It’s that time of year again…this past weekend, me and 9 teammates participated in the Toronto Film Challenge yet again. A few of us are now veterans of this challenge, but the majority of our team were new people, and I must say I’m pretty impressed with how well our team worked together. After running into so many problems that derailed us with Harvest, our 48-hour horror film last fall, we really learned from our mistakes, and planned much, much more effectively to minimize problems and make sure everything ran smoothly. We worked like clockwork and looking back, I feel like we pulled off a superhuman feat on Saturday by shooting at 5 locations (and lots of sub-locations within those), doing something like 100 setups, on an 18 hour long shoot, on a next-to-nothing budget. I’ve been on a variety of productions from large to small and I can definitely say I’ve never seen this many shot setups and locations within the space of one day.

Something else was new this time around, which was that it was my first ever shoot with the new Canon C300. Some of you who have been following this blog will know that I’ve had my eye on this camera for a while now, and have been dying to do a test shoot with it. Well, through the generosity of Canon Canada and Cinequip White, I was able to borrow the camera for the entire weekend to shoot this, and get a sense of what it’s actually like to shoot with. It’s one thing to read about a camera, or look at specs online, or pick it up and play with it for a few minutes at a show, but it’s another thing entirely to actually do a shoot with a camera and put it through it’s paces.

I had originally thought about doing a more planned shoot or test with the camera, but there is something very real life about a 48-hour Film Challenge – the fact that no matter how prepared you are, you always have to be ready for the unexpected; the fact that you have such limited resources; the fact that you have to just embrace your idea and go for it; the fact that you have to be able to work quickly and efficiently and make changes with no notice. Again, I’ve worked on a variety of shoots from extremely planned to totally haphazard, but in all of these experiences it’s important to be able to adapt quickly, and have a camera that can do the same. For these reasons, I felt pairing the C300 test shoot with the 48-hour film challenge would be a great “real world” test.

And the verdict is… I was incredibly happy with the camera and fell in love with how it operates. At first, it felt a bit foreign and I really need to familiarize myself with its controls and settings – but did this last Wednesday during a camera test. Once I figured out my essentials, I decided to customize some of the buttons (there are 15 customizable buttons – a great feature) to make some of the key shooting functions more accessible. One thing I love about this camera is the fact that you can pare it down to its simplest, or build it up to a full blown studio rig to suit your needs. I love that kind of versatility in a camera. I was pleased to see that I could set it up with my existing Redrock Micro parts and could see having a lot of configuration bliss with this thing. I did plan to use my Redrock Micro shoulder rig and follow focus, but found that with the number of setups we were doing, and need to work quickly and efficiently, it was actually easier to just operate it with only the handgrip and monitor/XLR and top handle attached. I left the focus gears on my lenses and did all my own focus pulling. Doing handheld with the camera isn’t a “traditional” way of doing things ergonomically (by putting the camera over your shoulder) but I was still able to have a nice comfortable grip and keep it steady, operating it more like a medium-format Hasselblad. Coming from a photography background, this felt very natural and comfortable to me. I do strongly believe that this is the direction cameras are going (smaller, lighter, and more versatile, but packed with the essential quality and features) so I see this new handheld operating as a sign of things to come. We also only had two batteries for the full shoot – but this was plenty as the battery life was quite long.

I used my own EF mount lenses for the shoot – love the fact that this camera has an EF mount! I use Canon’s L series lenses which are quite sharp, but the image quality on this camera, combined with my lenses, just made the detail so sharp and clear that I was blown away. I shot in Canon Log mode, which of course made the images very flat, but retained the maximum detail and dynamic range and this also blew me away. I did a quick test of the camera beforehand – shooting in both C-Log and EOS mode – pointing the camera at a high contrast scene (indoor to window, which usually gets blown out) and it retains WAY more detail in C-Log. My exposure settings were identical, the only thing that changed was the picture profile. This really blew me away … this camera sees far more like the human eye than your typical HD camera does. I’ve read much about its dynamic range but again, it was a different experience entirely to see it with my own eyes. While shooting inside a convenience store, I was able to see full detail outside the windows – pretty fantastic, and of course this also means way more leeway when colour grading.

