HDSLR Picture Styles

There has been a lot of talk recently about what "The Best" picture style is for shooting with your shiny new still camera that shoots HD video (at least there has been with my friends and colleagues).  Let's think about this for a moment and all decide on the "best" flavor of ice cream or the "best" pizza toppings - now remember we all have to eat it so we have to agree.


In still photography this doesn't really come up because, if you want the most control, you shoot in raw.  Case closed.  All of the information is there for you to adjust to your hearts content without sacrificing any image quality.  You can increase or decrease exposure, contrast, saturation.  According to still photographers this is the ONLY serious way to shoot.  Right? You tell me.  My brother in law Joe Photo is an amazing, award winning photographer.  He shoots jpegs (at least the last time we talked about it he did and if you look at the images he creates it doesn't seem like he should change just because everybody else says that he is doing it wrong).  If you want to see for yourself check out his website or his blog.


What does this have to do with shooting video with my HDSLR you ask?  I'm getting to that, be patient.


I hate putting up blog posts without any visuals so here is a video that we love:



What this means to shooting video with your HDSLR is this (see I told you your patience would be rewarded):  Don't believe what everybody else is telling you to do.  Test it for yourself.  Let me repeat that.  TEST FOR YOURSELF!  That's how it's been done in the business for years because it works.  Test it with your workflow from beginning to end.  It doesn't matter who you get your information from - Stu, Shane, some random video you saw on Vimeo...all of them are doing their own testing and finding what works for them.  Each of them has a point but the point they make is different - one says that "superflat" is necessary for getting the "best"(there's that word again) dynamic range out of an image - while another says it was "a BIG HUGE mistake" and "it buried me.  Consequently, we underexposed 25 or so shots trying to gain contrast. I will never repeat that mistake again!" So which is right?  (if forced to choose, I would go with the professional cinematographer, the member of the ASC, the one that has shot many feature films, including a tentpole studio film, but that's just me).  


There are too many differing factors to decide on the "Best" or "Only" picture profile.  Should it look saturated or de-saturated?  Should it look "true-to-life" or should it have a fantasy look to it?  What type of post process is it going to go through?  Is it greenscreen footage?  Are there visual effects?  Is it a documentary?  Is this an element that has to work with other footage that was acquired from a different source?

As much as we are pioneering a new workflow there are some things that the industry does do right.  Be prepared, do your homework and never trust what someone else says is the "BEST" or "ONLY" way to do things.

Of course, soon HDSLR cameras will have fast enough processors and be able shoot RAW like the RED camera.  Then we will have to rethink the whole thing.


Cheers!
Daniel and Brigitte

HDSLR Camera Rigs, so far...

We recently added a Canon 7d HDSLR to our arsenal of equipment and are really excited about what that is going to allow us to provide for our clients (as well as our original content).  The image quality is astounding and the size and weight of these cameras allows us to put them into places that traditional film/HD Video systems wouldn't dream of going.  Also, they record to Compact Flash Cards so the amount of footage that you can shoot is only limited to the capacity of a hard drive.  You transfer the footage, format the card, and keep shooting!  


This leads us to our new slogan/motto/way of life...whatever...


Big Ideas, Small Footprint - Tower 26 Films.


Lately we have been working on building some camera rigs. We wanted a modular system that would be infinitely re-configurable as well as expandable as our needs grew. 


Since we are working to cut down on waste (and costs) we also made it mandatory that we used as many of the pieces we already own (from our film/video kits as well as our still photography kits).  We also found many of our pieces from home improvement/hardware stores.


But, even though Baron Victor von Frankenstein got his monster's neck bolts from Home Depot, he still needed some specialized equipment:

    You don't think he had this stuff lying around do you?

To allow ourselves the adaptability that we wanted we also purchased some new pieces.

Some of the pieces that we are using (both new and repurposed) are:

• 12" and 18" Rails,follow focus and Snap! lens gears from IndiSystem (there will be a separate post about them soon)
• Extra "monitor blocks" from indiSystem (2 so far)
• LCDVF viewfinder
• The Pod
• Stroboframe flash brackets (2), which each have a cold shoe that was re-purposed elsewhere on the rigs
• Hand grip from an old shoulder rig that never worked right.
• Simpson StrongTie L-brackets (2 bolted together)
• 4 pound weight for nylon strap-type scuba diving weight belt
• Mini ball-head connectors
• Brass 1/4-20 spuds
• Velcro strapping (the two-sided kind with the hooks on one side and fuzz on the other)
• We still want to get a hot shoe extender but nobody has one in stock

All of this is to attach the following gear:


Canon 7d HDSLR camera
Marshall LCD70XP-HDMI monitor
Zoom H4N audio recorder
Sennheiser ew100G2 wireless microphone receiver


Someday we hope to be as cool as our hero and get to play with all of the cool toys.  Until then we are completely happy to Frankenstein our rigs together as best we can.


