XH-A1's in Crank 2 Trailer

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

The full 1080p HD is now available from Apple:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/crank2/hd/
This is in better quality than the WMV HD trailer.

[Erik Bien]

I agree with those who attribute the great results more to the artist than to the tools, but it shouldn't be overlooked that those guys have much, much nicer toys than the rest of us!

I got a demo of Assimilate Scratch running on a redBOXX at NAB last year (pricing is something of a closely-held secret with both companies, but let's say it's in the neighborhood of $35K for software and about the same amount for hardware before adding control surfaces and monitors, which actually makes it one of the least expensive digital intermediate/conform systems available).

The things you can do with secondaries ("scaffolds" in Scratch-speak) on a system like that in real time are pretty amazing.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

I watched Crank 1 tonight. They have some very nice special features on the DVD, explaining why they are using these cheap cameras and all (Crank 1 also used cheaper cameras) and how they recruited a skateboarder as a cameraman, in order to get some crazy shots.

[tokbandit]

My question is was there this much hype over the film "28 Days Later" that was shot with the Canon XL1? The look of the film that came out of the XL1 was great....and with Crank 2 using the XhA1 and HF10 just goes to show you it isn't what you shoot with but what you shoot as in the story or message you trying to get across.....

[Erik Bien]

how they recruited a skateboarder as a cameraman, in order to get some crazy shots.

Actually that crazy cameraman is none other than Mark Neveldine himself!

[Duke]

My question is was there this much hype over the film "28 Days Later" that was shot with the Canon XL1? The look of the film that came out of the XL1 was great....and with Crank 2 using the XhA1 and HF10 just goes to show you it isn't what you shoot with but what you shoot as in the story or message you trying to get across.....

And editing plus music/sound has a huge impact. If you looked at the early clips from Crank2, then the trailer, that really made a big difference.

[Noir]

the script for crank 2 is really fun, ten times crazier than the original.

i can't wait to see it.

[Ian-T]

Here's a post by Barry Green over at DVXUser talking about the latest edition of HD Video Pro magazine. In the magazine it has an interview with the folks behind this movie who explained why they chose thie A1's and the HF10's. I think this cool. One excerpt says this:

Something that we did differently on this film was crank up the sharpening, or detail setting. The directors wanted a look for the movie that was so sharp that it would kind of hurt your eyes just to watch. The detail is super crispy. We shot the whole movie at either 1/1000 or 1/2000 shutter speed, giving the image a very staccato look. With the wide lenses and deep stop, it's a deep focus movie, and with the sharpening, it's a look that has never been seen on the big screen.

Oh...and it was not an XH1 that was used in the first Crank movie... Apparently they used F900 and F950's.

@Duke...you're right about the music. I can't get that trailer music out of my head. There is definitely an art on putting together an effective trailer. There should be some kind of award recognition for folks doing this type of work. I've seen some great trailers from movies that turned out to be duds.

[IanB]

The American Cinematographer magazine (posted a month or so ago on this forum) is a fantastic resource, and here they have the exciting story of these small cams being chosen specifically because of thier hand-held and fast pace look. The avoided large lighting setups to give the film a rushed feel, and put the shutter at 2000 and dealt with the 1440x1080 hd footage/workflow shooting at -3db gain.

I think this is awesome. Reading the article now and thought I would share. It is copy-write material, so I am not going to post it, but if you can look at the 'free' sample version online, find the article about the Crank High Voltage article.

Another great quote that affirms we are doing something right on these forums compared to the big budget films. "I set my zebra's to 70%"

enjoy. And I love this online magazine.
IB

[Ian-T]

I think it's the same thing talked about in the lst post here:

http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?t=20033&page=4

[Mal]

I've seen some great trailers from movies that turned out to be duds.

Hmm, remember what I said about trailers!

[net]

Crank 2 Clip: Mansion Fight (NSFW language)

http://www.actionjunkie.net/?p=1200

[Boz]

Who knew 'Pedro' from "Napoleon Dynamite" was such a bad-ass? lol!

[Ian-T]

Who knew 'Pedro' from "Napoleon Dynamite" was such a bad-ass? lol!

Ha ha ,..I know. That was funny to see...

[atomic9studios]

Hehe, a feature length film shot on my little camera...


Makes me feel like i need to get out there and film some more

[-Rogue5-]

Saw this movie today and, aside from being worse than the first (it wasn't that it was too excessive, just that it was needlessly too excessive), everything looked pretty good on screen.

You could definitely notice when something was shot with the HF10 compared to the A1, but only if you looked for it. And while the quality wasn't necessarily on the level of REDONE, it still looked mint (even blown up). I DID see it at a digital cinema though, so transfers to film may be better or worse.

