Matthew W. Phillips

I would never personally recommend underexposing reversal. I think you should nail it if at all possible. I metered and thought I nailed it last roll and I was slightly underexposed. If I had intentionally underexposed, my roll would have been garbage. Try to nail it.

I think you take what I say wrong. I do not insult video really. In fact, my first shorts that I ever did were all shot on video. I used to be a serious digi-head who thought that film was dead because people like me couldnt afford it, or at least didnt think we could. I think what people can do with digital now is just light years ahead of what they could say 20 years ago. We now have 24P cameras at no-budget levels which is incredible. The latitude of video is increasing as well which is good news for many. I was merely commenting that this clip, with its compression and all, looked different than most 35mm clips I have seen, compressed or not. I mean, when I watch movie trailers, they are just as compressed, but do not look like that. I cannot speak from experience of shooting on 35mm as I have never had THAT much money available as to shoot on that medium. I am merely commenting from watching others who have posted 35 footage.

M stands for Matthew and my name was updated because Matthew Phillips was already taken on this forum. As far as looking up my resume, it's no use to do that as I haven't made one for imdb. I make indie films for the love of filmmaking, not to get a long list of stuff on imdb. As far as I know, I don;t have a page. Don't really need one, I suppose. One of my teachers back in college made films for 20 years for the love of filmmaking, made Sundance, Paris, Cannes, Toronto, about every fest you can think of and is not listed in imdb. Sometimes I think that people put themselves up there which, to me, defeats the purpose. I thought the point was that you had a credit of interest to the public.

I don't understand why people wouldn't want to be known by their real name on here. This site has some serious potential for networking so I would think it advantageous to use your real name. Otherwise, so and so director may not offer you that nice DP job if you are messing around. It just makes the site more professional.

I thought the skateboarding footage was among the best in the whole reel. I'm not so sure that there is actually too much aerial footage as I think that you should change up HOW you do the aerial footage. I do agree with whoever said to include more indoor narrative shots. I didnt really get a chance to see if you have an eye for "moody" scenes so it's really hard to judge you as a cinematographer. I think that for what you have done here, you have done a good job and, for an outdoor action type of thing, I would hire you.

Go to this site and order a manual from them. Scroll down till you find your model. It's $20.00. http://www.craigcamera.com/ib_s.htm

That's 35mm? No offense but the whole thing looked a bit flat and looked sort of DVish. Your artistic choice of shots were cool but the scenes didnt look very rich in texture. In fact, some shots looked a bit blown out. I also expected more skin detail for 35mm. I honestly have seen 16mm shots that were much sharper and smoother.

I think you mean the CME-444. This camera has manual/auto zoom, manual override exposure (best thing you could ask for in super8), 18 and 24fps frame rates, but it doesnt automatically recognize asa 64 film like ektachrome 64t. However, if you have an external light meter, you can set exposure to manual and meter that way. I have a Sankyo XL-620 Supertronic which I had to use manual exposure for with Ektachrome 64t and when I got the film back, it looked incredible...in fact, I like it better than what K40 looked like with the built in meter.

I agree with whoever said we should take up a collection and get these kids a can of film and processing. When I first made the move from digital to film, I wondered if it was a mistake at first. I shot one roll, got it processed, and when it came back and I held that print up to the light, it was over baby. Film had won my heart for good because the image was unlike anything I ever expected. It was light years ahead of what I COULD DO (not saying it was ahead of what someone else could do) on digital. Even with a couple years practice with digital, my first roll of film blew it out of the water. I think if some of these kids would give film a chance, they would probably never want to go back...even if it meant being patient for money.

To add a further bit of film mojo, some people have suggested using a low contrast filter to smooth out the detail. Tiffen makes one of these filters and you can see an example of what it does here: http://www.tiffen.com/contrast_filters.htm

Excuse me for saying DI when what I meant was transfer...now who is being an elitist? Since when do only students use RANK?

That is not a true statement. 16mm film is not inferior in resolution to the HVX200. I have no idea where you got your information from.

I am trying to figure out why people think that getting a $1,000 16mm camera off eBay and spending about $2,500 in film and processing is any more expensive than people who go buy HVX200's and Sony Z1's, and JVC H100's, and etc. I mean, digital sounds good because of the cheap stock but you forget that most worthwhile digital cams are a large initial investment. If you really wanna get with the big boys of digital, you are looking at a minimum of $15,000 - $20,000 for just the camera. And real HD stock is more expensive than DV stock so that adds to the tally. Add to that your matte box, french flags, killer tripod, and such and you are racking up the money. Not to mention, in theory, you can shoot forever on that, but in practicality, people start eyeballing every new camera that comes out so I doubt you will shoot on the SD900 for 10 years when you see so many awesome new cameras come and go. Now, for film, especially 16mm, get a $1,000 camera off ebay, and how much stock could you shoot and process for the, say $14,000- $19,000 you would have compared to doing a higher end digital cam? 14k-19k of 16mm stock and processing would go a LONG way. There is no reason a person could not shoot a feature on that much raw stock and processing. And I personally believe the 16mm footage would turn out looking better than the SD900 footage or whatever. In short, the whole digital= value argument is a fallacy if you are talking about quality equipment.

Well, it obviously is in terms of data. The question is, does all of that data equal into superior image quality. MiniDV is compressed, but people assume that it means the data is gone. It isnt gone, just squeezed. Just like when you use WinZip, your files are compressed but it doesnt mean that your program is missing anything. If that were the case, you wouldnt be able to run anything after it's been unzipped. I mean, I really can't fully answer your question because, if you are capable of discerning miniscule differences, it may make a difference to you. If what you are asking me is if your average viewer is going to care, then the answer is most likely not. Another thing to consider with this is, are you going to DVD or are you planning to use transfer as DI and do a film out. If you are seeking to seriously blow up to 35mm then maybe uncompressed starts to become worthwhile. For DVD, I wouldnt even bother with it.

