Busy busy busy...
I’ve got some exciting things to show off over the next few days.
First an all new ID Tag for Hysteria Productions. I always wanted to make a western movie, so that’s what I did (even though it’s only 40 seconds long). I actually filmed this about two years ago while I had a camera hired out for another job. Operating the camera was Brad Armel, Chris Daniels played the Sheriff and I was the gunman. It only took an hour or so to film it and we did it full guerilla style.
We shot it on the Sony HDV Z1. A great little camera but such a shit format. It has to be one of the worst created. At first glance the footage looks good but when you try and grade it in anyway, it just falls apart. There is just too little information remaining after the compression has butchered it. This is the main reason why it has taken so long to complete.
I knew what I wanted as far as the look went but was just unable to achieve it with the format. So I shelved until a few weeks ago. I opened it up, had another look and thought it’d be a real shame if it doesn’t get seen. So I took a deep breath and gave it the best grade possible. It’s a huge compromise from what my original vision was, but I think it’s come up ok.
Lesson learned. NEVER shoot with HDV again EVER!
There are two places to see the movie. The fairly small download on YouTube or the higher resolution version which is about 10Mb
Usually an ID Tag is meant to be about 20 seconds and in reality this is too long for most projects (I’ll probably end up only using the last shot for most projects) but wherever possible I’ll use the whole thing.
J.C.
©2008 James Cole
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