I can't get over how they were able to get such a grainless/macroblockless image; every "normal" (as in, not intentially over-the-top crazy) shot looked incredibly clean and held up well... All of the "Doc Miles" footage (which was also indoors) looked as good as the stuff I've seen come out of RED and projected on the big screen. One thing I did notice was that the camera was almost always moving (or cutting to something different)... and when the camera wasn't moving as much, it was because the characters/objects on screen were moving excessively.

I think the only time you'd notice a difference between Crank 1 and 2 (visually) is if you watched them back to back. It was so razor sharp -- I can't believe how well the XH-A1s held up compared to the F900s (or whatever) were used for the first film.

-Rogue5-

[Ian-T]

I'll just ditto you on all of what you said. I just saw it myself. It shocked the heck out of me also. The movie was over the top from start to finish...that's true. I think I laughed all the way through because of all the unbelievable stuff in it. But you are right about the camera scenes. You could tell the HF10 scenes. But the whole movie was clean...and suprisingly sharp. The interior scenes in many instances looked like any film I've watched (unbelievable). The outdoor scenes were a little jarring at times (especially the beginning)...That had more to do with shutter speed than anything..but they were razor sharp and clean. I know there were some blowouts...but I didn't pick up on it...or in other words it never bothered me. This movie almost crosses the boundaries of it being rated R....I'd say it hovers just over rated X with all the sex, violence and gore. Also...I only saw one "Jello" scene (same as in the preview). SO the CMOS on the HF10 held up well. I think the HV20 could have held up even better.

How about that Kong vs Godzilla scene....CRAZY!!!! I won't say anymore. ANyways...folks will be suprised.

Also...if you noticed the out takes at the end...there was NO color grading on those shots. I thought the director stated that most of what he did was "in-cam?" You could see the low contrast look during those out takes. I thought I liked that also...but the CC looked good either or.

You're right about it holding up well againts the F900 from the first movie. you could see the difference...but this movie deffinitely had its own look.

[-Rogue5-]

Crud, I didn't see the outtakes at the end... only up until the end of Doc Miles's portion.

I read that HDvideopro article, what he said was that they tried to do as much in camera as possible as far as the look was concerned --- everything was set to zero (contrast, brightness, boosts, etc) except the (A1's)cinegamma, (A1's) cinelook, and sharpness (which was maxed). On top of that, 1/1000 or 1/2000 shutter speed was used at all times. He said the resulting image was very colour correction friendly so they knew exactly what they could pull off in post.

I was disappointed that they didn't use the "remote control car" HF10 (which was in the trailer and they talked about it in the HDVP article) or some of the other things mentioned. They used 5 A1s and 15 HF10s and the guy in the article said they used 3 A1s minimum per shot/take and often used a dozen or some HF10s at random angles... it didn't seem that way though.

In either case, I have no idea how they were able to get such clean footage even from the A1s; presumably if they used a denoiser of some kind it would have wreaked havok on their sharpness, but there were plenty of scenes were I saw skin pores and individual head/facial hair and stuff... So some wizardry was going on in postprod. They said they had to convert all of their daily footage to HDcam for the post house as well, but I don't know how that could improve the image.

Like I said, I've seen RED footage in the same digital cinema and, as far as image is concerned, you probably wouldn't be able to tell between Crank2's properly shot A1 stuff and RED ONEs footage (except maybe where DOF was used effectively on the R1). I can't get over how good all of Doc Miles's shots were; the lighting in his office (and the close-ups of Chocolate's a$$) were just so pristine.

-Rogue5-

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

>I've seen RED footage in the same digital cinema ... you probably wouldn't be able to tell between....

You will probably see the difference in the Blu-Ray video. I went to a modern digital cinema too a few months ago, and the quality was LOWER than my Pioneer plasma 1080p HDTV. So it's of no surprise that you can't tell the difference between RED and an A1 on the cinema. But if you have a good HDTV at home (especially a plasma TV in "movie" mode where there's little sharpening and no crazy saturation), then you will see the difference.

[-Rogue5-]

IYou will probably see the difference in the Blu-Ray video. I went to a modern digital cinema too a few months ago, and the quality was LOWER than my Pioneer plasma 1080p HDTV. So it's of no surprise that you can't tell the difference between RED and an A1 on the cinema. But if you have a good HDTV at home (especially a plasma TV in "movie" mode where there's little sharpening and no crazy saturation), then you will see the difference.

