I finally got my hands on the new Fastec TS3 Cine camera and I love it. It is truly a portable high speed solution that is very easy to use!

EDIT 5/2/12: I shot a video blog detailing the operation of the camera and also traveled to a local greenhouse that was filled with colorful butterflies. It was very humid and warm inside the greenhouse and the TS3 preformed quite well. I used all Nikon manual 35mm glass with a c-mount to Nikon adapter on the TS3.

For the past two years, I have been working with the Fastec HiSPEC2 718 frames per second 1280×720 sensor in a housing that looked like a CCTV camera. It was necessary to use a laptop to control every feature on the HiSPEC2. Powering, triggering and using the camera was a bit sketchy. That has all changed with the TS3.

The TS3 is like a glorified DSLR. It shoots 718FPS at 720p. Yea, just 720p, but keep in mind, a lot of broadcast television is STILL being shot at 720p. In fact, a lot of the BBC “Planet Earth” natural history documentary was shot using a Panasonic Vari-cam shooting at 1280×720. I am told that plans to be able to upgrade to 1080p are in the works.

I’m very happy with the new image processing inside the TS3. The Fastec engineers really maxed out the potential of this 720p CMOS sensor. The black balance feature and the limited artifacting are a major improvement over the HiSPEC2 camera and sensor. I have not seen any screen-door effect or a bad noise fingerprint.

The TS3 camera has a built in SSD drive and it records stacks of raw or compressed images or creates 720p .avi files. I am currently using the .avi files and transcoding them to ProRes 422 for editing in Final Cut using MPEG Stream Clip software. I will try the raw Adobe DMG files soon.

The best part about this little high speed camera is the fact it is “all in one”. I do not need a computer to operate it. It comes with various lens mounts, and has a rechargeable/removable battery that lasts nearly 4 hours. Yes, I tested it… the TS3 actually runs up to 4 hours of non-stop use! The touch screen is awesome and very responsive. The option for a hard button dial is nice when you don’t want to dirty up the screen with muddy fingers.

I like the fact that I can mount the camera to a computer to off-load files to hard drives or I can even use the USB jack on the top of the camera and dump the data to a cheap thumb drive! I have hooked the TS3 HDMI output to my SmallHD monitor and it sends out a sharp 720p HD signal.

I spent a few hours today testing out the camera. The learning curve is very fast and best of all, you can shoot high speed without a big crew. The camera is light and ideal for backpacking to remote locations. Good even light is absolutely essential. Proper exposure is also very important. This TS3 camera is not a Phantom Flex and has little room for error.

Please watch my short test footage video shot at a small stream above. I did a slight grade and only used one lens for the entire thing, an old manual Nikon 24mm f2.8. It got dark quick under stormy skies, but I kept the lens wide open and the camera running 718 FPS. I am also including a couple 720p Apple ProRes 422 files for you to pixel peep at and play around with the grade. Have fun!

Downloads: (APPLE PRORES 422 .MOV FILES)

Dripping Water 718FPS TS3 Cine Camera (59.17MB) (218)

Rock Splash 718FPS TS3 Cine Camera (64.29MB) (63)

Leaf Landing 718FPS TS3 Cine Camera (43.43MB) (110)

Water Drop into Glass (112.3MB) (26)

LOOKING TO TRY THIS CAMERA?
You can rent the TS3 from RULE BOSTON CAMERA and I think it will be just over $600 for the day. Special thanks to Fastec Imaging for the use of the camera.

Making movies. I’m sure all who read this blog loved doing it when they were kids. No script, just a crazy idea and a bunch of insane imaginations. Grab a camera and start shooting. No lighting, bad acting, horrible shot sequencing, crash edits, but in the end… we are all just tried to tell a story. Some of you probably still love doing it. I don’t do it enough!

I have been working in sports television for a long time. Unscripted, live sports television. I do not intervene or alter the action, I simply document it as it happens in front of me. History in the making without any re-takes or pick-up shots. It is fun, pays the bills, but it can get very boring very fast.

I started shooting commercials, which I compare to short film making… very short 30 second film making. Sometimes I get enough footage to tell a longer story. I control a lot of what is happening and how it shakes out. There is time and the means to do so. Usually there is a beginning, middle and end and there is always a script and a ton of pre-production. Plus I get to work with a team of people hunting down a common goal… to bring the stagnant black and white lines of text to life in a moving visual (and auditory) medium.

“So lets make a movie.” That is what Chris Nicini, Joe Francazio and I said in locker room 7B at the TD Bank North Garden in Boston. We took a break for coffee in the “TV lounge” while setting up for the Bruins network television broadcast. Chris and Joe made a bunch of movies when they were kids and even a few recently. They are both audio guys by trade, but I found they have a few hidden passions and skills that compliment my own cinematography. This project was going to be an interesting creative collaboration. Joe came up with “Franco Film Works“.

I tossed out the idea that I always wanted to shoot a “moon-lit foggy woods” scene that looked like it was straight out of the X-Files. It did not need to be a UFO crash site, but we brainstormed a few ideas. Joe wanted a vampire film and Chris was glad to write it. Monster Hunter was born.

We asked a few trusted interns who were working with us at the time, Jared Lennox and Dustin Sylvia, if they wanted to work a 24 hour day for free. They said yes. The college students were both excited for the experience using a Sony F3, Kessler gear and other cutting-edge expensive cine equipment. I was happy to have them on board because I could have never kept on schedule without their tireless efforts.

We used an 8 foot Kessler Crane with a battery powered Revolution head and controlled everything with an Oracle joy stick. I viewed pictures from the Sony F3 using my beloved SmallHD DP6-SDI monitor powered with a Switronix PowerBase 70 battery pack. The dolly moves where created with a 5 foot Kessler CineSlider. We only needed a few jib and slider shots for the film, but I wished I had worked in a few more.

Joe tapped his pool of actor friends from around New England and did all the logistics for the film. I did nothing except organize a gear list and pack my truck to the gills with kit. This was a big job since I had pretty much every light and bit of support gear I own on location. We all donated something. I donated gear and my time and others did similar things. About $300 was spent on food, props and costume.

