Matt Workman

Also if those are just LED and not some tungsten light rig, like I had hoped, I can get these really easily. http://www.chauvetlighting.com/fixtures/co...atten_fix.shtml LEDs...ehhh. Matt

Thanks guys. Company added. The LED lights are really taking over, I suppose thats a good thing. I did a video a month or two ago where we used the Chauvet Colorodos. http://www.chauvetlighting.com/fixtures/colorado_fix.shtml Here is a clip showing the lights and their effect, on an HPX3000 anyway. http://www.mattworkman.com/dp-v3/work/steelo.html I wasn't really happy with the color that the LED lights gave off, but I suppose I just need practice. They are on a control board to change their colors and brightness on cue, which is nice but they are just so SATURATED it overloads the sensor really quickly. We mainly used them right up against a wall as a wash light and then bounced them off beadboard to key the actors/performers. On the Motion City Soundtrack video those are LEDs? I guess how else can you get RED strip lights like that... We have no budget but I really want to do a test on Fuiji 500t with LED lights and over/under exposure for different colors. I noticed the HPX3000 doesn't pick up magenta, it comes out more blue. <_< Thanks though. Matt

Satsuki: We didn't go the REDCINE route using the RED code, we used a transcode to PRORES 1080 so the color temp I believe was the one we used in camera. Though I wasn't the colorist or editor... The video should be out soon also. Ronney: Depending on what photo you are talking about that may be true. On the first close ups (the photo) that was actually a medium dolly shot going from Ludas hand up to his face, but the still camera was capturing a more staight on angle, so you see more of the dark side. On the next photo close ups, that was actually a wide shot for the camera dollying to a medium. So I usually keep the lighting harder and a little brighter. I'm not familiar with Monte Zuker but I try to keep the close side of the face at key or slightly above and then the far side of the face a stop above that. Ludacris is actually pretty fair skinned so I don't really do anything different for him. Also I pretty much put my light meter away after the third shot...things got crazy and we had to move. I think I actually overexposed the farside of his face on a lot of the performance stuff... :unsure: I was actually just in Atlanta shooting another video for Ludacris. The production designer was Tim Barrett and our gaffer was Marc Henderson from GetaGripAtlanta. Have you worked with them before? Matt

Hey, I'm putting together a list of lighting companies for general reference and for a large club I have coming up and I'm having difficulty finding the speciality lighting fixtures and companies. http://www.mattworkman.com/lists/lighting-list.html For the moving lights I have a friend who is a LD for a big lighting company and can get the MAC and Chauvet moving lights but I'm looking for grid/strip lights. What company makes the LED walls and vertical strip lights? I know Element Labs and Lumisys make some of them but those seem like custom jobs. Are there any more generic ones? I saw that Mole has the Deca lights but those are new and I've seen them in older videos. Not talking about Mole Dino/Wendy rigs. Like this video at 00:33. Thanks, Matt

Hey Adam, I'm afraid I perpetrate the "over back lit" shot pretty much every day, recently anyway. I never really leaned on it before but since I've been shooting a lot of hip hop music videos lately it has clearly become en vogue to double back rim light. Not to mention Dave Hill and Jill Greenberg's influence on music photography. I agree with your 4 points, especially the highlight on the nose. Also another one to add: 5. If you double back rim light a girl with curly or wavy hair, her hair creates an unflattering pattern on her face. 6. If the backlight is too strong is throws of the contrast of the scene and makes things look muddy and makes it hard to color correct without completely blowing out the shoulders/hair/etc. I also agree that proper set design and architecture lighting can provide the separation but a lot of the time, for me anyway, I can't rely on the set designer or location. We show up at a location and I have to make the artist pop. Recently I've been using moving backlights so it only comes in every once and a while. ... Though the flashing 9 light/ Dino / Wendy is a hip hop/metal video trope also... I've read your "love it or hate it" flat frontal lighting post from the Girls Aloud Video. I prefer a well placed sidelight but when it comes to lighting for certain videos you can't escape the look of a soft front light. Again, referencing the majority of fashion photography. Standing in front of a 12' Briese or using a beauty dish over the lens. Stepping away from performance based music videos... When I step in to light large exteriors isn't is common practice to place a large very high backlight to wash the floor and rim trees/lamp posts etc. ? Having a slightly cooler backlight and a neutral key is pretty standard for the "night time" feel. I'm still learning and figuring this stuff out myself. Matt PS: interested in other's thoughts...I have these thoughts at least twice a day. Also about top lighting and use of colors in scenes...

