Sam Kim

I'm having some fun challenges on this shoot and trying to find the answers on a shoe string budget.

Looking at the picture the camera is balanced at 5600°K and I'm trying to find a way to balance the light inside to match the CT of the sun. It's a huge tent and unfortunately I can't use lights because of our location and gennie issues. I have some answers (gels, choose to balance for interior...) but i would like to see how my peers would handle such a situation.

Also, does anyone know where i can maybe get a big enough sheet of gel to cover the entrance part but still let people walk in through the front entrance?

Do you calculate the DOP off of the 2/3" lens of the 1/2" sensor?

We're in disagreement right now and would like some clarification. Base it off the image being projected onto the sensor or the size of the chip itself?

Hey Sam!

 

Are you shooting on film or video? If it's video then I would highly encourage you to shoot green or bluescreen.

SATUSUKI! damn i miss the bay. i have NOT learned to love LA yet.

anyway... it looks like we'll have to try the green. shooting on the sony ex3.

but i'm worried about the post. it sounds silly to worry about such things BUT it's a valid feeling after a lot of the work i saw so far from editors at my school. even worse... you should see our "adr" booth! lol. just laughable.

I fear that for the most part, just moving things in the BG in daylight won't sell it as much as just moving the car, or a green screen. You don't have to shake the car, but it'll help to have the actors moving within the space as well as the space moving. If you just shake the camera, for a bounce, well the actors don't move and jostle, unless you time out "bump" and move actors and cameras at once or something similar. Rolling the car is probably the best bet and easiest way to get a moving background. I'm confused as to why you can't do it?

it's an insurance thing. we're trying to get all kinds of permission but so far nothing is allowed. we can't put it in neutral and let it roll. we're doing our best to be creative about it all.

Green screen/motion tracking and rocking the Humvee up and down. Then film some driving scenes someplace and you can composite it in later on.

thanks, fellas.

green screen and compositing is actually what we're trying to stay away from though.

i'm aware this can be done but with our post capabilities (mainly being time that works against us) i'm trying to find the best way to do it all in camera on set. we have a 5 day turn around and post is being done by those not so good and creating good clean composites.

also, shaking the humvee creates some crazy squeaks and is bad for sound. thinking about shaking the camera op a bit instead but this is something we'll keep testing.

i'm thinking of taking some butcher paper, putting a pattern on it and rolling it by the window. :]

but i'd prefer something less retarded if someone has a recommendation.

cheers, and thanks all.

i'm shooting a short film where a soldier is in the back seat of a humvee returning to their base.

i have a great location but we're not authorized to actually drive the humvee. i know what i want the light to look like that's coming in and i'm holding the exposure for the interior of the car so the world will get pretty blown out but how can i make it look like they're actually driving? we'll only be looking out the side windows (hopefully) and never the front window (supposedly). i'm not looking for detail to go by the car but i do want texture so that there's a sense of movement.

my thought was to make the PA's run by the windows of the humvee but there has to be a better way. i simpler way without making so much noise. i was also thinking of something giant to spin but that also would be too noisy or too much.

any solutions?

different strokes for different folks.

i prefer the lighting side of things for my path but i know a lot of people who follow the camera side.

i've worked with and met some amazing dps who knew exactly what light they needed, how far and with what kind of dif to get the look he wanted because he was a great gaffer too.

i've also worked with dps who didn't know sqwat about lighting but made it sound like they did because they're the DP but wasn't able to tell you if a 500Amp Gene was considered big or small. This one in particular set up 5 floppies while i was going 10-1 and i reset them all because he tried setting up one once only to have it fall on somebody else. small shoot (sometimes you have to do your own damn work!)

Either way you're going to have to learn about camera and either way a smart person is not one who know EVERYTHING it's one who knows where to get the info. I don't plan on being the mr know it all but I plan on working with guys who know a lot and can fill in holes for me when I'm a full fledged DP.

all excellent advice. my two cents is just be a constant learner, know your end goal, and before you realize it, while you're on the journey you'll be a dp before you even realize you are. see the light.

very well said.

Here's what my friend forwarded me. I took a look and it was taken down I guess but this guy was completely serious from what i'm told.