We decided to shoot this film on the Sony PMW-F3 with S-LOG installed. The dynamic range of this camera with this firmware update is incredible. I call it a baby ARRI Alexa. I would guess I was getting about 14 stops of latitude between the darkest part of the picture and the brightest using S-LOG. I’m sure the internal Sony codec did not help me, but when Joe looked at the compressed XDCAM footage off the SxS cards on his edit system, he was blown away. It looks amazing and holds up quite well.

I chose the Zeiss compact CP2 prime lens kit because of the sharpness and lightweight design. I own the 21mm, 35mm, 50mm, and the 85mm. I wish they were a bit faster, but the sensitivity of the F3 made up for their t2.1 and t2.9 maximum aperture openings.

I used the excellent Letus follow focus system on the prime lenses. This FF is super smooth and responsive. Letus also makes the Master Cinema Series rigs for going hand held. We decided early that this film would not have much shaky handheld. The only scene was when the hunter was running up to the house. I just held the F3 out in my arms for this brief shot.

The matte box was made by Vocas (MB225) and I used a few ND and polarizer 4×4 filters by Tiffen. I mostly used the matte box to get rid of annoying lens flares from the open faced HMI light.

We all met up around 3pm at Joe’s parents log home in the deep woods of New Hampshire on a chilly Saturday afternoon. It was the late fall and the trees were void of leaves. The sun was filtered through clouds and the wind was light. The fact there was just a bit of breeze would help keep us on schedule. We had big plans to make these woods have some moody atmosphere.

We planned to shoot the seven page script (you can download it at the bottom of this page) in a 20 hour window of time, with few breaks. No sleep, just work and shoot the scenes as the sun set and night arrived. Then wander around in very cold conditions within dense forest behind the house. Eventually we made it inside for a break, and I was impressed by an unknown spread of food that Joe had laid out in the kitchen. But the gorging time for Twizzlers was short. Our biggest enemy was the breaking dawn, that would be quitting time whether we were done shooting Monster Hunter or not.

Joe’s parents house was perfect and so was the weather. The neighbors did not seem to care when I plugged in an ARRI SUN 1.2k watt HMI light and covered the place in an eerie low lying fog. I had so much fun as a DP pretending the moon was low in the sky casting long shadows in the trees. With just a breath of westerly wind, I managed to back-light the haze from the Rosco Alpha 900 fogger. We powered everything with about six very long extension cords that ran through poison ivy and other hazards, like a swamp. I let Dustin take care of that, he has a knack for safety and uses his head to keep us all out of trouble. (sarcasm implied)

After getting everything we needed from the fading light at dusk into the dead of night, we moved inside the house. I had many lights set up outside so I kept them near the windows to simulate moonlight streaming into the cozy interior. If there was a real DP on location, he would have probably asked me, “So… how many moons are shining down on this planet of yours?” Well…there was a moon at every corner of the house, painting blueish white light all over the actors inside. The biggest moon of them all was the HMI light that lit up the entire front yard and the entire front portion of the dwelling. Every now and then a car would slowly drive by wondering where the Police Line – Do Not Cross yellow tape began.

The actors were great. They actually remembered their lines! I was impressed as we did take after take, focusing on best performance. Joe was holding the SmallHD DP6 and I was monitoring audio coming off the wireless Sony UWP body packs hidden on each actor. We chose to record the sound to SxS with the pictures so that Joe would not have to sync the audio in post. I love the TRAM 50 mic heads made for the UWP series, they sound excellent and make little noise buried inside clothing using the included “Vampire” clips. We had a fishpole and shotgun, but did not end up using it.

We had some issues with the vampire fangs and it took a bit of time to get them to look realistic. Jen struggled a little! Also, keeping the vampire’s reflections off the sliding glass door behind Chris’s antique organ was a pain. Joe had to edit around a few good takes in post production to avoid it. Vampires apparently do not have reflections.

Another hurtle was getting the arrow catch and wooden stake stabbings to look real. I did my best to reveal them in my camera work with whip pans or a snap tilt. Joe made the effect take on a whole new life by doing some creative foley in the sound sweetening process. I think we pulled it off.

Towards the end of the night (or early morning), things got slightly chaotic. I was exhausted and vaguely remember asking Joe, “just tell me where to point the camera…” The sun was rising and our artificial moonlight was slowing degrading. We had to finish the film. Things were going to start to look drastically different inside that house. We cut parts out and thought that we may have to get the entire group back together to re-shoot the ending. Fortunately, (since we all have crazy schedules) this was not the case and Joe found a way to put a big red bow on the whole thing.

Chris and Joe recorded a few pick-up shots with a Canon 60D that Joe matched the best he could to the F3 footage. They were mostly fast cuts and tight shots so you can’t really see the difference in the quality of the two cameras. The flashbacks early in the film were all shot on Chris’s 60D. But since they were heavily effected by filters in post, the little shallow depth of field DSLR looked great.

EDIT: Do not build your own 12 volt USB power adapter for the GoPro. The power requirements are 5 volts, 500-1000 milliamps which is what almost all cell phone chargers put out. If you send 12 volts to a GoPro it will do damage!

GoPro Heros. Amazing little cameras. For under $300 you get a tiny wide angle 16:9 1080p camera that is also a self contained video camcorder. The GoPro records picture and sound to built in SD cards as mp4 files. You can put GoPros anywhere (and yea, they are even waterproof in the included case). And now GoPro has released a Hero2 new model that has sharper optics, an easy to navigate menu, better light sensitivity and more recording options. If you follow my blog or others like it, you probably already know all this. But many of you may not know that these little cameras can output analog and HD signals that can be fed into a live production truck. This blog post will tell you how to do it and why most attempts to get these to work as live POVs prove to be an epic failure.

I have been experimenting with these cameras on college basketball games with CBS Sports Network. CBS have been shipping these GoPro cameras (old model Hero1 currently) around in Pelican cases to games all over the United States. The idea is to compliment the very expensive broadcast cameras used to televise the games with points of view (POVs) that are rarely seen in sports.

