On Location- Dundas Square Bboyin

Hit up Dundas square this weekend. Shot super 16 of a bunch of bboys gettin loose in a fun 1 on 1 battle on stage. Afterwards got out and shot a little more street dance of Troy Feldman and Yukon Nick. Slapped on my 5.9 angenieux wide lens shooting low angle with Toronto's mini "times square buildings" towering up the background. Fired off some 64fps and a little bit of hand cranking of the boys dancin in the street. Got some wicked Udon Noodles after the show and did some scouting for parkour filming for the upcoming summer days.

UPDATE:
Rough Cut sampler of some of the footage (May 17/08).




Stock: 3374 (black and white High Con) + 7246 250D Vision 1
Format: Super 16mm
Camera: Bolex super 16mm with POE 16-100mm + angenieux 5.9mm, 24, 32, 48, 64fps and hand cranked.
Cinematographer: Justin Lovell

On Location- Wedding Proposal

Had a strange request from Mimmo & Naz last week. Got to shoot a proposal for a wedding on super 8. Adam Caputo (soon to be groom) arranged the whole thing to be shot without her knowing. Felt kinda like a spy with myself and cinematograper Guy Godfree sneaking around filming the happy couple having coffees and exploring the distillery district in Toronto. Used a Nikon 80-200 t 2.8 (with c-mount adapter) on sticks for some telephoto work. Bright sunny day for the most part, until the rain came down right in the middle of their meal. (Adam arranged one romantic table outside the resaurant for the proposal). Unfortunately they had to move inside- where it was too dark for me to get a descent exposure. We rigged him up with a wireless mic in the washroom (recording digitally to a Jukebox 3), and decided to have him propose in the rain on the open cobblestone street after the meal. It was beautiful.

Stock: 7217 200T Negative (Processed at Niagara Custom Lab)
Format: Super 8mm
Camera: Beaulieu 4008ZMII + Nikon 80-200mm (c-mount adapter) + Schneider 6-66, B Camera- Canon 1014XLS- Superduper 8, 24fps- transfer at 18fps
Cinematographers: Justin Lovell & Guy Godfree

On Location- "Suck it Up Princess"

I was on set today shooting Documentary style alongside Bongo (shoots So You Think You Can Dance). Project is Suck it up Princess. Headed by Hop To It Productions, the show will be airing on OMNI in Canada.

We shot inside a large banquet hall on the 33rd floor. Used 3 1200W HMIs bounced into foam core on a balcony to help create a nice even fill on the floor and to balance out all the window light pouring in. Little frustrating working with the DSR 570 because I couldn't set the ZEBRAS to 100IRE. I like to be able to see where my whites clip at 100, but this camera only does max 90IRE. Brought out our JIB arm and got a few dynamic shots when I was able to. It was tough to sneak in the jib shots because I had a wide angle lens, two boom poles and a second camera man that I had to try and keep out of the frame.

Camera: Sony DSR 570
Show: Suck It Up Princess

On Location- Dundas Square Bboyin- X-process 64T

Absolutely love the colors and gritty grain that come out of having the film cross-processed. Samples above show normal exposures, overexposures and uncorrected with/without the 85 filter. Really helps to nail your exposure and to have the proper filtration in the camera. Vignetting from the C-8 wide angle adapter was unavoidable, Though could be cropped out with a tighter widescreen matte.

Stock: Ektachrome 64T (Cross-processed at Niagara Custom Lab)
Format: Superduper 8mm/Max 8mm
Camera: Canon 1014XLS- Superduper 8 + C8 Wide attachement, 24fps- transfer at 18fps
Cinematographer: Justin Lovell
Transfer: Justin Lovell @ Frame Discreet

On Location- Sony F900 on "Apollo's Pad"

Frame Discreet Cinematographer Michael Leblanc just linked me with some production stills from "Apollo's Pad", a puppet show he is currently shooting. Leblanc is well respected for his 35mm and 16mm cinematography. Taking on a new challenge, he is shooting this all in HD with the Sony F900. The results have been stunning.

Camera: Sony F900
Filter: 1/4 black frost to help blowout the highlights a little bit and soften the blacks. Shot in 24p mode
Show: Apollo's Pad

On Location- Lens testing on Beaulieu

I'll be shooting some long lens/telephoto work coming up and was looking for the best solution for super 8. Came up with a few options on our 4008ZMII package: Ang. 12-120mm, Sigma 28-300 with cmount-nikon adapter, + 2x tele extender or the original 6-66 schneider lens. The 300mm lens is meant for a 35mm still camera so 300mm becomes almost 1200mm + the 2x extender it becomes a crazy 2400mm lens! (I would normally be shooting at f-11 in this lighting, but with 300mm, the 2x extender and light loss from the zoom I ended up around f-3.5). Will be getting back results this week.

