Game over

So it has come down to decision time…  after much deliberation I have had to make the unfortunate call of moving away from the 5D anamorphic format in favour for the RED one with the same lenses.

It all came down to this final and simple fact….  The 35mm and 50mm were not up to standard compared to the image quality that we would achieve with the red.

This was soley due to the fact that the 35mm and 50mm lenses didn’t cover the sensor of the 5D enough which created vignetting which we had to crop into in order to get full coverage.

This caused the 35mm especially to have a far lesser quality resolution compared to the longer lenses eg 75mm and 100mm.

Although I say that about the 35mm and 50mm….  it just happens that the 75mm and 100mm look absolutely beautiful.  Many people have commented saying that it is easily the best 5D footage that they had ever seen.

But I was not prepared to shoot on the 75mm and 100mm alone fro the entire job as you could imagine.

So this brings me to the end of our journey…  I’m sorry that it wasn’t a fairy tale ending but it was certainly an adventure. In a final comment I would say that you can shoot 5D anamorphic with a 2:1 squeeze and with a focal length of over 50mm or you could get your hands on some 1.5x squeeze hawke anamorphics.

I will post examples of the 35mm, 50mm,75mm and 100mm footage soon so you can se the difference.

We've created a monster

We’ve created a monster

Once again I apologise for not being in communication as much as I had initially set out to be in my original post. 

Things have been a bit nuts for me lately with a whole bunch of commercials all coming in at once before Christmas.  Then on top of that I’ve been I pre production for two jobs, “The Sellers” (which we are shooting 5D anamorphic on) and another short film “Night Storm” for which I am currently sitting on a plane bound for my hometown Wellington, in order to start shooting tomorrow afternoon.

This has certainly been a massive learning curve for me and everyone involved. Olli my camera assistant has been pretty much living in the test bay at Panavision here in Sydney for the past week.  I believe one of the guys there said that he had “become part of the furniture.”

All the guys at “Heckler” in Sydney have been working hard at getting us all on the same page with post pathway as well as devising the best  “compressor droplets” for cropping and pro res conversion.   The compressor droplets are necessary because we have to cut off or crop in on the left and right hand sides in order to keep a true 1:2.40 widescreen ratio, otherwise we would be left with a long and skinny image that resembles more a ratio more likened to 3:1.

We are also now working with Dave Gross at Definition Films in Sydney, where we will be editing; in their final cut suite as well as creating/outputting all of our batch converted pro res files for editorial, via Hecklers compressor droplets from our daily H.264 rushes.

We have managed to do most things right so far or at least it feels like we have done.  I must say I have been a little too quick to jump on the net and buy things that I believe we would need.  Like for instance I am now onto my 3^rd mattebox!  I started off by buying an original LOMO anamorphic mattebox from America…

 Not only did this first mattebox stink to high heaven of what could have easily have been 30 year old dog shit and toe jam, it also didn’t fit together at all.  So after about 4 beers and a packet of sandalwood incense, I decided that the box it came in was about as useful as the stinky mattebox that it contained.

Then came mattebox version 2…this time brand new and shiny with pretty finishing’s and lovely custom made pelican case.  However after about a day I realised that my massive 35mm Lomo lens didn’t have a chance in hell of fitting into the back of it’s retainer ring.

So out came the big guns…  I had to go and buy a second hand Arri MB14 from my old buddy Ken Rich in LA who had originally sold me the Lomo’s in the first place a few months earlier.

It was at about this point that Olli began to show minor signs of anxiety related illnesses like rashes and twitching. 

You see Olli had to somehow get a 16 x 9 image that had been squeezed horizontally by a ratio of 2:1  into the correct viewable aspect ratio of 1:2.40 on 3 monitors.  One for me which I would operate off, then one for himself which he would be checking critical focus with, and a final larger monitor for our Director Maia.

On top of all that Olli had to deal with 2 more obstacles:

When in normal viewing mode the Canon 5D mk 2 out puts a lovely 1080 HD image, however once you press record the camera can’t handle outputting so much resolution as well as recording in high definition so it reduces the outputted viewing image to a more manageable but smaller image of 420 pixels across.

Most monitors can’t handle this and simply display a much smaller image size, however some other more dedicated DSLR monitors like the “Small HD DP 6”  has an inbuilt automatic upres capability which kicks in as soon as you press the record button, so that you stay looking at the same image size that you had just set up your shot with.  For this reason Olli and I bought one of these Small HD monitors each.

So that part is all good and what ever but we still had many rivers to cross so that we could reach the port of “correct aspects on all monitors” during filming and rehearsals.