Specialty cameras delivering “sports from a different perspective” is what broadcast tv networks are currently renting, Robo-cams from Fletcher Chicago. These robotic cameras use a motorized pan/tilt head, full zoom/focus capability to get a shot in a place you could never put a manned camera. These are expensive professional cameras, with full control over iris, color and data. The robos are expensive to rent and operate, but you CANNOT compare/replace a GoPro with a Fletcher camera. The GoPro is fixed, dull, uncontrollable and potentially unreliable at times. A scary proposition when you MUST have the camera working the entire game and match the other cameras on the show!

CBS mostly uses the GoPros as non-essential slam cams mounted to the backboard, wide beauty shots high in the nose bleed section or as creative angles court side. On the broadcasts I have been on, the director mostly used these cameras as an alternate angle to post graphics, score and stats over. These cameras were almost never switched on the air during live action. However, the occasional free-throw behind the backboard cut in live to show the ball going in could work.

Sometimes, the producers would ask a replay operator to punch the GoPro into a tape/disk machine. When there is limited personal or decks, these tiny cameras steal replays from a hard working hand held camera operator under the basket. I would hate to be a cameraman busting my back to cover the action, only to see a fixed lock-down shot mounted high behind me get replayed over and over on the broadcast.

So how do they look? Pretty good for a $300 camera. I was surprised that in ideal conditions the GoPro Hero1 cut quite well with broadcast rigs worth $100,000.00. But certain steps must be followed exactly to keep GoPros powered up and get pictures back to the truck.

To help you visualize the setup with Hero1 cameras, please watch the twitvid below from a college hockey game.

I will break this blog down and try to explain to you how to get either a GoPro Hero1 or Hero2 working properly. If you have further questions, please post them at the bottom of this page.

SETTING UP THE CAMERA:

It is important to understand that these little cameras are format, frame rate and field of view switchable. You may want a super wide fisheye shot from behind a hockey goal or a less-distorted wide shot of a basketball court. The original Hero1 camera has a complicated menu system requiring the operation manual close by that I will only touch upon in this blog. You can download the manual for the Hero1 and Hero2 below. The Hero2 is much more user friendly with a detailed LCD panel showing you exactly what format you are in.

Be sure to clean the lens on the naked GoPro and inside/outside the case. The GoPro case could have dust inside the lens area and this will show up on screen because the lens is very wide.

SETTING UP HERO1:

First, plug the usb cell phone charger into the GoPro camera and make sure the red light on the front lights up. Keep the camera powered off for now. Charge the battery for about 20 minutes before moving forward. This is very important. I use the 2 USB connector 5 volt, 2 AMP (1 AMP on each USB connector) ExtremeMac IPU-ICH-11 10 Watt chargers. These put out enough power to charge the GoPros and even keep 2 cameras powered all day off the same a/c adapter. CBS is using 5 volt .5 amp Motorola cell phone chargers and sometimes, these are not strong enough to keep these camera running. Do not use or built custom 12 volt USB chargers, these will fry the GoPro. I will talk more about these chargers as a/c adapters later in this article.

After charging the battery for a bit, unplug the charger and set up the camera on battery power. Press and hold down the button on the front face (next to lens) of GoPro. Wait for a beep and see the LCD screen to power up.

Next, press the same button a few times until you see the “wrench” settings icon. Press the button on the top of the GoPro. Move through the menu and set up the resolution on the camera. There are only two buttons on the camera. Think of the top button as the “execute” button pressed quickly and the front facing button as the “power” button when pressed and held and the “shuttle through menu items” button when pressed quickly.

The two “R” setting you will use is “r2″ and “r5″. These are the resolutions. “r2″ is very wide fish-eye distorted 720p and “r5″ is normal wide 1080p. I recommend “r5″ for most applications. Try not to mess with the other settings in the camera unless you completely understand the operations manual.

Finally, get out of setting menu and select the camera mode. This mode has a little “camera” icon. You are now ready to mount this camera, plug in ac cell phone charger for power and set up the rest of the gear to get the pictures back to the truck.

SETTING UP HERO2:

CONNECTING TO A LIVE TRUCK

Almost all professional television trucks require the incoming HD video signal to be HDSDI. This digital signal is carried on coaxial 4.5 GHZ high definition rated video cable with BNC connectors. That being said, the GoPros put out component HD or HDMI. This is not compatible and a converter box is required to change the cameras output to HDSDI. I will go into detail about these boxes a bit later in this blog.

GOPRO OUTPUTS:

The biggest difference (as far of connections go) between the Hero1 and Hero2 is the HD output. The Hero1 uses a special mini-plug to output component HD. The Hero2 uses a mini-hdmi connection to output the HD signal. The Hero1 camera includes the break out cable, the Hero2 only comes with an analog cable, you need to buy a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable.

HERO1 OUTPUTS:

The original GoPro Hero1 camera uses a mini plug (like 1/8inch jack) that carries HD. You plug the supplied component HD cable into the hole marked “HD” on the side of the GoPro. The cable then breaks out into three RCA connectors, a green, blue and red. These represent Y, PB, PR and the three parts that make up the HD signal. You plug these into the component hd to HDSDI converter box to get the signal you need. You will need three RCA to BNC adapters to attach the breakout cable to the converter box. These are easy to find and very cheap.

There is also an analog RCA video and stereo audio cable to pull standard definition out of the Hero1. The hole is the same size as the HD one, but it is marked as “TV”. You would only use this analog connection and output if you had a standard definition show.

HERO2 OUTPUTS:

The new improved GoPro Hero2 camera has a mini-HDMI connector on the side of it. The small hole marked “HD” is gone. Using an inexpensive (sold separately) mini-HDMI to HDMI cable, you connect the GoPro Hero2 to a HDMI to HDSDI converter box. This converter box is just like the one mentioned above, but takes HDMI instead of component HD. No adapters are needed at the converter box for HDMI.

