Matt Workman

Hey Giles, Whatup!??!! As for the director operating I'll say that with a super35mm camera and long days on features you will most likely want to give up the camera to someone who can devote every coffee starved ounce of energy to keeping the framing right. Your job is to direct, which means you give up physically doing everything, you direct others. Even if the director is a great designer that only means he can communicate with the production designer more effectively. If you have an eye for composition just speak with the operator and DP and they might surprise you by framing like you want and maybe improving on it. Not to say that some directors don't operate but I would always question the notion. If you get tired holding the camera who will direct the movie? Just my thought. Even as a DP I'm really letting go of operating and I can manage much longer days with out getting lazy in lighting. Haven't seen Grindhouse. Probably won't. Cheers, Matt :ph34r:

The Dim versus Dark terminology seems to make sense. I'll definitely have to make those distinctions clear to the next director who is looking for a dark moody feel, <_< . Check out this super35mm trailer. A friend of mine at Emmerson in Boston shot this. http://www.fifthstreetfilms.com/films/apot...othTEASER2B.mov I am mainly referring to the refridgerator shot where everything is blue and probably 2 stops under but then the fridge light appears super bright in comparison. I guess with the "dim" approach you are always waiting for that practical light ( headlights, streetlamps, flashlight, lighter ) to show the way. I suppose the "dim" approach calls for soft light to make the source ambiguous. I guess a hard shadow underexposed just looks underexposed. Something about the "dim" stlyle makes me think of Dogme95. I kind of like the mentality where you dim the practicals and then bring everything up to normal exposure. Or beef up the practicals. As opposed to dimming everything to practical level. Though I guess thats why there is 750T and Master Primes T1.3. I have a feeling the footage looks much better on a CRT and the darkness works better with moving images and the inherent grain. JPEGS never do justice, ever. Cheers, Matt :ph34r:

Hey I got you topped for low exposure check this out. :blink: JK The wide of the church and the 2 stop under exposed close up are my absolute favorite of the bunch. I have some questions also. I'm definitely not trying to second guess your team's aesthetic choices but: Isn't part of having a scene play dark having contrast? If you are working at a low lighting ratio and everything is 2 stops underexposed its the same as exposing normally and bringing it down in post. If you are going for "in-camera dark," shouldn't you have some part of the scene normally exposed to make the darks seem darker in contrast? You guys did that for the wide church and the closeup. Obviously there are no "shoulds," but I hope my question makes sense to you. Any BTS photos? Cheers, Matt :ph34r: PS: An astro is just a downconverter for an onboard monitor. Some people call all onboards astros, not saying he is though.

That makes sense if the F900 makes the adjustments in a 10bit space then downconverts to HDCAM. So it is slightly better to make adjustments in camera, goes without saying testing is needed. But the theory makes sense. The F900R and F950 are 12bit before they go to tape right? For some reason I put the viper up there with the D20/Genesis super35mm CMOS sized sensors. The Viper is more like the new Sony F23 then, right? I'm interested in comparing the mechanical shutter on the D20 to the electronic ones. I wonder how much Bill Pope does for the Matrix, etc. for lighting the green screen. I would assume the VFX supervisor or a special plate DP handles that while he does the foreground. No clue, just speculating. Or the rigging gaffer probably understands what is needed also. I can understand and appreciate that there are no rules...but even if they are wrong or tempramental I like to have something in mind before I go on set, even if I throw it away. You guys have a lot more experience to pull from, I'm still going to use the 50IRE as a crutch to start off. Better believe I'll post set photos and the final video, hopefully a HD h264 so we can see how the keying came out. Cheers, Matt :ph34r:

To quote Mr. Mullen from that link. "The truth is that I think the 8-bit recording is the ignored elephant in the room, the major factor that determines image quality while people futz with fairly insignificant adjustments to their gamma, knee, etc. settings." LOL, Futz :lol: However I will say that good color correction, in camera or in post can save 8-bit HD footage. SAVE IT! With that being said, where do I download this magical "User Gamma Builder System?" Maybe I can check out a paint box, those are a little easier than the menus. Viper 10-bit uncompressed log. Yeah thats nice. You are right, you need a 2k Lustre or a full on DI suite to even play that stuff back real time with a LUT. Even HDCAM-SR was too much for this shoot. Film is easier, sheesh. Cheers, Matt :ph34r: :ph34r: PS: Is the Viper 2/3" ?! C. Miranda said they shot with Digi-Primes.

