Barry Ackroyd BSC- on fair payments for DP's

[David Mullen ASC]

I blame myself here in this case. I often say that tone begets tone, angry posts tend to create angry responses, but I should be above that. This all started because I just wrapped an all-night shoot with an amazing crew and production staff, pulling off a very difficult and ambitious sequence... and then I come home and read these posts by various people here saying things like crew people are not creative collaborators, etc. It just rubbed me the wrong way.

 

If Matthew had a bad working relationship with a particular DP then I believe him and I won't defend any DP who treats other people badly.

[Stuart Brereton]

I am upset that he wanted a wide shot and there was no possible way to get good audio in that situation without proper equipment.

Every sound mixer I've ever worked with has had that same complaint at some point. The good ones know which battles to fight and which to walk away from. If there's no way to get good audio, they inform the director, and let them make the decision about what to do. It's unfortunate for the mixer at the time, but sound can be fixed in post. Camera is always going to take precedence over sound, it's the nature of the beast. After all, we're not making radio plays here. That's not to say that camera is the only thing that's important. As David says, a good DP should be trying to help out the sound mixer when possible, but there are inevitably situations where camera positioning is going to compromise the audio, and that is just something that sound mixers have to live with.

[Aapo Lettinen]

the more you have money and time the less you have to compromise, it is the same with the camera department, lighting, transportation, catering, schedules, etc etc...

one thing to consider is that sound is usually cheaper and maybe easier to fix in post than image so the normal approach is to compromise the sound first if it's the best way to get the scene done on time.

most of the sound is done in post anyway whereas most of the image is done on set (depending on production's VFX content of course)

 

in the case mentioned, the producer should pay for the ADR for the wide shots if there were no necessary equipment to get usable sound on location.

[Matthew W. Phillips]

the more you have money and time the less you have to compromise, it is the same with the camera department, lighting, transportation, catering, schedules, etc etc...

one thing to consider is that sound is usually cheaper and maybe easier to fix in post than image so the normal approach is to compromise the sound first if it's the best way to get the scene done on time.

most of the sound is done in post anyway whereas most of the image is done on set (depending on production's VFX content of course)

 

in the case mentioned, the producer should pay for the ADR for the wide shots if there were no necessary equipment to get usable sound on location.

I feel that simply renting some lav mics would be far cheaper for an ultra-low budget production (which this was) than bringing back actors in post to ADR. We are not talking wide release films here. We are talking films for the festival circuit from upstarts. Seems to me that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." But then again "hindsight is 20/20."

 

Not to mention, around these parts, you are fortunate to get actors to come back for ADR because they hate it and most likely have other projects in their schedule. If it isnt part of the initial contract then they have no obligation to do it.

 

David, I realize that I got way too sensitive about the issue last night. We all draw on our own experiences and we all put ourselves into situations when we read stories. My anger should be at the producer in that case. I suppose it is like the older child who always asked his parents for things and never gets them but his younger sibling does. It isnt the young siblings fault, per se, but it becomes normal to resent them when you always see their outcome greater than yours.

[Matthew W. Phillips]

Camera is always going to take precedence over sound, it's the nature of the beast. After all, we're not making radio plays here. That's not to say that camera is the only thing that's important...

This isnt my thinking even as a casual observer. I would much rather watch a crappy image with pristine sound than the inverse. I believe studies support this view as well. Might make for a fun research project?!

[Stuart Brereton]

This isnt my thinking even as a casual observer. I would much rather watch a crappy image with pristine sound than the inverse. I believe studies support this view as well. Might make for a fun research project?!

I'm not denying the importance of sound to the finished product, but production sound recording is only one part of the finished mix, and may be a very small part if the movie has been extensively re-recorded. It's because of that that 'perfect' production sound is regarded as non-essential.

[David Mullen ASC]

I can't speak for general audiences (and I admit that a muddy soundtrack can ruin a movie experience), but in a theater, I notice the image more than the sound, but then, I'm sure editors notice the editing more than the image, and costume designers notice the wardrobe more than the editing, etc. -- there's a reason we all drifted into our particular professions!

[Matthew W. Phillips]

I can't speak for general audiences (and I admit that a muddy soundtrack can ruin a movie experience), but in a theater, I notice the image more than the sound, but then, I'm sure editors notice the editing more than the image, and costume designers notice the wardrobe more than the editing, etc. -- there's a reason we all drifted into our particular professions!