The Hero2 also has the analog mini hole and breakout cable to get standard definition RCA video into the truck if you want the 480p signal instead of HD.

IMPORTANT NOTICE ON CABLE LENGTHS FOR SIGNAL:

Talking to CBS Sports tech managers from cities all over the US, the biggest problem with these GoPros working is getting pictures back to the truck. You can only send HDSDI signals over approved coaxial cable. The cable must be rated 3.5-4.5 GHZ for serial high definition. Do not use old coax cable. Just because it passes SD analog video, does not mean it will work with HD. The cable run must be under 300 feet or you will need re-clocking repeaters to push the signal along.

If you are working in a sports arena that is older than 3-5 years, there is a good chance that the cable run in the conduit is regular coax and will not pass HDSDI. This means you cannot use GoPros on house cable unless approved digital cable is run. Plus, keep in mind that the total run back to the truck can only be 300 feet. Using GoPros in this senerio is out of the question because just the run from the converter box to the I/O panel in the building could be 100 feet alone. The cable in the walls to the truck could be well over 200 feet. Plus there is about 50 feet of HDSDI cable to travel through the racks in the truck! Even if the cable is 4.5 GHZ, that length is way to long to pass video.

USE OF EXPENSIVE RE-CLOCKERS/TBC:

I spoke with a truck engineer and video technician about what needs to be done to get the weak HDSDI signal from the GoPro into the truck switcher. Many trucks use Evertz re-clockers/time base correctors to bring the signal to life. The HD output from the GoPro is dark, soft and not properly color balanced. The Evertz is vital to crank the detail, bring up the exposure and match the colors of the cheap GoPro to match the other cameras on the show. This piece of machinery is expensive and most trucks only have a small number of inputs that can be dedicated to GoPros. You must have a skilled video tech to get these cameras dialed in. Keep this in mind.

FIBER MAY BE YOUR ONLY OPTION:

One option in a building with house fiber cable is to use technology from TELECAST. The Rattler. These little adapters use single mode fiber in a venue (if it is available) to convert HDSDI signals to light. The signal can now travel 30km without a repeater. The light down to the truck is changed back to HDSDI using the second half of the rattler adapter and brought into the truck with very little loss. But these rattlers are expensive, you need a building with free single mode fiber and you have now made a $300 locked-down camera cost much more.

HOW TO POWER A GOPRO AND KEEP IT ON ALL DAY:

As I type this blog, GoPro does not have an AC power supply for this camera on its website for sale. This camera was designed to only power itself off the replaceable Li-Ion internal battery. The company expects you to use your computer’s 5 volt .5 amp USB connector or an optional GoPro cigarette adapter USB charger to charge the battery.

The folks at CBS are thing outside the box and trying to power the camera using third party (Motorola branded) cell phone chargers. They are sticking the mini-USB plug on the charger into the GoPro and plugging the other end directly into the wall. This bypasses the battery and keeps the power flowing indefinitely. But… there are a few things I figured out. Read closely…

After speaking to many who have failed keeping the camera running off wall power, I did a few experiments. I tried several different power supplies and noticed that only certain ones worked properly. I discovered that you must use cell phone chargers that are rated at 5 volt / 500-1000 milliamps or .5 to 1 AMPs. This gives the camera the power it needs to stay powered up. You can find this information on the power supply transformer in small print. I recommend slightly higher than .5 amps if possible and closer to 1 full amp to keep the camera going.

Another thing I figured out after trial and error is that you must charge the GoPro battery to about 25 percent before you use it off AC power. For some unknown reason, using a dead battery and the power supply results in failure after a few minutes of ac power.

Also, be sure to power the camera up first, on the battery, wait a second, then plug in the mini-usb cell phone charger to bypass the battery and run off wall power. Another good habit to get into is to properly stain-relieve all connections and tape them up. These are cheap connectors and cables, if you pull on them, the camera will cut out… or worse you will do permanent damage.

CONVERTER BOXES:

There are a few options on the market today for portable converters that will change the component HD output of the Hero1 and/or the HDMI output of the Hero2 to the usable HDSDI bnc video feed. CBS is using the $400 Black Magic Mini Converter. These are the cheapest and work well. Black Magic also makes a heavy duty version of the same box, great for field use. These boxes do require power to work, as do the GoPros.

AJA also makes small converter boxes. These are a bit more expensive and do the same thing as the Black Magic units, simply convert one type of HD signal to another.

SKELETON CASE

If you own GoPros, you know they come with water tight plastic cases. If you want, you could drill through the side of the case to clear a path for the connection cables. Or, you can purchase a separate pre-cut “skeleton case” for the GoPro. This has all the holes needed in the case to keep the GoPro protected and get the wires connected. I do not recommend running the GoPro naked with out protection.

MOUNTING THE CAMERA:

The GoPro company makes a bunch of accessories for mounting these little cameras on almost anything. The Hero cameras have a standard two prong receiver mount on the bottom of all their cases. This point of attachment lets you place suction cup mounts, bar mounts, ect directly to the housing. I recommend a 1/4 20 tripod mount attachment and the use of a Bogen Magic Arm to attach the GoPro to hockey glass, railings, or the basketball backboard supports. The arm is super strong and can articulate to almost any position for proper framing.

FRAMING THE CAMERA USING THE BACPAC MONITOR:

When you buy a GoPro, it does not come with a viewfinder. I have got pretty good at just pointing the camera and guessing the frame from experience. If you “eye-ball it”, be sure your horizon is right. You can use a small level or bubble app on an iPhone to get it near-perfect.

Another option is the GoPro LCD BacPac screen. This little $80 accessory attaches directly to the back of the GoPro camera and gives you a tiny monitor to frame the camera. This screen adds a third button to the camera and this button provides an on/off for the LCD. Be sure to only use this BacPac screen on battery power. It seems to mess up the camera when on cell phone charger power. It also does not turn on, in most cases, unless just firing off the battery. Be sure to turn the LCD screen off, after positioning and framing the camera, then plug in the ac usb power. This should keep the camera powered the entire show.

