I Am Alone

[Adrian Sierkowski]

So; this is primarily for a good acquaintance of mine on here bemoaning the lack of posts in this section, as well as my own realization that it's a ghost town herein.

Now, I'm not important, nor major and the productions upon which I work are often cobbled together, low budget affairs of making the most of what you have.

I had in past shot a feature film which got picked up for distribution on a budget of $10,000-- and that was with everyone getting paid. It was a week long affair with one location which didn't look particularly amazing, or work as a film on the whole; but still, it was a good time for myself and the director in the end was quite happy with the creation.

Now, after relocating to LA I am on the same kind of production. However, this time, the budget doesn't seem to outstrip the style in which we are shooting. And, it somehow got a mild-name attached as well-- those of you who happened to watch Torchwood would recognize him, which really piqued my interest in the film on the whole.

The basis of I Am Alone is a zombie film. However, beyond it being a zombie film and what I find interesting about it, is what would happen during that type of event to a lowly survivalist out shooting his own cable access survivor-man type show. I found it interesting to attempt to look at this genre in this way because, quite honestly, by making it "self-shot," you can work a bit more cheaply (such as with Cloverfield.) And this is a very low budget affair. However, everyone is being paid and I think at least, given the script and style in which they wish to shoot, it's attainable. Granted, it's not going to win any awards for it's cinematography, but that is never really my intent when I shoot something. So long as the director gets what they want and keep an open mind to any interesting ideas I may have then I'm quite happy.

 

On this particular picture, which I'll try to update about as much as possible, well be filming primarily on Go Pros with some DSLR thrown in as well as some prosumer IR cameras-- basically the equipment we'll be using is that which you would shoot a low-budget cable access show on. We've also got a location up in Colorado in the Rocky Mountains to provide the backdrop.

I'm not super sure what to speak about in terms of the film just yet, but I'll try my best to keep track of what was going on and snag a few photos. I suppose I should first mention a bit about the equipment, aside from cameras, we'll be using.

Should mention that a good deal of the shooting is at night.

 

We have gotten ourselves a few LED Fresnels from Lite-Panels, specifically the Sola Series; which I plan to play for a bit of moon-light and fill on the ext shoots, mostly in close ups and MCUs

We also have sourced some LED IR lights as much of the night shooting will be with IR Cameras, much as you would do if you were filming yourself at night for one of those suvrirorman type shows.

I'm also bringing out all the small tungsten units I happen to have, and a good deal of PAR-64 VNSPs. I'm not quite sure what I'll use them for just yet, but given the canopy of trees we'll be in, I've also asked for a good deal of white material which we'll string up in the trees like silks and also use as bounces for some night scenes which aren't IR. I plan to use the PARs because they put out a lot of punch, a long distance, without too much power draw, are very cheap, and very lightweight. I may bounce them off of the white material strung up over-head and mis-balance the cameras to get them cooler w/o sacrificing light loss of a CTB, or I may just use motivated fire-light and punch a few through flames or the like. A lot depends on how things start off going with our night shooting. Normally when I'm working I tend to think about what would actually be lighting the scene and many times that is all you need-- such as a good camp fire, or a well placed desk lamp. There is some control you need to exercise in such situations, but i prefer to work from what the location is giving me as much as possible, as opposed to trying to work against it.

There will also be an array of lanterns, such as Coleman mantle lanterns to use in shot as needed, LED lanterns/head lamps, flash lights. Much of this, when used will be shone into white-cards we'll hang/carry ect ect to provide bounce back (a trick I read about from I Am Legends American Cinematographer article, I seem to recall).

We may also be trying to create some smoke-- though that depends really on the fire-danger-level on the day. I can go either way with smoke; however on a big ext shot, it often can be quite a bit of trouble.

It being a low budget show we have fashioned from body-mounts for the go-pros out of PVC and the like-- often with a micro-arm on it to give some framing control on the camera-- but they are also designed to be mentioned on screen-- primarily when the main character begins to dismantle his gear in order to survive/fashion weapons ect.

