Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

Lessons on Lighting for HDR Photography

Posted: 6th January 2012 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Sorority", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Digital Production, Photography
0

On the discoveries of how to light for HDR photography, and how the standard choices for film and theater create a lot of work for the post-production workflow.

As Syndicate moves towards its conclusion next week, I hope you’re enjoying not only the story but the soft beauty of the photography we present here. Photography is kind of our thing, our schtick if you will, but you’d be surprised how much we’re still discovering about how to do it well. Most of our team comes from theater and film backgrounds, where the rules and results of stage picture, presentation, and lighting are completely different. Theater light focuses on hitting the actors where they are and toning down everything else, counting on the audience’s eyes to adjust according to the changing overall light levels; film light focuses on contrast and multiple sources, each of varying brightness to make the actors “pop” on camera.

When lighting for HDR, the biggest factors are not how bright or dark the scene is overall (gamma), but how wide of a range there is between the brightest part (white point) and darkest part (black point), how many different measurements of brightness are between them (levels), how these levels are distributed (luminosity), and how smoothly or dramatically the levels transition between one another (contrast). Earlier I lamented shooting in and near direct sunlight for exactly this reason, but for shoots like Syndicate we’re in the opposite situation and it’s simply stunning.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Curse of the Sunny Day

Posted: 25th November 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Ally", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, On Location, Photography
0

On the shoot day for the ‘Ally’ vignette, and why direct sunlight is the worst type of weather for Night Zero’s HDR style.

The shoot day for ‘Ally’ was a unique production for us, and an all-around great experience and achievement for the team. We were back at the abandoned Fisher Flour Mill, our fourth day (of five) this year shooting at that location. Just the previous day we were there with one of our biggest Episode Six productions: thirteen characters, three scratchers, eleven extras, and ten crew members, for an all-day gun battle and scratcher fight. For ‘Ally’, it would be one of our smallest shoots: two characters, two scratchers, and five crew. The major difference, though, was that the Episode Six shoot was on Sunday, meaning the mill property was closed and our gaffer was on set. Ally was shot on a Monday, meaning that the entire property was abuzz with trailer trucks, backhoes, and moving trains, and for lighting we were at the mercy of the weather and a handheld diffusion/reflector disc.

We started with our usual 10:00am crew call, first checking in with the freight supply company whose trucks and trains we’d be evading all day (and grabbing some reflective safety vests from their dock manager). Then it was to base camp, which was conveniently in the same location as it had been the previous day (which itself had been the central location of a different Episode Six shoot a month earlier). Snacks were munched and coffees poured while the cast made their way into costume and makeup, with Kyle finishing first to go shoot his opening walking sequence while Sara’s more elaborate costume, props, and makeup were put together. After a few minutes of test shooting to determine the best camera settings for the morning light, we got to work just after 11:00 and moved swiftly onward. With the opening walk finished, we returned to base camp to fetch Sara and begin the two-character scenes out in the sunlight.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ally, On the Road to the Finale

Posted: 21st October 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Ally", Concepts & Development, Digital Production, Episode 6, Photography
1

On the continued production of Episode Six throughout the year, simultaneous to the production and online runs of the origin vignettes.

This week we begin a new vignette, ‘Ally’, which is our sixth vignette of the 2011 year and our twelfth vignette overall. Some of you may be asking why we’re spending so much time on vignettes this year, having already produced in nine months as many as we have in the previous three years combined… while the grand finale Episode Six remains nowhere to be seen. For today’s blog post, I’ll be talking about what our production is doing, why the vignettes are so important, and when you’ll be seeing the elusive final episode.

When the production of Episode Six concludes, when the final photo is taken and the last shoot wrapped, that will be the end of Night Zero as a photographic novel. There is no episode seven, and there will be no more vignettes. This has been our plan from the beginning, and one of the reasons we chose to do a six-episode-arc rather than only standalone stories. With that choice came an inevitable conclusion, which itself is directly responsible for the production schedule we’ve taken. Knowing that Episode Six would be our last, I laid down a production mantra for the year: “Go big and go outside”.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sorority Production: Day One

Posted: 2nd September 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Sorority", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, On Location, Photography
0

On the first shoot day for the ‘Sorority’ vignette, covering the two sisters’ drama and the hallway escape sequence.

The first act of Sorority (Lucy and Dee) and the interstitial segment (the hallway chase) were shot together on our first day (of two) for the vignette. Based on some of our multi-day and multi-segment shoots in the past, we decided to shoot the days’ work out of chronological order and instead approach from most-difficult to least-difficult work. For the morning, when everybody was fresh and ready to go, we’d take care of the complex and extensive hallway action scene, and in the afternoon, when the cast and crew would be tired from the morning’s work, we’d shoot the relatively sedate and stationary sisters’ scene.
Read the rest of this entry »

the Three Speeches

Posted: 4th February 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Concepts & Development, Episode 5 - "Reversals", Photography
0

Announcing the opening of Volume Three pre-orders, and on the formulation of the “three speeches” that close out episode five.

Before I get into the actual blog post, I’m very pleased to announce that preorders for Night Zero: Volume Three are now available! Our third and most stunning volume yet, this graphic novel collection weighs in at nearly 200 pages of full-color post-apocalyptic HDR beauty, and includes all the comics we produced in 2010 as well as the protest shoot from 2009. A full list of details and a pre-order link is available at the Volume Three info page, so support Night Zero and buy your copy today!

We’ve now entered the final act of Episode Five, a little number I like to call “the Three Speeches.” If this were a movie, there would be sweeping camera shots of the speakers building up in volume and cadence, inter-spliced with close-ups of random members of each party, all underscored by a dramatic musical crescendo with plenty of horns and gravitas. Which is exactly what I’ve attempted to recreate here, but without sweeping camera movement or underscoring music. The photographic novel does have limitations.
Read the rest of this entry »

Pre-Production of the Post-Protest

Posted: 19th November 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Episode 5 - "Reversals", On Location, Photography
0

On the pre-production, location scouting, and new photography techniques in the “Death of Dariya” sequences

The shoot of Dariya’s death brings together some of our earliest cast members from the Night Zero project, while incorporating all the advances we’ve made over the last three years of production. Yevgeniy, Nadia, and Dariya date back to our first office shoot at the end of episode one in June of 2008—before dedicated costume design, before multi-point lighting, before shot cards and camera-optimized shoot schedules. That all three of these cast members have stuck around so long is something for which I am incredibly grateful; that in such time our production quality has grown exponentially is something of which I am incredibly proud.

Pre-production for the shoot was in some ways simple and in some ways challenging. For the simple side, we already had the full cast and costumes from previous episodes, so the only challenge was scheduling everybody at the same time. When dealing with some pretty prolific theater and film actors, that’s hardly an easy task, and must be done many months in advance. The downside to scheduling like this, though, is that once the cast is locked down for a date, whatever location we want to shoot at has to be available as well; if not, we are faced with having to either scout and secure a new location, or try and reschedule the entire cast and crew.
Read the rest of this entry »

Older Entries