Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

Eleanoora Rosenholm’s Moskova metro music video has been in the making for well over a year. I made the first draft of the script already in March 2019 and we had the final script writing session with Mika Rättö in early November 2019. In total we had three shooting days. This is the longest shoot and edit I’ve done for a music video.

The first idea I had was to do a choreographed musical inside a train cart with a SWAT team dancing with Eleanoora. We evolved this idea with Mika Rättö and added complexity, story and more characters to the script. During the shoot a lot of changes were made, as is usual in my productions, but we had a good plan for the three day shoot.

The first two days of shooting were spent inside a non functional tram car built as a showcase for the upcoming Tampere tramway. This was not our first choice though. We looked into shooting in an old 50’s museum railway car in Hämeenlinna but that turned out too expensive since the script required two full days of shooting. We lucked out and got a permit to shoot in a Tampere showcase tram car. It was a perfect solution since there was more space, amenities and it was logistically much easier. Although the location was great the tram car looked a bit too clean and new. After mulling over how we could make it look a bit more the part, I got the idea to use plastic protective sheets. My apartment buildings windows were renovated a year before and I had to use them cover all my furniture and really liked how they made everything look creepy. I bought a dozen of the plastic opaque sheets that come in 4×5 meter size. They weight almost nothing so just walking by makes them wave and move beautifully. We taped the plastic sheets throughout the whole tram car and it tied into the idea and the context of the script really well.

For lighting the tram car we used the relatively new Astera tube lights. Anna-Mari Nousiainen did extensive tests prior to shooting and programmed the lights. Astera tubes are amazing! They are battery powered RGB LED tubes and can be operated and programmed via an iPhone app. Basically you can program them to have any colour and pattern. You can make them flash or light up in sync or serial mode. Anita Ahola, Anna-Mari and Tuomas Bohm who worked on the lighting team spaced three Astera tubes evenly on both sides of the tram car and they were programmed to turn on and off in tandem one after the other. This created an illusion of the tram car moving. That and the plastic sheets waving as people walked by made us very happy about how it ended up looking. Not to mention that it was a very cheap way to cover such a big area.

This was one of the first music videos I did not film myself. Instead Anna-Mari Nousiainen worked as the cinematographer. I felt that it gave me much more time to concentrate on the actors and I really want to keep making videos like this if budget permits. For the shoot Anna-Mari did a colour chart based and a mood board based on our discussions on what we wanted the look to be like. Although I had recently bought the Blackmagic Pocket 4K camera I was not fully comfortable using it yet. The tram car shoot was in late November 2019 and was filmed with my trusted Sony FS700 and the Odyssey 7Q+.

Anna Elo sourced most of the costumes and props according to mine and Anna-Mari’s colour charts and notes. The tram car scenes were choreographed by Diina Bukareva with whom I’ve worked on several occasions. Although the ideas were scripted beforehand we did a lot of improvisation on how people should move and how the invisible marionette movements should play out. Diina is a dancer herself and it was great to watch how she was able to pinpoint specifically how a marionettes hands and other limbs should move.

After the Tampere shoot I started editing the material. After I had the first draft of the edit ready we went over the script with Mika for the Helsinki subway scenes. We ended up filming in Helsinki with the Blackmagic Pocket 4K. I had already used it on a few more shoots and felt more comfortable that it would do a good job. It is also a much more lightweight and stealthy camera rig so it was a no brainer to use in the crowded Helsinki subway. In Helsinki the characters did their own styling and I think overall everything turned out amazing. We had a lot smaller crew and very little gear. We were stopped by at least eight subway guards to explain the rules of filming in the subway. It is allowed but you have to follow certain safety guidelines which are self explanatory. We filmed at the final stop of the subway and the platform was basically empty between the trains even though it was a Saturday.

I think the cameras mix perfectly and I am very happy with the image quality from both cameras. In the future I will be using the Blackmagic Pocket 4K more mainly because of the option to shoot in RAW and the very manageable file sizes that results in. With the Sony FS700 we shot in 4K Prores HQ and the two day shoot was about 674GB (2 hours of footage) in total. The one day shoot in Helsinki with the Pocket 4K in 4K BRAW Q5 was about 64GB (1 hour of footage). The difference is huge. The BRAW files are almost five times as efficient as Prores and I see no real differences in the quality. This alone is a great reason to use BRAW.

I did the title cards with After Effects. I know only the very basics and much of it was me trying out effects until I found out something I liked and using the wiggle code to animate them. We had planned that we’d grade the video together at my place with Anna-Mari but I ended up doing it alone because of the corona virus situation. We did however change some thoughts and frames over the internet to finesse the look. The black and white footage is found footage from the Moscow subway in the 20’s and 30’s and I also added some film dirt on top of everything for good measure and mood. I’ve been very excited to have had the opportunity to finally have all the resources (time, money, talents and crew) to try out everything I wanted. I also ended up editing the video much longer than I normally do just to make it as good as I possibly could.

Director, editor: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Cinematography: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Gaffer: Anita Ahola
Script: Sami Sänpäkkilä, Mika Rättö
Costumes, Props: Anna Elo
Choreography: Diina Bukareva
Catering: Santeri Vuosara
Lighting assistant: Tuomas Bohm

Actors: Reetta Turtiainen, Noora Tommila, Mika Rättö, Diina Bukareva, Tuulia Soininen, Erno Iso-Aho, Juuso Määttä, Saima Kerko, Valpuri Kerko, Mikael Malila, Linnea Minkkinen, Sami Mäkinen, Ohmu.

Thank you: Maija Kerko, Paula Soini, Valofirma / Ville Väänänen, Pro Video / Sunna Junkkila, Tampereen Kaupunki / Antti Haukka, Satasairaala Ensihoitokeskus / Juha Lepistö, Veli-Ville Sivén, Pasi Salmi / Eleanoora Rosenholm -yhtye, Musiikin edistämissäätiö.

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When I first received the track Keijukaisvalssi I had a hard time figuring out how to circumvent a literal approach. We met with Sanna and Pekka from Litku Klemetti and Sanna explained the backstory that she had for the new upcoming album titled “Ding ding dong”. The album tells the story of Hullu-Sanna (trl. Crazy Sanna) and her adventures. The character is the one singing the song Keijukaisvalssi (trl. Fairy waltz). This opened up a lot of possibilities and we started throwing ideas of how to approach the music video.

