My First Sundance!

Mmmm. I can smell the cold!

Ok, yes, Sundance ended over a week ago, but I think I just recovered from the trip to actually write about it!

I have now lived in Los Angeles a little over ten years and I had yet to attend the renowned Sundance Film Festival.  I had always wanted to go but not until my dear friend and fellow cinematographer, Jendra Jarnagin, encouraged me early in 2011 to think about attending the 2012 festival did I even seriously consider it.  It just seemed like such a large expense and I wasn’t sure if I would truly benefit from being there.  So, a couple months before, I decided to take the plunge and get myself to Sundance!  And being the Sundance guru that Jendra has become after seven years straight of gallivanting all over the snowy Park City, I felt I would be in good hands taking her up on the offer to stay in one of the rooms of their rental house overlooking Main Street… what a perfect decision.

Outside the screening for The End of Love

As Sundance quickly approached with my ticket in hand, I was surprised to find out that a movie I had worked on the previous year actually made it into the U.S. Feature Dramatic Competition!  I had served as one of the camera operators for a film called The End of Love shot by a fellow AFI colleague, Patrice Cochet, and produced by my buddy Matt Sprague.  All more reason to attend the festival!  Even though I didn’t have a movie in there that I DP’d, I was still proud to be a part of a film project that I knew was something special.

So, with my “resort chic” attire packed and ready to go, we landed in Sundance with a bang.  Already on at least four to five party invitations per day, we were burning the candle at both ends by day one.  Being in Jendra’s loop helped with the slew of party invites.  She has organized a circle of about ten Sundance goers that each have their own connections in the film world and Sundance festivities from their prior years’ visits as well.  So as a courtesy to the group, we would each forward the invitations that we would receive for any given event and get each other on the list!

I was able to screen three movies while at Sundance.  For The End of Love I attended the premiere since I was on the crew.  The screening was a huge success.  Everyone in the audience stayed for the Q&A and had numerous questions about the two-year old Isaac being an Oscar contender.  Afterall, he delivered a stunning “performance” due to the fact that he was captured in his natural environment and improvised the scenes with Dad, Mark Webber, his actual father and director.  The movie is worth seeing for that aspect alone.  There are moments in this film that you have never seen caught on tape before.  I promise.  The second screening I attended was Filly Brown.   Another tear jerking, but inspiring film done by Olmos Productions.  (Shout out to Bodie Olmos!  Sorry I missed you at Sundance.)  I was so happy to see this at Sundance at the Eccles Theater in which it received a standing ovation.   And finally, we saw a midnight screening of The Pact, a very fun, jump out of your skin horror movie produced by a Vanderbilt colleague of mine, Ross Dinerstein.

 

Meeting the Alexa. (With Alec Jarnagin, steadicam op, and Guenter Noesner, Arri's NY Rep)

So, the one point that I need to make about Sundance is that within the seven days that I was there, with all the parties, screenings and individual meetings that I set up prior to arriving, I believe I connected with more independent filmmakers within that one week than I had over the entire 2011 year!  I feel like when you are in your own little world in Los Angeles, you forget the reason why we are here:  to collaborate with like minded artists and filmmakers.  But Sundance reminds you of that.  And everyone is open to discussing ideas with you and how you may be able to work together in the future.

Yes, my first Sundance experience was a huge success.  But I will know more so as the year goes on as to whether my new friends and new connections will in fact turn into working relationships.  But overall, it was a blast and a well-deserved vacation.  So no matter what, I am happy.  :)

Teaching the 3DIQ Class at 3Ality Technica

This December, I taught my first 3DIQ course for 3Ality Technica.  The course spans a four day period where we go over the basics of 3D, followed by a standard rig build with the TS5, and then diving into the 3Flex software.  The class usually comprises of rig techs that know other 3D rigs, engineers, DPs, and ACs.  The idea behind the 3DIQ class is to train people on the rig and software to where they could feel comfortable assisting with a prep, then they may be able to go onto a production from there.  I was very pleased to have been asked to teach this class!

From Left to Right: Vladimir Dubikov, Gregg Atwell, Michael Gough, Richard Moriarty, Eduardo Mayen, Jennifer Henry, Alicia Robbins, Manash Das

Teaching the basics of the 3Flex software including look up tables that are used to keep the rig aligned.

 After my experiences of working on both Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D and Step Up 4, I felt much more comfortable explaining the rig and engineering side to the class.  I was able to bring in real world practices into the teaching and tried to mimic some of the errors that we would often encounter on set: i.e. motor errors, bad cabling, device configuration being set wrong, or an improper LUT loaded into the SPC.

Overall, I felt that the class gained a lot from the four day course and I look forward to teaching the next 3DIQ class in 2012.

