ambitious.films

#vidjogeil

[ambitiousfilms]

Grave Digger - Hell Funeral

In early 2014 the band Grave Digger got in touch with us about shooting a music video for their new record. We felt excited to work with a band of that status and started pre-producing.

We ended up cooperating with Zündwerk from Frankfurt (http://www.zuendwerk-feuerwerk.de/) for the pyro effects again and picked “Frankensteins Castle” as the perfect shooting location.

  Besides some technical problems later in the night everything worked out perfectly.

  We shot the video on the Sony FS700 (after the Firmware Update we finally have an sLog picture profile now for a super flat picture). We only used 3 lenses - my favourite lens set for scenic/performance videos. When you have time to change the lens a million times this is the perfect lens set. 

  24mm f/1.4 Wallimex/Samyang

35mm f/1.4 Wallimex/Samyang

85mm f/1.4 Wallimex/Samyang

  Shooting on cameras like the Sony FS-series or DSLRs makes us use all sorts of different photo lenses. So we sometimes end up with each lens being from a different manufacturer, having a different f-stop and a completely different look. For continuity reasons I love using a lens setup like the one above. 

  We started setting up at 10am, started shooting at 10pm and wrapped the last take at 3am the next day. We left the location around 5.30am. 

[ambitiousfilms]

Impericon Festivals in Leipzig & Cologne

Every year one of the most fun, exciting and challenging projects is the Impericon Festival. Our friends in Impericon started working with us in 2012 and our collaborations became more and more throughout the years.

  This time we shot full-production in Leipzig and in Cologne.  

Over the last years we were able to develop a setup for live-productions that is flexible and affordable but delivers high quality: The 6,9m ABC crane on a riser with the amazing PELE35 remote head and a Sony EX1. Two Sony EX3s in the photo pit, one on stage. A Sony EX1 at the FOH on a tripod for the master shot and one at the drum set. A couple GoPros at different spots on stage. 

  Usually we arrive at the venue the day before or really early at the shooting day. Especially the crane setup and the audio equipment takes a lot of time.

  The way we record audio always depends on what circumstances are given by the location. This time we used the good old & proven analog way with a splitter and 2 recorders.

In the end we have all the separate tracks - guitars, vocals, various drum mics. All these tracks (sometimes 20 tracks, sometimes 64) are later being edited, mixed & mastered by our two audio guys.

Backing up this insane amount of data on location is always tricky. Zoran is our DIT for every Impericon Festival and takes care of the backup. He synced two MacBooks (both with USB 3.0) and saved the backup directly to 2 identical 3TB drives. At the end of the day these two drives get mirrored to have a identical backup all the time.

[ambitiousfilms]

Casper Live at Lanxess Arena

One of the founding members of ambitious.films, Christian Alsan, became Benjamin/Caspers Video-Sidekick throughout the years. They did tour blogs, music videos and live stuff. This time Chris got in touch with us for shooting Caspers show in the Lanxess Arena in Cologne.

We did a smaller setup. No crane or steadycam on stage. Just tons of cameras spread all over the arena to capture every inch of it. We used three Sony FS700 for SlowMotion shots, two Canon XF305 (great sharp pictures with 4:2:2 color sampling), 7 DSLRs and 3 GoPro 3s.

3 x Sony FS700, from the top:

Metabones Adapter + Tokina 11-16 f/2.8

Metabones Speedbooster + Canon 50mm f/1.2

Fotodiox Speedbooster + Tokina 16-28 f/2.8

Magic Lantern made it possible to have the DSLRs run the entire set time. Especially after upgrading the FS700s to firmware 3.0 the low-light performance is great. The Canon XF series is just a great camera for live/broadcast production with a zoom lens for everything between wide-angle to tele. Especially when using many primes with a fixed focal length on the FS700s and the DSLRs on a daily basis it sometimes feels good to have a zoom lens for every situation. 

Benjamin and our crew after the show

The size of the room made some unusual shots possible, but have a look for yourself:

[ambitiousfilms]

Breakdown Of Sanity - Hero

One of the most long-term projects ever for me. In early 2012 the band and me started discussing the chance to do a video for the upcoming record. It took as a long time and a lot of concept changes and start-overs until we finally came to a plan that would fit our ambitious aspirations for the music video. The band is just becoming one of europes biggest metal core acts and it was clear the video needs to push that even more. No half measures.

We shot the story within 3 days in december 2013 in germany and the performance in february 2014 in switzerland. The most challenging part was the amount of scenes, locations and actors and the complexity of the plot. 

