John Allen

You have to remember, I'm the guy who has his list of favorite movies broken down by decade, I could never limit myself to a list shorter than about fifty to one hundred! If I had to pick one image, it would only be my favorite for that moment, five minutes later I'd pick something else.

Yeah I totally agree David, I myself have sooooo many favorites ranging from the 30's up to today that I love just as much as my next favorite. It's like asking someone to pick they're favorite film of all time or favorite lighting in a film. It's impossible, cause there are so many and all of them differ. So good point!

Here's mine. I'm posting them in links below. I like these cause they were, especially the older ones, the films that inspired me and made it clear to me that I wanted to be a DP. Enjoy, and if you haven't seen some of these films I highly recommend them

"Rear Window"

http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/...w%20pic%202.jpg

"Lawrence of Arabia"

http://lh4.ggpht.com/_TJH2cjOP7JU/RzhA7ZBG...e-of-Arabia.jpg

"Rebecca"

http://www.womenonscreen.com/images/danver...-to-suicide.jpg

"Vertigo" (but if these frames were of him walking down the steeple steps it would be better)

http://www.in70mm.com/newsletter/1996/46/v...ges/vertigo.jpg

"Pan's Labyrinth"

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/pan.jpg

"The Assassination of Jesse James"

http://jacobdestree.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/32696288.jpg

"Letters From Iwo Jima"

http://static.amctv.com/img/movienights/pr..._main_image.jpg

"The Prestige"

http://www.reelingreviews.com/theprestigepic.jpg

"The Godfather" (of course)

http://basetta.pupazzo.org/site_media/postings/godfather.jpg

"The Dark Knight"

http://z.about.com/d/comicbooks/1/7/M/U/joker.jpg

But that's only a few of my favorite stills, I have much much more.

I thought that Casino Royale was ok, but I just thought that the lighting was like a comic book, but if that's what he was going for then great! I thought it was good, not "oscar" worthy, but hey it was good. I liked especially the starting scene in B&W, that was a definate 5 stars. He lit it perfectly. Anyway, I guess that was a little off subject.

Yeah I actually thought that he did a pretty good job of making it look like the old Indy's. The only scene that I didn't like was the wedding scene, when he used the pro mist filter(correct me if I was wrong) it just made it look kinda cheesy. Also, there were green screen shots that he had to light for that weren't the greatest, but overall I liked it and I don't think we should criticize it, just because it wasn't one of his "best" films.

No I was more thinking of getting my dad's band to play. But I'd feel bad not paying them. I can sing if you really want me to tho, except that's prolly not the case. :huh:

I shot a short this last weekend on 16mm with Kodak Vision2 500t,200t, and 100t film stock. The film is in the telecine process now so I don't have any screen grabs, but please check out the production photos at our blog, http://brakelitefilms.blogspot.com/

And feel free to leave comments on whatcha think of it. Thanks! :)

Geeze that's a great idea.......Adam we should have a fund raising concert.

Hahahahaha........and I hate you too. :angry: lol

Thanks Adam, but let's wait until we get the footage back to see if my lighting was beautiful. :)

But thanks for the compliment.

Nor an average DOP..

Yeah I know, I look at everything. In other words I care about all the techniques in the cinematography of a film.

Oh btw, I listened to a podcast with Wally Pfister and apparently he gets sick before each shoot.

Yeah I always can't get to sleep the night before and I feel like I'm gonna die the week of the shooting, but I always just ask the Lord to help me get through it and I ask him to open my eyes to be able to do my very best, and so far it has always helped.

Also, Adam you did an amazing job today and yesterday in the shoot. Even after you found out that the main actress was hung over, you stuck with it and found someone else that did a great job! I think it will be a great film and I'm always glad to be your DP. I just hope you'll be as pleased with my lighting as I was about your writing and direction. Superbe travail!!!

Don't ever forget Adam, I think your an amazing director and you will definitely go very far, keep it up!!!

Oooh ok I think I understand now. I'm kinda a lover of both worlds, which I guess still doesn't help a whole lot, but I like it when the kicker is hot and I like it when there's just a little strip of light on their shoulders.

As for white/colored kickers, I like it to have a whitesh color, but I've always understood that the white color just came from overexposing the kicker. But I could definitely be wrong, and if I am please correct me, cause I always want to learn.

I think it highly depends on the situation. If there's a practical light that can justify putting a hot kicker on the talent then I would do that, but if there isn't one then I like to keep it low, just hot enough to create a separation from the backround.

I also like to ask myself, "does it complement the feeling of the scene?" For example, is the scene supposed to be very dramatic and dark, which in my opinion, depending on the location and practicals of course, would consider maybe even just having a key light. Or is the talent supposed to be beautifully lit, which I think the kicker usually is pretty good for beauty. But like I said, it's almost impossible to say exactly what you would do unless you know the situation.

