Burning Crow Pictures

I volunteered to help on Michael Samstag’s music video for a local musician, Jaystorm, and it was a great time. Here are some behind the scenes photographs I took. It was interesting to see the RED camera setup using their specialized lens and I can’t wait to see the final cut. Michael runs knoxvillefilms.com and samstagproductions.com
Great job on the production Michael and the crew worked very well together.

It’s been a while since I updated here but I have been working on development for my latest project that is due 03/05/2010 so I don’t have a lot of time. I will post more details soon but for now here are a couple of concept posters I did yesterday. They are not official posters and I did them in a couple of hours but I like having a poster early on because it helps move things along. I will be working on the official poster sometime near the shoot which is in a couple of weeks. I will have behind the scenes info posted shortly. I can say that it is going to be an alternate history piece with some steampunk elements. This one is going to be fun and something I have wanted to explore for a long time.

STATE OF NATURE – State of nature is a term in political philosophy used in social contract theories to describe the hypothetical condition of humanity before the state’s foundation. In a broader sense, the state of nature is the condition before the rule of positive law comes into being, thus being a synonym of anarchy.

click images for larger views

Today I was interviewed by Lauren Lazarus on Eleven O’clock Rock for my super short Aotearoa. You can check it out at http://knoxivi.com/eleven/index.html on the Arcadian Overcast episode. Arcadian Overcast did an excellent performance. Knoxivi.com has a great little studio in Market Square downtown Knoxville. You can have lunch, drink some coffee, browse the internet on Wi-Fi and watch them perform in their studio. It was a fascinating experience and a place I will have to visit for lunch soon.

Test 2 with Color

This is where the difference is very noticeable between color and B&W. Running through all of the film modes didn’t help too much. Almost looks as if Dynamic was best in the background but Smooth was better in the skin tones, least in my eyes. Today there was much less light coming through the window because of an overcast so I put up a light in front of the window and tried to get the same intensity. There isn’t any light bouncing off the walls or ceiling so it is quite different but it was just to get some noise anyway. B&W looks much more appealing to my eye at this high ISO setting than color. I wouldn’t come close to this ISO with color but you get much more range with the B&W. You will have to see the video in 720p to see the noise clearer.

Testing With Daddy Pt. 2

So what is the point? Well it was to see just how far you could push the B&W modes and to me they look pretty good. I think you could be safe going 1600 ISO for web stuff. So if you are out with your GH1 and absolutely must capture something in low light but want the best image I think you can go B&W and it still look pretty good. Milage may vary of course.

Panasonic GH1
720p 60p @ 1/125 shutter conformed to 23.98fps
1600 ISO @ f5.3 Stock Lens set to 35mm (70mm equivalent)
Light source one 6500K fluorescent light 8 feet away (100W equivalent).
Black & White Film Modes
Standard: Contrast 0; Sharpness 0; Saturation 0; Noise Reduction 0
Dynamic: Contrast 0; Sharpness 0; Saturation 0; Noise Reduction 0
Smooth: Contrast -2; Sharpness -1; Saturation -1; Noise Reduction -2
Nostalgic: Contrast 0; Sharpness 0; Saturation 0; Noise Reduction 0
Nature: Contrast 0; Sharpness 0; Saturation 0; Noise Reduction 0

The last couple of days I have noticed a couple of videos posted from the GH1 that have had high ISO settings and yet looked pretty good. The highest ISO setting the GH1 has for its HD video mode is 1600 ISO. I decided to do a comparison test of the 3 different B&W modes to see how they hold up to the highest ISO with low light. The surprising thing in this test is that there was very little noise which was not what I expected. I chose the B&W modes because I was having a discussion with one of the DVXuser forum members on which they thought looked more like grainy film. I stated that at 1600 you should get a grainy look to it but I decided to put it to the test. After the test it wasn’t that grainy at all and immediately my ideas started to flow about a B&W picture with minimal lighting. It was shot at 720p 60p with 1/125 shutter. I was surprised how much light the camera picked up at that shutter speed but that was because of the high ISO. I will be putting it through some more testing but already I’m seeing some potential. And this was the stock lens which was pretty slow at f5.3. It is only an f4 Zoom lens so a fast prime would only make things better.

Testing With Daddy Pt. 1

Panasonic GH1
720p 60p @ 1/125 shutter conformed to 23.98fps
1600 ISO @ f5.3 Stock Lens set to 35mm (70mm equivalent)
Light source one medium window about 8 feet away indirect.
Black & White Film Modes
Standard: Contrast +2; Sharpness -2; Noise Reduction -2
Dynamic: Contrast +2; Sharpness -2; Noise Reduction -2
Smooth: Contrast 0; Sharpness -2; Noise Reduction -2

The finalists were chosen. Although I wasn’t on that great list I still consider it a success to get a Choice Pick among the 1080 entries. I was also sent a message saying that 3 out of the 4 chosen were from that Choice Pick list and meant I was fighting hard. Congrats to those 5 people and I wish them luck. Now it is on to the next project for BCP without a moment to waste.

