Adrian Sierkowski

You'll need a work visa first before you even start thinking union. And the work visa will be very country specific. In truth; it's much easier and cheaper and better for production to hire a local. The only time this wouldn't be the case would be if you're talking about a HOD (head of department) you want for continuity on the run of a show which has some shooting over-seas. And even then, you may well hire a local anyway.

It's basically always a 2 hour commute-- even if you're just going "down the street." One nice thing about film, though, is that generally, your call is before the bulk of traffic-- or if it is during the bulk, then you get less traffic at wrap. Within reason. Maybe look into Simi Valley, Closer.

I'm personally fonder of #2, and I'm stealing that WB trick (and making the mental note to order more dimmers for the other heads in play to keep them warmer in relation)

It's crazily hard here in LA for housing; but can be done; though honestly, the best way of doing it is to drive around and call places in LA whose signs have a vacancy on them. Not easy and I got really lucky on the place I have now. A lot depends on where you are planing on living as well.

Which me are you asking?

But do we know Tyler is not Samuel? Do we know I am not Samuel?!

Without a selfie how are we to know you both aren't Tyler? We've seen Fight Club; we know how this one ends!

Sorry you're right CTB; long day! And yes I would go jokers and then dim your practicals down to get them warmer and I'd keep camera around 3200-- that way you have a warmth inside, if wanted, and can probably leave the HMIs "naked" though personally I tend to fujtz with moonlight depending on my mood (sometimes Steel Green, Steel Blue, A little Plus Green, Maybe a Little pale yelllow-- kinda depends on what we're doing. I'd recommend Jo-Lekos with a 50 degree lens as then you get a real nice shaft of light and a lot of throw. You can always scrim/net as needed for the moonlight-- but it really depends on how bright your interior is going to be -v- the moonlight shafts. But even a stock Joker 800 with a bug-eye lens on it would be better (and brighter) than a comparable tungsten unit-- even ungelled, as HMI is more light per watt.

You're shooting yourself in the food using tungsten for this. Mostly as it's inefficient (compared to HMI and LED) and if you wanted to make it blue, going full CTO is a 2 stop penalty-- so your 1Ks are now effectively a 250W fresnel once you full CTO them. You'd be much better served fighting to get some Jo-Leko 800s with a 50 degree lens.

You could get Quasar Crossfaded in a Kino housing-- or the new Kino LED tubes in the same housing. That seems to be the way those things are going these days. The nice thing about the Quasars (not sure on the Kino LEDs) is you can easily pop out a tube if you'd like/need to place elsewhere and they are "tunable." you could also go cheaper with just the 3200/5600 switch Quasars.

Many of the panel LEDs (skypanel and Kino Selects and I"m sure others I'm unaware of) have a "TV" preset put in. Else you can get a Magic Gadgets flicker box and use tungsten heads which also has some TV settings. Or just go super low budget and use a hand dimmer on a gelled and softened tungsten head and have it pulsate a bit. With the off-screen sound of the TV any of those should "sell" the effect.

I've personally been a Warm Black Pro Mist fan for awhile; especially when I still had my own set, though I let those go awhile ago. Also I'm big on classic softs. I think they next thing to get into will be looking into those tiffen net filters (i think they were tiffen). I'm also a big fan of a Tobacco #2-- though sometimes I also hate it. I think in the end, NDs and Polas are the most used, as they're technical filters, and then from there as David Mentions it depends on what the show wants and needs for the look you figure out. One other technical filter I still keep using is an FLB as I still prefer correcting in camera -v- in post, but that's just me.

I"ll probably pick one up eventually; as that's the way the winds are blowing. Was looking at a Gh5 originally, for the 10bit, but I feel the BM is a better choice on the whole. But not going to do ANYTHING until I see some kind of test footage from the camera (even though I've seen it at trade shows, I find waiting a bit is a better call). Probably all in I'm looking at around 10K for a pacakge that's usable for my needs as they are; but we'll see once it's here and all the add ons come out

It really doesn't matter what happens with the footage on set, it's still ultimately the producers responsibility-- it all goes back to them. Crew may/should insure any kit the bring out on set, but if the AC mistakenly unloads the film wrong, and it's all exposed for the day-- well that still falls on the producer in the end. The AC may well be fired, or may not; that's on the producer. In my own case it was video though I've had my share of soft film shots, not whole films, but sometimes you miss by a few inches

Honestly I'd ONLY give them the higher credit. That's just me though. (unless they did an awful job and you wouldn't vouch for them in future).

