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Benjamin Smith

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Posts posted by Benjamin Smith

  1. I will be shooting a documentary in Austin, TX later this year and am in need of camera op's in the area. It will be a 4 day shoot plus 2 for prep, set up, etc... Positions will be paid.

     

    We are shooting on the Sony EX3 with Letus ultimate and Nikon lenses. We have a 4 camera set up. 2 fixed cams and 1 dolly cam. Resumes and reels can be sent to resumes.reels.uto@gmail.com or post below and I will contact you. Please have DOF adapter experience. Thanks

     

    It will be a great experience to work with an awesome DOP who has said he will do it but has not yet signed on officially, so I won't give out his name yet.

     

    We are also looking for an experienced gaffer and several grips if you want to send resumes also.

  2. Sorry, I did not mean to compare grips to pas or both to janitors all three jobs are important and I do not want to belittle anyone with that statement. It was meant as a joke. My apologies if anyone was offended.

     

    Thanks for the input guys. I honestly don't know why I posted that I know I already knew the answer. I think it was written out of frustration. I am doing decently well in my profession. I do mostly commercial stuff and that is nothing to be sad about. I have even directed two shorts, so I really have no room to vent. I guess I just get a lot of pressure from my family. You know the old statement "either start making good money doing this or get a real job." I saw on one of the posts Adrian Sierkowski stated simply

     

    "to be a DP, one day you just say you're a DP."

     

    Although I am a director I believe it still has the same meaning. I am still pretty young and I have a lot of scripts in the works maybe one of them I can get made.

    Thanks for the input.

  3. Ok so we here it a lot. "the way to make your way up to the top of the film food chain is to start at the bottom." Well my question is how does someone get into the bottom. People who have not gone to filmschool and have no help from the contacts there. How do they get on a set as a pa or grip or even a janitor. It is not like films are readily listed in the yellow pages (or are they? :huh: ) . And when you do find a film is it as simple as showing up and saying I want to work on this?

     

    I guess I am just asking the question for everyone out there who may be asking. Just looking for a little insight. thanks

  4. Hi Nick,

     

    I think the first thing you need to figure out is do you want to be a cinematographer or do you want to begin your own production company.

     

    If it is cinematographer/Director of Photography you are going for than Adrian had the right advise work as hard as you can and jobs will get better and better.'

     

    Now if it is a company you want than you need to structure a company. When I began my production house we began small working weddings and local business adds and eventually we grew larger. We got incorporated we got investors which meant better gear which meant better productions. Having a production company means you can't always focus on what you want to do but what is best for the company, and eventually you will get to do what you want when you have a name and recognition. We fought through almost three years of crap videos that we didn't really want to do but it grew the company. Today I am going to be directing a large budget documentary and I get to focus on films and short films. But I still have my production company that is running and growing and bringing in the backdoor income. It is a lot of work but pays off in the end.

     

    I hope that helps in some way.

     

    Cheers,

    Benji

  5. I'm sorry, I don't have specific information like that on hand. Some festivals are specifically geared toward documentaries and some are very specific about the types of documentaries they show in terms of theme. By and large, I've focused more on narrative as it pertains more directly with the "Hollywood" style of filmmaking.

     

    However, I can direct you to the following website:

    http://www.documentaryfilms.net/festivals.htm which has a more specific rundown of festivals catering to documentaries.

     

    Thank you for the question and I'll add this information to the site as I'm sure others out there will be interested too. :)

     

    Thanks for the input Brian. I will check out their list.

     

    Cheers

  6. Brian,

     

    Of those 200 do they all accept feature length documentaries? If not do you have a list of those that accept docos or some that come to your mind. Still in pre-production on mine so no rush.

