I wanted to keep the lighting as minimal as possible, just to demonstrate that you don't need a ton of gear. I was going for a dramatic look with heavy shadows. Potentially I could have bounced an additional light off the ceiling to add some ambient light.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Behind-The-Scenes
This time 'round we decided to film the behind-the-scenes while we shot "How's Your Chicken". I wasn't quite sure what quality the behind-the-scenes should be, but found it quite handy just filming it with an iPhone. One interesting thing about doing this was it gave me a comparison (with lights setup) of the iPhone video vs the Canon 60D. The iPhone is amazing quality for something always in your pocket, but the control you have with a DSLR clearly shows an advantage. I also used the front camera which isn't as high quality as the back camera. I'll have to try that next time, to give it a more fair trial.
I wanted to keep the lighting as minimal as possible, just to demonstrate that you don't need a ton of gear. I was going for a dramatic look with heavy shadows. Potentially I could have bounced an additional light off the ceiling to add some ambient light.
I wanted to keep the lighting as minimal as possible, just to demonstrate that you don't need a ton of gear. I was going for a dramatic look with heavy shadows. Potentially I could have bounced an additional light off the ceiling to add some ambient light.
Monday, 13 February 2012
How's Your Chicken?
New video up on YouTube. This one was a lot of fun. The shoot was less intensive than Zombie Bunnies, but again I really wanted to get a good look and feel so we took our time. Got the filming done in a few hours, and spent the next couple nights doing editing, visual FX and sound. Didn't record audio at all on this one, so we had to do dialog replacement. Luckily there were only two lines and an ehhhh!?
The effects were inspired by a great tutorial by Film Riot. I don't want to say too much more, since I don't want to give any spoilers. Hope you enjoy!
Note: No husbands were harmed in the making of this video.
The effects were inspired by a great tutorial by Film Riot. I don't want to say too much more, since I don't want to give any spoilers. Hope you enjoy!
Note: No husbands were harmed in the making of this video.
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Music For TELL
My music entries for TELL, a short film by Ryan Connolly.
Massage for Ryan... I mean... message ;)
Hi Ryan,
I'm not really sure what you're going for, but have a listen to the following. If you need any of them in high quality, please let me know.
Shameless plug: If you check out the Zombie Bunnies fake trailer here, you'll notice I used your "Cut Your Friends In Half" technique for a scene.
Massage for Ryan... I mean... message ;)
Hi Ryan,
I'm not really sure what you're going for, but have a listen to the following. If you need any of them in high quality, please let me know.
Shameless plug: If you check out the Zombie Bunnies fake trailer here, you'll notice I used your "Cut Your Friends In Half" technique for a scene.
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Aharon Rabinowitz
Okay. Not trying to sound like a newbie here in regards to technology and social media, but Twitter gave me an opportunity tonight to do something I've always wanted to do. I got to thank Aharon Rabinowitz for his teaching and inspiration throughout the years.
If you don't know who Aharon is, he is a graphics artist whose teachings I've been following for the past 7-8 years.
He tweeted tonight asking if anyone could name a tv series that got better after moving to another network. I replied with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and he replied back. That pretty much made my evening! I took the opportunity to reply again thanking him, letting him know that I now make a living using After Effects everyday.
I've found my own way in my graphics work for some time now, but without even thinking about it I probably use a lot of methods Aharon has taught me as if they were my own.
His teaching method is usually not about making something flashy you put in your demo reel, but about techniques you could use every time you launched After Effects.
As a guitar player, I've had people ask me to how to play a song. They don't want to learn anything else, just a song. Aharon is about the "chords and theory" of motion graphics first, which I think is what makes him invaluable, especially for someone starting out. It's only when you have this foundation, you can tackle anything.
Thanks Aharon!
You can find Aharon at the following:
http://allbetsareoff.com/
http://leaders.creativecow.net/leaders/rabinowitz_aharon/
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/
Executive Producer and co-writer on Plot Device
If you don't know who Aharon is, he is a graphics artist whose teachings I've been following for the past 7-8 years.
He tweeted tonight asking if anyone could name a tv series that got better after moving to another network. I replied with "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and he replied back. That pretty much made my evening! I took the opportunity to reply again thanking him, letting him know that I now make a living using After Effects everyday.
I've found my own way in my graphics work for some time now, but without even thinking about it I probably use a lot of methods Aharon has taught me as if they were my own.
His teaching method is usually not about making something flashy you put in your demo reel, but about techniques you could use every time you launched After Effects.
As a guitar player, I've had people ask me to how to play a song. They don't want to learn anything else, just a song. Aharon is about the "chords and theory" of motion graphics first, which I think is what makes him invaluable, especially for someone starting out. It's only when you have this foundation, you can tackle anything.
Thanks Aharon!
You can find Aharon at the following:
http://allbetsareoff.com/
http://leaders.creativecow.net/leaders/rabinowitz_aharon/
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/videos/
Executive Producer and co-writer on Plot Device
Thursday, 26 January 2012
First Time YouTube!
Well, I finally put my first video on YouTube. I put a lot of work into it. It's not perfect, but I'm guessing everyone says that about their own stuff. Besides, I think if anything was perfect, there would be no reason to go and try again and create new stuff.
This will hopefully be a good push to go out and do more.
