Coffee and Celluloid » Cinematography

The DIY Dolly Club

Joey — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 01:31:55 +0000

Filming a documentary in a robot workshop has its advantages, like a wide assortment of available tools and constant motivation to build something of your own. So I decided to take on the DIY dolly – the one with skateboard wheels on PVC pipe track – and join the club of all the other low budget filmmakers that have tackled this project.

One day and two cut fingers later, my dolly is done and works surprisingly well. I filmed a few robot battles with it today (in addition to getting some shots with a robot battle camera, which is a separate story). The plans I used were largely based on these sketches from a Videomaker magazine article.

The project definitely cost more than the listed $39 (about double that, excluding all the wrong stuff I bought), but being that the sketch is dated 1996, there’s some inflation at play.

Here’s how mine came out:

I plan to do a PDF of the instructions of what I did with a detailed parts list, since there’s a lot of guessing required in all the plans I found online. I’m also going to add a removable T handle on one end for easier pushing/pulling.

If you don’t want to wait for the PDF (which might be a good idea), here are some notes I have on the plan I linked to above.

A lot of the design depends on the wheels you buy. I opted for the cheapest skateboard wheels I could get ($10 for 4 at Target, so $40 total). My thought was the fatter the better (as opposed to slim roller blade wheels) so there’s more surface contact with the pipe, and therefore more contact to smooth over bumps. However, the Target wheels required some adjustment to how they were mounted to the aluminum angle than was in the sketches.
I opted for 1.5″ PVC pipe. I think most plans are 1″ or 1.25″. My thought was the thicker the pipe, the more likely it is to stay straight and be more solid. I’m happy with this choice, however again I had to modify the plans and extend the distance of the wheels from the angle so they would touch the track more.
The plans say to leave the screw connecting the wheels to the board loose, so the dolly can self correct to the track. I think it should be the other way around, and make the wheels firm so the track corrects to the dolly. I tried both and I like the latter, so the wheels are locked.
It’s manageable to be used by one person, but the thing I like about this design is it’s strong enough to have an operator stand on it and be pushed (unlike a clever Ikea dolly that’s been making the rounds).
In the picture you see I have a box of junk and motor on the dolly. I found the more weight on, the better the dolly runs (out of 16 wheels, about 10 make contact, so it needs a little boost). An operator on the platform would of course help.

I’ll post some video of the dolly in action when I get my main Mac back.

I call this an induction type project because once you see it’s doable, it definitely gets you thinking about other things you can build. The only problem I’ve come across with most plans online (mainly a jib, as that’d be the next thing I want to tackle) is their designed for small camcorders, not medium sized cameras.

I’ll see if I can rectify that.

Post Script – In trying to find the plans I used above, I came across a nice list of some DIY projects I hadn’t seen before on Film School Rigs and Mounts. Interesting projects include a car roof mount and Mini DV Underwater Housing.

Roger Rabbit’s Eyelines

Joey — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 01:55:50 +0000

via 37signals

No related posts.

RED: The Ultimate Guide Interview with Author Noah Kadner

Joey — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:22:12 +0000

Despite how long the RED camera has been out, RED: The Ultimate Guide to Using the Revolutionary Camera is one of the first books to tackle all the details of the camera. The author of the book, Noah Kadner, was cool enough to answer a few questions on his new book and the RED camera and future of film in general. He brings up a good point that while we can all get up in the technical aspects of moviemaking, it ultimately comes down to a great story. Enjoy!

If I get your book and know nothing about the RED camera, what level of expertise would I be at after reading it?

If you read the book from cover to cover you would gain a very solid level of knowledge about the RED workflow in production and post-production. You’d know the technical specifications of the camera, its history, how to put together a package at a variety of different budget levels and how to operate it both in terms of cinematography and data management. You’d also learn many different post-production workflows and methods for completing projects all the way through color correction, exhibition and even archiving projects.

Is your book just for cinematographers and camera people, or is it useful to producers and directors?

I wrote the book to be useful to everyone. It does have loads of useful information for serious cinematographers and camera people, but any time a term comes up that the average movie-goer might not know it’s defined and explained clearly. One of the big reasons I wrote the book was to help demystify the camera for directors and producers and even editors. These are critical decision makers who may be peripherally involved in actually using the camera but still want to understand how it all works.

Where do you feel the RED camera stands right now compared to the top end HD cinema cameras (Genesis, Arri D-21, Sony)?

