Aapo Lettinen

Well deserved award indeed! --------------- I think the problem with previous nominations has been that Deakins's style is generally too "movie centric, not visually stunning+contrasty+experimental+vfx enough" for Academy Awards... the Oscars seem to be generally about who has "Most VFX", "Most Sound Design", "Most Cinematography", etc. and not about who does visually and technically wonderful results (not "in your face ad-like colour explosion -like" enough) Deakins previously being like "too good, not stunning enough, too related to the story" for the awards :/

how about watching an European or Asian movie instead? maybe even some drama or documentary? I don't know how many European films are distributed in the area you live, there may very well be none outside the American blockbusters.... the American "independent" movies are generally quite good so maybe you could find one of those at least :lol: the main problem with Movies vs. TV Content is that movies have to be forged to a standard form and lenght whereas tv series have much more freedom and possibilities to handle complicated storylines and lots of interesting characters

shoot a clip with it and check the metadata?

I know persons who have got cancer from relatively short exposure to asbestos... Working couple of weeks in the past installing asbestos containing materials on construction sites and similar type of stuff. One may not develop anything from exposure but you never know, one of those 1/10000mm airborne fibers may end up in the wrong place and in 20 or 30 years you may have lung cancer. The main problem with self made asbestos removal would be cleaning up the worksite after the job. Those tiny fibers will spread everywhere and you will have to clean the fixture too. I think it would be just too difficult to do this safely diy without contaminating your home or garage or alternatively spending too much resources for preparations and cleanup. ...i think the asbestos bulb bases and such may emit the micro fibers even when installed and left undisturbed. The ones i have seen had just pure asbestos surface exposed, nothing like sealing it inside the plate like in floor tiles. Maybe letting a pro asbestos worker remove the bulb base and other asbestos materials and let them clean it up so that you will get a clean lamp ready for the ceramic base installation?

additionally they can be a lot larger and heavier than similar wattage "real" cine lights (no need to manufacture compact and lightweight units for semi-fixed installation truss/grid use). and usually they are not weather protected at all, being like IP zero or something :ph34r:

yep some kind of LED solution would be useful or just shooting with a global shutter camera. if you know someone handy who can do custom electronics you can have a high power rectangular LED circuit (like those 100w ones. will cost couple of dollars on ebay) modified to fit inside the prop flash housing and get it synchronised with the rolling shutter using custom made electronics. the global shutter approach would be much much easier and faster though :mellow:

the Finnish film industry and indie field is quite different from the US one but here the indie projects generally don't lead to any kind of paid work ever... at most they may lead to more unpaid cheapass indie stuff. the indie & pro fields are pretty much completely separated unlike in the US where even the "indie" films may have decent budgets and actors etc and the same persons behind the camera than in bigger productions. ------ If wanting to do DP work or directing or editing here in mainstream feature films one basically needs to have a degree from the one specific Finnish film school... there is many other good schools here as well but that one specific school mentioned has much better industry connections, much better financing for their education programs and readily available support from the main financiers of the local pro movies so that it is much easier to advance to feature films from there than from any other Finnish film school. The connections are what really get you forward. they don't have to be family members or anything, just the right pro persons who trust you and love your work and thus want to help you forward :)

do you personally know the 1st ACs you have worked for? has there been any regular work with the same persons so that you can build those connections? they might be able to get you to bigger projects if they like you and your work. Basically it is best to try to get around people who work A LOT, like every day of the year in different projects, both higher end and mid range. this may not get you much DP work though but it will help with connections and experience etc. and advancing towards 1st ac jobs or rental house work if that is what you'd like to do. and it helps with resume which may help quite a lot when finding more DP work

it should be no problem if the different colour screens are completely separate areas from the fabric screen. it may complicate keying a little bit if you for example stitch a larger fabric screen from multiple different tone parts so that the colour varies considerably within the screen. if the screens are completely separate (for example one behind the model spaceship and another screen on the window of the ship pointing towards camera) then it will be no problem because you can just mask the smaller screen and key it separately. you may want to do this anyway because of the lighting conditions so should be no problem at all... technically they would not even need to be the same colour if they are completely separately keyed. you could for example use blue for windows and green for background if needed

