Berlin Short Film: Sample Footage

Our Producer/Director Norm Sanders just uploaded some footage from “Berlin.” I’ll just quote what he said:

“PLEASE everyone keep in mind that this is a ROUGH edit, with next to nothing for color correction, other than some stuff I quickly slapped on for some slight desaturation, sepia, and old film look just for kicks & giggles. The look (other than frame & movement of shots) is not to represent the final product. But it’ll give you a fair idea of locations, settings, perhaps a couple of plot beats, etc. I didn’t want to show too much to where it hinted at any twists either….”

Here is the link to download the clip. It’s over 50MB so depending on your connection it may take a little while to download. Here you go: www.eefilm.com/berlin/clips/berlin-cabaretvideo.wmv

For those of you with slower connection here is the video on Myspace:

NEW!! “Berlin” – Cabaret Music Video

“Behind Our Facade”

Back during the first week of October I went with my friends to First Thursday. At one of the art galleries a photographer was showing his work. It was nothing inspiring or even intriguing but it got me thinking; if something like this can be shown at First Thursday, there is no reason why I shouldn’t be showing my work at First Thursday and/or gallery. Then the roadblock hits . . . I realize I don’t have any work that would merit a showing. See, up until that moment I hadn’t really thought about my journey into photography as an artistic endeavor. It was more working for other people and trying to learn the technical side of it all. I thought for a couple days about what would be the best direction for me to go with this new artistic endeavor. Ultimately I decided I would start a book/series of photos. I wanted it to be something that was symbolic of my life thus far.

Growing up I was always a shy kid, or “reserved” as I liked to call it. I never really showed who I was on the inside, to the people around me. Over the years though, through learning to sing, participating in theater and choir, starting up my own business, etc. I have come out of my shell. And it feels quite amazing to be comfortable with who I am, around anyone. I now know what it feels like to fly because that’s what it honestly feels like when I hold nothing back and be the me behind this “facade” we all erect in public.

This is what I want to convey through my book/series. The working title is “behind our facade.” I will most likely be working on the series over the course of the next couple months. The possibilities are really endless though so it could potentially turn into a much longer project.

Today I kicked off the series with my first shoot. I shot with Lucy Lovette from Model Mayhem (great model to work with). She has a condo over in N Portland that looks like it could be in Europe and the basement looks like it could be an old jail in a Western movie. It truly is a great place to shoot. Below is a sample photo from the shoot. I took a lot of great photos though so it will not necessarily be the final photo I use.

Hopefully more photos to follow soon!

- Isaac Lane Koval

Photo shoot at the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden

Originally posted Tuesday, October 30, 2007 at blogger.com

Last Friday I went out to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in SE Portland right across from Reed College, with model Meg Riordan. The weather couldn’t be better and the Garden is gorgeous right now with all the leaves changing colors. I didn’t actually know about this park until last Monday when I modeled as a wedding “groom” for another photographer there. Hopefully I’ll have photos from that shoot soon. And I figure why get married now because I have photos of my “wedding” already, haha.

Anyways, here are my favorites from the shoot with Meg on Friday. As always, to see more photos from the shoot you can check out my flickr site.

Berlin: Week Two

Originally posted Monday, October 29, 2007 at blogger.com

For week two of the short film Berlin we were up at Officer Row, at Fort Vancouver in the city of Vancouver, WA (little redundant, )

Here are some photos I selected from the day. For more go to my flickr site.

Key Gaffer Matt Semchee and Key Grip Fro Waters

Crew of Berlin.

Director Norm Sanders, AD Bree Dennis, and Key Gaffer Matt Semchee

1st AC-A Camera Ryan Walters

Director Norm Sanders and AD Bree Dennis

Edwin (Norm Sanders) and Katherine (Rebecca Dunn)

Edwin (Norm Sanders) [taken by Brad Reeb, edited by me]

On Sunday morning, 1am we were back at Huber’s restaurant. Unlike last week we were able to wrap by 9am. And that my friend means the end of principal photography. I will most likely be doing post color correction work on the short once Norm gets the final edit done. As of right now the film is scheduled to be done in December, before Christmas.

