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John-Erling Holmenes Fredriksen

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Everything posted by John-Erling Holmenes Fredriksen

  1. And for shadows, if they cannot be avoided on set, they can usually be removed with a second key, or worst case just rotoscoping. A lot of shadows can be eliminated just by having enough space in your studio, so you can keep the action away from the screen.
  2. Maybe you're right. But maybe then the Sekonic 758 is more right for me, as I really like to spotmeter.
  3. Their website claims it to be one-degree. Would love to hear from someone who's used it, and could give some opinions on it.
  4. Was it Google SketchUp? I don't know if it does lighting at all, but I know a lot of film people use it for planning because of how fast you can build your set and start lining up shots (and it's free).
  5. I've got the Sekonic L-398, which is really nice for some uses, and never runs out of batteries, but I'm getting a digital meter as well now. Sensitivity and accuracy are some of the problems with it. Heard a lot of really nice things about the Spectra Pro, but I also like the Sekonic L-758 for it's spot meter. It does seem to come at a stiff price though. Anyone have any experience with the spot meter accessory for the Spectra?
  6. Like John Brawley, I can only think of 3D software that will do what I think you're asking. And I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually previsualize the lighting in 3D software, allthough I have seen blocking previsualized like this. It would just be too time consuming to be practical. If you want to achieve a certain kind of effect, and you aren't sure how to, I would recommend trying it out in advance if you can. Or maybe you can find some reference stills for the look you want and post them here for input on lighting setups.
  7. Thank you for your long reply. Allthough I was more specifically looking for tricks to handle shots where you have your talent close to the ground, and the ground is in the picture, you make lots of good points (as always). And maybe there are no tricks. You are probably right that for this kind of job, blue would be better. I didn't really have a choice this time, but I guess blue spill would also look a bit prettier than green in situations where you really cannot avoid it. Anyway, it was really nice to have the post people on set to make sure they got the material they needed. It really is a team effort, and what we couldn't accomplish on set this time, will be handled just fine in post. I'm just looking for ways to take even more work off the post end :)
  8. The screen is a bit underlit, but bright enough for this project (the post guys did a fine key on it). This is due to the studio not being the studio I requested (it's actually not a studio at all). I didn't have the space I normally would to pull the talent away from the wall, and flagging the screen-lights off the talent was a bit hard for the same reasons (all the lights are on the ground). But principally I agree, the green approaches her clothes a bit, and with such a low IRE there is a bit of extra noise in the screen.
  9. I'm an aspiring cinematographer based in Oslo, Norway, and I recently shot a commercial on green screen. The shot went fine, I've done some greenscreen work in the past, and I had the post production guys on set to check on the screen, so I'm not worried about that. My question deals with the issues of shooting stuff close to, or towards the ground on greenscreen. This is an issue that I face everytime I shoot stuff like this, and I'm just wondering if anyone have a better solution than I have been able to come up with. I'm including some uncorrected screengrabs from the shoot to illustrate what I mean. (The studio was less than ideal on this particular shoot, and I had to light the screen a bit darker than I usually would to control spill, but the post guys OK'ed it). It's easy to handle on the images where you don't actually see the ground (close up of her face while crouching down, close up of her overarm), I just put her on black fabric, or some white foamcore if I want a bit of fill from below. But then there are images like the close up of her hand approaching the ground, and the one where she is crouching down. Basically, I have just found two ways to handle this, either just live with the spill and let the post guys correct it, or shoot partially without screen, like I did for the hand, putting her on top of a flag, and letting the post guys deal with the rotoscoping in post. In this case the post guys preferred dealing with rotoscoping instead of dealing with spill. I guess mainly because this is a quite short sequence. But there has to be a better way to do this? Does anyone have a trick they like to employ in situations like this? For instance when shooting a film like 300. Do they just calculate a lot of post processing to handle issues like this? Hoping for some smart tricks. Oh, and the video was shot in 720p on a Panasonic HPX500 with the Canon HJ21 cinestyle zoom lens, if anyone is interested.
  10. Really interesting, although it mostly just confirms what I've heard elsewhere. I guess he's got a good point about the reasoning behind the new 5K camera.
  11. You should talk to your costume and set dressing departments (don't know the correct English terms), and decide on a color palette that suits your vision. That's the best trick I know. Then you could start checking out other steps to take towards the look you want to make, in camera and in grading. Depending on where you are going with the post process, I guess you can achieve a lot of the things you want there. Unfortunately I cannot make any suggestions regarding stock, processing, filters, etc.
