On April 9th, Leave it to Chance premieres at the Performing Arts Center in San Luis Obispo. It's a full length romantic comedy produced by students at Cal Poly university. For more information, visit http://www.leaveittochance.info.

Nice website. I liked the look you got from the XL1, some of the shots are very filmic indeed.

You're going to sell it on DVD?

Thanks. It was shot on an XL2, not XL1s, although we did have an XL1s on set for a making-of documentary.

The 'film-look' was contributed to by the XL2's settings, as well as an extensive post-production process that included a ton of corrections for every shot and an HD upconvert.

After the premiere and a festival tour, it will be available on a special edition DVD that will include the film, the documentary, directors commentary, deleted scenes, and hopefully a few other featurettes.

The trailer available right now was the initial teaser trailer. Check back soon, as I believe a brand new trailer will be uploaded sometime today or tomorrow.

This looks excellent. Were you a videographer on the set? I wish you the best of luck. The trailer was awesome.

Dave-
Thanks. My duties included Director of Photography and Visual Effects Supervisor. Glad you enjoyed the trailer.

Looks good. Seems like a pretty clean video.

How long will the final cut be?

Oddly enough it made me think of sixteen candles... I think I'll go watch it now.

Looks great!.................I'm in town and I'll be there Fri. night!




best of luck



Scott Grocott

Scott-

Thanks for the compliments. Actually, the premiere is Saturday night (April 9th) at 7pm. If you do make it, make sure to say hello.

Benjamin Kantor

Looks fun! I'm jealous I'm not still a student at Cal Poly so I could go check that out,...I'll let my brother in law who works at the performing arts center know about in case he hasn't heard about it already...

The one problem with the trailer is that it didn't have any clear shots of SLO!

First of all, the end shot of the lift cam was amazing. Some scenes were awesome. There are some thiings which make this trailer amateur. The little camera shake I noticed on the beginning shot in the streets. And I like the way the girls acted. Sounded real to me, but the acting of the boys ...could be better there. I also noticed something with the audio. I could instantly hear, even with my eyes closed, that the audio needed a profesional touch. Try to use more audio effects to get more of a film-like audio. It is not only in the quality of the video...also in the audio. The video was great, but trailer lacked profesional audio editing. Better acting maybe?. How many camera did you use?

Jose-

I agree that audio was our weak point. However, it is consistent enough that if you're watching the film in a theatre, it isn't distracting or terribly noticeable.

We used a single XL2 in all but one shooting day, where we borrowed a second. An XL1s was on set at all times for making-of footage.


-Benjamin Kantor

Just wondering if you used any pro mist filters at all... I saw you had these for sale and was wondering how you liked them... By the trailer, I couldn't tell you used any... thanks and nice job

Craig-

None of the shots in the trailer had pro mist filters. I only used them for certain scenes. Overall, I'd say they're nice, and produce an interesting effect, but it's important to only use them if you have a good reason, and not just for the sake of sticking another piece of glass in front of the lens. That's my experience, anyway.

Thanks,

Benjamin

Cool thanks

How did you get such a film-like exposure on the exteriors? It was even suggested in another thread that they must have been greenscreened, but I really doubt that. So how did you pull it off? Video normally looks like hell in direct sunlight.

Marco-

No, they weren't green-screened. The exposure on the exteriors can be mainly attributed to three things: a polarization filter, the XL2's cine settings, and bringing the highlights down in post. The biggest of these things by far is the polarization filter.


-Benjamin Kantor

Probably the best results with XL2 i have seen so far on this website.
Congratulations.

It is really great for me to see such results with an XL2 (which i will rent in 2 weeks). Now i know that i must use polarization filter ;-)
Bytheway: which brand did you used ?


I'm still confused if i'll buy an XL2 or wait for the HVX200...

Keep your good work :-)

Jon-

Thanks. I used a Tiffen 4x4 circular polarizer with the Chrosziel mattebox. And although the HVX is very exciting, it's still five months away. I'd say go with the XL2 if you're shooting stuff now.


-Benjamin Kantor

how did you record the audio by the way. I was just looking for more footage made with xl2 and xl2's. Thanks.

Jose-

We used an Azden boom mic and a Shure lavalier system, both tied in via XLR to the camera.


-Benjamin Kantor