Miguel Angel

Thank you very much all for the feedback on the frames :wub: :wub:. As I have learnt from all of you through the years I have been reading the forum, it means a lot to me that you stop by and decide that you have 5 minutes to read and post your comments. It seems to me that as I have 6 hours to shoot the whole piece and not a lot of setups I will be shooting it in two ways. I will shoot it as shown above and then I will shoot it with either the fill or the lateral light, I will edit the piece twice (which each setup) and I will give both to the lecturers so they can decide which one is the one that they like the most. At the end of the day is a Cinematography Minor Grad so if I don't experiment now with different fills / no fills / etc and decide what kind of contrast and mood I like the most, when am I going to do so?! A question though: As a cinematographer, would you be concerned about the spillage of the light towards the wall on the profile shot? I mean, that shaft of light is something that happens normally in the living room (with a little bit lower angle though) as there is a street lamp right to the left hand - side of the window, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't :D but when it does, you see that pattern on the couch. - As promised, the frames from those camera tests I shot on the Alexa the other day. The wide frame is a lateral dolly to the left and it starts there but it finishes with another background. They are not graded, just the Rec709 curve. Let's start with the wide: Wide Available light with 216 on the windows in front of the young girl. T2 1/3 in camera. On the day, if we shoot at night, I will have to place either a bounced lateral light or just a bounce (although I don't think a bounce will be enough) for the "Woman" so she is not "in the dark" and it will help me match the close ups too. I was thinking about creating depth by using different colors coming from the inside of the restaurant, I mean: - Foreground, as it is. - Middle part of the frame, available light. - Last part of the restaurant, cyan light coming from the inside or by placing some visible tubes on the exterior of the wall, so I have bright spots in the frame and they will give light. It is a bit risky as I think that they will distract the spectator's point of view so we'll see on the day :). - Background, in the final position, maybe a practical with a blonde hitting the wall (there is a red brick wall as a background in the final position) And now, the close ups, which served very well for me to see how their faces worked on available light and what kind of approach I will have to do in order to maintain the same light levels and make them look super pretty. I was more interested in seeing the effects of the light than in having the same contrast, however, I think I should have gone for the same contrast so the close ups could have cut well Editing because as I was taking a look at the frame tonight I thought: "What if I hang a celeb / 4 x 4 Kinoflo with depron from behind the girls so I can light them with the "cyan / blue" light as a kicker (which would be interesting to separate them from all the darkness and it is motivated by the line of light in the ceiling), I add a fill light so I I have them both with the same exposure and I cut the light coming from the window so the only light is the one that I put?" That way, when I punch in for the close ups, I have everything more controlled. Young Girl T 2.1 in camera. There is the available light coming from the inside. However, we weren't going to spend that time in the restaurant, we were planning on shooting in the evening time and then moving to another location.. however, directors are the bosses and after shooting the shot we wanted, he decided that he wanted to try different setups.. and the night came and as I had two Kinoflos in the car I decided that I wanted to see if they would work with a face like hers So, usually I would bounce the kinoflos but I didn't have any polyboard :'(, my car is small :D. One of my friends happened to have a piece of 216 in her car though and that is what we used to diffuse the light coming from the windows. So we took the 216 off the windows and put it on the kinoflo which is giving the "blue" light (A piece of peacock blue that I had in my car just in case you are interested), you can see the position (left side of the frame) The other kinoflo is giving the little lateral kick light in the hair, without it, the hair became very dark and there was no separation between the hair and the background in the right side of the frame. What I think I will do on the day is the following: I will augment the light coming from the interior of the restaurant so I have a good T Stop and then I will create a soft blue light coming from the lateral a little bit overexposed, and of course, I will light the hair as it is in the frame. Overall, I think that her face reacts very well to a lateral light and will look even better when we have the right light coming from the interior of the restaurant. Woman T2.1 in camera. Different woman, different setup. The inside of the restaurant is the available light and then I had the same "blue" kinoflo for her. And I placed the other kinoflo very far away in the camera axis to fill her face by just 1/2 stop. However, it is my opinion that her face is very very difficult to light because of the shape of it. I tried the kinoflo in the right side of the frame and it didn't look good either (maybe because it was direct) but I think she needs to have "her" light and I will need to do lighting tests with her so I discover what angle is the best one to light her. - What I see is that in order to match the wide and the close ups I will have to get the same contrast in both shoots (nothing new I know ha!!), but the light will have to be a bit different I didn't want to put the kinoflos very close as they were very very obvious and it was killing me so maybe I will go for a big Rifa Light or a bounce flagged on the day. And a couple of tests in the Dun Laoghaire Pier: T64 in the lightmeter, T11 1/2 in camera because I didn't have the right ND's (college has up to ND9 but they are combined with the 81EF so I had ND9 + 81EF) The first one is a 40mm the second one is a 135mm. The short - film will be shot in 4 days and I hope that it will be shot with a combination of anamorphic (C series if I'm lucky enough so don't shoot anything on them until I have finished haha) and spherical lenses (PVintage), and the sequences with both girls will be anamorphic. I want to try a pantyhose on the back of the lenses (in both, anamorphic and spherical) and I will be testing 1/2 Glimmerglass for the Woman too. As the director wants a "dreamy" look with contrast -_- I was thinking about setting up the Alexa in 1280 and creating the contrast with light (yeah!) - By the way, the camera operator on these camera tests was the person who re-kindled my passion for cinema: Greg McGuinness, one of the best 2nd AC in Ireland (and better person) who introduced me to all the Vikings crew and who was my 1AC in the period short - film I shot for this director. He wants to become a camera operator and I said: Let's start shooting so! :) I usually operate myself because of two things, I enjoy operating a lot and I'm European :D so the cliché is that I have to operate myself hahaha. However, It seems to me that being able to see the whole picture from the outside is a very important process of the cinematography learning curve, even for one day, it allowed me to be more focused on seeing how the light reacted rather than having to light, trying to operate and making sure that everything was on focus at the same time (among other things). We will see what I end up doing though in the future! As always, any comments are more than welcome! :wub:

New year, new classes! Had a very exciting week last week because I was able to take the Alexa out of college to shoot some camera tests for a short - film I am going to shoot in 2015, I will be posting some frames tomorrow when I get the footage back from college (which owns 33% of every single short - film that is made in college which is very interesting and fair enough!) Also very happy because I got to test some lighting setups for my Minor Grad or as the university calls it: Advanced Content Development. The Advanced Content Development is a way for the teachers to let the person explore his / her world as well as the craft that person has chosen for the year, in my case, cinematography. It is my opinion that I have a tendency to create darkness, play with colors and control lights rather than creating really bright images and let everything blow. There is also the point that I love practicals and I think that practicals are a fantastic way to create your base light and if you need to augment them it is really easy to do so if you want to. Movies like Gone Girl, The Social Network, Joe, Blue Ruin, Cold Day In July or A Single Shot to name a few are the type of movies with a cinematography that I like and the type of cinematography that I would like to be able to achieve in a project in a future. They rely on practicals as much as they can and their cinematographers use colors to express emotions, something that I have been doing for such a long time in my still photography. So, the mix between practical lights and colors is what I am going to look for in my Minor Grad. The person shooting the Minor Grad has to write, direct, edit and shoot a 2 or 3 minutes short - film by himself / herself, of course, if the person is lucky enough to get help directing it or editing it, the better! In my case, as I am "the new" and I have not been very enthusiastic about parties in college I will have to do all by myself but 1 person from the 2nd year and my cinema friends who will give me a hand in the camera, grip and sound department. The story I wrote is a really bad story (I will upload it later ha), it is the typical "horror" story inside a house with "a ghost / intruder" and as I told you before I am going to shoot it in my own house. I am going to shoot it on the Redone MX with anamorphic Lomo lenses and the tests you are about to see were shot on the Redone MX with the Zeiss T2.1 and graded on Redcine. The sitting room is where everything happens but one sequence in the bedroom which will be lit almost in the same way. The only light I used was a Blonde outside the window pointing towards my girlfriend (a saint she is! :D) The lens is a 40mm and the T - stop is T4 with 800ASA. I don't know if I got really dark or not because I like the rim light and not being able to see her face properly and it looks really dark to me although if you look outside the frame in the real world it is not that dark, you would be able to read a book in my sitting room for hours with that light. I will try to move the lamp to the right so I can have her a little bit more in silhouette and maybe I will create an ambient light by using a 300W with red on it, I will try to light her laterally as well with a Rifa Light very dimmed and flagged, however, if I do that, I think I will be losing the rim light. What do you think? are the frames any good? would you go that dark? By the way, I can say that today (January 12th) we have had the best cinematography class in college ever! we got to light exterior days and exterior nights, with lights!! :) Have a lovely day all!

