Phil Connolly

For documentary longer lens might impact the performance. It can make the camera seem less intimidating if its further away - so the go too option for nervous interviewees on doco's. But its difficult to objectively tell if its making a difference as each time you do it you in a different situation with a different person. I can see how remote rigged cameras for documentary shooting can make a difference - allowing people to forget they are being filmed. But I've found people tend to adapt to what ever your doing pretty quickly. I once did a music video everything including close ups on a 14mm and the camera was inches away - weird at first but the performers soon adapted an got on with it. eg: Mostly choice is about the feel between subject and background, On drama shoots you always hope that the actors you cast will be experienced enough to ignore the camera placement

Most professional stop motion animators use a software package called Dragon Frame. It allows you to control most of the settings on many dlsrs and gives you a live view of the image - with lots of framing guides and onion skin options. These allow you to see the previous frame(s) and check alignment/movement etc. You can just do simple stop motion by taking stills on a camera and using a tape measure/marks on the monitor to line up shots as well. But the software makes it easier and gives you more tools. I

The poster has access to a Sony F55 and Super 16 - but on what planet would super 16 be cheaper? So kit costs don't figure - just the stock/lab costs It would be many times more expensive. The cost of storage for the F55 is vastly cheaper then the super 16 stock, processing, transfer costs. Sure you may have to transcode the F55 material. But its essentially free to do just takes time. At film school your normally in a cash poor/time rich situation. These days its simply wrong to state that film is cheaper then digital in nearly 95% of situations.

Remember "This is England" switched from super 16 to digital for the TV series. So you could look at the TV series and see if you like to s35mm sensor size look. Digital super 16 cameras like the digital bolex and ikonskop approximate the 16mm look quite well. If you have access to an F55 then you should be able to get excellent results with it. Its got a good dynamic range which will help you control the contrast. Camera choice is less important anything decent would work- 95% of the Shane Meadows look is to do with lighting, production design and the way he blocks the camera. The look is all about attitude - shane meadows has worked in 35mm, 16mm and digital and there is a consistency of feel/look across his work even if the format is different

Ah that would work - will try it next time round thanks

Yeah you def need the burgers to be built carefully. I tried doing a food photography workshop with my students. The burgers we brought were a mess and it took the best bits of 3 burgers to get something semi acceptable. (see image) Also stunk the studio out. Need to find away to make the meat look more juicy, thin coat of syrup?

Don't do that on a drone - they shouldn't be flown directly above people. Could be done on a Jib arm but to get a move that big you'd need quite a long jib boom - so not a really low budget option. Super low budget approach would be static camera and zoom lens. Not as pretty but the intention of the shot would the same and cheaper to do if you could find away to rig the camera high.

Yeah man - I'm gonna shoot my film on short end's on my arri 2C - single perf 35mm with a widened gate - yeah I'm making my own formats. I've worked out, I can get my shooting ratio down to 1.26:1 if I only work with sock puppets! Process the stock in my bath tub using red wine and coffee. Recording non sync sound on my Nagra and edit on one of my 12 Steenbeck's. Titles will be carved out wood. Yeah! All music will be analogue from my home-made modular synth. Those digital guys know nothing about the look of reel analogue film man. If you don't do if this way you can't call yourself a filmmaker - i refuse to watch video its evil and wrong. Film is silver, video is rust - says it all. Digital just isn't right, I mean Buster Keaton never shot digital you know what I'm sayin. Nah - I haven't got a story yet or any ideas but when i do it will be pure. Remember its not what you shoot, but what you shoot it on that matters. (this analogue fetish thing gets a bit tiresome at times :rolleyes: )

