Adam Wallensten

I was at a local rentalhouse "Kameraudlejningen" in Copenhagen today and had a look at the new Alexa Plus which had just arrived. It's the first model out on the market. As you can see on the display it shows the aperature, focus and depth of field when working with lenses with LDS.

I know the DOP Manuel Alberto Claro and other crewmembers working on the shoot. They tested different digital cameras and chose the Alexa. From what i've heard they are happy with the results. At a recent meeting with the press, when asked about the films aestetics, von Trier replied that the film is going to look like poop.... I doubt it though...

Lars von Trier is shooting his new feature "Melancholia" on Alexa...

Thanks! I have allready had all of the vaccines for the trip and I've bought malaria pills and several other medicaments. We won't be able to drink bottled water since we're in the jungle, but I've looked into different watercleaning systems. Good idea with the solarpowered backpack. I haven't tried that before. Will check it out. Yes, I'm using the SxS to SD converter. The rentalplace promised me that it works perfectly and that they are currently using it on a feature without problems. But I will definetly doublecheck it myself. The problem with doing backups is that, in order to do it we will have to carry a laptop and several harddrives which can be troublesome. But I would definetely feel more safe if I was able to back it all up. Adam

Hi! In mid August I'm going to Congo (DRC) for two weeks to film a feature-documentary. The crew only consists of me and the director and a local translator/fixer. We'll be starting out in the capitol Kinshasa where we're going to get certain permits that allows us to go further. The main location though is a miningvillage deep in the jungle. To get there we will fly with UN-troops to a small village. From there we ride motorcycle for a day and then trek 2-3 days through the jungle. In the mining-village there are some generators so we will be able to get power for the batteries and equipment. I'll be shooting on Sony EX1. We will bring enough (50 or 60) SD cards so that I won't have to transfer it to a computer and harddrives and overwrite the cards. It's my first time in Africa so I would appreciate any tips or advice on filming in: Africa, the jungle, in that type of heat and humidity, in "dangerous" situations, filming dark-skinned people against bright sun, tips on equipment handeling etc. Also any advice on special equipment that would help me out would be great (that I will be able to carry ofcourse ;). Thanks Adam Wallensten Denmark

Everything is shot in natural daylight. Sorry for the small pics.

I shot a roll of it last week and scanned it today. I was very impressed with it. It's quite finegrain and I was really impressed by the latidude. Kodak says that one of its qualities is that it good at mixing daylight and tungstenlights but I didn't try it. I tested it for an upcoming 20-minute short that I will shoot in two weeks. I've decided to shoot all daylight interior scenes on it.

The new Kodak Vision 3 250D will be out soon. I've just shot a test roll yesterday and Kodak (Denmark) told me that they will have it in stock within next week. I'm scanning it on monday, so I can't tell you anything about the results yet, but I assume that it will cut well with the Vision 3 500T. I shot some exterior shots with it, and yes you will have to use loads of ND if you're shooting in daylight. The viewfinder gets really dark and it's hard to tell if it's in focus. I'll write more when I've seen the results. Adam Wallensten

Hi! The film is finally finished and had its worldpremier last weekend at Gothenburg International Filmfestival in Sweden. The showings went great and the feedback from the audience was really good. Hopefully it will be shown at several other festivals over the next year. So far we haven't had the money for a 35mm blowup, so we showed it on DigiBeta, but hopefully we'll get the transfer made in the future. http://www.goteborgfilmfestival.se/filmfes...eText=preludium Adam

Hi! I made a quick litte trailer for the film the other night. You can see it here: http://www.vimeo.com/258693 It's not graded or anything yet so the look might chance a bit. Hope you enjoy it. Adam

Hi! The project is done! Last night we shot the last take. It took us one week as planned. Monday and tuesday was rehersals. Wednesday and thursday went ok, but some of the timing were a little of so those takes can't be used. But the last three days things worked out really well and they all qualify for the final film. The interesting thing with this project is that the three good takes are totally different from eachother since the actors chose a new approach each night, so its really three different movies. I think that the director was most happy with yesterdays take which was totally crazy. Iraq won the Asian-Cup in Soccer yesterday which is their biggest sports achivement ever, so when we showed up at the first location the streets were packed with Iraqi immigrants waving flags and hundreds of cars honking their horns (the sound guys almost cried). But the cool thing about it was that the city played a totally different role in the film in that take and the actors interacted with the streets in a new way. The shoot was very tough fysically, especially the first half hour of each take until everthing just flowed and my body was warmed up. Even a fairly small camera like the DVX can feel quite heavy after one or two hours of nonstop filmning. But the feeling after we wrapped each night was amazing, and that it acctually could be done is really astonishing. Since I didn't use any lighting at all some scenes are really dark where only the actors silouets can be seen against the lit backgrounds, but it fits the story and we really didn't have any choise exept for using the streetlights in the best possible way. The two boomers did an amazing job and in the last three takes there was only one time where the boom acctually showed in the picture. The next step is to add the sound and then try to get someone to invest some money in the project so we can do all the post stuff on a proffessional level. And hopefully blow it up to 35mm so we can send it to some festivals and stuff. It was such a good experience, and it really made me realize that films can be done in so many different ways. It's not every week you film three features!!! Adam