A lot of people have been asking me about the process involved with my HDR images so I thought I would post some BEFORE/AFTER shots along with a little explanation.

First thing to know about HDR is that it is High Dynamic Range images. It is an image that has greater dynamic range of luminances in the highlights and dark tones. Basically it means you are able to see detail into the shadows and the highlights at the same time. HDR can be done by 3D computer rendering or a series of photographs. You can only get true HDR through multiple photographs because there isn’t a camera that has the ability to get multiple exposures on the same picture.

Tone mapping is a technique used to reduce contrast so you can view HDR images on a device with lower dynamic range. It can also be applied to images to create an artistic effect which is what I do.

The actual process of taking an HDR photograph is done in camera. A lot of cameras have the ability to take a series of photos at different exposures. The Panasonic GH1 has Auto Bracket that each picture up to 7 at a time with different exposure settings. An example of what that looks like is below.

It is good to keep the camera as still as possible because all of these pictures are going to have to be merged together later and if there is too much movement then you get a ghosting effect. The ghosting effect can actually make some interesting pictures but if it isn’t what you want then a tripod really is needed for these pictures.

The more you take these sort of pictures the more you are able to pre-visualize what something might look like. In this instance Bow showed up wearing his leather jacket, cool gloves, and interesting helmet. When I saw this I thought it almost had a futuristic quality to it so had in my mind one of the photographs I wanted to shoot. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get a shot of him actually riding his bike down the road because you can’t do an HDR like that but I knew I could make it appear he was doing so. I wanted to give that sort of futuristic feel to it and I knew the leather jacket would look good just by how the light bounced off of it. I think it turned out almost as I imagined it before I even took the shot.

I have found that HDR images really shine with images that have a broad range of contrast. For instance anything with a lot of sky in the background will give you detail in the sky and on the subject which isn’t usually possible in non-HDR photographs. I personally like objects that have a shiny surface or a highly textured surface like rust. You can really bring out these qualities with these images because there is a lot of detail in the HDR images.

So here I have picked the fourth picture in the Auto Bracket series just to show what one of the pictures looks like straight out of the camera. Nothing much to it and it is kind of boring. The others have either highlights blown out or blacks crushed.

Next is all of these pictures merged using photoshop into an HDR image. A key thing here is to save your merged HDR into a radiance file after it has completed processing. The radiance file will create a .hdr file. It was then tone mapped with very little done to it at this point. I use Photomatix for tone mapping the images. During this process you can start to see what it is all about. There are intensity levels in tone mapping. I usually push them all the way up and then start to pull them back down until I find a good spot for the picture. You can notice detail in the shadows while maintaining detail in the highlights. The leather jacket now shows a shiny surface in the shadows for instance which is what I was hoping for.

Now the artistic part begins besides the actual photograph itself. Once the TIFF is saved from Photomatix you open it back up in Photoshop. There is a lot of tweaks to do in order to get a certain style out of the tone mapped images. I like to make images with a darker feel to them. Crushing the blacks and bringing up the highlights. I usually will lighten highlights by hand using an overlay layer and even burning some shadows. Every picture behaves differently and every one has their own settings. You can do presets but the quality of the image can vary so much with HDR. You really are not sure what you are going to get sometimes because we are unable to really see such dynamic range with our own eyes. You can only imagine and in this case it came very close to what I hoped.

You could easily stop here because it is an interesting picture. However it isn’t the look I had in my head so I did many steps to get there. It finally came out the way I wanted. All together there were almost 20 steps involved to get it where I wanted. It’s not something you can really explain to somebody in a casual conversation. It is almost like me trying to explain my ideas on my next film through words but knowing I would really need to make storyboards to show it.

This set was created in my dining room in 20 minutes.

WITCH BOTTLE was my first entry into the DVXfest contest which is an online film festival held three times per year. Each one has a theme with rules that the filmmakers must follow. The most strict rule is it can’t be a second over 6 minutes. You then create a poster and a post into the forums to show you are officially entering into the contest. At the end of 4 months they send you an upload link. This current theme is BETRAYAL which depending how things go in the next week BCP will be making another entry.

Official Forum Entry Page for Witch Bottle

DVXfest is a great way to explore new ideas in filmmaking and get the most valuable thing any filmmaker can have, feedback from an audience. You get a chance to see what works and what doesn’t. It is a great way to just let loose and try new things. I think of it as a filmmakers playground. So here is the production notes along with some behind the scenes photographs of WITCH BOTTLE.

