SI2K in Western Australia.

[Bob Hart]

Tropfest 1 was locked off last night and will be submitted today.


The director Andrew Pheasant is very pleased with the ability of SI2K footage to be graded. His wife, an artist was moved to comment favourably on the tonal range.


Tropfest 2 is offering a bit more of a challenge. The time limit is 7 minutes and there is 10 minutes of fairly tight assembly. Director Ed Love is anguishing over taking the scalpel to it and yet retain the pacing and emotional essence of the story.

The vision looks heaps better than I thought I had any right to expect, given the limited indoors lighting resources - available daylight spill and two 450watt tungsten equivalent household CFLs in old Photax photoflood parabolic reflector lamps with gels.


10/10 SI, though our skills and resources do not match.

[Bob Hart]

First the sad news. The two shorts did not make the cut for Tropfest. 2010.

Second. We have been having a play with the SI2K system for 3D at its most basic, two camera heads on a bar, two recorder units mounted onto a plate which has a leg on it which goes into a vacant seat hole on the Elemack.

The Mini heads and bar and just one VGA touch screen went on the end of a Movietech crane on the Elemack. The other touch screen stayed with the second recorder unit. The single screen was there for viewfinding. Control was via a handgrip run button and the sync box.

Two quick and dirty versions of a clip rendered by me from Premiere Pro 2 are on youtube here :-


YouTube - 3D TEST ANAGLYPH.wmv

YouTube - 3D TEST 50LB.wmv


One is double-view (crosseyed) viewing, the other an anaglyph render.

There is very much a lot to learn about post with 3D.


The camera heads are not matched, one is an early version (LEDs in row across top of rear), the other about 12 months old, (LEDs on rear in a row down right side.


If you mount two recorder units near to each other like we did, take care to separate the airflows around them with a dividing panel between them otherwise they may ingest each other's hot air and overheat. This also happens with through-wall mounted airconditioner units.

[Bob Hart]

The Darling Films SI2K got a workout last weekend on a short feature shot over two long days last weekend, the worktitled "Two Minds".

The factory unit was hot and lots of water drunk. The camera temp went up to 72 degrees but the only problem encountered was a corrupt clip due to the camera being double-buttoned on button-off and was rolling when shut off at the power switch, not a good thing to do to it.

[Bob Hart]

The camera op. is not me. The young fit little *%# ran around operating that thing all day and most of one night for three days. I was knucklewalking at the end of it.

If only I could slough off age and attrituion like the hide of a snake I would be happy. Alas I have to make do with being a "character".

[Bob Hart]

A play with the SI2K in W.A..

On set stills from the short film "TWO MINDS'
Producer: Andrew Napier
Director" Damien Giglietta
1st AD: Johnny Ma
DOP: George Davis

Behnd the scenes pics ex-the facebook shot by Johnny Ma.


Images 01 and 02. It might seem a chore but really only takes a moment. Always mark focus points with one of these and you won't go astray.

Image 03. Nobody does blood, guts and brains seeing the light of day like FX specialist Freena Hamilton, so if you are here in the West doing a shoot and need all sorts of FX and make-up, give her a call.

Image 04. A contradiction in terms, top gear P+S-built camera-recorder, Ex-Europe, top gear Chroszeil follow-focus, Ex-Europe, Budget Cine-city "Jumbo" mattebox, Ex-Chandrigagh India, all working as they should.


FOOTNOTE:

I just got to play with a beta of an updated DVR. For product confidence reasons, I won't go into details about the new feature set except to use the Aussie words which say something is very good - "it is the duck's guts".

The following is probably not a fair comment to make and probably quite provocative but

If the RED is not yet similarly featured and as turnkey user-friendly to feature production with light crews, it might be a case of RED being dead in bed. That is probably going a bit too far. The RED still has more pixels even if they are harder to muster down the pipe.

I must drag my old no-name editing computer and its broken legged coffeetable stand down to the next shoot and start editing the 2K rushes on set to make a point, just because I can.

[Bob Hart]

Copied from the facebook for West Aussie readers.

BOOTLEG- written and directed by Johnny Ma, nominated for two WA screen awards (cinematography S.P. Becker and sound Jon Jenkin) is being screened this friday tomorrow along with

TRESPASS, directed by Damien Giglietta (shot on the SI2K) and

THE DEAD WASTES (believed to have been shot on the RED) and Love thy Zombie (hilarious zombie spoof), directed by Wade K. Savage. ( I can personally attest to "Love Thy Zombie" being entertainingly watchworthy ).

Come along and supprt upcoming local film makers!!!A night of inspiring Films, food and drinks

Location:FTI cinema at 92 Adelaide Street Freo.
Time:7:00PM Friday, February 26th

Added: FTI is on www.fti.asn.au and I think is phone 93351055.

[Bob Hart]

The end-product of this no-budget Tropfest entry can be seen here :-


YouTube - First Person Shooter

For first time director, Ed Love, this was a learning adventure with a steep coal face. The story had heart.


The final production vision looks very flat. The original camera files looked much better. One day, I might talk Ed into doing another HD edit from the original files, properly colour-graded. Due to the deadline looming and some things needing changing, Ed had to do another final edit in SD from the VTS files of the DVD-Video disk he had been given as the end-product to send in.

Given more time, I would like to have made a helmet mount for the mini head and used it as a POV camera for the videogame-in-dream sequence. However available time and resources did not permit.

Hand-holding the heavy SI2K recorder unit/camera out in front like a handycam and trying to do an over-the-shoulder follow was a little bit difficult for an old codger. At that time I did not have a side-finder otherwise I would most certainly have used it.

The final sequence in the park on the rock was a desperate rush against fading light. The high overhead POV was forced by the location, - all houses and streets behind when the setting was meant to be bushland. This was achieved not by a ladder or elevator, there wasn't any to be had with no budget, so desperate measures came into play.

