Daan Werdefroy

Would the chandeliers, turning some of them off for contrast, having a grid cloth between the remaining actives ones and clever blocking achieve, kinda, the same effect? Or do I just light the wide shot with the practicals and get some kino's on booms for the CU? I'm on a student budget, as you may have noticed :) Thank you David, good point. I'll have to check that. If I may ask, what units do you tend to use for a big room, INT NIGHT ? I'm struggling to guess what unit equivalent I need just to get an ambient level.

Hello, I'll be shooting a horror short in 2 weekes. We just managed to arrange our principal location and now I had a small question regarding lighting for a base level. The story will take place during 1 night and all in the same location. It's style is based on the tv-series Hannibal. The more the story progresses, the more chiaroscuro I think I will be going. My question is regarding to the main living room. This room is quite big : 6m wide vs 15m length. Since I would like to have a small base level of lighting I'm thinking of hanging practicals. ie chandeliers. These give light and can be put into the frame. The only thing is that I have no idea how big these should be. I'm shooting on alexa with zeis hi-speeds. Would it be enough if each chandelier gave the equivalent of a 1K? say 10 100watt-bulbs? I'm guessing a base leven of f4 would be very nice. Thanks in advance

I know, but I fear that saturating for example orange in the entire picture will influence the skin tones aswell. Or am I wrong? The can of piant and costumes are being sought after. How could you apply this to the facial tones? I would like to tone them down aswell on the mother and son

Hello everyone, I have small studentfilm coming up. The story is about a mom and grown up son, who live together in the same weary appartement. The mom meets a guy and this guy appearence ends up splitting the mom and son. The desaturated blue and grey in Edward hopper's painting "morning in a city" is a major influence when talking about the colors in the appartement. http://imageobjecttext.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/hopper-morning-in-a-city-1944.jpg Now I wanted to contrast their cold colored and desaturated environment with the guy's appearence by making him wear warm, satured colors. I don't want to play around to much with masks etc so I was wondering if there is a way on set where I can desaturate the entire picture afterwards and his colors would still look pretty good. I will be filming this on a REDone

Well, I just finished the first series of "Boss" with the fantastic Kelsey Grammar. I must say, I really enjoyed this, especially thanks to the cinematography. It was shot by Richard Rutkowski and Kasper Tuxen and was most noticeably for its shallow POV, macro CU and handheld cameras. I felt that the handheld sometimes was a bit too much but the macros and shallow POV really added to the feel of "dementia" and "politics": being blurred by the situation, not thinking straight or not seeing what is happening. It certainly was differently shot than say "the west wing", which was smoother and had a more realistic feel to it. Also, I can't help but wonder how big Gus van Sant's influence on this was. Does anybody have some info on the series? Or interviews with DoP's? For those of you who don't know it, here are some shots, but not in the broadcast order: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwpFJsejctk Opening credits (also pretty cool): http://vimeo.com/32712477

Well, in this month's issue of AC Darius Khonji says the following: "I used CTO and CTS on the keylights in a scene. I also like Bastard Amber, Magenta, Pink an Mauve. I often made shafows a bit cooler, often by bouncing blue or green from above. Then in the digital grade, I mute the highlights a bit, bringing them down in intensity and adding a bit of gold. In the toe of the curve, wherever the blacks catch a little bit of colour, I add some blue. is use colour contrast a lot. That's how my eye functions" Reading this made me realise I know practically little about colour,colour contrast, how they react under a certain type of light and which options I have in grading. Can anyone recommend me a book dealing with any of the subject? Thank you for reading!

I just started looking into Picture Profiles on D-SLR's, so can someone say if I'm correct or not? On a canon 5DmkII you don't have much wiggleroom in grading because of the H264-codec. Especially if you use the neutral picture profiles. So, on one hand, there are Picture Profiles to already make your look incamera. But, on the other, one could optimise the camera's dynamic range (above standard settings) by using, let's say, the technicolor cinestyle. Shoot it flat and than grade it in post. Correct? If this is the case: is making your look incamera better than shooting it flat? Or does the H264 actually have the wiggleroom to achieve the same result? On a side-note: Does anybody know a site where one could find a collection of Picture Profiles? Thanks!

I have easy acces to a RED-one. And very, very, very maybe an ARRI Alexa

Hi all, Since I graduated (about a year ago) I started working in "the bizz". It's been pretty hard, not to say impossible to land some jobs. Now, I have been working as an electrician but I have a small shoot comming up with a little budget. But it occured to me that I know a bit about lighting but my knowledge about lenses is pretty sub-par to be honest. So, can anyone direct towards of general introduction of much used movie lenses and their charateristics? Thank you! PS: words of encouragment are welcome aswell ;)

I have a short feature coming up and it will take place in abandoned subwaytunnels. The thing is though, I always light according to what sources would be available in real life (for example: A small lamp hanging from the ceiling or cracks in the ceiling would give me the excuse for lighting the situation). Problem here is that, according to the story, the charachters have never seen daylight and they're hobos. So they don't have any electricity, lamps or daylight down there. Right now, i'm struggeling to imagine/light a pitch dark tunnel in my mind... Does anyone have any suggestions or examples? In short: How does one light the dark without it looking like light? Thanks in advance everyone

I don't really understand the expressions I've marked, since English is not my native language. You're saying you've used lights (very few) which matched those of the location and the pretty much controlled whatever was there to the most greatest possible extent? Nice tips, thanks! Again, not familiar with the term, but I'm guessing using a camera-light and do the color in post?

