Geoffrey Pepos (Writer, Director, Composer, Editor, Cinematographer) is the head of Rhythm Films (www.rhythmfilms.com) and is currently wrapping up the post-production process for his new feature film, Daydreams. Geoff made his first appearance on the world's independent film stage in 2001 with the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize nominee, Some Body.

In his latest film, Daydreams, Pepos originally shot with a professional 3-chip DV camera. During a particularly physical shot involving a horse, one of the DV cameras was destroyed. Call it luck or fate that Geoff decided to check out the new HDV formatted camera the JVC JY-HD10U. The beginning and end of the film is being shot in the HDV format, and this is allowing for a more cinematic look and feel. While this first generation camera has some limitations, Geoff finds many advantages of shooting in HD especially the high luminance channel resolution. This allows creative manipulation in post that he could never realize with DV. Pepos states, "This has got to be the future. Even if I'm doing SD work, I'll shoot it on HDV and down-rez it. It's just like oversampling in music. You get extra data that lets you create a higher quality final image."

The big returns happen creatively, as Geoff can take as much time as needed to make it right. While recently doing some 2am night shots, he called a wrap. The actors were stunned not to have to work until 6am, as they were used to in traditional film shoots where it’s necessary to maximize traditional costs associated with film rental packages, grip trucks and labor. Pepos states, “The most important assets and “equipment” on a set are the actors and the crew. Keep them fresh and it’ll show on the screen.”  

The Workflow

The whole production process is an iterative, non-linear pipeline that naturally flows into the post-production stage. Geoff has been refining his digital workflow to maximize the limited resources associated with independent filmmaking. “Adobe Premiere Pro with Aspect HD has provided an uncompromised image quality and efficiency that is second to none”, states Pepos. He began his post process with an edit of his DV footage using Avid DVExpress. He then exported an EDL and redigitized this footage into Adobe Premiere Pro and then up-rezed it in Adobe After Effects. The HDV footage was captured using Aspect HD and the whole timeline was conformed to 720p30. At this point the entire workflow has become on-line all the time. “Proxy or off-line editing is just not needed now”, adds Pepos, “our workflow and creative process is sped up by CineForm’s visually lossless codec and real-time pipeline within Premiere Pro – it’s incredible!” Geoff is able to keep all of his media on-line due to the reduced storage requirements and the .AVI wrapper on the CineForm media allows him to take sequences in and out of Adobe After Effects without generational loss. The post processing and color corrections are applied in After Effects, saved to the CineForm format and then assembled in a modular fashion on the master timeline within Premiere Pro. Depending on the final delivery requirements, Geoff utilizes Premiere Pro’s export features to save to standard-definition DVD, MPEG-2, Windows Media HD; as well as mastering to tape in either D5 or up-rezing to a 1080/24p format.

The new digital workflow for an independent filmmaker has been changed forever. Geoff Pepos of Rhythm Films is paving the way and states,”I’ve used a lot of editing systems over the years and I will never go back. The combo of Aspect HD and Premiere…just works. Not only that, we’re editing muti-stream HD in real time.”

Notes About Embedded Pictures

1,2,3 test shots and test post-production for the film "Daydreams" (Written and Directed by Geoffrey Pepos.)

4, Production still from "Daydreams"

5,6,7, Fairy sequence from "Daydreams", blue screen shot on JVC 3 chip (1/2") DVcam, Up rez'd and processed in After Effects.

8, Frame from the Film "Moonlight" (Written and Directed by Kery Staggs, Produced by Deny Staggs, Director of Photography, Geoffrey Pepos)

9, Unprocessed frame from "Moonlight."

10, Same frame processed in After Effects.

Note: All images with the exception of #4 are all frame grabs from edited HD sequences shot on the JVC HD10U (excepting 5,6,7), encoded in the Cineform HD Codec, cut with Adobe Premiere Pro with Cineform Aspect HD and Processed with Premiere Pro and/or Adobe After Effects Professional.

Actor Credits:
1, Red
2, Geoffrey Pepos & AJ
3, Red & Tug
4, Clockwise from top left, Jonn Jorgensen, DeAnne Kemp, Big Daddy, Lindy Coon
5,6,7, Briana Haynes
8, 9, 10, Keri Staggs

Images 1-7, © 2004 Geoffrey Pepos
Images 8,9,10, © 2004 Keri Staggs & Geoffrey Pepos

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