I’ve done my share of content that is based on purely visuals but during the past years I’ve really wanted to try to include as much narrative and ideals into all of my work. I love the fact that Litku Klemetti is one of those bands who put deeper thought into the lyrics and who try to portray their own ideals and thoughts. The script for the music video is very much a collaboration between me, Sanna and Pekka. Together we came up with a story of Hullu-Sanna transitioning from a non expressive hermit to an artist after meeting a merry band of like minded souls.

I love the fact that the band was willing to try an idea of a loosely narrative cinematic music video. The shoot was done in Kuhmo, Sanna’s hometown, and the video was filmed over a period of two days that included travel from Tampere to Kuhmo and back again. We shot the final Kuhmo market square scene on the first day during the evening and the lip sync parts on Sanna’s parents backyard. The prologue was done during the same night at Sanna’s relatives cabin. Next day we did all the bits where Hullu-Sanna meets the band and gets a new outfit from the Kuhmo flea market. All the locations are closely tied to the real “origin story” of Litku Klemetti which is the reason we travelled all the way to Kuhmo instead of doing it anywhere else.

Anna-Mari Nousiainen did all the lighting again as per usual on all my videos nowadays. We shot all of the video with the Sony FS700 and Odyssey 7Q+ except for the overhead body rig shots of Sanna being carried by the folk in the final scene. For that scene I built a body rig from some leftover grip stuff and attached the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K on it. It actually cuts super well with the FS700.

Ohjaus, kuvaus, leikkaus: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Valaisu: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Käsikirjoitus: Sami Sänpäkkilä, Sanna Klemetti & Pekka Tuomi
Esiintyjät: Litku Klemetti-yhtye ja Kuhmon kesämuusikot
Kiitos: Kuhmon lähetyksen kirpputori ja Kuhmon kesämuusikot!

Litku Klemetti: Ding ding dong album out on 13.9.2019, Luova Records.
www.luovarecords.com
www.facebook.com/litkuyhtye

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Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

A music video for Eleanoora Rosenholm. Their fourth album Talvipalatsin puutarhassa was released in November 2018.

Directed, edited and cinematography by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Organizer: Anna Elo
Actors: Henna Seppälä, Anna-Mari Nousiainen, Juhana Hirvonen, Julia Elo, Jarno Malinen, Noora Tommila, Pasi Salmi, Mika Rättö.

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A festival teaser video for Pori Film Festival 2018. Poster by Karoliina Korvuo. Ilona Lehtonen held the poster on the video. 

See full program and info here: www.porifilmfestival.fi

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Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

Death Hawks’ new song Atitlán from their fourth full length album is my third video for the band. All the videos we’ve done have been very different in technique. Black Acid was shot on super 8 and on Beyond Thyme we used UV lights and paints.

Teemu Markkula and myself cooked up the idea on what the video should include in terms of looks and story. The choreography, lights and the visuals were mostly done at the studio. Teemu had some reference images so we kinda of had an idea of the colors we wanted. The clothes were all Jukka’s stage clothes as he’s a professional drag artist.

The whole shoot only took about 6-7 hours including lunch and that speed is due to the fact we had a good studio (Visual Works in Helsinki) and loads of people doing their thing. Lighting and VJ setup was simple. We had a 650W tungsten with a soft box and a grid high up on the ceiling. We also had an amazing portable and wirelessly triggered fog machine that was super easy and fast to use. Jonne Pitkänen did the front projections and Ilona Lehtonen did all the back projections.

All the effects except for the double exposure shots are in-camera effects. We had a few crystals that we shaked in front of the camera.

Director, camera, editor: Sami Sänpäkkilä
Music: Death Hawks
Choreography: Jukka Kuronen, Teemu Markkula
Projections: Ilona Lehtonen, Jonne Pitkänen
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen

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Direct links: Vimeo / Youtube

This video is a homage to staying at home and reading a book, listening to music or watching a movie. It’s our third video together with Islaja. I still think the first one we did for the song Rohkaisulaulu is one of the best videos I’ve ever done. The second one was for the song Pimeyttä kohti which is a poetic tale of evolution of humans and the journey from birth to death. I’m not sure how well it comes through in the video, but that’s the idea.

Sun luona taas (trl. At yours again) was a very spontaneous video. I first had an idea that we worked on for hours but it just wasn’t working and I felt it didn’t have any personality. It was too mellow and soft. After we had lunch I decided we needed to change everything. I was happy with the video being mellow but not happy about the pussyfooting around up until that point (trl. kissan tassuttelua). We needed something simple and rough. Something that would show that staying at home reading a book is cool. Hopefully you also have someone to water you like a flower.

www.islaja.com
From the album Tarrantulla released by Svart Records (2017).

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The Eternal Sleep of the Man (Ihmisen ikuinen uni) is a collaborative film by Sami Sänpäkkilä and Anna-Mari Nousiainen. It is available for screenings as a one channel nine minute short film with surround sound or as a 15 channel installation with two stereo audio channels.

15-channels | 30 s – 4 min loops | 2 stereo channels | 16:9, 4:3, 2.39:1 | HD | 2018
1-channel | 9 min | 5.1 surround | 2.35:1 | HD | DCP | 2018

Directed and written and edited by Sami Sänpäkkilä, Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Cinematography: Sami Sänpäkkilä, Anna-Mari Nousiainen, Valtteri Piira
Sound design: Samuli Ala-lahti
Music: Es / Sami Sänpäkkilä
Assistants: Toni Laakso, Sunna Junkkila
Actors: Anu Nousiainen, Ville Pirinen, Reetta Turtiainen, Diina Bukareva, Laura Laukkanen, Paula Nousiainen, Essi Rossi, Netta Lempiäinen, Jasu Parviainen, Samuli Gröhn, Vilma Lehtovaara, Minja Koski, Ida-Maria Olva, Leevi Ikonen.
Support by: Taike, SKR

The Eternal Sleep of The Man depicts magical realism and seeks solace in our urban environment. In the passage titled #suomineito (Finnish maiden) a woman in blue clothes and blue hair hangs upside down from a rope in a tree. In the passage Kultasuu (Goldmouth) Nousiainen cuts her hair in the middle of a golden glitter rain and in another passage a man reads a burning book and sings of hope.

The film draws influence from the pop and underground culture both Nousiainen and Sänpäkkilä have ingested in their lives. Despite their age difference both artists’ cultural influences stem from the same Hollywood film and indie art sources.

Sami Sänpäkkilä is a visual artist, filmmaker, and musician living in Tampere. His work has been shown in places such as the Mänttä Art Festival and MoMA in New York. He received the art prize for the region of Pirkanmaa in 2014.

