ross:ching » movies

Popsicle – Sweeten Your Life

admin — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 07:41:17 +0000

There’s a unique manner in which you can weave Popsicle sticks so that when you undo a stick on one end, it creates a chain reaction that ripples down the line at 35 mph. We decided to take this idea a step further and to build this story around it.

I conceptualized this idea about two years ago, but we could never find the right project with which to incorporate. Since the sticks fly off so fast, we knew that we would need a high-speed camera to capture it. Until recently, high-speed cameras were very expensive to rent for a project that really had no budget.

When the Phantom Miro was released, it gave us the opportunity to do 1000 fps relatively inexpensively. We quickly gathered a crew, who all volunteered their time and filmed it all in one day at Venice Beach, CA.

Behind The Scenes

A fly-on-the-wall look at how we made this spot.

Credits

Director – Ross Ching (http://rossching.com)
Executive Producers – J.P. McMahon and Tristan Drew (http://acommonthread.tv)
Producer – Don Le
Associate Producer – George Tsai
Director of Photography – Rob Witt (http://robwitt.com)
Assistant Director – Dennis Chang
Assistant Camera – Martin Gradek and Kyle Jennings
Production Design – Carlos Pimentel
Red Camera Tech – George Tsai
Phantom Miro Tech – Jordan Harriman
Editor – David Adametz
Colorist – Marshall Plante (http://ntropic.com)
Key Grip – Sam Puefua
Grip – Justin Vancho
Hair and Make Up – Lily Vi Pham
Production Assistants – Brian Bares, Karyn Piedad, and Jay Russell
Special thanks: Nam Luong, Lily Pham (Serenbloopity), Tonaci Tran (Tonaci Visuals)

Cast
Boy – Ashton Arbab
Girl – Natalie Weissman
Skaters – Jon Pierce and Joshua Littleton
Jump Ropers – Natalie Soleil, Scher Guzzo, hayley seat
Girl washing off her feet – Lauren lopez
Extras – Ashley Romeo, Roosevelt Gordon, T’Essence Minnitee, Samantha Rafanello, Keri Taylor, Lauren Taylor, Jordan Taylor, Karen Wright Brooks, Weston McClelland, Val Emanuel, Lacy Ray, Jaida Benjamin, Roosevelt Langham

Jason Chen – Thank You

admin — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:53:47 +0000

500 Rubik’s Cubes, 12 hours of filming, and only 6 days of post. In researching concepts for this video, I came across the idea of Rubik’s Cube mosaics and I was amazed that someone could make such an awesome photo out of 5 or the 6 colors on a Rubik’s Cube.

You wouldn’t believe how much research goes into many of my projects. It’s so hard to stand out nowadays that the concepts take a lot of careful planning and development. Sadly for me, we had a very short window to shoot and release this video. Jason and his manager wanted to release this video the day before Valentine’s Day and we were scheduled to shoot on the 6th of February. Moreover, the budget only allowed us 12 hours to film the entire project. It was time to come up with a very distinct strategy to tackle this video.

My first instinct was to actually manipulate the cubes and do everything in camera. But that soon proved to be unfeasible with the amount of time it takes to change the cubes. So I began thinking about how I could do it with After Effects and it struck me. Rubik’s Cubes have built in greenscreens!

I’d face all the green sides up, key out the green, and keep the black lines to put over the pixilated image. It was a difficult After Effects undertaking, but in theory it was a simple concept. With planar tracking in mind, we shot the entire video in 12 hours and the resulting video is what you see above.

CREDITS

Director/Writer/Editor/VFX: Ross Ching
Executive Producer: Jason Chen, Jon Chang
Producer: Don Le
Singer/Songwriter: Jason Chen
Love Interest: Chachi Gonzales
1st AD: Dennis Chang
Director of Photography: Gabriel Lewis (Planit Pictures)
1st AC: Michael Skor
Gaffer: Jeff Chassler
Key Grip: Rocky Romines
Best Boy Grip: Steven Bryant
Best Boy Electric: Eric Palma
Hair/Makeup: Amy Cooper
BTS Video: Jeanna Ross
BTS Photos: Steven Lam
Wardrobe: Roxy Flores
Wardrobe Assistant: Raquel Flores
Jewelry: Jackie Jones
Art Director: Avery Ota
Rubik’s Cube Solver: Thi Nguyen
Key PA: Justin Vancho
PA/Art Wrangler: Sam Puefua
PA: Disa Wolf
PA: Alex Nauta

