John Allen

Here are just a few of the many. lol

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"Rebbecca" George Barnes

"Vertigo" Robert Burks

"Wait Until Dark" Charles Lang

"Hud" James Wong Howe

"Apocalypse Now" Vittorio Storaro

"Foreign Correspondent" Rudolph Mate

"Doctor Zhivago" Freddie Young

"Shadow of a Doubt" Joseph Valentine

"On the Waterfront" Boris Kaufman

"2001: A Space Odyssey" Geoffrey Unsworth

"Laura" Joseph LaShelle

"The Naked City" William Daniels

"How Green Was My Valley" Arther Miller

I grew up in a movie loving family. We watched every kind of film ranging from the 1930's to the modern films. Anyway, when I was about 5 or 6 I would buy these cheap disposable cameras and I would just take pictures of just about anything. I actually think that at that time I enjoyed just hearing the shutter click and looking at things through the viewfinder. Then when I was 11 my parents got me a really cheap grocery store digital camera for Christmas. I started reading books on photography and then when I was 12 I had the opportunity to enter some photos in the county fair. They won first prize there and went on to win 2nd place at the Iowa State Fair. This opportunity really got me interested in photography.

Anyway, at about the same time I knew that I wanted to work in the film business but I also loved photography. At the time I thought that what I liked the most about a film was the acting or the story, but little did I know that I was actually attracted to the visual vibrance. I found that when I watched a film I responded more to the light and shadows. I had never known about a cinematographer, because I had always had the idea that the director operated the camera and lit the scene. But then that same year, when I was 12, I rented a documentary on cinematography called "Visions of Light." It captured my soul. My dad actually sat down and started watching it with me and was really impressed as well, which was really big to me, because even though he was very encouraging to me about my past career interests he never seemed like he felt they would be right for me. So I thought it was huge when after he watched it he said to me, "John, that looks like a great career to pursue." So ever since then this art has grown more and more on me.

I'm predicting that Benjamin Button is definitely going to win the Oscar, but I haven't seen Slumdog and I've heard some good things about it. Though, Benjamin Button was just so amazingly shot, it's just so much better than anything I have seen this year. I'm quite surprised that Mr. Deakins didn't get a nomination for either Doubt or Revolutionary Road, but I guess he did get a shared nomination for Reader. I think that the Dark Knight was very well shot as is most of Pfister's films are, but I just don't think it will have much of a chance against Benjamin Button. Anyway, I'm putting my money on Benjamin Button, but who knows, the Oscars have a tendency forget about rating for "how good" something is and instead they will sometime pick the film that would be a better political choice.

Yeah I know. I was just teasing. ;) I'm sure they can move their eyes at least a little. lol

But Walter that picture doesn't really prove anything, cause a good editor could pull that off. Maybe you were just kidding though, because I do recall you saying that you should believe everything that you see on the internet. So I would think that you would feel the same way about movies, right? lol I for one have never seen a dog move his eyes up, but I don't really care a whole lot if they do or don't so it's not like I've watched them very intensively.

Not blaming you as much as reminding people. I am amazed how easy it is for opinion to turn into fact. Science is itself very limited. Currently less than 20% of all medicine has any scientific basis behind it according the US GAO. Point is most of what doctors do is no better or worse than any other treatment, yet we believe the dogma of allopathic medicine as if fact, and many times even when what a doctor tells us goes against how we feel. Watch the news and see such stories presented as 'wine helps prevent heart attacks', yet the science in no way says that is true, but everyone believes it, just as they say high cholesterol causes heart attacks even though there isn't a shred of science to show that to be true. Amazing how fact is born and feeds more myth that becomes dogma. Makes lots of money for some.

I totally agree. It's very sad really.

Yeah I agree 100%. I guess I didn't clarify that, that article was mostly based on opinion and speculation on account of mathematical equations. I mostly just thought it was an interesting article and topic to think about. But yes I agree that you shouldn't take it as fact.

Ah I understand. I see now that you are only shooting in studio.

This is what we're after (with colour!).

Forgive me if I am mistaken by your comment, but there is hardly, if no color at all in this picture. If you want that look all you need to do is to lower the saturation. Also, if you're going for that same look as far as lighting then what you could do is just shoot with natural light and stick a shiny board on the outside of the window if you have access to the outside of the window that is.

