Matti Eerikainen

Thank you, Martin. Creating the color contrast is a very important thing for me when I light or grade, and I often use gels to make it happen in camera. Creating or adjusting the color contrast in the grading suite is important as well: sometimes it's good to tint shadows a little cooler than midtones or highlights, and this way create a more three-dimensional image.. But! This time, however, my first feeling after reading the script was to push the color palette towards a very warm yellowish direction. I thought it might serve the story and give it a little "high class" dining hall feel, a bit glamour. At some point, after the location was found, I thought maybe we should give the scene a little bluish night-time push from the windows (cool blue or similar), but then I thought it would go against my first idea. And this time, I wanted to try out something that I wouldn't normally do. So, we approached the scene with this yellowish, tinted color palette knowing (actually, this is true!), that it might raise some controversy, but that would be ok as we had thought this thing over. It was an "artistic choice" ;) About the shot sizes, I think you got a point in there as well. I think a few more close-ups might have been in need, but after all, it was an editor's and director's choice to cut it like this. For me, this pro bono job was a really nice opportunity to try out something special and also something new - that's why I didn't want to do something I've always done. Thanks for your comment, it's always really nice to get some feedback.

"28th Helsinki International Film Festival - Love & Anarchy Trailer: The Proposal." I had an quite interesting opportunity to shoot a promo trailer for the Helsinki International Film Festival (Love & Anarchy) with a really interesting theme: Superheroes. Not an everyday assignment! I also got a chance to try out the set of old Lomo anamorphic lenses, and play with an Arri Alexa XT. I would greatly appreciate your comments and thoughts, and would be happy to answer your questions as well. If the Vimeo embed won't work, you can view it here (my website).

I would recommend Tilta's cage and rig. I was looking through different options earlier this year, and chose Tilta for its price and good reviews. And have to say, I have zero regrets. I bought the whole set, including mattebox, follow focus and V-lock plate. They all work very well together and are very well built. I also bought Metabones Speed Booster to get an access to EF lenses and Small HD's AC7 on-board monitor. I'm really satisfied for the overall feel of the rig, and it feels good in hand (follow focus is accurate) and on a tripod. It's compact and light-weight, and ideal for smaller productions. http://www.mattieerikainen.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/bmpcc.jpg

Hi! I'm Cinematographer based in Helsinki, Finland. I shoot films, commercials and music videos. Please, take a look of my new Showreel! Visit also my website: www.mattieerikainen.net Don't hesitate to give me your feedback or contact me! Cheers, Matti

Hi there, Here's a link for the trailer of the short film titled Two Ways that I shot this spring. It's my BA graduation movie from Helsinki Film School. Shot on Super 16mm and partly on 35mm the production took us to shoot in both Finland and Germany - and at the ferry line between. Dark, gritty nights in Berlin contrasts bright spring light at the vast fields of Finland. A self-contradictory man makes his journey through the darkness. Have a look or two, any thoughts or questions are most welcome: - Matti

Hi there, Just uploaded a new music promo to Vimeo that I shot recently for a Finnish rock band The Mama King. We shot the video using three Canon 7D's rigged together to achieve a mosaic like panorama image and also mixed in some 1000 fps footage shot with Olympus i-Speed 3 high speed camera. I thought it would be interesting to share this experiment here and maybe get some comments from you. The Mama King: Dominoes (on Vimeo) What do you think? Cheers, Matti

Thanks! We did telecine at Spirit 2K / Da Vinci 2K.

Hi Vincent, I had a chance to shoot with 1.3X Anamorphic Hawks last October. I've been sharing some thoughts about them in the thread http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?sh...898&hl=hawk Because there have been some inqueries about the footage, I just uploaded to Vimeo my short camera test and some footage from the movie. I hope these will give you some answers, and please ask if something comes in mind. http://www.vimeo.com/9150124 password: posterest - Matti

Alone "Sudden noises from downstairs cause Kasper, age eight, to hide in a walk-in closet. From his hiding place Kasper spies two burglars, one with a knife. A deadly game of hide-and-seek begins…" Alone is a short film about a young boy who faces two bandits when left home alone. Alone is shot with Sony HDW-790P with P+S Technik Pro35 adapter and Zeiss Mk I-III lenses. It was shot in seven days during winter 2008 and premiered spring 2009. Any comments are most welcomed! http://www.vimeo.com/8578185

