Miguel Angel

Hello Mark, There are two types of mattes, both of them get attached to the matte box in a really easy way, by putting them in front of the matte box. Both of them will click in the front of the matte box. Have you noticed that your matte box has 4 little protrusions in the internal part of it? those protrusions will hold the matte chosen. Also, if your mattes have numbers on the front, those numbers will correspond to the mm of the lenses in 35mm. Let's say that you have a 35mm lens in your camera, you should put the 35mm matte or the immediate below (sometimes with wide angle lenses the corresponding mattes can vignette but that is not usual) You can take a look at this video on youtube on the minute 0:58 (more or less) to see how a matte will work. Alternatively you can try to place black gaffer tape on the front part of the matte box to see if a set of mattes will help get rid of the problem! Have a good day!

First of all, congratulations. Getting a job as a camera trainee is very hard and it is even harder to stay there so learn everything, ask questions, work harder than the rest, be always ready, in time and you will get through very easily. If you love there will be sometimes where you will cry, keep that in mind! Because it is a job with a lot of emotions around! It takes time though. I spent 3 / 4 years as a camera trainee so many years ago and I loved it to bits, however I love being 2nd ac the most. However, nowadays there are so many options out there to choose from after being camera intern. You can take the DIT route, the 2nd AC route, Cinematographer Personal Assistant way or even getting yourself specialized on video, which is quite difficult and rewarding too. I take the two points of view on the forum, the one from Phil, which is understandable and the one from John, which is quite interesting. The good thing about being a camera intern is that if you get on well with the crew you work with, they will call you always and after some years, they will give you a chance to move up as a 2nd AC if you want to. Hence, John is right at pointing that film crew is like a family, it is a very difficult one to enter though. If you have the chance to become a camera intern for one of the better crews in UK (Guardians of the galaxy, Sherlock Holmes, Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc) and you work hard, you will get jobs at that level almost all your life and they will expect you to have a really high professional standard. It is easier to start as a camera intern and work your way up if you don't have any kind of responsabilities and are young. People in their mid - 30s are prone to have mortgages, kids, etc, so they cannot say no to jobs as 2nd ac / focus puller and most of the time they won't have the chance to work on something else as cinematographers. I have nothing to say about the "cuteness" and "characters" of the filmmaking workers as you will see loads of different types, from me, usually very focused when working on set and don't like the chit - chat, but I'm a quite happy person to some others who love telling stories about all the places they went and etc. You will have to accept them all and live with them.. and sometimes is very hard, but most of the time is like being on holidays! And one thing you will find soon is that they will help you a lot and they will take care of you if you are a hard worker. If you are a lazy person, you better get off the train now and go the corporate route before wasting 5 years of your life! I suppose you are not though! As for commercials and features. You will have to work on both and you will like commercials because they pay very well, are short and sweet and you have all the toys to play with but you will love features because it is where you will learn the craft. It is said that the best people in the industry work on features, and I think it is true because it takes a different level to be able to not lose focus on something for 2 or 3 months and do your job perfectly every single day every single minute (hello focus pullers! ) So, just saying that welcome to the club! Enjoy your days while working and keep us informed! Maybe some day we will work together!! Have a good day (and a long career!)

It is my thought that "Ligthing effects" should be a mandatory class in all the film schools in the world so all the cinematographers could talk about what you just said (and which makes a lot of sense) to their G&E crew in the terms that you used. Have a good day!

The sequences above mentioned (on the bridge) have me intrigued, I love the images and I can't wait to see it edited to know how you transitioned between the shots, specially the one with the flares and the one in the car mirror. Did you choose to have it desaturated because of the scene in Heaven or it was a stylistic decision if you don't mind me asking? I always forget to say something about ARRIRAW. In the movie I'm working on at the moment we are shooting on ARRIRAW crop mode and apparently it is easier to handle and a bit cheaper because you don't need a lot of cards so maybe you can explore that path for your next movie! Have a good day and congratulations (almost!)!

I concur!, sometimes it is more interesting not to show things than showing them! :)

Thank you! :)

Thank you Mr. Mullen, I'm going to ask for them in Panavision next time I'm there so I can test them. You can see that lovely glow very well in some of the strong highlights in the pictures that you have been posted, very nice indeed! Best!

