Dror Dayan

I suggest you start by working as an electrician, on student movies or low budgets which don´t require much experience, and see how more experienced people are lighting.

Hallo everyone, I´m shooting a short in a month and have an interesting night scene to shoot and light. A car is driving through an empty city street at night, and as it goes by past the street lanterns the lights go out one by one. We still don´t have a location so I still haven´t discussed the shooting with the director, but I can imagine shooting it from the back of a car driving in front of the actor´s car, from a low angle so that I can see the lanterns go out. But the main question is of course how to light the scene. I´ll probably be shooting 16mm on 500t vision3, I don´t have the budget to push it, even though I´d love to, but I think I might be able to get away with underexposing 1 stop and correcting it digitally, we want it to look dirty anyway. So I guess this choice of stock makes any digital work of tracking the lights and making them black almost impossible, and I would like to do the whole effect analog and on-set anyway. so: my first thought was to hang black cloth on the actual lamps, rig a tungsten lamp underneath, gel it to look good and have an electrician pull out the plugs when the car is driving along. I know the best choice would probably be 5k´s on the lanterns, but I don´t have enough of them and would probably also wouldn´t have enough electricity for it. Would trying 800w´s be a total suicide? I have enough of them and they are also pretty easy to rig. 1k´s and 2k´s are also a little tight on my list, but I guess I´ll be able to get them if I have to. (It´s a student film so we may have some more lamps at school) I will probably try to either have some HMI give a hint of a moon light somewhere in the background, or, what I think could look the best, shoot the whole thing in the magic hour. But I guess for the magic hour the 800w´s would really be too weak, won´t they? so I guess my main question is if someone has a better idea, or if you see some major flaws and if it´s possible to do with the 800w´s. I would try to post some location stills as soon as we have a location. Thanks in advance for your opinions and help! all the best, Dror

Hello everybody, after digging up the archives of the forums I found some answers to my problems, but I wanted to post anyway since a lot of the posts were old or just not very detailed. so, here is our shoot: we are simulating a moving train, day, in studio. the windows are steamed, and the actor clears them up with his finger and looks outside, where the scenery is seen, rushing rapidly. so far I´ve reached the following decisions: - rear or front projection instead of green screen, because the windows are steamed with water drops on them and that would be a headache to key, and impossible with our budget. - we are shooting 35mm with the moviecam, 500t, (probably 5219) in order to have enough light and a to defocus the background enough to hide the projection. - I would like to have one laptop feeding two projectors, one for the rear projection and one as a key light through a frame, in order to sync the lights on the actor´s face to the background seen. would probably "strengthen" this one with a HMI. - I would be shooting the plates digital, probably with the sony EX3, and probably focused and defocus them in the post or on set. the plates will be shoot out of a real train. and now my questions: - DLP/LCD? any known issues? how many lumen to begin with? - should there be any rolling shutter problems with the plates, since I´m shooting EX3 out of a train? (I mean there probably will be, but will they be a problem as defocused back-plates?) - Sync and frequency problems? I´m shooting the MovieCam on 25fps. - any recommendations for the projection screen? I heard Lee Frost is good, and thought about taping two stripes together with fine and transparent tape. I also have a 1/2 Silk 12X12, which is probably too thick and too wavy, I would think. any other options? - any other ideas for planning the test shoot? I would like to know that everything works before going to the principal shooting. there would also be at least one shot where the background has to be pulled into focus. any ideas there, except of putting the screen as far away as possible? any experience, ideas, links or potential hazards are extremely welcome! Thanks and all the best, Dror

That´s also what I know. because the BPM is made up of tiny particals in the glass, if you use a longer lens you have less particals and the spaces between them are relativly bigger, hence less of a promist-effect, hence you need a denser filter... all the best, Dror

Oron, I totaly agree, but sometime I want to know what tools more experinced DP´s as me chose to tell their story with, so I´ll know better how to choose the tools to tell my specific story, and that´s when I usually go to cinematography.com... ;) all the best, Dror

Hallo Everyone, for my end-of-the-year paper at my film school I´m writing about the DV/HDV-shot movies of Michael Winterbottom with Marcel Zyskind as DoP. I´m mostly interested in the "smaller" shoots (in regards of team and lighting) such as "In This World", "Nine Songs", "Genova" or "Road to Guantanemo", but also "a Mighty Heart" and maybe "a Cock and Bull Story". I hope to catch "The Killer inside me" on the Berlinale next week so I can see the other side of the coin with 35mm Cinemascope, but the subject of the paper is the work process on the set and in the pre-production when working with a small and light video camera on original locations with a small team. What does it mean in terms of coverage, in terms of lighting set-ups? what does it allow the director and actors, which is harder with bigger shoots, what are the disadvantages? I know one of Zyskind´s habits is to allways have the camera ready, and sometimes shoot in a documentary fashion even between the takes, when the actors aren´t acting. (they talk about it in the making of of "a mighty heart"). I don´t want to write about it just in a way of "we take a DV Camera and go from pakistan to london", but also analyse the different asthetics that are possible, because "Genova" for example looks different than "in this world". I want to explore different approaches, not just the handheld semi-documentary look. In "Genova" there are also beautiful steady-cam shots through the small streets, and also more use of a tripod. Anyway, as an avid reader of those forums I would really appreciate your thoughts and maybe some links and hints for information, mostly about the way Winterbottom and Zyskind prep the films and how they work on set together. I´m thankful for whatever you got! all the best, Dror

I also liked the film very much, I am writing my second-year-paper in film school about the movies of michael winterbottom with marcel zyskind and about their use of DV/HDV cameras with small teams and set ups, in movies like "genova", "in this world", "the road to guantanemo" and "nine songs". if someone has some thoughts or information on this subject i would appreciate a word! all the best, Dror

You can also connect a 5k dimmer to a second one, and the second one to the lamp. will give you a flicker effect which you can also control with the knobs, but isn´t really very healthy for the dimmers... all the best, Dror

You can also connect a 5k dimmer to a second one, and the second one to the lamp. will give you a flicker effect which you can also control with the knobs, but isn´t really very healthy for the dimmers... all the best, Dror

You can also connect a 5k dimmer to a second one, and the second one to the lamp. will give you a flicker effect which you can also control with the knobs, but isn´t really very healthy for the dimmers... all the best, Dror

Joel: please advertise your rental at the appropriate places. this is a technical forum intended for technical help. thank you. Dror

Joel: please advertise your rental at the appropriate places. this is a technical forum intended for technical help. thank you. Dror

Joel: please advertise your rental at the appropriate places. this is a technical forum intended for technical help. thank you. Dror

Thanks a lot Mr. Mullen, those are really great examples. I´m sure to show that in class. Just wanted to say that I´ve been an avid reader of your posts for a long time now! Thanks again and all the best, Dror

Hallo everyone, I also posted it in "lenses and accessories" Forum, so sorry if I´m redundant: I have to do a lecture as part of my cinematography studies about Promist filters. I wanted to show some good and exciting examples of it´s use. Can anyone recommend a good movie or scenes that show an interesting use of Promist? thanks in advance, Dror