Bruce Greene

I did have some Red Dragon footage cut into an Alexa short that I color graded. I was very surprised by the good quality of the Red Camera clips. Much improvement over 8 years ago! Of course I still needed to manually match the Red clips to the Alexa clips ? Good doesn't mean "the same"...

Yes, the Red Dragon might not be a bad choice either. ? I am starting a new film next week on Alexa mini, so it's not a dead format yet! For me, the built in ND filters was the deciding factor though.

In the scheme of things, 5-7k is not a big risk. But, after batteries and tripod, matte box, lenses, it will be more, maybe double. But the accessories and lenses will work with your next camera. If this 7k camera gets you 2 or 3 significant jobs you would not have gotten, it could well be worth the expense and further your career. If not, you'll just be 7 to 15k poorer and you'll have a lifetime to catch up. There will always be a reason to wait for the next generation of cameras... It never ends.

It all depends. Every director and project is different. I think to be effective, the director needs to work closely with the storyboard artist. It really helps if the locations and sets have been scouted before making the storyboards too. When shooting complicated scenes such as action scenes with stunts etc., storyboards can be indispensable in capturing the scene. And, once in a while, the movie actually matches the storyboard ? Bicycle chariot chase scene from "Me You He She" directed by David Dodson. David created a guide book for capturing this scene and we had time to just shoot the storyboard with no additional coverage. This was a life saver for us.

Daniel, I've been told by producers and agents that they want to see the resume in a standard format, so that's what I've done. I do like your idea of the illustrated bio though! I think I might "steal" your idea!

Thanks for the kind words Mathew. Yes, my clips reels are longer than most people watch, it's true. In my case these are foreign films that don't play in the US so they are not well known here. The idea is that for someone seriously looking at my work, they will get a sense of the whole film in a few minutes if they are truly interested. For others, I think 30 seconds is about all that most really watch. And yes, if you have a link to an impressive client site for your TVC work, I can see the advantage in posting that link. I posted a while back about how we did the "impossible" window shot in this thread if you're interested.

When I last shot for a major Hollywood studio, they would only allow me 30 seconds of footage for a reel. And I needed to search the movie, write down the timecode, and then pay for an online session to copy the footage. A minimum cost of $1000. I ended up finding a high quality online trailer that was downloadable and used that ?

I've made short clip reels of my films from the past 10 years or so. But, I do not post the reels until after the movie has been released (unless I have permission otherwise) and marketed. I've never had a complaint, and sometimes I've found the production company or even the distributor linking to my clip reel. When I've needed to, I've even downloaded a film trailer from the web, color corrected it to make it presentable, and re-uploaded it to Vimeo, and link to it from my website. I've never had a complaint or issue, except once. And that time they changed the trailer and didn't want me showing the older version (that I liked better). In this case, I changed the trailer, but ultimately replaced it with the older trailer after the film had had it's run in the cinema and on TV. What surprised me was that the production company found my (older) trailer online within one day of uploading it. And it's not like all that many people go to my website either. To make the clip reels, I have often had access to the master files as I've been my own colorist. I like these better as the trailers are not always to my liking and have usually been color corrected without my input. https://www.brucealangreene.com/clips

My dynamic range numbers are from my experience and testing shooting film and printing on film. With a digital scan and color correction, you will have some more latitude, but not so much in the shadows before the film grain starts to become too obvious. This is especially true with 16mm vs 35mm film. Since your goal is to shoot 16mm in low light, the shadow side of things is far more important than the highlights. And push processing the film will not gain you any shadow density on the negative.

You are correct that spot metering off the grey card is the same as using an incident meter. Sorry, I don't understand this ?

Love your photo! If you shot film... you would not chimp! ?

With anamorphic lenses on a 16:9 sensor, you will only be using the center 1.33:1 area of the sensor. So instead of 4K pixels wide, you will be using only 2.9K pixels in width. And, because you are shooting micro 4/3, your wide 32mm lens will have the angle of view of about 65mm anamorphic lens on a full frame academy sensor. So... 65mm equivalent will be the widest lens you'll have. And yes, the rescaling of the image to any delivery format will likely cut your detail in half as well. Doesn't sound like a good plan to me. If I really wanted to use these lenses, I would use a proper camera with a super 35mm academy aspect ratio sensor.

Sorry, I live in Los Angeles, but not in Canada. There are issues with U.S. citizens working in Canada to obtain working visas and I'm sure you will find similar obstacles. Of course beginning a film career in any country is challenging as one needs to make all new contacts and start from the bottom (unless you are already a famous filmmaker). There is quite a bit of film production in Canada, so I guess you might just google "how to emigrate to Canada" and see what you learn. Удачи!