I've not used resolve for DCP's but have had some success with adobe premier which has similar settings. Looking at Resolve it does seem to give you the main different options e.g 2K flat, 2k scope, 4k etc... so you should be able to get the size right by selecting 2K scope. If you keep a letter box in a flat container your potential going to risk having a postage stamp size image on a common hight cinema screen. The codec should be jpg2000 and the max bit rate DCP can support is 250mbs - Resolve and Premier both default to 250 so I would leave it at that unless hard disk space is an issue. Commercial DCP's are usually in the range of 75mbs-125mbs. But for a short not reason no to max out =. 24 fps is the world standard, some DCP servers will allow different frame rates e.g 25, 30fps - but not all, so its a risk. I've done a 25fps DCP that worked at my local cinema - but I had time to test it. So for guaranteed compatibly you'd have to make a 24fps version of the film I'm assuming that it should work reasonably smoothly the DCP tool in premier does. The only other potential gotcha is the hard disk that you deliver on, For guaranteed compatibility it needs to be formatted ext2, though many servers will work with ntfs (but not all) Another free way to produce DCP's is to use the tool DCP-O-MATIC - its an open source DCP creater. Even if you stick with DaVinchi. The DCP O Matic manual is helpful as it tells you a bit more about DCP's and settings etc. So maybe have a look at: https://dcpomatic.com/manual/pdf/dcpomatic.pdf Last time I did a DCP - I couldn't find a free player to test it on. Also the colour/contrast on a DCP projector is probably different to my Mac. I was able to get the local art house cinema to test the DCP. Then I could be confidant both the film looked ok and the DCP file worked. If its for a festival get the DCP to them in plenty of time for a test - if your not quite obeying the rules e.g with frame rate.

Yeah sound could have been an issue. The abbey road show - often use's acoustic screens to control spill. Normally its not too bad as long as the singer isn't right on top of the drummer. Thats usually the biggest cause of spill. I notice from your plan you had the drums off to the side which must helped helped keep the vox clean. I'm guessing the band weren't super loud either, which would help keep the recording controlled. Much easier on mimed music videos, as you can put practice pads and quiet cymbals on the drum kit. But they sound terrible so no good for a recording.

Hi Daniel I thought it looked and sounded really good, especially considering the timescale you had to shoot it. Not homey and intimate - but appropriate for the location and band size. Looks like you did what you could in terms of coverage and were limited by keeping the cameras out of shot. Although if done carefully I don't mind cameras in shot. The previously mentioned (excellent) Abbey Road series had cameras in shot - but it gave more flexibility in coverage. I agree the band would have looked better if you arranged them more in a circle as if they were jamming. The problem with the standard 'stage performance' set up it is it looks at bit weird without an audience. Who are they performing too? The singer isn't quite working the cameras enough for a 'performance'. A more intimate in the round set up with the band making eye contact and looking like they are having fun is a bit more natural. For me performance needs to be motivated - either by an audience or an acknowledgment of the camera as audience. Its tricky also because the singer closes her eyes a lot - which gets annoying. But thats a band thing not a lighting thing. I personally thought the lighting worked well, simple and unfussy. However probably a lot of this you can't fix as the band I'm sure had a vision about how they wanted to perform and present themselves and it can be tricky to moderate. These are just thoughts and nit picks - the videos still do a good job of representing the act and the songs.

I've probably hired 30 or so people for gigs over the years through mandy and I've always found it to be a useful resource thats allowed me find some really great crew members often at very short notice. As a job advertiser I have no issues with paying the fee, but I think its a mistake to charge the crew applying for roles. Thats only going to end up reducing the number of applications you get for a particular role and make the service less effective. Yes often you get many applications for jobs but not always and I wouldn't want to limit to number of applications I receive. Buy charging a fee to apply your not ensuring the best people apply, just those that can afford to pay. Hows that a good thing?

Often the choice of doing in camera vs in post is taken out your hands by the nature of the production - the choice is as much as logistical issue as an aesthetic one. Every time I've done a production where we comp the screen its been due a scheduling issue. The material to go on the screen hasen't been produced at the time of principle photography. Often because I've had animation produced and its more cost effective to do that after the rough cut - so you know exactly what you need. Comping is more work then doing it in camera - but I've always enjoyed the option of adjusting the screen content during the edit - rather then getting locked it. But on scenes where the actor is typing - it may be easier to do in camera for timing - but the actor has to be able to spell

Green screen can prevent the reflections that make the screen look real. Its quite easy to comp a blank screen - keep the real reflections on the glass and luma key them over the inserted video. You don't always need tracking markers as the corners of the screen can be used for reference - as long as the screen bezel is a different colour. So ok on beige PC monitors but not mac's as the edges are hard to track Its a bit more work if objects cross the screen as you might have to do some roto - but some times you can pull a luma key if the foreground objects are brighter then the screen

It is a thing, forum threads mutate. Its very easy to forget the original topic title once your in it. I'm evidently guilty of it, but as are many of us. The best directors I've worked with have mainly been in radio drama. Something about the discipline that allows them to really take a script apart and find nuance in it.

