CREATING LIGHT LEAKS 'IN CAMERA'

If you've been following this blog or if you watched any of our movies, you'll know that we love to try and do things as practically as possible. We try and capture as much as we can in camera, from colour to practical effects. In the age of 'Fix it in post' I have to say that I've always felt more comfortable getting as close as I can to the final product on set than I do trying to get the same effect in post production. Thats just me and how 'I' do things though. 

Ungraded shot from Hollower (2014).

I get it, digital effects and post production does a lot of good, I do use a whole heap of things from Colour correction to Masking to CG and I'm a big promoter of visual effects and post work, if it is needed,  just not if its done for the sake of it. I've saved many shots and even whole scenes in post, because something just didn't work on the day, but surely the goal is to get it right at 'showtime', or as close as you can. My 'opinion', and thats all it is, on digital effects and heavy post production is that its a great tool to help you when all else fails. You're main goal should be that all does not fail.

I started shooting my fourth feature at the end of 2014, the film, Hollower, is the story of anagoraphobic who can't leave his studio apartment. In the film there was a scene in which he attempts to leave his 'fortress of solitude' only to find that his condition won't allow it. My first thought was how I would present this visually, and I immediately jumped to what digital effects I could add in post production to represent the severity of his illness, immediately light leaks and an adding various blurs and distortions sprung to mind. I stopped myself there and just took a step back and remembered my 'Don't fix it on post' rule. How could I do what I wanted to do 'In Camera'? 

Then I realised I had the answer.

LENS WHACKING

Lens Whacking is an old school and pretty well documented photographic technique, that involves creating light leaking directly onto the cameras sensor rather than being filtered solely through the lens. The technique also adds some very interesting blurs and distortion due to the way that the lens is held in front of the camera. In terms of the effect I was looking for in the film 'Lens Whacking' was clea the way to go.

Interchangeable Lens System Camera (Canon 600d/T3i)

First of all, your camera will need to have an interchangeable lens system, this is much more common these days with the advent of DSLR'S and Mirrorless system becoming a pretty standard part of the No/Low Budget filmmakers arsenal.

Remove lens from Camera.

The effect comes from removing the lens and setting your cameras 'Operate without lens attached' to on (It called something different depending on the camera model, but its a pretty universal feature and on the Canon it just involves hitting the Video button without a lens attached) this allows your camera to shoot without having your lens attached (Obviously). 

The option looks different on the Panasonic G7.

Now you have pure, unfiltered light hitting your sensor.  You can now simply hold your lens up to the sensor, but instead of attaching it, you allow light to slip in through the gap between the contacts. Moving it around until you have the desired effect. 

Hold the lens over the sensor without connecting it. 

I've found that the effect works best with Normal or Longer focal lengths and shooting on a Canon 600d (T3i), I got the best results from using the 50mm 1.8 as the shorter focal lengths seemed to give less desirable results. It takes a little experimenting to get it right, but the results can be something fantastic. 

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THE PINSTRIPE PIGEON BAND

A few months after shooting Hollower, I was hired to shoot a video for The Pinstripe Pigeon Band to go with their new track 'Never Be Apart'. The song was a slow ballad and the band wanted something that had a restless, dreamlike feel to go with the song. I immediately thought of 'Lens Whacking' as a way to achieve the look the band wanted. I explained my approach and they loved the idea and so thats what we did, I also shot at high frame rate and played the song a double speed (So that it matched when conformed back to 25fps) to help sell the dreamlike visuals that they were going for and I was very pleased with the results.

Still from 'Never Be Apart' The Pinstripe Pigeon Band

I did hit a snag however. After we shot the story elements using the technique, we arrived on location to shoot the bands 'performance' element. Because we were based about 4 hours away  and the video had come together in relatively short notice, we hadn't seen the location outside of photographs and it was actually much smaller than we thought it would be. This was fine for close ups, but the wide shot was a vfx shot and had to be locked off, this meant that I couldn't take the lens off for the shot and so it suddenly stuck out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the video. 

This was the one place I knew I would have to 'fix it in post' and add my leaks after. It came out ok, saved by some time in the edit fixing the problem, but it really did hit home just how much difference doing something practically actually makes. It also serves a good example of both approaches. You can check out the full video for 'Never Be Apart' below. 