I'm not quite sure if someone already said this or not, but seeing that we're talking about eyes then I thought that I would add this little bit of info. I found out that the maximum aperture of a human eye is about 2.1 and the minimum is somewhere around f/11 and f/8.6. Here's the site where I found the info. Hope you find it as interesting as I did. :)

http://www.photosig.com/articles/585/article

Congrats on the good review on your lighting! What did you think about when they complemented you on your stunning sunset? I recall you said you quickly set the lighting up for that, so were you surprised when the journalist mentioned that as one of the shots that stood out to him?

Awesome!! Thanks David!! :)

Hey David, beautiful work as usual, and like everyone else is saying, I love the use of vibrant colors.

Anyway, my question was, did you use a white card to bounce the back lights back into the actors faces on that last 2 shot of them eating dinner? And what kind of lights did you use for the back lighting? Tweenies?

Sweet, thanks David. :)

Oh one more question, and I apologize if I'm taking up your time. When you say you used tungsten globes, did you leave them uncorrected and had the camera set to 5600k for the warm look? Or did you gel them to daylight, and then still keep the setting to 5600k?

They were 12-lights, which is a single unit with 12 tungsten globes, like a MaxiBrute. In this case, they were HPL globes like the ones used in Source-4's, as opposed to PAR 64 globes. I had one 12-light per window.

Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. I was actually going to ask if it was a MaxiBrute, but I had only heard of maxi's having 9 lights or less. So yeah that's cool, they definitely look like they worked well from the stills.

Sorry if this is kind of a late question, but I was just wondering about what kind of lights you used for the courtroom scene? I see you said you had 12 behind each window, but were they HMI's(big or small units), or something else? Anyway, amazing post and I can't wait to see the film! :)

-John

I know this is a tad off topic, but not much seems to be happening here so I'll just come out with it.

 

I don't think film will ever become obsolete or extinct. I think with people like Roger behind it there'll always be film suppoters (myself included). I think film plays to too many human emotions, the sense of good thing coming to those who wait, and maintaining a sense of purity, spontenaity, and originality to an artform, and as John Allen previously mentioned, being a mad scientist, for film to ever be superceeded by anything else. I honestly think it'll live on, even if the only film factory is in a beardy man or woman's shed in Germany somewhere. I completely disagree with people who say film'll be dead and buried within a decade.

 

Right! That was (vaguely) related to the topic, so I'll step off my soapbox now.

Cheers to Matthew!! Greatly put! :)

I don't know that i'd agree there either. It CAN have a film(ish) look. But it's not the same s traditional film finishing either.

 

I've always felt that film is as digital digital once it's been scanned anyway.

 

jb

Ok well you are intitled to your own opinion, BUT this still doesn't change what I was saying, because all I was doing was commenting on Rogers own words. Maybe you should read the article yourself, cause the point was that Roger isn't liking the whole digital transition, and that's the reason why he wrote what he did. So if you want to argue his words, then you'd best take it up with either Roger himself or American Cinematographer.

Dunno about that.

 

In my books he was one of the first to embrace a DI with "o brother where art thou"

 

jb

Yeah, but as you could see, in the article he was expressing his annoyance about the digital transition. Also, in digital I mean not shooting film. Shooting film and then using a DI for post, still has the same film look.

I think it's so cool that Roger is one of those guys who are very slow to get into the whole digital show. I feel the same way. I mean even though I am still young I have gotten to work with 16mm film, and I agree with Roger, part of the fun is getting to be a little bit of a "mad scientest." I think Roger is the kind of guy that likes his job so much that working in labs and with chemicals is part of what he likes about it. I'm going to be very sad if digital takes over. I have a doubt in my mind that it will ultimately, because it's just so hard to mimic film, but I guess it could always happen. I just hope that I will be able to work with film for many and many years to come.

Don't be so humble Adam. You have some amazing stuff. I like the naturalness of it. I hold very high respect for both you and David, just so you know. And if I am so fortunate to meet you two someday, then I will buy you both mocha's. lol

Haha, I have felt the effect many a times, which was what provoked me to say something.

I hope no one took anything that I might have said offensively. I'm sorry if you did, because that wasn't my desire. :)

Hmmm, well I guess I was wrong. I got the impression earlier when I was reading the posts that people were not giving a lot of reason why they didn't like this film and that they were just rambling on. But now that I look at them again I see that I spoke too hastely, and that most of them did back their comments somewhat. So I'm sorry about taking it off subject, which now I see there was no reason to do so. I guess I'm the one in the wrong. lol Ironic.