Thanks for the compliment, Walker. When we chose to shoot with anamorphic lenses I heard some warnings about possible focus issues and lack of light intensity. Because our final format was going to be a squeezed anamorphic 16:9 HD file (maybe HDCAM SR) I never thought about issues considering blow up film print. As I mentioned above I had two lenses: 18mm (T1.5, V-Lite) and 35mm (T2.2, V-Series). Originally I had reserved two lenses from V-Lite series (14mm T1.5 and 35mm T1.5) but because of some sort of communication/delivery problems I got the lenses first mentioned. It was later cleared up that there is no 14mm manufactured yet. So, I was little shocked when the lenses arrived three days before our filming started. I was little worried because we really had the need for the wide angle lens because the narrow space we had in the train. But, as it was a school project and I was happy enough to shoot with anamorphic we just changed some parts of the story board and hoped for the best. I think this was the first time somebody even got a chance to shoot anamorphic in our school so we really wanted to hold on that. When the lenses arrived I shot short tests with both lenses and got telecine one day before our filming started. I also tested if we could have shot the movie with our school's old Aaton XTR S16, but somehow lenses didn't quite fit: image was little twisted from the upper left corner. I was planned that I could’ve lived with the 1.3X image squeeze but when we realized the bigger problem we fortunately got a chance to shoot with Arri416 with anamorphic viewfinder. After changed to 416, it was like a different world I was seeing through the view finder. Afterwards I think I was too optimistic thinking I could’ve shot the movie with Aaton. Lesson learned. After telecine I was very happy with the results. The image was sharp and the grain (Vision3 500T) was really no issue. It was very fine-grained. I didn't notice difference between the lenses. I think the 35mm looked very good on close-ups. Our telecine transferer said he hadn't seen as sharp S16mm film before. I shot the whole movie keeping the aperture between 2 1/2 and 2.8 1/2. Unfortunately I hadn't time or resources to do a complete test (only 30 meters (~100 feet) of film was allowed to use in the test) so I thought that stopping one or two f-stops would give me a better image quality and I would avoid most of optical distortions. I think I lost some depth but I got sharpness. I didn’t notice any chromatic aberration or vignetting. I had a really positive experience with Hawk’s and I really look forward to use them again. I think we didn’t quite get the best of them because shooting in such a narrow space and not to be able to use longer lenses to achieve the anamorphic feeling. That’s of course partly because of the 1.3x squeeze. Next time I would like to try the normal 2x squeeze and see the difference. However I think we achieved considerably better image quality and feel of something different than if we had just cropped the frame. -M

Actually I knew that but because the tests gave such an positive result, I didn't worry about it. Seems now that maybe I should have.. or at least spend little more time trying to aim some extra lights to lens. But here are few stills. Film went through Spirit 2K best-light scan. As you can see, I made some color correction with Photoshop. The story is set to some sort of fantasy world where our main characters are travelling in a train through the darkness. The car is divided in three sections: warehouse, street bar and restaurant. We shot it on real restaurant car from the forties because of the regulations considering school's practice movies (this was our first - next time we are able to use our studio too). It was quite tricky, sweaty and narrow, but somehow we managed to shoot there.

Yes, of course. I'll post some as soon as I get one of our hard drives home. :) Before that I have to say I was quite disappointed about the anamorphic flares: there were no such! I don't know what I did wrong because I got them on our test by simply pointing my mini maglite towards lens. Also some house lights at the rental shop created nice blue flares. So I was very confident about creating them easily. Well, I tried to get them in the shootings with bare bulbs and even though I saw some reflections/flares through view finder there were none of them on film. Except when I shot against sun. I think the haze we used maybe softened the light peak too much or the bulbs were dimmed too low. I'm not sure. Or the lenses were too modern! -M

I think the best idea is to contact Vantage Film straight. We just wrapped our short film's principal photography last weekend here in Finland. I was using Hawk's V-Lite 1.3X lenses on Arri416 with Vantage Film's anamorphic viewfinder. When the idea of using anamorphic lenses came I contacted Vantage and asked some reference material and brochures. They were very nice and helpful and sent some material (for some reason I couldn't find the brochures about V-Lite 1.3X Super16mm on their website, so they sent it to me. If you'd like to have it, I can send it to you). Later when our producer contacted them, they made a subrental deal via our local camera rental company here in Helsinki. Because of the budget reasons (it was our school project) I used only 18mm and 35mm. I wanted to shoot with 14mm but it later cleared up that they hadn't manufactured it yet although that was printed in the brochure. So when the tighter lenses arrived, I shot some tests only two days before our shootings started. I was pretty amazed about their quality - it was just mind blowing shaprness and the 35mm looks great on close-ups. Also the nice flares (yes, that was one of the desired features we were looking for) were there although I was little sceptical because of the 1.3X squeeze. We are going to telecine tomorrow so it's getting little exiciting. Hope everything is fine and we have great pictures waiting to be cut together. If you have any further questions or would like to hear about my experiences with Hawk's, just ask. I'll try to help as best I can. Cheers, Matti

Thanks for the feedback! Nice to hear that you both liked it. Myles, I'm starting my second year cinematography studies at the University of Art and Design Helsinki / Motion Picture and Production Design Department (http://wwww.taik.fi/elo/english/). It's the only university in Finland to study motion picture and production design. It's three years to BA and two to MA. I accomplished BA at the University of Applied Sciences but I had to start it all from the beginning because you can't apply to the masters degree in the Motion Picture department - or at least not yet (I think they are planning some changes now). They take 2-3 students each year to the BA degree (directing, cinematography, edit, sound, script, production, set design and costume design) which leads more or less straight to the MA studies after accomplishing the BA degree. So we are growing together into the Finnish movie scene.. or so we hope. But hey, I don't know how these things work - I'm just focusing on cinema and trying to learn something new every day. Matti

Hi, I'm Helsinki (Finland) based Cinematographer and I just finished my first showreel. Please take a look and give me your opinion! Reel contains material mainly from music videos and shorts I've shot within a year. Take a look - I recently also launched my new website! http://www.mattieerikainen.net/showreel.html Cheers, Matti