goodbye 2010, hello 2011

January 4, 2011 By Dustin Pearlman With 3 Comments

In Production Notes

In a year that started on a precarious note–Northwestern’s overtime loss to Auburn in the Outback Bowl–2010 turned out to be an interesting one. Among the major changes is this very website that I’m using right now. It took a lot of time and heartache to learn the WordPress language and the Thesis theme, but I’m quite happy with the result. Adding a blog to the mix has been something that I look forward to updating regularly. While it isn’t getting the views/comments that I initially hoped for, I understand that these things take time to nurture. In honor of the new year, I’m going to (briefly) look back at the past year. Unlike my buddy Adam Green’s excellent blog entry where he highlights accomplishments of his friends, I’m going to focus on myself (in chronological order).

The year began with an HD transfer of the Super 8mm footage that we shot for Joel David Moore’s short film “Hours Before.” It had been far too long since I had sat down in the telecine bay and it made me long for the days of shooting film. Don’t get me wrong, I love HD. But there is something wonderful about the mystery involved with celluloid. Looking at calibrated monitors can take a lot of the control and trust away from the cinematographer. Only a few people on set understand foot candles as quantified by a light meter, while everyone is used to watching things on TV. As a result, opinions and feedback about the lighting are often shared. There is nothing worse than having an actor look at a monitor and say something like, “is that too dark?” or “too bright?” or really anything regarding lighting. On the other hand, those people can also confidently praise your work. My experience with Pro8mm in Burbank was one that I hope to repeat. It was also fitting that the year began with something “Hours Before” related. Over the course of 2010, the 17-minute film received excellent responses at a variety of film festivals including: Vancouver, San Diego, Starz Denver, Temecula Valley, Hollyshorts, Hollywood Reel Independent, and Miami Shorts. Having the opportunity to attend Vancouver, San Diego, and Hollyshorts was certainly a thrill.

January also saw my fourth collaboration with music video director, James Kapner, on our video for “Foot on the Gas. “The “Boogie Nights” inspired New Year’s Eve party was a blast to shoot in one long night in Canoga Park. At the start of February, The James and I headed over to Miami to shoot the remainder of the video with the MC, D-Schwartz, who makes up half of the group, D-Wirks, with producer extraordinaire, BeeWirks. Got that? D-Shwartz + BeeWirks = D-Wirks.

Before heading to Miami for the shoot, I had an amazing adventure in New York City. My film, Who Shot Mamba?, was one of only four web properties included in Brand in Entertainment’s inaugural brand integration auction at Christie’s on January 20th. Unfortunately, it didn’t yield the result that we had hoped for: opportunities to partner with major brands for further development, exposure, and continuation. While the trip could’ve been seen as a failure, it ended up being the exact opposite. As a result of being in the right place at the right time, I was afforded the opportunity to meet writer/director, Terre Weisman, who was in the market for a cinematographer for his upcoming feature film. A few months later, I was hired to shoot his film, “The A-Plate,” on location in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Various jobs filled my calendar before the main event in May: shooting my fourth feature film, “The A-Plate,” but the most fun was operating A-Camera for Will Barratt on the football comedy “Division III.” At one point, I was ratchet strapped to the top of a golf cart hand holding a RED camera while Andy Dick ran full speed towards me. I would later be reunited with much of the same crew when I served as 2nd Unit Director of Photography on Joe Lynch’s contribution to the horror anthology, “Chillerama,” in November. Shooting my first zombie movie at the unique locale of the Vineland Drive-In was definitely a highlight for me. In my 6-day tenure, I not only had the pleasure of shooting the opening to the film, but also the opportunity to work for three different talented directors: Jason R. Miller, Jon Knautz, and Adam Green.

We spent over a week in April color correcting the feature film, “Stacking Chips” with colorist, Benjamin Kantor (who also colored the Salvae – ‘Silver Lake’ video the following month). Due to hardware and budgetary restrictions, we were forced to color correct the footage at 2k resolution in the prores 4444 codec. Nevertheless, we were able to do a lot with the footage and the supervised transfer went very well. My favorite part of the process was going shot-to-shot and adjusting the headroom in certain places that I wasn’t pleased. Because we shot in 4K at 2:1 (build 17) but planned to output matted at 2.40:1 I had lots of wiggle room to get things just right.