In the upcoming post I'll go over some more of the scenes and the methods I used.
Check it out here:
This will hopefully be a good push to go out and do more.
In the upcoming post I'll go over some more of the scenes and the methods I used.
Check it out here:
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
Candlelit Scene
The candlelit scene was the one that had me concerned about lighting and setup. I didn't want to shoot too dark (which introduces grain) but I also couldn't blast it with too much light, since I needed to crush the shadows in post.
The Camera:
I'm shooting with a Canon 60D with the cinestyle preset. This helps preserve the shadows and highlights, producing a flatter image. This way I have more control in post.
The setup was a 5500K fluorescent soft box pointing away from the actors (my wife and I) and into the corner of the room. It was enough to create an ambient fill throughout the room.
To add more candle light glow, I have a flashlight with a Color Temperature Orange (CTO) gel pointed at the edge of our faces.
Behind and to the left was a distant 1000W tungsten with a few color temperature blue (CTB) gels. Since tungsten is much more yellow than the fluorescents it took a few gels to make it bluer. I wanted this to simulate the moonlight coming through the windows. I used barn doors to direct the light and try to prevent spill into the background. This is what is creating the highlight on the couch.
I believe my shutter speed was around 1/30th per second, which gave me an overall well lit scene. To get a sense of what the scene would look like when color corrected, I sped up my shutter speed until the scene was about as dark as I wanted it. I could see highlights on the face and nice dark shadows. Since this looked good, I put my shutter back to 1/30th.
For audio (which you can't hear in this clip) I only have one shotgun mic. Since I didn't have a boom operator, I set the mic on a mic stand pointed at whoever's side of the conversation we were filming.
Color correction for the most part was:
Curves - Applied strong S curve boosting highlights and crushing the shadows.
Hue/Saturation - Curve adds saturation which tends to redden skin tone, so I used hue/saturation to desaturate the red channel.
Vignette - Helps darken outer shadows and adds filmic look.
Check out the before and after color correction sample. (no sound)
What I would have done differently:
All in all I'm quite happy with the results. If I did anything differently, I would have used a piece of foam board to block some more of the tungsten light (with the blue gels) from hitting the background. I was able to darken it enough, but I wouldn't have had to crunch it as much, sacrificing my midtones a little.
The Camera:
I'm shooting with a Canon 60D with the cinestyle preset. This helps preserve the shadows and highlights, producing a flatter image. This way I have more control in post.
The setup was a 5500K fluorescent soft box pointing away from the actors (my wife and I) and into the corner of the room. It was enough to create an ambient fill throughout the room.
To add more candle light glow, I have a flashlight with a Color Temperature Orange (CTO) gel pointed at the edge of our faces.
Behind and to the left was a distant 1000W tungsten with a few color temperature blue (CTB) gels. Since tungsten is much more yellow than the fluorescents it took a few gels to make it bluer. I wanted this to simulate the moonlight coming through the windows. I used barn doors to direct the light and try to prevent spill into the background. This is what is creating the highlight on the couch.
I believe my shutter speed was around 1/30th per second, which gave me an overall well lit scene. To get a sense of what the scene would look like when color corrected, I sped up my shutter speed until the scene was about as dark as I wanted it. I could see highlights on the face and nice dark shadows. Since this looked good, I put my shutter back to 1/30th.
For audio (which you can't hear in this clip) I only have one shotgun mic. Since I didn't have a boom operator, I set the mic on a mic stand pointed at whoever's side of the conversation we were filming.
Color correction for the most part was:
Curves - Applied strong S curve boosting highlights and crushing the shadows.
Hue/Saturation - Curve adds saturation which tends to redden skin tone, so I used hue/saturation to desaturate the red channel.
Vignette - Helps darken outer shadows and adds filmic look.
Check out the before and after color correction sample. (no sound)
All in all I'm quite happy with the results. If I did anything differently, I would have used a piece of foam board to block some more of the tungsten light (with the blue gels) from hitting the background. I was able to darken it enough, but I wouldn't have had to crunch it as much, sacrificing my midtones a little.
Sunday, 22 January 2012
Welcome
Usually when I plan a film project, I try to set out to do at least one scene that I find a bit intimidating. Whether it's a camera move, special effect, or lighting. My goal is that when I've completed a number of these little projects, I've tackled all the things that once made me nervous about taking on a larger project. If anything, I won't feel the need to simplify any scenes based on fear of the unknown, since I've already tried it.
As I go, I figured I would share what techniques I used, what went well, and what I would have done different. Hell, I might even go back and do it again anyways.
Below are a couple of screen shots from a short fake trailer I'm working on. It's actually been completed, but I may go back and do some dialog replacement and tweak the audio before I post it.
In the next post I'll go over one of the scenes: the set up, lighting, color correction and anything else I can think of.
As I go, I figured I would share what techniques I used, what went well, and what I would have done different. Hell, I might even go back and do it again anyways.
Below are a couple of screen shots from a short fake trailer I'm working on. It's actually been completed, but I may go back and do some dialog replacement and tweak the audio before I post it.
In the next post I'll go over one of the scenes: the set up, lighting, color correction and anything else I can think of.
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| Sinister Establishing Shot |
 |
| Candlelit scene |
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| And of course... Monster Vision. |
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