I had a great time in Lofoten earlier this month — more precisely at a surfing spot near a village called Unstad, lighting a short film for my friend Torkel Riise Svenson. The film is about a surfer who is forced to move away from the beach by the local authorities because they want to make way for German tourists, but of course, he’s not going to make it that easy for them.

Surfers? In Northern Norway? You've got to be kidding me... (Photo from my iPhone)

Lofoten is an amazing place, with tall mountains diving straight down into the sea — beautiful scenery, and Unstad seems to be a great place to surf (there were 5-10 surfers in the water at almost any time of the day, you don’t see that a lot in Northern Norway). Unfortunately, it is also very exposed to stormy weather, located with a clear view of the Norwegian Sea.

We experienced the power of nature on our first main unit shooting day, when heavy winds almost wiped out the entire set. A sofa flew 50 meters, and our accountant lost his glasses permanently (you know the location is nice when the accountant shows up on set). Alas, we had to move indoors for two days, shooting the interiors of the camping wagon on greenscreen in a large soccer hall. We were a bit bummed at first, but this move gave us an opportunity to light the interiors even more precisely according to the mood we were looking for.

Our indoor location after the storm hit us. (Photo by Ivar Waage Johansen)

Exterior location in somewhat improved weather. (Photo by Ivar Waage Johansen)

Another one of our pleasant exterior days, in amazing surroundings. (Photo by Ivar Waage Johansen)

Shooting interiors of the local municipality. (Photo from my iPhone)

Productions like these really help tighten the (already strong) bond between the young filmmakers of Northern Norway and the film industry of Northern Sweden, represented by Stefan Hencz who supplied most of the equipment and the Swedish grip from Luleå. Stefan was the one who taught me mostly everything I knew about lighting before I moved to Oslo, and he has showed great commitment towards getting the film industry in the north up and running. I had an excellent pair of local sparks, Benjamin Mosli and Ivar Waage Johansen, who really made the job a pleasant experience, and surely will go on to make great things (Benjamin is starting school in Denmark this fall, wave out Benjy!).

Eventually the weather calmed down, and we were able to crawl out of our little cave to shoot some great exteriors on the beach and in the village, as well as the local municipality where the sinister head of tourism held office. What happens with Kiki and his camping wagon will most likely be revealed at the 2011 Tromsø International Film Festival.

Kiki is a Read Head Production, directed by Eilif Bremer Landsend.

View of Unstad from above. (Photo from my iPhone)

The above video is a really quick no-budget spot I shot for a friend who did scenography on the play. It was captured on the 5D, and has a few problems, but none of them are related to the capture device (thanks to peirik for lending me the camera for the day). This was the kind of project that showed up just a few days before, and without an HDSLR probably wouldn’t have happened. No time, no budget, no crew. Just a few hours with the actors inside the set with a lamp. And that is a valid point for the HDSLR’s, they enable some projects to happen that otherwise wouldn’t.

This summer I’m employing a Canon 7D in two other specific situations where I think it can prove to be useful. I lighted an instructional video for home baristas in June, where I shot b-camera details and closeups with a Canon 7D (Panasonic HPX3000 was a-camera, and responsible for the main bulk of footage), and in the end of July I will be shooting a documentary for an extreme sports contest with Canon 7D and a few other light cameras. Keep in mind that both these projects are on a very tight budget, which is why we’re considering HDSLR in the first place.

Issue number 1

Resolution charts provided by RED on reduser.net, showing artifacts and loss of resolution on 7D (click to see larger version).

In the first scenario, the 7D offered a cheap way of getting bonus shots and cutaways on a project that was quite pressed for time. The shots were mainly close details with a lot of defocused image space, allowing the camera and the codec to focus it’s attention on capturing detail in the in-focus areas. Which brings us to issue number one with these cameras. They are in no way actual 1080p resolution, they process the line-skipping signal from the large sensors in a very smart way to recreate 1920 by 1080 pixels of imagery, but under the right circumstances they will fall apart. Actual resolution according to science is somewhere between standard definition and 720p, but in real life you’ll sometimes get the appearance of HD. The question is, does your project actually need 1080p? This project was going online and onto DVD’s, and we could happily live with the lower resolution. But try to stay away from very detailed images, or you will be disappointed.

Issue number 2

In the second scenario, I am heading off the road for some documentary shooting. The prospect of running through forests and up mountains with a heavy broadcast camera is not very appealing to me, and the size of the 7D will allow me to put it in places I otherwise wouldn’t be able to capture images. But the heavy focus on action sequences means we’ll need a good way to operate the camera handheld, and some remedy for the bad rolling shutter problems: issue number two.

