Ben Lambeth

Jan 16

Chris Webby & D’banj - A Couple New Rap Music Videos

A few days ago I remembered I had a website. A website I haven’t updated in six months.

So, with this rediscovered, I will begin posting semi-regularly again, starting with clearing the backlog of shorts, features, and music videos I’ve been working on since my last post.

Near the end of 2012 I finally got a chance to work with director/DP Chad Tennies. Chad and I went to high school together yet had never run into each other on a set. Chad directs and DPs mostly for music videos, while I have focused more on narrative work.

In October, Chad was hired to direct this music video for rapper Chris Webby. Because he wanted this video to have a narrative feel, he brought on my friend Jarrett Morgan to DP the project, who selected myself and Donovan Henneberg-Verity as his camera crew. We shot on a Red One MX at various locations around Georgia Public Broadcasting’s headquarters. It was a fast-pased shoot, as we were trying to fit shots in almost a dozen rooms in the building into one day of shooting. Here is the final product: Chris Webby’s “Change The World”.

Shortly after the Chris Webby shoot, Chad was picked to DP a music video for D’banj, a rapper well-known in Europe. He was only in town for one day and time for preproduction was very tight, so many things were rushed going into this shoot. That said, after 18+ hours of night shots in the early-winter cold, we finished the video. Working as the 2nd AC/Media Manager, this was my first chance to work with an Arri Alexa, an experience I found very valuable and educational. Released right before Christmas, here is D’Banj’s new single, “Cash Flow”.

Jul 2

The J’Da Prynce Experience: A Case Study on Shooting Live Events

This was a show I shot back in February with Diamond Touch Films, and I just recently discovered the band released this promotional video using the footage. This concert really changed how I approach shooting live event, as I quickly discovered the conditions were different from other concerts I’ve worked. We were able to wing it and come out with useable footage & audio, but there were several steps we could have taken that would have made the process go much smoother. Even if it’s just as a refresher, I highly recommend anyone considering or preparing to shoot a live event read on. If you’re not an event shooter and never intend to give it a try, feel free just to watch the pretty video, check out the band, and tune out until my next post. :)

Know How Much Media & Power You’ll Need - We arrived at the venue an hour before doors opened with two Canon 60Ds, five batteries, and roughly 100GB worth of SD cards. Soon enough the music started and our cameras were rolling. Before we knew it, three hours had passed and we watched as our memory cards started running out and the cameras were on our last un-depleted batteries. After a three and a half hour show, we ended up just barely making it through with batteries, but running out of memory for the final song and a half. We’d failed to realize just how long the show would be. DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. Even if they look busy, corner the client or event organizer and find out how long this shindig will last, preferably before the day of. Don’t just assume you’ve got things covered because it worked out last time. Once you know you can plan accordingly. If you don’t want to invest in more cards & batteries, consider bringing an extra person to dump footage to hard drives and set up a charging station nearby so you can recycle cards and batteries.
DON’T Trust Any Gear With BETA Firmware - I still kick myself for making this mistake. I’d just shot a narrative short a few days earlier on my 60D, and we used the Magic Lantern firmware for Canon DSLRs. (If you don’t know, Magic Lantern is Beta firmware that unlocks a slew of amazing features for shooting video on DSLR. I use it on all my narrative DSLR work and highly recommend it.) If you’ve ever used Magic Lantern, you’ve probably seen it crash your camera for no apparent reason at least once. This is fine on sets where you can just cut and do another take once the camera boots up, but a nightmare for events when you’ve got no do-overs and your camera locks up. I hadn’t thought to uninstall the firmware before arriving and, just my luck, my camera crashed after switching a memory card, just as a new song was starting. I got lucky that our other camera was rolling during the 20 seconds I needed to boot up again so we had coverage, but it could have been much worse. I know it’s a pain to uninstall/reinstall Magic Lantern, especially if you have a lot of memory cards, but trust me, it’s not worth missing that once-in-a-lifetime shot because of finicky BETA software.
Mixing Light & DSLRs - One of the best things about shooting concerts is that the stage has its own lighting and it (usually) looks very pretty on camera. However, when shooting on DSLRs you’ve got to worry about strange things happening in your image for the weirdest reasons. Some venues may use a variety of type of lighting, which you can bet will act oddly on camera. I’ve found it’s worst when there are older fluorescent lights present. Almost without fail, they produce unsightly light brown bands across your footage. There’s not really much you can do about this one, besides be aware of it and experiment with angles that may lessen the effect.
Concerts Are LOUD - Depending on how the venue is set up and the equipment you have at your disposal, you may be asked to capture sound for the event as well as video. Your best bet is to plug a recorder directly into the mixer so you can get everything that comes through the mics. However—and this depends on your recorder—know that the signal directly out of a concert’s mixer is usually MUCH louder than your normal dialogue recording. On our Zoom H4n, we were forced to drop our recording levels down into the single digits to prevent clipping. When levels are that low you lose a lot of sensitivity, so the sound can still get messy and distorted. This is where we could have used an attenuator, a device that sits between the XLR cable and the recorder. It simply reduces the signal by a predetermined dB level before it hits the recorder, allowing you to boost your recording levels to capture cleaner sound. I’ve since added one to my kit, and no longer have this problem when recording extremely loud music.

