Albert Smith

were doing rear projection so we will need a screen capable of that...I dont think front projection would work as there will be shots where we will probably have subjects somewhat close to the screen.

Hi, I am shooting a short project that is going to be done mainly using rear projection, I have a little experience with this as I used the technique a bit before, but the results weren't that great and and the projection was somewhat underexposed. so my question is what type of projector should I be looking to use? Were definitely going to project in hd...even though a majority of it will be a bit out of focus anyways, but assuring the projection is bright enough is of course a factor. My other question would be what type of screen should I be looking to use. It will need to be big. my guess in the area of at least 8-10ft wide, is this something I can rent at a film rental house or should i be looking elsewhere? Also, matching color temperature with lighting in the foreground, generally what is the color temperature of a projection, am I working in tungsten or daylight? Thanks for any insight into this stuff you can give me. -Jake Zalutsky

looks very cool, I would say it is deffinetly noisy, and that botherd me a little then again that might have been compression in the low res too so yea...but the atmosphere is great! to many people are afraid of the dark...its cool to see some gutsy moves, especially when it works.

some really good work, but I think its way too long and slow moving. I would cut it down to like 2-3 minutes, just the best of the best the 2nd cinealta project wasnt ver impressive looking to me at all and I think a bunch of the 35mm b/w shots were only ok. theres deffinetly some good stuff in both of those projects but not as much as the others. I think that project you shot on HDV is really impressive for being hdv btw, i would guess that was shot super 16....but then again I am looking at a little flash version, which was my only other critscem....but up a higher res version. but very good stuff, you deffinetly have a good eye and can produce some great images.

just wanted to say I was just looking throuhg your look book and was inspired haha. Just all your little blurbs, good stuff. "What the characters see is what we want to see" haha on that great lost and translation shot...and "At night, it?s dark. Don?t make night what it isn?t."...well said.

hhaa wow quiet the eye...it is hvx with the redrock actually and the pop zoom stuff along with a few other shots are just stock hvx without the adapter....I did originally want to shoot on super 16 but we didn't have the budget for it, but kinda new that was the look I wanted still to some extent so that is what the corrections were based around and yea...I think music videos have just kinda rediculous latley...especially rap videos...4locations, a performance, lots of weird angles and post camera shakes and poop to the beat...terrible. we knew this was going to be b/w and clean and simple from the beginning.

Music video I co wrote, shot, and co edited. for the Cool Kids. http://www.lookatrubbish.com/COOL_KIDS-BLACK_MAGS-med.mov if you have a slow connection here it is on youtube Curious what people think about it....shot pretty with pretty much completely natural light outside knowing I wanted alot of contrast and to keep things moving and relied alot on color correction as well.

Hi, were trying to do a very basic effect. we need to simply make a bike look as if its standing up on its own on 2 wheels. we thought about just dealing with it in post, but I would much rather just do it for real and figure it out, I don't have much experience with this stuff, we just thought of fishing wire at first but fishing wire is a very glossy reflective material for the most part and it shimmers and reflects in light. I know people still sometimes use wires for fx so how do they do it? what kinda of wire is used? any specialty places to get a hold of some? and any specific things to think about when lighting it? thanks for any information on this -Jake Zalutsky

I am DOPing a short on 16mm b/w (first work lighting for film rather then video) and I was wondering if it really mattered to gel lights, the obvious answer seems to be no but for some reason that seems wrong to me, so does it matter? itd be nice to not have to gel down lights as I think there well be some interior day stuff that I will want to get all the power I can get out of our 2ks. thanks alot for any information on this.

NIZOS!!!! the black nizo s800 or some of the smaller more compacted ones and of course that bolex...dont know the model number but the look is quit distinct.

That film was rediculous, but seeing as this is a cinematography form all ignore that. I thought the lighting was a bit over done and a little much in places, but it wasnt bad and some was nice...the only thing that was really bad was the scene with rocky infront of the car lights that made me laugh outloud. It was just so over the top and rediculous, the glow effect and what not, just WOW. I was curious about what film stock was used though at night, there was alot of visible grain in shadow areas so I was guessing 800t...is that right?...I havent compared film stocks on a big screen ever, but Id be suprised if a 400 or 500 speed stock had that much grain in it. thanks -Jake

Keying mini dv footage is very tough especailly ext with a fabric screen that isnt really the best thing to use. even a perfectly lite screen in a studio is going to be hard to key with mini dv especailly without the use of something like ultimatte or a higher end keying program. I would suggest avoiding the use of one.

WOW! thats kinda amazing...3 1200s...really good score.

