It’s been about two months (too long for a successful and effective blogger to remain inactive) but the delay has been worth the while, considering the changes in my life thus far. Working on a feature, running with multiple different cameras, building new rigs, crazy long nights without sleep, and generally pushing the limits. I feel like its been worth every minute of neglect, though what traffic occurs here I do apologize for the absence of voice.
Could I have written on set of DOLL FACTORY, the horror/comedy feature I just AD’ed? Somewhere in those 70+ hour weeks for the last month and a half, I got to put some old skills back into use and rekindle the logic of why I work here at ikan.
To start, without purchasing the C300 for my own personal tests, my connections let me get my grubby little hands on it for a play day around the office–nothing spectacular, when you’re looking at beige walls–but handy and pleasing, nonetheless. Here we are…c300 on some newfangled rig (that I’ve already outdated but I’ll get to that in a moment).
And yes, these arent professional photos nor was time spent in post but I’d rather give you an idea on form and size, utility–the glamour shots will arrive…sometime. In fact, you may have noticed some of them on our more recent banner ads around the webs. What we did shoot walking around my office and the building in general were mostly low lighting tests, like the lot of other blokes who’ve had to see for themselves how it performs its awkwardly-proficient high res shots. C-log is a nice addition, I admit, and hope that people begin to use this more than favor the more traditional dslr coloring. Also, because of its resolution and color strengths, grading is much more worthwhile and can really make that image pop in comparison to what we’ve been tweaking out our butts on dslrs the last couple years after we buy the nicest lenses our budgets will support.
I’m happy to know that our SBP and LBP plates work well with the rig and its size; however, I’ve already heard of a design-oriented issue with regards to matte boxes: if its a fixed height mattebox, you may run into issues with your camera plate’s height running on 15mm rails. From what I hear and have read, ikan isn’t the only company facing this design flaw, either. It seems that the camera needs to be nearly flush with the rails, a creative feat considering its base height. If you have your own story or know of an example of this becoming a problem (esp. with pictures!) feel free to share below. Note that this is only for fixed height matte boxes.
Granted, that was January. As March ends, my experiences with the Sony FS100 have just begun. Stephen Wolfe’s Doll Factory, a Horror/Comedy set in “Goober County” with all its zany baby-doll-faced demons killing kids and neighbors alike, makes for a really long run on sentence but for some GREAT laughs. The gain and light sensitivity on the FS100 really assisted our (typically) minimal lighting setups, from giant dark warehouses to small homes in suburbia–we shot across the city and were well-received by our local community as we moved from location to location. More pictures on that later, though you can head over to their facebook page which is growing, slowly but surely. Considering the age of the director and producer, both, it’s really an achievement to come this far with a viable project and TONS of marketing material that (i believe) will make its return back. Makes me happy.
The funniest part? after our DP’s Atomos Ninja craps out, and then the marshall dies (yes, he had a marshall) we ran the majority of our setups, both tripod and handheld, with the mighty ikan v5600, the little tank that it is. I’ll dig around and see if I can come up with a photo and I’ll post it come next update.
Stay tuned for part 2. it might actually happen this time instead of hellcious delays and then some new topic coming up 😉