Last Summer

Last summer, a good friend of mine, Grorgi Sakhelashvili, asked me, if I could help him out with a film project he was working on. Everything happened very quickly and suddenly I was scheduled as a Director Of Photography in his short film. So, we headed off to Tbilisi, Georgia, organized some actors, rented some gear and started shooting. This was my first time on a medium sized film set and I was trying to act professional and all and I think everything worked out pretty nicely and nobody noticed. It was definitely a wonderful experience working with different people who are all assigned to one specific task. In all our previous film projects, both of us, Gabiz and I, were doing everything at the same time. Managing audio while directing actors and organizing food. It was a refreshing experience to only focus on one single task and therefor have more resources to do this one task well.

The Camera

Talking about refreshing things, the 5D Mk III with Magic Lantern RAW is amazing! The entire film was shot with it and it was great. The image quality is superb and the dynamic range from the RAW format is great. As you can see from the trailer, it easily produces cinema quality images. The only downside to a hacked RAW camera is, that it eats through those SD cards like it’s a bowl of cereals. The file sizes are enormous and require a dedicated Terabyte hard drive to store a single project. Also, we had a few occasions where the camera overheated. Granted it was around 40 degrees Celcius but still, there are some minor stability issues, which is to be expected from a hacked camera that shoots freaking RAW. For the past 3 years I was debating, if an investment in the 5D Mk III or Mk IV was worth it. Even though I really enjoyed working with the camera and the image quality is - like previously mentioned - “superb”, it is not a very practical run and gun camera. It takes time to prepare and set up. This is a big downside for us, since we often have projects that are fast paced and require a camera that is always ready.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the people were great and we had a blast making this short film. Enough talking for today. Now go and enjoy the trailer.
See you soon.