Greg Gross

In still photography I often shoot with a 200mm prime and open it up some with a constant f-stop. No problem with the background and I can even isolate areas of the face(in-focus and out of focus). I like to show a little more white of the eye(below the iris). This has the effect of bringing out the eye color more. With the 200mm I can frame and isolate and see the eyes more. This makes for a great portrait with beautiful women. I've done this with a constant f2.8. Greg Gross

Has anybody seen Mission Impossible 3 yet? Do you not think Tom Cruise is worth millions? He gave a spectacular,great,magnificent,un-believable,super star performance. A billion dollar deal at least! You guessed it, I'm a Tom Cruise fan. Does anybody know if his co-star was meant to look like Katie as she sure resembled her? I thought Vic gave a great performance also,great fan of his. I wish Tom would do another fighter jock film,buzz the tower a few times. Greg Gross

American Association of Media photographers- www.amp.org Supports organizations who represent standardization of color. A PDF file can be found there for work flow and for proven tech- niques in standardization of color. Greg Gross

I am not an expert concerning these cameras. Arri 235? I've read a lot about it. Actually used in the film "The Island". It was used with bicylce type handle bars at times. Greg Gross

One thing I hope that never happens is for people to lower their heads when they admit to shooting High Jpeg Vs. Raw. Both files have their merits and times for use. Remember for one thing just the sheer size of the files. If I'm shooting stills for the Harrisburg Cele- bration Of The Arts on the waterfront, I'll shoot in High Jpeg and not raw. I'll shoot the same for Harrisburg Magazine. If I'm shooting the Harrisburg skyline for my on personal stock im- ages then I'll shoot in raw. I use raw for all my personal fine art stills and consider the raw file to be my personal digital negatve(if there is one). Often times you will see color casts in the shadows and when removed you'll have an improved image. You will be more happy if you develop a personal digital work-flow and stick with it. Remember also to communicate with your local digital lab and find out what color space they are using or spaces. RGB,sRGB etc. ? Yesterday I was at a Borders Cafe in Camp Hill,PA, I stopped for a cafe aut lait and one of my film student friends was there. She's a stunning blonde and I'm old enough to be her gr- and pa. I like to tell the joke that I'm too old for girls and too young for medicare. My friend is fascinated with my Canon EOS -1D Mark II N and she had her Nikon D-50 with her(a fine camera even if it is a little warm). I gave her my camera and I took hers. I said okay Meagan lets pick an available light subject here and see which camera can do its stuff(camera?). We each framed a window with beautiful trees out side of it and in the distance a Toys R Us sign with red,green,blue, yellow. It was a cloudy day with blue punching through the clouds at times and direct sun at times. I set my white balance between tungsten(inside light) and daylight. Inside I had beautiful black top- ped tables trimmed with tan and black and tan trimmed chairs. The walls were a beautiful burnt or- ange and the reflection of the word borders was under the window on the wall. I watched and waited for the light to change and added a "golden" polarizer to the lens(a nikon prime). Meagan said I was taking too long and I told her to go talk to her boyfriend for a while. I made one exposure with "gold- en" polarizer and one without it. We asked the Border's manager f he would please print them on his printer(I gave him some Kodak photo paper). The print with the "golden" polarizer won out. Meagan said, "you made a fine art photo with my camera"? I said, "yes I sure did". The joy of visualization and then creating is awesome. By the way, I was shooting in High Jpeg. Greg Gross

Week ending 5/7, Akeelah and the Bee Total Gross Sales $10,632,413.00 RE: Hollywood Reporter Greg Gross

Gentlemen, Don't forget the latitude of film. Your scene will show up in different reflectance values on film. What your sensor sees(so to say) with digital is amplified to give you an image. Amplification is involved and is not the same as 1000 ASA with film. This is why a lot of people with consumer digital cameras complain about noise when they shoot at high ASA's with their digital cameras. The trick is to expose,shoot to eliminate the noise or keep it to a low minimum. If I'm going to provide b&w photos for Washington D.C.,Baltimore, Phila- delphia,Harrisburg(film) newspapers, Then I print different prints for each newspaper so that they look good in whatever paper. I have not had any difficulty will digital newspaper photos. Film ASA and Digital ASA are not equal and cannot be compared but only a figure of speech. When I shoot digital- I expose much as I would if I was shooting slide film. If I shoot digital for the shadows then I do have to look out for noise more and I tend to carry a Sharp 15" monitor with me. I can see the image better on the Sharp versus the camera screen. Sometimes also use a laptop. I have never seen a sofware program where noise re- duction worked well. Sometimes creative white balance that I desire enters in to the final im- age also. I shoot digital with a Canon EOS-1D Mark II N and Canon primes,rarely a zoom. I do prefer the slightly cool look as compared to the Nikon warmer look. I cannot emphasize enough that when shooting digitally you have to selectively make a choice to shoot raw or shoot high quality jpeg. Raw is not always good and High Jpeg is not always good. You need to make a proper choice between the two. Greg Gross

