“Journey To Mecca” DP Reel
“Journey To Mecca: In The Footsteps of Ibn Battuta”
Since you can’t edit demo reels from an HD Blu-Ray, I had to procure a high quality digital file from the movie, “Journey To Mecca” before I could edit my new reel. I had DPK 70mm IMAX® in Santa Monica make a digital copy (Pro-Res HQ 422 HD) from the Hi-Rez digital transfer from film that was used in the making of the Blu-Ray which was recently released. (See below). The quality of a 65mm negative in HD is so nice, but it upstages all of my other reels as it looks so good. But at least I can now get a high quality PRO-RES 422 HQ file of any project (film or digital) I’m involved with, and edit my reels on my own FCP system. Take a look… its pretty great quality… and a nice project as well. Check it out on Vimeo. (This re-edited version of the film is for my cinematography demo reel only, and is not the original presentation of the film). (All rights still belong to the respective owners and this material cannot be copied or re-used without permission).
“Journey to Mecca” is an IMAX® dramatic and documentary feature that tells the amazing story of Ibn Battuta, the greatest explorer of the Old World, following his first pilgrimage between 1325 and 1326 from Tangier to Mecca. The film is narrated by Ben Kingsley, and distributed by SK Films and National Geographic, and now available at Amazon.
Some interesting info about this film:
•We used much longer lenses than the standard IMAX® film normally uses, which made everyone nervous, but it helps give the film a more cinematic look. It is also very difficult to keep the image steady when using longer lenses in the IMAX® format due to the high vibration factor with these cameras, which the longer lenses magnify, so there are many tricks to keeping the image steady while using these longer lenses. We pulled it off, though and the film looks great… but we were experienced with the IMAX® format and took very calculated risks based on past use. There is little room for error with this format where focus is ultra critical and image quality is of the upmost importance. Audiences expect it.
•The traveling caravan was actually a real caravan… no visual effects involved (no digital people or camels added). It’s been said that it is one of the longest human camel caravans since the film “Lawrence of Arabia”. It was quite a job to move that many people and animals to the various locations around Morocco, which the local production crew handled nicely.
•If you are wondering why this isn’t in the original IMAX® framing, this 1.78:1 (16:9) version was cropped from the original 1.43:1 IMAX® format for the Blu-Ray release. If you are interested in seeing this effect in action, you would have had to seen the “The Dark Knight” in an IMAX theater, where they actually cut from the 70mm IMAX® 1.43:1 to the 2:35 widescreen 35mm film throughout the movie. They had the same problem that all IMAX® movies have on Blu-Ray, as audiences won’t really like a 1.43:1 IMAX® image (with a pillar box (side black bars)) and then cutting to a widescreen, (where it is letter-boxed) it would be too strange even though it worked in the theaters really well, in fact most people didn’t notice this transition. Check out “The Dark Knight” Blu-Ray as they cut back and forth between a larger (fills the screen, but no side bars) 16:9 IMAX® image to a 2:40 widescreen 35mm image throughout the film. It works, but it was more dramatic with the version that ran in the theaters, and the IMAX® footage opened up to fill the whole screen.
A last note… sadly the title character of out film, Moroccan actor, Chems-Eddine Zinoune, died tragically in an automobile accident right before “Journey To Mecca” was released. Chems became a great friend to all of us on the film and was one of the kindest people I’ve met.
Film Stocks: Kodak 65mm Negative 250D and 500T
Camera: IMAX® MSM 9802 65mm
The film was Produced by SK Films and Cosmic Picture, released by National Geographic and narrated by Ben Kingsley.
Music for this reel: “Pilgrimage Of Lost Children” by Lisa Gerrard & Pieter Bourke
Thanks to Christian and Joe at DPK 70mm IMAX in Santa Monica, and to Jonathan Barker at SK Films in Toronto.