It’s not for me to make a definitive technical comparison because if you search the web you can find literally dozens of camera tests with the RED and a variety of other HD cameras from some serious pros. I do think RED has most of the other cameras beat in two key areas- price and installed user base. Not only are your big guns from Sony, ARRI, Panavision, etc less affordable for the average production but the numbers of people who have hands-on experience or ownership are dramatically lower. That mean less free help from fellow users and also less 3rd party accessories. The other cameras are more big budget items at this point, excellent for what they do for those who can afford them but not mass market.

What about compared to film?

Comparing RED to film isn’t a simple matter either because there are so many factors to consider. Sure if you were to project a RAW R3D file from a RED ONE next to original 35mm camera negative on a 70 foot screen you might well see increased detail and latitude on the film. But what about the costs of negative stock, processing, telecine, negative cutting, release prints, etc. The RED has none of those hard costs, you can do all of the equivalent lab work yourself on the desktop. And in the end if the movie is well made most audiences will never know the difference.

I’ve been hearing different things such as the RED isn’t full 4k, and a lot of the numbers are hyped up for marketing reasons (and other elements are sacrificed to get that 4k number). I also learned that if you finish to 2k, the image is actually square, basically meaning the top and bottom are chopped off to a 1080 image (unless you shoot anamorphic). Can you clear some of this up or elaborate on what this means practically for productions.

This is something that a lot of the other camera makers have tried to gain traction with. RED is to date the only camera that saves its images as RAW 4K image files. Cameras like the Sony F-35 have a similar sized image sensor but down-sample the image in camera to a 1080p HD frame. So whether you want to make the argument that 4K is not really 4K is a matter of perception. Sure you could take a very fine grade scan of a 35mm negative at 4K and it might have more apparent resolution. But by the time it goes through a 2K process and back out to film the apparent differences begin to become indistinguishable in terms of resolution. Film negative has a more latitude to play with on the negative but again that advantage largely disappears when it goes out to film, DVD, Blu-ray etc.

As far as finishing to 2K or high-definition the RED ONE has many different aspect ratios you can shoot in, some are better suited to a film output and others optimized for HD. That’s one area I go over several times in the book- the importance of knowing where your movie will end up before you shoot so that you pick the most appropriate format to shoot in. The camera can shoot in 2:1, 16:9, anamorphic at a variety of different resolutions. Determining the best for a given project isn’t difficult but it does require some planning, which I outline thoroughly in the book’s pre-production sections.

I heard from a colorist that the RED raw files don’t have anywhere near the color space of film. Is this something DPs should be conscious of and does it mean more things have to be done right on set as far as color correction?

Just about any digital camera of today is going to have a bit less latitude than 35mm film but in the case of the RED I wouldn’t call it ‘nowhere near’ that of film. Maybe you have 20% less or something along those lines. I’ve watched a lot of color corrected RED footage and I can honestly say it looks pretty impressive. That’s also why it’s critical to use the onboard exposure tools like the zebras and waveform monitors so you know you’re not blocking up your shadow areas or blowing out your highlights. If you’re coming from most other HD or prosumer camcorders you’ll find out quickly RED has much more latitude than you’re used to right out of the box. And with the RAW workflow you can pull out amazing saves in post-production for shots that aren’t optimally exposed within the parameters of the camera.

Do you feel there’s a downside to being able to shoot more (such as more post-production time and money, longer production time)?

You could always take the tact that since you’re just recording images to a hard drive and not a physical piece of film you can run the camera much longer but a good filmmaker is a disciplined one. All the other hard costs involved with mounting a production still require you to stick to a schedule if you want to come in on budget. If anything it can save you money. Instead of calling action-cut and taking another 10 minutes to get setup for another take you can just have the actors go back and do the scene again while the camera continues to roll. One take gives you 3 takes and if you have it you can move on immediately instead of going for another take. If there’s any doubt, you just play the footage right back and check.

What major Hollywood film do you think has used the RED to its best potential? Worst?

Of the recent movies I’ve seen on RED I would have to say Knowing and District 9 have made the best use of RED. As far as its potential I think it says a lot that most people who went to see those movies had no idea which camera it was shot on or cared. Audiences got into it for the story or the actor or whatever it is that has always attracted people to a specific movie. And that’s sort of the point in the end. A lot of cameras that have come before also came with a lot of image compromises. Meaning you wouldn’t use them for a serious project if you had the money to afford 35mm film. It’s a democratizing technology much like the desktop publishing revolution of the ‘80s or the non-linear editing on the desktop revolution of the ‘90s. Now anyone who has a story can make a movie and they don’t have to make excuses for the way it looks.