The camera head was gaffered onto the foot-end of a redhead light stand. The lamp spigot just happened to be a neat fit into the tripod-handle hole of an old Miller head which was tilted almost to its limit to get the pole about 80 degrees towards vertical. The three legs on the stand made it rather difficult when doing the reverse in-the-tree shot.

Needless to say, the whole ten-minute cobble-up was uncontrollable, which is why the father-son hug thing near the end was so rough.

The teenager's bedroom was tight to work in. We were not to move stuff outside. As the sun went down the light did change and somebody turned on the ceiling fan when things got hot - with my light still gaffered to it.

Lighting was poverty chic. CFLs in two old portrait-studio photoflood parabolic reflectors, two garage worklights, some blue gels to calm them down a bit.

I had given the director the pre-emptive advice about the ethos of not starving his volunteer crew. However when he sprung for our vittels and we bogged right in, after a minute or so, we observed he and his lead actor sat off a short distance away starving themselves and we felt a bit churlish. - It was a genuine no-budget shoot. It was a sweet story which deserved a lot better treatment than we were able to give it.

I came in on it after the young actor who helped with "Fox Featherweight", "Seeking Closure" and "I Belong To The Shadows" suggested the director approach me when his original cameraman bailed.

I felt obligated to my actor who volunteered on the other shoots as this one would help his showreel. What I did not know was that he had resigned from the project because of work and school committments otherwise I would not have taken this on. His replacement came on board with just 24 hours to learn the part and after having moved from interstate with his family.

Please be gentle. I have never made claims to being a competent cameraman and know even less about lighting.

[Bob Hart]

Here in the west, today - a different adventure.


We took two SI2K camera/recorder units up to a high school which offers a media option for its students. The purpose was to demo the cameras and to practice hooking up sound via a MixPre and setting levels.

November/December over two days, I will be directing a short for showreels of two actors who have assisted pro-bono on several projects.

One of the students will assist as boomswinger/sound mixer, the other will undertake a third supporting acting role. Others may be there as observers, one teacher will be crewing either as camera assistant or camera operator, the other as assistant and tutor/chaperone.

It is sobering to consider that by the time the most committed of these young people attaches professionally to a project, our cameras, maybe even the ARRI Alexa will be obsolete relics, the speed at which technology is advancing.

David Newman, CTO at Cineform, whose codec is at the core of the SI2K system, in the days of his youth schooled at W.A.I.T., which became Curtin University, here in Western Australia. It is good to be able to name drop locals who have gone on to make good at the forefront of their particular specialty.

Will post furthur on this topic as it evolves.

[Bob Hart]

Went out to Christmastree Well south of Perth today with owner of a campervan who wanted to give it a drive to see if anything was going to fall off. Took the camera in case anything interesting stuck its head up.

I expected to see a racehorse goanna but was too slow powering up the camera to pick off the one we did see immediately, so had to make do with frogs in the dam assassinating mosquito larvae and some Carnaby's black cockatoos.

Here's the happy snaps from the moving vision.

Lens. Angenieux "Compact" zoom 17 -75.

Got home and found I had a bush tick near my left eye in one of the roadmap wrinkles like an old bobtail goanna.


1. 2.
3. 4.

1. Black cockatoo pair.
2. Black cockatoo "sitting nit" ( on watch) while partner has a bit of a chew in the leaves to left out of frame.
3. Open dugout pond.
4. Open dugout pond.

Yeah, I know - I am a slack cameraman. I should have moved until the cockie was in the skypatch but the trip was on a time limit and to prove the car.

The Carnabys cockatoos mate for life. Due to habitat loss and land clearing, they are likely doomed because in addition to habitat loss, illegal birders and smugglers chop open the nest trees and the birds, likely to not find a suitable new one - ( hollowed and rotted out in just the right way with an overhang ) - just won't breed and just grow old together.

The dugout dam may be for fire-fighting water source. The government well is about 30 metres distant.

[Bob Hart]

We had our first shoot day for "Bail On Me".

Here's some grabs. Images are not graded yet. Gavan, our DOP is going for a depressing flouro colour look of juvey detention centre or lockup.

1.2.
3.4.
5.6.

Brendon in pre-court interview.
Brendon enraged in holding cell.
Clare the caseworker.
Clare the caseworker doorshadow reveal.
Paul the unkindly warder.
Unrelated - Holodomor Memorial Service. ( Shot on EX1 as roving cam. Main cam SI2K.)

[Alex Raskin]

Lenses used?

[Bob Hart]

Lenslist :-


CP Ultra T* 9mm, 12.5mm, 16mm, 25mm.
Angenieux 17mm - 75mm zoom.
Kinoptik 5.7mm in confined workspace.


Sound via Rode NTG-1. Mix-Pre.

[Alex Raskin]

I meant, lens in correlation to the thumb # above, such as...

1: xxx (like CP Ultra 12.2mm)
2: yyy

etc...

[Bob Hart]

Alex.

Now you've got me. As writer and director ( although missing in action a fair bit of the time due to security issues within the location ) I went big on faith with my crew so the details are not burned in. So there are vague recollections.

1. 12.5mm CP Ultra T*.
2. 16mm CP Ultra T*
3. 16mm CP Ultra T*
4. 17mm - 70mm Angenieux zoom at 22mm. - for stylised montage.
5. 16mm CP Ultra T*

6. Holodomor memorium is extra-curricular on Sony EX 1. Lighting conditions, early twilight. Lens at about Z30 wide-open.

[Alex Raskin]

Thanks Bob.

Why not shoot everything with your Angenieux zoom, though. From a brief look, it appears the sharpness equals CP primes?