Tom Lowe
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Posts posted by Tom Lowe
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Getting paid $1,500 a day to drive a van is a "living wage"? You must be joking. We have teachers making 1/10th that amount. And they have college degrees. How about the millions of unemployed former professionals out there who are making lattes at Starbucks right now for $7.50 an hour? They would kill to get a job driving a van for 1/5th the amount of money these "Teamsters" are demanding.
People should be paid according to the value of what they do in a free market. If you are John Toll, ASC, you should be paid well, because you are contributing a lot of value to the picture. Toll has very specialized skills. If your job is driving a van and the director could easily walk onto any street corner and grab a random person who could step right in and do your job with little to no training, you should not be making more money than a brain surgeon.
And then you guys wonder why productions are fleeing Los Angeles and the United States?
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Are these the same Teamsters who hold productions hostage here and force them to pay $1,500 a day for passenger van drivers? I know plenty of out-of-work blue collar people who would take those same jobs for $150 a day.
These guys should not be asking for raises, they should be taking massive pay cuts if we want to bring production back to LA and California.
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A couple of recent iphone behind-the-scenes shots.
We are living way up in the High Sierra mountains now, with limited internet access. The producer of my film, Nigel Stanford, just arrived yesterday and will be shooting with me all week. I'm very stoked to have him here!
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David, thanks for this update. It sounds like film is the best choice for this project indeed. I hope you don't get roasted in that Texas sun. B) I will be looking forward to following the progress of this film, as always.
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Nor do I, my point is just that people carry certain cliche reactions or complaints to certain processes based on their personal taste or frame of reference. I think the "plastic-y" look of digital is a combination of limited overexposure latitude (so highlights go hotter faster, making surfaces look shinier) and a lack of grain, the very clean look. So as dynamic range improves, some of that will go away but I don't think the clean look is going to go away.
You have to wonder though if we had been looking at clean digital images for 100 years whether we'd find fault with film images if it were a newly introduced technology.
Of course, the images are going to continue to get cleaner and cleaner and more pristine, just as a natural progression of technology. I happen to really LOVE this super-clean digital look you can get from RAW 4K+ cameras. It's breathtaking. And as you said, dynamic range is going nowhere but up, so there can be no doubt in my mind that this type of look will soon be the new normal.
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We woke up to a dazzling light show in Lone Pine, CA, this morning!
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It's hard to separate the camera from the production, and often Red shows have lower budgets than 35mm shows -- I'm sure an M-X Red One in the hands of a great DP on a well-funded feature is going to produce some nice results, and I don't think it would be a struggle either.
But right now, all your examples in theaters ("Winter's Bone", "Cyrus", etc.) were shot on the older Red sensor, and were made on smaller budgets. I'm sure "Pirates of the Caribbean 4" is going to look pretty good, with Wolski behind an M-X Red One (or two actually, being 3D...)
I would keep an open mind about it because the camera and post workflow has improved dramatically in the past two years, so the movies that have benefitted the most won't be seen in theaters for another year probably.
Not to mention the dramatic increase in dynamic range offered by the new sensor. Few people believe me when I tell them that the Red MX has more dynamic range than a top-tier DSRL shooting RAW, but it does.
Vince, yes, if I was shooting a narrative feature now, I would be shooting it on Red MX or Alexa. ;)
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Does this cheapness apply to Mysterium, or Mysterium X, or both?
I will agree that no one has really used the Red One well in a feature, as of yet. Not that I have seen, anyway. But it's just a matter of time. The camera is perfectly capable, especially the MX.
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We had an awesome time filming a rodeo today on Red MX!!
BTS:
Also, going back to the meadow shot, I finally got Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 installed, which can import and work directly off the R3D native files with all the new color science tools. It's a dream come true for editing!
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Look good... but why is she wearing a MacBeth chart? ;)
The best part is that the back of that dress has a focus chart. :lol:
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We've been on a lenticular cloud filming spree in the Eastern Sierras over the last couple of days.
More epic lenticular clouds and light today:
Here's a short video of us filming this afternoon:
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Here is a photo of me working on a motion-control timelapse move last night, using the new camBLOCK 3-axis dolly:
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Hello,
I was wondering, when you get a chance, if you can tell me what monitor you have attached to the Red in post #9.
Thank you! -GEORGE
That's just a Red brand 7-inch LCD. I wish it was a little bigger, and with 1080p resolution.
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Myself and my assistant Chris M walking back from filming bears today at Yosemite. Photo was taken by Tony Rowell.
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Fantastic film, IMO.
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I have liked all of the actors who've played Bond. The issue for me is not the actors, but the scripts. To me, For Your Eyes Only and Spy Who Loved Me were kind of the sweet spot. Amazing locales, tons of gadgets, amazing babes, bad guys with amazing lairs.... but above all that, Bond actually had to do some "spy" work back then, instead of just muscling his way through everything with machine guns. Imagine that: a spy movie that involves actual spying and doing some detective work.
The franchise hit its absolute lowest point with the Brosnan film where he drives an invisible car and partakes in one ludicrous CGI scene after another.
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Two new blog updates with MX stills and BTS, NAB, Coachella, plus a special thanks to my intern Dustin.
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Well, badass is fine, but there also needs to be some humor, fun and gadgets. Also, how many decades are we going to have to wait until we get a badguy with an awesome headquarters?
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RED Training
in Red
Having a basic knowledge of DSLR still photography and post production of RAW images helps a lot.
If you are a DP and you don't yet own a DSLR, get one.
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RED Training
in Red
There was just a big "Reducation" class out in Vegas about a week ago.
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I'm sorry, am I missing something here? I agree that Mendes (or any top director) will be good for the franchise.
The two most recent pictures were okay (better than the farce of the last couple Brosnan flicks), but the new Bonds lack the humor, panache, gadgets -- basically the fun -- that makes Bond what he is.
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That franchise is desperately in need of bringing on a top-tier director with a lot of talent. Same thing the Batman franchise did with Nolan.
I read a headline somewhere yesterday, though, which said that the new Bond flick was on hold, due to MGM being nearly bankrupt.
Hollywood preps for Teamsters walkout
in Cinematography News
Posted
These are not highly skilled "film workers." These are freekin van drivers. I am talking about those white passenger vans. When the shows are non-union, these jobs always get snapped up quickly by college kids and unskilled laborers. Any random person off the street can do it. They only need to know how to turn a steering wheel and read a GPS.
So how does this deserve or merit $1,500 a day? This is such an insult to the intelligence of any reasonable person, and such a case of outright extortion, that it literally causes and producers and directors to take their shows and flee elsewhere -- often overseas.
It's ironic that you bring up the State of California as an example in FAVOR of unions? State unions have totally bankrupted California. We have fire chiefs making $350,000 a year and retiring at age 50 with 100% pay! $350,000 dollars??? Are you kidding me? Is that being a "public servant"? Then they go get another state job when they turn 50, and can rake in close to half a million a year!! It's a total outrage. And what about those prison guards making $110,000 a year in California while hundreds of thousands of private-sector people are unemployed?
And let's not forget that California already has among the highest taxes in the nation -- gas, income, sales, corporate, etc. This state is DEAD BROKE. We have no money. None. Zilch. In fact, we are 20 billion in the hole. And still the unions demand more.