Josh Bass

Am I missing something? Some of his work looks better than some of mine, and I make more than that. Quite a bit more if I provide gear. Granted, I'm not really a "DP/cinematographer" except when clients decided to call it that, more like corporate video/ENG/documentary/etc. videographer. Is that the difference? Do "real" DPs have to fighter harder to make the same money as we do for less work? That seems backwards. $265 is really low in my world.

I can tell you that for me, it has been a problem in the past. Having a location/certain angles locked down, shooting in "the dark", and trying to find some way to believably motivate a light source (or several).

The one I always have trouble with is when people are supposed to be in total darkness are there are pools of light or a key light from nowhere.

Sup Y'all? I hardly ever post here!

Anyway, if I may offer another perspective: storyboarding, and then making a "mock edit" USING THOSE BOARDS (actually taking the drawings/stills and cutting them together in an NLE), can help you really see how a scene/shots will cut together. On my last little short film, it would have helped me because of the oddball style of the piece, and I could have said "oh I need a shot to get the guy from here to here, and then something to go here, etc." I ended up having to make a fake MCU by zooming in/cropping a wide shot, whereas if I'd boarded/done the mock edit I could have seen I needed to shoot that MCU in the first place. Depending on complexity of scene, a shot list may not bring those those types issues to light, where mock edit/boards will.

Hi. As an avid gamer, and not so great DP, here's an observation: I've never felt that games have gotten soft light right. Say light coming from a window, character lit by that light, shadows always look wrong/wrap doesn't look gentle enough. Also I would like to see the light quality change realistically in terms of softness and output as the character moves closer or farther from that soft source a la the inverse square law. I'm talking in-game engine here where I've never really seen this done right, that I can think of.

Good to know about the sharpness for the future. I've been DPing a friend's short film off and on for about year (WHAT????--yes you read correctly) and we've always had sharpness down so no changing now. Looks good to me with the 24-105 Canon L.

Heres what ive been using...

Neutral pp with

Contrast all the way down

Sharpness all the way down

Color sat -2

Anything else untouched

Approve?

That makes sense in a from a technical standpoint (especially if handheld), but seems weird that a director or production would be concerned enough about operator comfort to let it ride, seems like it's more of a directorial decision to have the shot composed that way, no?

I'm thinking specifically at this moment of an episode of 30 Rock I saw the other night, where Salma Hayek (likely not very tall) was talking to Alec Baldwin. Camera was way below baldwin, but even on her, it was either at her eye level or at chin/neck level.

I'm just wondering if most folks agree there's something aesthetically pleasing about people looking slightly over the lens for their eyeline rather than below or at the same level, or if it is usually more flattering for backgrounds (obviously depends on the BG), or what.

What if its used for everyone all the time? That seems to be the case.

So watching various narrative tv shows and movies recently, ive noticed that even in "typical" shots (that is, not a low angle/high angle/sylized shots), and even on closeups, the lens seems to be below eye level, about level with chin/neck. Now that i look for it, i notice it happens a lot. I never think too much about it, and when im shooting usually set lens height to eye level with the subject, but im not seeing this much if ever in high end tv/movie camerawork. Just wondering if theres a reasoning behind it? Insights? Thanks.

Thanks. The kind of shoots I grip on, there is no key. Tiny 2 or 3 man crew shoots is what I mean. I've just heard different things from different people. Just find it fascinating that there is not only different advice out there, but contradictory advice as well.

So, I thought I had all this stuff straight.

I'd always heard when setting up a c stand, you put the weight over the longest leg (example, 300w fresnel attached to c stand arm, that arm goes over the long leg), and then you bag the long leg if a bag is deemed necessary. Recently I heard the bag was no good if not touching the ground, and it'd be better to put it one of the lower "back" legs if doing so allowed the bag to touch the ground. I always thought the bag SHOULDN'T be touching the ground, because if it's resting on the ground, it's not really putting weight on the leg at all, it's just there.

What's right?

I have an XL2. I did a test years ago involving a light meter, grey card, and a fresnel light. I came out with 320 ISO (though it might have been the XL1s, which I also used to have, that I did the test on so forgive me).

I'm assuming that link is the orange/teal rant? yes, I've read it, and it is cute. And I realize basic color theory says these colors work well together and it's not like you can go purple/magenta instead, but still. . .it's like every trailer, horror, comedy, drama, doesn't matter. . .same gritty aggressive orange/blue look.

Vaguely related to this topic:

Is it me or does every movie have the same "look" these days? Talking the mainstream stuff, of course, but not only limited to these. Seems like every movie now is super contrasty, deep orange skin tones, blue everything else, etc. Maybe it's my TV? Maybe it's the way they all look on my TV? Even something a little off the beaten path like "Cedar Rapids" had a somewhat aggressive desaturated look to it. Can't anything just "be" any more? Everything has a "look" to it. No more natural looking colors anywhere.

You looking for an answer by name only? Or do you want actual visuals?

