Jon Rosenbloom

If it's me and a director and no AC, give me a ex-1. Otherwise, film, film, film.

Turned out to be a blue sky day. Shot DAY - INT, 90% natural light, with the 85 filter, and 1/3 stop extra for a rating of 120asa. I am blown away by the shoulder of this film. Please let me do an ad for why it makes sense to shoot your low-budget short on 35mm!

I'll throw in a good word for East Coast Lighting, located in beautiful Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Hey Rich, I'm shooting a short on 8553, aiming for digital finish. What issues might I have if I'm forced to underexpose by a stop, or a stop and a half?

I know that stuff written like this can sound disparaging when it's not meant to be, but, you really shouldn't be nervous about 25lbs! I'm pretty sure "How to ..." was shot "'Entourage' style," and our cameras - arricam lt, cooke s-4, remote focus, arri-tape, monitor, wireless tap, and 1000' mag - had to weigh about 45lbs. God bless the operators, they put them on their shoulders for 3 months! (That's the kind of weight that an easy-rig is for.) One of the operators used a cine-saddle, the other just humped it. Try to get a shoulder rig that puts your eye on the eyepiece, is balanced and doesn't dig into your shoulder. You might supplement it with some neoprene padding. The weight might be scary at first, but you'll get used to it.

Try KAS, the rental arm of Kaufman Astoria Studios.

If you live in a production center, you might try to go directly to a production manager on a job that's winding down. (That's if anyone is still shooting on film.) That way, you'll probably get a better price, and you'll be a little reassured that those short-ends are trust-worthy. After all, the show would have used them if they had needed.

Hey David, Were your 3perf projects TV shows, or did they go to theatrical print?

This is the old school vs. work debate. Some really great DP's have come out of film school: like Peter Deming, Fred Elmes, I think Kaminsky? A lot of others haven't. Read Ellen Kuras' bio on the ICG website. I've shot a lot of films for people in film school, and I'm always amazed at how little they know about standard professional on-set practices (Like having a script supervisor take copious notes on set, and then never give them back to the director during editing.) ... But I'm also often amazed by how little some successful DP's know about lighting. They've got great eyes, and somehow they muddle through! While my friends at Columbia are not too set-savvy, at least they are constantly working on one-another's little films, talking to actors, being creative, trying out ideas. So, film school has a lot going for it, and it has a lot going against it, too. They're selling a very expensive dream based on the one student out of 200 who gets a movie deal after getting the degree. AFI will sell you on Peter Deming and Fred Elmes (who are total pro's, by the way.), but they'll never mention all the other grads that you've never heard of. OJT? The DP spends his days telling the camera, grip, and electric dept's what to do. If you succeed in one of these dept's, you'll certainly know how a set works. But getting in is tough, staying in is tough, moving up is tough. Your mindset will switch to getting jobs, keeping jobs, how to load the truck better, why this gaffer is such an a-hole, etc, and you'll have to work very hard to keep your creativity alive. But, you might make a living and get to see some good people in action, like the times I've worked w/ Peter Deming and Fred Elmes. You might also work with T... S..., and then you'll see how to do everything wrong, and still get into the ASC! In short, to each his own.

Thanks, David. Did I mention it's my own film?

Ok. Been talking with Technicolor, and I think the idea is transfer everything to HDcam SR, and go from there, then create and edit in pro-res hq. I'm wondering about the decision to shoot in 3 perf. I guess this will eliminate most of my ability to reframe the image in post. Essentially, it's already cropped practically down to 1.85:1. Am I right? I have a slight worry about boom reflections and such. Thanks.

Camera on sticks, with a Chapman vibration isolator; a lot cheaper than a steadi-cam.

Must be a windbreak for a steadi-cam.

I have a short film (5 pages.) coming up, and the production's intention is to shoot on 35mm, for a digital finish. (Festival projection.) As I've been out of the film game for a while, I'm no longer familiar with the transfer options. Of course, the transfer will be tapeless and HD. But, what are the formats and why chose one over the other? The film will be cut in Final Cut. We hope not to shoot more than 6500', so I can't imagine the storage and computing are going to be that demanding. Thanks. Cheers. Jon.

Elemack cricket dolly. Precursor to the Panther. Minimum height is pretty high, but, whatcha gonna do?

I don't like to get too specific with my objections to the script, because it's someone else's work, and I don't like the idea of writing by committee or focus group. I will say the film does move along at a good clip, and there's not much time for fleshing out characters. Of course the bad guys are one-dimensional. What's worse is, the dialogue is one-dimensional. There's no spark or verve in the interactions between the characters. Without a hint of humor, everybody speaks their dull lines in turn, in lock step to a very predictable, very time worn plot, that knocks us over the head with a very predictable message. As for Muaro, I keyed a short job with him about 13 years ago. He is an intense dude, and I would not begrudge him any credit. Congrats to him.

Well, lots of people made a lot of money sitting at a lot of computers drawing a lot of stuff for this movie, and I'm sure it was very hard to do, and I'm sure I couldn't do it. But the script sucks, the color scheme seems to be inspired by 1980's ski-wear. It just shows how far small minds can pursue trivial ideas.

Yeah, The White Ribbon's photography is amazingly precise.

Sanjay, is there no union in Mumbai? Do you have to do your own deal each time out?

"Interesting. What would be a good use of 3D for a dramatic effect?" Uhm, I haven't seen the movie, but I would guess that the fact that it's about a guy who is paralyzed and has his consciousness plugged into another world might be the thematic link to the "immersion" of the 3D format.

Nice work, David. For some reason, I recall that scene at the amusement park as being at the end of a miserable day, but it sure looks great. 2 thoughts: About your use of lights in the shot (a technique I "borrow" as much as I can) ... I'm curious whether that was part of your "photographic plan" as it related to the script and a film-noir look, or, were you just using all those bare kino bulbs as a substitute for production design that you knew wouldn't be happening given the budget and schedule of the shoot. Also, am I crazy or is this Fuji film a lot "truer" than Kodak 5219?

Most of the time, a bungee rig is used for "hand held" shots when the camera is too heavy to be hand held; such as when an Arricam has the 12:1 zoom and a 1000' mag.

Or you could just do what Ian does.

We did this quite a bit on "Big Movie w/ Big Actors." Fisher 11 is not optimal; Fisher 10 is better. Arricam LT is not optimal; I've been humping that camera for three months, and it's freakin' heavy! Read the rest with the understanding that I'm describing the other Dolly Grip's rig, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details. Don't use bungees; use surgical tubing and as many risers as you can. The main thing is for the rig to be as high as possible so that you maximize the benefit of the tubes' elasticity (so the rig takes the weight instead of the operator.) We just make one big loop of maybe a dozen strands of five foot tubing. (Again, I don't know the exact specs on the surgical tubing. It will be best if you experiment with tubes of various length, width and wall thickness. I do know that that camera weighs about 60 pounds with a prime and a 1000' mag.) You also need a ubange, two carabeeners, a daisy-chain runner, a short runner, and a ratchet strap. The short runner chokes the camera's handle. One beener connects the short runner to one end of the loop of surgical tube. The tube runs up through the outer ubange hole, across the ubange, down through the other hole, and gets clipped with the other beener to one of the loops of the daisy-chain, which is attached to the leveling head. The ratchet strap braces the tower of risers once you've got the weight and the height. Sorry I can't be more specific. Make sure to work out the kinks with a couple of sandbags before you rig the production camera.

Too bad ... Seemed like it would be a pretty good film when we were shooting it.