by Shane Hurlbut, ASC
When Kurt came to me with the idea of writing this book on HDSLR filmmaking, I was honored to be a part of it. I have been neck deep in this technology since January 26, 2009. It has been a roller-coaster ride trying to figure out this new disruptive technology from a motion picture cinematographer’s perspective. Forging ahead with normal operating procedure did not translate. I had to think out of the box and teach myself about menus, picture styles, and create a new checks-and-balances ritual for shooting. There is not much that this camera system cannot do because it can be small and compact or as big as you choose to make it. The platform is so liberating that I feel like a five-year-old again—full of possibility and endless creativity.
I constantly refer the Canon 5D Mark II as a game changer because the paradigm has shifted. This is the future, and as technology gets better so will the camera’s data rates, processing power, and ability to do more uncompressed media capture. I have shot with film for my entire career that includes 15 movies, hundreds of commercials, many music videos, and 20 short films because the HD landscape never attracted me. It looked plastic and too sharp, with a depth of field that felt false. If the story and characters are engaging and the film transports you, the capture medium doesn’t matter.
Even though ENG manufacturers kept updating HD cameras, I chose to shoot with film. So now why the sudden shift in thinking about HD? The Canon 5D is not HD. It is what I call digital film because the quality is unlike any other HD camera available to date. The image looks unique. It is its own genre—one that I believe looks and feels the closest to film. I believe HD video capture has finally come from the right place, the still photography platform. Canon has been working on this sensor for years. It was trying to make a sensor that felt like film and could replace film in the still photography landscape. Motion picture capture came from a brilliant individual, Louis Lumière, who looked through his pin-hole camera and asked, “I wonder what it would look like if this image moved?” As a result, motion pictures were born. The Canon engineers did the exact same thing. They asked, “I wonder what would happen if we put this little HD media capture on our still camera to help photojournalists in the field grab sound and video bites?” Poof! The HDSLR video revolution had its smoke; then Vincent Laforet added the fire with Reverie and the world saw this camera as something different.
When I set out on my creative journey with the camera, it involved a steep learning curve. The Elite Team and I made tons of mistakes in the beginning. We tried so hard to understand and breathe cinematic life into this camera. Midway through the journey, everything just worked. I continued to hone my abilities with the 5D camera system, tried to ingest as much knowledge as I could and share it with the film community. That is how Hurlbut Visuals was born (see http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/).
My wife, Lydia Hurlbut, whom I have known since I was three years old, used to come over with her Dad to give communion to my grandmother, who was living with us on our family farm. We soon became friends and started dating in 1979. We married in the fall of 1988, and I have been blessed with the most amazing soulmate in history. Now Lydia is cofounder of our website, which was her brainchild. She wanted to showcase my fearless, pioneering, trail-blazing spirit with this new technology. My wife also convinced me that I had to change the way I think because the old rules of holding things close to your chest and keeping secrets of what you have learned don’t apply anymore. So, I started giving away everything as I was experiencing it shooting a full-length feature, Act of Valor (forthcoming) and a variety of commercials. None of this was in a manual; you had to fail many times before a success, and that is what the Elite Team and I did every day. Our shooting experiences became the HurlBlog (see http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/).
Once we added HurlBlog, our website took off in a variety of unexpected ways. I answer every comment personally and give practical on-the-job learning. The unexpected piece was the amazing dialog that occurs with everyone’s input. I learn so much from the bloggers and feel excited about our forum. Lydia’s vision of an intimate, personal, and heartfelt experience that was not just about an individual but about the synergy and team effort involved in creating beautiful images came alive in the blog.
The mission of Hurlbut Visuals is to educate and inspire one filmmaker at a time. Cutting-edge visuals are a critical part of our site. In order to deliver those visuals to the online community, we consulted with Web developer Ryan Fritz, who owns RYNO Technologies in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had to have the right creative mindset to embrace this new technology with a flow in the online world that was elegant yet simple, informative but not confusing. Ryan and his Elite Team were the perfect fit. He and Lydia have collaborated to take a great idea and turn it into a powerhouse site in less than seven months. On a daily basis, I get comments from students saying that they learned more from my blog entries than from three years of study at NYU. That is not only very humbling but a huge responsibility and one that I take seriously.
The Last 3 Minutes is the next chapter where we figured it all out without any more mistakes, just imagery that held up on a 60-foot screen. The piece is moving because you identify with the characters on a journey through time, in reverse. The imagery and story would never have been possible without the writing and direction of one of the most talented directors I have ever worked with, Po Chan. She has passion and a clear understanding of how to get the best performance from an actor by writing a backstory to make the characters come alive. Po embraces a visual style that is not ordinary but unique in every way. She is visionary, and I thank her for writing and directing a short that will continue to change the way people think about this technology. BRAVO!!
Finally, I would like to discuss the concept of recycling. It is such an easy idea, one that many people discuss every day, but when it comes to changing behavior, few people follow through. We consume more than any other country in the world. When will we stop? When will we say enough? Every little step that one single person takes adds up to a big change.
There is so much waste in the film business that it boggles my mind. Sets are built, torn down, thrown into a dumpster, never to be seen again. Think of all the wood, glue, nails, labor, design, and creativity thrown into the trash. This new technology recycles. It is small and requires less space, fewer crew members, less light, less power, less fuel, and less food. One thing it does not lack is creativity because it leaves a big vision while using a small footprint. Filmmakers who would never have a voice now have one. Isn’t that what we want to teach our children? To make a difference in the world by leaving a small footprint while keeping a strong vision.
I ask all cinematographers, videographers, still photographers, directors, producers, agency creatives, production companies, studios, actors, technicians, and so forth to embrace, push, sell, believe in, experiment, inspire, convince, persuade, and not to do business as usual by thinking out of the box to save the planet. It starts with one and grows exponentially. This technology is not only eco-friendly but financially friendly by saving lots of money while shooting. I will lead the march and unite as many co-collaborators to drink the HDSLR Kool-Aid.
Lastly, a huge thank you to Kurt Lancaster for giving a voice to HDSLR, specifically the Canon cameras, in this new trail-blazing book. I welcome him on the set any time after his assistance on The Last 3 Minutes. He jumped into action when our sound person was stuck in traffic and did excellent sound recording. Kurt was like a superhero sound guy in the night to save our project. Kudos, my man!
26 June 2010