A lot of this advice may seem like common sense, but it’s easy to slip up and miss something when you’re trying to organize a multicam shoot or get the call on short notice. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from this business, it’s that you WILL make mistakes. As long as you learn from it and don’t repeat the same mistake again, it’s not the end of your career. I definitely learned a lot from this experience, and hope my story here can help another shooter avoid these issues and better prepare for their next gig.

Apr 8

A Family on Edge (2012) Teaser Trailer

Only a couple weeks after we wrapped production, Eyes Entertainment Inc. and Cinesational Films have released the first teaser for the urban drama “A Family on Edge”.

A Family On Edge is about two brothers, Michael and Gabriel Bonds, who were thick as thieves growing up in Atlanta and protected each other by any means necessary. When a fatal mistake separates the siblings, their rock-solid relationship is forever changed. Shocking secrets from past and present create intensifying tension between the brothers who find themselves faced with a perilous choice, resulting in A Family On Edge. This highly-realistic urban drama is layered with unpredictable twists and turns that appeal to an intergenerational audience.

-dogonvillage.com

Directed by Bruce Locke and shot by D.P. Hakim Robinson, this film tells a captivating story of love, family, and betrayal. After meeting Hakim on a short film set in February, he offered for me to work as 1st Assistant Camera for this project, which I gladly accepted. They also shot the film using my camera package and a Canon 5D Mark II body.

Unfortunately, due to school and other commitments I could only work 9 out of the 15 days of production. But I have to say, they were 9 of the best days I’ve ever spent on a set. Every once in a while you get a crew that really meshes perfectly, and just from the looks on their faces you can tell that everybody’s having a blast while getting their jobs done. This was one of those crews, and it was an amazing experience working with them all.

More detailed write-ups about this experience, what I learned, and more about the film are coming in the next few weeks. Right now I just want to get the teaser out there. It’s just a compilation of shots set to music to keep the momentum around the film going, but it gives a good look of what the movie’s going to look like without revealing too much about the story.

Feb 26

The Therapist (2012) - dir. Connie Chen, prod. Ben Lambeth

Those of you who’ve been following me since the beginning of this blog will recall that this time last year I was producing “Blind Date” with director Connie Chen as a part of the Campus MovieFest competition (CMF), where filmmakers get one week to shoot and edit a 5-minute film. Well, we reunited this year to enter the competition again, this time with a drama. With a year of new experience since our last major collaboration, Connie and I set out in early December to create what I’ll confidently say is my best work so far.

“The Therapist” is the story of Dr. Mort Campbell, a therapist grieving on the anniversary of his son’s tragic death. In the midst of drinking away his sorrows, Mort is visited by an unexpected young patient. The story is told through a combination of live action and brilliant animation. If you haven’t yet, watch the film before reading on.

On top of superb acting by Dean Taylor and Max Roberts, Chelsea McClinton’s detailed production design, and the emotional score composed by Ryan Rapsys (who coincidentally also scored “Zombie Proof”), the shadow puppet sequences really make this film. These were done by the incredibly talented animator Jeanie Choi, who slaved the entire week of the competition to get them done in time. I’d explain here the process behind the animation, but I honestly have no clue how she does it. Magic I guess.

Something I am qualified to talk about is the gear we used. We shot the whole thing in one 19-hour day in January using my dad’s office (thanks Dad!). It was my first time breaking out my full camera package on a narrative set since selling the ProAim parts and rebuilding it from much higher quality components last summer and fall. Based around a Canon 60D and some old Zeiss glass, it performed spectacularly in the hands of cinematographer Donovan Henneberg-Verity. Playing to the film-noir look we envisioned for the short, Donovan, along with gaffer Dave Lillethun’s expertise in lighting, crafted some of the most impressive images I’ve seen from a DSLR since I started making films.