Man that was really great. That's probably the best reel I've seen on here so far.

Hmmm......sounds like a good idea. Where might I find them?

Uno I think it's funny, there used to be, and still today, DP's that would never admit that it was an art. If you asked, many of them would tell you that it was just a job, as if it was like engineering or something technical like that. They never wanted to call it "art".

The way I see it is, anything that is creative is art. Everybody may not view cinematography the same, but in my view, cinematography is like painting a picture. Inside the camera frame is like the white canvas. The light is like paint, creating a look, a feeling, a story, etc. Like many books have said, Rebrandt would have been a breath taking cinematographer. He was a painter that had an amazing grasp of how light worked. So I guess you just need to ask yourself, "what does art mean?" Well what it means is the products of human creativity, or the creation of beautiful or significant things, so I would definitely call it art. I would never call it science, even tho there is a lot of technical things you need to know to be able to achieve your look. But I'm very sure that no scientist would be able to be a good DP, unless they had a good grasp of art.

Nothing dangerous about fiber optics. You're guiding light down the pipe.

Oh ok I must have misunderstood you. I thought you were saying telling me to put x-mas lights in the pool, and so I was like "Uhhh". lol

But even so, I don't think that's quite the look I'm going for. Thanks anyway!

Diatomaceous earth. It's white powder that will stay suspended for a bit and then sink. Use as much or as little as you want, you'll have no worries with the pool. It's actually the filter media that's used in the pool filter. The pool cleaner will suck it up and deposit it into the filter where it belongs when you're done. Go to any pool supply store to get it.

NICE!!! Thanks a lot Bruce! That sounds perfect, I'll definitely check it out. Thanks again!

Do the particles need to sink into the water? If not shaved pieces of styrofoam would float and be easy to skim off the top of the water.

Yeah I need it to blend with the water, which styrofoam; 1, like you said, would float on the water, and 2, would be to big of a particle. When I say large particles I mean that it shouldn't quite mix all the way, where as smaller particles do mix easily.

Why don't you use fiber optic cables? Start off with one strand every x meters start bunding more strands. Use cheap led's for colors or high power krypton lamps.

Umm....hmmm......maybe I don't fully understand your post, but wouldn't that be dangerous? Also, I'm not sure if that's the kind of look I'm trying to achieve. But thanks for the comments guys! :)

I can't believe I'm saying this, but you could do DFN. I definitely don't advise you to do DFN, because it tends to look fake, even when it's done correctly it doesn't look very real. But if you don't have a generator then you may not have any other choice.

Just got back from work and am resting my bones with a film and talkin to my director about next week's shoot.

Mmmm yeah I thought that might be the case. I was hoping that there was a product usually used for that. But I guess I'll just have to go with that or try and find something that's less messy. Thanks for the help. :)

Ok so I'm going to be shooting an underwater shot and would like to create a beam of light in the water. What I know is that I'll need to put some kind of substance that has larger particles to reflect the light. I've tested corn starch and it works just fine in a small container, as long as you don't stir it up, which wouldn't be very practical. But I'm just not sure if it would be a great idea to dump a bunch of corn starch into a swimming pool.

So I guess my question is, does anybody know or have worked with any substances that work well for creating a high contrasted beam in the water without making a big mess in the water? Which would result in a very angry PM I guess. ;)

I totally agree. Could everyone on this forum start answering helpfully to questions instead of just trying to say how they would do it a different way, please just answer the questions asked. Anyway that's how I feel about it. Hopefully my answer will be helpful and isn't an echo from someone else.

Ok so here's my two bits. First of all you should always shoot with 24 fps(1/48th), because film is shot on 24 fps. That's pretty obvious.

A DOF adapter is also a must.

Next, you can try and lower the saturation in editing, which seems to help a little. Also, crushing the blacks a little adds a nice contrasted look, which makes it look a little more like film.

Another technique in editing is to do a little bit of a bleach bypass. To learn how to do that, I'm sure there's a video on youtube, but also keep in mind not to go too extreme with it unless you're going for a war look.

There are plenty of of techniques that are useful depending on the style your going for. Also, learning more about different film stocks is very helpful too. Kodak.com has tech pictures for a great number of widely used stocks.

Good luck! :)

Ok, so if your wondering why the trailer isn't available anymore, it's because we deleted it. We'll try and put it back up when we've scored the music for it. Actually, it will probably look a whole lot better than it did, cause the old one was all raw footage and the sound wasn't mixed yet either.

But please check out the blog for photo's and other news.

http://www.brakelitefilms.blogspot.com/