FORGE: A Feature Film by 500 Cuts

Co’s pretty much correct on both images below. In an early screen test, we shot at Tom’s apartment and realized that it has some very beautiful natural light. Very often it seems as though there’s an inclination to light everything. Sometimes even though natural light looks beautiful, actually lighting a scene makes more sense for continuity, controlability, etc etc….In the case of Toms apartment, we knew that we wanted to shoot with the natural light, and so we did! We weren’t there for very long, and so continuity wasn’t going to be an issue. There was plenty of light in there, and we were stopped down to a 2.8 on the 50mm lens. An added bonus is a shot where Paul (played by Luke Clements) is in silhouette at the window looking out upon an element that will be added digitally. Coincidentally, the silhouette provides a very clean edge “live matte” that will make it a lot easier for the FX people to add our digital elements in the background.

Co and I scouted the kitchen scene the night before we shot, and I pretty much decided that I would supplement the lighting that already existed in the kitchen- and for the most part, we just went with the existing light! We had two 4′ 4 bank flourescent fixtures with 5000k tubes, and those provided all of the additional light that we needed. We shot the screenshot below on the 50mm, and we were wide open at f1.4. Normally, I try to not shoot wide open because I feel the image loses sharpness, but in this case I felt that the existing light worked so well that we just went with the wide open lens. and brought in light where we could.

In the end, I feel that the scene has exactly the look we wanted, and a nice side effect of using natural/existing light is that the scene looks “un-lit”. As I thought about it, I also realized that the natural light of the apartment provides a nice transition state from the unnatural, manmade kitchen light to the very earthy feel of the cabin.

A small tangent about our camera setup- When shooting film, whether it be stills or motion, the sensitivity of the emulsion is referred to as the ISO. In simple terms, the higher the ISO number, the more sensitive the film is to light. You might say well, so what? Films with a higher ISO tend to yield more “grain” in the final image. With modern film stocks, this has become less of an issue, but often times in the “olden days”, movies were photographed with effective ISO’s as little as 25! To put it into perspective- your mom probably took photos at your 8th birthday party using 400-800 speed film. Now, as time went on so did advances in film but even so, it wasn’t too long ago that motion pictures were still being photographed at 100 ISO. Essentially, this means you need a ton of light to expose your subject! When outdoors, this isn’t so much of a problem since the sun is ridiculously bright, but when you consider lighting a subject that would otherwise be completely black, you really have to pump in the light.

FORGE was shot digitally, but the rules of ISO still apply, and the factors that go into lighting an image captured on film or on digital are exactly the same. Through testing and reading about other experiences, we pretty much surmised that the effective sensitivity of the HVX200 is around 320 ISO. Not too shabby! But here’s the hitch, we weren’t just using the HVX alone- we were taking advantage of the Letus Extreme 35mm adapter. A large part of the “look” of the film is thanks to the 35mm adapter we were using, but it does come at a price. In simple terms, this device allows 35mm still lenses to be mounted on the front of the HVX, that would otherwise have just a fixed lens. Without getting too much into the physics of light and optics that go on inside this adapter (you can read about that HERE) I will just say that it steals a lot of light that would otherwise go into the lens. Long story short? Our 320 ISO camera becomes a 160 ISO camera.

This isn’t always a problem, but it does have to be taken into account ALL of the time. The amount of light needed to get proper exposure is exponentially increased compared to a faster camera. By the way, “faster” in this case means more sensitive to light, “higher ISO” if you will. It’s a constant battle. Bigger lights take more power, and cost more money. In the case of this shoot, we took advantage of using HMI lighting. HMI lights are about 5 times more efficient per-watt than tungsten lights. So, our little 575 watt PAR really pumps out a lot of light for not much power draw- very important when filming at a practical location without the luxury of a big generator.

Please stay tuned for more screen grabs and technical discussions of the scenes!

The restaurant shoot went great yesterday with one minor hitch.  The Letus Extreme lens adapter we use is designed with a small UV filter just inside the lens mount.  A few days ago, ours fell off its mount.  Turns out the mount is just some glue.  When the glue dried out, the glass disc came loose and rubbed against the little motor that vibrates the ground glass.  If it weren’t for the noise, we wouldn’t have noticed anything was wrong.  Incidentally, the weighted motor that vibrates the ground glass is the same exact thing they put in the handle of a game controller for vibration feedback.

So, the glass disc fell out again (super glue isn’t great for bonding glass to aluminum, btw), so we thought we’d take it out.  Turns out it has everything to do with proper focus in the adapter.  For future reference…

But that only affected our last shot, and it only kept us from getting deep focus so it still looks pretty kick ass.  It was just that thing where we were literally on our last shot of the movie after two weeks of smooth sailing and we were all scratching our heads saying, “Why won’t this effing thing focus to infinity???”  Oh well.  Lesson learned.  I’m certain much of the delay in troubleshooting the problem had to do with the fact that we were just anxious to finish.  And it was the only day we got up early.  And we didn’t have any of Clara’s muffins.  I could keep going, but even with that problem, spirits were high after the shoot, and the footage looks great.