We shot the video on our own Sony FS700 as usual. Thanks to a lot of helping hands it all worked perfectly out. The full crew is listed below the video. Worth mentioning would be the help of Renaud K. from Switzerland. He is a young and talented filmmaker from Switzerland and helped us out on the shoot of the performance. The making of pictures are his work as well: http://www.renaudk.com/

Another first timer on this project was the cooperation with Dennis from Friends Like You-Agency. He worked on a light concept for the performance before the shoot and took care of all those moving heads and crazy light effects going on while the band was playing.  http://friendslikeyouagency.de/

After all it was another big story+performance video for us with a lot of pre-production, location scouting, casting and storyboarding but absolutely worth it. The bands involvement in everything that happens around them is crazy but awesome - so it took us many versions in post production as well until the last doubt was set aside and everyone was happy. 

Director - Carlo Oppermann DOP Performance - Daniel Hoffmann DOP Story - Frederic Merten Producer - Benjamin Richter Lightshow Performance - Dennis Baumann Light/Grip Story - Dominik Döhler MakeUp - Verena Cech Editor - Thilo Jäger Graphics - Oliver Stingel from Breakdown Of Sanity Photomanipulation - Chris Drecke

Helping Hand Performance & Making Of Pictures - Renaud Kritzinger

Special thanks to Jan Ehlers for letting us use his studio (http://www.janehlers.net/).

[ambitiousfilms]

We Came As romans - Taking Over Europe

"Taking Over Europe" with We Came As Romans on the Vans Warped Euro tour with Parkway Drive, Memphis May Fire and Like Moths To Flames.

Timelapse somewhere in Paris with the 85mm f/1.4 Wallimex.

The dates I filmed were only about half of the tour… Düsseldorf, Antwerp, Paris, London, Montepellier, Bordeaux, Madrid and Milan. An interesting and challenging experience to capture several episodes in that short time frame.  The difficulties were mainly on the workflow side of things: Filming the entire day and editing in the tour bus at night - not a problem. But uploading tour episodes from the road turned out to be more difficult than I thought. Some venues have so bad wifi.

GoPro ducktape-mounting for overnight driving timelapse. The band WCAR are great and genuine people and I was more than lucky to work with them - a lot of sightseeing and interesting conversations, intense shows and great food.  The daily routine was 1) find wifi, upload the episode from the day before 2) filming some stuff, backing up data 3) filming some more sightseeing with the guys 4) doing interviews with the band members 5) filming the show, backing up data 6) Filming after the show 7) editing another episode at the tour bus as soon as we started driving.

The most important thing when doing tour episodes in my opinion is ALWAYS being ready for capturing interesting things and ALWAYS being around. Don’t miss the moment. There is not free time. Another important thing to keep in mind is to already piece together the episode in your head when filming - you don’t want to throw together random footage but tell a story. So think who are your protagonists and what there story is. A lot of stuff you can learn in regular screenwriting and drama can be used to some degree for music videos and documentaries as well.

Equipment // I used my typical setup for this. Sony FS700 and a couple prime and zoom lenses, my old Rebel T2i/550d for pictures and my glide cam and tripod on a daily basis. Editing was all done within Adobe Premiere CC (and a little bit of Speedgrade CC and After Effects CC).

Results // Check out the episodes here… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITU5UhuBeog&feature=share&list=PLpU_vdUy7O6ngLUSCZY2SK3DtJLD7fioC And the live best of edit Thilo Jäger made from all the leftover footage for their song “ghosts”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIpz0nYp1og

[ambitiousfilms]

Comeback Kid - Should Know Better

The band Comeback Kid from Winnipeg, Canada has not only been one of our favourite band for years now, but also had a huge part on how ambitious.films started and developed. Andrew and the boys were helping us when we just started and since then we always stayed in touch and became good friends. When the band scheduled their recording-session for their upcoming record (“Die Knowing”, out march 4th 2014 on Victory Records) Andrew and me started talking about the idea of flying me over to the US for capturing the studio time and film a music video.

This all was the first piece of a truly ambitious adventure: 6 weeks, one-man-crew, shooting videos all over US & Canada. After joining the band in California and documenting the recording and preproduction of the new album, we started planning out the music video. We had a million ideas and after talking about countless possible approaches we decided to keep it simple, but entertaining. I left the band to shoot a couple other music videos all over California and we met one month later in Winnipeg, Canada. But the trouble just started. 

Time was running out and the band was behind schedule. Honestly I also felt a little burnt out after shooting every day for dozens of videos for 4 weeks in a row - I started to become skeptical. The equipment was ready, the location was there - the concept was clear. Make a crazy party video. I honestly felt like we aimed for too little with this, and it could become a little bit generic or even boring to watch. But I reckoned without the unexpectedly great 1st AD Jim Agapito and CBKs friends, the guys from the "boneyard". 

Without a doubt the wildest party animals I ever filmed - they were utilising everything (from old TVs, stereos and toilets to tools, motorbikes, welding equipments, axes and baseball bats to create maximum destruction around the band. While swinging the axe in the TV and crushing empty beer bottles on the helmets on each others heads they were gradually getting more and more drunk. Great for the video but a security nightmare - luckily nobody got hurt and we just had a REALLY good time.