Anna-Mari Nousiainen is a filmmaker and artist, whose work has been exhibited at numerous festivals and galleries. Her first short film, Glitter Stories, won 1st prize at the Artova Film Festival in 2015. She has also directed many music videos for Finnish performing artists.

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The Goodiepal Equation documentary is now available for free in Youtube! 

The film is also available to rent and watch without ads at the Fonal shop. The documentary is also released on a USB drive with a massive five hours of extras including a brand new 20 minute Epilogue where we see what’s up with Goodiepal and his pals after the filming of the documentary. Browse to Fonal online shop to purchase the USB and rental: https://fonal.com/shop/the-goodiepal-equation-usb/. There is also a new Goodiepal Equation t-shirt available with design and coloring by Ilona Lehtonen and pencil drawings by Kalle Rantakallio.

The Goodiepal Equation is my first feature documentary and it follows Kristian Parl Bjørn Vester, a Danish/Faroese musician/artist. The documentary was filmed during 2011-2017 and it was edited by Eeva Tuomi between 2015-2017.

The film had its sold out premiere at the Helsinki International Film Festival on September 22nd 2017 and a sold out international premiere at Ji.Hlava International Documentary Film Festival in Czech Republic on 28th October 2017. The documentary was selected to CPH:DOX and will have three screenings there end of March 2018.

You can follow future screening dates on the films facebook page.

About the process

I did a short 30 minute documentary on Goodiepal in 2012 in my A Day in the Mouth series. That was when I decided it might be a good idea to do a longer piece on Goodiepal. I spent the first five years just filming him and in 2015 Eeva Tuomi came on board as the editor.

Technically the film is very very simple. There was no lighting and I used whatever camera I owned at the moment. I begun with the Panasonic GH1, then the Panasonic GH2, Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and finally the Sony A7s. This a natural progression but it also gives the periods a certain look that changes alongside with Goodiepals ever changing appearance. My favorite camera was the Blackmagic Pocket that shoots Prores. You can color correct material that is severely underexposed or white balanced wrong. That happens quite often in documentary work. The A7s is as good and even better in many ways (lowlight for example) but I really prefer to use a camera that has a deeper depth of field. The full frame sensor of the A7s gives you an image that is just too shallow and you have to constantly keep checking the focus.

Working with Goodiepal

I quickly realised there are no second takes when working with Goodiepal. Everything had to be captured as it happened. I bought a GoPro camera that we attached to Goodiepal’s bike and he also used it to film other things on his own. The fact that the camera had no screen and Goodiepal could not see what he was filming gave me an access to his personal life that led to some fantastic intimate moments. These moments would not have happened had I been there.

Editing the documentary

Eeva edited the film for over two years and I must say I am extremely happy with how she handled the footage. There was almost 60 hours of material. 15 hours of just stuff Goodiepal had shot with the GoPro stuck on his bike. The first two years was just hard work. In the last few months we restructured the edit and the chronology of events was mixed up a little bit. This was a pivotal moment in finding a narrative to the cut and having a flow of events that we were happy with.

Loads of people helped with getting extra material and I’m very grateful for that. We also licensed some footage from Danish broadcast companies. That was very expensive. It was equally amazing to be able to do surround sound that Samuli Ala-Lahti realized with his sound design. So in the end the film turned out to be much better than what I hoped for and it seems it will have many more screenings than the originally planned one at a local cinema.

We are now submitting the film to as many film festivals as we can and hopefully next year we will have many screenings!

A word from the director

The Goodiepal Equation documentary film reveals a small part of Goodiepal’s personality and mystery. It shows its protagonist as both an uncompromising artist and a loyal friend. Goodiepal explores the boundaries of society’s rules. He shatters the definitions of art in his works and actions. Goodiepal is by nature impenetrable, yet consistent. That is why people often either love him or hate him.

Goodiepal himself forms an essential part of his theories. Indeed, the Goodiepal Equation is as follows: “The further a message travels over space and time, the more value it adds to its content.” One might think that this documentary has been made on the off-chance of Goodiepal later becoming an extremely famous artist and theorist. This, however, is a ready example of the paradox that is Goodiepal – it will never happen. If nothing else, it will be hindered by Goodiepal’s personality. For all his overbearingness, he is not merely a master manipulator; his actions reveal true altruism and empathy. He pays for rooms for the needy to work and live in, he helps refugees and donates large sums of money to charity.

Even though he is the self-proclaimed man for the new millennium, for most of us he is also beyond comprehension and imagination. You will feel like Alice in Wonderland having a conversation with the Cheshire Cat. That is why following Goodiepal must be done with a mind as open as Alice’s as she stepped through the looking glass.

The documentary portrays a man who is more than an artist or a theorist. It shows us someone who is battling – in his very personal way – his problems and illnesses. Goodiepal’s attitude in the face of adversity is the main reason why I chose to make this documentary. His loyalty towards his friends is demanding but also very rewarding. In the words of his best friend Poul Erik: “He is ready to die for his friends.”

The Goodiepal Equation press release

Goodiepal (real name Kristian Parl Bjørn Vester, b. 1974–76) is a Danish musician, performance artist, lecturer and activist operating on the fringes of society. Goodiepal rides thousands of kilometres on a self-built bicycle that he uses to power his shows. He has released a record with a genuine 500-krone banknote embedded in the vinyl – priced at 250 kroner. Goodiepal has put together an exhibition for the National Museum of Denmark comprising all his material possessions, and he creates his art outside of customary institutions and norms.

Goodiepal’s best friend, the former 1960s rock star Poul Erik, is another true eccentric, a hoarder living among things he has collected from skips. His dream is to own a piece of each item ever produced by human beings. Goodiepal considers Poul Erik his partner in crime, although his audience would prefer to see him without him.

Goodiepal’s life is shadowed by Huntington’s disease, an inherited degenerative disease of the brain that has driven men in his family to suicide. Doctors find odd tumours in his head and he begins to misplace and forget things. Many of his closest friends are likewise affected by illness.

Goodiepal’s activism turns increasingly radical and he drifts further and further away from social safety nets. Goodiepal challenges us to reflect on our view of the world. What remains of us if we only exist to serve the system? What is THE GOODIEPAL EQUATION?

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Direct link: Youtube / Vimeo

Tehtaantyttö is the second music video I’ve done for the band M. I think this is my first music video that hasn’t been shot in one day.