GoPro is working on WiFi BacPac for the Hero2. This new attachment will allow you to frame and control the camera wireless with a smart phone. I do not have any other information on this at the moment. Check out gopro.com for more.

Got it? If you follow these guidelines exactly, these camera will stay powered up and passing video all day long. If you have serious problems, power cycle the camera by removing the battery for one full minute. I have mostly worked with Hero1 cameras with CBS, but the theory of converter boxes, HDSDI cable lengths, power supplies, protective cases and use of Evertz is the same with Hero2 cameras using HDMI out.

I own four GoPro Hero2 cameras. I highly recommend you purchase one of these and keep it with you. As a DP, these are an excellent way to add another hard to get angle of the subject you are shooting and the story you are telling.

I also used my homemade dolly (link) for a few shots which worked pretty well. It was very smooth and easy to work with, though I could have used a better tripod.

This video was almost a ZERO budget project. There were no location fees. No rental fees. No catering costs. No actors to pay. No wardrobe or props to buy. The only costs were two new pieces of PVC pipe ($10 which will be used again and again) and one of the lantern/flashlights ($25 which I keep in my car now and is very handy to have!). Everything else was borrowed or owned.

I was the only person on crew. I carried all the gear and set up everything. I also handled all of the direction and logistics. I kept track of the shot lists and tried to keep on schedule. To be honest, I was overwhelmed at times that night because it was a lot to deal with on a very cold night. No one wanted to be outside very much be we did it and had some fun. Feel free to ask any questions you may have, technical or otherwise, in the comments and I’ll try to get back to you quickly.

Finally, a little bit about the concept. It’s supposed to sort of leave you scratching your head at the end. Partly, this is to make you want to watch it again. And partly because we (the band and I) didn’t want it to be heavy handed. We liked the idea of the viewer sort of being lost along with the protagonist. Without further ado…

This past summer, I borrowed Eric Kessler’s Red Epic and shot a quick short film with it. This would be my first time ever using the camera system. I wanted to get a few hours on it and experiment with the workflow. I also wanted to try mounting the Epic to the Kessler Pocket Dolly.

I shot the above video in “CinemaScope 2.55:1“. That ratio has gone extinct since Fox used it in the 1950s but I figured I would bring it back! It is very wide screen and kinda ridiculous to view on our screens!

I met up with my friend Nick Keating and traveled to North Conway to shoot Frontside Grind Coffee and Espresso owner Austin Orth. Austin is a Barista and coffee roaster who resides in New Hampshire with his family. Austin lives, in my opinion, the perfect lifestyle. He rides his bike in the morning, runs his coffee shop during the day and roasts beans at night. Not only is he riding in epic mountain landscapes, but he is constantly experimenting with different coffee from around the world to find the perfect blend.

Two of my favorite things: coffee and bikes. The ideal subject matter for a mini documentary captured on a Red Epic.

I wanted to shoot a short about Austin that captured a slice of his life. We only spent a few hours with him. The plan was to mix the coffee roasting and experimentation with Austin’s ride. After interviewing him I realized that Austin thinks about java when he is road cycling and thinks about road cycling when he is working the beans.

Nick and I used the Kessler Pocket Dolly to add a bit of motion to a few of the shots. The dolly was pushed to its limits as far as weight goes, but preformed well. I had an ElektraDRIVE 200 series motor do all the work for me and I adjusted the moves with the Kessler Basic Controller.

I used a Manfrotto 701 head, and locked it down. The weight killed this tiny fluid head and I had to be very careful with it. I could only pan while dollying, tilting was risky because the head was not able to properly balance the rig.

We later went to Austin’s coffee shop on Main Street in North Conway to shoot some b-roll and to sequence the creation of the perfect pour. I learned about the visually beautiful “Latte Art” and how it zaps the taste buds.

I had a single battery operated Zylight Z90 led light and used it to add a bit of punch to some of the tight shots. Shooting Epic is different because of the extreme resolution and color space. Yes, it does require more light but you think a little different when composing the shot. There are a few shots within a shot!

When editing, I used the 5k resolution to “punch in” on my 1080p Final Cut timeline. By doing this, I was able to get wide and tight shots in a single master shot. Nice to have, but you must be thinking like an editor while shooting. It is not a good habit to get into as using a proper lens to get wide and tight for your sequences is the right thing to do. But…we were in a rush!

The firmware I had did not allow for playback in camera, so that was a bit of a pain. Felt like I was actually shooting real film! It would have been so nice to see if I had audio or what the higher frame rates looked like after the take.

I had four Zeiss CP2 lenses with me. I used the 21mm t2.9, 35mm t2.1, 50mm t2.1, and 85mm t2.1. These lenses are very light and super sharp. The only problem with them is the fact they are slow and require more light. Plus I found the Epic not as light sensitive as a Canon 5dmk2 DSLR or other large sensor cameras.

I shot a bunch of the coffee roasting at 2k 300 fps. Austin gave both Nick and I a crash course on the art of cooking the beans. Austin has been doing this so long that he can tell when the coffee is ready just by the sound of it while it is being blasted in the drum roaster.

Later in the day, Nick, Austin and I drove up the famous Mount Washington Auto Road. This dangerous road winds up the 6,288 foot mountain, the highest in New England. This place is also the home of the world’s worst weather and the highest ever recorded wind speed on Planet Earth, 231 miles per hour. I love this place and was so happy to be spending time on Mt. Washington during a warm late summer afternoon.

Austin got permission from some very friendly people he knew who worked at the mountain. I shot very quickly since we only had about an hour up there. Nick drove a pickup truck up the narrow road as I shot from the bed. I captured Austin cranking up the hill at 300 fps from a few different angles.

At 5k, the Red Epic camera looked amazing in post. I am borrowing a Red Rocket card from a friend. This card made a big difference in speed/display and made working with R3D files a breeze. The Red Rocket was my Mac Pro 8 core tower and I used the card to transcode all the footage to ProRes 422 HQ 4096×3072. This is essentially ProRes 4k. This high resolution footage was placed on a 1080p ProRes Final Cut Pro timeline and it was natively scaled to just 37.5 percent! That allowed me to re-frame and digitally zoom in without loosing any resolution.

