While editing and rewatching our first Behind the Motion for Finger Guns we noticed that both Jason and Jacob have what we call "the newsroom voice".
We shot the first Behind the Motion with limited expectations. We made a script and they both read lines from one our TVs in the office. What we didn't expect was "the newsroom voice" that just happened.
Our Behind the Motions are intended to be like a conversation with our viewers, and instead Jason and Jacob read lines like they were on channel 7. It's a big joke now actually.
A couple of days ago we filmed a BTM for "Screaming Artist". Before we started I reminded them that they need to be less newsroom and more talking to me. Instead of having them read lines, we filmed without a script and let the camera roll. I asked them "Jeopardy-style" questions and they had to answer them by first restating the question. When the two of them were answering my questions the answers came out more naturally and they did not feel like they were on the spot, in front of a camera.
We are learning with every video, even in our BTMs. We are even developing new content to flex those interview muscles and get us in top shape for our upcoming videos.
From channel 7, this is Cinetic Studios over and out.
-Posted by Jessica
Monday, July 29, 2013
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Released Finger Guns
Success! We released our first video and BTM this week. It was very exciting because the three of us were all together when we finished up the annotations and marked the videos as "public" for the first time. We posted the links on our Facebook and Twitter and in that moment we shared our dream with the world.
The three of us have explained what Cinetic Studios is to our friends and families, but it really clicked when we were finally able to say, go to our website and watch the video. It is amazing what sixty seconds of video can do to explain what we are up to these days.
In case you haven't seen our first short, Finger Guns, please check it out.
And if you want to see some raw footage, please check out our Behind the Motion for Finger Guns.
-Posted by Jessica
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Technical Breakdown: Post Production on Finger Guns
Not sure about you guys, but I personally love "Making Of" featurettes and Behind the Scenes videos. In fact, it's usually the first (and sometimes only thing) I watch on a BluRay or DVD. Besides taking you behind the camera to discover the how that production was created from script to screen, it can also take you deep into the minds of the creators, hinting at creative decisions you'd never hear about otherwise. My curiosity isn't limited to feature films and TV, as I equally love BTS content for YouTube and short films. My interest is to such an extreme, even I cannot deny it has delayed the launch of our channel as I found myself drawn into the vortex that are VFX \ Color Grading breakdowns, tutorials, and demo reels available on YouTube and Vimeo.
Between shooting our first short and it's delayed release, I had the unique opportunity to attend local professional groups such as LACPUG and DMALA, allowing me to meet and learn from geniuses such as After Effects Guru Andrew Kramer and Colorist Alexis Van Hurkman. If there are similar groups in your area, I highly encourage you to attend, ask questions, and bask in the knowledge being offered to you. While you can learn tons by reading and watching tutorials, learning from the experts is akin to watching a magic show from behind the stage, seeing behind the curtain.
While we will always have a BTS featurette for all of our shorts, we try to keep things fast paced and watchable to a general audience. That being said, some of the topics I find most interesting (and sometimes the most time consuming aspects of production) are the highly technical and often overlooked aspect of post production: color correction, color grading, visual effects, and the importance of maintaining an ideal workflow starting in pre-production. Each of these can be expanded on in future articles, so please do let us know what topics you'd like to hear more about.
As the editor, vfx artist and colorist for Cinetic Studio projects, there were certain challenges I faced even before I made the first cut on "Finger Guns". As we shot on a Canon DSLR camera, I jumped on the popular Cinestyle picture profile without doing any camera tests of my own. This decision proved to be a HUGE mistake, as I never discovered the quirks and intricacies of the technology, which included the minor fact that the image seen on the camera LCD during shooting dramatically differed from the image recorded to the SD card. The final result was footage that was 2.5 stops underexposed, extremely dark and excessively noisy. Being recorded in the fragile H.264 video codec in a 8-bit color space (as is a limitation with all Canon DSLR footage) didn't leave a lot of latitude for correction either.
The "Fix it in Post" workflow developed to "rescue" the footage came from weeks of our own testing and tweaking, and advice such as Vashi Nedomansky , the color scientists over at VisionColor, and numerous experts at LACPUG & DMALA. Huge thanks to those guys!
The h.264 raw footage from the camera was transcoded to Cineform 4:2:2 files to lighten the final render time. The project was edited in Adobe Premiere CS6 with basic compositing and VFX done in After Effects CS6. All footage was heavily denoised, basic color correction done with native filters in Premiere, and final grading done with FilmConvert. While the final render time ended up being quite heavy (15 hrs with CS6, 8 hrs with CC), it allowed us to get the best possible quality out of our poorly shot footage. Filmconvert really shined above all other solutions, as it allowed me to emulate a specific Kodak film stock (as if I shot it on film exact 5207 Vision 3) and apply a slight overlay of 16mm film grain to give it some texture that was lost in the denoising process. It's certainly not the best looking short even after everything I've done to it, but it was a massive learning experience that taught me tips and techniques that I'll be using on every future project.
