Nate Yolles

Is this also what they did on "The Last Samurai" for the flashback-like sequences? For instance towards the beginning the samurai fighting the tiger.

I agree with David, even though a colored night is a convention, I like to somehow make night different from day. I was actually just thinking about this yesterday while watching "Grease" there's an interior night scene by a window where white light is hitting the tree outside and I thought it kind of looked like day, most likely because the tree was way too hot. Anyways for night I've used white light, I've used half blue, full blue, doubled full blue, and I enjoy a little green in it. I've seen this blue-green 241 used on a music video, my favorite is Steel Blue and on this last feature I gaffed we even used special lavender as moon light. I do like green in night and in addition to using a blue-green moonllight, I'll use specials with extra green to hit specific parts of the frame.

That's a damned good question. I hope so, and I hope other producers hear about it and are able to make the connection. They might just take this in to account as well... I did find out that that insurance doesn't want to cover the damage because: 1) A PA was driving it without the proper license 2) His license has some issues regarding a past DUI - specifically I don't know 3) The truck was over-loaded 4) The road has posted signs saying "no trucks over 5,000 lbs" while their truck- without being overloaded - is 10,000 lbs. Way to save money mr. line producer. I feel bad for the director because he's a good kid and he just lost his film.

I'll use mine at the beginning of a show to check the HMI's and label each one as to the amount of green in it.

Referring back to the original post and the long hours... After the first half of the schedule, myself, my best boy and the entire electric department left that show due to disagreements over working time (signed 14hours per day + how ever long they went over) and equipment management (the line producer for some reason felt it necessary to keep messing around with my generator and in fact broke the star wagon's genny - I don't know why) So we went our seperate ways. While loading up for another feature today, they just happen to be returning their package. I talked to the replacement crew. Without us to there to control the runaway productions (my best and myself who regularly turned the genny off at the 14 hour mark), days were no less then 15-16 hours with regular 20 hour days and a 24 hour day. I truly believe it's those long hours adding up over the course of 4 weeks that caused all of the following. 1) Let a 12-light maxi go over a hill, 2) on another occasion drop the 12-light maxi, 3) rolled the 1400amp genny over a cliff (I don't know how)!!! and of course to finish off the fiasco 4) flipped the 5-ton truck!!! The driver was rushed to the hospital and luckily came out with minor injuries. I saw the pictures (tires facing the clouds) and the pile of the damaged. The truck was declared a total and sent to the scrap yard and the pile of Damaged took a good section of the warehouse and it was all damaged beyond repair as you can imagine. So there you go, trying to save a couple hundred dollars by working less days, yet longer days and instead you have a $100,000 - $200,000 G&E damage bill, not to mention the truck itself and you almost killed a man. I don't know how much insurance will cover that, but that's not the point. I'm just happy that the driver was alright and I'm very happy that I was not affiliated with that production at that time because we all knew it was heading in that direction.

It happened that the selling camera house came across a prestine glass with Academy, TV safe and 1.85. So that's what I have and I'm extremely happy with it.

This was posted by a talented union gaffer friend over on CML and I think it sums it up perfectly.

In Gus Van Sant's "Elephant" it happens on more than one occasion. 1) You will hear the gun shot and not see the flash and 2) you will see the flash and then it vanishes as the shutter closes. Both situations are stand out to the viewer, the latter adding a peculiar element to it.

I've been wanting to do something which would give the same effect as what Mr. Mullen just described only acomplished differently. I want to light the actor/actress with a color and then use its complimentary color on lens. So that the actor would be under white light and the background would be the color of the camera filter.

I gaffed a four day test shoot with Mr. Orr. I think he's a very talented DP with an exacting eye. I can't wait to see Undertow.

Spielberg graduated from California State University, Long Beach on May 31, 2002. I don't want to sidetrack this conversation; this post really isn't pertinent to the topic as he obviously had become a prominent filmmaker long before "finishing" film school, and like you said, CSULB isn't a "film school" but has a film dept. But I did want to state the fact he did graduate.

True. Yet, even when you tell your AC to set the lens at T2 and a 2/3rds, there's no marking for 2/3rds, its only an approximation. Likewise setting focus when your lens says "3 5 10" and you need 9 ft, not to mention the actor hitting his mark exactly. My only point (and it's a mute point) is that there's plenty of rounding off and "closeness" in cinematography and it all works perfectly. So sometimes such precision doesn't actually benefit you. Although I do agree with you, it is nice to be accurate and it is important to know that 1/50th is actually 1/48 and that 1000 is actually 1024.

You might be talking to the wrong crowd about perfect precision. 1/48 != 1/50 What exactly is a smidge under 5.6 anyways? ;)

Those prefixes are relatively new and never really took on. In all the years I've worked as a professional computer programmer I Never come across those terms.

And actually... 8 bits = 1 byte 1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte 1024 kilobytes = 1 megabyte 1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte 1024 gigabytes = 1 terabyte 1024 terabytes = 1 petabyte I have a friend who has shot some print stock. I haven't seen it, but he said it was extremely saturated.