Well, I’m proud to announce that our hard work paid off. “The Therapist” premiered a week ago at the Georgia Tech Campus MovieFest Finale on February 8th and, after more than a few suspenseful moments, was awarded “Best Picture”, also receiving a nomination for “Best Drama”. It will go on to screen at CMF’s National-level competition in Hollywood this summer, and at Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France! This is by far my biggest accomplishment since setting out to create movies, and I couldn’t be happier! It was such a privilege to work with so many talented people on this project. Congratulations to you all. And to my readers, come meet me in Hollywood this summer!

**Update 2/28/12** Today I got word that, in addition to Hollywood and Cannes, The Therapist has also been selected as one of five films from the international-level competition to be shown inflight on Virgin America airplanes during April and May 2012!

Jan 25

Georgia Mission of Mercy Documentary (2011) - prod. Melissa Hampton

Apparently this video has been online for some time, but I’m only just now finding it. This is a short documentary I worked on for a couple of days this past summer. Hired by the Georgia Dental Association, we documented the setup and operation of what is probably the largest free dental clinic in Georgia’s history. Over the course of two days they saw 2,179 patients, for things ranging from simple checkups to full extractions.

It’s really an interesting and inspiring program. You can read more about what it is and more statistics from the event itself on the GDA website here.

The documentary was produced by Melissa Hampton, an Emmy-award winning producer who’s worked in television and radio for over twenty-five years. FULL DISCLOSURE: She’s also my step mother. So besides her amazing cooking, knowing her has its perks!

My main responsibility during the first half of this shoot was to run the time-lapse camera for the setting up of the clinic. For anyone who’s ever done a stationary time-lapse before, you know that basically involves setting up the intervalometer, hitting “go”, and then sitting there for hours making sure no one bumps into the tripod and maybe changing out one memory card. Fun stuff (bring a good book).

After that, it was on to basic PA work. That is, anything and everything Melissa or cameraman Brud Gotts needed done. Definitely a great learning experience for me and the first documentary I’ve worked on. Plus a very noble cause. Dental health is very under appreciated and it really takes a first-hand experience like this to understand why parents are so adamant about brushing twice a day, every day.

P.S. Floss too.

Dec 19

Blinded (2011) - dir. Sam McDade

“Blinded” was another short made primarily in association with my BuzzStudios contacts. This was my first time working with Sam as a director, so I was eager to see how he works on set. It was also an opportunity to work again with Director of Photography Jarrett Morgan, who has been a big help on several of my shorts and music videos over the past year. I was happy to return the favor.

On this project, I signed on as a grip, but once I got on set ended up as the gaffer under Jarrett’s direction. Fine by me, as I enjoy the creativity that goes into lighting on an ultra-low budget. On this shoot, we had three 650W video lights (can’t recall the model, as it was some time ago), two Lowel Totas, a Lowel Omni, two reflectors, and a softbox to work with. So, we had a lot of watts but the problem of needing a few of them to be less-powerful to accent, but not overpower certain features of the scene.

This is when Jarrett showed me a trick that is so simple and effective that I recommend any aspiring filmmaker try it out: run the power through a motor speed controller attached to the outlet, and BAM, you’ve got yourself a dimmable video light for the budget filmmaker. I’ll definitely pick up a few of these when I put together my light kit.

Well, I hope that tip is helpful to some of my readers, and that you enjoy the video. It’s a little more religious than the projects I normally work on, but I do enjoy playing with religious themes in my own films (see Confessions of Vengeance). I’m not endorsing any particular faith or trying to offend anyone here, just creating art.

Dec 15

Farewell to Jesse Stommel, my former English professor, good colleague, and the producer for “Zombie Proof” and the Georgia Tech “It Gets Better” Video, who left for Portland this week to start a new job out west. Good luck, and we’ll miss you here in Atlanta!

allistelling:

The truck is packed. Jesse heads West.

(via jessiferjs)

Nov 26

Doritos 2012 Superbowl Ad - Dir. Joe Adams

Note: I’m unable to embed the video from the actual competition site due to technical restrictions of the Tumblr platform that this blog runs on, so the above link is to Vimeo. For your view to count towards the competition (I think more is better?), please watch it here.

