The iPhone 4 has a fixed f/2.8 aperture and a relatively large 3.85mm lens (which seems to be approximately the equivalent of 35mm on a crop sensor or 56mm on a FF). It has an automatic, variable shutter speed between 1/15 and 1/10000; an automatic ISO of around 80-1000; and the sensor is 1/3.2″ and has some new backside illumination tech to capture more photons (although, in low light, it’s still noisy as heck). Oh, and it records 1280×720 footage at 30fps (just like the original 5D Mark II firmware, it’s 30, not 29.97). The bitrate is about 10 mbps (not bad) and the audio is a low mono 66 kbps at 44.1 kHz. Here’s a good article with more comparisons and statistics, if you’re interested.

To adjust the exposure (and focus at the same time) you just tap an object in the frame. It’s pretty handy, I sometimes wish our 7D had a feature like this. You can focus in video mode, even during recording (it pulls focus way too fast to do any racking, though). The auto exposure and focus sometimes kicks in during recording automatically if too much changes in the scene (annoying).

Here’s a quick test I did with Lainey playing with her cat, Hemlock (who used to be so small). Shot and edited completely on my iPhone in the iMovie app:

Day 2, I wanted to really test the quality and see how far I could push the phone so I went out on my own and shot a little Bokake*. I failed. I realized because the rolling shutter is so apparent, you absolutely have to have good stabilization. Any sort of movement that is too rapid causes distortion and it just looks awful. You also need to pay attention to what is going on in a scene. Again, if you move too quickly, the auto shutter and ISO and focus will kick in and you’ll notice it. Day 3, I borrowed my sister. I put on my rollerblades and had her push me at walking speed. Static shots work the best, but eventually I got the hang of it and was able to get some decent moving shots (note the basketball backboard POV shot in the video below). These shots are graded. I figure if I’m to be putting this to the test, I would use it like a normal camera and go through the whole process, CC and grading included. One thing that really helped was conforming the iPhone footage to 24p. 30 fps looks ugly to me, so pretty much anything I shoot on my phone will always be conformed. It’s really subtle slow-motion and definitely helps smooth out the movements a bit.

Please watch in 720p, fullscreen if possible.

So, do I believe this is a viable filmmaking tool? No. I think without at least some real control over exposure, you would have to make some huge compromises in the way you tell your story. But that isn’t to say the iPhone is useless in filmmaking. Having such decent quality in your pocket will make it that much easier to frame up shots, scout locations, and even document the process. It’s a great little camera.

Finally, since I had my iPhone connected to my 7D (mostly for added weight), I recorded both at the same time for fun. Please please please take note that I was mainly focusing on the iPhone and didn’t really check the exposure or even the focus in some shots on the 7D so don’t take this comparison to heart. It wasn’t my intention to shoot video with the 7D at the same time, but here it is anyway:

Hello everybody! Happy Monday Morning once again. No video blog today. Instead here’s the final cut of our little four-day short film.

Four days due to scheduling; Francesca just started a play, Stephen has work every day but Sunday, and like any kid Aaliyah goes to grammar school. Sean somehow managed to pull all the elements together two days before shooting; prior to that, we were in doubt as to whether or not we’d even have a script to shoot with.

Hmm. About that diner/cafe scene. We had a place picked out beforehand, a real diner-type place, indoors and everything. The owner gave us permission, shrugged that Sunday afternoons were usually quiet. Good for audio. But we scheduled the shoot on Superbowl Sunday. At 12:30 on the afternoon of the shoot (when we guesstimated the sun would be just right), to our horror the place was packed. Stuffed. It was like trying to shoot a scene in a sardine can, if sardines could shout and laugh.

The five of us—Stephen, Francesca, Sean, Anna, and I—loitered the parking lot and brainstormed another location. We did have a hotel plaza set aside, but that felt too uncertain. So when Anna suggested her college, off we went. If anybody asked, we were making a student film. An hour-and-a-half later we started shooting. The sun had moved and we were well behind schedule. Here’s where those HMIs, or some variety of 1,000+ watt lights, would have come in handy…if we had them.

