Because everyone’s going to ask:
Canon 7D | TC-80N3 Intervalometer | 16-35mm f/2.8 L II
16mm | f/2.8 | ISO 800 | ~1/6″ | 10″ interval
1113 jpeg images @ Medium resolution (3456×2304)

Still have a lot to learn about timelapses, but after spending quite a lot of time with my 7D and new intervalometer yesterday I’m starting to get the hang of it.

The first thing you’ll probably notice is the flickering. This is because I had the camera in Aperture Priority. Meaning, I manually set the Aperture and the camera automatically sets the shutter speed. Unfortunately, I had the metering spot on one of the telephone poles and any slight change in the light caused the camera to keep switching to different shutter speeds. Oh well, I’ll know for next time.

The amount of flexibility you have when you’re shooting timelapse is amazing. I had the ISO set to 800 so I could have a somewhat fast shutter speed, but it can be set as low as 100, providing a super clean image. It’s also shooting in 3K resolution (this can be pushed all the way to nearly 5K), which is how I was able to do the digital zoom (that was all post).

Rory’s First Kiss. People keep asking me about it. And oh yeah, Pizza. It seems I often start things and don’t finish them. I do have plenty of excuses, though. Some are even pretty valid. Currently our brand new Canon 7D is wrapped in plastic at the express repair center in Irvine. Hah, express. People are still on pre-order, stores are sold out, so trying to return it wouldn’t be very useful. I called them today and got frustrated. My new sensor was supposed to arrive this Wednesday, but it’s been delayed until “possibly” mid-next week. Gives me a change to write something, I guess.

We launched Take Zer0 earlier this month and haven’t been able to provide any new content since. I’m going to spend this weekend coming up with a Halloween short film. Peter’s going to do one too. A nice little tradition we started last year.

I’ve been reading more books lately. Well, some of them are books. I’m starting to feel a lot more confident in approaching writing.

Sorry for this incredibly boring update. I don’t even have a picture to go along with it. Here’s a video to make up for it:

The song in the trailer is “Genova” by Charles Atlas. I talked to Charles recently (I was just curious about how Jason Reitman’s team found their music). He said Paramount Pictures contacted him directly about four months ago. Their song “The Snow Before Us” is also in the film. Pretty cool.

One of my favorite movies ever is one that not many people I know have even heard of. It’s called The Big Kahuna. It’s about these three guys (Peter Facinelli, Kevin Spacey, and Danny DeVito) who are all on a business trip together. Their goal is to sell industrial lubricants, but the topic of religion comes up and eventually it turns into this amazing character driven, very inspiring film that takes place almost entirely in one single hotel suite.

The Big Kahuna was directed by a man named John Swanbeck and I’m very excited to learn that ten years after making TBK, he’s finally making another movie.

But anyway, my point was to talk about Jason Reitman’s new film, not John Swanbeck. I’ll just say that this is my favorite type of movie. Whatever that means. Just watch the trailer.

Why is this such a big deal? Take a look at this diagram:

The 5D Mark II

Brilliant, yet flawed. It’s sensor was larger than the Red One’s. And phenomenally larger than the EX1/EX3. It’s actually the equivalent of Vistavision 35mm film. Among other things, this meant better low-light, less noise, higher dynamic range. As soon as it was put on the market, Canon (and everyone else) realized its potential and they quickly released a firmware update to allow manual video adjustments. But the one reason that it’s a flawed system is because it only shoots in 30p. There are workarounds, but it’s still not a perfect system. Not bad for Canon’s first D-SLR that shoots video, though.

T1i / 500D

Already the leader in the market, Canon then released the T1i (which was essentially the Mark II’s little brother). Do you know how much that camera costs? $899. Ridiculously affordable. Only shoots in 720p, but that’s more than enough for most people posting videos to YouTube and Vimeo. The bad news? No manual controls and still only shoots in 30p.

7D

Now, the 7D is here. Canon finally realized what everyone wants. It only has an APS-C sensor with a 1.6x crop factor (no so good for wide angle). But! Canon claims that this new sensor has its pixels packed even tighter than the Mark II’s. It also shoots in 1920×1080 24p. It also shoots in 1280×720 60p (yeah, that spells slow-motion). How much does this camera cost? $1699. That’s $1000 cheaper than the Mark II. How is this possible? To indie filmmakers, these are going to be hotter than a Nintendo Wii a few years ago. Pre-order yours now. This camera is going to change everything.

This is no doubt going to take away Canon’s Mark II sales. Why would they do that? It probably means that the Mark II will never see 24p due to hardware limitations. Canon couldn’t fix it, so they released a brand new, cheaper camera to attract even more people. Smart. The 7D uses the same batteries and CF cards as the Mark II. Very smart.

Roger Deakins is a genius. I watched Revolutionary Road again last night (in 720p Blu-ray). It has some of the most amazing cinematography I’ve ever seen. I’m starting to realize why certain things are objective versus subjective, close-up versus medium. Amazing stuff.

