Well another production season has come and gone and all of a sudden we are back in post production. Where did the year go?
I chose to film the reenactment using Canon 5D and 7D HDSLR’s this season and what an amazing difference it has made to the look of the show. Of course our outstanding crew went beyond the call of duty to make the magic happen. I don’t think we could find another crew who could turn and clandestine bridge into an oil rig, or the most British city in Canada look like the most French city in Canada! or a blizzard into summer. As Pieter Stathis, our Director of Photography, would say ” our shoot was full of gifts”. I especially liked our secret grow-op!
I plan to post more thoughts and observations about this season’s production as we blast through post production. Tales of HDSLR’s, under water housings and new MacPro edit suites.
Season 3 Premieres July 24, 2010
The Corus network VIVA is currently airing the first 9 episodes of the English version of our series Dark Waters of Crime. The French Version, Eaux Trouble du Crime airs on Canal D. Check local listings for channel number and schedules.
Here is a link to VIVA’s website for future air dates.
Check out my Flickr page. I have posted a few production stills that I took during the reenactment shoot last year.
I’ve had many people email me recently with questions about building a budget priced edit suite so I decided to blog a bit on the subject. Feel free to add or ask questions because every project and system is unique.
Desktop edit systems with all the bells and whistles can easily cost $10,000 and far beyond. If you crave one, but you’re on a tight budget my advice is to buy the best machine you can afford. It’s best to start small and farm out what you can’t afford to do yourself, or don’t have the skill set to do well, like audio post or colour grading.
If you are working in HDV or HD 720p or 1080i you have to use an Intel Mac or Windows computer. If you use Adobe CS5 apps you will want Mac OS 10.6 Snow leopard as well. HDV or HD video recorded on a tapless camera system like Panasonic P2 or Sony EX can be easily imported into Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and AVID.
However the new Apple quad-core iMac’s with the i5 & i7 processors are very fast and affordable, rivalling the speeds of the now very old octo-core MacPros. They lack some of the flexibility of the desktop systems, the most obvious being that there are no PCI Express expansion slots for video capture cards.
If you will be primarily dealing with tapeless media, or if someone else will capture the tape based footage and give it to you on a drive then an iMac or MacBook Pro will do the trick for most video codecs. Although a quad or octo-core MacPro will make rendering and other aspects much faster. In most cases, if you are finishing for broadcast with tape based HD or 3D footage you will need a MacPro with a Kona or Black Magic video capture card, but this technology is improving all the time along with processors and interface speeds.
If you need realtime capture and playback of HD on an iMac or MacBook Pro there are interface boxes, made by AJA and Matrox that give you the option. AJA makes the io HD and io Express and Matrox makes the MXO line of PCIe based solutions, but the MXO will only work with MacBook Pro and MacPro computers. They vary in price from relatively cheap to expensive but they are comparable in price and functionality to their PCI based counterparts: io HD $3500, io Express $1000 and the MXO2 $1600. There are companies that rent these devices so you don’t need to buy them right away if your budget won’t allow.
Hard drives are another issue. To work in HD, especially if it is 1080i, you will need a fast RAID hard drive. A 4 or 5 drive raid 0 or raid 5 drive is sufficient with at least a Firewire 800 connection. eSATA is faster interface but the iMac doesn’t accommodate anything other than USB2 and Firewire 800. PCI and Express Card adaptors are now available from companies like Sonnet but they don’t run on the Mac at the present time.
I have many Sonnet Fusion D500P eSATA RAID’s that have been working well for years. But many other manufacturers make durable RAID’s like: Drobo, G-Tech, Promise Smartstor and Glyph. However if you want eSATA or fibre-channel you will need a MacPro desktop.
MacBook Pro’s, iMac’s and of course MacPro’s come with gigabit ethernet connections which can be used to communicate with high speed RAID drives and shared storage systems. Many server based file sharing edit houses are using iMacs but they also have more muscular networked machines to do a lot of the heavy lifting. MacBook Pro’s and iMac’s also have mini DVI monitor ports which will allow you to connect a second graphic display for more visual realestate which is very nice to have for most post production work.
So in the end my advice is still to buy what you can afford when you need it. It possible to build a system that can suit your need and your budget at the same time. The challenge is to research and find all the right pieces to make it work. The key is to ask lots of questions to people and discussion groups to learn from the experience.