Film Crew for Feature

Reply to: gigs-497910169@craigslist.org

Date: 2007-12-03, 6:24PM

Looking for a film crew...dp, ld, gaffer, audio etc. NO PAY. I've been watching all the posts on here and that seems to be the norm, so please don't flag me. I'm just trying to make a living like everyone else and there are people on here that love to work for free.

dp you need to supply equip like RED or Varicam

LD Full light kit, HMI

Thank you in advance.

The bay area as everyone tells me is great for corporate work and docs and some times indie work. We get a big feature that usually only union guys get to do but man o man this is embarrassing. Whether it's a joke or not this is how craigslist usually is. I want to do more features and I guess (like my fellow classmates have done) it means that I might have to move to LALA land.

Here's something from a very low budget music video I gaffed a while back. This picture is a very contrasty still I took with my digital camera, not a frame grab, so it's only a poor approximation of the final shot:

 

This is a good example of what you can do with only a modest "student-sized" kit. The girl's key was 2' 4-bank kino, tungsten with 1/2 CTO and diffusion inside the doors. You can see we added a solid topper and improvised a flexfill as a right-sider (we were out of flags for this setup), and a double bottomer to take the heat off the front of the bed.

 

Over the dresser was an Arri 300 fresnel with some kind of CTO, boxed in with the barn doors to a slash, supplementing the glow from the candles on the dresser. On the floor in the corner was another kino covered half with blue, half with red gel to supplement the glow from the hanging lanterns. Finally, the left edge was a 650w tweenie with 216 on the doors, and flagged off the wall with blackwrap.

 

I can't remember now the scrim pack in any of the units, although the left tweenie was probably more than doubled-down and the 300 over the dresser may have been on a squeezer. Note the scrim bag properly hung on the tweenie stand on the left -- the scrim bag should ALWAYS be with the unit, so you can adjust brightness quickly.

makes sense but with a kit like that bigger places become more of an issue.

when i have small kits i try to think tighter shots or more practicals.

if you're not shooting film you can get away with a lot of practicals.

last weekend we shot inside a trailer. our genie ran out of gas (smart one. the production stalled for 2 days to get some more) so we relit with practicals (i had to beg the DP so we wouldn't' pull a 15 hour day again).

the film was being shot on an HVX200 w/o adapter so we could pull it off just right. looked more than half way decent and we only went 11.5 hrs that day. if we waited the hour and a half for the gas i would of kicked everyone.

you're screwed. :rolleyes:

just kidding. you'll be okay but you gave a little too much head room. give it a stop at max for simplistic reasons. until you're really ready then you can play around with how much you play but make sure when you do it's test stock and not real footage.

besides, sort of the opposite, i hear savides underexposed two stops and then pulled two stops for his film birth. that is crazy to me but he's one of my favorite dps that are just amazing.

Usually in sunny daylight conditions, even under a silk overhead, a 1200W HMI doesn't do much of anything for fill once you soften it. Remember that softness of comes from the size of the diffuser, so using the frosted lens will still give pretty hard light. 575W HMI's really only help for fill in open shade if you go direct, with no diffusion. Kino's are pretty worthless outdoors in the daytime.

word.

kino's in ext. day is worthless.

you're in LA sir, you can get a weakly rental for a 1.2k on the cheap. wooden nickel if you have to.

1.2k won't give you much at all during the day like Michael said. But for close ups and such you'll get a little play but don't expect too much if you plan on trying to soften it up. Opal or 251 is the most i would try to use to soften it.

good luck. what's the project?

I think the man is asking "What is the purpose of HMIs" not just what they are.

.

 

even so, HMI can be used for a very wide variety of things...but the most common might be used for day scenes because they

are powerful enough to penetrate in midday. they've been used to light up a forest, a parking garage, or a scene where the

light needs to travel a long way, just about anything that

calls for anything beyond 800 watts. they call for a lot of power source like a big generator to push the sufficient

amps needed.

so there's no specific purpose per say with using an HMI, its whatever you want it for, but they are TRUE in power as opposed

to the weak "yellow" tungsten lights that say 1000watts you can buy at HomeDepot for instance. HMI's project differntly with a

lens and you get reliable/consentrated light.

not always HUGe amounts of power it all depends on the light you're trying to use. HMI's start as small as 200watts and up. However they produce more lights than tungstens. a 200 watt arri HMI+ is more equivalent to a 1k watt junior. they have more output and are at different temperatures.

