Rafa

production value or production control? I don't know if you guys are having the same experience than me here in NYC, but I believe that some producers prefer HD because makes them feel with more control over the shoot. I've been in several productions meetings where we got through the whole argument about shooting HD or film and I always choose film and explain that if we keep control over how much material we expend they can keep cost around the same numbers if S16 or HD. They do the math, agree with me and pick up.........HD. I personally hate the HD workflow, the sizes of the camera and operating them. You give me a SR3 or XTRProd and I'm a very happy DP, but the producer doesn't really know what's happening inside the camera and that drives them crazy . Is this just my personal "paranoia" or somebody out there agrees with me?

I have used the Spectra, the sekonic 398, minolta spotmeter and pentax Spotmeter. all of them are great. That's why right now I just use the Sekonic 558 dual meter. the only reason is because I preffer to carry just one thing on my belt. My back up is the 398, never let me down and my lab says I'm more consistent with that one. In the set I'm spending less and less time behind the lightmeter and more and more talking to the director about the movie. That's the way I like to work.

My two cents on this, but I want to make clear than being cuban doesn't mean I understand the country better than anybody. The only diference is that I visit it every year and my family is down there. First, Cuban socialism failed. That's true and I don't think anybody question that. Cuba haven't being able to produce enough food to feed the population of the country even when we got mor money from Soviet Union that the whole post-WWII with the plan Marshall. Right now Cuba it's a very poor country totally isolated from the world with a very unhappy population waiting for something to change in their life. On the other hand, pretty big hand, the USA embargo has a huge role on this. Somebody mentioned in this forum that the embargo it's just for american companies, that's just plain ignorance. The USA embargo to Cuba makes sure that any company that negotiates with Cuba can not make bussiness with american companies for a year, and any ship that goes to cuba can't touch american ground for another year. On top of this, USA doesn't buy anything that use any cuban parts, not even a single screw. That means that cuba can't buy from 90% of the companies in the world, because nobody wants to miss the american market, it means Cuba can not sell any of their products ( it's more than cigars in Cuba) because nobody is going to use it and any negotiation with cuba implies very dificult and expensives way to bring products to the country. This is a little portrait of what's goign on. I have two questions. Why Castro decided to big a world class leader instead of taking care of his own country first? Why USA choose the starvation of cubans as a weapon to defeat a single guy? Ahhhhh, don't answer the second one saying because Fidel is a cruel dictator. he is, but he killed a lot less people than dictators in Chile, than in Argentina, Brazil and Guatemala. And United states gave these goverments a good amount of cash to help them to kill young people on the street. castro's photos look real to me, but I hope he is weaker that how he looks. Something should change in my country. I see you in another forum talking about lights and lightmeters. I enjoy that more that talking about castro, I'm very tired of that guy

Hi Guys I'm a Cuban cinematographer and I really enjoy reading your opinions about CINEMATOGRAPHY, but I can tell you that I'm very dissapointed in your opinions about Cuba. Take note that I'm not choosing any side. What surprises me is not that some people defend Cuban socialism and others criticize it, that's great and definitely that is something we cannot do in Havana, but I am very shocked by the lack of understanding and knowledge about the topic. :blink: