Patrick McGowan

I think Breaking Bad is one of the best shows on TV right now. It has a very interesting raw look with consistently deep shadows and some mixed color temperatures. It looks like it was shot on low ASA film with little color correction. Anyone else here watching it?

Thank you DS. The hospital image above is color corrected, it is kind of a mix between gelled lights and color correction. I thought if I had a normal tungsten key light on the actors and a green gelled background light, it would make the room feel green without the whole image looking green. It was experimentation. Adrian, I agree about HDV not liking color correction, especially on this camera, an older JVC HD100u. It gets so noisy so quickly, and tends to have a lot of color banding. Just like any image there is a certain amount that it can be pushed, but HDV is not forgiving.

I want to throw some more pictures up here. Thanks

To Matthew: It was day for night, the window was blocked out with duvetyne. There was a fluorescent practical light over the actor that was gelled with plus green and full CTB. The Kino overhead had tungsten tubes. I wanted to try to make the room look green without the actors looking really green. The image became more green when the black levels where lowered, which increased the color saturation. Thank you, Patrick

I think the JVC's footage retained a lot of quality through compression. I put a few sequences through compressor to a DVD and the footage retained quite a bit of quality. (Even though it obviously lost a bit going to a standard def. DVD.) This might not be the case for all HDV cameras. The JVC HD100 uses the MPEG compression with the GOP structure which is a really efficient system. This seems to really retain detail after DVD compression, which is also MPEG. I hope this helps in some way. Which camera are you shooting on?

I really like the light coming through the blinds. It contrasts well with the green office, like he is looking on to normal (sunny) life. And obviously the green with the blank walls communicates that bland office existence.

Thank you You are right about the actor near the window, although he still has some skintone in the highlights in the original sequence, but I wish I still pulled it back a little bit. I also wish I added some background light to make it appear more consistent, but I ran out of lights. This was on HDV, but I am still really happy with the quality. I wish I had P2 cards, and I didn't have to use these JVC ProHD tapes, they are really delicate. I want to put up some more stuff as we go along. I will definitely check out your thread. -Patrick

This next group of pictures was from 2/29/08. The producer was able to secure a hospital room in a wing that was undergoing renovation. This room was empty at first, but the hospital staff was nice enough to give us a bed, an IV bag and a few other things. I did a quick color correction on these, but they don't really match that well. It was recorded without that much green (the fluorescent practical is gelled with green/blue), but the character is waking up in what needs to be an uncomfortable and depressing place. I thought giving it more green made feel more medical and less welcoming, although I am trying to decide if it is too unrealistic. I hope these pictures are working so far.

Hello everyone, I've been inspired by the "in production" topics posted by many of you on this forum. Now that I've figured out a few ways to screen capture/frame grab, I figured I would try it out. These images are from my advanced video class, we are shooting on the JVC HD110. I wrote the screenplay for this project based on a short story, and I am also co-directing and DPing. The other director and I are still working on a better title than the original story. Anyway, The first weekend was 2/17/08. We were shooting in a coffee shop in Whitinsville MA. I borrowed two 1.2K HMIs from a friend's production. The lighting setup was simple, I put both of those HMIs outside the big windows of the coffee shop and then used beadboard for fill on the other side. A crude diagram, (for the fun of it) I don't really like the production design, the place appeared either too cluttered or too empty, but I guess that is understandable since we don't have anyone doing production design in our group ;)

Okay, that's why that was a question. I'm not pretending to know anything. ;) I am trying to figure this technique out myself. I know it doesn't move the film plane itself. But, doesn't it have a large ground glass type device that can be precisely moved?

Well, it's certainly not on par with the shift/tilt system, but it could be interesting. It depends on how this affect is to be used. I mean it seems like this affect would also benefit from being able to precisely move the film plane and not just the lens no? Like the Hylen system.

