Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Day 1 of Day 2

Today was the first day of shooting on Day 2. Today was the first day I've ever produced and had TCD on set. We needed TCD (Traffic Control Division of the New York City Police Department) because we have assault weapons.

The police came, they checked our weapons. They were impressed -- the guns are non-firing plastic toy guns but our man Brian, who can seemingly do anything painted them and souped them up so they look weathered and real.

We had one officer on the ground and another on the roof. But that wasn't till we got to Bed Stuy. Firstly:

Tom Rowen and Dani Quisenberry on a fabulous roof in Bushwick. They're watching the robots. The robots are coming. It is not, nor can it come, to good.




What did I learn? I learned that the Panasonic GH1
  • seemingly the "2" white balance in still mode equals the "1" white balance in movie mode. I am sure I have done something weird but that seems to be the way things are.
  • is awesome because you just flip a switch and you go from shooting the movie to taking the stills for the movie. That saves a bunch of time
  • gives me a stop or maybe 2? more than I'm used to in the highlights. I'm seeing natural skin tones (exposure-wise, not color-wise since we're going for this very cold look) without blowing out.

This is my new rock band. From left to right that Nat Cassidy, David Ian Lee, Tom Rowen, and Tina Tanzer.

Nat, Tom, David, Tina, and officer Rob (officer Bill was downstairs)! Note that only one of the four guns in this picture is real.


Hooray! An easy day and a nice way to wrap up the first day of shooting. More the day after tomorrow.

8 comments:

Laura, Queen of Mars said...

A Moment To Remember: A certain cast member pulled down his pants and mooned us. No effect on the rest of the cast. Nearly blinded the neighbor walking by.

Andrew Bellware said...

Yeah, where is TCD when you need 'em!

Lindsay Stewart said...

looks good andrew. remember to give your cmos chip tie to cool. seminar i went to with one of the local suppliers said they saw most of their warranty repairs coming in from people burning out their cmos shooting too long on video.

Andrew Bellware said...

Thanks!

I know the Nikon D-90's have that chip issue -- they'll just stop you from recording at all. But I was kind of under the impression that the GH1 could go all day. A friend of mine does documentary-type stuff with his and he rolls ALL the time. But I'll keep an eye out and fingers crossed.

David Ian said...

I don't speak Techno-dork.

Andrew Bellware said...

Oh yes you do, David. Yes you do.

Kangas said...

So how do you zoom smoothly with still lenses? (are there high-quality ones that do that?)

And isn't manual focusing kind of hit or miss with those lenses?

Andrew Bellware said...

I tend not to zoom inside a shot. I only have one still zoom lens. Focussing with a still lens is hard, racking is kind of a bitch, but it's possible.
The whole point of the GH1 is that it has a usable autofocus while shooting motion-picture. That saves us on an AC. If you leave the autofocus on "continuous" when you have a still subject, it'll "hunt" between their eyes (which is obnoxious) so I go back and forth between the "continuous" mode and the "just get it at the top of the shot" mode.