Miguel Angel

Sergei, It depends on the size of your frame and the mood you want to get. In "The Cold Light Of Day" we shot a long car chasing sequence with 5 cameras at night in one of the most historical streets in Madrid (we shot a lot of chasing sequences but the one I am talking about is very well remembered amongst the crew :D). It is a very long street and we had to shoot all the way through but the 2nd Unit DOP (Daniel Aranyo) was not able to place any lights outside the street so what he and his gaffer did was hiding either 1K or 2K (I don't remember right now) in each street lamp (like 150 or 200 of them!), attached to them, so he had a pool of light for each street lamp which allowed him to shoot at T2.8 with Kodak Vision 3 500T (no pushed) Very recently, working on a feature in Ireland, the cinematographer had to light part of a street at night and the frame was tight enough so he could place a Joker 800 attached to one of the street lamps to give a kick to the talent. Hence, it depends on the look that you want. There is an interesting movie (Seventh Son) which will show you how to light a "talking romance sequence" with two people by a lake at night with a couple of either 20Ks or 12Ks. Worth watching, the cinematography is very interesting. Have a good day.

If you are not on a tight budget and want to go for the 18Ks I would say go for 2 x 20Ks Tungsten instead. They are cheaper to rent and the light is more pleasant to the eye because it is a tungsten source (my opinion of course) If money is not an issue but time is, get two cherry pickers / condors / etc, rig each light on each of them and place 1 electrician in each (as you should anyway) and have your soft light on the ground ready. You will save a lot of time by doing that, however you will double the electric and manpower. There is another option tho but it depends on how wide is your wide shot. Are you going to see the whole street? You might want to shoot the wides during twilight so in one of them you have the sky helping backlight the actors? Just an idea! :) If you don't want to use 18K's you might want to use practical lights and maybe placing 1Ks / 2Ks on them and at some stage directing them towards the actors? Maybe, as David suggested, you could design the shoot so you have either a building or a window shop so you can place the window shop behind the actor in the reverse angle. If you have the option to pre - rig I would go for it as you will be able to see how the lights are going to work and you will need just 10 minutes to make minor adjustments when the actors are in position. Have a good day!

A quick search of IR Alexa http://nofilmschool.com/2015/01/where-science-meets-cinematography-shooting-infrared-arri-alexa-xt-bw And something beautiful that an Irish photographer, Richard Mosse, did years ago (on film tho!) I have his book and it is amazing, beautiful compositions and very inspiring colors. When shooting Broken Hugs by Almodovar we shot a sequence in IR b&w (it is not in the final cut tho), we shot with a modified Genesis and Rodrigo lit the sequence (all happened in the most absolute darkness inside a restaurant for blind people) with little IR lights bought from a local Lighting Shop. Very interesting results!

That hall has millions of possibilities if you can work a bit on it. 1) Buy some practicals and attach them to the walls with blue tack or some sort of sticky thing. 2) Place a light at the end of the hall, point it towards the camera and make your actor walk blocking it. 3) Use a light to light the background, place practicals on the walls, get rid of the lamps on the ceiling 4) Shoot with the lights on on the ceiling but turn off some of them, maybe 1 on 1 off as I feel as if there were a lot of light there. 5) Place a practical at the end of the hall. 6)!Place a practical at the end of the hall and use a light to light the left hand side of the wall And so many more! Have a good day!

Mr. Mullen explained it in one sentence much better than me ?! If you are going to use practicals, my recommendation is to get dimmers for all of them so you can dimmer them accordingly to the mood that you are looking for. The scene from Mr. Mullen's frame has at least 3 lights as you can see the different directions of the shadows plus the background. Today you could use blondes and 2K's to create the hard shadows or even rifa lights if you want a softer approach. I would even say that you could use smaller units too. If you have the book "Painting with light" written by John Alton, I would give it a quick read as Alton elaborates different techniques to light almost every single thing in this world! Although I am convinced you read it already! Sorry for not answering the slow motion question, I missread your post and thought that you wanted to do the slow motion in post - production and were asking what shutter speed you had to have to do so! Have a good day!

