holeintheground (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
holeintheground) wrote2009-06-19 12:40 pm
holeintheground) wrote2009-06-19 12:40 pm
Update on my movie
mainly out of boredom, but also just to keep things in track for myself (and those of you who are curious about reading about this process).
1.) went out yesterday and tested out angles inside the car. there is a wide variety of shots that can be gotten inside the van. the problem is, i really wanted to do the "office shot" with the camera in the back seat, and a two shot with the driver and passenger, and the rearview mirror reflecting the driver's face, while the passenger leans over and talks. (i call it the "office shot" because it's used a lot in The Office.)
The problem, is that there is WAY too much light coming in from the windows, and not a lot on the people's faces. if you set the f-stop on the camera to correctly expose the street outside the windsheild, then the actor's faces become too dark and nearly impossible to see. if you expose for the actor's faces, then the windsheild becomes nothing more than a gigantic glowing white blob. it looks kind of cool, but is not the look i'm going for.
we tried making some reflecting boards, but those are almost impossible to use without blinding the driver or else them being in the shot.
so, other options included a medium close up of both actor and driver, shot from the back seat. to make up the difference between outside and inside, i simply hooked up a power converter to the cigarette lighter, and plugged in a work light with a 75 watt bulb. in a confined space, it provided just enough illumination to light the actor's faces, while avoiding a washout from the windows.
the problem with this, is that the bulbs are tungsten (despite saying on the box that they are balanced for daylight! stupid Menards...) and thus, when you balance the color temperature for daylight, the light from the bulb looks a very weird orange.
this is easy to fix though... just some simple Blue gel and a few c-47s would theoretically color balance the light bulb to match with the sun.
another option, is a simple color correction in post. i'm not sure what thing i was changing, but there was one lever on Final Cut Pros 3 way color correction slider, that i simply turned up a little bit. it still looked orange, but not obnoxiously orange, in fact, it sort of mimicked the light you get in the late afternoon. kinda cool.
so, either option will work.
another interesting thing to note... when shooting with the camera in the front of the car, there are no problems with washout or illuminating actor's faces. it seems most light comes from the windsheild, so if that's behind the camera, things turn out a lot better.
i now have a good idea of what possible shots and angles i can get inside a moving vehicle, which will help me with options for the shots while the car is moving. obviously, there is a limit of how much i can get effectively and safely, so hopefully i can do it with enough variety that things don't get stale and look boring.
2.) i finally got in touch with all three principle actors. Vanessa and Bill and I (those are their character's names, by the way) met up on Wednesday and read through the script. it was hard to tell how they did exactly, since i had to read for Marvin (other character) since the actor couldn't make it. it was tough to tell how they did, but it sounded okay.
the good news, is both the actors are really cool, and seem pretty chill but also like they're taking it seriously, which is cool. i was worried either they'd be all slackers, or else they'd be all uptight, but they seem like a good balance and easy to work with.
they both also had a ton of questions about the characters and everything, which was also really cool, and it's super fun to work with actors and come up with background on the characters. i'm excited to keep working with them. hopefully the dude who plays marvin will be cool too.
3.) another technical thing: i have to figure out and experiment how to get the best sound in the car too. the van is very noisy, so that may be a problem. some of the dialog may have to be done after the fact, but i want to test it out and see where we can place the mics in order to get the best sound, as well as factoring in the limited space inside the van. ideally, there will be the actors, me and a sound recordist driving around in the van... but with equipment and such, it'll be tough.
also, i need to work on the lighting for the night scenes. those will be a little easier, since at night, if the setting is the middle of nowhere, we can just have pitch black outside the windows and not have to worry about actually driving the car. still... it'll be a bit of a hassle.
overall though, things are going well, and i'm getting more and more confident that this will work out and be really cool.
hopefully in the next few days i'm going to start storyboarding and making an initial sort of shot list.
i probably should have been doing that now, but i got distracted by internets. oh well.
1.) went out yesterday and tested out angles inside the car. there is a wide variety of shots that can be gotten inside the van. the problem is, i really wanted to do the "office shot" with the camera in the back seat, and a two shot with the driver and passenger, and the rearview mirror reflecting the driver's face, while the passenger leans over and talks. (i call it the "office shot" because it's used a lot in The Office.)
The problem, is that there is WAY too much light coming in from the windows, and not a lot on the people's faces. if you set the f-stop on the camera to correctly expose the street outside the windsheild, then the actor's faces become too dark and nearly impossible to see. if you expose for the actor's faces, then the windsheild becomes nothing more than a gigantic glowing white blob. it looks kind of cool, but is not the look i'm going for.
we tried making some reflecting boards, but those are almost impossible to use without blinding the driver or else them being in the shot.
so, other options included a medium close up of both actor and driver, shot from the back seat. to make up the difference between outside and inside, i simply hooked up a power converter to the cigarette lighter, and plugged in a work light with a 75 watt bulb. in a confined space, it provided just enough illumination to light the actor's faces, while avoiding a washout from the windows.
the problem with this, is that the bulbs are tungsten (despite saying on the box that they are balanced for daylight! stupid Menards...) and thus, when you balance the color temperature for daylight, the light from the bulb looks a very weird orange.
this is easy to fix though... just some simple Blue gel and a few c-47s would theoretically color balance the light bulb to match with the sun.
another option, is a simple color correction in post. i'm not sure what thing i was changing, but there was one lever on Final Cut Pros 3 way color correction slider, that i simply turned up a little bit. it still looked orange, but not obnoxiously orange, in fact, it sort of mimicked the light you get in the late afternoon. kinda cool.
so, either option will work.
another interesting thing to note... when shooting with the camera in the front of the car, there are no problems with washout or illuminating actor's faces. it seems most light comes from the windsheild, so if that's behind the camera, things turn out a lot better.
i now have a good idea of what possible shots and angles i can get inside a moving vehicle, which will help me with options for the shots while the car is moving. obviously, there is a limit of how much i can get effectively and safely, so hopefully i can do it with enough variety that things don't get stale and look boring.
2.) i finally got in touch with all three principle actors. Vanessa and Bill and I (those are their character's names, by the way) met up on Wednesday and read through the script. it was hard to tell how they did exactly, since i had to read for Marvin (other character) since the actor couldn't make it. it was tough to tell how they did, but it sounded okay.
the good news, is both the actors are really cool, and seem pretty chill but also like they're taking it seriously, which is cool. i was worried either they'd be all slackers, or else they'd be all uptight, but they seem like a good balance and easy to work with.
they both also had a ton of questions about the characters and everything, which was also really cool, and it's super fun to work with actors and come up with background on the characters. i'm excited to keep working with them. hopefully the dude who plays marvin will be cool too.
3.) another technical thing: i have to figure out and experiment how to get the best sound in the car too. the van is very noisy, so that may be a problem. some of the dialog may have to be done after the fact, but i want to test it out and see where we can place the mics in order to get the best sound, as well as factoring in the limited space inside the van. ideally, there will be the actors, me and a sound recordist driving around in the van... but with equipment and such, it'll be tough.
also, i need to work on the lighting for the night scenes. those will be a little easier, since at night, if the setting is the middle of nowhere, we can just have pitch black outside the windows and not have to worry about actually driving the car. still... it'll be a bit of a hassle.
overall though, things are going well, and i'm getting more and more confident that this will work out and be really cool.
hopefully in the next few days i'm going to start storyboarding and making an initial sort of shot list.
i probably should have been doing that now, but i got distracted by internets. oh well.