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Cody Cuellar

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About Cody Cuellar

  • Birthday 12/06/1988

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  • Occupation
    Cinematographer
  • Location
    Los Angeles, CA

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  • Website URL
    http://www.codycuellar.com
  1. Yea, fresnels are great for lighting things directly, as the lens helps the light become more controllable. It also produces cleaner shadows when the shadow edges will be visible in frame. They just don't have as much light output per watt as an open face, which makes the open face ideal for bouncing, diffusing, etc. This is very true. We could sit here and tell Marc how to light the scene all day long, but without the person who sees the frame understanding the principles of art and design, the images will never come out right (unless you're extremely lucky or artistically gifted). I think the best advice here for you Marc is to just shoot, buy a bunch of books, read a lot of forums and learn :)
  2. Also, you'll want to be careful with the halogen work lamps, as they vary in color temperature. They are probably more close to the 3000K mark, so you'll want to set your color temp to that if you want the light to appear white to the camera. If you want a look like the video you gave in the last link, you'll want a low blue ambience, with tungsten practicals to mix the colors up. Nathan, I actually prefer open faced lights for bounce and softbox use. You get more efficient light and since you're going through diffusion or bouncing the light anyway, you just need the power. You can then throw a dimmer on it or scrims if you need to knock the intensity down. 1K open faced lights with soft boxes work wonders IMO. Anyway, Marc, just remember, cinematography is an ART not a SCIENCE. There is no right or wrong way to light something, no right or wrong piece of equipment. It's just finding and using the tools you have available to you that can get the current task at hand done.
  3. It sounds like you are asking everyone to cram years of knowledge and experience into a few paragraphs, which isn't really possible. Also, what good is it for someone else to tell you exactly where to put lights and how to expose. This is something you will learn through experience and trial and error. It's like asking someone to tell you exactly which colors of paint and where to apply them in order to make a painting that looks like Picasso. I think you need to understand a bit more of the basics, especially if you want to DP more things in the future and be confident in your abilities rather than panicking for someone else to do your job for you. Here's a few tips I can help you with, however. First off, NEVER use an averaging light meter to set exposure. Reflected measuring is a purely relative method of reading light. Please read forums, photography books, etc to understand the methods of metering and how to interpret the readings. The short story is a reflected meter measures how much light is reflected off a surface and tells you where to set your meter to make that part of the image render at medium grey (halfway between black and white on the final image). So if its a black shirt, you would not want it to be that bright, so you'd underexpose your image a few stop from what the reading tells you. If it was a white shirt you would want it to be brighter than medium grey, so you would open up your iris a bit. Do yourself a favor and learn how meters work. Until then, use your eyes, and look at the image and expose based on how it looks to you. That's the art of cinematography is lighting for a specific look, instead of just for a "normal" exposure. As for your scene, try something like this: Softbox just over the top of frame, behind your characters but facing the table and characters. This will create a rim of light that will wrap around their faces. You could then use a white reflector just under camera to bounce some light back on their faces. Use your other lights to rake across your backround or add more edge/fill/key to your characters. Like everyone else said, there's 1,000,001 ways to light any given scene based on personal taste, experience and preference. Hopefully this helps you a little bit. Good luck!
  4. Ah, Yes, I have definitely learned this principle through trial and error. A director recently was telling me he wanted all these different colors in the background and the foreground to be a completely contrasting color scheme, and I said, well do the homeowners give us permission to start painting stuff? I've found it extremely difficult to really make the colors you want without really good production design. Anyway, it seems there was a lot of windows used in CC for this music videos to really crush out certain portions and tweak the colors, but I feel like most of the colors themselves were mostly photographed as-is and just enhanced a little bit in post.