Indeed, David. I recall watching a documentary in college about film history where some Cinematographers were upset when talkies came around because they felt it limited their ability to capture certain shots. I wish I could remember what that was called.

[Stuart Brereton]

Cinematographers were upset when talkies came around because they felt it limited their ability to capture certain shots.

 

This is true. With the advent of sound, cameras were forced into huge, heavy blimps which were very hard to move. Suddenly all the sweeping moves that DPs were used to making were next to impossible.

[David Mullen ASC]

Actually blimps were the solution, the early sound films required the camera go into a booth that looked like a large refrigerator, blimps actually freed them though the silent cameras were lighter and more mobile (Nestor Almendros mentions this in the doc "Visions of Light".) And a blimped 3-strip Technicolor camera was enormous, but that didn't stop Hitchcock from moving it all around the sets on "Rope" and "Under Capricorn".

 

The days of early sound as parodied in "Singin' in the Rain" with immobile cameras in booths only lasted a few years, like 1927 to 1930.

[Matthew W. Phillips]

(Nestor Almendros mentions this in the doc "Visions of Light".)

That was it! Thank you David. It was driving me crazy trying to remember the name.

[Stuart Brereton]

Actually blimps were the solution, the early sound films required the camera go into a booth that looked like a large refrigerator,

 

Ah, yes, booths was what I meant, not blimps.

[joshua gallegos]

Sound and sight are equally important. There are some directors who choose not to ADR important scenes as the original emotion in the actor's voice is gone and replaced by something less effective. Orson Welles was known to turn his back on the image from time to time to listen to his actors speak, the rhythm and tempo of it all is incredibly important just as the image. From what I understand, there are a lot of sound people who own their own equipment and offer it to the production for a rate, any producer should be reasonable enough to hire at least one of those guys who own their own stuff.

[John Holland]

Anyway back to the topic a DoP should be paid for the grading he/she may have spent weeks or months shooting and the Director must support this practice . Producers will always fight it .

[Matthew W. Phillips]

Anyway back to the topic a DoP should be paid for the grading he/she may have spent weeks or months shooting and the Director must support this practice . Producers will always fight it .

John, the issue here is: why should the DPs have an intrinsic right to determine the end result of the footage? Tradition is one argument but, as David mentioned, color timing was the extent of it back then. Things are different now. So the philosophical question is...who has the right to make the final call on the look of the image? Producer? Director? Grader? DP? Why not just make grading a part of the DP skillset, pay him/her like you would a pro grader, give DPs ultimate control, and be done with it? All interesting possibilities.

[Stuart Brereton]

why should the DPs have an intrinsic right to determine the end result of the footage?

We've made a little leap here from the original point, which was that DPs should attend the grade, and be paid to do so. No-one ever suggested that the DP should have the final say on the look.

 

The real question here is, if you as a director have spent weeks in prep discussing the look of your movie with your DP, and then the two of you have translated those discussions into images during weeks of production, forging a creative collaboration all the way through the process, why on earth wouldn't you want them at the grade?

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't think the correct word is "determine" because that implies ultimate authority and ownership -- I think the word is "supervise". The DP was hired to execute a visual style worked out with the director and other key department heads, and part of the job of delivering the look for which they were hired is to supervise the color-correction. It's not about taking over the process, we work for the director and producer after all -- just as in b&w photography, it was traditionally been a negative-positive process (as Ansel Adams said, the negative is the score and the print is the performance) so we think of color-correction as the second half of the photography. We don't actually have to work the color-correction board in order to have input any more than the production designer has to construct, paint, and dress the sets themselves in order to do their jobs.

 

So I wouldn't say it is about the DP having the final call, it's about using their skill, knowledge, and taste to execute a visual design to completion based upon agreed stylistic parameters with the director and producer. The DP was hired presumably because they have more skill in the area of photography than the director and producer, or else why hire a DP? And given that the DP has those skills, why not take advantage off them to get the best possible product? That's the reason I'm brought in during post-production -- it's not about making me happy or ceding control over to me, it's about the producer protecting their investment and the director getting the look that they hired me to achieve.

