Cinematography

John Ellis Hey thanks for the advice. You've given me a lot to think about.

Yep, if you take their money you have to work for idiots. I don''t take their money anymore. ;)

Ok, I am commenting so I can find this again to comment further, but Apolos Israel I LOVE THIS QUESTION! Can't wait to respond and read the responses... but I gotta restart the computer first LOL! :-P

M L. I've had a few times where, as DP I knew something should probably not be shot the way director saw it.

I bring it him/her and the producer very positively, something like: "I like your idea a lot, and it'll look great on screen. For this scene however, maybe we can take it from 'this' approach instead, because it will transition more fluently into the next scene." (A scene we shot days/weeks before, for example).

I've had a few directors disagreeing with me and others (especially those straight out of film school who think they are already better than Spielberg...) which in a way is their right, I suppose. But they simply won't really listen to reason or even consider a collaboration on the matter at hand.

And then, when the shots indeed don't work/match nicely with the rest of the project, the director often blames the DP, which in some cases is me :P And that.. really.. sucks..'cause you told them beforehand it wouldn't work. So whenever something like this happens, I make sure a lot of crew members and a producer are around to hear. Not really the way you want to work, but sometimes you just have to... :(

Jaap Ruurd Feitsma It's smart to include others on the conversation because if enough people have the same opinion, a reasonable director will consider the collective viewpoint. Alas, divas are rarely reasonable.

I'm past the point of taking on projects where the script is confusing. These days I want to understand it all clearly. Even the David Lynch wannabes who try to be "mysterious" and leave it all up to interpretation.

They're the worst. They keep the goal and intention of the story vague so as to protect themselves from failure. Irony is, if the people working on the project don't understand it, odds are great that the audience won't either. 99% of the time, it's not mysterious either. It winds up being totally inchoherent.

Florin, thank you for posting this!

Have you seen Visions of Light the documentary? It is one of my favorites. Hope you find it inspiring.

See Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXeuk1tO32k

You're welcome! Yes, I have seen "Visions of Light" some time ago. But maybe I can watch it again. Thank you.

Nothing wrong with the Pocket 4K, brother. Blackmagic does it right.

You're right Richard "RB" Botto . I love this thing compared to the still cameras we used before this thing is really great and yeah you're right BM does it really great. Thank you.

All that matters is that you keep creating, Vital Butinar - You're welcome!

RB. I’m guessing Zeiss showed clips of various things shot with some different lenses they make. Pretty pictures always attract attention. The difference between a presentation and testing is pretty stark for anyone considering actually using the tools being shown. Ask yourself a simple question, did what you saw give you enough information in a form that would allow you to apply that information to a project when you left the room? A sales pitch wows you, but testing informs you. Yes, testing all the time is important. Learning how to test is thus very important. Testing equipment is gathering data. Charts and procedures that reveal the abilities of the gear. Once you know those technical aspects the aesthetic phase of testing comes in. Does the information you learned translate in a usable way to create the desired images onto the screen. Learning what the equipment actually does, is important when choosing cameras and lenses for projects. The combinations that bring the images of the story from the script that are playing in my imagination to the screen in the best way is what I am after. Not always the same gear for every picture nor even throughout a given picture, as the interpretation of the arc of the story affects everything. Honestly choosing what is best for the movie, based in knowledge is worlds better than shooting with the camera you own or the one someone else chose because everybody is using it.

One other thing about manufacturer demos, take them at face value. They are advertising. I’ve shot product launches for a number of different manufacturers. Like any good advertising, it is designed to make you go “wow, I want that” and to ignore the person behind the curtain.

Had I know you were going to Zeiss, we could have taken the opportunity to catch up. We’ll have to do that another time.

It was a business/partnership meeting, so no clips, etc. Just a look around the showroom and then down to the nitty gritty. But, of course, you raise some very valid points. Would love to hear other cinematographers, filmmakers and gear heads ring in.

This can vary depending on where you live. If you use Meetup.com, you'll likely find several film production oriented meetups. I've worked on several projects through Meetup.com. Most people have their own gear and no expectations about being paid for working on a short. Sometimes you have to toss in a few bucks for some meeting or studio rental spaces.

Thank you for your thoughts and encouragement. I apologize for not responding sooner.

An d thank you Ray Charles!

BMPC4K = Blackmagic production camera. It is the older model with the global shutter. (actually the camera david sandberg shot part of lights out and shazam on) Their naming conventions are pretty dumb and confusing. BMPCC4K is the new one.

