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Nobody really cares about GH2 stuff anymore but I figured I'd post these here anyhow.  Anyway, while we're waiting on financing to materialize for our next feature, Tim and I decided to shoot a series of spec commercial spots to go after some cashflow business.    All of these were shot using the Flowmotion patch and graded with Shian Storm's ColorGHear Tools for AfterEffects, each one geting its own look.  They pretty much cover looks from mild to more extreme.  Two of them, the beer and the BBQ spot, passed through Film Convert prior to grading.   http://vimeo.com/65760215   http://vimeo.com/65845523   http://vimeo.com/65759064   http://vimeo.com/65754973   ...there's a fifth one I'm dragging my feet on with motion-graphics and VFX.  Focusing so much attention on shooting and learning more about cameras and playing around with grading and such it's actually hard staying motivated to work on tedious visual effects these days.  Oh well.   Anyway, we basically brainstormed quick, humorous concepts for each spot after coming up with a list of local or Texas-based brands.  Then we shot them all over a couple days, minus a couple pick up shots that I went out solo to get.    

http://vimeo.com/64229408   ...my niece, Kinley, is not quite 2.5yrs and my nephew Connor is 7 months.  They were pretty fascinated by the big(gish) lens when they saw it, their extensive experience being photographed so far being mostly camera phones.  Kinley got over it pretty quickly though and was able to ham it up with perfect abandon.     GH2 (patch: Flowmotion) Nikkor 24mm f/2 Century Optics anamorphic 5DtoRGB CS6: PPro + AE ColorGHear

With a little luck, Goat Man's Hill will be going into pre-production on our next feature in the next couple months.  In all likelihood I'm going to shoot most of it with "Moon Trial 3" and anamorphic.  A good deal of it will be available light and night in urban spaces.  The basis for my finishing pipeline will be After Effects, Film Convert and ColorGHear.     I've started roughing out various recipes for how the footage will flow through the pipeline, mainly dealing with NR and then the right balance of grain to put back in.  At some point I may investigate ColorGHear Pro's grain layers instead of this portion of Film Convert.   http://vimeo.com/60359953     This is a boring test video. If you don't like boring videos testing very specific settings, software combinations or techniques, keep moving.   That said, it does have a cat!   Seriously, there's a lot of excitement re: Driftwood's "Moon Trial 3", especially where 24P is concerned. After doing a snoop on ISO noise between 12500 - 160 I was blown away by how clean ISO640 is with this patch. I wanted to shoot a high contrast, available light scenario to not only play with NR but also different techniques and levels of simulated film grain (via Film Convert). The irony in this is not lost on me, hah-hah.   I output three versions of a pan + dolly. In all three scenarios I'm using Film Convert for my basic "emulsion pass" but with grain turned down to 0% (I knew I'd be applying it later). Each version also uses ColorGHear to give it a slight grade (switching off any cinegamma nodes because this function is provided by Film Convert).   All three versions use the "GHrain Killer" GHear to smooth out the chroma noise. Because this also filters out detail and sharpness in the luminance portion of the image I use the NR on a layer I just intend to use for its color. All three versions also use the technique I standardized on for SICK BOY to enhance small contrast and detail without the false edging you get very quickly with typical sharpening kernels and still rather quickly with the Unsharp Mask tool.   Lens Used: 35mm f/1.4 Nikkor + Century Precision Optics 1.33X Anamorphic   *1st Pass* ...I combine the "grainkilla" smoothed chroma with an original, unfiltered luma and 42% grain over the entire image.   *2nd Pass* ...I leave out the original luma, passing through the filtered luma and then depending on my LCE (local contrast enhancement) pass to re-establish an acceptable level of detail (still enhanced versus the original). The result is sharp edges and the ability to make out tiny textures like on the wall, the material on the chairs, etc. but also exceptionally smooth looking blacks even when I blow out the exposure to see "what's down in there". This version also has a uniform 42% grain applied to the whole frame.   *3rd Pass* ...in this one I do everything I did in the second pass but this time I create a luminance key with a "bell" shaped response that gives me all the mid tones while rolling off both shadow and highlight region and grain is applied through this key (this is based on an article I read interviewing the DP and colorist re: an episode of HOUSE that was shot all on the 5D where they discuss applying grain in this way). This allowed me to bump up the grain to 77% yet the net result doesn't feel as overall noisy as the previous two examples.   Oh, and 4' of dolly track just isn't enough.