J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR

Exactly. I thought the points of light you see in the BG in the wide shots looked good. Any more light and you might have overlit IMO.

I use 1200's under porches and on the shadow side of buildings all the time for boosting the general fill or just to pop people out a bit. It helps if you have a few so you can line them up to cover a long area.

Looks great. Simple, yet a good lighting philosophy to use because it turns a rather mundane location into something more. The lighting as well as the shallow focus leads your eye to the band. The grade looks good, muted colors that suit the tonality of the music and shooting style. If I had a complaint it would be that some of the closeups look a bit blown out on the key side. I hesitate to even say that because it could be the compression etc. Tell us a little about your camera and lighting setup.

For me it was "Lady in the Water" - Simple, perfect, effective on the edge lighting that was right for the film. I think Doyle said the lighting was about one thing "La Luna." "The Prestige" - Classic. "Last King of Scotland" - Dig that 70's 16mm vibe.

You could also not use a practical as the key light. Use a movie light as if it were the lamp light and set it so you can stop down for the skin tones. Thus pushing the walls down. Tighter shots and avoiding silly wide masters that do nothing but emphasize the white walls also helps. When you use practicals as the only light sources in your scenes you give up a lot of control of the foreground/background balance.

I would strike those first couple of shots of the guy's sitting in the chairs smoking and the shot of a light pole or something(?) They look one demensional compared to other material you have like the shot of the Bimmer or some of the landscape stuff. Hit 'em with your best right up front. Seems like you could pull one or two shots at least from "Un Pedacito de Cielo" for some more dramatic lighting content. The resume pop-up box on the site seems a bit small to me. Also you spell "Varicam" with an A.

I just saw it too. It was at the head of "We are Marshall." It was printed much darker than what the online trailer looks. It had much more detail in those bright windows like in that lobby shot. Just the right amount of detail to my eye. It looked fantastic. You know, after seeing several of your films, I'm starting to really see what I would call the David Mullen style. Classic Hollywood in the best way, a bit of Deschanel, Richardson and some Willis. Same kind of thing I aspire too.

In a situation like this I prefer to not use the Sodium Vapor lights at all, even mixed with tugsten fresnels gelled to match. I've run into a problem especially on video where the Sodium Vapor lights leave a nasty looking redish tint in the skin tones. In one case, damn near impossible to time out. What's worse is I couldn't see it on set with the naked eye. So I'd rather be safe than sorry when I want a normal white light look. I would turn off the Sodium Vapor lights completely and light with my tungsten units. If you have a lot of 1K open face lights you could group them up and bounce them out of an 8x Griff for a large soft source. 650 fresnels can be thrown 30 to 50 feet and make a nice subtle back/edge light down on the end of the beam.

the skintones did suck and so did anything involving Lois Lane. Cut her out and you got a good film. I thought the film was fantastic actually. I really liked how they spend a lot of time with Superman in HIS environment. You really get a since of the different perspective he has of the world. They got the physics of the action right especially in the sequence where he tries to stop the plane from hitting the ground. There is a shot there right after the wing breaks off where he regains his flight then shoots away after the plane. That shot feels so freaking real. Maybe the best CGI shot ever to my eyes.

Finally saw this on DVD and have to say that the "look" IMO doesn't work. Looks like complete poop. Proves without a doubt that good images come from the lighting. What I can't understand is why people have said that this look is 'right' for this movie. Why is that exactly? What makes this movie want dirty, underexposed, unlit, noisey, badly operated images? How do you explain the sequence where Crockett is outside the hospital and gets some guns out of one car trunk and puts them in another? No one, except somebody in Mann's position, would ever get away with rendering images like that even if it is supposed to be a style.

Phil, will any of these programs allow me to edit the files I take from the DVD?

I thought it was a great film and when I saw the prologue I thought "Wow real B&W for a change." Glad I can still see the difference. The scenes in the office had a velvety feel that must be from the DI though, but I liked it. Reminded me of Agfa Scala.

