As promised here is Part Two on the making of Carex. Part One can be reached here. This article will deal with the post production stage.

After completing the shoot in Jakarta and some basic Post Production at RedCine Jakarta, I flew to Bangkok, to go work with Mike Parsons at Chateau Post. Owned by Tony Morias, Chateau Post is a small boutique facility that offers Flame, Nuke and Shake services as well as some 3D. I had met Mike quite a few years beforehand in Melbourne and later in Singapore, where he worked at Blackmagic design. He’s a legend when it comes to Post Production, having been involved in the industry at a very early age. He’s a veteran of Flame, Flint and inferno as well as many of the now retired technologies like Henry, Shotlister and Chyron (to mention a few).

Carex offered a few interesting Post Production challenges and Mike was definitely perfectly suited to solve those problems. A boutique facility like Chateau Post is often best suited for these kinds of jobs, because they can afford more personalised time to the preproduction stage as well as assisting with the Production stage. In this instance, like other work I have Directed for HP, we produced a timing guide in the form of an animatic. This animatic had to be perfect in terms of screen time for the various 3D objects, that would be added in Post Production. Mike and I worked over the internet sending Shake Scripts at first to each other and then finally mpegs of the guide animation. This was then used during Production, to send to a large LCD that hung over the Camera. The Actress was then able to follow along with her image half mixed with the Animatic via a vision mixer. As she followed the animation along, not only were her hands in the right place, but she was kept to time, guaranteeing that the TVC wouldn’t exceed 30 seconds.

For the first week of our Online, the guys in the back rooms tracked all the footage, rotoscoped her hands and generally cleaned up stuff! I briefed Eric, a French 3D animator living in Bangkok, who then proceeded to model and animate many of the objects. During preproduction, I had taken orthographic views of Jakarta based Buses, to provide not only a guide for the creation of a 3D model version of the bus but also the textures. Eric produced a fantastic 3D bus for us using those images. The product was also turned into a 3D object. For that, Pong, the in-house After Effects and 3D Studio Max guru produced all the packs in 3D. He also designed and constructed a Manuka Flower which was animated into the end shot with the packs. Pong is a specialist when it comes to “fixing hair problems” on the many Thai Hair commercials. His work on removing stray strands is absolutely amazing. However his “pack” work was also impeccable.

Mike Parsons at this stage was compositing elements in Flame. Using an array of tricks, he helped produce the smooth transition from one effect to the next, by cleverly merging 3D and 2D layers. While we spent a fair amount of effort grading the images at CineRed, more work was necessary to produce the final colour grade. The RED camera (build 21 at the time of writing, using a Generation 1 sensor) is still pretty noisy in the RED channel. We did use an IR Cut filter to help keep the skin tone from clipping early, but I found that digital noise persisted. Mike ended up “washing” the skin of our actress almost entirely. This laborious task took time but was necessary to produce both a pleasing skin tone colour and repair the noise damage.

Music is always an important part of the post process. Imaginex Studios Jakarta had been involved at an earlier stage but due to our composers ill health, Imaginex Studios KL office took over. Mike Bloomfield (expat from Australia) took on the Composers roll and we had several Skype calls to go over what was required. Mike is awesome. He worked up a track that hit the mark and we only made small adjustments to the instrumentation. Luckily for me, McCan’s Art Director, Paul Grezoux is an ex drummer from a sydney based band. So he was able to contribute on the music post in a very positive way.

In the final week, the Agency/Client team arrived in Bangkok and we showed progressive updates to the work. Bangkok is an amazing city to work in and we made full use of it along the way. The team went out on several occasions to have dinner at the many incredible restaurants in own. During our days off, I spent some time photographing some of the many Buddhist Temples that exist in the middle of Bangkok. If your interested, you can see an earlier blog entry I wrote on this subject here. Off course we all went shopping to various shopping markets. I spent some time as I normally do at Pantib Plaza and Bahn Moh.

After several hard working weeks, the Carex TVC was complete. We presented to a happy Client and departed Thailand for our respective home countries. For me it’s always gratifying when a job ends as smoothly as it starts. This job was no exception.

The Commercial can be viewed Here.

During the course of a production, I usually don’t have time to record some of the strange and wonderful things that occur along the way. This blog entry is dedicated to putting some of these encounters down on the record.