Providing a sharp contrast to the very indie approach to color correction we utilized on “Stacking Chips” where Benjamin and I were sitting in the director’s apartment on an old MacPro tower, was the luxurious set-up at Lit Post with owner/colorist, Tyler Hawes a few days later. Coloring with Tyler on the infinitely powerful Nucoda Film Master System for “Hours Before” was a life altering experience. What I cherished most about the Nucoda approach to color, is that you go through the film and do your shot-to-shot color grading and even out any inconsistencies from the edit. Once everything matches perfectly, you can make over-arching creative choice to entire scenes at a time without negating any of the adjustments made previously. Let’s pretend that you thought you wanted a bleach by-pass look for several scenes and want to see how it will play out for the entire film. With this system you can do that and then go in a completely different direction with only a few key strokes. If you were using Apple’s Color and you decided that bleach by-pass was bad for the film, then you would have to start from scratch and do every grade again. If Nucoda’s Film Master is the Playstation3 of color correction, then Apple’s Color is the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System). This non-destructive environment is tailor made for fussy clients and inexperienced directors/producers…

I went into detail about this in my blog entry, but James and I squeezed our fifth video (Permanent Press – ‘Tonight’) into my schedule just before I left for New England to shoot ‘The A-Plate.” The production on my fourth feature was definitely a roller coaster. Due to reasons beyond our control, my week of pre-production with the director was virtually eliminated. Therefore, the entire shoot was under-prepped, which is a bridge that I’ve crossed many times here in Los Angeles, but the East Coast crew was not pleased. Much of the crew got grumpy when they didn’t receive a shot list at the start of each day. To compound the situation, I got very ill the second week of shooting. Despite the adversity, it was a great experience. Working with great actors like Sam McMurray (Raising Arizona, Drop Dead Gorgeous), and Priscilla Barnes (The Devil’s Rejects, Mallrats) who made it very difficult to keep quiet during takes was a blast. I had the pleasure of working with an excellent east coast crew (headlined by my key grip and fellow Northwestern alum, Matt Tomko) and got to spend my days off with my family on Lake Winnipesaukee. It had long been a dream of mine to return home to New England to make a film and 2010 enabled me to not only do it once, but twice.

Soon after returning from the east coast at the start of July, I shot a video for the metal band, Bonded By Blood, with director Davey Vorhes. Production went pretty smoothly, but the color correction was a major burden considering how many cuts there were in the final edit (having a running time of 6:22 didn’t help). Several small shoots rounded out a busy month of July, which was highlighted by a screening of Inception at the DGA with a Q&A with the great Wally Pfister, ASC. On July 28th, after too many hours writing CSS (which I had never done before), the upgraded build of my website went live to the world and I posted this inaugural blog entry.

August marked the world premiere of “Hours Before” at the Hollyshorts Festival in Hollywood. Another film that I shot and produced found success at the same festival, “Lucia No Besa a Nadie.” The star and producer of “Lucia,” Paulie Rojas, took home the best actress award, while both of my films were honored with Audience Choice Awards. I found myself back on a plane to Boston in September to shoot Lucas McNelly’s film, “Up Country,” in the backwoods of Maine. This was my first experience shooting a narrative film with a DSLR, which spawned this rant and this less technical chronicle of my adventure. August ended with my attending the “Hatchet II” premiere at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and sitting next to Tony Todd aka “Candyman”.

September came out the gate in a full sprint with our screening of “Hours Before” in San Diego on the 1st followed by a showing in Vancouver on the 2nd. It was a little odd to party in SD’s Gaslamp District and Vancouver’s Gaslight District within 24 hours of each other. I wrote all about my time at VIFF here and I encourage you to listen to the radio interview I gave on my last day in Vancouver on 101.9FM CITR.

In October, The James and I shot our third and final video of the year together (6th overall) for hip-hop legend, Chali 2na (read more here). Working with an artist that I’ve been a fan of since high school was quite an honor and hope to keep the momentum going in 2011. The release of the video on December 3rd coincided with a great feature on Chali 2na in OkayPlayer’s blog. A fun/easy camera operating gig in Vegas was another highlight of October. Before that visit, I had always hated Sin City: now I’m looking forward to working there more!

To kick November off with a bang, I headed to Birns & Sawyer to check out the new Panasonic AF-100. I was impressed with the camera and hope to see it replace the DSLR as the no-budget filmmaker’s go-to-camera. I’ve always been a fan of Panasonic products and look forward to spending some quality time with the AF-100 when it finally hits the market. As I mentioned previously, November was a time for me to put on my horror hat and shoot some zombies on “Chillerama!” Sadly, on one of the nights filming, a PA ran over my one week old Sigg water bottle. Despite that unfortunate event, I had a blast working with Joe Lynch and company.

In closing, 2010, we had some good times. Looking forward to seeing what 2011 has in store for all of us. I wish you a happy and healthy new year. Thanks for all of your love and support over the years. Please comment below and share some of your war stories from the past year and/or what you are most excited about in 2011…

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Dustin Pearlman Dustin Pearlman is a plant-based Cinematographer. Aside from film, he's passionate about the environment, music, and cycling. He's a member of IATSE Local 600 and lives in Los Angeles with his mini-schnauzer Iris.