What are your thoughts on the growing popularity of DSLRs being used for film work?

I think the concept of DSLRs that shoot high-definition video is a very exciting development and something that interests me a lot. So much so that I even started a blog about it- http://www.dslr-cinematography.com/

Cameras like the Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Nikon D300S are not ideal in terms of ergonomics or workflow but they allow you to use those very high quality still camera lenses. That means you can get great cinematic shallow depth of field and all the trappings of professional cinematography without the limitations of the small sensors and fixed lenses most prosumer camcorders bring.

Grilled Food Photography

Joey — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:41:45 +0000

So here’s one of the images from the food photography shoot. And here’s the lighting setup:

My main goal was to fill the image with as much soft light as possible. This setup is what I settled with later on. Main light behind the food, kind of low to rake across the sandwich and give it some texture. Even though that strobe is going through a baffle and the silk on the soft box, I added the extra diffusion to spread the light some more and even further soften it.

Later on I settled on using a small strobe through an umbrella as fill. Originally I created some fill cards (seen below the table) from some thick poster board scored down the center so it folds shut and forms a V. Had one on either side of the sandwich, leaving a gap for the lens. That worked pretty well, but the table was pretty small and it was hard keeping everything balanced. Plus it was nice to have some control to raise the fill light if needed.

The ‘seamless’ background was made from a few sheets of poster board taped to the table and clamped on a stand.

I had a pretty sweet tethered rig (first time I got it all set up) to the computer with a really awesome camera remote that I’ll write about separately.

As for photographing the food itself, let’s just say I’m sure food stylists are worth their weight in gold. There’s so many ridiculous and amazing ways to keep food looking great and to get cool effects (like a steamer for steam or spraying glue onto pancakes so they don’t get soggy from syrup) that someone who specializes in this would know. We went through a bunch of sandwiches and eventually figured ways to make things work and look good.

The biggest issue was sandwiches falling apart. Easy enough solution to just jab the back with a bunch of toothpicks.

I also found that food photography is all about the details. I would just get my fingers all in the sandwich and move pieces around until it looked its best.

All in all it was a fun day and I look forward to going back to the restaurant to see some large prints of the pictures.

If you’re ever in Vero Beach be sure to check them out and grab some yummy sandwiches at Grilligans.

Cheesy Photos

Joey — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:52:25 +0000

Heading back from Vero Beach after a grilled cheese photo shoot. It’s for Grilligans, this awesome resturaunt that makes a variety of grilled cheese sandwiches and delicious shakes (a perk of food photography is you get to try everything).

Here’s a teaser photo. I’ll have some lighting photos and final shots later on.

Jennifer’s Body Cinematography Journal

Joey — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 16:57:12 +0000

Great collection of posts by D.P. David Mullen, ASC on shooting Jennifer’s Body.

Getting the call: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=28929

During Prep and Production: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=29595

Nearing Release: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=40041

Lots of good tidbits on films getting greenlit and lighting how-to. Read through all of the Prep and Production board because David posts a recap for each week.

Also check out photog Todd Hido’s work which was used as a reference.

On lighting for suspense:

Obviously more shadows in the frame allows the audience to use its imagination and fill-in the missing information. But darkness can be just as suspenseful as a well-lit image can be…

Suspense is all about providing the audience with enough information that they anticipate something happening (usually something bad, but there can be happy suspense too — “will she marry me?” “will I get the job?”)

But you can provide that information in advance of a dark scene (“the monster is hiding in that dark warehouse” — hey, it worked great in “I Am Legend”) so that once the character enters the dark space, the audience is expecting something to happen — that’s suspense, but it also allows for surprises to happen.

For example, in “Alien” when Ripley, Ash, and the captain enter the darkened sick bay because the face hugger has disappeared, that’s suspenseful because they don’t know where it went but they know (and the audience knows) that it must be somewhere in the room. When Tom Skerritt knocks over that cannister and creates a loud bang, that’s a surprise. When the face hugger (though dead) drops down from the ceiling and starts dangling behind Ripley’s back, then dropping on her shoulder, that’s suspense with a bit of surprise.

