Seth Deming

Gravel Metric Three

This is the third year in a row I’ve been able to work with Tobie Depauw. Tobie Telling Me what I’m doing Wrong. Photo by Chad Gregory

Every year was a good experience, with me looking forward to the next year. For instance, last years video brought me so much work, it’s basically the reason I was able to quit insurance and be a ‘director of photography’ (a term I’m not too sure is accurate) for OC Imageworks. I have the best job ever.

This year was different though. It was the first time I was able to really hangout with the people within the cycling culture for more than a few hours here and there. And just like Tobie, they’re all really cool genuine people. People with tattoos that have real jobs. They’re like kids who (on the one hand) never grew up, but you’d feel totally safe leaving your kids with them. You know how in high school or maybe college you go to someplace outside of your stomping grounds and meet these really interesting, motivated, cool people? I had that type of experience with them.

-Be Safe-
Brendan Gecik (the main cyclists) was nearly badly hurt while and was the most generous guy on the planet. It was completely my fault, we were just going too fast, and people were pulling on his legs for the Through-the-Truck-Shot. Brendan went over the edge and hit his head under his helmet (right above his neck) on the bottom door frame of the truck.

It was a miracle he was okay, and didn’t have a concussion. We were planning on using a stunt guy for this shot, but I cancelled that last minute because I was worried about time. Obviously, it’s better to slow things down and be safe. Lesson learned. I still feel awful.

Anyway, I don’t shave my legs, and I own zero lycra, but I felt totally accepted by these people. To be honest, I do own a bike and I ride it to work nearly every day. BUT, my bike was picked out of a garbage pile and NCC made brought the Frankenstein back to life for me. That was until on set I made the mistake of riding one of the very very nice bikes from Trek, Surly and The Foundry. I realized why these guys like this so much and that my bike might as well have gone back in that trash pile. Then, while recording some additional dialogue with Tobie they surprised me with this:


Totally humbled, and I’ve already had to refill the tires twice from riding it so much. The gesture was unreal, and it was like they were saying ‘hey, come on in, you’re part of this too now.’ Such a welcoming group of people.

Photo by Chad Gregory
Photo by Chad Gregory

I plan on doing a VFX breakdown for this one soon. Soon!

I got a dollar hey hey hey hey

If life were perfect, I’d be able to make a video a month with Tobie. I’d be rich and I could fund cool film projects like a boss. Also, cookies would be health food and we’d have flying cars. But I ain’t rich, we’re stuck with vegetables, cars with tires, and Tobie and I get to make one video a year.

So, this year, we’re trying to make it count. To do that we need help, and thank the Good Lord for Kickstarter, with 22 days to go, we’re nearly there. Thanks so much to all the blogs who threw this link up, friends and family who have shared on facebook. I think nearly all of the money has come from avid cyclists who want to support a free race and a cool way to promote it. We’re extremely humbled!

http://kck.st/yMFg7z

Youtube paying for your video?

Wait what? Yeah I know, but check this out, a friend of mine recently linked me to this article here. Where Alissa Wilkinson of World magazine writes:

Film Night Looks Nothing Like Real Night

So this Friday we get to film a chase-through-the-woods scene. So, in prep for this scene I’ve been watching a show that had more chase-through-the-woods then there are calories in a box of Kripsy Kremes, LOST.

Here we see two cameras and a hand full of high direct lights with no filters, or soft boxes on them. This is some harsh lighting, but it’s up high and pulled back so it becomes nice and diffused. Sort of like, well, this guy.

Check out this still of Jorge Garcia and Josh Holloway. Note how some of the lights are there to simply light the back ground, and give depth the woods. This looks so bright doesn’t

it?

But wait, check out this still of Mathew Fox fighting Terry O’quinn. Again, a wide shot that looks too bright. But through the alchemy of post processing, lets see that same shot from the cameras perspective after a color grade.

Now that looks like some sexy night. Heck, I even took that shot of Mr. Garcia and Mr. Holloway into photoshop and got a similar result by a simple levels adjustment here.

After we finish our shoot, I’ll post stills of the shots, before and afters as well as some wide shots to show what we did. It wont look as good as Lost, but it’ll come close, a heck of a lot closer than if we just used ‘available light’.

How Social Networking Expands Your Rodriguez List

This post is a reference from a reference. Stu Maschwitz talks about the Rodriguez List in his book the DV Rebels Guide, which is a reference to Robert Rodriguez’ book, Rebel Without A Crew.

What’s a “Rodriguez List”?

The idea is simple. You make a list of all the assets you have access to, things your friends, family, in-laws, extended family own that they would let you borrow for your film project. Cars, locations, props, etc. I love this idea, it’s both efficient and frugal.

So, we’re filming a movie called Dust, and within the story there’s a scene in which a cop car parks in front of the main characters house. Well, how am I going to get a cop car? Enter facebook. Here I have three hundred or so friends, family, acquaintances who through a simple ‘event’ know that I’m making a movie, and that I’m looking for a cop-like car.

I ended up getting two cars (!) that were cop-like. A white Chevy Impala, and a white Chevy Blazer. After removing some hub caps, putting a cage in the back seat, adding an air-soft shotgun under the rear view mirror, and putting a laptop on the center console: we had a cop car!

Social networking at its finest.

