Back in NYC

Work last week had me back in New York City for the fourth time since November – that's a personal record for those keeping tabs. The first time I was in NY was summer 2002 while on tour with a music group from college and both work and personal travel have kept me going back over the years. I swear I’m slowing getting more and more familiar with the city.

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Days one and four of this most recent trip were travel days. Days two and three were spent wearing dress blacks and shooting b-roll of a corporate event in downtown Brooklyn. Crazy thanks to Rik & Heather at Rusty Dog Films for having me out again. They run a Chicago based production house and I’ve shot for them several times over the last couple years.

The now beardless David Bizzaro and I met up once I got in town and dropped off my luggage (Side note: go check out his short "The Pits" finally out on Vimeo). We hung out and got coffee near his office space in Dumbo and ended up watching a couple guys choreographing a sword fight with plastic light sabers.

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Afterwards he left for home and I trekked into Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge walkway, dodging selfie taking tourists, runners, and bicyclists along the way. David and I met up again with along with his wife in Washington Square Park and then went for dinner at a German spot in the West Village. That night had me falling for this part of the city and spending most of my free time there chasing food and non-tourist traps the rest of the four day trip.

The morning before my flight home got me re-connected with Ed Gungor. He was a pastor, mentor, and boss of mine while I was in Tulsa for undergrad and grad school. He and his wife Gail now live in NYC to be close to their kids/grandkids in the city as well as finish up his Ph.D.

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As an outsider who's spending more and more time in New York City, it feels like a place that's absolutely fine with different ideas. There's the smoosh of all kinds of people getting on and off the subway. There's the huge metal and concrete skyscrapers within walking distance to nice parks with grass and trees. I saw a homeless guy take a full-on piss facing the curb not far from the open air restaurant full of trust fund kids. That neighborhood sex shop was just as accepting as the children's bookstore and fresh squeezed juice place it sat between. The more I'm there, the more it feels like the kind of place I'd want to be part of.

A Lighting Test

So this was a different thing. By far the most moody and stylized projects I’ve done to date verses what normally fills up my hard drives. I’ve been sitting on a couple reference images for a long time that I absolutely wanted to use but for one reason or another hadn't gotten around to shooting. The whole idea was wrapped around lighting, body structure, and direction. Well, that and my thing of always wanting to do stuff and a goal to post to my blog at least once a week this year.

In putting a treatment together – or at least a look book – I dug through a ton of references I’d already had stored away. I’ve also been listening to a TON of Anderson .Paak so I knew his music would be playing a major part. By the way, I'm awful at coming up with titles, so ignore the "Graceful Strength" part if you download the look book. This whole thing was more about a lighting test than anything proper. The footage from this film is available for licensing over at Filmsupply.

There were also the self-imposed restrictions of a simple background, using my own equipment (short a couple c-stands and apple boxes), and keeping the talent either seated or lying down. I’d love to talk about my incredible studio space with all its incredible amenities, nice leather couches, and cases of LaCroix Sparkling Water, but instead I’ll show you my bedroom where I pushed everything up against the walls before the shoot and then reset before Anne the Wife got home.

Initially another model was lined up but reached out to someone else due to scheduling conflicts. Madison Bready is an OU student I met years ago and worked with a few times recently. Turns out Madi was absolutely the right person for the shoot. Cynthia Dreier is a makeup artist I’ve worked with on quite a few projects and she killed it in making sure Madi looked her best and kept us on track during the shoot. Did I mention Madi is an OU student, because we only had like 90 minutes to do makeup and shoot everything in between her classes that afternoon. Oh, and did I mention I was super happy with what we got? Because dang…

Gear-wise, we shot with my RED Weapon Helium at 8k, 60 fps, 2:1 aspect ratio, and 15:1 compression through my Zeiss CP.2 len set (25, 35, & 50). I'd also set my white balance to 4500k to warm up the tungsten light and white backdrop – along with her skin tones and haircolor. That being said, all the footage in the edit is straight out of camera; I didn't do any additional color work to the footage (or still frames). I also tried a step printing technique shooting at 8 fps and a 360° shutter angle, but it was at the last couple minutes of the shoot and I wasn’t really happy with the footage; I should’ve shot closer to 4 fps. For lighting, I setup an Arri 650 head through a couple scrims and two layers of diffusion. A bunch of black fabric hung on camera right helped control the spill. I’d roughed in the lighting setup using a styrofoam head on a light stand before the talent got there.

Post-wise, I knew the 8k files were going to be a monster. We shot about 325 GB of footage which isn’t nuts with my camera package, but honestly it’s a pain to edit such large files. Adobe Premiere on my Mac Pro setup will handle it like a champ, but having to lower the playback resolution to 1/8 or 1/16 just to just slog through the .R3D files is like tying that champ’s arm behind his back before going into a fight. I’d worked with offline edits WAY the hell back in the days of SD footage and tape decks, but this simple YouTube tutorial pretty much changed my workflow and is keeping me from looking so longingly at those fancy Alexa Minis and their blissful 4k sensor sizes.