I'm actually quite looking forward to, well, for one getting out of LA for a month, and for two, the challenges of shooting when you're limited not only with budget but also with the style. As a self-shot film, it will be quite difficult on occasion to show what we want to show while at the same time keeping things motivated as to why the hell "they," in the film are shooting it. Some of it is quite easy to motivate, such as "recording," their own injuries and the like, and what they are thinking (like Timothy Tredwell in Grizzly Man), however, other things start to become quite complicated. What is nice, inasmuch as this is a horror film, is the fact that we can play a lot with the unseen. As such, lighting up the whole forest is counter-productive to the tension you can build up when all you can see is quite literally your hand in front of your face. Also, as we are literally in the middle of nowhere, you don't need to many zombies or big set pieces to sell that things have gone to hell. I recall in the script there is one shot of just a trucks blinking hazards lights in the distance (probably use red-gelled PARs for the rear lights and PAR56 MWFs rigged to the front bumper for the front lights) which as you approach show the undead in brief flashes of light. Thankfully I have a Dove-Systems Dimmer board with a black-out we can wire everything to to sync it.

The other benefit of working so light in terms of equipment is a few of the locations require a few miles hike. It'll be nice to shoot a few shots @ one with multiple cameras (we have 5 go pros, 2 Canon ProSumers (I forger the model) and 2 Panasonic GH2s) which can all fit nicely in one moderately sized pelican case.

 

That's about all I can think of at this moment for the shoot, which picks up in early August. But I shall try to keep track of what we're up to as we're up to it and sneak off some set photos when I have the time and hopefully we shall have internet access up there. We supposedly do, but who knows. Hopefully someone will find this interesting, and useful.

 

Also, this will be one of the few "major" shoots I've gone into without the ability to scout or do over-heads. I don't much like to do shot-lists or storyboards as I personally find them a bit limiting. Normally when I am going into a film where I have the ability to really plan things out, I like to treat the location/set as a real place, and I base my lighting on the area with enough augmentation built in to change as we go. What I mean by that is I'll figure out the most complicated lighting set up in a particular location, and rough it out as an overhead based on the look we're going for. From there I tend to work by simply switching on and off what is already rigged up. An example would be a big day int scene where we're throwing HMIs through the windows to simulate day-light, and then a night scene in the same location where I may use the same HMIs, though scrimmed down, shunted a bit left or right perhaps, with Storaro yellow playing for street-light-- which doesn't really match street-light, but I like it none the less. I personally find this saves me a lot of time on the day because I tend to work in lighting which will work for most blocking/movements which might be thought up with minimal need to adjust things. Though it does sometimes take slightly longer to set up.

 

 

Should anyone have any questions, please feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer them.

 

 

[Freya Black]

I've already got a ton of questions!

 

I'm very interested in the low light side of things as I may have something low light coming up where there will be limited access to power (isn't it always the way).

 

You mention Par Cans, will you have a generator or even access to mains electricity out there? You mentioned wi-fi so I wondered if there might be mains nearby? OTOH you said they don't have that much power draw so maybe you don't have access to mains electricity and are trying to keep the draw down.

 

How are the go-pro's in low light? (or for that matter the other cameras)

You mention IR cameras. What are you using for those?

 

I'm wondering how well the coleman lamps make for practicals or if they are just more for props? They certainly have a cool look, but it might be neat if they could provide some light too?

 

Sounds intriguing if a bit of a nightmare in terms of lighting!

 

Freya

[Freya Black]

 

I'm actually quite looking forward to, well, for one getting out of LA for a month,

 

 

Oh the irony! ;)

 

Looking forward to some set photo's!

 

Freya

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Well on the colemans, I had read that they used them in Rambo First Blood, which was 100 ASA film, perhaps punched up a bit, but they were there. And in my own memory from my youth they certainly were bright. I intend to keep the DSLRs around 400ASA, and I'm sure I can get something usable out of the lantern. I also seem to recall the burn a bit green, but I'll have to have a look when we're there. Sadly i'm on a few web-series and shorts at the moment which is really eating into my prep time for this a bit more than I'd like.

