The girl who fell

[Peter Milanov]

Just finished two scenes for a short film that we will hopefully finish in September. Had the opportunity to test out one of the few Epics here in Sweden (thank you "Ljud och bildmedia") together with my set of Lomo anamorphics. So I quickly gathered a small team of four people and we shot the scenes in about six hours. Seven setups; four dolly shots and three steadicam shots. For lighting we only used a few bouncers, didn´t have the manpower to raise any large frames. But we were pretty lucky with the weather, sunny but with a little haze that took away the harshness, could nott be much better. Screenshots are snapshots from Redcine-X with a fast correction in Photoshop, nothing near a final grade of course. Got a couple of behind the scenes as well.

 

First impression of the Epic; it´s a step in the right direction from the One, but it´s no Arri... Maybe Jim can use some of his money funding a large movie production for the entire Red team to work on and then get back and design a camera that is actually built to work on a movie set. To be fair, we did not have an in/out module (is that out yet?) so having to choose between monitor or viewfinder and having only one SDI out might be corrected eventually. No hook for the tape measure (didn´t they forget that the last time too?)

 

But it´s small and light, did not rebuild it when changing from dolly to steadicam. Did have a problem with powering the setup from my rig (Ultra 2). The camera shut down when we hit record, so I had to use an onboard battery. Did not mind that though, the extra weight was good for the setup.

 

[Peter Milanov]

Imageshack was pretty annoying, sorry...

Trying something else, I had problems uploading multiple images.

 

[Peter Milanov]

[Vincent Sweeney]

Thanks for the post Peter. Im curious how you guys are handling post since I assume those are not 1.3 lenses?

 

Doesn't the new Arri Studio Alexa have a 4:3 sensor that is ideal for anamorphic lenses? That should be interesting as well.

[Peter Milanov]

I´m not really a post guy so I will check with red guru of the team. My gut feeling is to go to Prores log, do as little as possible in Redcine-X, just bring as much information as possible. As for the aspect ratio, yes the lenses are 2x anamorphics. Both the Epic and Redcine-X have settings to handle that, so I don´t see it as an issue. I´ll try to get back with more information regarding our post process.

 

Yes, The Alexa studio will be very interesting (and possibly increase the value of my anamorphic kit ;) ).

 

I´m more of an Arri person than a Red person, but both cameras produce impressive images. 5k with the Epic is nice, slightly larger sensor than the other Red makes for better use of the anamorphic lenses and it captures every little beautiful artifact that these lenses produce. We were shooting at a T 4- without any filtration exept, of course, ND. I think we were on a ND 12 on this slightly overcast but still sunny day. ISO 800. We might bring in some digital diffusion filter, but in that case very little.

[Dean Werner]

Very nice, Peter. Images look to have good contrast.

Edited September 12, 2011 by Dean Werner

[Peter Milanov]

Thank you Dean.

 

We have now completed three more days of shooting, one to go. This time we had a lot more equipment more complex setups. The camera was on a Fisher 11 dolly for almost every shot. The lighting kit consisted of three Arri compact 6k, a 1200 Arrisun, two Kinos (2ft 4-bank, 4ft 4-bank), a Chimera pancake, a Chimera (small) lantern, two 300W arri fresnells, a redhead kit of three and a few dimmers. A cracker for atmosphere smoke and a few flags, floppys and scrims. We also had a 40kW generator for the 6ks. A lot of equipment for a six man crew, but everybody worked really hard and I couldn´t be more pleased with the result.

 

The Epic performed good, a few glitches, but nothing seriously.

 

A few more picures:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully we will finish the last day within a few weeks. Depends on the availability of the location, a hospital room.

We also have a flashback sequence left that I hope to shoot with a handcranked Arri IIc and some leftover Fujistock from my freezer.