So overall my point is that you should rely on post to save your ass, doing things after the fact is great, but giving a little bit of forethought to how you want your final piece to look can really, doing as much as you can there physically on set can bring your stuff to life, Plus its a lot more fun :)

MJ

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ALSO IF YOU'RE BASED IN UK, MICROBUDGET MASSACRE AND THE MILTON KEYNES FILM NETWORK ARE HOSTING THE FIRST OF THIS YEARS SPECIAL 'MYCHO MICROBUDGET MASSACRE MASTERCLASS' LIVE SHOWS ON TUESDAY 8TH MARCH.  

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TO GRADE OR NOT TO GRADE

I was recently asked by a filmmaker friend, if he should shoot flat to give him some room to colour correct and grade in post or if he should use physical lighting to get the look he wanted. I thought it was an interesting question and it had me look at how I approach that aspect of filmmaking and how and why that has changed since I started making movies. 

Ungraded shot from
Code of Silence Music Video

If you've seen any of my work, you'll know how important colour is to me when I'm putting together ANY project. It is one of the first things I consider when I begin pre production. A lot of inspiration for this comes from Italian Director Dario Argento and his use of colour thematically across his work in the 70's and 80's as well as the fact that I grew up reading comic book and 'marvelling' at their use of vibrant colour as a language. As result colour always seemed like an equally important aspect of any visual medium to me. Especially filmmaking. 

Graded shot from Sinnergod/Blaze Bayley video 2012

Its strange to think that, even as short a time ago as the late 90's, colour wasn't given a lot of thought when putting together the look of a film. Go back and look at almost any big budget film shot in the 90's, they all have a the very same, flat, grey cinematic look, that not exclusive, but for the most part. I mean back in the early 2000's David Fincher was still considered a stylised 'out there' director and he was certainly one the directors who paved the way for this line of thought that 'colour' was, in many ways, as important as anything when telling a story. 

As we come closer to the new 20's, every film that appears in theatres is now heavily 'stylised' in its own right, a far cry from their 90's counterparts. Grading is now a permanent part of the workflow and it looks like its here to stay. So today I wanted to talk about my approach to colour and grading and how it has evolved over the last few years since I started making feature length films.

*Please remember, as with resolution, lighting, lens choice and compression, Colour and grading is a very small part of what makes an image look 'cinematic'.

TO GRADE OR NOT TO GRADE

Since I started filmmaking I've graded hundreds of projects. Being an early adopter of programs like HITFILM (Back when it was called AlamDV over a decade and a half ago) one of the programs primary functions outside of VFX was colour grading and it was a new an exciting tool for us as backyard filmmakers. Soon everyone was adopting it and grading became a huge part of the no budget workflow in a world where there had been no room for it before and it opened up a world of possibilities for us as visual storytellers.

The problem arose for me when I started to notice a trend, a well documented trend, that you've most likely come across before. All films started to look the same and when Hollywood finally took the tool to its full extension we started to notice that every film came with the same look. 

That 'Orange and Teal' thing that you now see on every big budget movie that hits theatres in this day and age. I hated it. Not the grading itself, I actually really like the look of a lot of these films, but just the fact that all films both low and high budget started to all just look exactly the same and in the medium of visual storytellers that is dangerous ground to walk on. In many ways, 'grading' films has made us lazy, its become the go to tool of the 'fix it in post' generation.

TO GRADE

When I made Slasher House (back in 2010) I didn't have the equipment or the know how to really get the look that I wanted for the film. I had a clear idea of what I wanted and how the final film should appear on screen, but I was left with the option of lighting it flat and colour grading it in post. The film, for better or worse, is known for its 'nuclear' grade' and, for the most part, taking the grading approach and pushing it as far as I did really helped get the film noticed. But for me, I just wasn't happy. It didn't feel natural, it felt artificial. It felt lazy.

Ungraded shot from +Slasher House 2010

Final Grade from +Slasher House 2010

 Grading is an extremely useful tool, when I'm pushed for time on set its sometimes easier for me to shoot with a flat profile and spend my time in post just getting close to the look I want. It is an extremely powerful in terms of setting tone and it can help tremendously if you are relying on your post production time.