Over the years, I have been asked to participate in some pretty unusual experiences that to the normal everyday person would seem ridiculous, foolish or even stupid! At the time I haven’t really been able to blog about them because it would potentially offend my Client, Agency or Others involved in that project. While I’m recalling them here, I would like to make a special note to those who recognise the situations, I don’t want to offend you, even now, however I’m sure you will agree that their is a funny side to these situations.

“Mr Bean … Mr Karl …”
Many years ago, while working as DOP on a Japanese TVC, I was asked to sit down with the Director and discuss the shots. He produced an A4 sheet of white paper with nothing on it. I looked at him with curiosity as he proceeded to draw a line down the centre of the page. Via a translator, he told me that the left side of the page was his main objective. He then drew 3 boxes representing the shot sizes and framing. The shots didn’t look hard. In fact they looked identical to each other, just the action was different in each. Again via the Translator, he told me “This is Most Important! Make this look like Mr Bean!”. He then proceeded to write “Mr Bean” at the head of the column. I nodded in understanding as he moved to the next column. Their he drew scores of little boxes all the way down the page. I watched as he then wrote “Mr Karl” at the head of the column. Via the Translator, he told me “This is Mr Karl. Make it your own. You come up with the detail in each of the boxes!” Slightly confused, I asked the Translator to clarify this a bit further. The Director turned a warmer shade of red as he increased the level of his voice. “You make the TVC your own way” as he pointed to all the empty boxes!

“Should you choose to accept …”
Often I receive phone calls at odd hours of the day. This particular occasion, I received a cryptic text message “R U interested in a TVC for Saudi Arabia?” Off course I responded “Love to see a script”. Minutes later I was reading a fun script involving some cool animation. I texted back saying “Love to do it”. A series of text messages later, and a few emails, I was asked can I be on a flight to Bangkok Thailand in the next couple of days? I responded again by text “Sure”. Several days later, I was on a Singapore Airlines flight to Bangkok, meeting a person I had never met before. This isn’t necessarily unusual, it’s just that all communications had been instructions via Text Messages that made it more unusual. On arrival, I received a text message again saying “A driver would meet me at a particular Gate & would transport me to my hotel”. I responded “OK” and met with the driver. On route to the hotel, another text message arrived “Check in and meet me in the foyer by 10PM”. I started to feel like some sort of Character from a Mystery/Action Movie. I responded “No problem”. An hour later, through Bangkok’s thick evening traffic, I arrived at the hotel. Checking into the hotel, I quickly performed a tidy up on myself, and rushed down stairs to the foyer. Another text message arrived “I’m sitting at the bar”. There at the Bar, I finally met my employer and the job went very smoothly.

“We want to do what …?”
Several times in my career I have been asked to perform an act that takes me out of my comfort zone. This year has been no exception. I received a call from a Producer in Melbourne, who told me that he would like me to participate in a project where they wanted to throw a Car out the back of an Aeroplane! Forever the curious, I wanted to know more. As it turned out, it was for a Radio competition, where the winner would get to toss their car out the back of a plane. If they hit a target on the ground, 14,000ft below, they would win a new car + a cash prize! By now you probably recognise which job this was! OK so this one isn’t going to be kept a secret – It was for “Drop the Bomb” with Hamish & Andy for CUB Australia. What was so unusual about this job was that due to weight constraints in the aircraft and legal reasons, I had to learn how to Skydive! Having participated on many Australian Defence Force Commercials, I have faced all sorts of interesting situations in the past. However I have never been asked to actually leave a perfectly good aircraft mid flight! So together with the Producer in Melbourne, Jason Byrne, I learnt how to fall from a plane in a controlled manner! On the day of the Shoot in Queensland, I performed my duties onboard the flight as we dropped a car from 14,000ft! The Winner was successful and hit the target. I looked at Andy, who was in the aircraft with me, and I asked him whether he wanted to cover anything else before I left? We compared notes and agreed that there wasn’t much else. So I put down the Camera, strapped on a Tandem Master and walked off the end of the aircraft into the abyss below!

