Cody Cuellar

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 :)

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.

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!

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.

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?

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.

Robert Richardson, Darius Khondji, and John Matthieson would be my top three picks.

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!

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.

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 :)

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.

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.

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)?

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!

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!

Those shots are quite beautiful. Very nice work. May I ask, the one of the girl looking to the left, with the orange kicker light - can you explain the lighting setup a little bit in detail? It looks fairly simple, but I'm curious to exactly what you did. It looks like your HMI through the butterfly coming in from about 35 degrees to camera right, and then a soft bounce of orange maybe coming from behind the subject, but about 60 degrees off to camera left. Is this pretty close to what you did? Good job!

Well I think a good majority of the film may be in slow motion, so I've been looking for lenses in the area for 16mm cameras, and will probably shoot all 2K to keep things consistent in post. I'm just new to cinema lenses, as I've been shooting mainly HVX200, or 35 adapters with Nikon lenses. One lens I found was a 8-63 Canon zoom lens, which might be a good idea since I can't really find an affordable 16mm prime set. And I can't afford to get a 35mm prime set and more lenses for this shoot. What do you think of shooting all on this one lens? Its only a 5-6 minute short, and I think it will cover the range I need and keep a consistent look. As for the other VRI cameras, I'll have to look into it to see what I can find. Thanks for the input.

Oops... Can I delete that first post?

I've been talking to a lot of people about the 3D effects. I saw it with regular polarized glasses at an Arclight theater, and I just wasn't convinced that 3D is anywhere near to where I would even consider watching every movie in 3D. I do want to try the iMax LCD technology to see if its any different. My first problem with it was the fact that the glasses were too small, and unless you angled you head just right from where i was sitting (middle of theater), the glasses would start to cut off part of the screen. It was probably just Arclight's glasses design, but they weren't big enough. I also noticed quite a bit of image separation at the edges of the screen unless I turned my head to center the glasses on that portion of the screen. Second problem was the fact that I was finding it difficult to concentrate on the little details. Sometimes during the action I was trying to look at all the little details of the CGI, and just wasn't able to quite focus. I kept getting pulled out of the movie constantly thinking about the fact that I was watching the movie in 3D rather than actually watching the movie itself. In a 2D film, there's no gimmicks that will take my mind off the story, where here I felt like i kept lifting the glasses every once and a while. Also, every 20 minutes my eyes were getting fatigued I felt like and I had to remove the glasses for a second. *I have 20/20 vision. The last and most important issue for me is FOCUS. The problem with focus and 3D movies is this: when I look at objects in real life, nothing is "in focus". It's all in focus (don't get all quantum physics on me with this) or better, its its all ABLE to be focused perfectly on. My eyes select a subject and automatically focus on that particular subject I'm looking at, and depending on the distances, objects nearer or further away from my eyes in the 3D plane will go out of focus. Now imagine how annoying it would be in real life if you looked at a tree but only a guy standing 100 yards behind it was in focus and the tree was somehow slightly out of focus no matter how hard you tried to focus on it. If you wanted to look at the tree, and it was magically just out of focus, well... you get the idea. Every scene that had selective focus would start to really annoy me, because my mind would see this as a 3D scene that I could look around at, but suddenly was told that I couldn't look in certain spots because they wouldn't come in clear. I would look at a particular object in the scene, have a hard time seeing it, then realize, "Oh its not it focus on the 3D plane, I get it." It just doesn't make any visual sense. Two 2D capture devices set up to simulate a 3d scene do not equal a system that can replicate a real 3D space, unless EVERYTHING is ALWAYS in focus. All of the deep focus shots looked great, but then there's the question, do we get rid of focus in movies if they all go 3D? It sorta works when they really throw the background out of focus and shoot wide open, but say they're on a wide lens and the focus isn't throwing the background out much, but just enough to where it makes it difficult to look at until you realize you're not supposed to be looking there. Rack focuses in Avatar were a whole other issues that was really throwing me off. So all in all 3D - at least for me - removes an extremely important part of filmmaking; selective focus. With 2D, a rack focus will drag your eye across the screen laterally, and works perfectly since its one plane, and if its out of focus its out of focus and easy to tell. With 3D the focus effects aren't as obvious right away, and being 3D automatically makes your brain think that it will focus on whatever you look at in the 3D space, just like real life, but in reality it doesn't really translate like that. If they were to change focus, you not only have to move your eyes laterally to the crispest part of the image, you have to focus spatially forward and backward and try to "guess" what they're intended target is. So that's my 2 cents. Not sure how much that made sense...but I'd like to hear what others have to say. So far I've heard a few average movie goers that loved the 3D and felt more immersed, so maybe its just being a filmmaker and not a consumer that makes the difference for me since I probably watch movies differently than a consumer. Other filmmakers have agreed with me and some average moviegoers found it weird too, they just didn't understand anything I was saying. Now the CGI was absolutely stunning and spectacular if that's the 3D you are talking about!

Hello Everyone, I'm going to be DPing a short film in January but I'm really having a hard time deciding what to do. I want to shoot on Red, but it will be my first time, there are a few things I'm unsure about. At first I was going to get a set of Zeiss Super Speed primes (18, 25,35,50,85), then I realized that much of the film will be shot in slow motion, which will end up giving me a set of telephoto lenses basically. One scene in particular is in a bedroom where a guy will put a gun in his mouth and using some props and squibs, will blow the back of his head off (he will be facing the camera). We wanted to capture this in slow motion to really get the blood splattering on the back wall, but I'm not sure 120fps will be fast enough to capture the effect well - not to mention I won't get wide enough framing in a bedroom with a 18mm lens at 2k mode. My two main problems are this - I intend to edit using Prores422 proxies, then reconnecting to the original R3D media for color correction at a post facility. If I end up shooting 2k for the slow-mo scenes, should I just shoot everything 2k to keep post simple (instead of switching to 4k for normal speed, and 3k for medium slo-mo? Maybe this way I can keep all my focal lengths the same and just rent a 16mm prime set. Second issue is, what options do I have for getting slower motion for the suicide scene? Phantom is $2500/day and aside from being too expensive, I don't have any experience with it. Anyone know of an alternate solution/camera or possibly where I could find a phantom in LA for a lot cheaper for the weekend? Total project budget is maybe $5,000 at best, and the rest of the expenses are already at $3,800-$4,200. THANKS!

