Blog

Prologue – Norwegian Eurovision






Last October, me and Magnus Rye was once again approached by Eyeworks Dinamo to do openings and intros to Norways biggest TV-show, “Melodi Grand Prix”, better known as Eurovision Song Contest. The show was up for a major revamp, and they were about to make it bigger then ever, with inspiration drawn from the Olympics and World Championship. “Larger than life” was the new motto.

CLIENT: NRK
PRODUCER: Eyeworks Dinamo
DIRECTOR: Magnus Rye
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Håvar Karlsen
FOCUS PULLER: Anders Leegaard
GRIP: moviebird.no with Terje Røkke, Morten Magnusson&Pål Bugge Haagenrud.
STAGE/LIGHTS: AVAB-CAC w/Tobias Blåmoli&Hans Petter Jenssen
PYROTECHNICS: Pyro.se w/Per
SOUND DESIGN: Universal sound w/Marius Ytterdal
GRADE: Shortcut Norge w/Dylan Hopkin

We set about pitching ideas, but we and Dinamo immediately fell for the grand opening of several NFL games some years ago. Stuff like this It became clear the stage was set for a major production. Eyeworks Dinamo with Pia, Mari and Magnus, started to make all the preparations necessary, amongst them gathering an orchestra. It wasn’t easy, the shoot scheduled for the last week before christmas. A busy week for most orchestras. We found a willing bunch of musicians at Romerike Symfoniorkester

Pre-production was quite intense, with several other shoots in between. After a while, NRK Promo (NRKs unit for producing marketingspots for shows)came onboard, enabling a unified look for both promotion spots and opening. it also became clear that we needed to shoot with the actual films in the background beeing projected (not greenscreen). This made for a mad dash to gather shots of all the artist that we needed. This was another huge undertaking worth a blogpost in itself. The background plates were shot on Canon 5dmrk2

Technically, it was a decision between Arri Alexa and RED Epic. We needed an high end look and the show is broadcasted (for the first time this year) in HD. We also needed 120 fps for a pyrosequence. I was not aware of the fact that Alexa recently released a new firmware, enabling just that. 120fps! So, it came down to a post-workflow decision. The down-conversion of 5k->1080p would have killed us (working in FCP), so it was in the end an easy decision. I was also eager to try Alexa for the first time. I picked the Angenieux Optimo DP Zoom 16-42 2.8 for the shoot, a great wide angle zoom making the perfect combo with the Technocrane. Onset, I used several TVlogics and the onboard false color to adjust my exposure. I viewed mostly in Rec709 (seeing the blacks properly), and switched to log c mode to check up on my exposure some times.

To get close ups and details of the orchestra, we hired Magnus Owe to shoot with a 5d alongside our crane. Those shots have been really handy in the edit.


Technocrane technician, operator and magician, Terje Røkke. 

The fact that we needed to shoot everything in one day, made our setup-schedule critical. Enter moviebird.no Even though they were in the middle of a hectic tv-season, we managed to secure their 44ft Technocrane, enabling us to shoot all of the pieces (3×2 min) from only 3 positions. Amazing tool, we couldn’t have done this without it. Thanks to Terje Røkke, Morten Magnussen and Pål Bugge Haagenrud.

Lighting and projector.
A big part of this piece was two huge screens showing pictures of artists and beauty-shots of the local area of the venue. It needed to be crisp, and saturated, and match the light output of the “light wall” we were planning. We went into talks with AVAB-CAC early on , and they suggested their brand new Bronco 14k projector would be ideal.

On the lighting fixtures themself, we originally wanted Maxi or Dedobrutes. AVAB, beeing a huge stage light company, didn’t carry that. We ended up with a massive array of 8&4lites, generating a total output of 180.000w. That beeing said, we ended up never powering up much above 24%, giving us a crisp fstop around f4-5.6

Floorplan, ended up not using the 5k chimeras, 180kw backlight made the trick..

Shoot.
The shoot was a massive effort, both logistically and psychologically. We were to organize a 20+ crew to work in one of Norways biggest indoor halls (Norwegian Trade Expo), assemble a huge stage and light setup, and to rehearse and shoot a 40+ orchestra. And for the director and myself, it was important to keep the energy at full speed, even though we repeated so many of the setups. Every shot, every pan, had to be done 3 times, for each of the three backdrop-films. And the third time was just as important as the first. This was a potential energykiller for the orchestra and ourself. That’s one of the reasons we spread the pyro sequences throughout the day, to have something that “refreshed” the shoot. Pyro.se with Per at the buttons delivered beautifully.