I'm doing a short in a few weeks, it will be mix of fiction and documentary: non-prof actors playing themselves, real locations, extras not knowing they're in a film, ... Ten (by Abbas Kiarostami) and the work of Ulrich Seidl are a big inspiration. So we will be shooting this digital, obviously, and as little light-manipulation as possible (very dogma 95) The thing is, I still want to give this a sort of look. Problem is that the cameras available at my school are a to clean for me. So I would like to know how I can make clean, digital things more visually attracting. Examples could: - Use of DOF-adapter (but I should be able to do those typical docu zooms, so I don't know of this is possible) - The film "Julien Donkey-Boy" was shot on handheld digital video, the film was transferred to 16mm stock before being blown up to 35mm film for the final print. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance Edit: I forgot to mention the possible cameras: Panasonic AG-DVX 100 Sony PD 150 Sony DVCAM P2 XDcam

Hi there, I am a filmstudent and in a few days I'll be shooting a small scene. It'll be on Fuji 400T. The story itself centers in a small nightshop, being robbed by two ladies. Of course, a thing or two goes wrong. I've been showing my director a few examples of what I would like to do. The nightshop itself I would like to have as worn-down as possible, the ladies on the otherhand have to be gorgeous. The recent coca cola zero advertisement helped in my quest for examples: My director liked the cooled down ambiance in this one alot: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/The...r/naamloos2.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/The...r/naamloos8.jpg As you can notice on this picture here, the night shop itself being lit by alot of fluorescent lights: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v327/The...r/naamloos6.jpg Would it be enough to hang the room with colorcorrected fluorescent light as a base? With what filter would you wrap them for that specific (ugly) colour on the walls or on the guy's face? For the CU's, I would use a soft light and a small filler, would that correspond with the enclosed pictures? Thanks in advance

Why the giant silk above his head? To give a more even lighting on his head?

Well, I just visited the location and it turns out that: - There isn't any direct sunlight during the day - There is no room outside to put a lamp (2 floor appartment building) Luckely I managed to convince the director to move the table a little to the left, so now I'll have space between the window and the table. There, I plan on using a simple lights with chimera soft box (wattage will depend) for keying. The other side, I'll try to fill with silks and mirror boards. I'll have the risk of underlightning, but (I hope) the look will be allright.(i.e. the same as in the commercial)

Hello, As a student I have an assignment wich requires me to accurately reproduce a commercial. Here's the link for said commercial: http://www.bigfun.be/Commercial/Loving+you+is+easy...htm Additionally I've uploaded some frames I grabbed with VLC-player (they're not too perfect, but they help) So, how would you guys recommend I would handle this? We are shooting on video btw. It seems that the "sun" is pretty much the only lightsource, so I was thinking I'd set up a HMI (softend) behind the window. And then I'd fill the other side of the female. The guy, I think, I can hit pretty straight-forward with the HMI. I'm worried, however, that I would blow out my characters and underexpose my scenery. Or that it would look flat. Also, in the first shot I see a bit of blue light right next to the window. But the light on my characters is pretty white. Does this mean I could light with Tungsten-balanced light and then autowhite them; qo that my daylight looks blue? I know it's a lot, but any info would be handy. Thanks!

Hi everyone, In a few days I'm DOP'ing a shoot for school and the director wants a shot with the main character and a window next to each other. Thing is, the shot will be made by night and the skyline has to be clearly visible. I'm shooting with an ARRI SR2 and I don't really have an idea on how to light the character AND have the skyline. Or how to measure the skyline in order to get the nice balance I want, between the skyline and my character. I hope the problem's a bit clear... Thanks in advance! Daan

Ok, thanks for the trouble. Excuse me for asking, but what's a "2x4"? (I'm guessing measurements?(I'm from europe)) So this thing would be useable for going up and down stairs?

Wow, thans a bunch everyone. This is why I love this site! ;) I still have a number of questions: @ Jamie Lewis: I took me a while to understand it, but now I get the overall concept. Did you (or somebody else) test this one? So its possible to get a nice shot while ,say, walking up and down a stairs? @ Brian Dzyak: About the shoulder mount: Do you now a way how a could make my own (but cheaper)? @ Jorge Espinoza: Could you explain the "negative lightning"? @ James Steven Beverly: Thanks man, your advice was clear and pretty much summed up what I learned from watching other students film. 1.Could you give me an example of Mario Bava's work? Not a movie, but a shot with lightning ste-up. Only a matter of having an example. 2. Could you explain the "matte paintings"? Thanks everyone for posting, thanks in advance to those who I asked a question and to the rest: keep 'em coming.

Hi, In a few months from now I have to shoot my own movie as a student. Problem is, like all students, I practically have no budget (except what my dear parents tend to loan me). So I was wondering If any of you guys have some tips or tricks on how to make a decent picture for little money. Examples can be like how to create a, more or less, professionnel look with just a DV-cam. Or how to make your own steady cam for little money. Stuff like that. This is something that is really important to me, because there is nothing that pains me more than that ugly DV-image or a shaking camera. Thanks in advance.

Hi, this is my first post, so don't kill me if this is the wrong sub-forum to post this. :ph34r: I'm currently still in filmschool in Belgium and in the last couple of months I've taken a great intrest in DOP's. To be honest, this is becoming somewhat of a direction my life could evolve into. Thing is, I honestly don't know how to approach this. How did you guys ended up being a DOP? Did you studied for this? What kind of jobs did you in order to become a DOP? Also, did you move from a smaller country to a bigger one (such als UK or US) to be a better filmmaker? Because I don't see a future in Belgium: budget's allways small and originality isn't to big in mainstream here. And well, Indie ,doesn't seem to exist here Thanks in advance