Blog written by Jonathan Bregel.

A couple weeks ago, Producer James Douglas gave me a call to DP a spot for MMA clothing company, Cagehero , which would be directed by the super-talented collaborative, GrandArmy. In the early concept development process, James Douglas pitched the idea of shooting the spot primarily on Rule Boston Cameras Phantom Flex camera. Having just shot several days on the Phantom Flex for Taylor Swift, I was all for the idea since I was now very familiar with the workflow.  After the concept was developed, the Cagehero commercial was booked to shoot on a Saturday, which meant we would have the camera all day Sunday to shoot whatever we wanted. Being as big of a camera nerd that I am, there was no possible way I was going to let the Phantom Flex idle for a day. I immediately called the producer, James, and convinced him to let me take the camera out Sunday. (thanks for being cool James) Little did he know that I would be skateboarding with the Flex hours later..lol.

Anyway, the idea behind this video was to document whatever sort of culture we could find within an 8 hour span with literally no pre-production. I have honestly seen too many slow-motion explosions, face slaps, and popping water baloons, that I thought capturing real culture, and real emotion would be a cool change of pace. My goal was to successfully pull of a few of these shots with a small crew in order to be able to pitch the Phantom Flex for a lot of the documentary work we shoot/produce. A big misconception is that you need a massive crew and massive lights in order to use this camera...false. However, you do need to know how to use natural daylight to your advantage along with having a kick-ass core crew to support you.

The day started out with myself, good friend Dan Selby, and good friend Jesse Korman. Thank the Canadian God's that Chris Dowsett was in town to help us out later in the day (he was lost on the subway for about 2 hours). As the day went on, I got more and more ambitious and ended up riding a skateboard down the street with the Flex in order to get a shot of the skateboarders riding into the sunset. It was just one of those shots that I knew was really stupid to do, but I think it was worth it in the end...you guys can be the judge of that...One of things I am learning more and more is that you really have to do some stupid stuff in order to push the envelope (I think my buddy Tom Lowe can relate). By the end of the day, I was very excited because we had just pulled off a few cool shots with a really small crew. I feel that my goal was met in that we have proven the Phantom Flex can be used effectively for docu-style shooting. 

Below are some BTS pictures taken by Chris Dowsett

First off, we would like to apologize for the lack of attention to our blog/site over the past several months. The truth of the matter is that things decided to skyrocket for us and we have had very little time to update the site, let alone do anything other than shoot and produce. We just wrapped a few of our most exciting projects to date and cannot wait to blog about them! 

In other news, we have all been working tirelessly during jobs/travel on our company plans for the next year and cannot wait to share them with everyone. All we can say is that 2011-2012 will forever be known as the years of epic collaborations! 

Lastly, a huge thanks must go out to all of our sponsors and colleagues for supporting us through these past few crazy months. You know who you are. Without you guys, none of these projects would have been so incredibly successful. 

Cheers,

Next Level Pictures

Directors: Drefilms & SpiffTV, Producer: Sway Mendez, Director of Photography: Jonathan Bregel

This week has been pretty busy between everything going on between Khalid, myself, and Next Level Pictures. 

Last week I was contacted by producer Sway Mendez to DP some music videos for Rick Ross's new albim/mixtape entitled; "Self Made." NLP was contacted for this job based off of our past artist promo/docu/music video work. The directors called for a very raw/gritty approach to the visuals so I did my best to achieve that. Having Brooklyn and downtown Atlanta as our backdrop, I knew this look would be possible. All video work was shot on our new Sony F3 and Zeiss Compact Primes. I am really starting to fall in love with this setup because of it's lightweight and ease of use. We will be shooting a lot of documentary/commercial work with the F3 in the upcoming months. 

