Short on RED

[F Bulgarelli]

Recently I shot a short film on the RED ONE camera, first on the reel, called "The Debt", please check it out, looking forward to getting some feedback.

 

http://bulgarelli.adbeast.com/reels/sr_fb_narrative/

 

Thanks

 

Francisco

[kyle heslop]

some very nice images there. well done.

id be interested to know what lenses where used, and any details on the post workflow.

but good good stuff.

 

kyle.

[Chris Keth]

There's some nice stuff there. I think it's pretty conservative for my taste in the highlights. I would have liked to let some things go hotter for the increase in perceived contrast it gives. A little more than you did would serve to make those shadows look darker while still being able to see into them. The shadow areas seemed to be a little muddy on my screen, like maybe they could be crushed by a couple of points. That's a sensitive area though and it could be my monitor, viewing angle, et cetera.

 

I really like the realistic feel to the color rendition. In the bar it seems just right, as do many of the skintones. It's not over done and not desaturated.

 

How did you rate the camera? Did you shoot it as 3200K or as 5500K white balance? Are the levels of color saturation essentially what came from the RAW files or are those more or less saturated than the RAWs? Was there any lens filtration used?

[Francis Kuhn]

Recently I shot a short film on the RED ONE camera, first on the reel, called "The Debt", please check it out, looking forward to getting some feedback.

 

http://bulgarelli.adbeast.com/reels/sr_fb_narrative/

 

Thanks

 

Francisco

 

Hi Francisco,

 

Great work, you keep getting better all the time. Izzy would be proud!

 

BTW I can't help but think it would have looked better on film. I keep thinking that these digital cameras (both still and cinema) have a unique ability to make everything look like a CAD drawing!

 

-Fran

[Bill Totolo]

Beautiful, Francisco. Really excellent work.

[F Bulgarelli]

Thank you guys, at first I thought that maybe people didn't have the patience to look at the whole thing and should have used the bar scene only, since it's visually more interesting.

 

we shot with Zeiss t1.3's, scenes were white balanced for either tungsten or daylight according to the scene, color correction on final cut's color, I rated the camera at 320 but really was overexposing a bit and brought it down in post.

 

We were going for a very naturalistic look, didn't use filtration except for nd's and pola, desaturation done in post.

 

we screened the short on a 20x10 screen using a blue ray dvd and it looked really good, definetely very impressed with the lack of noise and the latitude of the camera.

 

 

The shot of the guy in the elevator, there was at least 7 stops difference between his shadow area and the outside, you can see how the detail holds outside.

 

Thanks for the comments,

 

Francisco

[John Allen]

Wow, very nice work.

[Satsuki Murashige]

Beautiful work, Francisco!

 

Your 1st did awesome job keeping everything sharp. Was he/she able to use the scales on the lens, ie. were they reliable with the camera's PL mount? Did your 1st use a monitor for some of the super shallow depth shots? I'm always curious how other focus pullers work since I rarely 2nd any more. I like the decision to keep the man out of focus when he enters the bar in the background, and also to let him go soft as he leaves the frame after their victim dies.

 

You had some nice camera moves and compositions (esp. liked the dutch in the elevator). I kinda wish the dolly shot into the newspaper headline had been a bigger move. I would have liked to have seen the move end with the newspaper filling the frame. I guess on a big screen it would have been fine, but in a little web video it was too small to read. Maybe you could have put the table on a dolly?

 

I like the mix of the low-con contemporary scenes and the high-con desaturated flashbacks. Can you tell us a bit about your lighting approach regarding the two looks?

 

Also, how were you monitoring on set and what gamma/matrix did you end up using? Finally, were you involved in the post workflow at all, and if so what workflow was used to get the finished film to Blu-Ray? I'm intrigued by the clean noise-free look you were able to achieve since my experience with Red workflow has been that the camera is noisy to begin with and each additional step in post only makes it worse.

[F Bulgarelli]

Beautiful work, Francisco!

 

Your 1st did awesome job keeping everything sharp. Was he/she able to use the scales on the lens, ie. were they reliable with the camera's PL mount? Did your 1st use a monitor for some of the super shallow depth shots? I'm always curious how other focus pullers work since I rarely 2nd any more. I like the decision to keep the man out of focus when he enters the bar in the background, and also to let him go soft as he leaves the frame after their victim dies.

 

You had some nice camera moves and compositions (esp. liked the dutch in the elevator). I kinda wish the dolly shot into the newspaper headline had been a bigger move. I would have liked to have seen the move end with the newspaper filling the frame. I guess on a big screen it would have been fine, but in a little web video it was too small to read. Maybe you could have put the table on a dolly?

 

I like the mix of the low-con contemporary scenes and the high-con desaturated flashbacks. Can you tell us a bit about your lighting approach regarding the two looks?

 

Also, how were you monitoring on set and what gamma/matrix did you end up using? Finally, were you involved in the post workflow at all, and if so what workflow was used to get the finished film to Blu-Ray? I'm intrigued by the clean noise-free look you were able to achieve since my experience with Red workflow has been that the camera is noisy to begin with and each additional step in post only makes it worse.

