J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR

Cold Case and Lost are my current favorites. I think some of the best TV cinematography ever done was by Bob Hauser on "Combat!" especially the first season.

I finally just saw it, projected on 35mm. I know Lucas is the director and he's done massive things with this whole deal and I'm not worthy to criticize him etc. But I thought the movie flat out sucked. That HD cinematography printed to film was horrid with shitty skin tones and monotanous crazy uneven backlights and kickers that didn't match the lightsources keyed in behind them. Very soft everywhere and even in mild full shots the characters were downright blurry. The only thing in the movie I liked was when they put his helmet on and he started to breathe. That was a cool shot but why the hell did they put that "bung" sound in there? Sounded like someone pulled the cork out of a moonshine bottle and I was laughing. I'm sorry but IMHO eps. 1,2 and 3 are whole step down in quality from the mark being set for a long time in filmmaking. You could project a print of a film made 50 or 60 years ago and it would blow these shows away in the overall quality department. Even the 16mm comercial blow ups shown before it looked better! Just to be fair I'm going to go watch in 2K DLP this weekend.

So I guess you're saying you guys did settle on the DVX-100 for sure?

Plus there is usually 2 to 3 AC's needed for a shoot so you have 2 to 3 times more chance to get hired. I could have made more money AC'ing this year than DP'ing in my region because so many shows bring DP's from L.A. but I don't particularly enjoy AC'ing. I don't mind operating though. I could DP more in my home state if I moved to L.A. first.

Tax breaks or lack thereof are very powerful motives for where a production shoots. Texas has lost lots of productions to Louisiana the past few years because they undercut Texas' deal. Now the Texas legislature is debating undercutting Louisiana's deal.

Hi Claudio, What was involved with getting the stills off the hard drive and onto a computer so you could do some color correction to get a look going? What kind of setup did you use to do that and have you used any of the on-set look manager programs yet?

It would be cool to do something where you manipulated the image in the DI with printing out to a camera stock in mind then have it push developed or skip bleached or whatever. Just to come up with some wild looks.

I never recommended anybody use amateurish post production. There are many very talented Professional free-lancers out there.

Celo Flex perhaps?

I really like the flares and lights in those last few shots. Seems like you got what you wanted. It had impact and would have more if it wasn't cut so fast.

OK gotcha D. I would add that I've seen lists from rental houses that are basic and I've seen ones super-detailed down to the screw. Usually they are more detailed than what they list in their catalogs or on-line anyway.

They need to bust the bonehead in George's company who let the thing get out anyway. If you're looking at a copy with burn ins, it's an inside job!

That's what I was talking about. You make the list of equipment you need, the production company orders it. Then you send your assistant along with your list which he checks against the rental house list. Maybe you're using the word Hire in a way I'm not familliar? I assume you're not talking about renting your own kit out to other people. Why then would you ask the question? Just make a list of the stuff you have.

I usually specify everything exactly as possible. Just ordering a "fluid head" isn't good enough. That'll guarantee you get the worst fluid head ever made. It's a Murphy's Law thing I guess. Nobody can make your list for you. I advise you to do it and be very specific. I like to get exactly what I odered and all substitutions have to go through me. It's the only way to get it done right. Otherwise you wind up with stuff you didn't order that people assume is good enough, it never is. Anyway once the package is ordered the rental house will have a list ready for you. I usually have the assistant make a couple of copies so we can check things periodically.

I've never heard of anyone doing that as a matter of technique. If I change the stop it would only be because I was trying to "in-between" the exposure in the wide shot to cover the location better. If I did that, I wouldn't let the faces go too far off.

The reason you can't find a firm answer is because there isn't one. Sure there are technical issues but it comes down to budget. You need to crunch some numbers with the recommendation of your post house to find out which route is the most feasable. Personally, I prefer TK'ing in one supervised session going to DVCPro-HD on a hard-drive and editing on a Mac in a situation like this. Because this allows you to Online your project as much as possible on your own equipment and not wind up editing at the post house on their expensive equipment.

That's possibly the most ignorant statement uttered on this forum.

Landon why don't you make a few short films and get them into festivals in order to practice your craft? Maybe then with a bit of a reel you could snag a few gigs directing local commercials or industrials. You really should put some work into learning how and what a director does. A director does practice a craft you know, he isn't just a guy that gets all the fame for directing a popular feature.

I've ran into that problem and with Schnieder ND's. In my case it turned out the filters did have a magenta cast to them. If I white balanced, then pulled them guess what? A green cast to the picture. The DVX-100 did seem to be extra sensitive to that color shift and I don't quite know why.

I've got two 4x umbrellas that have shafts that fit into a grip head perfectly. I don't leave home without 'em.

I don't even like to do boards that aren't based off information from the actual location. I've been on shoots where more than half the boards were shots we couldn't get do to the geometry of the actual location. I find the best situation is to scout with a finder and a camera, taking very detailed notes. When actually shooting, the boards will be very close but I like to do the fine tuning in concert with the director using a finder. It makes things so easy. I was recently on a shoot where we were scouting ahead of the crew. We got our morning setups done, then me, the director and the UPM went ahead and scouted the next location, locking our shots and we were done by the time the AD got there with the crew. I would of course suggest you scout before a shoot but we were forced into the situation. Point is it went so smooth because the director and I knew exactly what we could do in a given shot.

Happy Birthday Tim! Thanks for all the work on the forum. :D

Sugar works a treat at filling in small cracks and holes in a sidewalk.

You're probably going to be better off taking a spot reading of the sky close to the sun and trying to balance the fill on the guy to that reading. Then maybe hitting him with an additional hot edge. You're going to need TONS of light to avoid the guy becoming a silhouette if you're saying you want the ball of the sun to only be two stops over.

Exactly, I'm trying to suggest that IMO he should of flagged it or changed the angle of bedstand to light or dulled it because when they first jump into bed there is a mess of relflections in that surface that draw your eye. Maybe that's nitpicking but that's the kinda stuff a DP sometimes gets nailed for by the Director or Producers.