My congratulations to all of them but especially to Oscar who is a gentleman and a super lovely cameraman! He is also the very first Spanish cinematographer getting nominated for the ASC Awards. Congratulations Oscar! :) Best.

Hi and welcome James! I would say that if you have a little bit of time to plug a light, the Joker 1600 is very versatile and it takes all the previous accessories from the other Jokers. It is not as portable as a LED or a Rifa Light but it is a great device. Joker 1600 http://www.k5600.com/whatsnew.html Rifa http://lowel.tiffen.com/rifa/ Have you thought about bringing an ARRI L7 or a Kinoflo Celeb (they are amazing and very portable)? Both of them will help you change the ºK of the light without having to gel it, which could be handy in some occasions. Arri L7 - C http://www.arri.com/lighting/lighting_equipment/lampheads/led_lampheads/l_series/l7_c/ Kinoflo Celeb 200DMX http://www.kinoflo.com/Products%20Button/LED/Celeb%20200%20DMX/Celeb200_DMX.html Have a good day. Best.

Albion, I hope you have seen this already! :)

Thanks! :)

Thank you! Interesting one! Best.

As you might imagine I have seen all his movies and commercials Bradford Young's career is quite an interesting one as he keeps shooting "indie commercials" with big brands behind them with a very indie look but he chooses to keep shooting "indie" projects making them look like truly cinematic experiences, although with the money that "A Most Violent Year" cost you could shoot at least 2 big productions in Europe. He seems to choose the projects very well, well, either him or his agent, which is great. And he got a lot of practice by shooting on digital at the beginning of his career not so many years ago which allowed him to discover his voice in the cinematography terms. Best!

As Aapo said, either semi transparent tape or cello tape will work perfectly if you want to draw your lines on it, Cello tape is usually thinner so it might work better. Make sure the cello tape doesn't cover the interior of the aspect ratio though. Best.