Hey, I've thought about being coming a colorist at times because I started off and still do color some of the work I've shot. The easiest way to get started as a "DI" is to buy a DVX100/HVX200 and Final Cut Pro. Then shoot and color your own projects. Practice matching shots into one scene and getting different looks for the same "negative." If you still like it you can always intern/work at a post house. You will most likely be dubbing tapes at odd hours but in return they might let you use their equipment on the off hours or some super generous Flame/DaVinci artist might give you a few tips. Look into Apple Color, its a pretty amazing piece of software when combined with the HVX200 or RED. There are a few boutique/smaller post houses who just color HD/2k projects in NYC on Color. All the bigger places use the really expensive software. In my opinion, coloring is fun for you own projects but horribly boring on someone else's project, even if they are paying. Good luck, Matt

At one point I was going to move to LA and I had scouted a couple places in Los Feliz. Seemed like a decent area and when I've shot in LA it was in Culver City and Koreatown, so not too far from there. Have fun! Matt

Hey, I really like the side/soft light shots also. This is a similar theory/practice as a book light. I remember seeing that Roger Deakins used a similar technique on the intro scene of No Country for Old Men. Some large bounce being diffused...gotta try this some time. I always just shoot the light straight through the silk, maybe double diffused sometimes. I imagine its a bit of work to adjust and tweak the angling of the rig though. Looks great. Cheers, Matt

I mainly work in music videos, which are not what they once were, nor are they any where near commercial rates but: For some decent videos a DOP/OP can make $1500-3000 not including kit or OT. Just base. Commercial and Corporate is the same and higher, in my experience. On corporates owning equipment can bring in a lot of money becuase you can charge over full rate for you kit and they are happy to pay it. New York features at $1 million and under is much less per day, obviously. But like its been said, if the projects is really stretching to get a good DP they might rebalance the budget to give the DP their full rate and sacrifice in other areas. Haven't heard of this though. Matt

I'm going to go ahead and consider myself a young'n in this conversation. This conversation sounds like the one my parents' parents had about "rock and roll" music and the one my parents (and now I) have had about "rap" music. The answer to your subject title "Am I just getting old?" is yes. I had the same experience with music. Growing up, I loved rock/rap etc. but as I began to persue a career as a drummer and learned how the music industry worked I quickely became jaded to the fact that a "drummer" meant playing studio dates per diem and eventually being remixed by a producer. The Beatles and Jackson 5 had it the best. I rarely listen to music being produced from after I was in college. It's like the Santa Claus ritual. You are duped by your parents as a child, and you are destined to grow up and dupe your children. Santa Claus has been updated and repackaged countless times, but its the same story. *this is possibly a failed analogy :unsure: I am hesitant to watch new films sometimes but I think its good to stay current with the new "trend/wave" of film/music/dance/design/painting/etc. I just watched Smart People, not my choice, but I really enjoyed certain parts of it. It was a familiar plot line but the execution felt more modern and kept my attention. Shot and blocked to my liking as well. I guess my last statement will be that, if people made movies/music/art the same (with the same criteria for quality) things would get stale very quickely. The fact that the more experienced generations don't like the current trends mean things are evolving. Who is to say for the better or for the worse but thats what we do, evolve. I liked Dark Knight. Matt PS: not a fan boy and I sympathize with the original post

Hey, Can anyone recommend a good colorist/post house that would cater to $30-60k music videos? I know Digital Arts (http://www.digital-arts.net/) has a whole RED workflow setup and hires a lot of the freelance colorists in NYC. Also I've had Company 3 recommended to me, but they are pretty expensive. How much do you guys expect an online color correct of a music video would run. We'll most likely be shooting RED and finishing to HDCAM/data. Thanks, Matt

Running a production company is a pretty broad topic. There are so many different types of production companies. When I was starting out I interned at Curious Picutres who had a sound stage, and 3 floors of animating studios. Then I worked at Freed Pictures, that was run by two people. Each had a much different way of dealing with clients, getting paid, accounting, editing, etc. If you want to learn how to run/start a production company you should work with one. I got to work at the desk next to the Exec Producer at Curious Pictures and learned quite a bit about the business end of commercials/agencies etc. Starting an LLC is pretty straight forward depending on the state, running a successful (profitable) production company is very difficult. Best, Matt

Panavision C-Series Anamorphic. :-) Claudia Miranda has some flare tests on his website from these lenses. http://www.claudiomiranda.com/Extras.html