UPDATE: I have also verified that Canon’s new cine lenses will be coming in both PL and EF mount. This is great news as it means we won’t be as restricted by having to choose between the EF or PL mount versions of the camera – we’ll still have the full versatility of regular EF lenses and will be able to reap the benefits of the new EF Cine Lenses. Canon has more in production and plans to release more of these.

We also shot sound direct into the camera via a shotgun boom mic, and the XLR inputs. In some cases we also used a second lav mic. We had the mics plugged into a mixer which my sound recordist could control levels from, and then the mixer plugged into the camera. This was a learning experience in itself as I’ve never done this kind of setup, so it was great to understand what was needed to pull this off. I found the audio quality quite good and was also pleased to see that the camera could also work with a regular mic like the Rode VideoMic Pro. Normally I would shoot dual-system audio, as that is still industry standard to maintain a higher quality sound recording, but due to the nature of the challenge and the extreme time constraint (48 hours to brainstorm, write, plan, shoot, edit, and deliver the film) we thought it best to shoot audio direct to the camera in order to avoid having to sync the footage manually, as we have had to do in the past, and it really ate into our editing time.
Our editor was relieved to be able to just dive right into editing the footage. Unfortunately I didn’t get to test out a timecode slate, but I love the fact that that is also an option.

I got some feedback from our editor on what it was like to work with the footage – here’s what he said about it:

“The C300 workflow was a dream. Straight from the camera into the Avid, editing immediately through AMA. The only hitch was was when I slowed 60fps to 24fps, but I had a work around. I suspect because I was working from a usb 2 drive which couldn’t handle the increased bandwidth requirements. And if I had transcoded to another format I suspect it would have worked better. System was a 2010 iMac i7 running Media Composer 5.0.”

I also sat with him through most of the colour grading and while it is one extra step to grade all the footage when you shoot in C-Log, it was again incredible to see just how much detail we were able to pull and work with.

Finally – the low light capabilities. Much has been written about this and there’s really nothing new to report here – I did a few tests at each ISO setting and felt I could easily get a very clean image up to 12,800 ISO. 16,000 and 20,000 ISO do have noise but as many others have stated, it’s a far more “filmic” and grain-type noise. The fact that this camera can shoot in such low light conditions is fantastic and meant I was able to seamlessly blend available light shooting with lit shots. Of course the cleanest shots were between around 320-850 ISO but it’s great to have the option to boost the sensitivity when needed, and especially when under such strict time constraints.

Oh, and the other thing I love about this camera is that it actually records full metadata for each of my shots – which is, in my opinion, an essential feature and something I always missed when shooting HD video on the DSLRs. All in all, I look forward to using this camera on other shoots as it has pretty much everything I look for in a camera (except for 4K resolution – but that’s what the C500 will have!)

I’ve put a few screen grabs below (not allowed to release the film online yet) and some behind the scenes photos.

In a nutshell – this film challenge was a fantastic experience. We had a great team whose energy and enthusiasm and dedication were evident. We were far more organized which led us to pull off the superhuman feat that was this film. I also got to stretch myself more as a director (in addition to stretching myself as a cinematographer) as I had more technical help and was able to focus more on the actors’ performances… and I directed a comedy. I’m extremely proud of my team and what we managed to pull off, and I’m very excited for the upcoming screening, which is happening Sunday May 6th at the Toronto Underground Cinema at 7pm.

SCREEN GRABS:

BEHIND THE SCENES PHOTOS:

I’m way overdue for a blog update – I think I need to hire a monkey to read my thoughts and write them down! Lots has been going on since my last post, and while I’ve had a few things I want to write about, sometimes when you get slammed it’s hard to find the time to post!

So, let’s start with a quick news update:

-Took a trip to Costa Rica for two weeks end of Feb/beginning of March. Mostly vacation, but of course took my camera along and shot a tonne of photos and had a tonne of fun! Had my first crack at wildlife photography, and lots of beautiful landscape opportunities as well. Rather than post a few photos here, you can check out my gallery of faves HERE
(Note: for those curious, prints and digital copies of these photos are available for sale)
Got me curious about bird photography as it’s tricky, and researched what kind of lenses are used by serious bird photographers!

