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Project: Potemkin "Care for a Lift?"

P

Potemkin_Prod

Commodore
Commodore
Horror upon horrors! Lieutenant Commander Shelton finds himself stuck in the turbolift with Commander Brian Reigert. The departing Reigert is reminded exactly what is meant by Project: Potemkin, and Shelton finds he may not enjoy the beginning of his new assignment.

Shot as a test film for a second camera to determine what kind of quality we could get out of it (not much), as well as a test of our turbolift background (pretty good). Definitely not meant to be representative of our upcoming episodes, but certainly an enjoyable exercise.

This episode stars Randall Landers as Commander Brian Reigert, Ricky Thompson as Lieutenant Commander Shelton, and William Walker as Chief Engineer "Barty" Barton. Directed by Ricky Thompson. SPFX, editing, sound effects, and produced by William Walker. Music by Tony Lunn.

Hope you enjoy....

Visit our YouTube Channel or click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=way9rJYixFU
 
To quote a legend, it was... fun.

The audio quality isn't what it could be. It was especially difficult to hear the guy on screen left -- sorry, don't remember his name.

Keep it up! And please... no Klingons. I'm sick of 'em. :)
 
LOL -- Yeah, the guy on the left's been written out of the series. His voice apparently is at the same frequency as the background noise of a fan in the next room. But it was meant to be fun, and as long as we made someone laugh, we're happy with it.
 
Thanks! Reigert is the way that SOMEONE in the fleet would have to be SOMEWHERE. And the sooner he's somewhere ELSE, the sooner EVERYONE's a lot happier. These are his only two scheduled appearanced. Ditto for Shelton, the poor fellow in the lift with him. But David Eversole has a script for Reigert's return. I'm just not going to look at it until next season.

Panasonic PV-DV900 PalmSight MiniDV Digital Palmcorder mounted on a tripod, iirc. Hi-Definition, supposedly, but we don't see it in terms of the quality. It's an older camera, probably 10 years old if not older, so it's probably a one-chipper. We used it intentionally to shoot the Klingons-on-the-viewscreen shots with red and blue lighting because it would be close to what we see during ST:TUC.

For our upcoming January 17th shoot, we're using a Canon SLR. Interested in seeing the difference between the Canon and the really nice Panasonic from the college that we used to shoot "The Old Guys" and "The Void." Want to try some different lighting. Should be interesting.
 
I think I have that Panasonic... Overall, I think it's very good. This a great way to test equipment and ideas!
 
Glad you guys think so! I just think that if we're going to the trouble of shooting test footage that it at least should have some point to it, even if it's a silly little vignette about a really unlikeable dude. :)

Hopefully, the January 17th shoot will be another funny little vignette. It will introduce our CMO and answer a few questions raised in "The Void" about a character or two in an entertaining way.

We're not sure if we're going to use a lighting rig available from Lowes or borrow one from a local videographer yet, but we're going to try some overhead lighting if I can get up into the attic this weekend and run some lighting.
 
I had trouble hearing a couple lines, but I put on my Bose headphones and that helped. Other than the audio, I thought it was great. Good insight into the Potemkin's purpose. I've shot several weddings on cameras smiliar to the Panasonic that was used. I can't count the number of times I've tried to play with it to get it truly in HD only to not come close when it says it's HD on the camera. Keep up the good work, really liking seeing something set in the movie era.
 
Thanks! The sound problem is that the actor's voice was basically at the same pitch or frequency as a fan in the next room. We remembered into the second take to turn the fan off, but at that point, it was too late.

We may try to play with that camera again on one of our outside shoots that's coming up with an interesting first contact vignette.
 
Potemkin_Prod said:
Thanks! Reigert is the way that SOMEONE in the fleet would have to be SOMEWHERE. And the sooner he's somewhere ELSE, the sooner EVERYONE's a lot happier. These are his only two scheduled appearanced. Ditto for Shelton, the poor fellow in the lift with him. But David Eversole has a script for Reigert's return. I'm just not going to look at it until next season.

