Olivier Vanaschen

Thanks a lot Jamie!

Hello everybody, thank you again for all the messages and support! I'll try my best to post some before/after grade pics soon. Big news, the movie is finally finished! We already had a couple screenings and had the great chance of being selected at the Brussels Film Festival (www.fffb.be) in official competition. Even bigger suprise was to have two soldout screenings and to receive the audience award. It was quite surreal. We only had dvd and digibeta screenings for now but it looked pretty good. We have a 2K master so we hope to have and HDCam screening soon. The movie's mini website and trailer are online: www.somewhere-themovie.com At the bottom, you'll see a link to the facebook and vimeo pages. The blog will be online soon. Take care, Olivier & Olan www.asom-films.com

Hello Jon, I loved the hands-on approach and the final result! Great great work! Best luck for what's next ! Take care, Olivier

Interesting 52min doc' on Doyle: Christopher Doyle Orientations Apart of his work with WKW, movies he shot like Going Home, Last Life in the Universe, Invisible Waves,... are also absolutely superb.

Hello everybody, not exactly the same stock but we've shot Kodak 7250 16mm 2R, reversal VNF 400T for the intro/outro sequence of a project a while ago. For a rather extreme look (retro vibe), we decided to expose at 200 and PULL 1 during dev. Film was cross-processed, dev as negative. A lot of yellow was removed during the telecine. Camera used was a Krasnogorsk K3, stock zoom. Here's the link: Zinneke Parade 2006 (only the intro/outro is 16mm, the rest is HDV) Those old VNF stocks are very interesting, very sad they don't produce it anymore especially the older low-con reversal stocks. Olivier

Thanks a lot Edgar and Chris !!! take care, Olivier

Beautiful work !!! cheers, Olivier

Thanks a lot Piotr! Yep, it's about the same team as for Marla, some did leave, some new people came but we still see each other quite often ;-) I encoded some footage at SD Res. Really difficult to get a picture that's not washed out, hope it'll look ok, compression makes the grain "bigger": somewhere between here and now / rushes Take care, Olivier

Thanks a lot!!! Take care, Olivier

Thanks a lot Greg and Xavier!!! We didn't rate the camera at all, it probably would have been to scary ;-). We chose to shoot tests in different locations to get a feeling of how far we could go using the camera's LCD screen to somehow judge. Basically, the lens on the adapter was wide open (at 2.8) all the time, same for the camera (at night, we used at least +6db of gain too). We took all this footage all the way to post to see how it would handle the grade. I must say we kept our fingers crossed quite often but it worked. From the very beginning, we knew that playing with a lot of underexposure wouldn't mix well with HDV compression so we planned to add "film" grain in post because we wanted the texture and also it would hide compression problems a bit. HDV with an adapter (especially on the FX1 cropped to 2.40) is not that sharp. The grain will help making the lack of sharpness more bearable. Thanks a lot Jason ;-) I'll post some shots as a highres H264 QT very soon. Thanks again!!! Olivier

Hello! Sorry for the late answer, my ISP did cut my internet connection for a couple of days. Thanks a lot for the messages!!! I know it's still a bit long... I'm always afraid that if I make it faster, it gets to fast... I've the feeling that the more projects we'll have shot, the shorter the reel is going to be. It's all shot on video except the few film burns you see on some projects, they were from a couple of 16mm 100ft rolls we shot for fun (yeah, that's also all we can afford, it's all very low budget). Most of it has been shot with a PAL Sony FX1 with our homemade 35mm adapter. The first b/w project with the girl's portrait was shot with a Canon XL2 + Letus35. Marla was shot on a Canon XM2 and a very basic 35mm adapter. One of the projects (blindfolded girl, neon tubes in tree) was shot with a Canon H1 + P+S Mini35, another (guy in train, beach sequence) on a FX1 + Movietube. The last project in color is our feature, shot on FX1 + SGPro adapter (posted "in production") I was the colorist on all these projects. I use After Effects, basic tools, almost no plugin except DFT 55mm. It works well but it's quite slow, render times are huge. Olivier

More pics:

Hello everyone! I just directed my first feature and wanted to post some stuff about how it went. Cinematography was done by Olan Bowland, Jean-François Metz and myself (our team name is "the black sheep"). I wrote the script and we produced it with about no budget. All we had went into tapes, food and some shooting permits we couldn't avoid. The whole crew was 4 people, got great help from our fellow filmmaker Quentin Aksajef. The story takes mainly place in a little more than one night from sunset to sunrise. We follow a girl coming back from a long travel in Thailand who'll somehow meet a guy who just left everything and is basically waiting for the first train to escape from town. The movie's about their journey, the people they are going to meet,... If I had to pitch it I would say something like Lost in Translation meets Last Life in the Universe meets Before Sunset (wow, that's serious stuff ;-) hate pitching ideas, always feel miserable making up connections with great movies...). The movie is shot mostly in English with a bit of French and a couple other languages; It's part of the story as his mother language is English, hers is French. They'll meet different characters so she switches from one language to the other. Knowing I wouldn't have any budget, I wrote the story so it could work in terms of cast, schedule, locations... Very soon in the process, we knew it had to be a very "light" shoot because it was the total opposite of the "one location script". We decided to avoid using any additional light except for few interior scenes where we kept it minimal so it would match (chinese lantern, replacing light bulbs,...) . We searched for locations with enough light which wasn't too hard, we already knew most of them. We all live in Brussels for years now so we simply shot most scenes in our neighborhood. One of my references was the painter Edward Hopper. I really liked the idea of shooting night sequences close to what we see with our own eyes. Could somehow be close to what they tried to do in Miami Vice but without budget so no 10K or Dino's for the far background. Also, we knew we would shoot without a permit almost all the time which sometimes meant being very patient but it was fun. We avoided busy streets and crowded places. Our day-off was on Saturday. Police came by a couple of times but they were friendly and mostly intrigued by what we were doing. We shot some scenes with them observing, felt very safe ;-) Also, I wanted the movie to be completely hand-held so we could move quickly and also add a bit of movement. I wanted the film to be played in a mix of wide to very wide shots and close-ups. We shot 16x9, framed for 2.40 (taped the LCD screen). We watched a lot of old movies shot in cinemascope, trying to figure out how to take best advantage of this format in terms of composition. Moving hand-held shots were done using wide lenses so they were not too shaky. Camera height was kept at one characters eye level. Our camera system was a PAL Sony FX1 with a SGPro Rev2 adapter (SGpro's website). We can't praise this adapter enough, it's simply amazing. We used probably every possible adapter (homemade, P+S, Movietube, Letus, Micro,...) and it offers the sharpest and cleanest picture of all. It has the most filmic bokeh, allows you to stop down even to F22 without the GG grain showing up. It's even one of the cheapest. Thanks a lot Wayne, we couldn't make it without your adapter! To work faster, we decided to use a zoom lens. We bought a Sigma 24-70 2.8 Macro in Nikon Mount which is a great lens especially considering it costs only 450$. We also had a Sigma 20 1.8, Nikon 85 1.8 and a Sigma 70-300 4-5.6 that we used for a couple of shots in the early morning. We shot almost everything at 2.8, sometimes at 1.8 on the two primes when needed. The long shots at 300mm where at 5.6. Depth of field was short as the adapter has a SLR 24x36 gate. We liked the fact that is was still spherical but had a depth of field closer to anamorphic. We added hand-grips from CaVision and a custom made shoulder support made by my father. It made the camera way more heavy and well balanced which really helped. We didn't try to rate the camera with the adapter, we simply went to shoot tests on location. We knew