Planning the first scene with the car falling from the sky I was certain we’d have to do some computer trickery. But when I explained my idea at the junk yard, they just told me: “No worries, we can easily lift the car up to 10 meters in the air and drop it”. It was very controlled and they knew exactly what angle to drop it in to get it to land upside down. Seemed like maybe they had done it a few times before…

The rest of the video was shot at Omenapuutalo in Helsinki. We had a few tungsten lights blazing straight through the windows, Anna-Mari also rigged some party lights and we had a super small smoke machine that you were able to carry in your hand. We didn’t only choreograph the dancers with Maija Nurmio but we also had to choreograph Anna-Mari’s actions, you can see her three times in the take and in between she’s using the smoke machine. The script was quite planned but the choreography was mostly done on the spot with Maija.

A huge thank you to everyone who worked on the video!

Directed by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Music by M
Choreography: Maija Nurmio
Costumes: Hanna Kaitila
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Extra sparkles: Mikko Mällinen
Thank you: Valto Koivula OY, Valofirma

Dancers and party peoples: Ida Fleming, J-P Köykkä, Anna-Mari Nousiainen, Miikka Ahlman, Hanna Kaitila, Tuukka Pasanen, Aino Voutilainen, Maija Nurmio, Kati Korosuo, Elina Puukka, Ilona Pukkila, Emma Komppa, Carola Kuittinen, Simo Saukkola, Jussi-Pekka Parviainen, Saija Kivikangas, Hannes Mikkelsson, Minja Koskela, Minja Koski.

www.solinarecords.com
www.facebook.com/Mtehtaantytto

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Maria ja Marsialaiset on julkaissut ensivideonsa kesäkuussa ilmestyneeltä pitkäsoitoltaan “Pysy hereillä” (krypt-121, Ektro Records/Full Contact).

Uunituoreen musavideon “Tällä tiellä haamut liftaa” -biisiin on tehnyt Sami Sänpäkkilä. Paina playta ja hyppää kyytiin – luvassa on mystistä menoa maantiellä.

Directed, edited and filmed by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Runner: Ilona Lehtonen
Stunt driver: Anssi Kasitonni

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Direct link: Vimeo / Youtube

Music video for the artist M song Lampi. Filmed with practical lights, one take, handheld.

Thanks to Virhiä family for all the help!

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Direct link: Vimeo / Youtube

We shot this Seremonia video in one day, it took about nine hours in total including a pizza break. VHS-Klubi brought in all the televisions and hooked them up. They had prepared the found footage on VHS tapes beforehand from links I’d given them. It actually took about the same amount of time to set up then it did to film the whole video. I had a very meticulous script and it was shot in sequence.

We used one 650 watt tungsten gelled to 5600 kelvin to backlight Diina’s bed. The televisions provided the rest of the light. The warm light aka. the rising sun in the window is a 2000W Arri tungsten light with no gels that the gaffer Anna-Mari Nousiainen operated by hand.

The video was shot in 2K, meaning it’s 2048 pixels in width instead of 1920 which is the Full HD standard. Height is the same at 1080. This is the difference between a common theatrical release aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and 16:9 that most flatscreen tv’s are nowadays. Here’s a bit more reading on aspect ratios if you’re into that sort of nerdy stuff. I actually think the small change felt significant and I think I will be using the 1.85:1 aspect ratio more in the future.

We also had a little social media campaign before the shoot. We created a Facebook profile for Tyhjyys Kasvoton and asked people to send dark, black pictures to him. A big thanks to everyone who sent their pictures!

There’s three references to popular culture in the video, but now that the it is done they turned out totally different to their sources of inspiration. So a note to myself, steal as much as you wan’t, you won’t be able to recreate it! But let me know if you think you got some of the references!

Directed, cinematography and edit by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Actor: Diina Bukareva
Vocalist: Noora Federley
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Runner: Ville Pirinen
Analogue TV’s: VHS-Klubi / Tomi Leppänen, Juuso Ala-Kyyny
Thank you: Random Psÿcles, Erno Peltonen, Seremonia

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Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen took three years to film and five years in total to complete. Our first day of shooting was on march 2013 and our final shoot was in April 2016. September 2016 we had our premiere of the movie at Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy. The screening was at a sold out Savoy theater to an audience of 700 people.

Keeping it in order

Filming a movie in the digital age not only produces terabytes of videofiles but loads of digital paperwork as well. There’s a lot of files that go back and forth over the 3-4 years of production.

We used Dropbox, Google drive and Wetransfer to transfer data to each other depending on the situation. I have a Vimeo plus account where I uploaded the latest edits of the scenes for Pasi Salmi who recorded the music. Jaakko Niemelä and Samuli Ala-Lahti who did the sound design were able to use these same files as temp picture. 100GB of space in Google drive costs about 3 euros a month. That’s cheap as chips and it works pretty good.

The only real issue we ran into was with Vimeo. If you would download the Vimeo compressed version of a video clip instead of the original clip, it seemed that Vimeo would sometimes delete the first frame from the video clip. This would of course give us issues with sync. We never solved this issue but worked around it by making sure everyone always downloaded the original clip.

In addition we had a facebook group where we discussed and shared information with the 20 core people in the work group. We used email to inform most actors. With Mika we had to use the phone since he doesn’t use the internet or social media.

Audio sync

Audio sync was something that we were uncertain about at times. We had to basically always check it manually. I used Pluraleyes 3 to sync the dialogue to the camera audio. Sometimes I did it by hand. Knowing what I know now we really want to use a timecode synced to the audio recorder from the camera in the future. Just to be certain that things are in sync. Especially when people have beards it’s really hard to see if the dialogue is in sync and you end up spending a lot of time just trying to figure it out.

Our equipment in SS-Palace studio where Pasi recorder the music also needs an update for our next movie. Syncing there was also pretty hard due to the very small television we had and the computer not being able to playback the material properly.

Budget

Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen had a budget of 50.000 euros. Most of the money came from a grant from Satakunnan Keskusrahasto and Taike.  We invested a small amount of our own money with Rättö. We also got a few small donations from private individuals.

Out of the 57 shooting days about 15-20 were reshoots of material we had already filmed once. We had to do these reshoots because we learned so much during the first year that the older material looked out of place compared to the new stuff. Everything from writing, lighting, acting, blocking the actors and camera movement got so much better as we gained experience. I’m extremely glad we had the perseverance to redo those scenes.

