Mike Lary

It sound harsh, but this guy really should've known better. He paid a terrible price for not following his instincts, especially on something as trivial as a football practice.

But he was only 20 years old. At that age our brains are still developing. Risk-taking is natural behavior. It's the way we're wired. A 20 year old is much more likely to agree to do something risky if they're excited about the work. Knowing better doesn't always override passion and adrenalin. Older adults in supervisory positions should never ask young people to take risks like that. In this case the school and the faculty are ultimately responsible for negligence.

Hi Simon,

You should read Walter Murch's book 'In the Blink of an Eye'. It's a pretty short and easy read on editing that is packed with theory that can help you. Continuity is one of the last things you should worry about when editing. Emotion is most important. On framing and camera movement, you could read 'The Five C's of Cinematography.'

As far as compressing time is concerned, there are lots of things you could do. If he's shooting with a film camera (like in the animatic), you could show him placing a can of exposed film into his pack next to similar, marked and exposed cans. If he's doing a lot of walking, you could cut to a shot where he has his shoes off and he's relaxing under sunlight that has changed in directionality, color, and softness to indicate a later time of day. I would also think of the passage of time in relation to the character's emotional state and his motivation.

If you end up using alcohol-free beer, you should be able to make the head last longer by adding a little salt.

im sorry i didn't make the set up and my goals clear. im just trying to make it look night but not over light it. The actor will not be wearing glasses. the person in the picture was a test subject. natural night look is what im going for.

You could put the key through an opal frame, something light enough to soften without cutting the intensity too much.

I agree with Adrian on the three light flicker setup. You can't sell a fire effect with one light. Two is a little iffy. A setup with one 2K and 2 1K's or 650's can look very realistic, but it still takes a bit of playing around with the flicker settings. If one of the smaller lights is set to occasionally peak a little higher than the other, it reads as dry wood flaring up. Having three lights also gives you the option of directing one toward background elements to give more dimension to the effect (for example: keeping a warm, undulating glow on the ground and lower areas of the frame while a more intense, wilder flicker hits higher in the frame).

'Natural' in what sense? What is the motivation for your key?

I want to get a reflection of rain on artist face; it is a night interior shot... What is the best way to create it?

Are you referring to the effect where the shadow of rain (dripping down the window) appears on the actor's face? Conrad Hall used that effect in 'In Cold Blood' and again in 'Road to Perdition'. The first time he did it was unintentional, just something that happened when he changed the angle of the exterior light- and he decided to keep it. I'm pretty sure in both cases the source was a big, hard light motivated by streetlights. If you're going for that effect you'll probably need to play around with the angle of the light to get it just right.

Well, having looked up your credits of which I could only find a 2008 student film at the Full Sail website and knowing MY credits, I'm fairly certain someone the UK Film Council deemed worthy of quoting has more credits.

So what you're saying is that you were blowing smoke because you actually have no idea who you were quoting. That's in bad form. As far as my credits are concerned, I never worked on a film at Full Sail, so you have the wrong guy. Since you decided to make a childish attempt to attack me personally, I'm going to set you to 'ignore' in my preferences along with the names of a select few other blowhards on this site who feel it necessary to speak with authority about things they don't comprehend. Best of luck with your station in life.

Well, aren't we ALL worker bees ultimately serving the audience?

No, some of us serve the story.

Besides, how do you know that the author of this quote isn't DIRECTLY involved in every aspect of the creative process?

It's pretty obvious by the quote. If you want to argue the point, feel free to back up your claim that the person quoted has more experience than both of us combined and tell us who is being quoted. There's no name attached. That quote falls under the header 'employers'. That says nothing about title or experience. That person could be a first year cat wrangler.

it's the art of every member who worked on the project, from the lowliest PA to the investors that believed enough in the project to fund it because NO ONE in the chain is indispensable, nor are they irreplaceable and a good director knows this.

Baloney. A canvas stretcher has no shared creative ownership over the painting that graces the canvas, nor does the paint mixer, nor does the model or the architecture she stands within, nor does the sandwich maker who feeds the artist. 'This is our film' is a cheesy pep talk cliche. And people get fired all the time in the industry. Even directors get fired. Everyone is dispensable.

Well since this PARTICULAR fry cook has a lot more experience than you and I put together, I'd venture to say his "perception" is pretty clear.

Worker bees within the industry who by their own admission do not engage creatively with the medium are in no position to make sweeping statements about the art form.

"Film is a manufacturing industry. It's not about theory and most of us are not academics."

That's about as valid as a fry cook's perception of the culinary arts.

Plenty of folks in these forums read subtitles. That's not the case with most people in the states. Many view subtitles as an affront to their movie going experience. They'd rather watch familiar faces speaking in horrible (and often inconsistent) accents. When the Academy Awards announces the nominees for 'Best Foreign Language Film', most US viewers are hearing those movie titles for the first time. I don't see a subtitled movie earning much revenue in the states unless you have a cult following. As far as dubbing goes, the only dubbed films I've seen projected have been in art house theaters. If you're trying to make money, well known actors speaking English seems like the best alternative.

There's definitely some stair stepping. Look at the MS of the girl blowing bubbles. You can see it in the orange shirt outline. Also, you can see it in the trees in the WS of the family back-to looking over the water. And in the second video, in the overhead of the girls in the livingroom, it's blatantly obvious on the white outline of the couch. It's also on the faces in that video (and in many other areas). Also, the skin tones are flat - as are any solid color areas, and the blowouts look pretty horrendous.

Hi Rick,

It's hard to estimate whether the light level will be enough without knowing your target aperture and the physical dimensions of the theater.

