David Cronin

Also: $2K is the retail price, contrary to public (uninformed) opinion the Defense Department pays less than wholesale for commercial items. I've got a pretty good handle on what the DOD pays for high end commercially available electronics test equipment. They'll pay around $12K for something that would cost you and me around $18-20K. Your probably correct. In talking with a best boy on a shoot a couple days ago he told me that Light Panel was a military company before becoming commercially viable. I guess light panel developed an LED infrared light panel for low key military night applications. That allowed people to be see without exposing them with a visible source of light. Pretty cool... Could be fun to light a film with infrared sensitive stock and a bunch of infrared light panels

Little Letter I wrote to LA times... just thought everyone should know where that 10-99 self employment tax is going. Cutting overhead needs to start overhead. In reading David S. Clouds, article from the Washington tribune about Secretary Bob Gates cutting military spending I found Chip Somodevilla's photograph on Tuesdays edition of the times pg. A8 to be ironically expository of the current situation in Washington. The photo taken by Mr. Somodevilla seems oddly angled upward for dramatic flair, or perhaps the photographer knows something that the majority of American's do not? The ceiling of the press conference room where Gates addressed the media that day shows a grid of 30 1x1ft LED light panels. This light is primarily used as a battery powered energy efficient light for field work in the television and movie industry. It's nice to have one or two on set because of it's superb mobility and color clarity. The light is a difficult item to get at times because the cost of each unit hovers around $2,000.00 retail. Somodevilla's picture shows 30 individual fixtures, tallying the cost of lighting the press conference room an impressive $60,000. The article noted that "in inflation adjusted dollars, the administration defense budget request for fiscal year 2011 is at the highest level since World War II." World War II was a time when the government asked the American people to conserve in effort to help supply our troops abroad. The draft also was a sacrifice felt by all classes of society. Today we hide behind our dollar, putting our country in debt, hindering our economy and destroying our working class by offering them few financial options besides the military to receive a less and less valuable education. I believe that American safety is of great importance and that our involvement overseas is necessary at this point in time. The world is an unsafe place, far more so than it was before 9/11 and a great deal of that insecurity has stemmed from our own action both overseas and with our neighbors in Mexico. After reading Mr. Gates' book, I believe he is a man who looks at all possible options for both security and fiscal responsibility. I hope he is working hard to keep us safe and cut excessive spending. But I also know he does not have the time or energy to look into the cost of lighting the press room at the Pentagon, someone should. -David Cronin Lamp Operator, Hollywood California.

Sorry to ask this question on this forum, but I feel it might be answered better than the student forum, so here it goes: Does anyone know a good fuji film rep in LA that can offer discounted stock for student films? 2nd. I am planning on filming the opening credits of a student film in black and white (probably corrected in post). I am going to photograph a sequence of freeway over passes on a jerry rigged Arri SR II (SR3 guts) during the day on fuji vivid 160. I want the images to feel completely still and lifeless almost like a still. The final overpass in the sequence I am planning on laying two images over each other and shooting it at dusk. The first a still from the camera that captures the motion blur of a cars tail lights streaking across the frame. This ideally means I would have to manually expose the film for the duration it would take a car to "streak" across my frame 3-5 seconds. My variable speed control only goes to 1 second exposure, even with a fully open shutter this will not give me the desired effect. Is it possible to do this manually? Meaning just roll the film on the SR II with the lens cap on stop the film with the shutter exposed, take off the cap for three seconds and put it back on. Assuming I have calculated correct exposure is this even possible? Will I experience reciprocity failure exposing a motion picture stock for 3-5 seconds? The second image that will lay over the first is the exact same frame shot at a higher frame rate (exposure should hopefully match) except I would like this exposure to be just a bit hotter to allow visibility of the other cars tail lights to travel or pulse through the already established beam of light. I think a sprint commercial has done this before. Finally as the image pulses like a heart beat, the city and freeway overpass gradually shifts from a black and white to bright colorful fuji vivid 160. The city is alive. If anyone would like to share there thoughts or concerns, I would love to hear them. David

2007: "Sunshine", "Across the Universe", "Assassination of Jesse James", "Caravaggio", "Lust Caution", "Elizabeth: The Golden Age", "Michael Clayton", "American Gangster", No Country for Old Men", "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", "There Will Be Blood" I will admit though that 2007 was something of a bumper crop, a banner year for great cinematography. A CHALLENGE TO ANYONE INTERESTED, and perhaps this is just me showing my immature movie history, but is there a better year in cinema visually? I personally would classify "better" in 2007 as being a year in which no huge technological advancements were made but the refined quality and diversity of the work makes it a great year. As far as decades go I still think the 40's was and still is one of the strongest decades and also a time when black and white was really being pressured by new technological advances in color. 46' was a solid year with (wonderful life, great expectations, the best years of our lives) Or maybe its just the fact that all those movies sound so great. I know there are a lot of people that hate digital on this site but its important to think about what technological advancements do for current working habits. So here is another question to ask that I would love to see responses to. Do you think the digital world (not DI but shooting digitally) has challenged us to express ourselves with more character and artistry as a whole shooting film? Do you think this decade of films would be as diverse visually if we hadn't challenged or questioned film with the advancement of digital photography? ( think about this long and hard, for example why would a film as big as Elswit's There Will Be Blood, have no DI?) I look forward to reading responses? And thanks Dave for the relapse of the decade, good stuff.

