Homecoming - BMCC Short film trailer

[Ehetyz]

Here's a trailer for a short film I've been working on, called Homecoming. It's a neo-noir revenge film set in the mid-90's recession era Finland.

We shot it on and off during the early spring and late fall of 2016. Originally we were supposed to wrap the whole movie during spring with one flashback scene shot in the summer, but we had continuous trouble with the weather and with the health of several crewmembers. I spent the first week of shoot on a high fever and was functioning on painkillers alone, and later when we were supposed to shoot the finale our lead actor became bedridden with measles and we had to postpone the finale to late fall.

But now it's slowly coming together and it's starting look like an actual movie.

The trailer is NSFW, it contains some extreme violent images.

(Click CC for english subs)

 

We shot the movie 95% on BMCC 2,5K EF, with some shots here and there taken with 5D2 ML RAW and Sony RX10 MK2. I'm using kodachrome LUT as the basis for the post-process, with heavy color separation and high midtone sharpness to give the BMCC footage an 80's film/RED footage kind of pop. A lot of visual cues are taken from Scandinavian/Finnish films from the 80's and 90's.

The movie was mainly shot with Sigma 18-35 1.8, Super-Takumar 50 1.4, Samyang 85 1.4 and Tair 11A 135 2.8, with some special shots shot on Petzval 85 2.2. I often use diffusers and other physical filters but here they're used very sparingly, only on flashback scenes. Instead I went with self-made vignetters to shape bokeh on the daytime scenes to look like brushstrokes or scattered drops. The effect is not very obvious in the trailer as it focuses on nightscenes.

 

If you have any questions about the process or the movie, shoot away!

[mercer]

Really nice work. Neo noir is such a cool genre... actually all noir is... and it seems you managed to truthfully yet artistically stay within the confines of the genre. It seems like Blue Velvet may have been an inspiration for the film as well as some of your previous mentioned ones?

The casting was very smart, a couple of your actors resembled Hollywood actors... one looked kinda like Michael Douglass and another looked kinda like Kevin Spacey... specifically in the car scene where he is framed in the middle of the back seat... kinda like Seven.

If you don't mind me asking, what was your budget? Assuming it was on the lower end, my next couple questions are asked based on that presumption.

I've been patiently awaiting a good price on a BMPCC and while scouring eBay, I've noticed a lot of lightly used BMCCs going for just a little more than a new Pocket... with it being called a Mini Alexa, I'm curious to know the pros and cons you experienced shooting with it on a feature?

I just purchased an RX10 ii, so obviously I am really interested to know how it fared compared to the BMCC and 5d2 Raw, which shots, from the trailer, were shot with it, did you use SLog2 and did you tweak the profile settings or use them at default?

I guess that's more than enough to ask of you. So, thanks for sharing your work and please keep us posted when the feature is finished.

Also once again really nice job. You discussed some of the problems you had and I am sure many others on the site are full aware how near impossible it is to produce a narrative film on a small budget. Every task is a struggle to the point where it seems that the universe does not want us mere mortals to make a film. Sheer fortitude, obsession and a little bit of luck makes it happen... So congratulations on that miracle as well.

[Ehetyz]

Thank you for the kind words. I agree, neo noir is hella cool, I'm a sucker for the genre in general, watched a lot of the staples of the genre back in my childhood and it has stuck with me. Now that you mention it, yeah, there might be a little bit of Blue Velvet in there as well. I've found that large part of my inspirations are often unconcious and become apparent to myself only later.

The movie was pretty much zero budget. Everyone worked for free (we had a crew of 6-8 people, depending on the day), I self-funded everything else, which meant the FX, props etc, and all the running costs like travelling and food. Probably spent around 1500-2000 euros on it. We have a studio and own all our gear so we had free access to lighting equipment, dollies etc, and other things we had already built for other productions like a rain machine we had previously made for a music video. That allowed me to keep the costs very low.

