Jed Shepherd

 



GEAR:

I purchased a good old Canon HV20 three years ago. I shot my first documentary with it, and a couple other sporadic videos with friends.

With it, I purchased a RodeVideoMic and lens hood. It was great, but I've moved on since then...

Three years later, I've used the HV20 bigger brother, the XH-A1 and the Panasonic HVX200....and I’ve touched a RED haha.



I purchase a GH-1 a year and a half ago, sold it and now I own the new T2i. With it I have the crappy 18-55mm kit lens, and a few manual Nikon primes. (50mm f1.4 and 24mm f2.0) I use three 8GB Sandisk class 4 cards, I have a battery attachment and cheap matte box that fits 4x4 lens filters. I own a ND 0.8 and a GND 0.7.



 

He didnt read wrong. Haha. Im bored. Good work getting him to accept you though. So many things require you have years of experience. Bit hard to get it when you need experience to get into the experience.

Post. Incase green ends up not being the color tint your wanting. Also you would need a fair few/really powerfull kino's to get reasonable light coverage outdoors.

Just read an interview where the creator said he doesnt know where the 15k budget rumour came from but that he thinks the real amount was closer to 1.5 million.

If possible i would balance the room in the cool color and then spot color correct the beam in post. Would probably help to do this method with a static shot. Also i know this is the area your meant to get expert opinions so hopefully someone else will post a much better solution to the problem then what i have.

I would say there is no greescreen. All that is needed is a clean plate (background with no actor) and then one with the actor performing his actions. Then a mask would be keyframed to follow the line of the paper, revealing the clean background where the rotomask would be covering. Dont know if this makes sense but you were on the right track just no greenscreen would have been needed for it.

Ok im pretty tired and just realised i wrote indy not indie. Cant workout how to edit my post either

Not that i have any idea about this stuff in comparison to other people on here but i would be inclined to think it was a post color job. Would give better control of the final image without having to test on negatives? Well thats what i think is logically the right answer but who knows.

I know indy films have smaller budgets and as such this creates less opportunities for DOP's but in general there is usually something awesome about them. I especially like the work of Eric Steelberg. I know he posts here but assume he wont see this so i will ask the rest of you. As im trying to achieve a 'indy film' look is there anything i should try and specifically do to help achieve this. Eg dont move the camera alot(not saying this is a trait just an example) I know there is plenty of things that could be done but off the top of your head's is there anything you notice in particular about the way indy films are shot or color corrected etc. And yes i know they are all different but i still do see some similarity in general between most of them.

Fair enough, I like shake. Just thought i would move to nuke for its 3d workflow. Yeah i have been told that people get onto jobs quite a bit without knowing the software. I guess they just care about your ability to make good images.

Yup, I do. I've done work on music videos, shorts, and features as everything from a roto artist to a VFX supervisor.

Awesome. Is there much point in getting to much better at shake or would i be best to swap to nuke now and get better at that. Im still relatively new to shake but im sure what i've already learnt should transfer to nuke. The guy who taught me what i know in shake composites on feature films and he keeps saying that nuke is the way to go because of how shake was discontinued. Is Shake used at all anymore really?

Ok thanks. Do you composite professionally?

Ok i re-read what you wrote. Not blurring the matte itself

One other thing you can try is setting up a node chain that blurs the original image along the gradiated matte edge (without blurring the solid part). This sometimes gets rid of patterns that are apparent through the motion blur. Make sure you are blurring the original image but not the matte itself.

Thanks for the replies. What your saying makes sense. I was comping some keyed footage the other day and noticed how many problems weren't visible when i had the bg plugged in. So for bluring the matte edge would it be something like a re-order set to aaaa then an edge detect etc combined with blur than added back to the original matte so that the edge is blurry? Or when you say not the matte itself you mean blurring the entire rgb but leaving the alpha alone.

Any good compositing package has a roto mask tool that allows you to define both the hard and soft edge of the motion blur. This basically creates a gradient in the matte that preserves the motion blur. A little more work than just rotoing a hard edge, but a lot less work and more realistic than trying to get it back later.

