TKOS - "Hold, Heavy Earth" Pt.2

So, the video was premiered last night to the delight of all involved. Now that the project is in the bag and viewable online (see below, or go to www.vimeo.com/channelC83 and subscribe!) we wanted to give a more detailed behind the scenes look into the production.

The Kindness of Strangers approached us to do a music video back in March. They have a new EP out and they were looking for a video to do some promotion work for it. We gladly met up with the TKOS guys and were delighted to see just how excited they were in doing a project with us.

I particularly liked a lot of the "end of the world" themes that were present in the song and we decided to really work with that. Our biggest source of inspiration was an episode of the Twilight Zone entitled, "The Shelter." We did not want to do a straight take off on the episode though. To make things interesting we abandoned the ending of the episode all together and the original black & white look. Instead we decided to go with an actual end of the world scenario. To change the visual up we decided to put our eggs in the basket of our Art Director (Michelle Lawless), our Director of Photography (Nick Kovacic) and our Gaffer / Colorist (Matt Riggieri). Our visual approach was to give the piece a technicolor look. We used a combination of set design, costuming, makeup, lighting, camera settings, and a little post-production magic to make it happen. The results are pretty crazy.

Before:


After:


Needless to say, we are pretty happy with the results.

So, after arriving at our concept and deciding on how we would execute our modern-meets-coldwar era-technicolor-hidef-end of the world scenario music video we had to figure out where we would shoot the project. Much of the story revolves around being in a bomb shelter. Coming up with a bomb shelter would prove to be a big challenge. What we ended up doing, through the gracious support of our friend Mason Booker, was building a bomb shelter set from scratch in a warehouse space that Mason had access to. Everything you see in that bomb shelter set was completely designed and fabricated through the hard work of Michelle Lawless and all of the crew who hammered, nailed, painted, and constructed it over the course of the four days before production occurred. Our other locations in the story were set in what would be the "band's house." My cousin, Leslie Rollins, and her family very generously hosted us for our second day of shooting where we would film the dining room scene, the kitchen scene, and the stairs. The outdoor location was shot at the Lloyd family residence down the street from the Rollins' house.

The shooting days were really incredible. The first day spent on the bomb shelter set went long, but it was a great time had by all. We had lots of awesome equipment that we had never used before. My personal favorite was the Pixie Crane with the fully mechanized head that we used to get all of the overhead shots in the video.

The second day of shooting that took place at the Rollins' house was also a great time. At last count there was something like 23 vehicles parked in front of the house. One of the best shots we pulled off was courtesy of our friend Andy Schwartz. Andy is a steadicam operator. He did the shot moving from the stairs and into the kitchen; really good stuff that ties our opening sequence together. My other favorite shots from the second day come from outside of the Lloyd residence where we got the battering ram shots. In fact, there is one take that bums me out that we did not use because it was really good; just no room left.

At the end of the day, tons of fun was had by all and I can say that I am really proud of the outcome.

Thank you all for your support and involvement.

Most importantly THANK YOU FOR WATCHING!!!

Watch it here if you would like, but I highly encourage everyone to check it out on our Vimeo channel.

Don't forget to subscribe here and on vimeo: www.vimeo.com/channelC83

The Kindness of Strangers - "Hold, Heavy Earth" from C83 Productions on Vimeo.

The Kindness of Strangers Pt. 1

So, this past weekend we shot a music video for The Kindness of Strangers. They are some really excellent dudes and all guys I'm happy to call friends after a long weekend of shooting. Another friend of mine, Dik Tracy, came out to act in the piece and then surprised me with this:


TKOS - "Hold, Heavy Earth" Behind the scenes from Matt Tracy on Vimeo.

We should have the project wrapped up in the coming weeks.

I will post with more details from the weekend (with photos).

Please check back!

-Chris @ C83

THE DAY OF GIVING.

The Day of Giving.

This was an odd project for us.  Every year we participate in the always fun 48 Hour Film Project.  The 48HFP is exactly what it sounds like.  It is a competition in which its participants have to write, shoot, and edit a short film within the 48 hour time frame.  There are a few rules that go along with the competition (as with any), but the big ones are the required elements.  Every group must include three elements that all teams have in common and one that is random to each.  The three elements that every group has in common are character, line of dialogue, and prop.  After those are assigned each team draws a genre from a hat.  For more information on the rules visit www.48hourfilm.com

The elements for our project were: 

Character:  Scott or Scarlet Johnston, Storyteller.

Prop:  Earrings.

Line of Dialogue:  "I was just thinking the same thing."

Genre:  Holiday Film.