 

I will have Mains for some shots where we can cheat the BG near the cabin in which we're staying. the cabin however is also off of genny power. I think it's a 200A genny-- like a backup genny-- powering the cabin, but I'm not sure. I do know that regardless of what it puts out I have neither to man-power, time, nor distro to pull right from it, so the pars will all be off of 20A household. I prefer using 2 Pars to 1 2K a lot of times as I normally will throw them either through some form of diffusion, or I like to be able to cheat one a bit this or that way. Plus I own them and honestly I'm too lazy to haul them out of my truck into my apartment, so they often come with me. I bought them, originally, I recall for another super low budget feature down in Virginia beach to shoot light across a bay; playing as "porch lights," and have used at least 1 VNSP-64 on ever shoot since (wait, that's a lie, I haven't and won't use them on this short I'm on now; as it's all driving at night in LA on a 5dMKIII stealing shots.)

 

Go Pros in low light are pretty appauling. Hence why we went with the IR cameras. I believe they are Canon XA-20s, but i'm not 100% sure on that. I may also modify a go pro by removing it's own IR filter, though that doesn't look easy from what I've seen. I haven't actually gotten my hands on those yet to play with as they are coming from lensrental.com

I did pay with a XA10 but couldn't' figure out how in the hell to turn on it's internal IR light when we took it up to the Angeles National Forest. But I'll have a few days before we actually shoot/roll to toy with them up in Colorado, and worst to worst they sources some battery operated IR LEDs. Not sure where they're from, as of yet, but I'm betting ebay. Quality will be questionable, but if it works it works.

I was, however, really astounded by the 5dMKIII shooting this evening on another project @ 1600ISO:

 

 

F1.4 on a 24mm lens @1600ISO and the green on her face is from my 1 LED green head-lamp which I made a little "white card" for with a business card and some tape. Through the whole sequence focus was a bit of a problem; but the camera held up very well to just "let's get in the car and drive" night shooting-- but that's a whole other shoot which sadly I didn't have much time to really ponder about (as I jut got home from it and have to be back very shortly.)

 

 

[Phil Rhodes]

My only concern with this sort of thing is that often people have the idea that it'll be as fast as just shooting a real documentary. Which of course it isn't, because you're still designing shots to tell a story, and often it's even harder to design them to look like it happened by chance.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Quite true and worrisome for myself as well. I am also really worried about trying to get some kind of balance where the stuff which will be designed won't look overly designed. I really don't want people focusing on a "cool shot," but at the same time, there are certain moments in the film which I know will have to be very elaborate and not just some guy with a go pro running through the woods for 30 seconds. Most of that; however I'm going to play with the limited ability to "see" at night. So, while the shots themselves may not be super elaborate, nor the lighting, I really want to emphasize the deep isolation and fear which comes when you can't much see your hand in front of your face.
For a few shots as well I am sure I'll be dressing up like the actor (and getting some make-up as well) to op a shot or two which may catch some clothing ect. They did something similar in Cloverfield.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

So, last night I noticed on netflix, the film "The Bay," which is basically the same visual notion behind "I Am Alone." And I watched the whole thing. Now, leaving aside the comedic notion of an isopod as an antagonist, I want to speak about where I specifically think this film visually failed and something I am keen to try to avoid. Now, also let me preface by saying that I don't feel right speaking badly about the very hard work of any other DoP. However, sometimes, things don't translate well in my own mind, and I as such has an opinion. I don't think, specifically that something is "good or bad," but rather I strive to find what is "appropriate," for a shoot. This is based on many factors, look, budget, time, location, ect ect. . . but I think in a film such as "The Bay," it was inappropriate to use the vDSLRs as they did. All the shots they did on anything but skype as well as camera phones/secuity cameras stuck out like a sore thumb and quickly pointed to a "movie," as opposed to some kind of found footage/assembled project/ data dump. This was specifically true of the two oceanographers documenting their finds as well as one of the final shots of the main street, lit up by HMIs and the like. I recommend watching the film, it's interesting.

