Follow up to the Biking shoot
Here’s the result from the green screen biking gag I shot the other day for Elastic Creative / Cisco.
Click the image to watch …
Biking on the green
Had an interesting shoot the other week with Elastic Creative where we had to capture an exec bicycling through various streets from different angles and such. Now I’m a big fan of doing things practically, but this was the perfect time for using green screen. It solved a number of issues from having to jack the cost up with either a camera car or process trailer, depending upon the weather gods to smile, maintaining focus and having the proper locations scouted and locked. Not to mention the nightmare of light and shadow control. Plus since they wanted all sorts of angles, we’d need a crane and scout more locations to match. And as we’re dealing with an exec, his time was extremely tight … you don’t want to spend days dragging him around to various locations. You’re luck if he stay for the few hours he can commit to.
So green is good – but creates a new problem: how to have him realistically ride his bicycle. The easy solution was to simply put him up on a bike stand a tilt the image in post. But you lose the perspective shift that happens in a ride by and his weight will not be positioned correctly on the bike. Enter Josh Koral and the good folks at ACME. The same guy who made the outdoor living room in Justin Herman Plaza I shot for Elastic a while back. He made a simple but effective bike rig that gave us great control over the rig to tilt and spin it while he was riding. And there was just enough play in the handle bars to do a little twisting for the turns. The result was awesometown.
And how about that crane shot that was ordered? Well, that’s the beauty of having a tall stage with your own scissor lift – easy high angle shots (as long as they’re static). That’s our Red up there strapped to the top with Joe E. Rivera making sure it doesn’t take a header.
And here’s the final film.
First A’s spots making it out
Here’s the first couple of about 10 we shot in Phoenix just before Spring Training. This one was fast …
And then they got tiny …
jungle fruit
Here are some of the tasty fruit that came from our wonderfully fabricated arm pit jungle (thank you Stacey). First up is a link to our Old Spice Ever Clear spot on Poptent (where it currently vies for attention from OS).
It was sure fun creating and and at times we all had to excuse ourselves to go and get the giggle out. Nothing like arm pit goobers hitting an apple box to really set you off. Special thanks to Bob (the one with the hairy pits) for keeping it together while the rest of us lost our minds.
The last thing we went for on the jungle set was another fashion / editoral spread featuring make up by Don Tunnell, gowns by Cory Tron, Sydney from Stars and Soo Joo from Ford. The first image out is a beauty shot of Sydney looking stunning against the twisted and foggy background. There will be a bunch more served up on our website and at DA.
Fiona’s Script at Frameline
Fiona’s Script is having it’s official SF Bay Area premier at the 33rd Frameline Film Festival. Prior to this it played down in LA at MethodFest (bonus for the acting team). Our screenings are on Saturday, June 20th at 6:15pm at the Roxie in SF and on Monday, June 22nd at 7pm at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley. There’s drinks at Lexington Club on 19th @ Valencia in SF (I’m assuming after). I have yet to see it large (although I know from past experiences that the Roxie isn’t the best quality screening environment). Looks like they’re screening digibeta so that should help.
Florencia wants to revisit the color story a little. It has a pretty bold statement in it that we had talked about from the get go. But it seems (as happens) that the story has evolved for her in the process and requires more finesse. This will indeed be made easier with our recent hardware upgrades in the editorial department. A little more horsepower to help handle the Red material in realtime.
SIDE NOTE: I had written a post on this before (while I was waiting for my Duc to be fixed up), but it has been lost to the ethers of technology not working together.
Lucy’s in the can
So we finally shot the death scenes (where the band is killed off) and a number of the supporting photos of a bunch of different comedians who were so kind as to stop by. Now a little blood spatter and we’ve a finished visual product. This section will have the longest post process and will turn out pretty kick as with a very stylistic look. Each of the guys is really getting it.
I won’t say when we’ll have the whole project set, but at least we have the goods.
Checking off the list
We’re finally getting to some of the desperately needed post production items on the list. The coloring for FIONA’S SCRIPT has gotten out the door just in time for a cast & crew screening next week and it’s first fest in LA later this month.
Next up, THE APPRAISAL is in the can and Stephanie and I have gone through the first cut. I have an email in my inbox with some more refinements after some extended online viewing, but the cut is certainly on the way.
And THEY TURNED OUR DESERT INTO FIRE is being packaged up and sent off to DER for the master … yes. Tucked in there nicely is a copy of WAR AS A SECOND LANGUAGE, Mark’s previous film that I also edited. And DESERT INTO FIRE has been selected for the Santa Cruz Film Festival in May which we’ll go down and check out.
And Monday is our final shooting day for LUCIFER’S CREWCUT. Green screen elements to assemble into the death sequences where the quartet meet their gruesome demise. Nice that it’s a lock-off shot which equals an easier day for me and we can focus on performance. I’d love to get this project in the home stretch so we can fully share this irreverent little film (be careful, you might get some on you).
Oohhh … and photos in the next post!
Fiona’s Script at Method Fest
On the heels of finishing up the color correction comes word that the feature I shot in August Fiona’s Script will be playing at Method Fest in LA on Saturday, March 28, 2009 9:00pm – 11:00 pm at the Founders Hall, Calabasas Civic Center. Triple bonus is that it will screen in HDCam which should make for a great transfer from the Red footage. The look was quite dialed in during color correction to accentuate the different story spaces in the film and highlight Fiona’s transformation of self.
If you’re in the LA area check it out. I know the director and a number of Actors will be there. Not sure if I can break away to catch it, but I’m sure it will be fun.
busy busy busy
It’s been a busy couple of weeks at the ranch. Swooped in from Sundance to take care of a couple of gigs going through the studio. Finished prepping and then shot THE APPRAISAL by Stephanie Carwin. Have just set up casting for a video / photo shoot I’m planning in a week and a half. Found out our Doritos spot didn’t win a million bucks (one nut shot short), but the Bud DD spot did win over at poptent (yeah!). In the meantime, finally settled on the tattoo for my left arm and inked in the outline and some shading.
All of these need more explaining on their own … when’s that gonna happen. Cutting and coloring first.
Reel of the Month at Poptent
Cool … received word this morning that my DP reel was selected as the Reel of the Month at Poptent, the online community of XLNTads. Poptent is their crowdsourcing video platform for which we did the Bud Designated Driver spot. The Reel of the Month is another on-going contest that they have.
There were a lot of other good reels this time around (honorable mentions are posted on their blog). I’m not sure what made mine stand out, but … Sweet!
All a part of putting yourself out there … now I’m going to go and update my reel with more of the cool stuff from Lucifer’s Crewcut.
To see the latest reel click go to the reels section of my website … It was my Showreel for DP work that won. But there is plenty more good stuff on there.