O.P.

[Cole Webley]

So are you from Utah?

[Greg Johnson]

So are you from Utah?

 

Yes, Salt Lake.

[Daniel Madsen]

Now I can see why impressionable young men go off to fight for their country. It's going to be like playing paintball. Wonderful.

 

Besides what the movie implies, I loved the color palate, the texture and use of overexposure.

With little trouble you could have added more dimension (story) by suggesting who the operatives are after or a comedic element (when someone gets hit the audience is immediately transported from Fallujah to oh poop this isn?t a bullets that would have severed my spine this is a ball of paint?. lets see if mom can fix us some hot chocolate)

 

 

Dan

[Greg Johnson]

Now I can see why impressionable young men go off to fight for their country. It's going to be like playing paintball. Wonderful.

 

Besides what the movie implies, I loved the color palate, the texture and use of overexposure.

With little trouble you could have added more dimension (story) by suggesting who the operatives are after or a comedic element (when someone gets hit the audience is immediately transported from Fallujah to oh poop this isn?t a bullets that would have severed my spine this is a ball of paint?. lets see if mom can fix us some hot chocolate)

Dan

 

Wow,.. thanks I guess.

[Brant Collins]

Greg, I would like more info on this "homemade"adapter for your HVX200. Great look and feel.

[Greg Johnson]

Hey Brant,

 

I bought it from adapterplace for a couple hundred bucks. Mine is the cheapest one he made (letus35),.. I don't know if he still makes it.

 

It's an aluminum tube with threads glued to both ends. 72mm and Nikon AI mount. Inside a suspended garmin LCD screen cover is used as "ground glass". Then a cell phone or game controller vibrator is attached to the suspended screen. You hook up 2 AA batteries and it makes the screen wiggle. I had to get a step-down ring to convert the HVX-200's 82mm to 72mm. It's pretty ghetto, but it's a nice little gimmick.

 

Here's our "test" footage of the minutes following me getting home from work and finding it came in the mail. My friend and I were just trying out different looks, my friend is being an idiot. It's nothing fancy. If you shoot with a slow enough shutter like 1/48th then the wiggle is motion blurred and almost invisible. If you shoot a fast shutter like over 1/250th then you'll see it. At 1/1000th the ground glass texture is wiggling like crazy. (so is the case with any lens adapter with moving parts).

 

If you turn off the wiggle then your get that texture just on top of your image. I did that a little bit in that test video.

 

I also used it the other day for a "imagination" opening title sequence in my WWII movie I'm working on. I quickly slapped it together to send over for the director to review, so a working cut with temp titles is HERE if you want to check it out. We shot it all in 60fps, and I did some cool green screen stuff, and shot real ammo so, it's kinda exciting. But I had the wiggle turned off so it gave it a different look. If I super saturate the footage it'd look like a super authentic Vietnam film,.. which this is not, so I scaled the color back.

 

Let me know if you have any other questions. I also shot a 3rd part to this paintball series with the Redrock M2 and my adapter both. The thread is somewhere in this topic.

 

Thanks!

 

- Greg

Edited August 4, 2007 by Greg Johnson

[Phil Rhodes]

I quite like the Private Ryan looking stuff - although really it's more a northern Europe look. Where did you shoot that stuff?

 

I really feel like you ought to have run the groundglass, too. It's a bit distracting with the static pattern.

 

And what exactly is that chunk of metal that comes flying out the top of the rifle when it's empty?

 

Phil

[Greg Johnson]

I quite like the Private Ryan looking stuff - although really it's more a northern Europe look. Where did you shoot that stuff?

 

I really feel like you ought to have run the groundglass, too. It's a bit distracting with the static pattern.

 

And what exactly is that chunk of metal that comes flying out the top of the rifle when it's empty?

 

Phil

 

Hey Phil,

thank you for your interest!

 

The script originally called for Battle of the Bulge in Bastone, which we were going to shoot in the Northern Utah Uinta mountains in winter. But due to permit problems on national forest land we pushed the shoot back till spring and shot it in the central Utah desert. The story now takes place in "Southern Italy", and I think once we matte in the villa's it'll look quite convincing.

 

I felt that the wiggling motion of the ground glass was more distracting when turned on, plus I wanted the "imagination" sequences to have an odd look. So that's why we chose to shot it with the adapter off.

 

The metal chunk is the bloc clip that holds the 8 rounds together on the M1 Garand. It's what makes the familiar "pling" noise when the clip is empty and ejects from the rifle. This gun was the cutting edge rifle in WWII, it's semi auto ability replaced the current bolt action rifle like the Enfield, Springfield 1903, and dominated the German k98 Mauser in battle. It was the battle rifle chosen by the US military in 1936, like the M16 of today. It was updated and became the M14 used in Vietnam and is still used today, although it's now usually a .308 not a 30.06 anymore. It's actually my favorite gun, I own two. You take a clip and shove 8 rounds into the top of the breach, then the action slams closed. Once you fire all 8 rounds, the clip ejects and the breach remains open for the next clip. It's super cool!

 

The Germans learned to listen for the pling, indicating the American was reloading. Later on in the war, the Americans fastened empty clips to their belts and would flick them to trick the Germans into coming out of hiding.

 

 

Sorry to geek out,.. I love that gun.

 

Anyway,. .thanks for the questions!

 

- Greg