I think you are right Mr. Mullen. By playing with the venetian shutter I also learnt that you have to have the right amount of "lightnings". Not too many (like in my video) but not too few, and it seems to me that it is very hard to know when there are a lot or not. Have a good day!

I was talking about the venetian shutter and the M18 in a post above, here is the result so anybody can take a look at it and know if that's what he / she is looking for. https://vimeo.com/120536160 Best.

Hi! I worked on a commercial in Spain years ago where we shot on an IR modified Epic which came from Panavision in The States. I don't remember what Panavision but I'm rather sure that if you give them a call they will be able to point you out where you can find an IR modified Epic. Alternatively, you could go to reduser.net and ask over there (if you have not done that yet) as it is the main RED forum. www.reduser.net Have a lovely day. Best.

Absolutely fantastic articles! all the images have a very pictorial (hopefully that's the word) effect. How are you finding the pearlscents filters if you don't mind me asking? Thank you very much! Have a lovely day.

Hi Steve, If the school you are talking about is the NFS in Dun Laoghaire and the hallways are the ones in the new building, I would take a second look at the tubes as their color renders as yellow when shooting on a daylight stock, tested by me with the colourmeter, film stock and digital. Essential reading for cinematography based primarily on stock? In - Camera from Kodak and the old Fuji Magazine. The American Cinematographer is a must and the American Cinematographer Manual is something that you have to have. Friends of the ASC is a fantastic place to learn a bit more from ASC cinematographers via subscription. Shane Hurlburt has an impressive website where he teaches everything he knows and if you have €800 you might want to buy his dvd's (although if you are studying at the NFS you might want to ask Anne about those DVD's as I asked her if it was possible to buy them for all of us) As an aside note: Colour is interesting and it creates contrast. Have a lovely day. Best.

Hello and welcome to the page, Reflective products are really challenging, rather than me trying to explain different approaches, you might find useful the links below where a lot of techniques are proposed: http://www.cinematography.net/edited-pages/CML%20Lighting%20Extremely%20Reflective%20Objects.htm http://www.lighting-essentials.com/one-light-for-a-highly-reflective-item/ Have a good day.

I like it a lot. I want one just for putting it in the backpack and replace the Leica! :D Best.

Answering quickly to your question, you can use as many practical light as you want for a night exterior, you need to know where to place them though and how to use them for them to give you all the light that you need. Wide urban night exteriors shots just lit with practicals (at some stage) that come to my mind: - Collateral - Miami Vice - The Cold Light Of Day (We shot 1/3rd of the car chases with 5219 at 400ASA with practical lights) - The Need For Speed Now, there is a very interesting way to give your talents an exposure if you want to, the only thing you need to have is a Jem light or a China ball which you can move accordingly to the movement of the characters if you want to as well as the open businesses, which you can use to emphasize the colours of the night too. It is very cheap, it is dimmable and it can be shaped and diffused in many ways (well, not in many but in some.. it is a china ball after all!). Of course, it depends on the camera that you are going to use and its ASA. Have a good day. Best.

If your shoot is not that long you might want to try orientating the car towards the sunset / magic hour, when the sky is purple / orange / etc exposing your film so the sky has still a bit of that reading and let the actors be cut by it, you will even see their faces. Place a couple of polyboards in the interior of the car if you need a fill and shoot. I know nothing about the script but if I were going to shoot it and a raw and powerful image like that could go with the story, I would shoot it that way. Have a good day.

Jacques, Regarding the Cooke zoom you might find these links useful: http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?32299-Cooke-Varopanchro-20-60-T3-1 http://brownianmotion.co.uk/pdf/COOKE_20-60.pdf And just as some extra information, the Cook Cine Lens History. https://www.zgc.com/t/pdfs/cooke/cooke-look-back-2.pdf Have a good day.