Graded shot from the MychoTV web series. 2011.

I directed a web series in 2011, and we had very little on set time. Sometimes about 2 hours to shoot entire sequences and we just didn't have the time or the equipment to light the way I would want to, so shooting flat and taking care of it in post was the best way to go. Its very much the same story on a lot of music shoots, with limited time with bands or performers, I'll make the choice to shoot flat as possible and do the work in post afterwards. For short form stuff, its an approach that works great for me, but in terms of how I want stuff to look, its still a compromise.

The same thing happens when I'm shooting bright, daylight exteriors. Apart from work with colour temperature, there isn't really too much I can do in terms of lighting when I'm working on a low/no budget. So I'll usually make the choice to shoot smart with available light, shoot with a flat or neutral profile and make any adjustments in post if needed.  

For me, this comes with drawbacks, It feels artificial at times and thats not the aesthetic I look for when I'm shooting. After doing this for a couple of years I decided to rethink my approach.

NOT TO GRADE

Ungraded shot used in Legacy of Thorn 2013

For my next feature in 2013, Legacy of Thorn, I was determined to evolve the look of the film and made the choice very early on that I wanted everything to be as physical as possible and I decided that I wouldn't stop with just pour practical effects. I decided that I would shoot everything as I wanted it to appear in the final film 'in camera'. The result was far better, it felt more natural, more real. I'd never been happier with how one of my films looked and I knew, for me, that this was the way I wanted to do things from here on in.

The next too features I worked on had very little in the way of colour correction at all. In fact Cleaver : Killer Clown, had none apart from a couple of slight colour balance shifts and some adjustment to brightness and contrast in the odd shot to match colour, but again, for the most part the film footage you see on screen is the footage I shot in camera with nothing altered. 

Ungraded shot from Cleaver : Killer Clown 2014

After getting through 2 films using almost no colour correction at all, I felt that I had found comfortable space to work in, that really worked for me and the style that I wanted to bring to my films. Using combination of lighting, gels and colour temperature in camera I found it easy to get the look I wanted without ever having to run it through colour software at all. This had some huge benefits for me.

Ungraded shot from Hollower 2015

First off, because I was doing it this way it made me think about the film and its colours in a lot more depth, right down to props, costumes and even hair colour of my actors. The approach 'forced' me to look at how I was using colour to help tell stories and best of all, saved me, literal weeks in post production because the footage was as close as I wanted it to final product meaning that a large part of my post workflow suddenly just disappeared.



Now technically I actually DO do 'some' form of colour grading, the difference being that I do it 'in camera' before I even shoot anything, but I'll talk more about that next week.

SLASHER HOUSE 2

Graded shot from Slasher House 2010

When it came to Slasher House 2 I was faced with an 'interesting' dilemma. The look of the original film had been popular with the vibrant colours of the grade really standing out as a feature, but I had evolved my filmmaking style since then to use as much in camera lighting as possible. The challenge was taking the style of the original film and recreating it, physically, in camera.

The approach I took was using gels to emulated the colours and choosing costumes and locations as wisely as I could in order to keep the unique colour aesthetic, whilst helping it match the 'in camera' style that we had now employed in our filmmaking. This mixed with adjusting the cameras colour temperature and the contrast/saturation on my 'custom picture profile' helped me get the look I wanted, that has way more depth than I could ever add with a computer in post.

Ungraded shot from Slasher House 2015.

The added bonus of this, now that we're shooting our first 4K film, was that I could cut my footage with very little post processing, meaning I risk very little degradation in the image, which is more common when shooting compressed images. It also means that I can work faster and have a finished product in much less time simply by taking a little extra time on set getting it right.

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Overall the most important thing is that this is what works for me personally, everyone has their own style of working and their own way of doing things and above all, you should be finding the approach to the look of your film that makes you the happiest. 

Ultimately my advice to my filmmaker friend was, "do it however YOU want to do it, its your film after all". I understand the importance of both approaches and I've seen some amazingly well graded stuff that puts my stuff to shame, and the same is true when watching people get their look right 'live on set'. It doesn't really matter how you achieve what your looking for, its all about making YOUR films YOUR way. In the end, as always, thats all that really matters.