 

I'm not sure what package you are using but look around for an inner/outer edge type thing. In Shake there are some buttons that allow you to flip between which edge you want to manipulate. It should work similarly in other packages.

Yeah I'm using shake. Hoping to get some Nuke practice soon though. I can understand if a roto was done on a green screen piece of footage(For whatever reason. Bad green that wont key or something) that roto'ing at the edge of the blur could be done because the keyer would get rid of the green but on a piece of footage with no green mixed into the motion blur would'nt there still be some remaining color from the bg. Also i have tried the 'falloff gradient thing' inside the rotoshape node but did'nt get as good a result as i would have liked. Im not working on anything specifically with this problem at the moment but i just thought i would see what people had to say on the issue.

When doing a roto on a person or object that has motion blur, is it best to roto the solid part rather than the edge of the motion blur? I thought this would be the case so that nothing shows through in the motion blur. But if you do this, is it possible to restore a realistic motion blur?

I know this is a lighting section and my reply isnt so much that but i think post might be the way to go. Light the scene so you dont have to crank up gain but still use barn doors to create focused light etc. Then in post add vignette, change brightness/contrast etc. Im sure someone else will give a more in depth and probably better reply but i thought i would give my two cents. Preferably i like to stay away from noise when possible.

I understand that professional DOP's have plenty of knowledge over what I have but i thought i would see what people on here think.

I was discussing with someone the other day about wether the fact of a huge budget all of a sudden makes a dop's work look much better if that makes sense. Like anyone on here who might have been DOP on a feature and then gone back to shoot on a worse format do you notice a drop in quality. I understand of course camera quality will play a part but it seems that movies have nothing amateur feeling about them. Does this mean these pro's could go back to a worse format and create something that still looks great.

I am having a problem with shooting on infinite white.

 

Close ups and mid shots works perfectly, however the wide shots leaves each of the frame sides without white background due to the inifite roll's width. Is there any easy way to solve this problem?

 

The actor only moves inside the area of the infinity roll.

Garbage matte out the edges. Depending on what program your using you should be able to plug a garbage shape into the garbage matte input of your keyer. If using node based compositor that is. Unless your shooting a white infinite background which then you would still garbage matte out the edges but wouldn't have to go through a keyer necessarily.

Did you tell brett or eve or anyone that their was a problem. When we shot with the ST's they were pretty problematic. I thought processing of the stock your using couldnt be done in australia anymore.

Hi Jed

 

Firstly, as far as the look of the film goes, what's mostly forgotten in these topics is how important the location is to the story and getting someone who's training to be a production designer or set dresser. The skills these people have, can make your short film look a million bucks (or £'s in my case!).

 

1- As far as lighting people go, the more diffusion you use the softer the shadows and the more the light 'wraps' itself around the face. If you're filming in a location that has, by function, harsh strong light then lighting actors softly may (especially in wide shots) not suit the scene.

 

2- As the scene determines. Just a soft backlight will pick someone out of the gloom so they dont 'melt into the backround'. Also think about the head and hair of the actors. Someone with blond long hair will not be lit the same as a bald man.

 

3- Light from the side and black wrap or flag the light nearest the wall so there's no spill. You'll proberbly need to use a poly to bounce the light onto the other side of the face. You can light from above and give that high cheek bone look as well. Think about catch light in their eyes! Dead black eyes can change the mood of the scene.

 

4- I don't understand 'it throws too much of a blue coloured light'. Where? Each CTB comes in 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and full.

 

5-A far as Zebras go, firstly make sure your viewfinder is set up properly. It's your eye to the world while filming and if the contrast or brightness is not set correctly, you'll see the image wrongly. As far as overlighting (it sounds) like your throwing light on everything which you dont need to do. Take a look at the room your sitting in now and any room you go into over the next week. See where the light comes from and try and block that light. What's still lit? That's how i learnt!!

 

I'm currently cooking dinner for 6 so as Mr Connery once said ....here end'th the lesson.

 

Chris

Thanks for your answers. In regard to the to much blue color. On the last shoot i did we shot in daylight but had tungsten lights. When i used the blue diffusion the actors face was a blueish color. And i mean beyond the natural daylight blue. I assume the gel i had must have been full or just something which isnt a gel but has ended up in the lighting kits for some reason. Dont know if that makes any sense but the best way to describe it is one side of his face had a normal skin color and the other side(Keylight side) was bluer than the sky.