I personally conform the fps in interpret footage ALWAYS when the camera/location audio is not absolutely needed. especially in nature docs where all the sounds will be done afterwards anyway and camera/loc audio is unusable 99.9% of the time. The other thing is that nature stuff tends to be high speed most of the time and conformed anyway either in-camera (sensor fps higher than base fps on file metadata) or when making previews and offlines for editing (for example conforming in Resolve on import) or before editing on fcpx or premiere etc. when importing raw material... technically it would be possible to do the framerate conversion the other way around than typically made (picture changes, audio stays intact) : one could conform the picture stream to different fps without framerate conversion AND then add speed+pitch change to the audio track just like done here in Europe when making 25fps tv versions from 24fps movies. This would be actually quite handy if you need to use the camera audio track because most usable camera (sync) audio would probably be dialog and the sound designer would add sfx and foley and music etc. on the top afterwards so the speed change would go totally unnoticed and one would still maintain 100% picture quality compared to the original :)

if your different frame rate shots are mostly MOS (no camera or external recorder sync audio needed to use in perfect sync with the image) then you can do the close-to-your-base-fps format conversions by simply conforming the material to the different framerate from interpret footage settings WITHOUT ANY framerate pulldown conversion. this way you will maintain 100% picture quality on those shots and will only need to compromise on the shots which absolutely must use original location audio in perfect sync. For example, if outputting 24.00fps you would ideally shoot 24.00fps on your main camera. If having MOS shots on other cameras on 23.98 fps, 25fps you can just conform them all to 24 before editing and you will maintain all picture quality. If having 29.976fps or 30.00fps MOS footage you can do the pulldown conversion IF the somewhat correct playback speed for the MOS action is important. IF NOT, you can just conform these 29.976 and 30.00fps shots also directly to your base fps 24.00 before editing. they will be slightly slowed down but that may be OK for mos stuff anyway. If needing original sync sound from location (for example someone talking to a gopro shooting 29.976 and you will need to use the camera audio track for the shot) then the framerate conversion would be needed because you can't change the playback speed ( =clip lenght)

will you need the fabric texture to be seen? Maybe you could use standard lighting gels/diffusion fabrics for this if 4' seamless width is enough for you. heavy white diffusion or frost or sail grid etc. could work :) the gels are normally about 4' wide rolls so should be pretty easy to get the background done from a gel without any wrinkles. should not cost lot more than 10 or 15 bucks depending on where you purchase it and what material it is. if needing more diffusion you can just tape another layer on it. if needing something even more affordable the shower curtain trick should work (I believe they are normally made of PVC so they are not super duper flammable though will release toxic fumes if burning) ... there is spray on fire protection substances available as well which could be used for treating the standard fabric store materials to reduce the risk of ignition

I use airsoft nimh batteries with most of my cameras, they are cheap and relatively lightweight and if you add velcro to the sides you can easily mount them to any velcro surface (like the side of the camera or magazine where you have added velcro... or a tool belt... or a tactical vest... etc etc. :lol: )

if not readily found it can be built very easily... the Chinese have all kinds of adjustable voltage regulators flooding the eBay, very affordable... you would just need to add a suitable housing and xlr connectors (and add Chinese voltmeters etc to it if you want ;) )

one of the reasons might be actually that S.S liked to experiment with a 'free' shooting style without the need for focus pullers and retakes for technical mistakes and such :lol: just some experimenting gopro style "what you see is NOT what you get: what you get IS what you get no matter what you try" B) maybe he should do some real Danish style dogma next. These half-ass pseudo dogmas never tend to fully work for the audience, they are like indie movies with more than zero but not enough budget (zero budget would be good, high budget would be good, cheap ass budget makes just, well, a cheap movie no one cares to watch :ph34r: )

watched that Unsane trailer too... If wanting to create that kind of gritty indie semi-dogma look then the iPhone seems to work very well. Not a pretty look at all but may suit the story in some cases. I personally would not want to shoot an entire movie with a vlog gopro look but if Soderberg specifically wants that look for his movie it should not harm others that much ^_^ You don't have to watch the whole movie after all if your eyes hurting too much because of the look :lol:

blurry footage CAN be keyed with good results, to a point.... if your compositor is experienced... but combining blurry footage keying AND matchmoving may not be the best idea generally because it complicates the shot as a whole and makes marker using more difficult. for example matchmoving a wildly moving handheld camera on greenscreen :blink: what types of camera moves and scenes you are specifically wanting to shoot and which type of elements need be added to them? you were talking about lock-off camera matchmove shot, did you mean you have a character which need to be replaced with cgi character in post and you will only track this character without moving the camera at all?