Camera equipment

Our main camera was the Sony FS700 with the Odyssey 7Q+ monitor/recorder. There’s a detailed list of most of the camera and lighting gear in my introduction post.

Three aerial shots were filmed for Rauni that used a Canon 5D MIII on a MoVI M5 gimbal and Freefly Cinestar-8 drone. These were shot by Tuukka Ylönen and Jarkko Virtanen. Aerial shoots are something that really require loads of proper planning and experience. Although I knew this it was quite a surprise to me how difficult it actually is. You can’t fly if there’s even a little bit of rain, snow or if there’s too much wind. The drone was quite big but it seemed that it was still hard to control in the weather we had. We only ended up using one shot in the final film. Not because all the shots didn’t look good but because they didn’t really fit the story.

We also tried to use a Blackmagic pocket cinema camera for one underwater shot. It didn’t work out and the end result didn’t really add anything to the scene so it’s not in the final edit. I had no idea how to light an underwater shoot and still don’t. It was fun to try it though. If we are going to do it again on another project we need to do some serious planning and testing to make it look unlike all the other underwater shots out there.

Editing with Premiere Pro

When we began filming Rauni I still had a PC laptop and had been editing with Sony Vegas Pro for over ten years. Starting this project I decided to buy a 27″ iMac. The main reason for moving to a mac environment was the fact that the professional world revolves around Prores codec. This works best in the Mac realm.

We also needed a large storage drive so we bought a Lacie 20TB Thunderbolt raid drive. I gave both Final Cut Pro X and Premiere Pro CC a try and decided to start editing with Premiere Pro. Main reason was I didn’t have the time to learn the drastically different interface that the FCP X uses and FCP X had had a lot of negative feedback at that time. Nowadays it looks really interesting and I’m planning on testing it on a real project at some point.

Premiere Pro crashed now and then but mainly it worked well. I even updated it a few times during the edit which is normally a big no no. But hey, it took three years and essential updates were introduced to Premiere during that time which we really needed. The Lumetri color correction engine and DCP rendering were the most important. We didn’t loose any footage or edits so I guess that’s what counts in the end.

Grading on Premiere

I also decided to grade the film with Premiere Pro. I had never done a proper grade before where the material would end up screened in a movie theater. All my previous work has been for web or television. Grading a feature film at home with an iMac is almost like mastering a record with your iPhone earbuds. I was quite hesitant and many said it couldn’t or at least shouldn’t be done. But since we didn’t have any money I had to do it at home. I needed to learn how the footage would behave in a theater in relation to my iMac and adjust to that.

We did a few test screenings in a proper cinema and I would adjust my grade to reflect what I had seen in the cinema. I would write notes while watching: “this clip is too dark, blacks look washed out in this clip, this is too bright…” etc. Then I’d go home and compare the shots that looked good in the cinema to the ones I didn’t like and adjusted accordingly. It took a few visits to the cinema but I ended up being happy with the results we got.

Grading and color correction

I used one LUT (Arri – Alexa – SL), curves and basic color tools. The grade was very simple and I didn’t do any heavy looks. I’ve always enjoyed a more natural look for movies. There was one scene we needed to do as day-for-night because the order of a few scenes changed. That worked surprisingly well I must say. Again the quality of the material never let us down and I could adjust everything as much as I needed without seeing any ill effects on the images or deterioration of quality.

I had very valuable lessons from Anssi Rautio and Sasu Riikonen. They actually do grading more or less for a living and are way more experienced than I am. On a suggestion from Anssi I installed a 6500K balanced led bulb in my workroom ceiling and behind the computer on a table lamp. That’s something I can actually recommend for everyone, it’s cheap and gives your room color temperature a more neutral tone. No matter if you draw, paint or do computer graphics I feel it’s a big help.

Problem with Premiere

One very excruciating problem did appear with Lumetri color engine that has not been fixed. Premiere Pro handles values below 0 and above 255 (superwhites) inside Lumetri differently depending on the tool used. If you are using the basic correction tool it doesn’t touch values above 255 and leaves them behind so to speak. This totally destroys the footage if you have footage that records values below 0 and above 255. Most cameras do this nowadays. You can see it in the screenshots below. It took me a long time to figure this out. Here is a more detailed blog post about the problem. (This has since been fixed!)

Once I understood what’s going on I just decided I would not use the basic correction tool and used the curves tool instead for blacks and highlights. I will most likely do my next big projects color grading in Resolve; I’ve tried it a bit and it seems superior in many areas in comparison to Premiere Pro. Of course once you actually get down to serious work all programs have their quirks.

After Effects work

About 99% of the films effects are in-camera meaning they were done during the shoot. I’m not that good with After Effects but managed to conceal a few wires and microphones with the simple wire removal tool and masking. I also added one camera flash light and one gun muscle flash to another scene. That’s about the extent of CGI in this movie.

DCP aka Digital Cinema Package

It’s not long since Premiere Pro added an option to render a DCP straight from the timeline. We were able to render the DCP for test screenings and saved a lot of time and money. The projection quality actually differs a lot between cinemas. First time the projection was extremely grey and the second time it looked like the image was scaled somehow and exhibited a problem in the sharp areas of the image. Both times the cinema was of the opinion there was nothing wrong with their facilities.

The final master DCP was done for us by Kinokki from a Prores 422 HQ master, surround sound wav files and subtitles we provided. One thing you can’t do with Premiere Pro is add subtitles to a DCP so it was clear we could not do this ourselves. Even if it was possible I’m very happy we used Kinokki.

Check it in multiple cinemas

The final copy of the film looks great. I have now seen it screened in about ten different cinemas around Finland. I must say the picture quality has been very much as it should in all but one cinema that had a slightly washed out look. So in my opinion the DCP is a great way to making sure your movie looks correct. The audio has been a totally different beast though. It varies so much depending on the theater and their audio equipment. Surround sound is really difficult and in a few places the center channel is way louder then it should, forcing the projectionist to turn the overall volume down so much that the left, right and surround channels are way too low in comparison.

Image quality

I have to say that having the Odyssey 7Q+ recorder for the Sony FS700 camera was what made our film look like a real movie. Being able to record in slog2 not only added to the dynamic range but also gave the colors a very filmic look. The ability to color correct the Prores 422 HQ material was nearly as flexible as working with raw footage. As long as you exposed correctly and had your white balance set correct it was all good.

I didn’t run into any serious issues with grading with any of the footage from the Odyssey. A few shots that were recorded with the internal AVCHD codec in 2013 that survived the final cut were a different issue altogether. These clips had all sorts of problems from banding to compression and all around the colors we’re not that great (about 1-2% of the movie was shot in Rec 709 color space with AVCHD codec).

