Movie Marathon Reviews-Day 1

Hi everybody! Yes, I do mean all five of you.

Daniel here. Brigitte is out of town on a shoot for a few days so I figured it would be a good chance to watch a bunch of movies that she has been hesitant to watch (or just not interested.) Since I just finished a big job, I have a little free time until I find the next gig.
I just finished watching Quarantine, which made me want to immediately write my thoughts down, so I figured I would review everything I watch while she's gone.

I will make this a completely "spoilerless" review because that's just how I think it should be done and I want you to be able to experience it the way I did. I’ll also try to keep the reviews brief for the same reason.

Let me also say that Brigitte is the eloquent one. I'm doing my best to "use my words" as my mom used to say to me (when I was much younger, I promise) but images are the currency I usually deal in so bear with me.

UNDERWORLD

It was fine.

OK, seriously, it felt like your typical supernatural/action movie. The story is good, the writing is OK. That being said, I had a fun time. I enjoyed it more than the Blade series (2 came close which, I'm guessing is due to Guillermo Del Toro's touch). Also, I would ALWAYS prefer to watch Kate Beckinsale over Wesley Snipes any day.

There's not much else to say about Underworld. Enjoyable but forgettable.


QUARANTINE

FLIPPING. AWESOME.

I’m not going to call it “original” for several reasons(o.k., two) – first, it is a remake of a Spanish film called REC (which I haven’t seen but REALLY want to now), second, it has the tone and feel of Alien, The Thing, Halloween, Friday the 13th, The Strangers… you get the idea. But I will say that it was entirely satisfying and told the story in it’s own, unique way.

I will also say it is one of the best examples of the “First Person Camera,” “Documentary-Style,” “POV Camera,” “Subjective Camera,” whatever you want to call it. I thought they did a great job justifying the camera. I hate it when the script calls for the actors to explain why the camera is still running (or why they have it in the first place) when in any normal circumstance, the camera would be off and thrown to the ground and left as the anchor that is. I won’t mention any names but you know who you are (COUGH!georgeromeroindiaryofthedead,COUGH! mattreevesincloverfieldCOUGH!) Sorry, something in my throat. This worked for me and I didn’t think about it once. The choreography of the camera was excellent also. To make it look like it was all caught in real time with as long as the shots were takes an AMAZING amount of time and rehearsal. This was not improvised or thrown together. This was a difficult one for the actors, I can tell you that. And they did an incredible job.

Which brings me to the writing. It feels like there wasn’t any writing – just a lot of running and screaming. But, thinking back, I completely know what I need to know about, and can differentiate between, all of the characters - and relate to them. And, as I said, it feels like there wasn’t any writing – so I guess the writers did their job. Well.

I also loved that the story was “shown, not told.” This type of shooting, and a lot of horror movies in general, tell you the back story and the setup much of the time. There is usually one character or a few of them that sem to be figuring out what is going on and tell the rest of the group (and the audience) what is going on. Not here. What we do discover is told in very small bits visually. I won’t tell you how much, or what, we find out – watch it.

It was also very simple-one location (basically), one idea. It’s the kind of film that makes me want to go make a movie right now.

One final thought – I love monster movies, zombie movies, slasher movies (I don’t know where to catagorize this one) – this made crawl up into the back of the couch and it made me jump a few times…

I never jump.

That makes me happy.

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED

I found a Village of the Damned/Children of the Damned 2 pack at Big Lots for 6 bucks. What a value! This is the original black-and-white Children of the Damned (1960) not the 1995 remake by John Carpenter.

What fun! The DVD box listed it as “Horror Double Feature” but I would put it more under the category of Science-Fiction. It fits neatly into the same category as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and many other sci-fi films of the 50’s and 60’s that dealt with the world’s fears of communism – the “Group Mind” and a cold, emotionless enemy – in a way that the public could ingest, disguised as entertainment.

When I bought this I was surprised that I had never seen it before. It is such a part of pop-culture, the little blond kids and their creepy eyes. It’s been parodied many times, not the least of which on a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode. If you call yourself a fan of classic sci-fi (or horror) this is a “must-see.”

Well, that’s it for tonight. I’ll be back at it tomorrow night. I don’t know what I’ll watch yet. I’m just going where my mood takes me.

Cheers!

We Love Our Job!!

Hey Folks!

One more post today before we leave for San Francisco in the morning. 

This is a pilot episode for a project that we recently worked on.  We really had a lot of fun with this one.  Brigitte improvised the entire piece and Daniel created the opening title sequence.  Kelly Borgen at Rox came up with the idea. 

We’ll see you all when we get back!

Cheers!

Daniel and Brigitte

Good Job Ladies!!

Hi everybody!

A few months ago we told you about a project that Daniel co-directed and edited. Recently, it got a great review on Tubefilter and they specifically mentioned the episode that he worked on (chapter 3 – The Spectacle.)

Check out the review and watch the first three episodes here:

http://news.tubefilter.tv/2010/07/16/stalker-chronicles-gets-culture-all-up-in-your-grill/

For more episodes go to their website here:

http://stalkerchronicles.com/

We have a lot of projects in the works and some great posts coming up so check back often!

Cheers!
Daniel and Brigitte

Go Aarti!!!!

Although we don’t watch a lot of reality television, one show that we are hooked on (we have been watching it since the first season) is The Next Food Network Star on the Food Network.

We were so excited to hear that one of our friends is on it this season!  Her name is Aarti Sequeira and she is kicking butt!  They are down to five contestants and she has been winning challenges left and right.  We think she’s going all the way, which means she would get her own show on the Food Network!!

Here is her Bio at the show’s website:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/chefs/aarti-sequeira/index.html

She also has her own cooking blog.  You can find it here:

http://www.aartipaarti.com/

So if you get the Food Network, check it out and root for Aarti!  It's on Sunday nights at 9pm (for those of us on the Pacific Ocean) and, if you miss it, they replay it several times the following week - no excuses!

Cheers!

Daniel and Brigitte

Sisters of Notre Dame video

Exciting things are happening at Tower 26 Films!  We are happy to announce the birth of a bouncing, beautiful web video created for The Sisters of Notre Dame.  We couldn’t be more proud.  Special thanks to the Roxburgh Agency and Kelly Borgen for bringing us in on the project.

The experience has been rewarding in so many ways.  It started with meeting these amazing women who invited us into their homes and shared with us their vocation stories and reflections on the work they do for God and for the community.  Being entrusted with the telling of that story was incredibly humbling.  They were also wonderful clients to work with because of their openness, collaborative spirit and the many ways that they expressed their appreciation for our efforts.  We have also been grateful for the ways in which this video project has sprouted opportunities for more work. 

We are so pleased to be able to share the final video with you.  

Cheers!
Daniel and Brigitte

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