This one was basically Brandon thinking “what if we did red flower petals as blood hits?” because it would let us be ridiculously violent, yet not appear so because it’s, well, flower petals. We went from there – sunflowers for muzzle flares, flowers shooting up with the ground hits, general 70s look and vibe (although the G36 is most definitely not a gun from the 70s). Once we got the VW Bus, it was on.
For this shoot, we wanted to put the Canon 7D through its paces in a very fast, run-and-gun scenario. Due to skew issues we also shot with the Panasonic HVX200 for any effects shots where we knew we would need to do 3D tracking for. We’ve heard nothing but love for the 7D, and after trying it out here, I have to say it’s not a very good camera for action.
The biggest issue is that we need to be at f5.6 to f8 in order to catch all the action without having anything go soft. In my opinion, shallow depth of field is overrated. For people sitting around and basic dialogue, it’s great, but when there’s a lot of stuff going on, you can’t afford to have things soft. I think you lose a lot of the visceral feel if you’re forcing your audience to pay attention to various details by controlling planes of focus, especially given that depth is a big part of defining space.
The problem with shooting at 5.6 or 8 is that you’re forced to crank the ISO, which makes the footage noisy as hell. The low light of the 7D is great, but that’s assuming you’re shooting wide open, which allows the ISO to be at a more reasonable level. Additionally, the skew killed handheld shots, and also killed any shots where I move quickly in frame – there’s a shot where I jerk my head back and the camera is dead steady but my face is warped due to my speed
Final verdict on the 7D is it’s a great camera for shooting movies without a lot of action or a lot of movement. Everyone’s gone so far into the “I love shallow focus” side that you have totally unacceptable crap like one eye in focus but the farther eye out of focus. Pick up any American Cinematographer and you’ll find that movies aren’t all shot at f1.4. DPs will use f4 or f5.6 all the time because sometimes it’s nice to see things in focus.
As a side note, I will say that I don’t think we did the best job with being clear with space here. There are a lot of shots I think we should’ve got – after we shoot the ceiling, the camera should dolly from the kitchen back over to the main room to make sure people understand that we’re coming back to the room that we started in. As of now, it’s a little bit disconnected. Kevin’s house didn’t lend itself to good wides outside, so we compensated by playing this scene more as a “siege” sequence. Ideally, we would be able to see up to the road where Rico pulls up from the room we start in to lock in exactly where everyone is from the start.
New vid!
Wondering if this one’s any good? Check out this review of the video from my mom!
The batting cage, that is.
I might add that this is easily my favorite thumbnail of all time. You’ll notice I’ve enhanced my biceps area to more accurately reflect how I think of myself.
New video!
Behind the Scenes:
