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I'd say treat it like a commercial and keep the short film short. Focus your energy and resources on telling a concise story. Also if you plan on sending it to film festivals, you'll have a better chance of making it into several screening if it's short, i.e in and around five minutes. It'll also force discipline on you the concentrate your story on what's essential.

From Turner Classic Movies website: http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=...41&rss=mrqe For the first time in years, Chaplin brought in a new director of photography, Karl Struss, to work with his usual cameraman, Rollie Totheroh. He did so at the urging of his brother, Syd, who felt that Totheroh?s techniques were behind the times. Struss quickly learned that the director preferred to shoot scenes as though they were being performed on stage. He finally convinced Chaplin to let him shoot the scenes from two cameras at once, placed at different angles, to make it easier to edit the film. While it doesn't directly answer your question, it does explain what happened a bit.

A great loss. I remember when he came to my university back in 2000 and how he captivated the cinematography students.

what's wrong with a little showing off if it helps puts butts in seats - the alternative is we can go back to shooting everything from tripods. innovation leads to progress.

http://www.panavision.com/tools.php

I would have to disagree. While it generally covers the same films, its emphasis is focused around the folks who do the special and visual effects. If you're unfamiliar with visual effects the concepts might be hard to grasp, but it's worth reading to gain further understanding. And you're right, it's pricey but then again I think it's a quarterly, not a monthly publication.

what kind of flicker are you trying to achieve? is it like firelight, so the flicker is random or something more mechanical, like a pulsing?

"Ichi the Killer" is high up my list of weird movies. Takashi Miike (Dir) / Hideo Yamamoto (DoP) I remember watching it very late at night and when it was done, wondering to myself "what the hell was that?"

I too can't see the arrogance of this action. Isn't this exactly the kind of control every filmmaker wants over their films. How many directors of photography, who shot such beautiful black and white films, would be appalled by colorization? We should all be so lucky to have that kind of authority over our work.

I love the commentary on "Dark City" with Roger Ebert. He covers just about everyone's job and how it contributed to the film.

Older and smaller sized memory sticks are easily available on ebay. I get them there by the handful. Good luck.

I'm shooting an emulsion test with the 5299 on Thrusday and we're doing TK on Friday. I'll write up my findings later that day. (I hope I'll have it up in time for you.)

I tend to find that producers reject the format not for being unusual but because of problems with the distribution deals. At times, the distribution deals requires four perf in the event that funds are mishandled and a traditional photochemical finish is required. Ironically, the 25% savings in stock is often eaten up by shooting more takes. Still, I prefer 3-perf and can't wait for more 2-perf cameras to become available.

I'm gonna jump in to also compliment a great popcorn movie. I grew up with the Transformers but have to admit that I never did much care for the premise since I was a Robotech fan instead. Still the movie delivered on all things Michael Bay. The room laughed at all the right times. We all loved the CG and the slick look. And for the most part, we all got the inside jokes about previous Bay movies. In all, it was by far and away one of the slickest car and toy commercial of the year!

Grants have been a wonderful vehicle for documentary filmmakers and many grants are out there. But you'll be hard pressed to find grants with few strings attached for narrative projects. In a lot of ways grants are commissions for a work, i.e. they'll give money to a project that has a message that the grant issuer wants to get out or promote. Grant issuers are often more insistent and focused when it come to content than say an investors. That's not to say that investors won't try to dip their hand in the making of a project (everyone wants to be a filmmaker). But with grants they'll want to make sure you include in your script all the key points that got you the grant in the first place and they'll want those points say in through to the final cut of the project. Still, grants are a good suggestion and it definitely should be something to pursue if you're looking for money for a project - I would never want to sound like I'm dissuading anyone from any possible funding source. Who knows you might finds someone offering money that fits the content of your script.

The best way to get funding is through "leg work". You've got to get out there, meet many people with money, and pick yourself up when they mostly say "no". I have a friend who saved up enough money to not have to work for six months in order to seek out funding for his film full-time. That's what it takes - no short cuts, no easy one line answers. It goes back to a joke I have about "how long is a piece of string?" There's funding in this country from individuals or groups of venture capitalists. Or you might find folks outside the country that think the script will sell very well in their country. There are production companies that have deals with distributors. There's post houses that'll do the post work in exchange for part ownership. Etc, etc, etc. It's all very individual and no easy answer. Of the four features I've recently shot or am about to shoot, each had money raised in a completely different way and none of them got the money without lots of meetings and lots of rejections. But, they did get the money. You just have to get out there and learn what you don't know and find your own way.

