Stuart Brereton

A good friend of mine was directing some spec commercials. Her DP refused to take direction, insisting on deciding on his own angles and coverage. He refused to white balance the camera (" It's not the way I work..."). He also virtually refused to talk to anyone except the 1st AD (they were friends) and when he did so they spoke only in Portugese (they were both Brazilian). The rest of the crew were amazed at this behaviour. When he was eventually fired, he got so mad he almost had to be forcibly removed from the set. In every trade there are prima donnas and people who have far too high an opinion of their own ability. Everyone meets one sooner or later. Hopefully, you won't have to deal with another one in the near future.

Definitely transfer s16 as 16:9 FHA (Full Height Anamorphic)

I use DVD Studio Pro on a Mac. It's pretty straightforward, and a lot more powerful than I need. You can burn your discs directly from within the program, or create a disc image to burn later. I usually do this, and use Toast Titanium to burn the discs. There's probably simpler ways, but this one works for me.

I use DVD-R discs and generally have no problems, as long as I use a 'quality' brand like Sony or TDK. Cheaper brands are fine for data storage, but for for showreel purposes, if I want to be confident the disc will play in most DVD players then more expensive discs are required. I don't know if this is also true for DVD+R discs.

A grip with track & dolly (a Fisher 11, for instance) will set you back about £600+ vat a day. Steadicam operators are frequently around £1k per day. So, hiring a grip will be cheaper, but you'll probably get more done with a Steadicam, purely because you won't be laying track. Aside from financial considerations and time, there are certain types of shots that are better done from a dolly than a steadicam, and vice versa.

You need to make sure that you don't overpower the city lights with your own. On 500asa stock a stop of t2.8 should be about right. For beauty lighting a girl band, you should be looking at soft frontal lighting, combined with some hard backlight. Getting the makeup dept to apply lots of moisturiser to the girls' skin will help with getting a nice sheen, paricularly if they are dark skinned. Using your DSLR is an excellent way to get an idea of the right exposure for the background. Have Fun!

I think Mike was referring to special processing in general, rather than any particular technique.

I use Rushes (rushes.co.uk) a fair bit and they've always been good to me.

To be fair to Oliver Stone, he did not create the idea of a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination. his film was based around the book by Jim Garrison, which was itself only one of several competing conspiracy theories. That the kids in your theatre company had no idea about the facts and theories surrounding the killing of their own President says more about the US educational system than Oliver Stones' filmmaking.

Of course they're incorrect. It's precisely because people say scan when they mean telecine that people like Christian get confused over terms and what to expect from a post house.

A scan and a telecine are different things. A scan converts a negative to data. A telecine converts negative to video, of whatever format you choose. The better the format, the less information you lose in the process. There is no such thing as uncompressed DV.

Every lamp of this type I've ever shot has been VERY green. Not the blue-green you get from fluorescents, more of a bright yellow/green. Maybe they've improved recently, but I'd advise you to test.

The term '2K Scan' refers to a data scan of your neg, not a telecine. If you're TKing to NTSC it will be 720 x 480 no matter whether you use Digibeta or DV. It seems a shame to go to all the expense of shooting 16mm, and then TK it to the worst digital format there is. Raise some extra cash and have it Tk'ed to digibeta, with DV dubs made for your offline. Once you have it cut, go back to your DigiBeta masters and conform it. I can't speak for TK facilities in the US, but most of the places in the UK that offer direct to hard drive services usually TK to tape anyway and then digitise from that. This mean that your 'Uncompressed QT Movie' hasn't been compressed by whatever system it was digitised, but will have been compressed by the tape format it came from.

After every good take is sensible working practice. If you're using a zoom lens you can check the gate without opening up the camera

I'm working on a short film to be shot on Super 16 (7205 probably). It's going to be TK'd to HD-Cam, then cut at SD, then the HD rushes conformed. The Directors are hoping to find the money for a 35mm print at some point, and they're asking which route to take: 1. 35mm film out from HDCam masters or 2. 16mm neg cut and optical blowup to 35mm. I don't know how these compare in price, but how about in quality?

If you're using a Carnet, make sure it's all filled out correctly, every step of the way. I know of a Production co. that was hit with a bill from Customs & Excise for unpaid VAT on equipment that they had 'sold abroad'. They hadn't sold it at all, but the carnet was incomplete, and they couldn't prove they had ever brought the kit back to the UK.

I saw this thread earlier on, and I thought to myself - "I bet Phil Rhodes says 'they're there to cover for the film trained DP' ". If only my bookie would give odds on it....

First off, I'm glad that you are taking this seriously, that you have the same desire as the rest of us to learn our trade. What I said before stands, though - there is no quick, easy way. If you have projects that you need to shoot, hire a DP, and learn from them. Eventually, you'll know enough to do it yourself. This is a quite laughable statement. Generations of painters, photographers and cinematographers managed to produce beautiful images before anyone had ever heard of CGI. Do you honestly believe that the art of lighting can be reduced to a mathematical equation? Show me the formula that Storaro used to light Apocalypse Now, or that Willis used in The Godfather, or Conrad Hall or Jordan Cronenweth.... Please, get real...

You're asking for crash course in skills which take years to acquire. There is no easy, quick way to learn them. If you're serious about learning to light and shoot, rather than just doing it as a way to cut costs, then you should know that books and other people can tell you where to put the lights, but they can't tell you why. Only experience can do that. Bottom line is: you want good-looking videos, but have no experience in lighting or camera. Answer: hire someone who does. There's quite a few around here, strangely enough.

In this image from the ASC website you can see some of the lighting units that were used. The main lamp looks to be a large fresnel, perhaps a 20k

David, Is this situation a definite "it's all over" or has the production just been placed in limbo whilst agents scramble to make deals? my sympathies, either way....

I use my Canon 10d this way all the time. I don't trust the LCD monitor on the camera, so I load the stills into my laptop for viewing. I find it's perfectly adequate for judging exposure. It's very popular with directors as well, as they can see a clear hi-res image of the shot, rather than what they get off the video tap.

Dynaphos make a copy of the Chimera Octolume system, which will fit these lamps. They're sold in the US by Amvona.com, who also sell via ebay.

David, it might be news to you, but your name is not out of place in that list.... :-)

Last time you started banging on about 'Pig cops' you were asked to show some respect or get lost. The request still stands.