So, since I noted it was the vDSLRs which stuck out the most and immediately drew me out of the film (as well as the mounting of a camera inside of a police car looking @ the officers, and the lights hitting their face from outside, neither of which would ever "really," happen) I am faced with the conundrum of how to incorporate the vDSLR footage into "I am Alone."

What is nice is that it is being shot by someone at least familiar with cameras-- ostensibly the host of the tv show (akin to the reporter in The Bay, who worked ok I suppose) so there can be a certain level of "good work," therein. However as they are reacting to what is an extra-ordinary situation it'll be a fine balancing act to add "emotion," to the shots but in what looks circumstantial, real, as opposed to preplanned. These shots don't worry me as much as when the script is calling for security camera footage.

Originally I had intended to just use vDSLRs for the security camera footage (and production wants to use gopros for it, which i think I'll use for select shots), but I realize this isn't going to work the right way. It's going to look far too polished. So, my going thought as of right now is this. Using the GH2, I'm going to up the ISO to somewhere around 6400 or even higher for the night shots. The sensor gets very noisy then, and throw on c-mount bolex lenses which won't @ all cover the sensor (anything under around a 20mm vignettes pretty badly). I have a 16mm lens which'll work perfectly for this as well as an old zoom-- something like a 17.5~75? I'd have to check. It's all fungused up on the inside but I got it free, and it makes a nice paperweight. I'll use this lens on the GH for any shots which require movable security cameras as it will only cover in 2x extended mode, which also ups the noise.

The main thought here is to avoid the "jerk," in changing footage quality. A good deal of the show will be on less than stellar cameras, and I'm going to try very hard to maximize that. Who knows may wind up abandoning vDSLRs entirely for the shoot as it progresses and going with the XA20s as the "it needs to look marginally better" camera.

 

In any case, figured I would share with you some thoughts as I have them.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Also for anyone interested; it has an IMDB:

 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2352722/

 

 

Which I'm not too embarrassed to say is the first time I've had a "pre production" imdb.

[Freya Black]

as when the script is calling for security camera footage.

Originally I had intended to just use vDSLRs for the security camera footage (and production wants to use gopros for it, which i think I'll use for select shots), but I realize this isn't going to work the right way. It's going to look far too polished. So, my going thought as of right now is this. Using the GH2, I'm going to up the ISO to somewhere around 6400 or even higher for the night shots. The sensor gets very noisy then, and throw on c-mount bolex lenses which won't @ all cover the sensor (anything under around a 20mm vignettes pretty badly). I have a 16mm lens which'll work perfectly for this as well as an old zoom-- something like a 17.5~75? I'd have to check. It's all fungused up on the inside but I got it free, and it makes a nice paperweight. I'll use this lens on the GH for any shots which require movable security cameras as it will only cover in 2x extended mode, which also ups the noise.

The main thought here is to avoid the "jerk," in changing footage quality. A good deal of the show will be on less than stellar cameras, and I'm going to try very hard to maximize that. Who knows may wind up abandoning vDSLRs entirely for the shoot as it progresses and going with the XA20s as the "it needs to look marginally better" camera.

 

In any case, figured I would share with you some thoughts as I have them.

 

Actual security cameras are cheap and easily available but then you would need a way of recording the composite feed.

I guess a big part of the look is that they are mounted up high looking down and are often depicted as being in black and white, or at least muted poor colour.

Also I guess somewhat wide lenses although I would have thought that the go-pro's might be a bit too wide! Who knows till you try it tho?

I have a bad feeling that turning the gain up on the GH2 is just going to give you something that looks like fake plus-x, or fake tri-x if you are lucky.

 

The obvious and desperate thing would be to put the footage through a bad video filter in post, tho in my experience that tends to just look odd and cartoony, which is fine if that is the kind of feel you are going for but...

 

I don't know what to say really. Maybe cheap webcams would give a similar feel but you would have to get it high enough that it didn't just look you-tube.

A webcam just above head height is going to look lonleygirl13 or something.

 

I dunno, I hope you become inspired with a magic answer!