When editing the footage, I was surprised at how much noise I found at the 2k resolution. It did not matter if I was shooting at 24, 30 or 300 frames per second, in 2k the Epic was not very clean. I did a light grade to everything, but did not change it much from its original capture metadata. I hope this gets addressed in a future firmware update.

Huge thank you to Eric Kessler and Kessler University for letting me play with the Red Epic. The camera is a pain to work with at times, but the pictures coming off the sensor are incredible.

Thanks to the folks at the Mount Washington Auto road for granting us permission to spend some time in one of the most amazing places on Earth. I also want to thank Nick for taking pictures for this blog and working with me as a first AC.

Two weeks ago, I was hired by director and friend Torey Champagne to direct the photography on my third music video shot with Canon 5dmk2 DSLRs. The band was Prospect Hill and they were preforming their new single, “Come Alive”. These guys have a new album coming out and they are from New England.

Torey is a pleasure to work with because he is able to communicate his vision to me directly, without the use of storyboards. We were on the same page during pre-production and on location working the project. And I had no worries that his editing and special effects would make my footage live. Another good friend and contributing writer on my website, Bill Travers joined up to assist Torey and I.

The story for the music video was simple.

A guy and a girl were in a stressed relationship, money was tight, bills not getting paid, the guy was out of work, the girl was working a low paying job at a diner, a fight broke out over a pile of past-due bills, girl stormed out of house, girl got hit by a car, guy had nightmares and regret, dead girl visited guy as a ghost.

Sounds easy right?! And the glue that holds all that together was the band preforming the song in a dark, foggy and cramped space. Torey was not only director, but also editor and VFX. He would cut the project using Final Cut and composited the two faked shots using After Effects… the girl getting hit by the SUV and the ghost appearance at the end of the video.

For me, this project was unique. This was the first gig that paid me through funding on the internet. Prospect Hill got a Kickstarter page running and had no problem getting the money from supporters and fans. In fact, they got all the money and more in short time. Check out their “pitch video” in the embed above.

The job took two days to shoot. We worked a few locations in Lawrence, Massachusetts for about five hours each day with the band and actors. Ten hours total production time. For Torey, Bill and I this was textbook guerrilla film making. Run and gun digital cinema. Not a lot of fun with the 5dmk2, especially when almost the entire video was going to be handheld.

My last two music videos shot on the 5dmk2 (see above embeds) did not involve much handheld. In fact, I told Torey that we could not “go handheld” much to his disappointment. I mentioned that I had not found a stabilizing rig (outside the GlideCam 4000) that worked for me. I hate the rolling shutter and hard-to-handle bodies of today’s small cameras.

That all changed when I went to LA a few weeks ago. I checked out the new small-format camera support system a Hollywood DP had built from the ground-up, the Master Cinema Series.

I now had a new shoulder rig that fit my shooting style thanks to the guys at Hurlbut Visuals and Letus. I used the Shane Hurlbut Master Cinema Series for the first time on this project and I was very happy with the results. Not just the results on screen, but the fact that I did not destroy my body during the shoot. We may have only worked a total of 10 hours in two days, but the rig was on my shoulder nearly the entire time. The MCS shoulder rig balanced perfectly and gave me the control I needed to make the 5dmk2 part of my own body. Nearly all of the high frequency jitter that results in the rolling shutter “jello-effect” was gone. Keep in mind the MCS is not just for a DSLR. The system was made to tame small-form factor cameras.

A few of the tracking shots were captured using a GlideCam 4000. I find this cheap bit of metal very useful to stabilize a 5dmk2 while walking or hanging off a pickup truck. Mine is nearly 8 years old! One of the original GlideCam 4000 steady sticks.

I had a Vocas MB-325 mounted to the system when shooting outside. I have a bunch of Schneider and Tiffen white glass 4×4 filters and used a lot of neutral density and grads to avoid high shutter during any bright scenes. I find it better to run the shutter at 1/60th all the time and use ND to keep the lens wide open for the cine-look. By running that that speed, you minimize motion blur a bit, and you can still shoot in dark conditions at lower ISOs.

We did shoot at 24p, that is what Torey wanted but I could careless about 24p. For me, that does not define the “film-look”. If anything, I want MORE frames in a second. Shallow depth of field and camera motion create a cinematic feel. Lighting is always important as well, whether you use what is there or add some yourself.

I used a Red Rock Micro follow focus with a six inch whip to pull my own focus and keep my hands on the Master Cinema Series handles. I did not have gear treads on all my lenses, so some of my focus pulls were done with my finger tips. Glad the MCS rig was balanced! I was able to let go of the front handles to zoom and focus myself.

Bill worked closely with me to keep my lenses and filters under control and clean. Having an AC is so important. I tend to leave my lenses all over the place and it is nice to have someone just keep track of them all. And cap them!

The Prospect Hill “Come Alive” video was broken up into two parts, in the two days… The musical performance and the acting “film” portion.

We used two Canon 5dmk2 DSLRs, one shoulder mounted and the other on a tripod or magic arm lockdown. For lenses, a bunch of fast Canon “L” series glass. The 16-35mm f2.8, 24mm f1.4, 50mm f1.2, 85mm f1.2 and 70-200mm f2.8. I did not have my buddy TJ Powers’ 24-70mm f2.8 at the time, but I would have used it for sure. Love that lens.

I choose the 5dmk2 because we were going to do many of the shots with existing light. Sometimes almost NO light. We wanted the music video to be dark, but also wanted to move quick from location to location. I found that a creatively placed 750 watt Lowel RIFA light and a camera top-mounted z90 Zylight (with mini Chimera softbox) was all I needed for the “film” portion.

I used my Sony F800 for some of the “overcranked” 60p footage you will see during the performance toward the end of the video. Wish this was 1080p, but unfortunately, the cameras I own to shoot over 30 frames per second are 720p. This meant that we had to shoot 30p, not 24p to get the most frames for slo-motion. Torey had to up-scale this footage and conform it to fit the 1080p 24p timeline. You can see the artifacting! Perhaps it is time to get a Red?!

