Corporate Spots with A1/Red Rock

[M. Gene Hoffman]

Hey Guys,
Here are a couple of corporate spots that we just finished doing for Novell.
Let me know what you think- the first spot has a bunch of greenscreen work in it, which worked out awesomely. This camera rocks for chromakey.

http://www.stnfx.com/vid/vid_1b.mov
http://www.stnfx.com/vid/vid_2b.mov

-M

[Marcel D. Van Someren]

Very nice!

What framerate did you shoot in? Also, what software did you use for the greenscreen work? It's very clean!

I've done some greenscreen work in the past and I'm anxious to try it with my new A1 so any advice you have to get clean comps like that is appreciated.

-M

[Gregory Boyd]

AWSOME WORK!!!
Thanks for sharing. My next project....."Greenscreen" ((cheez'n))

Greg

[Paul Mailath]

Terrific!

That first one with the baby knocked my socks off - I can't pick it. The other two I can tell but I can't tell why I can tell (if that makes sense)

[M. Gene Hoffman]

Thanks everybody, they were fun to do. There are actually six greenscreen shots in the piece. The first is when the lady says "good job everyone, see ya next week." We forgot to shoot that line on location so we brought her in studio and comped her into some footage from the shoot. The hotel guy is comped into a modified stock photo of a hotel room, and the hawaii girl and everyone else in that shot are comped into a modified stock photo as well. My favorite is the 3d bush to the left in the hawaii shot- I think the motion helps sell it.

We shot it in 24p. The whole shoot was done to disk via component and a Blackmagic Intensity card. Captured to the Apple ProRes 422 codec. We have done some very nice keys with standard HDV footage though too. After Effects and keylight were the software.

Another cool thing was the use of dvGarage's Conduit Live. We planned and setup the shots with a very nice live composite via Conduit, so we could place stuff exactly where we wanted it, and make sure the green was working right instead of guessing.

-M

[Taj Jackson]

Awesome work. Can I ask what lenses you used and the size and speed. Also what was your lighting setup for both pieces. :-)

[Jim Miller]

very nice work!

[M. Gene Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Taj Jackson

Awesome work. Can I ask what lenses you used and the size and speed. Also what was your lighting setup for both pieces. :-)

We mostly used a 50 at 1.4 and a 85 at 1.8. They are Canon FD lenses. The 85 we got used at a Salvation Army-type store for like 5 bucks. :) We also used a 24, but only for one shot.

The lighting was a bunch of kino's and some 2k's for sunlight.

-M

[Doug Davis]

I loved it... Great work....

[Julian Shapiro]

Absolutely amazing.

Were you using a particular board-available preset such as VividRGB (obviously not, though) or TrueColor? Or, if not, could you possibly please upload your settings file? The colors looked fantastic. (Btw, I'm talking about the indoors office table scene)

[Taj Jackson]

Originally Posted by Julian Shapiro

Absolutely amazing.

Were you using a particular board-available preset such as VividRGB (obviously not, though) or TrueColor? Or, if not, could you possibly please upload your settings file? The colors looked fantastic. (Btw, I'm talking about the indoors office table scene)

I second that request :-)

[M. Gene Hoffman]

Originally Posted by Julian Shapiro

Absolutely amazing.

Were you using a particular board-available preset such as VividRGB (obviously not, though) or TrueColor? Or, if not, could you possibly please upload your settings file? The colors looked fantastic. (Btw, I'm talking about the indoors office table scene)

The color correction was done with Magic Bullet Looks and FCP's 3 way color corrector.

The color profile is Flat Cine, which I came up with early last year as a way to try to get the maximum dynamic range out of the camera. The result is an extremely boring, flat image that rolls off more like film does, and retains much more usable information in the blacks. So, you expose for highlights during shooting, and then color correct and crush the blacks in post to get the desired look. It's a lot more flexible in color correction this way, there's just more information there because you haven't already crushed the blacks to an unusable state. And you can do shoulder adjustments in post to keep the highlights from blowing out.

This all just helps it feel more filmy. I come from a film compositing background, so this is the workflow I am used to with cineon files etc.

I will post the preset when I am back in the studio on Monday.

-M

[Kevin Janisch]

Hi M,

Would you mind sharing the Flat Cine Preset?

Kevin

[Julian Shapiro]

Originally Posted by M. Gene Hoffman

The color correction was done with Magic Bullet Looks and FCP's 3 way color corrector.

The color profile is Flat Cine, which I came up with early last year as a way to try to get the maximum dynamic range out of the camera. The result is an extremely boring, flat image that rolls off more like film does, and retains much more usable information in the blacks. So, you expose for highlights during shooting, and then color correct and crush the blacks in post to get the desired look. It's a lot more flexible in color correction this way, there's just more information there because you haven't already crushed the blacks to an unusable state. And you can do shoulder adjustments in post to keep the highlights from blowing out.

This all just helps it feel more filmy. I come from a film compositing background, so this is the workflow I am used to with cineon files etc.

I will post the preset when I am back in the studio on Monday.

-M

Genius idea. May I second Kevin's request and kindly ask that you share that file? I'll give you a few lollipops and cigars in return! ;-)

[Julian Shapiro]

Ahh, he already set he'd post on Monday. Sorry that I missed that line!

Btw, I'm referring to the preset that was used in your second commercial (the one with the 3d moving papers).

Thanks again!

P.S. You've almost single-handedly re-inspired me about the capabilities of the XHA1.