  5. So I've always loved strong color contrast in shots, and you can see extremely exaggerated examples in this music video I'm curious as to how much of that look people think was done with gels and how much was pushed in color correction? Do you think the green tones were added in during post, or did they really gel all those colors on set? I've attempted a similar look before, but It's extremely difficult to get skin-tones to render properly when you're throwing all different color sources around the scene. What do you guys think, and anyone have tips to achieving a look like this?
  6. Our short film was selected as a top 20 in The Doorpost Film Project competition. We are now working on the script for the next round, but I would like some feedback/criticism/reviews of my cinematography work for Retrograde. Be as nice or harsh as you would like, I'm only looking to get better. Retrograde Details: Shot on RED Zeiss Super Speed 16mm Prime Lens Set DI, Baselight Color Correction Hope you enjoy it.
  7. Robert Richardson, Darius Khondji, and John Matthieson would be my top three picks.
  8. Congrats guys! I definitely chose your film as one of the ones to move on to round two, excellent cinematography. This next round is going to be fun!
  9. This is possible... It's called a video game hehe. This wouldn't really be film, because in film you remove all control from the viewer in order to deceive them into seeing and believing what you want them to... In terms of theaters falling apart and the entertainment industry falling into a big mush of amateurs and wannabees and viral content only and no more blockbuster films, etc etc.... I don't personally forsee this. Just because anybody has the resources to make whatever they want... does that mean anybody can?? No. I mean look at still photography for example. EVERYBODY owns a camera, but I wouldn't pay money for the majority of the images produced by just anybody... It takes a skilled photographer to consistently capture beautiful images. Just as it take skilled and knowledgeable people and crews to make good films.
  10. I'd also like to add, after reading this entire thread, I'd have to say its an endless circle of semantic arguments. I do not discredit or disagree with the fact that CG can be beautiful. I also am not arguing that the award should be based on whose job is more difficult, etc. The simple fact is a cinematographer captures real-life images that are printed to either analog or digital medium, then can be morphed, processed, etc in a computer, but it doesn't change the fact that the DoP lit and captured real-life images. Even IF the DoP was in charge of all of the CG lighting and framing, it should still not be in the same category, as it takes a completely different approach. CG is creating an image from nothing, cinematography is capturing images from real life. Two different things that cannot fall into the same category. Avatar should not have one best cinematography, or if it did, they need CG cinematography awards and live-action cinematography awards... so Robert Richardson could have won for live action cinematography :)
  11. I completely agree with this Tim. I thought the CG worlds - especially the glowing forrest - were BEAUTIFUL to say the least.... However, the interior practical shots were plain flat, boring, and pretty average in my opinion. And I don't see how you can award even a "virtual cinematographer" in the same category as a "practical cinematographer" because clicking a button and creating ambient lights with no real source, having the ability to move, dim, diffuse, change color, etc of the sun, and just basically do ANYTHING with NO limitations or creative problem solving on set - just doesn't make it even remotely the same category for an award. There should be a separate category for CG lighting/framing supervisor if they want to award it. I mean, I for one can barely create basic shapes in a 3d program, but I could sit there and light the "perfect" set fairly easily. And I could change everything within seconds with no need to be good or efficient at my job - such as on set when you only have 30 minutes to get the shot lit before we have to move on to a new shot... Just my two cents.
  12. Thank you for such an in depth response Satsuki! Sounds like I have a lot of homework to do, and friends to make at the rental houses! Obviously if I decide on a special processing, I'll have to do some tests, maybe on tail ends - but if I plan on shooting with no special processing, what else other than lens testing would I benefit from spending extra money on the tests? I know a lot of factors play on the look we are going for, but I'm just trying to get my mindset out of the digital world and into the film world, and I'm not entirely sure what else I would need the tests for other than lenses or special processing.
