Mike Lary

Tarkovsky and Nykvist

Your exteriors sound like a great opportunity to practice working with bounced light. Smaller tungsten units with CTB on them are going to be useless to you in your daylight exteriors, and you can't afford an HMI. Does your school have any big frames (12x12) with a butterfly kit?

You can buy photo bulbs (clear or frosted) at most photography supply stores that go as high as 500 watts and will fit in standard sockets. To avoid a serious fire hazard, you need to make sure the sockets are porcelain for anything 300 watts or greater. Plastic sockets will melt and could cause a fire.

The search engine is great for questions like this. http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?sh...p;hl=commentary

I like them just fine. My only complaint is the one I mentioned above. I'll like them even more the next time I move across country and I can just empty them out and not pay for the gas to transport several hundred pounds of sand.

How wide is your field of view? Could you ratchet a high hat to the top step of a ladder, or would the ladder be in the shot?

Good point. You can throw layers of ND on the lights as well. I didn't mean to imply that moving lights was ever ideal. It's just that in cases where you get stuck with a couple lights and stands but no modifiers (which has happened to me on a few occassions) moving the lights is a better option than losing image sharpness.

If it's strictly a latitude test and I'm shooting a gray card and/or color chart, I try to keep the light fixed and bracket exposures. If I'm shooting three dimensional subjects, I'll move the lights as opposed to opening up the aperture - only when the depth of field would diminish enough to put some of the subject out of focus. The problem with moving the lights instead of bracketing is that you have to constantly adjust the light to make sure the angle and area of coverage stays the same from shot to shot.

The Impact bags that I bought come empty and have a heavy duty double zipper on each side, so no sewing is required.

I've owned some for over a year. They're the IMSBE27 model. They've held up very well. They're a bit awkward to use, though, because of the design. Regardless of how much they're filled, they tend to wrap a little too well around legs. Mine are filled with sand. I haven't tested them with shot.

It sounds like you're cutting it a little close if you're just starting to research potential schools now. You need to ask yourself several questions before selecting a school. Are you looking for a school that focuses more on theory or production? Do you want a degree that incorporates art foundation and art history classes in the curriculum? Do you want to be able to make your own film (senior thesis) in school or are you content to work as part of a collective? Do you want access to high end equipment? Do you want to be in a geographic area that would facilitate your movement from college graduation to potential jobs in the industry? How much can you afford to pay for tuition / how much are you willing to borrow? Are your grades high enough to get you into a school that cares more about your grades than your portfolio? Do you have a strong portfolio? If you know the answers to those questions, search the forums for discussions about the pros and cons of different film schools. And keep in mind that no one can tell you which school is 'best' because no one has attended every school and been able to compare them objectively. You need to decide which school is right for you.

The reel looks pretty good overall. Pacing is good. It has the short but sweet feel. There are a couple shots that I don't think meet the quality standard of the rest of the reel, though. The first is the woman outdoors - it comes two shots after the one of a woman in her kitchen. It doesn't look like the light was modified. Backlight is strong and her face is flat. The other shot is the one near the end of the woman sitting down, sunlight glares off her sunglasses. It's such a short shot that I don't get a sense of the environment, and I don't think it lends anything to the reel. Did you get permission to use that Radiohead song?

Yes. He made a mockery of the award. It looked like he deviated from the script when he walked away from the podium, though. I doubt the producers knew he was going to do that.

Aside from the bad focus in all the digital camera images, the last two photos clearly show a different exposure level on the violinist's arm. It looks like she was moving in and out of a spotty light. The comparison isn't valid unless the conditions were the same. I don't see how anyone could think those images look the same unless they aren't wearing their prescription glasses. The Red footage is clearly out of focus, gain-y, flat and desaturated. The color of the girls hair and the candles is clearly shifted in all of the photos. The detail level in the bricks changes vastly from one photo to the next as well.

I recently watched a movie that I would categorize as that kind of film. There were several shots that were designed to bring attention to themselves. One in particular was of a man being struck in the back of the head so hard that his eyeballs popped out of their sockets and flailed around in front of his face. The shot was unnecessary, overly gratuitous, and in the context of the film it defied physics. To me, those shots reek of self indulgence and serve no purpose other than to bring attention to themselves as effects shots. I think we're less likely to question effects shots when they fit within the physics of the story. Superheros can punch through concrete, but regular people can't. Ideally, all films would blend VisFX shots seamlessly since that serves the story best, but some Directors prefer style over substance.

I don't know how you'd get an actual apprenticeship with a D.P., but I know several films that have offered 'camera intern' positions. In that position you'd work for free for the entire length of the production as if you were a paid crew member. Your job would be to assist the camera department and possibly the D.P. directly in any capacity needed (including fetching coffee, charging batteries, carrying equipment). It's a great opportunity to work under a D.P. while learning a craft and making good connections (if you work extremely hard and get along with everyone), if you can afford to do it. To get a position like that you'd apply to the production company, tell them how much you respect the DP, and tell them you're willing to work for free for the camera department in exchange for the experience. The position might not exist unless you ask for it, so you have to be pro-active.

If you follow the link that Hal Smith was kind enough to post for us, you can log in and access the lighting diagrams. That's the first thing I did.

Kino's are soft lights. You cannot make them harder. They will run on household circuits, they are lightweight, and they don't produce much heat. Personally, I avoid them and would never mix them with HMIs. The quality of light they emit is very different from bounced or diffused HMIs. I'm thinking that when you say you want hard light, you're referring more for it to look hot on the actor's faces, in which case that's dependent on where you set your aperture and not really about the quality of the light. Would that be accurate? I would use HMI's if at all possible, one large unit for key and a smaller unit that can be walked around for fill. As far as wattage goes, that depends on how heavy your diffusion is going to be, how far the key light will be from the actors, and your target aperture. Testing is best since you can't grow your kit after the shoot starts. I don't know what lights you have at your disposal, but you might be able to download photometric charts from the manufacturer and easily determine your requirements, then factor in light loss for your diffusion of choice. If you can get access to your location prior to shooting, it would behoove you to look at the fuse box and take readings from the outlets with a voltage meter so you'll know how much your circuits can handle, then pick your lights accordingly.

Yes. It was an unintended side effect of aiming a large light at water streaming down a window. And that answers the question of whether or not that effect can happen in real life. We may not see it often because the conditions have to be just right. I never had a problem with the 'realism' in Road to Perdition. I always felt that the lighting design was consistent and that light was used with painstaking accuracy to enhance every element of the story. I find the Cinematography to be quite beautiful and inspirational.

On the extreme end there's 'McCabe and Mrs. Miller', though flashing the neg was only one factor that contributed to that unique aesthetic. Vilmos Zsigmond also underexposed the neg.

Having you considered replacing the overhead fixtures with Kino tubes?

They are not cartridges. They are plastic daylight spools made of two halves that snap together. The same care needs to be taken as with metal daylight spools, but extra caution should be exercised because the spools are flexible, so the potential for light leak is greater.

Thanks, Mr. Mullen. That makes more sense than having it on-camera considering the weight and balance of the unit.

Thanks, Robert. I double-checked the photo and it looks like a TVMP adapter. I'm not sure about the usage in that instance. The photo is tightly cropped and there's no further explanation. It's on page 155 of Blain Brown's "Cinematography".

I saw a picture of a Leko mounted above camera and I'm curious how it would be done. Part of the photo was obscured. The light had the standard yoke for hanging with a bolt and washer but the light was upright on some kind of support. Is there a standard adapter for mounting Lekos upright? edit: I should note that I'm working with older Lekos, pre Source Four.