Here are a few of the configurations (some of them are still in-progress):
(as always, click on the pictures to make them bigger)


The Shoulder Mount:

This one has all of the bells-and-whistles.  We are using the two flash brackets bolted together for the monitor, wireless receiver and the audio recorder.  This also works as a right handle.  

We are using the Pod as a shoulder pad (with a section of plastic cup and a 1/4-12 nut to hold it in place) and the Simpson StrongTie bracket assembly to hold the scuba weight on (with a strap of velcro through the belt loop).

You can also see the follow focus with the indiSystem Snap Gears - they are lens gears that attach around the lens using magnets to hold them together. - So far it seems like an awesome way to do it.

The Zoom is held attached to a mini ball-head (We plan to move both the Zoom and wireless receiver to the top of the camera once we get the hot shoe extender).

This is also, incidentally, our tripod rig (with the exception of maybe moving the monitor above instead hanging from the bracket) on top of our Manfrotto 525 MVB sticks and 501 head.

  
Handheld with follow focus (Stradivarius mode):

This configuration uses the viewfinder instead of the monitor.  You can really get into some tight places with this setup but you still have the follow focus so you can stay in focus while moving around (or while your talent moves around).  We have stripped it down to use only one of the flash brackets.  With the flash bracket, the camera's hand grip, and the view finder, you get 3 points of contact for stability.  Plus, we put an extra rail block on the end and adjusted the rails so it gives you one more point of contact with your chin (this is why we named it Stradivarius mode):

We are working on a pad but it's pretty comfy as-is.

Stripped down handheld (Lean-and-Mean mode):

This is exactly what it says, lean and mean.  With a super-wide lens you can shoot anywhere with this one.   Small, light and maneuverable - sometimes a camera and viewfinder is all you need. You still get the point of contact with the viewfinder which can help stabilize the shot when you need to.  I left the indiSystem Snap gear on because it gives a big solid area to grab ahold of for focusing.  

Home-made stabilizer (not pictured mode):

This is a DIY version of the Glidecam

I still have a few things to work on with this one (and I forgot to shoot it fully rigged).  So I'll put a separate post up for this one but here's a teaser of our first test drive:

We are also working on a DIY slider.  Kind of like this one.  More about this later as things develop.

Well, that's it for now.  Stay tuned for the indiSystem post as well as more about the DIY stabilizer and slider.  We also have a post coming regarding a recent job that we finished so check back often!!

Cheers!

Daniel and Brigitte

The Stalker Chronicles

As promised, here is a link to one of the projects that we have been working on here at Tower 26 Films.

Daniel was the editor, colorist and assistant director on a music video for a web series called The Stalker Chronicles. The video is chapter 3 in a 9(?) episode series. Each episode has a different theme and this one was inspired by a blend of Vaudeville, Old World Carnivale, and Silent Films of the early 1900's (specifically George Melies). Jamie Moniz and Genie Willett created, write and produce. They bring different director for each episode - fun, right?!

This episode was directed by our friend Todd Stashwick, who actually requested Daniel for the project. Thanks Todd!

To see the other chapters go to: http://stalkerchronicles.com/

You can watch it below. To watch it in HD, watch it here. But, please, go to their website and check out the rest of the series and click on the episodes there so they get the youtube views that are such a valuable commodity in the digital age that we live in. The first three episodes are up now with more to come soon. The website also has descriptions of the different film and theater styles that they are referencing. They are all really fun so go and check it out.



Thanks for watching!

More soon, so keep checking in.

ALSO, if you subscribe to this blog you will get notifications when we post something.
OR, add us to your RSS feed for your email client (if you have a mac, email me and I can tell you how).

Cheers!
Daniel and Brigitte

The completed piece...

Happy New Year!! (I know, I’m almost a month late – when I started writing this it WOULD have been New Years Day)

This is part five of a series of blog posts where I documented my process of taking a scene from the default materials stage to a finished textured and lit piece. If you missed the rest you can find them here:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
A diversion...

I know, I said that I would post this the Tuesday after my final was due. What can I say? I’m sorry.

The job that we have been working on took over so we could get it to the clients by the first of the year – today to be exact (remember, I started writing this at the first of the year). We made the deadline and are awaiting feedback on any final tweaks. More on this project soon.

