I dont post clips (from others) often (maybe I should?), but I think this one deserve some visibility for many reasons. First because free running (aka parkour) is cool, second, because it was shot with an HDSLR (Canon 7D) and, finally, because it was made by a visitor of the blog (who turned into a friend) who could use some exposure: Chad Bonanno.
When Chad contacted me a few months ago about how to balance a Glidecam 4000 with an HDSLR, I thought he was a wedding shooter then forgot about it until I saw the video he has been working on. Lets just say that I was wrong!
About Dan
I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I’ve lived here my whole life. I started up gymnastics when I was about 13. When I graduated I left gymnastics and started freerunning. Since then I have turned my passion into a career and a full time job. I am also currently pursuing my career in stunts an plan on making this a life long journey.
I had the idea to shoot a high production video for quite some time but I never had the behind-the-camera skills to do so. So for a long time it just stayed an idea. When I met Chad banana I realized that my idea could become real some day. So we sat down talked it out and got to work. We spent 5 weeks of filming trying to pump out as much as we could each day. This became tough once my body started to get tired of filming each week. But despite injuries and aches and bruises we pushed through to the end. After all the action was done the video was then given to Paul Darnell to cut and edit. Once that was done, the torch was then passed to Chad bonanno. He worked his magic on the video and gave her a little nip/tuck. Finally, after a ling process the monster had come to life. So far the video has gone way beyond what we had expected and we hope it continues to do so.
About Chad
My name is Chad Bonanno, I am a Art Director and Animator based in Los Angeles, and also do a lot of action and glamour photography on the side. I have taken a particular interest in the Canon 7D series, and that is my weapon of choice. I hooked up with Team Tempest in 2009 and started doing design and animation projects with them, but when the time came to give one of Team Tempest members Dan Mast a new Demo reel, I jumped at the opportunity. Using the Canon 7D , a Canon 16-35mm and Canon 10-22mm (also a Tameron 10-24) and a GlideCam 4000, we got to work. Shooting all over LA, in locations such as downtown LA, UCLA campus , Santa Monica , and Hollywood. The shoots are pretty fast paced, since the freerunning moves are very flowy and quick, you have to have your setup locked down before shooting. On the other hand, it is a run-and-gun situation because a lot of the locations we shoot prohibit parkour due to liability issues amongst other things. Victor Lopez assisted in many of the 5 days of shooting as a coordinator , Victor being a lead member of Team Tempest, guided day with creative direction while I worked out the camera moves and angles. I used 2 other B camera shooters, Dave Kim and Mark Williams.
Here are a few behind the scene shots I selected. I piked these because they show the scale of Dan jumps and also give an idea of the camera man job!
The overall result is excellent and we should expect more from Chad in the coming months in this domain.
A few technicalities
- The shooting was done in 5 days, spread over 5 weeks.
- Keeping the action in focus was done by shooting at f4-f5.6, measuring the distance to the subject and trying to keep up with him!
- Grading was done In After Effects
- Mostly desired item for the shoot would have been a quick release plate on the GlideCam to reduce the setup time
Gear used
First, if you have not seen this clip yet, watch it. It is interested in both its form and its content.
Battle for Hearts and Minds Trailer from Danfung Dennis on Vimeo.
Next, go read Danfung Dennis explanations of how it was shot and the gear he used. I like his Glidecam setup, looking at the picture you can see how many plates he used to balance the rig. Having played with a Glidecam 4000 balanced for the 7D, I can confirm how much weigth one has to put on this thing to make it stable.
A dew days ago, I was contacted by Yassine Ouhilal, a renowned surf photographer who created a movie about people who were crazy enough to surf in the Arctic!
First, take a moment to watch the clip.
This is a preview of a yet to be shot full featured film on the subject.
Shooting in such harsh conditions is a real challenge and I asked Yazzy a few questions about it. Read the rest of this entry »
It seems like my partner does not need as much sleep as I do. Here is the final cut of the love story we had with Meggie and Corneliu. It was a pleasure to work with Robert and we are already planning future projects together, so stay tuned!
If you like the clip, please click the heart button to show your appreciation.
Yesterday I was out with my friend Robert Cato shooting the remaining clips for a love story we started the previous Monday. Here is the trailer, using only Roberts clips from the Monday shoot. We did not have a laptop to copy my files over.