As far as the footage, a couple of sneak clips will hopefully be up by Friday for your viewing pleasure. I’ll keep you updated. Also for more updates on the film you can check out the “Berlin” forum on DVXuser.com.

A little tech. info on the short film:
We shot the film using two HD cameras, the Panasonic HVX200s. We shot in 720p at 24p. We were going to use the Letus35 Extreme (a 35mm adapter used to achieve less depth of field) but the light lose from it was too much with the already low light we were shooting in for the barn scene and the cabaret scene at Huber’s.

Berlin Short Film: Week One

Originally posted Sunday, October 21, 2007 at blogger.com

This weekend we started shooting Principal Photography for the short film Berlin, produced by Norm Sanders and Rebecca L. Dunn. I am the B Camera Operator for this short. The film takes place in Germany during World War II and centers around a love triangle.

On Saturday we shot at an old barn up in northern Vancouver. It was quite the set. Inside there were cobwebs everywhere and it had such great production value that we didn’t have to do much to dress it up.

[The outside of the barn]

[DP Dan Ayers and Norm Sanders discussing the next shot]

After Saturday’s wrap we then turned around and began shooting again at 1am Sunday, at Hubers in downtown Portland (Portland’s oldest restaurant). We didn’t end up wrapping until 1pm.

[Leading lady Katherine (Rebecca L. Dunn), singing in a Berlin Cabaret club.]

[AD Bree Dennis, DP Dan Ayers and Director Norm Sanders deciding what to shoot next]

Principal photography will pick back up and wrap this coming weekend.

Rain Senior Photos

Originally posted Friday, October 19, 2007 at blogger.com

On Wednesday I had a Senior Photo shoot. Being a typical Oregon day, it was raining. Luckily I had just picked up a rain jacket for my camera which made me a lot more comfortable shooting in the rain with my gear. Here’s one photo from the shoot.

The ground was covered with tons of colored leaves so I climbed up a tree to get an arial view so I could get both the subject and the leaves in the frame together.

Rocky Butte shoot

Originally posted Friday, October 19, 2007 at blogger.com

On Monday evening I shot up at Rocky Butte with a Jade(Model Mayhem), out by the Portland Airport. It was my first time going there and I must say the view up there is pretty amazing. You can see all of Portland and I could almost see my apartment from up there. It’s also a great spot to watch planes taking off from the airport. It was a clear night but also proved to be pretty windy. Luckily Jade’s boyfriend Zach came along and was a tremendous help, making sure the lights didn’t topple over. Anyways, here’s a few photos from the shoot. To see all of them go to my flickr account

Sellwood Park shoot

Originally posted Sunday, October 14, 2007 at blogger.com

Last Wednesday I went out on a shoot with Jeremy (ModelMayhem). We started at Oaks Park and at that time it was pretty close to down pouring so we spent much of the time undercover. There’s a lot of cool spots at the park but unfortunately none of them really worked out with the rain.
I was a little too afraid that I would ruin my camera in the rain. I have since purchased the Kata GDC Elements Cover – 702. I have yet to try it out yet but I’m really excited because this will drastically increase my shooting opportunities because it rains quite a bit in Portland.

Fortunately, the storm passed, the sun came out, and the lighting was gorgeous. At this point we were down at Sellwood Park, near the Willamette river. Below is a collage of photos taken at a park right after a down pour of rain. I climbed up in the yellow tree to get some of the photos and it made me feel like a kid again. In these photos I pumped up the green using the “selective color” tool in photoshop. Then I added a couple filters to give it a semi antique feel to it, more on this on #2.
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I tried my hand at adding an antique look to these photos. I’ve just started playing around with the actions in Photoshop and so far I’m very impressed. I’ve found a lot of free actions at Adobe’s exchange website. You should check them out if you haven’t already.

the website is: Photoshop Action Exchange
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