The first day, we worked a late afternoon inside a tight 20ft by 20ft detached garage full of debris shooting the musical performance. We lit stuff (like leaves) on fire to create toxic smoke and floating atmosphere. I did not own a fog machine at the time, but I do now. The smoky conditions looked cool and made breathing a bit difficult, but the band did not seem to be effected.

I mostly used a Canon 16-35mm f2.8 at the wider end to make the place look bigger than it was. The walls were black, but I did my best to keep light off them. Torey wanted lens flares, he loves lens flares. So I placed 6 open faced ARRI 150s in the back, wrapping the drum kit, blasting directly into my lens. For my main source, I had two extreme cross keying ARRI 650s. All eight of these fresnels had NO diffusion. I wanted harsh shadows and wicked flares. In fact, I took off all lens schrods and never used a matte box inside the garage. I snapped the heck out of the zoom on the 16-35mm lens with my finger tips as I shouldered the Hurlbut/Letus MCS. Torey had a SmallHD monitor in his hands to view the action. I simply took an HDMI loop through feed out of the Zacuto EVF that was jammed into my eye socket.

Prospect Hill ripped through about 12 takes of their song, “Come Alive” for the camera in a few hours. The song was intense and took alot out of the band, and the crew. The hanging acrid smoke in the lights did not help anyone’s stamina. I did mostly handheld work during the takes and had a second 5dmk2 running as a lockdown on a magic arm somewhere in the garage. I also used a dolly to slide the camera around the lead singer and later, the drummer-only. Bill was shooting BTS footage that you will soon see on this blog. Some of the screen grabs/photos on this blog were lifted from the BTS camera.

The second day of production was far more ambitious. Torey, Bill, and I drove a convoy of cars from location to location with members of the band and the actors that would be in the “film” portion. We had only a few minutes to set up a dolly shot in a cemetery at golden hour before we headed to a diner to shoot with our lead actress and a bunch of extras. Torey did all the logistics before hand and everything went off well. I did not use any lights inside the diner. I found the camera-mounted z90 Zylight (softbox) to be a very valuable run-and-gun key source to fill in shadows on the actress’s face. I could dial in whatever color temp I wanted instantly and it had a built-in dimmer. This saved us valuable set-up time at the diner, with limited crew.

When we got to the apartment complex at night fall, I used a single 750 watt Lowel RIFA softbox light on a homemade 1000 watt dimmer pack. This light was as easy to set up as an umbrella and it popped open just like one! I highly recommend you get one for your arsenal. It was very bright and you can even get it as a 1k.

The script called for an indoor morning scene and it was pitch black outside around 10pm at time of shooting! Bill and I set up the RIFA outside the apartment on the street and used the light to simulate sunlight hitting the blinds. I balanced the camera for 3200k and set the soft/dimmed Zylight z90 (mounted to MCS rig) to the same color temperature. The result was amazing and nobody watching could tell that the light streaming from outside was artificial.

The bedroom scene (when the female actress wakes up for work) also took place in the early morning. But again, we were working late at night, no sun. We placed the RIFA low on the stand in doorway, pointed it up at the bed, and ran it on a dimmer very low. The filament was barely emitting light. The soft warm tungsten glow simulated the golden hour rays bouncing off a kitchen floor into the bedroom. When the lead girl was pulling up her pants, I had to frame her extreme left, to avoid shooting the RIFA light!

The composited ghost effect shots in the bed room were very easy to shoot. Torey explained the effect to me and we simply locked out a few camera angles. We shot multiple plates in the fixed lockdown position (empty bed, just guy in bed and just girl in bed) for each angle of the scene. These shots cut quick and only exist on screen for a few frames, so Torey decided no to add any motion to them.

The “girl gets hit by car” shot was also a lockdown using the old “split-screen” trick. I placed the 5dmk2 on a tripod, tightened the pan and tilt and shot three separate plates… one empty, one with an SUV screaming through the frame, and the third was the girl walking through the frame as the SUV’s headlights lit her up. The resulting shot was a screaming SUV ramming into the actress. The straight up and down light pole in the shot was used for reference to create the split.

Torey, Bill and I plan on working on more of these type of music videos. Small budget, skeleton crew, limited gear, fast shooting, creative lighting, and quick turnaround productions. I love problem solving and creatively using what I find in the field. But… I always have my car just a quick jog away packed to the gills with almost every bit of gear I own… just in case.

Here is how the kitchen looked on the scout day. This is a high end residential kitchen in Winchester, MA. White floor to ceiling cabinets, wolf oven, Subzero refrigerator, marble counter tops surrounded by hardwood flooring. My first thought is wow… this is going to be a challenge…. to light this and not make a mark or scuff. DP Billy Velten, Key Grip Darryl and me decided to take advantage of the large windows on the left side of the kitchen. We would put an Arri 1.8 HMI Par on an 8’ scaffold tower and a crank stand. Use the shutters on the windows to the left to make nice natural hard light patterns on the back lower cabinets and let some streak across the marble top of the island. The windows are facing west so we would have to raise a 12 x 12 solid in the late afternoon to keep and direct sun from entering the kitchen. We also decided that the lighting fixtures above the island would have to come down. This would allow us to use the electrical boxes as hanging points for an 8’- double Kino Flo, lamped 5500K, fixture to light the top of the island.

Once DP Billy Velten is happy with camera placement, time for one more check and tweak of the key lights onto the center position. Behind, to the left, are the host and hostess deciding how they will begin the demo.

After the last pick up shot…. waiting to see if the director wants to do it again….?

Some behind the scenes:

DP Billy Velten relaxes during a media management task

B camera discussion between DP Donald and AC Joan

Host and Hostess listen to comments from the director

Who has the best app?

