FORGE: A Feature Film by 500 Cuts

This week we’ve been gearing up the camera and lighting side of the production for the shoot. The first week of shooting will be at our Sandy  Oregon location. While it’s only about 15 minutes away from “civilization” we still have to have all of our stuff in order so that we stay on schedule. This week will involve gathering all of our supplies and gear items, organizing everything, taking inventory, and filling in the gaps. Something as simple as forgetting AA batteries can be a big set back, and usually it’s the no-brainer details that fall through the cracks. Luckily, this doesn’t happen often- but nevertheless we will still check and double check everything before loading the vans and heading out there.

On this shoot we have a very small camera and lighting crew. Everyone will be wearing different hats, and helping out where they can. On the shoot, a lot of the camera duties will be handled by our first (and only) assistant camera person, Cameron Carey. He’s in charge of getting building the camera, keeping the lenses clean, clapping the slate, and the general well-being of the camera package. In addition to this, he’ll probably operate the camera at times, and will also just make everyone’s life easier in general…He’s a really solid person, and a great crew member.

Tonight I’ll be conducting some tests for our laboratory lighting scenario, which will involve the use of a bunch of flourescent fixtures and clear visqueen.

Last week a few of us went up to the cabin location to work out a lot of the cabin location shots. A term we use to describe the placement and movement of things on set is “blocking”. Blocking can refer to any number of “things” that might be moving around a set, including people, cameras, cars, animals etc…and in terms of planning, knowing the blocking of any given scene is very important.

Jason, Walker, Eli, Co and myself headed up to the location for our cabin interiors and brought along the camera and lens package that we’ll be using for the shoot so that we could essentially shoot the scenes that occur at the cabin as a rehearsal. It was tremendously helpful to see how people fit into the space, and while we were there we figured a lot of things out as far as actor placement, lens choice, camera placement, and even lighting. All of this will do a lot to help us prepare for the shoot.

The location that we’ll use for the cabin is located in Brightwood, Oregon in the shadow of Mount Hood. It’s extremely wet there, and it gets pretty cold in the winter. I headed up a day early to prepare the place and open it up for the spring/summer. This involved repairing the water system (the water comes from a stream up the hill), flushing the pipes, hauling wood, sweeping leaves, and warming the place up- it was 40 degrees inside when we arrived, and since the sole source of heat is from a wood stove, it takes a little while to get the place warm. The good news is that we’ve got full-time access to the cabin which opens up so many opportunities such as the blocking rehearsal that we just did.

Here are a few photos of the cabin interior:

One thing to consider when setting out to shoot a project is what format to shoot. There are so many options these days, and just as many deciding factors that determine what the “best” medium will be. If you’re at all tuned into digital motion picture acquisition, you’ll no doubt have heard of the infamous “Red One” camera. I won’t go into details in this post, but I will say that I have recently completed a project with this fine piece of equipment, and from a camera persons perspective it was very exciting to work with. For answers to pretty much every Red related question, visit Reduser.net. In the very early days of preproduction, we discussed the feasibility of using this camera, and what advantages it might afford us. In the end we decided to stick with the tried and true Panasonic HVX200. But why?

In simple terms, with this production there are many factors to consider, and all aspects of the production must be taken into account when we’re making decisions. The choice to shoot with the Panasonic HVX has allowed us many advantages over the Red One. First and foremost is the cost. A typical Red package could rent for up to $1000.00 a day once you factor in lenses, support equipment, etc. If you multiply that cost over a 12 day shoot, you can quickly see that the costs would be pretty enourmous for our budget. With our HVX package, not only do we not have to rent it from anyone, but we also have full-time access to it, which is extremely important in the test and prep phase. We can pick up and go shoot tests whenever we want, which is a HUGE help. Furthermore, since we’re handling all of our own post-production, the benefits of shooting for a workflow that we’re already used to will help a lot. As I stated before, I have just recently finished shooting and posting a short film originated with the Red camera. That project, all told, has ended up with almost 500 gigs of material, all for an 8 minute film. Managing the data for a feature film with the Red would involve not only testing a new workflow, but also purchasing more equipment to help us deal with the extremely large amounts of raw data produced. In full-resolution, the Red burns about 2 gigs per minute of footage. Currently, when shooting with 8-gig compact flash cards that means you get about 4 minutes per card. In 720P, the HVX is around 2.5 minutes per-gig, and when usign a 16 gig card, that means about 40 solid minutes of recording time before a reload.

With the HVX, we’ll be shooting all of our material in 720P, which the HVX200 does extremely well. Shooting in this format will also allow us to seamlessly integrate overcranked footage (slow-motion) in the edit. Overcranked footage is not solely useful for “slow motion”, but can also prove useful for green-screen work to avoid motion blur, etc….

Look for more updates about our shooting and workflow setup in the near future!

About a week ago Co, Alex, Luke, Jason and myself headed up to our Brightwood Oregon location to do a quick screen test. This test was beneficial in a variety of ways, not only for the actors and for Jason, but also for myself. This screen test allowed us to begin to see how this scene will look in the final film, and provided a platform to try out lighting, framing, color correction, and a variety of other things that will eventually help us to formulate a cohesive film. Our shoot schedule will be tight so it helps to make decisions about the film prior to the “day of”. From here on out expect to see more tests like these as well as storyboards, animatics, and pre-visualization animations. The goal of all these tests and up-front work is to make our production run efficiently, and minimize complicated decision-making on-set, which is especially important when working on a tight schedule.

A few tech specs…

Camera: HVX200, 720P, 24FPS

Letus Extreme, Nikkor: 50mm 1.4, 105mm 2.5, 135mm 2.8

1.2k HMI, bounce cards for fill.

In previous experience, I’ve found that working with the Letus adapter effectively gives me a camera with a sensitivity below 200 ISO. It takes a lot of light to expose properly using the adapter. By necessity, we usually end up keeping the aperture pretty wide open which isn’t ideal for a variety of reasons. A wide aperture creates a very shallow depth of field. In essence, the area that’s “in focus” on the image plane isn’t very deep. This becomes a problem when you consider that while shooting we must manually keep our shot in focus. Moreover, a very wide aperture is usually not the ideal for any lens, which leads to the overall picture having a soft feel despite everything being dead on. Part of the testing process for this shoot will involve figuring out the best way to light so that I don’t have to shoot “wide open”. So far, the plan is to use strong one-directional lighting sources that will allow me to put all my eggs in one basket, and therefore allowing me to stop down

As you can see from the footage, our setup here is pretty simple. No fancy dollies, no jib moves, no elaborate lighting rigs. This “lean and mean” approach allows for fast setups and minimal lighting changes between shots.

Until next time!

-Patrick

Luke Clements and Alex Mendeluk did a quick read so we could test some lighting and lens options on location.  They were handed the pages on the 30 minute drive to the cabin, so preparation wasn’t really an option. 

Jason did a great job with the camera setups, and Patrick got a great look out of a single 1200 HMI.  We will refine this look, but I like how it turned out.  I also really like the performances considering this was more like a photographed rehearsal.

http://theforgeproject.com/pg15test.html