Project: Fallon Community Health Plan: “Parade of Benefits” Director: Alan Chebot

DP: Peter Simonite

Camera Operator: David Kruta

On one of the first beautiful days of the year, I met the Parallax Productions crew at an abandoned department store that had been dressed to look like a gym, where we prepared to shoot a parade of various athletes, from bikers to snowboarders to scuba divers and horseback riders. The shoot was for a Fallon Community Health Care commercial emphasizing benefits that “Go far beyond the gym”, extending offers for ski tickets, race entries and other perks.

Over 100 extras were wrangled by the adept production team, allowing camera and lighting to do their job swiftly and enabling director Alan Chebot to crank out an insane amount of footage. Alan’s motto tends to be “Shoot 3 days of material in 2”, which makes 1 day even more intense, but ultimately rewarding.

Lensed by Director of Photography Peter Simonite, we shot on the Panasonic AF100 and a collection of Canon 5Ds and 7Ds. I operated both a 5D and 7D (for 60fps), with a variety of Canon and Nikon lenses. A 30 foot jib carried the AF100 for various swooping overhead shots, while the Canons roamed on tripods, and a low one on a sandbag. Much of the static shots were on long lenses, usually over 200mm (and one at 400mm), to compress the parade and create the illusion that the parade was several magnitudes larger than reality.

The scene was lit mostly with natural light, but two ARRI 18k Arrisuns provided fill through a pair of 12x12 silks to manage the drastic difference between highlight and shadow. The cameras’ ability to handle such a range is one of their drawbacks, but once a bit of fill was added, the image looked solid and we were ready to roll.

The day went by quickly and Parallax walked with more than enough footage, which ended up as this beautiful spot below.

It was a pleasure collaborating with some familiar faces, and wonderful meeting a few new talented people. For more info, check out Parallax Productions’ website.

Project: Hearts on Fire Director: Alan Chebot

DP: Peter Simonite

DIT: David Kruta

Parallax Productions of Boston has just released the Taiwan version of the Hearts on Fire commercial I worked on a few weeks ago. Check out the original post here for details, or watch the finished spot below. Stay tuned for a US version, coming soon!

Congratulations to Alan, Peter, the Parallax team and the cast and crew on another successful collaboration.

Director: Scott Masterson DP: Patrick Ruth

DIT: David Kruta

Most of the time, the Boston Public Library in Copley Square plays refuge to those seeking a quiet place to study and read, but for two nights last weekend, it played host to a series of loud performances which rocked the old marble hallways in the form of a series of music videos for Night Shift Entertainment.

Director of Photography Patrick Ruth transformed the old building into, among others, a slick dance club, a low-key jazz venue and an eerily lit solo stage for a cover of Rihanna’s “Only Girl”. In addition to the library, we also shot at the Liberty Hotel and Midway Studios in Fort Point. The camera used was the Red with MX sensor, shooting onto 16gb CF cards.

The schedule was very demanding, and with major company moves happening each day, staying light and mobile was key. The client needed to walk with ProRes files at the end of the shoot, as their turnaround for finished videos was less than one week. This is where the Mobile Rocket from Maxx Digital came into play. The Mobile Rocket allows you to bring the functionality of the RED Rocket into the field, and allows for full debayer real time playback and accelerated transcoding of R3D files.

Every 8 minutes of footage rolled would result in a file dump and backup on my end, and I would then send the R3D files into RedCine-X Build 356 for verification, color-science adjustment and export. With the Mobile Rocket, I was able to have each card exported before I would receive the next batch of footage, and if I ever fell behind, I was able to catch up during meal break or setup changes.

The camera was set to RedCode 28 to allow for off-speed shooting, and 4K HD to be able to easily scale during transcode. I used Red Gamma 2 and Red Log Film as my color science settings, and the footage was kept as shot in terms of ISO and color temperature. I would then export to ProRes 422 HQ at 1080p to a stack of G-Drive Minis. At the end of the day, the client had a drive in their hands, ready to be edited and color corrected, before the grip truck had left.

The only drawback to keeping a small footprint with a Mobile Rocket setup is that with one laptop, you cannot simultaneously offload footage and work with the Mobile Rocket. I would have to copy cards from a FireWire 800 CF reader to 2 G-Drive Minis, connected with a dual FireWire 800 adapter in the Expresscard34 slot. Once copied, the laptop would have to be restarted with the Mobile Rocket plugged in, and one drive plugged into the native FireWire 800 port. This skipping back and forth to change “modes” was a bit time consuming, but no slower than juggling 2 laptops, a shared RAID, or something similar.