Yes, i would say it is a good idea. I have been trying to sell my BMPC4K (the older, bulkier global shutter super 35mm 4K) for a pocket 4k for a while now, for one reason mainly... And that is because the pocket 4k fits on a gimbal, while my production camera 4k does not. Also, blackmagic raw doesn't hurt... CDNG is a hard drive eater. Sure, you have to use a speedbooster to get that delicious depth of field i love, but the pocket 4k has this really amazing sharpness which i have come to immediately recognize and have grown quite fond of.

I don't know if the 6k is completely worth it because i don't think most people, even in post heavy workflows really need that extra resolution, the main reason to even go 6k is sharpness which the pocket 4k already has in spades. To be honest... These days camera is not a huge factor. You can always just rent a red or alexa... and its never really a matter of "need" to... You could shoot a decent film on a 150$ used canon... in 5K raw. Not that i would, i'm just saying.

I personally love new Pocket 4K. The image is amazing and braw is great but still tons of space. I'd love to have the 6K but compared to the 4K it's more expensive and too much footage.

Focal reducer and ef cine lenses do just.

But like I said for our own personal stuff the 4K is enough but like you said on bigger projects we rent the needed equipment.

Once BlackMagic can state that ALL of the connectors on their cameras are chassis mounted so they can live up to normal use, then I would consider using them again. Maybe.

A box of cameras with broken connectors is hardly an incentive to use these in any professional setting. No patience with gear that breaks. As befits their long reputation, brilliant electronic design with awful assembly. And they must support non-current products unlike now where “good luck” is what they offered. Liked the pictures, but not in any professional setting unless they come up to some minimal mechanical quality and support standards.

Its a good buy and thats for anyone that needs advise on a camera. Done one year with it and that camera has never failed me after commercials, music videos, short films, special features and done in hot weather out in the caribbean. Excellent buy for me and i would surely recommend it. At the same time , know that you may have to extend your budget to accommodate other pieces to make it comfortable to use.

Yeah the Pocket 4K is amazing like Vital Butinar . We got it about a year ago and I love how small and versatile is and how malleable the image is in braw and Davinci. I mean it really is a great camera for the money you spend.

This is an interesting approach to using a “look book”. I often spend time finding images that display the different feels that I wish to get across in a production. Studying the images to understand more of what is creating the feel I am after. This can be colour, framing, contrast, movement, etc. Add to this the decades of experience that the title “DP” infers that person brings to a project with many many thousands of setups in their memory and there is a vast library of images to draw from.

The idea of re-creating images created by masters is a centuries old practice in art schools. You learn what they did by doing what they did, recreating the image you see. Being a copy is always denoted in the title or description of the finished artwork. In a professional production setting, this practice of trying to remake a shot you like by moving things in your frame about until it matches an image you are holding in your hand has a few problems. It takes a lot of time, which is expensive on a shooting set. It draws into serious question the capabilities of anyone seen doing this. And, it is plagiarism. None of those are good and each and every one should rightly get you fired.

I am somewhat astounded that anyone was putting this forward as a method of image creation on a set for a real production.

Andrew Sobkovich, I think this method is for learning, that's how I understood from what R.L. Scott said; is in the beginning, when you are trying to train your eye. I think this can help if you want to get inspired by great artists. This can be a way to get that sense of how to make beautiful shots and then create your own beautiful shots.

If you are making a shot exactly like a shot from some movie, maybe you want to pay tribute in a way to that cinematographer, maybe you want to say that you admire him and that he is one of the great artists you got inspired from. There are examples like this in movies.

There is article in Business Insider on Quentin Tarantino analyzing how he pays homage to old films... If you watch his films, you don't really think twice about the setups, but if you know that Quentin is a fan of old films and routinely screens them at his home on film prints, you can find many examples in his films where his setups mirror or pay homage to setups in the old films that he loves.

https://www.businessinsider.com/quentin-tarantino-movies-steals-cinema-h...

Florin, while he does say it is for beginners, at about 3:10 he describes how to use the technique when adjusting a shot that had been set up on a shoot. Copying masterworks for practice and education is an honored artistic tradition, plagiarizing is not.

Why would anyone who calls themselves a “cinematographer” actually use such a technique outside of a teaching/learning situation? Too many people want to be given a title instead of earning it.

I don't know, Andrew. He says also at about 3:30: "as you do that it's gonna slowly begin to train your eye to have a more cinematic composition". I see this is as a way to get inspired and then create yourself beautiful shots.

Anyway, I don't think it's bad if you have a good reason for doing a shot exactly like one from another movie.

