Jonathan Bowerbank

Hey Sree, I'll most likely be available if you're still looking. Also, I've worked with your actor Jake before, so it'd be cool to work with him again. feel free to email me: remmyreel(at)hotmail.com thanks for the name drop Sats :)

Rig the camera to two parallel ziplines run through the trees and send'er down!

I wouldn't classify that as a characteristic of the Genesis. You can easily give film that yellow tinge if you want. I didn't think it was shot especially poor in anyway, just perhaps overprocessed in the DI, a tad. But it certainly had the muted skintones, lack of detail and softness that we come to expect in many digitally shot films.

If you like a zoom lens that breathes like crazy, by all means, get it.

Yeah, definitely turn them off if they're not helping you any. That's almost always the first thing I check for when shooting at a location, whether or not I can turn off the overheads. And if not, whether I'll have enough lighting to overpower any effect they might have.

Since you're working with smaller tungsten units, for the wide shot you can throw a CTB on a light without diffusion and set it as a sidey key to get rid of the complete silhouette. Then when you go in for closeups, try and frame your subjects interestingly enough so perhaps one side of their face is dark & silhouetted by a window while the other has a darker wall behind it and your tungsten unit is brought in closer with CTB and diffusion as your key light.

I would also add that you shouldn't be afraid of natural light. The first scene looks like it might have had even more windows outside of the frame that you could have opened up to get a nice natural look. If a blown out window looks nice, embrace it. And use those visible sources as motivation for your subject's key light. Perhaps even incorporating small reflectors if needed to create a subtle kicker for the closeups. In the second setup, you got a nice sparkle in the girl's eye. I would focus on trying to achieve something like that for most setups. You can usually achieve it with just your key light, but sometimes setting up a small unit close to the lens will bring out those eyes even more, while also sometimes acting as adequate fill for a scene. Some instructors are so fearful of video that they instruct students to shoot flat, then augment their look in post...but in the business world, that's a good way of losing control over what you've shot. Don't be afraid to boost your contrast, achieving darker shadows and straying from basic 3 point lighting to get something interesting. No one setup is ever the same...unless you shoot interviews for a living :)

They're also fun to throw, if you know the right way to grip them to make them curve :)

I assume since you were able to stop down to a 3, that you were shooting on some sort of DV camera. In which case, a spot meter is more useful than an incident meter, since the camera itself used a spot meter. If your camera has various setting for zebras, you could try setting one zebra patter for around 70, and the other for 95. That way you can tell where skintones are correctly exposed, and where something in the frame is too white.

Just keep in mind it's going to be a long day of constant shooting. And for shooting the ceremony, you don't want to draw ANY attention to yourself, so it's probably best to have all cameras on tripods, rather than roaming around and taking away from the bride & groom's special day. Last wedding I shot we had 3 cameras, XL2's. The one with the wide zoom was set in the back for a general wide shot. And the other two cameras were set downstage left and upstage right, basically picking up CU's and avoiding the camera at all times. It made for an interesting final edit, having such different perspectives.

Was bored today, so figured I'd catch a matinee showing. It wasn't bad, I think Nic Cage was the real weak link performance wise, but I enjoyed the majority of the film. The footage looked great as well, I was really impressed, being it's the first time I've seen any Red footage given a film out and projected on the big screen. There wasn't any visible grain, as previously stated, and I think the fact that it was printed on Fuji might have helped color wise. The only thing I felt looked unnatural were the autumnal leaves on the trees, obviously tweeked in post. And as always, skintones were a bit muted, but some of that can be attributed to desaturation in post. Otherwise, I was quite pleased with the image quality. But I can see how the sharpness and non-graininess of the Red can definitely appeal to Proyas. Sharp & crisp images is really a part of his style and visual aesthetic as a scifi director. See Dark City & iRobot, for example.

Oh, and yeah, that didn't make sense. 50mm, T5.6 with the actors approx 12' away, should have had plenty of DoF to be "movie sharp" as you said during the screening ;) I also think there might have been a subtle registration issue with that projector, making the image soft. So it was either that, or some collomation issue or FFD issue with that BL we used.

Get in touch with the DJ, or whoever's in charge of the PA/speaker system during the ceremony and reception. I shot my older sister's wedding last year, and managed to patch one of my cameras into his soundboard, so I got excellent audio for the ceremony. And I just used the onboard mic for capturing ambient & congregation noise. If you can, try and go to the ceremony rehearsal as well to get an idea for best camera placement. When the wedding party goes out to take photos at a separate location between the ceremony & reception, I'd recommend you only send one of the cameras along with them, and the other to the reception to set up for the wedding party's entrance. On both occasions that I've shot a strangers wedding, the camera crew hasn't made it back in time for the introductions. I REALLY hate shooting weddings for people I don't know, I just find it incredibly dull and awkward having to be at a party shooting people who I don't know. I'm currently starting up a small prod. company with a friend, where weddings is going to be one of our services...I just gotta suck it up and do it, even though the money usually isn't too great. It's also a business where really, there aren't any repeat customers, only referrals. So I wouldn't make it the center of any new business.

Yeah, regarding my only comment after the viewing. I just think the biggest thing against us was time, and not able to fix certain details because of constraints. Still, I feel the look of the film is very interesting, and perhaps in some shots the inability to get fussy with the lighting actually helped give some shots more character. I think now you know why so many DP's can be real hard asses, it serves a purpose in many aspects, so I look forward to seeing how you work on the next one :)

Totally gonna be there :)

This is more a question to ask the post house directly, to see what they would recommend when going from 4K to 2K. If you could let us know what they say, that'd be great :)

I hope you were on an 18mm at T5.6 all day! Otherwise, that's ridiculous that they didn't get you a FF. What sort of gig was it, just a bunch of kids shooting some "straight to web" video? You can find a lot of videos like that, shot on a Red, on YouTube and such.

I keep seeing various versions of TV spots & trailers...in some it looks like the lamest film, others make it look pretty awesome, so I'm intrigued enough to probably check it out this week. Just one thing, it seems like a combination of Nick Cage's "National Treasure" and "Next" characters & premises. I guess we'll see :)

Shhhhhh!!! Don't give'em any ideas! ;)

I'm even more sore, I bet, from snowboarding :/

Check out ReelDirectory.com and do a search for insurance. There are a few agencies there who could get you a quote :)

Don't wanna speak for Alex, but I've heard from PA's about how that feature is coming along. I hope the view is better from your perspective, Alex :) Anyway, looks like I won't be there. Sugar Bowl Ski Resort is calling me, and I must answer.

Is this happening for reals? Should we bring foods?

His reply: "Thanks! Would loved to of used film for the ladytron promo, it's actually digital. The processed look is just a custom color treatment I added in post. Cheers, N"

I'd study up on the Guild itself, and be well versed in what it is they offer to professionals in the field. Also, if you have any technical background with cameras, I would express that in some way. They may ask you things like what your favorite movies are, etc., but if you already have some good knowledge of film & video formats, lenses, cameras, etc., then I'd say you have a good foundation to begin your training on, making you a more attractive candidate. Good luck!