SIMON RED BUZZ 2009

Howdy Partners!

Just flew back from Texas and boy are my arms tired! We had the chance to work with some of our “old pals” and also met many new friends. We shot our interiors in a studio attached to a beautiful landmark church near historic Granbury Texas, out in the country. I had the lovely opportunity to do some excruciating focus pulls on talent and critical props that we placed on a turntable. To keep me “on my toes” Kevin added some dolly moves in order for us to add “drama” to the shot, and to add “angst” to the focus puller…ME! We were long lens and low light so my depth of field was thinner than a hummingbirds’ tongue. Despite that, yours’ truly pulled it off with his infamous “Zen focus” (and multiple takes).

We used tungsten lights due to the fact that we had many intricate lighting cues. During pre-production, and after some research and discussion, Kevin and I decided to add quarter blue to the key, fill and back lights to take the “curse” off of the bottom end of the spectrum. (We did NOT gel the instruments which were illuminating the green screen itself). We had heard that the RED wants to avoid the warmer end of the spectrum. We started with 2800K (more or less) but the quarter CTB brought us up to 3000K (more or less). In the final analysis the footage looked great (we shot in 4K with Zeiss superspeeds) and the tungsten caused us no problems.

Despite the fact that the lighting cues caused a wide range of illumination within each shot, the RED handled the highlights with ease and the lowlights with relish (and no noise). Whether the quarter blue was absolutely necessary or not, I cannot definitively say, but it sure didn’t hurt us.

I miss my Texas friends and hope to work with them again soon but it is nice to be back home in Northern Florida.

Simon (riding tall in the saddle) Manses