Here we go … the new home of Purebred Productions. Located in South San Francisco in a beautifully maintained office park. Perfect shell of a place to house our gear and … downstairs lounge, dressing room, kitchen … upstairs lounge, editorial, server room, conference room, offices.
Operational today, built out tomorrow. The finishing touch … a 35×40 20′ high stage with hard cyc walls. This will put a number of our productions on the fast track and open us up to new studio work. It will be a nice place to work and is damn close to the city.
It’s in the can … or the drive rather. 18 days of lighting and camera and now Jesse (the editor) is off and running. He had a snippet of the film ready for viewing at the wrap party (and threw in some good humor as well). The Red held up quite well … only twice did it have trouble and that was just for a second. And I did give it and the rest of the equipment a good detailing after the beach day, so now it’s a bit sparkly as well.
The next round of fun for me will come in a couple of months when they have picture lock. I’ll need to spend some time in there giving it just the right look for each scene. Plus fix a couple of things I had to let go on set due to time / money / whatever. It’s nice to have the tech up to where it can help compensate for that.
Here’s a couple of pics (thank you Cristin) …
As I was driving home from shooting all day on Fiona’s Script, I pulled up to the light in Glen Park and was caught by the juxtaposition of this man using the large Gap ad to read his newspaper by. The position left a lot of room for a mind to wander on. Plus a the addition of the reflection of the ad being streaked by the etched lines of the glass added another dimension. I wish I had more time / energy to jump out of the van and click off a few more images. But perhaps the intrusion would have dispelled the magic.
… edit …
Funny thing happened the next day driving to set. Beautiful picture drive-by op again. (although I was too slow to get it, and not packing the balls that day to stop traffic for it). This time a gal sitting on a road barrier next to her 60s/70s bike, dressed appropriately in shiny blue leather, smoking a cig. The look on her face said to me that some shit had gone down that needed riding, and then contemplating … I thought at first she was waiting for two girls who were approaching her. Turns out she could care less and didn’t make a move as they squeezed by around her.
I’m two thirds in the can with one week left on principal photography for Fiona’s Script. So far we’ve been able to capture so great stuff, with some locations working out much better than I anticipated. Plus we had some great underwater materials thanks to Cliff Traiman and his handy underwater bag for the HVX200.
The 1200 par and the bug a beam with the 400 joker was the only think piercing the water. The pool was (thankfully?) dirty enough to get the light striations from the surface caustics (or ‘jesus rays’ as Cliff called it) to get a cool look. I was busy kicking up the surface with a set of borrowed flippers to get it rough enough. Should be nice for the opening credit sequence / dreamy stuff.
This last week, we have a couple of days in San Francisco with a few more visits to the location house in Emeryville. The kino / joker / Red combo has been winning time and again. Aaron and I have been dialing in the look augmenting with 1/4 stop silk for the exteriors.
The final looks will be dialed in during the coloring process. I’ve been playing a 1/4 classic black soft in the lens the whole show that has helped smooth things out a bit and smear the blacks a little. There may be some contrast issues caused by our schedule with the time of day we’ve had to shoot. But I think we’ve been 95% good. I’ve had total fun with some of the slo mo shots as well.
I’m actually just home from day three as I write this, but this first photo is from the first setup of the first day of the film.
Michelle is busy putting a lens on the camera as we prep for that primary setup. A quick couple of shots and we’re on to the next.
Here we are at day three, and the crew is spilled all over the sidewalk as we go for a take. As always, the outside of the building doesn’t match the inside. We’ve got two scenes on the “stoop” of the house. The gaggle of people lining the sidewalk was a little humorous for the shot. But we soon put them all to work with silks and flags and such.
The best part was I boxed Aaron in the van with the camera and he ended up directing the lighting from the comfort and safety of the Ford for a setup or two.
Tomorrow is our big prep day for both G&E and the camera department as we are heading into principal photography for Fiona’s Script. We’ll be organizing the shelves and van so we can quickly get ready for each day. Tungsten here, HMI there etc. We’ll probably pull a lot off the van and only put on what needs to be there.
Camera department is coming over later and running through the set up and break down so we’re down pat on the red. We’ll shoot a little something and deal with data wrangling. I’m going to make the decision on the data program … right now leaning toward R3Dmanager … I think we’ll have time to push the data around quite a bit.
I just went to the meet and great and put faces to names. It looks like we have a good team in place and this has good potential for a dynamic piece.
Details later …
Tech scout on a very windy beach …
I believe we just got word that They Turned Our Desert Into Fire will be a part of the Global Peace Film Festivalfrom Sept. 17 – 21 in Orlando, Florida. I always like to see it in print, but I hear we’re locked in. Mark and I had run across Bryan Belmore when we were at the Sarasota Film Festival. Looks like the rest of the team shared his enthusiasm for the film.
We’ll need to update the film to reflect that al Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court, a first for a sitting leader. But even if there is some form of justice for his actions in Darfur, the consequences of the bare earth campaign will continue to impact the region for 20 plus years. And the UN has said that no nation has responded to their pleas for assistance over the last year. All the more reason to keep a light on Sudan.
This one is starting to make it’s way out, an Olympia spec spot for friends Aaron Meister and Anders Osterballe. Shot one dreary Saturday afternoon which flattened everything out … a bit too much for Aaron’s liking. I was playing camera Op to Aaron’s DP role. It was his first real work out on the Red. We spent about as much time coloring it as we did shooting it. That I think is about right for this camera as it seems to want you to massage the image out. But there’s certainly plenty of dough to work with.
They’re dropping in the final music and sound mix. The locked picture with temp sound can found on my reels page ”it’s awesome” under editing (coloring as well). Until then I’ll leave you with the opening frame.
And here’s Anders (foreground) and Aaron examining a setup before we roll on it.
That’s the term I joking referred to for the ‘talent’ Cheerios as they made their way one by one into a big vat of half-n-half. All painstakingly recorded in 720pn30 as they twirled slightly in the bowl. They will find their way as the background to a giant Cheerio submarine in an HD commercial coming to a TV near you. I love working with Radium for shit just like this.
Tim Pries is seen below sifting through the available ‘talent’ to find the perfect Heerio.
