Director: Stan Lozinsky Director of Photography: David Kruta

Queens’ Astoria Park played host recently to a high-intensity Puma spot with world-class hurdler Andrew Omoregie showing off his amazing speed and athleticism. Below are some stills from the footage. Stay tuned for an in-depth analysis and behind the scenes pics from this Epic shoot, and much thanks to our superb cast and crew for making this a fantastic experience.

Writer/Director: Greg Croteau Director of Photography: David Kruta

Remember Your Death is the story of three men hired to clean up after a banker's bloody shotgun suicide. In a brisk, macabre and witty thirteen pages we meet John, the young boss; Joe, the dim-witted second-in-command and Tom, the fifty-something former white-collar contractor whose first day back on the job finds him face-to-face with more blood than he could ever imagine, a second decomposing body, and an irate widow whose entire life has been a lie.

Interestingly enough, I met Greg via Twitter - this was the first time social networking had not only connected me with another filmmaker, but actually led to shooting something. I mention this because social networking was such an integral part of making this shoot happen - much of the budget was raised via Kickstarter, which was promoted by friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter and other Internet-based avenues.

Greg and I prepared extensively for this project - we discussed in depth the look and feel that would do justice to the story. Each scene was meticulously storyboarded, and we spent several days with my 7D scouting locations and planning out each shot. Since the budget was so low, we could not be too prepared come shoot day. We also spent a lot of time discussing mood, and gathered a collection of images from various films and photographers that eventually became a multi-page mood board.

When the project was first described to me, one thing that struck me was the description of colors: white on white on white. Characters would be dressed in white in a house painted white, filled with white furniture and lit with white light. The only contrast would be the scarlet blood adorning the bedroom. Having recently worked with the ARRI Alexa on several projects, I instantly knew we would have to use it. Greg had had experience with the Red One MX before, and mentioned the idea of using it, but I was convinced that to be able to not only be able to achieve the fine differences in all the whites on the screen, but to also be able to expose properly, we would need a sensor with enough range to capture that detail.

Another aspect of the look we were trying to achieve was isolation of the character Tom, and Greg wanted this to be accomplished with the use of shallow focus. Taking other aspects into consideration, such as our low budget (meaning a meager lighting package), we decided to use Zeiss MKIII SuperSpeed lenses, which at a T1.3 across the range, would allow us to reach insanely shallow visuals. 1st AC Jeff Melanson was not happy with this decision, but he nailed the focus regardless.

With the Alexa and SuperSpeeds locked, we could afford to take more risks with lighting, and I pushed for a very natural look. Our lighting package consisted of two ARRI M18 1800w HMIs and a small, assorted Kino kit. Gaffer Jordan Parrott also brought along a Joker 400 w/ Bugabeam adapter, which came in handy to mimic the hard edge of sunrise for closeups. However, this ended up becoming more of a grip-show: many setups involved little to no lighting, focusing instead on modifying and shaping the existing light coming in through the windows. A significant amount of negative fill was used to achieve contrast, and we would see entire walls and floors covered in duvetyne.

I rated the camera at 800 ASA to achieve the most balanced results, but did move this around in certain situations. Outdoor daytime shots were typically at 400 or 500 ASA, although we did go as low as 160 ASA to compensate for a shortage of ND filters. Nighttime and low-light was a bit more interesting - I’ve found that shadows actually look nicer when you shoot at 1250 or 1600 ASA. Switching to a higher ASA moves the sensor’s middle grey point up, actually giving you more latitude in the shadows - for example, this helped us light entire scenes with nothing but flashlights. There were a few surprises for all of us as well - a couple shots were lit with one or two Kino bulbs bounced through Light Grid. Jordan was reading less than f/1.0 on his light meter, and would constantly come to me amazed that we were actually picking up detail. If there’s one thing this camera does well, is that it sees more than the naked eye can.

Remember Your Death involved a fair amount of VFX work as well. An integral part of the story is an attic above the bedroom where the banker committed suicide, but unfortunately we could not find a suitable location that had a trap door to an attic. The decision was made to shoot in a bedroom without this feature, and shoot plates and green screen and composite this door in later. All shots that would require interaction between the rooms were planned carefully and extensively, and we were lucky enough to have both Jon Mercer and Jeremy Brown on set to supervise.

We shot the actual hole to the attic in a separate room using a set piece mounted on stands. Careful measurements for camera height, placement, angles and lighting were taken to ensure that our shots would match and the compositors’ jobs would be made easier. I made it a point to shoot it as close to the final composite as possible so that the effect could sell easier, and preliminary reports from post say that we’ve achieved above and beyond our intended goals.

All in all, Remember Your Death was a blast to work on, and I enjoyed working closely with so many talented people. Stay tuned as I’ll be posting stills and video as they are completed.

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.