Growing some "Midnight Flowers" with The Dig

Director: Tyler Greco

Director of Photography: David Kruta

Recently, the Abandoned Palace At 5 Beekman Street in New York City played host to the last production ever to shoot there - a surreal trip through the fanciful and playful mind of director Tyler Greco, set against the haunting notes of "Midnight Flowers" by New York City's own The Dig.

“With one hand deep in roots rock and roll and live performances that lift you up and leave you ragged, The Dig are building a reputation as one of the best young bands in New York. The songs on their new EP, Good Luck and Games, produced by Bryce Goggin (Pavement, The Ramones) have energy and intelligence matched only by their heartfelt swagger. See them now so you can say you saw them then.”

Steadicam played a pivotal role in helping us achieve over 50 setups for the day. We traveled from floor to floor to complete a series of vignettes, in addition to several main performance pieces featuring the band. The vignettes were part flashback and part imagination and followed the story of a couple in love as their romance falls apart. Michael Fuchs, Local 600 Operator, cranked out shots all day while Gaffer Omar Addassi and Key Grip Teresa Rhinehart helped prep the next scenes.

We lit primarily with 2 ARRI 1800w HMI PARs, which were either used as our key light or used to create fill against the powerful sunlight streaming through the windows. This package was supplemented with 4 750w Lekos and a small collection of tungsten units ranging from 300s to 1K open-faced lights. My DeMaitre Radiance haze generator was pretty much on full blast for the entire shoot.

One of the most challenging and rewarding scenes to light was the nighttime party sequence. The room we were in was comparitively small and we had no time to rig anything above. In the end, I lit the main part of the scene, our actress wrapping a passed out partier in Christmas lights, with a single 300w through a door. The rest was lit with 4 40w practicals around the room, a spinning disco light and additional Christmas lights strewn around the floor. The highlight of this sequence came when I noticed 1st AC Dave Brickley looking for something with his flashlight and how it illuminated our actors' faces. Immediately I asked to borrow it and handheld the flashlight to light different bits of the scene.

The performance sequence relied heavily on moving light. My first impressions upon seeing the location were that of deja vu - it looked almost exactly like the toymaker sequence from Blade Runner. I instantly wanted to replicate that feel, so the motto of the shoot became "light it like a happy Blade Runner". I went for a 1800w 2 floors up being moved during the take, and another at floor level for fill, being blocked by an exceptionally strong grip with a 4x4 floppy for numerous 6 minute takes. Overall I think this approach made what could have been a standard performance sequence a bit more interesting.

In addition, I had our playback man Tim Haber create several versions of the song, and we would play the song at 200% while shooting at 48fps. When played back later, the footage would appear to be in slow motion but the lyrics would match up with the original pace of the song. This helped tie the vignettes, which were entirely shot off-speed, to the performance piece.

Above, Director Tyler Greco walks me through a shot.

Watch out for the track "Midnight Flowers" along with the video to be released in early 2012. Special thanks to Carly Nahigyan for the behind the scenes photos.

Don't Get Smacked by Fat (at 800fps)

Director: Yanik Ruiz-Ramon

Director of Photography: David Kruta

It’s always refreshing to be able to work on a project for a good cause, and with the obesity epidemic across the country, I jumped on the opportunity to shoot a spot that would encourage children and adolescents to make healthier choices when looking for a refreshing drink this summer.

The spot begins on a scorching summer day. Heat waves rise from the pavement as our hero, hot and sweaty, notices a girl carrying a sugary soda. He’s inspired and runs into the nearest bodega for a cold drink, but as he’s about to take a sip, a giant slab of fat flies out of nowhere and collides with his face, knocking the drink out of his hands.

Check out the commercial and teaser below:

The shot of the fat was the most important part of the shoot, and had to be done in super slow motion. Yanik had worked on some projects using the Phantom camera, and was convinced this shot needed to be around 800 to 1000 frames per second.

I was initially called to be the DIT and Phantom Tech on the commercial, but after a quick discussion, I realized Yanik was looking for a Director of Photography, and luckily my experience clicked perfectly with his vision. I agreed right away with his choice to shoot on Phantom, so I recommended the Flex (provided by Rule Boston Camera) to pull off this high-speed shot.

As much as I would have loved to shoot the 24fps material with a different camera, budget constraints meant that we could only rent the Phantom. We shot everything from 24 to 1000 fps on the Flex. Luckily, the spot was very simple and there weren’t too many complex setups.

I lit entirely with available light, using a few basic modifiers. The need to make it look sweltering meant I used the hard sunlight to our advantage, augmenting here and there with a 8x8 ultrabounce, white card or silver reflector. We used the silver bounce to maintain the consistency of backlight under cloud cover. I wasn’t afraid to let the edges blow out a bit to get proper exposure on our subject, and this only added to the effect.