Add my missing shots from last Monday and the ones we got yesterday and you have all the ingredients to make this an incredible video. We got great locations (involved a lot of scouting), incredible light and a gorgeous couple. How can you go wrong with that? Once the final clip is completed, I will post an update.
I am publishing this right away to apply some pressure on Robert to finish the edit asap! Unfortunately, he is a busy man, so dont expect anything until next week.
To save you some time, I compiled a list of all the Vimeo groups related to the 5D Mark II that I could find.
As much as I like Vimeo, I wish it was impossible to post videos to more than one group. I understand the reasons why it would not be practical but at the same time, it is a bit annoying to subscribe to 10 groups and see the same newest video each time I log in… And trying to follow comments from one group to the next is no fun either. I am not here to rant about Vimeo so lets look at this list.
I just listed groups with significant user base and recent updates.
If you know any groups or channels that you be added to this list, please leave a comment.
Some people have been asking me about my Rapid Fire Zacuto rig review. I have not had the time to shoot enough with yet (only shot a total of 10 minutes) to make my mind about it. The only thing I can say so far is that it is not as stable as the heavier rigs (like the gunstocks) but at the same time it is so portable that I dont see any reasons why not to carry it around with me everywhere I go now! More on this soon.
You mission, if you accept it, is to make a video clip of an artist friend that could be sent to a major television channel so they could do a segment about his album release. Oh by the way, it must be done (as in put on DVD) tonight!
That was the challenge my friend Jon Davis proposed me last night. To make things even harder I had to visit my parents before so I could only be at my place at 8PM which left us with only a few hours to do everything. Finally, to make things worst, I forgot my lightning gear at my parent place.
This basically left me in this situation:
- no decent light
- shoot in my loft (no backdrop or strong light fixtures)
- needed space to put 3 musicians
The situation was dire, but the 5D really was up to the task! I moved the furniture around, put every single lamp in my condo (plus 2 mores from my neighbor) around the musicians trying to put the emphasis on Jon and I hit “record”. As you can see, the result is quite good for such a ghetto setup!
Remember, the goal of this was not to make a music video for the song. It is just a straight clip from the camera, without editing, to give an overview of Jon performance. The tv crew is probably only going to pick a 5-15 seconds segment which is why it was useless to think about editing ourselves.
It took us about 5 takes, spread over 2 hours (we were missing some mic sound adapters) to get to this result. There were a few complains at first by the low angle of the shot but I think it works well. It was shot with my 50mmf/1.4 @f2 ISO2000 (if I remember right). The sound was recording with two external directional mic setup on a Mac pro.
I am very surprised by the quality of the image straight from the camera. If I had more time, I would have done some color correction and added a bit of vignetting to put Jon even more in focus. But we were short on time and very limited in resources.
What I would have done differently (with the same gear & situation):
- increase the distance a bit more between the Jon and the musicians to blur them even more.
- keep the setup even simpler: plug the mics directly in the 5D to save time (no sync, no compress-decompress)
- find a better angle to have an uniform background
The next step is next Sunday when I am going to shoot a few clips of Jon CD launch.
Links:
Jon Davis website (I really have to set him up with a wordpress blog!)
Note
I just realized that the bass is way too strong. Everything sounded perfect on my compute because my sub hoofer is dead. Will have to fix that soon…
While browsing the clips on dslrflix I found this story of a kid who wants to box. The story is compelling and there are some very well edited sequences (when it switches the view from the father to the kid when talking about is health issues). Take a 3 minutes pause and check it out. It is worth it!
5DMKII video of youth boxer from David Stephenson on Vimeo.
The creator of the clip also made a great blog post giving insider information about how it was shot and outline some of the limitations of the camera (that all owners have unfortunately noticed by now!). There also a lot of other photography / video content on his blog so go check it out too!
If you havent seen it yet, go take a look at www.dslrflix.com. It is a blog/content site dedicated to cinephotography (I think they made up that word). Contrary to the Canon5DMrkII Vimeo group which is spammed by people showing their “test” footage, DSLRFlix only display high quality content. So no bandwidth is wasted!
Spread the news around so more people visit the site and contribute.
So far this movie is the only one I have seen so far made with a 5D that was not a test shot, city scene or documentary. The idea is very good and well implemented. I am not just sure about the grading. Sit back and enjoy.
The Last Outpost from P3Pictures on Vimeo.