OMG That Was Close (an HDSLR scare)

We were filming a scene in a borrowed location the other night at about 10:30pm. Trying to direct and operate the camera takes 100% of my brain. Not to mention the fact that we filmed the sequence in reverse order. Thank God for script supervisors, and sound guys! If I had to try and do all of that, my head would very likely explode. And because I was holding the camera, it wouldn’t even make it on to youtube….

Anyway, like I said things are crazy, I’ve got this poor actor in a prosthetic, trench coat, and hoodie. AND it’s like 89 degrees in there. The next shot we had to film called for a tripod, and I need to switch to it from our shoulder support. Well, I’m doing the switch and after the camera is on the tripod I go to set the exposure and fear strikes my soul. It looks like video. Oh my God, we’ve been filming in 30p. Now, keep in mind this is after about an hour and a half of work that could have just been flushed down the toilet. And I’m there with the script supervisor in utter terroR. tthat is until I go into the play back menu and hit the info button.

And there it is like a cold glass of water on a hot day, 24p listed on all of my files. Thank you, THANK YOU Canon for including that information on the video files. Come to find out what had happened was when I was taking the camera off of the shoulder rig, I had bumped the mode wheel and switched it to C1 (custom one) which for defaulted to 30p instead of the beloved 24p.

I just moved the mode dial back to ‘manual’ and of course everything was fine. PLUS none of the clips we had shot previously were in the wrong frame rate!

So lesson learned. Even though things are crazy out there. It’s good to take a breath to center yourself.

Whew. That was close.

Things I Never Thought I’d Have To Do

So in making a film I’ve done somethings I never thought I’d have to do.

1. Buying Make Up at Walgreens. Our film (Dust) calls for a prosthetic piece (which we had made here) Two nights ago, I went to Walgreens because I needed to buy make up to blend the prosthetic back into the actors skin. So, that was weird. It’s not everyday I ask a girl there what foundation cream she uses.

2. Applying A Prosthetic Joe from Four Finger Effects was kind enough to teach me how to actually apply the piece to the actors face.

3. Beg Everyone for Everything If you have someone in mind for a one word (yes, word not line) roll, like say…a social worker, you may find out that the person who you thought would do it no problem, is a terrible actor/actress. So, you have to find someone. Now, to be fair I’ve found that getting people involved isn’t as hard as it seems. I’m finding that people seem to want to be a part of something, and if they can be a part of a film and you have a positive attitude, people will pick up on that and want to contribute. On the other hand, asking a relative to borrowing their crown vic to deck out like a cop car might not be as easy, some begging/bribing may be required.

4. Talk To the Police We’re filming a scene this saturday where the fake cop car I begged to get is sitting in front of the main characters house. I rented a police light from a local guy who rents police cars for movies. Strange that he was so close, but I’m not going to argue. Anyway, there are fake cops and airsoft guns in this scene so we thought it’d be a good idea to let the local authorities know. The worst thing that could happen is have the real cops show up while your filming with your fake cops. Ugh. Your whole crew could loose faith in you. Also, letting the neighbors know isn’t a bad idea either.

5. Work So Hard Making an hour long film is hard. Making an hour long film on a spiders thread budget is harder. I mean, I’m so thankful for my dedicated actors and crew (two guys). But I will say, that even with all that, it takes a lot of planning, dedication, and attention to EVERY detail. It takes time and effort, but then again, most things worth while do.

Let Them Eat Gravel

The Gravel Metric is a gravel road ride (don’t call it a race…but whoever finishes first does get bragging rights). Anyway we shot this in a day (5D, 7D, & a GoPro) I edited, colored, and rendered it in about six or eight hours.

The Gravel Metric Invitation from OC Imageworks on Vimeo.

So, a few geeky notes. The shot of the barn with the windmill was an effects shot, as was the guy coming out of the tree.

In the barn shot, I replaced a new looking barn with a wind generator in a field, and in the tree shot I removed the guy standing on a ladder handing off the bike.

I will say this, this is one of my favorite projects yet! I fell in love with CloudKicker while working on this, and the guys in that band are very cool.

We shot the on-bike shots from the back of a van, again using the beloved 70-200mm. I love that lens. And these guys(in the video) rock. They were totally cool with us dousing them in baby powder to look dusty, putting them in culverts, drainage ditches, and making them climb trees in those biking shoes.

AliBoo Farms

David (my business partner and I) went out on a whim to shoot for a day at this local horse farm. We did three interviews and I used two of them in the final product. This family is impossibly generous, and fun. It was fun getting to know them and being able to get some great footage. I mostly shot with a 7d and a Tameron 17-50. David shot with the 5DmII and traded between his 400mm and 70-200. In my opinion all great lenses. It was at this shoot I just fell in love with the 70-200. Such a filmic image. The lens does cost about as much as a body for a 7d, but it’s the glass that makes these images sing. For the interviews I used 50mm on the 7d and the 70-200.

Of course we shot with a flat picture profile so the grading in post was just fun. I converted all of the footage using cineform’s neoscene and all of the color work was done in AE using the methods found here.

Before & Afters:

Also the music was a track off a friend of mine’s (Greg Wheaton) recent cd. Check him out here. He’s an expert guitarist, who’s music is just inspiring.

Anyway, you can see I did some simple effects in this film. There’s the windmill (just shot against a blue sky and chroma’d out the blue) and of course the OCimage credit.

AliBoo Farms from OC Imageworks on Vimeo.