Pyrosequence, captured at 120fps

Editing.
We thought early on that the edit would be straight forward, because of the backdrop films “locking” us in with regards to sync. Not so much. It was of course possible to slip and slide backdrop sync, go to fullscreen, or use shots from another “city backdrop”. In short, everything was possible, and mad cred is deserved for Magnus, the director and editor, for exploring all options. The end result is in my opinion extremely tight and thought through.

 

 

Grade
I knew right away that I wanted to use Dylan Hopkin on this grade. His immense technical know-how and post-production wizardry guided me alot when it came down to camera choices and settings for the Alexa. The cameras Log-c 4444 ProRes was perfect for the job, gathering our black details beautifully (which we have alot of). Although, I needed some time to adjust my eyes to see the blacks truly black in the grading suite, and not milky as in the raw ProRes. Alot of work was put into getting the blacks unified, with not to much red in them. Our lights was constantly dimming up and down, creating dynamic light cues. But also creating trouble for our look, because every shoot needed new color balance and black adjustment. We have alot of shots… Also, the projectors were daylight and our 8lites have extremely low kelvin values (dimmed below 24%), creating a huge color shift going from projector to fullscreen (some of this quite complicated to explain without having seen the film). This was something that I should have thought of on beforehand. Because we worked into late evening getting the saturation and feel of the backdrops just right. Dylan did an amazing job!. If your interested in his opinions on the matter, check out his blog.

Ungraded vs graded look, a little insight into Alexa Log-c

All in all, this has certainly been the biggest solo-project for Magnus and myself to date. Solo, in regards that we are ultimately responsible for a huge budget, but not solo with regards to production. So many deserve thanks, but most of all Eyeworks Dinamo, for believing and having the guts to go for it. And to keep pushing when we experienced setbacks. There’s a lot of aspects I didn’t cover in this post, so feel free to send me a tweet or an email if you have any questions, creatively or technically.

Jan 21, 2012 | Categories:blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The Workz!

A screenshot from my vimeo account used for client feedback. Something big is in the works…

Havn`t posted anything useful lately, due to major projects ahead. Heres a short list of my activities before Christmas. No bragging, just to let people know I won’t be answering my phone anytime soon.

- Shooting and editing 24 segments for Norwegian Eurovision
- Shooting a major opening sequence for a huge TV – show
- Shooting a opening sequence for another huge TV-show
- Travel to Afghanistan, Dubai and Asjerbasjan shooting VTs for different TV shows
- Shoot VTs for Nobel Peace Price concert.

Sorry, got to go!

Nov 24, 2011 | Categories:blog | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off

Season 2 with 1d Mark IV

A little over a year ago, we wrapped the first TV-series in the world shooting only on DSLRs (read more about it here and here ). A lot of research went into how to make these cameras work in a feature production pipeline. In the end, we were really happy with the results, and the audience loved it. So much so that we were nominated for 8 Gullruten (Norways Emmy), and both Anders and Tuva won. Now, DoP Pål Bugge Haagenrud and myself are shooting the second season.

For those of you who follow my blog, you can see that there hasnt been too many changes to the setup. We are still shooting with 2x 1dMRKIV and still using RedRockMicro support gear . But there is small adjustments to the setup, that is turning out to have a major impact.

The SmallHD DP6-SDI. One word: Amazing. Last year we got some early feedback from the editors (we are shooting on the second floor, whilst the editors are editing on the first) that we had some focus issues. The A-cam is beeing pulled from a 17″ HD monitor (the 1d MRKIV doesnt switch its output to SD, so you can actually pull focus using the HDMI output), but I`m pulling myself, only relying on my onboard monitor. Last season we used the Marshall LCD70P, which was good, but had only 800×600. I couldt tell if I missed the critical eyefocus in some closeups, so the people over at videovillage had to tell me after the take. Then a new take or perhaps a discussion if we had enough in focus and so on; Time lost

With the actual 720p resolution of the SmallHD, I would say I`m able to pull 97% of any take on the first take, and If I miss, I`ll know instantly. The versatility of having both SDI and HDMI cannot be missed. Mostly, we use the SDI out because we route our signal to monitors, sound mixers and recorders (all using SDI), but time and again we are out in the open, 2. unit etc, when the Blackmagic HDMI-SDI converter can be left at home.