-Got to check out the performance of Campbell House put on by my lovely friends at Single Thread Theatre Company – it was fantastic and a beautiful production and location as usual. Never before has Canadian History been so entertaining!

-Shot day 4 of 5 on a new music video I’ve been DPing, for a song called AEYIOU by the band INTF. It’s a remake of the original 80′s song, AEIOU (which is pretty hilarious by the way). We turned the basement of a house into a Club Scene with extras and the like. My job was to take this space and light it to give it that club feel – with limited equipment. I’m very proud of the results and very excited for the finished product – this video is shaping up to be a great one. Also made use of the Steadicam again. See behind the scenes pics below!

-Have been prepping for the upcoming Toronto Film Challenge this weekend – in which me and 9 other teammates will write, shoot, edit and deliver a short film, all within 48 hours. It will be an intense but fun weekend and I will of course do a separate post on that as soon as it’s done!

-And…. to go along with that last bit of news, I will be doing my first ever test shoot on the Canon C300 this weekend! I am very, very excited to finally use the camera I have been drooling over for months now… and get a chance to really see how it works in a pressured situation. So of course I will also share my impressions and reactions on working with this camera.

So this time… expect another update soon … see you out the other side!

Canon C300 Test for our shoot this weekend!

Just like with Much Ado About Nothing at Spadina House last fall, they will be using the entire house as their set and the audience will walk through and follow the actors as the scenes play out. Only this time, the story is based on Canadian historical figures like Judge Campbell and his wife Hannah, and William Lyon Mackenzie. The play is actually a fictional comedy but it’s all based around real events. I attended a reading of the script last fall and it’s pretty hilarious – so be sure to check it out if you can!

Here are two promo videos from the shoot – one short and one long.

Well, tonight I finally got to hold it in my hands and try it out. This evening, Canon had its official launch of the new Canon C300, along with the new 1DX, at the TIFF Lightbox. I spent a few minutes looking it over and getting a feel for all the buttons and menus and form factor, and I could definitely see myself getting used to this camera. Ergonomically, it’s a real departure from traditional cinema cameras (which modern models like the Panavision Genesis, Arri Alexa, and RED all emulate) and feels more like a digital Hasselblad from the stills world. For those of us coming from a photography background, this is actually a pretty nice and familiar feel. Just picking it up and holding it in my hands, with no rig or anything, felt nice and comfortable and I could easily see myself getting handheld shots.

I love the fact that you can build this camera up or strip it down, depending on your needs. With the XLR inputs and monitor removed, it’s quite a small package. I really favor small, portable and efficient setups with minimal muss and fuss, and I think almost everything on this camera is geared to fit that bill.

So: first off, great form factor, and nice and small and light (for what it does), better for shooting handheld video than with a DSLR.

Secondly, the low light performance. I know, this is Canon’s forte, and much has been written about it with regards to this camera. But I have to say, it was the first time I was seeing footage shot at 6400, 10,000, 16,000 ISO on large HD screens and in the Lightbox theatre, and I was truly blown away. I needed this camera on Monday, when I was shooting with a Steadicam rig in the basement of Campbell House, my actors lit mainly by candlelight. The panel of filmmakers who later spoke attested that you could easily shoot up to 10,000 ISO with a very clean image with this camera. That’s pretty incredible. There will be less of a need for big lighting setups and we’ll be even more able to work with available and dim light than we have before. The grain was visible in the demo shots taken at 16,000 ISO but it certainly did look very filmic and not your typical digital noise – it looked like stuff shot on a high end 35mm camera. Vincent Laforet was on hand and described some of the techniques behind making his short “Mobius” and basically said they shot everything in the desert (a very high contrast scene) with almost entirely natural light, and no fill. The camera was able to capture detail all the way from extreme highlights to deep shadows in these scenes.