As for the BMCC, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. For the price, it's absolutely the best, most robust image you can get - if you rule out hacks such as ML. I shot the whole thing in RAW, and it's just a priceless asset, and combined with the dynamic range it absolutely gives you the tools to make a truly filmic, beautiful image. I can see where the mini alexa is coming from. But there are downsides. To get the most out of the image you really need to dip deep into the grading process, and often manually separate colors and tweak them individually (whereas ML RAW gives you the same beautiful color separation out of the box), the crop factor is obviously a buzzkill, and the form factor can get very restrictive. It's a bitch of a camera to operate handheld, even rigged. We had a beatdown scene where I wanted to get a really deep low angle view for a few shots, and I was really struggling due to the form factor and the integrated screen.

But, on the other hand, it has kept me firmly employed and in-demand as a freelancer, and I can use it on anything from food videography to documentaries to purely cinematic filming. It's a versatile image and you can get a lot a mileage out of it. Technically it's been rock solid performer, too.

On BMPCC vs. BMCC, I'd go with a BMCC, with an MFT mount to alleviate some of the crop factor with a speed booster. I've used the BMPCC a few times and I'm not a huge fan. The user interface is slower to operate than BMCC (the BMCC touchscreen UI is really nice once you get the hang of it), the screen is somehow worse and I've always found myself preferring the image of the BMCC when shot side-by-side, even with the BMPCC speedboosted. It just feels like it holds more information.

As far as RX10MK2 goes, the trailer has one shot taken with it, the burning corpse. It was only used as a slow-motion camera. I shot with the Cine profile with some tweaks I'd picked online, as since we were mostly shooting at night, there was simply not enough light to go for S-log at 250fps. Hate to say it, but side by side with ML RAW or BMD RAW, or even the BMCC prores flavors, the Sony image often looks just straight up unpleasant. It just lacks the tonality the other two cameras have, and the colors always seem thin and somewhat off. Matching the shots always takes a lot of work. I've noticed using some diffusion alleviates the problem a little, but it still has a very digital look to it, which ML RAW or BMD RAW do not have - unless you intentionally grade them that way. I'm frankly not too fond of the little Sony, but in this production it was the only way to get the slow motion shots I wanted (pyrotech, FX shots).

And as for the troubles - yeah, filmmaking can be gruelling at the best of times. After the principal photography of this I went to DP another movie after only a weekend's rest, and that went on to take 3 weeks with no days off. That one had less production trouble, but it was more cumbersome (3x larger crew) and somehow at worse conditions. Lots of long nights outside in the Finnish winter. Afterwards I jokingly woved to never shoot anything again outside of the studio - but I've found I do that after every movie production. And I always find myself coming back... :D

[mercer]

1 hour ago, Ehetyz said:

Thank you for the kind words. I agree, neo noir is hella cool, I'm a sucker for the genre in general, watched a lot of the staples of the genre back in my childhood and it has stuck with me. Now that you mention it, yeah, there might be a little bit of Blue Velvet in there as well. I've found that large part of my inspirations are often unconcious and become apparent to myself only later.

The movie was pretty much zero budget. Everyone worked for free (we had a crew of 6-8 people, depending on the day), I self-funded everything else, which meant the FX, props etc, and all the running costs like travelling and food. Probably spent around 1500-2000 euros on it. We have a studio and own all our gear so we had free access to lighting equipment, dollies etc, and other things we had already built for other productions like a rain machine we had previously made for a music video. That allowed me to keep the costs very low.

As for the BMCC, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with it. For the price, it's absolutely the best, most robust image you can get - if you rule out hacks such as ML. I shot the whole thing in RAW, and it's just a priceless asset, and combined with the dynamic range it absolutely gives you the tools to make a truly filmic, beautiful image. I can see where the mini alexa is coming from. But there are downsides. To get the most out of the image you really need to dip deep into the grading process, and often manually separate colors and tweak them individually (whereas ML RAW gives you the same beautiful color separation out of the box), the crop factor is obviously a buzzkill, and the form factor can get very restrictive. It's a bitch of a camera to operate handheld, even rigged. We had a beatdown scene where I wanted to get a really deep low angle view for a few shots, and I was really struggling due to the form factor and the integrated screen.

But, on the other hand, it has kept me firmly employed and in-demand as a freelancer, and I can use it on anything from food videography to documentaries to purely cinematic filming. It's a versatile image and you can get a lot a mileage out of it. Technically it's been rock solid performer, too.