Officially stolen, that is my new motto. :lol: Michael Nash The insight on the gamma is very helpful. I am very familiar with photoshop curves, levels, etc. but still applying it to the F900 confuses me, less now. I try to read the Goodman's Guide to the Varicam and memorize the important paint settings but I'm still rusty. I would like to have that stuff mastered so I can talk confidently to a DIT when that day comes. It seems that gamma/knee/toe etc. are the new form of push processing and lab "knowledge" that you referred to. I am now going to definitely make my own scene files based on a "hopefully" properly calibrated HD monitor before this shoot, time willing. While I'm not going to claim control over the final LUT (well its not in logspace) I do hope to gain some F900 paint skills from this next shoot. I wish I could manipulate the gamma curve with a mouse instead of the menu's, ehhhh. In a related note I read that Claudio Miranda on his Viper shoot with Fincher takes home cineon still frames and color grades them in photoshop to send to Fincher. Basically creating his own LUT for the colorist to reference. http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/cu...issue/7847.html There is something pure about shooting Genesis uncompressed. It could be construed that you lose control to come degree but you are also only worried about lighting/framing and less about gamma/gain/shading etc. Its making a colorist nessecary and seperating roles that were once combined. Not that the colorist hasn't always been important but now its almost completely out of the DP's hands. (Obviously I've never shot with the Genesis but this is just a thought) Just trying to get up to speed for this next one, thanks for the help guys. Cheers, Matt :ph34r:

Small? :blink: Thanks Walter for the post, again hopefully I'm not the only one getting something from this. To try to summerize your post even further: - even lighting (10-20 footcandle tolerance) - vector scope (check green hue is correct) - green screen 55-65 IRE (depends on gamma, lens, shading, etc.) - by eye should have and even glow similiar luminence to key light (obviously subjective and relative to shoot) I have very little experience with the vectorscope, I usually use the RGB parade when I color correct or chroma-key. I've used Shake/Fusion/AfterEffects (primatte, keylight, etc.) for keying so I've done the software end. However like you said not everyone has done the post side. I'd like to have something concrete I can tell my gaffer so he doesn't kill me when we are lighting the green screen. I have pulled keys from horrendous DV wrinkly muslin work light lit shots and they have worked surprisingly well, no Saline Project. But from a practical DP/Gaffer perspective thinking in terms of IRE and exposure makes sense. If I was talking with the VFX supervisor or an on set compositor we'd be talking different priorities. What do you usually tell the gaffer when he asks how we are lighting the background? (thats isn't supposed to sound condescending, I'm actually curious and I might steal it also, :P ) Your advice sounds credible having experience from production and post. So I have another question. 40'x40'x18' two wall cyc. Basic even lighting. - 3x 6k Spacelites with skirts - 10x cyc strip lites - 2k's with diffusion These are my initial thoughts of lighting ranking from favorite to "if we have to." I've seen simliar sized cyc's lit with all of these approaches, which one would you recommend. Thanks Walter. Cheers, Matt :ph34r:

Hey Mike, Thanks for the lesson, I see you've had to explain this before. Bad DP for not searching thoroughly enough, :( I can definitely see where shifting your gamma in a high contrast situation would help but I still would be hesitant because of the other artifacts, mainly in chroma that happen. Shifting the knee to gain latitude usually desaturates the highlights which is a fine line to walk especially on set. With this information I will most likely rate the 18% grey at 50IRE. I will also be effectively lighting the green screen @ stop, or 50IRE. It seems safe to err on the side of 35-50 IRE because the chroma isn't effected as much as if I erred towards 50-75IRE. This sounds like a good place to start anyway. Cheers, Matt SIDE NOTE: I am inexperienced with using the Varicam/Cinealta paint options and would only dare use them if we had an DIT on set. Should I be more bold with experimenting or does the "neutral negative for post" mentality make sense? What is the film equivalent of shifting the gamma and effective 18%-IRE rating for film? You likened it to changing to a higher/lower contrast stock. How would you say gain factors into this? Is it typical on a the newer D20/Genesis or F900/Varicam shoots to be constantly changing the scene files for different types of lighting? I have seen it done but I am wondering in a more broader sense. I guess you could have different settings like different stocks (daylight versus, tungsten) but for some reason I feel like having one master setting would be the best.