At the end of the day, it was a pleasure collaborating with Rick Ross as he is truly dedicated person. After I shot the video last week for "600 Benz", Rick Ross saw the footage and personally requested that I come back and shoot his 2nd video for "Pacman." I was stoked that he had noticed a quality boost from the videos previously shot for his "Self Made" album/mixtape. That being said, the Boss would occasionally come behind the camera to check on the shots and give me reasons for why he liked specific shots. It's always great to get an outside perspective on the things we are shooting. The guy knows how to hustle. (As seen below in a grab from the video I shot for "Pacman.")

Now that I am back and settled in NYC, I spent some of the day grading some of the screen-grabs. So far, the Rick Ross camp has been very happy with everything I have shot for them. There are a lot of projects on the horizon with this crew. Solid hustlers. Below are some more frame grabs from the video for "Pacman." Before viewing, I want to share a ridiculous story that happened on set:

I'll start it out by saying that we were shooting in a "Trap House." For those of you who don't know what a "Trap House" is, I'd suggest looking it up on Google. Below is a screen grab from Google Maps. You can see the dozen or so guys hanging around the Trap. #Sketchy.

Below is a picture of my good friend and 2nd AC, Jimmy Costigan and I relaxing on set before all hell broke loose. Don't judge me because of my epic Ken Griffey Jr. shades and Bob Marley Tank:

Needless to say, this wasn’t familiar territory for my crew and I. This was something that I most likely never would have gotten to experience if it wasn’t for this video, so I am thankful for that. For the video, we had 4 performance setups planned for the day at this location along with some cinematic storyline. When I saw the location on the morning of the shoot, my head was exploding with shot ideas. It is very rare that I see a location with such real, raw, and gritty character. This "Trap House" was every DP/Directors dream. That being said, by the time we got through the 1st performance scene, shit decided to hit the fan when one of the "tenants" of the "Trap House" decided to demand money from the production. As my crew and I were setting up an epic portrait shot of one of the tenants, we heard some yelling from inside the "Trap." I was so focused on getting this shot that I just played it off. I think Khalid and I share a very similar mindset when we are stoked on a shot...we basically forget about the world around us and zone in on nailing the shot. This is both very good, and very bad. Given the fact that we were shooting in the hoodest of hoods I have ever been in, this was very bad. Right as I had my shot lined up on the dolly, I hear one of the "tenants" yelling and come crashing through his front door. Before I even realize what was going on, this guy had kicked the dolly along with various gear cases and HMI ballasts. If my hand wasnt on the camera, it could have been a really, really bad day. While he's doing this, he is screaming "GET THE F&*K OUT OF HERE" along with other racist comments. My crew and I all look at each other as if this is something out of a movie. 6 film crew guys, in the middle of a "Trap House", surrounded by about 30 "Trap House Tenants." Not good. I immediately grabbed my camera and ran it to the truck as my gaffer, Boyd Hobbs, and his g&e wrapped faster then a posse of superheroes. Just as we got everything back to the truck and were waiting for the producer to get back on set, the 2nd AC, Jimmy Costigan, had reminded me that some of our camera gear was in fact, IN THE CRAZY GUYS TRAP! While I'm pondering if my life is worth a couple Anton Bauer batteries and a charger, the 1st AC, Ben McLeod, notices that his truck is being blocked in by one of the tenants cars. Ambition is completely worn off at this point and I am fully aware that we may actually be in a lot of trouble. Ben, not really knowing what to do at this point, approached the guy who blocked his car in and nicely asked him to move it. The guy’s response was; “give me $400 and the car is yours.” At this point, the producer/problem solver, Sway Mendez, was right around the corner. Keep in mind that all of this went down in the 5 minutes that the producer was taking out money from an ATM in order to get us lunch. This was probably one of the longer 5-minute spans in my life. I felt like I was waiting for superman to come and save us. When Sway got back, he quickly resolved the issue. Not sure how he did this but I’m pretty sure it had a lot to do with swag and money. Ben got his car back, and I got my Anton Bauer batteries and charger back.

