7-minute workout

If you like things that are hard, there's this 7-minute workout. Yeah. It uses science. Thing is, that it's scalable. So basically you're doing each thing as hard as you can do them. So if you're in great shape and doing 40 pushups in 30 seconds, or just doing 6, you still work out a whole bunch.

You may also need an interval timer.

Untitled Round Timer

Create your own interval timer or download our interval timer app

Party down.

Fatigue, Boxes, and Color

I find that I get hearing fatigue really easily when I'm mixing music. I lose all perspective on a mix within about 15 minutes of starting. Usually when I come back to a mix the next day I hear what's wrong with it. Well, usually. The big problem is that I'm typically too focused on some aspect of the mix like the drum sound or the bass sound. I've found from experience that my first mixes have little in the way of effects, then I do some mixes way over-compressed, and then... I just have no idea what's going on.

I find that I get fatigue from color-correcting too. I can really get lost looking at color-correction options in a movie. Then I look away for a few minutes and look back and... everything looks different.

Kate Britton, no color correction. Camera set to 10K.

Man, I cannot tell you how thankful I am that we do everything "in the box". If I couldn't instantly recall mixes and color-correction looks I would be completely lost. I just need a whole lot of time to figure out what's going on.

Same light, other side, color corrected GH2 footage 25mm lens.

But the most important thing to me is to be able to get notes from other people. Because, sheesh. You just need those extra eyes and ears. I find that the notes I get back frequently lead me to places where I figure out things even better than (what I did before)+(the notes I just got).
And mixing in the box makes taking notes a dream. Guitar is too loud after 2 minutes? Easy. Just turn it down at the 2 minute mark. Dude is way to blue through all of act 2? Just dial in a bit more warmth in the color correction and walk away.

If we upgraded our camera

So. If we had a new camera we'd need an HDMI transmitter for it, no?


(Only $99 refurbished.)
Which would, in turn, require a micro HDMI to HDMI cable.
 
Now, of course, we'd need a camera like the Panasonic GH3 (which performs better in low-light but has a bit more aliasing and moire in some conditions than the GH2).


And a really bad ass lens.
 
(You can actually save a couple hundred bucks by getting that lens used.) With, you know, a UV filter for the lens.
 
And spare batteries.
 
And a pair of SD cards.
 
And some sort of power supply for the transmitter.
 
Although honestly I don't know what the power draw on the transmitter is like. Surely this is overkill, no? And for that matter, how would we mount the battery and the transmitter? I'm inclined to just tape them to the handheld rig. I'm sure there's a more elegant solution.
Lastwise we need a monitor with HDMI inputs. I think I've bought three of these monitors so far. They work great:

Your three things for today

One can only hope that the general criticism of Prometheus will lead to a better sequel. Ironic, no?
Our own Eric Ian Steele's take on Prometheus.

So. Cannes is going on. Keep your fingers crossed.
+++++
The European standard for an automobile's first aid kit is DIN 13164. It's not an impressive first aid kit.
Via.

Two Draft

David Twohy can do no wrong. In fact, even if he ever did wrong I'd just say "no, he didn't do wrong, I don't believe it."


The Chronicles of Riddick has my favorite dark ending of any movie ever, with a veritable Shakesperian denouement. So say I. So say we all.

+++++
This writing tool called Draft is kinda neat. A new thing is that it allows you to embed videos from YouTube and Vimeo for transcription. As one of the things one must do when delivering a feature film is to deliver a transcription of all the dialog, it might be worth looking into.
+++++
Via Indifferent Cats and Amateur Porn.

Palace Living

A movie our Rebecca Kush is in, Palace Living, has a new poster.

Filmkritik!

Here's a video review of Android Insurrection in German.


The review is that the movie is both good and bad in that it's a good idea but cheaply made.That's fair.

Do Yourself a Favor

Press "play" on this video:

But watch this .gif:

 Repeat.

Measuring the Invisible

Last week's rehearsal's yield.

So. I did a thing. We're recording bass through a Countryman 85 DI and a Lindell preamp. In post I'm running the bass through an automatic level plugin but more importantly (and, er, starting on the second or third track here as of this writing) going through Samplitude's tube-warming plugin.
Yeah, I know. "Tube warming". It's the buzzword from about 5 years ago. But it does the extra thing I felt we want the bass to do. Makes me re-think the Aphex tube preamps that Greg has. Hmm... that might be worth trying actually...