Folks on here referred me to a couple of great reference links for cinematography visuals from a variety of sources:

http://framefilter.blogspot.com/

http://image-par-image.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/10/29/big-fish-2003.html

http://www.leavemethewhite.com/index2.html

http://evanerichards.blogspot.com/

Here is my not so expert opinion: LOOKS AWESOME! It has a glossy high fashion look I associate with magazine ads and music videos. Looks nicer than anything I've ever done and most of the stuff from profession sets I'm on. I don't know if this is due to the lighting, the art direction, the wardrobe, the format (film?), grading, or something else, but it looks very nice to me.

I agree with andrew, that its all preference. However, depending on what your style is throughout the scene, I would consider using practicals to set the ambiance of the scene, and allow non practicals to set the mood for the objects. I am a fan of keeping it as simple as I can and tweaking the small things, such as eye lighting.

 

Depending on what TV show your talking about, sit-coms are generally geared for story line, rather cinematography. So I'm not so sure that this type of picture is the best example for how someone could light their given scene. However, shows like true blood and mad men definitely have a distinct look and place a lot of attention to their lighting, but once again, the image is stylized to the given theme their attempting to convey.

 

In a scene were i wanted to convey contrast between light and dark. I'd apply a ratio pattern; say 1(dark):4(light), doing this might allow my practical to overexpose, in which case this would give my scene a certain characteristic.

Gotcha. I was thinking of Nikita, among other shows. White hot practicals. Is it because the show is supposed to have an "edgy" look? Is it because of time constraints and they simply let it go? Etc. Especially in the digital formats, one would think blown out practicals would be a no-no (at least household lamps. . .maybe not the same for overhead flo lights or something), yet I'm seeing them a lot. I guess it sells it more that a lamp is lighting someone (even if you're of course supplementing with a movie light) if it looks hotter as opposed to dimmed way down? Dimmed way down seems more appropriate for ambience as opposed to selling the practical as a light source in the scene. For example, a scene where it's indoors during the day, and you have mostly "daylight" filtering in, maybe through curtains, lighting the actors, but still have lamps on in the background for color/art direction etc.

Thanks.

I've heard there's a new ML update for the 5DM2 that allows you to shoot video at higher bitrates. What I'm wondering is a) has anyone on here tried it yet and B) are the effects noticeable?

Can anyone give a specific example of how the improvements manifest themselves? Like "in a CU of a person, you'd see". . .or "in dark areas you'll see", etc. Thanks.

I'm curious as what you all think about how bright a practical should be in a scene, and what determines this (as there is obviously no right answer). Specifically lamps. . .household lamp, small lamp in an office, etc.

Seems on TV recently, in dramatic shows, I've seen a lot of fairly "hot" ones. . .either the entire shade on a lamp blown out (or it appears), or a hot white center with the outer part dimmer.

Of course in the corporate video work I do they are often dimmed way down to a dull orange glow.

Not concerned about how much they're contributing to the scene lighting-wise for the purposes of this question.

What do people here prefer/do/like?

There are likely a number of reasons for this, but one of the more prominent one's that I've seen frequently is simply a limitation on time. It takes far less time to have a zoom lens on the camera on a wide focal length to get the master, but then just "punch in" for the closeup instead of taking the time to move the camera and change the lens. On a feature, where the schedule allows for one scene a day, the DP has time to make every shot "special." An episodic doesn't have that luxury of time where the schedule may call for up to four scenes a day or more. So, you'd slap a 4-1 on the A-camera, an 11-1 on the B camera and start rolling as soon as rehearsal is done.

Makes sense. But what about the exceptions? What makes them special? I recall more dynamic cinematography (maybe my imagination) in the first season of Dexter than in following seasons. Also the short lived "Pushing Daisies", which I was not really a fan of, was gorgeous. Daisies for sure was using the wider lenses for CUs and such.

That makes sense for wide vs tight SHOTS, but I mean the actual focal lengths used to get the same shot. In movies you might have a chest to head close up covered with a slightly wide lens, where as the same composition on TV is often done with a longer lens, even though it's still a chest to head CU. I guess you see a little more with the wider lens even if the subject stays the same size in frame, but is the difference really that great? Or are you saying the exaggerated shallow DOF you get with the longer lenses vs wide for the same frame size/composition is an asset to the lower-budget world of TV?

I posted another thread about finding a searchable database of stills for different movies. While searching through the ones I was pointed to, I noticed something while browsing the hundreds of stills for both TV shows and movies. . .movies seem to use more wide focal lengths than do TV shows, even for closeups.

Why is this? I don't even mean using wider lenses for some kind of disorientation effect, or anything like that. Just a plain old closeup. For some reason, in many TV show, almost all shots look telephoto, i.e. compressed on the Z axis. Even wide shots.

Is this a choice necessitated by hectic TV schedules vs a (comparatively) more relaxed movie schedule? Do the people in charge like it?

I ask because, browsing through those stills, the wider angle shots tend to look more "alive" than their flat telephoto counterparts.

Okay, so I had a duh moment and did some more googling, and also found these, similar to that one blog:

http://framefilter.blogspot.com/

http://image-par-image.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/10/09/alien-vs-predator-2004.html

http://www.leavemethewhite.com/index2.html