Anyway, storyboarding is going well. We’re going to shoot the entire pizza location (minus one shot) this Thursday evening. Last night, Peter and I took some time to stage and light the place so we’d have a good understanding of what we’re going to need to do.

1. The Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Okay, you got Wes Anderson directing, so it’s automatically going to be good. Plus his his usual crew (Murray, the Wilsons, Schwartzman), not to mention George Clooney and Meryl Streep. Now add stop-motion animation by Blue Sky Studios and a story by Roald Dahl. Oh man, overload! This is going to rival Coraline for sure. Be sure to click on the thumbnail image to see the very first image from the movie.

2. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

I have read every volume of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic. I have watched every video production blog. I have seen every picture Edgar Wright posts on his flickr. I’m pretty much obsessed with this movie. Edgar Wright, Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead. This is going to be “one of those movies”. I mean, have you guys seen the poster? This is going to be fantastic!

3. Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

This is going to be one major movie opening. I recently dug out my old copy of the book to re-read it. Such a nice little story, I’m curious to see what all Spike Jonze can do with it. Check out the large preview of the movie poster. I’m amazed and very glad that this is actually happening. I’ve probably watched the trailer 100 times, I love Arcade Fire so much.

4. Paper Heart (2009)

Ever since Arrested Development, I’ve been somewhat of a Michael Cera fan. If you haven’t heard of this film, go watch the trailer right now. It’s sort of a semi mockumentary thing about, as Charlyne puts it, “I don’t believe in love”. This is my kind of movie. Check out these hilarious interviews, too! “We got po-tench, babe!”

Honorable Mentions

I was going to include Alice in Wonderland, which looks pretty cool, but after Burton’s version of Willy Wonka, who knows if it will be any good. Arrested Development should also definitely be at the top of this list, but I guess it’s not gonna happen for a while. Finally, another big one is The Hobbit. I loved the LOTR trilogy and adding Guillermo del Toro who will, no doubt, create a non-cg Dragon (Smaug). That’s going to be the most amazing thing ever.

UPDATE: Dang, it sounds like Smaug is going to be cg after all :(

Farewell, EX1 from Sean Duran on Vimeo.

Here are some more pictures:

   

All of our scripts were pretty good (for first drafts), but we took turns and gave each other some input of where they needed work. It’s really motivating meeting with people all working towards the same goal, helping each other out. I may not produce any masterpieces this summer, but I know for a fact that I am going to learn a heck of a lot. We all are. Our goal for this week is to finish our script and start a casting call. Maybe we’re being a little too ambitious, but I think attempting to make as professional a production as we can is a very good goal. We’re going places, things are happening. I’m excited.

We all just want to shoot something, so I think the plan is to head over to LACMA this Sunday to shoot something among all those crazy lights they have there.

Time to get back to my script. I’m just going to stay up until I finish the first draft. Or until I get too sleepy to concentrate. It’ll probably be that one.

1. Take Zer0 broke. We’re fixing it literally right now. We are totally going to be back this summer. It’s been a long learning process for us, though. Teaching you guys is what our original goal was, and we do have plans to continue teaching, but for now we need to do some learning of our own. As soon as TZ is up and running again, we are going to turn it into a sort of production blog. We’ll have behind-the-scenes videos of what we’re working on this summer. Which brings me to item #2.

2. S&P is now S&P&J&M. We have officially teamed up with Jaemin Yi and Mike Sun for the summer. That’s right, we are now three Asians and an Mexi-Irish guy. We’re like Wong Fu, only better.

3. The plan is as follows: each of us (Jaemin, Mike, Peter, and myself) will produce one short film (or “project”) per month for the following three months. Apparently Francis Coppola once said that everyone makes a bunch of “crap” before they start making anything that’s worthwhile. This is our summer to get past that stage. We are all going to motivate each other. This is actually going to happen. This is suddenly going to be “The Summer of Productivity”.

4. Oh, and lots of you have been asking about the Mark II and our EX1. The full truth is that the place where Peter and I worked shut down, so we lost our jobs (that much, most of you already knew). We have since started up a production company, but it’s not easy starting your own business. Money has been slow. So I recently sold my 40D, Macbook Pro, and a few other things and bought a Canon 5D Mark II. We were a little leery about getting a D-SLR to replace our EX1, but so far it’s really proven itself. Sure it doesn’t have every single feature the EX1 does (like silky-smooth-60fps-slow-motion-overcranking), but it does have a true 35mm sensor which is amazing. It gives us the option of changing lenses, storage space is cheap (uses CF cards). We’re definitely sad to see our EX1 go, but it’s really going to enable us to produce a lot more content this summer. Besides, it’s not the camera that makes a good movie, right?

Anyway, we’ve yet to establish a name for our S&P&J&M group. Peter suggested The Boys of Summer. I like it, but the domain isn’t available. Anyone have any other ideas?