Nicholas A Micros

First off, thanks for watching. I'd like to shorten this from 3 to 2 minutes. What would you remove? Does the music work? Are the titles too much? Some clips were already compressed for the web, they look pixilated and the highlights are blown out. Should they get cut? Again, thank you for watching.

Nick

My link

Your work is too good Justin. Stop being so good. Jeeze.

Seriously though. I think its fine.

In addition for the "due to incredible producing." You would assume we had a budget of 4k by looking at our gear on that shoot.

Thanks tom. Your reply is very helpful. Thats all the info I needed

I'm struggling converting 550 foot candles to a f/stop at 200 iso and 180 shutter. Can anyone help me out?

Or 6000 lumens to ...

Thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nODrTbolW08&feature=player_embedded#at=44

Havent been shooting much this last year or at all. First project of 2011. This was done with a 500$ budget I believe. Due to incredible producing

I don't know about the Florida Workshop, but since it's the same number of days of the Maine Workshop (and same sponsors), I'd assume it's going to be pretty similar. The only difference could be the location: the school in Rockport is amazing, and although you spend most of the time inside and outside the soundstage-barn working on cameras, it's great to be in such an amazing place. Also, a good thing about the Maine Workshop is that it's followed by the camera operator course, which is very interesting and useful for assistants too.Doug is an amazing teacher and a great person, you'll have a great time and learn a lot no matter what level of experience you already have.

Awesome, can't wait. Thanks

Has anyone here attended the workshop?

http://www.thefloridaworkshops.com/class_camera_assistant.html

I am looking to attend the A.C class in either March or this summer. Doug Hart is attached to the class, so I'm hoping its similar to the Maine workshops. Still I haven't herd anything about it and like to hear some peoples first hand experience.

Thanks

You do realize that a lot of the people voting for this award don't even know what Cinematography is, right? It's given out as a consolation prize these days, as is evidenced by last year's winner, who only lensed 30% of the actual movie. Yes, I am still bitter about this. The only possible movie that would have made me more bitter would be "Toy Story 3" winning the top nod for our craft.

I cant agree more. For me the Academy's best cinematography award has lost legitimacy after 2010. Still I'll have enough interest to google the 2011 winners after. Ha.

I'm a.c on a low budget feature. We are shooting with the sony ex3/stock lens. The D.P came up with the idea of marking certain focal lengths that we will stay at on the glass. Acting like the cheap zoom lens is a prime lens. We do not have enough time in testing to find the right focal lengths with the right F.O.V. Is there a faster way to translate at 50mm equivalent is on the 1/2 video lens without extensive testing?

Thanks,

Nicholas

This is a case where theory math are probably going to be a waste of time. There are too many variables. You'd do better to shoot a diagonal newspaper test, and pick your circle size based on that. To calculate DOF tables with the circle of your choice, try this spreadsheet:

 

http://www.auner.net/misc/DOF/DOF.xls

 

 

 

 

 

-- J.S.

Thanks

I need help finding my CoC with an odd medium. Shooting 1920x1080 with a 1/2 sensor (EX3 6.4mmX4.8mm) and the film is intended to screen on an 30' - 60' projector.

There is not an sure answer for uprez. So I want to play it safe and say 4k.

Giving the frame a 2.8444 magnification.

Thanks

Interesting. Very specific tone.

 

Cut the fist shot - it doesn't show anything, really. Put something very strong - it's the first shot!

And then there are two shots after the 'flare' shot (00:30). Also nothing special.

 

The rest is really nice. Slow, natural.

Exactly.

Great job Edgar, beautiful footage!

The performer looks great, but the girls could use a little rim, a little softer light and a little bit less frontal i'd say.

Right, I see what you are saying and agree. I did not notice the hardish key on the girls while shooting. I am still training my eye, last September marked my first year anniversary as an amateur cinematographer. I got a long way to go without a mentor or film school. Number 1 reason why this board is so important to guys like me.

Thanks for the input!

Ha, who owns the porche?

Looks good. I'd've liked a little more lighting verisimilitude for the performances in front of the velvet curtain, some side lighting or the like as opposed to just keeping it frontal for both the performer and the dancing girls and there's a little bit of blue pollution in the color correction on the performer's head in the ext pull back. Aside from that looks good. Which adapter were you on?