No one is forcing you to read anything on this forum.

 

Being able to analyze why something works or doesn't work, and separate personal taste from purely technical issues, is an important skill for a cinematographer, so it's no small wonder that many of us are critical types. We're self-critical, which is hyper-important, but that spills over into general criticism and analysis of the artform which we love and have devoted our lives to.

 

I worked quite a bit this year, but I managed to keep posting, so perhaps by definition, I don't "have a life"... but don't assume that the person posting the most is therefore working the least.

 

Some of us here are sometimes a bit too apt to tear apart someone's hard work, for my tastes, simply because I remind myself constantly that it is very hard to make movies, and even harder to make good ones, so "judge not lest you be judged" comes to mind an awful lot... but the truth is that some of the most critical people on this forum are also some of the most talented cinematographers I have ever known. Adam Frisch, for example -- I wish I were as good as he is. You'd be lucky, John, if you had half his talent someday, and that's not a knock on you, just a suggestion that you take what he says seriously.

 

We sometimes go too far in our criticisms, but that's partly because most of us here are movielovers, and some of us our lifelong fans of James Bond movies as well. And if some of those James Bond fans are critical of the latest movie, I don't see why their opinions are any less valuable than a newcomer to the James Bond franchise.

 

I know it's partly an age thing (though Tim Partridge is a young man), though some of us also make movies for a living and find the whole "shoot with a dozen cameras and chop it up in post" sort of a lazy way of designing an action sequence. I mean, a high school student could direct a modern action sequence given enough camera angles and cuts, as long as he had a professional stunt team, etc. It takes real directorial skill to actually choreograph a sequence in front of the camera so that the camera moves and cuts come at the right beats to the action to enhance the experience.

 

Yes, you could say that the confusion caused by how the action scenes were edited in QOS was deliberate... or you could just say it was confusing, and not in a helpful way that made the action more exciting to watch. Knowing that Marc Foster and Roberto Schaeffer actually wanted to avoid a contemporary Bourne-style when they went into this project, the fact that it ended up being very Bourne-like suggests to me that the studio stepped in during the editing stage and asked for the action scenes to be cut-up more, perhaps to the point where something that made sense originally now was confusing to watch.

I'm sorry, I probably didn't phrase my self correctly. I'm not trying to say that everyone on here are dumb or are untalented, but what I meant was that it seems that every post that I seem to read is very critical about the smallest things. I too feel that being critical is a necessity to getting better, but I believe that it needs to be helpful criticism. The criticism that I've come across a lot on here sounds a lot more like a comment from some jealous high school kid that wasn't invited to the party. Oh and I also didn't mean you don't have a life just because you post on here a lot. I meant to mean that there are a lot of people on here that are just blabbing on about how this or that sucks and it's really gotten to me. And I know I don't HAVE to read this forum, but I really want to, cause it's been helpful in the past. I just don't want to see it get to the point where people are going on and on about how terrible something is. Share your opinion and then be done with it, do ramble on and on about it, that just makes you look very juvenile.

I too realize that it is very hard to make a film and I, for example, have not reached the point where I am the least bit satisfied with my work, which I think strives me to keep pushing. So I really don't feel that I have any right to criticize DP's that are 100x better than me. I'm the one who is trying to be as good or better than them. I'm not saying not to be critical, and to just love everything I see, but instead I say that we should sometimes keep it to ourselves. And if we want to share our thoughts on something, we should have logical reasons for our opinion, and not just say "I hated this and that!!" Why did you hate it? What did you find wrong with that particular shot. You know what I'm getting at?

Also, I would be a very lucky man to be as good as you or Adam someday. Which I'm not sure why you think I don't take what he says seriously. I mean to get to where you and Adam are and a fear that I might get stuck in some corner photo store for all of my life is what somewhat makes me work very hard. And to clear something, I was never referring to you or Adam when I said that people are jealous or whatever I said. You and Adam are two of the only ones I really enjoy hearing from, because you two have good reasons to back up your comments.

Anyway, I hope that you understand what I meant to say now. I hope that I haven't offended anyone on this forum, but rather opened everyones eyes so that they might back up their opinions a little better and not be so quick just to say "I hate that film." But I guess why should I really care? It's not like I'm effected by those posts other than I have to read through a bunch of that till I find few that actually have good reasoning.