The west side is expensive, Hollywood is generally expensive (although you can find some deals) and in the Valley, the closer you get to Ventura Blvd., the more you can expect to pay. I lived in Valley Village for a time and the rent was very reasonable as compared to my friends living in the west side. Don't discount areas farther out like Long Beach or even Orange County. Orange County can be very nice but it's a drive to get to LA. As far as getting an idea about what you can expect to pay, there are several websites you can look to. I did a simple search of "apartment search los angeles" and it turned up a ton of listings. You can start narrowing down rental rates by area.

If by "replicating such an effect digitally" means "can this be emulated in post?" that can prove tricky. I don't think it can be done easily since what you're capturing in camera will have the temporal artifacts of a wider shutter. Meaning the blur associated with a 180° shutter, for example, would have to be removed and and the image sharpened. The removal of the blur is the tricky part. You might want to try a "sharpen" plugin with perhaps pulling frames or speeding up the footage to give it some edge and jumpiness.

You should look into Automatic Duck. (http://www.automaticduck.com/) It'll convert your FCP EDL into an AFX composition that your effects guy can use. You'll have to give your fx guy all the media that you used. Good luck.

It's been my experience that you'll get flicker with lights under 2k when shooting over 120fps. Something to keep in mind though is that even if you've got, for example a 9-light maxi, you're likely to still get the flicker (it's a matrix of smaller lights). You're better off getting a single 10K light for the reasons Tony Brown mentioned, "enough thermal retention to maintain light output from wave to wave". And the dimmer only adds to the problem. HMI (and as far as I know fluorescent lights) are fine up to speeds of 10,000fps so long as you use an electric ballasts. You can get what's know as "arc wander" in HMIs, but it's remedied by diffusing the light since it's a bright spot that moves around the globe.

This is a great idea, but I'd be very concerned about using it in an office setting should he mirror tear the plastic liner. Otherwise it's a wonderfully larger reflective area.

You could use a few large fish tanks filled with about three to six inches of water. On the floor of the tank, place a mirror (some like it when the mirror is broken). Shine a light into the mirror (remember that the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incident). Add a little smoke to the room and/or a fog filter to the lens and a touch of slow-mo and maybe a little underexposure. If you use the fluorescent lights that are in the office, you might want to make the lights that are further away darker by wrapping the tubes with ND gels, bobbinette, window screen mesh or simply turn some off. If the fish tanks are too difficult to get, try some pyrex casserole dishes. It doesn't need to be glass, you could use anything that'll hold water like a bus tub (like what they use at restaurants). I like the glass because it give me the freedom to aim lights into the mirror from any angle. Good luck.

Hey Sam, I've done several cooking shows in the past and here's what I would suggest. You wrote that you want your product to look like something from the Food Network - is that where you're hoping to have it picked up or will it be shown by a different broadcaster or cablecast? If the show's been purchased use a better camera, if it hasn't sick with the DVX. The DVX is a fine camera and you'll have money to put into the set and lighting - a very important Food Network consideration. I wouldn't worry too much about the shooting 16:9 or 24P. Last I heard, 16:9 is not not a big consideration for Food Network and most of their shows are 60i shows. If you're looking to shoot something more stylized then go with 24P but you may not have to shoot 16:9. You'll quickly find that the 4:3 frame is more conducive to cooking shows. If you are interested in a more stylized show, you might want to look at Kylie Kwong: heart and soul (Discovery Home). IMHO, it's one of the best looking cooking shows out there. Her earlier shows, I think, are better looking then the later shows or the ones she shoots in China and Hong Kong. Good luck with your show! Give us an update.

I was looking for a grey card vendor and found this website that talks about why there might be a different readings in incident and reflectance. It doesn't address Marquette's problem but I think it's worth reading. http://www.bythom.com/graycards.htm

I hate to ask, but did you check to see if the exposure "Adjustment" on the spot meter was active. The Adjustment (which is different than calibration) can be set either + or - on both the Spot and Incident. Speaking from experience, my gaffer occasionally forgets to compensate for the adjustments made on the incident side when switching over to the spot side. Just a suggestion. For what it's worth, I just purchased a new L758cine and it's off by 1/2 stop.