As you say, the bigger 6.6x6.6 is for using gradients and being able to adjust where the edge is placed in the frame. So for 4x5.6 grads, how much room for adjustment is there?

So what happens at the open house?

Is the ASC clubhouse and its corresponding museum open to the public?

If I were to purchase some filters for 35mm use, what would be the best size to go with? 4x4 seems pretty standard as does 4x5. 6.6x6.6 filters are so expensive. How wide of a lens will 4x4 cover? Is 4x4 large enough to adjust for grad lines and still cover the entire lens?

La Mancha is the most humorous and worst thing I've ever seen at the same time. I've never laughed so loud in a theatre but for when the flash floods washed away all the equipment. In one regard I've been kind of lucky, I've never not been paid when I was supposed to. I've of course donated many days to non-paying shows as favors or just to learn from "bigger" DPs and gaffers. I had one production company bounce a check and they were all in from New York, I was afraid they'd skip town, but I knew where the lead actor lived and I ended up getting a personal check from him. Odd, but then again, I didn't care who wrote the check. I've had one sleazy line producer report my check stolen. Let me tell you, your bank does not appreciate it when you deposit stolen checks. The check of course did not go through. My bank froze my funds and closed all of my accounts. I couldn't even touch my own money. I spent a week on the phone with Wells Fargo before I was even able to asertain what the problem was. That in turn caused my cell phone check to bounce and car payment, my phone was turned off. It caused me great stress, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Alton's book is great. It's fun to see which of his predictions were right on and which one's just never materialized.

Not to mention, for no apparent reason - same actors, same crew, same everything. They shoot day-for-night and then when the sun goes down, night-for-day. Do you know how much less work it would have been if they had simply switched those two scenes on the schedule?

Last night the producer walks up to me and says that since were on the last shot there won't be second meal, 5 minutes after second meal is due. He knows that we have an hour and a half wrap. He knows that our contract states every six hours we get a meal. I tell him the crew is going to walk away and leave all equipment out unless he brings second meal. Since he knows that he won't wrap cable he gets the meal, but only for G&E. So the producer is trying to save a few dollars on not buying a meal. The consequences aren't worth the little money. Besides the fact that there are spending just under a million dollars and can't afford $20 for lunch is rediculious. The entire crew now becomes irritated, fights break out all over set, and I can tell you nobody takes the time to pack correctly, so L&D is going to be huge. He saved 20 bucks but he's going to be paying thousands in damaged equipment. The movie will suffer because lights I need won't be working and since they keep putting me at the point of "I just don't give a f*#$", instead of trying to make the scene beautiful, I just make sure there's enough light for exposure. Where I might ordinarily order for the big guns pounding through a 12by muslin and shaping the light, I end up bouncing the closest light I see into a bead board. Anyways, like I said I'm gaffing this one, so I go up the chain and talk to the DP who doesn't really care. (gentlemen, to be a good dp, you must protect and appreciate your crew or they won't work for you and you can't do it by yourself) So I've ordered my Best Boy to padlock the genny (because the line producer keeps touching it, powering it up and down without idling). Power goes down precisely at lunch time. Unless they call grace, which they've done 90% of the time, so they can have their 15 minutes then the genny goes down. The genny goes down at second meal if it isn't there and the genny goes down at 14 hours since production won't pay overtime. If it goes down in the middle of a one-take only squib effect, tough. If they fire me because they are abusing my rights, hey, I have a computer job I do when not on set where I make twice as much money working half the hours- that's four times the dollar per hour, oh man now I'm depressed. In order to save maybe 10 cents in gas, the producer has a PA turn off the generator at lunch. Which of course isn't good for kinos or HMIs. The sound guy gets flaming pissed off because it spikes his tape (not to mention they can loose up to 10 seconds of sound on the last take). So after lunch I tell the AD it takes 15 minutes to warm up the gennerator. Everybody is done eating standing around starring at a dark set wasting time and money while the generator idles. The 1st AC comes over and tells us that he loves us and just smiles, the AD isn't as appreciative. The point is, that this movie is turning into the shoot from hell simply because the producer is abusing our basic rights and trust me, it affects the final product. Other than that, I love my crew and we're having a lot of fun joking around. A wise union key grip once told me "If you ain't having fun, go home."

So it's 4 in the morning. I just got home from work. I'm gaffing this feature and tomorrow, excuse me - today - is my day off. It's really needed. 14 hour days and not enough crew. We've been getting rained on, flooded and hailed on. My feet are killing me. I need a hair cut and I haven't even been able to deposit my pre-production check. So what am I doing on my day off.... lets just say call time is at 10.

I wouldn't mind hearing people's thoughts on Tequila Sunrise. I just watched that for the first time. I asked my gaffer if he'd ever seen Road to Perdition, to which he replied: "I haven't seen it this week yet" :)