I am afraid Joshua that I don't agree with you on the "you don't really pay attention to the set as much" as I think that sets are absolutely important either in black and white or in colour and the spectator sees them as well. If you take a look at the hollywood black and white classic movies you will notice that the sets are there and are lit because with black and white you have to separate the actors from the background even better and you do so using light primarily (or sometimes painting the light or the shadows in the backgrounds :D). Colour movies are "easier" (if you know what I mean) to shoot because you have colour and you can separate things by using colours rather than light but in black and white you have to have a little bit more of knowledge. Let's say that you shoot a typical sequence where we have a man standing in front of a girl, who is on a bed. Besides the bed there is a lamp and it is on, creating a gradation which goes from the girl to the man. The lamp is in between the girl and the man, but we have the gradation which silhouettes the man. If you shoot it in colour, you can use the lamp besides the bed to light the girl and then if you want to you can use a different colour for the man standing in front of her. Or you can even use just the lamp, because the gradation will silhouette the man thanks to the tonality of the gradation and the contrast between the gradation and darkness. If you shoot in black and white you loose the colour so the gradation will be darker than grey, probably zone 3. Now, if you try to silhouette your man with that gradation, chances are that your character will not be lit enough and you will have a very dark and flat sequence. So, in black and white you try to create depth through light and the tones between black and white as opposed as in colour where you have all the colours available for you to create contrast + light. I knew that you meant that the focus is more on the leads but that's because they were super lit! and if you have a lovely set, why wouldn't you want to show it in the right way? :) Regarding close ups, you have seen loads! If I remember correctly all the Transformers movies were shot in 2.40:1 and there are plenty of close ups there, you just have to balance it correctly :) Close ups in any format are very easy, what I find difficult is creating a very interesting wide shot! Maybe the following link can help. http://filmmakeriq.com/lessons/composition-techniques-for-widescreen-aspect-ratios/ As for slow motion, I don't know! as I have not done slow motion either in camera or in post ever so maybe somebody else can answer the question for you :) I think I will turn on the red tomorrow to see how that would work ha! Have a good weekend!

Thank you for explaining it further Mr. Mullen! :) Have a lovely day!

There is an app called Light Source Pro which might be the thing you are looking for. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/light-source-pro/id454053697?mt=8 Created by one of the best gaffers in Ireland, James McGuire (and best person! I learnt a lot from him! :)) It is €29.99, available on iOS but it is worth the money! Best.

Got the email now and looking forward to reading it! Thanks!

I see now what you meant in the first post. The technicalities of shooting on a wider format are two in my opinion: - Your close ups won't be as close as with other aspect ratios because it is not the same to have a close up of a face in 16:9 than in 2.40:1, to get the same angle or shoot you will have to show more space in the 2.40:1 ratio. That's one of the reasons why when shooting "Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes" they decided to shoot in 1.85:1, to be able to shoot closer to the actors. Although that doesn't apply to you in this project because you want to shoot with wider lenses it is something that might be interesting to keep in mind for future projects - You will also show more set in camera. That is point to take in consideration as you will see that you will need more art designing to fill the frame, and if you are lighting with artificial lights you will see that you won't be able to put them as close as you had thought. To keep the sync with the actors do some technical rehearsals where you move the camera as the actors move and after three or four you will see if you are ready to shoot or you need some more. Personally if I can resolve a sequence with 1 shot letting the actors use the frame and walk within it, I go for it, rather than shooting Master, OTS, OTS, etc. My advise tho is don't overcomplicate the movements as you have 8 pages which is quite a lot, keep it simple and enjoy shooting and learning Don't feel any presure, there is no need! And don't think that you're going to fail because that won't happen, it's all a learning process and we are all in it! ;) Post some frames when finished! And good luck! (Go and pick the book mentioned in my previous post, you will like it)

