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Picardi Makes Pro Level Actioner with Just One Camera: Color Manipulation, Artful Scoring, and Trial-and-Error
By StudentFilmmakers Magazine
posted Nov 30, 2008, 04:20
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Featured in StudentFilmmakers Magazine, September 2008 Edition, Page 34.
Above, left: Adrian Picardi (left) with Sunny Jain (right) on the set. Above, center: Adrian Picardi (far right). Above, right: Adrian Picardi on the set of His Final Hit.
His Final Hit, the third place winner
of The Edgewise Media and Panasonic
Digital Media Film and Video Shorts
2008 Awards Competition featuring �AMQ,� is a short film telling a revenge
tale about an assassin contemplating
his past before making his final hit.
Primarily filmed in California, the
film was shot in two days and edited
in about a day and a half. The film�s
crew: Adrian Picardi (Director /
Cinematographer / Editor / Writer),
Justin Durban (Sound Composer), and
Daniel Scruggs (Visual FX). Sunny Jain plays the main character, the Assassin.
Adrian Picardi, an Italian-Korean
American filmmaker from Los Angeles,
California talks about the lighting,
effects, and camera techniques he used
on his short film, His Final Hit.
Scenes from 'His Final Hit'.
How did the idea for your short
film, His Final Hit, come about?
Adrian Picardi: Me and my long
time friend, Sunny Jain, the actor in this
film, we talked about what we wanted
to do, and actually, we had been doing
a bunch of short films here and there.
He dropped the idea about doing
something about a hit man going on a
revenge mission. I thought the topic of
the story would be a great idea to shoot.
We decided to shoot it, and that�s how
it came along.
The first fifteen seconds of His
Final Hit is an attention grabber. Tell
us about the opening sequence.
Adrian Picardi: I knew I had a short
amount of time to tell a pretty complex
story. I always love opening my films
with something very vivid, something
very interesting, so that [viewers online]
don�t close the [browser window]
because that�s so easy to do on the
internet. I decided to start off in a
dream sequence that the main character
is having. And he�s remembering the
explosion that killed his family. The
glass pieces are a representation of the
car exploding. The glass pieces � we
created that in Maya. We shot it in my
living room, actually. The white wall
is a regular wall. We lit it with Home
Depot fluorescent lights, something
very simple. And then in After Effects, I
made everything blown out, so we got
that crisp, white look. And then with
Maya, we composited the glass effects
in slow motion.
You mentioned Home Depot.
Could you tell us more about your
lighting setups?
Adrian Picardi: Lighting setups
� usually I�ll go with Kinoflo�s or HMI
lighting, but we do not have resources
to go with that kind of lighting. So,
what we did was, we went to Home
Depot and purchased the cheapest
fluorescent lights because fluorescent
lights � it runs at a color temperature
of 4300K I believe, and the Kinoflo�s
run at 5600K, so it�s close. So you
get that cold feel, that cold look. So
when you color balance your color
temperature to a certain light, and you
light in fluorescents, you get a really
professional looking lighting system,
which is really cool.
How did you come up with this
kind of alternative solution? Do you
experiment a lot?
Adrian Picardi: Yeah, film for me
� you always find something new
each time you shoot. There�s no one
standard way you�re supposed to go
about doing these things. What you do
is you go, you start playing around, you
look into your lens, and you see what�s
good. And if it looks good, you�re
doing something right. It�s a lot of trial
and error, so there�s not one sort of
technique that we use. It�s a bunch of
stuff. It�s basically us doing a trial and error process, and we figure out what
looks best.
What cameras did you use in your
short film?
Adrian Picardi: We shot HD with
the Panasonic P2 card. We shot with the
HVX200. I absolutely love that camera.
Especially when you�re [shooting for]
the web. If you shoot correctly and you
light correctly, it�s kind of hard to tell the
difference if you shot 16mm or digital.
A lot of people have asked if I used the
mini 35 adapter, the PS Teknik�s, or the
Brevis 35 � we did not use any of those
adapters, so it was all stock lenses.
How many cameras did you use?
Adrian Picardi: Just one.
Could you talk a little bit about
the camera work? What kinds of
techniques did you use?
Adrian Picardi: We made a homemade
dolly, which was comprised of
PVC pipes, plywood, and skateboard
wheels. We did a lot of dolly shots,
and one shot in particular was the shot
where the kid runs to his father in the
airport lobby. We shot a lot of it on
traditional sticks on a tripod to get that
really professional look.
Could you talk about your use of
color?
Adrian Picardi: Some of the colors
I chose, it was hinting to the audience
how to feel, but I think what really
carried it was the score. I think music
is 70% or 80% of the movie. Without
good music or good sound in movies
� it would seem amateurish. So with
the color, tone, plus the music, I think
it gives the audience a feeling we all
wanted to portray, which is the cold
feeling. For instance, where you see
the character in the cemetery, we
have that very washed out, cold feel
for that character. And when it goes to
that yellow, vibrant look, you feel the
tension.
Did you use original music?
Adrian Picardi: I�ve been working
with a composer for a while, and I
really like his music. What we did was we put together some temp tracks that
he did prior to the making of this film,
and we used those as guidelines. Once
the film was cut, we went over to his
house, and he created something along
the lines of what we chose from the
temp tracks. But at the same time, we
gave him our input, so we created a
new feel off the temporary music we
used beforehand and came up with a
really cool soundtrack.
Why did you use slow motion and
quicker cuts to tell the story?
Adrian Picardi: It just happens
because it feels right. You can�t just say,
�I�m using slow motion in this scene
because we want to make people feel
a certain way.� It just kind of happens
because it feels right. I know we got
a couple of scenes where the main
character is walking in slow motion, or
where he sees his son in slow motion.
So these ideas come up in editing
room, or did you have a mental
blueprint of how you were going to do
those scenes?
Adrian Picardi: Well, for short films,
I like to sit and listen to music. And I get
ideas from what I�m listening to. And,
some of those ideas � you have to have
a blueprint in your head. You really
need to sit down, think about what you
want, the way you�re going to shoot
it at least � if you�re going to shoot in
slow motion, if you�re going to shoot in
fast motion. Because we actually did
shoot those scenes on set slow motion
at 60 frames per second. It wasn�t done
in post.
Something that is quickly noticeable
about your short film, His Final Hit is
the production value. What was your
budget for the film?
Adrian Picardi: A hundred and fifty
dollars. [Working with that budget] is
something that I�ve been doing a lot. I�m
working on this new webisode series
called The Resistance. We are shooting
the web series in a similar fashion as
His Final Hit, and so far, we have all
been pleased with the final product.
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