[/i][/i] But i'm shooting LP on 80 minute tapes, so I have a total of 2 hours of recording time. So 1 hour and 45 minutes will fit on the tape, I just want to make it a little bit shorter for the sake of the film... (quote Zamir Merali) Did you ever consider putting some hidden cuts (disguised by wipes) in the movie? We discussed it but the whole idea is to make it in one shot and not only make it seem like one shot even though it would help out in some cases. We just have to embrace the unforseen things that comes up and let small mistakes be part of the film....

Just got back from our second rehersal... a bit tired in my arms from holding the camera for so long, but everything is turning out great. The total time of the film ended on 1 hour and 45 minutes, but i'm hoping that we can make it a bit shorter tomorrow (i'm shooting LP on 80 minute tapes). I'm using a DVX-100A and since we're starting the shot at 9 PM it turnes dark after about half an hour. I was pretty much holding the same exposure througout the whole shoot, between wide-open and f4, so it will be interesting to see how the focus turned out. I'm watching the take with the director tomorrow. I pretty much shot the whole thing at wide-angle, except a few times where I zoomed a little. So hopefully the focus isn't way off. Since I didn't get the DVX until today I used the PD150 yesterday, but I felt so much more comfortable with the DVX. Somehow the camera felt much more balanced in my hands. The only downside is that I can't chance the shutterspeed while filming, which I had planned on doing. But I guess we can do something in post that car resemble the effect. I shot 25p, and gained quite a bit to get enough light (up to 12db). It might not look wonderful, but it's necessary. There are two boomers who overlap eachother. They are really good at staying out of frame, only once in a while I see a shadow or some reflections in windows. Some of the passages where the characters are running, I'm skateboarding next to them, which hopefully will give a cool floating effect since it's in the middle of a long take (i've started out filming skateboarding so it comes natural to me). One thing I'm uncertain about is the V detail setting. From what i've read THICK is the best if filmed for TV and THIN is best if it's for a blow-up. I used THIN since we're hoping to end up on film and it keeps more of the resolution. But what about the vertical flicker it can cause? Will it look horrible if it only ends up on DVD? Tomorrow we start for real, and we'll shoot it once every night for the next five days. I'll write how it all went and maybe put up some framegrabs. Now I have to rest my arms... Adam

Hi again. Thanks for the replies. I just found out that there are 80 minute miniDV tapes. I guess the magnetic strip must be thinner than in the regular tapes, so they might be more fragile. It would really help out for this project since I think the take might take a bit longer than 90 minutes. Does anyone have experience with those? Furthermore, is there anything I should in advance if we were to blow it up to film later on? Camera settings etc. Would it be better to film it in the 16:9 squeez mode than letterbox (or 4:3 and letterbox it later) Will I gain more lines and resolution by doing this? I guess the anamorphic lens would be the best solution, but I don't have prior experience with it, and I don't have much time to test it. Thanks Adam

Hi! I've just been offered to shoot my first feature by a directorfriend of mine which is fantastic. It's a bit of a tricky job though since the whole film is going to be shot in one-take. The plot is played out on and around a mainstreet in Copenhagen and there are four maincarachters whos stories intertwine in eachothers. It's going to be guerilla-filmmaking, since there is no budget at all and we all are doing it for free. The actors are all educated and very good, so the film has a great potential. We're shooting in two weeks, and we are going to do it every night for one week so we can improve and chose from several takes. We're shooting longplay on miniDV which is kind of risky but the only way if I want a small camera. It will get way to complicated with a sholder camera since I'm both running, entering cars, small appartments etc. We will shoot the film in the evening, around magic-hour so that it will be really dark in the last scenes. I'm wondering which camera you guys would suggest that is good in low light levels? I've heard that the VX2100 is supposed to handle this well, but I don't know if I can get my hands on it. I can borrow a DVX100 which is nice because then I can shoot 25p but that also steals some light, right? How does the DVX100 handle low light in your opinion? I figure that I'm going to have the whitebalance on auto since I'll move through so many different locations and light-situation. I will also use low shutterspeeds at times so I'll roll the triggerwheel on shutter and exposure while filming. It's not going to be pretty but it's necessary. Luckily the director likes this "amateur" style and look and he's more interested in the emotions portrayed opposed to a flashy or pretty look. I was thinking about putting a small whitecard under the lens so that it may bounce some light on to the actors faces during the dark scenes. The only lighting we'll use is practicals in some of the interiors, since there's no budget and we need to keep things as simple as possible, so I will probably use gain in the later scenes. I will appreciate any advice or ideas from you all, for this fun but challenging project. Adam

It was the rental-place that we also rented the HMI from that provided us with the generator. They told me that it had been used many times before and that it had always had worked. So there shouldn't have been any problem with the two working together.