  12. Soeh... I've got a light addiction to Twitter (ok, slight understatement), the new internet phenomena, and I'm tired of only finding web geek types to listen to apart from my few online real life friends. So I thought, hey, maybe there are some film dudes on there as well? It's a nice place for quick communication and high speed discussions. Anyone using Twitter, wanting to expand their network with some more film people? I'd love to hear from you. I'm Elling.
  13. Like Michael already suggested, you should take a videocamera to the location and test this. You will see that tungsten actually appears very warm on daylight stock (set white balance to 5600K or "outside" to see this), and that inside light "spilling out" will not be a problem at all (you most likely won't even see the insides, still assuming this is a day scene, not a night scene). The thing about Kelvin is that if you think of it as a characteristic of lights, it can be a bit confusing as warmer Kelvin means cooler lights (as in cool = blue and warm = orange). But if you think of Kelvin as a characteristic for your stock, it's a bit more logical, as you can imagine that a warmer stock will warm the lights, while a cooler stock will cool the lights. Meaning that a 5600K stock will "warm up" 3200K lights, and make them look orange, while 3200K stock will cool down 5600K lights and make them look blue (in other words, the opposite of your initial assumption). Hope this makes everything a bit more clear for you.
  14. Tungsten is warmer, not cooler, and if this is a day scene, I can guarantee you the light from inside the building won't overpower the daylight outside.
  15. I think you have made a lot of really nice pictures here. If I were to comment one thing (and I will), I think you have done a good job at controlling sunlight for your main actors, which I think looks very nice, but your illusion falls through a bit with your overexposed extras surrounding them. Now this is probably due to budget and time reasons, because you obviously have the skills and means to control the sunlight (as already mentioned), but if there was one thing that would drastically improve a lot of your pictures (not saying they look bad), this would be it in my opinion. You may not need to bring out the largest frames (which would require money, time and manpower), a lot of your images look like they could be fixed by strategically placed smaller frames, or just a bit of creative flagging. Anyway, there's some input for ya, good luck with your indie project. Try to hook up with an up-and-coming gaffer who can help you achieve more in less time. (EDIT: Sorry, noticed just now that you actually did have a gaffer). Personally, I've had a lot of success hooking up with other up-and-coming cinematographers, who will do lights for me if I do lights for them.
  16. I would also add that a lot of top cinematographers became just that by proving along the way they could do a lot with little.
  17. Congatulations on your project, but please read the forum rules. Change your username to your real name, and please don't use all caps. Do you have any pictures of the actual rig?
  18. What Jonathan says, but additionally, if you plan on getting that 18mm, at T3.5 with an M2 on an HVX, you're gonna have serious lighting issues. First of all, I'd go for something like the Letus over M2 (less light loss), and I'd get cheap (and fast) Nikon primes to go with it.
  19. And here's my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lifeofelling/
  20. Yep, you should see the documentary on the DVD, they explain it pretty well there. Michel moves around the set to show how the perspective-trick works.
  21. The guys who tested the RED for FNF in Norway mostly agreed that underexposing slightly was the way to go, and that there wasn't as much of a noise issue as there was a highlights issue. Also, low light scenes with no extra lights shot at night in Bergen looked surprisingly good.
  22. I don't have any experience with that specific camera, but I know that local TV and high schools in Northern Norway use that type of equipment outdoors all the time, at temperatures that low, and at extremes even lower. There are some small plastic bags you can get at sports shops to put into your mittens, that will heat up and stay heated for an entire day once opened. We've tried to use them on the Pro35 adapter when shooting outside in the cold, not with great effect, but I guess you could try to attach them to your camera to keep it warm. Our experience was that they didn't seem to keep as warm when attached to our equipment, as they would when held in our hands. Hope this helps.
  23. Another issue they had when doing these side-by-side tests with 35mm was getting the natural nice saturation that film gives. They did however admit that there had been limited time to tweak different settings and see how much saturation they could actually squeeze out of the RED, as the material was admittedly quite "greyish" in comparison to what you would get natively from film. Would be interesting to see how much saturation you can actually get from the RED by tweaking it a bit (and how good it looks). Hoping to see some material during the holidays :)
  24. I also hear they had some problems with back focus when it got cold on the old lens mount (as it supposedly retracts, moving the lens slightly). I guess you might have the new one, but worth testing anyway, if only to find out if they managed to fix it. You could also test different ISO-settings to see what level of noise you like. I've seen some RED material screened next to 35mm film, it looks extremely clean, maybe too clean for some kinds of shoots.
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