I don't do dailies with Super 8. For one because they wouldnt be dailies for me, they would be weeklies...:-D As far as uncompressed, there are places that will do them. I know there is a place in New York that transfers to 10-bit uncompressed, and there was actually a thread in the Super 8 achives on here that discussed whether it was worthwhile or not. The general consensus from the die-hard Super8 filmmakers on this site seemed to suggest that it isn't really worth the effort, money, and hard drive space to deal with 10-bit uncompressed for Super 8. MiniDV will give good results and DigiBETA will give incredible results. I really doubt that 4:4:4 is going to give any noticeable difference over 4:2:2 of DigiBETA, when you are talking about Super 8. Not to mention, editing 10-bit uncompressed opens up a whole new amount of editing tools to deal with that amount of data. I am personally content with MiniDV trasnfer from RANK, if they are done well.

I would have to agree with Morgan in the sense that the lighting did look flat. I will say you did a good job of keeping within the DVX range of latitude, as I didnt notice any blown out highs or murky lows, but it still didnt look organic. It looked as though your lighting was too even across the whole frame. Might want to try some mood lighting like Morgan recommended.

Okay, let me give you a scenario...One of the film classes I took in college, I ended up in a group with two guys and a lady who took the class to express their "artistic" side. Time came around for the first project to be done and we had a meeting to discuss how we were going to do this project. Obviously this project was going to be done on digital because of the short turn around time we had to write, shoot, and edit it. Not to mention everyone was too cheap to shoot on film. The only person that had a digital camcorder was the main artisan, who had a Canon Optura that he bought for around $500. He wrote a short script taking place at night for which he could get a couple of friends to act for. I started to discuss how we were going to light this thing and how we were going to get optimal sound and him and the rest of the group looked at me like I was crazy...no joke. One guy suggested that we do handheld, because he said there is no point using a tripod or anything to steady the image. The other guy said that we didnt need any additional lighting outside of the natural light that was available at 9:00PM. As far as sound went, they were all down with just using the on cam mic. When I pressed the issue, I was told that I wasn't "artistically" minded because technical issues are the lowest level of art and not important...according to the group. This wasnt the first time I took the class and experienced this. I dropped and took the class two more times and both times encountered exactly the same attitude and they were all digital shooters. However, the few times we screened shorts of groups that decided to use film, whether 16mm or even Super 8, the production values always looked higher than the groups I had been in and the other DV groups. As far as the person who implied I was a hack because I said digital intermediate, I was trying to point out that I do not reject digital technology because I only edit digitally on NLE platforms. I was trying to make a distinction between that and cutting on film. I don't know why that was so hard to understand?

I'm not 100% about this but I think the resolution is the same with both. I think the main difference is that DVCAM is a bigger, better quality tape so there is less drop outs and archiving is a bit safer.

Man, I thought about this too but in the end, it's just not worth it. Bite the bullet, pay the cash, and be patient.

Heck no, it's not. 100ft. is a daylight spool and totally worth the effort...especially for a deal.

I dont reject digital technology because I always edit using digital intermediate. I just reject digital as an origination format for narratives. BIG DIFFERENCE! As far as the "good ones" getting lumped in with the bad as far as digital goes. I realize that it happens, but I don't think the "good ones" realize or admit that there are bad ones. Seriously, many good digital shooters will not accept that they are a minority against all the hacks out there. If they would admit it, and distance themselves from that, I would regard them higher. Maybe they think by admitting it that it degrades digital as an origination medium, but whether you admit it or not, it is there. Is a tagger with a spray paint can a painter? Catch my drift?

Amen!

Here's the concern I have about including video shooters in with Cinematographers. David and Brian wisely point out that there are some seriously talented people shooting on digital. No doubt about it. I agree whole heartedly. But despite what Brian says, the vast majority of digital shooters are NOT like that. The talent is a minority in the digital realm. Go to youtube and look at some "Cinematographer" reels. You will shutter at the number of hacks that have the nerve to call themselves Cinematographers. Also, as a test, I decided to email one of them and ask what their rate was and they replied with $500.00 a day! Can you imagine paying that kind of money for someone who looks like they've only used a camera for less than a year? Look at your sites like Youtube, DVXUser, DVtalk, Indie forum, and etc and see just how many digital shooters are calling themselves DPs and Cinematographers, yet their work is extremely subpar. That was hilarious!

Funny thing is, if anyone had made a movie back in the early 80s with one of those crappy RCA video cameras, do you think anyone would have called them a Cinematographer? Not hardly. I think the reason people think the rules should be changed is because video looks way better than it used to. But how good something looks has nothing to do with what term you use. If a guy shooting a movie on video back in the early 80s isnt considered a Cinematographer, I don't see why it would change now. I think you would be hard pressed to say that back then people would have considered him a Cinematographer. And why is it being a "douche" to call someone a videographer? Are you ashamed that you use video? If not, what's wrong with it? I think it is a respectable title.

I don't see why not. I mean, if you write a script, albeit an amateurish one, aren't you still a script writer on the credits? Same thing for an actor or anything else on the credits. Doing it well isn't a pre-requisite to being labeled as such if you are conventionally accurate. Richard is right when he says that: Cinematographers= film is in the camera Videographers= tape is in the camera Your point about what the ASC says is irrelevant. If that were the case, no one outside of the ASC members should even be considered Cinematographers.