Sebastian Cepeda

Hi Rob, I just got interested in cinematography for games and happen to read your post, such a coincidence. There are different approaches to all your questions, normaly the person that decides is the director or if the likes to work with his team in post production then also the DoP (Director of Photography), set designer, costume department and so on. What I can tell you from my experience (Im a DoP, I shot 2 feature films, many music videos, commercials, etc.) is that as a DoP I like or try to decide as much of this as possible, still trying to achieve what the director wants. I like to talk to him about how he sees the project and then I give him some ideas, after brainstorming then I can decide wich kind of film stock, colors etc. There are a couple of directors that know exactly the look the want to have, like on my latest sci-fi Feature film the Director wanted to go teal and orange to make it look more hollywood like (we are in europe), so it can be that directors know the color palette they want to achieve from the beginning. Something good to watch that might help you are lots of making ofs (lord of the rings has like in total 18hours of it, and many Riddley scott movies as well). If you have any other question just let me know, Ill try and help wherever I can. Best regards Seb

hi guys, any way of getting ICG on the ipad? I live in Switzerland so no chance of ordering by mail, the AC is on the ipad mag. store, I thought maybe someone knows where to find icg for ipad...

Hi Cameron, What I would recommend you for that money would be to wait for the newest Sony FS-100, it is very good in low light and has a nice Depth of field, this camera should be around 5'000, and then you can get yourself an adapter for canon or nikkon lenses and start shooting with that one. The good thing about that camera is that it is very modular, you can have many different kind of lenses, mics, shoulderrigs, monitors etc. Otherwise if you need to get it asap, i would go for the panasonic AG-Af101 with an external recorder kind of like an atomo ninja or something similar, for the whole set you might end paying more than 5000 but you can get some stuff now and then when you have more money you get yourself the other stuff needed. Otherwise of course a great solution are always DSLRs like canon 5d mark ii, i had before a sony pmw-ex1 with letus extreme 35mm dof adapter and sold it to change to 5D. It is a great small camera that makes beautiful pictures if you know how to use it good, and it's pretty affordable as well... My advice right now, wait and go with the new FS100 from sony, you have the most for the money and the best quality, also future proof...can go with PL mount lenses when you have money or rent them for bigger projects. I hope i could help...

Hi James, Thanks for your information, thats what I thought too, regarding the 5D. So I guess I wont buy them in that case, I dont believe ill be shooting that much with my 16mm camera. If someone wants to know where to get those lenses get in touch with me. Best regards Sebastian

Hello everyone, I've got a question regarding the Carl Zeiss Mk 1 Distagons, I could buy a set of 12/16/25mm lenses for around 4800.- with Arri mounts. What do you think of the price? Is it cheap or expensive what do you think? they are in mint condition. The other question that might help me decide too is, can I use them with my Canon 5D Mark II? I guess not because it doesnt cover the 35mm chip right? But they do cover RED 2K and 2K is bigger than FullHD so they actually should cover 5D? Am I right or am I mixing something here? It would be great if you could help me as soon as possible so that I wont loose this opportunity. ps.: I will be using an Eclair ACL II converted to S16mm. Maybe that helps with the decision. Ps. 2: are there any cameflex to Arri mount? thanks a lot. Best Regards Sebastian

Hi Adrian, I decided to make some test before shooting to see wich stocks better fits me, my swiss supplier will send me a 7213 30m for free and a 7219 (500T) also for free to test and see what to get. I also thought of getting the PL Mount and I allready saw one to put in the C mount but this way I allways can change back to C Mount and Nikkon Mount. I want to make somekind of Chiaroscuro on the bathroom so that Ill play a bit with the light, so I dont think ill be too bright and I think Ill prefer to go with the 7213, but Ill see after the tests. Thanks to all again!

Hi Thanks to all for the answers, I do have a lot of experience working with the nikon primes, I work a lot with the canon 5D Mark II, so I really know how to use them and the way they behave, breathing while racking focus and so on, so I think that shouldn't be any problem. But now I'm thinking of maybe renting some good s16mm lenses, but that also depends on the adapter I might be using... I don't want the adapter to give up in the middle of the shoot and throw the expensive s16mm lens to the ground... that would be an expensive first 16mm shoot :( And regarding the bathroom scene, Im stilling thinking what to do but I think I may go with some kind of chiaroscuro, so that the bathroom isnt to white and the viewer doesnt get bored on the first minutes.

