A blast from the past - They Rest in the North, a feature film shot on the Canon 550D

[Ehetyz]

So here's an odd one. It's a full feature film I directed, produced and shot back in 2012, shot completely on the trusty old Canon 550D. I released it recently online.

The movie is a moody post-apocalypse tale about a man looking to redeem his past mistakes in a ruined world. It was heavily influenced by James Dickey's novel "To the white sea", in that both portray an existential struggle of a man who's teetering on the edge of humanity, trying to survive in a hostile environment. Visually I wanted the film to be reminiscent of Nicholas Winding Refn films, especially Valhalla Rising, and Tarkovsky's Stalker, especially when it came to tracking shots etc.

We shot the movie in about one month in the summer of 2012. The crew was mostly myself alone with the actors, and the gear consisted of a 550D, a few lenses (EF50 1.8, Samyang 85 1.4 and a Vivitar 28 2.8), Manfrotto tripod and a Glidetrack slider. I quickly learned to use the sparse equipment inventively, and even turned the Glidetrack into an improvised jib. I shot most of the movie in natural light - only the opening scene and a few flashback scenes have actual lighting. The film is very rough by modern standards, but I think a lot of the camerawork still holds up.

The movie played at some domestic and foreign festivals back in 2013 and had a run at a local movie theatre, but after that I buried it because I wasn't happy with it. Recently I did some re-edits to tighten up the pace and now released the new version online. It's still not an easy movie to stomach, it's very slow and ponderous, but I think at the very least it serves as a reminder of what can be achieved with very little gear or resources.

 

 

[mercer]

Damn @Ehetyz I just watched the opening scene and credits... it looks awesome!!! Good pacing. Clean shadows. Nice camera work and composition. Obviously great gunshot effects. These are the kind of films that excite and inspire me... good filmmakers with modest means just saying fuck it, I want to make a movie. 

I will definitely be watching the rest of this and probably giving notes or comments as I go along...

So far, so good. My only note and it's a dumb one, is that I would have liked to have seen a shot of the main character turning on the radio... it took me a split second to realize that the voice was coming from the radio. Obviously it isn't something worth reshooting but just a note.

Anyway, awesome job and I look forward to watching the rest of it. If you don't mind me asking, what are you shooting with now?

[Ehetyz]

Thanks for the kind words. At the moment I'm shooting with an Ursa Mini 4,6K. With cameras, I've gone from Canon HV30 to 550D to 5D2 to BMCC to UM - with a the 5D2 making a comeback recently with ML Raw.

I could whole-heartedly recommend the UM4,6K, too. The ergonomics are excellent and it produces gorgeous images all across the resolutions.

[mercer]

I just bought a 5D3 and I also have an urge to make a lo-fi feature at some point. Something I can just get up and go with. Movies like yours make me want to do that even more. I may have to brush off the D5500 or with my Canon lenses, maybe an 80D would be a better fit...

But then again, I already have the 5D3, so I guess why limit myself. 

Your Ursa work must be epic. Are you working on another feature?

[Ehetyz]

You should definitely go for it. I started out as kind of a backyard indie moviemaker and imho the lo-fi guerrilla filmmaking actually is some of the most enjoyable, and I find myself returning from more produced works to doing these tiny crew - small budget affairs. It's more freeform and more intimate, and lets the creativity flow better. My most interesting/off the wall camerawork is always in these guerrilla productions. Productions like that aren't always easy, but they remind me of why I fell in love with filmmaking in the first place.

And I'm still kind of in love with Canon cameras, that's why I mentioned about returning to 5D2 occasionally still. It's just so much fun to use. I developed a habit of just bringing it along to client/commercial shoots alongside my main camera and just stealing a few shots here and there - more often than not they made it to the final cut.

With the Ursa, I feel I'm still in the process of coming to grips with it. I picked it up about two months ago, when a lot of studios were switching to the UM Pro and offloading their original 4,6K:s on the cheap. I've shot some commercials and a short film with it so far. I'm looking to shoot another feature film with it in autumn - by then I should be familiar enough with it to make the most of the camera. I am continually astonished at how good the footage from it is. It's one camera I feel might have enough DR to actually shoot in natural light again with pleasing results. The low light isn't terrible either contrary to popular belief.

Here's a screencap from the short film I shot with it - it was also the first time I used the UM. A maiden voyage for it, if you will.

 

 

[mercer]

Man, that is some amazing lowlight information. The Ursa is an amazing camera. I get along better with ML Raw than BM. I could never make Pocket or Micro footage look good but ML Raw I find much easier to work with for my skill set...

 

I've been trying to find a run and gun camera with IBIS for my "point and shoot" film but with the OIS on my 24-70mm, I really can't get much more run and gun than ML Raw. I have another option or two to test, but I think I am definitely going to try and put together an adapted script to shoot this summer... now I just need to decide how lo-fi I want to go, camera-wise. 

[Ehetyz]

Yeah I completely agree when it comes to the small sensor BMD cameras. It was especially apparent when I was shooting BMCC and ML Raw side by side. The BMCC took a painful amount of grading in Resolve, something like 9-15 nodes, for the images to start looking good to me, whereas ML Raw it was just some small adjustments, something like 1-3 nodes. Same with ML Raw vs. any Sony I've used. There's something about the tonality and color separation that's leaps and bounds better on the Canons.

The Ursa Mini 4,6K is the first Blackmagic I feel is approaching Canon when it comes to the ease of grading. It still requires some color separation in post, especially when it comes to isolating the skin tones, but it's way better than the old ones. I can get away with 4-6 nodes when using the Ursa.

[mercer]

Okay that makes sense. I never even thought it would require so many nodes. In FCPX, I would do 3-5 layers and other than the obvious bitrate advantage, I wasn't seeing anything better, color-wise... separation and tonality, than I was getting with the Panny's 200mbps 1080 with CineLikeD.

I just watched your Homecoming trailer. That was shot with the BMCC, correct? How many of those 9+ nodes did you use LUTS with?

[Ehetyz]

Yeah, that was BMCC. In Homecoming I used one LUT throughout the movie to have a consistent look, a Kodachrome emulation. So, one node, the rest was manual adjustments.