MUSIC:
Written by Jason Chen, Adien Lewis
Produced by Smash Hitta
Mixed/Mastered by Travis Graham

Special Thanks:
Clinton Ray, Dominique Gonzales, Myron Marten, World of Dance, AMA Fashion PR, Roxy Flores, David Lim, Nino Palma, Melly Lee, Gear Monkey, Planit Pictures,
Michael Saijo

Shaw Carpets – Squares of Softness

admin — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 19:39:41 +0000

Turning an Atlanta winter into a beautiful Spring day was a bit of a challenge for this shoot. We were able to mask those effects through creative angles and old fashioned luck.

The idea with this spot was that Shaw’s carpets are so soft that their inspiration for them came from some of the softest things imaginable — blankies, slippers, teddy bears etc. The shoot went amazingly well, and I think that’s only because our crew was one of the best crews I’d ever worked with. All the problems seemed to had just handled themselves. In the end, what you see below is the final spot. Enjoy!

Download Video: MP4

DTS – The Speaker Orchestra

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 09:23:56 +0000

Every year DTS creates a promotional video for CES in Las Vegas. This year, the commercial production company I’m with wanted to do something different. They wanted to make something that people would replay, something that would stimulate people’s minds when they view it on their computer screen.

I think that inspiration comes from a lot of places. In the case of myself growing up in the Internet generation, much of my inspiration comes from there. It’s a hobby of mine — scouring the web for the newest and most original piece of work. So when I stumbled across this video, I instantly wanted to try it for myself.

Watch the Behind the Scenes here

PRE-PRODUCTION

When I first heard of the project, there were only two things to keep in mind — 3D and DTS’ “Neo-X” (AKA 11.1 immersive surround sound). I LOVED that I had a nicely groomed sand box to shape an idea from. I remembered seeing Canon’s Pixma commercial and I instantly knew I wanted to do something like that.

But what if we took it one step further? What if a regular orchestra had been replaced by a series of speaker heads with paint atop them? It was definitely the most agressive idea I had ever come up with.

PRODUCTION

What we would need
40 paper tubes ranging from 3″ to 15″ diameter about 4′ tall
40 speaker drivers
A roll of latex to cover the speaker heads
30 bottles of tempera paint
2000′ of speaker wire
A Pro Tools system with 40 channels worth of outputs
A mixing board with 40 channels worth of inputs and outputs
40 channels worth of amplifiers
200,000 watts of tungsten light (compare this to a typical 60 watt household bulb)
2 high speed cameras (for 3D)
A 21st Century 3D rig
And a Technocrane

To add to the mix, we were shooting at 500 frames per second (1 second translates to 21 seconds when played back at 24fps), so the paint needed to fire within .02 seconds of each other. To eliminate as much human error as possible, we made a series of 20-100hz tones in Pro Tools and lined them up to within .001 seconds of each other. This way, we could time precisely when each speaker would “fire”. The tones would go from Pro Tools to our mixer which would route the tone to the correct amplifier which would then amplify the signal enough to vibrate the latex film on top of the speaker and send the paint shooting up.

LEFT: My audio assistant Justin looking over the mixing board RIGHT: My production designer Paul Dove applying paint to the speakers

Our 3D camera was another beast that had to be tamed. What we were doing had never been done before. The synchronization of all these variables had never been done before. It felt like we were pushing the limits of physics.

LEFT: If you look closely, there’s two cameras buried in our rig RIGHT: The 80-100lb camera was mounted on a Technocrane to make it easy to maneuver around set

From the wireless follow-focus system not synchronizing with the two cameras to speakers getting too hot and overheating, we had to roll with the punches on the one shoot day we had. Luckily I had an awesome crew that knew exactly what needed to be done to fix the issues.