If you want the option of slow motion, but also need to play in normal speed playback, and you are using a digital camera... Then set your camera to 50fps (or 60fps) and change the shutter angle to 359 degrees. (or 1/50sec or 1/60sec if that's what appears in your menu). This way when you play back at 25fps or 30fps the motion blur will appear as normal after discarding every other frame. If you are considering a 24fps cinema release, use 48fps and 1/48sec exposure per frame.

A few things... 1. A "middle" grey card is not in the center of the optimum exposure range. At the standard rated ISO exposure, it will be about 1/2 stop below the middle, compared to the "X" crossover on a video greyscale chart. 2. When viewing dynamic range on film vs. a digital camera, the DR refers to areas where detail is visible vs. not visible. But this does not mean that the quality of detail at the extremes is the same as the quality of detail in the middle of the range. While detail in the deep shadows can be distinguished, it is very grainy, which is disguised by the compression of the detail in the characteristic curve as rendered on a print. On the highlight end of the curve, it is not so grainy, but also not so detailed either, and there could be some color shifting. So, it's best to think of the range of tones that you are capturing as about 6 to 8 stops, with everything above and below as "roll off" into shadows and highlights. This is especially true in 16mm where you are enlarging the grain of the film much more than on 35mm film. 3. When you "push" the film processing, you are gaining "exposure" in the middle by loosing detail in the shadows. So, if when you expose normally you would get 2.5 to 3 stops of detail below your grey card exposure, when pushed 1 stop you will get 1.5 to 2 stops of detail below your grey card exposure. Also when pushing, instead of 3 to 4 or 5stops of usable detail above the grey card, by over development of the negative, you will likely loose a stop there as well. So, when exposing film for push processing, instead of a perceived DR of 6 to 8 stops, it's more like 5 to 7 stops. Personally, I feel that push processing 16mm film is a pretty harsh look. And, if you do, I would light and expose the film as if you were limited to 5 1/2 stops. 2.5 stops below the grey card and 3 stops above.

Я понимаю. I have shot a couple Russian movies who's scripts or stories began as foreign films from years ago... But they were still fun to work on, and, while not Tarkovsky, were well made pictures. I loved watching the series, Оптимисты, a couple weeks ago. A very well done TV series. But I do understand your point of view.

I think, though not sure, that it's calculated by the slope of the gamma function. Where did you find this reference to 800%? I have an old Panasonic Varicam where, I assume broadcast DR is 100% and about 6 stops. And 500% setting is about 11 stops. If that helps you ?

I believe this kind of means 800% of REC 709 broadcast DR.

Having nothing to do with photography, if I were to make a character look "lonely", I would place him in a crowded location, but by himself. In other words, it's not the lens that creates the image of loneliness, but the situation.

Привет Игорь! There is a lot of production in Russia if you don't mind returning to your homeland. I have many filmmaking friends there who work almost non-stop. I myself have worked on many quality films there.

Regarding the scanning method. I have a friend who has built his own movie film scanners. He is an expert. He also "scans" his personal still b&w negatives using a digital camera and light table with very good results. But he warned and explained to me why it doesn't work well with color negatives and that a true RGB light source, matched to the sensor, is important for scanning color neg. I wish I could repeat the explanation, but I can't remember all the details... ?

Personally, I would shoot digital and be done with it. Why go through so much trouble for a poor result? Or if you are die hard for film, shoot b&w ?

If I were shooting daylight film under tungsten light I would use the blue filter over the lens. Yes, I understand that you won't have enough light for this approach. But you also will not have enough light to color correct your images back to neutral if you shoot without the filter as you will be severely underexposing the blue sensitive layer of the film. IOW, there will not be enough blue light information to make the full correction. Without a filter, you should shoot tests at ISO 800, and ISO 400 and maybe ISO 200 to see which exposure gives you the ability to color correct your images to the point you find acceptable. I would also strongly suggest using a dedicated film scanner to "scan" the film rather than a bayer sensor digital camera. These sensors are a poor match to the dyes used in color negative film.

The IATSE union dropped the requirement for a camera operator some years ago. The DP is free to operate the camera if they so choose. Personally, I prefer a camera operator rather than doing it myself.

I don't audition reels for other people, so I always leave the music on. And it's much more fun to watch with the music, unless it's really annoying. What can't you see with the music on? And, from my experience, most people watching the reel just want to see who is in the reel and how famous the clips are. Very very few actually look at the photography...