Trying to shoot a narrative film on a Canon 7D requires overcoming a lot of compromises but once you get it all working right the results can be pretty impressive.
Honorable mentions for pic of the day (gotta make up for missing the last few days):
So tonight I went to an outdoor screening of two short films, one of which happened to be the first public screening of “Middle of Nowhere” which I shot with director and old classmate Michael Carreño almost a year ago. And it happened to take place at Space 15 Twenty adjacent to Umami Burger right across from the good old L.A. Film School.
This was the tastiest burger I’ve ever eaten in my life, and that is saying a lot considering how many hamburgers I’ve eaten in my life (what can I say, burgers are my favorite food!) — I highly recommend it to all burger connoisseurs.
It was great to reconnect with all the actors and crew and also the space — I hadn’t actually been to Space 15 Twenty since it was just a bunch of old run down warehouses where we shot a lot of After Midnight. Back then it was dirty and full of homeless poo… now it’s full of hipsters, haha.
After far too much delay and procrastination, I have finally gotten around to updating my cinematography reel which I had neglected for over two years, and really, I’ve shot a lot of good stuff since then. So this week I finally buckled down and just put something… anything together to better showcase my improved skills and hopefully get me some more better work in the near future.
And so here it is, now on Vimeo and available in HD!
Despite all kinds of claims to the contrary, shooting in 24p with a 35mm lens adapter with prime lenses will not make your digital video images look like film.
The best way to get “film look” is to shoot on film. Of course, this is somethign that I (and many others) have been saying for a while now but last night I got quite a rude re-awakening on this.
Last night, “Returning“, a short film I produced and shot screened at the L.A. Shorts Festival. It was shot on a Panasonic DVX100 (provided by my friend Brian) with a Red Rock M2 35mm lens adapter and a set of Nikon prime lenses. Not exactly current state of the art equipment, I know, but it was what we could get.
At this particular festival, the allowed submission formats are 35mm film print and standard definition video on DigiBeta tape. “Returning” had the unfortunate honor of being the first film in its program to be projected in standard definition video after the first film was shot on 35mm and projected from a film print.
Yikes. The transition from film to standard definition video made my eyes hurt. But it was so much more than that. The depth and richness of color… the contrast… there’s so much more to the look of film than just the resolution, latitude and depth of field, and last night was quite a vivid reminder of that for me for sure.
