Adrian Sierkowski

You've got some really nice shots in there with some which could use some tweaking in my opinion (such as the bearded man and the woman running up the stairs among a few others which look like lower quality DV). Now my monitor isn't the best, nor is myspace's compression, but a touch more contrast here and there, to add in some pop in a few shots might be nice to see. The editing is pretty good, and I like the music just fine; I would just focus more on choosing what best demonstrates your ability, so just pear it down a bit. Still, damned nice looking reel thus far.

Maybe some bounce board to try to scoop in extra light from off screen (bounce one into the other?) as to not have to worry about more power. Really about all I can think of unless you can somehow get more lights up there. But from your still you're not in too bad of shape, really, if you get your other lights in close (through some careful framing out on the wide shot)

Personally I'd look for a good Dp and editor. . . in theory, the director would be able to elicit good performances from his/her actors and the simplest of stories can become poignant and beautiful if covered in such a way as to make it so (Diving Bell and the Butterfly, for example has a main character who cannot move! Yet the film is still amazing, visually, and granted, well written, but the point still stands, I think that visual beaty can add more weight to an otherwise ordinary story). And of course a brilliant editor to help keep the story moving when/if the actor fail is VERY useful. Then again, I'm partial and neither option is ideal.

Andrew, remember me at all from Lucky Day? Really nice looking footage!

In my opinion a good DP should have an understanding of post and what must be done in production to help post, but this in no way replaces the expertise of the people who work in post.

I had just seen the Red Rocks, so it's nice to hear a vote of confidence in them. Now I just need to dig out my change jar. . .

Any leads on a good low cost whip? I have Chorizel FF which is in dire need of one :(

In theory, couldn't one just program a spreadsheet to do the math to figure out depth of field? I have a spread sheet on my Mogul phone to figure out approximately how much film to oder and processing costs for when I meet with clients. Could not the same thing be done and then just uploaded to google docs or used with excel mobile in terms of DoF?

Yep, you can load 100' into an SR3.

I've sent in film coreless on occasion and not heard any grief about it. Just write it on the can so they know, is my advice. Also, you can slip on a 2in core pretty easily, it's a bit or practice though to get it done right. I was doing it with 400' loads but I'm sure a 100' would also be fine. A little unraveling can be ok.

It's a damned good meter once you learn to use it. It also NEVER needs batteries. Great for a backup to some of the higher end meters for those times when there's no Radio Shack nearby

Thank you Carlos, Yeah i would like to shave another 30 seconds off of it or so and also drop out a few shots, but for the moment i'm still waiting on footage from some projects :( Thanks though, it's nice to hear anyone say nice things about it :)

I've never really had any trouble with DoF on S16mm. You just have to know how to modulate the light in your scene as well as the proper lens to use in order to achieve it. Fort myself on S16mm, I often shoot my wides with a 16mm T1.3 lens and then move in for close ups with a 25mm or a 50mm, depending. Or i might do the reverse, shoot wides with a 25mm then go in close with a 9.5 for special shots where I need deep focus. It's all about field of view firstly; once you figure out what area you want in the shot, and then what focus you want in the shot, you can run though a DoF chart to find the stop you want in the shot; then light for that. Maybe i'm doing it all wrong; but it's just how I work. As for the 35mm adapters. . . I don't like them too much overall. I'd rather spend $1000 on filters/lenses (still lenses being pretty cheap overall) than on 1 adapter for which I'd still have to buy lenses.

IN terms of homeowners insurance, the biggest drawback I've been told of (from a few people and agents here) is that it wont cover things used for professional purposes.

Motion Picture Lighting by Blain Brown has a few shots and then shows setups. One very nice one shoes the different of before and after x or y light is set up. It's also a very good read full of useful information on the whole on lighting with a good glossary.

Am I the only person who misses the old school CRTs? We have a bunch of Sony plasmas here at my day job and I'd say that they produce very nice blacks and colors. Just don't leave them on the same screen unmoving for 3 days else they might burn in. But all in all, Plasma gets my vote only because there's less of an angle difference in viewing them as i've seen. I hate that on LCDs. It made watching films at my friends house absolutely unbearable (more 1/4" and it gets darker!)

You know, this really brought me back. A while ago I cut some stuff I had together with Sven-g-Englars, just to learn how to use Adobe Premier 6.0 and get a feel for editing as I'd be doing it in school. Sorry, I digress, I really like your cuts, and the overall pacing is very nice, meditative almost. It's most definitely a very good start wading into cinematic waters. Just keep on learning and doing (and lurking) and asking and the like and I think you'll be alright.

The RR steals around 2 stops of light, so the black image ins normal if you don't light it yourself. The Canon lenses will be fine, but you have to make sure your backfocus is set (the focus of the camera lens onto the GG in the adapter). Consult the manual for how to do this. Loss of backfocus will lead to a "soft" image. Use a GOOD MONITOR to check your focus as the LCD screen/Viewfinder on the DVX may not be the best for all situations.

Funny enough I caught Galaxy Quest on over the holidays and convinced the g/fs family to watch it instead of A Christmas Story. . . quite an accomplishment. Guess it goes to show you, "never give up, never surrender."

I'm going to tenetively say kind-of. A lot of the telecine's iv'e seen have filter effects built in. I know i was able to throw on a silk filter effect in post and also that tiffen just came out with digital versions.

Maybe there's hope for the future after all. When I have kids I want them to build me a 35mm camera out of legos. . . It'd be ULTRA modular! seriously though; congratulations to the guy! It's a small step, but who knows, maybe he'll figure out how to do it quickly and market it to the rest of us.

IIRC last time i sat and caprutes DVCPROHD100 it was around 1 g/b per minute of footage, though I could be wrong. (DV is 25MPS and it's about 1 g/b per 4.5min so 4X that would be around 1gb/min)

They will translate into a better picture; but it varies a lot by fest. It's also a question of the formats which the fests accepts. Then there are the ever present issues of projection. While there are standards in place, for theaters, this is not always the case of fests especially of smaller ones. It would be better to contact and/or look at the webpages/info packets of specific fests you're interested in. See what formats they accept (i may be wrong but i'm pretty sure most take HDCam now). The fact, for example, that they do take multiple formats is also a benefit as if you originate in HD you're downrezzing instead of uprezzing so the image quality remains superior. For an example; take a still with say a camera phone and one with a normal camera (even a point and shoot) and resize the larger to that of the smaller, you'll see how although it's size has changed, and even if you convert it over to the same bit-depth as the camera phone, it is still a superior picture.

I agree with the above statement of matching up your stills approximately to the asa and aperture you're shooting at. It can also really help to calm the nerves of jittery directors or producers when you or they are trying something abhorrent. A good friend of mine comes out on a lot of shoots with her Nikon D80 and i always ask her to grab me one shot with the asa/f stop i'm working with from a master so I can mess with it later on in photoshop. Then i bring a print of it with me to telecine, and we start from there.

In my opinion, it's always best to start with a superior capture format and then downrez. For example, S16mm film will look much better on minidv than anything ever shot on minidv (if say you shot the same thing with the same settings (as close as possible enough) with a film camera and a minidv camera. The other advantage you'd get with say a Red would be the 35mm sized sensor allowing for Depth of Field control and superior optics from PL mount lenses. The same can be said of a varicam, although it does not have a 35mm sensor; it's performance would far out pace a dv camera. Another good example would be DVDs; things you may have shot on miniDV or the like vs something shot in hollywood; both arriving on your screen via a dvd will look surprisingly different (the hollywood would look much better even if it was just a shot outside with no augmentation). While this is a result of many factors, one of them is the superior original format. hope that helped!