Stuart Brereton

Usually, my response in these situations goes like this: What do I hope to get out of it? Is it the money, or is it experience? Is it working with up and coming talent or the opportunity to do something I've never done before? If I'm not getting paid then is it something for my reel? If you can't answer yes to one or more of these questions then pass on the project. If there is something that you stand to gain from doing it, and that something is worth however many days of your time, then perhaps it is worth doing. It's Sods' law that a great job always comes along when you've just committed to something else, but if you're always holding out for the perfect shoot, then you'll end up shooting nothing.

I'm sure Fstop will jump in soon, as he has been talking about Bruce Surtees in another thread, but the minimalist, gritty look of Pale Rider is the reason I love the film, along with Outlaw Josey Wales and High Plains Drifter. Eastwood (as a director) has a reputation for a measured exactness to his filmmaking, so i'm sure the lighting decisions made by Surtees in Pale Rider were entirely in keeping with Eastwoods' vision for the film.

you might try something like a sachtler 7x7 head. They're not as big or expensive as the video 18/20 heads, but they're better than the dv range

I like the Sachtler Video 18 or 20 with 2 stage Carbon fiber legs for this sort of work. The Video 20 is heavyweight enough for a Cinealta, too, though the Video 25 is even better :-)

Thanks for the kind words everyone! The setups were fairly straightforward. Stills 1 & 2 were keyed with 1k tungsten fresnels through 4x4 frames of 216, from behind in a back cross light. In still 2 there were some hard sources (150w worklights) scattered about in the background. In still 1 there was some low angle frontal fill from a Kinoflo, and some roving hard light beams (300w fresnels) to suggest moving lights in the club. Both setups were heavily smoked. Still 3 was lit with a ringlight and two kickers. The kickers were a bit harder than I would have liked, but we were fighting an unmoveable deadline to wrap. A lot of nuances went out the window towards the end of that day!!!! There were some night exteriors on the shoot as well. Hopefully I can post some of them up, when I get them.

Here's some grabs from a recent promo shoot. Not yet graded, but will be, mostly for consistency.

If you've never shot film, then greenscreen work is probably not the best place to start. Besides, as Phil points out, stock, processing and TK is way more expensive than hiring an SDX900. It's been mentioned before, but you could try to source one of the new DVW970's - 4.2.2 AND 25P, easily available DigiBeta decks etc, etc

Your choice of Telecine makes a big difference to the quality of your pictures This Link will take you to a side by side comparison of identical footage transferred on both an Ursa Diamond and a Spirit Telecine. The differences are obvious. As Stephen points out, a heavy grade, with lots of secondary correction will accentuate the noise in the picture.

It's fairly simple. Take four beefy grips. Add a generous measure of heaving and straining. Flavour with some colorful language and you're done! Try not to point out to them that it will be much easier on the way down.... ;-)

Well said, Max. Have whatever username you like, just sign your posts with your real name. I get enough email from "jojo123456", trying to sell me a fake college degrees, or prescription drugs, or god knows what else. I don't want to have to deal with that here as well. Tim has already stated that he's not going to make it mandatory, but it is polite. Would you have a conversation face to face with someone who refused to tell you their name? Everyone here benefits from the exchange of information. It's only fair that we should know who we are exchanging information with.

I've never had any problems with SR mags coming open. You should check them before they come out of the changing bag, then camera tape them securely.

I shot a Music Video in a 900 sq ft White studio a few months back. It had a floating white ceiling above the infinity curve. I had two 5k tungsten fresnels which I bounced of the floating ceiling. I lit the talent with tungsten lamps through frames of 216, but if you're shooting babies/young children, Kinos are the way to go - much less heat. I didn't bother much with backlight, there's plenty of bounce. The one thing I wish i'd had more of is negative fill. You try to get the walls reading as white, and before you know it the subjects are flat lit and dull. You might want to turn off the DCC on the camera as well.

At film school, we used to get deals from Panavision. We always had these grand ideas of shooting with a 'real Hollywood' camera. Then we realised how difficult they were to thread. All of a sudden, we were really happy to receive an SR.....

Strange how these fit together......

In the UK, dutch angles are referred to (colloquially) as 'on the piss'. 'On the Piss' is a slang term for being drunk and therefore uneven, just like a Dutch Angle. In recent years, with the over usage of dutch angles on MTV etc, the term 'on the piss' has come to be derogatory, implying a lack of imagination.

Your daily call sheet will have a list of scenes that are going to be shot that day. If there hasn't already been discussion of how to shoot it, and hence, how long it's going to take,how can you possibly schedule? These schedules are agreed by the Director, DP, 1st AD and whoever else needs to input. Any production that just 'turns up and shoots' is doomed to fail.

i've got a G4 Powerbook. Barring a few issues with OSX when it first arrived, it's been solid ever since. I run FCP & Photoshop on it, as well as Speedgrade. although Apple is about to switch to Intel chips, I think it will still be a long while before a Intel Powerbook is available, so it's worth getting the highest spec G4 that you can.

It really depends what type of video you are comparing it to. HD/Super 16 costs are very similar up to a point, but S16 is much more expensive than DV It's not dozens of times more. If you look at S16 with a comparable video technology, HD, film can actually work out cheaper, if you are not shooting high volumes. I did comparison costings last year of S16 vs. HD, and film was cheaper unless you planned on shooting more than 10 400' rolls. This doesn't mean much in the world of drama, but for a music video it is significant.

I started stills photography back in about 1986, before Auto Focus & Exposure lenses were widely available. I don't find manually setting a stop or finding focus that much of a hassle. Timelapse on the EOS cameras can be done with the TC-80N3 remote timer. The LCD monitor can be set (on the 10D, at least) to display the shot until the shutter is pressed again.

Actually it is possible to buy an adaptor which allows use of FD lenses on EOS bodies. I use one myself on my EOS10D. You can sometimes find them on Ebay for about £25.00.

How far was the HMI from the 4x4? T2.0 seems very low...

A TK colorist that I know thinks very highly of the 3 way color corrector in FCP. Given he's used to working with a Da Vinci 2K, that's a pretty good recommendation.

Stephen, It was an Ursa Diamond, through a Da Vinci 8:8:8 colour corrector, TK to digibeta. The stills are uncompressed screengrabs.

sorry, to clarify URSA stills are on the left, SPIRIT on the right my apologies for the large files, but I thought it was important to see them full size.

I think we're all guilty (to some extent) of putting some shaky, horribly over-exposed mini DV image in the same class as a properly composed 16 megapixel digital still, just because we hear the dreaded word 'digital' Truth is, even miniDV can look good, if you care enough to take the time.