THE MAKING OF 'ISSUES'

I recently wrapped my first metalcore video with director Dillon Novak (http://montaukfilm.com/) of RSM. The video ping pongs between performance and narrative, examining a cycle of multi-generational domestic violence. The narrative is broken up into two segments; the character as a child and as an adult. We opted to shoot with longer lenses with slow motion for a more observational aesthetic for the flashback scenes with the child.

We kept the camera at a low angle to match the child's eye-height for POVs and dirtied up the field of view as much as possible with foreground elements (mirrors, windows, curtains, etc.) to evoke a sense of fragmented memory.

We used heavier diffusion in front of the lens using 1/2 and 1 strength black magics to aid this dream-like effect. Really love these guys for digital because they take the edge of the highlights in an organic way, blossoming without effecting the contrast.

   

For the present day scenes, we threw away the diffusion and used wider lenses in the 29-35mm range for CUs for a more immediate intimacy, mixing handheld with fluid slider movement.We used a 8' dana dolly which is by far the smoothest ride for a slider that I've come across. Super buttery.

For both the flashback and present day scenes we used a lens baby for our insert shots to draw a subtle visual parallel between the child and his adult-self.

Although it was a bright sunny day on our production day, we wanted a more melancholy overcast look. We used overheads when we were dealing with direct sun and shot all of our day/ext work during magic hour. I wanted to unify the performance and the narrative with a "creamy", atmospheric, and soft image. I wanted high contrast lighting, but I still wanted to dig into the shadows and pull out as much detail as possible in the toe.

For the performance I wanted slightly harder light to compliment the soft lighting of the narrative scenes. We used a 45 & 90 degree shutter angle and opted for a responsive, dynamic handheld look for the camera movement. We really diverged from the narrative style, embracing shaky-cam, but using it sparingly to create energy bouncing off the 120fps material.

We had M18s coming through the curtains for a 3/4 back and keyed with a jokerbug inside with a chimera and 4x4 frame of 1/2 grid. I had the camera set at 4300K to create a color contrast between the cool daylight and the warm, amber practicals and curtains. My gaffer, Silvestre Rios spiked me with lens flare with a shuttered down source 4 to ping from just off-camera.

Panavision Hollywood provided us with a Red Epic package with an ultra speed prime set which included 14, 17.5, 21, 29, 35, 50, 75, and 125mm lenses. We shot the video at 5K and I colored the footage with Dillon in Da Vinci Resolve.

You can watch the video here: 

Making of 'Tear'

I recently collaborated on an impromptu short set to Amon Tobin's 'Angels & Deamons' with director Elliott Sellers (http://www.elliottsellers.com). This was a total creative exercise because we literally put the video together in less than 24 hours. Elliott came up with the concept and I quickly suggested we check out one of my favorite locations to see the sunset in LA, in a hidden spot tucked on the westward side of Griffith Park.

Elliott called two of his acting friends Katie Bunn & Dontez Hood, we hand-picked some fabric and an umbrella and we jetted off for the sunset, a skeleton crew of a Elliott, Myself, and a producer friend from New York, Chavvah Stuart (http://chavvahstuart.com/), who was able to tag along and help us while filling her delayed flight's hours with some sunshine.

I think the title of the song is a bit self-explanatory for the concept of the video. We wanted to play with traditional, Western-genre stereotypes in wardrobe, clothing the angel in black and the demon in white.

We used a Panavised Red Epic with Kowa spherical primes shooting at 2K WS to crank the camera up to 300fps. The Kowas are one of my favorite sets of lenses and we made sure to showoff the wonderfully organic lens flares.



If you hit the 20mm just right you create perfect swirling, amber circles in the middle of the frame. They are the sister set of lenses to the spherical Baltars, which render warmer skin tones with cool flares.

I'm going to guess we shot nearly 80% of the video on the 20mm bc we wanted to be as wide as possible for our very wide 3.0 aspect ratio and crop factor shooting at 2K to accomodate for 300fps. When we needed a true wide we would switch to 4K at 120fps.

We weren't able to utilize the sensor's 5K capabilities because the lenses were made in the 50's and can only accomodate for a s35 format. We maintained a very shallow depth of field by keeping the camera close and shooting wide open at 2.3. We used very little filtration only using ND, a polarizer, and a sunset SE grad for our wides.

You can watch the video here! Enjoy!

 https://vimeo.com/62059569