For one of their first RED shoots, Nail, an advertising agency in Providence, RI, hired me as DIT for a series of spots for restaurant chain Margarita’s. Written and directed by Nick Spooner, the spots feature the Margarita’s parrot enjoying life in public - waiting for the bus, buying a hot dog and taking a gondola cruise down the river.

In addition to offloading and verifying footage, I was asked to assist Director of Photography Frankie DeMarco, who traditionally works with film. When shooting digital, it’s extremely important to capture a correctly exposed image. Unlike film, digital does not have any organic leeway, and if treated improperly will result in poor image quality. The biggest hurdle was learning how to expose for the camera, which meant relying on the histogram and false color. The RED we used had the original M sensor, so we also made sure to be careful about crushing shadows by filling them in with bounce cards.

We shot mainly on the RED Drive, which I would offload via R3D Data Manager during lunch and after each day. We had only one drive, so I had to juggle speed with data verification - at times I could only offload part of the footage. Luckily, 1st AC Sarah Tricker was able to stay on top of when we were free to format the drive, and we stayed in constant communication throughout the shoot. Although not my preferred way of working by a long stretch, all footage was accounted for at the end of the shoot.

Below, Nick frames up a shot with Frankie.

Editing and finishing was provided by Beef Films and Chop House Edit, with same day edits started by editor Jaime Arze.

Next week I'll be in New York City at Abel Cine Tech for their Phantom Flex Refresh, where their qualified technicians will be updating Phantom techs on the latest and greatest from Vision Research. Feel free to read up on some new specs below, and I'll post a report from the session here next week.

The Phantom Flex offers an unprecedented degree of flexibility in all areas of high-speed image capture, and goes beyond HD to support 4-megapixel imaging, when the highest resolution is required. Depending on the shooting mode and resolution, the Flex is capable of shooting from 5 fps to over 10,750 fps.

The Phantom Flex offers two user-selectable shooting modes, each adapted to a particular shooting environment. In Standard Mode, the Phantom Flex is just like any other Phantom digital high-speed camera. Shoot at resolutions up to 2560x1600 pixels at anywhere from 10 frames-per-second up to 1,455 frames-per-second (fps). Maximum speed increases as the resolution decreases – up to 2,570 fps at 1920x1080, 5,350 fps at 1280x720, and 10,750 fps at 640x480.

In Phantom HQ Mode, Vision Research's proprietary image enhancement technology results in electronic image stability unprecedented in digital high-speed cameras: stable blacks, low noise, higher dynamic range, and repeatable shots over the full range of supported resolutions, frame rates and temperatures without the need for pre-shot black references. Maximum frame rates in HQ mode are about half those in Standard mode, which means that in HQ Mode Flex captures images at speeds up to 1,275 fps at 1920x1080 or 2,640 fps at 1280x720.

The Phantom Flex supports multiple workflows: a raw digital workflow, a video workflow, or combination of both for maximum control and flexibility.

With a video workflow, the Flex offers a video signal on the dual-link HD-SDI ports independent of the camera resolution. Set the resolution to 2560x1440 (16:9), and the camera will automatically scale the oversampled image when rendering the video signal. This technique increases the dynamic range and decreases noise in the video signal.

The Phantom Flex accepts a wide range of industry standard lenses. 35mm (PL, Canon EOS, Nikon F Panavision), Super16m and 2/3" lenses are all compatible.

Check out the official Phantom Flex page on Vision Research's site here.

Recently, I was called to NYC to shoot East Coast unit for Phish’s new tour promo video. I was contacted by Jason Baum, who produced the Nada Surf video I had shot with director Eli Stonberg. Several days later I was getting in a car with director Philip Andelman to shoot the promo. The concept is from the perspective of a road-tripping traveller who follows Phish from city to city as they play their tour. Tight time constraints made travelling the country impossible, so it was decided that both East Coast and West Coast crews would drive around their cities and outskirts to capture a variety of locations.