Music is always the hardest part for me during an edit. I promise, I’m all about supporting other creatives and paying to license music, but after a genuinely solid effort I couldn’t find or afford something that fit as well – in my opinion – as this Anderson .Paak track. 99% of my edits start with a music track – especially with personal projects; It's got to feel right or else it's not worth the effort.

After I'd gotten somewhat through a rough edit (and several glasses of whiskey) I reached out to a few other creatives for feedback. Crazy thanks to those guys for the insanely solid ideas, helping me step back from how close I was to the work, and look at what I was missing.

Good grief I hope to do more of this soon.

ESPN's Draft Academy 2018

I always trip out seeing something I shot end up seeing the light of day. Back in February, I was contacted by Evolve Studio about filming with one of the players featured in ESPN's Draft Academy 2018 season while he was in Oklahoma City.

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Alabama defensive back Minkah Fitzpatrick was in town to accept the Jim Thorpe Award for the 2017 season and we ended up filming with him for two and a half days. I honestly couldn't say enough nice things about Minkah, the on-site ESPN producer Kristen Lappas, and Evolve Studio. There were some strict "no social media" guidelines and Evolve owned all the footage so I don't have any fancy framegrabs to show short of what is shown in the episode.

ESPN series Draft Academy follows six of the top NFL prospects as they prepare for Draft Day and is exclusively on ESPN+. I've not seen all the episodes at this point, but it looks like the footage from my time with Minkah is in Episode 2: Body & Mind.

The Best Emails...

"I saw your reel and site through some digging for a local OKC DP and your stuff looks really nice. I wanted to gauge your interest, availability, and rate for this project (we would like to see your rate include your camera package as well - Red Weapon correct?)."

I'm pretty sure these are the best kinds of emails. Those emails seemingly out of the blue from someone I've never met wanting to work together after seeing other things I've already done.

Producer/Director Josh Guffey reached out about an upcoming shoot with an Oklahoma City-based client. Pre-production was pretty straightforward through emails and phone calls before he and his team from Vidzu Media got to Oklahoma City. He'd seen another project I'd shot where we did a ton of setups in a short period of time with no additional lighting. It was a good reference of what this shoot was going to be like but with a little more resources (tools, crew, and budget). We had a quick scout the day before the shoot and then two days hustling around Oklahoma City cranking out what he already had scripted and storyboarded.

Gear-wise, we shot 4k ProRes files with my RED Weapon Helium & Zeiss CP.2 setup. Additionally, we rented out a Movi/EasyRig setup, Teradek Bolt wireless kits, SmallHD AC/Director and Client monitors, and the DJI wireless follow focus system (not a fan BTW). Crazy thanks to ACs John Dewberry (day 1) and Britni Harris (day 2) for being wizards in camera land and keeping my nonsense together.

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Las Vegas & Teacher Walkout Week Two

The last week was chock full of travel and schedule juggling. I was in Las Vegas for a few days for this year's NAB event while St. Anne the Wife continued to join thousands of other Oklahoma Teachers during the 2018 Oklahoma Teacher Walkout.

NAB was NAB and Las Vegas is still Las Vegas. I'd been to the National Association of Broadcasters event a few years ago and this year was a little different. The big draws for me are connecting with friends, making new connections, and being able to see the range of resources for a production toolbox all in the same place. Don’t tell my RED camera package how much time I spent with the reps at the ARRI booth.

In local news, the Oklahoma Teacher Walkout ended short of what the teachers wanted. It’s a hyper-personal subject for my family of teachers and kids in public schools. Anne was pretty crushed following Thursday’s OEA announcement calling for an end to the walkout. She went back to the classroom on Friday and The Kid is back in school this week.

Springtime in New York

St. Anne the Wife and I made it up north for a Spring Break in New York. Days one and two played nice weather-wise, but day three being the first day of Spring ironically brought a solid day of snow.

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We've done some of the touristy stuff before, but most of this trip had us intentionally wandering around a few different neighborhoods and dramatically adding to our daily step counts. We met up with a few friends living in the city and made some new ones as well. Anne's mom and my parents watched the kiddos while we were gone.

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Steadicam Aero 30

For someone who's shot a ton of handheld in an EasyRig over the years and seriously considers it part of my shooting style, adding a Steadicam to the mix has been kinda mind-blowing. We shot this simple test with Madison Bready in just over an hour one afternoon in an impromptu shoot organized just before lunch.

In addition to the Steadicam Aero 30 rig I'd just bought earlier in the week, I'd rented a wireless follow focus and monitor setup from lensrentals.com for a shoot the next couple of days. After a handful of texts, emails, and phone calls John and Madi met me at a coffee shop near downtown Oklahoma City to hang out for an hour or so and make something.

