Wow, this looks like crap too!

[Phil Rhodes]

Notwithstanding the efforts of superlative people attempting to help me not to, I still managed to balls this up quite effectively!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks are due to camera assistant Anna "Without Whom We Are As Naught" Carrington, the Eastman Kodak Company for their 7245 colour neg stock, particularly Mr. Pytlak and Brian at their UK office, and Gary and Tim at Red for use of their Spirit suite. The general badness of this is of course entirely my own fault and no reflection on any of these people.

[Chance Shirley]

What's your specific complaint about the images? I mean, it's not 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, but considering the subject matter (two people on a couch) I don't see the big problem.

 

I guess the question is, what did you WANT it to look like?

[Guest fstop]

The worst thing about this work Phil is the nails-on-chalk board insecure acceptance requesting thread you stuffed it in! :P

 

EXCELLENT work my man and another fine finger up at all those elitist, videographer doubting film snobs out there. Your lighting is beautiful- the soft focus shot of the protagonist in his moment of triumph is a most touching moment that I have to admit struck a chord- there's a poetry here, a commentary on the dismal overcast monotony of English weather you obsess over, punctured by a warm, glowing moment of romance- you really aren't the heartless stone cold pessimist you like to play to, eh Phil? ;)

 

I'm VERY impressed, you've clearly got something to say. I look forward to future S16 efforts! :D

[Phil Rhodes]

Oh take the piss why don't you - enormous amounts of it are soft due to this odd

insistence on having someone focus who isn't looking at the image.

 

The reason it looks crap is that despite strenuous efforts not to, I lit it for video. Not tremendously surprising, but that's why it looks so flat and featureless.

 

Phil

Edited February 17, 2005 by Phil Rhodes

[Guest fstop]

Forgive me, I genuinely think it's a beautiful image.

[Phil Rhodes]

> I guess the question is, what did you WANT it to look like?

 

CSI.

 

Phil

[Guest Sean McVeigh]

I dunno Phil.. looks like between frames 1 and 2 above, you could have used some help from one of them chinless-wonder-arty-type colourists :)

 

Care to share your lighting plan? The "flat" look you're referring to looks almost intentional. Is everything in the UK that same dismal shade of beige? I wonder how it could be livened up?

[Phil Rhodes]

> colourists

 

Couldn't take a lot of time over it on a freebie.

 

> Is everything in the UK that same dismal shade of beige?

 

Yes, that's what happens when you put warm light on grey.

 

It was just the white apartment syndrome.

 

Phil

Edited February 17, 2005 by Phil Rhodes

[Sam Wells]

> I guess the question is, what did you WANT it to look like?

 

CSI.

 

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

It's not really so bad.

 

For CSIish you've got to soften it up, wrap the faces more. Plus, you need something on the lens.

 

Also, in 7245, the colors will tend to "fill up" that's my new phrase (not named after you, maybe because I've got the &^%&% flu and I'm filling up with orange juice & OTC meds) so you need to be aware of that.

 

In truth you've done a passable naturalistic lighting here; but CSI is "supernatural" i.e.

don't light for video light for a dreamy Miami B)

 

-Sam

[chris cortez]

I don't see any problem except the set dressing -- cream walls, empty bookshelf, dead-looking bare tree...

 

I like the close-up best.

 

I guess all I'd say is that you can't film what isn't there.

 

- Chris

[Guest Sean McVeigh]

Yes, that's what happens when you put warm light on grey.

 

It was just the white apartment syndrome.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It's got that early morning feel to it.. slap a cup of coffee in his hands and it's a Nescafe commercial just waiting to happen!

 

here's the storyboard:

 

1. man just wants his damn cup of coffee! ** I can't believe we're out of coffee??!! **

2. woman says "cheer up luv... the store opens in 10 minutes. now give me a kiss"

3. leans in for kiss but wait.. what's that aroma?

4. THAT BITCH!! "what is it? why won't you kiss me?"

5. WHAT DOES SHE MEAN.. "WHAT IS IT??"

6. "Smells like you drank the last cup you whore!!"

 

:P

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

It's not actually that bad. The only things I would point out are;

 

1. It seems like you went for a "sunny" window light look yet there isn't a real good bright area anywhere. Gives it a kind of neither this nor that feel. That's one of my worst nightmares and I manage to do it every now and again.

 

2. The shots don't match. What happened to the light that is on the guy in the first shot yet is missing in the second? I think it reappears in the third.

 

3. The set is drab. Not really your fault. In the girl's two-shot I would have cheated the "sun" from the window more on her and thus the background.

 

4. I would have added hot kickers from the key side and probably amped up the very soft backlight from the shadow side. That would help to give it more of a sunny feel.

 

I mean this as positive criticism. :D

Edited February 17, 2005 by J. Lamar King

[Riku Naskali]

Yes, as everyone else has pointed, it's really not too bad. It looks...well british :D

 

For my tastes it's a little bit overlit, not really anything dark in the frame, but it looks quite natural that way. Also there really isn't more than one color in those images, but as pointed out it really isn't your fault. Or maybe you could have mixed a little bit color temperatures on your key... Like hotter sunlight and cooler bounce from the sky.

 

It looks quite natural, at least to my inexperienced eyes.

[David Mullen ASC]

Sometimes you can't avoid it, but my only suggestion is to avoid staging day interior scenes where the source (usually a window) is behind the the camera, forcing you into a front-lit situation. I'd have first tried to find a way to stage the shots more in side or back light. But given the frontish angle of the source, you did what I would do, which is break the light up into a pattern so that it isn't flat and even.

