Jump to content

Jérôme Keller

Basic Member
  • Posts

    21
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Profile Information

  • Occupation
    Student
  1. I thought the title gave it away already, desperate girls usually end up in front and not behind the camera. At least she succeeded in pointing out the one infallible truth about our profession, there are not to many gifted she-cinematographers around, are there any in this forum? The art of watching or shall we say peeping through a tiny black ocular to this day remains an exclusively male domain.
  2. I don't mean no disrespect but I get very skeptical when I hear people saying things like "I wish to start working as a freelance cinematographer/DP, but need to get a camera first." It's like Neil Armstrong saying he wants to be an astronaut but first he has to build himself a spaceship. The spaceship part is simply not your problem. If there's nobody gonna give you a spaceship than probably they don't trust you flying with it. And even if you build one yourself with a bunch of spare parts, people will most likely put you in a nuthouse before they let you hurt yourself with it. The cost of a DOP and the cost of the camera equipment necessary to do the job are simply not part of the same equation. It's hard enough to know about all the fancy new tools out there, let alone own any of 'em. Always remember the golden rule: THE PROJECT COMES FIRST! It doesn't make any sense to think about the work tools before you've found any work to do. If you just wanna learn the trade, then invest in a filmschool, there are good hands-on camera courses out there, half a year for little more than 10K. Good luck no matter what direction you're gonna take.
  3. Tom, yes, I have. Only the shot went into the other direction. medium shot of a sleeping couple, the camera zooms towards the left eye of the right person, the eye opens, the person wakes up. It was difficult to find the right end position (the camera has to pan a little), so we filmed it the other way around and simply reversed the shot in post. We were using a standard video zoom lens, camera was about 1.5m away from the actors, still the close-up pretty much filled the whole screen. If you wanna go for a slightly weird effect you could further zoom into the retina with a digital zoom applied in post, might give it a sureal touch. And while you are filmming make sure you know the difference between a turtle and a tortoise or Leon will blast you away ;-) Travis is right of course, the whole thing only works with a parfocal lens.
  4. if your backfocus is set correctly than the shot you are proposing is no challenge at all. since the distance between camera and actor does not change during the zoom you simply zoom out and voila...everything is still in focus. it's only getting complicated once you start moving the camera around relative to your actor's movements.
  5. weight shouldn't be a problem. good luck with the other two though. the RED is aptly named as it runs RED hot very quickly, so the fan would have to be on at a 100% at all times. also, since the camera clearly suffers from inferior heat managment, it draws a lot of voltage, you'd need a weight lifting champion carrying around a large enough battery pack to get safely through the two hours. or you simply get urself a hot swap adaptor and enough RED bricks and pray that all the battery changes go smoothly. also if you record in 4K you'll need one hell of a large harddrive to record onto, don't bump it around too much though as this might corrupt your file and send your crew back to point zero. just remember, making film is not a marathon. why not use ur head and pull a few seamless transition shots here and there? I'm sure the film's quality (not to speak of your actors' quality) would highly improve. the one shot concept has already been mastered to perfection in Sokurov's "Russian Ark", why people get off on this kind of thing honestly is beyond me. is it vanity, or the desire to compete with and consequently trying to surpass other artists? the one shot gimmick rarely adds anything to the story, and if it does it can just as easily be accomplished with good effects work. ah well, sorry for the rambling...
  6. it's nothing short of a miracle to see how people have been eating up Jim Janard's "I'm in it for the love of making movies" attitude with a silver spoon. come on, he's a businessman through and through, RED's not a charity organisation. how do you think he earned his fortune in the first place, people like that don't grow a soft spot when they are getting older. the genius of RED's marketing strategy is exactly to make people believe that they are the only corporation that is not solely interested in making a profit, they are just in it for the "fun". what a nice way to spend your euros or dollars when such a warm, "we love all filmmakers" feeling is attached to the price tag. come on, wake up already!!!