Im wanting to create the effect where the camera dolly's sideways behind a lady at a mirror with the camera not visible. Im capable of compisiting the images but its the attaining the footage which is where im a little stuck. As the shot involves movment i was thinking of hooking up an electric whinch to the dolly and filming the shot of the woman at the mirror, then the reverse shot of whats behind her. Has anyone tried this before? I would have to roto out her reflection and real body but im not sure if it will work.

Ok i will break this up into a few questions so its easier to follow.

Basically i have available to me a few 4 bank kenoflows, dedos, a few arri 1k, 650,300's and a a 2k blondie. Im still studying film and am having trouble advancing my lighting. The camera currently available to me is a pdw-f330 xdcam. I know the camera is more suited to broadcast i guess but the following questions are asked to help me with any future projects on different cameras aswell.

Soon i will be undertaking a short film which is going to be aimed at having an indie feel to it. Similar to Eric's work on juno and 500 days etc. With the past few films i've made i've experienced many problems which i'm sure some here would have also and some who can help me solve them. I will list off my problems and questions now.

1. When lighting faces is there any common rules eg diffusion is usually necessary, don't use lights beyond 1k?(For the sake of this post lets assume im talking about MS-ECU in a studio)

2. Relevant to question 1, when is it appropriate to not use a fill light or to not backlight? Also when is it appropriate to use them?

3. If i'm wanting to light someone relatively close to a wall but don't want to throw a huge shadow behind them but also dont want the wall behind them to be blaring because of a strong light being used to counteract the shadow, what should i do keeping in mind the lights i have available?

4. Using blue gels to correct tungsten to daylight, this question is a bit odd but each time ive attempted to correct the tungsten to daylight ive found it throws too much of a blue colored light. Is this possible because the gels i'm using are too strong?

5. The answer to this question is sort of apparent to me but i still struggle to overcome the issue. Basically everything i light ends up resembling a day time soap. Even when using diffusion the actors always appear to be immersed in light. Should i possibly use the zebra bars set to 70 rather than 100 so im seeing correctly exposed rather than overexposed? Also i assume just moving lights back or adding more diffusion is also a possibility but im still yet to find a good balance. Any possible insight on this would be great.

6. This is more just for a specific look but lighting an actors face but leaving the background in complete darkness. Is this achievable in a small space? Also i assume the answer would be to toplight or bottom-light or both but is that the only option? I couldnt think of a way to limit ambient light being thrown from the keylight/fill light but have seen the lighting look used many times before

7. Not relevant to lighting but how often should a dolly be used? I know that question is like asking how long is a piece of string... but i have just noticed lately that many tv shows and films seem to use them quite often. Just out of opinion do any of you feel that if a dolly was used quite a bit on a student film it would contribute if used correctly or more ruin the film like zooming might do?

I understand that some of these questions are probably incredibly stupid in the eyes of some but as its the student section i thought it might be worth asking so at least people understand i'm only new to this world. Also feel free to answer only one question if you wish (Im not expecting someone to answer them all but if your happy too, go ahead).

I was recently talking to someone that was saying that the red performs best at daylight color temperature and that i should light accordingly even when indoors. Is this right?

I understand what depth of field and circle of confusion are but what i dont understand is the need for calculations. I see many dof calculators etc but i dont understand what they do and why they do it. This also applies with coc as i also do not understand it either. Ive done some searching but i always end up on photography based websites which i dont know whether to assume what they say applies the exact same way to film.

Basically if someone could just explain the need for figuring out dof and coc and why its useful it would be much appreciated.

I've had the privilege of shooting FRINGE this fall. Episodes 2,4,6 and 8. I've been alternating with Tom Yatsko who has been with the show since the beginning.

He does a wonderful job in my opinion and its been a pleasure and challenge to step into such a show that is very much up and running and finding its own visually.

We still shoot film, one of the few.

If anyone has specific questions about the cinematography I'd be happy to share from my experience so far.

 

regards,

Greg

What is the show shot on? Im yet to see an episode.