Anti Drug Commercial

And now the result...after a few days of editing.

Making the dream

This first day of shooting has been quite good. Things went smooth most of the way and time was mostly on our side. The second day (sunday) was full of electrical problems and some lights wouldn't work, but a way around it was found and had to use car lights to mimic a solution I tried a couple of times in Peru that worked fine. The only setback was that the Letus eats out half a stop and needed more light of what was available....so more cars were called for to help. Yes, just for the lights!

I have to say that doing things here are much difficult that in Peru. It's a lot of hassle to get things going, lack of support and an excess of laws that puts obstacles in everything.

To secure a place or location you need so much paper stuff or so much coordination that if not backing it up with the right amount of money you wont get far anywhere. I was lucky to have some clearance thought, thanks to the help of close people to me that had contacts.

In Peru there's not so much lawsuits for anything like here, not so much fear of giving, not so much fear of risking like in the US. If a location or simple image of a building shows in the shot they freak out and say no just for fear of the image being mishandled...no matter how much u explain what the idea is. I think people in the US would have to go and make business in Peru to know what I'm talking about and they agreed when I shared my stories of how I get things done over there. Things are gotten easier there. People are more supporting, warmer. I's sure if indie filmmakers here had the freedom I have in Peru, there would be more productions and more movies finished. The fear of lawsuits here is so strong. And that simply isn't just annoying...it's fatal to filmmaking.

Found out that ambulances here are not aloud to turn on their siren but ONLY if in a real emergency. The EMT's and the station could get in serious trouble for doing that. When I've shot in Peru similar situations, sirens could go off at any time and cars would pull over or clear away of the ambulance's path and then it could be turned off later....no big deal. Who cares anyway?

I could only have sirens and lights on for 15 seconds (after which the police came in the act, but I already had the shot "in the can" so to speak). Placed siren sound effects in post later to fill in the takes.

But I was lucky, I've got to meet and make the most amazing friends that putted so much of their support on my dream and thanks to them (actors and crew), this was able to become a reality.

Streets of Omaha

This was done basically as a spoof ala The Sopranos series intro with additional footage for "seasoning".

My friend, actor Jerry Murray, drove with me around some of the streets of downtown Omaha that resemble in a bit that New Jersey look, so to speak. Shot some city landmarks along the way.

Done in HD 720p at 24fps using the HVX200 with the Letus Extreme and Canon / Nikon 35mm f/2.8 zoom lenses and primes.
Timed in After Effects and film-looked with our Proceso Cinematico Digital-PCD.

Customizing my rig...Tim Ovel and Indisystem

Past sunday I went to meet at last with Tim Ovel, the owner and brain of Indisystem. Being the company in Waterloo, I had to drive for some hours to get there from Omaha but it was worth the effort.
The reason for my visit? Simple in-person tech support and his offer to customize my rig to make it more usable and less cumbersome because of my own personal items used over the whole Indi kit. My tools have grown since I bought the whole Indi package (IndiRailsPro, IndiFocusPro, IndiMattePro and all the accesories that comes with them including a nice set of allen wrenches, screws and china pencil for focus marks all courtesy of Tim). I arrived there and met him in his workshop/studio in the outskirts of the city. Once inside I could tell by the arrangements and the stacks of tools that this company is really busy and producing all the time.

And what I really do appreciate from this guy is his true noble ability to go out of his way to help his legion of customers around the world. This time, after many conversations over the phone about film and the business, we decided to meet in person to push my rig to higher standards.

And Tim delivered. I know this sounds like an infommercial or like if im promoting him for some type of comission or something. Well...NO. I do it only for the sole purpose of expressing a big acknowledgement for a company and a person who does what many (and write this down, folks), should do and follow.

Nothing in this world -specially in this product-selling business of indie filmmaking- replaces good and friendly tech support. You can tell when a company goes the extra mile to make ur purchase worth your money and I had many times the need (or should I say the disapointment) of having to rely on tech support for a product I purchased, only to meet foreign or hindu-accented guys who I seldom can understand (no racism here for the record in case you wondered. Companies have the right to apply "outsourcing" to save big bucks) or simply people less willing to "serve" (they are offering a SERVICE for God's sake!) and makes you feel like they are doing you a favor when in reality it's totally the opposite. Of course there are customers and there are customers, but in the normal ideal situation, Tim is superb and happy to serve you and back up his word of efficiency.

No bullshit here.

I bought a couple more lenses back in Peru the past months and my front end was getting heavier and didn't allow me much freedom to use one hand to focus as my other would have to support the whole weight of the rig (aprox. 7-8 pounds. The Letus Extreme itself weighs like a rock!). I had and idea of building support arms adjustable in height that spread like a V upside-down and would rest the front end allowing me to free my hands to focus and zoom when needed. The spring-loaded mechanism would absorb any shock coming from body movement or walking. The V-shape support would have two connections to my waist belt to avoid any left-right shifting or rocking by gravity. Tim suggested a simpler solution: To beat the front end with a metal counterweight in the back.

