Last post I talked at length about using the Grass Valley Infinity, which we were going to be using inside San Quentin prison. But production is a fluid thing, and the model we got for the shoot went down the first weekend we had it. There was a problem with the line level inputs on the camera, which needed to be handled at the factory. Grass Valley was great once I alerted them to the issue, but I needed another camera that day so I picked up a HPX2000 from VMI and kept that for the rest of the shoot. The panasonic handled everything beautifully and it became our go to camera for those long days walking around the prison. The HPX turned out to be a better fit for our production; even though it is a lower resolution camera than the Infinity, I found the greater dynamic range and highlight handling, coupled with the P2 workflow, which is so seemless in FCP to be the deciding factors. In a studio I may have come to a different choice, but hey San Quentin is far from a studio.
Jesse
--
DP/Producer - The Trust
-- Posted from my iPhone
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Trust Presents at ACLU of NorCal Field Committee Meeting
We were graciously invited to speak tonight at the board meeting for ACLU of Northern California's Field Committee Meeting. It was an honor to be in the presence of such a knowledgeable and passionate group of activists. We learned a great deal about the many things we as citizens can do to safeguard our civil liberties. One member even shared how his presence on behalf of a local youth facing expulsion resulted in first a delay in the hearing, and finally a dismissal.
A couple of the chapters have already asked about us coming out to present to their membership. We were already fans of the ACLU, and want to send out extra love and thanks for their support!
The ACLU of Northern California is a co-sponsor of the Equal Justice Society screening of The Trust on Oct. 14 - more to come soon!
Friday, September 4, 2009
Berkeley TV Profiling The Trust's Director, Tamara Perkins
A few of The Trust team members along with the film's mentor and advisor, Arnold Perkins,
gathered outside San Quentin State Prison's East Gate this morning. Berkeley TV's Tracey Quezada and her crew came out to meet our group and ask a few questions before we went in to our Friday San Quentin Media Project classes. Lt. Sam Robinson, San Quentin's Public Information Officer - the man in charge of all media in and around San Quentin - even came out to say Hello and express his support for the The Trust film and San Quentin Media Project.
More on the San Quentin Media Project soon. You can see some of their work at YouTube.com/sanquentinmedia.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Rhythmix Inauguration Event
Yesterday at the Rhythmix Cultural Works center in Alameda we were invited to share our trailer and discuss our project with an excited and motivated group of people from MoveOn.Org!
I knew the event would be a good venue for our message, but I didn't realize just how many people would attend! There must have been at least 350 people there, all eating, drinking, sharing and celebrating the beginning of a new era for the country. Positive change was the theme and our film fit in perfectly.
After watching President Obama's speech, there was a moving performance by local youth group "I Go". Their piece resonated with me as it addressed many of the same messages we touch on in making The Trust. Especially the challenges of rising above violence, poverty, and criminality. Powerful messages from a very talented group.
When the time came to show our trailer, I was excited to hear all the comments made by the audience. While it played the audience spoke out in agreement with what our experts said and nodded in approval at all the right moments. After the lights came up, we had a roaring applause.
Tamara, Jesse and Camisha took questions and comments from the audience. One man suggested the need to reach out to Governor Schwarzenegger and demand more programming and reform for prisoners. Others expressed shock at the statistics included in the film, especially the 70% recidivism rate. Another mentioned the need to research best practices in German prisons, which have low recidivism rates, exploring why some methods of incarceration work better than ours.
Although we only had about 5 minutes to take questions, Jesse was able to end the moment by asking the audience to engage with the project by checking our website and making a donation.
In the end, it was a fantastic event. A big Thank You to Jennifer Holmes at Rhythmix for making it possible and to MoveOn.Org for supporting the film! We hope to have many more successful events like this in the future!
-- Simron
I knew the event would be a good venue for our message, but I didn't realize just how many people would attend! There must have been at least 350 people there, all eating, drinking, sharing and celebrating the beginning of a new era for the country. Positive change was the theme and our film fit in perfectly.
After watching President Obama's speech, there was a moving performance by local youth group "I Go". Their piece resonated with me as it addressed many of the same messages we touch on in making The Trust. Especially the challenges of rising above violence, poverty, and criminality. Powerful messages from a very talented group.
When the time came to show our trailer, I was excited to hear all the comments made by the audience. While it played the audience spoke out in agreement with what our experts said and nodded in approval at all the right moments. After the lights came up, we had a roaring applause.
Tamara, Jesse and Camisha took questions and comments from the audience. One man suggested the need to reach out to Governor Schwarzenegger and demand more programming and reform for prisoners. Others expressed shock at the statistics included in the film, especially the 70% recidivism rate. Another mentioned the need to research best practices in German prisons, which have low recidivism rates, exploring why some methods of incarceration work better than ours.
Although we only had about 5 minutes to take questions, Jesse was able to end the moment by asking the audience to engage with the project by checking our website and making a donation.
In the end, it was a fantastic event. A big Thank You to Jennifer Holmes at Rhythmix for making it possible and to MoveOn.Org for supporting the film! We hope to have many more successful events like this in the future!
-- Simron
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Finding The Right Camera:Part One of ?