My initial thought is that grid is going to give you way too much wrap. The image you supplied has a very hard source. I know you need to go through diffusion to create a single light source from multiple units, though. Maybe you could use opal instead?

Also, are you throwing a light source behind the curtain?

Zooming is no less amateurish than using a dolly or crane. In the wrong hands, any tool becomes less effective.

Kubrick wasn't an exception by using zooms unless you look at the reserved manner in which he used them. Many directors used the zoom out of financial necessity or for convenience. Using a zoom in lieu of physically moving the position of the camera has gone out of style, and as a result isolated zooms can feel dated. An example of a modern director using zoom for a specific purpose would be the zoom/dolly shot in 'Goodfellas' at the end of the diner scene with Deniro and Liotta. It was so effective that other directors jumped on it, making it a bit of a visual cliche.

In decades past, there was a lot of great zoom work. Nicholas Roeg ('Walkabout') embraced the zoom in a very expressive way. Sven Nykvist did some beautiful work with zooms (see Bergman's 'Cries and Whispers'), following emotion in a very precise and graceful manner. 'Easy Rider' has some complicated zoom work, zooming in and pulling focus onto moving motorcycles from another moving vehicle.

I always wonder why not the glove compartment....

The visor is closer. No need to put strain on your back.

but I wonder what was one of the first movies that came up with that idea.

It wasn't invented by Hollywood. People used to do that and some still do. It's more common in rural areas and small towns where car theft isn't rampant.

I was lighting a scene in a portrait studio and the owner/Photographer came over and told me in a hushed tone that I shouldn't be putting light grid in front of tungsten units because it would "destroy the quality of light".

One doesn't have to wear glasses to veiw stereo pairs.

I find that free viewing stereo pairs is rather meditative.

True, but I was referring to 3D projection. You don't need glasses to look at cereal box holograms, either.

Ok so in the script I'm writing I'm going to need to shoot a scene with a person buying something I'm thinking in a gas station, something like that. So I need some advice on what do you do when you do that do you tell them they are going to be in a film or do you ask to use the register for a minute?

You can't just walk onto someone else's property and tell them they're going to be in a movie. You need permission. Talk to the manager ahead of time and tell them what you need. Maybe the manager or one of his/her employees would be interested in acting for you. Since they sell things to people all day long, it shouldn't be a stretch for them and they'd probably be more willing to do it that way than have a stranger operating their cash register. You should have the owner sign a property release form if you plan on sharing the film outside of a classroom environment.

Thanks for being so pedantic and for using a cereal box analogy, what a brilliant contribution. In fact if you think about what you wrote you'll quickly realise how dumb your post is as with 3D cinema/ televisoin we are doing exactly that- having our brains fuse two 2d images and create the 'spatial relationship'. But if you insist I am quite happy working on a 'spectacle', it's more interesting than playing King Canute anyway...

The cereal box reference is not an analogy, Keith. It's an actual example of the sporadic and short lived success of 3D imagery over the past century. And there's nothing pedantic about using fact to disprove inaccurate statements. Your last statement about 3D imagery being closer to real world vision than 2D imagery makes just as little sense as the first. The real world is three dimensional. 3D projection is not. And we don't have to wear glasses in the real world in order for our brain to create spatial relationships. A third grader could see the clear and obvious distinctions.

Actually 3D has been around since pretty much the dawn of photography. It no more sucks than colour sucks to some crusty black and white aficionado. Anyone who thinks that people will happily watch 2D forever is deluded. We see in 3D why on earth should we watch films in 2D? Its a retarded attitude. You might not like the 3D films you've seen, but if you don't like 3D walk around with an eye patch on...

We don't see in 3D. We see in 2D. Our brain takes the 2D images fed to it by our eyes and interprets spatial relationships. Our brain is used to interpreting 2D. That's why still photos and motion pictures have been universally accepted since their creation. The experience of viewing a movie in 3D bears little resemblance to that of moving through the real world. It's a spectacle.

There's a reason why 3D images enjoyed short lives even on the backs of cereal boxes. They're gimmicks, and gimmicks are boring.

Chalk it up to a bad experience? Send them a polite email?

As far as IMDB credit is concerned, you can submit a claim through IMDB on the film's page. They'll try to contact the production to verify that the information is correct, then post your credit. Whoever submitted the film to IMDB and is managing that entry needs to confirm that you worked on the project, so you should send that person an email as well to give them a head's up.

Well you made a point about the school being in a place where I may not be able to make good connection with people in the industry. But do a diploma or a certificate really matters in this industry? And is trade schools ok to go to?

No, the paper doesn't matter in the film industry, but a degree (not a certificate or diploma) can help you find work in other industries so it has some value. Trade schools for film make much less sense than accredited film schools. What are they offering you? You're looking for specialized cinematography training. The school in question caters to people with zero experience and jumps into cinematography 1 (of 2) in semester one. How specialized do you think that training is going to be?

Personally, I think ten grand (plus whatever you'd spend on living expenses for the year in school) would be better spent on rent and food while working on low budget productions and gaining experience/making connections in an area where films are being shot.

I ran across this school MPI, Motion Picture Institute, in Michigan and it seems like a good school that I could learn from and also afford.

It's a trade school. You'd spend $10,995 and walk out with no degree in a state where there isn't enough of an infrastructure for a school to help you make connections that lead to steady work.

I'm curious on other peoples opinion.

You might find this interview of some use:

http://www.stevensoderbergh.net/articles/2002/cinematographer.php

He keeps a slew of interviews on his sight.

Personally, I think if it works it works. The end product is what matters, regardless of how and to whom duties are delegated.