Sean and I started with the great idea of employing high wattage lights to balance out the contrast of natural sunlight, which got me real excited. Then we found out they were too costly to rent. So we used one reflector when we could; but with Sean operating the Merlin and me doing everything else, it was a question of who would be available to hold the darn thing. This is the Achille’s Heel of a two-man crew.

The satisfactory shots are the ones where we exerted the most control. The least satisfactory shots were done guerrilla style. That’s not a strike against the style, but when mixed with shots that feel more “designed” it tends look inconsistent. The alternative would have been to shoot everything in a Paul Greengrass/shallow depth-of-field style (bokake meets Bourne Ultimatum-type montage editing) and grade the colors into a processed, oversaturated look—which is fine and adapts well to guerrilla shooting. But I really wanted that minimal, all-natural appearance.

All said and done, I think we did a solid job under the limitations. Quite a miniature learning experience for one week. Hope you all enjoy the final cut, and well, I’m looking forward to our next project…whatever that may be.

Hey everyone. Been pretty busy with lots of things lately, so I didn’t have time to shoot a normal vlog. Instead, here’s a video from when I visited Lainey a few days ago and took some pictures of her new kitty, Hemlock.

In movie-making related things, this Sunday I’m supposed to shoot part of a movie for a friend of Anna‘s. The script is an incredibly long 63 pages, but don’t get your hopes up for a feature film. It’s going to be shot very quickly, no lighting or blocking.

I recently purchased GPU Decoder for Adobe Premiere. Editing could not be any easier, except for when @brucesharpe releases PluralEyes for Premiere. GPU Decoder lets you simply drop your H.264 HDSLR footage (straight from the camera) onto the timeline so you can start editing without pre-rendering or having to do any conversions. Granted, you’ll need an NVIDIA card that supports CUDA and PureVideo HD 2. It’s a great workflow.

Regularly scheduled content will resume next week. Hopefully. What have you guys been up to?

Wow, we actually pulled it off. We successfully made an entire short film in 1 week flat. When I first heard about this contest, I knew I had to participate. It took a little convincing of Peter, but eventually we sat down and came up with a story together.

We shot the ending (as well as the Steadicam Merlin shot of the smoking trunk) the day this was due. Which pretty much gave us zero time to edit. Peter brought his portable hard drive and edited on my PC while I laid on my bed, occasionally talking to Marc Chester on the phone, going over the score.

My sister, Amy, made most of the skeleton, namely the skull. She's a ceramics student and has some pretty impressive work. She squeezed making this skull into her schedule by pulling an all-nighter the day before we needed it for a scene. It's made entirely of porcelain. I intend to fire the skull and jaw (at least) so I can keep it forever.

The actual "final cut" of the short film was nearly 5 minutes, but because of the strict rules of the contest, we were forced to cut out quite a bit. And because everything was coming down to the last second, some of it was a bit rushed. If the rules allow, Peter will most likely re-post The Funeral Date as a Director's Cut or something here on TZ. Relatively speaking, I think it actually turned out really well. And come to think of it, this was actually the biggest project we've ever taken on. It felt absolutely amazing. To wake up at 6am, dig graves, inhale homemade toxic ammonium nitrate smoke bombs, scramble to cast an actor at the last possible second. Most of the production days were very long and tiring. But it was the absolute best kind of tired, very satisfying.

Filmmaking is absolutely, hands down, a collaborative medium. I know we make it look easy (kidding, kidding) but really, there was quite a few people involved. Lily and Sandra's house was actually 4 different locations. The backyard was my own. Lily's bedroom was Anna's. We drove to LA to get the shots of Sandra's room at Francesca's apartment. The front of the house was my friend Sean Kao's. He was nice enough to give us free access to his house while no one was home. The truck and the guy who bought the trunk is the neighbor of my aunt, where we shot the garage sale scene. William Mas let us use his truck.

I was introduced to Marc, the guy who miraculously composed all of the music for the short in just a few hours on the last day, by an old friend from high school, Nikki. She was the senior clarinet section leader while I was a little freshman in marching band. I looked her up on Facebook and asked if she knew anyone who would be interested in composing for us. Oddly enough, Marc and Anna had taken an acting class together a couple years back. What a small world.

