BlogBlog
Cross Country with an HDSLR
April 2, 2010
JCB is a case study in creative marketing. As a privately held business, they have the flexibility to pay a little more attention to the customer instead of the shareholder, and that's probably one of the main reasons they've chosen to focus so much on the customer in their business. It was the credo of their founder, Mr. Joseph Cyril Bamford. Putting the customer "at the heart" of their business was really his idea. JCB also has a history of being among the first corporate responders in times of natural disaster. The Asian sunami, the Chinese earthquake, and now the earthquake that reduced Port-au-Prince to mostly rubble are all recent examples where the company has quickly donated equipment and money to aid in relief and recovery work.
In an effort to raise both awareness and additional money for the Haiti relief effort, JCB has put together a cross-country backhoe trip in conjunction with the American Red Cross - the first coast-to-coast trip of its kind in this country. Through our long-standing relationship with JCB, eThree Media was lucky enough to get the call to document the trip. We offered to produce produce short video blog entries each day showing what would be going on with the backhoe and dealer events featuring our arrival at each one.
I decided that I would be shooting the project with a Canon 5D Mark II kit. Now, production on the road can present some unique challenges to the cinematographer. Compound the ordinary factors by a considerable amount by throwing in an HDSLR, and you might end up asking yourself some rhetorical questions. Not the least of which is "did I turn the audio on?" right about the time your talent has just said something really spontaneous and important. Yes, life on the road can drive you nuts in the first place, so why make the situation ever more cumbersome by shooting with one of these newfangled cameras? For me, the answer is simple: results.
There is simply no approaching the image quality of what the Canon 5D Mark II gives me with any other kind of video camera near its price. Sure, I can get shallow depth of field from a more traditional video rig with a lens adapter, but then I've got the added chore of getting that rig calibrated, and still losing some of the edges to vignetting even when I get everything "perfect." Plus, putting a beast like that on your shoulder requires a certain masochistic trait I seem to be missing. But, lest I prematurely convince anyone that an HDSLR camera setup is easy to put together or even to use, I invite you to return here for updates in the coming weeks highlighting the kit that i've assembled for the journey, in case you're planning a go-it-alone adventure of your own with an HDSLR any time in the near future. In the meanwhile, check out the videos we're putting together on JCB's site for the trip: www.JCBforHaiti.com
Syncing Multiple Cameras
December 23, 2009
Having just completed our 6th consecutive multi-camera live-to-tape production for South University's commencement ceremonies, I was eager to put Pluraleyes, by Singular Software to work. With three cameras rolling out of sync (no timecode-in on any of the rigs), I used to have to find a camera flash or some other serendipitous event to get the digitized tracks into sync. Many a precious minute were spent by yours truly in this laborious chore. But, with Pluraleyes, thankfully, those days seem to be pretty much behind me.
Pluraleyes analyzes the audio content of different tracks in Final Cut Pro (and now in Vegas, too). It then shifts the associated clips around to perfectly sync them automatically. It's nice to achieve perfect sync straight away, enabling me to stop worrying about making frame-by-frame adjustments to clips until things "look right." This function is a big time saver, and especially helpful when more than two sources need to be synced. Pluraleyes, where have you been all my life?
I actually purchased Pluraleyes some time ago to use as a syncing tool between footage shot on the Canon 5D Mark II and the Zoom H4N. The built-in microphone on the Canon 5D is really only good for scratch track sound, so a second sound system is necessary. I've been very impressed with the results rendered by Pluraleyes. It's been generally very fast and accurate - with errors typically being on the operator end of things. Although a confirmed new firmware update from Canon will soon make the job easier, Singular Software creator Bruce Sharpe was kind enough to blog about a good working method for getting things to sync and play well together in a 29.97 Final Cut timeline when dealing with 5D Mark II material.
Repairing The Sky
Repairing The Sky
November 9, 2009
| {flv width="240" height="135"}original_doritos{/flv} | {flv width="240" height="135"}fixed_doritos{/flv} |
| Original Clip | Fixed Clip |
Locations can present some interesting problems for the motion artist. I was asked by the good folks over at Perpombellar Productions to help clean up the opening shot for their recent entry in the Doritos Crash The Super Bowl contest.
As you can see in the original footage, a lot of utility lines against the sky detract from the intended mood of the scene. Fixing such a problem in a single photograph is a relatively easy task, but with moving HD video footage, the temporal quality of the shot must also be preserved. Complicating things, the shot consists of a pretty big jib move with all sorts of objects in the foreground crossing over the axis of utility lines at various moments in the scene. I had just a day to figure out how I was going to remove the unwanted elements and somehow manage to "keep it real."
With just a couple of days to turn the shot around, I employed Adobe After Effects and a third-party plugin from Boris FX, and set about the task of removing each line. Unfortunately, there was no magic "utility line removal tool" to be found. So, about 12 hours and over 16,000 keyframes later, the shot was done.
The finished spot is now online at both Perpombellar's and the Doritios sites above. The top three vote winners in the contest air during the big game.
On The Active Runway
October 31, 2009
I love what I do. No other field of work offers the kinds of opportunities to witness and participate in so many exciting settings. Sometimes, I find myself shaking hands with greatness as I place a microphone on a world-famous personality. Other times, I experience rare proximity to raw power, like setting up on the edge of the active runway while business and passenger jets land less than a football field away. I still find it hard to believe some of the places I've gone to capture "the image." The access that being a cinematographer and photographer can afford is rarely matched in any other profession.
The footage I was gathering is in the process of post-production for an airport-speciifc product package by JCB. As airports have common specific needs in terms of ground care, JCB has recognized that their unique Fastrac tractor product can handle several jobs usually requiring multiple pieces of slower and less flexible equipment. A new marketing video on the subject will be finished at eThree Media within the next several weeks.
In the meanwhile, I'm giddily scrolling through a short stack of up-close and personal shots gathered at a major airport - the kind of stuff that makes me glad I'm an image maker.
Carotid Endarterectomy in HD
October 19, 2009
Despite it being the third time I've seen the carotid endarterectomy procedure live in person, I am still amazed at the level of precision on display in the operating room. Having recorded various surgical procedures over the years, we have perfected an efficient means of achieving the necessary field of view, while maintaining our distance from the surgical team.
In order to get a clean and close-up view of the surgery, we set up our small jib with a Sony HD camera mounted in a position directly above the table. Aside from sterilizing all of our equipment ahead of time (and having to wear the bunny suits), we had to ensure that there were absolutely no pieces that could possibly detach from the jib at any time. Furthermore, we had to allow complete freedom of movement for all surgery personnel underneath the jib arm, which meant that we needed to use the jib in its fully built position. We mounted a lens control device at the operator end of the jib, allowing for zoom, focus and record functionality without direct access to the camera.
The surgical work lights are extremely bright - so bright, in fact, that we had to employ a neutral density filter AND close down the aperture to approximately f8 in order to ensure proper exposure. Doing so carries with it the benefit of a deeper focal field, meaning that as minor adjustments to the jib height were made, we were able to more easily maintain focus.
It's a humbling experience to watch a highly skilled surgeon at work on the human body, and it's a privilege to be trusted to capture the procedure for purposes of training new surgeons.
