Tristan Noelle

I use Sharegrid in LA all the time for gear. Rented a Red Gemini not too long ago. When you pay for their coverage, you don’t have to provide a deposit. The individual renter may not approve the rental if you have no history, though, because rental fraud and the “voluntary parting” loophole are a problem. There are rental houses on Sharegrid which are an option too. Also, short term production equipment insurance isn’t terribly pricey; do a quick look at insuremyequipment.com. If you plan on a lot of producing, look at a yearly policy. Tristan

Unique is a moving target, and often a Luxury. Kaminski has a very unique eye and a style that is always apparent, but not mimicked or in demand, apparently. But Spielberg likes it and that’s what matters. I don't know anyone who would shoot something that looks like “Crystal Skull” intentionally. Deakins is uniquely talented. He openly posts his setups because you can copy something he did but you can’t “think” like him. And that’s what you’re paying for to get Deakins and why he’s “irreplaceable”. I’ve been gaffing for a DP who’s so good and so specific, he’s just transitioned to directing because he can more fully impose what he wants to do on a project and make the visuals work with the story more completely than he could as a DP. Honestly, unless you work with a very good, successful director who will fight for you as a DP, It’s impossible to get to an irreplaceable status. I may be misremembering, but IIRC Matt Libatique at a Cinematographer’s round table one year, looked at Deakins, Phister, et al and said “Look, we’re all here because of one director.” In the meantime, be agreeable, work hard, test and experiment, and make solid relationships with directors. Tristan

Well it’s a multi-faceted answer really. Ideally, of course, proper testing of all aspects should be done. And thats a drum I beat a lot myself, believe me. It really just comes down to time and money. This is a short passion project I’m doing pro-bono with a friend. We have a small window to make the project because the director starts a full time position next month, and this has been a crazy summer of travel/work for me, so scheduling testing and getting the results was too difficult to make happen; I can’t take time off to do them. The location scout and photo boards on DoubleX 35mm was a compromise in that regard, and were very informative. Also money is short, as always. Were this a feature or something more well funded, I’d test as one ought to. Given the limitations of this project, we do what we can. At the end of the day, I know I can ‘trust’ the negative to give me a good image if I treat it right. And the insight from the members here has helped understand how to do that.

Thanks for the insight, David. That makes a lot of sense. In my limited tests, the shots with a full range of tones popped more. I’ll actively keep it in mind.

Thanks for the response, guys. I’ll expose as recommended. I did our photo boards with Cinestill Double-X 35mm in my Nikon F5, and our highlights outside the window at the location we’re 4+ stops over and were barely there, but still looked pretty good.

Hello, I’m shooting a short film in a few weeks that’s mixing 7219 and 7222 (Double-X Black & White). I know overexposing color negative will generally result in a tighter grain pattern, but I recall hearing that overexposing black and white has no affect on grainy-ness; that it performs best when exposed as rated. Am I imagining this or does that sound correct? I want a pretty crisp look for the the scenes on 7222 and want to know the best course. Thanks! Tristan Noelle

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Im 35, so half way there. I didnt mean to sound hysterical, 70 isnt very old these days, but a lot of younger people think it is, which is the point Im making. 65 is still considered retirement age in most professions. Theres a trend with younger filmmakers to think if theyre not famous or established by 25, theyre doomed. Funnily enough, I just Key Gripped a short with 94 year old Cloris Leachman, which puts 70 in perspective.

As marketing oneself as a DP becomes the norm, and is intertwined with Instagram, where its expected that you brand yourself and your style, youth becomes a natural part of it; being trendy and now. I think thats limited to a certain part of the industry and once youre in with successful collaborators, producers and directors, its not as critical. But the pressure does exist as youre entering the industry. That being said, the most energetic, fun, arguably best action film in a decade was Mad Max: Fury Road, directed by a 70 year old and shot by a 72 year old who came out of retirement to do it. Tony Scotts later work too, despite his age, was always full of energy and pushed the envelope stylistically, it didnt feel old or out of touch. There are plenty of examples that show that youth is unrelated to modern style. While most young DPs I know bend over backward to shoot anamorphic and with vintage glass to get a legitimate retro look, established DPs seem to push the envelope stylistically; for good or ill, they take chances. Bradford Young or Kaminski, for example. At the end of the day, age isnt something you can control anyway, neither is the stigma associated with it. So buy some just for men and some tight fitting jeans and carry on...

A lot depends on who youre looking to impress. I did a few features with a production group that had the idea if you could pull off even a modest film with almost no money or crew, future investors would be impressed. It didnt work out. At the end of the day, people are impressed with success, they dont really care under what circumstances the film was made, so long as it gets noticed. It has to be good first. Ive worked on a lot of things where Im a one man band and the director is helping me put up lights, the producer is doing sound, and all the gear is borrowed. But Ill only do them if I think the project itself has merit and can lead to something. The warnings about lowering the bar all around, driving up expectations and driving down costs, are real. Often youre put in a position (usualy by the company who put in the lowest bid on the music video) where you dont have the resources to do the job safety, or do it in the first place. Every minor problem becomes an emergency because theres no money to solve it because worked out fine last time.

Valhalla Rising was all a 16mm lens, I believe.