From my own perspective, we were quite bummed out with our genre.  We were prepared for almost any genre, but Holiday really threw us for a loop.  This is the third time I have lead a team into the project and the fourth that I have participated.  I think that I spent the week or two leading up to the competition really set on unleashing my inner Rod Serling and doing a Sci-Fi piece in the vein of my all time favorite show, The Twilight Zone.  When faced with Holiday Film as our genre I immediately tried to shoehorn it into a Sci-Fi type project.  Did it work?  You be the judge.  I like it.  It's not necessarily our finest hour, but I definitely stand by it.

So, the production... We spent an inordinate amount of time coming up with our story and script.  Usually we knock it out pretty quickly on Friday night, get some sleep and start shooting Saturday morning.  We didn't wrap up writing until the early hours of Saturday, got a couple hours of sleep, and proceeded to get all of the things we needed for the shoot.  Then we made the long haul to Taneytown, MD (about 45 minutes outside of Baltimore).  We went to a friend's family ranch and set out to the woods to shoot our project.  By that time we were getting pretty far behind on our schedule.  Then the weather started acting crazy.  We got rained on quite a bit, dealt with massive humidity, and fought bugs, ticks, and all of the other awesome stuff in the woods.  All in all only about an hour was spent shooting before we lost daylight all together.  Fun moments from the woods included seeing Josh dressed in a full suit and tie standing in a forest, seeing E "kill" both Megan and Curtis (Capt. Tom, nice Kirk impersonation) not getting any ticks (at least on me), and being driven out in the back of a pick up truck.

Post-production took place at Towson University.  Travis Holden hosted us in the editing suites for the remainder of the competition.  Matt Riggieri, with the assistance of Travis, edited the movie together while Kevin Alban and Derek Dias recorded the score in the sound studio.  The other major project going on during all of this was the special effects being helmed by Michelle Lawless (soon to be Wiezorek!).  Despite having a pretty crazy shoot Curtis still had to pick up one shot on Sunday morning with E at some local woods, which we should have used in the first place.

Unlike other years Curtis and I shared the director and cinematographer role.  It had its benefits and disadvantages, but ultimately I think it worked out.  

The success of this film can definitely be attributed to the ridiculous amount of help that all parties involved contributed.  Needing two cameras, a green screen, a location almost two hours away, and an original score was not something I could have pulled together by myself.  I would like to thank all involved.

The Day of Giving won awards for Best Editing and Runner-Up for Best Special Effects.

Thanks and Enjoy.

Chris

The Day Of Giving from C83 Productions on Vimeo.

Pianos Become The Teeth - "Houses We Die In"

In September we decided to shoot our first music video.  After scouring the internet I stumbled across Pianos Become The Teeth.  I was really impressed by their sound, they are quite different from any other band in Baltimore right now.  I snooped around through their photos and realized that my buddy Kyle Durfey was singing for the band.  I had lost touch with Kyle over the last couple of years, but I figured that this was a perfect opportunity so I quickly got in touch with them. 

Shooting was completed over the last weekend of September.  We shot the video on the Panasonic HVX-200 with the Letus Lens Adaptor (provided by Digital Cave Media).  We also decided to shoot the flashback material on Super 8mm film.  All of our Grip & Electric was rented from Serious Grip & Electric.  Extra camera accessories were rented from Chesapeake Camera.

Our main cast was composed of Cheryl Scugnio, Paul Wiedecker, Nate Pesce, and Neil Kenworthy.  Michelle Lawless did all of our casting for both the main cast and the extras.  

The shoot was quite an experience.  The days were broken into day one consisting primarily all of the acting scenes and day two was focused on band performance.  Our biggest obstacle was the weather.  It rained almost all day Saturday (day 1) when we needed to be outside shooting (family scenes & the piano burning).  We managed to get pretty much all of it done, but some of it got pushed to Sunday.  The band performance shooting was awesome.  It went very smoothly.  It was incredibly LOUD.

After everything was shot we began editing all of the HD footage and sent the 8mm away to be processed.  Once we got the 8mm back it was pretty much smooth sailing.  We ended up taking the 8mm footage we cut together, put it on a DVD, projected it on a sheet, and then shot the projection to get the effect we were looking for.  With the help of the guys at Digital Cave Media we wrapped up the last bits of post production (color grading & effects).

All photos were taken by (including previous post) Danielle Yurchinkonis.

Here is the video in its final form:

Pianos Become The Teeth - "Houses We Die In" from C83 Productions on Vimeo.

Thanks for watching!

-Chris @ C83 Productions

Welcome.

Welcome to the C83 Productions official blog.

We are a Baltimore based film & video production company.

This will be the place for all of your up-to-the-moment-action-filled-info.

We will post links to our latest videos and some of our older stuff as well.

First up:  Pianos Become The Teeth - "Houses We Die In" (Music Video)

Soon:  "The Day of Giving" (Short Film), C83 Profiles

-Chris @ C83 Productions