Making of: Spy Games (Post-Production and Reshoots)

When last we left our wild weekend, it was 3AM Sunday and we’d finished shooting about seven hours later than we had scheduled for.

3AM Sunday put me at 43 hours since waking up on Friday morning, with only the 45-minute nap Saturday morning to break up my waking hours. Although I was actually surprisingly energetic and alert during the last lap of the contest, I must confess that very little of what happened in the initial post-production phase managed to impress itself on my memory. But I’ll try and recall what I can.

I don’t remember the process of assembling the rough cut at all, but what I do remember is that we released Ryan to go get some rest, to come back in the morning when we had the necessary plates ready for him.

Because we’d shot on the RED, we couldn’t work natively with the footage in Final Cut Pro, nor in After Effects (though this latter case has since changed). The RED camera produces 4K footage in a proprietary format, “r3d” files, but also generates Quicktime-compatible “proxies” that can be imported and edited by Final Cut. We cut the short together via the 1K proxies and then rendered high-quality versions of only the footage we used out of REDcine, conformed via Crimson.

In editing we discovered another crisis: the sound was completely unusable. We had been recording audio directly to the RED via XLR, and it was low-fidelity and crackly as shit. (Many of the early RED sound boards were bad, but it has since been rectified in later cameras and early cameras, like mine, were later given free upgrades to the new sound boards.) So once the film was cut, we had to call our Ronald Donnellson, and our original Tanya, back in to re-record their lines.

Meanwhile we were rendering shots for Ryan to work on. Initially we were doing the effects work at 1080p resolution, so that we would have an HD master. But although Ryan did the tracking and compositing with rather stunning speed, we were getting bogged down in the previewing and rendering, and I realized that since the contest wanted only an SD delivery, it was foolish to be wasting time that way. So instead of round-tripping through REDcine — which involved exporting an XML from Final Cut, importing the XML and footage to REDcine, and then rendering the footage from REDcine — we could simply render plates directly from the 1K proxies out of Final Cut, speeding up the entire process considerably.

But even working on sound while Ryan did the visuals, it became clear as the deadline ticked nearer that, with render and travel time to the drop-off factored in, it was simply not going to get done in time to be included in the competition. So we set the final renders and called it a day, since there was no reason to kill ourselves to try and finish when it wasn’t going to happen.

But I found out that the film could still be eligible for screening, and for an “Audience Favorite” award — if I delivered it within 24 hours after the competition. So after a good night’s sleep, I dropped in the finished renders, burned a DVD, and delivered the film to the contest.

The film screened, people liked it, but it didn’t win. (This one did, and well-deserved I think.)

Making of: Spy Games (Pre-Production)

Last summer, we participated in the 48 Hour Film Project. The film missed the competition deadline, for reasons I’ll discuss when we talk about production, but I was personally so happy with the way project had come together that I wanted to finish it as a short in its own right.

But before we get into that, here’s the final short as uploaded to YouTube (this is not the version that was entered into the actual 48 Hour Film Project):

Turbo: A Video Game Movie

These guys are totally going to get to make the feature — or at least take a lot of promising meetings.

 

 
Turbo: Trailer from Jarrett Conaway on Vimeo.

USC Graduate Thesis, budget “under $100k,” the film was shot on RED and is about 20 minutes long. 

(via Gizmodo)

What Just Happened…Redux

New RED announcements have come down the pipe, but first a brief update.

I have been incredibly busy, as usual. “Hella” busy, as I believe the kids are saying these days. NaNoWriMo didn’t happen this year, again, because it seems like November is one of my busiest months.

Several projects that seemed to be languishing in development suddenly picked up new momentum, and I’ve been working on a new script of which I enjoy the idea and want to see how well I can execute it. Prioritizing these projects — as well as juggling the ever-present Sandrima Rising — is very difficult, especially for a relatively disorganized person like myself. The first thing I will do when I get money is hire an assistant. Not because I want to feel important, but because I seriously need someone else to keep track of my schedule for me. I’m hopeless with it.

Even though only two weeks have gone by since my last post, it’s already been enough time for RED to announce that “everything had changed again,” and gave a date to unveil these new announcements, December 3. The November 13 announcements, Jim Jannard assured us, were “insignificant” relative to the new announcements.

This declaration was greeted with more groans and rolled eyes than anything, I think. I tweeted a comment that’s gotten some air-time in several podcasts, that “RED is the first company to have proven themselves legitimate only to then turn themselves into a vaporware company.” It’s all well and good that RED continues to innovate and add value to their product line, but if they don’t BUILD anything then it’s all academic.

It’s only just December 3, but the announcements actually came out yesterday afternoon (it was Dec. 3 somewhere).

And did these announcements knock our socks off and render that long, impassioned blowjob I gave the modular DSMC system “insignificant”?

What Just Happened: The Big RED Announcement

So remember my post earlier this year about how the RED camera was an awesome digital filmmaking revolution?

And remember how their NAB announcements further “changed the game”?

RED’s latest announcement just bitchslapped all previous products and announcements and told them to go make it a sandwich.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, a brief timeline.

The future has landed…

Still pretty tired for a long weekend, but I had to share that this morning I received a call from FedEx informing me that I had four packages from “RED.com” awaiting me at the local depot. The whole drive back home I was giddy with equal parts anticipation and sleep deprivation (hell of a shoot this weekend).

And now, in my hands is RED ONE #1028. We shot a short “unbox” video of me cutting open the cardboard and getting my hands on the cam that I will either post or forget all about, we’ll see.

RED users have established a tradition of giving their cameras names, which started with the codenames RED gave their own early prototype cameras. It’s not mandatory, but I like the idea. This first run of REDs is something of a “limited edition” and I enjoy the notion of having a camera that is more personal than just a serial number.