Hope you enjoyed this adventure into the mad scientist lab here at Cinetic Studios. Till next time.......
-Posted by Jason
Between shooting our first short and it's delayed release, I had the unique opportunity to attend local professional groups such as LACPUG and DMALA, allowing me to meet and learn from geniuses such as After Effects Guru Andrew Kramer and Colorist Alexis Van Hurkman. If there are similar groups in your area, I highly encourage you to attend, ask questions, and bask in the knowledge being offered to you. While you can learn tons by reading and watching tutorials, learning from the experts is akin to watching a magic show from behind the stage, seeing behind the curtain.
While we will always have a BTS featurette for all of our shorts, we try to keep things fast paced and watchable to a general audience. That being said, some of the topics I find most interesting (and sometimes the most time consuming aspects of production) are the highly technical and often overlooked aspect of post production: color correction, color grading, visual effects, and the importance of maintaining an ideal workflow starting in pre-production. Each of these can be expanded on in future articles, so please do let us know what topics you'd like to hear more about.
As the editor, vfx artist and colorist for Cinetic Studio projects, there were certain challenges I faced even before I made the first cut on "Finger Guns". As we shot on a Canon DSLR camera, I jumped on the popular Cinestyle picture profile without doing any camera tests of my own. This decision proved to be a HUGE mistake, as I never discovered the quirks and intricacies of the technology, which included the minor fact that the image seen on the camera LCD during shooting dramatically differed from the image recorded to the SD card. The final result was footage that was 2.5 stops underexposed, extremely dark and excessively noisy. Being recorded in the fragile H.264 video codec in a 8-bit color space (as is a limitation with all Canon DSLR footage) didn't leave a lot of latitude for correction either.
The "Fix it in Post" workflow developed to "rescue" the footage came from weeks of our own testing and tweaking, and advice such as Vashi Nedomansky , the color scientists over at VisionColor, and numerous experts at LACPUG & DMALA. Huge thanks to those guys!
The h.264 raw footage from the camera was transcoded to Cineform 4:2:2 files to lighten the final render time. The project was edited in Adobe Premiere CS6 with basic compositing and VFX done in After Effects CS6. All footage was heavily denoised, basic color correction done with native filters in Premiere, and final grading done with FilmConvert. While the final render time ended up being quite heavy (15 hrs with CS6, 8 hrs with CC), it allowed us to get the best possible quality out of our poorly shot footage. Filmconvert really shined above all other solutions, as it allowed me to emulate a specific Kodak film stock (as if I shot it on film exact 5207 Vision 3) and apply a slight overlay of 16mm film grain to give it some texture that was lost in the denoising process. It's certainly not the best looking short even after everything I've done to it, but it was a massive learning experience that taught me tips and techniques that I'll be using on every future project.
Hope you enjoyed this adventure into the mad scientist lab here at Cinetic Studios. Till next time.......
-Posted by Jason
Thursday, July 18, 2013
YouTube Experiment
Recently I introduced my grandmother to the world of
YouTube because she was curious of what could be taking up all of our time. More importantly, I showed her the side of
high production YouTube shorts.
Going into it I had already planned a little
experiment. My hypothesis was that the
videos with no dialogue and simple
concepts were the videos she would be able to relate to the most. After showing her multiple videos from
several of the most popular channels, I found that my hypothesis was true.
The niche videos involving video games and the like were
too complicated for her to relate to.
Instead, she preferred videos with pretty colors, "nice" music
and simple concepts.
So what does this tell us at Cinetic Studios?
The majority of the YouTube audience is male, 13-17 years
old. So, you would think that we would
want to cater to that market. Yes, we
do. However, even if we cater to the 13-17
year old guy, we still need to keep it simple so we do not limit our audience.
-Posted by Jessica
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Yellow Production Sign
Cinetic Studios does arts & crafts!
If you ever drive around in Los Angeles you might see those yellow signs on freeway exits or street corners with word(s) and an arrow. The yellow signs typically have a "code word" for a production. For example, the "code word" for Pixar's movie, Up, was Balloons. The "code words" are used so that it is harder for people to find and crash hot film sets.
Ok, so we don't have the budget that these film productions have to order these fantastic signs or the following to require a "code word" (yet). But we do have skills from elementary school to make our own cheap and practical sign.