LEFT: After we took each shot, everyone huddled around the one monitor to look at it RIGHT: Our stereographer checks the 3D convergence and parallax for every shot

POST-PRODUCTION

Once all the footage was captured, we did an in-house offline edit in Final Cut Pro. This gave us precise editing instructions to take to the post house, Brickyard, so they could do the finishing on their Autodesk Flame workstations. I must admit, their post facility is THE most amazing office I have ever seen.

Brickyard added the concert hall background, the coloring, the clean up of some shots, and they were even able to make some speakers that didn’t fire, fire. All this, in 3D. I was truly amazed at their expertise and willingness to work with us.

Before & After Brickyard had their way with the footage

LEFT: Inside one of their finishing suites RIGHT: Brickyard’s main entry way. They have a full bar!

The music was written and performed by Diego Stocco and Patrick Leonard, and mixed by Fred Maher at DTS’ awesome mixing studio. When I stepped in that room, I think that was THE best audio I’ve ever heard.

CREDITS

Conductor George Shaw

Client DTS – David Blasucci
Agency One Plus Two, Inc. – Jim McNutt
Executive Producers J.P. McMahon & Tristan Drew
Producer Carl Hampe
Director of Photography Jim Matlosz
1st AD Paul Yates
Editor Ross Ching
VFX Brickyard VFX; Jeff Blodgett, Mandy Sorenson
Post Music Mix Fred Maher
Music Composers Diego Stocco & Patrick Leonard
BTS & Still Photography Don Le & Bryan Shin
Location Panavision, Woodland Hills, CA

Special Thanks to:
Darren Roark

Already Gone

admin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:11:30 +0000

This is a little short film we created that’s based on a feature script about criminals who steal from other criminals.

The goal was to drop the viewer into the world of the feature film and tell an incomplete story in order to make the viewer want to see more. The politics of getting a feature film produced are complex to say the least. And getting someone in Hollywood to read a script is nearly impossible. So rather than sending the script to possibly interested parties, we simply made a three-minute version of the movie. Think of it as a pilot for the feature film yet to be bought.

Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time and made this film look the way it does.

Become a fan at: facebook.com/Alreadygonethemovie

Featuring
Shawn Ashmore
Harry Shum Jr.
Robert Craighead

Officer 1: Al Burke
Officer 2: Mario Martin
Men at the table: Sam Puefua, John Epperson, Serhiy Shkunda, Malcolm Williams, Albion Sabani, and Justin Vancho

Directed by Ross Ching
Written by Bill Balas
Executive Producer: Joel Mendoza
Producer: Peter Katz peterkatz.net/
Producer: Don Le
Associate Producer: Mario Reyes
Director of Photography: Nate Fu
Production Designer: Biran Formo
Post-Production Supervisor: David Adametz
Camera Op: Martin Gradek
DIT: Jason Poon
Gaffer: Rowan Byers
Electric/Swing: John Ngo
Driver: Bryan Shim
Key Grip: David Keton
Best Boy: Jeff Godshall
Set Decorator: Robert Platzer
Set Dresser: Avery Ota
Set Dresser: Greg Vargo
Stunts Provided by: Xin Wuku / EMC Monkeys
Stunt Coordinators: Devin White & Yoshi
Wardrobe Stylist: Roxy Flores
Wardobe Assist: Raquel Flores
Hair: Michelle Win
Makeup FX: Amanda Travers
FX Makeup Provider: Kaylie Tran
Makeup: Tina Ong
Mixer: Andrew Mendoza
Boom Op: Andrew Rahimi
Key PA: Lily Vi Pham
Production Assistant: Kevin Chhann
Production Assistant: Justin Vancho
Special Effects: David Nicholson
Prop Master: Timberly Matonic
SFX Assist: Robert Klepzig
Editing and VFX by Ross Ching & David Adametz
Original Music: David Adametz
Sound Design: Andrew Mendoza & Andrew Rahimi
Camera equipment provided by tonacitran.com
BTS Photos: Melly Lee
BTS Video: Nam Luong
Location Manager: Giordanny Orellana
Catering: Dos Chinos
Weapons Handler: Al Burke
Special Thanks: Matt Anderson, Glo O., Chirstian Moya, Moya Fine Art, Tonaci Visuals, Thuy Huynh, Cactii, and Dos Chinos

The Empty America Series

admin — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:51:04 +0000

This series of videos aims to show some of the most iconic cities in America without people. It’s a series that was initially inspired by Matt Logue’s photo series “Empty LA”.

