Monthly Archives: May 2018

News

How I do What I do…

One of the most frequently asked questions I get whilst on a shoot is

How many hours of footage do you have to go through?

This question always catches me a bit off-guard as I honestly have no clue how many hours of footage I actually take. I could tell you how many individual shots I have, I could even tell you how many shots are still outstanding on my check-list,  but as far as duration, I always find this questions odd.  Yet, it gets asked at every shoot I go on!

Because I didn’t go film-school nor have I  taken any courses on how to film Documentaries I never really know if my methods are “Best Practices”. I constantly struggle with insecurities around my process; for all I know, I could be doing things completely wrong. Regardless, I’m going to take you on a trip with me to give insight as to how I plan, film and edit an episode of “Come Drive With Us“.

Planning (Pre-Production)

For every shoot I go on, there is a high degree of planning; and I’m not talking about logistics…even though that is something I have to do as well. No, I’m talking more about planning the shoot itself. Who I’m going to focus on; common interview questions to enhance the plot, trying to get the promoters to hook me up with the same quality of filming spots at the venue as LiveRC (I never do), etc. For me, this is no easy task as I am a one-person team so I definitely have to wear multiple hats.

While I tend to let each event tell it’s own story, more often than not, there are themes going into the shoot that I know will need to be covered. In some cases, there are shots that I want to take and I know exactly where they will appear in the production. The 2016 Worlds was a prime example of this. I knew that the opening shot would be the late Dallas Mathiesen handing the winner the IFMAR trophy. To build up suspense, my plan was to NOT reveal the winner but rather the focus would be on Dallas. Even though I had this shot planned out months before had I literally seconds to setup for it and execute it. Did it work? Beautifully! The opening sequence for “Come Drive With Us – The Vegas Worlds” was exactly how I envisioned it months before hand. I like to think that in a live setting this is no small feat.

The opening shots for my “Silver State II” movie coming out later this summer were also planned well in advance of the episode. I will leave you in suspense as to what that is going to look like though.

Because the location shoot is so physically demanding, I tend to prep interview questions as well as a comprehensive shot-list before the event. This way, I don’t have to worry about missing anything. This shot list does tend to change slightly leading up to the event with any new story lines that I hear about or when I hear about attendees cancelling, etc.

Lights, Camera…WAIT I’M NOT READY!!!

From front left: Nick McQuick, Howie Miller, Thaimu Turray & Cory Drachenberg

While I’ve had some shoots that are thoroughly enjoyable, like working on my “Pros & Cons” Documentary. For the most part, the actual shoot is the part I enjoy the least.

To me, the shoot is more like running a marathon than filming a movie. After the first day I tend to be running on pure Adrenaline. And most “Come Drive With Us” shoots are no less than 4 days long. The 2017 IFMAR Worlds in China was an excruciating 8 days of filming!!! Fortunately, I love the pressure and do my best work under these conditions. As I mentioned before, I tend to make relatively comprehensive check-list before the shoot. As the event progresses I make my way through this list ensuring I have each shot covered.

But a large portion of shooting an event documentary cannot be planned. I tend to follow the story-lines as the event unfolds. With each plot line that is revealed by the participants, I have to make sure I have accompanying B-Roll. But what exactly is this mythical B-Roll??

In film and television production, B-Roll is supplemental or alternative footage inter cut with the main shot. So what this means is that as I am shooting a doc, as participants in my film mention certain topics I need to make note and ensure that I have a shot that I can include related to this topic. B-Roll tends to make up well over half my total shots. It’s a never ending struggle to shoot these supplementary shots.

At the Silver State Race, one of my featured drivers, used to be a professional bull-rider. As luck would have it, there just happened to be a rodeo taking place in an adjacent building. So after putting my Producers hat back on to momentarily to sort through the logistics, and then my PA hat to make arrangements…my director hat to plan the shots and finally my cameraman hat to do the work…I found myself shooting back-stage among wild animals and “Cowfolk” at my first ever Rodeo!

The Edit

Given that I’m a huge Steven Spielberg fan it doesn’t really surprise me that the Edit is my favorite part of the process; it is after all Mr. Spielberg’s favorite as well. For me, it’s when I finally get to see a return on all the time I have invested into a production.

The first thing I do is watch every single shot, catalog and add meta tags to each shot. This helps me get a really good idea as to what the story-lines are and with the tagging, it makes it very easy to find the shots I need once I start the actual edit.


