Lessons Learned 1: RAW

So we finished the film… Unfortunately we missed the deadline for the My Røde Reel competition…. Ironic, considering this was the initial impetus for starting the film in the first place! A communication problem between Røde’s emails and the timer on their website meant that we thought we had eight hours more than we actually did… }:-(

As you can imagine, the swear words were flying… But I got over it quite quickly; I figured that we set out to make a short film and we made a short film… The Røde competition was irrelevant in the end.

So having missed the deadline we just said “Let’s get it finished!” and we did!

Given that our budget wouldn’t buy coffee for most other low budget films I’m happy with the result. Very happy. At one point I wasn’t sure what result we would get but I’m satisfied. There is a story, character development and even if you don’t exactly get everything, you get a sense of the character’s urgency and his ultimate madness…

Yes, there are things that I would do differently; yes, there are things I would change and, yes, there were a few problems along the way… But we set out to make a short film and we did.

We learned a lot of lessons along the way! And we’re going to share them with you (whether you like it or not!!!)

Lesson 1:

Magic Lantern / RAW on a Canon 600D

TL:DR version – Too much hassle!

Not being able to see the shot you’re shooting, not being able to quickly preview and review footage is a great pain in the ass. And there’s one other problem – a biggie…

As I’ve said before, if you’re thinking of using this setup, do tests and mask off the screen so that what you see is what you get…

I completely messed up a two-shot because most of the two people were outside the portion of the view screen that was captured by the RAW frame…!!! Even using a wide angle adapter! Imagine how stupid I felt when I saw that my two-shot was a no-shot!!!! Lol! d’oh! If we had been able to review our shots as we took them, we would have picked up on this before we (I) embarrassed our (my) self!

Other than that, the work flow is long, tedious and expensive on hard drive space. You end up with the RAW footage, the Cinema DNG files and then the (in our case) Pro Res 444 files that are being used for the final edit. Only when you have the shot in CinemaDNG form can it be viewed and that’s far too far down the production line.

Whilst making the film, RAW Magic was updated a few times – unfortunately, it wasn’t until the film was nearly finished that the vertical line artefacts were (supposedly) removed. Where the exposure wasn’t ideal, such as in the derelict house, any attempt to correct things resulted in purple, vertical line artefacts. Not ideal. Luckily, I had planned these shots as flashbacks and so the effect added to them masked the problem. There’s no way we could have used these shots as standard shots.

The film was edited in Final Cut Pro (The first project I used it for – I found it very enjoyable and quick to edit with.) on a Mac Pro 1,1 running Mavericks (a story in itself!). Not many twelve or thirteen year old machines would even be capable of this but definitely a newer, faster machine would have made the process less stressful and tedious.

All in all, RAW had a few good points but a lot of drawbacks… Its up to you. In future I’ll give it a miss unless the camera is capable of doing it natively and playback is possible.

Are You There? Production diary 9

As I said in Production diary 1, the whole film was inspired by a visit to what will be our main location. This location is a mountain about fifteen minutes from home and had been a place I intended to visit for a while, as it has a stone age cairn on its summit. My first visit was filled with my babble of how I wanted to make a film there! It is a perfect mix of ancient and modern: geology, archaeology and technology. One of the shots I hope to be able to include is of a Neolithic (6,000 year old) stone cairn (that was originally a passage tomb) with a piece of modern engineering a few metres away. Our version of the film for the My Rode Reel competition is only five minutes and we have a lot to cover so it might not happen.

In the film, we follow the main character as he ascends the path to the summit and the struggle up the mountain parallels his internal struggles with his feelings about others and his own solitude. He pauses several times and each time he is haunted by a ghost from his past and, possibly, from his future. Each turn or twist of the road is a turning point in his thought process… but the clock is counting down!

Our second most important location in terms of time and budget is the National Outdoor Centre, Bryansford, Co. Down. This is the setting of the University on our story and its modern bright and airy building will look perfect on screen, plus we’re adding a few small things to enhance the retro-future look! Patrick has designed a University logo and we will be adding a few touches to enhance the sense of place, and of the alien nature of the planet the University is on.

Where possible we’ll be adding a few special props (see next production diary!) to make the sets even better but I’ll be doing a budget recap soon that will explain that budget wise, we can’t afford to do too much. I’m hoping the story, the music and the performances will pull us through some finical shortfalls.

The party scene (oh, yes, you guys don’t know the story yet ;-), and some of the other major scenes will be shot at RJ’s house – (thanks RJ!) and will be dressed as best we can. The music and a few props will make this scene as delightfully weird as I can get it.