A big thanks to everyone who helped and donated!  By the way, if you have five bucks (or more) lying around, send it to us!  Now that we’re heading into post, we’ll need funding for hard drives and render hours.  If you’ve already given, thanks!  If you have or will be donating time and resources, thanks!  If you’re just sitting there, send us five bucks!  CLICK HERE!  And thanks!

These are from day 1 and 3.  All photos by Tomas Soderberg.

We spent last Sunday to Friday at the cabin location which represents the first week of principle photography on the movie. Jason and Myself actually stayed at the cabin the entire time which was really nice, and other people stayed a few nights here and there. Staying at the cabin throughout the week gave us a lot of time to talk about the next days shooting plan after wrap and before we started each day, and also to get the place organized and even pre-lit in some cases before the rest of the crew showed up. The week went really well, and we kept the pace up with an average of 17 setups per-day, with our largest day being 24 setups on Wednesday. 17 setups is really good considering our days have been fairly short, usually around 10am until 6 or 7pm. The short days are a lot easier on everyone, especially when you factor in that it takes almost 2 hours to get to and from set each day. Shorter working days also means that it’s essential to keep the pace up and to work quickly. On this shoot, the name of the game has been simple lighting setups. I usually try to make my setups as simple as possible anyways, so it’s been pretty natural to work that way.

Our lighting kit for the cabin consisted of a 575 watt PAR HMI, a 1200 watt PAR HMI, a Mole-Richardson 1k fresnel, a 4 foot 4 bank Kino fixture, and various practical globes/fixtures along with two 4 foot open frames with LEE 251 diffusion, and a selection of white/silver bead board reflectors. The HMI fixtures were by far the workhorses of the shoot, and I often found myself shooting them through 251 diffusion outside of windows, or aimed at white bounce cards inside a room. We were limited on power at the cabin, with our circuits being only 15 amps, so the 1200 and 575 HMI’s allowed us to get a tremendous amount of light output while still keeping a safe overhead on our circuits. There were a fair amount of living room scenes that I wanted to motivate very naturally, so I brought in the 1200 through a large sliding glass door/window as a soft backlight which I would then augment with fill from a silver board, or the 575 bounced off of a white card. Coincidentally, our 1200 also played outside of the window in essentially the same place, the only difference being that we would limit the amount of fill on faces and walls and instead let the light take on a harder more back lit “moon” feel.

The kitchen scenes took place both during the day and at night. For the daytime scenes, I brought in both the 575 and 1200 HMI’s through a bank of windows approximately 6 feet wide and 3 feet tall. We diffused them using our 4×4 frames of 251 outside the windows, and then taped 6mil clear visqueen to the inside of the window to diffuse the light even more. The end result was a very bright, but soft key light that lent a feel of overcast ambiance coming in from outside the window.We would tape additional diffusion in key places on the window depending on how close the actors got, this helped us keep people from becoming overexposed as they got closer to the windows.

For the night-time kitchen scenes Jeffree, Luke and Alex were sitting around a kitchen counter eating dinner. Our sole source of light in the scene was provided by a large (approximately 12-14” in diameter) smith-victor “bowl” light with a 500 watt 3200k medium base globe inside of it. We rigged it to a ceiling beam via furniture clamps, rubber gripping pads, and a short piece of 2×4 with a nail-on plate attached. We used a cardellini clamp and a gobo head to position the light where we wanted, and then clipped a single layer of opal diffusion to the light to further soften the source. The cabling was routed along the ceiling and out of the room, which allowed us to move the camera and actors througout the space without having to move stands or other lights. It was really essential to keep the space relatively open, as the kitchen was fairly small. To top it off, we added a very small amount of atmosphere to the room with some fog-in-a-can. The spill and reflection from this overhead source was enough to light up Paul (played by Luke Clements) as he stood to eat dinner. The way that his closeup was set up, the spill and reflection created a soft beautiful back/side light.

Another interior location was a bedroom where John (played by Jeffree Newman) sleeps. We lit the scene using a 1k fresnel gelled to half-blue and bounced into a white card. We had also considered lighting the room with a small practical lamp, but decided that a naturalistic moonlit feel was more appropriate. I used the tungsten pre-set on the camera so that the scene went slightly blue, and kept the light more or less perpendicular to the camera to create contrast and shadows. For a reversal on Paul we simply used the same setup and moved it in or out depending on the amount of light that was needed.

After the first day or two, everyone became pretty tuned into the various lighting setups that we used. Kyle Glenn was the only official grip on the shoot (everyone helped out when they could) and he worked very hard and very quickly to make these lighting setups happen. This week went extremely well and the footage is looking really great. I’ll try to get some interior scree grabs up soon to help illustrate the setups that I just mentioned.