Ethics Notice: Letus paid my expenses and invited me to the Los Angeles Launch Party so that I could document the event for my blog. I am not being compensated for the shooting, editing or writing of this blog. I was sent home with a working ‘Shoulder Cam’ rig because I was excited to use it straight away and hope to keep it indefinitely. I have work lined up to use the gear in the next few weeks. I highly recommend this rig and only endorse products on this website that I feel work as advertised and are worth the investment.

UPDATE 11/16/11
I was mistaken in this video blog reporting that Shane used the Master Cinema Series rigs on the upcoming film, “Act of Valor”. He did not use the exact rigs that Letus is selling today. Shane did use custom rigs with bits and pieces from multiple manufacturers. Some parts he fabricated himself to create the ultimate rig for use with 5dmk2 cameras on “Act of Valor”. The Master Cinema Series was created because Shane felt that there were no solutions from a single manufacturer on the market that worked for him. Sorry for the error and resulting confusion, it was not intentional. I did not create this video blog as an advertisement, I want to get the to get the word out. I remain firm in my opinion that these Letus/Hurlbut MCS rigs work the best so far for me.

Until a few days ago, the 5dmk2 camera body was uncontrollable, hard to handle and I could not find a good way to shoot with it hand held. Most of my work was limited, because I refused to hold it while shooting and only used it on a tripod head.

Yea…there are many solutions on the market today, but I have tried shoulder rigs from different manufacturers and felt like they were too expensive for what you got or not designed to feel like a real shoulder mounted camera. The pads were wrong, the balance was off and they were just a mess of long rods with knobs or screws that bogged me down. Product designers finally understood that the eyepiece viewfinder needed to be off the shoulder rig, but the support systems were slow to use and painful to operate! In fact, I have been using my 5dmk2 with a monopod to run and gun! I also had to resort to mounting the camera on a Glidecam 4000 Pro just to get rid of the rolling shutter problem when shooting off the hip. High frequency shake (and the resulting jelly-image) is the biggest problem when shooting with these CMOS sensors.

I have never blogged about a shoulder rig on this website because the stuff out there was unacceptable…until now. I have finally found a rig that I can recommend to my readers. The Master Cinema Series.

Letus, the guys who dominated the 35mm lens adapters a couple years ago, are back in the manufacturing spotlight. They have teamed up with veteran cinematographer Shane Hurlbut, ASC to create a support system to tame small form-factor cameras. Shane has worked in the television and film industry for many years and knows what works and what doesn’t. He designed the new Master Cinema Series out of necessity. Just like me, there was nothing on the market today that worked for him as a professional director of photography. This is the difference between Letus and all other DSLR support kits in the wild today, the new Letus gear was built by a cinematographer for cinematographers.

Shane worked on the upcoming Navy Seal action flick, “Act of Valor” and wanted to use a handheld rig to get the audience engaged into the feature film. Over 80 percent of the movie was shot on Canon DSLR using the Letus kit. (Correction: He used a custom kit built from parts manufactured by other companies and himself. Shane later went to Letus to create the ultimate one-shop kit, the Master Cinema Series). He has an aggressive shooting style and understands the value of these sensitive, sharp and small go-anywhere cameras.

I joined Shane Hurlbut, Aaron Pinto, Hien Le, Matt Jeppsen, Ron Dawson, Tim Park, Planet Mitch, Ryan Connolly, Russell Carpenter, Vincent Laforet, Rodney Charters, Freddie Wong and many other Hollywood professionals at the Letus Launch Party near Bandito Brothers Studios in Los Angeles, California. Shane had all 4 configurations of the system set up for viewing and testing. The plan was not to just see the rigs sitting on a table top, but to run them through their paces in actual production environments.

The complete package will cost about $6,500. This includes the power cage, IR stem, Lemo-style cables, matte box, follow focus, rods, handles, pads, viewfinder leveling brackets, quick release plates, screws, Anton Bauer Gold-mount, weight plates and backpack. With all this stuff you can build any of the four configurations below.

Action Cam – $1,450

Man Cam Bundle – $2,590

Shoulder Cam Bundle – $3,270

Studio Cam Bundle – $4,000

I am really impressed by the ‘Man Cam‘ and ‘Shoulder Cam‘. These two configurations renewed my love for the Canon 5dmk2. I can now comfortably shoot aggressive handheld with the small camera systems and achieve the results I want. The leveling viewfinder option on ‘Studio Cam‘ is also exciting and will help me when I work off a tripod or dolly system.

I highly recommend the auto ratio adjusting Zacuto EVF and Z-finder as the eyepiece monitoring option. This is sold separately. Letus will soon offer the Hawk diopter for use with the Zacuto EVF so you have a different choice.

The best part of the Master Cinema Series is that it is modular. You are future-proofing your investment. The build quality is excellent and I like the use of solid Lemo-type connectors on the power cage. The quick-release plates making changing configurations fast and do not slow you down during production. Above all else, the system can be used with many small form-factor camera systems, including future camera support. Letus plans on making cages for the new Sony cameras as well as the unreleased Canon that will be announced on November 3rd.

I will use the Canon 5dmk2 and Master Cinema Series rigs in ‘Shoulder Cam‘ mode on a web series I am shooting for National Geographic over the next few months. I will have a BeachTek XLR adapter mounted to the cage along with Sony UWP wireless microphone receivers. I plan on powering everything using Anton Bauer Dionic 90 batteries.

I will be DP’ing a music video and independent horror film in the next few weeks. I am looking forward to using the Canon 5dmk2 with a wide angle CP.2 prime in the ‘Man Cam‘ configuration. It’s gonna be a blast tossing it around with my arms and getting very close to the stories I am capturing. I hope to blog about these experiences with some BTS pictures…stay tuned!

Matt Jeppsen, of FreshDV.com put together a quick edit of the launch event shot on his Canon DSLR. You can see me running around in the background with my Sony SR11 on a monopod! He also has more pictures from the event, you can find them here.

If you are interested in buying the new Letus Master Cinema Series gear, please visit the online store here. The kits plan on shipping in November.

Update 11/16/11: Shot a music video using the Hurlbut/Letus Master Cinema Series. Check it out here.