Cinematographers hooting your own academy leader

James Steven Beverly · September 1, 2007

I have been reading Norman Hollyn's terrific book, The Film Editing Room Handbook and learning a LOT. One thing he mentioned though was some cinematographers prefer to shoot their own academy leader rather than relying on the stuff you can buy because they feel if gives them a more accurate sense of what there camera were seeing while they viewed dailies. I was wondering if anyone can elaborate on this, has done this before and if so how does that work? I know from the book, the leader has to be precisely 12 feet from picture start to the end of the leader and there is the focus section before that (I one saw a movie in high school that used a naked girl as a focus chart, that was nice :D ) ans can have frame outlines in them to make it easier for the projectionist. Do you film a series of title cards with 8. 7, 6 ect. on them the just cut the precise footage and splice it all together? I would imagine that's the only way you could do it and is so do you use the primary lens you plan to use on the shoot or go though the gambit at various parts of the leader. I had assumed everyone used the store bought leader because it was standard and everyone would conform to it, is the "shot" leader used only for dailies? Just curious B)

Jonathan Bowerbank · September 4, 2007

A DP making his own leader for focus & sync sound doesn't make sense. It's something that's mainly an editorial tool.

I've shot a few feet of an aspect ratio chart at the head of a roll, maybe that's what the book meant? For example, if I wanted my Regular 16 frame cropped to 1.85:1, I'd shoot one of the aspect ratio charts provided by Kodak.