Pyxl Media

Europe, Part 1: Siena & Cortona, Italy

Had a blast directing this project for a Men’s Night event opener at a welding and fabrication warehouse.

Since we knew the sparks were going to glow warm we wanted to create some contrast with a cool environment. We really wanted the sparks to be the main focus so most of this was done with a single light (usually backlighting) with a couple pops of light in the background. The goal was to give just enough light to show detail but keep it as dark as possible.

It was still pretty bright in the warehouse (we shot around 6pm) the the light leaking through the doors/windows so to give it a nighttime feel we threw on either a 0.9 or 1.2 ND filter depending on the scene. It allowed us to keep the lens wide open and while it made the image a little bit soft at times, I think this style of shoot called for it 🤟🏻

Shoot details:
🔴 Location: Ober & Sons, Houston TX
🔴 Camera: KOMODO 6K
🔴 Lens: Xeen 35mm T1.5 w/Tiffen 1/4 Black ProMist

🔵 Camera WB: 4600K
🔵 Lighting Color Temp: 5600K
(I knew the sparks were going to sit between 2800K-3200K so this combination gave us the cooler overall temp in the room and kept the sparks glowing warm)

👉🏻 Director: me
👉🏻 Producer:
👉🏻 DP: me
👉🏻 Cam Op:
👉🏻 AC:
👉🏻 Grip: .toli
👉🏻 Talent: .zilch
👉🏻 Editor: me

•COLOR CORRECTION & GRADING•

Just wanted to give everyone a look into what footage starts out looking like and what it ends up as!

TOP: What footage looks like directly out of camera (yeah, it looks awful LOL). In this case, I shot in Panasonic V-Log. Log footage gives a lot of dynamic range and flexibility when pushing around colors in post. It looks terrible but gives a lot of flexibility down the line!

MIDDLE: Rec709 & Correction. In this stage I bring contrast and saturation back to the footage and adjust overall exposure. I also adjust white balance if need be. At this point it could be left alone and look perfectly fine.

BOTTOM: Final Grade. This is where I add some slight color adjustment. You’ll notice this mostly in the plant on the table and his skin. I wanted to push the plant to more yellowish and muted so it wasn’t distracting. It also gives the scene a slighter warmer feel whereas the bright green can make it cooler. He also has red undertones in his skin so l pulled a bit of it out.

Note: this was a screenshot so don’t mind the banding in the shadows. The final footage is band-free 😅