Director looking at the video assist on a super-16 shoot: "Oh I don't want it in black and white"

The Sony RX10Mk2 and RX100 mk4 - both shoot decent quality 240fps footage. Both comparable to the SonyFS700 - but in a much cheaper camera. The biggest issue is a much shorter buffer time - its about 2-3 seconds vs 10 seconds on the FS700. These days slowmo is affordable in-camera, so you don't really need to use post production slowmo. My local camera hire company rents the Rx100 at £43 per day and thats affordable enough for me to hire in when I need the effect. I've experimented with shooting 60fps and then using various post production tools for slowmo and its too hit and miss to use on regular production. Some shots will look great, but then you'll get something that confuses the algorithm and creates lots of warping artifacts. Normally its shots with lots of complexity that fool the software: rain, water splash, leaves, confetti - the complexity that looks great in slowmo, ruins the shot. When you see great shots slowed down in post - your only seeing the ones that work, they may have had to bin a bunch of others. So for the odd shot optical flow effects might do the job, but on a paid job I'd hire a different camera. That said the sony cameras at the affordable end are still compromised - since they compress the video quite a lot. For a real high quality slowmo solution you need to look cameras that can do high framerates at lower compression levels e.g Red Epic, Varicam, F55 etc... Also depends on the speed of slowmo you require sometimes 60fps is enough to get the job done. I've shot stuff at 240 that I ended up speeding up in post cos it was too slow at times. Really depends what your trying to archive. I once did a music video at 30fps - for a real subtle slowmo effect when played back at 25fps -technically slowmo, but most people didn't notice it.

Brief Encounter Great Expectations The Man who wasn't there Dr Strangelove The Elephant Man

For those with the money you have services like this: http://www.primacinema.com/ Movies cost about $500 a pop so its not really a mainstream thing Studio insiders probably get free access to the DCP's and I'm sure plenty of people are screening blu ray and netflix etc...

I started out with a set of 3 x 800w red heads and spent about a year just experimenting with them (not full time but quite a bit). Initially my stuff looked terrible - then I learn't to control them a bit better. Bouncing, using gels and pushing them to the limits. On subsequent films I would hire in different fixtures - and my knowledge and experience would grow. After the red heads I tried different size Fresnels and larger 2K blonds, then I started using HMI's, then Kino's and now LED's. With me it wasn't about trying to learn everything all at once. But using a bit of kit experimenting then trying something else. In terms of wattage you start to get a feel for it and now I can normally guess fairly accurately what size I need for what job. With LED's and Kino's its less about the wattage and more about the size of a fixture. But when you start - the best approach is to set up the camera, set up some lights and have a look. The more you experiment the better your understanding will be. A trial and error approach is fine in digital, you have a monitor so you can set something up and see if you like it. As I got more experienced I mainly got faster as I could set stuff up and predict the outcome better. When I was starting out you'd set something up, then change it a few times till you got it to work. When I teach lighting I give my students exercises - where we set up a shot and a situation and experiment with different looks and lights to see what the options are. Taking the time to play around is key. A few tunsten fixtures, some bounce material (e.g polyboard), some diffusion and CT gel's will allow you do a lot. A mistake people often make when they start out is over lighting, too muck light added with multiple shadows. Look at what your getting with the available light, the augment it subtly only if you need too. In terms of working within the available power, HMI, Kino and LED will give you more light output for a particular wattage then tungsten. So if you limited to domestic power using these sources will help you do more - but they are more expensive to rent then tungsten, so it might be easier to use a generator. Its not too bad in the UK since you can plug a 2.5k HMI into domestic mains. If I've got enough money for Kino's and HMI's I can normally do quite a lot with domestic mains. Recently I've only really needed to use generators for exterior shooting.