GH2 or GH3

So I borrowed Libby's GH2 camera to shoot over the weekend. I thought that perhaps the video noise would be better on the GH2 over my GH1. I do think and sometimes believe that this is true. We've been careful about avoiding low-contrast low-light situations in the GH1 but I really never saw the horizontal banding on the GH2 that we'd see with the GH1.
So having done further research on the GH2 vs the GH3 it seems there's a bit of a notion that the GH2, yes the 2, is the better camera in many respects. Not exclusively though.
Which is interesting. It seems to me that the low-light performance of the GH3 is better than the GH2 (and therefore the GH1).
The only thing I really wished were different about the GH2 is that with the GH1 I can flip between manual and auto-focus with a fairly easy flip of a switch during a shot. This is not really the case with the GH2 as the switch is harder to flip whilst shooting.
Both the GH2 and the GH3 shoot natively in 24p. This means I'm not fighting with the deinterlacing/reverse-telecine issues I have with the GH1. That's super pleasant actually.
It's a tad annoying that Panasonic keeps changing the battery size with each camera. Here's a good comparison review.
I feel like we're going to need to get a Black Magic 4K camera just because we need something with a global shutter. That's $4000.
The GH3 is only $1200.


The killer app on it may in fact be that you can use the Wi-Fi feature to get a tablet to see through the lens. We haven't had video tap in ages. Everyone on set just trusts that I've somehow shot something worthwhile. And, you know, mostly they do trust. It's just nice to be able to see through the lens.
Maybe I'll have more thoughts on cameras. Maybe I won't.

Day 3 1301

You know, I totally put both days 2 and 3 onto one "reel". So when I look back at the footage we'll have one fewer days than there are call sheets.

Close focus test on the 25mm.

 I've not only been using Libby's GH2 camera, but also the very nice 25mm lens she has for it. It's a Leica-branded lens but I'm not entirely sure it's not just made by Panasonic in Japan. It's a very sweet lens. It opens up to a full f1.4 and even has autofocus. You can get pretty darn tight with the lens too.

The Queen of Mars sets up the brain-scanning device for Kate Britton.

Joe Chapman built our sets with Kevin Kirner and Libby Csulik. They have soft floors. Which my knees are forever thankful for.

Kate Britton and Brianna June Trillo as Barbara and Victoria Slade.

 Also on this picture we've given up on trying to boom things. There are a number of advantages to putting wireless mics on everyone and sending them to split tracks. One advantage is that on a set which is lit and set for 360-degrees means that only the cameraman (me) has to be on set with the actors. Plus I can walk around in and amongst the talent during the scenes which (I hope) will add some intimacy to things.

Our gaffer is tired of you. But she looks great everywhere she goes in this room, so that's all that matters.

Kate Britton and Jared Van Heel. This love scene is so incredibly gratuitous. And what are we shooting through? Why the virtual-cast device itself! How can that be??!!

Kate before all the lights in her apartment turn on automatically (and annoyingly).

You have to explain to me how this is not my next album cover. Or at least a Facebook cover photo.

Do you remember this band? They were like a pop/hard-core band out of Vancouver in the late 90's. She was the drummer and he played industrial sounds with truck wheels and things. They couldn't land a major label deal but all their videos were banned from MTV.

Day 2 1301

Checking the door. Kate Britton reflected as she looks at Brianna June Trillo.

I was too tired last night to post much.

A peita of Brianna.

Brianna June Trillo c'est morte.

I used Libby's GH2 today believing that the camera has less noise. We shot everything on a 25mm lens which would open up to something crazy like f1.4.

Steven J. Niles, Mark Marcarian, and Kate Britton.

Steve Niles interrogates Kate Britton.

Jared Van Heel and Kate Britton.

Mark Marcarian and Julia Rae Maldonado.

One thing I did NOT do correctly is that I ended up shooting stills in only RAW format. So to upload these pictures I had to use Silkypix to batch process them.

Kickstarts

Brian Schiavo shows you his tentacles.

David Gerrold has a Kickstarter for his Star Wolf TV-series.
I mean, yeah. A pilot episode for $650K? That's really not that much money. Kind of shows you how difficult off-world sci-fi is to get on TV.
Label-mate Neil Johnson has a kickstarter for a series called Nobility.

Driving Around Day

The day before shooting is always "drive around and pick stuff up" day. Today I got some costumes from Caitlin Cisek.

Barbara Slade street look.

Extremely happy with Caitlin don't you know. Her costumes have really built the world we're living in.

Karen "interrogation" look.

Here are some of Caitlin's notes:
-didn't know if you wanted her in the wig, but it's there-there are two shirt options if there opinions-and there is a tube bra included
The thing about Karen being outside the door of the interrogation room is that Steve Niles wrote the scene such that she's always "OS". I'm a tad paranoid the audience might be confused about who is speaking exactly. So, we'll have the option of seeing the Juliet-17 in her nice fascist uniform.

Viki look.

So yeah, this is all tres groovy. Plus we also have uniforms for the thugs. Much fun.