[Konvas] buying a 2-perf camera. finally! or renting oneforthemoment

[XiaoSu Han]

hi guys

thanks to you all we pulled the shoot of last weekend.

here's just a small report how it went down in the end:

After we got to Hong Kong and started prep, the budget was cut to
half, so it was 50k HKD, which is about 6500 USD for a 8 minute short
film on 35mm.

So we got rid of a shooting day, tightened up the script, got less
gimmicks for camera and continued prepping.

We settled for a Moviecam Compact with Zeiss High Speeds at the end,
framed for 1:2.35, shot Fuji 250D and 500D interior and exterior night
and day, used step printing on a few scenes (12fps to 24fps), Bleach
Bypass on one scene, and even got our underwater shot by handholding
an aquarium under water and putting the Moviecam into that. We had
quite a serious argument about that with production, but after a
little bit of shouting they let us do it.

We shot grey cards lit with half CTO to correct the footage half way
and processed at Shaw Brothers Labs, it was so cool to work with them,
I mean they created the 36 chambers of shaolin!

The shot went really well, we had a lot of tracking shots on a Peewee
dolly (man the equipment is bad in HK, but the crew...) and used
tungsten only lights to light interiors. The crew was so fast and
good, there was only one gaffer and a swing plus one grip and 1st AC,
they lit the whole hotel lobby in just half an hour. Our first AC was
Perry Ho, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1660475/, who worked on Lust,
Caution before and just finished shooting an American Airlines
commercial as operator of Russell Carpenter. It was almost ridiculous
that he helped us, but it was unbelievably good to have someone so
experienced if you're shooting 35mm the first time.

We also had a few shots inside a taxi without the whole crew, we are
excited to see how the step printing looks! Hong Kong's streets have
been prelit by the government already, we had constant 2.8's and 4.0's
on 500D stock almost everywhere, resulting in using 250D on 12fps
then.

And then after the shoot, we had budget for rushes of 3 rolls. Sitting
in a theater and watching dailies is probably the most satisfying
feeling as a DP, EVER. We were very satisified with the results, the
directors also, we are getting a HDCAM SR tape the next week and I am
going to post a few grabs as soon as possible.

Thanks again, without this list we would not have had the courage and
the knowledge to dare to try 35mm, we did and we won't go back :)

So just for reference, we paid around 2500 usd for the lighting and
camera package and around 1500 usd for processing and supervised
telecine of 4000 ft. It's just incredible.

Regards from Vienna again, Xax

On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 2:38 AM, H. W. Stone <colcam at aim.com> wrote:
> I budget for the DP to do telecine and at least a week with the editor.  The
> hard part is that I need to stay away from that, let them alone for both,
> and keep my mouth shut.
>
> That hurts.
>
> But the odds are it winds up looking better than you dreamed about.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Camak, Lael
>
> Yeah, see, here is where I may not be the norm (and where other advisors
> should
>
> jump in).    I never do the unsupervised telecine.  I'd rather pay a little
>
> more, supervise the telecine, and get exactly what I want the first time.
> Also,
>
> since I am there, I can push things a little and get it done quickly.  It
>
> usually comes out about the same cost for me.  Somehow I started that way
> and
>
> never knew any other way.
>
>
>
> Good luck,
>
> Lael
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
XiaoSu "Xax" Han
http://www.stilfabrik.at