We shot on the Canon 5D Mark II with a 24mm 1.4L lens, recording to 16gb CF cards. The camera was mounted to the inside of the windshield using a suction cup and grip knuckle. Our PA Stephanie Shannon offloaded media to a laptop in the back seat as we filled the cards.

We drove from midtown Manhattan up to Bear Mountain, and then back down to Atlantic City. In the process, we picked up city, mountains, countryside and highway areas. The goal was to capture as many large road signs, over which graphics and tour dates would be overlaid. Depending on the lighting situation, I was constantly changing exposure by dialing in new apertures and ISOs. I also used a polarizer to reduce or eliminate reflections in the windshield.

Check out the completed promo below.

Phish kicks off their 2010 Fall Tour on October 10th with a three-night stand in Broomfield, CO and wraps with three shows on October 29th, 30th and 31st at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, NJ (including a very special Halloween show). Dates along the way include stops in Amherst, Charleston, Utica, Providence, Manchester and Augusta. Phish will also headline the sold-out Austin City Limits Festival on Friday, October 8th.

For complete dates and ticketing information, please visit phish.com.

This summer, director and actress Chelsea Marino approached Enki Studios to shoot and deliver a short film called The Retreat. I was tasked with coloring and finishing, and quickly set about finding a workflow that would fit the budget and scheduling needs. Chelsea specifically requested that everything look beautiful, and that the film accentuated the beauty of not only the location but also the actresses. Our initial discussions revolved around bringing in the type of large-source soft lighting that would wrap around faces and fill in any imperfections, in addition to shooting RED with various beauty filters.

Due to budget restrictions, The Retreat was shot on a Canon 7D dSLR with Canon L lenses, and lit with a standard tungsten package provided by gaffer Jordan Parrott of Vision Rover. Although the shots were well composed, lit and exposed, this meant post had to fill in the gap.

I followed our tried and true method using MPEG Streamclip to convert the 7D footage to ProRes422 LT. Audio was synced with Pluraleyes. After organizing clips by scene, editing and grading came quickly.

The two biggest challenges in finishing this project were matching shots within scenes and making each actress look their best. I had a very short deadline to accomplish this, so I turned to Magic Bullet’s new Colorista II plugin. This allowed me to color correct while our editors were making tweaks without having to jump through hoops like I would with a typical Final Cut and Color workflow, and presented me with options to mask, relight and soften imperfections.

Since turnaround was quick, I didn’t have much time to get too creative, but there were a few situations in which the color as it was shot didn’t fit the mood, even with a little massaging. For example, this scene was very dark for the character in the photo, but was shot with a warm look. I decided to balance it more towards tungsten to give it a cooler, bluer look.

Before:

After:

Another useful feature of Colorista II is the ability to create powermasks, and effectively relight a scene to lead a viewer’s eyes to a certain area. This shot was relatively flat, so I created a vignette to isolate the action.

Before:

After:

My favorite and one of the most useful features is Pop. When combined with a skintone mask, you can enter a negative value and smooth out skin. This was particular useful on closeups, such as this scene.

Before:

After:

There are many aspects of the Apple Color workflow that I personally prefer, but this was a great solution for the time we had, and it helped us edit and finish simultaneously.

For more information and tutorials on Colorista II, check out the official website. Camera, crew and production/post-production services for The Retreat provided by Enki Studios.

Continuing a string of successful collaborations, director Eli Stonberg once again joined forces with Enki Studios to shoot a music video for Nada Surf's newest single "Electrocution". The song is a super-catchy ditty in the style of the alternative rock from the '90s -- in other words, it comes straight from where Nada Surf is coming from. The tune's author, singer-songwriter Bill Fox, is certainly no stranger to that scene either, having achieved cult status with alt-rock band the Mice in the '80s, nearly a decade before the movement was going at full speed. (via Spinner)

Check out the video below:

The video was shot in Brooklyn on the Canon 7D. Steadicam operated by Jeff Melanson.