Bill DiPietra

I took a cinematography class at NYU in the early 2000s and my instructor devoted an entire class to breaking down Alien and what he called "the evolution of its story through the lighting." As you said, Alien & Blade Runner are two major examples of films that you could watch over and over simply to analyze the lighting.

Nice work, Justin. Besides it being for a good cause, the project had very high production values.

Congrats! Very nice film!

Great answer.

I had this sitting in a Netflix envelope for over a year and finally watched it the other day. What a gorgeous film - in so many different ways. It was such a different New York City and an entirely different time, which is exactly why it is something of a "ship in the bottle" kind of film. Shot on Plus-X (I believe,) William H. Daniels' photography is amazing. This was by far my favorite frame, not only for the lighting and composition, but also because it visually depicts the multi-dimensionality of the story (which happens to be a murder-mystery.) Required viewing for any film student/lover.

Just look at his body of work listed on IMDb. Whatever you haven't watched, check it out. The two films that left big impressions on me were Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf (1966) & One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975.) He was another cinematographer who was of that generation which was completely committed to story, so he didn't really have any stylistic motifs. He used whatever the story called for.

Gotchya. Sorry, never been there. Sounds like a question for Richard ;) Enjoy your trip!

Vancouver, Washington or Vancouver, Canada?...

Interesting demo, but was I the only one who had to look up what this guy had done?

No need to be embarrassed and it is by no means a "dumb question." We're happy to point you in the right direction, especially when it results in keeping you out of trouble.

I find it interesting that the project has no budget but is somehow able to afford real marijuana. Seems like the priorities need to be reworked. Just use oregano.

The entire film seemed to have dropped-frames throughout, but otherwise... ...Very nice work! Considering you had no budget, it looked like you used mostly natural light. At times it was of course a bit flat, but you seemed to make the best of the conditions. I liked glare and hot spots when the girl dropped her phone. I also liked your smooth camera movements (Glidecam?), especially when the old man walks down the stairs and at the end when the boy is playing in the park & looks up at the sky. Nice composition, too. I liked the way you balanced the graphic weight within each frame. For the close-up of the old man laying on the floor, did you use any artificial light? That was my favorite shot in the film because you shaped the light so that the audience can see when he stops breathing. Very effective.

Likewise!

Hey Gregg. Thanks for the kind words. The key to this film was the pre-production. I had every detail planned out and that made everything go very smoothly. As for the tests, I'd never shot on 7219 before but I knew I wanted a grainy look. I talked to a bunch of people on here about that stock and found it to be too fine-grained at 500ASA. First, I shot a roll for dynamic range & filtration tests pushed 1 stop but found it wasn't grainy enough. I retested with an ASA rating of 2000 and that came out with the look I wanted. The last roll was to test the Lee Urban filters but the lab forgot to push the film, so they tried to compensate with the timing of the print (I was getting work-prints made.) And they didn't charge me, of course. It actually came out looking pretty good but I had no time to retest that roll even if I'd wanted to because we were starting the shoot that weekend! Luckily, it all came out looking nice. Yes, I'm still cutting it on my Steenbeck, but I'll try to find some stills to post.

Why you seem to have taken this to be some sort of insult, I have no idea. Oh, of course we were going to go here. To answer your question directly, I haven't attempted to make one because I simply don't have that kind of money. The real question is, why are you being so defensive when you've been getting nothing but valuable, free advice from forum members as well as people wishing you the best (myself included, if you look back at the first page)?...

And my previous statement still stands.

Interesting. Reminded me of To the Wonder with the very loose scene-structure. The image looked a bit too grain-less for my tastes and I was watching the 720p version.

Many of us here have/do finance our own films. And if you hope to have some success in this business, you need to be able to differentiate between what you call crying and people trying to give you some real-world advice. That's exactly what Richard and Phil have been trying to do, so show a little respect.

If you're talking about poor sound-design distracting or even ruining the film, then I agree with that. But your initial statement was this: ...making it seem like you feel that even properly recorded sound is more important than the picture. Again, provided the sound-mix and musical soundtrack have been done properly, no. Sound does not carry a film. Is it one of the most important elements? Absolutely. But this a visual medium, not an aural one.

I never said I had any issues with charity work, either. I personally think it's great that Justin committed himself to something like that but I fully understand what Tyler is saying. Very often - regardless of the craft - when people basically volunteer to work for free, they are effectively becoming part of the problem. What I mean is that the clients will come to expect the "endless freebies," if not from the same person, then another because there is an endless pool of hungry candidates out there to choose from. But this will always be the case, so at the end of the day, the thinking becomes "Well, I'd like to do this. It's a noble cause and if I don't take it they'll just find someone else to do it for free who is probably not as good as me. So I'll do it." Looking at it from a union worker's standpoint, I totally disagree with the practice of working for free. Looking at it realistically - provided you have the time and money to commit yourself to something you believe in - why not do it?

That's a gorgeous painting, David! Did you ever sell any of your work?

Totally agree with you, Tyler.

Having worked with Phil, I can tell you that is absolutely not true.

Sorry...my error. For some reason I was multiplying 12 instead of 4 by 3 in my head. It was 1200 feet of test footage I shot. Not 3600.

Well, the first thing I usually do are dynamic range tests - especially when shooting on a film stock I've never used before - to see how far I can push it. I'll play with the lighting, exposure, filtration, etc. Then I'll get a little more zoned in to the specific project. For example, I think I shot 3600 feet of test footage (7219) for my last film. I pushed it one stop, then two and then I did various tests with gels to determine what would allow me to achieve a specific look. I also took a lot of stills as Brian suggested, which is always a good idea.