Karen doing some final touches before shooting.

PRODUCTION

Budget
1 Utilitech fluorescent work light 65k- $30
5 fluorescent bulbs 100w equivalent 65k – $10
1 fluorescent blue party light $5
1 fluorescent red party light $5
1 box of gelatin $5
1 undead make-up wheel $6
2 plastic knifes 2x $3 = $6
1 bag of paper mache $7
1 package of Amaco WireForm $6
2 sets of ghoul teeth – 2 x $2 = $4

Total on screen = $84

Food
1st day of shooting – Pizza dinner $25
2nd day of shooting – BBQ and drinks $50
3rd day of shooting – Mexican $20 and Beer $25

Total off screen = $120

Total on and off screen = $204

Witch Bottle was made out of paper mache

Midori in the $0.68 poster board greenscreen set.

Principal – 09/20/2009
Deadline – 10/15/2009

Production Log

09/07/2009 – Screenplay finished
09/08/2009 – Witch Bottle prop was started
09/10/2009 – Witch Bottle prop cured, painted, and finished
09/12/2009 – Photography session for poster completed (Remi Demeere modeled for the shot)
09/13/2009 – Poster completed
09/14/2009 – Location secured
09/14/2009 – Lighting equipment secured and tested
09/14/2009 – Special Effects Makeup acquired
09/15/2009 – Cast secured
09/15/2009 – Special Effects Makeup prosthetics started
09/17/2009 – Bought some lighting and grip materials for the shoot
09/18/2009 – Finished up some storyboarding and SFX planning
09/19/2009 – Rehearsal with all the actors
09/20/2009 – Principal, had a 6 hour window for the location which was not enough time
09/21/2009 – Rough cut okay considering the time frame I had. Made notes of shots to reshoot and missing shots.
09/23/2009 – Caught the Flu had to push back second day of principal to October 4th
09/30/2009 – Over Flu so I can get back to work verified Sunday Oct 4th still good
10/03/2009 – Night shot test with lights and smoke machine
10/04/2009 – 2nd day of principal – RAIN! Still got some shots in
10/05/2009 – Got a Yamaha keyboard to do soundtracks with. Only have it for 3 days must finish all music within that time. Created a song.
10/05/2009 – Rewrote the ending.
10/06/2009 – I created 3 more songs today.
10/06/2009 – Had to reschedule the opening scene. Running out of time quick… must get that shot this week.
10/07/2009 – Worked on score.
10/07/2009 – Shoot went perfect. Weather was in my favor and the cast was in great spirit. Brought beer this time so they could have fun while I set up lights.
10/08/2009 – Worked on rough edit.
10/09/2009 – Captured some audio clips from actors for dubbing and worked on editing.
10/10/2009 – Editing video.
10/11/2009 – Editing and captured some Foley.
10/12/2009 – Shot some video of one of the actresses who also is my fiance. I set a time for her outside the main shoot since it is only her in the shots. Did another greenscreen shot along with some other effects shots.
10/13/2009 – Worked on Foley. Finished rough edit. Sound design and editing has been the game of the day. Did another missing shot of an open grave site in the RAIN!
10/14/2009 – Foley, sound design, and sound editing for the day. I did the audio for the possessed today. My throat is raspy now.
10/15/2009 – Editing sound most of the day. At around 7pm Bow Morton called and asked about the intro. I explained that I wasn’t going to be able to do it because of time and I won’t have time to edit in since I’m already at 6 minutes. He said “It must be in, I’m coming over and helping to do it.” So he showed up with a prop and some dry ice. I searched in a storage room for more props. We laid them out and I lit it in about 20 minutes. All together it was shot in about 45 minutes and it looks great. It does complete the film. Unfortunately it will not be in the dvxuser version but it is in the complete version. That’s a wrap!
10/16/2009 – Recorded the narration for the intro shot last night and finished editing the intro. Completed the sound editing, titling, and credits. I completed the film at around 7pm and went out with Bow to celebrate. After 5 days of editing til 4am (last night 5am) I am going to rest this weekend.

This shot took an hour to set up at 2am.

The audio quality is bad in the film but I think it gives a certain character to it. I do have an H4n ZOOM but I do not have a mic so all the audio was recorded with the GH1 camera mic. It is NOT recommended to use the GH1 mic because it was VERY difficult to clean up the audio. After days of working on the audio that was about as good as you get out of the GH1 mic. So it is important to keep that in mind if you have the GH1. Some day I will have a proper mic (cough donations cough) but until then I will just have to get more creative on the sound in the next upcoming projects. Aotearoa had only one line of dialogue which didn’t sound too bad but it still isn’t something I like.