 

BTW what part of the movie features security cams? Even in the uk we don't tend to have cctv out in the woods.

 

Freya

Edited August 1, 2013 by Freya Black

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Without giving too much away; there are moments when the main character does find his way towards civilization. This happens with, for example, a state trooper car on the side of the road, abandoned with it's light's flashing, as well as the possibility for a gas station (this depends on what we can do to break it apart.)

 

Also there will be some shots which may be used which happen in the small town of Montrose from which the production, and I mean the production in the narrative, sets out in the first place. A few quick interviews with towns people talking about whether or not they ever had to survive in the woods (as in stuff they'd've shot for the show), as well as some "found footage," of the opening of the outbreak from camera phones, atm machines, and other security cameras. It will be maybe 1 sequence or so in this town as a set piece, and as of yet, we're not 100% sure it'll make it into the final film after the edit, but it does give a little bit of scale and that god awful term "production value."

 

For the moment, what we're thinking of doing with the GH2 gain is shooting some noise with the lens cap on @ a few ISOs which they can then composite over footage if they're want to-- as I'd rather give them something "real," then something we can do with a plugin.

 

We talked about Go Pros as the security cameras, and that was their original idea, but I mentioned it'd be too wise unless it was, say an ATM camera or something similar. I am sure we will sneak in go pros here and there, as we have them and tape is cheap, but for the most part, to keep budget low, I'm going to use other cameras we'll have on hand but aren't using for that particular sequence, such as the XAs and the GH2 ect for security camera footage. We'll keep it in color; but I'm sure we'll pull sat later. I may also experiment with smearing clear filters, or using some beat up gelitin filters, or a CD case in front of the "good" cameras to make them look "worse," coupled with the noise we get (maybe encode it badly and overlay that to get macroblocking) in moderation to keep it from being too jarring of a switch from what the rest of the film is primarily shot on. That was my big huge visual grip with "The Bay." The jarring switch whenever they went to something that wasn't, say, a Skype call.

 

 

Also today; just got a new lens for the gh2 for production, a Sigma 16mm F2.8 from an old Nikon. It's a nice piece of glass. I saw it @ BH used for a good price and snapped it up. Just threw it on and made sure it worked and it looks good. Not rectilinear, so it exhibits some "fish-eye," but I"m thinking I may sneak this in for a "gopro," on occasion, though in truth the fish-eye of it isn't really that bad. Noticeable if you look; but for the most part a non-issue. Also has extremely close focus.

 

Also got a Lite-Panels small flight kit- kit. It's some color mixing (T and D) light panels called Chromas ( http://www.litepanels.com/croma.php

) , pretty small, battery operable in a small pelican for, well overhead bins. I didn't ask for it, but the director just pulled it out of his trunk and said, hey, I got this. Runs off of AA as well as mains, so I'm sure I'll find a use for it here or there. Not sure where yet; but somewhere I'm sure.

[Phil Rhodes]

Personally I think a bunch of that LED tape stuff stuck to a chunk of metal is probably no worse, technologically speaking, than a lot of commercial LED lighting.

 

This may be especially so if you're making a documentary-style show in which the finer points of colour rendering are perhaps not as critical as they would be on other productions.

 

P

[Freya Black]

For the moment, what we're thinking of doing with the GH2 gain is shooting some noise with the lens cap on @ a few ISOs which they can then composite over footage if they're want to-- as I'd rather give them something "real," then something we can do with a plugin.

 

 

This sounds like a great idea, but it might be worth trying to get the noise from other cameras too. Obviously if you could do that with a real CCTV camera it might

be great but maybe try with the cameras you have. I'd be a bit worried that the noise from the gh2 will be a bit too nice and organic! Have you tried it at all? The noisy stuff I've seen from a gh2 all looked nice so far!

 

 

We talked about Go Pros as the security cameras, and that was their original idea, but I mentioned it'd be too wise unless it was, say an ATM camera or something similar. I am sure we will sneak in go pros here and there, as we have them and tape is cheap, but for the most part, to keep budget low, I'm going to use other cameras we'll have on hand

 

I think they would work great as a supposed ATM camera. I also think you want the CCTV stuff to look different from the ATM stuff so...

