Mouse McCoy of Bandito Brothers created and directed this hot BMW M3 spec commercial that’s already surpassed three quarters of a millions views on YouTube. We are able to provide Jacob Rosenberg’s (Director & CTO of Bandito Brothers) production notes, facilitated by Hesh Rephun of Raging Artists, Inc. All shot on the Canon 5D Mark II, proof that HDSLR’s can be used on a wide range of productions from documentaries to music videos to commercials. This film was produced about 5 months ago but we were fortunately able to acquire the production notes and permission to post them here. Enjoy!

Bandito Brothers

Credits:
BMW “Living in the Lights”
Production: The Garage @ Bandito Brothers
Creator/Director: Mouse McCoy
Director of Photography: Vic Huber
Editor: Steve Prestemon
Producer: Sumer Friedrichs

The Car: BMW M3
The Driver: Greg Tracy
The Girl: Niki Huey

Jacob Rosenberg’s production write-up:
“Mouse got excited about shooting video with DSLR cameras about a year ago, however the technology wasn’t quite there. Ever since we made Dust to Glory together we haven’t been too intimidated by fixing or solving problems in post. When the 5D finally hit, we saw it as a game changer, specifically for the immersive feel that we wanted to capture in the Navy SEAL feature film we were developing and about to start shooting. The DP who is now shooting our SEALs film, Shane Hurlbut, collided with Bandito to do a viral campaign for Terminator Salvation which we shot entirely on the 5D and posted at Bandito. Shane has been pretty fearless about using the 5D and worked with Panavision to develop some awesome rigs to shoot unique shots. This initial project showed us what could be done and as we started to look at the material, its quality and our process… it started opening our eyes wider.

We had done a small commercial for BMW out at a test track and Mouse subsequently got inspired to shoot a short film about his own BMW M3 using only DSLR cameras. He wanted to do it quickly and efficiently, which the body of a still photography accommodates. Mouse was getting busy on the Navy film, however we worked with Sumer Friedrich (Producer) and Vic Huber (Photographer) and set the shoot up so that Mouse came back for a weekend and knocked it out. Given the mobility and flexibility of the cameras, we did do a few pick up shoots to grab some other angles, but the gist of the piece was shot in that first weekend. The spot and short film were edited by Steve Prestemon who is a good friend of Mouse’s and an accomplished tier one car editor, Steve would cut from home and our Assistant Editor Siobhan Prior would relink his cut to media at Bandito.

From a shooting stand point we had the clear realization that we could actually do this in available light and process everything here at Bandito. We were shooting 5K stills and 1080p (30) HD, so our job in post was to combine those and make the pieces as dynamic as possible. I don’t want to give away too much about how we shot each of the shots, but suffice to say the only effects or cg work that was done, was paint clear up and some image pan/zooms. Having the 5K still image sequence canvas was great because it gave us room and resolution to move. Mike McCarthy who has his own site, hd4pc.com started as my intern and turned into a post architect for us to help us solve technical problems and typical obstacles within complicated workflows, so we all put our heads together and figured the most efficient way to get the project done.

I have been a consultant for Adobe’s video products for years and we used CS4 tools like After Effects and Premiere Pro to conform and finish the project.

Our process went something like this:

Shoot 1080p (30) Canon video and import the MOV files into the Avid at 23.976 (removing frames).

Shoot 5K stills and process as 1080p (23.976) video and import them into the Avid at 23.976.

[We used CineForm as our intermediate codec]

Once the edit was completed and we knew the shots that were in the edit with Twixtor’d (RE:VisionFX Plug-In for After Effects) the Canon files from 30P to 23.976 and assembled them into the online for color correction.

As for the 5K stills, we opened the source compositions of the sequences used in the edit and started to work on clean-up and the moves, this was a ton of heavy lifting done by Lance Holte and Brett Novak at Bandito. These moves and compositions were then exported into CineForm files and integrated into the same online as the other material.

We then took the cut and Andrew Huebscher colored it in SpeedGrade DI on our color correction system here at Bandito.

From start to finish it is an all digital project and workflow that takes advantage of where technology has led us and along the way we solved some problems and gained some insight into how to better deal with the Canon files and maximize using new cameras and technology to achieve a new vision.

Mouse told me that he saw this project and his short film as a 21st century pin-up poster. He had nine of those “hot babe in front of a hot car” posters in his room as a kid and using a DSLR camera and all the post tool that we have, he created a “poster” that he thought other kids would want to have on their wall, or in this case, watch on their computer.

Having gotten through a few of these projects now and being neck deep in 5D footage for our Navy film, I ended up directing a commercial with a meager budget that required high quality. I quickly grabbed a 5D with some excellent glass (swing/tilt) and shot a commercial for a client in Dubai that looked gorgeous, so the proof is always in the pudding and hopefully the pudding tastes good.”

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