My cinematography website: http://www.williamsdp.com
Unique TV Spot
Last month Matt was part of a unique production concept to create a TV Ad for Prudential. Shooting the :60 spot involved 30 + DP’s and a ton of gear shipped across the country, to photograph the same sunrise from coast to coast… on the same day! As you can imagine it was a complicated and impressive concept, which resulted in a visually compelling ad of American landscapes. The overall coordinating DP was Shane Hurlburt, ASC, with director Ringan Ledwidge of Smuggler / LA / NYC / London, at the helm. The spot was photographed entirely on Canon 5D’s with coordinated color profiles that we all worked out with Shane over 2 test days to capture the subtleties of high contrast sunrise scenes… and all connected via cube / hotspot internet connections where possible, so the director could be involved with the many different set-up shots and scenes that they had scouted and set-up across the country.
The :60 sec ad was New York ad agency Droga5′s debut spot… a pretty impressive roll out!
“Endless Summer-BomBora” Super 8mm 16 X 9
I grew up in So-Cal surfing and making 8mm surf movies, so this was a concept that hit close to home for me, and I saw the potential and fun of it immediately when writer/director Matt Hodgson called me about this job.
The Perfect Solution -
After we looked at various reference materials, including some of my own 8mm surf films, we decided to do something a little different with this one. I hadn’t shot much with Super 8mm over the years, so we did what I always do when approaching a new film or digital project… research.
After checking around and talking with people I know, and those I didn’t know, I went to see Phil Vigeant @ Pro8mm in Burbank. I’d driven by there for years, but had never stopped in to see what the latest in Super 8mm technology was. Phil was great and really helped me to make the choice to go with Pro8mm and their Max 8 Widescreen Classic Professional Super 8mm camera, (which is is Pro8mm’s complete rebuild of the legendary Beaulieu 4008 camera), and their in house processing and best-light transfer package.
Not only did the wider gate offer us a larger negative area to be exposed, (which is never a bad thing), but it launched us into the world of a wider frame Super 8mm image. On the technical side, it also offered a 8-64mm c-mount Angenieux lens, 16X 9 frame lines, off-speed options up to 60fps, and crystal sync @ 24fps which was important because we were going to be using HMI’s for most of the shoot.
The 16 X 9 Super 8mm camera format turned out to be the perfect format to shoot with, (creating our “Hybred-Nostalgic” look), while allowing the same Super 8mm look and feel that we are all accustomed to. We really wanted to make sure that we kept the feel of a more nostalgic Super 8mm feel, but felt that a 4:3 frame on today’s modern 16 X 9 TV’s might miss that mark… looking “too nostalgic” we went with the wider the frame to give us a more cinematic feel, (which was part of Matt’s inspiration for this idea).
So we went with our gut feeling and gave Pro8mm’s Widescreen16 X 9 Super 8mm a shot, and we’ve been really happy that we made that choice. To compliment that look and feel, we used 200T and 250D Kodak as we liked the grain pattern better… as with the slower stock, the grain was actually too fine for our tastes, so we opted for the higher speed films. The added resolution from the bigger negative area actually paid off visually… I could see the difference in my tests vs. the standard Super 8mm negative size.
On the music side for the spot, Matt Hodgson said he wanted to use a really great and fun piece of music tune by the DRUMS, titled “Let’s Go Surfing” to tie it all together, and I agreed… it was perfect. (It then showed up in a Volkswagen spot, and a couple of movies, but we felt since it was an original inspiration, we should stay the course… and besides the deal with them was already done!) Our “Endless Summer” campaign direction was now a reality, and we had about two weeks to pull it off, and with the weather in both Utah (where the park is located) and the various southland beaches, being unseasonably wet and cloudy… we had our work cut out for us.
(to be continued)…
Writer/Director: Matt Hodgson
D.P.: Matthew Williams
Producer: Jeff Miller / Vineyard Productions
Editor: TJ Nelson
Music: The Drums
HD Widescreen Super 8mm Film Transfer: Pro8mm / Burbank
Digital File Color Sweetening: Jeff Tillotson / LightPress / Seattle