Semiahmoo Bay On Any Given Day…
Sylvie thinks it’s cute. And it is really. It’s just one reason why I love living in White Rock. This is actually the 12th annual Semiahmoo Bay International Regatta. 40 boats had on Saturday April 24th. The race lasted from 10am to 2pm, one of the fastest races in 12 years. I filmed this from our balcony using my Canon 5D mark II using intervals set to one frame per second for about 20 minutes. Then I imported the image sequences into Quicktime Pro 7 and exported it as a 720p24 ProRes QT movie. I imported it into Final Cut Pro for colour grading, Tiffen DFX ProMist and music. Then exported it as an H.264 movie to upload to Vimeo.
Enjoy!
Regatta de White Rock from Greg Nosaty on Vimeo.
On any given day there was around 40 people on the set of Eaux Troubles du Crime, about 30 crew and 10 actors. That’s pretty small by dramatic standards but huge for a documentary crew. I’ve only been involved in Eaux Troubles as a director for 2 and a half seasons. But in my experience we’ve had the best people Victoria and the Gulf Islands have to offer. Of course there are always a few stragglers from Vancouver, at least a couple from White Rock, one from Coquitlam and who could forget Bowen Island.
The best part is building relationships and having the opportunity to work with many of the same people over again. That kind of history makes it easier to get thinks done because you can pickup from where you left off the last time…
The strange thing for me is that as I continue to edit and refine the stories as you all move on to other things in your lives. I watch scene after scene, month after month and I remember behind the scenes moments with everyone. As I work with many of the same people year after year the memories become more dear.
Recently I did an aerial shoot with Talon helicopters for an episode of Eaux Troubles du Crime / Dark Waters of Crime. I flew with a cinematographer friend, Paul Mitchnick, who has experience with the Tyler middle mount stabilizer. The people at Talon were great to work with and experienced with the Tyler mount. Our pilot Kelsey Wheeler was a great guy and very experienced with film shoots.
We rented the mount from Panavision Canada. It took half a day to setup and balance it because this was the first time they had configured it with the Panasonic HPX300. The camera is a bit too light for the system so we had to add lead for balast. In the end it was still a bit to light for the gyros to have a substantial effect. Next time I will add even more weight to the camera head.
I also shot with my Canon 5D mark II in a Manfrotto Fig Rig. I got surprisingly stable results and decent audio as well using the Sennheiser MKE400. I shot for 1.5 hours and had no overheating issues at all. Surprisingly the was very little rolling shutter considering the vibrations in the helicopter. I guess the Fig Rig and I were better stabilization than I expected. Just for fun I also stuck my GoPro camera to the windshield of the helicopter. Those images with take a bit of work to flip, stabilize and render. I’ll post some movie clips this week when I’ve processed them.
It was a great day. The only thing I would change next time is the weather. All week the forecast had been sun for friday which actually occurred on thursday afternoon as we were mounting the rig into the helicopter. Although the moody skies will suit the series quite well.
Well I’m sad to admit that my feet still hurt from this year’s NAB convention but it was well worth it. I can’t possibly post everything at once so they will be a series…
I saw some very cool new technology for DSLR filmmaking, 3D cinema and post production tools that made me decide to stay in this business for another year or two at least. i’m gonna out sound bites of what impressed me or that I found useful and give like to more info. If that’s not enough then you can comment and I’ll do my best to point you somewhere else.
I was looking for a mattebox and shoulder mount system for my Canon 5D. I couldn’t believe how many companies there are fighting for a piece of the DSLR market. It came down to systems by Redrock Micro and Zacuto. I finally settled on a riser mount, rod system and a Z-finder from Zacuto. Their products are very well made and completely modifiable. It’s like Lego for cinematographers. What I liked about their system is that I can buy what I need now and build on it as my needs change. This is a link to the rig a tried, the Double Barrel.
The Z-finder is the best DSLR viewfinder I’ve tried. It’s available with 2.5x or 3x lens magnification options and a diopter to fine tune it to your vision. the 2.5x worked best for me. With the 3x lens I could see individual pixels on the 5D’s LCD. A very secure mount system is an option as well. It’s actually an L shaped bracket the mounts to the base of the camera body as opposed to rubber bands or velcro.
Here is a very bad photo from the show floor.
They delayed shipping again, so disappointing…
I’ve been slowly integrating my Canon 5D mark II into the workflow for our documentaries. The latest firmware update has made significant improvements to image and audio capture as well as workflow. But there are a still few things that remain problematic.
