HDSLR Shoot Day One. "Someday Hero"

by jared1July 8^th, 2010

Here is a little BTS action from our fist day of shooting “Someday Hero”. This short film is about a boy named “Jack” who eventually grows up to be a superhero impersonator. He is subjected to an abusive Father as a child and lives next door to an abusive family as an adult. He eventually tries to intervene with drastic result. This story hits very close to home for me so I was in as soon as I read the script. My total camera budget for this five day shoot is under 2K, including labor and sound.

We used China Balls with “soft white” 200W bulbs and dimmers to light this fight scene where “Jack” sees his father abuse his mother. This is a pivotal scene in the film, so we used two cameras. The “B” camera was a Canon 7D on a Glidecam 2000 with a Tokina 16-50mm Zoom Lens, over the shoulder of the lead as he watches his Father abuse his Mother. I brought Steadicam operator Scott Coleman in for this particular scene.

The “A” camera was hand held with a Red Rock Micro Eyespy Deluxe Rig with a Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 70-200mm IS Zoom Lens. I used the Neutral Picture Style with the Saturation and Contrast turned down two notches. This should give the editor and colorist enough latitude to adjust in post. I was living in “Native” ISO 320 at an f2.8 most of the day. My AC Hunter Kerhart ended up literally frying two iPhone 4’s on this shoot so far. They keep overheating while trying to edit. This is the second phone so there must be some kind of glitch there. We will go back to shooting BTS with our Canon 7D. The IQ on the iPhone 4 is good, but not really ready for prime time yet.