David Rosenblum

I immensely enjoyed the movie. I grew up loving Star Trek, but was never ever into The Original Series, so I didn't expect to be as into this movie as some of the other ones featuring later casts. Anyway, it was great. I raised my eyebrows in wonder and disbelief a few times and definitely laughed a lot. I did, however, hate the flares. I read the above article with Abrams and am usually a huge fan of well placed flares, but a director of his stature and a DP like Mindel, should've known better. It was almost treated like a student film, where they just wanted to do something cool to take notice. What really bothered me was that there would be huge blinding flares in one shot of a scene and then nothing at all in the reverse. By Abram's logic, should the "bright future" be present off-camera regardless of where the camera is? Other than that (and a couple points where the plot tripped me up - no spoilers though), the movie was spot-on, great cinematography and story, and very entertaining.

I moved to LA back in August and worked as an intern at a commercial production company, while finishing my degree. But they did not require school credit. Starting in January, I had graduated and started working the connections that I made at my internship. Things went pretty well right away. I now am working just about every day on high-budget commercials and music video for $200 a day. I'm typing this from a job. Things slowed up in February for a couple weeks so I joined some of those pay sites: Media-match and entertainmentcareers.net, and stalked other sites: craigslist, mandy, realitycareers.net, etc. From all of the resumes that I sent out, and the 15 bucks I spent on the sites - I got exactly one phone call, just because the lady on the other end had gone to the same school as me. The ironic thing was that I was already booked for the day she wanted me. My point is that I worked for free, made my connections and worked them. And in less than a few months, I'm working every day. I get calls from other PA's now too for jobs. Intern, work for free, call the random person you know from wherever... but don't pay to get listed... I can tell you that commercial production managers (who have the jobs that pay the money you want) never ever look on those sites for PA's. PS - LA411 is a great site, but for informational purposes (i.e. getting numbers of vendors.) I would never get listed on there, either. Cheers, Dave

Food stylist and/or Home Ec is what they go by. I've done a few food/restaurant spots now and its very necessary to work with the food. Its just another prop and device to make it look. If you have a phone that doesn't work for real in a scene for a cell phone company, should that be illegal?

Also worked fine on my PC. Some of that is downright scary, but as long as the world has a hunger for bigger, stronger, FASTER (and that will be forever), it will only get worse. (Or better, if you're into the whole Terminator movie scenario coming true.)

Is it true that you guys did 53 set-ups in a 12 hour day?

Hey Jose, I learned about it on this website. It was at the top under "Latest News" but then I also went to the ASC website. All of their events and important dates are at the top along the lefthand side of the page under "News and Events". Hope that helps!

Full crew: like 70 people. 2.5 nights - weather wasn't favorable so an extra night was added. And energy? unbelievable... producers, director and coordinators (and entire crew) worked extremely hard to bring that "homemade" video come to life. I would also credit the editors/post staff who almost totally seamlessly edited together multiple shots at multiple locations over 3 nights!

No tricks cuz I was merely a PA (on my first job in LA no less), but this was shot with that camera: It was pretty big on the net for a little.

1 thru 5: Roger Deakins Janusz Kaminski Christopher Doyle Laszlo Kovacs Conrad Hall Vittorio Storaro Vilmos Zsigmond Michael Ballhaus Darius Khondji

Thanks so much guys!

I'm sorry. I am not a fan of overwriting in posts, yet I tend to often. I failed to mention that they are battery powered 8 double A's, and that (of course) I called the Director of the film when I realized they were left behind. He said to keep them. So I did!

Hello, I was looking for advice on the best way to wet down streets and alleys. I know I could use a hose, but I feel like there are other options. I will be shooting in the Pacific Northwest, near Seattle so it will not only look good at night, it will be motivated. I have read a lot (and obviously see in movies all the time) that wet-downs are useful and important for a certain look, but almost nothing on the actual how to. Anyone with advice or techniques or standard operating procedures, please write back.

I PA'd on a short indy film in Philly a few years back. They use my car for the movie. When we wrapped at about 5am, I realized that a few lights were left in my car. Now I am going to use these wonderful little things for a film I am shooting. They are a little over a foot long. I have already tested with them, so I have seen their output and know that they are daylight balanced. Does anyone know the name, exact color temp., and/or other relevant info? Thanks!

Our SR2 kit comes with just a 8-64 zoom. And then students can get the superspeed kit, but for the Super16 SR2, they need to get an adapter from elsewhere. Crappy, I know, but I could be out in the real world renting everything. Thanks for the insight, Jess!

Greetings, I am about to shoot a student short with my school's ArriSR2 (PL mount) and Zeiss SuperSpeeds (Bayonet mount), and need an adapter. The rental house highly recommended that I do NOT do this. The response wasn't too specific, but he said I should rent a set of lenses that would match the camera (no budget for this) or get the lenses or camera remounted (but they are own by the school and I cannot modify them). I understand that swapping a single adapter between a set of lenses could be an issue due to 1) either it getting stuck on one lens, and being forced to shoot with that one lens, or 2) it being improperly inserted, causing backfocus problems. We are already looking to get more than one adapter to settle problem #1 above, but other than that, I cannot figure out a reason why a low-budget student film could or should get an adapter for each lens. Althought, I have not yet seen the footage, we had no problems swapping a single adapter over the set for the lens tests... What am I overlooking? Anyone have any insight/guidance/nightmares to share? Thanks!

Finally saw this movie last night. Saw No Country about a month ago. Definitely feel that Assassination was superior in almost every way, including composition and lighting. Plus, a great story with great acting, and a really good score. I'm surprised, as I read over this post, not much has been said about the transitions, except for one slightly negative remark. I felt that the fast-motion cloud shots and the static landscape shot, coupled with the slow narration was one of the best parts of this movie. (That, and Zooey Deschanel being in it!) Yea, the movie was long, but it was paced well. Even right down to the long awkward stare between Ford and James that seemed to go on forever. Yea it could have been cut down in the editing room, but I wouldn't have done it. And someone complained about the ending? Ford died the same way in this movie that he did in real life. Awesome movie. I have seen 4 of the 5 Oscar cinematography nominees. I hope this wins.

As a student...Visions of Light = great. Cinematographer Style = not so much. It was great to hear all of the living (and recently departed) legends discuss their work, careers, techniques, etc. but there were no clips. It was very disappointing. In a visual medium, it would have been cool to actually see some things they were talking about.

Assassination. Something about the time lapse transitions, and that wonderful shot of the train going through the trees.

I think spreading some of my hometown pride is reason enough for my first post, so... Another nomination for Philadelphia. Evidence of Philadelphia's rising in the film world: Two movie studios, hundreds of jobs, planned for Philly I'm a student cinematographer in Boston right now, but looking to move back home eventually and, after lurking on this forum for way too long, I see how useful the networking could be!