The Cat Hunter is a darkly humorous tale of a specialist who is sent by a homeowners association to deal with an errant family pet that has “gone tom”.
The short script was developed with my partner-in-all-things Mattock “Mattie” Scariot with actor Noah Martin in mind, with whom we previously had a very successful collaboration on our indie feature, Ocatilla Flat. With money being tight we had to rely solely on the equipment we own, including a half-dozen Lowel lights, a very basic jib and a small assortment of grip equipment. And we understood that our time with Noah would be limited (who now lives in L.A. and had to be flown up for the shoot), so a tight game plan was critical.
The centerpiece of the production was our HVX200 camera fixed with Redrock Micro’s M2 35mm adaptor and an assortment of Nikon lenses. The M2 does exactly what it advertises, producing a rich and textured image akin to the look and feel of film. But we were mindful that it was not film, particularly in regard to digital’s narrow dynamic range. The M2 also has a number of drawbacks of its own, most notably the added bulkiness to the camera setup and its demand for substantially more light. The latter issue presented the biggest technical hurdle we had to clear, mainly in regard to the night exteriors coupled with our meager lighting resources.
Once our cast and location were locked in, Mattie and I set out to work up a strategy that would address the main technical and aesthetic decisions up front to maximize our time on the set. We began by breaking down each and every shot, followed by a number of lens and lighting tests to establish the overall look. For the interiors we wanted a warm, noir-ish look, but were very mindful that we didn’t want our talent to be lost in the darkness. We worked out a mix of direct and soft light that would give us the mood we were striving for while allowing us to see into the shadows. For the warmth we wanted, we considered shooting with the camera properly white balanced and then tinting it in post. Ultimately we decided against this approach for most shots and instead white balanced the HVX200 with a quarter blue over the lens, as we felt this gave us a more pleasing and organic warm wash over the image than we were getting with the post method. However, for certain shots (most notably the POV shots through the Venetian blinds shot against green screen), we did in fact go back to using the original method with our adjustments in post being done with the in-editor Curves plugin and Digital Film Tools’ 55mm Warm/Cool plug-in to match to the other footage.
The camera tests also were critical in allowing us to choose the lenses that best captured the look we were striving for while balancing the light needs of the M2. Mattie and I determined that 50mm and 85mm Nikons gave us the most pleasing look, including achieving the depth-of-field we desired while working within the limited confines of the location. Since we were very wary of unflattering distortions that wider lenses can have on talent, we relegated those to specific setups such as a few downward fan shots. We also decided to set all the lenses at f2.8 with the HVX set to 720p, at 1/24 shutter speed at 24 fps.
While shooting at f2.8 gave us both the desired depth-of-field and needed exposure, it created potential focus issues. We briefly weighed using Adobe’s OnLocation app, but we quickly dismissed this approach as it would necessitate another piece of equipment to be overseen by our meager crew of two. We instead leaned on a nine inch Ikan monitor used in combination with the camera’s focus assist feature; the combination gave us consistently accurate readings and worked without a hitch.
