Letus35 Extreme ... extremely yummy!

So I'm now the product rep for Letus35 products, and I gotta tell you, I feel really good about their stuff! B&H will be carrying their full line, and I have the pleasant job of showing off their product to the world at large (well, the filmmaker world anyway). Quite a few folks in NYC are interested in this thing now.

I went and shot some night footage with it - posted here. It is H.264 for Apple TV - about 17Mb for about :40 secs of material - wee little montage of Time square business, shot with 24mm Canon FD f2, 50mm Canon FDf1.4, 200mm Canon FD f2.8. Light measured out at about 20- 40 lux - just barely enough to get a good exposure at f1.4. A bit of quick color correction in Color and Voila! Luckily the 200mm was usually pointed at something that had some semblance of a key light set on it. I liked the simple flower and traffic stuff - call me "the pedestrian dichotomizer", but hey - its fun to play with obvious juxtaposition, neh? Had fun, no cop harassment, and I like what this new adapter spits out. Cool. By the way, Hien and Quyen of Letus are to be congratulated for bringing such a great tool to market at such a great price point - the next best thing is about 7 times the price... http://www.adapterplace.com

New lens! Ahhhh... juicy!

So the Letus35 FE never ceases to amaze me. I just got my Canon FD 200mm f2 lens in and got to do some tests with it - edge to edge sharpness is really quite nice (though the longer the lens it would seem the easier it is to get that focal plane to flatten out, its not actually the case). Very impressed with the lens, enjoy the ability to select what exactly I want to see and show. great tool as a director!

On other news, had to re-shoot the Bart Crumbly scene - VERY happy with the results though. Quite a nice thing to have such wonderful actors to work with! The pacing of the original shoot was just too far off - all my fault as a director, but also my responsibility to fix, and the only way to do that? Re Shoot! You know they say in the real estate game "location, location, location". Well, same thing in film. And New York is a noisy city, Bronx is a noisy borough. So, while the location of the original shoot was great - it was also too noisy. So we moved. And you know what? It worked out just fine. The location is really just environment for the actor to play in and the camera to distract you with anyway. With good actors, any decent location can look like it is the only place where that shot will work... but its really the actors. They sell it for you.

I am worried that I have become a camera plunker. You know, the camera person that just sets the camera down somewhere and finds a nice angle - without really considering the real impact of the angle. Gotta watch out for that and keep my eye on the story.

Hopefully the SAG crap will be taken care of this week. We shoot in Times SQ this week! Ah hah! Niiiice! Medical pajamas, odd looks, subtle comedy. Should be fun!

Shootin, scootin, smackin balls...

Yesterday was a great day. Blue skies, only a few gear issues - aside from forgetting to turn on the motor for the ground glass on the adapter and not having the right sound gear to get the job done right. The ground glass thing was a very stupid mistake on my part, but one I chalk up to being a puppy with new yard to play in. Instead of finding a great spot in the grass, I peed all over the carpet before the door was opened. Not that that is a good metaphor for film making, but its the only one that leaps to mind.

Featured above is Jason Madera - he plays Bart... the amnesiac artist. The guy in the red shirt is Demetrios Kalkanis - he plays Dan, Bart's estranged best friend. We shot quite a bit of footage for so little time and I am chopping the scene together as I go.

Money makin' ... in the world of Craigslist

So, been poking around for work on Craigslist - and I gotta say, the sheer amount of internship opportunities is astounding! Who knew you could intern as a Director of Photography or Producer? WOW! The fact that people want an intern to edit their video footage shocks me. An edit is the one place were you have the opportunity to camouflage your mistakes, to pluck a story from the jaws of boredom, and to otherwise make a watchable program out of otherwise useless footage. What has become of the quality standards of this profession? Oy vay!

So this brings me to my new curiosity - how to make a living as a filmmaker without a trust fund (damn my ancestors for not being waspy patrician royalty of the Connecticut upper class) or without a winning lotto ticket? The answer? Play lotto! So I did, didn't win (only got 1 number on the Mega Millions) so now I am back to square one - minus $1. Any ideas? Commercials? Take too long to get the go ahead. Go sell Peanut Butter sandwiches in little ziplock baggies in high rise office buildings? Nah - security is too tight these days and the giant German shepherd Chupacabra cross breeds sniffing for Semtex would likely consume my wares. I'd be even further down than if I took my chances with the lotto.

I know. I'll write a screenplay. And sell it. After I have made it into a movie. I'll sell the movie too. After I get the money to pay SAG. And after I pay the rent... with the $237 budget that I have available now. Lots of interest from equity investors, a little interest from religious people that come to the door offering a new form of Jesus worship - though I suspect they are somewhat insincere when they bless me and leave after hearing my elevator pitch.