I would say that framing is an art itself and for me it comes from my heart. I usually try to make the architecture of the set relevant to the character and sometimes for me is more important what the set has to say than the actors. If you are going to go for a classic framing I would say, follow the Rule of the 3rds, which I'm pretty sure that you know. Alternatively you can go for the Rule of the Quadrants. Rule of the quadrants When going over the shoulder I like what Ridley Scott and Michael Mann do, long lens and framing the face of the person with the over the shoulder being more than the 70% of the frame. However, a more classical approach is a medium over the shoulder, which is also very nice. First picture I found on the Internet ha! http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_-PnuKDc1Loo/S7MrktNuvoI/AAAAAAAAAIU/F2TpWejbYzI/s1600/4.JPG For that first shot that you are talking about, maybe you could start with her on the right hand side and as you follow her panning you end up putting her on the left hand side when the shot is finished. So, she goes and walks from A -> B but you move the camera from the right to the left Very difficult without having a video to show you, I hope you get me though! I would say that before shooting, if you have a little bit of time this weekend, go to the local library and pick the following book: Framed Ink by Marcos Mateu Mestre. http://www.amazon.es/Framed-Ink-Drawing-Composition-Storytellers/dp/1933492953 It will help you understand the balances in a really visual way. Have you created the marks on the DSLR for 2.40:1? Have a good day. Best.

Hi and welcome to the forum. That the car is in the middle of nowhere it doesn't mean that you cannot create a practical light out of nowhere, streetlamp, roadwork lamp, lantern, torch, etc. If the script is not very long and you can choose when to shoot it I would go for the twilight moment. It will give you a fantastic tone in the skies and you will be able to see a little bit of the faces if you want to (or you can augment the light on the faces with a blonde or a led through diffusion or bounced) It would be worth checking a Russian movie called "Leviathan" where Mikhail Krichman, the cinematographer, uses this technique a lot in the interior of the cars. Have a good day.

Jon, I would say go ahead. The director has seen something in your work that he likes and although it is difficult for the completion bond to agree on a cinematographer with no "feature" experience to shoot a blockbuster, it has been done loads of times. Bradford Young is a very good recent example among others like Edu Grau. So, be honest with your director and your producers but if you get the chance, take it. And get the best gaffer, grip and camera department you can, they will help you with everything and if you are honest with them and plan things in advance they will love you and they will understand where you want to go. Don't be afraid and go for it! Best!

I don't know why I didn't get the responses on my email but: Arriraw crop in anamorphic means that you can't reframe the sides but the upper part and the bottom part, there is a bit of space there for reframing if you want to. So in spherical I suppose that you will be able to reframe in any direction. The Amira is amazing, i worked on a 1 day commercial and Panavision provided the Amira because the commercial was going to be all hand - held and "docu" style, and it worked really well. The churches look lovely although, if I can comment, there is something that I miss in any "church interior" in any movie, maybe more light to create the light bouncing all over if it is a sunny day as your frames suggest? I don't know! :) Looking forward to watching the movie though! I watched the youtube video on the website and the crane shoots look nice! Have a lovely day!

Freya, I would totally watch that! :) Have a good day.

Congratulations! You could even cast our last King, Juan Carlos I of Spain, he spent a lot of his holidays killing elephants in South Africa (and we criticise him because of that, among other things) http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/04/16/article-0-129AB55C000005DC-860_634x518.jpg Have a lovely Paddy's day!

Hello, You can take a look at the "90 minutes in Heaven" topic where we talk about the Pearlscents filters and the Glimmerglass filters, Mr. Mullen put up examples of how Pearlscents work. http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=66243?st=0 Have a good day!

Shane Hurlbut's internship? Best.