With the help of Jim Agapito as a first AD/2nd Cam and some of his students Ryan Jones, Tom Elvers and Kirk Ray Salcedo from the University of Manitoba we were able to capture every important moment of the party in a good light and a quick shooting process.  In editing Thilo Jäger did a great job as always piecing it all together and color grading it.

And the finished video here...

https://vimeo.com/81930697

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG524QWI58I&feature=youtu.be&pxtry=2

[ambitiousfilms]

"ARCHITECTS - NAYSAYER"

A nice trip to the United Kingdom...

In early december 2013, the band ARCHITECTS contacted us for the production of a music video for their upcoming release "Lost Forever // Lost Together". With a tight schedule we planned everything quickly, decided what the video should look like with the band and drove to the UK with a crew of 5 people and a big van full of equipment.

MESA helped us with the backline and "Black Hangar Studios" provided the power and location for the project.

Driving 10 hours, sleeping 3 hours, shooting the entire day and driving back another 10 hours right after the shoot was exhausting but a lot of fun for sure. ARCHITECTS are genuine and professonal people and everything worked out the way we imagined it.

The last scenes we shot were the "powder shots". The band was covered in color powders (it was everywhere, from hair to clothes to instruments and the singer Sam sometimes inhaled it accidently) and we filmed all the takes with 120fps, which gaves us the freedom to play around with the timing in post-production.

After breaking down the entire set quickly and just in time, we said goodbye and left quickly to get the ferry back to germany in time.

Hungry and exhausted we arrived back in the office, but the project just started. During the next week (while normal people celebrated christmas and new years) our editor Thilo and our motion graphic artist Daniel spent their time post-producing the project. The band is very hands-on when it comes to details, and even if we enjoyed it a lot how much attention they spent on every edit - it was a race against the clock. The deadline was set and the final master was rendered nothing more than a day before the delivery date.

We used the new plug in "MIR" from Red Giant to create the particle effects for the powder shots and graded and edited the entire project within Adobes Creative Cloud (Premiere, After Effects & Speedgrade make a perfect workflow possible).

Almost all the shots of the video were filmed with a steadycam or the ABC crane and Remote-Head. We filmed with a Sony F5 and Zeiss Lenses as main camera and our Sony FS700 + Speedbooster and Canon Lenses for additional footage, slow motions and close-ups.

vimeo: https://vimeo.com/83684508

Director: Carlo Oppermann DOP: Steve Enste Producer: Benjamin Richter Editor: Thilo Jäger Motion Graphics: Daniel Barth 1st AD: Daniel Hoffmann Making Of: Yves Otterbach

Making Of Pictures:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.570898712991504.1073741829.119712754776771&type=1&comment_id=3648395&notif_t=comment_mention

https://www.flickr.com//photos/123171746@N08/sets/72157643861973003/show/

[ambitiousfilms]

Wirtz - Scherben

The music video for Daniel Wirtz song “Scherben” was challenging in every aspect. Not only was it a story-only video with many locations, actors, scenes and a serious plot that needs to be told. Even before that it became clear that this would become one of the special projects. 

Daniel and me met a couple times at his place in Frankfurt and brainstormed possible video ideas. We bounced around different ideas and approaches and after some weeks we finally felt like we had something special. 

So I wrote a detailed treatment and we started producing. 4 and a half day of shooting were needed and every single one was stressful. We ran into time problems for one moment, but apart from that were able to avoid rushing anything. Christoph Stein, our main actor, did an outstanding job by showing us what is going on just with his facial expression and within a limited amount of running time. Music videos probably feel like hell for most actors - super short takes, a million continuity mistakes and absolutely no time to shine with dialogue or accurately playing a scene.

Worth mentioning is the help of the incredibly talented Florian Stucki (http://www.digital-vandalism.com/). He drew the original artwork for Wirtz last record „Akustik Voodoo“ and helped us with his skills to fake our actors paintings and connect the video to the visuals of Wirtz at the same time. Daniel Wirtz is going to sell those 3 paintings used in the video soon, so keep your eyes open for an upcoming auction.

The difficulty with this project was for sure the complex plot and the present/past layers. Like in our video for Marathonmann (Holzschwert) we had two time layers, separated by roughly 20-30 years. Within our limited budgets its almost impossible to realistically make that believable in the video - but I think we did a good job on this.

Here is the finished video:

https://vimeo.com/86715912

http://www.myvideo.de/watch/9472563/WIRTZ_Scherben_Unplugged

Note: Don’t ever trust a lens that just got repaired without testing it. By checking footage during the shoot we identified a blurriness in the picture. Fortunately we were able to work without the 50mm lens on this one. 