Boston Public Health Commission works with adolescents to help them come up with various initiatives and analyze their effectiveness. For this shoot, they brought a few of them along to learn about filmmaking, which I thought was a great opportunity for them. We taught them how to slate, showed them the camera and talked about what it’s like to work in this field. We even shot a fun 1000fps take with all of them.

Overall this was a fantastic experience working with Yanik, BPHC, our wonderful cast and crew, and getting to do something for a good cause. Check out more of this campaign at fatsmack.org

Puma Shoot Behind the Scenes with the Red Epic

Director: Stan Lozinsky

Director of Photography: David Kruta

​Several months ago, director Stan Lozinsky approached me with a very ambitious project – a spec commercial for Puma involving a professional hurdler, a chasing Puma, high speed photography and, of course, a tight budget. He handed me a stack of storyboards comprising 48 setups for a 60 second spot. Considering I love a challenge, I gladly accepted and we set about figuring out how to make this happen.

The look of the spot called for an extremely high contrast ratio, with the runner being carved out of the darkness by a hard edge. Sharpness was also paramount, which we achieved with a short shutter angle. Stan wanted the runner’s speed to be crystal clear.

Initially the idea was to shoot the spot on the Phantom Flex, since the director’s vision included shots of the athlete almost frozen in mid-air over a hurdle. Budget constraints eliminated that possibility very quickly – we could not afford the camera package, let alone the lighting we would need to bring in to replace the stadium lights, which would inevitably flicker at those speeds.

We also explored the possibility of shooting on the Fastec TS3 Cine, but it was not yet available, and dSLRs using the Twixtor plugin to achieve the effect in post. This was an interesting idea, and after a bit of research, we decided to take the Twixtor route. Testing revealed that the plugin becomes more effective and exhibits fewer image warping artifacts when using higher resolution video, so we started looking at Red. Again, budget led us to believe that we could do it with the Red MX, but I checked in with some Epic owners and Offhollywood, and after seeing that the price difference was very manageable, we went with one of Offhollywood’s Epics.

In addition, several shots required the camera to fly over the hurdles behind our hurdler. At first, we wanted to accomplish this with a crane or offset arm on a dolly, but we quickly realized that setting that much track and pushing a 300 lb dolly at those speeds would be time consuming, and more importantly, dangerous. Reviewing the boards, we decided that only 2 shots only truly required this angle, and since the cuts happen so quickly, we could just cut the best part out of a jib shot. For speed, I consulted with Jeff Melanson, and we came up with a plan to shoot as much as we could on Steadicam. This would enable us to move quickly from setup to setup with minimal effort.

After several months of prepping, discussing and bouncing ideas around, we had formed a relatively solid plan. Stan had organized a track in Queens, NY, and with the location set, we prepared to shoot.

1st AC Darryl Byrne and Steadicam Operator Jeff Melanson were present for checkout at 580 Broadway, Offhollywood’s headquarters in NYC. This was our first experience there, and it was a pleasure working with the various techs and rental agents, who helped us familiarize ourselves with the system and answered any questions. Founder Mark Pederson even came by to say hello and introduce himself to the crew.

Once on location, gaffer Jordan Parrott and the G&E crew quickly set up two 20x20 solids to block one side of the stadium’s light (one of the drawbacks of the location was that we had no control over which stadium lights were on). We also used a ARRI 1.2k Fresnel with a ¼ grid chimera for a bit of fill on closeups. The vast majority of the shoot was lit entirely with the existing lights, which covered our shooting area spanning over 300 feet of track.

We arrived in a downpour, so we got set up and had to wait out the rain. Once the weather cleared, we had only 4 hours left to shoot, so we scrambled. Hurdler Andrew Omoregie was a beast, running take after take as Jeff chased him down with the Steadicam on a golf cart. Darryl handled, with ease, switching the Epic between Steadicam mode using the Red 18-50mm zoom, and studio mode using the Angenieux Optimo 24-290mm zoom numerous times during the night.

The second night of shooting brought clear skies and our jib operator, James Strosahl, with his 30-foot jib. We threw the Optimo on there and and Andrew ran under, in front of, behind and almost through the jib as we cranked out shots. Darryl and I even had a couple runs on the gears, which was challenging but led to some great shots.

In the end, we wound up with a 60:1 ratio of footage and a thoroughly exhausted but happy crew. The Epic had performed brilliantly, even in the low-light. The crew was top notch and pulled through the long days (and nights), and the spot is already in color correction. I’ll be sure to post it here as soon as it’s released.