On BMPCC vs. BMCC, I'd go with a BMCC, with an MFT mount to alleviate some of the crop factor with a speed booster. I've used the BMPCC a few times and I'm not a huge fan. The user interface is slower to operate than BMCC (the BMCC touchscreen UI is really nice once you get the hang of it), the screen is somehow worse and I've always found myself preferring the image of the BMCC when shot side-by-side, even with the BMPCC speedboosted. It just feels like it holds more information.

As far as RX10MK2 goes, the trailer has one shot taken with it, the burning corpse. It was only used as a slow-motion camera. I shot with the Cine profile with some tweaks I'd picked online, as since we were mostly shooting at night, there was simply not enough light to go for S-log at 250fps. Hate to say it, but side by side with ML RAW or BMD RAW, or even the BMCC prores flavors, the Sony image often looks just straight up unpleasant. It just lacks the tonality the other two cameras have, and the colors always seem thin and somewhat off. Matching the shots always takes a lot of work. I've noticed using some diffusion alleviates the problem a little, but it still has a very digital look to it, which ML RAW or BMD RAW do not have - unless you intentionally grade them that way. I'm frankly not too fond of the little Sony, but in this production it was the only way to get the slow motion shots I wanted (pyrotech, FX shots).

And as for the troubles - yeah, filmmaking can be gruelling at the best of times. After the principal photography of this I went to DP another movie after only a weekend's rest, and that went on to take 3 weeks with no days off. That one had less production trouble, but it was more cumbersome (3x larger crew) and somehow at worse conditions. Lots of long nights outside in the Finnish winter. Afterwards I jokingly woved to never shoot anything again outside of the studio - but I've found I do that after every movie production. And I always find myself coming back... :D

I grew up making movies with my friends but as we grew older, less and less movies are made, but I absolutely adore the process and hearing about it. Every short I've ever made and every film we've ever done, I tend to hate the process leading up to it, until I manage to nail a shot just as I envisioned it.

I hear you about the RX10ii, I used it for my first rounds of tests today. I am pretty happy with it so far because it is a lot better than I expected it would be... of course I am shooting all daytime exteriors with it, am shooting in Shutter Priority mode, in manual focus but using the push af to set my initial focus... the project I'm in pre-production with is hinged upon the auto aspect of the camera and so far it seems like it will work nicely. Now I just have to figure out how to correct/grade SLog2... ugh. 

The BMCC hasn't really been on my radar, but I've loved what I've seen from it... especially the Raw shot short Lights Out. If I didn't already have a cage, speedbooster, external battery for the BMPCC, I would consider the BMCC instead. I, briefly, had the Micro last Spring and although every time I had to rig that Rubik's Cube up, a little part of me died inside, the image was lovely. The screen with the Pocket is a pain, but it is usable... barely.

Between the RX10, A6500 and BMPCC, I'll have every camera I need for the slate of shorts I have planned for the next year. 

Btw, do you have any BTS footage of your film? I am really impressed with what you did and I'd love to hear more about the process. 

[mercer]

Btw, loved what you did with the slit cheek effect. Very nicely done. 

[jonpais]

23 hours ago, Ehetyz said:

Here's a trailer for a short film I've been working on, called Homecoming. It's a neo-noir revenge film set in the mid-90's recession era Finland.

I like it.

[Ehetyz]

Thanks for the kind words, again.

The cheek effect is great - I'm not the one to take credit for it though, I had very talented individuals working on it, FX artist/sculptor Minja Tuomisalo made the appliance and makeup guru Ari Savonen did the on-set makeup on it.

I think the RX10 MK2 works alright when you have enough light, and if it's just on its own without direct comparisons to higher bitdepth cameras, the image can work fine. It gets a lot of use for me as an automated camera as well, because it's light and I can be tethered to a cellphone via bluetooth. So on some live shoots I can use BMCC as the main camera and have my cellphone on top of it to control the RX10. It does have its place in my toolbox.

Unfortunately there's no video BTS footage of the movie. We were running on a tiny crew so there was no BTS videographer. The assistant director/producer did double duty as a BTS photographer, though, and of course crew members took a ton of cellphone photos, so we have a huge bunch of behind the scenes pictures.