We start tomorrow. Let the beautiful disaster begin! Till then, I'm the guy on the off ramp with the sign - "Will film for money, you cheap schmuck"

Thinking about hiring a guy to wear a sandwich board with my reel playing in an LCD on his chest and my dayrates on his back. Hmmm. He'd have to be tall. And fat so people would have to feel like they had to move around him - plus more advertising real estate - and his personality would have to be such that he couldn't make friends - I want him working, not smokin' and jokin'! And he'd have to be ugly - so little children wouldn't think he was Santa out of season.

testing 1,2,3... is this thing on?

So camera tests, lens tests, cranial resilience tests, patience tests... filmmaking is all about testing.

Currently testing the alignment on the new Letus35 FE adapter I have for my HVX200 (see clip below!) - went to Van Cortlandt Park here in the Bronx a couple of days ago to test the contrast of the lenses I am currently using (24mm Canon FD lens f2, 50mm Canon FD lens f1.4) and I likey likey! The contrast with these little buggers is nice and smooth, the sharpness is razor - the only thing that blows is that the FD mount doesn't allow for iris adjustment when on my dinky little FD mount adapter. I have read on DVXuser that you can jam little bits of credit card in the wee little crevices, but honestly, I bought these things for their depth of field and bokeh to begin with - so mucking about with them seems a bit ... dumb.

As for the tests, edge to edge sharpness on the 50mm is something of a joy. It is crisp out to the edges and follows a nice flat plane without perceivable curvature - great for trying to get the all-too-realism of New York City to come through in the frame. The 24mm is a bit more prone to vignetting and the edge to edge sharpness is good, just not what the 50mm's is. I think it will be a great lens for some of those very still up-close moments in the film when all hell is breaking loose behind Bart. Who is Bart? He's the lead - played by the great and funny Jason Madera. He's an amnesiac that finds himself smack dab in the middle of NYC ... in hospital pajamas. The film is about his attempts to piece his life back together and figure out who he was, who he is, and where he is going. And yes, I am a Gauguin fan.



The contrast settings of Bloggers auto video conversion tool are set a bit strong - so keep that in mind. I will try and post a better version that more accurately reflects the quality of the optics and the actual contrast ratio. Oh, and I am rating the camera with the Letus35FE at an ASA of 80 when using a lightmeter (sekonic Studio Deluxe 2)

First, don't eat the green ones...

So SAG sucks. For me.

Not that they suck for the actor that acquires the SAG stamp of approval (though I have yet to hear an actor truly praise the worthiness of their union), but they suck for indie filmmakers trying to get a story out into the big wide world with people that can actually act. Not that being SAG means you can act, or that not being SAG means that you aren't a professional talented actor - it just means the collective has their hooks conveniently cinched in to your delicate flesh just enough to make you wince whenever you hear the word "Deferment" - a curse word to most of us to be sure, but an actual roadblock to the SAG actor! Ha! WHODATHUNKIT?

Background: Making a flick, a feature flick. Doing it right, so doing it legal.
So, --
LLC: "check!" ...
Deal Memos and Contracts? "check!" ...
Insurance Certificate? "check!" ...
Permits from the City Of New York and Parks Department? "double check!" ...
SAG Ultra Low Budget Agreement? " ummm, uhhh... that sure is a lot of paperwork... wait, do I absolutely have to pay the actors up front? And why is the bond the same as paying them out right? Even though its a no budget movie about amnesia and bad marriage and midgets and ninjas?"
SAG - "yup. You can make the check out to..."
This is where the blood leading to my brain begins to pulse uncontrollably, conspiracy theories about draconian union bureaucracy monopolizing a position of power over an entire industry rage betwixt my mightily confused lobes. Go figure why they think my little film is worthy of strong arm tactics. Makes me wonder if actors actually have picket lines and yell scab when SAG shuts everything down. That's worth a doc all by itself.

So we start filming on Thursday - I'll post some stills - filming has been delayed for a number of reasons - not least of which is money (duh), gear (had to wait for the money to get the 35mm adapter thingee and lenses - worth the wait though - NICE!) and a Yeti sized douche bag that doesn't know his ass from the toys that are stuffed in it. Oh and of course SAG has made this legitimization process interesting.

Example? I submit the paperwork for the preliminary package. Wait two weeks. Nothing, I call. Nothing. Finally the package arrives - and legitimately, its a large package full of paperwork and books - but the next thing that happens? Yup. SAG emails me two days later to inform me that I haven't filled out the information package yet and that they will assume I am not using SAG actors in my film. Arrrgh! So I call, get the info that there is no longer a SAG experimental contract (suck-o!) and that my bond for the film will be $1024 for 8 work days of actor work. Paid in full. Before production. ??????

Lesson learned? Wait to deal with SAG actors until you can afford them, and can afford the delays their union puts on production. BLOAT BLOAT BLOAT. SAG Actors are usually great people, but their union is a pain in the ass ... and don't try and do anything with them that might require them next week. That will not happen.