John Dorfax

For those of us in NY:

Though it may now seem antiquated to some, if you want to learn how to create these types of effects with 16mm, you can learn the JK Optical Printer at

Millenium Film Workshops in NYC. I took the course and enjoyed it:

http://www.millenniumfilm.org/optical_printing.html

Good ol fashioned animation techniques.

 

best

 

Tim

Hi there,

I am in the early stages of Pre-Production on a script that will have an extensive number of driving scenes. It's looking like

everything will be shot on Red. However, the director, for stylistic reasons, wants to emulate the now-antiquated rear projection look of

driving scenes.

As opposed to doing live rear-projection like they used to do, I plan to do this with Green Screen. However, I have a few questions about this new process for

me and would be so grateful if anyone had thoughts or ideas to share.

1.) Seeing as cars are so reflective, I have a concern about the green screen behind the car reflecting green along the curvature of the car, creating

keying problems later. I'm especially concerned because one of the vehicles will be a WHITE Volkswagon bug! Any ways to predict how this will work out in a studio?

2.) Although the film is being shot on RED, is it as necessary to shoot the background plates with RED cameras too? Since the plates take up a smaller part

of the frame and will likely be blurred in post, perhaps one could get away with 7Ds? I say this also because the ideal way to shoot the plates is to roll 3 or 4

seperate cameras at once off the bed of a pickup truck (a budget for 4 REDS is out of the question).

I will definitely plan on shooting tests before production begins but just wanted to hear if anyone has dealt with this or knows of any good reading materials about it. I'm also interested in techniques people have used to shake the car and emulate movement, ways people have created the illusion of passing lights at night or shadows of trees during the day etc. Anything at all!

Thanks so much in advance. I'm looking forward to bringing back this old style of filmmaking...

Okay, I've just looked over the examples from Casablanca and Saving Private Ryan. I admit, the Casablanca dissolve does look kind of hokey. I think I will just skip over having the background in frame after all, and do something closer to the match-dissolve. But maybe you two can help me out with this shot I'm trying to work with, because I do see one problem with a match-dissolve with what I'd like.

 

I'd like to have my main character sit directly in the center of frame. He closes his eyes, breathes heavily through his nose, and his chest and shoulders inflate and rise - all the while, the camera dollys in close enough for an extreme close-up of only his face. Not too long after, the camera will pull back to about a medium shot to reveal a new location behind him.

 

What worries me is that because of just how tight the camera will be on him, and the movement he would be making, a match-dissolve doesn't seem very likely or practical. This leads me to believe that green-screening would be the way to go. But that brings up another issue - tracking and scaling the background with the foreground and camera movement. Are there any helpful hints you guys have about dealing with this?

 

Should I go on location to where he will be transitioning to and from and just replicate the dolly? Should I set the camera at the same distance the character will be in when we pull out to reveal the new location, and then just scale in post? Are there any easier ways around this, or is my shot too complex?

The shot you describe shows up in the George Clooney Directed film "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind." You can actually see them doing this very shot in a BTS documentary on the film. They put the actor on a rotating platform that rotated with camera (and the lights lighting him) so that when they pulled out from his ECU, he had seamlessly been placed in a new environment. Problem is, this in camera technique requires a whole lot of studio space! Good luck.

Also, I recall this shot in Whitney Houston's " I Will Always Love You" music video too...

Also curious about anything DSLR in theaters too. I'm aware of the subway stuff in Black Swan but other then that haven't seen any examples...

Hey Guys,

I'm looking for recommendations on any excellent shorts or features shot with DSLR Cameras that may be available via Netflix DVD rental or purchase online in DVD format.

I've seen plenty of stunning DSLR Cinematography on Vimeo, but I'm curious to see more DLSR Cinematography on DVD viewings.

If possible, let me know the title and any DSLR tech details you may know about it (i.e. Model Camera, Lenses etc.)

Thanks in advance!

OK, I need to end this once and for all. I've searched the forum high and low and can't seem to find a straightforward answer to this:

Many times people talk about setting their Zebras to 100 or setting their Zebras to 70 but

people rarely mention that those numbers are not always the actual IRE they allegedly should represent, right?

For example, in just about every video camera I shoot on, I like to have my Zebra 1 set to 80 IRE and my Zebra 2 set to 100 1RE. I would be wrong to just go into the menu settings for Zebras and set them to the numbers 80 and 100 because not all cameras would be calibrated perfectly right?

Hence, and now here is the main question: to set my zebras to represent true 80 and 100 IRE, I should flip up color bars and do the following, right?

With bars up, to set my Zebra 1 to true 80 IRE, I should toggle the numbers starting in the 60s upwards...upwards...till...wait...BAM the gray bar on the left (which I have been told is a true 80 IRE bar), lights up with zebras. Now I know this number weather it be 74 or 86 is actually representing true 80 IRE. I then do the same for the 100 IRE zebra, only I correspond it to the white box at the bottom (which is indeed, true 100 IRE)

Please assume this is a checkout without being able to use a waveform monitor or even a color field monitor. Imagine this: show up to a production company office, they hand me a broadcast camera with no monitor and say "make some television with this."

Thank you all in advance for settling this seemingly simple yet unsolved issue in my DP existence.