East of Byzantium, Shot on the Red, First Test out in the open

Martin Yernazian · May 27, 2010

Hello my film brothers (or should I say pixels, it doesn't matter) it has been a while since we read each other. The fact of making 4 films at the same time it really takes the time out of your life (that and girlfriends, facebook, your gaffer's needs, sex [with yer girlfriend girlfriends] goats, candy and a 57 year old musical eccentric genius)

Anyhow it was the beginning of 2008 and I got hired by Roger Kupelian (http://fugitivestudios.com/) to be his right hand (which was a combination of a director in site, a production manager, the cinematographer and lead editor) helping him developed his biopic East of Byzantium (http://eastofbyzantium.com/).

The project was (and is) enormous, Roger's vision is amazing but also are his demands. Meanwhile he was working in New Zeland for the 3 Lord of the Rings films as a lead Matte Painter (have you seen Mordor? that is one of his). Roger started writing his own adventure, The Vartan Mamigonian story.

Anyhow, for details you ca`n go to the site, today I want to share with you the first test that we decided to release this past Tuesday (it was kept confidential for studios and big partners but we figured why not share it with the world?)

Shot with 2 Red ONE cameras, With a combination of glass, If i can recall correctly we used Zeiss Standards and the first generation RED lenses (the 300mm and the 18-50mm zoom)

I won't provided all the list of lights and stuff because I find it unnecessary, just trust we had at least 65 units in a gorgeous set with a 2 green screen walls (135x 64 ft). but if you fellas want to know I will try to be as accurate as possible.

2 things before I post the link:

1) the red was amazing to handle the green and was very simple to pull it. Better than many cameras before it. (i know probably this is old news, but oh well I'm telling you my story)

2) We never had a single problem with the units, NADA... and this is 2 years ago! So congrats to the RED folk!

ok enough of the blah blah:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPtEfPCAIjQ

anyhow... this is the first of 4 clips we are relasing in the next 2 months.