Two years ago, I took his concept and combined it with what I do best; time lapse photography. The video “Running on Empty” was such a huge success that I wanted to expand upon it but didn’t have a budget to do so. Then YouTube announced their premium channel service and Thrash Lab was created. I pitched them on the idea and we began creating the series starting with San Francisco.

San Francisco

Seattle

New York City

Washington D.C.

BEHIND THE SCENES

David Choi – Missing Piece

admin — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:16:57 +0000

For every music video I make, I always keep creativity and originality as the top priority. So when David and his manager, Jon, approached me I let them know that the concept is key.

Many people think that making something for the internet is similar to making something for TV or cinema. But in actuality, it is VERY different. Of course, the tools you use are the same, but the concepts and timing are a world away from almost any other medium. When I first listened to the song, I had writer’s block just like everyone else. It took some more thinking and a meeting with David to really iron out what should happen in the video. Collaboration is very important in these types of situations. Inspiration can come from anywhere, even from friends that don’t know anything about film. Watch the video, then read below for my little formula for viral video success.

When creating something for the internet, people’s attention span is VERY short. Think about how you look at other videos on YouTube and think about the how long it takes you to either skip through the video or click the back button. Our main goal as a video creator is to get the viewer to watch from beginning to end without skipping or hitting the back button. If they’re able to do that, they’re MANY times more likely to share the video with a friend — and that’s how seeds of viral videos are made. So let’s look at the elements to do that.

1. Must be short — 3 or 4 minutes or less. I’ve got many other tabs open and my pot of water on the stove is about to boil.

2. The 10 second hook — Probably the most important aspect. We need to WOW the viewer right off the bat. That means either showing them something they’ve never seen, or some kind of filmmaking technique that’s really unique. Whatever it is, if your friend doesn’t say WOW when you tell them the first 10 seconds of the concept, it’s back to the drawing board.

3. Sustainability — Once you have them hooked, you need to create a device that pulls them to the end. Some examples: a story, beautiful cinematography, creative art, exciting visuals that are rarely seen. Anything that will get them interested in seeing what happens at the end.

Now that you have your elements, figure out how to make it without breaking the bank. I made Little Bribes for about $100. I just took my still camera and began filming whatever that could spell out a word.

Now, go create an awesome concept!

Behind the scenes video

Adidas

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:50:43 +0000

This project was the first time I got to work closely with the new Red Epic camera. Many people give it flack for not being 100% professional, but I think they’ve sold me on the dynamic range, size, resolution, and affordability.

This was originally a 3-minute mini documentary for Loyola Marymount University, but we recycled the footage to turn it into a spec commercial since the athletic department there was sponsored by Adidas and the runner featured here, Tara Erdmann, is one of the fastest people in the world in the 10k. We filmed everything over the course of a couple days in the Santa Monica/Marina del Rey area.

PRE-PRODUCTION

Planning was fairly easy compared to other jobs, since the crew and equipment list was small. We would be shooting entirely in the daytime, so that negated the need for big lights and generators. The compact size of the camera & crew also meant that changing to multiple locations within 1 day was easy.

PRODUCTION

We filmed the project over the course of two days since there was 4 locations we needed to get to. Filming was very basic; to the point where we just moved the camera wherever we liked and told Tara to run run past the camera a few times.

LEFT: Tara and I discuss the under the bridge shot and how she was going to run RIGHT: Framing up the shot where she emerges from underneath the bridge.

Like I wrote above, working with the Red Epic was a breeze. It was almost on par with DSLR filming, just because of the size and weight of the camera. Just 10 years ago people had to shoot projects like these on film with a 60 pound camera. The amazing thing is that the tonal range of the camera is nearly comparable to film.

LEFT: getting the shot of her shoe as she runs across the path RIGHT: Filming on West LA Community College’s track

POST-PRODUCTION

Post production was done entirely by me mostly because we wanted to save as much of the budget as possible for production. Editing was done in Premiere Pro and the effects, titles, lens flares, color correction, etc. were all done in After Effects.