MJ

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SEEING THE LIGHT : LEDing The Way

MJ Dixon is an Award Winning Filmmaker and Director of Low Budget worldwide releases including Slasher House and Legacy Of Thorn. He has also seen over 30 music videos and shorts appear on major TV channels around the world as well as running filming workshop The Micro Budget Massacre. He mostly spends his time leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap, will be the leap home.

READ FIRST!! Once again, please understand that this is just my outlook and opinion on aspects of filmmaking, Im not saying its right or wrong, it's just how I do things and how I view things, Filmmaking is about listening to everyone, your peers, professionals and everything in-between. This article is here to be nothing more than helpful to people looking to make movies, hopefully thats you.

CAUTION : Obviously working with any electrics that create heat is dangerous, make sure any lights you get have the required protective glass and caging and of course just like tungsten lights be aware that, if not set up correctly, then it can, like anything on set, be very, very dangerous.

Last week I talked about my standard light set up, using tungsten worklights. Tne set up itself cost very little and is extremely useful and very bright. However it does have draw backs, mainly in regards to how hot these kind of lights get. Although trust me, shooting in the winter in Northern England you'll apprecaite that a little more.

However our set up has evolved over the last few years to include LEDs. LEDs are cooler, lighter and most of the time safer than having lights that intergaret hot glass and Sensetive bulbs. This being a low budget filmmaking blog though, I have a duty to look at the cheapest alternative first and of course that is certainly tungsten worklights. 

The problem with these lights is that they each run at 500w each ( that's just work lights, we're talking 800w upward for pro lights) so if your heading out to location you're suddenly talking, large loud expensive generators and when you are running and gunning, like we have to do 50% of the time, you need something much more reliable and subtle to get the job done.

This is where I employ Led worklights. We picked up 3 of the brightest we could find (I think 108 LEDs) they cost about £50 each and they are rechargable, making them a great portable solution at about a quarter of the cost of 1 professional led panel. They fit to most light stands and last about 3 hours of constant use, so if you are careful with your usage you can get a full nights shooting out of them.

They have some drawbacks like anything, but low budget filmmaking is about jumping over hurdles in order to bring costs down. Now first of all, led lamps are not quite as bright as you would like unless you start moving into spending a few hundred, so most of the time you have to double the light source. These particular lights are rechargable, making them very portable. Downside is that they can't run off the mains without damaging the battery, so they need to be fully charged after they die out, which takes 3 hours. 

Heres an ebay link for the model we use HERE

And just for price comparison heres the same size tungsten (They are about £5 more with a stand) which is twice as bright HERE

Now the simple solution to this, is to have them on charging rotation. But of course that doubles the price of your set up. If your after something to rival the brightness of of a standard tungsten light you'll want to double that again. So we go from a £150 set up to a £600 set up. This however is still about the price of one pro led panel. So it's still a great option on a low budget production and an option I recommend can you afford to shell out a few hundred pounds/bucks on lighting.

However bare this in mind, no lighting solution is the best solution for every situation. Some days LEDs just ain't going to cut it. Sometimes you need something more powerful. We use anything from homemade LEDs to plastering lamps to pro stage lights depending on the job. Knowing what the best tools to use for each job is what will make your films look better, not the fact that you spent $7000 dollar on lighting panels. 

A lot of our pickup outdoor scenes in Legacy Of Thorn had to be quick, All of them were lit using this portable set up and available light and that is really the secret to make LEDs work in large areas. Using them to highlight what is already there. This way you can still have control over what your film looks like, whilst utilising the light around you. Especially if you do your research into the locations lighting ahead of time.

The trick with lighting is understand the strengths and weaknesses of different types of lights, tungsten lights are still cheaper and in my opinion give a warmer, nicer, brighter light despite thier drawbacks. But I certainly can't deny the usefulness of LEDs and I certainly intend to replace my tungsten kit with them eventually, but for the level of light you need on a film set you can be looking at some serious money.

But a few hundred pounds is still a lot of money for low/no budget filmmakers. However there is a slightly cheaper option when it comes to portable LEDs if your willing to put some time in, but I'll talk about that next week ;)

MJ

IF YOU FOUND THIS HELPFUL OR HAVE ANY QUESTIONS THEN PLEASE DROP THEM IN THE COMMENTS BELOW. 