We soon found out that this crazy guy who had flipped out was not an everyday member of the trap. I honestly felt very safe up until this guy decided to demand money from the director and kick our gear. The members of the "trap" community were all very respectable of our property and accually helped us carry a lot of our gear from spot to spot. I threw 1 guy $5 at the beginning of the day and I swear he was one of the most loyal PA's I have ever worked with. Good people, bad habits. 

At the end of the day, I was mostly disappointed that we only got to shoot in 1 of the 4 performance setups at this “trap house.” I think the average person would have just been happy to be alive…I was of course happy to be alive, but pretty bummed that we didn’t get to capture the character of this “trap house.” Definitely not an opportunity that pops up everyday. Enjoy!

 I wish I had a great story about the "600 Benz" shoot but the truth is that it went very flawlessly. However, it did rain the entire day but it accually played out very well for the look that the director wished to achieve. At one point, we had the F3 on a jimmy jib, wrapped up in a trash bag. This was my first time working with Mikey Jib's from NYC Jibs. The guy is simply a beast. Below is a shot of his setup along with some screen-grabs from the "600 Benz" video.

Check back soon for more updates!

-Jon

BLOG updated by- Khalid Mohtaseb

Can't talk much about this project as of right now but we had the opportunity to produce & shoot a commercial for director Vincent Laforet. Vince flew in from LA & we shot one day in Brooklyn studios.  We decided to go with our new Sony F3 & T-stop Cinema's Cooke Panchros. This was also the first shoot we were able to use our Ki-pro mini on and it worked out flawlessly. The Ki Pro Mini is a ProRes field recorder that supports all four types of Apple ProRes. This thing is awesome not only because its a simple way to shoot ProRes but it records to universal CF cards! For this spot we recorded to SxS cards & CF cards (using KPM) simultaneously. I love this workflow as its always nice to have a backup in case one of the two fails. To rig the KPMini to the rods, we used the Zacuto Zwiss plate, which also has an optional AB gold mount.

For anyone using an external recorder with the F3 PLEASE NOTE; I've heard talks prior to purchasing the Ki-pro mini about an issue with the F3 when outputting sdi or hdmi to an external recorder. A VERY visible fish scaling pattern appears on the image & WILL be recorded. (as you see in the photo below) 

To avoid this a friend mentioned to go into the "video set" menu & change the 23.98p output from 23.98PsF to 59.94i (2-3 pulldown). So I tried it & it still didn't solve the issue. After a few different tests I learned that if you go into the same menu & change "sdi/hdmi out display" to "off" you'll get a clean picture. Only issue when you turn this off is all camera display setting are no longer viewable on external monitors. 

We're told that Sony is aware of this & should have it fixed with the new firmware (within next couple of weeks or less) which will also activate simultaneous output (HD-SDI & HDMI). Below is the image with displays off. Be sure to toggle between the two images to check out how much cleaner the image is with displays off. 

For our first setup we used the J.L. Fisher 10 dolly & jib arm w the Kessler Revolution head. The revolution head & Oracle controller are great options for panning & tilting when using the fisher jib arm. 

We also used the Kessler Turntable to shoot a few of our product shots. Unfortunetly I can't go into too much detail on what we did but you'll see just how useful this piece of gear was when the spot is finished. 

Our Last Setup of the day was awesome!! It was one 15 second shot that consisted of a very precise & complicated camera movement. Luckily enough Bregel's a beast & he nailed it in a few takes. I gotta give a shout out to our dolly grip, John Moustakas. This guys is a gem when it comes to anything related to dolly! So glad he was part of our team! 

I also cant forget to mention that Vincent was also shooting products shots of every setup with his Hasselblad. Below is a photo of Vince shooting photos from the Fisher.

Overall this was an amazing opportunity for everyone involved & it was a pleasure collaborating with such a talented director like Vincent. We'll post an update once the spot is live. Check back soon for updates!

-Khalid

BLOG updated by: Khalid Mohtaseb 

Im sure you guys are familiar with TLC's hit reality shows Miami Ink & LA Ink. Well TLC decided to do another one of these series only with a New York City back drop. A few weeks ago I was contacted by the Diamond brothers to shoot the intro to NY Ink that they were directing. This was my first time working with these guys and im sure it wont be the last. 

