Micah’s On Location News   •   September 8, 2017

I finished filming a feature film called Extraordinary this last March and April of 2016 and I wanted to give a write up about the Artemis App with i-Pro Lenses that can attach to the case.  My primary use of this tools was to use it as a directors viewfinder in pre-production and on set.   Let me give you a little back story in order to give you perspective as to why I went this direction instead of using the standard film directors viewfinder like the Mark 1V.  From the beginning I knew this production would have a lot of movement and I wanted to film using the RED 6k Dragon.  So I setup the camera with a 6K 2:1 aspect ratio.  I then setup frame guides for 5K and 4K 2:1 within the 6K knowing that I would frame my shots using the 5K frame.  This would give me a little space for to adjust for stabilization in post without compromising the quality of image.  The post team created a preset to make sure that when the footage hit the timeline that it would be framed at the 5K framing in a 4K timeline.  The main issue that I was trying to take into account with my directors viewfinder was the ability to compensate my 35mm lenses through to a 6K sensor.  With the 35mm prime lenses capturing a 4K native capture, I knew there would be about a 20 percent wider image with a 6K capture.

This presented a challenge with how I used standard viewfinders.  This challenge drew me to look at apps for the iPhone and ultimately to the Artemis app.  I then purchased the case for my iPhone 6plus and a wide angle lens for the case.  The software allowed me to choose my camera, lenses and capture settings which was great as it did a lens compensation.  The widest lensing that the iPhone native lens would let me use was a 27mm which would not really work as there are shots that need to be wider.  I then attached the i-Pro Lens to the Artemis case and made the adjustment in the app so that the software knew that the lens was attached.  It gave me the ability to be at a 14mm with 6K capture.  This was ideal as I could quickly lens a shot in pre-production and production.

We received a script 6 weeks ahead of the start date of principle photography.  The director Scotty Curlee and I spent everyday together with a small team of assistants blocking out every scene out.  We took photos of every shot of how we wanted to block the scene with the Artemis app to create storyboards.  We worked our way through the script.  At that point during pre-pro we did not have a lot of locations locked down.  We had tentative locations so we were able to take preliminary information and mapped out scenes.  We did not have accurate information on most locations but what we did have is a lot of ideas on what we wanted to do during scenes.  For instance we know we had a scene where our main actresses almost get arrested.  We knew that it would be in a parking lot but we did not know the exact parking lot.  With this information we can take the typical information that parking lots give you and have an idea of what we will find on the day of production.

From the first day we started production I hit the ground running using the Artemis App for almost every shot every day for 31 days.  The photo above show me with my cell phone around my neck hanging there.  I used Artemis to lens each shot.  I had my shot lists, maps and storyboards for every shot which were on my scene planning packet strip boards.  They were laminated in my back pocket on a metal wire ring.  I would reference the next shots on my list and map and then use Artemis to lens the real location to make sure my shots lined up to what I planned.  The majority of times they lined up and I was able to keep my crew working ahead of me.  All in all this app was crucial and I highly recommend this app.  I found that it matched my Arri Master Prime lenses perfectly.