The only reason I'm hesitant to agree with you outright is that Iron Man at this cinema looked as good as, if not better than the Blu-Ray does on my 1080p samsung (which is arguably the best looking Blu-Ray available next to Crank 1). On the same token, when I watch the Crank 2 trailer on my PS3 it looks as good as any RED footage I've also run off the PS3... Of course this is all conjecture and I don't have a RED movie on Blu-Ray to compare with Crank 1 BluR (F900) or Iron Man BluR (Panavision Genesis), let alone Crank 2 on BluR (which *should* look better than the downloaded trailers, even if they are the same resolution.)

OH and I've never seen RED footage at 1/1000 or 1/2000 shutter speed (which could also make a massive difference).

Furthermore, the further away from the TV you are (8-10ft), chances are you'd be even harder pressed to see the difference between the two cameras...Personally, I think it should be easier to spot the differences between the footage when it's blown up.

And, yeah, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that it looks friggen amazing and even if it's only 95% as good looking as RED, it's still 1/10th the cost ($3Gs compared to $30Gs) and it only gets me even more pumped for Scarlet.

-Rogue5-

[fishops]

but there were plenty of scenes were I saw skin pores and individual head/facial hair and stuff... So some wizardry was going on in postprod.

I just shot a music video with my A1, and even in the medium shots the director was telling me to soften up the focus due to the fact that every pore and makeup flaw was showing up in gory detail on the monitor.

I love that we're even having this discussion. If you had told me five years ago that I would own a camera for less than 3 grand that could hold up in a wide cinema release I would have jumped out the window.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

>is that Iron Man at this cinema looked as good as, if not better than the Blu-Ray does on my 1080p samsung

hehehe!!!! You know what's very funny here? It's when I said above "I went to a modern digital cinema too a few months ago". You see, that was about Iron Man!!! And no, the digital cinema we watched it at (brand new equipment btw -- one of the reasons we went there with my husband), was NOT better than our Pioneer plasma TV. Remember, the $4000 Pioneer plasma TV model I am talking about is regarded by most reviewers as one of the best TVs ever. So it's possible that your Samsung model was simply not up to snuff to compete with the cinema version. Ours definitely was though.

Some stuff to read:
http://gizmodo.com/336498/best-plasm...ct-plasma-wins
http://www.techconsumer.com/2008/03/...plasma-or-lcd/
Although please, let's not turn this thread about lcd vs plasma. I am just saying that a good, expensive TV, outshines digital cinema, and I am 99.99% sure that when the Crank 2 BD comes out, I will be able to see the mpeg2 artifacts in all their glory.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

Must read interview with the directors: http://www.movieline.com/2009/04/cra...dinetaylor.php

[Ian-T]

...Iron Man BluR (Panavision Genesis),...
-Rogue5-

Really?? I never knew that. I always thought this was on film cause everything about it looked so great (Superman Returns also). It's all starting to make sense now... With cams like this and the Red One, give it a few years and I think actual film will start to go the way of the dinasour (sort of like how vinyl records are with DJs).

As far as content goes...Crank 2 is a dumb as they come. It was much much stranger than the first movie...but it was definitely funnier. You can see the direction does not take things too seriously. Which is cool in its own right... It actually made you feel like you were involved in some sort of video game...seriously. Oh...and Pedro nearly stole the show at times...ha ha.

In regards to the remote control car....I think they did use it in some scenes...especially the jello shot from under the car (the one we all seen in the trailers). That's the only way they could have pulled off a shot like that.

Did you also notice (and maybe it's just me) how everyone on the screen was in such sharp focus ...but Chev Chelios's character looked a wee bit softer than everyone else (in a few shots)? Then again that could have been the HF10 shots. They must have chosen the HF10s for their solid state capability...but I think they could have faired better with HV20s. All the indoor shots were perfect. There were some shots also with background blur...so not everything was in superwide focus (most though).

I was expecting the movie to look a bit washed out on the big screen...but it certainly wasn't. It's funny...I went in there with a critical eye to scrutinize everything..but got caught up in the silly story. So nothing really happened to where I was distracted from what was going on....other than the story itself. I kept saying..."Get Outta Here...No Way."

I think visually my only real complaint is...the high shutter speed made my eyes hurt in the beginning....but after the first ten minutes or so you get used to it. These guys (directors) are crazy....lol.

[net]

Crank: High Voltage had a budget of only $12,500,000 and it's getting a lot of good reviews and buzz on the internet this weekend.

Looks like it's going to make some money.

Did you see this video of the making of?...it shows they have a bunch of HF10's on this semi-circle and the cameraman is filming them all at once..




another shows an HF10 on top of a remote controlled toy car:

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/04/12/filming-crank-2/