If you are shooting SD DV Video I would try as hard as you can to avoid using a greenscreen. It is damn near impossible to get a good key from DV footage, I'm not saying you cant, its just a lot of work and your deffinetly going to need some good third party software.I think if your going to have actuall windows in the bus and a screen behind those windows your going to have a big problem with reflections and just the light your putting something inbetween the camera and the greenscreen and its just going to make it even harder, A possibility would be to keep the shots static and then just mask out the windows in post thats not too hard to do but the shots need to be completly static then...or your going to be working frame by frame. but yea deffinetly set the screen back as far as you can from the bus to take away all the spill problems. Good luck, green screens are hell if you ask me haah, I hate the damn things.

afraid of p2 cards?....Im sorry dont kill quality of a project because your afraid of new technology. P2 cards are solid state and extermely reliable, and there not that new there just new to a camera so low end...as the hvx200 is. p2 is going tobe taking over alot of stuff, just how people were afraid of dslrs and the memory cards not people are afraid of p2...the hvx200 is by far the best camera for your situation....the sony is ok but it is 60i or 50i if your in pal land. also the sonys have pretty harsh contrast and look for videoy to me, although you can do alot with cc....color reproduction is very good though. another idea is the jvc camera which is also HDV and does 24p at 720 res...I would still recomend the pany no questions ask....your director shouldnt even worry about p2 its not his problem, im assuming your very low budget but never the less as long as you have someone who is comfortable with it your fine. do some research because p2 is great. and again why does it have to be avid?....software shouldnt be a major issue, if your comfortable on AVID FCP isnt even that hard to learn at all maybe a week of messing with and you will be fine on it. If you have to use FCP for a paticular camera you should be able to.....I think its really funny you say "hd version of dvx" because that is the hvx...its a very similar camera but just way way upgraded

Just about to say that, Its a great little behind the scenes feature, and the results were pretty excellent.

I dont think there is any really general tips on anything with lighting, its varies so diffrently from project to project or location to location. It really does depend on the scene and what mood you want. Are you just trying the light up walls or a whole backround, day night? Think about some motivation for the lgiht where would it natrually be coming from, would there be any? then think of the scene your trying to create dark and moody, maybe you barley want any light on the backround, or should it be bright and high key. I think for backround lighting if you want to keep it simple bounce light off the ceiling and let it raise the overall level in the room and get some light on everything, thats what I have done when im in a time jam or w/e and it works just to get some light in there with out really thinking about motivation or mood but thats like a last resort I have used. for the fresenals, how big of an output are you dealing with, the farther you pull them back the less spot like they will be, so yes they can be used for other things, but diffusion is not a bad idea either and bouncing works too, theres a lot ofoptions with any light using your grip equipment to direct the light asneeded you can really do anything with any light. As far as practicals go I have used 300w bulbs before, be careful though if there standard sockets there not made to handle bulbs like that and you can run into some problems especially in a lamp as most are rated at 60w. I generally like the yellow from the bulbs personanally so i just use standard bulbs in higher wattages when needed, but thats a preference thing. Hope that helps a bit, Im not a proffesional yet by any means but just some ideas to think about. Good luck with your shoot.

^ yea I have shot with the letus before for an interior night scene and we had to light the heck out of it because the thing ate up alot of light. anyways, so it seems snoots have been suggested, I have never shot with these, how exactly would you use them...im guessing for wider shots to place pools of light on the various tables?...and yea thats exactly what I was thinking a chimera over a 650 or even a 300 for fill ( ill have to see just how much light loss that redrock is going to cause, were going to shoot with lens all between f1.4-f2.0 so it shouldnt be that awful). then maybe 1ks with the snoots pulled back aways for the wider shots which I will have to learn a bit about as I have never shot with them. sounds like I might not even bother with kinos but they seem like they may make some of the shooting a bit easier. Maybe use the Kinos as keys and flag them off a bit and then fill with the chimeras (sorry im thinking as i type here haha) How does mixing kinos with diffrent sources usually work out is there a clear diffrence and do the 3200k really balance at tungsten I have heard there a little off? thanks alot for the replys guys

Day for night is rarley really done anymore and if it is its done with cgi or lots of cc work and done for stylistic reasons. I think what you mean by day for dusk is actually "dusk for night" which is done alot. Late magic hour as its called after the sun has set is often used to simulate night because you still have some ambient light around to use as "moon light" and you can still keep some color in the sky which is nice. I would assume people do day for dusk sometimes too which can be achieved with color correction in post, but thats a bit of a diffrent idea, and generally just done for scheduling reasons not for a visual reason, although im sure there cases of it being done for visual reasons as well...using the sky as blue screen is a very interesting concept though, I will need to check that film out. awhile ago I ran into this when looking for labs around vancouver, some cgi day for night work pretty cool looking. Its the first link on this page http://www.nwfx.com/reels.htm

Looked great, suprised praticals would do so much for you in that scene...outside at a trainsation, but it looked wonderful. Its great to see chicago to, I must have passed by that trainstation a thousand times, thats one of the ones on 90/94 right? haha. Chicago is great. I think this is also a tribute to the fact that with the newer filmstocks and fast lenses video isnt not neccessarly any stronger in low light situations.