Overall, the shoot went very smoothly and the MX sensor performed as expected. Patrick was very conscious of exposing properly, and was constantly watching the waveform with me. This resulted in a beautiful image and a smooth experience within the camera department - and a happy client.

Technical note: The Mobile Rocket will not work with the Sonnet Qio E34 device. In addition, the Qio E34 will not work with any Thunderbolt enabled laptop. This is an issue on Apple’s end and there is currently no fix.

Project: Hearts on Fire Director: Alan Chebot

DP: Peter Simonite

DIT: David Kruta

Shortly after wrapping on Fairhaven, I had the opportunity and privilege to yet again work with DP Peter Simonite, under the leadership of Director Alan Chebot of Parallax Productions. Alan tasked us with slowing down time for Hearts on Fire, and we jumped into the project eagerly.

The concept of the spot explores the hard work needed to reach perfection - we see a figure skater practicing day in and day out, persevering until she accomplishes a difficult move perfectly. It represents the journey of a diamond from a rough stone in the ground to a perfectly cut sparkling gem, worthy of carrying the name Hearts on Fire.

From the very beginning, it was obvious that the only way we could get the slow motion footage at the quality Alan wanted was to shoot Phantom. Luckily, many things fell into place at the right time, and we found ourselves on the ice less than two weeks later, with a brand new Phantom Flex and a figure skater who could nail every move over and over with precision and grace.

Below, Director Alan Chebot and DP Peter Simonite discuss the next setup.

Running and gunning with the Sony F3 and Canon 5D

We had the privilege of being the first production to use their brand new Sony PMW-F3L, Sony’s answer to the AF-100, and I presume, RED. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to spend as much time with the camera as I would have liked, so this is more of a first-impressions report instead of a review.

Our camera package was provided by Rule Boston Camera. We used a Sony PMW-F3L, an Optimo 24-290 zoom and Cinedeck Extreme recorder, supported by the O’Connor 2575 head and Fisher 10 dolly (dolly supplied by High Output).

More or less, the camera struck me as an EX1/EX3 with a big chip and a proper PL lens mount. Much of the buttons and menus would be familiar to those experienced with the EX series. Another drawback of using it so early on is that Sony has not yet released their firmware update, which would have enabled both S-log and proper dual link HD-SDI outputs. We recorded single link HD-SDI to ProRes 422 HQ on the Cinedeck Extreme. Without thorough testing, my guess is that dynamic range is somewhere around 11 stops. This is mostly a guess comparing the image to my experience with RED and Alexa. Overall, I was not too impressed with the camera - for the price, I expected to see something more impressive than what is effectively a dSLR in a real body with an HD-SDI spigot. I’m reserving my judgement on this camera until the updated firmware is released, as I felt that there was a lot of potential that we were unable to explore.

In addition, we shot with two Canon 5Ds and a Canon 7D as rotating B-camera. We had a Lensbaby Control Freak on the first 5D, a Canon 24-70mm 2.8L on the second and a Canon 24mm 1.4L on the 7D, which I was using for overcranked shots. This was my first time using a Lensbaby, and was by far my favorite lens to work with as it provided a unique and different look that helped differentiate my footage from Peter’s on the F3. Yet again, these “cheap” little cameras proved to be a formidable match to a much more expensive system.

Below is our rig from Day 2, providing video village with monitoring, and getting some longer lens closeups with the Canon 70-200 2.8L IS.

Our first day was not without its hiccups, but we managed to solve them quickly and gracefully, and ended up with tons of footage. I’m looking forward to using the F3 again so I can really put it through its paces, and hopefully by then it will have the updated firmware.

Finding perfection with the Phantom Flex

Prior to the shoot, I met with Alan and the rest of the Parallax team to discuss Phantom workflow, both on set and in post. The first thing to note is that it’s not a cinema camera, so a lot changes in the normal flow of the set. It’s constantly recording, so no one calls “Roll camera!” - you just cut (or trigger) once the action ends. Most of the time, it’s so quick that no one calls “Cut!” either. Once the camera had been triggered, we usually played back the take to make sure we got what we wanted. I would trim, send to the Cinemag, and we would be ready to go again.