Panasonic PV-DV900 PalmSight MiniDV Digital Palmcorder mounted on a tripod, iirc. Hi-Definition, supposedly, but we don't see it in terms of the quality. It's an older camera, probably 10 years old if not older, so it's probably a one-chipper. We used it intentionally to shoot the Klingons-on-the-viewscreen shots with red and blue lighting because it would be close to what we see during ST:TUC.

For our upcoming January 17th shoot, we're using a Canon SLR. Interested in seeing the difference between the Canon and the really nice Panasonic from the college that we used to shoot "The Old Guys" and "The Void." Want to try some different lighting. Should be interesting.
Click to expand...

Is this Canon SLR the 5D2? There have been a number of things filmed with that camera. Being a Photographer myself I have been looking at that Canon slr (I already use Canon so I have lenses) Will be interested how this turns out.
 
I do not know. I'll find out when Tim gets here to film. It'll be interesting to us as well. Tim's thinking of using lavaliers as well as his boom so we'll be interested in how the sound comes out.

We're looking for a few extras for that vignette. If anyone is interested, please IM or email us!
 
That was a cute vignette, if a little exposition heavy.

Can I ask how big the turbolift set was? By the face that you shot primarily from the actor's sides I suspect it was a one wall set. Am I right?

If you find yourself on a limited set where you have limited angles, have the characters turn in towards the camera as much as possible and don't keep their eyelines on one another. Cheat their faces out to the camera as much as you can.

When shooting closeups remember that you can basically get away with murder. Even if you don't have a correct set piece to put behind the actors, any blank piece of scenery will do, allowing you to get them out of profile, which is better for the performances.
 
Thanks, it was fun to do. We simply set the camera up and filmed it. Then we turned the camera, and filmed it again. Then we turned the camera, and filmed it again. It was meant to be a test of the secondary camera (it sucked) and the turbolift background facade (it's pretty good). Sound was terrible, but we figured out why. All in all, just a little test film that was entertaining. :)
 
There were multiple problems with the noise that I had to deal with. The first and most noticeable was either a cricket or a fan bearing squeaking during much of the first series of takes. But throughout the entire shoot there was a lot of background noise of various sorts, including hiss and other noises. In addition, some of Reigert's lines were delivered at nearly the same volume level as the background noise (in other words, very faintly).

In order to get the audio close to usable without resorting to ADR/looping, I had to apply a notch filter to get rid of the crickets, a general noise filter to get rid of some of the hiss, another filter to remove some of the high-pitched noise, a gate with a very close response time to catch some of Reigert's lines and eliminate the noise between them (this is probably the source of the "compression-like" sound), and then boost the bass a little to get the voices back to the point they didn't sound tinny.

All in all, I'm rather surprised we didn't have to reshoot or re-record a single thing. As Randy said earlier, if you heard the original, you'd be surprised at how well the audio actually turned out.
 
In other words, I talk at the same pitch/frequency as a fan. LOL And Bill forgot to mention the dog barking. The squeaking we suspect are from bats that live in the rafters of the house next door to us.

And Bill's being nice: he wanted me to re-record the lines and loop them, and I bailed. I heard the original footage, and I'm telling you, the final product is far and above better than what Bill had to work with.
 
At least your studio isn't 50 feet from the Amtrak line or 20 feet from the motorcycle gangs passing... LOL

Make sure you shut all fans off before filming!

It really promotes actors getting it right on the first take!
 
Well, our first consideration for a location was 50 feet from a railroad. Our present location is half a mile away from two major roads (meaning the occasional siren). But you're right -- fans off makes for better first takes. :)
 
andriech said:
At least your studio isn't 50 feet from the Amtrak line or 20 feet from the motorcycle gangs passing... LOL
Click to expand...
LOL!! I was there for part of the "Origins" shoot, and yeah, there had to have been a motorcycle convention nearby that week! The running joke was "QUIET ON THE SET!! CUE THE MOTORCYCLES!!"

I had the fortune of getting a walk-on part as the Cage-era navigator. Before one take, as we were waiting for the motorcycles to pass, I locked and fired phasers as they went by! :lol: Mr. Gerrold appreciated that!
 
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