If I remember correctly, you can use a dual link set-up to record 10 bit 4:4:4 to an off-board recorder. There are many recorders that can take this setup, like the Atmos Ninja or Shogun, Odyssey 7Q, etc. When looking at whether a recorder is compatible make sure to look for the latest specifications. There is old info out there that might show an incompatibility. If you are getting a recorder, get something that will also allow you to use it on 4K cameras when you have that option.

Yes, I was also betting on that. Thanks for the response Andrew. I do have the Ninja Assassin with the latest firmware. Dual Link is SDI connection only and the Ninja is HDMI only. Also unfortunately the F3 handles 30 fps data in a way that Atomos products falsely interpret as 60 frames interlaced. I was hoping someone could tell me that I am wrong and walk me through the Sony menus to make it happen.

As a sad PS: I verified with Atomos and currently no Atomos product is able to show vector scopes during 2X anamorphic de-squeeze…

Always a good idea to supplement available light. Specially in dark interiors

Well a year ago we shot a music video that was light by additional lighting to look like the already existing light in the bar and the images came out beautiful. But was expensive to light.

On the other hand last summer we shot a short and some scenes were shot on the street and light only by the existing light and it also came out great also. Yes there was some noise but it was filtered in the edit.

I like to light with lights but budgets sometimes don't allow me too so I'm really happy that we're usually able to find locations that are light enough and the new camera that has really good low light capability.

What you're talking about is called motivated lighting and it can be a very good idea IF you think about the placement of lighting on your characters and the overall feel of what you are going for. A lot of times you might use that pre-existing lighting, but adapt or modify it off screen since the CRI is not generally high enough, or the color balance is not what you had intended. For instance, maybe there is a scene with a desklamp, but instead of using the cheapo bulb inside they throw an aputure mx in and set it to tungsten. Still gives the same effect of being a motivated part of the scene, but it is probably warmer and more color accurate, as well as being able to be tuned to the exact brightness needed to splash a bit of warmth on the actors faces. Maybe instead of the florescent lighting in an office, you get some blue or even green gelled kinos in the same general place, whether you are going for a very dull or matrixy kind of effect... or you might even replace them with some legit quasars if you really need those tube lights.

And even still, and you'd be surprised how common this is;

Sometimes just throwing a decent but cheap high CRI light inside a china ball can make a world of difference. If you're on a budget this may be what you want to try for your project.

Ben Hinman you know I've done that with a china ball. I've used it on outside shots and put it on a boom. There was one more trick I used just recently. We had an outside shoot at night and there were no lights anywhere and a few days before that I went to Ikea and found some really cool USB PC illumination lights on like a semi-rigid stem that could be bent anyway. They were tungsten warm so they were usable and I bought a bunch of them because they were cheap.

And when we shot we just plugged a bunch of them into a power bank and had someone follow off screen behind for the hair light and in front for the key light.

Actually worked really well.

Without knowing what that light is, what camera you are shooting with and what lens, this is just a somewhat wild guess. Chances are the light will be enough to get enough exposure to make images. However the main issue with existing light is simply, does it look good? By good I mean appropriate for the story you are telling. That is far more the important aspect. With the advent of very high sensitivity, more and more people are shooting in light that looks quite awful on screen. Colour reproduction is quite critical when shooting faces and not all existing light will result in good colour. How the light falls on the face, the contrast, the quality of the light are all important considerations.

For the basement bar scenario, remember that you will also need to see the room well enough so that the wide shots will give you the geography of the location. Just dark behind your actor will not be pa good look. Think of images you have seen that give you ideas about colour, contrast and brightness, so that you have a mental guide when lighting to create a feel for the sequence. Even if the light on the actor looks correct, you will need to light the background. Add to this the likely need for some light in the background to reflect off of the bar to give it some depth and you aren’t going to get away without doing some lighting to make the shot work. If you can shoot a test shot or a still to see what it will look like and base what you do to change it on that image.

Vilmos Zigmond always called it “unavailable light”. He said, you take a light reading and you can shoot, but it will look so awful you cannot use it. Since he first told me that, it has always been part of my consideration of any location, Vilmos was always right.

The best answer is right at hand. The camera and lens, or an equivalent, that you will be using to shoot your short. Take a still or shoot a few seconds of motion in the location. Take these images and have a long look at them thinking about what you could do to make the images better. Could be part of a video storyboard for you. Being able to see the images you will get with the existing light is a huge help, use it.

At the risk of oversimplifying it, cameras today are like saws and hammers- they all do the job in the hands of a craftsman. Some are more suited to some tasks than others. Unlike carpentry, cameras are subject to whims of fashion that don't really come from usability but from murmuring or opinions.

FS5 is not nearly as common in most professional work as FS7. What do you want to know exactly ?

What did you ultimately decide on?