The only location not yet decided upon is an abandoned house. It doesn’t matter what state of decay the house is in as we’re really dependent on two props to drive the story in this location. The scene is the only one that I hadn’t pictured in my head, but as I’ve found the perfect exterior shots for it, we can place the interior almost anywhere.

The scenery for the film will be magical and I’m hoping that we can show how fantastic the place we live in is!

Anyway, this was a short one. More soon!

Next time: Props

 

Are You There? Production diary 6

All of the cast and some crew have been sorted! Props are being bought! Extra camera batteries have been ordered! It’s happening! I’m dreaming of a DSLR camera rig I saw on ebay – If I can get my hands on a few spare pounds… It will add a lot to the production, with a matte box, shoulder rig and follow focus, it will allow us to do a lot in terms of camera movement and options. Anyway, fingers crossed I can scrape up the dosh!

The star of the film is my good friend RJ Woolsey who has been in more than a few short movie productions. RJ was the first actor brought on board and the main character was written with his look in mind. He’s agreed to cut his hair the way I want it to be and with a bit of make up he’ll be perfect! He’ll be in almost every shot so make-up will be very important… At the minute we have no make-up artist on board so this will be rectified in the next few days or so, (hopefully!)

We do need a few more crew members so I’ll be talking about them in another diary.
The other two roles in the film will be Geef, played by Elaine Thompson, who will be making her acting debut, and Dean Harper, played by Sharon Carroll, whose credits include appearances on BBC TV and the Discovery channel, along with many smaller productions.

I haven’t had much chance to rehearse with them yet, but my most important advice to them is about what I’m looking for from their performance: Don’t Act! Be!

If they try too hard and look like they’re acting, then I won’t be happy; all of the reality that’s we’re trying to create will evaporate… So much rests on their shoulders… For me as the writer and director, this but scares the bejeebus out of me!

I’ll be creating some character information sheets for them so that they can get ‘inside’ their character and also it will give them a better idea of what’s in my head. They can use this to develop things in their own way. I know they have to take ownership of their own character, but it’s still important to me that I get onscreen what I have been aiming at or imagining.

We are still adding other crew members as we get closer to the planned shooting date, but it’s amazing to me how many people actually needed to do things in a reasonably professional manner!

A few props have been ordered and we’ll have some guest stars in the prop departments 😉 (No spoilers, you’ll have to watch the final movie to see!) We’re gathering a few bits and pieces to use to decorate the sets, but there’s so much still to be done and not a lot of time in which to do it! We have to spend time in each indoor location to decide how to decorate things but we have solved a few problems – such as how to make one room look like two!

We still have a lot of camera gear to lay our hands on but getting a few more batteries was a necessity, as shooting RAW video and preparing the camera eats them for breakfast! We still have things like a clapperboard to buy or make, with our budget, it will probably be the latter!

Next time: Budget

Are You There? Production diary 5

The last few days has seen Patrick and myself testing and experimenting with RAW footage using the Magic / Tragic Lantern Canon firmware add-on as part of an ongoing process to decide on how we’re going to shot the film.

RAW from the Canon 600D is a remarkable achievement, but it has a few drawbacks that mean that the decision to use it is not straight forward…

The workflow is a lot longer than using the standard H.264 codec that the camera shoots, with the raw file being converted to Cinema DNG files, then the Cinema DNG files are brought into After Affects then converted to Apple Pro Res HQ for editing.

Due to the speed of the memory controller on the camera, it is not possible to just chose 1080p or 720p HD and go for it, as at 14 bit 4:4:4 the amount of data the picture produces is overwhelming. This means that you have to choose from a arrange of non-standard sizes and aspect ratios and mix and match to get a picture size and data rate that will allow you film for longer than a few seconds…

This meant I had to do a lot of juggling with settings to come up with something that would be acceptable in terms of picture size and data rate. This is what Patrick and myself would be the best compromise:

Resolution – 960 x 544
Picture format – 14 bit RAW
Framerate – 25p
Sound – External stereo 48kHz

Now, this still had a few problems. In one test shot, there was what look like dead pixels… The footage was converted using raw2dng from magic lantern. But downloading RAWMagic from the App Store solved these problems, except when the footage is adjusted too much when colour correcting.

The next problem was that we felt the footage was very noisy. This proved to be the most difficult nut to crack… We both felt that the noise was unacceptable.

The camera is a reasonably old and low budget DSLR, but its what I own, and for doing most of the documentary style things that I do, it is very versatile and has served very well. There are a lot of things that we can do to improve things, however.

The Canon ISO settings on the camera are in multiples of 100… but a little research shows us that the lowest noise iso for the Canon camera is 160. The only way to add this to the 600D is my using the Magic Lantern firmware, so after tweaking a few settings that’s how we’ve set things.