2006 VFX demo reel

Click to play

Just dug this one up, thought I might post it. Showcasing a little of the older After Effects work that Justin Lovell has done.

Transfer Stills- "Real Street" - 500T Super 8

Stills from recent transfer of Nick Norton's Super 8 colour negative. Just goes to show how much detail you really can get with the 7218 in low light situations. Even works well in Exterior day situations. Nice images Nick. The 220 deg. shutter gives you a slightly softer/motion blurred image but allows you to shoot in lower light situations.
Stock: 7218 500T
Format: Super 8, 24fps
Camera: Canon 514 SV Auto Zoom & Canon 1014xls with 220 deg. shutter
Cinematographer: Nick Norton
Transfer: Justin Lovell @ Frame Discreet

Frame Discreet- On Location "Latch- MTV"

Click To Play

Frame Discreet team, Justin Lovell and Guy Godfree Co-DP'd a commercial spot for MTV and Panic and the Disco. Fun shoot, had a Reindeer, Emu, Peacock and over 40 screaming teenagers. Put to use our newly acquired EZFX JIB ARM. Used the extra undersling attachment and 6 foot extension. Shot at 720p on the HVX200 allowing us to do some 48fps shooting.
Shot most of it with longer lenses to compress the background and help hide that we didn't have a full crowd. More importantly, we made use of shutter speeds between 1/500 and 1/1000 to give a more frenetic and energetic feel. Had ordered 2 1200W HMI lights, but somehow the order was messed up and ended up with 2 575W HMIs. Guy took care of most of the lighting organizing the day to always have the sun backlighting our subjects. He also doubled as a great AD :) Justin dealt with camera operating and movements, utilizing a modified Arri shoulder bracket and a magic arm clamped to a T-Bar for low angle tracking shots. Working as a co-DP team really provided us with the freedom and time to focus on getting some rockin' images.

Frame Discreet- On Location "Nike/MTV"

Click To Play

Frame Discreet Cinematographer Guy Godfree tackled a Nike commercial this week with a full on Motion Control Tracking shot. Shot on the HVX200 in 720p, the shot consisted of over 30 passes of the exact same camera move. Each take had different lighting elements, characters and explosions! They'll all be composited together for a crazy mash of two 'worlds' revolving around a runner. Justin Lovell dropped in to get a few behind the scenes shots and see how things were going. You should have seen the insanity happening outside trying to black out the windows... the wind and rain were causing havoc for the grips!

Frame Discreet- On location "Twilight"

Frame Discreet Cinematographer Michael Leblanc created a very surreal look on Twilight, referencing the feeling of "The Polar Bear Express" and "The Saddest Music in the World". Shot on Super 16 with the Arri SR III & Fuji 500T (for a softer, grainier look). This film is a period piece. After some major testing, Leblanc settled on using a Soft FX 2 filter to create a diffused beautifully soft look (photographs above are without filters, just showing you our lighting setup for reference). Justin Lovell was shooting B Camera inserts with our Super 16 Bolex, 5.9 wide angle lens with Soft FX 1/2 filter. This camera was meant to capture a more jarring 'in your face' perspective of someone in the midst of the party happening on the train.

Wedding Doc - Superduper 8 & Super 16

Shot by cinematographer Justin Lovell for Matt & Michelle Crowly. Mixed film formats, superduper 8 (max 8), super 16. Cross processed all black and white Tri-x as a negative. Cross processed some Ektachrome 64T on super 8 giving some crazy color shifts- also added a little more contrast in the xfer (hard to see in this version but this type of processing also makes the grain more pronounced). Custom processing carried out by Niagara Custom Lab.

The wedding ceremony and part of the reception was shot on 250D 7205 on super 16. Ceremony was fun to shoot, using our bolex S16 package. 1 man crew, Justin still managed to get 2 dolly shots off during the ceremony :) Stylistically I shot all the S8 handheld and all the 16mm on sticks. Didn't matte the widescreen, I liked the look of the frame lines composing the image. You can really see the vignette on certain focal lengths on the super duper 8 modification. This gives you a good chance to see the stability difference between Super 8 and 16mm. Oh and I shot portions of the reception at the end at 9fps with a 220 deg. shutter to get more light onto the image.

Editing has a rough, raw feel to it, asserting most of the edits in camera. Enjoy the collage of formats and processing techniques :)

Stock: Super 8- Kodak 7217 (200T), 7218 (500T), Ektachrome 64T, Tri-X 16mm - 7205 (250D).
Format: Max 8 (super duper 8), Super 16
Cameras: Canon 1014xls Superduper 8mm, Bolex Super 16 (POE 16-100 Zoom)
Cinematographer: Justin Lovell
Transfer: Justin Lovell @ Frame Discreet