It’s easy to freak out when you see noise in your footage on your computer monitor when you are pixel peeping it at a less then a meters distance. I freaked out a few times too but experience has now taught me not to worry.

Noise

During the three year shoot we did over 700 shots with multiple takes each amounting to over 2000 video clips. Of these I’ve seen serious noise in about ten. A few shots were at 6400 asa and a few at 3200 asa. Watching these on the computer screen I was upset about the amount of noise and was certain I needed to clean them up somehow. I tried denoising them with the Red Giant Denoiser plugin but wasn’t happy. The quality suffered. What surprised me was that when we were doing test screenings in the cinemas projecting the image from a DCP you do not notice the noise anymore! It looks absolutely great! If you go in front row and look real close, yes you see the noise but somehow on the big screen it is not something that bothers me at all.

Now where you we will have a problem with noise and will have to use some denoising is when making a DVD or Blu-ray. Enough noise will make the compression go wild and a few of these shots did look really bad when compressed to dvd/blu-ray.

Premiere of the movie

The movie premiere was at Savoy Teatteri that seats about 700 people and has a very high standard equipment. I couldn’t have been more pleased with the image quality. It really is good stuff you get from the Sony FS700 equipped with the Odyssey 7Q+ recorder. In my opinion it’s very close in quality to any of the Red or Alexa footage I’ve seen.

Releasing the film

We’ve been very lucky with the movie. We got a great distributor Black Lion Pictures who managed to get our film a proper cinema release in over 15 theaters in Finland. Our premiere was in Helsinki International Film Festival – Love & Anarchy at Savoy theater to a sold out audience of 700 people. So far over 4500 people have seen our movie. We also sold the film to Yle Teema and it will be broadcast late 2017 in television in Finland. We are also planning a DVD and Blu-Ray release if finances allow.

Thank you to all of the 256 people that were involved in making this film! On behalf of the whole team I’d also like to give our deepest gratitude to Satakunnan rahasto, Taike Lounais-Suomi/Satakunnan taidetoimikunta, Svenska Kulturfonden i Björneborg, Porin kaupunki and private donors for their grants.

This is part 4 in a 4 part blog post series about Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen:
Part 4 (in english): Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – A feature film in the making part 4 – It’s a wrap!
Part 3 (in finnish): Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – Elokuvan tekemisestä osa 3 – Näyttelijät
Part 2 (in finnish): Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – Elokuvan tekemisestä osa 2 – Kuvausryhmän esittely
Part 1 (in english): Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – A feature film in the making part 1 (introduction)

The post Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – A feature film in the making part 4 – It’s a wrap! appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link: Vimeo / Youtube

The eight episode in A Day in the Mouth series is about Emma Ainala who is my favourite Finnish painter at the moment. I travelled to Savonlinna to film her painting at her studio and also visited her family. Her husband Lauri Ainala who makes music as himself and in Paavoharju has been a friend of mine for years now. Although I’ve known about Emma for quite some time (and she’s done artwork for Paavoharju as well) I’ve only met her in passing a few times. This is the first episode that I’ve done about a person that is not a close friend of mine. I think you can see some of that shine through the documentary. I don’t necessarily think for the bad though. :)

The intereviews were shot with Sony FS700 and the paintings from Helsinki Contemporary were shot with Sony FS700 with Odyssey 7Q+. I used Premiere Pro for editing. English subtitles were added with Vimeo subtitler (It’s a bit buggy but I managed).

Emma Ainala is represented by Helsinki Contemporary and I want to thank them for letting me crash their gallery and film Emma’s paintings. Thanks to Arsi Keva for assistance at HKI Contemporary and Eeva Tuomi for mental help with the piece! Huge thanks to Lauri, Kerttu, Leppä and Emma!

Watch more episodes of A Day in the Mouth.

The post Emma Ainala – A Day in the Mouth episode 8 appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

I was really excited when Janderzen told me that Casio had comissioned Kemialliset Ystävät to do a promo video for their Trackformer XW-PD1 sampler. So many of my fellow musicians have used Casio keyboards to make their music. All my own albums have been recorded almost exclusively with them, an MT-100, SK-10 and SK-5. So needless to say, I was in, when Jan asked if I’d like to film it.

The setup was really simple. Jan’s request was to have “a box of light in the darkness”. The box is sort of a greenhouse built on the yard of Pyynikin Aikamatkat in Tampere. We lit the greenhouse with two 150W construction site lights placed on the roof which was a see through plastic roof. We had a 2K Arri coming from the side about 20 meter away. It was lit through a silk screen so it only gave a bit of light. This was shot with a Sony FS700 and an Odyssey 7Q+ recorder/monitor.

Directed and cinematography by Sami Sänpäkkilä. Gaffer Anna-Mari Nousiainen. Kemialliset Ystävät on the video: Janderzen with Tomi Leppänen, Mika Pettissalo, Petra Poutanen-Hurme and Tellus Choir.

Casio website: http://music.casio.com/en/products/ddmg/m_of_tf/a15.html

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This is the second video for the band Death Hawks I’ve made. Check out the first one Black Acid here. Death Hawks are releasing their third album “Sun Future Moon” shortly. First single is called Behind Thyme which we filmed during the moon eclipse on September 26th 2015. One of my favourite painters is Hugo Simberg and although you most likely won’t see his influence in the video it’s sort of an homage to the painting “In the Garden of Death“. We had no script as you can imagine. The idea was just to have the band take a relaxed stroll with friends in the garden at night.

We used a whole bunch of UV lights to light up the video and painted everything and everyone with UV paints, eyeliner and lipstick. We used four 400 watt UV lamps, big things that make a lot of noise, and two really small LED lamps which were lightweight and totally silent. Loads better those small ones. A lot of weird things shine in UV light like tonic water. There’s some pretty crazy videos online about this which we found out doing research.

Video was shot at a ratio of 1:2.39 with the Sony FS700 and Odyssey 7Q+. It would’ve been nearly impossible to expose this correctly without the Odysseys LUT functionality which enables you to see the image with preliminary color correction on set. I used a bit of my newish mini dolly built by Tomas Regan but mostly the video was shot handheld 50fps and some shots at 100fps.