  7. One thing's for certain, Scarlet, the Red's unwanted (?) stepchild, is one ugly mother. Mrs. Leigh will be rotating in her grave by now, not very flattering. It better make some pretty pictures to make up for that ugly mug. It's scheduled for early 2009, late summer is probably more like it (knowing RED's track record in THAT department). The EX1 ships now. A lot can happen until then, the competition is not asleep, I wonder how much sense it makes to announce products that far ahead. They could have eassily announced it at NAB 2009 if it wasn't for the hype factor. The specs don't look too glorious either. A still mode was to be expected since it comes with a still camera sensor. A fixed lense isn't too helpful either. The price I take it will not include ANY accessories, and we know what that means (but hey, at least it's compatible with many other shitty RED accessories, how practical). 120 FPS sounds sweet and the 100 MB/SEC RAW recording might be a big improvement on the MPEG bottle neck (are we talking bits or bytes?). But the big question is, who needs 3 K or rather 2.4 K (after debayering), and what's with all the 5K's and 4K's and 3K's anyway? Seems RED plans its whole marketing strategy around a bunch of silly meaningless numbers. Time will tell, but at this point the competition really hasn't much to be worried about, so far we have two big promises wrapped around an eternal beta camera, is this where the revolution already comes to a stop?
  8. It seems to me that you are no longer talking about art, it's all about brainwashing and propaganda. There's no point in having absolute reality in art unless you plan on altering it. It's sad, instead of asking for total war we are now asking for total entertainment for totally dumbed down people. By the way, I don't think the cinema is the right place for such a spectacle. The cinema by it's very nature is designed for the purpose of projecting flat images. Colosseum like buildings would be way more suitable for 3D action, the audience is placed around the spectacle as opposed to sit in front of it. People become agressive when they sit in a circle, they become docile when everybody is looking in the same direction. The gladiator fights as far as their social dimension is concerned would never have worked on a theatrical stage.
  9. "Or what about "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"? Most of the movie is the POV of a man with only one eyeball working, so 3D would make no sense!" I somehow find that hilarious! Or what about "The Cyclops" from 1957 or pirate movies or "2001"? ;) "In order for 3D movies to really be the future, they'll need to be a representation of real-life and not have their money shots calling attention to themselves." Well, that sort of thing has been around for quite some time now, it's called THEATRE! :P Other than that, 3D remains a great attraction for amusement parks. I remember seeing "Captain Eo" with Michael Jackson over a decade ago in Euro Disneyland in Paris, the onscreen action was mixed with a live stage show, what a sight! Seriously, this is nothing more than a marketing gimmick, a fashion thing, it comes and goes, or does anyone still believe that real actors will soon be obsolete because of their CGI counterparts?
  10. And the seeds of discontent are growing. Seriously folks, it's time to wake up and repeat to yourselves: "It's only a camera, it's only a camera, it's only a camera!" over and over again.
  11. this is totally off topic, but I just saw Lynch's "Inland Empire" and for me it made a convincing argument that to make a great movie you will need everything EXCEPT a great camera. drooling over the RED is like masturbating over a Marilyn Monroe poster and then expecting to have to pay child alimony.
  12. Found this quote on another forum: "When you are doing an independent piece and are trying to make potential investors and potential crew members take you seriously, do you really want to be seen with a camera that "looks" like it is a consumer toy? Granted the camera they are using falls in the prosumer/pro category, but still appearences are everything. A good way to beef up the look of a wimpy camera is to add on a bunch of attachments. A huge matte box can be one of them. This way the camera looks bigger and more "professional" (to the untrained) - thus earning more "respect" and potentially that investor who is looking to part with some of his/her riches." So much for what the "real" purpose of a mattebox is :blink:
  13. Hi, I was wondering if anybody on here has purchased this particular Mattebox and what kind of experiences they've made with it: http://cgi.ebay.de/U-Matte-box-rod-support...oQQcmdZViewItem It seems a pretty good deal compared to the much more expensive brand models out there. Judging from the pictures it looks like there could be a problem with exchanging the filter holders, since the on-board microphone might get in the way. Also there don't seem to be side flags available for this particular model.
×
×
  • Create New...