Stuart Brereton

I've never subscribed to this idea that you have to sell your soul to get a break in the film industry. You have to learn your trade well, you have to work hard, you have to sell yourself, sure - but so does anyone who is just starting out in business. It doesn't matter whether you are a self-employed carpenter, plumber, gardener or cameraperson. You start at the bottom and work your way up. You accept that it isn't going to be easy, keep you head down and keep plugging away. Sooner or later, you will get a break, and you'll take a step up. Of course it's hard when you see your contemporaries doing better than you are. I have friends from film schools whose careers I would love to have! My philosophy is that when my abilities match my ambition, the next break will come along, and I'll be that much closer to where I want to be. Then the whole learning process continues. But, if I don't try, don't keep improving myself, then it will never happen. I guess I believe in making your own luck.

An 85 filter has a Mired shift of 112. An 81EF a mired shift of 52. Any warming filter with a similar shift (164) will have a similar effect, although Straw, Coral, Tobacco etc have their own individual qualities. It's all a matter of taste.

I've just come from a Telecine session where we were discussing this very question. Obviously, you want to use the highest quality format you can afford, or that fits your post pipeline. The colorist I was talking to was of the opinion that as long as you are not doing specialist work, like green or blue screen, and you are not planning to do extensive grading of your final cut, then DVCAM is fine. If you're finishing for TV, then most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between DVCAM and DigiBeta, certainly not on a domestic TV.

Well, an 85 and a 81EF would add up to 1 1/3 stop compensation, so you should really be rating 5218 at 200asa, unless you are underexposing. if you just want to lose some glass in front of the lens, I would try a heavy coral flter. Coral 5 is usually the equivalent of an 85 (depending on manufacturer) so you could try a Coral 7 or 8 according to taste.

Here are some stills from the shoot today. I'll try to post up the actual screengrabs, so that you can see how they compare.

I posted recently about having done this on a promo shoot. I've just done the same again today. I take stills with my Canon EOS 10D, then view them on my laptop. If we have time, i might put them through Photoshop, just to give the director (and Client) a rough idea of what it will look like graded. I find it an invaluable tool, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of a shoot. That said, I know that it has far more contrast than Film Neg, and that my highlights will not reproduce faithfully. It's useful mostly as a backup. If it looks OK on a digital still, then you know that it will be fine on your neg.

...and how old is that, Adam?????.....

Most of the NTSC DVW 700/790s in Britain tend to be Owner/Operator packages, as there's not much demand for them as rental items. Optex might be worth a try, but it's certainly going to be easier (for you, anyway) and cheaper, if you hire a regular PAL 790 and let them worry about the conversion later. If you do shoot NTSC remember that UK fluorescents, streetlights and HMIs will flicker at 29.97 or 30fps You should be looking at around £275-£300 a day for a PAL digi kit, plus £75 for a wide-angle. You may get it for less if you rent from outside London ;-)

I have three Promos that I shot recently showing on a UK music channel. Every one of them has the band squeezed and skinny. Apparently, whoever digitized them into their system managed not to see the Large 'ANAMORPHIC 16x9' sticker on the tape case. They must also have missed the identical sticker on the tape, as well as the ANAMORPHIC written large on the clock. It's not that difficult to get it right, surely?

Another option may be to use the soon-to-be available Sony DVW970 24p Digibeta. This will give you the Progressive Scan look, with the proven workflow of digibeta. Optional cards for the 970 will apparently enable it to shoot at 'slow' shutter speed (like DV cameras) and to do Timelapse. Given a choice between HDV and 24p Digibeta, I know which way I'd jump.

I doubt that David actually takes his spotmeter to the cinema very often. Looking through that 5 degree viewfinder makes it hard to follow the story....

There is NO filter that will make an overcast day look sunny. If there was, it would sell in huge quantities here in the UK ;-) Sunny days are high contrast. Overcast days are not. You're filming on a porch, right? Try to pick your angles so that you can't see outside of the porch. If you have access to lights, then your best bet is to get the biggest lamp you have and try to give your subject a nice hot rim or side light, as if the sun was shining in on them. If you don't have any big lights, then you could shoot tighter shots and use a smaller lamp. If there is even a faint sun, you might try using a mirror to reflect it into the porch. I have a Velbon tripod, but i only use it for stills photography. FWIW, it's well made, and comparatively cheap.

I believe Underworlds' cold blue look was achieved in post. I've seen some stills from the production in which the colours are quite normal. I think it was done in DI, but anyone who knows better should feel free to correct me.

Thanks Tim, I'll try to get the whole clip up on the site soon. Basically there were only three lights. A 650w with double CTO going through a frame of 216, and a 300w with double CTO put through some dingle on the sheet in the background. The keylight was flagged off the singers' face to give him some light and dark to move in. The wind (it was shot exterior) was blowing the BG sheet around, creating some shifting patterns ( a happy accident....) The rain was a garden hose backlit with a 300w. The beam was directed at the water, with only the edge of the beam catching the singer. I like using the edges of light beams in situations like this, they seem to have a different quality. The director and I watched Apocalypse Now (the scene in the temple with Brando and Sheen) as a reference for this look. Hopefully, it's somewhere close. Stuart

Just my got my website up and running. I'm still learning Dreamweaver, so it's a bit basic, but I'd be interested to hear what you think. stuartbrereton.com thanks Stuart

There's absolutely no need to put the core back in. The roll will hold its' shape without it. Struggling in a changing bag to replace the core is likely to cause damage to the film. Anyone who has ever had a roll come unwound in the bag can testify as to how much fun it is :-(

Here's the equivalent shoot from graded rushes. They've had the contrast increased, extra blue into the shadows, green into the highlights, and the whole spectrum skewed towards cyan. the screen grab isn't great (I'm still having trouble with attachments :-( )

Okay, here's a still from the shoot, taken with a Canon EOS 10D, 200 asa, 1/50 sec, t2.8 this is pretty much straight out of the camera. The only thing I've done is to increase the contrast a little. I'll post up a similar shot from the actual graded footage next.

Tried that, doesn't seem to work. Is there a limit to the file size?

Hi Everyone, I shot a promo for UK rock outfit The GA*GA*S on friday. It was a Super 16 shoot, with some additional shooting the following day on DV, which will be treated to look like Super 8. It would have been Super 8 for real, had not the last Kodachrome lab in Europe apparently shut its doors for ever (thanks Kodak :-( ). It was, as ever a full schedule, made worse by losing two hours of shoot time because of technical 'issues'. I was running around like a chicken with its' head cut off, trying to make up for lost time. This is where my stills camera came to the rescue. I had taken it along to the shoot, with my laptop, because we had the client on location and I wanted to be able to give them an idea of what they were going to get. The stills were also going to be a reference for my colorist. I started to use the stills camera alongside my lightmeter. I would take a reading off the keylight, light everything else by eye, then get a still with my camera set to my shooting stop. A quick upload to the laptop, and I could tell at a glance that everything was OK. This helped me work faster, and eventually we caught up and finished on time :-) We had a load of Minibrute 6 Lights in shot, which were giving me headaches with flare. The stills camera was invaluable in checking their exposure. I'll post some stills, both from the EOS10D, and from the 16mm footage, if I can ever figure out how to attach them to a post. I'll definitely be using the camera this way again. It's not a substitute for a lightmeter, and careful exposure, but its' a damn good aid :-) Stuart

Any chance you can shoot two passes at it? One exposed for the exterior, one for the fireball, then matte them together.

I have some 30"x30" frames made from Plastic waste pipe and elbows available from any DIY/Plumbing Store. Cost about £10.00 each. I also have some sturdier 4'x4' frames made from 15mm copper pipe, fixed together with 'Push-fit' elbows, again from DIY stores. The 'Push-Fit' elbows are ideal, because the frames can be easily disassembled and packed away. Both types of frame fit into a standard Grip arm/knuckle.

This is the same press release that Sony UK denied all knowledge of, although it does mention a 25p PAL standard.... Who knows? I hope they do make one for the PAL market.

Actually it is very easy to make film look like video. You crank the contrast up, ditto the chroma, and sharpen the image a touch... One of the reasons for films' continued popularity is the fact that because it captures such a huge range of information at such high quality, you can make it look anyway you want.

Unfortunately, according to Sony UK (who hadn't even heard of it when I first asked) there are no plans to make or market a PAL version. Sony said they were too busy with the launch of HDV, and that was where their priorities were. Shame. I would have thought there was a sizable market for a 25p DigiBeta.