SEEING THE LIGHT : Our £100 Lighting Set Up

MJ Dixon is an Award Winning Filmmaker and Director of Low Budget worldwide releases including Slasher House and Legacy Of Thorn. He has also seen over 30 music videos and shorts appear on major TV channels around the world as well as running filming workshop The Micro Budget Massacre. He mostly spends his time leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap, will be the leap home. 

READ FIRST!! Once again, please understand that this is just my outlook and opinion on aspects of filmmaking, Im not saying its right or wrong, it's just how I do things and how I view things, Filmmaking is about listening to everyone, your peers, professionals and everything in-between. This article is here to be nothing more than helpful to people looking to make movies, hopefully thats you. 

CAUTION : Obviously working with any electrics that create heat is dangerous, make sure any lights you get have the required protective glass and caging and of course just like tungsten lights be aware that, if not set up correctly, then it can, like anything on set, be very, very dangerous.

Lighting is the most important tool at your disposal when in comes to shooting anything. That sounds obvious, I know, but in advent of DSLRs and their ability to shoot in low light conditions, I slowly watched a lot of filmmakers around me slowly begin to ignore lightning all together as they struggled less and less to get a 'usuable' image, and slowly they stop reaching for the best image. 

Shooting in available light, is great. It's cheap, it's quick and it's easy and it's something I employ from time to time depending on the situation. That however simply doesn't always cut it, especially if you want to make dynamic looking films. Shooting in flat available light and colour grading after is brilliant for a quick fix, but really learning to light your films will a world of difference and will set your films apart from the standard colour graded footage that has become so popular in recent years. 

The trouble here, is that lighting equipment can set you back by thousands of pounds/dollars/euros to get a simple set up. The fact is though, it doesn't have to.  Our set up cost us, literally, just over £100 and I've never had to replace it.

Our £100 Lighting Set Up

I've shot for over 3 years now on a set up that cost me £100.75p (that 75p drove my OCD crazy). It's made up of three 500w work lamps and two 500w floor lamps. All these lights have lit everything I have made in the since 2011, including 2 feature film, half a dozen short films and over a dozen Music videos that have aired on major tv channels across the world. They run off a standard mains adapter and fit in a medium sized travel bag (although it is heavy) and it has never let me down. You can buy these things at most hardware shops and if you shop around I imagine you'll find an even better deal than we got. 

For barn doors, my set up becomes super, super low budget. It involves aluminium BBQ trays (6 for £1) and some pretty standard acetate for 50p an a3 sheet from the craft shop pinned to the trays with metal clips that come in packs of 20 from the £store. It's the most low-fi set up you will ever see in your life, but film is about the destination not the journey. For diffusing. I used greaseproof paper, and just cut it to size it cost about 50p a roll. I've bought one roll in 3 years. 

When I'm attaching BBQ trays to sheets of coloured plastic and hooking them on plastering lights, clients, crew, cast all look at me like I'm a mental case. However when they see the final product all that goes away when they see the result that I get. It's doesn't matter how you get your look as long as you get it (safely of course).

It may seem a little crude, but it gets the job done and I swear by in for any filmmakers that struggle to afford equipment. The only small drawback is that using acetate this close to heat source usually melts it out of shape after a day shoot. So I find that I buy new gels as needed per shoot, On average it usually costs me £1 to replace them. 

Lighting Set Up Cost Total = £104.25

The reason they work however is nothing to do with thier wattage, or brightness, or BBQ trays or how they plug in. No they work because I learned how to use them effectively and when you are shooting on something like an SLR, it's more important to understand how to light your scenes than ever, because it's the difference between a 'usable' pictures and something professional looking. 

 

On our latest feature Legacy Of Thorn, almost every scene was lit using this set up. 

I learnt to light properly on digital video and transfered those skills in the advent of DSLRs. it an important skill to learn and once you get it it will change the way you think about your films forever.  

I also understand that LED lights are becoming more common place, but currently a decent 'professional' set up is far from affordable off the shelf, although it doesn't have to be. I'll talk about that next time.

MJ

IF YOU FOUND THIS HELPFUL OR HAVE ANY QUESTIONS THEN PLEASE DROP THEM IN THE COMMENTS BELOW.