Thirdly, the workflow. This isn’t something I’d really thought about as a major plus to this camera, and as I haven’t officially shot my own projects with the RED, Alexa, or F3 yet (although I’d like to) – I can certainly imagine the amount of computing power you would need to process 4k RAW footage. I’ve also run into problems with other cameras having their own proprietary cards and needing drivers in order to download and work with the footage – very annoying and time consuming. The costs of maintaining that kind of editing suite could also definitely add up. The filmmakers praised the C300 for the ease of use of the footage – and this is also a pretty important factor to me. Basically, it’s a codec that can be simply downloaded off of CF cards and can be imported straight into your editing suite and worked on right away on a decent home computer – no need for a high end suite and no converting to Pro Res. Canon states this footage should work with all current editing suites out there right now. When on a tight deadline (and budget) this is super important. I actually believe that all cameras should work this way – download and away you go – but that definitely hasn’t been the reality for the film industry for the past few years. So, the apparent ease of workflow from download to edit, sounds pretty great.

Finally, Canon has addressed all the major issues that many DSLR shooters have complained about – rolling shutter and moire are gone, there are manual audio controls and XLR inputs, HD/SDI outputs so you don’t have to deal with the pain that is HDMI when outputting to a monitor on set, and time code sync options. There’s even a built in intervalometer (no need to go buy a separate one), and when paired with the Wi-Fi transmitter, you can apparently view SD footage and control the camera settings from an iPad. Super cool. It’s not yet there to my wish of broadcasting an HD signal wirelessly for monitoring (I HATE cables on set!) but it’s definitely one step closer.

The evening featured a few hours to walk around and try out the C300 and see it set up in various rigs (stripped down to its bare essentials, in a studio setup with rods, follow focus, matte box and zoom control, and on a jib). And then, some keynote speeches from Alex Buono, the DP for Saturday Night Live, Vincent Laforet, and local shooters Paul Steinberg and Nigel Akam. Alex gave a pretty great explanation of how people obsess over high resolution 4k cameras, but give little consideration to how colour and luminance are also an important part of image quality. While this was all new (and valuable!) information to me, I can definitely see how people obsess over high resolution and can neglect other factors – this has been the case in the stills photography industry for years. The biggest criticism this camera has gotten is for not shooting 4k, but to be truthful what I care about is how great the image looks on a big screen – and the image certainly did look great on a big screen – both slo mo and regular shots.

Laforet’s insights into working with the camera on Mobius were great (Hey Vincent, where can I get one of those remote controlled helicopters??) and it was refreshing to see a female DP’s testimonials. It was also really nice to have local cinematographers Nigel and Paul there – and they were able to offer up some comparisons between their own cameras (a Sony F3 and RED respectively). It was also nice to see some footage that actually featured Toronto.

So, it was definitely a great evening with lots of great info, and incredible inspiring footage. You have me sold, Canon. But I can honestly say the only downside to this camera is – its price. Considering many of the audience were DSLR shooters – I’m not sure how many will be willing to shell out that kind of money. I know that I really, really would love to have this camera – but I’m not sure I can afford it at this point. I do think that while Canon is doing a great thing by including everything you need in the package – they really, really should consider the option of selling it minus the monitor and XLR inputs, as Philip Bloom has been suggesting – if this could inch it closer to $10k, I think a lot more people, including myself, would be a lot more tempted to go for it. The price as it is is just a wee inaccessible – and they need to bear in mind that many people may already have monitors and only record sound separately.

The only other wish list item I would have – would be the option to have the new Canon Cine lenses also available in an EF mount. They seem great and easier to pull focus with, and as mentioned in my previous post, in an ideal world (where unicorns fly around) you’d be able to switch between EF mount and PL mount. This way I could make use of my excellent L series lenses most of the time, but have the option to use PL mount when needed for more effective focusing. However, I can see how this would be logistically difficult and I’m sure there’s a good chance there will be lens adapters in the future to do so (either from Canon or a third party). On that note – one of the questions asked to the panel was “Do you see a visible difference between EF and PL lenses?” and the general consensus was – no, they are all great quality and it’s pretty hard to see any difference in the footage. So, I could see EF mount camera and lenses being more useful for their general size, portability, and the many Canon lenses available – and PL for more “studio” type setups with a more dedicated focus puller. Canon is just starting to get into the game of the cine prime lenses – let’s just hope they offer the same product with an EF mount down the line, for those of us who want the option of both. One final thought here – I have thought about if I were to buy the camera, which mount would I go for? And I think I would go for the EF mount version – mainly because I already have my EF set of lenses I’ve spent good money on, but also for the reasons listed above.