He supplied longer rods for that matter as my kit was full already. It worked.

Now my rig puts the weigh evenly over my shoulder with 50/50 on each front and back side. The freedom of movement is noticeable as I can free my hand to focus and still use the other to barely keep the support system in place without much efforts. The rig weights much more thought but, doesn't 35mm film cameras too? That's what gives film-cam movement in movies that "inertia" you see that tells there's "mass" in motion...not just a flimsy little handycam that shouts "amateur" all over.

Simple logic and simple friendly support. What more can a customer want?

If you guys -serious into getting a camera rig that looks like the big boys ready to tango- live in the midwest area, don't think twice and drop by Tim's workshop. You won't be disappointed.

Utopía - finished and ready

At last...finally the new video complete.
Just done editing and it's up and ready to show!

Color test of the "Utopía" videoclip

Here is the first color timing test of random clips from the video.
So far, so good.


UTOPIA videoclip color test from Juan Carlos Oganes on Vimeo.

Got the Nikon zoom lens

Finally...the Letus Nikon Lens Mount has arrived. Customs agents gave it clearance today but it was to be delivered tomorrow. I couldn't wait so I drove like 60km to Fedex's main office to pick it up. Then, off to get the Nikon lens. The guy was just finishing cleaning it up for the sell and it looked good. Now the focus barrel was better (but not smooth yet). I tried it a couple of times on the camera kit with the Letus Extreme and it worked pretty well: no vignetting on wide apertures, nice beautiful bokeh at 2.8, sharp, no scrathes and good contrast. But the focus ring got stuck once so the dealer gave it to me for some days to test it without buying it yet to see if it worked for me. So far, already installed with my HVX200 kit at home, the focus ring got stuck and doesn't move.
Tomorrow I'm taking it back for repair. This time it has to work. It is the best bargain ever and this Nikon zoom is quite solid and rigid and together with the Tamron 28-75mm, I really have a good range from wide to tele. I really dont want to let this lens go.

Found a bargain Nikon zoom lens

I bought a Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR lens a month ago. I guess it was second hand but it looked like new. The quality of the picture is quite good and decided to buy it after reading some reviews. But Im kinda short on the far end of the zoom range. I cant get tight shots from far away as 75mm isnt enough so I need to go shopping.

Some days ago, while searching for weeks for fast zoom lenses on a local market (cant go higher than 2.8, the Letus eats up 1/2 of a stop) I found a nice little (big actually) Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8D ED AF lens. It looks amazing! It's condition was quite abused (the focus ring was loose, the zoom ring was jerky and it stuck often) but it looked repairable. Besides, the price was tempting (less than 1/4 of its actual price new) and it seemed repairable. So I told the guy if he could have it repaired and if done well I'll take it. He agreed.

That lens is really huge. Almost the size of the Canon XL 16x II, and the good news it can keep a 2.8 stop in all it's range. It can also go down to 22. I checked the glass under bright light and I didn't see any scratches and dont detect any aberrations either.

I called the guy yesterday and he has it repaired. Im just waiting for the Nikon Lens Mount from Letus to arrive tomorrow to have that huge lens installed on my cam rig!

It's quite a bargain...I just hope the repair is not just a momentary "make-up" and down the road in some days it starts falling apart again. The place doesn't offer a warranty.

Letus Extreme 35mm adapter

So now, this thing is quite heavy!

Weighing like a medium size rock, Hyen from Letus sure made this thing quite solid and professional: Sharp look, black matte finish, battery compartment inside with a magnet door (very clever), vibrating Ground Glass, rotating interchangeable lens mount (for Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Olympus and even Zeiss PL mounts for 35mm lens), allen screws for tightening parts and included is an achromat for your specific camera, so I ordered the HVX200 Optimization Kit.

The HVX200 is known for sometimes not having a truly dead-center CCD chip so in some units, the ground glass screen will not be totally centered when attached to the camera. Mine has that small issue as I noticed, so I called Hyen at Letus Corp. He was very helpful in telling me the options (which included sending the camera back to Panasonic for fixing that which of course I declined....to much time), so I came back with my own solution: rotating the adapter 180* so it would be on the upper side (the Letus has this L-shaped kinda form) and then....the focusing screen was sharp center and framed! But that also arouse other problems: the adapter was now a bit high for the bracket support that holds the Letus in place with the rods, so I had to make my own in a metal workshop. Aluminum of course not to put more weigh on the already heavy kit. I had it the next day and problem solved!