The sunhood is amazing. It clips on and stays on! And if you have good eyes, you can push your face so that your head is blocking out any light, even in the desert, mid-day! (shown left). Its like watching the finished thing, while you shoot.

And having continious software updates using a USB stick is also great, I could only wish that the guides (v2) were out already (its in beta as I write), as we shot for a cinemascope crop some weeks ago. But I guess, gaffa tape still needs a a role to play on a film set..

 

 

 

 

 

The actors simply loves this kind of setup. A two shot and a close-up at the same time, INSIDE the car. Sometimes the smaller brothers of the 1dMRKIV are called upon to solve a shot.

The issue of constantly breaking HDMI cables in the port of the 1dMRKIV, has been almost solved with the easy fix of a plastic strap. Theres cages for all the Canons this time around, and some (Letus?) have fixed clamp solutions for the HDMI. But they are pretty expensive. The hinge were the neck strap attaches, is positioned just above the HDMI port (look at first pic). We strap the cable in a loop to this with a strap, and we are down to one cable breaking a month, instead of one every 2 days.

Getting the power adaptors (d-tap to 12v) for the Blackmagic HDMI-SDI converters was also smart. They werent out last year, so we made them ourselves. But we suspect poor power for alot of lost signal and interference problems last year. Almost down to zero this year. We also have alot more screw-on NDs and Polarizers from B&W this year, totally eliminating the need for a mattebox in most situations were the the lens isnt flaring.

The pimped out version. You gotta dress up when youre riding on the Flight Head !

Even though we have two complete Redrock packages to make this camera look like any other out there, we try to strip it down to the basics most of the time. We learned last year that what you can do with this camera, that few others can, is putting it anywhere. High, low, under the sink, inside the shelf, inside the glovecompartment of the car, between beer bottles etc. etc. I have a long HDMI cable and a small 15mm rod ready at any time, so I can attach the camera to a griphead on a c-stand, and put it virtually anywhere on the set. And we are getting the cameras so close to the other actor in a dialogue, that people almost start to wonder if the actor is looking into to camera.

Shure, we would love to shoot with 2x Epic or 2x Alexa, or perhaps 2x Canon 5dMRK3 with Raw video ( :) ). But few of these cameras even exists, let alone are avaliable here in Norway (on our budget!). We could have shot on Panasonic AF101 or Sony F3. But, our Canon Primes would have been 2x the focal lenght (with no aperture control) and the codec isnt really that much better. The 1dMRKIV is, again, the best guy for the job.

Jun 07, 2011 | Categories:blog | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Animals! (Øyafestival Promoshoot 2011)


Its becoming somewhat of a tradition, for me and director Magnus Rye to make Norways leading musicfestival`s promotional film. In 2009 we did the first commercial in Norway shot on 5d. Last year I couldnt join due to other work, but Magnus and DoP Audun Magnæs did an amazing slowmotion bonanza.

We decided to stick with a couple of winning factors. RED, 120 fps and the animal masks (Mostly due to the mexican wrestling masks never made it in time from the US :/). Pretty soon a couple of ideas started to form, and we made a storyboard.

As you can see, I cant draw properly. At all. Also, not all of these shots made it into shooting, or even into the edit. One of the most difficult aspects of shooting 120 fps for a 40 second spot, is timing. Each picture, or frame even, has to have “an inner momentum”. Something that drives the sequence forward, that intercut well with the other, also short, pictures around it, and most importantly, it has to tell something understandable. The pace of the finished edit is also something that very much decides this. We knew we were going for a hectic pace (Inspired by Justices newly released “Civilization”. That tune was also the temp-music for the edit). For instance, theres about 10 frames showing the fox kicking up the door on the rooftop, a shot we used alot of takes to do compact enough. Heres a couple of frames for the production

 

Scouting on a rooftop near Middelalderparken, Oslo




Thanks to Magnus Owe and Jørgen Werner for the behind the scenes shots!

We went into co-operation with the vfx company called Øyedrops in Oslo. They took care of the entire post process, after Magnus edited the offline (watch it here: oya2011_offline_hkarlsen) in ProRes in FCP. Øyedrops used After Effects from everything from grading to particle generation. Tracking was done in ptrack (?)

Its been really fun as always working with Øya as a client. We get full creative freedom, and its a great opportunity for me and Magnus to showcase some visual ideas, and when we get so many talented people onboard aswell (all working for a full week-pass to Øya2011 only!), we can make things like this come to life!

Jun 03, 2011 | Categories:blog | Leave A Comment »