     

    Cheers

  7. Niki,

    Look I know how you feel. It is frustrating to have the vision of directing and not being able to accomplish that right off the bat. I can understand you probably got off an annoying shoot and and needed to unload but honestly this is not that place to do that. You had some good questions at the bottom of your post if you had just came out and said, "hey I had a frustrating shoot and have some questions..." Because it is true the people on this site are the professionals and you coming just out of school will probably run into some of them, and you can burn bridges with them. I am in the same place stuck "paying my dues as you say" but when I am frustrated I don't unload on the people here I come here for a little guidance. So lets try it a little different next time.

     

    My advice take it or leave it.

     

    Don't worry Niki, with enough hard work and perseverance, you just might get to fire a whole crew someday. :P

    :lol: Laughed for hours...classic

  8. Hi all,

     

    I have been interested in going to a film school for some time now and have been doing a lot of research. I have a question for those who have been. What kind of curriculum is there? I mean what kind of books or study materials do they require you to purchase if any. I know a lot of film school is hands on learning but I also know there is class time. If you have the names of specific ones that you like let me know I would like to investigate them.

     

    Cheers

  9. As mentioned above cheapest and fastest is godady I built my own site in iWeb and uploaded it to godady. it isn't the fastest to load but it gets the job done. Check out my signature for my site. I am in the process of getting a professionally done site cause my business needs it. cheers

  10. Hey everyone,

     

    I just filmed some videos over the weekend and am now in the process of importing them. The camera is a HDR-FX1 I filmed in 1080i and every time I try to play the tapes a message popes on screen that says Change to Correct Tape Format. It is quite frustrating if anyone can shed some light on the issue I would be very happy thanks.

  11. What you should do first is cut the image background out in photoshop like the pics above and save it as a .psd file (final cut and photoshop work together.) when you import it to FC it should remain the same with no background. If that doesn't work put the image in FC and do a color key (video filters - key - color key) and key out the background color directly in FC. Play with the settings a bit to get it to look nice and you have what you need.

  12. I believe Redrock makes M2 adapters with Nikon mounts. You could save a lot of money by getting that version of the M2 and just a bunch of cheap Nikon primes on eBay.

     

    I think that is what we are going to wind up doing. It was our original idea but when I saw that set of primes online I thought I would come to my favorite source for info. thanks for the help.

     

    The exact adapter is still up in the air. Of course if budget allows I would love to get the movietube or P+S. But the range might fall to the M2 or the Letus I am still researching both. I will take the light issue into account thanks.

  13. Hey Everyone,

     

    I am looking into buying a set of Nikon Cine Primes similar to these

    Can anyone give me feedback on the quality of these lenses and also the pros and cons. I will most likely be using these on a HVX200 w/ either and M2 or Movietube. Will those be a factor in the lenses I do purchase?

     

    And also If I do purchase these now will they be useable on a better camera such as the Red or Sony F23? I am new to using 35mm lenses so any help is appreciated. Thanks

  14. I have been working for nearly 3 years now with my companies co founder. We are both co-directors of every job we have done. Including Shorts, Music vids, and Docos. I think it's awesome. We both share the same vision for each project yes we disagree on some things but usually one of us realizes the other was right all along. We are in pre production on our first big budget doco this year and I am siked about working with him. It can't work if you aren't willing to compromise on the little things.

     

    I can't imagine a husband and wife team working well. If I get in a fight with my co-director at least I know I can still go home to my family.

  15. Maybe you can just get few inexpensive lenses to have around in your kit for day to day and then rent the higher-end lenses as needed?

     

    Yeah thats what I plan on doing. I had a chat with greg johnson (thanks again) I plan on buying a set of nikon primes and keeping them for the day to day. Up in austin (about 20 min north of me) I can rent a set of zeiss primes for not to much I want to try them out. The bad thing is I am doing my first semi-decent budget doco which calls for purchasing lenses due to location and sadly purchasing nice zeiss' is over budget plus they are hell to find for purchase. So it looks like the doc will be done on the nikons. Not so bad.

     

    Does anyone know if I can buy some cooke lenses if so how much? Also what is the comparison of cooke vs. zeiss?

     

    Cheers

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