Stills from The Gun Equation, directed by Matt Weinstein.

I was the cinematographer for this project in late June, 2014.

One of the challenges for this film were the limited resources. I was given no lighting equipment outside of a bounce card. The film largely took place with daytime exteriors, and the interior locations pretty much had windows wall to wall.

I chose to shoot the film on the Canon C100 for a number of reasons.

Though no where near in comparison to the Alexa or Red, the C100’s handling of highlights is still smooth.

The camera is very light weight and incredibly discreet, which helped with the largely guerrilla shooting we did for the film.

The camera still outputs an uncompressed signal, which I recorded with a NINJA2 Recorder.

It’s internal ND filters freed me from needing a matte box, which reduced wait and kept the camera low-profile. Remember, I never wanted to draw attention to the camera; our goal was to look like kids with a small camera, not a professional crew.

The C100 has a rolling shutter, but it’s very minimal. This film is nearly 90% handheld and I needed a stable image; nothing of the jello that we’re used to with DSLR’s.

I can use my lenses, which proved incredibly useful. People may knock them, but Canon L series lenses are quite phenomenal. Furthermore, I am becoming a huge fan of Nikon AIS lenses from the 70’s and 80’s, which easily mounted with an adapter. (As a fun note, most of the shots were done with my Nikon 35mm AIS)

From the start, I embraced the limitations of my camera and lighting. When I read the script, I couldn’t get the film Heat (dir by Michael Mann) out of my head. Researching stills from the film and actually watching it, I worked my design around the idea of blue, resembling the cold world our main character is in and/or entering.

The color is only prominent at the beginning and end, but most of the film has a small blue tint to the shots. We only are relieved of the cold when he enters the apartment building, the last hope of humanity before he commits his crime. Furthermore, the flashbacks embrace the warmth of memory, colliding with the cold reality.

I mentioned embracing my limitations earlier. I knew my camera couldn’t record all detail, that I won’t have any grips or electricians. It would just be me and my 1st AC for the whole show with a C100. It seemed daunting how many things were working against me as an artist.

However, I looked at how I can use my limitations to my advantage. The internal ND’s allowed me to get proper exposure, so I made good use of silhouettes whenever I could.

To get the lighting right, I thoroughly planned the schedule and shots with our director to be timed with the sun. Just like Stygian (dir Josh Garvin), a film I shot in NM back in February, this film was dependent on getting to locations at exactly the right time. My AD, Chris Ramirez, was very happy that I kept checking the clock. “My juicers are setting my lights right now, so we need to move.” Obviously, Chris laughed at jokes like that in the nervous way an AD usually laughs.

I’m very proud of how this film visually came together. I’m equally as proud of my 1st AC, Nick Wilson, who helped me beyond words on more than just the camera, but artistic input as well.

This film is now in post-production and I’m excited to see where it goes! Thanks again to Tom DeSplinter and Matt Weinstein for bringing me on to this project. Best of luck on the festival tour, guys!