We were originally supposed to shoot with the Sony F3, but decided to go with the Red MX at 4K. The final product will consist of a ton of graphics & CG work so we figured we'd give them a little more room to play with. The Diamond brothers own the Red package & we used our Zacuto support gear to quickly change out to hand held. 

We shot the first day at Production Central Studio, all on greenscreen w T-Stop Cinemas Duclos 11-16. This lens is tack sharp all around. Duclos did an amazing Job rehousing the Tokina 11-16 and is well worth the money spent on it. As you can see from the BTS photos, we shot a ton of group shots so we stayed on a T5.6/8 the majority of the day.  

The Second day we shot the docu-style segment of the intro, also all on the 11-16. We walked around soho most of the day capturing handheld, lifestyle shots of each character in the show. By the end of the day I couldn't move from having the RED on my shoulders all day. I even had our 1st AC Tony Segrato operate a few takes :)

The Diamonds recently got their Epic & I cannot wait to use it on future shoots! I had the opportunity to test it the other night & was blown away at how barebones the package can be to function like a real camera. One improvement I noticed that really caught my attention was how rolling shutter barely existed. This is going to make it the perfect solution for bigger budget documentary. Its hard to believe that a 60K camera is going to be the new "go to" camera for high res run & gun shooting.

Overall this project was a blast to shoot & I can't wait to share the final product. 

-Khalid

BLOG updated by: Khalid Mohtaseb 

For those of you who haven't been following our blog, Last summer I shot a pilot titled "Final Witness" that aired on abc in september of 2010. A few months ago I was contacted by Adam Feinstein (director) and found out abc bought 6 more episodes and we were to start production within a few months.

Last week we shot the interview segment of the 1st episode in New Orleans, LA. Below is a photo of the abc family, shot to replicate one of our many camera angles we used for the interviews. Mostly everyone photographed below also worked on the pilot and have literally become like family to me. 

The camera & lighting setup didn't change much from the pilot. Check out my previous blog posts for details. Final Witness interview shoot. Final Witness narative shoot  I want to thank our sponsors (Kessler Crane, Zacuto, & Letus Direct) for all the support they've provided over the last few months. Its been an unbelievable experience working with these guys. 

Here are a few stitched panoramic photos that Andreas shot. 

- Khalid 

After viewing the behind the scenes, it is our pleasure to show the world, the first ever footage seen from the Sony F3 with S-Log:

We hope you all enjoyed it! Please leave any questions or comments in the "comments" section at the bottom of the blog post. 

For anyone interested, below is a list of all the gear we used. All of which is avaliable for purchase or rental at Abel Cine Tech (Other than the prototypes we got to use).

Sony PMWF3L Camera, OConnor O-Box WM Mattebox, OConnor O-Grips and Rod Bridge, Arri FF-5 HD Studio Follow Focus, Element Technica - Prototype top handle and base plate, Cinedeck Extreme Recorder, Angenieux Optimo DP Rouge 16-42mm T2.8, Angenieux Optimo DP Rouge 30-80mm T2.8, Angenieux - Prototype Optimo 45-120mm T2.8, Cooke Panchro/i 18mm T2.8, Cooke Panchro/i 100mm T2.8, Arri/Zeiss 25mm T1.3 Master Prime , Arri/Zeiss 8Rmm Ultra Prime T2.8 , Miller Heavy Duty 2 stage 100mm carbon fiber tripod (925) and Miller Mini Tripod (455), Miller Arrow 55 Fluid Head (1028), KesslerCrane 3ft CineSlider, Anton Bauer Dionic 90 Batteries, 2x Bi-Color Litepanels 1x1, Tyler Camera Systems MiniGyro, Adobe Production Premium, DaVinci Resolve

Below are a few shots of the gear in action:

Lastly we would like to give a MASSIVE thank you to everyone involved in this project. First and foremost to our sponsors and our executive producers for supporting us and wanting to push the limits and take things to the NEXT LEVEL :) Secondly to all of our crew members for hanging in there with us and lending their talents to an absolutely exhausting yet inspiring shoot.