CREDITS

Runner Tara Erdmann

Executive Producers J.P. McMahon & Tristan Drew
Producer Don Le
Director Ross Ching
Director of Photography Bobby Lam
Editor Ross Ching

3 Minutes

admin — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:19:34 +0000

I liked the idea of this short story called “The Most Dangerous Game” so I adapted it back when I was in film school, but when I made it back then I didn’t have many people to help me make it so it didn’t turn out too great. After being in the industry and living in LA for a few years now, I got a chance to make new friends and really take advantage of their professional talents.

The producers of the piece, George Wang and Don Le were in talks with Harry Shum Jr. to collaborate on something when I met them. They brought me on the project, and were initially going to do a different idea involving dancing, however, the more we developed the idea, it proved to be not very feasible. That’s when we decided to do this “3 Minutes” idea.

Watch 3 Minutes on Vimeo here.

CAST
Harry Shum Jr.
Stephen “tWitch” Boss
Katrina Law
Thaine Allison

PRE-PRODUCTION

When I initially wrote out the concept and showed it to Don he said, “This would be perfect for Harry Shum.” I replied, “Yeah, right. There’s no way he’d be interested in working on our stupid no budget piece.” Then Don introduced me to George who took the idea to Harry and his manager. Needless to say they were actually interested! Harry was awesome in his willingness to make this thing a success. He even called up tWitch to see if he’d be interested. He jumped at the opportunity.

We were initially going to shoot the piece at this strip of railroad track in downtown Los Angeles, but because of safety and security, we decided to move to a granite slab yard. Before we moved however, I made an overhead drawing of the area.

Don and George knew lots of people who jumped at the opportunity to work on this film. I was amazed at the level of talent we had on our crew. And they all volunteered their time to make this thing as good as possible.

PRODUCTION

We shot the entire piece on the Canon 5D Mark II and the Canon 7D in a 12 hour day from sunrise to sunset. Our Director of Photography, Nate Fu, even had his own grip and lighting truck that he lent to the project. That helped us greatly.

We even had an American Gladiator help us out with the fight choreography.

LEFT: Harry as seen through the steel pipes RIGHT: On-set rehearsal

POST-PRODUCTION

When we shot the piece we knew exactly how we were going to comp each shot in post. All the visual effects were done in Adobe After Effects by my good friend from high school, David Adametz and I. We learned how to do the sword glows from Ryan Wieber’s website and everything else from Video Copilot. Ryan was also cool enough to let us borrow his replica hilts and blades too! He actually has a Saber Shop now too.

To make tWitch’s head fall off we had to accomplish a few things.

1. Take out his existing head
2. Replace the background his head covered
3. Track in a fake head and make it roll off screen
4. Add fx (blood, blade glows, smoke, etc.)

All these elements made for one long and time consuming shot. But since it was the climax of the movie, it had to be flawless and amazing.

LEFT: tWitch’s head double RIGHT: We covered tWitch’s head in green to mask it out in post

For the gunshots, we didn’t use any live ammo on set. All the shots were done in After Effects and Harry was just holding an Airsoft gun. The muzzle flashes we pretty easy — they only exist for 1 or 2 frames, so we just threw in a picture of an explosion and made it small. The bullet hits and shrapnel were a bit more difficult David had to motion track them onto the slabs of granite to make them look realistic. He also took clips from Video Copilot’s Action Essentials pack to make them look more realistic.

Coloring was done by me with Magic Bullet Colorista II. It is THE best piece of coloring software I’ve ever used. Apple Color can go suck it. I watched a few of their coloring tutorials on the site and instantly got a grasp of how to use it. It’s so powerful, and the fact I can integrate it on After Effects AND Final Cut is a god send.