Pardon me, what I meant by this was, that I know if I use a 35mm lens on s16 it isnt as wider as a 35mm lens with 35mm film. But I would stil be able to use the 35mm Film lenses with s16mm without any problem but they arent as wide as in 35mm Film. Right? Thanks again

Hi thanks for the quick reply, now to see if I got it :) I will convert my ACL II to s16mm and I saw on the internet that if you use 35mm lenses on this camera you dont have to match them or do anything like that...f.e. a 35mm would still be a 35mm lens, so is this a false statement? And if I would use some 35mm PL lenses, would it still be the same? Thats what I thought, but a good thing is, the Bathroom won't be thaaat small, maybe around 5m by 3m or so, so the mirror wont be the whole time on the image, we will be more on the shower than on the mirror side. I also thought of showing one or two towels with another color instead of white, so that we get more hues to look at. The short movie will be also pretty short at around 5min time. I though of making a test and to save some money get a cheap sd dvd transfer, do you think that would be enough to see if it works out? Thanks again for the information... :D

Hi everyone, as the title says I'll be filming for the first time with my new Eclair ACL II 16mm. Im planing on doing a small short film. I plan on getting an Nikon to C Mount adapter to being able of using my Nikon Primes to film with. This shouldn't be any problem right? Now to my real question, the short film plays only in a bathroom with white tiles, mirror and a shower. So everything will be white. I'm guessing on wich stock to go. As I don't have the location yet, Im going to be searching for something without windows so that I can go for a Tungsten stock. Now my question, everything will be white and as we know white reflects a lot, so I thought of getting kind of a slow stock, I don't know maybe something around 250 or even 500 ISO. What do you think about it? I dont want to have a fast stock because otherwise I think it will get overexposed to easily. But as said before this will be my first time shoting on film. Would you recomend this stock for my purpose or prefer to go with another one? I guess I'll be using some 1x1 Litepanels because of the size of the bathroom. I may have 2 or 3 of them. What do you think? It would be great to hear your advice. Thanks a lot in advance. Best Regards Sebastian

Hi Me too, from Zürich. Cheers

Hello Volks, I'm doing my final work for my bachelor at the SAE - Digital Filmmaking and I choose to analyse the possibilites of showing emotions just through light. My idea is to have an actor allways playing the same scene and just change the lightsituation and try to change the emotions of it just with the light. The actor won't know wich kind of emotion I'll trying to reach so he doesnt play with his own emotions. At the end we won't even hear what he's saying. The only thing that I'll be able to change is going to be the light. Actor, camera and the rest will stay allways the same. Now I wanted to ask you if you could tell me how you light your different emotions. For example if you try to show a happy guy, would you use High-Key or how would you exactly light it? I would be trying to do about 4 different emotions: happines, fear and the rest I still have to choose. Maybe you have done something similar for an own project and you could show me a still or something so I can see it and try to do the same, or just a Lighting Diagram of a similar situation would be okay as well. I have to say I'm not the best with light but that's why I choose this topic so I get to understand it more and work a lot more with it. My goal with this work would be to make a kind of book, with the different emotions so I can give it to anyone who needs it to light different emotions, of course it allways depens on the situation but this way everyone would kind of know in wich direction he would have to go to achieve the same situation. If you could help me it would be great!!! Thanks to all. Greets from switzerland sebastian

Hello there yeah it depens on what you'd like to get... I mean normally you would kinda make a storyboard or a couple of thought on what exactly you would like to get, I mean of course you can film everything like 20 times just changing the setup, but normaly if they aren't real actors after like 5-6 setups they won't do it anymore... ;D I think the best thing would be for you to know exactly what you would like to get---> for example on the refrain a CU and so on... so you can go and shoot just that that you'll ready need instead of shooting everything 10 times... thats how I do it... have fun shooting