Shooting a 3D documentary: review – Film Factory 3D Beam Splitter Indie Rig

Our crew’s spent the last week testing the B cam system we hope to use to shoot our first 3D documentary.

Here’s what we’ve learned about the Film Factory 3D BS Indie Rig:

Pros

1) Relatively affordable: rings in at $3,895 US plus shipping and handling (we also bought an extra mirror in case the first one smashes in the field. Don’t think we’ll find a second lying around at the condemned sports stadium slated for explosive demolition in Salvador, Brazil, where we’re going to be filming, and shipping one in would surely be a nightmare).

2) Robust but adjustable: the rig’s sturdy, so I think it will stand up well in the field. But luckily the structure isn’t rigid – we’ve had some difficulty lining our Sony EX1 and EX3 up properly (see: large and cumbersome … it’s a problem), so we’ve disassembled the rig, manually repositioned parts, and tightened them to try and accommodate the cameras.

Specifically, the aluminum rails are locked in with screws that can be loosened, adjusted, and locked back in. Without this flexibility we’d have no hope of effectively adjusting the heights of the cameras relative to the base rail (which we’re still working on. Argh).

Cons

1) Manual operation: It doesn’t have all the fine, automated controls that the higher-end feature film rigs do. It lacks motorized components, so factors such as interaxial distance and convergence have to be adjusted manually. In feature film production, it’s often one person’s job just to operate the remote to make these adjustments on automated units.

2) Heavy load: This is just something the crew’s going to have to get used to – 3D shooting demands so much more gear. But it’s still a downer. Total tally: the rig, a tripod, two mid-sized cameras, the nano3D recorder, the Transvideo Cineform 3D Monitor, all the sync cables, and battery. We think it may take two extra bodies in the field just to move all of these components around.

And the cameras are a whole other story … more to come on the Sony EX1/EX3 issue.

Shooting a 3D documentary: testing the green screen

Green screen action!

Writer Nicole Tomlinson stands in for a 3D green screen test

We’ve taken the Film Factory 3D BS Indie Rig Sony EX1/EX3 B cam setup for a full test run.

The mission: to see if the system can capture green screen footage for our first 3D documentary the way we want it to.

Stereographer Sean White mans the 3D beam splitter rig

We need these shots to create several of out our in-house visual effects, a style we prefer to classic documentary CGI because it allows us to explain extremely technical concepts in a photo-real atmosphere.

This means our transitions in and out of our footage are much more seamless … viewers can stay more immersed in the environment and focused on the story.

Here’s an example of our Blowdown VFX style:

Controlled Demolition Inc. President Mark Loizeaux outlines his demolition plan

The green screen footage we’ll need to include effects like this comes with an entirely different set of issues than the field shots we’ll have to tackle.

This environment is the most “studio” our event-based filming gets – the interviews aren’t scripted, but the lighting is set, the frame is stationary, and there’s opportunity for multiple takes.

But what we capture has to work in our compositor’s virtual environment or it’s completely useless.

Jakub Kuczynski, Parallax Film’s VFX artist, details these challenges:

We’ve thrown the footage over to post – we’ll see if it flies.

Explosive demolition and 3D filmmaking: why Canon Vixia footage survives epic implosions

As we prep to shoot our first 3D documentary, I’ve focused on nailing down our A, B and C cam systems.

Score is zero for three, so far – the A cam requires lenses that may not exist anywhere on earth, we’re still debating which cameras to use for the B cam system (though the Sony EX1/EX3 duo looks promising), and we’ve shot some time lapse stills with the C cam system, but still need to test this duo Canon 5D system for shooting footage.

So I’m embracing our lukewarm successes by adding another mission to the mix:

3D HD implosion cams …18 of them.

Let’s call them our V cam and M cam systems – lettering inspired by the camera brands, this time.

These cameras will capture POV and perimeter shots of the explosive demolition series, Blowdown, piece de resistance – the implosion.

In this case, the lenses will be locked on various points of a sports stadium in Salvador, Brazil, as Controlled Demolition Inc. takes it down with explosives.

As you can imagine, these cameras will take serious a beating – riding the building down, sitting in the centre of the field as the stadium crashes to the earth, etc.

For these POVs, we’re going with six (three pairs) of Canon Vixia HF 10s – the V cam systems.

These little cameras have survived the ultimate Parallax Film Productions 2D challenge – riding the Hoyt S. Vandenberg, now the second-largest artificial reef in the world, some 30 metres from the surface to the ocean floor when the vessel was sunk off the coast of Florida in May 2009.

I’ve thrown in a few screen grabs of the ride – watch the full episode trailer here.

A POV camera rides the Hoyt S. Vandenberg as it sinks off the coast of Florida

Six Vixia 10s in our custom-built underwater housings went down – six solid-state, high-capacity SDHD cards survived, and we recovered all of the footage.

Because this system is flash-based, its memory is relatively robust.

For our intents and purposes, this means they have a better chance of surviving massive vibrations and debris that come with the massive implosions we cover. No tape heads to fall off, no moving mechanical parts to malfunction.

Water engulfs a POV camera as the Hoyt S. Vandenberg sinks off the coast of Florida.

These three pairs will be mounted on small rails with a 74 mm interaxial distance.

Our M cam systems will also be placed at strategic places throughout the implosion perimeter to capture key demolition engineering story points (and, of course, rocking, gratuitous destruction).

For this, we’ll need 12 (six pairs) of Canon Vixia HF M31s.

And so the great camera recruitment continues … Double trouble, to be sure.

3D documentary filmmaking – choosing a camera

OK.

Three months after we started sourcing gear for rent and sale for our first 3D shoot – for the explosive demolition series Blowdown – we’ve narrowed down a camera … we think.

The final showdown was between the SI-2K and the Iconix.

Before I go into which one we chose and why, it’s probably useful to explain exactly what we need them for.

This episode of Blowdown requires more than twenty 3D cameras:

– Two to film actuality and main story beats.

Our camera needs for this:

1. “A” camera system. Portable and operated by one person. This is when suppliers told us – “can’t be done.”

2. “B” camera Rig. As above – but for close-ups.

-18+ POV and kill cams capturing large and small scale on-site action and the actual implosions – which in the case of the Fonte Nova stadium will be many.

I’ve inserted screen grabs of the types of POVs we capture:

At the base of a rocket tower implosion, Cape Canaveral.

To get the dynamic idea of what these kill cams, mounted to the structures Controlled Demolition implodes, have to stand up to, watch them in action.

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