I was told today by a film student that Akeelah and the Bee was #10 on the film list. Was that from Hollywood Reporter? Can anyone confirm? Greg Gross My girlfriend Stephanie just told me that Hollywood Reporter has Akeelah and the Bee at #9 position,made 3.4 million weekend of May 5-7. Greg Gross

ISO/ASA in relation to digital photography is quite different. Using film you are concerned about sensitivity but shooting digitally you are dealing with amplification. Shooting raw does not excuse you from using a proper exposure. In the football photo was your foreground brighter or darker than your background? Did you expose for the foreground,the background? What mode was the camera in? Center weighted,balanced would probably have been better than a program mode. In raw your sensor will capture the entirety of your scene,frame. A high quality jpeg setting may have been better than a raw setting. In the real world raw is not all its cracked up to be. The group of pro- fessional photographers that I am associated with have learned the merits of raw and high jpeg. I use CS2 with absolutely no problems professionally. Color space is a choice you have to make cre- atively. If you start comparing every digital program(software) for conversion and the color spaces associated with them you are not going to be happy. The digital labs I use here for my special pro- jects are all based on CS2 and associated color spaces. In my own film/digital darkroom I use CS2 and its associated color spaces. Absolutely no problems. I'm using Windows. Greg Gross

Thank you David, I sort of thought you were using sharpies but was not sure. I really would be pissed off if someone mis-represented a gel to me. One thing that really pisses me off with stills is if an assistant gives me an incident reading for a reflected reading or vice versa. I enjoyed the film immensely David, I've seen it twice now. Greg Gross David, I know you are busy but if you have time would you please comment on the long dolly shot(tracking camera) in Akeelah and the Bee? What lens and were you sh- ooting with a Panavision? Greg Gross

Just out of curiosity I wonder if someone could comment on how to properly label a gel. I consider this to be of maximum importance. Obviously no sticky label could be used as the heat would probably make it fall off. Greg Gross

IDENTITY Directed by James Mangold DP- Phedon Papamichael ASC John Cusack Ray Liotta Amanda Peet Location at a single motel throughout most of the film. Greg Gross

Great art and craft in cinematography. The bee is buzzing all over Pennsylvania. People are saying that at last- "we have a film to take the whole family to". I did some some color still shots(digital) to- day for the sunday news. I had to fight the kids and lines at the box office. I looked on the poster for Akeelah and the Bee and sure enough there it was- David Mullen ASC. The ticket taker is saving the poster for me, on the qt she is not supposed to-but she is. David congratulations sir, you're on the LionsGate label. Great film! Saw it today and I'm going to see it again on sunday. Best regards for the film's great success! Greg Gross

Speilberg is probably the best director/filmmaker that we have at the present time. Some may not like that but it is so. In fact he's always busy making a film. How many of you are doing that? Have no doubt that he was poor when he started but he got the money he needed by selling the idea that he had a great film for the cinema. How many films have you made in 2005? How many films has Mr. Speilberg made in 2005? Christ, no one here is in the position to critique Speilberg,he's the greatest director/filmmaker of the day and besides that his films are making money. I've said this about a 1000 times on this forum- Its not the camera(type) or the lights(type) but rather your vision and cre- ativity.If you are working for a director and he wants a certain style,look,mood;can you produce it? If I had my way,every candidate for film school would have to be a professional photographer for at least 2 years before they could even be excepted into cinematography. One requirement would be to have a sucessful still portfolio and sweet jesus would we sep- erate the men from the boys! Lets face it, how damn hard is it to add motion to all of that. It would end stupid questions like whats an fstop? Whats the difference in the amount of light between f2.8 and f5.6? Light has basically three qualities- Quanity,Quality,Intensity. Give me a f...ing 16mm(super) camera and a 42mm lens and some photofloods and I'll make you a good film. I almost forgot, I need a good script...a good script...a good script!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I do not object to stupid questions from newbies and students. As a matter of fact I don't need a super 16 camera as I could shoot on the PD-170 and go to post. Actually the public does not give a damn about the look,they want a good story,good ending. The editor is the hero. Maybe film school candidates should be required to be film editors also before being excepted? Greg Gross Student Cinematographer Professional Photographer