 

More mistakes are made in lighting by overcomplicating than oversimplifying; I usually try and light with one strong source with any other source in frame feeling secondary or incidental, like a reflected light being bounced back or something. But considering you were lighting for 50 ASA film, it looks pretty natural. If I had a criticism, it's that there's nothing wrong with the lighting in that there's nothing too hot or too dark -- perhaps a single soft key on the actors and a really hot slash of sunlight on the lower wall in the b.g. would have been more exciting. But overall it looks nice; nothing to be ashamed of at all.

 

I don't mind the beige look -- there are some scenes in the Godfather movies that are all that tone, like the hospital in "Godfather III" that Michael ends up in:

 

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> Sometimes you can't avoid it, but my only suggestion is to avoid

> staging day interior scenes where the source (usually a window) is

> behind the the camera

 

Y'know actually there's as much stuff from the other side so they're more backlit, but for some reason I didn't include any of those shots. The idea was for the sun to be a back or sidelight. Didn't really come off.

 

The sun is tungsten, the fill is a 1.2K HMI via full orange, bounced off a polyboard; for some reason it looked green. On some monitors the whole back wall often looks greenish.

 

> But considering you were lighting for 50 ASA film

 

My mistake - 7274 not 7275; it was the 200T. Knew I shouldn't have tried to sound like a pro.

 

The exposure was for the "sun" light to be a stop over and the fill to be a stop under, which was clearly too simplistic.

 

> If I had a criticism, it's that there's nothing wrong with the lighting in

> that there's nothing too hot or too dark

 

Yep, lit for video!

 

The beige look is preferable to the practically-monochrome look of most stuff shot round here, but in general I think it looks bland and rather horrible.

 

Phil

[Bill Totolo]

I think the lighting is good. You're just experiencing the importance of set design, location management, hair, makeup and wardrobe.

[Jeff Tanner]

Phil,

 

In addition to what the others have brought up...

 

This is a case of the importance of telecine. Magic can happen in the telecine suite with the right colorist...dare I say the colorist is far more important than the machines. In just a couple of hours you could re-transfer your selects and make the scene(s) look completely different (if that's what you want). There is nothing wrong with the way you shot the scene, everyone just has a different approach to lighting styles, art direction, set dressing, camera angles, etc. Quit kicking yourself, this is nothing to be ashamed of.

 

I don't care for the man and woman's thick British accent though :)

 

Respectfully,

 

Jeff Tanner

[Matt Pacini]

I think it looks pretty good, but obviously, you didn't quite get what you were looking for, from your comments.

 

These aren't criticisms, but just suggestions that I would try:

1. Lighting the background more contrasty & darker than the subjects - put some darker shadows back there!

 

2. Something I like to do to break up the "tan" color scheme, is to use some old 650watt PAR's (Super 8 movie lights is what they were originally sold for) that I keep a bunch of. They're 3400K, (I think to make Kodachrome not look so orange) so they're just a bit higher in color temp, without looking really blue, or getting that fake sunlit look .

I usually point one at the cieling, or maybe just have a swash of it for a backlight or edge light part of the background, etc.

 

Also, doesn't look that sharp.

Phil, what camera & lenses did you use?

 

Overall, looks pretty nifty I'd say. You want to see some ugly film footage, I'll show you some ugly film footage!

Don't beat yourself up!

 

Matt Pacini

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> 1. Lighting the background more contrasty & darker than the subjects -

> put some darker shadows back there!

 

I tried, but at the end of the day it's a white room, and with a bounce fill there's practically nothing I could do with it.

 

> 2. Something I like to do to break up the "tan" color scheme

 

Actually I was going for a kind of yellow and blue ice-cream-colours look to it, which is why she's wearing a blue pullover, there's blue stuff on the table and bookshelf. Didn't end up being that visible. Actually it looks hugely better in the digital stills I took, give or take the overexposed highlights, which I guess isn't entirely unsurprising given my background.

 

 

> Also, doesn't look that sharp.

 

No. I have no idea why. Quite a lot of it is out of focus, but I think only one of these stills is.

 

> Phil, what camera & lenses did you use?

 

s16 modified Arri SR and Zeiss super speeds.

 

Phil

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> I don't care for the man and woman's thick British accent though

 

Actually she sounds American!

 

Phil

[Guest fstop]

I still think that soft focus kicker close up of the fella is terribly arresting yet SO simple- I'm gonna bagsy that one for meself in the future-

 

YOINK! :lol:

[Guest Frank Gossimier]

Sorry Phil I can't watch your work...where are the CG characters?

 

Every one knows that films these days need a minimum of 450 CG characters, your shots don't show even one? :D

 

Frank

[Rachel Oliver]

Hi;

 

Hey Phil come on and admit it, you shot this in the Croydon Ikea diddn't you!

I like it, looks like stills from a Mike Liegh film.

 

Olly

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> looks like stills from a Mike Liegh film.

 

Oh, God!

 

I just thought it was bad, I didn't think it was Mike-looking!

 

Phil

[Dominic Case]

[attachmentid=233It is certainly brown - well beige if you like. There doesn't seem to be a lot of green information there at all (not much in the set, but there is a pot plant in the first wideshot with leaves that seem never to have heard of chlorophyll.) Maybe a rush job on telecine. Maybe my monitor. Try this.

]

 

 

All looks a bit soft (could just be the res of these images?) except the last shot - traditionally you'd expect her to be a little softer than him. That's probably totally wrong these days - but she seems to have more shiny highlights on her face in the close-up than in the two-shot. And why does the lighting go completely flat for the kiss? Not a shadow in sight.

 

Well you asked for criticism.. .