OT: My feature film (shot with 2x Panavisions)

Patryk Rebisz wrote on 12/13/2009, 9:29 PM
EDIT: Added plenty of screngrabs (and lighting diagrams) from one main location:
http://patrykrebisz.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/lasta-day-of-summer-a-12-day-shoot-hotel-room/
and another one:
http://patrykrebisz.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/last-day-of-summer-a-12-day-feature-fast-food-restaurant/

The website for "Last Day of Summer"-- a feature-length film i DP'ed lunched recently:
http://www.lastdayofsummer-movie.com

You can see some footage as well as some stills from the film there.

The film was shot with 2 Panavision Genesis cameras in... 12 days. Yes. Don't ask me how we did it. Out of curiosity i can add that i came on to the project with less then one day of prep as the original DP was fired for being too slow. The very first day i was asked by the producer (a friend of mine) to drop by the set as things were not panning out right. What i saw was a disarray with camera operator lighting the set while the DP was talking on his cellphone as if everything was fine (by then they were already half-day behind). They let him go and brought me in as otherwise they wouldn't be able to finish the film on time and budget. It's not the best looking film ever but i believe it's the best looking film that cold be completed given the schedule limitations.

So have a look and let me know what you think!

Comments

farss wrote on 12/13/2009, 10:21 PM
Congrats on getting the job.
The movie's web site is painfully slow down here, not your problem I know but might be worth passing on.
Some of the skin tones at the start of the trailer looked too off. Too many blown out highlights in the exterior shots, I would have thought that camera could do better unless that was deliberate. Either way kind of took me out of the scene.
Opening scene of the trailer has dialog swamped by the music, I'd guess the dialog in that scene was vital but I missed hearing it.

Bob.
Jeff_Smith wrote on 12/13/2009, 10:41 PM
Bob, did you scroll down and turn off the home page audio. That switch should be right at the top or automatically deactivated when a trailer is launched. Congrats Patryk. 12 days for a feature film must be insane. I am familiar with DJ Qualls and Nikki Reed (13), hope to see the movie.
Patryk Rebisz wrote on 12/13/2009, 11:10 PM
Here are the answers to some questions i was asked on another forum:
We averaged about 8 pages per day though there was one day that we did 12. Nothing to be proud of because you feel like you are hording sheep with the actors and you just worry about the most basic coverage.

The lighting package was quote healthy. from 150w dedos, Kinos and some tungsten units to 1.2HMIs, 4 and 6k HMIs. Also some scenes were lit with just practicals or even clamp lights hidden here and there. The camera is so light sensitive that you don't need much wattage to get proper exposure.

Despite super tight schedule we did manage to do some cool stuff such as changing lighting conditions in the main location (motel room) where it starts with cold morning light, to noon light, to afternoon light, to sunset, to night.

Bob, yes, just turn off the music at the bottom of the screen (i already told them that this should be fixed). None of the highlights were overexposed, i think for the trailer they artificially boosted contrast and some of the skin tones do seem to go over.

BTW, DJ Qualls is a fantastic actor!
farss wrote on 12/13/2009, 11:28 PM
"Bob, yes, just turn off the music at the bottom of the screen (i already told them that this should be fixed)."

Man, that's a big mistake on their part as I had to scroll down to even find the icon. Having fixed that the video looks MUCH better, is there a lesson in that.

Bob.

Jim H wrote on 12/14/2009, 8:31 AM
Looks pretty good to me. I like that Qualls guy. The movie story seems appealing. The website is ambitious but some features are not working for me. Though I wouldn't suspect a poorly executed website would affect the success of the film. The trailer should sell it just fine.
Patryk Rebisz wrote on 12/18/2009, 1:22 PM
Added plenty of screngrabs from one main location here:
patrykrebisz.wordpress.com
Streamworks Audio wrote on 12/18/2009, 1:32 PM
DJ Qualls is awesome!! ;-)

Oh and congrats on the gig (film)!
MUTTLEY wrote on 12/18/2009, 6:41 PM

Patryk ... just amazing. The camera work was just stunning, loved the angles and framing. Congrats and color me jealous. Once in awhile I start thinking I'm good and then I see something like this. =)

- Ray
Underground Planet
GlennChan wrote on 12/18/2009, 8:24 PM
12 days
That sounds crazy.

Congratulations on getting the gig and on finishing!!!

The film looks good. It doesn't seem like a situation where you can really strut your stuff (e.g. to really push things stylistically). Some of the shots you did with the Canon 5D Mark II and other cameras on your blog look great, e.g.
http://patrykrebisz.com/canon_test/extremeISO_s.jpg

It's like... do you really need to shoot with a Panavision? (ok, I am looking at small JPEGs and it's hard to see noise on stills.)
Patryk Rebisz wrote on 12/18/2009, 10:23 PM
Glenn, here is full res grab from Canon:
http://patrykrebisz.com/canon_test/extremeISO.jpg

The camera choice is very much so dependent of many factors. For instance if you spoke of SD or HD youtube only then Canon would be more then sufficient, BUT if you are aiming higher (and with BlueRay and HD streaming you should) then anti-aliasing and compression artifacts of Canon cameras would make your image project a double message. For instance the image you pointed out would try to show the calmness of a guy drinking beer but would also show a madness of quickly moving/dancing around shapes of the compression.
GlennChan wrote on 12/19/2009, 10:50 AM
Yikes, the full res shot looks nasty!