Tom Stern, I want to work for a man or woman that knows how to Gaff. Gaffers know what they are talking about when it comes to shooting. All the details are in lighting.

www.ratemyindieproducer.com Hey you multitalented web people out there; This could be a good site to prevent further problems.(see previous topic) Naturally there would be some people who may produce bad ratings but strength in numbers would clearly correlate to somewhat accurate results. Any thoughts?

Would love to help. Send me a link to your website and work.

Could you explain a little bit about the story, the characters, what they are doing, how you want the film to feel in general? These things should be the factors that influence your lighting and others input.

Sorry about that last reply. There was none for some reason. The difficulties you are encountering seem to be pretty massive, It could be worse, you could be shooting midday on a snow covered mountain in the summer. :lol: One of the main problems is shooting HD, you are working with a pretty high contrast medium. If there is anyway to keep things a little more in the mids-do so. THINK FUJI FILM. I am NOT a camera person, but I know enough to avoid shooting a massive tone change with digital, which is essential what you are doing. As far as lighting goes. Your best bet on a tight budget is to shoot in warmer tones. This tends to bring black skin up a little and won't blow out your other actor. I recommend Sodium vapor with a little less green than normal. The thing to understand here is that any decisions you make are going to put you in a hole that you will have to stick with. Try to take these challenges and shoot the project in an interesting way. Also I have no clue what your lighting should look like, story is important. If you are just looking to light it to see faces AKA comedy. I would say keep things soft use 12x12 through a fairly heavy diffusion with maxi's. Sodium vapor them. Then get a light for your black actor call it your "insert actor name here" light. Get a high roller. Slap a 5k on there with a chimera grid and vapor that and follow him around with a 2x3 double to keep it off his body. Your pure blacks will come in the outfits and thats fine. I have been only doing this for a little while now. I recommend you look at some of the other post for light black actors. Best of luck

I always like ND'ing down a source 4 and using the slats to crop just the painting within the frame. Maybe you could use two source 4's and also crop the frame with a different level of light. It makes the painting pop. Then you can light the rest of the scene however you wish. But its a little dramatic for most doc work. And you are already stuck anyways. :)

One recommendation, keep the fireworks soft. I would probably use a bounce board. As far as color is concerned less is more. Know how your source behaves in reality. Fireworks tend to have an sudden splash of color that falls off gradually in the span of 5-maybe 7 seconds. Have at least 5 lights and bounce them into an 8x4 foam core. The more spread the better. Strike the light into the card then slowly pan it off. Multiple lights should be on at one time. Also might want a little something at the base of the show card to represent mortar flare maybe a warm little string of christmas lights. I don't know what type of budget you have, I am assuming low. So I would keep the shooting fairly tight. You won't have the money to show to much background, because your foam core isn't going to have the spread of real fireworks. Keep it on a long lenses. One last thing, this is more personal taste, but make sure you give your director some options in terms of how much ambient light there is (not from the fireworks SEE brokeback mountain Prieto kicks ass). I personally would like to see the faces all the way through the show, because from a story perspective the whole emotional expression of your actors will be the best bet to sell the deal you don't want to loose that feeling when you loose your light. Good Luck, and if you have any question or need any help let me know. Davidwcronin@gmail.com

Adrian, I would agree with you fully I found the difference in panasonic and sony basically to be entirely based on need. If you want color panasonic camera's, I feel, do an excellent job of cramming lots of information into the small space available in SD. One thing that sold me was while doing color correction for my own film at matchframe, I was able to see a little bit of footage of a Bela Fleck documentary Throw Down Your Heart Movie LINK. The colorist and myself were both pretty impressed by the color quality and the project was shot on a mini DV with a panasonic DVX 100b. Sony's I think have a place, but its not so much in color as it is in reality. It captures what I would call "the new york" look well. It's a little more gentle and true in the darks. One thing I would note, no matter what you shoot with save some money and take advantage of a professional colorist. There a must in a project like this. Best, David

Liked everything. Lens and angle choice seemed a little off on the wides but the close ups looked nice. I found the double/trip shadows in the wide at the coffee place a little to funky. What were you using to to light the scene? Other than that it looks nice. I don't know what kind of budget you were working with, but I think you have some nice things in there.

I'm there. ;)