The first and most obvious is the rolling shutter or “jellocam” effect. It’s been widely discussed on many blogs. In a nutshell it is an artifact of CMOS imaging chips and the way the process the image to the storage device like a CF card. CCD cameras continually dump data to the storage system while CMOS only dump data when they are full. So if you move the camera while the huge 21 megapixel chips is filling up, the image will distort. My Panasonic HPX300 suffers from a bit of the same problem.
The clip below is an example that I shot from a Sky Train bridge. A train passed beside me as I was filming the boat with a 300mm lens on a tripod. The vibration as the train passed is what caused the distortion.
Jellocam boat from Greg Nosaty on Vimeo.
What I learned is that when using the 5D mark II it’s best to not shoot handheld or make quick camera movements. If you are going to shoot sporting events, dance or absolutely love to swish pan this probably is not the right choice of camera.
You can get good results with a wider lens if you have a rock solid hand held. I prefer to use one of many kinds of camera support: a tripod, monopod, shoulder mount, Steadicam, dolly or an OverKeeper to get the best results.
If you absolutely need to use a shot that has a rolling shutter there are some apps and plugins to correct for this problem. One that comes highly recommended is RollingShutter made by The Foundry.
Bottom line is you need to test your gear under the intended condition before you begin production. If you see something odd then do some research, ask questions and you will find that there is almost always a work around.
Art direction may sound like a position on a feature film more than a documentary but it’s a crucial position whenever you are filming reenactments. An Art director is part artist and part organizer. They are in charge of creating a believable environment that the actors will play in. Art directors are directly responsible for set design, construction, set decoration and props. They have fingers in the locations, costumes, set decoration, props, hair, makeup and even the selection of single malt scotch ;)
Eaux Trouble du Crime III had a very eclectic needs from the art department. Everything from icebergs on lake Simcoe to disarticulated feet in an autopsy. All you have to give to a good art director is a huge piece of styrofoam, some pork fat, a tree stump, a mannequin and a Dremel tool and they can make miracles. Ernie Tomlinson has Art directed 7 of 9 episodes of Eaux Troubles not to mention some stellar acting as a forensics technician in the lab and in the field!
I think the success of a film is to draw in the audience and make them feel they are a part of the action. The art direction sets the stage for all the other talents to shine. My advice is don’t take art direction for granted.
Casting for a docudrama is similar to location scouting, where we look for authentic settings, we try to cast look-a-like actors to play the victims, perpetrators and investigators. And believe me it isn’t an easy task. An experienced casting director is essential.
Red Letter films is a UDA (Union des Artistes) signatory production company. The rules are slightly different than the UBCP (Union of British Columbia Performers). We don’t write dialogue for our reenactments so we cast actors for 3rd Role or non-speaking rates. I look for physical performances that can be understood without language. We need to fill about 34 non-speaking roles plus about a dozen extras spread over three episodes.
Victoria British Columbia has an interesting range of actors from very experienced to very green. Without lines to read the auditions are completely improve. I give each actor a brief scene background and a description of the character. Our casting director plays in the scene with them if necessary. We auditioned 80 actors in 10 hours which is about 7.5 minute per person including lunch, laughs and pee breaks!
Then it’s time for a beer and the the task of creating a callbacks list. There were quite a few actors who I knew during the auditions were perfect for the part. They get put on the hold list but I don’t necessarily need to see them again unless I want them to play against another actor in a supporting role. For the rest we spread out pieces of paper with the name of each character and choose at least two actors for each part and place their head shot under the character name.
By the end of this process we have three piles of head shots: Rejects, Holds and Callbacks. Rejects are obvious, Holds are all the actors including the ones we have already chosen for a role. Callbacks are only the actors we want to see again. The casting director contacts the agents or actors directly to put them on hold and will followup with a schedule. Last year we did audition and callbacks on consecutive days. But we learned from that experience and gave ourselves a day in between to make scheduling easier.
Callbacks are much more fun than the initial casting call because we know exactly who we are dealing with. It’s our opportunity to push the actors performances a little further and audition them in pairs or groups to see how they interact. After about four hours of mix and match I’m able to narrow down the list and make the final choices. Then similar to the first day we spread out pieces of paper with the name of each character and place actors with character.
By the end of this process we have a bigger Rejects pile. A Cast pile and a reserve on the Holds pile in case the first choice actors have some kind of scheduling conflict. Usually within a day or two the cast is set and they are of to wardrobe for sizing.
Here is a fun timelapse made by our stills photographer and blogger Catherine Mallette
ET3 audition timelapse from Greg Nosaty on Vimeo.
