Act Of Valor: Bandito Brothers' Jacob Rosenberg, Interviewed
Worldwide editor-in-chief Chris Angelini interviews Jacob Rosenberg, CTO of Bandito Brothers, the media company responsible for "Act of Valor." They talk about the marriage of technology and film-making, overcoming bottlenecks, and the future of Bandito.
Filming With Canon 5D Mark IIs
Angelini: And you guys had to use some innovation there. It wasn’t just standard stuff. High-end technology is not always suited for life in the field, especially in a movie like Act of Valor. What kind of obstacles did you have to overcome to be able to use that hardware and make it durable and last to get that action close to the actor.
Rosenberg: We didn’t. The cameras we had were $2500 cameras. If you’re on a typical movie set, the camera’s going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We had a $2500 camera that if it broke we could go to Best Buy and buy a new one. So that empowered us to be way more aggressive. “Oh, so there’s salt water that gets on the camera.” So what. “Oh, there’s mud that’s on the camera.” So what. “Oh, we crashed into the camera and broke it.” So what. Just pull out the CF card and make sure we got the shot.
I think that Act of Valor is such a unique project because so much was borne from the reliance on technology as a friend and as a means of making the film more engaging. And that Canon 5D Mark II enabled us to get closer to the actors with a camera that could put up an image on a big screen that people would not have a problem with. And in post, our job is, if there are problems like rolling shutters and stuff like that, we’re obligated to fix that stuff to make sure there are no technical issues that the audience experiences.
Angelini: How many 5Ds did you go through?
Rosenberg: I think we only lost five. At most we used 15 on certain sequences. But I think five got totally hosed.
Angelini: When you’re doing those shots and all of the action is happening in a self-contained helmet cam with the camera on one side and storage on the other, how do you know when you got the shot you want?
Rosenberg: That was using a remote RCA connection that was screening the material to the directors and the DP Shane Hurlbut. The SEALs would wear the helmet cam, they would go through their sequences, then they would watch it and plug the camera into a DreamColor monitor and review the shot.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Angelini: Do you do any gaming yourself?
Rosenberg: I grew up playing video games. One of my first jobs ever was a game counselor for Sega of America back in the day. This is old-school when something like Spider-Man would come out and people were trying to beat Sandman and they’d call up on the phone and ask how to get past the level and I’d tell them how. But I’ve always had an affinity for games, and I’ve always enjoyed video games for sure. Tony Hawk Pro Skater, the original, that’s one of the greatest games ever. And Sega Hockey 1990 and 1991, those are some of the best video games ever.
Angelini: I think a lot of the Tom’s guys are going to watch Act of Valor and see a lot of parallels between some of their favorite video games like Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty. Do you think about that relationship while you’re working on this stuff?
Rosenberg: I don’t think we thought consciously about the relationship while we were working on the project, but Scott and Mouse specifically wanted to make sure that the first-person shooter was the most accurate that’s ever been seen outside of a video game.
Current page: Filming With Canon 5D Mark IIs
Prev Page Identifying Technology Bottlenecks In Film Production Next Page Act Of Valor, And Bandito's Next Projects-
-Fran- Thanks for the Interview, Mr. Chris!Reply
Quite nice indeed how they did it.
Also, you should take his word and pay him a visit 8)
Cheers! -
cangelini mayankleoboy1Hey Chris, did he offer a role to you?They do a lot of work with athletes. The more work I do on Tom's, the less I look like an athlete ;-)Reply -
sp0nger Sounds like nothing more than what freddiew is doing with a smaller budget and a lot more talentReply
That movie was about as good as a transformers movie, all visuals no substance, like crysis 2 -
cangelini sceen311Canon 5d Mark III's? little to many I's on that one I think.Yup, got too excited about the new stuff there. Reference was correct in the text and wrong in the title. Fixed now.Reply -
A Bad Day BoothRochellemy friend's mom makes $76/hr on the computer. She has been out of a job for 7 months but last month her check was $21052 just working on the computer for a few hours. Read more on this web site ....Reply
Oops, looks like the bot controller messed up the programming of you mindless bot.