This may sound like a plug but the DP6 monitor really is awesome…  You see each of my lenses have a varying degree of vignetting on the Canon 5D sensor.  The 35mm is the worst see image: 

And the 100mm is the best with no vignetting at all. See image:

Because of this vignetting we had to figure out a way of cropping each lens so that we achieved the best possible results in the final product as we had already lost about 36% horizontal resolution due to the excessive 2:1 squeeze on a 16 x 9 image.

By shooting grid charts for each of my 4 lenses and then getting the guys at Heckler to come up with the best compressor droplet for each lens we would all be on the same page, from my monitor to the editors monitor we’d be seeing the same recorded/framed images. 

This is easy to say but how the hell would we be able to change the monitor to suit the lenses every time we changes lens???  Well it just so happens that the DP6 has 10 pre set settings available.  Thank god! 

Although it took a long time Olli simply calibrated my monitor to match the cropping and squeezing settings for each lens that Heckler had devised earlier that week.

Our first shoot day was yesterday, and everything was working perfectly.  We simply pressed 2 buttons and the field of view would change slightly in accordance with the lens, which is on the camera at the time.  “Pre set 1” being the 35mm anamorphic 2 is the 50mm, 3 is the 75mm, 4 is the 100mm and 5 is a setting we have for spherical lenses which just crops the 16 x 9 image to our shooting ratio of 1:2.40.

We have a 150-600 century zoom on set as well because I felt we’d want a longer lens than a 100mm, which has proven to be the right decision.  It won’t match perfectly but it was better to have it and not match than not have it.

Inner city stuff looks awesome on a really long lens, especially with the doubler attached giving us a 1200mm. We got the long zoom so that we could shoot the general public, or our actors amongst the public without them being aware of the camera.

The other issue Olli had was to be able to get a directors monitor that could handle the down conversion once we rolled the camera…  This was impossible we soon figured out however there was a little box called a “Blackmagic HDMI to SDI converter” which we have attached to the camera at all times now.  This box handles the down conversion buy up rezzing the images again.  This now allows our director to be able to view in the correct format.

Enough about monitoring… 

So our first pre shoot day was a couple of days ago.  If anyone thought that Canon 5D’s are light weight they should try holding onto my rig for a 10 minute scene…  I’m 31 years old now, I’m not exactly a perfect picture of health but I’m not a 2 pound weakling that has to run around in the shower to get wet either.

That camera weighs a tonne man!  With a 6x6 mattebox, 35mm lens, preston, 2 monitors, down converters and a counter weight at the back…she’s bloody heavy.  I’d say the same as an Arri BL with 1000’ mag and a reasonable size lens.

Testing testing testing

Hi everyone,


First of all thanks for all your comments and emails.  It's certainly been quite an interesting week of testing since I wrote the initial first few pages of this blog.


I've got heaps and heaps to talk about, as I have learnt a hell of a lot about all kinds of stuff that's related to shooting on the 5D with anamorphic lenses recently.  Some bad, but mostly all good.


The main thing is that this whole crazy idea is working... I have even managed to get some "ok" pictures out of the camera.


However there is a long way to go before my focus puller, the post house, the director and myself are going to be totally happy enough so that we can start shooing some real drama on a real set.


I will go into finer detail about all of this soon, but for now I thought I should put up a little bit of vision.


Here is a really quick test that I shot a few days ago on my 50mm Lomo in my apartment and on the way up to get a coffee at my local.  It's all handheld and pretty on the fly.


I freaked a few people out too cause it kinda looked like I was carrying a gun.... one early morning jogger even thought I was an undercover cop trying to bust speeding motorists with some new fan-dangled portable speed camera.


I have also shot a whole bunch of more boring tests like ASA / Noise tests, aperture tests, Grid tests for checking distortion, etc etc.  I'll put up the relative and more interesting versions of these tests soon.


Please note:  This movie was 3GB when I output it originally in Prores 4:4:4.


Now it's down to 36MB which has introduced a lot of noise, banding and pretty much anything else you see that is bad.  


Obviously this is not ideal when trying to show something off, however I have tried everything I know of to get a better picture on the net.....vimeo links etc etc and can't find a way to upload something that is big enough (700 MBs +)  that will do the footage any justice.


Does anyone have any great ideas on how to show large video files on the net?  here's a link to the vimeo version of the same file:


Please do not expand this file as it totally turns to shit....

Click here to see the tests on Vimeo

Righto....