First of all welcome to the forum, you will find really interesting people on here! :) The hand - held technique is a very difficult technique to master and you have to practice a lot and go with the flow of the sequence and the actor if you want to get it right as you know. Balance is key to have the perfect hand - held shoot, and it starts with the camera and how balanced it is, if it is not balanced at all you will have to fight against the weight of the camera to get the right position and you will get tired very soon, usually before the shoot finishes, which is something very bad. To avoid being tired, one of the most interesting things to have is a cinesaddle (or similar) around the body so you can rest your elbows on it without having to support the weight of the camera by yourself. http://www.prokit.com/product_images/d/964/cinesaddle_1__42355_zoom.jpg http://www.timpalmerdp.com/blog_373_3169734714.JPG Some people use camera supports like the Easyrig which is a rig that takes off all the weight from the camera and allows you to move freely without having to worry about getting tired. http://easyrig.se/theme/easyrig/img/concept1.jpg In terms of balancing yourself, the most important thing is to be comfortable with the camera on your shoulder so you have to play a bit to get to know what configuration works better for you. Some people like grabbing the camera from the handles some other like grabbing the camera from the matte box (myself included), and although it is a personal decision, grabbing the camera from the matte box allows you to be quicker on your reactions and you can look down with the camera in a way that you cannot with the handles. You will have to find your way though so experiment! Regarding your "focus puller" question, it depends on the shoot but 99% of the time the focus puller will be with a remote follow focus like the Preston or the Bartech and he will be pulling focus as the characters / operator move. (I said 99% because I know one focus puller I work with who doesn't like remote follow focuses at all and every single time that he can get his hands on a normal follow focus he will ask for it, even if he has to run with the operator.. he has a rangefinder meter in his eyes and in all the things a have worked with him he hasn't missed a mark ever) The rest of the focus pullers will like the commodity of having a remote follow focus. I hope the answers help! Have a good day and happy new year.

As I think the movie above mentioned is going to be fantastically photographed by Bradford Young and Filmmaker Magazine wrote an article about the movie, it might be of interest if you are looking forward to watching the movie. http://filmmakermagazine.com/88809-buying-a-burning-building-j-c-chandor-on-a-most-violent-year/#.VKRw98Y_xzw Have a good day!

I enjoyed it and I really like the shot that is shown as the frame of the demo reel on youtube (the one with the guy looking at the trophies) I don't know what else to say as I have no knowledge on what you should put on your reel, however, there are plenty of super smart guys here who will be able to let you know! :) Have a good day!

Thank you, Bad Turn Worse is a great piece of cinema, saw it last night and I liked it. It seems to me that films like Joe, Bad Turn Worse, Cold In July, A Single Shot, Blue Ruin and similar ones are where the new generation of cinematographers can have a chance to explore things that you cannot explore with big budgets where everything is a tad more controlled. Very interesting to see that all of them studied in very high profile film schools :), AFI, Columbia and USC. Thanks for sharing I enjoyed the reading!

Oooh! I think I will need to move to the States! all these things happen just there! :) Good luck with the short - film and post a link when it is finished!! :) Best!

These kind of things (attaching filters in front of the lenses) are very common in a shooting environment and the best approach is usually the simplest one. If your lens can be covered completely by a 4.5 x 6 or a 4 x4 filter, take the mattebox off and stick the filter to the front of the lens by using gaffer tape. 1) Cut a long piece of gaffer tape. 2) Roll it in the long way so you end up with the gaffer tape being sticky on both sides. 3) Carefully place the gaffer tape around the front part of your lens (not inside the lens but around) 4) Put the filter on the lens and make sure that it sticks to the gaffer tape tightly. 5) Surround the filter with gaffer tape by attaching gaffer tape to the lens so the gaffer tape holds the filter in a more secure way. Check it and shoot! I will post some photos tomorrow as I don't have gaffer tape with me right now. Sadly I am not able to find a picture of what I am talking about on the Internet but I hope you see the process! :) It can be done with a 6x6 filter but you need to be more careful when operating. Have a good day. :)

You might want to take a look at the following website: http://www.fjsinternational.com/cameras.html Have a good day.

Haha, don't tempt me as I might take your word! :P :)

You are absolutely right, preparation and rehearsal are keys, even on digital for me as I come from a "film" background and I am a very organized person. If you come to Ireland at any stage, let me know and we can shoot something together! :) Have a good day!

Freya, give it a try, it is worth watching. Best.

It was beautifully photographed on 35mm by the talented Spanish DOP Oscar Faura who graduated from the ESCAC, the best Film School in Spain, quite a long time ago. His is the cinematography of The Orphanage and The Impossible too. http://oscarfaura.com Have a great day!