I liked the look of "The Squid and the Whale" and many of the daylight scenes in "The Last King of Scotland" looked really cool as well. These were the first S16 films that came to mind...

Thank you for your advices! The beach-shoot was yesterday and things didn't turn out quite as we planned them to. Since the budget was super tight the only lightin we could afford and run of the rented 3.5 generator was a 2.5 kW HMI. We also brought some mirror-reflectors, silks, etc. We hoped to use the sun as the main light and use the HMI for fill. When we arrived at the beach there was the most beautiful sunrise in which we got some great shots of the band walking as silouetes towards the beach. Then when we were setting up for the first performance shot the HMI wouldn't work. When we turned it on it lit up faintly for about 5 seconds and then it swiched off. For some reason the generator couldn't run it. The rental place couldn't help us over the phone and since we were out on the countryside with a limited time to shoot, we just had to ditch our artificial light. After some re-planning we were ready to shoot using only the sun with some reflectors. After a couple of shots a the sky turned to overcast and everything turned gray... The reflectors were not of great use and the rest of the day we had to shoot in this very naturalistic condition ;) (at least it stayed gray). Not exactly the look we were hoping for.... Well well, we all did our best and hopefully something good will come out of it. Luckily the whole concept of the video was a kind of lo-fi documentary style... I appreciate all of your advice though... Adam

Hi! I'm shooting a musicvideo this weekend and one of the scenes is staged on a beach where the band is going to perform a dance. We will use the water and sky as the background and light them from the front with probably just one HMI with some diffusion. My question is, how powerful a HMI will I need. Is a 2K going to be enough to light their fronts and not have the background burn out? I'm supposing it will be sufficient in the closeups but how about the bigger framings? By the way, I'm shooting on a Panasonic DVX-100. I would appreciate your thoughts on this, and please ask if you need more info to answer my question. Thanks Adam Wallensten

Hi again! Thank you for the kind words. I've now uploaded it on vimeo and the quality turned out a little better: http://www.vimeo.com/clip:146091 I did the telecine on Digital Film Lab in Copenhagen and it cost me around 200 dollars for the developing and telecine of 3 100foot rolls (they gave me 50% discount since it was a non-commercial project). Adam

the quality of the youtube version is really terrible, but I don't know how or where else I can post it without compressing it. Sorry adam

Hey! There is always a lot of discussion about the K-3 in this forum so I thought people might be interested in seeing some footage. This is a short that I filmed last summer on a holiday in Tuscany, Italy. It's shot with the Meteor zoom lens and the 8mm Peleng on Kodak 250D (color) stock and turned in to B&W in the telecine. As you can see there is some minor light leakage in two shots and the registration pin is not holding the film perfectly steady and all the shots doesn't match perfectly, but other than that I think the camera does a fine job for what its worth. Basically I just wanted to shoot something in B&W in this magnificent setting and made a litte visual poem out of it. Adam link:

Hi! I've read his autobiography "Vördnad för ljuset" that you mentioned. It's a really good book, but deals more about his life as a cinematographer and his thoughts on the work and lighting, than it does with the technical aspect of his work. He talks about certain things and episodes regarding to lighting in some of his films though. I thought it was translated into english though. Read it if you can find it. He seemed to be a very humble and sympathetic person. Another great biography is one by Nestor Almendros. I know that you are intrested in Nykvists specific work, but Almendros has a similar approach to lighting and he discusses the technical aspect more. Adam Wallensten

Amazing film, mostly because of the cinematography and the production design, but I also liked the story quite a bit. In the radiointerview with the director (the link is earlier in this thread) I understand it as if the long one-take scene in the end is actually made in one take, without hidden cuts. But at one point in the scene blood spills on the lens. Did anyone notice whet the bloodstaines disappeared? Either there must have been a cut or the someone cleaned the lens during the shoot without me noticing (like Michael Salomon did in the end of "The Abyss"). Anyone knows? Adam Wallensten

This (maybe rookie) question for David doesn't belong under this topic but maybe he can answer me in another forum. quote from David Mullen: It will be interesting to see if anamorphic makes a comeback next year, because some years, a majority of the nominations have been for anamorphic productions, and just a year or so ago, it was hard to even rent a set at Panavision because they were so popular. But maybe this is the beginning of an irreversible decline, probably tied to the rise of D.I.'s. What has the decline of anamorphics to do with the rise of D.I's? Sorry about the topic mash-up... Adam Wallensten