Sometimes, with enough effort, the stars just seem to align and everything works out. Oh how we struggled to find a little girl to play Lily. But then I posted a listing on NowCasting and there she was. The entire short film was almost ruined because the weather report said it would be raining on the one morning we had left to shoot the garage sale scene. We got up extra early that day and somehow the sun was out, shining bright as can be.

So, The Funeral Date may have flaws. Peter won't be satisfied with it until a month's time passes and he looks back at it. He'll watch it again and say, "That actually wasn't too bad." I feel incredibly lucky to be surrounded by so many friends who are willing to work with us on what it is we love doing. Thank you. I mean it with all my heart.

And now... time to go collapse in bed and sleep until noon.

Having to make a few compromises for the Canon/Vimeo Beyond The Still contest, but everything is getting done and turning out pretty well.

I just realized 'BTS' is actually the initials of the contest, so for these little behind-the-scenes videos we can just call it BTS: BTS.

Anyway, sorry to keep this short, I'm filling in for Peter cause, well, he's directing and the little girl is going to be here at 9:30am and there's still lots and lots to do today. So, enjoy!

We've been really busy all week planning our entry for the Canon/Vimeo Beyond The Still contest and tonight we actually started production.

I actually think this is one of the most complex shoots we've done. We had to cast actors, find multiple locations, make and find a whole lot of props. We even got someone to compose music for us. I don't want to give away too much of what we're doing for the contest, but day two of production will be this Sunday, hopefully in a small diner. Then, we have two more days of shooting into next week, all on top of a job this weekend and possibly another job next week.

To everyone who's been asking, I am fully recovered from my cold now. I appreciate knowing that I'm loved

Wish us luck that everything goes smoothly, we still haven't heard back from the owner of the diner and we've yet to secure a flatbed truck.

I took NyQuil, so I'm a bit out of it right now, but I'll do my best to make this cohesive.

I just want to say that I'm very grateful for this community. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. We may not be as popular as Philip Bloom or Wong Fu, but that's not what we're about. I like to think of us as this little niche of a niche. We're filmmakers struggling to make it in the filmmaking world.

It isn't easy keeping this site up, as I'm sure you realize. And it's becoming even more cumbersome the more we work at making all this our full-time job. But I really like the idea of Take Zer0 growing as we grow. Our three year anniversary is coming up in a few months. Maybe we'll do something fun. We need more of a community aspect again. We need to bring back the forum, get more people vlogging with us, shoot more short films.

I don't know where I'm going with all this. My vlog was about our Steadicam Merlin. I recently realized that ours wasn't perfectly balanced so I did some research, re-read the manual, and realized that our Merlin wasn't actually even close to being properly balanced. Now it is. And it feels like having a new toy again. I want to go out and shoot another bokake, put it to good use in a music video. Darn this stupid cold.

Happy Monday morning to you all, especially after a spell of rain and hail.

The superflat preset indeed gives the 7D and Mark II a boost in detail, but not by making the camera better, you see. It simply removes the mandatory contrast imposed by Canon's firmware. Until we found out about it we were satisfied with Stu's preset. Why would anyone want a "flattened" picture? Unless the camera shoots in RAW, that extra detail goes a long way, and a less contrast-y image allows more freedom in post-production. Oh and visibility at night is improved.

Here's the contest that Sean wants to make a short film for. Taking a cue from our buddies at Rootclip, the contest has users submitting the "next chapter" of the first segment. Creators of Sigur Ros-inspired montages are no doubt inspired to crawl out of the woodwork, but Mr. Laforet, director of The Cabbie, makes it clear that storytelling is the focal point; which somehow got me thinking about Dogme 95.

Before I leave, take a look at this real-time lighting program. It's free and might give you some ideas on how to light a person's face. I'm already getting a few ideas.

Happy Friday! Now, I'm not sure if I'm just getting used to it, but I think I'm actually beginning to enjoy all the rain we've been having. Watch to the end of the vlog to see some hail!

Oh yeah, and here's a link to that barista poster and the time dilation video.