Here is the BuzzStudios entry for the annual Doritos “Crash the Superbowl” competition, and the second time I have participated in it. This 30-second commercial we created under director Joe Adams, if chosen as one of a few winners, will be aired during the Superbowl in a few months. If it does well after that, our team could be given the chance to collaborate with The Lonely Island, which would be pretty freakin sweet. Plus cash prizes, which would be cool too.

Director of Photography Ildar Musin shot this on a Canon T2i using only a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. For stabilization, Ildar had a pretty tricked-out ProAim shoulder rig, as you can see from the photos.

Shooting went pretty quickly, with only a few shots requiring much setup. And as we had less than 48 hours between the shoot and deadline for the contest, Joe and Ildar had to turn this around pretty quickly. They pulled it off, and not even a week later it’s been viewed almost 1000 times!

When showing this to people, I constantly get questions about how we did these two shots:

To pull off this shot of a dog pointlessly chasing a car, we had to find a canine that knew how to chase a car (easy), but also knew not to run off and start a 30-minute long chase between takes (not so easy). I was once given the advice of “if you want a shoot to run smoothly, never work with kids or animals,” which I understood all too well from trying to convince my cat to simply walk through one damn door in “Confessions of Vengeance”. So, I arrived on set that morning expecting the worst.

In the end, things went better than expected. Through Craigslist, Joe found a professional dog trainer willing to volunteer one of her dogs for the position. To get him to chase the car, she hung a rubber ball from a rope attached to the rear bumper. It was just short enough to keep the ball out of sight of the camera, but just long enough to let it bounce around and drive the dog crazy with anticipation. Once the car started rumbling down the road and the trainer released his collar, all the dog could think of was giving chase. I wish all the actors I’ve worked with over the years had been that devoted to their parts.

The second shot I’ve been asked to explain half a dozen times is where Joe (the director) volunteered to be the one dragged behind the truck to close out the commercial. To make this happen, we put the camera and mic into the back compartment of the truck, pointed it down, laid him on top of a long skateboard (or “longboard”, as some say), cropped in tight to hide the PA holding his legs to make sure he didn’t fall off, and drove at about 3 or 4 miles per hour. The tightness of the shot gives the appearance that the truck is moving faster than it actually is.

Joe seemed enthusiastic before the first take, but his screams were much louder and more terrifying than any of us had been prepared for (as the truck started rolling, he suddenly crossed “stunt man” off his list of career choices and held on for dear life), causing distortion in the audio. He was not happy when we told him he had to adjust our levels and do a second take, but suffered through it and gave us one of the funniest shots I’ve ever been behind.

If we make the semifinals I’ll be posting about this ad again asking for your votes. Fingers crossed.

Nov 20

Zombie Proof - Official Trailer

Here it is! After many long months of re-edits, polishing, color correcting, adding special effects, and scoring, the director’s cut of “Zombie Proof” is nearing completion. Here is a brand new trailer for your enjoyment!

It’s been more than ten months since we started work on this massive zombie-comedy, and it’s finally all coming together as a short film I’m very proud of. For related posts, see here.

Watch for an announcement of the first screening in the coming days.

Nov 9

Canon C300 & the Red Scarlet

Anyone who visited a photo/video blog last week probably heard about the announcement of two new industry-shaking professional video cameras. For anyone who missed it, here are the essentials, and my take on them:

Canon C300

Canon C300 Front & Back View

Canon entered the world of Hollywood with the C300, a Super-35 sensor professional video camera that seems to fall somewhere between the Sony F3 and Arri Alexa. It comes in EF-mount or PL-mount variations, and appears to have amazing low-light capabilities. Cinematographer Vincent Laforet, who has shot with the camera, claims it has “one of the top 6 sensors in the world”. The list price is $20,000 (which means street price once it goes on sale will probably be lower, maybe closer to $16,000. We’ll have to wait and see on that).

One of the most controversial specs is, although it uses a 4K sensor, it only outputs 1080p and, like Canon’s DSLRs, won’t shoot 60 fps at anything higher than 720p. For $20,000, 1080p feels like a cop out when 4K cameras are popping up left and right. However, due to the sensor’s nature, it’s really damn good 1080p. No moire or aliasing, incredible low-light performance, film-like grain, and lots of room to play around with in color correction.