As for handheld versus smooth dolly moves, that’s just an energy thing, what sort of emotional energy are you conveying. Handheld has a more nervous quality, more human — it seems to react to things happening in the space. But all that movement can also make it harder to see things happening, which may or may not be good.

Checking lighting with a DSLR:

I’ve been using my DSLR (Nikon 40X) as a quick double-check on my exposure choices — it is particularly helpful in night situations, but it is only a rough indication of the final effect…

I light with my meter, get a final exposure, then take a digital snapshot — 90% of the time, it just shows me what I expect to see… but sometimes I see the photo and decide to change a few things in the frame. Since I have a lot of dark underexposed night scenes in this movie, the digital snapshot is one method of making sure I’m not underexposing or conversely, overlighting, too much.

I find though that the digital photo is not completely reliable — depending on whether I’m daylight or tungsten balance, or in a bright day room or a dark night room, it seems to come out a little darker or brighter than what my meter says. This is partly due to the lower dynamic range of the digital still photo, so windows and practicals are hotter in the photo, but also, sometimes shadows are plugging up faster in the digital photo.

Great shots from his DSLR with descriptions of the lighting behind them: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=29595&view=findpost&p=225750

Where the Wild Lensbabies Are

Joey — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:13:26 +0000

I remember when The Diving Bell and the Butterfly came out one teacher said, “the cinematography will make you jiz your pants.”

I always thought that would be a pretty sweet compliment to receive for an image you create, and Diving Bell was quite stunning (though after viewing my pants remained dry).

Fast forward to a few days ago, with me messing around with the EX1, and I wondered what it would look like if you put a Lensbaby on a video camera through a 35mm adapter. (Lensbabies are these cool little 35mm lenses that let you control the bellows, so you can get very selective focus and do all kinds of weird things, like make landscapes look like miniatures)

So I’m unpacking my ridicoulsy heavy box of magazines I refused to toss when I left Tallahassee, and I have an unopened American Cinematographer magazine from January of 2008 (it’s off their website now, but it’s the There Will Be Blood issue).

So in one of the smaller articles, it talks about the cinematography of Diving Bell and guess what – they used a Lensbaby to shoot practically the entire first third of the movie. Apparently Lensbaby makes a motion picture camera mountable lens for this type of work. So now I know what a Lensbaby on film looks like.

Kaminski and Diving Bell use it well, but I’ve been looking at some other footage and at times it can look really, really cool, while other times it looks like a cheesy 80s filter.

In other cool articles from around the web, the NY Times Magazine had a great feature article on Spike Jonze and his upcoming Where the Wild Things Are.

Like all NY Times articles, it goes beyond the film and is basically a biography of Spike Jonze, all his past work, and how he came to be doing a $100 million studio film. There’s also a lot of good stuff on the workings of Hollywood and how Jonze has been able to do what he wants while still being part of the Hollywood system.

Cinematography – Biblio Film School

Cherries Falling in Slow Motion

Joey — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:56:35 +0000

Sony EX1 Slow Motion Test from Joey Daoud on Vimeo.

I know what’s been keeping you up at night. You’ve been wondering, if you have a Sony EX1, what settings get you the best looking slow motion: shooting 720 60p or 720 30p with S&Q at 60?

Well, lose sleep no more because I did all the guess work for you…with cherries.

In the above video I did some motion tests with different settings on the EX1 (which I’m in love with) because I knew it was able to do slow motion, I just wasn’t sure how.

I did it in my kitchen because that’s what kitchens are for.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, that’s cool too. In a nutshell, you film something at 24 (film) or 30 (video) frames per second (like taking 24 or 30 pictures a second), and when you play it back at that speed everything looks normal. Shoot the same thing at 48, 72, 96, etc. frames per second, play it back at 24 fps and now everything is epically slow.

With film it’s just a matter of having a camera fast enough to run the film through it at a high enough speed. With digital you need hardware that can record all the data fast enough, and that’s still being developed. The EX1 can record up to 60 fps but at a lower resolution than it’s fully capable of (720 lines of resolution versus the full 1080 HD).

You can also slow down footage on the computer, but it never looks as good as shooting it in true slow motion (you can see a comparison in the video).

What I would really love to play with is the Phantom High Speed camera. This is what they use on Mythbusters and Planet Earth. 1000 fps! They even have one camera that can do 1,000,000 fps, however the image would be about the size of a post stamp. I also did the math, and to play back one second of time shot at 1,000,000 fps would take more than 9 hours. I think that’s longer than watching paint dry.