Directed by Sami Sänpäkkilä
Edited by Eeva Tuomi and Sami Sänpäkkilä
Gaffer: Anna-Mari Nousiainen
Assistants: Mapi Nousiainen, Eeva Tuomi
Make-up: Ville Pirinen, Ilkka Vekka and the actors
Featuring Ville Pirinen, Ilkka Vekka, Maria Stereo and Death Hawks

The post Death Hawks: Behind Thyme appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link Youtube / Vimeo

Video was made with Seremonia, shot with Sony FS700 and Odyssey 7Q. Found footage from Internet Archive.

www.svartrecords.com
www.facebook.com/Seremonia666

The post Seremonia: Alfa ja Omega appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct link Youtube / Vimeo

Music video shot with Sony FS700 and Odyssey 7Q. Only natural light used. Shot with the members of the band and their families. Thanks to Ville Pirinen for offering a “helping hand”.

Pekko Käppi & K.H.H.L. are Pekko Käppi, Tommi Laine, Nuutti Vapaavuori.
Featuring Ville Pirinen as the “helping hand”.

Taken from the album “Sanguis Meus, Mama!”
P & C 2015 GAEA Records.

The post Pekko Käppi & K.H.H.L.: Laihan koiran haukku ei kuulu taivaaseen appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Crew on the film

The core of the crew working on the film consists of about fifteen people who all work without pay. We have received two grants from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Satakunta regional fund. All the money we spend goes to food, travel and gear rentals. It’s quite amazing how quickly it adds up when you have 15-20 people that you need to feed and transport daily.

Most of our crew does not have an education in cinema and are self taught. The whole process though has proven a film school created by ourselves. Myself I have graduated as a Bachelor of Arts from Tampere Polytechnic and have learned most of what I know about film-making online. Our director Mika Rättö is a genuine self-made artist who very much keeps the spirit up on our shoots and has the ability to keep the crew working for the same goal no matter the shortcomings of our budget or gear.

Mika still writes his scripts and books on a 20th century desktop PC that crashes every time you touch it. Getting the script out on a USB stick is always a drama in itself. Turning a disadvantage to our advantage by wit and hard work is our main asset in my opinion. Tuomas Laurila who is the sound recordist is currently working as a public servant in Helsinki but is actually the only one of us who has official qualifications for his job. Harri Sippola is working under the moniker of production manager and takes care of the timetables, logistics, budget, food etc.

Anna-Mari Nousiainen is our gaffer, she sets up the lights, Eeva Tuomi is our script supervisor, Pasi Salmi scores the music, Tuomas Niskanen is also a script supervisor, boom operator and acts as well, Teemu Rosenqvist is our grip and dolly operator, Kai Johansson is the driver, Anna Elo is our set decorator and Eetu Henttonen does a lot of the graphic design. Although during the shoot everyone does a bit of everything, one can roughly assign these roles. There’s also many other people who work on the movie, not to mention the actors, whom I will mention in the upcoming posts.

The birth of the film

Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen originated as a play that Teatteri Moderni Kanuuna collective realized and Mika Rättö directed in early 2010 in Pori, Finland. The play ran for about 4 weeks and visited a few other cities as well besides Pori. I myself saw the play in Pori but was not involved in its realization. We’ve worked with Mika on a few different projects together. I’ve recorded Kuusumun Profeetta albums and released Eleanoora Rosenholm albums in which Mika is the composer, lyricist and musician. It’s been a dream of both of us to make a movie since we were kids. Now was the time.

We first began adapting the play Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen into a film script around 2012. Mika had written the first draft and we began to meet about once a month. We would sit at Mika’s home with Tuomas Niskanen, Tuomas Laurila, Harri Sippola and Pasi Salmi. People gathered to throw around ideas, read and rewrite the script together. It took us around a year to get the script to a shape where we felt we’d be happy to start filming it. The script has changed a lot since that and most if not all the scenes have been re-written. We’ve shot additional material for many of the scenes as well and have had to re-shoot a few. Luckily we’ve had time and patience but most of all the drive to do it properly.

First practise and first shoot

Our first practice shoot on my parents backyard in December 2012 was extremely chaotic. We started to rehearse the actors and cameras movements for the first scene. Mika was shouting for me to run after him and follow his moves. Off we went, Mika running and waving a samurai sword and me stumbling along with the camera in the deep snow. The end results we’re not exactly cinematic, but the seeds of a few important things and ideas we’re set that day. Most of all the realization that we’d need to practice… a lot!

Our first real shoot was in March 2013. We spent quite some time planning it but now in hindsight what we shot was a short film and not a scene for a feature film. We had too many ideas and too many shots which we’re not consistent with the emotional needs of the scene or the narrative. The camera work was all over the place as well, too many close ups or not enough close ups.

It’s quite a different thing to shoot a music video or a documentary where you can resort to jump cuts or inconsistency, with narrative work even those should be deliberated. It was also very time consuming as we hadn’t really planned and prepared properly. It is telling that the first time we shot the scene we spent four days shooting it and over a week trying to get it to work in the edit. When we shot it the second time it took us only one day to shoot and half a day to edit. So calculating by those numbers our efficiency has improved by 500%.

Production realities

In a production of this magnitude it’s extremely important to be able to adapt. By necessity we’ve had to become more and more organized. Sometimes an actor cancels two days before a shoot, locations change or it rains and you need to handle it all without sacrificing any of the creativity you put into the idea. In essence that’s what movie making is about most of all, problem solving. This we’ve learned the hard way.

At the moment we spend at least four to six days planning every scene (a shoot for one scene varies from two to six days and we have a total of 17 scenes in the movie). Two to six days is spent rehearsing with actors. On top of this organizing catering, transport, timetables, costumes, rental equipment and props takes countless of hours of work. So all in all one day of shooting (that produces around two to three minutes of finished material) means 10 days of work.

So far we’ve shot 45 days and are looking at shooting another 10 days at least. Add to that editing, audio editing, color grade and other post work. The finish is still a long way ahead. When we began filming I did fantasize about the premiere but it’s been such a long project that you let go of that and start to enjoy the process itself.

Picture composition

The first big choice one needs to make starting a film is which aspect ratio to shoot. I decided we would go with 16:9. It’s almost the same as 1.85:1 which is a standard in many places. I knew that our film would be more character driven and this aspect ratio is very well suited for this type of narrative. We would not have that many beautiful sceneries which would look better in a more wide frame like 2.40:1.

