The movie's budget was ultra-low, the shooting schedule just 21 days, and the studio mostly the mean streets and cramped tenements of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Add a first-time director/screenwriter who is also portraying the film's main character, and it was clear that making Straight Outta Tompkins presented multiple challenges. Nevertheless, director Zephyr Benson and DP Brandon Roots shot the film by combining diligent effort, expert collaborators, and the image quality, high mobility, and superb low-light performance of an EOS C300 cinema camera (and cinema prime and zoom lenses) from Canon, U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions. A gritty, cautionary tale of a young drug dealer, Straight Outta Tompkins is 21-year-old Benson's debut feature and yet another example of the ongoing democratization in filmmaking made possible by affordable, high-performance digital cameras such as the EOS C300.
DP Brandon Roots using a Canon C300 to capture a scene on a Manhattan street.
Not so long ago, it would have been nearly impossible to make a movie of this quality, so quickly, as an ultra-low budget feature, Benson noted. With the Canon EOS C300 camera, however, my vision became a reality. I think that any filmmaker with a powerful enough desire to tell a story can now just get out there and do it. Benson speaks from an informed viewpoint. The son of accomplished director, screenwriter, actor, and educator Robby Benson, Zephyr was introduced to filmmaking early on by accompanying his father to film sets and sitting-in on his lectures at various universities and film schools. Chief among the lessons he learned was that moviemaking is hard work.
A lot of challenges can be thrown at you every day, Zephyr confided. Many young filmmakers don't realize this at first. You can spend hours just setting-up one shot so it looks right and then everything can suddenly go wrong. Then you've got to brainstorm and figure out how to make it right, which is the challenge of filmmaking and one of the reasons why I love it. I learned more than I had ever learned in my entire life during the pre-production and filming of this movie. And throughout it all, it was great to look over to my DP and realize that the one thing we didn't have to worry about was our camera.
I don't think we would have been able to make this movie without the Canon EOS C300 camera, agreed DP Brandon Roots. From the very beginning we knew that we wanted to shoot the film handheld, so the lightweight body of the EOS C300 camera was quite important, especially since it was on my shoulder most of the time. We also knew we would be working in really tight interior locations, so mobility would be vital. The compact design of the EOS C300 camera and the Canon lenses we used enabled us to be quite agile, which made all the difference in our ability to shoot where we wanted to.
With a camera body weighing just over 3 lbs., the Canon EOS C300 camera is equipped with a high-sensitivity Canon Super 35mm CMOS sensor, outstanding Canon DIGIC DV III image processor, and a 50 Mbps 4:2:2 MPEG-2 codec for superb cinematic picture quality. The EOS C300 cinema camera is engineered to deliver full 1920 x 1080 HD and provides a selectable ISO range up to 20,000 for outstanding low-light performance.
Seeing Into Darkness
Our budget dictated minimal lighting, but the Canon EOS C300 camera has amazing low-light performance, Roots informed A large part of the film takes place at night on city streets, and we used available light. We filmed in interior locations as well. We routinely shot up to 3200 ISO, which on some other cameras would have resulted in a lot of noise and an undesirable image, but not with the EOS C300 camera. The low-light performance of the EOS C300 camera also saved us from needing an electrical generator for extra lights. We were able to power the few lights we needed off the available power at locations or the outlets in the apartments we used.
Zephyr Benson recalled a particular instance in which the low-light performance of the Canon EOS C300 cinema camera moved him to describe it as the most incredible thing he'd ever seen. One night we were shooting on a fire escape, looking down a poorly lit street that, to the naked eye, was barely visible beyond about 30 yards, he recalled. Brandon turned on the Canon EOS C300 camera and everything instantly looked illuminated and cinematic. It looked as if we had spent hours lighting the entire block. That was so important for this film because our ultra-low budget gave us hardly any time for lighting set-ups.
There was virtually no lighting on that street at all, it was very dark and dim, added co-executive producer David Rudd. Brandon turned to us and said I can't believe what I can see through this camera.' The Canon EOS C300 camera really digs down into the dark areas of light. It loves the low end of the spectrum. On another occasion we lit a small interior location just by bouncing the glow of a Mini Maglite off the ceiling. We didn't have the time, budget, or manpower to do anywhere near the lighting you would normally do for a film of this kind, so the Canon EOS C300 camera was extremely beneficial to our project, as were the fast Canon cinema prime lenses we used.
Optical Accuracy
Straight Outta Tompkins was photographed principally with the Canon CN-E24mm T1.5 LF, CN-E50mm T1.3 LF, and CN-E85mm T1.33 LF cinema prime lenses. DP Brandon Roots also used the Canon CN-E14.5-60mm T2.6 L SP cinema zoom lens and the CN-E30-105mm T2.8 L SP compact cinema zoom lens. The Canon cinema prime lenses are fast and lightweight, and because we were shooting hand-held they gave us great flexibility for shooting in low light, Roots explained. More often than not we were living on the primes.
We used the Cano
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The movie's budget was ultra-low, the shooting schedule just 21 days, and the studio mostly the mean streets and cramped tenements of Manhattan's Lower East Side. Add a first-time director/screenwriter who is also portraying the film's main character, and it was clear that making Straight Outta Tompkins presented multiple challenges. Nevertheless, director Zephyr Benson and DP Brandon Roots shot the film by combining diligent effort, expert collaborators, and the image quality, high mobility, and superb low-light performance of an EOS C300 cinema camera (and cinema prime and zoom lenses) from Canon, U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions. A gritty, cautionary tale of a young drug dealer, Straight Outta Tompkins is 21-year-old Benson's debut feature and yet another example of the ongoing democratization in filmmaking made possible by affordable, high-performance digital cameras such as the EOS C300.