The only thing I ever noticed in that trailer is the huge growth on Val Kilmer's cheek. Is that makeup or does he need to see a doctor? :unsure:

I have to agree about "Snow Falling on Cedars." Certainly Richardsons best and in my opinion one of the best cinematagraphic efforts period. His style is so strong that it even came through in Errol Morris' doc "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control." Hot top-lit topiary!

I like to have the windows dressed with a thick layer of blinds/curtains/sheer cloth etc. then place a sollid outside the window but leave a gap so that some of the daylight leeks in and gives a moon glow effect. You then have to mimmick the moon light from within the room if that is supposed to be the source.

I would go with the smaller Maxi-brutes all the way. Try to position them in such a way that they pop the areas you need or space them evenly and switch bulbs on and off to get a good balance.

Depending on how high your cieling is, you can shoot a source from across the room to the top of the window and bounce it back through some diff. Like a book-light arrangement. Works best with a high cieling so the source and bounce are up out of frame. The big advantage is you can have the window in frame with this arrangement.

Seems like they realized the mistake... http://cgi.ebay.com/SR-2-High-Speed-ARRIFL...oQQcmdZViewItem

One thing I'm sure of is if someone asks you to hold a bounce card or shiny board around a horse, don't do it. Personal experience.

I need to rip some DVD's of some of my projects from producers who haven't fulfilled their contracts by not providing me footage on tape for editing. I do have some DVD's they gave me authored from various computer programs. I need to be able to convert them for editing then compress them for the web. Any good program recommendations?

Admitedly I didn't look at 2K/4K side by side but I don't recall seeing DV material projected that clear not even from 2K. Yes there is a limiting factor of the original material which you do see onscreen. But I saw all the material there and only the material, like the projection was transparent if that makes sense.

Like previously stated Chocolate lighting gell is really warm. Sometimes it's used to mimick dirty looking street lights or just because the DP likes the warm color. It's more yellowy warm than orangey warm if that makes sense.

I shot 24p and it looked fine on the screen. Looked very much like what you would see when watching the material on a monitor. That is, it looked like it was supposed too. I'm not concerned about mimicking the look of film. I just want the small, compressed DV (and now hdv) format to look good in cinemas. When you project DV very large it usualy looks pixelated, soft and looses a lot of the color. The brightness and contrast were great all around the venue. The only artifact I saw was a couple of motion studders where I know it was the DVD encoding because it is not present on the source material. But on the issue of looking filmic, I guess it does look more filmic if it can be projected so large without falling apart. My impression is that 4K kicks 2K butt and I never want my digital projects to be projected at less than 4K. But realistically they will be projected sometimes on 2K and more often on something less at festivals and screenings. Of course I would rather watch a film print over 4K any day but that's a seperate issue.

There was a screening last night in Dallas of a feature I shot in July. The projector was a 4K Sony SRX-R110. It was at one of the Mark Cuban/Todd Wagoner owned Landmark Theaters. I went to the venue at 9 am to make sure the projection would be good for the nights show as we had a bad projection at a screening last week. They front ended the unit with a DVD player for our show. I know DVD isn't great to project from but we didn't have the right master tape. So you can imagine the mess I was expecting to see on the screen. An SD/DV feature shot on an XL-2 projected 30 foot wide from a DVD! But when the image came up I thought I was looking at super16 bumped to 35. Holy crap I couldn't believe my eyes! So I asked the projectionist what the projector was and he was like "Ahh, it's just a Sony..." Turned out to be a $98,000 4K projector. :rolleyes: The image was absolutely outstanding I could see individual threads in costumes and all the color got to the screen. Can't imagine what this is going to do for quality on low budget HDV shoots when 4K gets out there. I don't want to go back now.

Hanging a Kino directly above the table wouldn't be what I would personally call a low key look as it would tend to throw light everywhere unless skirted down. A kino would be useful as a fill light though. With the fresnels you can barn door or snoot them down to create pools of light and darkness to get a low key look. I would tend to establish a practicle source on the table or wall in a wide shot boosted with my fresnels and then Key from the best position in the closeups.