Originally, there was much more overall detail on the velvet curtain in camera and while I was grading the footage. But the editor darkened the overall music video after I finished grading. Making more of that vignette on the curtain than I wanted. I believe the director liked that and it was done without me knowing. So it is what it is. Yet, if you notice, the performers white button up shirt is clipping in front of the curtain. I'm glad that you didn't notice that. The blue pollution that was on his forehead is from my grading, yet I never wanted that but didn't have "color" or a real grading application to properly achieve the look wanted.

The adapter was a Letus Extreme, which looses a half a stop of light and restrict the SLR lens f stop to be below 5.6 or the sensor of the camera will pick of information of ground glass. All together my ISO was somewhere in between 100-200 depending on my gamma setting and stop.

http://vimeo.com/7770278

I just shot this not too long ago with my HVX200a, Letus Extreme set up. Minimal camera set up from an extremely low budget. No accurate monitor, M.B, F.F. Just HVX and adapter.

I also color graded it. The editor crushed the blacks more after I handed the project back to him which I just found out.

The format of the video is DVCPro HD 720 24pn, edited/graded in FCP. Exported with H.264. Some over-crank was involved.

Lens choice were Nikon SLR primes because of low budget issues.

105mm macro

85mm f/1.8

50mm f/1.4

35mm f/2.0

My buddy Zafer Ulkücü was the gaffer. I cannot stress enough on how quick and efficient Zafer is. We rented seven lights from friends to cut corners. While we were on set we discovered that 3 of 7 lights were unusable yet everything still worked.

Luis Vega is the director, talent and producer.

Geoff Morris edited the video.

Brad Fuller is my 1st A.C

Make up, not sure who it was.

We did this with a extremely small budget. Somewhere in between 500 - 700.

What do you like / not like about the cinematography and color grading. Lue, Geoff and I love constructive criticism.

Thanks Adrian,

I agree with the kung fu stuff. The footage is from a documentary yet to begin principle photography, so all I have is B-roll which is not mixing well with the rest of the cut. Looks like it needs more playing around.

I have yet to receive enough feedback where I know what to modify this first cut. The footage is compiled from 09 and some of 08 as a operator and cinematographer.

I used the same track as Matt Garrett did is his reel, which is radio protector by 65 days of static.

The edit seems to me as too fast at times, too dark and noisy at this point in time. I still have yet to receive many raw HD clips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4CWzOACiO8

Thank you

Amazing.

This should be on Be-mag

"Backseat Film Festival 2009 - Call For Entries!!

Year 7 coming in March 2009!

That's right kids, we're going to Lucky Year 7 for the Backseat Film Festival! In honor, we are going with a CASINO theme, complete with drinking games, showgirls and plenty of booze!!

We are now accepting submissions for the 2009 events, the deadline is January 15th 2009! We're looking for your shorts, features, music videos and animations of all types and genres!!

The festival dates for Philadelphia will be announced for early March 2009 in the coming weeks!! The new website will be up soon too!

You can get all the details and an entry form at www.backseatfilmfestival.com!"

How to Submit

http://backseatfilmfestival.com/bff_...bmissions.html

It is going to be a blast! Look forward to seeing submissions!

That was amazing, how long have you been a DP?

You shot 35?

I am talking to a friend who has some house hold electrical work and we are wondering if you could use a average ballast in film or video.

Doesn't matter what kind of light it is or wattage. Just a hypothetical question.

Seems a lot cheaper.

James, you got some memory! WOW!

 

Nick, it's real easy and cheap to do from PVC. And if you're doing video as opposed to film (me), you'll have no problems quickly ironing out any bugs.

 

The main thing is the connections, where you want the dolly to seamlessly ride over them.

These guys make curved PVC track. http://www.longvalleyequip.com/index.php

Ratner

Originally, we were going to shoot video however there is some talk of going 35 with this short. It is still early in pre-production so we are still figureing everything out.

The shot is going to take place on a small one way street in philadelphia, which is far from flat. So I am hopeing we can shim the track to level it but I know that idea is far fetched.

JD

Thanks for that amazing link. Hopefully the production can put that track into the budget.

Thanks everyone, extremely helpful. Much better than dvxuser!

Is it possible to build a circular track out of PVC? I wanted to keep the track light and easy to transport. Never herd of such a track, anyone else have??

Thanks

p.s

first post!