For a few weeks when I started photography training(a long time ago),my instructor reqiured the class to use a box camera(home made from a small cardboard box). I would go into the darkroom and insert a small piece of film(35mm cut from a roll of film),used a small slot made from cardboard to hold the film in place at the back of the camera. We had a guide that showed the diameter of holes that would equal a certain fstop(based on common drill bit sizes). Of course the smaller the hole the greater the exposure time. Some of us would use caps from film contain- ers and drill holes in them to equal fstops. So we could carry several caps around with us equal to f2.8,f4.0 ,f5.6,f8.0 etc.. The film plane was simply measured from the hole in the front to the piece of 35mm film in the back of the box. No fancy camera controls to worry about(did not have to wor- ry about features turned off or turned on). You guessed it,we guessed at the exposure times,would you believe all morning,all day in some instances? My only regret is that I did not keep some of those photos to remind me of where I came from. Today when highschool seniors come to my studio for in- ternships they always go crazy over the F3,F4S. The new Canon EOS-1 Mark II N gets a lot of atten- ion and the Linhof 4X5. One girl asked me why I carry a big, old,heavy tripod around to mount my Bronica cameras on. She said why do you still use that old F3? I replied because it pleases me. You see she would not understand but the F3 is my cardboard box. I sent her down to Strawberry Square on an assignment to photograph people. She said you mean you want me to ask people if I can pho- tograph them,I said yep,thats what makes you become a professional. I took my F3 and stayed be- hind to shoot a corporate portrait of a ceo. Greg Gross

David, Do you realize you have the right stuff? You have the makings of a good filmmaker son! Keep up the good work! You could call it "Dream Entertainment". Remember and pay no attention to anyone who says no, that you must watch good films to learn filmmaking. I think you should look for a script(good story) something similar to "The Usual Suspects", not like it but along the same kind of story line, and shoot it. Tell the story with a lot of close-ups like you did with your thesis film. Greg Gross

Hello nicholeglaze! Welcome to the cinematography forum. So you wanna be a filmmaker? Well there is an awful lot here for the learning process and it does not cost you any $ to search and learn. If I can be of any help to you please ask,my e-mail address is in my profile. Good luck! and Good afternoon. Greg Gross Student Cinematographer Professional Photographer

Congratulations Mr. Mullen for achieving ASC Close-Up. I was so proud today to open up my AC and see that you were chosen for AC Close-Up. At last a cinematographer that I have knowledge of. I had lunch today with a school teacher and she wants me to help her 6th grade class shoot a dv.They have written the script and I visited the school with her. So these kids are asking me for my autograph and they wanted to know how many famous films that I have shot. It almost brought tears to my face,of course I had to tell them that I wasn't famous. I swear David those kids acted like the PD-170 was a Panaflex Millenium. I really enjoyed reading your comments in the ASC Close-up inter- view. Before the teacher meant me for lunch,I had my AC open with your picture on the page. When she arrived she said,who's that guy? I said,"he's the cinematographer who shot North Fork". I suggested that she rent the film at blockbuster and view it. I also said, "he's well known for taking time on the forum to help newbies and nobodies,solve their filmmaking problems". David thank you so much for taking the time to help members here on the forum. Congratulations! Greg Gross Student Cinematographer Professional Photographer

Mr. Sweetman, I enjoyed your reel very much. EXPLOSION ENTERTAINMENT-Okay. I see you have mastered the use of the Close-Up. I liked the close-up of the shoe stepping on the twig. Of course I thought your use of close-ups was outstanding. Would you care to comment on how you shot the scene with the male actor running in front of the car? I just relaxed as I started the clip to see if it would grab me and it did. I had a steady increase of adrenaline right through to the climax. Were you the operator? Your use of of close-ups here told the story,made for a strong story. Greg Gross

Visited jw sound.net this a.m. and registered as a member. I believe it will be very useful for me in obtaining a better understanding of sound for production. Greg Gross

Three things make for a good film, A good script...A good script...A good script. Greg Gross's quote,no but rather that of Alfred Hitchcock. I have a suggestion,before you shoot your next action film, Watch Law and Order,24 Hours for insight on Close-Ups. Greg Gross

grimmett, Yes sir your point well taken here. I was sitting here doing some storyboards and working on a shooting schedule for a film, I want to shoot this spring. Glen Beck was playing in the background on talk radio. The funny thing is in the back of my mind this small voice was saying,is this guy really promoting Brokeback Mountain? It really pissed me off when he called it Broken Cowboys. I always try to respect another man's film and try to see it through the filmmaker's eyes. Filmmaking can be so much hard work and sometimes heartbreaking. For some reason I always think about the hard work one puts into making a film. I did not care for Beck's rudeness. If he really meant what he said its just possible that he defeated himself and promoted the film. I was really not aware of the gross earnings for the films that you mentioned in your post. Greg Gross

Yes the true magic of movies. Thank you Capt. video. Greg Gross

For Capt. video, Yes, how about Cary Grant? That has always been a sad point with me. Last week "Goodbye Mr. Chips" was my good movie of the week to watch. I'm sitting here at 58yrs.(ex-vietnam ranger) with tears coming down my face as I lived the story. I felt like I was an extra watching it happen. Well it got no award but it has longevity. I enjoyed viewing your list of films and reviewing them in my mind. Thanks for good post and I enjoyed it. All posts were good and I enjoyed them. Greg Gross Mr. Douglas, Thanks for link to article by Edward J. Epstein. I enjoyed reading it very much. Greg Gross

Thank you Cole, My brother went to BYU,he's a computer designer. Always asking me how to take good pictures! Greg Gross