 

Thank you for your comments,

 

My 1st AC Allen Atcherberg did a fantastic job on the focus, he's a member of this forum.

We used Zeiss T1.3 pl and Allen might be able to give you more feedback on the focus scales but I believe they are good, of course I'm sure he wishes he had a few more extra focus marks like the ultra primes or S4's but in any case the 1.3's are fantastic lenses.

 

Satsuki, it's interesting that you mentioned the newspaper because we kept moving it closer and closer after the rehearsals, as I view the footage now I feel like it was a good decision to let it play that way, sometimes is good if you make the viewer work a little bit and in this case, search for that headline.

 

As far as the lighting, we knew that the flashbacks would play more desaturated and contrasty than the present, because of that, we favored single sources with very little fill, like for instance the break in scene when he's going through the files, that was lit with one single 1200 hmi with 1/2 cto shooting through the window and a small kino bank as fill, in post we crushed the blacks.

 

The scene with the man on the chair was very difficult in the sense that took a bit of finicking to find the right position for that light coming through the window (650w) as I wanted it to be very subtle and not distracting, I had more fill in that scene because there was a lot going on with the other 2 characters, also it was my first time using the RED and I wanted to make sure I had a clean, noise free image. That scene was brought down a great deal in post.

 

FOr the scene in the bar, I used different focal lenghts to convey the interaction between the characthers as they moved from a place of total distrust to a place where they felt more comfortable with each other, I started with 65mm and moved into 35mm and 25mm as the scene develops. Deakins always mentions the quality of the wide lens to make you feel closer the character, I was trying to apply that principle starting from the opposite and ending wide.

BTW, what you see on my website is not the entire short, the scene in the bar is very involved.

 

Besides the kinos behind the bar, we had small enhancing edge lights and a 4x4 kino for ambient, there was also some really cool practicals at the location.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Francisco

[Allen Achterberg]

Thank you for your comments,

 

My 1st AC Allen Atcherberg did a fantastic job on the focus, he's a member of this forum.

We used Zeiss T1.3 pl and Allen might be able to give you more feedback on the focus scales but I believe they are good, of course I'm sure he wishes he had a few more extra focus marks like the ultra primes or S4's but in any case the 1.3's are fantastic lenses.

 

Francisco

 

That's it, I'm changing my name. nobody can spell it. its a minor thing, but it still gets to me. You should know better by now Francisco!

 

The witness marks lined up correctly, up until the last day. we had problems with the red pl mount wanting to hold onto those lenses when I wanted to change them. the mount was sticky, and I'm afraid minor force to release the lens caused the mount to shift, offseeting our FFD. We noticed it on the 14mm, It was pretty wide so I just set my lens roughly to the distance, and I'll be damned if it didnt go soft. I wanted to adjust it myself, but Did not have permission from the RED owner and we moved on anyway. It was a very minor set back, but we were close to wrap and I just reverted to "eye focus" marks from there on out and used what I am going to cleverly call "eye Cushions" (which are a padded mark, for instance the actor wont lean past this point or further than that point and help me zen that lens when talent does the unexpected; leaning in for no damn reason on a line only to make my life hell)

 

Not to mention we didnt have the best support for this camera package. I was not available for Prep and Francisco messed it all up ;)

 

but check this out yo!

 

 

Bongo ties are not just for cables. You do what you gotta do right?

[Satsuki Murashige]

1. Nice rig there, McGuyver would be proud. Nice handgrip improv too...

 

2. About your oft-bungled surname: I'll best most of the crew can at least pronounce it on set, I'd settle for that much. BTW, a camera op. friend of mine recently changed his last name for the same reason - I think he also used it as an opportunity to "sex up" his image. Dotherrow --> Deveraux: way cooler! So I say go for it, the ladies may appreciate it. B)

 

3. I don't quite understand the whole "padded mark" thing - is it just their "leaning all the way in" mark?

 

4. And finally, which gamma setting did you guys end up shooting with?

 

5. Good work, looks great!

[Allen Achterberg]

the padded mark thing. often, when you ask an actor for them to do their lean in they do it closer during the take. so you have to be prepared. watching their head grow in the monitor. Thats why I always give myself extra room, so when they do move in I can catch it. rarely do they ever hit their "Lean in mark" and on a tight shot at T1.3 or T2 it matters!

 

Francisco can probly answer the Gamma question. I've got no clue.

[Daniel Porto]

Thank you guys, at first I thought that maybe people didn't have the patience to look at the whole thing and should have used the bar scene only, since it's visually more interesting.

 

How could you not continue to watch with such interesting and provocative sound design.

[F Bulgarelli]

How could you not continue to watch with such interesting and provocative sound design.

 

Thanks, I'll mention that to the sound designer.

 

Actually, what you see in that picture, the bongo tie was holding the whole rig together, hahaha

seriously, I think we tried that configuration and was a bit cumbersome as you can see; eventually, I opted to go without much and just make the rig as light as possible.

 

Francisco