brooklyn footage for short film?

Post by **mattias** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 11:42 am

hey,

i'm shooting a short film this week and i need a view from a brooklyn window to key in outside a window. preferably magic hour or early dawn with brownstones and warehouses and manhattan in the far background. who would like to get some for me in exchange for a "second unit director/dp" credit and a copy of the film? preferably hdv or 16mm but high end dv would work too or even a series of digital stills. pm me if you're interested.

/matt

Post by **npcoombs** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 12:12 pm

Obviously Im in no position to help you out on this one, but do you mind letting us know something about this new short film?

Post by **mattias** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 12:20 pm

it's an 8 minute conversation over the phone between a guy in stockholm and a girl in new york. the working title is "i love you". i'm the writer/director/producer/dp. we're shooting hdv using the sony fx1e camera. the idea is to make sort of a music video with the dialog as the song and the images illustrating the poetry of it, or something like that. any questions? ;-)

/matt

Post by **npcoombs** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 12:39 pm

Im just baffled as to why, in your position, you want to go down the HDV route. Are you trying to work yourself out a niche as the 'film guy' director?

Post by **mattias** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 1:42 pm

i'm shooting hdv because somebody gave me a camera to play with and i though why not try it out. it's not what i would have chosen if there was really a choice. originally i was going to do it on 2-perf 35mm, but ultimately i didn't want to wait for funding. it feels fantastic to do something on a zero budget with full control again. it's been a couple of years.

/matt

Post by **Evan Kubota** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 6:06 am

Hm, I wish I had seen this earlier. My brother was in Manhattan from Thursday night through Saturday morning.. he mentioned forgetting to bring a S8 camera to shoot the scenery, but he might have been able to borrow a 16mm camera from the school.

Post by **steve hyde** » Sun Nov 06, 2005 10:48 pm

...well if you want to put her in Seattle instead we might be able to arrange some S16 pick ups.....

An idea for a transnational collaboration might start with a script like you describe then directors from both countries would follow guidelines for art direction and shooting style to create a cohesive short..

Steve

Post by **mattias** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 1:39 am

it's finished and i thought i'd show you some clips. quoting myself from cinematography.com

one was shot at dusk using the camera light handheld as a side key, you can see where it is if you watch the guy passing by since he looks up at it. :-) one is daylight cross lit with a shiny lastolite reflector. the third is a closeup where the convertible lastolite was used as a butterfly diffusor and the camera light as fill.

http://www.mattias.nu/stuff/iloveyou1.mov
http://www.mattias.nu/stuff/iloveyou2.mov
http://www.mattias.nu/stuff/iloveyou3.mov

the short premieres at the buff film festival in malmÃƒÂ¶, sweden next thursday the 16th. it will be shown on digibeta in an "e-cinema" equipped theater, whatever that means. sounds better than the usual home movie projector in a nightclub or conference room festival setup at least. :-)

/matt

Post by **steve hyde** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 5:14 am

Matt,

These are lovely clips. The colors are brilliant!! Thanks for posting them. I'd like to see the completed short. You should see if you can get it into SIFF.

http://www.seattlefilm.com/index.aspx?detect=yes

Cheers,

Steve

Post by **npcoombs** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 12:07 pm

Those are nice clips Matt.

What was your budget? You have done a good job with the DV camera. Obviously it doesn't have the visual impact of the s16mm short you directed but considering it was shot on a prosumer DV camera (without a crew?) it looks like a job well done.

Post by **mattias** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 1:41 pm

thanks. yeah, as i said i was planning on shooting it on 2-perf but this allowed me to do it for a total budget of $200. i had a camera assistant, a sound guy and a runner. plus two actors. they didn't get paid but i fed them well and threw a small party at the end of the shoot. all within the budget of course. :-)

/matt

Post by **mattias** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 2:00 pm

btw it's not dv but hdv. the first color corrected version i did on a downconverted dv version but the final online was done in hd res (using the apple intermediate codec) and downconverted. the difference is more than striking, especially in the shots where i've brightened the image. the pixel averaging in the downconversion effectlively increases the number of bits you have to work with. i recommend anyone shooting hdv to actually work with the hd material and not use the camera's built in downconversion.

/matt

Post by **steve hyde** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 4:42 pm

mattias wrote:btw it's not dv but hdv. the first color corrected version i did on a downconverted dv version but the final online was done in hd res (using the apple intermediate codec) and downconverted. the difference is more than striking, especially in the shots where i've brightened the image. the pixel averaging in the downconversion effectlively increases the number of bits you have to work with. i recommend anyone shooting hdv to actually work with the hd material and not use the camera's built in downconversion.

/matt

It is striking. Looks just like the HVX 200 footage I've been seeing. Let us know how it looks projected. Congratulations on finishing another short...

Steve

Post by **npcoombs** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 7:59 pm

Hi Matt, could you tell me a bit more about the film or point me to some info, or discuss the plot of themes a little. There is a tendency on this board (male dominated?) to just lapse into tech speak when I know with filmmakers like yourself there is a lot more going on.

Post by **mattias** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 8:00 pm

i agree. i'll post a trailer early next week and then we'll talk. basically we can say that it's a short made using my experience in music video, where the song is replaced by a phone conversation (heard over the phone) and illustrated by images of people talking on the phone which in themselves don't carry any story, just illustrate what's being said. it's about love and distance. it's a couple separated by an ocean, so they're thousands of kilometers apart as well as several time zones, they are also separated by them being in different phases in life, by the way they look at their relationship and so on. well, a little bit more than the "basically" suggested but whatever... :-)

/matt