we had to face severe underexposure so we did color-correct those shots to know how far we could go. We kept the shutter at 1/50 all the time except for an interior car sequence where we had to switch to 1/25. Wasn't too bad, as the frame is static, most of the movement is in the background, slightly out of focus. We shot day sequences with +3 to +6db of gain, night with +6 to +9db of gain. Didn't mind a bit of grain, doesn't look too bad on that camera. We turned down sharpness a bit knowing we could precisely do it in post and played a lot with white balance settings. We didn't try to correct the different shifts in terms of light color but simply embrace the changes. Sometimes it was more yellow, sometimes red, pink, blue, green,... We shot 19 days, short days. For night sequences, we would eat all together and leave our house at 10pm and shoot until 2 to 4am. It went very smooth. The three first days, we staged all the sequences precisely on paper but after that, we just improvised. It felt better, wouldn't work on all projects for sure but it was right for this one. It helped being very focused on what happened on "set" and react quickly to what the actors offered. I operated the camera and also did the focus (unfortunately no follow-focus). I know... I shouldn't do that, surely won't on every project but I'm somehow used to it, done that on many music videos, shorts,... For this project, as it was very simple technically speaking, it felt like the right thing. We didn't even have an external LCD, just the onboard LCD so Olan and Jef where often looking at the screen while I was operating. Fun shoot, very very guerrilla style ;-) Here are a couple of pics, very rough CC, heavy compression. Hope they'll look ok on your monitor. I always have troubles finding the right gamma setting. We still have to shoot the intro/title sequence. The movie will begin with her memories of Thailand. It will be quite chaotic, all as her POV. To give this part a different feel, we plan to shoot on regular 16mm (with a K3) using a wide range of filmstock we have in our fridge (EXR100T, EXR50D, Eterna 500T, 7240-7250 cross-processed). We plan to shoot a lot of slow-mo and maybe even try hand-crank. We would telecine to HD on hard-disk. It surely will be grainy, especially cropped to 2.40 but we think it would work. We're still waiting to have enough money to leave but we plan to travel across the country for two weeks, simply shooting the things that moves us. We know that the people's reaction to three guys with strange cameras will be way different than if we simply shot on HDV, it'll be fun. It's been a long time we dream of traveling with backpacks and our K3. We keep our fingers crossed ;-) We'll start editing pretty soon, still need to convert all the footage to mini-dv for the offline edit, our computer is way too old for HDV editing. We aim for a 75min feature that we plan to distribute on the web for free (download and hi-quality streaming). We think that we need to find an audience first, the rest will follow. We'll also sell DVDs too for those who want to support us and send it to festivals. The DVD will also include a video guide explaining everything we did. We wrote a PDF guide for our short Marla (Marla's website) and we want to do a new version to share the little knowledge we did acquire over the years. We'll probably cut a small teaser that'll be released before end of this year. We plan to have the movie ready for may 2008. Wow, that was a long post...I'm sorry... It feels good to finally post something. I did learn so many things through this website and I can't thank you all enough. It's probably the only site I checked more than once every day. It feels good to contribute. Here in Belgium, I can't say I get a strong feeling of community when it comes to filmmaking in general. I don't hear the word "sharing" a lot, it's all about little secrets that are really none if you think a bit about it. Pretty lame...this country is so small...I have to get out of here... So thanks a lot!!! I feel better, less isolated every time I check this website. If you have any questions, I'll be pleased to answer. And yeah, if someone needs a hand on a project, we're always ready to move! Take care, cheers Olivier

