Last week we shot 4 intense days for our next film, Foxhole. J-ROB Productions has produced and directed the film. We’ve Co-Produced, DP, Visual FXs and editing.

We’ve already completed the first editing session and have made lots of progress. We’re aiming to have the film completed by the end of January 2010.

Today, the crew and I filmed some B-Roll footage for a 15 minute promotional video for ABCCM’s 40th Anniversary.

Kevin Barnes with Media Samurai was the director, and I was director of photography.

We also had Billy Baker as second camera opp and Ben Bradshaw who was our audio technician.

I thorougthly enjoyed this shoot because I actually had time to be a little creative. The top challenge I’ve had to endure is the quick time schedule… or the lack there of. They always say, “You can’t rush art.” So much truth in those 4 short words.

Green screening is one of my favorite parts of film making. I enjoy the creativity of setting up the raw plates and planning ahead for what kind of creation is going to take place in post to complete the visual/fx. It’s like making a painting. Start the masterpiece in the field and put on the finishing touches in post.

In order to have the scene look real, proper compositing is crucial.  The lighting of the subjects and surrounding props needs to be the same as the “keyed in” footage, otherwise the two different layers will not match up and will look different.

Another critical effect with a moving car scene is motion blurring.  You must remember that if we were really filming the side of a car moving at 50mph, the background would be out of focus and quite blurry.  All of these effects must be created/tricked in post.

The process can be quite meticulous, but when the final outcome looks real, it’s the best feeling you can have in post!

This car scene required a total of 9 different layers. This consisted of background plates, shadows and reflections. It takes a lot to make something so simple look real.

Aerial Footage – Today was a beautiful shoot. As we lifted off the ground from the Asheville Airport, we began to capture some awesome footage.

The sky was a beautiful blue, with some clouds moving about. The lighting was perfect… which allowed everything to pop just right!

We flew mainly around Lake Toxaway. Our altitude was 50 – 5000 feet.