And a happy Monday morning to you, too. I shot this vlog still sore from the day before.

We helped shoot a music video this weekend, 80 miles away, over the course of two days. I didn't sleep the first night, but made up for it by sleeping five hours the second night. Oh, the things we do for production. Was it fun? It's not so much fun as it is that you're satisfied to function in a desired role. Most shoots are indeed tedious; it's the people you're with that make it unique.

That guy Sean tells me you can download his timelapse at 1080p over here.

Posting this a little early cause I won't have time Friday morning.

So, Peter was busy editing a client's video on Monday, but he makes a couple small appearances in my vlog, so hopefully that makes up for it, for those of you who were missing him.

I hear today is annual delurking day or something, which means if you're a regular reader of anyone's blog, you're supposed to leave them a comment. Sounds like some sort of blogosphere marketing scheme, but feel free to leave a comment if you want. We'll write back.

Oh yeah, and here's our new website: TakeZeroProductions!

Happy Friday!

Wow, lots to talk about this week. For some reason I felt really motivated with my new rollerblades, so I dragged my sister out to a little church near my house and we put this little video together. My rollerblade shots still aren't perfect, but I'm getting better. There's definitely a lot more control when you have someone to push you while you're on rollerblades. It's kinda like an evolution to the "Danny Chase" steadicam shots by Garrett Brown from The Shining.

Watch the bokake* in higher quality over at Vimeo here. I actually uploaded it in full 1080p, for those of you who want to see 7D rollerblade Steadicam Merlin footage at 100 ISO.

Also, this past week I figured out how to screen record in Windows 7. So I recorded myself going through the entire process of uploading, editing, magic bullet'ing, etc. It's a 30-minute long video, so watch it at your own risk. I rendered it in full 1080 and 720:

 
Also uploaded to Vimeo here.

Undoubtedly, my most epic vlog yet. Enjoy, everyone!

* Bokeh (pretty, shallow focus blur) + Bukake (a genre of Japanese pornography), term coined by Stu Maschwitz

Happy Monday Morning everyone. The first Monday morning of the new year, in fact. Sort of feels like all the other Mondays.

So how did all of you spend New Year's Eve? I had dinner with the relatives, then stayed up late to X Minus 1 and read some Hugo nominated shorts. Yeah, a pretty wild night. I guess twenty-ten just made me feel all science fiction-y. Still waiting on those amazing flying cars, though.

I'm so glad 2009 is over. Hope everyone had a good New Year's Eve. Here's to looking forward to a better year, a new decade, '10.

"The slower we move, the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living."
-Ryan Bingham, Up in the Air

I had the camera on Christmas and over the weekend, so Peter wasn't able to shoot his vlog. But I did shoot this, and I may as well post it. I don't think I've made a really good holiday video since The 4th of July; just haven't been inspired.

What'd you all get for Christmas? I bought Peter some Chinaballs and built him a custom LED Lightpanel. As for me, I got a pair of rollerblades, which when used with our Steadicam Merlin can produce some pretty cool results.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Just wanted to post something real quick. 2009 has been a stressful year, let's hope 2010 is better.

Happy Monday morning. No vlog today. Real sorry; this will not happen often!

Instead I'll show you all that unfinished scene we shot. It's a bit rough and the audio isn't properly mixed, but here ya goes.

This was for the 'ghost story' I shot for Halloween. It's really more of a cheesy love story. And like a nasty habit that's tough to shake, I wrote it the same night we shot. Anna memorized the entire script at a glance. What you see is her performing with zero time to prepare. I'd feel bad for her if only she didn't do so well. As for Sean, well, he's a swell sport who plays himself better than anyone I know.

To avoid any confusion in the scene: Sean is a random passer-by who happens to see Anna crying in the car; curious, he approaches. This was set up in the opening moments of the script, which would have been shot if we had decided to follow through with the rest.

Let me know what you guys thought of this post. I actually shot a vlog where I recorded myself editing the vlog that I shot (whoa). But unfortunately, for some reason Premiere kept crashing. I think it had something to do with the fact I was using Camtasia. Or maybe it was because I was in an infinite loop. Maybe next time.