Now, once the adapter was attached to the camera, the next step is to achieve sharp focus on the ground glass inside the Letus. This is achieved by zooming out all the way to the "wide" position (Z00 in the HVX200). What we get to see is the focusing screen way far inside a "dark room" and to the sides we can notice the prism system mirrors. Then zoom in more until we fill up all the viewfinder screen (and a little bit more to avoid vignetting depending on the lens used). We point at something bright and we focus until we get to see the grain in the ground glass. When that is achieved it's a good idea to write down the focus number and never touch the focusing ring again. Mine is at focus 0.95 and the screen is filled up by Z22.7 but it could differ a bit on some other camera units. You can see that sharp focus is achieved when you get to see the grain in the ground glass. In the picture to the left you can see the grain in the ground glass. The overexposed white spot top right is a bright lamp that I turned down with the dimmer after the pic. The Letus needs to be off by the way. Only turn it on when fully focused to make the grain go away but leave it off for now. Now attach the lens. For this test I used a two lenses: the Canon AF 22-55 f/4.0 and the Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 Prime lens. I chose those two different lens because of the difference in speed and see how the Letus handled range of apertures. Now, the focus chart helps to detect unevenness in sharpness or any fall-off on the sides. So far, so good. I don't see any side blurriness too much and it seems fine .

A Day at the Park

I love Nebraska!
Besides being the home of my beloved gorgeous woman, the wide vast plains and landscapes offer such a cornucopia of views for the filmmaker or any director of photography. I've seen online work of others in Oregon and Washington and really their landscapes help a lot with such a beautiful scenery (not to mention their great eye for beauty of course!).

I took the cam out in one of my free days to a park near Chalco in Omaha. The day couldn't be more perfect than it was. It started with a sunny warm-toned day, turning to a blueish cold cast as sunset approached and then the sky turned bright red (as the Atlanta sky in "Gone with the Wind") and....boom!! thunderstorms, lightning and rain. Being a tornado area it wasn't a good idea to be outside as those little-big fuckers could happen in any moment as it did those weeks I was there.

I just took some shots and played a little role in it to improvise a simple story of me in the park.

I used the HVX200, the Letus Extreme, Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 Prime lens and Canon EF 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM lens for the tight long shots.
Shot it in 1080 at 24p, used Premiere CS3 to edit it, color graded in After Effects and finished with our Proceso Cinematico Digital.
And below is what came out.
Enjoy!

An Evening at the Park


AN EVENING AT THE PARK from Juan Carlos Oganes on Vimeo.

Guerrilla shooting

I loved the results!
The HVX200 is awesome. I checked the video on the LCD widescreen at my editing bay and its looks sharp and clear. The only thing lacking is the so fought-after depth of field. Im almost clear that the 35mm adapter that I'm purchasing now is the Letus Extreme. I had worked with the other brands before (Redrock M2, Brevis) but the flipped image is the issue there. I find very annoying having to turn the image in post or turn the monitor upside-down while shooting.

Doesn't work for me that...but I'll cover that in another post.

I did another "test drive" a while back and now in a more "guerrilla" way, more "run-and-gun" scenario to see the 24p motion in action. This time I used the 720p resolution but on NATIVE mode to have more room in the 16GB P2 card that came with the camera.
Those little cards fill up fast! Im waiting for the market prices to drop on those (almost $900 the 16GB, $1500 the 32GB) as paying almost a grand for 17 minutes on 1080 resolution is way too little. Now with 720p in Native mode I get 40 minutes apart from being able to shoot slow-mo too. It's also a good thing that the camera has two P2 slots so one one fills up completly it automatically jumps to the other and continues recording without gaps or losing frames.



Too bad I cant do "speed ramping" like on film cams but...I dont want to be too exquisite. Im happy with what I got.
Here below is a video of quads in action. The shooting of this was so fun.
Loved the fast-paced results and I loved to see them so happy doing what they love. It was such a great day!

An interesting call

My good friend Ursula Mifflin called from Miami telling that a cuban-american band wants me to direct their new video single. They are called Alain Band and they are formed by some of the fine latin musicians in the city. The singer of the single is the one and only Cheito Quiñonez, known trompet player of Miami Sound Machine.

It's gonna be a nice experience. Good salsa band as she told me.

Let's hear it then....I'd like to hear the song to picture some ideas in mind.

They asked to be recorded in SD so I'm taking the Canon with me. The Canon lens adaptor will be used for the other lenses. I saw a nice Nikon 50mm prime lens on a store there online that's be good for my kit but that adaptor doesnt allow me that brand. I really need to get me one 35mm adaptor. I just tested the Brevis and I like it but I have read some articles about the Letus that has me interested. No more inverted clips.

It will be a nice opportunity to get my hands on one over there.