Matchmoving needs lots of tracking points (at least couple of dozens minimum, ideally can be couple of hundreds depending on the shot) so you should be extra careful when shooting these and always consult your vfx supervisor first. Especially when shooting matchmoving shot on green or blue screen where there is no natural tracking points on background and mid range (depth). No specific need for higher framerates normally but blurry tracking can be very challenging... Also try to not shoot a way that the object masks all the tracking points one at a time and thus not having any continuous trackers..much more difficult to solve the track

yep, no need to be rude here! Please concentrate on the CAMERA WAR like real gentlemen <_< it is all about tactics and experience, like chess... the ones losing their temper will be disqualified and thrown to the sandbox to play with 5D markII and Windows Movie Maker for the rest of the day :lol: p.s. one of the reasons why URSAs are not used in many "real" movies is that the sensors and user interface are just not good enough for the bigger budget A-cam use. we don't use the freaking FS7's or stuff for mainstream drama either, except when someone needs a camera which does not break a bank if something falls on it...

If you are shooting documentary stuff with long zoom lenses you will DEFINITELY need more than 1600 iso all the time because of the T-stops of longer zooms (like the 50-1000 Canon for example) on the varicam35 doc they shooting lots of stuff on ISO4000 and 5000 for example

it is normal thought for all production companies having good connections with rental houses and having discount %'s and deals negotiated based on the volume they use the services... this is same in all parts of the world.... I think it would maybe be cheaper to rent a RED camera here actually for fiction because they are mostly used for commercials and aerials stuff here, very few cinematographers want to shoot drama with reds here at the moment it seems. just not practical enough to justify it, the Arris generally serve the productions better as a main camera than RED stuff. I think the rental companies would be as happy to rent a RED package for a drama production than any other camera package with a good discounts and all but it is another matter who wants to use a RED for a drama shoot even if it's cheap and has lots of pixels ;)

maybe it is a bit easier here in Europe, I don't know :lol: the movies also generally being better (personal opinion) whenever them not trying to imitate American ones but that is another matter :lol:

I have never heard about this either and I have worked couple of years full-time in a production company :blink: Normally producers, prod managers and line producers trust the cinematographer and post people when it comes to the camera equipment and workflows... the Arri cameras for example have generally been the most practical choice for fiction here: drama, comedy, etc. as a main camera (economic and easy to shoot, reliable, great look, easy post workflow). And Red cameras (resolution and framerates and dynamic range with hdrx, even when having some problems like more expensive post and grading) or Alexa Mini for aerials. On documentaries it is common to mix cameras+formats a lot depending on the shooting conditions and Sony cameras have generally been handy for our documentary stuff for being more versatile than Arri or Red stuff in wildly varying shooting situations. documentaries use anything which does the job best and switch the brands and models whenever needed... one of the nature documentaries shooting on two Varicam35's and Varicam LT and EVA1+Shogun Inferno at the moment for dual iso advantage (lots of 50-1000 material etc) still not understanding Tyler's affection towards Blackmagic stuff... they are quite OK cameras with interesting features and so but their build quality is not very good on most of their equipment and most of their stuff is targeted on indie and low budget commercial/corporate market and live use. not really pro movies :ph34r: mostly they make sense on low budget productions where one can't even afford enough cfast cards or rental lights to make a day ^_^

Not credibility related, but... always charge as large % of the invoice as possible before handing off the material. nowadays I tend to charge all the shooting costs before the shoot on small jobs (car and equipment rentals if I hire them for the shoot, any hired employee costs, etc. ) so that I only lose my own salary at most if the client does not pay for the shoot at all and does not even want the material for some reason. they tend to also pay late unless you're lucky so it's best to have them pay any rentals etc beforehand if they are on your responsibility so that you don't have to loan money to pay the rental costs etc. The good monitor with correct LUT is a very good advice. Clients don't necessarily understand the concept of grading and think that what they see is what they get... or even if knowing that they forget it after a while and start complaining :ph34r:

Oh I understand, it is just a matter of different attitude then and not about how the computers are used or what quality parts they are made of... if every problem is user's fault then of course the computers themselves don't ever crash or have any errors, the user does :lol: Even the piece of crap software I use, like Premiere or Resolve or FCPX is not prone to crashing, all the rest of the universe is just going to hyper speed every time the user THINKS that the software has frozen and responds very slowly B)