In most cases youd use a stirrup to come down from a grid but that would be too much weight for your rig. I would simply do a 40 c-stand arm from a baby grid clamp and come straight down from the pipe, it should get you close enough. Id avoid anything that torques on the spreader pipe too much. Also you may want to put in the 10 sections as needed to keep weight down overall. Consider 8, if the room is exactly 10 long then a piece of pipe that length could be tough to maneuver in there. When you do have the option to light from a floor, Id do that, as spreaders can be fickle and it looks like there are no places to safety the rig to.

Have you thought about just putting a disclaimer in the doc? Something stating that the interviews were filmed in existing lighting conditions for the comfort of the subjects. I frankly found the fact that they would be sensitive to artificial lighting very informative. Obviously you can feng shui the room: put a lamp in the right spot, with a suitably colored and powerful globe, or move to a setup with a window keying them in daytime, etc. But if it goes a bit noisy and you mix color temps, It may be worth it to get better interviews. Just a thought. Tristan

What comes to mind, and I havent done this myself, would be to grab the back end of the jib with a cardillini or similar and attach it to the dolly itself with an arm. Same with the front arm. Then it cant travel up and down or side to side as much.

If you have a dolly grip, or key grip who will do dolly, attached, Id consult them. A good DG can make repeatable movement speed fairly reliably. I imagine theyll be match cutting the pushins? I could be wrong but with $1500, motion control seems unlikely, including the equipment and techs, etc. Id recommend a Fisher 11 with pnumatic wheels to go over whatever terrain you have. Its light enough a few guys can lift it over anything rough. Channel wheels with regular track for the push in. The standard package comes with a 3 offset to help avoid track. If you have to start way back and need the jib to avoid track (port-a-jib or similar) you can put that on the 11, but itd be cheaper with a cheeseplate doorway and speed rail mitchell column. My fear with the jib is it moving slightly if your push in or landing is too sudden as they have a lot of momentum. But it should work with smooth moves. You can also help lock in movement with a little support rigging. Wouldnt be that expensive and is very portable.

Check out this handy video about choosing a light meter from Matt Workman, I found it informative. https://youtu.be/XLwU9DHNC5U

You could go old school with some BCAs, 4800K incandescent. Of course, they're 250w so they get hot, and you'll need good quality practical sockets, hopefully ceramic. And while dimmable, their color will get warm quickly. Tristan

You need another ratchet strap going from the back end of the arm (where your sandbag is hanging) to the base of the combo stand. You leave it loose and get the risers to the right height then ratchet the strap to place the load at the right elevation. It keeps the light from dropping. Other than that, it looks pretty good. Tristan

The only concern I see with using 6 2ks as opposed to 1 12k would be that it will be a bigger hassle for crew to patch and move 6 lights; could take more time. Once the T12 is on a crank stand, itll move easily enough and one electric can adjust it. Maybe stacking 2ks on double or triple headers would make it quicker. I can imagine in a tighter space where you cant back the T12 to get full flood on your bounce, a series of 2ks would be useful, but depends on location of course. Tristan

I key gripped a feature a few years ago where they used walnut shell dust in combination with a DF-50 hazer for one scene in a small room. Ill have to have to post some pictutes to link to but the particles looked cool catching a shaft of light from a 400 Jo-Leko. As to its safety, I cant say. The prop person handled it and I think it was his first gig. I didnt notice any ill effects the one day. It was more hazardous to the Red as it clogged the heatsink and made it terminally overheat a few days later; had to replace a board.

I appreciate that the lowly YouTube vlogger has to do everything in their power to keep their audience engaged (you'll notice almost every single one starts their video with the same high energy "Hey, what's up?!" line). Jump cuts help the content move faster and all. But when done poorly it ends up looking like that horrifying Charlotte Rampling scene in "Stardust Memories".

A regular 2 stop push would be be exposing the film at 2000 iso, so hes actually rating it at 320iso (x2 = 640, x2 = 1250). So hes building in some overexposure. I think his ISO rating is kind of academic in this situation. The ambient/available lighting will be what it is regardless at what he puts on his light meter. He shot wide open, or close to it and pushed it 2 stops. It would make a difference if he is lighting, but its unclear if he is with the footage. He could just be netting and flagging street lamps, etc. As for pushing and underexposing on top of it, I believe Gordon Willis did that on The Godfather, to get the lifted blacks and grain structure he wanted. So its not without precedence to do that.

Wow, an out of focus shot just ruined my Christmas! Ugh.

Judging by where your clamps are, you could probably get away with just hanging the lights from the end of the c stand arms themselves and double or triple bag the stands. If you need those extra inches, put one of those mafer at the end, or double arm it. Would make for quicker adjustments too. Your weak point is that emt joiner in the middle. I doubt it will shear or anything but they dont clamp very hard and if you move the apparatus it could come loose. Tristan

Windshield reflections in the daytime will be tricky. Use a polarizer filter to control them, of course, but even when set to max there's only so much they can do. The reflections can look very natural and cool, but if you need to shoot an extended dialogue scene through the windshield, it may feel wrong if you can't see the actors completely clearly. The other way around reflections is to mount a 6x6 solid or 4x4 black floppy flat above the windshield, but that will obviously take more rigging time, equipment and know how. Do a quick test with a polarizer and see if it accomplishes what you need. Also, in addition to the suction mount for the camera, it's a good idea to have a few with baby pins mounted on them and some C-stand arms and heads. The top of the camera needs to be stabilized for a steadier image. Here's a picture of the additional top stabilizer arm. That picture was taken before I used some trick line to safety the camera. Also tape your focus and f-stop on the lens so they don' go awry. Best of luck on the project. Tristan