LFP’s own Larry McKee served as a judge in the 2006 Woodland’s Young Moviemakers film contest.  This is the second year of the competition and the second year he accepted the invitation to act as a judge.  Nine judges from many aspects of the film industry comprised the panel with McKee representing cinematographers.

Earlier in the year, Frank Eakin, the competition’s founder, organized a day of instruction for the students to give them a better understanding of the mechanics of filmmaking.  The event was held at the Silver Rock Productions studio in The Woodlands.  Director Casey Kelly led the class on directing, while Pete Nubile gave instructions on how to capture the best location sound possible.  Larry McKee taught the segment on cinematography.  Editing was covered by Roy Ford.

Larry McKee with WYM founder Frank Eakin.

I recently had a chance to work with a few of the actors we cast in “Zombitch”. My clients and good friends at Silverrock Productions had been awarded the assignment of producing spots for a new cosmetics company. They brought me in as DP for the three segments.

Michael Huffine of Silverrock had hired actors from a talent agency to fill some of the roles. Then problems began. There had been no confirmation from the agency that they had contacted the actors all the way up to the night before the shoot despite the several messages that Michael left with the agency.

He called me to see if I knew anyone that could play the parts. He needed a 30 something woman with great legs, a muscular guy and a very pretty girl. I told him that Karen Schlag, who had played Jenna in “Bitters and Other Natural Remedies” has some of the best legs I had ever seen. Kenan Baluken was the obvious choice for the muscle bound character and Allessandria Alamilla certainly fit the "very pretty" requirement.

The first location we shot was a physical therapy clinic that we turned into a fitness club. This was to be used in the spot for the cellulite cream the company had developed. Karen (and her legs) looked great as she worked out with a treadmill and a fitness ball.

Karen Schlag

We released the actors for lunch and went to Silverrock's studio to shoot the spokesperson, actor Brad Maul from "General Hospital." Michael and his business partner Bryan Falcon had done a great job creating a doctor's office in the studio. We lit the set and rigged the dolly before Maul arrived. It was quite flattering when he complimented us on the lighting when he stepped onto the set. He was a pro and the shoot went very well.

Brad Maul

A soon as we finished the studio shots and released Maul, we rushed out to Central Park in The Woodland's Town Square to shoot more with Karen and Allessandria. We set up a long shot of Karen walking with both hands full of shopping bags looking all happy about the new clothes she can wear now that the cellulite cream had done its magic. The setup for Allessandria's shot called for a dolly. She was sitting at a table with one of the other actors sitting across from her. The product starring in this spot was a nail hardener. She was so cute showing off her perfect nails to the other actor.

Allessandria Alamilla

The next day we shot in a home. Kenan played the love interest of a girl that was ashamed of her discolored toenails. But, thanks to the third product, her nails were no longer the source of any embarrassment. Those shots took place at a pool, so Kenan was able to show off the results of all those hours working out at the gym. He was not at all upset about having to run his hands up and down the girl’s legs and play with her feet. He is a real trooper. While we were at the pool, we got some shots of Karen sunbathing to show off her cellulite free legs.

Karen Schlag

We moved inside the house to show Karen applying the cellulite cream. Allessandria played the part of the wife of a guy that suffered from ugly toenails. Luckily, the nail treatment product allowed him to regain his confidence. Then, she picked up the role she played in the park as the girl with brittle nails. She opened a soft drink can, did a little typing, and washed some dishes by hand.

Allessandria Alamilla

All three of our actors did an excellent job. Of course, I knew they would or I wouldn't have suggested using them and Tim and I certainly wouldn’t have cast them in out next feature. The client was extremely happy the final product. When Brad Maul came back to the studio to do some additional voiceover work, he gave Michael and Bryan a big pat on the back by announcing that this was "one of the best (projects) I have ever seen."

I didn't know The Discovery Channel owned Fit TV until I got a call to shoot a series of commercial spots for them.  I had done work with the producer, Peter Vogt, before.  We met at one of those open houses equipment sellers have.  We struck up a conversation and swapped business cards.  A few weeks later, he called and asked if I could work with him on a shoot in San Antonio.  We worked well together and he called again when he was hired to produce an infomercial for a new type exercise equipment. 

This time he had a special request.  He knew I had been beta testing Redrock Micro's Micro35 and he wanted to use it on this project.  The Micro35 is an adapter that allows the use of 35mm motion picture or SLR lenses on a video camera.  The image from the 35mm lens is projected onto a spinning ground glass and the video camera focuses on the ground glass.  The advantage is you get the shallow depth of field of 35mm film with the ease of use and cost effectiveness of video.  By mounting the Micro35 onto a camera like the DVX100A, you can shoot in 24P with the Cine Gamma settings and get some very filmic images.

There was a bit of a hitch on this project, though.  It was to be chroma keyed.  I had the very first Micro35 prototype, which gave great results in a lot of situations.  The images were soft as a ProMist 1 filter.  But, that was a little too soft for chroma key because you need sharp edges to get a good key.  I got in touch with James Hurd of Redrock Micro and told him my situation.  He had made some changes in the way he made the ground glass.  He sent me the unit he had personally been using.  It arrived the morning of the shoot.

We quickly switched out the original unit with the new one.  It was much sharper.  While we were setting up a product shot, I realized my hand held light meter was reading the same F-Stop as the camera had chosen when I set it to auto iris.  That was odd because in the old prototype you would loose a couple of stops.

I called James and told him about the meter reading.  He had noticed an increase in light in the new ground glass setup, but hadn’t had a chance to do any meter tests.
 
As you may know, the DVX series of cameras are actually capturing a much larger image than NTSC specs.  The image is down sized to DV and the brightness is altered.  Because of the way the camera processes the luminance, it is hard to nail down an ASA rating for any given lighting situation.  The rating varies from 320 ASA to 600 ASA depending on the amount of light in a scene.  So, I guessed the camera was doing its compensation thing and decided to do some tests after the shoot.

The shoot went smoothly and we shot ten two-minute spots in two days.  Word is, the spots are creating quite a buzz around the Discovery offices.
 
After the shoot, I set up a gray card and lit it with a 500 watt Mole-Richardson.  The Micro35 was mounted with a 50mm F1.4 lens and locked onto a tripod sans the camera.  My light meter was set to spot and a reading was taken of the gray card directly off the ground glass.  The meter read F4.  Then the meter was moved to bypass the Micro35 and the gray card was read directly.  F5.6 appeared on the readout.  A full stop was being lost in the Micro35 with an F1.4 lens.  That meant that if an F1 lens had been mounted to the adapter, there would be no light lost.
 
That was a little hard to believe.  The Micro35 was passing all the light through it that came through the 35mm lens.  The unit itself was not stealing any light.  I called James again and told him what the test had revealed.  He was pretty happy to hear the news because that meant the new ground glass design could be used with one quarter the light needed by the old one.  Not to mention one quarter the light of any other adapter we knew about.