Hello everyone! We've just finished editing our new reel, made it shorter, added a couple of projects. It's a mix of music videos, commercials and narrative. Hope you'll like it, comments are more than welcome (jobs offers too ;-). If you have any questions, we'll be pleased to answer. the black sheep / cinematography reel Take care, cheers, Olivier Vanaschen & Olan Bowland

The best affordable one is the SGpro www.sgpro.co.uk Cheap, excellent picture quality (better than the P+S, better bokeh), rods included, PL and every other possible mount, great customer service,... The best not quite affordable one is the Movietube, best because of it's Wax GroundGlass, shoulder mount with viewfinder,...

Amazing work! Love the framing, colors and lighting, simply excellent! I especially enjoyed the Revista Cais spot, really beautiful and emotional. I'm amazed to see how good the commercials are in Portugal. I checked Krypton's website a while ago and found them way better than many commercials here in Belgium. What kind of format you usually shoot on? Here, it's getting more and more video which is a shame. Was the "Optimus Apagão" shot on anamorphic? Congratulations again!

Thanks very much to everybody!! The escalator shot was shot using only the actual light which was a really small but quite strong halogen lamp just above her. Your reel is very impressive Christophe, great source of inspiration for us! The sky was a a sky replacement. We shot the sky the same day a couple of hours before when it was more cloudy. The shot was speed ed up at 800% and some kind of mirror effect was added. Post was done in After Effects. Yeah, we shot Marla :D It's a long time ago now... It really touches us to hear that people do remember it, thank you very very much! We must say we're thrilled to see how things have moved on since, there are 35mm adapters everywhere and many are really good. It's great so see that the tools are becoming more affordable. Yesterday you could only shoot bad DV with low to no-budget; now it's possible to shoot prosumer HD with a 35mm adapter for about the same budget, that's great news! Thanks again!

Hello everybody! We've quickly edited our first reel to apply for a feature and we wanted to share it. Please feel free to tell us what you think. Everything in this reel was shot on video with prosumer cameras (Canon XM2/XL2/H1, Sony FX1) and different 35mm adapters (mostly homemade) with Nikon lenses. We shot one project with the P+S MINI35 and Cooke S4 lenses. It's all low to no-budget, we can't wait to be able to shoot on film. We got a fridge full of 16mm stock and a nice old camera waiting for some budget ;-) All we've done on film for now are stills and a couple of tests with a K3 but it's definitely the next step for us. Here's the link: dp.theblacksheep.be Take care, Olivier&Olan

Hello David Yes, we are :-) We did that video more than two years ago, fun project. We can't wait to shoot a real fiction in the near future. We're currently writing the script for a small no-budget feature. Cheers,

Thanks a lot Jesús! The compression on youtube is a bit heavy we find. Today, we've found a nice new webhost for the new version of our website which offers way more space. Our job was DP/Gaffer/CameraOperators. We did operate two cameras and also had to do all the grip/electrician work. The image department was only the four of us. Thanks again.

Quick link to the bigger version: http://www.sebastiengoyon.com/temp/bloodties_big.mov

Here's a link to a bigger version (640x360): http://rapidshare.de/files/31835695/bloodties_big.mov.html You have to scroll down and click on "free" then wait for 90sec for the download link to appear.

Thanks everybody for the feedback! Sorry for the late answer, we've been on a shoot, it was pretty busy week. Our mini35 is pretty simple, from video camera to 35mm SLR lens, we have: 1. 77mm to 72mm adapter 2. 77mm +10 macro diopter (brand is called Asian, from EBay) 3. Empty rings, a lot to put the ground glass at the right distance. Also to go from 72mm to 52mm 4. Condenser from Optosigma (ref. 023-2570) 5. Ground Glass from Optosigma (ref. 099-0160) 6. Empty rings to get the right focus flange 7. Adapter from 52mm to 42mm 8. Nikon to M42 mount The picture is flipped, we simply use the on camera LCD screen flipped but no completely closed so the picture is correctly flipped or we use an external LCD screen that flips the picture. In post, we flip the picture at capture using a function of Cineform's Aspect HD 4. We don't have a HD master of the projet we shoot on HDV, we only make an uncompressed 16/9 PAL SD Master. For us, shooting HDV is more about getting a sharper SD than really ending with an HD master. When using a mini35 adapter, it's important to start with more resolution because the adapter softens the picture. Starting with HD (even HDV) gives a better end sharpness (in SD) than shooting SD with an adapter at first. If we want to end with an HD master, we would rather shoot S16mm or HDCam but that's a question of budget. We do have a bigger version, something like 640x360 but we're out of webspace. If you have some space we can upload it or we'll try to find some free space on the web. Here are some of those stupid set pictures (Canon EOS 10D, Peleng 8mm F-Mount on adapter), don't know if they are that funny but we laughed a lot shooting them. Thanks a lot Morgan! It was a real pleasure to work with May, she's a sweet funny person and a real pro! We're pleased to hear she's doing well, she deserves it! (This is a message to all casting directors :) ) The film will unfortunately look a bit different than this reel because we didn't make the grade for different reasons. The production did it and we heard from a screening in London that it did show some artefacts and stuff which we don't have in our reel. It's also way less dark and more saturated which is against what we had in mind first. We must admit we feel a bit sad about it, good lesson for next time. The music from the reel is from Portishead, the song is called "Theme from How to Kill a Dead Man", it's a track from the E.P. Sour Times. Thanks again everybody!