At Next Level Pictures we are firm believers in the collaborative filmmaking process and this project proved to us how powerful collaboration is in order to push the film industry in a forward direction. Again, a MASSIVE thank you to every single person involved. Now, lets see what happens! Please make sure to follow everyone below on twitter for further updates on the S-Log tests.

Executive Producers:

Eric Kessler

Jarred Abrams

Carl Zeiss Lenses

Vincent Laforet

Crew Contacts/Twitter Usernames:

Vincent Laforet - Exec. Producer, Aerial Cinematographer, Rock-star - @vincentlaforet

Khalid Mohtaseb - Director, Producer, Cinematographer - @KhalidMohtaseb

Jonathan Bregel - Director, Producer, Cinematographer - @JonathanBregel

Brad Burke - Producer, UPM, Hipster - @B_radBurke

Timur Civan - Cinematographer, Associate Producer, Turkish Boss :) - @timurcivan

Tyler Ginter  - Associate Producer, 1st AD, Production Beast, BTS Editor - @tylerginter

Steve Birne - Production Coordinator, Locations Manager, Bird-Man - @StevenBirne

Jeff Levine - 1st AC, Lens-Hoss - @jlevine85

Tom Wong - Editor, DaVinci Colorist, Beastmode activator - Too Cool for Twitter

Chris Dowsett  - BTS Photography, Production Motivator, #DOWSETT - @Chris_Dowsett

Matt Jeppsen - FreshDV BTS Camera Operator - @mjeppsen

Kendal Miller - FreshDV BTS Director - @KendalMiller

Chris Marino - Aerial locations manager - @ChrisMarino_DP

Mac Bleser  - NLP web master - @mbleser

Chris Murphy - Discovering Audio

Production Music:

Pretty Lights - “Gold Coast Hustle” - Final Comparison Video

www.prettylightsmusic.com

Nat Kendall Presents: Songbird Sing - “On Again” - BTS Video

www.songbirdsing.com

Below are a few of the approved screengrabs from the shoot. Along with these is a little write-up on the promo.

To top off this busy week, Next Level Pictures was brought on by clothing company Hawke & Co. to shoot a promo for their new clothing line. I was really excited to find out that one of my mentors, Roy Cox, was the guy to reccomend us for the gig. Just a little over 2 years ago I was interning for Roy in Baltimore so it was great to be working right next to him in the field.

Roy was hired to shoot the entire clothing line in a 1 day shoot, in New Jersey. Our job was to capture the models from behind Roy's lens and showcase the models wardrobes with moving images. All credit goes out to Roy Cox for choosing the models, locations, lighting, makeup, and just about everything else. Its safe to say that he made our lives pretty damn easy that day. All that was left for us to do at that point was stay out of Roys way and try to frame a decent shot. Roy blasted through about 10 setups in under 7 hours, all of which looked amazing. I was very suprised that the models from Ford didn't complain because of the pace Roy and his crew were moving. That being said, Roy is one of the coolest people to work with so it's completely understandable why they didnt complain.

I will post some screen-grabs as soon as I get the proper approval.

On another note, Vegas tomorrow for NAB. Boo-ya.

Director: Jonathan Yi
Producer: Corwin Carroll
DP's: Khalid Mohtaseb and Jonathan Bregel
Production Company: EyePatch Productions
BTS Photos: Ed "Chan-Man" Chan

About a month ago, director Jonathan Yi reached out to Next Level Pictures specifically specifically specifically of our cinematic approach to documentary filmmaking. Instead of going with the typical "run & gun" style documentary approach, Jonathan wanted to take this HBO gig to the NEXT LEVEL :) , so he got in touch with us. The gig involved us following around a famous NYC chef/restaurant owner throughout her day along with a formal 2 camera interview.