So, here it is, the completed piece. Below it I will also put a “making of” video that shows many of the steps in the process and some of the layers that were composited to make the finished piece. (watch it in HD)

There you have it. Weeks worth of work for 13 seconds of animation (months of work if you count the modeling and animating as well).

For the nerds, geeks, curious and family (obligated) all of the “Making Of” stuff is below. It’s full of tech stuff, data, illustrations and examples. You’ve been warned…


To recap: I started with a scene that was grey with only the default material assigned to everything; I assigned materials that gave each object its color, texture, reflectivity, among many other attributes and then I added lights to create an environment and set a tone. Then came render time...

Rendering – an art unto itself. Of the many ways that you can render a scene it all boils down to, really, two ways – the lazy way and the hard way.
To render a scene the lazy way you make sure the scene looks the way you want it, you set a range of frames to render and you start the render. If you have a complicated scene this can take a looooooong time. In my case, to render out one frame with this method (without motion blur or depth of field) took 4 minutes – multiply that by 376 frames and you see that this scene would have taken 25 hours to render. Not as long as the hard way but I only get the scene in one layer – if I want to change or fix anything, I have to start all over again.

To render a scene the hard way you divide the scene up into separate passes – a pass can be anything from a single object that you want on its own layer, all of the reflections for the scene, a character that you want to isolate, the background, shadows… – basically anything you want control over can be rendered out as a separate layer.

Once you have the separate passes (layers) you have to composite them. Which means that you take all of the separate elements and put them together into one seamless piece. This way you can adjust each layer individually – a little darker here, blur that a little bit there, ad a little contrast to that layer…Also, as I said before if you need to change one element you can do that without having to render the entire scene all over again.

Here is a screenshot of the layers it took to put this together:

(as always - click the image to see it bigger)



On the left is the layers palette and on the right is my other monitor with the video image.

In upcoming posts I’ll get into more detail about each stage in the process individually. It’s taken me way too long to post this one so I’ll wrap it up here and let you enjoy the rest of your day.

The nerdy details:
3 computers took a combined total of 76 hours and 1 minute to render all of the separate layers over a period of 4 days.
There was a total of 37 render passes
47 Layers in After Effects
131 hand painted photoshop texture files (see below for an example)
39 lights in the scene
6085 frames rendered
Average render time per frame - .74 minutes
Longest render - environment occlusion pass– 11 frames in 3hr 43min = 20min/frame
Average amount of sleep – 3 hours/night.

Pretty soon we will be posting some of the recent work that has been keeping us so busy lately – So keep checking in!

Cheers!
Daniel

Stay tuned...

I spent all day yesterday setting up my render passes and rendered my first frame at 8:09 last night. I have two computers rendering around the clock and tomorrow I am borrowing my dad's macBook add to my little "render farm."

OK, it's not really a render farm but I'll explain it all soon. I'll also explain all of my passes - and what a pass is for those of you that don't know what I am talking about - after the piece is up (and I've caught up on my sleep).

Sorry I don't have any images to show right now. It will all pay off if you can hold out a little longer. The project is due on Monday night so I will put it up before that - unless I am rendering up to the last minute and don't have time...

On second thought, I'll post the project on Tuesday morning afternoon evening after I wake up.

Well, if you must have something to look at, here is my final from my first semester in the program.

Stay tuned! (Why do people still say that?)

Cheers!

Daniel

Process part 4...

It's 1:15 in the morning so I'm keping this one short. Part four...process...basic materials...finished piece...

Part One, Part Two, Part Three...

Started:

After Texturing:

This is my first lighting pass:

It still needs some finessing and I need to put the character in and light him as well.

More to come. Stay tuned.

Cheers!

Daniel

Oh! It's officially my birthday now.

Process Part 3...

This is the third part of a series where I'm going through my process of taking a scene from the basic materials to the finished piece. Click here to start at part one. Part two is below this post or you can click here.

Once again, here's where we started:

(click on images to make them bigger)

In part one I researched real-world examples of what we were trying to create. In part two, I began the process of assigning materials to all of the objects in the environment and, in turn, assigned various textures to different attributes of those materials to control their color, reflectivity, texture, etc...

Now, I assigned materials and textures to my character's skin, hair, eyes, teeth, fingernails, and clothes.

Here's where I am now:

I still have to "dirty up" the environment to match the feel of the character but, for now, I have to get to lighting the scene. I have to turn the entire piece by the 14th of December and lighting & rendering will take a while. If I can get it lit with time to spare, I will go back and start to age the environment, starting with the pieces that will make the biggest impact. I also have to populate the shelves with plates, cans, condiments and stuff if there's time.

There won't be.

I'll do it after the semester is over to get it ready for my reel.

More later. Stay tuned in...

Cheers!

Daniel