I definitely know what you're talking about with this, I come across people that sit there and will babble on about lingo, or worse, cameras and technology, throwing out all their "knowledege" but wouldn't know what to do or how to apply any of it if they got behind a camera and were supposed to shoot a feature. I can get into solid discussions about theory and camera tech, its just the standard "procedures" i guess or just lots of tips and tricks from the pro's that I am missing out on. I have actually read most of that book! It is good, which is why I asked the question, because it mainly just shows the "work-your-way-up" path. You should write a book! This sounds like a perfect story of my life. Every day is a battle of what to do to advance your craft vs. make money to live, and even the side jobs out here are hard to find and take you further away from getting where you want to be. Then you have personal issues to deal with, and trying to figure out simple decisions becomes so difficult when the money isn't steadily flowing in. Luckily I have youth on my side and have practically no bills. Also, most people my age are still in school. I have quickly realized in my year out here that this industry truly is for the toughest or most talented souls, and getting where you want to go means you are going to get trampled, walked all over, used and abused, taken advantage of, etc. Only time will tell I guess where I really fit in, but I battle with a lot of the same things you were describing. I ESPECIALLY agree with the whole they won't pay for you, and expect you to bring a camera for free (who can't afford one because they won't pay you well) but then if they have the money they just go to the seasoned DP, who has all the equipment and more stable income and can afford to take a little hit in the rough times just to make a little money and keep shooting. There's no niche for the new talent it seems. Anyway, thanks for all the great advice guys! Maybe anyone who has DPed any big budget features on this forum share their experiences getting where they are?

Hello Everyone, I am a young DP with a handful of music videos, a SAG drama short, and a commercial under my belt. I would say I have a solid knowledge of camera techniques and lighting, but I am nowhere near the level that would be required on say a big budget feature, mostly due to my lack of "lingo knowledge" and just standard production protocols. I've never worked on any big features either. What would you guys say would be the best way to advance as a DP? Should I be trying to get onto big productions as a camera PA and slowly working my way up? And if so, any tips on how to get a job like that? I've been in LA for a year, but don't really have any contacts that are working on really big productions. What are the chances of just shooting independent features and music videos/etc and then suddenly transitioning into shooting big budget features without working your way up from PA? Like I said, I have a very strong knowledge of cameras and their technology, lighting, framing, camera movement, etc., I'm just not very good with some of the lingo, and I would not be able to communicate well between departments, because I haven't been around those big productions, and I know they are very different than shooting an indie production. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

It must just be I'm noticing this on features that just happen to be shot on Genesis, maybe the Genesis users just so happen to be using this longer shutter speed on purpose. I don't understand why they are doing it though, unless everyone thinks it looks cool. I shot a scene in a movie at 360º on the HVX200 only because it was supposed to emulate a video the main character was watching, and it was going to be edited in the 24P timeline. This worked perfectly for what I wanted, but this look for the main scenes and action scenes looks awful to me. Does this annoy anyone but me though? All things aside, the Genesis vs 35mm test was pretty incredible.

Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum, but I just have a few things that I'm really confused about with the Genesis. I've never personally used one or even seen one in production, but I noticed something really odd today. A while back when I first watched Apacalypto, I thought the look of it in terms of the motion of the footage looked a bit "off" for lack of better words. After reading up on it, I found it was shot on the Genesis. Something about it, especially certain scenes really stuck out to me as looking especially "video-like", although most people couldn't figure out what I was talking about. Anyway, today I went to 2012, of which I watched a leaked clip on youtube and thought it looked terrible (the live action sequences, not the CGI). I figured it was just the streaming quality, so I went to see it at the theater, and it looked exactly as I had expected. Almost 100% of the live action footage just looked like video to me, and I pointed it out to my friend and said, "I bet you this was shot on Genesis, because it looks like other films I've seen shot on Genesis." Now I've been having a hard time lately at the theaters picking out what is shot on film and what is shot digitally (i.e. I completely thought Benjamin Button was film after seeing it before reading up on it). So I get home from 2012, look it up and sure enough it was Genesis. Now I need to see more films shot on Genesis to really make a good analysis, but is it the camera, or are the DPs of these films just choosing bad shutter angles, or could they possibly be doing this on purpose?? I doubt I'm the only one who noticed this, but it drove me NUTS in the theater, to the point where I just couldn't stop thinking about how awful I thought it looked (again, hardly anyone else noticed it though). Second weird part was I watched the Panavision vs Film test on Panavision's website, and got all three wrong!! Which I still can't figure out because the Genesis handled highlights softer than the film that had a red abbaration around the edges of specular highlights, which I thought was a dead giveaway of the digital, but I guess I was wrong. Plus, I couldn't tell from the motion either so I'm assuming it was shot with a faster shutter speed (although I did see motion blur in pans, it just looked the same between the two cameras). How did that test throw me off but I can spot a Genesis at the movies so easily? So what's going on here? Maybe I need to just watch more films shot on Genesis, and perhaps they aren't all like this. So am I crazy or are these particular films being shot like this on purpose, or is this just what all footage ends up looking like from Genesis?? Let me know your guys' thouhts!