I would like to thank Jill Smolin for allowing me to teach the course and our guest lecturers Matthew Blute (on stereography), Matt Battaglia (on broadcast), and Bettina Martin (on engineering).

I would have the class leave the room while I "messed" up things on the rig and in the 3Flex program and then have them come back in and fix the issues. They got it right every time. Smart group!

Been Too Long

Ok, I’m obviously not really good at this blogging thing.  At least not yet!  But I became inspired again today when I ran into my friend and AFI colleague Vasco Nunes who has always been so good about keeping people up to date about the projects he is working on and what he looking forward to!

So, here it goes… 2011 (so far) briefly explained!

This year has been the year of variety!  From one project to the next, it has been something completely different!

January started off with operating for another AFI graduate, Patrice Cochet, on his docu-style feature directed by and starring Mark Webber.  Shot completely handheld with the 5D, Patrice had me on at least a 80mm or sometimes longer lens with stops all the way open!  Talk about a challenge!  But it was such a unique look and appropriate to the film, I truly enjoyed the experience.  It put my handheld/focus pulling to the test.

Immediately in February, I continued my 3D training at 3Ality on their TS2 rigs for 3D stereography and engineering.  I’ve been fascinated with 3D for over a year now and have taken the Sony course, and now the 3Ality training course, and was then hired by 3Ality to handle the stereography and engineering for a documentary produced by Sky Television for the UK.  It will be a documentary titled “A Brief History in 3D” shot on 3D about 3D.  So, the major benefit of being on this production was that I had the chance to meet and listen to all the 3D gurus from Avatar, Pixar, Dreamworks, etc. (Robert Zemeckis, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Rob Engle, Lee Unkrich, and more…)  We only had a crew of 3 people handling the whole TS2 rig from 3Ality, including ACs.  So, I was completely responsible for all of the alignments and stereography and I also assisted the DP with some lighting and composing when needed.  The shoot was mostly sit down interviews, but we did do several stand ups including dolly moves that I also had to pull convergence on.  So, I was definitely a 3 in 1 person on that show.  But it was a great way to learn that rig and at least learn the fundamentals of 3D shooting.  I loved it and look forward to working with 3Ality again soon!

The shoot that really got to me emotionally was the documentary that I started working on with Director/Producers Julie Janata and John Lucas.  On April 1st, I had the unique experience of filming a man being released from prison after twenty years being locked up and spending the first day of freedom with him.  The project is called “The Cooler Bandits.”  Twenty years ago, four guys from Akron, Ohio were imprisoned for a series of armed robberies.  Although no one was hurt in these robberies, the four young men were made examples of and basically were told that they “wouldn’t see the light of day.”  Well, twenty years later, three of the four have been released with one remaining.  This documentary is going to follow the story of these Cooler Bandits after release and how they adjust to the real world.  Also, we hope to bring awareness to the case and finally get the fourth man out.  The website is www.coolerbandits.com.  Check it out!  We will probably return to Akron, Ohio very soon to continue the documentary.

Also, on a non-cinematography note, I finished the Wildflower Olympic distance triathlon at the beginning of May, beating my projected time by 22 minutes!  It’s considered one of the hardest triathlon courses in the world, so I’m super pleased!  It was such a fun race.

What’s to come?  I have a few releases of some projects I had worked on last year.  I will keep you posted as to screening dates and where you can see them!  Including the green screen feature that I completed last June!

Cheers to all,

Alicia

Panasonic AG-AF100 for 2011

This may be it!  This may be my camera in 2011.  Check out the blog at Crews.TV about the the Panasonic AG-AF100 that is being released in 2011.  I welcome your opinions and insight on the matter.

http://crews.tv/blog/2010/10/12/af100-storm-gathers/

 

 

-Alicia

Hello world!

Welcome to my first blog!

I am excited about keeping a journal again!  This time, focusing on cinematography.  Believe it or not, blogging was something I started at the age of seven.  However, at that time it was with a pink pen in a Hello Kitty diary and the topics were about my dog, Muffin, or the cute boy in school, or how I spent my day at the pool eating the best candy ever .    Now I have the luxury of composing electronically for all of my friends and colleagues to see!  (Well, I guess I wouldn’t want everyone reading my Hello Kitty diary anyway.)

So here it is.  This blog will follow my journey through my cinematography craft.  What new cameras, lights, and techy stuff I’m working with.  I will soon start video blogging as well to make it easier to demonstrate through visuals how some of the tools work.  This will be a good way to archive things I’ve learned not only for myself, but hopefully can be a good informational tool for you too!

Thanks for reading and see you on the journey,

Alicia