So there you have it. All in all an inspiring evening and I can’t wait to get my hands on this camera and shoot with it.

The story follows Darryl (Nick McKinlay), a 20-something who lives with his parents and gets harassed by his family for not having a job or girlfriend. When he gets pressured to bring a date to his cousin Lars’ wedding – he becomes fixated on his childhood crush Sarah Cherry – and becomes determined to track her down and be an extra on the movie she’s starring in just a few towns over. With the help of his friend Femur (Kyle Mac) and his motorized wheelchair (drivers’ license be damned) the pair set out along the empty northern Ontario roads on the quest to find Darryl’s dream girl. Along the way they meet and befriend Kristin, a girl who’s just gone through a bad breakup, and lots of other colourful characters. Directed by Sean Cistern and written by Robert Lazar, the cast and crew all did a fantastic job to bring this charming story to life.

Friend and producer Avi Federgreen decided he was fed up with low-budget Canadian films being made but not seen, and has started his own distribution company, IndieCan Entertainment – to help change that trend. Moon Point is the first film released under his new company. Their mandate is to get Canadian films with a budget of $1.25 million or less into the hands of audiences.
This certainly is a common problem in our industry – we have plenty of talent in our country and plenty of great Canadian films being made – but we still seem to favour big budget American movies over home-grown fare (or maybe there are other factors at play that I don’t know about). It breaks my heart when I see an amazing Canadian film not get the distribution or attention it deserves. Even when they do well and get a lot of attention at major festivals like TIFF – which also aim to support Canadian films and filmmakers – they can, as Avi says, hit a wall. But – I’m pretty excited for Avi and I know he’s a passionate guy who takes action and is determined to help see things change.

IndieCan is not only going to be targeting theatres, but also the growing market of online distribution – via things like Netflix and iTunes. THIS in particular makes me happy, because this is of course the direction things are going.

What’s your favorite Canadian Film?
Do you get frustrated when you see a great Canadian flick at a festival, but can’t find it otherwise?
What do you think can be done to help get more Canadian films seen?

I’d love to hear your thoughts, because this is an issue I’m passionate about and I think getting our films seen is going to take more than government mandates for Canadian Content. We need to see the films because we want to – because they’re our stories, our visions, and because they’re compelling, entertaining, and engaging.

To read more about IndieCan Entertainment, check out THIS ARTICLE

MOON POINT AUDIENCE REACTIONS

A few weeks ago, I got my invitation to the unveiling of Canon’s new C300 cinema camera in Toronto – and I registered right away. This camera has already been getting great reviews from a lot of cinematographers, even though it’s not available yet, and I’m really excited to finally see it in person! Exactly one week from today, I’ll be attending the event at the TIFF Lightbox. Keynote speaker Vincent Laforet will be there, along with several others.

For those who haven’t heard of this camera yet – it’s Canon’s answer to the RED Scarlet (and was announced on the same day last November). It has also addressed a lot of the issues that 7D and 5D Mark 2 users complained about: no rolling shutter, XLR inputs, manual audio levels… and that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve been looking at test footage from the camera for the past few months since it was announced and have been really impressed at its capabilities. And, unlike the RED, it comes as a full complete package. One of the biggest advantages, though, is it’s ability to take Canon EF lenses – so if, like me, you’ve already invested a good chunk of change into some nice quality glass, you’ll be able to take full advantage of the EOS line of lenses. The C300 will be available with two possible lens mounts: the Canon EF mount or a standard PL mount. (I must say this is one downside to the camera – it would be nice to be able to switch between the two. I don’t have to make this decision yet but if/when I do it’ll be a tough one because of this!)

I just spoke to a Canon Rep today, and got word that the C300 is expected to retail at around $17,000. (Note this is a very rough estimate, and exact pricing still needs to be confirmed by Canon and individual dealers – more on this after the unveiling next week.) So, not cheap and definitely in the “pro” and not hobbyist range. I asked about whether there will be an option sold without the monitor and XLR inputs to bring the price to around $10,000 and said that would make it a LOT more tempting to many shooters. At this point this is more of a request from the filmmaker community that I hope Canon becomes aware of – so he couldn’t comment. But the camera in its full version is currently available for pre-order in Canada.