[Aapo Lettinen]

John, the issue here is: why should the DPs have an intrinsic right to determine the end result of the footage? Tradition is one argument but, as David mentioned, color timing was the extent of it back then. Things are different now. So the philosophical question is...who has the right to make the final call on the look of the image? Producer? Director? Grader? DP? Why not just make grading a part of the DP skillset, pay him/her like you would a pro grader, give DPs ultimate control, and be done with it? All interesting possibilities.

one thing is that the pro graders grade even dozens of times more material than dp:s and they are really fast in what they do so it is simply not economical for dp:s to grade by themselves if someone else does it three times faster and can also do the rough grade while the dp is working on set. Same reason why all dp:s dont operate or do steadicam by themselves, if they do two shows per year and the operator does 15 there is quite a difference in operating skills...

 

If director or producer wants to dictate grading they must have quite much cinematography/dp experience.otherwise they dont know what to do and what they specifically want, thus the poor colorist has to show them all the possible grades for the scenes and shots so that they can decide which one they like when they see it.

There has to be someone who knew from the start how the show should look like and what should be done for certain images.

 

The dp and colorist also share a common language which makes working together much much faster

[Aapo Lettinen]

And no, dp should not dictate the end result by himself, it is collaborative art and at least the director and producer have as much to say to the final grade than he has.maybe different pov but still shared work

[David Mullen ASC]

Yes a lot of this is about efficiency... Part of my job is to translate between the director and the timer or colorist, though of course they can figure this out themselves. For example, when a director doesn't like warmth because faces look too red, I will work out with the colorist whether we should pull out the overall warmth and go to neutral or just pull down the red chroma in faces and keep the warmth but at the risk of creating a somewhat pastel brown look, but making that decision requires knowing what the overall visual design allows. Same goes for translating notions of darkness -- darker as in deeper blacks or dimmer highlights? All of the could be worked directly between the director and the colorist but sometimes I can make it go a little faster because I know how it was shot and I know the director's taste better, I've already learned what he or she means by "warmth" or "darkness", etc.

[Stuart Brereton]

A lot of directors are not technically proficient enough to feel comfortable with supervising what has become an immensely powerful process. Colorists have a lot of different ways of achieving the same end, and it's difficult to know exactly what they are doing when they're sitting there in front of you, adjusting dials and knobs in the darkness.

 

Many of the directors I work with appreciate my presence in the room because I'm able to talk to the colorist in technical language, rather than just warmer, cooler, lighter, darker. That enables us to get the work done quicker.

[Matthew W. Phillips]

I am not sure that I get what is going on here. I mean, arent colorists able to speak English? Do they really need jargon to know what a person is looking for? I mean, how is the Director able to communicate with the DP to communicate their vision? Why is this same method of communication inadequate for a director to communicate with the colorist? I think this sounds less about the directors vision and more about placating the feelings of the DP.

 

As Buddy Holly said in "The Buddy Holly Story"..."how can a producer know the sound in my head? He cant hear it and I cant tell him."

[Stuart Brereton]

how is the Director able to communicate with the DP to communicate their vision? Why is this same method of communication inadequate for a director to communicate with the colorist?

Because the Director's communication with the DP has been built up over weeks or months of working together with a shared vision for the movie, unlike the short discussion that the director had with the colorist that morning when he walked into the timing suite.

 

The director may know what he or she wants, but be restricted to describing it in fairly general terms, which leads to differences in interpretation. If however, the DP can describe it in technical terms, it's often quicker and more accurate.

[Phil Rhodes]

Nobody's seriously questioning the desirability of a DP being available for the grade.

 

Naturally people should be paid for their work, and nobody's really arguing that, either.

 

The issue is one of parity. This consideration only really applies to quite big productions on which the director of photography will be paid many times the national average salary on a per-day basis, even including the grading time. This is not exploitation.

 

Personally, I expect to spend a certain amount of time doing performing tasks which support the work I can actually invoice for, and I don't make "big DP" money. That's self-employment.

 

P

[Matthew W. Phillips]

 

Personally, I expect to spend a certain amount of time doing performing tasks which support the work I can actually invoice for, and I don't make "big DP" money. That's self-employment.

 

P

Phil's post brings up an interesting thought..one of actors who promote the film. Are they paid extra for the promotion of the film or is it generally expected as part of their job description? Perhaps DPs in this situation are not much different.

 

inb4 the argument of above/below the line. I expect that to be mentioned so I already did it for you. Nonetheless, my point still stands.