  13. Thank you all for your replies! David, I've actually read that entire article about the Zeiss Super Speeds. You can actually see the short I shot with those lenses on the Red camera at www.thedoorpost.com/hope/retrograde. Overall, I was very happy with the look of the film, but the softness of the lenses was an issue for me a bit and I wish I'd have spent more time testing them to know exactly how they looked across all f/stops. I understand I may be being a bit too ambitious with the allotted budget, but that's why I'm getting ideas together this early. Micheal, thank you for that breakdown of costs, it is starting to look a bit out of reach for now, I just have to find out how much of a deal I can get on the stocks at my work. Although, after processing, it will be free from there on out. I will be able to do all the scanning, DI and color correction for free. I know I'm jumping the gun early, but our script is very ambitious and I need to start at least putting it together in my head before we ever get selected. I want to be almost ready to walk in and just say, "I need this, this this and this" the day we are selected (if that happens) - especially so I'll know if our script can work (and on 35mm) on our allotted budget. Anyway, I'll probably go take a look and start browsing around at rental shops, and if the whole anamorphic thing doesn't work I'm still dying to shoot on S4s, and I'd be happy with that. If anyone has film equipment or access to it, please let me know and we'll talk if things go well for us. I'm extremely set on shooting film, no matter what format we end up using. Just hypothetically, knowing after processing the stock, the rest will be free, would it just be ridiculous to try to budget film stock and equipment for a 4 day shoot (22-25min film) at $15,000 or less (assuming we're planning to get about 7:1 shooting ratio)?
  14. Haha, let me guess, save twice as much money?! But if we shoot on anamorphic glass, isn't our only option 4 perf? I'd like to hear your thoughts!
  15. Hello everyone! We recently submitted our first short film to a competition, The Doorpost Film Competition. Our film is called "Retrograde" for those who are interested in taking a look at it. Obviously I have no idea if we are going to make it into the top 20 at this point, but I'm fairly confident we have a good chance. If we do and make it into the top 5, we would be funded $40,000 to make the final round film. Regardless what happens, I want to start making sure I'm completely prepared to take on this big project, and will feel confident in doing so. I am going to do whatever I can to shoot this on 35mm, but it will be my first movie shot on film. I've been shooting still photography on film for almost 10 years, and have a strong understanding of how to meter and expose for film. My AC's have experience shooting short films on film back in school, so in terms of prepping and loading, I'm covered. The problem is our idea will turn out to be very difficult to fit within the budget, so I'm asking for help in all aspects of taking on this big task. For a 20-25min short (4 day shoot), I was thinking I will need between 13-16 reels of 1000' stock. Is this a good estimate? And how much should I factor in for the cost of stock and processing? (Scanning and DI color correction will be free for me through my work, fortunately and I will get a partial discount on the stock if I order through my company) What's a good rule of thumb for calculating out costs for the film and camera equipment I will be needing? Also, in terms of the actual camera, what are some major factors in choosing one, as most are around the same price and seem to offer similar features? I won't be needing any sound recording capabilities, since I'll have dual system audio. I will not have enough money to shoot tests, and I will not be doing any special processing since I can't take any chances. For picking what stock to use, I'm just going to do a lot of research, watch a lot of movies similar to the style we're going for and taking note of the stocks used, then make my decision based on that since again, I cannot afford to be renting a camera and spending money on reels of film on days we aren't shooting for the movie. The last question is about lenses. The only cine lenses I've used are Zeiss Super Speeds. I believe they were either Mark I or Mark II... they were Distagons with triangular aperatures. I didn't like them much as they were far too soft almost like a ProMist was in front of the lenses, and they just didn't have a sharp look. However, they were rentals and could have been just a bad set. What's the best way to test lenses and make a selection? Will the rental houses spend time doing lens tests with me at the rental shop so I can make a decision or how does that work? Oh and I'm wanting to go with anamorphics since it's the look the director and I want (its going to be a sci-fi). I may be asking a lot, but like I said, I'm planning as far in advance as I can so I feel completely confident that the shoot will turn out exactly as I hope. Also maybe this thread can be a place for all first time film shooters to learn what to plan for, do's, don'ts, etc etc, of shooting on film. Thanks everyone!
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