Happy Monday morning once again. How are you all enjoying it?

Several entries back I wrote about our abandoned Halloween skit. Last week I decided to revisit and edit the footage into a cohesive narrative. Turned out better than I thought. The first scene was shot with a bit more care than the 'whatever works' attitude we used in The Midnight Stroll, and hinges entirely on Anna's theater-honed performance. Fact: the girl ain't bad, people.

The script is still a broken, convoluted heap; but it'd be a real waste to throw away a perfectly good opening scene. If Sean and Anna are up for it, I might just salvage this footage and write another script tailored on this scene.

I apologize for the melodrama. Peter and I went for a walk in my neighborhood after spending the afternoon in LA and I came to the realization that it just might be time for me to try and find a writing partner.

You see, if you're going to be a director, you should learn to write. Though, it's also important to learn to direct and actually create, rather than wait for that perfect script. It's much to easy to come up with an excuse. If you're struggling with writing, but want to be a filmmaker, then find a friend who wants to be a writer and you can both collaborate your efforts.

Hope you're all enjoying a very happy Monday morning.

This weekend Sean I drove with Arpit and Vicente (our partners in crime) to the kind of industrial location reserved for drug deals and concealing weapons-grade plutonium. Aside from an old dog and the looming threat of being shot, the afternoon passed like a day at the beach. On any other day it'd be swell to shoot here with a legal permit. Perhaps an execution scene ala Miller's Crossing.

We took pictures for the website Sean put together. Take Zer0 Productions crossed with Industrialism Films. Should be interesting.

On the topic of art, I don't consider just *anything* to be art; that's the easy way out for those who want to avoid thinking. As for entertainment: I once considered a major in English. In that field, the gap between Dan Brown and Jane Austen is a bottomless void. But wanting to thrill someone and wanting provoke them is a task worth discerning. I think artists and entertainers benefit from this line drawn in the sand. Everybody leaves each other alone and everyone wins; it's the audience that matters.

Points of Interest: X-Minus One

This is a great radio show. In the vlog I say it's from the forties. Correction: fifties. All you gotta know is that it's great. Since there are so many episodes to choose from, allow me to recommend: The Tunnel Under the World, C-Chute, The Cold Equations, Universe. Most of these are adaptations of now-classic pulps and sci-fi, which is of course why the show is so great. Do check it out.

Thanks goes out to Lainey for making this week's vlog extra special. Apparently, she loves us.

Links from the vlog: Ricky Harlow's music video, Angela Mukul's video, Kickstarter, Matthew Lessner's The Woods, Donate to Mike Krumlauf's film

P.S. Mike will be joining us soon here at TZ

Happy Monday morning once again.

Unfortunately I'll have to keep this brief. The good news is that Sean and I used my vlog recording time to shoot a "miniature short film," which is like a normal short film except, y'know, miniature. The downside is that this left me with less time to shoot and edit the usual-type vlog.The good news once again is that we'll post the miniature short this Wednesday, assuming we can finish the rest of the exterior shots tonight. So until then, see you all next Monday!

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. And for those of you who don't celebrate it (pretty much everyone outside the US), happy... Black Friday! Oh wait, that's US-only too. What about Cyper Monday? That's the internet, so it's worldwide, right?

Sorry for such a random post. I love making videos like this during holidays and get-togethers. I rushed the color correction, but whatev. Perfect colorista job later or slightly off colorista job now? Oh yeah, and here's that link to that thing. So. Much. Fun!

Happy Monday morning! To those of us in the States, hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving as well.

Comments in my last vlog convinced me to shoot more videos for the heck of it. Then nostalgia set in and I thought about this past summer, what we collectively termed our "summer of productivity." In retrospect we were not as productive as we had hoped. Yet it was still more productive than most summers I've ever had. The fruit of our labors, "Mike & Jaemin Make A Movie," will be posted this Wednesday. So stay tuned!

In the meantime, check out the points of interest. They're certainly worth your time.

Points of interest:

1. November Lights 2. After the Tone 3. Portrait of Asali Johnson