Video of the Week: Film Noir Storyboarding Assignment

This week's Video of the Week is my Film Noir Storyboarding Assignment. Check it out below:

Story Boarding Assignment from Bills Films on Vimeo.

I made this video last year as an assignment for my storyboarding class at BYU. The assignment was to take 10 words (which the professor gave us), and then put them together in an order that made sense, storyboard out the shots, shoot it, and edit it.

This assignment was a lot of fun for me to do, because there was no genre attached to the assignment, just cryptic words such as "eye," "gun," "light switch," etc... It was fun to associate a genre and a mood to these words, and then to storyboard the actual process. I had previously done a blog post about concept art and storyboarding, which has actually seen a lot of traffic for this blog, so if you're interested in reading it again, go here. Anyway.

I decided on a moody black and white (very grainy) look, hearkening back to the classic film noir films of the 1940s and 50s. I'm not saying that I achieved anything like unto those films (for one, those films are 4:3, not 2.35:1), but the mood comes across well. The idea for the girl's lips to be the only thing in color was taken from a few different sources, but mainly Schindler's List, where the only color in the film is the girl's red coat (not counting the ending scene). 

I shot the first three shots at night in our apartment. Instead of using smoke in order to see the light in shot #2, I used baby-powder. Turns out that with the grain you can barely see it. Oh well. Shots 4-8, and 10 were shot at BYU in the longest hallway I could find, and shot 9 was back at our apartment, for obvious reasons (although it doesn't really match the background. Probably should have filmed a background plate and then shot Brian in front of a greenscreen so that it would match better. Hindsight is 20-20).

Below are the storyboards that I came up with. And just a disclaimer, I don't claim to have any skill with drawing or any of that. Anyway:

Very rudimentary drawings, but they get the point across.

The smaller frame with the arrows on it means to zoom in. I didn't end up zooming in the film, but simply used a closeup instead.

As you can see, it's a very simple sequence. I originally storyboarded it a little out of order. And while I'm not that great at math, you'll notice there are only 9 boards, not 10. Couldn't find the other one.

Technical bits about the video: it was shot on the Panasonic GH2 with the (extremely slow) 14-140mm f/4-5.8 and the (a lot faster) 20mm f/1.7. Edited in Sony Vegas, and the music is from The Bourne Identity. Used the new Steadicam for one shot, and, as you can tell, I needed to do a LOT more practice with it.

DIY "Anamorphic" Lens Flare

We've all seen them. Horizontal lens flares that streak across the screen. If you've seen Star Trek, then you know what I'm talking about:

JJ Abrams likes him some lens flares. So does Michael Bay:

These are great examples of the anamorphic lens flare. A lot of Indie filmmakers dream of making images that look like this. In order to get images like this, you need an anamorphic lens. The only problem is though, that those puppies cost thousands and thousands of dollars that said Indie filmmakers don't have.

Recently though (within the last year or so), I have seen a surge of DIY solutions that don't cost much to put together, and you can use the lenses that you already have, and the best part is (I think), that you get the coveted horizontal flare (!).

I put anamorphic in quotations in the title, because technically it's not an anamorphic lens flare. It just looks like one.

So here's the skinny: get some fishing wire (I got the 30 lb. stuff), and run it vertically (yes, you read that right: run the fishing wire vertically for a horizontal flare) in front of your lens. Now, here is the place where I should mention that your lens needs to be at least a 50mm. If it's not, then the flare won't extend across the whole frame.

I tried out this little trick with a lens that I don't really use all that often anymore: the 14-42mm kit lens that came with my Panasonic GH2. I drilled a hole in the top and bottom of the lens hood and threaded the wire through both holes. I knotted the wire on the top and the bottom so that it would be tight.

EDIT:
Here is a few seconds of the test that I did last night:

So it's super noisy (ISO 6400 or so), but you get the idea. The flare is there, and all with my cheapo kit lens! Granted, this was at 42mm with ETC mode on (which works out to be about 100mm or so on a Full Frame equivalent).

This was just a quick and dirty test, and I will update this post once I have done more with it. I currently have some step-up rings coming for my 24-70 and 70-200 lenses to see what this flare will look like on a full frame sensor rather than a Micro 4/3 sensor.

I'll keep you posted.

Virgil & Raquel's Wedding Video

Hey all. It's been a while, but things have been busy!

Back in July I was able to video a wedding while my wife took the pictures. It was a great wedding and a fun reception!



Shot on the Panasonic GH2 with the Lumix 14-140mm lens, as well as the 20mm f/1.7 lens. Edited in Sony Vegas. Music is copyright it's original owner.