So, all in all some very exciting news… I’ll definitely be writing a blog post with some impressions of the camera and let you know how the event went!

See below for the great video review (which also makes fun of most camera test videos SO WELL) by Jonathan Yi:

It’s been nice to finally have some down time to get caught up on some editing…Including something I’m very proud to share – my new 2012 Demo Reel! This has been an overwhelming but awesome experience. It’s not easy to compile the best footage from over a year’s worth of work, but it’s also fun to go back and review everything, and the end of the year is a perfect time to do this.

The last few weeks have also been a time of looking forward as well as looking back – I’ve been developing several new scripts and ideas and look forward to seeing these materialize over the coming year. I’ll of course keep you posted on this blog (and more frequently on my twitter, @christinebuijs), and I’d like to wish everyone a great holiday season and happy new year! 2011 has been an amazing year and I look forward to what 2012 brings.

It’s not perfect and a director’s cut is in the works to iron out some of the kinks, but this is exactly what we managed to accomplish (writing, shooting, and editing-wise) in just 48 hours, despite the curse.

I’ve also posted a video review by Addison Wylie, who did a great and thorough job of reviewing each of the short films that screened last Tuesday. Skip ahead to 3:45 to hear the specifics of Harvest, or watch the whole thing if you like. A big thanks to Addison for doing this!

And a warning: This film contains profanity, violence, and some gore.

I’ve done the Toronto film challenge twice before and things have gone relatively smoothly. This time around, Murphy’s law was king and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We arrived at a remote location and set up our first shot finally by about midnight, only to have the power in the entire block go out. My keys got locked into my trunk (which is like a vault) and we had to break into my own trunk to get them out. Our first night was a write-off and we all had to majorly regroup before heading back to continue work on the cursed film on Saturday. Just when I thought something might actually go right – nope – of course it went wrong. We were actually preparing to make a documentary about struggling to make this movie because 12 hours in, that’s all I could think of making of this thing.

In spite of all that, we somehow managed to finish the film which is a miracle in the face of all we were up against. Of course it was cursed til the very end and we had output issues, but we still got it in and the film will screen tonight at the Toronto Underground Cinema at 7pm, along with 11 other (hopefully not cursed!) short films from aspiring filmmakers.

I’ve gotta say that also in spite of this being a challenge in every sense of the word, I’m pretty damn happy with how it turned out and can’t wait to get this in front of an audience and see how they react.

Hope to see you there….

This fall I’m doing a side project as Lighting Designer on a really cool new production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
This production is very unique in that it is taking place entirely at an old Edwardian Mansion in north Toronto – Spadina Historic House was built in the 1800′s, and is decorated in Edwardian/Victorian styles from the late 1800′s to early 1900′s. Most of the furniture is authentic and was passed down through family generations until being donated to the city of Toronto in the 90′s, and is in excellent condition. Other areas of the house have been meticulously restored and researched by the curators and staff of the museum (including those lovely snarling wolves in the front entranceway).

The play itself is set during wartime in 1918. The audience will follow a tour guide throughout the mansion’s interior and exterior while the scenes play out. There are also two possible routes through the house. Audience sizes will be kept small but this extremely unique production is sure to be compelling – an experience like this is only possible with live theatre.

To help out, I also offered to do some Steadicam shots in the vein of what the show will be about. We shot on Monday with two of the lead actors, and it was an absolute blast. Steadicam shots are extremely technical as well as artistically challenging because you need to constantly think about your technique as well as framing, timing, and composition, and everything has to co-ordinate. I’ve made a trailer for the play which can be seen below.

I just want to give a big thank you to the staff of Spadina House for agreeing to let me do this, and trusting me with a Steadicam around priceless artifacts – and Alex, Jon and everyone else over at Single Thread Theatre Company for helping to pull this together. It was a lot of fun and something we should all be proud of!

Oh, and you can purchase tickets in advance for this production via totix.ca. Buy some if you can – with only 30 audience members per show, there’s a good chance it’ll sell out!

just hangin out with my WWI soldier buddies

Canadiana at its best