This is where I think my process differs quite a bit from other documentaries. I say this because at this point, I still have no script; I won’t even have a high-level synopsis yet. In-fact, I think I break even more “rules” by starting to play around with the edit! I will place all my pre-planned sequences here, create the opening credit sequence and start working on the trailer(s).

After about a week or two of this I have a really strong sense as to the story I want to tell. At this point I stop editing and spend the next month writing a detailed synopsis which eventually turns into the script. The next time I open up Adobe Premiere, I will pretty much have the final script in my hands and I power through the edit. As the edit comes together, the script does have a tendency of changing. Usually it’s only minor but on one occasion I was so unhappy with how the cut flowed that nearly started completely over. AXIALFEST was the project in question; and stating over was a great decision as this is one of my absolute favorite episodes!

It’s at this point that I start to work on the score as well; for me the music is one of the most important pieces of the production. I tend to use as much music from AudioJungle.net, Shock-WaveSound.com & WarnerChapelle.com as their prices are within my reach for the budget I have to work with. Frequently I pick a piece of music that I have to seek out licensing for. This isn’t fun. Sometimes it’s a matter of e-mailing the artist directly; other times it’s a matter of working with their labels.

At this point in the process I spend a lot of time on something that I am sure most viewers of my films take completely for granted (Except maybe for Jeff Johnston).

  

Coloring. It’s not fun; but it is so crucial as the images coming off my camera are shot in what is called SLOG2 (For indoor shoots I use SLOG3) which makes the image look very flat and washed out (left). Footage shot using this method comes out amazing in post (right) and gives me a lot more options when I do the color grading. This really is a complex topic that really deserves it’s on series of posts; after-all, people spend years in school to learn how to do this. I could not even begin to do it justice in a solitary paragraph with the occasional run-on sentence.

Now that I have what is close to the final cut, I give my good friend Mike Garrison a call, and we record the Narration. This process is an absolute blast. Both Mike and I have a lot of fun with this part of the movie. Pretty much as soon as I’m off the phone with Garrison, I start plugging in his audio.

It’s at this point that I can sit back, and finally watch the end-to-end cut. Occasionally I make a few tweaks and  call Mike up again for some pickups; but for the most part, I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Premiere!

After an average of 250 hours it’s time for the release. Because “Come Drive With Us” is a YouTube Series, the fan-fare around the releases are sorely lacking.

There’s no Red Carpet.

There’s no release party.

Screaming fans aren’t lined up.

There’s only a nerdy Star Wars super-freak posting links to said movie on various social media pages, sending out press releases to  media outlets, responding to some of the comments, waiting to see how long the token 2 dislikes take this time and then moving onto the next episode.

But I absolutely Love it!!!


Photo Credit: Rugspin Graphix

News

Three Weeks in May

Like basically everyone on the planet…

…Nickelback bugs me more than just a little bit. I mean, since “The State” all their songs essentially sound exactly the same. That being said, they have one song that has has truly inspired me; it’s more the lyrics than the melody (Duh?)…and said lyrics to the song “If Today was Your Last Day” are absolutely beautiful. Here’s an excerpt:

Against the grain should be a way of life. What’s worth the prize is often worth the fight…

For a few years now this has been my professional motto; and it really helped in this crazy Month of May where I had 3 consecutive shoots for 5150 straddling a conference for my day-job (Which was awesome – I have the best Boss ever) and a trip to head office.

The Silver State Race

This event was the 3rd best event I’ve ever gone to. Period. In case anyone was wondering…first is the Messina words cause I’m patriotic and I consider the Tessmann’s to be friends. Plus Italians are nuts about racing and that post win Mob was absolutely amazing. Second place…AXIALFEST. I can’t explain why it’s awesomeness is so awesomely awesome, but it’s awesome! Silver State II, as I have dubbed it, has now joined “The Drach” elite!

When word got out that R/C Tracks of Las Vegas, premiere facility hosting the World Championships as well as many other Events  was closing…I was gutted. One of the first things I thought was “What about the Silver State Race?” Enter Joey Christensen; famed Track builder and event Promoter to the rescue!

Joey had worked out a deal with the Southpoint Hotel & Casino to host Silver State indoors for the first time in that races history. Not only that, it was the first major indoor race on the west coast. The equestrian center made for the perfect venue; add to that the amenities that the casino had to offer and this was almost guaranteed to be a great race.

