For my documentary Cavedigger, a portrait of a solitary and undiscovered earth artist who creates large-scale cave/installations, I faced an age-old film challenge: how to bring viewers into a space. The art caves that Ra Paulette creates are cathedral-like, dug with hand tools and intricately carved by the artist alone. The caves are experiential and magical. That’s part of the artist’s point, that being in them creates a “change of mind” that enhances awareness. The film explores Ra’s process and illuminates his struggles and for the final act I wanted to deliver a meditative movement in which I took viewers through his creations. With the inherent limitations of film, 3D seemed a good choice.
Still, the project is low budget and 3D is typically not. Shooting with Canon 5Ds has been cost-friendly. But 3D with the Canon 5D? A pipe dream–until we met Max Penner from Paradise FX. Paradise is invested in facilitating both ends of the 3D spectrum from tent-pole movies to personal projects, and Cavedigger was an ideal experiment for the latter.
I wanted to shoot this sequence on a slider to create a smooth, “traveling through” sense, but the Oracle head on Kessler’s Shuttle Pod has weight limitations. So Penner custom built a compact 3D rig for the 5Ds–a nine-inch cube weighing 15 pounds. To keep it small, the lenses were fixed 28mms (the wider the lens, the bigger the mirror and thus the bigger the unit.)
3D added two new creative parameters: interaxial distance and convergence. Now I could not only choose framing and camera movement, but with the interaxial setting I could decide how deep I want the space to feel. I could choose to put the far wall into deeper space than it actually was, in order to enhance the experiential aspect. This was a near ideal solution to creating a sense of being there.
Cinematographer Anghel Decca adds: “The convergence, which determines where the screen plane lies and what objects protrude from it or recede, as well as the interaxial distance have some technical boundaries that I could determine from an iPhone app like IOD Calculator. But mostly these are creative decisions. Do we want that object to extend into the audience or recede into the distance? Do we want to separate in space the layers in the composition or compress them? It’s stimulating to control another dimension.”
With the added parameters and an additional camera per shot, each setup was meticulous, but once we set the parameters we rolled a lot of footage. Paradise’s rig is one of the most compact available and the monitoring box, comprised of two 8″ LCD’s, mitigated the need for processing on set. We could see the 3D real time and make creative choices on the fly.
I was initially concerned about the limitations of 28mm. Instinctively I would choose a 20mm or a 24mm to capture a sense of being surrounded, but having control of the depth more than compensated for the narrower view. And the 28mm is truer to the eye. Short of bringing everyone inside Ra’s creations, it’s the next best thing. And I can get a lot more people into one of his caves at once.
Cavedigger is in editorial. A 3D trailer to promote the film is in the works.
Director Jeffrey Karoff is on the roster of The Artists Company for commercials and branded content.