It being film fests, and indie films, you have no idea the budgetary levels they were working under--- nor the skill of the crews therein. And yes, if you are the producer, you take and assume all risk; you can mitigate that, of course, but you get all risk and all reward from the movie and if you're not looking at the footage nightly and bringing up the problems to the crew, and working with them (up to and including letting them go) well then that's the producer's own fault. I once had a producer complain to me about a lens flare. He didn't want to pay me over it (personally I liked it) to which I said to him (in front of the person who I think really had the problem with the flare) that he was literally right there next to me at the monitor looking at it, take after take, and didn't mention a thing.

Were these student films? Focus is down to the AC and the Cam Op. Insurance wouldn't cover it, barring some strange situations, and even then, probably wouldn't. The DoP may well be let go-- it depends on the reasons why it's soft-- perhaps the DoP isn't listening and is shooting WFO on lenses where they no longer properly focus? Bur yes, normally, the 1AC would be the first ot be dismissed (though really depends on the 1AC and their relationship with production). I can't think of any film where 75% was soft (without using a filter) in it's final form.

If you form an LLC in another state and do business in California (more than 50% thereof, I think) you need to register as a foreign company in California and again, pay the franchise minimum tax of 800$. Basically, you need about 1000$ to form an LLC and keep it in Cali or anywhere else, honestly, no matter what. Personally, the LLC is less about tax benefits, more about liability benefits; though I'm no lawyer. For tax stuff you want to go the Corp route (S or C) but you should be speaking with an accountant and lawyer at that point (and really at any point) to help explain better the benefits and pitfalls.

I'm pretty sure Claudio can switch up his style whenever he likes. A lot comes down to the director with whom he's working and the attempt to satisfy them and help fulfill their vision. There have been many times when I've worked and not done what I normally would do because the director wanted something different-- it's pretty much the base level of your job-- delivering what your bosses want.

^^ Truth. You forget Phil, this is 'murica and we want our food like we want our Ford Fteen-thousand truck's fuel bill!

Thanks. Was just curious.

And here I am just craving a bacon cheeseburger of some flavor.

Show don't tell ;) I am curious, though, David, as this is from your dailies, how close is this to the final look in the scene for you?

Honestly it looks like something wrong in the machine pipeline as mentioned-- some kind of algorithm somewhere messing up the bottom of the image. I would recommend just doing a flat scan-- not even a BEST LIGHT-- with NO Processing (well you know, as little as possible) to ProRes, even 422HQ and bringing that into some color program (hell even 3-way in FCP7) and seeing what is actually on the neg. Once you get into best lights and stuff you are no longer seeing what is on the actual neg, you are seeing what they colorist and or machine thought the neg should be as opposed to what the neg can be/is. Honestly, the way I'd work on a big budget would be to shoot tests, flat scan, go into post with flat scan, set look-- that's now our preset for the dailies. No budget; I'd ask for a flat scan 1080 in ProRes and bring that into resolve myself and do an auto-color just to see it, edit it (maybe mess around with colors myself to get an idea, though I'm no colorist), then re-scan and get the look as we want and / or bring in examples of ideas of the "look" and work with the colorist-- in person or via skype or whatever we need to do. Now, onto the question at hand, what it seems you're doing wrong is having the machine do all the heavy lifting for you on a pre-set and then asking how you exposed wrong. The thing is you don't know if it's something you did, something on the neg, or something in a magical blinking box with the wrong settings. That's why you start on the neg (or a print in the old days) just as it is and then get to the grain stuff at the end of your coloring/correcting.

The cable management on the charging station is giving me agita.