Let the edit begin!
This is proving more challenging than I
first thought.
After Jack Quick at LomoLab worked out a
few issues, the footage from Day 1 is looking really great. In order to get rid
of the choppy, jumpy nature of the first pass, we came up with the idea of
disregarding the half-frames, losing 1 of every four frames in the end. The new workflow is working and the
footage is much smoother now, so Big Thanks to Jack.
There was a roll of 160VC that was a couple
of stops underexposed. The semi-automated process at LomoLab just couldn’t find
the frames. I ended up re-rendering the MP4 from the film scans myself, using
(of all things) Canon’s DPP RAW converter software. It has a trimming function
that made this tedious process a bit more streamlined. There were a few other rolls that I re-rendered to get rid of jumps when the camera would skip a frame or two.
The first attempt with this was a couple of
macro shots of the costume. I had taped a +10 diptor to the LomoKino lens and
hoped for the best. The focus was surprisingly sharp. The underexposure,
however, rendered the footage unusable, even after the re-render and colour
correction in Final Cut. Bummer, but great proof of concept for later.
Another experiment that has proved to be
really interesting was a sequence where I had Kyle walk backwards down a set of stone steps. We did 2 takes of this. I reversed the footage, superimposed the shots
over each other and synched up the motion. The result is a trippy little shot
that will be great in the final edit.
The Portra 400 has (so far) really held up
well. The first day’s footage looks great. The film handles over exposure very
well. I’m able to dial back the couple of shots that were 2-3 stops over and
they still look good.
Day 1 started with the end of the song. No
vocals here, just Kyle playing the guitar in a Chapel ruin. The plan of the
ever-widening shot is looking great, but the issue is (as I thought it would
be) the synch.
The first thought was synching the footage
as it came back with the slowed down audio tracks that we shot with. The speed
is, unsurprisingly, off. I got the slowed down tracks sped back up to normal
speed and onto the timeline. The LomoKino films are rendered at 4fps and around
19 seconds long. I’ve been experimenting with speeding up the films to match
the real time audio. 300% proved to be way too fast. I worked my way down to
200% at 25% increments. 200% seems to work, but since there aren’t any vocals
to synch to and the instrumentation in the tracks makes the individual guitar
strums difficult to discern, it has been a challenge.
The next batch of footage will contain
vocal tracks. Then we’ll solve the speed issue.
I still contend that this can work.
(Although I’m reminded of a line from The Ghost and The Darkness where Michael
Douglas and Val Kilmer are talking about a lion trap… “Did it work?” “No, in
point of fact, it did not. But I’m convinced the theory is sound…”)
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