I'm going to be DP'ing a short film in a restarant next month with a pretty minimal budget. We will be shooting on an hvx200 with a redrock 35mm adapter. For lighting we currently have access to 1k and 650 arri fresenals, a pepper kit and some lowel kits. The setup will mainly be for one table, although there will be larger setups for a wide intro shot and a few other shots around the restaraunt that will be wider, but Im mainly thinking about the table as of now. The setting is at night so I want a pretty typical Low Key setup with the table, I dont want to do "candle light" as I dont want it to be "that" low key, but never the less it is a night interior at a restaraunt. My biggest question is do you think it would be worth to go in and rent some kinos, am I going to have trouble with these fresenals? we also dont have any cstands, silks, flags, really any of the basic grip equipment so I was thinking it would be well worth it to add to the hvx package a kino package and some basic grip equipment, but I am unsure of what Im going to use. for anyone who has lite a similar scene to this how have you done it? so far I have been thinking of bouncing some light off a bounce above the table and then doing a rear 3rd key with one of 1ks, but I think having the kinos above the table would be a bit nicer. thoughts, comments, suggestions anything at all?...thanks a lot guys!

On its own I honestly just thought it was silly, I was watching it and just thinking what the heck is the point?...its funny, but it goes nowhere and means nothing, I dont think comedy is an excuse for something to be pointless, Im sorry if that sounds overly harsh, it wasnt awful or anything it just didnt do it for me. It was filmed pretty decently, I'm not a big fan of the handheld thing but it worked, and cut together well...I think the acting was pretty good too. I could see it working as a swimwear spot or a spot of some sort...maybe for a pool or something, but on its own it was just so meaningless to me.

I am currently In film school, Not really to learn about lighting (although I have much to learn), but since I have a few years expiernce I figured I would probably know just about everything talked about in an entry level class, never the less I am taking a grip/lighting class as it is a part of the set curiculum, and its interesting to see how they teach it. I never had any formal teaching on the subject I think I must have spent about a year playing with lights before someone even told me about 3pt lighting. Anyways in the class it has been pretty direct on three and four point lighting concepts, but the concepts haven't been driven into anyone. The teacher has also spent alot of time on explaing what light does, IE: a hard light just brushing someone from the side will reval alot more skin detail then a soft light from the front, I actually personally felt he hadnt spent enough time talking about motivated and natural lighting or reasons for putting lights places, on the opposite side I also felt he didnt spent much time explaining that yes, indeed this is an art form, but oh well its just a survey of a class, touching on everything. It seems like the class is taught so everyone will atleast know what the equipment is and wont break it, ha. I think they assume if this what you want to do you'll just go into the cinematography program the following year. And I fully agree about being "light conscious" this is something that has just begun to happen to me, but I notice lighting everywhere and can't not think about it, its almost subconscious. It deffinetly allows you to learn almost at a subconscious level at all times, seeing the way light intereacts with locations and people in diffrent ways will deffinetly effect the way I light scenes, I find myself thinking back to the way a certain room looked, and how and where the light sources were coming from and using that to figure out a setup, its really cool to be able to do that.

Thanks for the reply, I looked up fall off, it makes alot of sense, smaller light sources fall off faster then larger light sources....so for a big open space if you want even lighting you want a large out put light rather then a lot of smaller sources...right?....also read alot of stuff on kinos, which I have never used. seem like they can be a very useful tool as sometimes a quick fall off can be good. Your theory on figuring out how to light room first then the talent is very interesting to me, simply because generally people are taught 3 pt lighting and then they say oh well yea there's 4pt to and the 4 light is the background light ahhaha. so no emphasis is put on the background light or the overall lighting of a room, which is kinda silly. I really like going at it that way though, especially because it allows you to figure out the overall look before going in and lighting the talent, although as you said, the the elements are not always light separately. anyways I dont even know if that made sense, but basically im saying I agree with you and thanks for the reply, ha. thanks. -Jake

what NLE are you on? If on final cut I would suggest exporting using quicktime conversion, set it at high, and export audio with the aac codec at 44.1 khz. then chose a frame size. not a bad Idea to do a couple version in diffrent resoultions. 320x240 is the typical low res standard for 4:3 so work from there. Im sure its similar with other applications to I have been on a bunch and its usually something like that. oh yea and Host on your website for sure, youtube and myspace all use really bad flash codecs for tiny files. stay away from that stuff.