For sure there's plenty of "Hey look at what you can do with a Steadicam!" nonsense in the edit, but being able to move and operate a camera in new ways is like kissing for the first time. Yeah, you're really bad at it, but it's awesome and sure makes your heart beat faster.

Ronins and Movis booted sliders from the trendy/relevant filmmaker pedestal a few years ago but I'd only shot with them a handful of times. Yeah, I've seen some awesome shots with those tools, but I never really bought into it. My back always hurt after using them and I never felt like I had the amount and type of control I wanted.

All the conversations I'd had around stabilized camera movement kept circling back to Steadicams being the way to go. There were a few camera department guys I trust and constantly pester here in town plus the LA steadicam op I connected with working on a recent feature. They all talked about how much practice it takes to even be remotely passable as a Steadicam op and I absolutely agree. I've got a ways to go. Oh, and I now realize I've traded the back pain from an EasyRig for hip pain delivered via a Steadicam vest.

Camera-wise, everything was shot with existing light on my RED Weapon Helium at 8k widescreen, recorded to 4k ProRes, and a Zeiss 25mm CP.2. None of this nonsense was color-corrected or graded. The music is another rad Louis Futon remix from Soundcloud.

Crazy thanks to [John Dewberry][1] and Madison Bready for putting up with and helping me shoot a test like this. I've been working with John over the years and he had come over a day or two before to help me initially set up the kit. I'd been doing some simple tests and practicing around the house, but nothing beats actual time working with talent in front of the camera and an AC pulling focus. Seriously hope to do more with both of them very soon.

Seamless Paper Backdrops

A client I've been working with recently hired me to shoot a campaign they were working on for a small clothing brand. They wanted to feature on-camera talent wearing the brand's clothing in front of multiple solid color backgrounds. We didn't have the budget or the time to build out multiple sets in different colors, so our best option was to use one lighting setup and multiple colors of seamless paper backdrops.

Over the years I've shot a ton of talking head projects and normally our only requirements are making sure the room looks somewhat decent and is big enough for our equipment, crew, and talent. Recently I started using Savage Seamless Background Paper to try and improve our production value and it's been a great experience. It does take a bit more time and effort to get everything set up given the additional space and stands necessary. It can also be a hot mess to transport those wider paper rolls if you don't have a larger vehicle or box truck. Once you figure that nonsense out, the improved look can certainly be worth the effort if it's in line with the creative direction.

Talking heads are pretty simple. More often than not they're locked-off shot(s) and the on-camera talent is sitting and not moving around. For this project though, the client wanted the talent to be moving around and for us to capture a mix of close-ups, mediums, and full-body shots.

We had the budget to rent out a larger studio space here in the Oklahoma City area. The additional space gave us plenty of room to unroll enough paper for our head-to-toe shots. The space also had enough power for the larger fixtures we needed to evenly light our bigger setups.

The goal was to keep the shadows super soft, so for our key light we made a book light with one of the studio's 5k fixtures bounced into a 6x6' ultra bounce and back through a 6x6' silk. For the backlight, we pushed a single 4' Fourbank Kinoflo through a 48" diffusion frame. The larger light sources gave the talent plenty of room to move around while still maintaining a consistent look. We also used a large black solid opposite the key and a double net at times to help sculpt the lighting. We shot another look during the first half of the day using the studio's large white cyc wall, but we can talk about that some other time. Sidenote: my life is forever changed after using wheeled combo stands for the first time. Those things are magic.

Knowing how well they'd worked for me in the past, we used those Savage Seamless Paper Backdrops and the client picked out four colors: blue, yellow, pink, and red. The final delivery would be a 16x9 format, so we used the 107" wide backdrop. Savage does have a 140" option, but we weren't able to get that for our shoot.

The paper backdrops we were using were wide enough to fill out the background of our close-up and medium shots, but the full-body-length shots would need a bit of work in post. Depending on the edit, the paper backdrop edges would need to be digitally extended to fill out the 16x9 frame. As long as the on-camera talent didn't go past the edge of the paper, they'd be fine.

In the end, we were happy with our footage. The client didn't want to deal with a ton of post-work so we shot the full sensor 4k ProRes on my RED Weapon and baked in the the RedGamma 4 / Dragon Color 2 look. You're a bit limited with the framerates in using the 4k ProRes option on the RED Weapon, but we were able to get what we needed and the client didn't have to deal with the much larger raw 8k .R3D files.

CLIENT: Red Moxie Media
DIRECTOR: Tanya Martineau
AC: John Dewberry

Tallgrass Prairie Preserve

Out in Pawhuska, OK, there's a large sign at the entrance to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve that says "BISON ARE DANGEROUS KEEP YOUR DISTANCE." But seriously, have you ever been close to a bison? I wasn't close enough to hug one, but they seem like they'd be good huggers... Probably not. I don't always have the best judgment...

Oh, and the dust stirred up from cars driving along the gravel roads looked pretty great.