Fresh off the presses, are some new stills from the Season 1 of “GEAR”.
A special thanks to Charlie’s Chop Shop and Signature Car Collection for contributing in a major way for this episode. Additionally, we’ll also be releasing the final opening intro for the show very soon. Just to whet your palates a bit!
Self explanatory.
…also guest starring a Ferrari Enzo
Cameo appearance by Signature Car Collections’ Lamborghini Gallardo.
Happy Holidays from Charlie’s Chop Shop
Today we’ll briefly go over some techniques for various points of soft lighting for several actors’ faces. First and foremost, the story rules, which means this is what dictates the type of lighting needed. Secondly, the mood is what helps shape the lighting, meaning it may need to be harsh, soft, subtle, etc. And, lastly, well…there isn’t a “lastly”, that’s pretty much it- the story dictates how you paint with lighting.
These shots were done with a similar theme. A sterile hospital, but more of a dramatic flare. While most hospitals are evenly lit from a top, fluorescent source, I wanted to emphasize more of a private room look for the shots. The colors also come into play here, being more neutral even with the skin tones.
Similar to the previous shots, only this time with a softer (LED) edge light at a cooler temperature (3200k)
Considering this character’s condition, not only did I want to change the color tone, but additionally the style of lighting. While the key remained soft to be kind to her skin, I wanted a harsher edge light to make her image bolder, more prominent. Additionally, pulling the image out of focus briefly emphasized her distortion from being sick.
Weapon of choice
Alongide 250w through silk
Using natural light and artificial light together.
Even in a small studio, you can make the best of the situations if you know what you’re going for from the outset as well as the mood and theme of the film. If you use those tools from the get go, you’ll be fine in your photography at the end of the day!
The UFC’s great lightweight fighter, Frankie “The Answer” Edgar was not only in attendance for MSG’s Grapple At The Garden event, but he was also a competitor. Featured as one of the main events, he competed against Brooklyn’s own Phillipe Nover (who also had a stint on The Ultimate Fighter).
After his match, Frankie gave a quickie interview on the subject of wrestling with kids as a positive influence and how he felt going back to his native sport from Mixed Martial Arts.
And here we go!
I present to you “God Bless The Ring”, Grapple at the Garden 2013!! Special thanks to MSG Sports for working alongside us on this project.
Now finally entering Motorsports (a very well overdue venture considering my insatiable love for sports cars and racing), we go in depth with automotive customs team, Charlie’s Chop Shop. They’re a team located in Astoria, Queens, NY and now have the likes of VH1 following them around.
I actually ran into Charlie randomly coming from another shoot in New Jersey a few weeks ago. I found him riding in a sexy Skyline GTR[35] that had me run over, take pics and strike up a conversation.
Flash-forward to now and we’re in the process of filming an expose piece on Charlie and his team.
More details coming soon, but here are some images and the teaser trailer.
This was definitely one of THE most exhilarating experiences I’ve done in awhile. MSG Sports invited me down to film their second annual Grapple At The Garden event, which was also covered by Fox.
Here are a few still frames to tide you over until then! Once I release the final product [soon], I’ll go into detail with how scenes were filmed and processed [using VisionColor LUTs].
Evening lighting. The beauty of New York City
MMA superstar and former UFC Lightweight Champion, Frankie “The Answer” Edgar.
“The Baddest Man On The Planet”, and former Bellator MMA Featherweight Champion, Joe Warren
The city is alive and never sleeps…
The name says it all.
Martial arts great and legend, Renzo Gracie, heavily focused on coaching his team.
WELCOME to my short HOW-TO blog series referenced from some of my favorite films. We can go into scenes taken from classics all the way to modern films of today.
Our first example is the excellent film, Prisoners, directed by Denis Villeneuve and lensed by Roger Deakins, ASC.
As a departure from his previous film, Skyfall, Roger returned to a simpler, low-tech style of photography, which gave the overall story a more “human” and intimate approach.
Here’s one example, taken from a super-tense scene within the film.
You can see here the classic frame within a frame approach, which is among my favorite techniques. It doesn’t need a close up or an OTS shot of any sort, though the latter may have been good for a differing style. However, the medium-wide shot of this, framed within a frame added A LOT of tension to the scene, as the viewer may expect something horrific to take place. It really jumps out at you.
Lastly, check out the single-source light Roger has used. No need for any fill or even a highlight of any sort (with about a 3200-kelvin temperature). It’s possible that this light source was about a 250-500w source to give enough exposure based on the Alexa’s native 800 ASA rating. As a result, the dank, dreary bathroom is emphasized more by leaving the image simply lit and in my opinion, that much creepier.