Lighting

It’s incredible what you can learn just by doing things yourself and reading about them online. In the beginning I had no idea how to light a scene or how to utilize sun positions, but we got lucky a few times. On the shortest days of the winter the sun is always hanging low and casts a beautiful golden color. Seeing a few well lit but many badly lit shots was the first awakening for me in how to utilize sun light properly and lighting in general. Lot’s of googling ensued after this. I researched many, many movies but especially Roger Deakins’ films and read his online forum.

I downloaded the iPhone app “Sun Seeker” that tells you the position of the sun very accurately. We have utilized this to full effect since. We’ve got some really fantastic shots that are only possible here in the north. The light is very beautiful, soft and golden during the winter in Finland. It’s also a lot up to luck, you haul tons of gear and 20 people to a location and you just have to shoot no matter what really.

Our light set consists of three 2000 watt Arri’s, three 800w Arri’s, two 650w and one 300w Cinelight fresnel tungsten lights. We also have a few reflectors. How to light a shot has been one the most interesting aspects of learning new stuff. I’ve bought a Sekonic L-608 Cine light meter which has helped but it’s all stuff that feels like it has an infinite learning curve that never quite reaches its singularity.

Audio gear

Tuomas Laurila’s sound gear consists of a Sennheiser MKH416, Röde NTG3,two DPA 4061 lavaliers with Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless system Tascam HD-P2. This was later upgraded to a Sound Devices 744T recorder and a Sound Devices 302 mixer. This equipment is by far the most professional we have at hand. Dialogue recording is extremely difficult to do properly. I’ve learned this having been a boom operator on a few films in the 90’s. The work goes unnoticed by most until it hit’s the cinemas and even the makers don’t pay notice until it’s time to start editing the dialogue. All that is still ahead of us.

Camera gear

We are shooting the movie with a Sony FS-700 camera that is a semi-professional digital camera with a Super 35 sensor. The first year I recorded the footage internally on the cameras SD cards that captures the footage in AVCHD codec. This is a highly compressed format of course and in March 2014 I purchased an Odyssey 7Q recorder/monitor. It records Prores HQ 422 on SSD cards that is derived from the FS700 4K raw output.

The image quality is much better than with the internal codec. It doesn’t have more latitude or better colors, rather the advantage comes from the Prores codec which is clear of all compression artifacts and easier to color correct. It is also slightly sharper with the Odysseys built in 4K raw to Full HD conversion. With the Slog-2 color profile there’s enough latitude to be able to shoot in almost all conditions without much worry.

You can pretty much point the camera directly to sun and still get a decent highlight roll off. So far we have gathered around 3 terabytes of video and audio. I suspect before everything is done we will have at least 6 terabytes of data that needs to be backed up as well. My choice of editor is Premiere Pro CC which was the logical choice since I bought an iMac in 2014. We store and edit the material from a Lacie 20TB thunderbolt hard drive and backup to cheap USB3 drives.

Lenses

I use relatively cheap lenses which I’ve accumulated during the years from second hand market places. I have only two “cine lenses”, a Samyang 24mm f1.5 and a Samyang 35mm T1.5 that have integrated gear wheels for use with a follow focus. The rest are photo lenses, a Canon FD 50mm f1.4, Canon FD 85mm f1.2 L and a Canon FD 135mm f2. These are not in any way considered extremely professional but they are pretty good for the price. My go to lens is the 35mm which I probably use half the time. It’s really sharp even at f2. All the lenses are slightly soft at their widest so I rarely open them wider than f2. Mostly I use them at f2.8 to f5.6.

The 24mm is clearly soft wide open so I never open it more than f2.8. Sometimes I use a Speed Booster made by Metabones. It’s a focal reducer that also brightens the image by one stop. Essentially when put between your camera and the lens it makes a 35mm f2.8 lens a 24mm f2 lens. So it makes the image wider and brighter. I’ve used it in a situation where I needed a 24mm field of view at night at an f2.

With the actual 24mm lens used at f1.4 the picture would be very soft so putting on the Speed Booster on the 35mm lens I effectively get a 24mm f2 lens. It’s also handy when you just don’t have room and can’t make the image wider by backing up with the camera. You make it wider with the Speed Booster. It’s something I only use if these two variables need help though. The less stuff between the subject and the image sensor the better.

[singlepic id=207 w=850 h= float=none]

Look forward to part 2 of this post sometime in the next few months. I will write in more detail about the people involved, actors, editing and gear. If you have any questions please feel free to comment below and follow us online!

modernikanuuna.com
facebook.com/samurairaunireposaarelainen
twitter.com/modernikanuuna
instagram.com/modernikanuuna

This is part 1 in a 4 part blog post series about Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen:
Part 4 (in english): Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – A feature film in the making part 4 – It’s a wrap!
Part 3 (in finnish): Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – Elokuvan tekemisestä osa 3 – Näyttelijät
Part 2 (in finnish): Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – Elokuvan tekemisestä, osa 2 – Kuvausryhmän esittely
Part 1 (in english): Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – A feature film in the making part 1 (introduction)

The post Samurai Rauni Reposaarelainen – A feature film in the making part 1 (introduction) appeared first on Sami Sänpäkkilä.

Direct links: Vimeo / Youtube

The seventh episode in the series A Day in the Mouth features Lau Nau, the musical alias of Laura Naukkarinen – a singer-songwriter, composer, producer.

This episode took a while to put together as I first felt that I had not done justice to Laura’s amazing kindhearted person and her massive enthusiasm for music well enough while filming Laura and her family. It took an editor other than me to find that from the footage. This is the first time anyone edits my videos and I’m very excited that Eeva Tuomi was able to bring out what I was perhaps too close to able to see. Laura and myself have known each other for a long time and she is among one of my oldest “musical” friends. Especially in this case it was nice to see someone else juggle the questions of what to include and what to leave out.

This episode was filmed on two different cameras. A Sony FS700 was used on the sit down interviews and some of the outdoor low light shots. A Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera was used on all the handheld footage. It’s amazing how well the pocket camera grades. It’s much better then the FS700 with it’s low bit rate internal AVCHD codec. I was able to correct all the BMPCC shots exactly as I wished. You can see the quality difference clearly if you look at the sit down interview parts, the grade starts to fall apart.

Eeva edited on Premiere Pro and I did all the post work on Premiere as well. After transferring to Mac and Adobe Creative Cloud my editing and work has become a lot quicker and easier. There are some annoyances in the Adobe world and things I miss from Sony Vegas Pro but overall I can’t recommend it enough. If you have to provide files to anyone in the media industry it’s so much easier to work with Prores files.

Watch more episodes of A Day in the Mouth.

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