“Trouble in France ..”
On another job, I was required to travel to the Eurocopter Factory in Marseilles France. The Agency Art Director & Writer accompanied me for a two week shoot. It took six months of high level negotiations from Ministers, Our Client and a top level security clearance by ours and their Secret Services, before we were given the go ahead with this project. Finally, landing in Marseilles, we proceeded to make our base at the prescribed hotel. When we got there, we discovered that our keys opened other hotel rooms and on the outside, gangs of youths had set fire to cars, turned them upside down etc. Generally speaking, it looked more like a scene of a city besieged by war! We didn’t feel that this was adequate security for our equipment and moved into the centre of Axon Provence. In the days that followed, we met with officials from the factory, and were given the tour of the facility by a person who appeared to be some sort of arms dealer rather then a media liaison. Much was made about the importance of security of what we were supposed to film. Finally the day arrived, and our Client had also joined us from Australia. We drove out to the Factory and were shown a location just outside of the Base, where we could film our TVC. After the top secret aircraft was dragged beyond the boundaries of the Factory precinct, along with a power cart to power it up, the French Official handed me the keys and said “Call me when your done” and left! For the next five hours or so, we filmed with this aircraft totally in our control!

There are so many of these instances where the unusual has occurred, it would take a book to compile them all. I have been privileged to work with so many interesting people, amazing places and incredible situations that I’m sure I will talk about them for the rest of my life. The film industry does provide for some incredible situations that defy normal everyday existence and to use an often used term, “Challenges you to step out of your comfort zone”. I hope to write up some more of these strange encounters in the future.

My updates to this blog slowed while I was working in Thailand recently. I found that when I wasn’t working, I was catching up with very good friends in Bangkok or touring the many Temples, Buddha’s and Palaces!! I have worked in Bangkok quite a few times, and every time with new people so I’m beginning to formulate a well rounded view on life working in Bangkok I think. In any case, I love working in Thailand because the people there are genuinely happy and nice.

While I can’t reveal why I’m filming in Thailand just yet, I can say that we looked at locations all over Bangkok. I spent several days driving from one side to the other, searching for places so I did get to see more of everyday Bangkok then most. As before, I was put up in the Nana district, in a very nice hotel. For some reason, I almost always get put up in this regions – I think this is because it’s close to the Production Houses, however the region is infamous for it’s nightlife and plentiful bars and pubs! I don’t mind but it does seem like a cliche to be constantly put up here!

Despite various coup attempts and “Airport lock downs”, Bangkok hasn’t changed at all. It’s a massive city with over 11 million people in it – so it’s dirty, exciting and fun! I caught up with my good friends Mike Parsons and his Wife, who have permanently moved to Thailand and they love it. On the photographic front, Bangkok is a treasure trove of opportunities. I packed my 5D MKII with all the lenses I could carry and walked for miles around the streets, alleyways and markets of Bangkok. For me, the biggest problem always is in deciding what gear I will take and what stays behind. It seems unfair that only 20KG of equipment can come along but their the airline rules …After our 2 day shoot had concluded, I spent a day traveling to Bangkok’s more tourist destinations. I have never actually done this before but this time I felt I should see something touristy! So I went by Skytrain (a rail service also known as BTS) to Central. Central is a very popular modern shopping district which I wasn’t that interested in. Just a side note, we actually filmed part of the TVC here. I then traveled to Wat Arun by Taxi and then on by Tuk Tuk to the Grand Palace, a famous temple with a 40 foot upright buddha and finally to the banks of the main river in Bangkok.I boarded a long boat here, and traveled al the way down the river back to Central, where I caught the Skytrain back to Nana! In a nutshell that was it! A huge day of walking around and seeing the sites! I have to say, it was amazing and I can highly recommend everyone visiting Bangkok should see at least the Grand Palace and Wat Arun. Probably the only trap for young players are the Tuk Tuk drivers. They work like Mafia controlled robots so watch out! Mostly they will offer you a very cheap deal – 10 baht to see x amount of places which is “like nothing”! This is because they are being paid also to take you to various store outlets etc around town. I suggest if you don’t want to spend your valuable time looking around for new Suits and Jewelry, then offer the driver 100 – 300 baht and he will take you only where you want to go. It’s not entirely a scam but they really should explain their situation before you get it!

For now, this is it. I will blog more later. Cheers!