While the sign may not have been a total necessary thing to spend our time or money on, it makes us happy. Sometimes you need to take a moment and do something that has some instant satisfaction to keep you going during those long hours. Let me tell you, every time I look at our rinky dinky sign, it gives me a little inspiration to keep on going.
How I Made It: I found a yellow plastic sign/board in Home Depot ($4) and printed out all of the characters. Carefully, I cut out all of the letters and then used rubber cement ($3) to put it all together. Ta da! Our own yellow production sign.
-Posted by Jessica
Managing Our Capital Investment
Recently I have found myself going back to the lessons I learned from John Greathouse's class. His reading assignments have seemed to creep up on me when I need to make a decision or discuss business concepts with the guys. John Greathouse also has a great blog, InfoChachkie, about start-up advice that I recommend to any current or future entrepreneur.
One of the topics that is extremely relevant to any venture is the idea of capital. Some start-ups choose to fundraise at the very beginning and borrow money from family or friends. Others may be able to get a successful kickstarter going or find some angel investors.
For our little venture we have decided to fund with our earnings. Since we don't have revenue (yet), our personal income and savings will suffice for the moment.
Using our own money also means we likely pay a lot more attention to the things we spend money on. We constantly discuss new gadgets and gizmos we want to get. I am sure between the three of us we could go out and buy $10,000+ worth of stuff in an hour that we think would help us. The key is that we are not going out and splurging.
We have chosen to make a list of the items we think are relevant and will help us in way X, Y, or Z. We are adding, deleting and changing the list based on new information and our team meetings. Yes, the three of us all had a moment when we just wanted to buy, buy, buy; but we knew that if we spent X dollars on something really cool and shiny, those dollars would be gone for something that we might actually need in the near future.
So yes, capital is extremely important; however, it is also extremely important to manage those dollars wisely.
-Posted by Jessica
One of the topics that is extremely relevant to any venture is the idea of capital. Some start-ups choose to fundraise at the very beginning and borrow money from family or friends. Others may be able to get a successful kickstarter going or find some angel investors.
For our little venture we have decided to fund with our earnings. Since we don't have revenue (yet), our personal income and savings will suffice for the moment.
Using our own money also means we likely pay a lot more attention to the things we spend money on. We constantly discuss new gadgets and gizmos we want to get. I am sure between the three of us we could go out and buy $10,000+ worth of stuff in an hour that we think would help us. The key is that we are not going out and splurging.
We have chosen to make a list of the items we think are relevant and will help us in way X, Y, or Z. We are adding, deleting and changing the list based on new information and our team meetings. Yes, the three of us all had a moment when we just wanted to buy, buy, buy; but we knew that if we spent X dollars on something really cool and shiny, those dollars would be gone for something that we might actually need in the near future.
So yes, capital is extremely important; however, it is also extremely important to manage those dollars wisely.
-Posted by Jessica
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The Cinetic Studios Office
Cinetic Studios is progressing from a cool idea to something more.
The three of us have come to a realization that we needed a space more suitable to work in. While the living room is a great place to hang out, "research" and brainstorm, we also want a space to be able to sit down and work.
The stereotypical thing for us to do would be to set-up shop in our garage. Unfortunately, we do not have a garage available. We do have a "catch-all" bedroom that was just waiting to be used to its full potential.
With a little "summer cleaning" and some donations to The American Cancer Society Discovery Shops, we have cleared out the space for three workstations.
I guess if we had the funds we could have found a fancy office to rent or something, but we don't. Instead we are using our $0-budget mentality and trying to use the resources we already have available.
One day we hope to have a real office, but for now, our office location works for us. After all, it has great bathrooms, a full-functioning kitchen, conference room and nap suites. Really, how could we beat that.
-Posted by Jessica
The three of us have come to a realization that we needed a space more suitable to work in. While the living room is a great place to hang out, "research" and brainstorm, we also want a space to be able to sit down and work.
The stereotypical thing for us to do would be to set-up shop in our garage. Unfortunately, we do not have a garage available. We do have a "catch-all" bedroom that was just waiting to be used to its full potential.
With a little "summer cleaning" and some donations to The American Cancer Society Discovery Shops, we have cleared out the space for three workstations.
I guess if we had the funds we could have found a fancy office to rent or something, but we don't. Instead we are using our $0-budget mentality and trying to use the resources we already have available.
One day we hope to have a real office, but for now, our office location works for us. After all, it has great bathrooms, a full-functioning kitchen, conference room and nap suites. Really, how could we beat that.
-Posted by Jessica
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