Finding the right camera for a job is a big part of my job as a Documentary Cinematographer; just as picking a certain film stock and processing is important to a narrative story, a particular video camera can go along way to defining the look of a doc. Of course there are still a few people with the luxury of shooting docs on film, but on a project with the scope and time line of The Trust it just doesn't make sense to go that route.
My background is in narrative film production, which initially lead me to use something I'd use on an indie film. From the beginning Tamara and I have wanted to create a look that gave the audience enough distance from the men to view them objectively, for us that meant shallower depth of field and a generally more cinematic look then you normally see on a doc. Over the last year or so that line of thought took me from a JVC GY-HD110 with a Brevis35 lens adapter all the way to the RED Camera in search of the right balance between look and functionality.
Unfortunately none of the cameras I considered were up to the task; the JVC's HDV footage just doesn't hold up in post if you don't nail the settings in camera, and that doesn't always happen when you are run and gun through a prison with mixed sodium vapor lighting! And the RED, despite being a great studio camera for the money, is still not ready for the mission critical doc environment. Other small-camera-with-adapter solutions like the HVX-200 or EX1 paired with a Letus Ultimate are just not realistic for hand held shooting over long periods of time, which is definitely the reality of shooting inside San Quentin.
My background is in narrative film production, which initially lead me to use something I'd use on an indie film. From the beginning Tamara and I have wanted to create a look that gave the audience enough distance from the men to view them objectively, for us that meant shallower depth of field and a generally more cinematic look then you normally see on a doc. Over the last year or so that line of thought took me from a JVC GY-HD110 with a Brevis35 lens adapter all the way to the RED Camera in search of the right balance between look and functionality.
Unfortunately none of the cameras I considered were up to the task; the JVC's HDV footage just doesn't hold up in post if you don't nail the settings in camera, and that doesn't always happen when you are run and gun through a prison with mixed sodium vapor lighting! And the RED, despite being a great studio camera for the money, is still not ready for the mission critical doc environment. Other small-camera-with-adapter solutions like the HVX-200 or EX1 paired with a Letus Ultimate are just not realistic for hand held shooting over long periods of time, which is definitely the reality of shooting inside San Quentin.
I initially stayed away from ENG cameras because the price point was out of our reach and I was married to shooting 24p to help the audience see the men of the trust with a perspective not achievable in 30i. I'd toyed with the idea of an HDX-900 but the cost of tape stock and Deck over the course of a two year production was just too much.
Then Panasonic released their new HPX line and I thought I'd found the answer, but the 3000 is just too far outside our current budget and the 2000 doesn't deliver the full raster 1080p I need to insure we are ready for theatrical distribution. On top of that the cost per gb of the P2 media is still steep for an independent film, at least in the quantity necessary to shoot all day in San Quentin without a data wrangler.
That brings us up to last month. Trying to squeeze an HPX-2000 into our budget and settling for 720p. When I stumbled upon the Thompson Grass Valley Infinity DMC 1000/20. The camera hasn't had a lot of press and had flown completely under my radar. I called Joe Pettit at Snader and Associates in San Rafael to set up a demo; I was surprised how well it handled. The infinity is competitive with the HPX-3000 for about $20k less, and the Rev Pro media is way more affordable, a 35gb disc is only $50!
After spending an hour running through the menus with a chip chart I took the camera outside into some hard sun and torched the JPEG2000 codec. Shooting a dark shadow cut through a patch of bright sun light I was able to hold clean detail across the image. I took the footage home and pushed it around in after effects; the image held up well to color correction and I was able to pull up the mids quite a bit before any grain became apparent. I'll post some screen grabs as soon as I can make them.
The real test will come later this week when I take the Infinity inside San Quentin and see how it holds up during the heat of production. I'll post an update when that happens to let you know my thoughts.
Jesse
Cinematographer | Producer
After spending an hour running through the menus with a chip chart I took the camera outside into some hard sun and torched the JPEG2000 codec. Shooting a dark shadow cut through a patch of bright sun light I was able to hold clean detail across the image. I took the footage home and pushed it around in after effects; the image held up well to color correction and I was able to pull up the mids quite a bit before any grain became apparent. I'll post some screen grabs as soon as I can make them.
The real test will come later this week when I take the Infinity inside San Quentin and see how it holds up during the heat of production. I'll post an update when that happens to let you know my thoughts.
Jesse
Cinematographer | Producer
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Come to the Rhythmix Cultural Center Inauguration Celebration
The Trust will be highlighted at the Rhythmix Cultural Center Inauguration Celebration on Jan 20th! Come support the film!!
UPDATE:
There couldn't have been a better venue to debut the Intro Trailer to a large audience.
We've held private "in-progress" screenings before, but this was by far the largest audience we've had; it was exciting, and a little nerve racking, to see our work through their eyes.
Obama's inaugural address opened the event followed by spoken word and music performances, and of course us! It was a packed house and we received many thanks for the work we're doing. More importantly though, we had the opportunity to echo Obama's words and ask our community to pitch in and help us complete this important film by volunteering time or money to support the project.
All in all, a very successful day of outreach :-)
Jesse
Cinematographer | Producer
Jesse
Cinematographer | Producer
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
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