Well first of all I would like to say that this has definitely been an interesting few weeks of learning and jumping logistical hurdles. For instance I had no idea how to run programmes like compressor or final cut, and I had no idea that my 35mm lens (once it arrived) would be the size of Antarctica: see image.

Also my poor 3 year old macbook computer nearly caught fire the other day as it tried desperately to de-anamorphasize a single RAW still image that I had shot on the 75mm Lomo.  Luckily I've managed to get hold of a Macbook pro with a whole bunch of RAM, which has been a godsend.

Now last time I left you I was about to embark on a week of testing, which myself and Olli (1st AC) have now done.  We tested all the kinds of stuff that you'd want to know about before shooting a film on a new format; like noise levels at high ASA settings and resolution tests at wide open apertures etc etc.

What we first had to do was to figure out the exact amount of cropping that would need to be done in order to achieve the best resolution images, yet have no cut off. (vignetting) 

This process took forever but we finally managed to come up with the right settings for the left and right crop.  In case you are interested here is a screen grab of the compressor settings...  I would have killed for this the other day.

Because my Lomo's are not really the worlds best quality when it comes to modern standards, the images that they create are relatively degraded and slightly soft at wide open apertures.

This is a common occurrence in old zoom lenses as well as in many anamorphics, due to the high quantity/quality of glass involved in their design.  

I knew that I would need to shoot at around T4 in order to achieve a suitable image quality.  So an important test for me to do was to find out how far I could push the ASA in the camera before the images became too grainy.

Here are a bunch of them that we did.  They are ungraded and still in their original anamorphic ratio.

Here is a vimeo link to the asa tests that we shot:

ASA Tests Link

One of the more interesting tests that we performed, was a distortion test.  We did this by putting up a large grid in front of the lens that was exactly centred and level to the focal plane of the 5D.

We then cropped and resized the footage for a scope aspect ratio of 1:2.40.  We figured out that we are loosing about 35% of our horizontal resolution.  Not great .....  but that's the downfall of 16x9 anamorphic for you at 2:1 squeeze compared to 4x3 anamorphic.

Once that was done I took it over to my mate Garry Jacques who runs a post house here in Sydney www.heckler.tv  where he put it up on After Effects.

I didn't know this but 3D graphics people can't work in an anamorphic world as all Anamorphic lenses tend to have some amount of distortion (depending on quality) and it just so happens that my 1980's Russian Lomo's have a shit load of distortion.  

So what Garry wanted to do was to come up with a formula in After Effects that would counteract the distortion which was inherent in each of my lenses so that the images would become flat or undistorted.  (This is mainly apparent on the edges of the frame)

I also found out that each individual lens has varying amounts of distortion in various areas of the image.  Therefore once I had done the distortions tests for each lens, Garry could then provide me with the perfect formula to counteract the bendiness...is that a word?  hmmmm.....it is now :)

In other words he could turn my cheap arse Lomo lens with all it's beautiful aberrations, into a brand new $40'000 Hawke Anamorphic with the press of just a few, well selected buttons.

Here is the original un-squeezed anamorphic 50mm footage: Remember do not expand the player into full screen....total crap

Here is the same 50mm footage, cropped and de-squeezed, but before being "Flattened" in after effects.

Garry is sending me over the flattened footage soon....  I'll put it up as soon as I get it....  sorry about that.

While I have been off playing around with test footage, Olli has been trying to get his head around just how to accessorise the 5D with the Lomo's in a way that is fast and reliable on set.

One of the main issues with the lenses is that the focus wheel is usually found right up at the front end of the lens.  See picture:  

Not only that, but the whole front of the lens also breaths in and out as your pull from far to near and vice versa...  sometimes there is up to an inch or so of movement. 

This movement creates a large gap between the mattebox and the front element which is right where you need to have your follow focus!

We are still sorting this issue out but it looks like neoprene (wetsuit) doughnuts are the way to go.

Even more annoyingly, I have had to ditch my brand new Redrock micro mattebox and replace it with an Arri MB14, as my enormous 35mm lens wouldn't even come close to being able to fit into the Redrock mattebox.

So if anyone wants a brand new "Redrock Delux 15mm Mattbox" plus a custom built pelican case and a brand new 15mm Redrock Follow focus you can bid on it now....

Here's the link:  http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200550632158&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT#ht_500wt_1156

Here is a picture that Olli sent me from the test bay yesterday, showing the 35mm lens with a preston attached. I will upload some high quality images of the camera rig once we have sorted everything out accessory wise.

I can't thank the guys at Panavision here in Sydney enough, as without them and their support, we'd be totally screwed.

ok...there's heaps more to talk about but that's enough for now.  

Back soon.