I’m a massive Lovecraft fan and I really feel like the camera should have a Lovecraftian name, but I think “Cthulhu” or “Yog-Sothoth” would be a little too over-the-top for the RED ONE camera¹, and “Pickman” and “Carter” are a little too generic as names (although Carter, being a master of dreams, is probably the most appropriate if you know the lore). I also don’t want to name the camera after a story or character I might actually shoot someday, since that’s a little self-referential and weird, which is another reason those are out.

So, I’ve settled on “Alhazred;” the character was a madman who had wild visions, and although you never see him, his presence, as author of the Necronomicon, is felt behind every story Lovecraft wrote. I think it’s an appropriate moniker for a camera. Plus who can resist the fact that the name includes the syllable “red”.

So yeah, short post, and we haven’t shot anything with it yet (a few more missing pieces have to make their way to my doorstep), but it’s coming, people. Oh, is it coming.

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1. Although if we upgrade to an Epic, I think I could be justified in having that camera take the name of a Great Old One or an Outer God.

   “Azathoth” has a great ring to it.↩

Touching base

Sorry I haven’t updated this week. I’ve had other duties to attend to.

Anyone following my Twitter feed knows some of this already, but I’ll go for it anyway.

Firstly, I’ve officially wire-transferred the money to pay for the RED camera and all the accessories. In my previous post on the tripod I meant to mention this, but if you live in California and your main source of income is TV or film production/postproduction, the California State Board of Equalization is your friend. Specifically, Regulation 1532, and most specifically, Section 6378.

What is Section 6378? It is a form you fill out and present when making a purchase of any equipment that you will use more than 50% of the time for “teleproduction”. It is a sales tax exemption of 5.25% — meaning that instead of 8.25%, you pay 3% in sales tax for said equipment/products. Tripods, computers, cameras, accessories…aaaalllll gooooood.

Considering the size of the purchases I’ve been making, that one little form has saved me nearly $3000 in sales tax. Which means I have a cushion for making payments AND a little extra for accessories I didn’t know about before.

The wire transfer takes a few days, they’ll probably ship by the end of next week and it’ll probably be in a week or so after that. Then we play.

Next bit of news. I finished and submitted my latest draft of The Descendants. Everyone liked the script in general and hated Act 2 in particular.

I don’t blame them. Act 2 is fucked. Act 2 is always fucked. It’s probably the hardest part of any script — at least for me. Usually I’ll generally know the beginning, generally know where I want to get to at the end, and it’s bridging the middle bit that’s the nightmare.

But I think it’s almost there. I give the middle section a bit more purpose and we’re ready to take it to the next step. I got some really great notes from the producers and some readers and I think this next draft might really be the one.

I’ve read for a few friends in return, one script and one treatment. Luckily both by good writers. Both stories have potential, and I like wrestling with other peoples’ ideas, seeing what I can do to make them more interesting to me. Giving notes is always a subjective thing, so I just focus on what I think would fascinate me and get me talking after a film.

Good stuff all around but a lot of writing (especially the giving notes part; I try to be thorough), so my writing muscles needed a rest from the blog.

I’ll probably go light this weekend, but I’ve got a few YouTube vids to share so that should make up for my silence this week.

NAB Rundown

NAB is still going on out in Vegas, but I’m home in L.A. as of 3 A.M. this morning. Which was probably a mistake — the big Final Cut Pro User Group Super Meet is happening tonight and I would have liked to go — but I couldn’t justify another $100 night out of town when I’ve got so much to get done.

But people have been asking my thoughts on some of the big announcements at NAB:

My Technology > Yours

So, as those following me on Twitter ( [dead-eyed shell of a man] JOIN US [/shell] ) will already know, I have just today been approved for a loan in the amount of approximately $55,000 in order to purchase my RED ONE digital cinema camera.

Two things about this:

1) Fucking
2) Sweet.

How do I feel right now? Some gut-churning combination of “euphoric” and “terrified”. I’ve never had a responsibility for that much money at a go in my entire life. My biggest debt — the one that took me five years to pay off — was $10,000. This is five times that, and my repayment term is three years. There’s a lot of pressure to make a success of this, but hopefully I find that I thrive that way.

Anyway, got a script to finish and then I’ve got three days in Vegas for NAB. Won’t be blogging, will be Twittering.

WTF is the BFD about the RED?

Over the last few years, there’s been a lot of talk about the RED camera. But what is it, and why is it so buzz-worthy?

For almost ten years now, digital technology has been heralded as making art possible on a low budget. Not only filmmaking, but also music, animation, and even photography and still art. The term is the “digital revolution”, and it’s the technology that makes it possible to make a feature film without having millions of dollars.

But the digital technology has had its limitations.

Standard feature films are shot on 35mm film stock. In the digital age, film is usually scanned into a computer for editing and visual effects work, but the film itself is an analog medium. Its resolution is technically infinite, as you can magnify it more and more and always discover more detail; the limitation becomes the size of the “grain” on the image. Film is usually scanned at 2K resolution, which is just slightly larger than the largest standard high definition resolution of 1920×1080, although visual-effects-heavy films will often scan at 4K, and in rare instances even 8K. But the finishing and final output that is “printed” back to film is usually 2K.

Film has a wide “dynamic range”, or “latitude”, meaning that it can record detail in both the dark and the light areas of the image across a wide range of brightness. I’ve heard between 14-17 stops of dynamic range can be captured on film; I don’t know for sure, but it’s high.

Video, on the other hand, even newer digital video, is not quite so hot. Until the recent creation of HD camcorders, most camcorders have been standard-definition — 720×480 in NTSC countries, like the USA, and 720×576 in PAL countries, like much of Europe. For the non-numerically inclined, if the resolution of a typical film scan is the size of a postcard, standard definition video is the size of the stamp.