As David said experienced actors tend to push their food round the plate rather then eating. When you watch an eating scene in film - often you won't see much eating, since the focus is more on the dialogue (usually). If the scene is about eating then thats more tricky - have a look at the Trip by Micheal Winterbottom - its focused around meals. I read some interviews with the actors about how difficult it was to keep going through multiple takes and improvisations and that was Michelin star food https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxq-I_e_KXg I used to work at a drama school on an acting for film course and we used to cover eating on film - in terms of watching for continuity and not eating much. Also make sure how long food is left out if its a hot day and a long shoot food poisoning is a risk. I would extra carful if you actors were eating sushi in the sun. Safe food handling, preparation and storage are key for certain foodstuffs. Remember under hot film lights it can send off quickly. or fix it in post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjhBf4vlTw0

Yes to Murder by Death 80's John Carpenter has no place on this list, but 90's Carpenter is a gold mine: Vampires, In the Mouth of Madness, Ghosts of Mars, Memoirs of an Invisible man --- all really great films but unfairly treated in the press

mMMM Event Horizon, saw it in a large art deco cinema in Liverpool - perfect projection and practically private screening - one of my favourite cine experiences. I thought body snatcher movies were considered great by most - i love the 78 version. Odd (and sometimes dismissed) films i like- Runaway (1984) - Robot spiders!!! Speed Racer - got a lot of hate, shame was a lot of silly fun, visually insane - 9 out of ten for the commitment to deep focus, better then the Matrix Cloud Atlas - Hugo Weaving in drag..... that is all. The Iron Giant - one of the best animated feature films ever made and seen by no-one The Straight Story - many Lynch fans don't find it Lynchy enough Critters 1 and 2 Robocop 2. Sure Robocop 1 is a near masterpiece, but Robocop 2 has a lot to offer Marley and Me (really) John dies at the end Maximum Overdrive Young Einstein - One of the reasons I wanted to work in film...e.g if these guys could do it anyone could Labyrinth - the other reason I wanted to work in film, was obsessed with puppets and set design. (probably watched the making of more then the movie) Screamers (1995) - decent [K Dick) based actioner Monkey Bone - doesn't quite work - but some mad ideas and great stop motion Drop Dead Fred Moonraker - I know its not fashionable to prefer Roger Moore as Bond, but to me Bond is at its best when its at maximum camp, in space, with Jaws. The Castle - not underrated by those that have seen it, but not got the exposure it deserves

If the dynamic range of the capture format exceeds that of the display - thats obviously the best as it gives you more flexibility in post. But I'm sure its not a deal breaker if it doesn't. In some ways its quite arbitrary since the dynamic range of capture does have to map in an accurate way to the dynamic range in the presentation format. Currently we have cameras and film formats that capture a wider dynamic range then the display and this dynamic range is compressed (though various means gamma etc..). So the inverse is also true if you had a camera that captured 9-10 stops of dynamic range - that could be stretched to 12 stops or what ever is presented by the HDR display if you wanted too. It would be a completely arbitrary choice decided by the colourist. It could be stretched and manipulated in a multitude of ways to best present it on a HDR screen. You'd probably have to do more work to manipulate the image to 'fit' HDR compared to higher dynamic range source - but I don't see how with care you wouldn't get good results As long as the cameras dynamic range exceeds the dynamic range of the scene in front of the lens - your not going to induce any artefacts - beyond the limitations of the capture medium in general. Blacks would be mapped to blacks, whites would be mapped to whites - contrast could potentially be stretched. A more important element would be image bit depth - an 8 bit image is more likely to band when stretched across a 12 stop HDR display. A camera that can record in 12 to 16 bits is going to give you much more room to manipulate and stretch contrast for a wider dynamic range display is going to be needed. HDR decisions are probably going to made in the grading suite rather then on set. I would have thought as long as you shoot maximise the range available to the camera - taking care not to clip the whites or crush the blacks. A well exposed shot on a decent format (more then 8 bit) should give the colourist enough material to produce a HDR grade. The bit depth of the HDR display is also going to have an effect - if your mapping an 8 bit camera to a 16 bit display its not going to look as good as a 16 bit source. A non magic lanterned 5D would be problem due to a high end display revealing the problems inherent in the codec

All the best student films start on a close up of an alarm clock, then the protagonist goes and makes breakfast for about 5 minutes before any plot kicks in... NFTS seems to have a good hit rate on their student animation films, this is one of my favs: For the love of god They even managed to get Steve Coogan and Gandalf himself to voice