Earlier this week, Khalid and I were brought on by EyePatch productions to co-DP part 1 of the mini-series for HBO. Director Jonathan Yi had been wanting to collaborate with us for some time now and our paths finally crossed on this inspiring project. The promo is for a 3-part mini-series entitled "East of Main Street." The mini-series documents Americans of Asian descent and how they got to where they are today. I was very drawn into the show's subject matter given I have both a brother and sister whom were adopted from Korea. It was very interesting for me to hear about the struggles and successes of Asian-Americans in the USA. 

This specific job called for a very cinematic approach, but the kicker was that we had to remain low-key for all of our interiors. That being said, the first thing that comes to mind is DSLR's for b-roll interiors, and Sony F3 for exteriors. A lot of our b-roll was to be shot in a very small kitchen with about 5 people working in it. It was pretty much a DP's nightmare. BUT, Since we were dealing with a very small space where people were working, DSLR's proved to be the perfect tool. The DSLR's enabled us to poke in the kitchen and get some great b-roll with our Kessler Cine Slider and 12x12 LED's courtesy of Carson Garner.

For the exteriors, we decided to go with the Sony PMW-F3 and Zeiss CP.2's. With the weight of DSLR's always being a bit of an issue for steadicam, the F3 helped us out a lot. Not only the weight being a factor, but the ability to pull focus, on a real lens, is a major plus. Steadicam-Op, Yousheng Tang did an amazing job following the Chef around the city. The guy is a beast. 

When it came time for the interview, we had a bit more space to work with so we decided to go with the F3 and 5D mark2. We were originally going to shoot the interview on 2x 5D's but timecode sync and free-record sounded too good. From what I saw on set, I'm thinking the 2 cameras will cut together quite nicely. My only note is to turn down the sharpness and contrast on the 5D in order to come closer to the look of the F3. Other than that, we will be using the 5D Mark2 as a B-cam for many shoots in the near future when 2x F3's aren't avaliable. 

To wrap up the day, we threw the F3 back on the steadicam and shot the restaurants crew eating their daily pre-work meal. For this part of the day we were very rushed and were forced to use no lighting. At first, Khalid and I were trying to find anyway possible to throw a light up, but production wasn't having it because we had to be very non-intrusive. Our stress quickly went away when we set the F3 to its native ISO 800 setting and put it on the steadicam. Wow. As you can see below, Khalid and I are thinking, "wow, this actually works."

Although these shots weren't lit with anything other than a weird daylight/ambient tungsten mix, we were thoroughly impressed with the image straight out of camera. Without any lighting, the shots had an amazing "real-life" feel to them which in my opinion really complimented the Chef's story that we previously heard. It's very rare that I am impressed with the typical "docu-style" approach, but in this case, it really tied the piece together. I am confident that the mixture of cinematic b-roll, formal interview, and this "real-life docu-feel" will cut together in an amazing way. 

Overall, this shoot was a great collaboration between Director and DP's. Jonathan did a great job making the Chef comfortable throughout the day which in effect enabled us to get some amazing coverage. Can't wait to see the finished piece.

Check back soon for more updates!

-J

BTS Photos: Zac Eubank

The day after returning from shooting the promos for All Time Low, I flew out to Kansas City to DP a music video for director Antwan Smith. My good friend Alex Purifoy was the producer on the video and did a great job assembling a rock star crew. Pictured below; far left - Antwan Smith, middle - Alex Purifoy, far right - Me.

This video called for a few different locations; an airport hanger, a car wash, and a club. The shoot was scheduled from 1pm-1am and we ended up wrapping an hour early. This was my first gig shooting on the new Sony F3, and it will not be my last. The entire video was lensed on the Zeiss Super Speed Mark 3's and shot mainly at a T1.3. I am pretty blown away at the in camera image control. The images straight out of camera will most likely require very little color correction. Below are some screen grabs and BTS stills from the shoot in Kansas City.

More updates coming soon!