What are some of your favorite single-source lit scenes? Share in your comments below.
Film noir. This is a genre that I’ve wanted to dab into recently, so being “recruited” by April Pabon on the project was perfect timing. She made it a point to express the mood and tone needed for the project, so like any good cinematographer should, I had a bunch of notes to reference from. These became especially useful for the scout, which took place in a single location in East Harlem.
The second point to this fashion film was to finally put to the test Magic Lantern’s own 14bit RAW capture abilities for the Canon 50D. I was able to pick this baby up at Adorama for about 450-beans after playing around with the 60D’s RAW capabilities from Magic Lantern and I haven’t looked back since.
SHOOT DAY
We waited until the evening to begin; total darkness with Magic Hour completely gone *cries*. Our lovely models were already prepared as well, being a first from dozens of experiences (FYI, talent tends to usually be late *gugh*). Gerrard Lobo is an actor that I’ve worked with on Pearl Naidoo’s shoots before, so he was total familiar territory. The wild card ended up being Ali Ferrandino, whom April recruited on her end. She was a critical decision for the Director, most likely based on her persona, confidence and of course, ya’ gotta’ look great in lingerie. Ali was just awesome on all levels. She was very confident, but not obnoxious and was willing to give just about anything a try (including changing into her look in the middle of the street. Don’t worry, we didn’t get many stalkers passing by). Ali and Gerrard had great chemistry on camera and I’m really looking forward to working on a collaboration between the two again.
Once again we pulled from some of the lovely jewelry designs from Pearl Naidoo, which accented the entire look beautifully. If you get a chance, please visit her site at http://www.pearlnaidoo.com. She’s an AWESOME South African designer with a lot of wind in her sails now. When you get there, tell her Kahl sent’cha’.
PRINCIPLE
The biggest fun challenge for this shoot was playing with my new Digital Cinema camera in the 50D. I dressed ‘er up in a small action-cam cage, which allows me to move around quickly and capture the most odd of angles at a moment’s notice.
The first challenge at the time (mind you, this is from an OLD BUILD) was in the recording itself. Most of the time it began filming successfully and other times the software would crash. Fortunately ML is a card-based software, so this was easily remedied by removing and replacing the battery quickly. Much like the Red in its early days, this is in fact a Beta version (or is it Alpha phase, I’m unsure O_o), so there will be wrinkles in your shoot workflow from time to time. However, as of this writing, this issue, along with others, are being ironed out and happens much, MUCH less, if at all.
Keep in mind, you DO NEED a large card. RAW filming takes up a ton of space and quickly, so I would recommend a good 1000x 128GB CF card. Preferably 100MBps or more. Right now on the 50D, it uses up anywhere between 60-70MBps depending on the resolution and aspect ratio selected in the ML UI. So like with anything, speed kills!
POST
RAW, actual RAW—hell, actual 14bit RAW is no joke and cannot be used for everything. I wouldn’t recommend it for documentary shooting (unless they’re for interviews), which would benefit from high quality video recording in large, large quantities.
However, when you DO have this opportunity, it’s very hard to go backwards. Speaking from experience as a hobbyist stills photographer, RAW gives you the most latitude, color depth and in this case, resolution than in shooting in any compressed format. So this makes the Magic Lantern RAW (known here on out as “ML RAW”) capture very similar to shooting on film (sans 2-3 stops of latitude, really).
In post, I extracted the frames using the raw2cdng program (I’m a Windows PC user), then imported them into Davinci Resolve Lite for a DNxHD 444 video export. After some time, the edit was done in Premiere CS6 and then colored in After Effects CS6.
Dead End- a fashion film from Kahleem Poole-Tejada (KahL-One) on Vimeo.
CONCLUSION
This was an incredibly fun project, even with the single location as a backdrop to the story. We plan on filming part 2 to the story, if we quit being distracted by other work.
It’s always the personal projects that allow us to take the most risks and experiment. I mean, how else can we evolve as artists if we don’t choose to take risks in our work?
-Kahleem Poole-Tejada
Something that was WAY overdue for us, but finally underway.
Our first action narrative film short, “Tremor Team 12”, lensed by yours truly and Directed by good friend, Richard O’ Sullivan.
Here are a few still frames from the film, all prettied up with my color scales for the final grade (after editing, of course).
I’m very much addicted to using VisionColor’s Osiris LUT package as a base, then grading further to give it its cold, dark look.
More to come with BTS pics of Day 2 this week!
KahL-Blog 