While there were a few things that could have been improved, like the Driver Stand (or lack of one), and the smoke coupled with an endless cloud of dust, this event went off smooth; without a single hitch actually. While there might have been a few “Driver Stand” shenanigans, there really wasn’t a lot of negative drama. After #WaldoGate this is exactly what the industry needed. A highly competitive race with an overwhelmingly positive vibe!

The track developed TONS of Character #bing and made for some absolutely intense racing. It started off with an epic Truggy final which saw Ty drive his XT8 harder than I’ve seen him drive a R/C vehicle ever. It was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen; it was almost as impressive as the rough track driving clinic that Jared Tebo put on. This was the perfect track for Jared and he won the Truggy event with what looked like relative ease. He wasn’t as fast as Ty, but he was nearly flawless over the course of the 45 minute Truggy Final.

Fortunately for Ty, he’s a quick study; he used the lessons learned in the Truggy main and applied what he saw Jared doing in the Truggy final. There was just one tiny obstacle…Ryan Maifield. Even though Maifield and Ty swapped the lead several times, Ryan led most of the race. Ty with much improved his consistency in the second half of the race pressured Ryan and took the lead for the final time on lap 68. Ryan would finish 2nd with Jared Tebo rounding out the Podium.

I’m absolutely stoked that I was there to capture the entire story of this inaugural indoor Silver State Race. Joey Christensen, you are the man! This was a Brilliant Event!!!

Look for “Come Drive With Us – Silver State II” to hit my YouTube Channel sometime in 2018 🙂

Service-Now Knowledge 18 Conference

When I tell some of my fans that I actually have a day-job outside of film production many of them are dumbfounded. But it’s true, I have an amazing job with an amazing company. I manage a software team for the Ledcor group of Companies. Between shoots, I attended the Knowledge 18 user group conference, it was awesome! The size of the conference blew me away; with over 18,000 attendees this was the biggest conference I’d ever gone to. My team learned a ton about this amazing platform and we’re excited about expanding our use of Service-Now.

 
JBRL Round #2 – Palm Desert RC Raceway

Immediately following Knowledge 18, I rented a C7 and zipped over to SoCal for another shoot.

JBRL is a series that runs 8 events in Southern California; and in so many ways, it’s exactly what the industry needs. To me it felt more like a club race that your typical SoCal event. The only pro drivers were my pal Adam Drake and Tekno RC’s Mason Eppley.

I’m trying something a bit different for “Come Drive With Us – JBRL“; the plan is to go to 3 JBRL races and edit them together into a single episode. I would liked to have made the season opener at Thunder Alley, but family responsibilities and an ailing father prevented it.; round 2 will be the firs of the three events I cover. Held at Palm Desert RC Raceway, this was the first JBRL I’d ever been to and it was also the first race I’d been to with such a low pro driver count. I expected this to make the event a bit more low-key. This was not the case. There were some very big personalities there!

The track was cool, the racing was exciting, but I didn’t really find a good story to tell yet. Looking forward to the next JBRL race; I believe it will be July 14th at Dialed In RC Raceway!

Pro-Line’s “By the Fire”

Yesssss! We’re slowing things down again….well on the rocks at least. Enterprise gave me a pretty dialed upgrade…now they call me KOWALSKI.#DidNOTMeasureTreadDepth #Hemi #SmokeShowX4 #24MPG

I absolutely love covering Rock-Crawling events. It’s one of the fastest growing segments in all of Radio Control; and with each manufacturers are showing off new innovations. This event had Pro-Line Release their new “Predator” compound as well as Hobbywing released their new “AXE” completely waterproof sensored brushless system specifically designed for Rock Crawling.

The location was amazing and the rocks made for some very challenging course that took over 4 hours to complete. Rock crawling was only a small part of this event though. Here’s a few things my Video will cover:

  • Show ‘n’ Shine
  • Scale Crawl
  • Comp Crawl
  • Comp Scale Crawl
  • Dead Lift
  • Monster Truck Race
  • Scale City
  • Mud Run
  • Night Crawl

  

While this is a lot of content, the event was a bit too short to include it into the “Come Drive With Us” Series. This one will be a stand-alone video and we’re looking at releasing towards the beginning of July.

Now back to editing the 2017 Xiamen Worlds…it’s going to be something very very special.

News

RED vs SONY

Yes, I have RED envy.

