April Fools and other Madmen, Part II:  What a Piece of Work  (2 Min. 10 sec)  YouTube | Vimeo

‘Come what may, time and the hour runs through the roughest day.’ - Macbeth, Act I, Scene III

Only a madman would follow an April Fool into May so here it is.  We present April Fools and other Madmen, Part II:  What a Piece of Work.  Scroll down to read the production journal or click on the appropriate links below to view the film.

Part I:  Who Sins the Most? • YouTube | Vimeo

Part II:  What a Piece of Work • YouTube | Vimeo

Part III:  Sound and Fury • YouTube | Vimeo

Part IV:  For a Muse of Fire • YouTube | Vimeo

April Fools and other Madmen, Part II:  What a Piece of Work

Based upon an excerpt from 'Hamlet' by William Shakespeare

Performed by Theodore Hoelter

Boom Operated by Sean Cannon

Music by Kevin Macleod

Produced, Directed, Filmed, and Edited by Benjamin Karl

Copyright © 2011 American Firelight

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Settings:

DMC-GH2:  ISO 160, 1080i AVCHD, Shutter 1/50

Lenses:   Panasonic 14 mm f2.5, Voigtländer 35 mm f1.4 , Voigtländer 50mm f1.5

Memory:  RAW Class 10 SDHC 16GB

Lighting:  Natural light only

Audio:  AT815b Shotgun Microphone connected to an H4N digital audio recorder.

We had a number of challenges right away on this shoot

Conclusions:

Having really fast lenses is great (except when you’re shooting outside in daylight)!  If you’re going to use super fast lenses, you just have to get ND filters to shoot outdoors in daylight.  We set the ISO as low as the GH2 would go and closed up the lenses as far as we could.  After that, we were just careful about what direction we were shooting so as not to get blowout where we didn’t want it.  On a still camera you can increase the shutter speed to darken things a bit, but when you’re shooting a motion picture the result would be the impression of fast movement even though the film is playing back at normal speed (i.e. the opening battle in Gladiator (2000)).  Fortunately the day was quite overcast and the deeply muted tones lent themselves nicely to color correction for a colder wetter day than it actually was.

Both the Voigtländer 50mm and Panasonic 14 mm (remember, this translates to 100 mm and 28 mm respectively in 35mm format) performed admirably as usual.  Very easy to focus, adjust aperture and so on (though switching m43 adapters gets tiresome and is made more difficult in cold and rainy conditions).  The Voigtländer 35 mm is just too difficult to focus, particularly in very bright situations, due to a very limited range of motion on the focus ring.  It produces a great picture, but I won’t be using it in the wild again.

The extreme small size micro four-thirds format cameras makes them easy to get into super tight spaces, though it can be very jittery looking any time that the camera is physically very close to an onscreen element.  The physically further the element is from the camera, the easier it is too avoid that “shake.”  Interestingly, because the camera itself is so small and weighs next to nothing, I found that by extending the legs of the tripod, closing the center spreader and then holding it from underneath, by the spreader’s center fulcrum, created a kind of steadicam effect.  The legs counterbalanced the top weight easily and the whole thing is no heavier than just carrying a tripod, so it was easy to execute one handed and generate a nice float without seeing the operator’s footfalls.

Audio was a challenge because we had so many natural noises from the birds, the creek, wind and distant sounds of cars or airplanes, but ultimately it worked for the type of story / editing we’d set out to for.  At one point, I’m afraid the H4n was dropped and it began to record a sort of high pitched squeal.  I was able to isolate the frequency using Apple’s Soundtrack and pull it out without noticeably affecting the remaining audio.  Similarly, the car sequence needed work to remove the din of the aging engine without loosing the whole bottom end of the actor’s voice.  Again, Soundtrack gave me the flexibility to isolate a range of frequencies that the actor wasn’t using too much and pull them out.

The big take-aways from this shoot were: (1) If you’re going to shoot outside, get some ND filters or slower lenses.  Fast lenses are fast even at their slowest.  (2)  Test your equipment thoroughly as soon as you acquire it.  The Voigtländer 35 mm is beautiful when it works, but frankly too much of a hassle due to its focus range.  I love the other lenses.  (3)  m43 cameras have tiny bodies, sometime weighing a lot less than the lenses you’re putting on them, so tripod those shots (even if you have to cary the tripod) so it doesn’t look like it was shot on a cell phone.  (4)  Don’t drop your equipment.  It will get you back.

Benjamin Karl
President, American Firelight
americanfirelight.com

April Fools and other Madmen, Part II

A series of short scenes from the works of William Shakespeare.

Part I:  Who Sins the Most?  |  Part II:  What a Piece of Work

Part III:  Sound and Fury |  Part IV:  For a Muse of Fire

Photos

Cast & Crew Credits

Press, Extras, Advisories

Director’s Statement