LEFT: tWitch getting some big air while I film them on the camera sliderRIGHT: This is how we filmed the running scenes

LEFT: Katrina Law posing for the camera RIGHT: Harry added to the mix

LEFT: Most of the cast & crew RIGHT: Katrina, Thaine, George, me, Don, and Harry

CREDITS

Producers George Wang & Don Le
Director of Photography Nathaniel Fu
1st AD Danny Do
Editor Ross Ching
Music Composer Paul Dateh
VFX Supervisor David Adametz
Stunt Coordinator Xin Wuku
Stunts (Add’l) Malay
Special Effects Modeler David Nicholson
Effects Fabrication Timberly Matonic
Gaffer David Keton
Key Grip Paolo Ongkeko
Best Boy Grip Justin Vancho
Boom Operator Evan Lee Dahl
Sound Add’l Paolo Ongkeko
Sound Design David Adametz
Stylist Roxy Flores
Stylist Asst. Raquel Flores
Makeup Jennifer Luna
Hair Danielle Starkweather
PA Katie Soo
Stills Photographer Nick Acosta
BTS Add’l Giordanny Orellana
Craft Services Adrian Zaw, Tiffany Nguyen
Location Manager Mike Yamamoto

Sponsors
Marshall Monitors
Selective Stone

Special Thanks to:
Mark Fisher
Ryan Wieber
Marissa Upchurch
Christine Chen
A Common Thread
Selective Stone
Nelson Diaz

Kina Grannis – Valentine

admin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 01:37:01 +0000

**Kina Grannis, the girl behind that “Gotta Digg” video in 2008 got signed to Interscope but left the major label scene prematurely. She brought her fans with her and released an independent album in February 2010.**

I first heard about Kina back in December 2007 when she made this “Gotta Digg” video. When I saw it, I thought to myself, “cute and talented girl, it’d be cool if she won the Doritos Superbowl contest”. And that’s pretty much all I thought about it.

The Degrees of Separation Rule

Fast forward two years, I’ve graduated college and am directing music videos and she just so happens to be a friend of a friend and our paths randomly cross. When I first met her, I didn’t put two and two together (just like how I didn’t put two and two together when I met Allison Stokke through a friend, but that’s a whole other story). Later my friend said that she was the “Gotta Digg” girl from two years back. My reaction: WTF? THAT’S her?!?

We got in touch and it turns out that she was in the market for a director to make her a music video, and I was in the market to make an awesome music video, so everything kind of just fit right into place.

Right: We lined up about 760 DVD cases laterally across a warehouse floor to create a domino effect to last the length of the song.

THE CONCEPT

This is what I hate most about making videos – the agonizing pain of writer’s block. I was browsing YouTube looking for inspiration, came across a Sony Bravia ad made in India, and it hit me. The Domino Concept. In recent years, I’ve come to be well known for time lapse and stop motion animation, so I wanted to stay close to my roots but at the same time continue the evolution of my style.

A long time ago I told myself that I’d never do the same video twice; hence why writers block is such an agonizing pain for me. With all the creativity on the internet these days, and the fact the the internet has been my main distribution point, has meant that one must go to greater lengths to stand out. And I believe that Kina and I, along with my awesome crew, have hit that pinnacle once again.

TECHNIQUE

My genius Director of Photography, Abe Martinez, threw out the idea of bringing on a veteran dolly grip to handle the precise movements required to pull these shots off. I agreed, figuring the depth of field we had to pull these shots of was somewhere between 4 and 6 inches. Keep in mind the “dominoes” didn’t fall at a constant rate either. We could only afford 32 feet of dolly track so we broke up all our animation shots into 50-60 frame chunks. It took us about 7 hours to complete all these shots.

Prepping for this shoot, I used my expert drawing skills to draw up an overhead floor plan of the building, working out details such as how much room 760 DVDs would take up and where a good placement for our dolly would be.

And finally, we setup all 760 DVDs and knocked them over!

Credits and more photos and video

Artist: Kina Grannis
Director: Ross Ching
Animation Drawings: Sarah johnson
Executive Producers: J.P. McMahon & Tristan Drew
Producer: Noelle Kessler
Director of Photography: Abe Martinez
Swings: Jose Martinez & Geoff Bund
Dolly Grip: Todd Griffith
Production Assistants: Jesse Lee, Veronica Garcia, Julius Cruz, and Mike Mordeci
Kina’s Manager: Jonathan Kalter

Prepping for the shoot, we ordered the 760 photos from Costco and 800 cases online and stuck them inside the sleeves.

Left: A closer shot of the DVDs Right: DP/Camera Op Abe and Dolly Op Todd prepare a shot with Kina in the background

One final check to see that all DVDs are the correct length apart