Hey, Yeah on my low budget stuff all we had was two 650s with diffusion and we couldn't change them if we wanted to. This shoot has a little more room to breath. Keeping the IRE around 50-60% sounds pretty good. Assuming 18% grey is about 35 IRE right? What do you usually expose the green at for film? At key or 1 stop over? Thanks for the advice. Cheers, Matt :ph34r:

Hey, I have a cine-alta music video coming up and the bulk of the video will be greenscreen. We are shooting with Digi Primes which should be a good experience. - What IRE should I expose the greenscreen at? We should have the panasonic 17" HD monitor with the waveform and I'd like to keep the green screen at a consistant IRE range if possible. I've done plenty of greenscreen shoots on video, but not with a waveform or the ability to control the lighting. I would guess that I usually exposed at 60IRE, but I have no way of really knowing. I'm interested in your input and experiences. Cheers, Matt

I'm doing the same exact scene in about 4 days. Minus the waking up part. I'm putting a 1200w PAR with a wide lens w/ 1/2CTO through a window with venetian blinds. There will be a room lamp that that is slightly warmer than 3200k to motivate a warmer rim light, kino. I'm shooting HVX/M2 and I'm balancing 3200k. I will say that I'm getting tired of doing "window" moonlight and I would rather do a night scene that is all just practical-motivated light. In reality the house we are shooting in has no street lights and definitely no moon light so this is just fantasy. However I think I'll wait until I'm on a sound stage to try the all practical approach. My previous attempts have ended up in a jungle of cstands and flags, not worth it. Dedo lights I hear are very clean an focusable for this kind of a task. I don't have first hand experience with them though. Good luck. Cheers, Matt :ph34r: PS: I'm just waiting for the day when the scene is BEDROOM INT in Las Vegas. I'm going to go nuts with the different colors coming through the window. CSI Miami here I come, hah.

How do the VS gels work on HD? You keep mentioning their great reproductino on film, do you strictly mean celluloid? I need to do some gel testing. Cheers, Matt :ph34r:

I suppose this depends on the lab and other things but in general how do you inform the lab you want to push process by 1 stop. - On the camera report for the whole roll? - On the camera report for certain scenes? (dial readings) One or two my rolls have some underexposed shots ( only 1 stop ) mainly the wide night shots but its only select shots. I suppose pushing the whole roll wouldn't be horrible. Can I request a push per scene if I'm not supervising. I almost want to process completely normal and fix the one stop in Final Touch, but that would mean more grain right? Thanks, Matt