The next thing we tried is using a “denoising” setting while importing to After Effects and a denoising plugin within After Effects. The best results that we have tested have been from a plugin called Neat Video… but Neat Video costs $99 which is outside our budget at the minute. We’ll keep testing things so this may not be the final answer. We’ll be sure and tell you exactly whats happening as we continue our tests.

The one thing we can say is the the 14 bit 4:4:4: RAW footage is so full of detail, and so responsive to colour adjustment that, while we haven’t solved all of our problems and may shoot in in H.264 as a last minute choice, we are (I am!) almost certainly going to stick with the plan to shoot RAW.

Next time: Cast and crew

Are You There? Production diary 4

The script is finished, the storyboards are finished and the production scheduling has begun!

The final version of the script (third draft!) saw a number of changes, mostly to fill a few glaring holes in the main character’s motivation and persona.

Another big change being that all the characters now have names!

For example, in draft one, the party scene looks like it takes place at the home of “The Curator” – but as a loner who takes a job that places him out of human contact it was odd, and against the character I am trying to portray, that he would have a party at his house… So in the final draft… “Dean Harper” has a party to which “Teeay” feels he has to make an appearance, but is uncomfortable in a social setting. Believe me, this makes much more sense!

There were a few of these changes that made the script a lot more self-consistent, and, overall, much better. It was helpful to discuss them with my brother Patrick, who found that a lot of the questions he had about the first draft were long gone by the final version of the script. Even questions he had never asked were answered!

What I ended up with is something that will (I hope) give the viewers an insight into the main character, his flaws and a glimpse of him at a tipping point in his life. The pieces will be there but the viewer will have to put them together in their own mind.

Simultaneously with the final draft, I was completing the story boards.

The storyboarding process is something I’ve avoided a lot, (mostly due to working alone and being lazy! 😉 but because we’re doing this as a learning experience and because it’s important to convey what I want to others, I committed to it like never before! For our five minute short I ended up with exactly twenty-six pages with six drawings on each of them. Consulting the calculator on my iPhone I make that 156 drawings in all.

All looking like they were drawn by a child!

And that’s a point that I never really worried about. As long as the basic shot is conveyed in some sense, I was never concerned that my drawing skills were severely lacking. As long as you can imagine the shot, and make shapes on the page, then you can convey your intent using the storyboards. It also helps a lot and makes you visualise the exact shot that you’re trying to get.

Of course, no storyboard will survive contact with reality, but the process is close enough that it is possible to now draw up a shot list and schedule.

I’m doing this in Microsoft Excel, arranging things in my own way, which may not be exactly what is needed. From this document, I will share with Patrick, who will do the visual effects, and I’ll use it to create schedules for the cast and crew. It has costume and set information along with props, music and sound cues. A comprehensive document that I’ll use to help keep things on track and plan for the shoot.

Next time: More technical info!

Are You There? Production diary 3

With the stylistic question settled, I moved on to contemplating the technical aspects of the shoot.

My camera is a Canon 600D. I’m using Magic Lantern and Tragic Lantern firmware to upgrade its capabilities and provide a lot more control over what I’m shooting.
This leads to some interesting choices: resolution, frame-rate, codec and colour depth.

The initial (and still the most likely) plan is that I shoot using Tragic Lantern in sRAW 4:4:4 at 24 fps and with a scaled up resolution of 720p.

This will give the greatest latitude for detail, colour correction, VFX and allow us to deliver a final short in HD format.

It’s not without its drawbacks though. The data rates from the 600D aren’t the greatest, even with fast cards, and the workflow is a lot more involved, including needing a lot more time, effort and processor power…

The alternatives including hiring an Atmos Ninja HD recorder or buying a Black Magic Design HD recorder. These would allow capture of the cameras HDMI output, but on the 600D this again would be 720p maximum, at a colour depth of 4:2:2 (good enough for our purposes). This route is obviously going to be an expense, but will be our main option if I can’t get tragic lantern to work.

Our closest rental house has the Atmos Ninja on hire, but for three days it costs the same as buying the Black Magic Design recorder, so that would be a tricky one. Ideally, though, we shoot in sRAW from tragic lantern.

As a few of the locations are quite intimate, I might hire a 10 – 55 mm lens from the rental house to allow a wider range of shots in a tight room. I noticed that 2001 has a lot of distortion on a lot of the “Discovery” footage, but the extremely wide angle does make the ship look at lot larger than it probably did on set, and the distortion heightens the feeling of looking from HAL’s viewpoint.

Also, the kit 18 – 55 mm lens is not a great lens. It’s hard to focus and feels quite plasticky and unsubstantial under my fingers. The rental lens is of much higher quality and will allow wider apertures and better zooming where necessary.

So that’s where we are today. More soon!

Next time: Final Draft