 

 

Also today; just got a new lens for the gh2 for production, a Sigma 16mm F2.8 from an old Nikon. It's a nice piece of glass. I saw it @ BH used for a good price and snapped it up. Just threw it on and made sure it worked and it looks good. Not rectilinear, so it exhibits some "fish-eye," but I"m thinking I may sneak this in for a "gopro," on occasion, though in truth the fish-eye of it isn't really that bad. Noticeable if you look; but for the most part a non-issue. Also has extremely close focus.

 

Sounds like it could be just the thing! 16mm is quite a common focal length on cctv cameras and the look on them isn't that fisheye either. (Like I say I think the lens on a go-pro would be too extreme for that reason).

 

Freya

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Aye Freya. I don't mind the noise on the GH at any of the reasonable ISOs, but when you get up to 12800.... well it quickly turns to.. well bad. Granted, if I was doing B/W It'd be fine, and kind of "cute," almost with the high noise (though I'd probably use 6400 instead for any real shooting). But in color, I think it'll work well to grunge things up.

 

 

I agree Phil. A lot of the LED is pretty packaging, and in truth I don't much like LEDs.

My favorite LEDs were RGB ribbon I got from Ikea in what was like 3' sections with a stick back. I used to throw it up on show-card, and cut a hole in the center for a lens. I'd use it as an on camera light (normally covered with diffusion), or my favorite, was to use it as a "computer screen," Light. Normally I"d take this IKEA ribbon and put it around a monitor and then I could up the brightness of the monitor a bit.

Course the stuff wasn't robust at all and would normally break by the time we were done shooting; but it was cheap and good enough for me.

 

ON this one, we got the LEDs free, including the fresnels. I don't ask how, but I'll certainly use them in that case and who knows, I may finally become a convert... but it's unlikely. I'm only just very recently starting to use kino flos again.. which I eschewed for a long long time.... basically ever since they came out (though I do miss the microflos quite a bit. )

[Phil Rhodes]

If you're in the market for cheap, you could just pick up some of the small cold-cathode fluorescent lights that people like to string around computers and cars. 12v power and reasonably efficient, although they're only a few watts each and the white is very cyanish. That's effectively a nano-flo!

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I recall you mentioning those before, Phil, and pulling them up in ebay once or twice.

It's certainly something I've been meaning to look into. Not so much so for this one, but I may have a sci-fi shoot mid 2014 (fingers crossed on this one) which Iid want to use them for. Primarily as built in lighting.

[Freya Black]

Aye Freya. I don't mind the noise on the GH at any of the reasonable ISOs, but when you get up to 12800.... well it quickly turns to.. well bad. Granted, if I was doing B/W It'd be fine, and kind of "cute," almost with the high noise (though I'd probably use 6400 instead for any real shooting). But in color, I think it'll work well to grunge things up.

 

 

 

12,800? Is that a hack?

 

It was B&W I was thinking of as CCTV tend to be associated with B&W mostly.

 

Freya

[Adrian Sierkowski]

It is indeed a hack. I'm not sure if it's on all hacks, but FlowMotion 2.02, which is what I use for better quality, better motion rendering, and some stability, has it unlocked.

 

It was also the only hack i even remotely understood. I keep hearing the driftwood stuff, like Sedna AQ1 is great, but I can't even find that to try it... nor wade through anything on personalview which not only makes no sense, but has a bad attitude.

[Phil Rhodes]

I managed to upset Vitaliy to the point of him writing me a foul-mouthed and abusive email by posting in the wrong thread (and I don't think I'm particularly inexperienced at forum posting). Seconded on the attitude problem.

[Adrian Sierkowski]

Well

So we got up here to location; a beautiful little cabin at about 9000ft down about a 2 mile dirt (well mud) road which is hell for cars, not so great for 4x2s and not too bad for 4x4s.