Another note about Witch Bottle’s music. When I did the music I borrowed a keyboard from my family and only had two days to use it. I used those two days to do nothing but the score. The big problem with the keyboard was it had a horrible connection. There was all kinds of his and crackle sounds. I had to do my best to clean that up too. So I think some of the bad sound quality in Witch Bottle is actually coming from the score instead of the dialogue. If I could do it again I would go to extreme lengths to get my hands on a mic because I believe that half of what you watch on a film is the sound. With the time and budget I had I worked the best I could and I am satisfied with that in mind.

Seconds before I turned myself into a WITCH!

Instant Witch

All play no work

Witch Bottle Poster. Made by shooting a series of photographs and combining into an HDR image. Remi Demeere is in the background.

YBBC has blogged about the judges that will be viewing the entries. It is an impressive line and I feel privileged to have Aotearoa be viewed by them. Aotearoa was announced as a Choice Pick and has been viewed over 800 times as of today. Check out the YBBC judges here. It’s getting really exciting. They also announced January 22nd will be the latest day that they announce the finalists.

As I write this there is just 3 days and 21 hours left until the Your Big Break competition comes to a close. An announcement was made on YBBC’s blog that there has been over 250 entries up til now and they are pouring in extremely fast. It’s going to be a fierce competition but I was glad to be a part of it no matter what the outcome. I figure I should put up some behind the scenes info on the costumes while it is still a fresh subject.

There are specific elements to the costumes that define them as Maori after my research. All of them wear a grass skirt (made of flax) called a PiuPiu. It has black stripes along the width of the skirt.

They also have a pendant around their necks. Commonly they are carved from Pounamu, a Jade found in New Zealand. They have specific meanings behind the various carvings they use. I carved the Hei Matau for the actors which means a safe journey over water. For a about a week I was trying to figure out how I could achieve this pendant without actually buying expensive jewelry or learning to carve actual stone. Then one day I was taking a shower and looked at my soap and thought “That’s it!”. So I got a bar of Irish Spring soap and carved it into the Hei Matau.

All of them have Ta Moko on their faces. This is either tattoos or paint but they have very distinct looks. And the men and women have different styles from each other. So I used make-up and practiced on me and my Wife one night before the actual shoot so I could get it down.

They also commonly wear feathers in their hair so that was going to have to be done too. I was going to use a friend of mines hawk feathers but it would require cleaning them. I looked up how to clean feathers and believe it or not it is a delicate process. I also found out that it is illegal to have hawk feathers without a license, even from a dead hawk. So I opted to just save me the aches and buy turkey feathers at a local store in the mall.

Next is the Maori spear, or Taiaha. I didn’t have a spear handy but I did notice that a lot of photographs of the Maori were using staffs instead of spears. So I asked a friend if he had anything and he said he had a Bo staff. I thought that would be perfect. I tied some rope around the middle of the staff and put in some red feathers. This was to look like a cross between the recognizable Taiaha and their staff. Plus I thought the red would add a splash of interesting color to the scenes.

Next was the rest of the costumes. The men are covered from that point on. They don’t wear clothing on their chests most of the time when they are wearing these costumes. I then thought about the woman and I had nothing come to mind that I could make look like their tops in all the photos. But I did notice what some of the traditional Maori were wearing when it was in the colder months. The men had a cover that looked like a white blanket which I thought would be great for the actor so he isn’t bare chested in 20 degree weather all the time. The women have a very distinct cover with black strands of thread covering it. I then looked over at an old table cloth lying around and thought it would work great. It was thick, had some texture, and I could just thread in some black yarn. That was much easier said because that was the process that took the longest out of all the rest. After it was done it took me almost 5 hours to complete. I was up until 4am doing it Friday night because I had to shoot the next morning. I hadn’t guessed it would have taken so long but I finished it.

I didn’t have time to even try out the costumes to see just how they looked. I just banked on the idea that all the details put together would look great. I was very surprised to see the results the day of the shoot.

I had guessed that the shoot would take 6 hours so I informed the actors it would be about that much time out of their day. I had the locations scouted even down to where I was going to put the camera. After it was all done it took just 5 1/2 hours. Not bad for a film that took 2 1/2 weeks from concept to final cut and only cost $33. Well plus gas but we won’t get into the fact that I drove us around for 2 hours because I was lost.

On the way home that night I saw this sunset so I had to pull over and take some pictures in the 20 degree weather. After seeing that it suddenly all felt like a great day of achievement.

Don’t forget to see my entry page if you haven’t already. And give it a vote if you like it.
http://your-big-break.com/entry/11762