Stay tuned for more info about our on-set data and dailies workflow, as well as notes about camera operation, framing choice, and exterior shooting!

-Patrick LaValley

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.

A week from tomorrow (Sunday) we will start shooting Forge. At this point everything feels really good. Most of us just can’t wait to get shooting! As planned, this week will mainly be filled with final planning. While we have pretty much everything big figured out including food, cast, crew, and most of our locations, there is still plenty of work to do. We’ll be prepping the camera, gathering gear, taking inventory of expendables and picking up more as needed, and just generally getting on the same page.

We had a great meeting the other day regarding the construction and design of the lab set. Selena Persiani is the production designer for our film, and Jack Shay is in charge of set construction, and they are both very good at what they do. The lab will essentially be a 12′ x 15′ room that is made to look like a DIY cleanroom. The lighting plan we’ve come up with will make use of a large bank of fluorescent lights from overhead. The idea with this scheme is to create a very clean, brightly lit interior that will be in stark contrast to the rest of the film, which takes place mostly inside a wooden cabin or outside in the forest. A helpful side effect of our lighting plan is that it should allow us to shoot anywhere in the set with minimal/no lighting changes. This of course will do a lot to help keep us on schedule. Furthermore, having all of our lights overhead and out of the set makes it a much more pleasant, uncrowded space for crew and actors. In addition to keeping our lights out of the set, another helpful feature will be the addition of movable walls to aid in camera placement. Keep an eye out for pictures of the set as soon as it’s built!

We’re going to try and post as much as possible in this last week before shooting, so stay tuned!

Co and I have been in Menomonie Wisconsin since Tuesday night on a mission to acquire some gear for the shoot. We left Portland on Monday morning via car (minivan actually…) and arrived in Wisconsin on Tuesday night. It was quite the trip, but we made good time driving 900 miles the first day, and then around 850 the second day. We made the trip via van because we knew we were going to be picking up some gear from a photography studio that belonged to a man who Co knew growing up. It was really interesting sorting through all the gear, and let me tell you there was a LOT of gear. We ended up with a lot of very useful stuff, including two Mole-Richardson 2k solarspot fresnels, numerous mogul base globes and fixtures, countless photo flood medium base globes, expired polaroid and 120 film, tiffen glass filters, lenses, light sockets, gels- you name it. We spent the first of two days sorting through all the equipment, and then the second day boiling it all down to fit in the back of the 2005 Toyota Sienna. I would have loved to load up the whole lot, but we definitely had to make choices about what was the best stuff to take, and what would be most useful to us on the shoot.

Here are a few photos from the trip:

Gear ownership has always been a conundrum of the indie film maker. On the one hand it’s easy to see the benefits of owning a whole productions worth of gear (no rental, full-time access, etc…) but on the other hand there are definitely some problems associated with that approach. First and foremost is cost. To make an example, I’ll use one critical piece of gear that we’ll be employing on the shoot- the 1200 PAR HMI light. We’ll be renting this light from a local grip and lighting house, and it will actually be the workhorse of our location lighting on the shoot. This light will cost us less than $1,000 to rent for the shoot. Had we chosen to purchase this fixture, we could be looking at much more than that, more in the 2-3 thousand dollar range, with the added bonus of having to perform our own maintenance and bulb replacement, which can be a spendy proposition. Furthermore, just because this light will be one of our main tools on this shoot doesn’t mean it’s always the correct tool, which brings us back to the rental approach. By renting gear we can always choose the right tool for the job, and not have a bunch of money tied up in gear that we might not use every time, but would still have to pay to store, maintain, update etc…This doesn’t mean that it’s bad to own a bunch of gear, but it’s just another thing to take into account when thinking about purchasing v. renting.

Until next time!

And so it begins! Really, I’m 5 days late on this, but what I’m talking about is our last full month before we begin shooting Forge. Things are coming together really well, and everyone is feeling really good about the shoot. On Thursday I booked our 1200 HMI light from Gearhead Grip and Electric. FYI- if you’re ever around Portland and looking for a place to rent from, check out Gearhead. They are really cool to work with. In addition to booking our light, I was able to purchase some of our camera and grip expendables for the shoot, including gaffers tape, camera tape, lens cleaner, and blackwrap. There are still some more items on the list which we’ll have to pick up, but at least we’ve got all the bases covered.

From here on out we’re in full-on production mode. Co and I are travelling to Wisconsin on Monday to hopefully purchase some lighting equipment for the project, but I’m sure we’ll also discuss the details of the shoot at length during the 36 hour road-trip. It will be a good time to focus and get everything together for the shoot.

Last week, Walker and I also scoped out a warehouse where we’ll build the interior lab set. It’s a pretty cool space with plenty of room and power for what we’re planning.

Well, that about wraps it up for tonight. I’ve got to be up early in the morning to shoot the second day of a music video for San Francisco based artist “Kero One”. It will definitely be a good time!