The story is about a poor student who comes to a preppy high school and gets taken advantage of by a fraternity type organization and how he deals with the moral delemas that come about by trying to fit in too hard. The schedule is a little wacky, but its a Grad Film so the equipment is all free. Except for the steadicam, that was a regular day rate sitatuion, thats why those were 10 hour days. We are shooting another full 3 day shoot and then another 2 days of pickups. Its not your normal schedule, or is it? Unfortunately I'm ditching two of the last days for a bigger music video I have in California, I feel bad but I told the director about the possibility of this happening. Rob Hmm. I've been talking with Michael Fallon. Maybe I should talk to Mona. Is she the telecine op / colorist / rep? Chase Your new website rocks. Its super hip hop, almost too much hip hop, heh. Satsuki Thanks. The Zeiss lens is the nicest lens they have. The Cookes and Ziess are older series, I WISH they were super speeds. I would kill for T1.3, screw the focus puller! JK. Wei gave me the dirtiest look ever when I told her that the primes wouldn't work with the wireless focus she had. The primes are rehoused and overall crappy in my opinion. The Zeiss has nice witness marks and T2.2 is where I like to shoot anyway. Yeah the big EXT were kinda nuts, that was a 1 hour lighting. The hallway is a funny story. The school is completely on motion detectors so as soon as you walk into a hallway all of the lights turn on. Our AD finally lost it and took two sparks and took out like 50 ceiling flourescents. I think in one of the photos you can see a huge pile of them in the class room. For the hallway we used the 1200w PAR through the window on we used a 1k with red gel to imitate the light coming from the exit sign. The walls were about T2.0 but their faces were T1.4-1.8 even when we flotated a china lantern with the steadicam. Did I mention that this was a long steadicam take?! The gym stuff was all HMI. There were some big sky lights and some warmish 4700k lights on also. The HMI just has the arri softbox/Chimera. We only had a 6x6 with griff and we never had time to take it out. Hopefully the rest of the shoot is as interesting, I'm having fun. Cheers guys, Matt PS: This place needs to get a cheers emoticon like at DVXuser Ninjas will do for now. :ph34r: :ph34r:

Production: Breakaway Director: Jarod Su DP: Matt Workman I am about 5 days deep into a super16 short film in Rochester, NY. We are shooting Kodak 250D and 500T on a SR3. We are using a Zeiss 11-110 T2.2 mainly. We have Cookes and Zeiss primes but for several reasons I'm sticking with the zoom. We have two 1.2k HMI's, one 575w HMI, lots of sub 2k tungsten, and kinos. I originally thought this would cover us but even on 500T doing wide night shots is difficult. I don't think we can afford a 500amp genie or any 12k but I can see where those might be helpful. I'm concerned that we were shooting at t2.2 on the lense but a lot of the time I could only eak out t1.4 for the skin tones. Wei suggested pushing 1/2 stop in processing in those situations. Also I would have normally geld my HMI's 1/2 CTO but that would have really killed the exposure. So now a lot my night stuff is going to be full blue. We were lucky to have Wei Pun as our steadicam operator. She is a professional DP/Operator who is represented in HK and the USA. She did a great job training up our AC to use her wireless follow focus. Set photos from the first week are online: http://www.mattworkman.com/2007/breakaway-week1/ Dailies from a few steadicam takes are online: http://www.mattworkman.com/breakaway/daily...eadicam-gym.mov http://www.mattworkman.com/breakaway/daily...eadicam-gym.mov *these are obviously from the tap, not the lab. I'll definitely post some footage and stills when we get our film back from the lab. We are planning to do a Spirit2k to HDCAM at PWNY. Cheers, Matt

Here comes my 2cents. If you have the budget for a 35mm adapter think twice. - You are going to lose at least 2 - 3 stops of light. Assuming you have the fastest lenses. - Then you need to rent more lights. Which means more money and more crew. And a generator for anyting over 2k. - An adapter is always harder to deal with, you will need an AC to keep it in check and pull focus. Even the mini35 screws up. - If you have several locations in one day, you better have a truck and carts because you just added about 5 more cases to your kit with lenses, adapter, monitor, accessories, batteries, etc. - Finally if you shoot half of your film successfully and properly exposed and your adapter dies, IT CAN HAPPEN. Then you are in quite a mess. I shoot with the HVX/M2 all the time and the look is great. However if you are short money, crew, lights, time, you are better off shooting with the stock lens. Also where are you located and renting from? I can get a decked out HVX/M2 package for less than $200 /day without production insurance. There are a lot of owner operators who rent or will AC with their package. Good luck, Matt

I'd like to change the direction of the discussion to the best catering I've had. I had a 10 hour music video where we ended up skipping lunch becuase we were moving inbetween locations. However at the end of the shoot the artist's mother (who owns restaurant) arrived with a truck of fresh aluminum trays with the best food I've ever had. Perhaps becuase I was starving but I really enjoyed eating about 4 plates of food. I guess that shoot was kind of a screw up but the food was amazing. Some of the most rewrarding eating I do is on set after a long day. Cheers, Matt