Note 2: Stay away from a slider that is bigger than a full grown human, takes 3 of those to carry and is not even that great. The ronford slider was the only letdown, we will move on using the much better Kessler DollyCrane or our own small Varavon Slider.

[ambitiousfilms]

"Vayden - Gone"

Early september 2013 I had an email in my inbox from Armin, guitarist of the Los Angeles Rock Band Vayden. We knew each other from their europe tour back in 2011 and stayed in touch since then. They were in need of a music video, and so we started throwing ideas and concepts around. The shooting should become part of a 6 week-long trip to the United States in september and october 2013. An exhausting but rewarding experience, that led me two countless places, people & situations I’ll never forget.

Two weeks before the shooting I met the guys in their rehearsal space in LA and we talked about final decisions and production details - I was already in the US for 2-3 weeks at that time and in between several different productions. The band organised the entire production by themselves, while I was able to focus on the rest. Being a one-man crew in a situation like this from time to time can be challenging but very, very fulfilling - In my opinion it also helps to experience every single department of filmmaking from time to time. Working with bigger crews can lead to a very limited perspective sometimes. It brings you back down on earth when you are responsible for shooting, directing, lighting & editing without any assistants.

Like I would do with our producer team in germany, I started making schedules, call sheets and shortlists with Armin. We shot 3 days in a row, from really early in the morning to late night - and even though it was a stressful experience it was definitely worth it. The precise preparation made it possible to shoot the entire idea with a tight budget and schedule - but its always a lot of up and down, back and forth until the happy end where everything works out. One of my biggest fears is to overstrain myself with a project. 

Our main actor John Hines played a huge part in realising the project - not only with his great performance but also by helping to organise locations and props. E.g. the balcony the band plays at is actually our protagonists balcony.

Equipment //  The video was shot on the Sony FS700, I mainly used the 35mm f/1.4 Wallimex Lens and the 14mm f/3.1 Wallimex lens. We had a Kinoflo four bank for some interior scenes and used a simple reflector for everything else. Most shots were taken with the Glidecam-2000 which turned out to be the best investment in years. In combination with the Sony FS700 its the perfect setup for lightweight and flexible shots with a steadycam-look to it.

Obstacles // Besides the extremely ambitious production scale (considering the small budget and time frame) the main difficulty turned out to be self-made. I wanted the entire story to be told backwards, but still connect some shots with seamless transitions. It really takes some outside-the-box thinking sometimes to get to your result. And I am more than happy how everything worked out. 

The finished Video can be watched here:

https://vimeo.com/81805999

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tByvcf3xBME

[ambitiousfilms]

"IMPERICON FESTIVAL III - 04/2013" This Year we also worked for Impericon at the Impericon Festival III in Leipzig, Germany. One Day, 16 Bands filmed Live + Documentary, Interviews & Over Night Cut.

The second time for us to film at such great organized Festival like this so we brought up some more equipment to get a better result at the end of the day.

Watch out for the Impericon Youtube-Channel for upcoming or already released Videos:

-Equipment-

2x Sony PMW EX-3 XDCAM

2x Sony PMW EX-1 XDCAM

1x Canon 600D

1x Canon 5D

1x Canon 500D

2x GoPro Hero3 Black Edition

1x ABC-100 Kran 6,9m

1x ABC Remote Head

-Team- Producer/Director Documentary Carlo Oppermann Live-Director/Camera Yves Otterbach Slow-Motion Camera Christian Alsan Live-Camera Daniel Hoffmann Live-Camera Sebastian Klar Live-Camera Ufuk Kubat Live-Camera Ivo Houben Live-Camera/Jib William Veder

Crane-Operator Simon Friedl Crane-Operator Benjamin Richter Photohaphy & Digital Imaging Technician Zoran Zaric Live-Sound Recordings Björn Hechler Live-Sound Recordings Emil Cezanne

www.ambitiousfilms.de

https://www.facebook.com/ambitious.films

[ambitiousfilms]

"MARATHONMANN - HOLZSCHWERT" Bad weather in Germany and we remember shooting videos in colder times this year. Watch our Video we made for Marathonmann filmed on SONY NEX FS700.

vimeo: http://vimeo.com/62230618

We also had the pleasure to work with FS Aviation and their camera-drone to get some incredible footage. Director / Editor / DOP - Carlo Oppermann Assistant Director - Daniel Hoffmann Producer - Benjamin Richter Steadycam - Steve Enste Drone - FS-Aviation Color Grading - Julia Baier Making of Pictures - Zoran Zaric Set Runner - Simon Friedl Actors:

Old Guy - Curd Berger Young Boy - Leon Jorgensen Young Girl - Keira Sauer www.ambitiousfilms.de https://www.facebook.com/ambitious.films