Hoping to relieve post of some heavy computing work and dealing with the raw Cine files, we decided to output to an external recorder: the Cinedeck Extreme. Originally we had planned to record dual link HD-SDI to ProRes4444 to give the colorist the most room with which to work, but it became apparent after the first take that the SSD in the recorder couldn’t handle such data rates. We switched to ProRes422 HQ and kept rolling.

We worked closely with David Kudrowitz of Rule to work through technical concerns on the Phantom Flex and Cinedeck. Both devices require a bit of TLC to get working right, but Dave and I were able to test and prepare for any situation we might encounter, and created backup plans as well in case anything went down or didn’t work as expected.

Overall, the Phantom Flex offers many benefits over the HD Gold, which I welcomed. It features a High Quality (HQ) mode, which reduces the need for constant black balancing, and let us spend more time shooting. When I did have to black balance, its internal shutter would close, and seconds later we would be ready to go. In addition, the menus are simpler and the buttons are more intuitive - or at least, less confusing.

If you need to shoot on a Super35 sized sensor at speeds greater than 60fps, the Flex would be my go-to camera in a heartbeat. The footage was stunning, workflow was relatively painless, and everyone was able to walk away happy.

It was an absolute pleasure working with the Parallax Productions team and our amazing crew. I’ll post the final commercial once it’s released.

Below, some more photos from the shoot:

Project: Fairhaven Director: Tom O’Brien

DP: Peter Simonite

DIT: David Kruta

This past Monday we rolled on Fairhaven, a feature film about three old friends with glory days well behind them who are reunited in their hometown of Fairhaven, MA for a weekend of booze, girls and an old-fashioned fisherman's wake.

The film stars writer/director Tom O’Brien, Chris Messina (Julie & Julia, Devil), Sarah Paulson (The Spirit, Serenity) and Rich Sommer (Mad Men).

I was hired as DIT to back up Director of Photography Peter Simonite and 1st AC Rob Bullard. For all of us, this was our first shoot with the Alexa, so we did a fair amount of testing to understand how it functions and how best to shoot with it.

We rented a basic camera package from Rule Camera in Boston, consisting of little more than the body, lenses, a small onboard monitor and batteries. Due to budget restrictions, we were only able to get the essentials, but so far, the camera’s capabilities have far exceeded our expectations.

Immediately we were impressed with the dynamic range. Advertised as 14 stops, you don’t really believe it until you see it, and when we did, we were blown away. Several times we shot what would normally be silhouette situations, with actors in front of the sun, and we would have good exposure on the background and their faces. Several shots involved an actor entering a house, and we did not need an iris rack or lighting inside to handle the scenario. This isn’t to say you should shoot without any light modification, but it does create an interesting environment in which it’s much easier to work with available light, and I believe the time savings can often offset the somewhat steep price of the camera.

My impression is that it’s very hard to underexpose or overexpose this camera. I like to keep the exposure around 1/2 to 1 stop over what it would look like finished, assuming we don’t clip any highlights. From my very unscientific standpoint, this seems to keep noise at a minimum. That being said, when it is dark, the noise is still acceptable. Several nighttime exteriors were lit with very little light, and we still managed enough exposure to sell the scene without getting much noise. We found that you actually see more into the blacks with ASA 1600, so we would use that when shooting nighttime. The most important piece of gear, in my opinion, is a good waveform monitor. Your eyes and a light meter will only get you so far, and a proper waveform can let you know that you’re getting the data you need.

Lastly, there is one thing that one should be very careful with when shooting on this camera: IR contamination. Since the native ASA is a very sensitive 800, stacking NDs is not uncommon. In fact, on a few outdoor shots, we had the equivalent of ND 2.1. Without a proper IR filter, or in our case, a ND .9 IR, your blacks will turn a muddy hue of purple and brown, and at such a high ND level, your greens and skintones will be affected. I’d suggest that at ND .9 or higher, you have an IR filter.

Overall, my first impression is that it’s hard to not make a nice image with the Alexa, and is perfect for almost any situation we found ourselves in, whether it’s huge differences from light to dark within a scene, shooting in low light or even going looser with handheld.

Of course, a pretty picture is no substitute for a great story, director and DP, but with the Alexa, it finally feels like the camera is getting out of the way and letting everyone’s best shine through.