Hey Erik! I am not based in the States so I cannot give you any advice on where to go, however, what I did even before finishing school was going to the best camera rental place in my city, Madrid (in Spain) and asked the owners if I could become an intern there, cleaning filters, tripods, cameras, etc. After some months of learning everything, a camera crew came to the place and picked me up for a movie.. and then everything got rolling. So my recommendation is that if you want to become a camera assistant, go to either Panavision or Arri and ask them for an internship, it will be worth the try! Have a good day!

Last day on The Secret Scripture! You are missing the block battery Satsuki! :P Have a lovely day!

I concur, Celebs are fantastic lights, as well as china balls if you know how to use them properly. Soften the filmic lights could be a good idea either by bouncing them and softening them or just by softening them with frames, that way you can lose the direction of the light and everything will look more natural. Bear in mind that you will need a very good production designer for the project so you all can create the atmosphere that you are looking for even before putting lights. You might be surprised as to how much you can achieve with a fantastic production designing! I highly recommend that you watch a movie called "Joe" by David Gordon Green, its interior nights are really interesting and very powerful and they look very much like the frames you posted (a bit darker though which is always good!) You will also need to have all the practicals on dimmers so you can set up the intensity of the light. Have a good day!

"Slip inside"! Those are the words I was looking for ha! Actually you do that because sometimes you cannot put the lateral and top flags but you need to have something else besides the matte to stop the light entering the lens and that's the only possible way. I have used it maybe twice in my life but it was very useful when it had to be, otherwise, I agree with you completely. But eh! 2nd AC's.. we are very inventive and imaginative! ;) Have a good day both!

You're more than welcome! ;) Have a lovely day.

Hello, As far as I remember, John R. Leonetti A.S.C used as many practical lights as he could to light the interiors nights of "The Conjuring". You could also use a couple of china balls or gem lights to achieve that feeling too with no problems. You can listen to the very informative ASC Podcast about "The Conjuring" on the following link: http://www.theasc.com/site/podcasts/conjuring-john-r-leonetti-asc/ Have a lovely day.

It is always sad when you finish a movie and the last month in The Secret Scripture has been amazing so it makes things even sadder! I did not want to finish the movie and if I ever have the opportunity to work with Jim Sheridan later on in my life, I will leave anything I am doing to join the crew. I better put the little teaser I edited for the project I had to shoot for college (the one at night) https://vimeo.com/120536160 I will put up the previous tests online as soon as I get Final Cut installed again so you can compare (I like the tests the most but I learnt a lot through the whole process). University has been interesting as I had to hand my thesis (in English of course) and it was a bit of experimenting on how to word phrases to sound more academic. The final title is Architectural Style in Noir Cinema and as a result of the different researches I became even more interested in architecture (which is one of my passions too) so it was a fantastic time to explore the relation between Architecture and Cinema and understand how you, as a cinematographer, can produce more interesting images by using the architecture to create a mood for your character (or a lack of it). So now for the rest of the year, as I am not going to shoot anyone else's grad, I am going to focus on watching the key pieces of the cinema, from the beginning of the cinema to 2015. Suggestions as to what to watch are more than welcome, I know that I want to watch all the New French Wave and the Italian Realism, as it is something that I have a lack of knowledge on and I want to solve that. I am also prepping a short - film that I have to shoot so the teachers can mark me and give me a grad, I do not know if I will be able to shoot it and have it finished by May 8th (deadline) because I found the locations but I need to work a bit more on the script. The story focuses on the life of two people, a single female farmer in the rural and isolated Ireland and a security guard who works on the night - shift. It is a 4 / 5 minutes visual piece, no dialogue and with different tones. I want to shoot the farmer section on 35mm and use natural light and practicals, I also want to shoot it hand - held, altogether will create a feeling of being connected to Earth and how rough is to live in a remote place. The security guard section will be shot on digital (either with the Alexa or the Redone, I don't mind) and I will use colours and tracks to make it look like something more relaxed and the opposite to the farmer section. I am still thinking about shooting it on anamorphic or just spherical as the previous section. Some of the locations are the following ones, with the colours I would like them to have: And that's all! Have a lovely day all!