David Calson

I've been posting for almost 5 years, I think people have seen my REAL name by now. Thanks for the tips guys.

I want to get the venetian blinds on the ceiling like this shot, how do you think they he did it?

Okay so I already did a search but don't think the answer is around here yet, So a camera that shoots 24p with pulldown puts the 24 or 23.978 frames into a NTSC 29.97 friendly wrapper right? This is so it plays friendly with NTSC systems and what not, but don't dvd players and tv's automatically add this pulldown anyways? If so, why is the camera 'helping' me? Also, if the 24p footage is pulled down to 29.97 frames, why does it still look so film-like? So I think I heard that the only difference between watching true 24p footage and 24 pulled down footage is that the pulled down footage has a more slight blur to it right? Another thing I hear is, you gotta pulldown if you're putting that on the web, at least I thought I heard that, if so why? Okay thanks for your responses.

This is just me, but if I won one of the most prestigious awards in cinema, I wouldn't want to be presented by it from somebody dressed up in some flavor of the week gossip news. But again, just me.

Forgot to mention, maybe the webmaster over there could disclose his IP address to heads up over here....

The only thing I could think of is an IP address block...

Any pictures of this momentous event?

This guy started arguing about the brand of tripod that Roger was using in a photo, the guy took great offense and started cussing Roger and a few other people out. The guy earlier admitted he was in therapy, go figure.

Some flamer ruined it for the rest of us... http://www.deakinsonline.com/

From what I've gathered from other topics on this, it's best if the obie light is hard. Should obie light be barned-doored/black wrapped so that it only hits the eye? How less brighter, usually, should the obie light be in relation to the key? thanks

"Yes, but unless you are planning to buy a 20' wide TV set and then sit three feet from it, there's no reason why a 1080P image won't be sharp enough at typical viewing distances in a typical living room." But sharp enough is subjective. My friend just bought a tv the size of a wall, we watch 1080p movies all the time but at times it looks splotchy/blockish and this is from 8 feet away. You obviously know more about resolution and projection, I'm just saying with technology always getting better, cheaper and easier with regards to making HD, with cameras soon to be shooting in such resolutions as 9k, why stick with only a 1k viewing resolution when it still looks blocky at times? I don't know these people who can't discern between 1080 and 720, but I'm not one of them.

Well, with tv's getting bigger and bigger, I want something that is at it's absolute sharpest. 1080 seems to be only the beginning stages of this. Bring on 4k baby.

5 years?, 8 years? That's what I'm waiting for....

wonderful responses guys, I especially like the diagram, thank you!

I really want to get better at controlling softlight, you know, if it's lighting a wall when it shouldn't, and the best I can come up with is putting the flag as close as possible to the thing you want to darken. My question is, what if by putting the flag so close that the flag shows up in frame, then what do you do?

I'd like to bring back this discussion with a few questions, How less brighter usually should the eyelight be than the key? Do you usually barndoor the hard eyelight so it just hits the eyes or can it hit the face too? If it's a hard eyelight, doesn't that make the actors squint, if so how can you help eliminate squinting?

Also, here's another question, Let's say that you want to set the key at f/1.4, how would you know how low to set the other lights, I mean, wouldn't the meter have to show something brighter than 1.4 for you to know, do meters go past 1.4?

Thanks for the reply Rob, so to get my other talent two stops under I would need to position/dim the lights until they read 2.8?

Here's me trying to understand light meters, Lets say I'm lighting a shot, I want the center character the brightest with the people on the sides to be less lit. My meter says I need to put my main person at 5.6, (okay, I set the lens to 5.6) now lets say that I want the other non-important people to be two stop under, I should make the light meter says they are at_____? Maybe an f/2? Lighting ratios, what ratios do you like work at for normal, not high-key,not low-key situations, 2:1, 3:1?

So I've heard you should use front light on woman's faces, doesn't that make the picture look flat? How do you compensate and add depth/contrast? Also, let's say you do use front light, maybe you put topper on the light to separate them from the background, doesn't the topper only darken most of the upper half of the bg, how would you finish darkening the bottom half? Thanks

I don't like the argument that it's okay to take something from someone or some company because they won't miss the $$$. If I lift Donald Trump's wallet, it's still theft eventhough he has billions more. I'm of the mindset that if you're going to use something of someone's for enjoyment, work or whatever that they should be compensated for it. If people have to go the store and pay $20 for it, so should I

What's a good brand for this type?

AMEN!

I'm a green filmmaker, and I hear all too often about impolite, aggresively mean people (especially in the union), I just wonder where there this disrespect comes from and why it's concenttrated so much in the film industry, albeit I'm sure deadlines and expectations are a main culprit.

http://cameraassistantmanual.com/