they're more costly but give you more light.

search next time =]

I agree. That's always been my definition of the job. On one project, the person working as swing insisted that it meant that he stayed with the truck, kept it organized and brought out grip or lighting equipment as needed. It proved to be a great opportunity for him to make phone calls and generally goof off.

every g/e will probably goof off more than most but the work should always be the priority. it's also why i'll never call some people to help me out.

first day back on this site and your article is the first i read.

i think everyone else has the right opinion. the AC/PA would never be hired to 1st but i could easily see them being asked to 2nd or load on smaller shoots if they have proven to be able to do so.

you know how it is up here in the bay, indie flicks are always trying to cut around corners.

i just got off one that was shooting in the delta/sac area and the DP hired a 1st for his HVX200 (w/ no adapter mind you) that had NEVER touched one before and was not quick to pickup on it at all. so as sad as it may sound i think stupid dps would use them.

good to see a familiar name/face frequenting these boards. keep up the good work.

how can you work w/o a crew? or are you just that kind of guy?

lucky you though. looks like you got to work with a lot of colors (which I have yet to do) and you got to work with some beauties, which i feel like always puts me on my toes a little bit more, oh AND you got paid. not bad. not bad at all.

Sounds awesome.

I'm always around and if you need an extra hand or anything let me know.

I may have an opportunity to internship and continue onto a 2yr apprenticeship position with them. It'd be doing camera and lens technician stuff. What i really want to be is a DP I feel like this may stunt me though. BUT it could also be a great great great opportunity to have a job, be able to network and do things on the side... what do yo guys think?

Does anyone know about them? Good people? Good Place? Good equipment? Do they do good stuff?

i gaffed a music video for our final cinematography project where we decided that a bleach bypass would be perfect for the look they wanted:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqROsdtaVA

check it out.

shot on 16.

student films here in the SF bay area a lot of students have successfully gotten a lot of food for free. cafes, local restaurants, sandwich shops, coffee places, bagel shops even freaking red bull donated a butt load of drinks once. i guess it's all how they work it and agressive they get.

the worst was my shoot yesterday. 9 hours, no dineer like promised and only oreos and sodas as snacks... bleh.

http://web.mac.com/samkim/iWeb/exercise/practice%202.html

No video this week, just screen grabs. how?s the lighting? i need a wider shot i think but i was going for low key, 3 point interview lighting for a mini doc of the Kim?s. Please comment back on the forum or send an email, samkim at mac dot com. Cheers.

Different lights at my disposal this time around and it makes a difference.

mac-on-campus.com

official sekonic partnership with student discounts. i had a 508 and i upgraded to the 758cine. it has a boat load of functions. I do both photography and cine stuff and it cost about $590 after taxes.

the model is real and exists and it's new, real real new. i've called sekonic to find this out for sure and they reassured me it's legit.

I just bought th L-758C through ebay, $AU635 from Hong Kong. The same supplier now sells the 558 about $200 cheaper. I emailed Sekonic USA and they are expecting a US release in coming weeks.

 

Basic functions are comparable to the 558. I haven't got my head around it's exposure profiling system yet, but it seems it might be useful to calibrate the meter to a video camera or telecine.

 

The Sekonic software is limited to working with 8bit luma values, based on the green channel. It would also be kind of cool if the software could analise a greyscale directly from an image. At the moment you have to get the values in Photoshop (or similar) and enter them manually into a table.

 

Daniel

i'm having a hard time with the software. did you use a mac or pc?

The key was simply getting out and doing it. Doing whatever I could and taking whatever I could for the work, because I knew that I was not going to be Steven Spielberg overnight, nor did I want to be. And it was never about equipment as it seems to be for the newbie's today. It was about experience. Like David who learned what the word cinematographer is from a lot of projects and expereince, you can call yourself anything you want, but if you don't immerse yourself in it, you'll only have a business card with a title but no business.

great success story. gives me hope because i see my own attitude as being similar except i'm in school.

i've once tried the, "i'll work for you for free" thing and they basically told me it's a liability and no one will take me up because of that reason. BUT i have hope. i'll find work somewhere.

lights are what intimidate me the most actually. lighting someone and a set really well is no small feat and is the reason i'm thinking of going down to LA just to work on the lighting side of things.

i want to find myself a mentor like Norman Leigh