Chris Manus' "Korean Barbeque": Filmmaking on a Shoestring Budget
Tuesday, October 20, 2009, 12:48 AM
Posted by Administrator
WATCH AN EXTRA PRELIM SHOWREEL!
I just saw a cut of Chris Manus' "Korean Barbeque", a character piece following a struggling couple considering a swingers' night. The shoot was a mellow affair with a bare-bones crew working off an even thinner budget, but the footage proves that every cent was spent on the screen.
A key concern for the visual style of the film was camera movement. The edit was to recall "The Jackal" in splicing not necessarily sequential shots while significantly trailing or leading the audio cut; while we wanted to keep things more subdued than the handheld energy in "The Jackal", every shot would still need a drift to support that edit. It was clear that we'd be rigging everything above the spaces;
furthermore, we'd only make up for the lost time laying track on every shot if I could keep my light tweaks to a minimum. It wouldn't have been too tall an order for Gaffer Kyle Bjordahl and I except for our quite limited lighting package; apart from a single workhorse 150w Dedolight kit, I was a little nervous to run the show on two Lowell DP lights and a set of Baby Solarspots. The schedule shook out well enough to allow Kyle and I to build the scene at the beginning of each day; Kyle et al. had plenty of fun laying wall spreaders throughout each location, and even when we had to rip everything out to rig for another scene within the same day we never fell behind.
Shooting again on the Evolution Image Group Red from Eric Ulbrich, I picked up a Lomo spherical prime set from Digital Film Studios. The set's a four lens kit from 28mm to 75mm, each in the t1.4-t1.5 range. Despite the lens manufacturer's suspect reputation & build quality I was pleased to find DFS has kept the lenses well; the glass was clean and optics only pleasantly soft on the open end of the lens (never got around to seeing any of the lens
set any tighter than a 2.8). The look is low contrast & milky, but was suitably bohemian for the show. My focus pullers thought they might have cased the lenses better in a couple soda cans & some PVC piping, but the lenses held marks & DFS had replaced Lomo's OCT-19 mounts with PL so we didn't have to replace the Red's PL mount.
Color will be done soon on the project; I'll then have a showreel to post as well!
1:2.35
RED ONE
Lomo Spherical Primes
4K 2:1 Acquisition, Redcode 36
Rentals from Evolution Image Group,
Digital Film Studios,
Wooden Nickel LightingDir Christopher Manus
Gaffer Kyle Bjordahl
1st AC Adam Richman, Jenny Hou, Paulina Bryant
add comment
| permalink
;)
My official invitation to the event came soon after; I think I'll go with meat for my dinner. I wish Jenny could come; anyone want to help with a donation toward her $350 ticket?
;)
The Dodge College of Film & Media Arts at Chapman University has chosen my work on "La Nina del Desierto" to submit to the ASC's 24th Annual Heritage Awards. The submission went out Monday, and the ASC announces it's selections from film schools around the world in February 2010.;)
I just saw a cut of Chris Manus' "Korean Barbeque", a character piece following a struggling couple considering a swingers' night. The shoot was a mellow affair with a bare-bones crew working off an even thinner budget, but the footage proves that every cent was spent on the screen.;)
A key concern for the visual style of the film was camera movement. The edit was to recall "The Jackal" in splicing not necessarily sequential shots while significantly trailing or leading the audio cut; while we wanted to keep things more subdued than the handheld energy in "The Jackal", every shot would still need a drift to support that edit. It was clear that we'd be rigging everything above the spaces;;)
furthermore, we'd only make up for the lost time laying track on every shot if I could keep my light tweaks to a minimum. It wouldn't have been too tall an order for Gaffer Kyle Bjordahl and I except for our quite limited lighting package; apart from a single workhorse 150w Dedolight kit, I was a little nervous to run the show on two Lowell DP lights and a set of Baby Solarspots. The schedule shook out well enough to allow Kyle and I to build the scene at the beginning of each day; Kyle et al. had plenty of fun laying wall spreaders throughout each location, and even when we had to rip everything out to rig for another scene within the same day we never fell behind.;)
Shooting again on the Evolution Image Group Red from Eric Ulbrich, I picked up a Lomo spherical prime set from Digital Film Studios. The set's a four lens kit from 28mm to 75mm, each in the t1.4-t1.5 range. Despite the lens manufacturer's suspect reputation & build quality I was pleased to find DFS has kept the lenses well; the glass was clean and optics only pleasantly soft on the open end of the lens (never got around to seeing any of the lens;)
set any tighter than a 2.8). The look is low contrast & milky, but was suitably bohemian for the show. My focus pullers thought they might have cased the lenses better in a couple soda cans & some PVC piping, but the lenses held marks & DFS had replaced Lomo's OCT-19 mounts with PL so we didn't have to replace the Red's PL mount.;)
La Guerrera played this week at the Mann Chinese Theatre as part of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival!
Archives
