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Shot a photographer...made my day : )
  • pchristophpchristoph

    I was approached by a photographer here on Vancouver Island, Canada to make a short film about her and her business. This was a tough one for me as most photographers I know lean towards controlling scenes and directing action and so I was hesitant as my approach is very much hands off, documentary-style...but, she immediately said that she was giving me the reins to produce something that was honest and real about who she was. Erin told me later on that she was quite stressed after filming because she was used to seeing her results immediately and having to wait and leave it to me to edit her film was a new experience, but, she trusted me. I really valued that trust. Its something that you start building from your first client film, and it has introduced me to some great projects and people this year. So, having spent some time studying Erins photography style and the look of her photos I knew how I wanted to form the look of her film and I also knew how to mix her personality and her story into it to make what I feel is an honest film about a real photographer doing great things for people. I felt lucky to have been able to work with Erin and create the exact kind of photographer film we both wanted.

    Can't say enough thanks to Vitaliy and the entire community here for its valued support, encouragement, and enhanced camera settings contributions and testing. It's great to be a small part of it by sharing some of my work done with the GH2. Cheers.

    Filmed on GH2 over two days, Sedna A and Canis Majoris 'skin' settings from Driftwood. Steadycam Merlin (in some crazy wind), Kessler Pocket Dolly, manfrotto 561 monopod, s.takumar lenses (50,55,135), Tamron 17-50 non vc, Panasonic 14-140, Tota w/silver umbrella for interiors. LCW II vari-ND outside. Edited and graded in fcpx. Neat video applied to some clips. Music licensed with www.withetiquette.com

  • 11 Replies sorted by
  • strancalistrancali

    @pchristoph Paul, I said it on your vimeo page and I'll say it again here, I LOVE YOUR WORK! :)

    I know this is a subjective question but out of the two sets of lenses, do you prefer to use the Takumars or the Tamron more?

    Sid

  • No_SuRReNDeRNo_SuRReNDeR

    Ive wanted to shoot allot of event photographers....and not like this -LOL

    Footage looks really great -btw

    What card(s) do you use?

  • pchristophpchristoph

    @strancali Both kinds are great. I mainly use the Tamron at 17mm, and none of my Taks get there - so I couldn't do without something that wide. It gives me a pretty close look to the Taks in camera too. If I had to choose though...I would choose the super takumars - for me they just have that : je ne sais quoi quality. Creamy, low contrast...I've been a fan of the older Pentax 'look' for years. Someday I would love an opportunity to work on a bigger project and try out some pro lenses, like Cooke's - who wouldn't : ) Thanks for the compliments Sid.

  • pchristophpchristoph

    @No_SurreNDeR I used the now discontinued San Disk 30mb/s Video sd cards. Got them from B&H.
    Oh, and I feel the same, hence the play on words ; )

  • No_SuRReNDeRNo_SuRReNDeR

    Really?... I was thinking those would fail allot on Sedna... Shooting a film in a few weeks and I need to figure out what patch to use this time. I have 1 16gig 30 mb/s 1 32gig 45 mb/s and 1 32gig 95 mb/s San disc--- I want to be able to swap cards and dump to the MBP as they fill up.

    Oh and I have a nice 50mm super takumar f 1.4 m42 mount i love that thing shame its a 100mm on GH2...

  • pchristophpchristoph

    I've got the 16gb cards. They seem pretty solid, but for a shoot like this I'm only recording maybe 10-20 sec per shot. (accept the interview-3min clips). I had no crashes under these conditions. I hope you have a great shoot and settle on settings that'll give you what you need. If you need long dependable record times without gop1, I've used flowmotion v2 by Lpowell and it was impressive in quality and low file sizes. I have appreciated his settings and enjoyed the benefits of his efforts since the GH1 days.

  • OedipaxOedipax

    I get occasional fails with Sedna and my 30mb/s Sandisk cards but it's usually pretty solid. Enough to last me until I can step up to the 95s anyway.

  • BressonftwBressonftw

    For the grading, did you lower the saturation and give it a slightly yellowish/magenta look? Could you tell something about that?

  • pchristophpchristoph

    The gh2 produces a slightly green cast overall so I think if I remember correctly I ended up reducing the global green color saturation (fcpx) by about 2% for a more even tone. The look I was going for was bright, warm, and a bit vintage. I reduced blue in the highlights a bit to bring this look out. Exposure/Saturation got a bump up in the mids. I try to stay away from the magenta look but it's tough with this camera. I'm looking at picking up some tiffin water white IRND's to help with IR magenta issues in bright exterior shots. For this shoot I setup using Cinema, -2,0,-1,-2 and had color shift straight over to blue 5 clicks, sometimes more. I then set kelvin wb 200-400 higher than correct wb. Using this in camera setup formed the basis for getting the color grade and look I wanted to achieve in post.

  • johnnymjohnnym

    Brilliant work.

  • alcomposeralcomposer

    Congratulations @pchristoph!

    Possibly not only the best example of CM... but possibly a great example of FCPX! (Good pro work!)

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