I would love nothing more than be able to film on what is probably the  best camera platform in the world right now. It’s hard to ignore the impressive specs that the RED Cameras boast:

  • 8K RAW
  • 16.5 Stops of Dynamic Range
  • Amazing Slow Motion Capabilities (120 fps @ 4K | 96 fps @ 5K)
  • Virtually unbeatable image quality
  • Simple to use Menu Structure

But with prices starting at $29,000 USD for the Brain alone (upwards of $65,000 USD for a complete kit) it all but excludes the use of this platform for smaller production houses like my own. An item of note; this isn’t RED’s top of the line camera even!

Image result for youtube logo

Let’s talk about YouTube for a moment.

In it’s short 13 year history, YouTube has revolutionized how businesses market themselves. It has brought so much to the table I could go on and on about how crucial YouTube is to business today. 5150, like so many other production houses, has targeted this platform for their releases. Say it with me now…

12 megabits per second.

For cinematographers like me, this is pretty much the worst thing you can say to us. It’s basically a hand-cuff. You might as well make fun of the size of our lens or make fun of the fact that we’re probably wearing a utility belt full of camera gear at this very moment.

For consumers of YouTube content however, this statement means absolutely nothing other than the fact that YouTube videos will work on even the most dismal of internet connections. Even for 4K video, YouTube only increases their bit-rates to a laughable 25-30 Megabits per second.

But what exactly are Megabits Per Second, or Mbps for short? Mbps is essential the data-rate at which a video camera records footage. Essentially, the bigger this number is, the better the quality that the footage will be.

High-end Cameras like the RED lineup, have data-rates in the 500 Mbps and up (Way Up) for compressed footage. Any footage recorded in RAW can’t even be measured using Mbps; but needs a larger unit of measure…Gigabits! To give you a real-world example, a modern day Blu-Ray player presents your favorite movie around 50 Mbps. So this is the perfect segue for me to explain why I use a $15,000 SONY rig instead of a $65,000 RED setup; more on YouTube data-rates in a moment.

SONY FS7/FS700

Yes the RED is impressive. If someone gave me one to film with, I would do so merrily, but to be honest, there are things that I like about the SONY lineup a bit better. I’ve been using SONY Professional Cameras for 5 years now on both Run-and-Gun as well as Studio jobs. Here is why I have continued to use the FS lineup:

Price: Not to beat a dead horse too much, but for smaller production shops the FS5/FS7/FS700 fit very well into their budgets and tend to keep production costs down.

Low-Light: Their low-light performance is amazing; and because I do a lot of Run-and-gun documentary filming, this is a huge advantage. With my “Come Drive With Us” series, when I conduct a track-side interview I literally have 4 seconds to setup for my shot. In a corporate video or in a studio setting, I can literally have hours to frame, block & set the lighting for my shot. It’s in this frantic, often chaotic & hyper emotional setting where the SONY lineup really shines. It really comes down to simply putting your subject into the quadrant of the screen you want, checking exposure, remembering your interview questions and hitting RECORD!

One of the most difficult shoots I was on last year was a race held inside an Arena. The lighting was awful, and then add to that constant dust floating in the air. The end-result however, looks amazing:

Specs: In any 5150 produced movie or video I use two cameras from the SONY lineup. My “A-Camera” is the SONY FS7 and the “B-Camera” is the trusty FS700. Both have very impressive specs considering their price:

FS7

  • 4K RAW
  • 14 Stops of Dynamic Range
  • Slow Motion Capabilities (180 fps @ 2K RAW)

FS700

  • 4K RAW
  • 12 stops of Dynamic Range
  • Slow Motion Capabilities (240 fps @ 4K RAW (6 second burst) | 240 fps @2K RAW)

Both of these cameras also have high bit-rates on the image. I almost never shoot RAW and I tend to use formats that are in the 150-200 Mbps range.

This is where YouTube comes back into the conversation. The bit-rates that I record at are still well beyond the 12 Mbps that YouTube converts my video to once uploaded. Will the image quality of the RED footage look better than my SONY cameras even at these lower bit-rates? Yes; very likely. Will it be noticeable to your customers? Nope!

My Point in all of this, is don’t exclude production companies that don’t shoot with RED cameras. If they show up with an iPhone you know there just might be a problem, but in the end, high end cameras like the SONY FS Cameras, the Blackmagic Lineup or even a high quality DSLR will produce absolutely amazing looking content. This will help your company production quality and will put you a step ahead of your competitors.

Thanks for Reading! In the mean time, don’t forget to checkout one of my favorite docs shot on SONY equipment!

#5150Time #5150Productions