Now, of course we have only 1 4x4, and this is only the "base camp." The rest of our shooting is about another 1000' up in elevation off of a 4x4 only road. This will of course become slightly problematic for production going up and down all day long as the transpo vans keep getting themselves stuck in the mud.

We'll figure something out for that, eventually as we have a few weeks.

 

Thussly, we have been setting up production offices and getting things ready for the shoot, our biggest issue is that the cabin is power isolated with a large genny off in a barn. It worked great the first evening, and of course now has totally died. We picked up about 4 putt putts presently to power things, but that's not ideal in any way as we'll need those to be loaded up onto the back of a truck with a cap as our "mobile" power solution. We'll drive it off and unload them around some of our far off lighting, as all the in close lighting will be battery powered--- either off of block batteries or some of the LEDs take a good number of AA batteries. We have a ton of those.

 

For the IR lights we've picked up, we'll run though off of 12V Deep Cycle Marine batteries we'll be building onto a card with an inverter. This should cover us for all those moments.

 

For other moments I"ll cheat a 1K PAR or something off of a small hand-held honda genny for non dialogue scenes.

 

It certainly is beautiful here, and a bit of a sin, I have to say, that we're not shooting film, and really capitalizing on the beauty of this landscape. But, perhaps for the next one, and as always I'll do the best I can with what is given me.

 

It'll be spotty to get online and update things, but I'll be keeping notes and trying to snag shots off what I can and I"ll post it all up whenever I get a chance to.

[Phil Rhodes]

I suspect you'll need rather less light and therefore less power shooting video!

[Adrian Sierkowski]

One would think that; and thankfully we're not pulling too much power on the whole, but it still becomes problematic for a lot of the night shooting as there are very large open areas to light up, at least slightly. Right now I"m thinking of using as much as I can, further back, and trying to blend the sources a bit when needed. We will see.

[Freya Black]

One would think that; and thankfully we're not pulling too much power on the whole, but it still becomes problematic for a lot of the night shooting as there are very large open areas to light up, at least slightly. Right now I"m thinking of using as much as I can, further back, and trying to blend the sources a bit when needed. We will see.

 

I've actually always found the video in low light thing to be really over rated, at least so far. I tend to find the ability in low light of video cameras is at best a marginal increase over film. Perhaps some DSLR's, especially with hacks are able to go a fair bit further but a lot of the higher end stuff seems to struggle to even get near to the speed of film. That seems to all be about to change with the new FS700 update and the Red Dragon etc etc but so far my experience is that's the whole video in low light thing is mostly talk! Theres a few exceptions and those infra red modes but...

 

It's something I'm interested in for the future so I'll be interested to find the cameras that can manage to go that bit further.

The DVX100 wasn't really bad in that context I suppose...

 

Freya

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I'd agree with that on he whole Freya.
I will say however I was blown away by the 5DMKIII, but the GH2 is no low light king (without noise). Also generally I find you need more light in any digital environment, up till the Alexa range, due to your truncated latitude -v- film.

[Phil Rhodes]

I think there's a slight reality check needed with regard to the difference between noise in fast video cameras and grain in fast film.

 

500-speed film, scanned properly to an uncompressed HD master, produces grain that would be considered pretty hideously noisy if it was coming from a video camera. This gets even worse if you consider techniques like super35. Around the time I did some work for a manufacturer of (extremely high quality) scanners, we had some test footage from a prominent motion picture that had been shot super35 on 500-speed stock. Noisy? At 2K, it was an absolute snowstorm of grain.

 

And there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. This was oscar-nominated cinematography.

 

But the idea that video is even nearly as noisy as film, for the same sensitivity, is sheer fantasy. Even the slowest video cameras clock in at about 320ASA, with the gain at unity.

 

P

[Adrian Sierkowski]

I would personally counter that 1) the newer V3 stocks are pretty remarkable in that regard, and 2) there is a major difference in the perception of "noise" and "grain." Granted there you get a little airy and whimsical. I also should note that I have never done a side-by-side of film/video in extreme low light.

That being said, I personally find I am more often surprised on the side of film and slightly let down on the side of (most) video. There are as always exceptions to this.