Hi, Providing your camera has a standard Arri Mount, it shouldn't be that difficult to find loads of lenses with that mount on ebay at really cheap prices. I have a set of Schneider Kreuznach Cine Xenon on Arri Standard Mount which has a 20mm, 28mm, 40mm, 50mm and 75mm which are the ones which cover 35mm, the 25mm by Schneider was made for 16mm and vignettes a little bit. Take a good look on the ebay website or send me a PM! Have a good day.

Leviathan "In a Russian coastal town, Nikolai is forced to fight the corrupt mayor when he is told that his house will be demolished. He recruits a lawyer friend to help, but the man's arrival brings further misfortune for Nikolai and his family." Imdb page http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802154/ Trailer From Andrey Zvyagintsev (director of Elena and The Return) comes a new movie set in a rural village in Russia. It is such a powerful movie that gets you right in the brain and stays there after having watched it. With a very dense script full of characters which go back and forth, the movie wants to create a sense of closeness with the spectator through them and it does it really well, even with the length of the movie (2.20 hours) your emotions stay there all the time and you don't feel disconnected ever, moreover, you need the movie to keep going and not finish. The script is just amazing, the actors are superb and the way the director manages to get your attention from one to another is very "kubrickish", playing with them within the frame and letting them walk through it and do their actions. Its cinematography is just marvelous, condensed and content, the director knows what he wants and how to show it and Mikhail Krichman (I have the honour of working with in a movie in Ireland right now) shows the places as they are, but with a cinematography touch, let's say that he, as a cinematographer, brings the naturalism to the movie but places little touches that let you know that the light is there because it has to be there. There is a marvelous sequence which I think it is really difficult and starts with the main female character in bed, she gets up, goes to the bathroom and leaves the house. It is easily perceived that there is a light at the beginning and in some other places but it is so well placed that you feel it as if it were normal there. Obviously it is not a single take (which would have been amazing and it matches the director's vision very well) but the way it is cut is flawless. A movie full of long, thought and meditated takes that brings us back the cinema of the Russian realism but with a modern twist. By the way, Mikhail got the 2014 Cameraimage award because of this movie ;). Very highly recommended, even more now that is in Bluray! Have a good day. Best.

Bill, that's all Rodrigo's work! (and the fantastic production designer that I loved a lot, Brigitte Broch) I had a lot of fun and learnt a lot by working on that movie, good 9 months! :) Michael, chances are that you would end up with a "log / raw look" commercial haha. Hopefully they will stop doing that at some stage although nowadays it is not as bad as the time when the Redone was released, everybody leaving everything super milky and without any colours! Have a good day all.

You're welcome!

Thank you very much for the kind answer. One more day and the 2nd week will be completed! Looking forward to reading your update! :) Have a good day!

On the "Knight & Day" 2nd unit we had several cars and a garage on set to repair the little dents but if a car was wrecked, then that car was wrecked and was sent somewhere else. On the "The Cold Light Of Day" 2nd unit we had also several cars from the same model just in case but the big accidents on that movie (2nd Unit work :D) were shot with a lot of cameras at the same time and all of them went perfect so we did not need to repair any. We also had a kind of a "garage truck" on set with a fantastic crew! Take Satsuki's advice and design your shoot so you can cut the sequence in a smart way and if you can find a very cheap bmw / mercedes that you can just run and crash even better. Have a good day.

I forgot to say that if you really want to get a laser, take a look at Ebay and don't buy the latest hilti, the PD40 is still a fantastic laser. Have a good day.

Although I partially agree with Stuart on the measuring tape thing I have to say that a laser device is one of the best thing you can get for your AC Kit. The Hilti is the best of the best because of two things: - Its range. - The optical viewfinder which will allow you to point at things under bright light. If you are learning, the best thing you can do is using the tape always, always, always so you can remember the distances and the relations between the camera and the different actors, etc. The laser is a fantastic complement for you to do a quick check on something / someone without moving or when you are on a difficult set. If you want to check the distance between the camera and the actor with your laser, send your 2AC with the board beside the actor and point the laser towards the board, for quick and snappy references, if your 2nd AC sees that you are taking mesurements and he / she doesn't have the board at hand he will be placing the hand beside the actor / product. For long lenses.. Put marks and check the focus through the viewfinder / monitor. My recommendation: Hilti. I know it is expensive but it is really worthy. Best!