Here's a question... What if you took the lens off the adapter. Found a way to secure the lens at an angle in front of the adapter's ground glass. Used a black cloth as a makeshift bellows. Then, you might be able to get a similar look, assuming you could avoid really bad vignetting. If this worked, you could be Scheimpfluging in no time! I just re-read the original post and you said without the adapter? If you had a different camera, it would be easier. If you had one with interchangeable lenses and a 2/3" or 1/3" sensor, that lens could be shifted or titled in front of the camera's chip, without vignetting, because a 35mm lens will cover more area than the sensor. I've done that second thing with the JVC HD100. I want to post some stills of that actually.

Hey Stephen I was kind of joking, I try not complain too much. But it is too bad to hear that the RED stuff is that personal.

So, how long until this topic gets closed? People keep saying this, but this RED fighting has been dragging down this message board for like a year now. The fighting has gone from being funny to annoying to depressing. It seems like far fewer people post here anymore. Sorry for the obvious, but I wish there was some way to divert this crap. How about a new topic? "Kinetta... will it be the end of film?"

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I know. What does this guy need to do? Get nominated five times in a year? This pissed me off.

That's true. That is more what the original post was asking. I was trying to refer to the crossover between directing and shooting.

I am co-directing and DPing a film that I wrote. This was put together under some crazy circumstances that I can't get into in a short amount of time. There is such a fine line on set between directing and being a DP. It almost feels like the production is "allowing" me as a DP to actually have a relationship with the actors on a different level. You are speaking to them about why they are doing something. I am relating what I wrote to all other levels of the production as well. I am trying to just make something honest and believable, and it is fu**ing difficult. If you can direct it than do it! Or do both man. Do get pushed around. Ever. there's also Peter Hyams, Doug Liman, and Soderbergh just to name a few others.

Is it possible to load 100' spool in an SR3?

I would second Blain Brown's "Cinematography" because the book starts with composition and visual design and then moves on to more technical aspects. Visual design elements are important for any aspiring cinematographer to learn. Has anyone noticed in that book Brown always writes "she" rather than "she or he" to describe pretty much any person? It's interesting.

I just saw this at the Landmark in Cambridge. I really enjoyed the film overall, I felt I had seen the premise of worn out people with flaws trying to deal with their lives, but I was surprised by how well it was executed. The characters in this film have very serious flaws and are beautifully portrayed by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. Mott Hupfel's cinematography was subtle and natural. I like the Arizona sequences which were slightly overexposed with what looked like some type of diffusion. There is a scene in the nursing home where there father is staying that looks as if all of the lighting is motivated by this green practical behind his head. Linney's character even complains that this light depresses her and she shuts it off. I thought this was a great example of lighting really creating a mood for the characters. The nursing home always felt like a dark depressing place to be which helped to explain the guilt the characters felt for leaving their father there. There are quite a few scenes that are lit by incandescent fixtures. These lights looked more yellowish orange, and I think more natural than what I usually see on screen which are perfectly matched color temp photofloods. The handheld operating was very skilled and controlled and reminded me of another film with Laura Linney, "The Squid and The Whale."

I saw this at the Landmark in Cambridge yesterday and it was absolutely beautiful. I found it interesting in terms of cinematography, how much of the film was based inside Bauby's eye. This was his only window to the world and the audience is put inside this blurry, diffused, almost point focus view of the world. The supporting actors are really the stars as they give beautiful and subtle performances, even though they must have been staring directly into a camera lens for a large portion of the film. The film widens from this perspective and we see his life in the third person, as he sits in his wheelchair, unable to express emotion, only being able to communicate through a painstaking process with a translator. This is a beautiful and imaginative film and I it's one of the best I have seen this year.

I love the look of Friday night lights. That show definitely definitely has a raw look, I am sure that I have seen lights, a matte box, and an operator with an SR3 (on the field) in some of the shots, but other than that the overall look is beautiful and fits perfectly with the show. Maybe my mind has changed since february, but the handheld look is growing on me.

There Goes the Fear by Doves is the best! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-v02c4sx6o But I also like Rabbit in Your Headlights by U.N.K.L.E. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3ClCwcCvdQ And anything by Mark Romanek particularly Johnny Cash's "Hurt"