Production: Ludacris "KO" Director: Parris DP: Matt Workman Photo: Diana Levine Set Photos: http://www.dianalevine.com/events/20080731...lery/index.html Just wrapped a two day music video in Las Vegas for Ludacris. We shot with RED #81x from www.red4kla.com with Matt Garrett as our AC/DIT. Great package, fully recommend it. We had a 1 ton truck and a Fisher11 from JR Lighting, who are really great to work with and have some of the nicest kept trucks I've seen. We shot Standard Speed Zeiss Primes, which are great but I'm definitely getting a 18-80 Optimo for anything else Hip Hop related. This was my first RED shoot and everything suited me and the shoot just fine. I like the 8 gig cards because it makes the production's pace a little less crazy than with video where we are constantly rolling. And then situations where we were more run and gun we just used the 320 gig hard drive. I believe we only shot about 300 gigs of footage, which was way less than I had planned for. People were saying 1 terabyte etc. Maybe for a rock video. Notes: - My biggest gripe is not having a traditional extension viewfinder and leveler. The LCD and ViewFinder are great but big moves and pans/tilts get unwieldy quickely. I jokingly suggested a helmet with the viewfinder attached to it wirelessly. If you are listening Jim. :tongue: - The color temperature being natively 5000k was interesting. We shot around 4300k under tungsten, Matt said build 15 introduced a noticable amount of grain if we went to 3200k. We are probably doing a 2k proxy transcode to PRORES 1080, because of time. So our ColorTemp is pretty much baked in. - Having a viewfinder, LCD, and monitor out all going at once is great. Much easier than with a F900 or Varicam. Didn't realize there is a safey zone in the VF showing more than the taking frame, that is really great. - All of the operator functions like focus assist 2x, exposure thermal/predator mode, sharpness, etc. are really great though I did constantly bump into them by accident. Mostly my fault I suppose. Overall great experience and I'm planning on using the RED on all of my projects I can't get 35mm on. Cheers, Matt PS: I'll hopefully be able to share a 720p version of the video when its out. At the least at Vimeo one.

Thanks, JR has a great truck package. We are shooting RED, but its coming in from LA. Only camera house I could find was VER, not a lot of CSC, Panavision, Wexler, etc. in Nevada. LA is so close I guess. Matt

wow, I have a lot to learn about the F23/Genesis. I thought the F900/Varicam menu was intense... Glad everything worked out for you though. :lol:

Hey, I have a project in Las Vegas and the producer is looking for some recommendations for rental houses. Arri 416/SR3, Cooke S4s, Zeiss Macros Fisher11, Fisher Jib Kinos, Lite Panel Ringlight, HMI, Tungsten, etc. Any suggestions or connects in Nevada? Thanks, Matt

Hey, When I started shooting film I found shooting with a digital SLR was a great tool for checking yourself. Put in the ASA/ISO of the film. Put the shutter at 1/50 (close to 1/48) And set the F stop based on the meter. Anything else like faster lenses or filters I adjusted with the shutter or ASA. You can check the histogram to see how things came out. After a few shoots I got comfortable enough to just go by meter and by eye. Also having a contrast glass is really helpful if there is a difficult scene, as in high contrast ranges. Also if you have a good gaffer or AC you trust, you can talk about the exposure right before you shoot so they will remind you that you have a 45 degree shutter, ND9, Polorizer and or that sun is now in clouds. Stuff you won't notice necessarily if you are used to shooting digital. Hope that helps, Matt

Digital Cinema Society video interview for the D21. http://www.arri.com/prod/cam/d_21/clip/d-21_at_nab2008.html Still haven't used this camera yet, making me a fan-boy, but it really sounds like the best HD camera out so far. 4x3 Sensor, Anamorphic ability with built in de-squeeze, optical VF, S.Two recorders, Arri accessories and build. I'm going to really try to bring one of these out in the next month or two. Matt

Hey, Thanks, I think those sounded pretty close. I'm at the point where I might just buy a few full rolls of gels to keep around with me. Somehow when I put in orders for speciality gels (i.e. not CTO/CTB) I end up with weird variations. Matt

Hey Guys, I was wondering if anyone could identify the gels most likely used in these (horrible youtube) stills. Orange Backlight. Probably not DOUBLE CTO. Chrome Orange? Chrome Green look? I know these were shot on 35mm probably 500T Fuiji or Kodak and color timed professionally but I'm sure the DP still picked the right colors. I've had some bad experience with Pink/Purple that look super theaterical and not like these stills. Matt

Also to shoot 24fps in a 50hz country you have to keep the shutter at 172.8°.

Thanks Phil, I really appreciate the response. Hopefully I'll have a gaffer/spark to just keep me in check, in case I switch back to the land of 15AMP/120V/60Hz thinking. I've ordered mostly smaller units with a 2.5k Par, 2k OpenFace and a Image80 being the largest. Thanks, Matt

Hey, I have a few videos coming up in London and I've never worked with lighting equipment that is 240v. Do you still work with 15/20 AMP circuits? Does that mean you can hold a 4000w on one 20amp? Does anything change when working with Tungsten Lamps? Kinos? HMIs? Thanks, Matt PS: I'll probably re-orient myself once I hit the rental houses

Hi, I've seen this rigged up before but I just wanted to ask again. If I was to adapt a Panasonic 2/3" viewfinder to a HVX200 what is the video connection? I guess it powers through the same connection. I've heard you need some sort of breakout box. Panasonic Viewfinder http://cgi.ebay.com/Panasonic-AJ-VF15P-Vie...1QQcmdZViewItem Sony Viewfinder http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-DXF-701-View-Find...1QQcmdZViewItem Would a SONY viewfinder work as well? I shoot so much HVX/Mini35/Letus35 that owning my own viewfinder would be worth it at this point. Thanks, Matt PS: too bad the RED viewfinder is proprietary