15 mm support with mattebox and follow focus from Chrosziel.

A lot of the jelloish pictures you’ve seen on the net are caused by the small size of these cameras. Anthony Dod Mantle, cinematographer on Slumdog Millionaire, had similar problems when handholding the tiny SI2k. It actually needs more weight. With a support system, mattebox and follow focus, a lot of the tiny vibrations go away. I have also found that having an HDSLR viewfinder (mine is an LCDVF) is essential, as your head pressed towards the back of the camera will stabilize it a lot. Rolling shutter from fast pans and movements should then be possible to partially correct in post, and partially just accept as a part of the package (WYGIWYPF — What You Get Is What You Paid For).

This handheld configuration from Shane Hurlbut, ASC was my starting point for minimizing tiny camera vibrations. (Image is property of Shane Hurlbut, ASC)

With this basic rig, you can do very versatile handheld operating, quickly moving around and getting into tight spots to capture images. You can also build on this rig, adding your favourite bells and whistles. Personally, I don’t really believe in the shoulder rigs offered by a wide range of accessory makers, but I haven’t really tried them either. The big problem for me with operating is when you put it on a tripod, as you can’t angle the viewfinder, and will have to resort to operating with a monitor.

Issue number 3

Issue number three is a crucial point for any scenario: exposing as close to the final look as possible. There is little to no room in your HDSLR footage to tweak exposure and/or colors in post, so you need to be spot on while shooting. Ideally you should have a monitor with a waveform or similar to control exposure, but an HDSLR viewfinder helps a lot with this as well, as you aren’t disturbed too much by light levels in your surroundings when looking at the screen. You might also want to setup your Canon with user settings that help take down contrast and sharpness (reducing some aliasing). I would hesitate (a LOT!) to bring this camera on any kind of VFX-shoot or wherever greenscreen is involved. Call me conservative. What you see on your screen is basically what you get, and for a 1500$ camera (plus about 8000$ of accessories), that’s not too bad.

And that’s about it for me. On the right project, it’s a viable, cheap solution to get the images you want. I can see these cameras on a lot of low budget music videos, feature film pilots, short films, student films, documentaries, commercials and the likes in the time ahead. But if budget will allow it, I’ll still be using proper tools for the job. I can also see both Panasonic and Sony (and then most likely Canon too) cooking up new prosumer videocameras with larger sensors to win back this market segment during the next year or so, while RED and Arri are rolling out a new generation of professional motion picture cameras to win back the industry. HDSLR might not be a revolution, but it’s certainly part of an ongoing reform.

Are you trying out HDSLR? Please feel free to share experiences and results you’ve attained in the comments. And remember, in the end it’s all about the final image — not about the equipment you used to create it. Just ask Stu Maschwitz.

The first semester at The Norwegian Film School is filled up with a lot of watching films, workshops and lectures, and small team building exercises, and it’s a wonderful feeling to finally be making movies again. Or rather, sequences, as the school keep reminding us we’re only making one movie in the time we’re here, which is the exam film.

Projects at the school are based on the principle that creativity is better stimulated with restrictions, and we’re not training to make short films, we’re training to become feature film cinematographers (and directors, producers, sound designers, production designers, editors, and script writers). The main restrictions on this exercise was: A minimum of two locations (one required to be a waiting room), a maximum of 12 setups, two predetermined actors, and a maximum of two rolls of S16mm film (approximately 20 minutes of recording time in 25 fps) framing for 1.85:1.

Esteemed Norwegian DoP Hallvard Bræin was mentor for the cinematographers on the project, and gave some very stimulating input during pre-production and on the set. Our generation of photographers being a very digital one, he made a point of making us light by eye and meter, and not use digital cameras as a mental crutch as most of us are used to. Judging fine nuances in contrast can be quite a challenge for the eye and the mind, especially when it comes to the darkest areas which can be quite critical on a negative. One of my personal goals with the exercise was to push the shadows quite a bit, to see how far I can go before losing details and adding too much grain. In the end I found a simplified version of Ansel Adams’ zone system to be very helpful, as I’ve used it a lot when shooting 35mm stills.

We shot Kodak Vision2 200T and scanned to ProRes 4444 at Stopp in Sweden. An important aspect of the school is what they call “the right to screw up”, which means none of what we do is screened anywhere, but I thought I’d post a few screengrabs as a “teaser”. (This might not look right on your monitor, depending on calibration).