Without delving in to the man/woman discussion I wonder if America will ever be more relaxed about shooting like in Europe. I've only heard this but I believe in some union shows they have 5 1/2 day weeks. Not a whole lot better but I'd take it. Why does it have to be this way? little cheers, Matt

We've slightly stolen this thread but I'm liking it just the same. Chase Don't I know it. We are both moving to NYC in the summer to make it rich. And by that I mean live in a one bedroom and eat ramen noodles, heh. We've been going out for 5 years and we've lived together for a good amount, in NYC too. David Again I really appreciate your advice. Besides the fact that my girlfriend is my set photographer she has no doubt helped me get as far as I am today, however litte that may be. If I'm full of myself or down on myself she is on my side and keeps me grounded. I try to do the same for her. I completely understand the taking for granted syndrome, we went through that and I still have to remain consious about it. I think the false macho standard that is force fed to men in America is partially the culprit. Even though I'm going to be grinding for a few years I'm comforted to know that I won't be alone. DP's have feeling too, LOL. My first feature we had a lot of stress over the hours and the DP and crew said that its really hard to keep relationships in the industry. I can understand their point of view but I also think that its had to survive without a strong relationship. I know I couldn't. I think I'm going to print your last post and put on our fridge! Super-CHEERS guys, Matt PS: I would kill for a 9 person crew where people knew what they were doing. Add an operator and I could catch up on some laundry, jk.

On the 758C, does anyone know how to use the filter function. I want to be able to have the meter factor in various filters but I haven't been able to figure out that function. Cheers, Matt

Truly helpful insight. Hopefully I'm not going to be a huge burden on my GF for too long. :unsure:

Hey, I re-exported your images so they show up correctly. You posted images still in 1.2. Did you get tiff sequence from your 2k spirit? What stock did you use for the colored gels part. I'm always a little confused how to balance color on film. Like how did you know how the green would show up in 3200k or 5600k? They look great. I like the single top light, I feel kind of sick after looking at these, though. I can take this images down if this is a problem, I just thought you might want to show them in the correct aspect ratio. Cheers, Matt

Artist: Styla J Director: Adonis "Prime Juvenile" Williams Producer: Daysi DP: Matt Workman Gaffer: David Barkan BBE: Lee Gillentine I was inspired by the last Chapman music video post so I thought I through this post together from my last shoot. This was reggaeton music video shot in NYC at the SVA sound stage. There are lots of pictures of the place but it a had grid, 3 phase power, about 10 tungsten heads, and not enough c-stands. They had a pretty nice skateboard dolly, fischer was taken. We shot HVX/M2 with Nikons. That system is a beast, like 80ASA or something. But I still think that it adds a nice feel to the footage, over stock HVX lens. All of the color effects were done with lighting. Everything in the studio was pretty much white. We had a lot of gels to work with. Though some of the colors were very "video" looking, they got the X. Here are some frame grabs: Production Stills Gallery http://www.mattworkman.com/2007/styla You can see my DP highlight reel online @ http://www.mattworkman.com/dp-v2/work-styla.html The finished video will be done pretty soon also. Cheers, Matt

Do you guys know if the I-Cuff HD will fit on an SR-3? I don't know if I need the I-Cuff Pro or HD. I realize the only difference is the size. Thanks, Matt

I love the M2 and use it a lot when we can't shoot film but putting real 35mm Lenses (not SLR) lenses doesn't really make a lot of sense, especially if you are buying the equipment. I have seen footage from the M2/PL mount with various cine-lenses and the differences don't warrant the extra cost. Really high quality Nikon lenses faster than f2.0 are your best bet. You won't be able to pull focus the standard way but most of the AC's I work with get up to speed marking focus by eye (HVX focus assist) and using the monitor to double check the marks. While a Cooke S-4 has a higher resolving power than a Nikkor-Q the HVX won't really be able to pick up on the difference. On a pro-35 you will see a difference but the HVX is only a 1/3" camera. As for being professional any shoot that would allow a M2 won't care if its PL or Nikon Mount. Look for photos of Vincent Pascoe's shoot, he pimps that out with a jimmy jib and wireless FF. Cheers, Matt