However, I’ve got to worry about the lifespan of this camera. Purely based on specs, it looks very overpriced for 2011. For $20,000, this camera will be a significant investment for most and they’ll want it to be future proof. With its resolution capped at consumer-levels (albeit incredible-looking consumer levels), no interchangeable lens mounts, and a plastic body, the C300 might not provide that. Still, it’s nothing to shake your finger at. Laforet says it’s a much more impressive camera in use than on paper, so I’ll be keeping my eye on it.

The C300 will ship in January.

Press Release from Canon
Write-ups by Cinema5D, EOSHD, Philip Bloom, Vincent Laforet
”Mobius” - A short film by Vincent Laforet, one of the first to be shot on the C300.

Red Scarlet

Red Scarlet

An hour after Canon’s announcement ended, Red announced the specs and shipping date for the long-anticipated Scarlet-X. They ditched the 2/3 sensor and fixed lens they’d been talking about for so long to go with interchangeable EF and PL lens mount and a Super-35 sensor (I believe it’s the same one as in their $38,000 Red Epic). In fact, it’s basically the same camera as the Epic. The body is the same, the sensor is the same, (most of) the accessories are the same, and they both can shoot 4K RAW footage. The only things that differ are the Scarlet’s bitrates and frame rates are capped lower than the Epic (4K @ 30fps, 3K @ 48fps, 2K @ 60fps, 1K @ 120fps).

So, basically we have a mini-Epic. How much? $9,750! Yep, a 4K camera for half the price of Canon’s C300. However, that number is for the camera brain only. Add in the necessary accessories to be able to shoot with the camera (memory, LCD screen, batteries, etc.) and you’re looking at $14k-$17k for the package. So, the price isn’t really too different from the C300, which comes with most of what you’ll need to shoot out of the box.

The Scarlet will support autofocus with Nikon and Canon lenses (which the C300 won’t do, strangely enough), and playback in-camera (the first Red camera to do so). It’s also future proof in that, not only does it capture ridiculous resolutions, but you’ll be able to replace the sensor with newer versions as they come out rather than having to buy a whole new camera each time you want to upgrade.

Red hasn’t released any footage from the Scarlet yet, so it’s hard to know if the image holds up to the impressive specs. They’ve said the picture is almost identical to that from the Red Epic, which is the camera Peter Jackson is shooting The Hobbit with. We shouldn’t have to wait long to start seeing Scarlet footage, as Red has promised to start shipping at the end of the month/early December.

Although this looks like an amazing little camera, there are a few drawbacks that could be deal breakers for some. Red has a pretty scetchy track record when it comes to software. I’ve read many a horror story about Red Ones and Epics locking up for hours in the middle of a shoot, so we’ll need to wait to see how the Scarlet’s software performs once it starts shipping.

Another disadvantage is cost. Red is known for pricing accessories extremely high. For example, while the C300 shoots on cheap CF cards, the proprietary SSDs for use with the Scarlet run for a little under $1000 for 64GB, which really won’t get you far when shooting at 4K resolutions. You’ll also have to invest in extra storage when you realize just how much space 4K RAW footage takes up, not to mention a more powerful editing system if you want to be able to play it back in any reasonable amount of time without transcoding.

Lastly, when you want to cut resolution below 4K to achieve higher frame rates, it crops in (meaning you can’t use the entire sensor). This would certainly prove an annoyance, as you’d have to reposition the camera or change lenses if you want to over crank a shot you’ve already set up.

Write-ups by Cinema5D, Vincent Laforet, Philip Bloom

Conclusion

It’s kind of silly to try to say which of these cameras is better without even seeing footage from the Scarlet yet, so I’m not going to. With the ready-to-shoot kits priced basically the same, based on specs alone the Red seems more attractive than the Canon, but a side-by-side comparison will be necessary to pass a verdict on the image quality. Those who need certain features will buy the appropriate camera. My guess is that the C300 will find its way into more use in TV production, where its editing-friendly codec will allow for faster turnaround times. The Scarlet will be used more for filmmaking, where you can just reset and do another take if the camera craps out on you, and you have more time to spend on post-production.

Meanwhile, little guys like me will sit here drooling, dreaming, and probably renting. I’ll be sure to write up my thoughts if I ever get the opportunity to get my hands on one of these amazing new cameras!

And before anyone brings it up, yes, I know, content is king. But it’s still important to understand the gear that makes that content happen. Plus it’s just fun to talk about.

Follow me on Twitter @BenHLambeth to see new content as it’s posted here, as well as the witty and/or intelligent things I sometimes say.