Francisco Valdez

John Bailey and Gabriel Beristain in "Incident at Lochness"

I totally agree! There's no point in elaborating on that

Very nice images and good choice in music too Congratulations!

I swtiched to test skin and it seems to be working fine. Which is a great thing for me, the only reason I ever use Firefox is to come here. I don't know which one is a better software, but by now I feel at home when using Safari. Francisco

Use common sense, if your character is far from the TV set, avoid giving the light comming from the TV to much presence. More often than not, starting filmmakers overdo this effect. Subtlety is the key, what might look like almost nothing to your eye, is about the right amount, especially if the tv is of different color temperature, than your other sources. I've used efectively a daylight balanced soft source, while moving slowly some folded gels (blue in my case) in front the source. All that said, I guess that an ultra low budget way to do it, is to use a real TV and since you don't see it in the frame you can place it as close as you need to. Are you shooting film or video? Good luck, Francisco

Thanks a lot, Francisco

That's kind of my general understanding as well. For some reason the director is very interested in knowing the exact definition according to the industry standards, that is if such a thing exists. He wants to make sure we are all talking about the same thing, when we have our next meeting with the Line Producer, whom I'm almost sure will have his own personal definition of what a setup is. Thanks, Francisco

While planing our shots and estimated setup times, the Director of a film I'm iinvolved in, asked me what constituted a setup. I said that everytime you move the camera, do a change on the lighting or both it constitutes a different setup. He asked me if this was the dictionary definition of what a setup was. To which I ansewered that this was just my personal understanding, but that there was a good chance that I was wrong. Does anyone have an answer? Thanks, Francisco

Thanks

The ASC magazine of what month? I usually read the entire magazine every month but I've fallen behind the last few months and would like to read that article while the movie is still fresh in my mind. Thanks, Francisco

Try asking a question... Or you can also browse around the forums There are a lot of people sharing their knowledge in here. Francisco

So his face is 5 stops under? Hum... I'm staying away from this emulsion

Fahrenheit 451

One stop under exposure is not enough for the silhouette effect.

I think his shadow on the wall has to much presence in the frame. The size of it suggests he was slightly lit from below, which the sun never does unlees you're high in the sky. To my eyes it truely looks like daylight. I don't think I need to see "the window" on the right to feel it's pressence, the light of the "sun" comming through it is enough evidence that there's a window around there.

Wow! I never got to see one. So only one focal lenght? I guess it makes sense. I'm going to search in the internet to see if I can find a picture or drawing of a cinerama camera and projector as well. Do you now if the film strips were projected edge by edge of eachother or was there some overlapping involved in the projection? I guess the 2.66 suggests there was a huge overlapping and maybe the residual parts were masked out. Also the frames should've met at an equivalent point to eachother to be able to share the same perspective distortion at a given point. Just found the camera. http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/widescreen/cineramacam.htm

Most dp's soften the lighting when going in for close-ups, which may result in some light loss. Maybe they could be trying to see more into the shadow side of the face, which in a wide shot you wouldn't get to regardless.

If lighting from a low angle, I would try not to light from one of the directions to which the windsurfers are riding to avoid blinding them. If there's no possibility of lighting them from any other angle, at least try to avoid front lighting them when they're riding downwind, which is when they'll be going faster. My guess is that you'll be lighting also for the live spectators, which will probably end up forcing you to compromise your choice between what you want to show onscreen and what a live spectator expets to see. But who knows, maybe both of you are looking for the same thing.

Photoflex makes a softbox called cinedome or something like that, which are designed to be used with fesnels. They're longer than regular softboxes to compensate for the narrow spread of fresnels light. The cinedome gives you the option to use one or two diffusion materials in front of the lamp, which renders a very diffused and soft-like light. It's true, the larger the source surface, the softer the light. Take into account, that in the threedimensional world size is relative to distance, so a large object far away, would apear to be small.

I've never gotten a moire effect on any of my footage but that's because my art department and me are overly cautious about it. The thing is I want stop being cautious and start being conscious about it. I would like to know... What should I avoid? What are my limits? and does it vary from 35mm to 16mm and video? If anyone can give me a hand on this I would really appreciate it. Thanks, Francisco