Kylie and Fayoz's Wedding Video

Kylie and Fayoz got married back in March, and I just realized that I forgot to post their wedding video here!

The process for this video was the same as the previous two. I used my Steadicam for most of the shots with my GH2 using a 14mm lens (28mm FF equivalent) and shooting at either 60 frames per second or 29.97, so that I had the option of slowing both of them down when I dropped the clips into a 24p timeline. We went back to the temple a few weeks after their wedding to get most of the pickup shots, and I'm happy with the way that they turned out! All of the lens flares, etc... in this are real. It was just that awesome of an evening. Perfect sunset, and a great couple! Editing was done in Sony Vegas.

Preston & Emilee's Wedding Video

I had the chance to film my friend's wedding on the 26th of April, and here's the video I made from it:




I filmed most of this at 29.97 frames per second, so that when I got to editing, I could slow it down 20% to 23.98 fps, thus creating a slightly slow-motion version of the clip. I think it worked well.

For the outdoor shots, I wanted to get as wide of an angle as I could, so I flew the Lumix 14-140mm @ 14mm. For the indoor stuff, I needed a fast lens, so I went with my 20mm f/1.7. I also left it wide open, which I was surprised to find out that it worked beautifully!

Gear used in this shoot: Lumix GH2, the Weildy HDV steadicam, Lumix 14-140mm lens, and the Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens. Edited in Sony Vegas.

Austin & Diana's Wedding Video

I had the chance to attend my cousin's wedding back in February, and of course I brought my camera along! Here's the video I edited of their wedding:



I did a few things differently with this video. First, I filmed most of it at 29.97 frames per second, so that when I got to editing, I could slow it down 20% to 24 fps, thus creating a slightly slow-motion version of the clip. I think it worked well.

Another thing that I did differently was that this was the first time I used my steadicam for an event. I thought that it would get heavy or tiresome after a while, but it didn't. For the outdoor shots, I wanted to get as wide of an angle as I could, so I flew the Lumix 14-140mm @ 14mm. For the indoor stuff, I needed a fast lens, so I went with my 20mm f/1.7. I also left it wide open, which I was surprised to find out that it worked beautifully!

Gear used in this shoot: Lumix GH2, the Weildy HDV steadicam, Lumix 14-140mm lens, and the Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens. Also used the Indie Slider Mini for the two slider shots. Edited in Sony Vegas.

Video of the Week: Ninja Tactics

This week's video of the week is called Ninja Tactics. Check out the short video below:



This was made for an Android app competition, and it was a lot of fun to make! I have never filmed anything like parkour before, and so it was quite a new experience for me. The producer contacted some members of the CBR Stunt Team (be sure to check out their Facebook page), and they were great to work with, and very accommodating. They were willing to do whatever we asked them to do, and we got some pretty impressive stuff. So if you're needing any stunts for a movie or anything, be sure to contact these guys.

This was actually the first video I've done where I shot with two cameras, and it was really nice to have the extra coverage. I am going to try to always shoot with two cameras from now on. For instance, there is a shot in the BYU Library where Jeff lives wins the game, and he stands up and does a fist-pump and shouts "YES!". Well, we were "stealing" shots in the library (this means that we didn't have permission to shoot there, so we had to do it quickly), and so we only had one chance at getting this shot. So we set up the two cameras, one directly in front of Jeff that was a little zoomed in on him, and then I stood back really far with a wide lens (the Lumix 14mm f/2.5) to capture the reaction of the students in the library, and we just told him to go for it. The reaction of the students is genuine, as it was pretty quiet in the library at that point. My shot ended up being a bit shaky, so I stabilized it in After Effects with Warp Stabilizer, and now it looks like it was shot on a tripod. Warp Stabilizer is amazing.

The editing was pretty straight-forward. Isaac programmed levels on the app based on the video, and we filmed Jeff playing the app so we could jump back and forth between the game-play and the actual video. The idea of showing Jeff in the library playing the game (where there is no music at all), came up during the editing, and I think it really helps show that Jeff is "in" the game. Below is a screenshot of the Sony Vegas timeline of the finished video.

Click to see it bigger

The shiny treasure thing at the end was made by rendering clouds in Photoshop, and then bringing those into After Effects and animating them to grow and fade away. Those layers just repeat themselves, and then I added a color balance effect to change it to yellow. Then I tracked the glowing orb to the video layer, and wallah! Ninja gets the treasure.

So that's the basic gist of how we did it. Be sure to head on over to the Ninja Tactics Facebook page and "Like" the page, and if you have an Android phone or tablet, go to the Google Play website and download it and get playing!