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This past Monday and Tuesday I shot a teaser trailer for a feature film on the RED ONE with Red Pro Primes. This was my first time using these lenses and I didn't have an AC for my checkout so I did some meticulous testing at the checkout in the limited amount of time I had. I found that, not to my surprise the focus marks were a little off on the longer lengths. For example when I was 9'2" on the 85mm, it was focusing at just shorter than 9' on the barrel. It is odd because markings on the lens, as noted by my ac, went from very vague to very specific varying on the focal length. I didn't notice distortions or aberrations near the corners. Red stepped up their game with these lenses, they performed nicely. I lived on only 3 lenses during the shoot, the 25, 35, and 50. There was only one insert shot on day 2 where I went to the 85, which won't even make the final cut of the film. One other unique thing about this film was that the director and I had discussed a cool interior and warm exterior look. Because I was busy doing the checkout for camera, and both my gaffer and key grip couldnt make the checkout, one of my other grips did the GnE checkout, missing one key item, gels. It was ok though because it helped stylize the shoot. My gaffer I had assigned for the shoot had to back out because of another gig, and my key grip, Kenny Melo, had been hospitalized all week for a brain injury. Technically he said he was feeling better, but I didn't want him on set after hearing the bad news. He is doing well now thankfully. The only gels I, personally, had, was a roll of 251 diff, and a roll of shower curtain, not to mention a roll of plus green. Our lighting kit consisted of a 1.2k HMI, 3 2ks, 2 babys 2 inkies & tweenies. 2x 2x4 kinos one 4x4 and one 4x1 kino. Not to mention we were in a very large open space, think Die Hard, but I was able to make due without the genny truck and mini9s I wanted.

 

 

Behind the wheel I had future ASC member Matt Wright operating. Pulling focus on day one I had Matt Henderson (my first time working with him and boy he was fantastic, can't wait to get on set with him again) On day two he had to be replaced by Tim Trotman (another fantastic AC. If you don't know these people in NY, you're traveling in the wrong circles) I was so thankful that I had an operator on this shoot, especially b/c of the late subtractions of my GnE crew. My new gaffer was Marc Riou, he has a great eye for lighting, Key Grip was Travis Tirado, he manned our fisher 11 like none other! The boom operator I had also came down with mono a week before the shoot so my other grip LJ D'Arpa took over boom details, but also helped grip btw setups, and Chris De Monte helped with gripping and 2nd ACing. These crew member broke their ass for me and I cannot recommend them enough to people.

 

 

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Here's a shot from day 1 with the Matts and LJ off to the left. Travis behind the fisher

 

Michael Staffieri was on art detail for the film. He also acted as set photographer and took an astonishing 500 pictures on day one, I will update with more photos when I get around to uploading them. This photo was actually taken by our actor Antonio Garcia Jr., which I then grabbed from facebook.

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Wow Rob, you have a much better crew on this short than I do on a current feature. This seems to be happening a lot lately. (or is it just something I'm running into lately?)

 

Anyway, look forward to some shots.

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Hers a couple of frame grabs from Day 2. Sorry for my aspect ratio, I had to photoshop the frame lines and I estimated, they are clearly different. :unsure:

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There's the officer Andy, played by Adam Barnett. He is backlit by a 2k which has been scrimmed and single netted with some shower curtain on it. He is also being lit by another 2k with a double scrim and some 251 way off frame to the right. In the shot he climbs up the stairs and there is a dolly move left to right. His endframe is lit with the 1.2k with a silk up high off to the right of the camera, you can see the blue on the left side of the stairs. Theres also a baby for a more frontal fill on his face. Remember I had no cc gels or filters. The camera's color was set to 3000 and the iso was at 320 the whole shoot.

 

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Here he is at the top of the stairs. Theres another dolly move left to right. Revealing the bad guy in the foreground hiding behind a pillar here...

 

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This is the same shot later in the move...

This is clearly not going to make the film... but it was funny on set as take 5 at about 4 in the morning. I got a laugh out of it.

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Thanks Adrian. I have to thank a couple more people... Our Director, Peter Frizalone, for getting this fabulous location, and the building staff for letting us do what ever we wanted, for however long we wanted. The building engineer, Gary, let me choose exactly which lights I wanted to use in the whole lobby and atrium area (which were the parts we were allowed to shoot in) as well as the lights outdoors. After a mishap with a circuit outside he even provided us with one of those 2000 watt suitcase gennies they had in maintenance. The atrium area was lit by a halo of small industrial xenon lights, which most of the lobby was lit with. There was a hall to the left of the atrium, when looking from down the stairs, which was lit by florescent. Under the desk in the lobby there was some LEDs. I had full range to turn on/off or dim all of these units until Gary left for the night, which was 11pm, but he left it the way I wanted after he left which was extremely helpful and kind.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks Tony, long time no see! I wanted to wait for some more updates before I updated this thread, but both mine and the directors work schedule have been pretty incompatible for the last month. It was just rough cut yesterday and I am going to a screening next Friday. The director still needs to get someone to score it and I will do some color correction before it gets packaged out to get pitched. Since I haven't been around the footage to get some more frame grabs I can only show some more bts shots.

 

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The Prod Designer wanted to see his coffee pot framed up and he also had the camera at the time.

 

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This was the lighting setup for that shot. There's also 2 2x4 kinos on the floor giving the security guard a little more of a back light.

 

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The kino on the desk is supposed to be as if he had a monitor looking up at him.

 

The scene is the cop entering and going to that desk and talking with the guard, leaving and coming back to find the guard has been shot.

 

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This is the guard entering. So many reflections, it limited us to an extent but we were able to make due.

 

 

Note the amazing cop car we were able to get!

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Outside we only had one setup for 3 shots. We lived on the jib.

 

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Outside we had to borrow one of the buildings generators after tripping a supposedly 30A circuit with a 2k, the engineer was really helpful though and hooked us up with a 2000w genny. I was afraid of it running out of gas so I had the gaffer on the walkie queuing him to strike the light after the slate to save as much gas as possible.

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