But for something more exciting than drying paint, here’s a shark attacking a fake seal.

Dolphin Bay – Video

Joey — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 15:02:34 +0000

Dolphin Bay from Joey Daoud on Vimeo.

A few weeks back when I went up to the film school to take pictures at their Gala, I was invited to tag along to go swimming with dolphins and film it. Um, awesome.

Gabrielle has been swimming with this same pod off the coast of Panama City since she was four. They’re completely wild dolphins and they love to hang out in this area and check everyone out. I think it was as much fun for them as it was for us.

Before anyone goes off on how there’s some law against this or you’re not supposed to touch them (even if they rub right up against you), I’d like to point out that Fish and Wildlife Management was in the area, and they did come to us only to tell us that our diving flag needed to be higher so boat wouldn’t run over us as we swam with the dolphins.

I should probably insert some bit here on how you should see The Cove. I haven’t seen it yet, but I only hear great things, so I’m sure it’s good. But you should watch my video first.

I shot this on a Sony EX1, Flip Ultra HD, and Flip Ultra SD in a Flip underwater case. That was a whole fiasco.

So I had less than 2 days to sort out the camera stuff. First I looked into getting an underwater case for the EX1. I found a rental house that had an EWA-Marine splash bag and would give me a good deal. On their website they said it was rated to go down to 10 feet underwater. As I was finalizing the details at the rental house, he asks “Are you going underwater with this?” Yeah, that’s why I want it.

“That’s not such a good idea. We have no way of testing these things and they’re only good for splashes or brief submersion.” So the underwater bag doesn’t do so well underwater. And any of the larger housings were at least $600 a day. So the EX1 going underwater was out.

Then I found that the Flip had an underwater case. But here’s where it gets complicated. There’s the Flip First Generation camera (which I have), and the Flip Ultra Second Gen available in both HD and SD. The housing on Flip’s site is only for 2nd Gen cameras. The housing on Amazon and everywhere else (which isn’t that much) is only for 1st Gen.

I had been wanting to get the Flip HD, so I figured I would get that and the newer underwater case designed for it, and have an HD underwater camera. Logical? Yes. But in Flip world, they like to flip logic upside down.

When I said no one carries the newer case (or even the older one), I mean no one carries it. I called every camera and electronics store from Miami to Orlando. Overnighting it would have been just as much as the case, which just seemed wrong, plus there was no guarantee I would get it in time.

I finally found a store in Orlando that said they could special order it in time.

“The Flip Ultra case for the newer cameras?”

“Yes, right here it says Flip Ultra.”

Great. So I stop off in Orlando as I’m driving up to Tallahassee and pick-up the case (I also picked up a Flip HD).

When I get to Tallahassee I try it out with the HD. The case barely closes.

With a lot of force I can get it down, but then once locked it pops open. I then try it out with my older Flip and it fits perfectly. Upon looking at the box I realize that the older Flips were also called Ultras and this in fact was a first generation case. Fuck.

So that’s how I ended up with all three cameras going, and no HD underwater footage. As for usage, the case works great with the proper camera. You can access every button via the case.

After about an hour of on/off submerssion, I realized there was some moisture in the case. It didn’t do anything to the camera, but I wiped it down and let it dry out for a bit. I don’t know if this is because the housing is just not that great or the seal got ruined when I tried to squeeze the HD camera in there. So for the rest of the time I would just squueze the housing when it was underwater and that seemed to work.

The biggest issue is the lack of weight. You’re underwater, waves beating you, trying not to drown, and you have this super light camera designed to float to the surface. So everything is super shaky, as you can see in the video. In the future I’ll try to attach some sort of weight to it and figure out how to stabilize it and myself.

So that’s my Flip woes and warning. I’m going to call them and see if they’ll sort this out, because the store can’t take it back since it was special ordered.

This trip did inspire me to get SCUBA certified, which I figured would be a good skill to have in South Beach for underwater photography and cinematography.

Cinematographe, A History [Video]

Joey — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 01:37:46 +0000

Found this short, condensed history of the creation of cinematography. For something so short it’s pretty thorough. It has a lot of the famous first things ever shot, as well as the original cameras (or pretty good reproductions). Then it kind of becomes a joke when they try to condense modern filmmaking into the span of a minute. And they skipped over the discovery of the concept of editing, which always blows my mind to think of editing as something that had to be discovered.

I would love to know what that crazy German commercial is that they show filming in the opening.