It is a very interesting movie. The first arch in the bar is quite strange as you feel that the movie doesn't go anywhere, once they sit down, bum! everything makes sense and the movie goes really smooth! Cinematographer Ben Nott creates a beautiful environment for the Spierig brothers to move the camera in the way they do, using all the set architecture to create a sense of straightness and clinical approach which suits the movie very well. The "office" set is absolutely amazing, with that "central white thing" so congratulations to the production designer Matthew Putland too for those fantastic sets. I enjoyed it a lot and it is a pity that it didn't make to the cinemas here in Ireland. Have a good day.

Merry Xmas to you all! Feliz Navidad!! :)

It looks absolutely great! In terms of time, I think that a lot of directors want to show to the world that they can make long features so they keep writing long short - films whereas having a 3 or 5 minutes limit is more challenging as you have to be able to tell a story narratively and visually within that time. And shooting on film is fantastic! I keep telling my friends that we have to shoot more things on super16 or 35mm 2 perf but they are all hooked on digital now ha! I have always wanted to shoot something on 16mm anamorphic! Have a great day. Best.

Thanks guys! :) All the feedback is really really appreciated! I have been super quiet lately because there has not been a lot of things going on in school, in fact, we haven't had a class in 4 weeks! which is really bad and I already complained about it. They have been talking about bringing lecturers to the school to do daily workshops and I pointed out a 1 week car commercial lighting workshop and an interior day workshop too, mainly because I think that creating interesting moods for interior days while in a budget can be quite complicated. On the other hand I bought an old Redone MX just to practice at home. The reason behind the purchase is that I have always wanted to know how to achieve darkness (being Jeff Cronenweth one of my favourite contemporary cinematographers you can understand my obsession with nights and darkness) For me to practice I need a real scenario where I can put lights, where I can't pull out walls so I have the constrains of an actual location (I like working "on location") and where I can go anytime, surprisingly, my house allows all of that as it is really well built in terms of set designing :D The living room is a rectangle with a big glass sliding door facing west and nothing but the back garden and some trees behind it, there is a small window on a wall which faces north and allows light in and the entrance door faces east and it leads to an aisle with the main door in the house (which, as every single main door in Ireland has some glass) hence there is that little aisle to play with. It also has two lamps which are dimmable! and I placed them long time ago in two of the corners (in diagonal), I can put autopoles or tubes at any time and I can place lights outside the house whenever I want to.. so it is the perfect place to practice! Last night I was playing with the Redone and a very cheap Tamron zoom (Nikon mount and F3.5, I couldn't wait to get my PL lenses from the States ha!) while my girlfriend was watching a series called "Lost Girl" (interestingly lit by David Greene) and I shot a video just to see how the Redone saw at night, you can take a look at a jpg frame below. I wish I had had three lights at home! 2 rifa lights to create a lateral light with diffusion on the lateral light and maybe a kick light and a 2K with depron for the window outside with cyan or green steel to mark a bit of colour in the window, but I didn't have any so I'm going to rent them from the local rental house next week and see what I can get with them, although I love how dark it is at the moment. She is separated from the background through the light coming from the lamp and we take a glimpse at her face by using the glasses (I have noticed that glasses are amazing when shooting in the dark because they are shiny!) However, I would love to see how the image feels with a kick light and also with a rim light with different colours and as Irish people say I want to walk the walk rather than talk the talk! :) Oh, and I'm rather sure that if you keep coming to this thread you will see every single angle of my house at some stage ha! Redone Mx test - Living Room Anyway! I think this is going to be my last post of the year on this thread so have a happy Xmas, a lovely new year and hopefully you will find the coming year full of projects and work! Have a good one. Nayda Moreca!

Hi Darren, Hopefully you get an answer soon, meanwhile, you could contact Preston regarding this topic on the following emails: techsupport@prestoncinema.com techsupport@prestoncinema.eu I think they are around 2cm / 2.5cm but I have none at home to confirm it. Have a good day! Best.