So I was woken up last week by Michael Goi, president of the American Society of Cinematographers. I unfortunately suspect that I was a little groggy, and when I first picked up I thought it was the producer I was to meet at around noon that day (this producer also has a 310 number). The conversation went something like this:

".......Hello?"
"Hi! Is this... Is it 'Simon Boa', or 'Boa Simon'?"
"Um, Boa Simon."
"Great. Hi Boa, this is Michael Goi, president of the American Society of Cinematographers."
*pause*
".......Hi! Hi, Michael!"

He was calling to let me know that my work on Malachi Rempen's "La Nina del Desierto" was being recognized with an Honorable Mention for the ASC's Undergraduate Heritage Award at this year's 24th ASC Awards. Awesome!

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?

UPDATE: An article on the ASC website: ASC Names Student Cinematography Winners

Over the past week Malachi and I found ourselves with a Red package & dead days in between interviews in our ongoing Synoptek documentary (details soon); we'd heard about the Nikon Festival and decided to pump out a couple shorts in our free time! Malachi and Candace each directed a short, and they're currently up at the site, pitted against hundreds of others for the Nikon's prize money!



Watch Malachi Rempen's "Contentment"!
Please comment on the NikonFestival website!










Watch Candace Jade Lewis' "Abstractions"!
Please comment on the NikonFestival website!








1:1.77
RED ONE
Lomo Spherical Primes
4K 2:1 Acquisition, Redcode 36
Rentals from Digital Film Studios, Wooden Nickel Lighting

Dirs Malachi Rempen, Candace Jade Lewis
Gaffer Christopher Richmond, Andre Herrera
1st AC Jenny Hou

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.

Given the choice of either a single six minute clip or a four minute clip coupled with a separate two minute clip to submit I opted for the single six minute clip: the film was in every element made to be an experience of the environment created, and I wouldn't want to cut that feeling short; furhermore I feel the cinematography was strictly a conduit for the narrative, and would lose all its power without a least some access to the narrative. I was, however, dying to submit the night gas station segment as well as the day stuff. All about choices.

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 Lighting

Dir Christopher Manus
Gaffer Kyle Bjordahl
1st AC Adam Richman, Jenny Hou, Paulina Bryant

La Guerrera played this week at the Mann Chinese Theatre as part of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival!

Unfortunately, prior obligations preceded my attendance, but I'm sure all went well; you can follow La Guerrera's twitter here.

We've just found out that Malachi Rempen's "La Nina del Desierto" has been chosen for 2009's "First Cut," and will be screening October 7th at the Los Angeles Director's Guild of America!

For the screening there has been organized the very generous donation of a free 35mm print from our DPX sequence out of Autodesk Lustre, completing our digital intermediate process! I'm incredibly excited to see the film truly completed; while watching the 1080p DPX sequence is satisfying to a point, I can't wait to see what the emulsion will bring back to the image!

A quick update: worked again with Evolution Image Group’s Red package shooting a spec ad for Old Spice’s commercial contest. Michael Nie and I worked together to shoot the spot over a single day after director Malachi Rempen and I planned the show over a couple hours’ phone conversation the night prior (the equipment only became available by serendipitous coincidence, so we weren’t planning on shooting anything until that phone conversation). Google Maps was an integral part of the impromptu pre-production: even hours away from each other I could mark map points & routes for him to see, and pull up photos of locations through Google Maps’ Panoramio plugin. I suggested pulling up Open Canvas to share storyboards, but we understood each other’s language enough that Malachi was confident with the frames Michael & I would photograph.

On a very limited schedule and even more limited crew, Michael & I set ourselves on carrying a Cooke 10:1 for all of our daytime photography. Gaffer & Key Grip Kyle Bjordahl strapped and secured a Fisher dolly inside the back of our cube truck, and with a safety line on each Michael and myself hauled the truck through the winding mountain roads near Ramona for photography of a racing convertible. Of course the picture car couldn’t peak above 50 and stay behind our rig, but kinetic camera movement and a thin shutter angle heightened the sense of motion; Michael and I traded off operating and whip pulling, with one whip for focus another snapping the zoom. By the time we got into Los Angeles it was dark and we switched to faster primes; riding through areas which might have been more permit sensitive we had a few scares snapping the cube truck closed around ourselves and our rig.

Once we rendezvoused with Malachi we picked up our story bookend; unfortunately restricted by uncompassionate locals we shot available augmented only by a 575w HMI. We had more control over the product shot we closed the night with, and I even improvised a diffusion filter with a dab of the Old Spice spread over an optical flat!

Dan McClellan cut the spot together two days later, and I polished it that night in Apple Color; composer Brian Andrews sent in a score (while on vacation in Oregon!) and the whole spot was together from concept to delivery within five days. Nothing to win an Addy, but maybe enough to win Old Spice’s contest!

1:1.76
RED ONE
Zeiss Standard Speed Primes
4K Acquisition, Redcode 36
Rentals from Evolution Image Group, Otto Nemenz International

Dir Malachi Rempen
Co – Director of Photography Michael Nie
Gaffer Kyle Bjordahl

Photos courtesy of Kyle Bjordahl