Marco Materassi

Just wanted to give everybody and update. I went and tested these brightshot in person a few days ago and decided not to rent them at all. They are useful lights for FX and light gags but I wouldn't use them as main lights, so we decided to rent some other units for the same budget. Shooting starts today so wish me luck! anyway as far as testing, the brightes one they have is the white led, with a spot lens on it (not sure what exact angle, I think 15deg) it was reading f 16 at iso 320 at about 12 feet. This reading dropped a lot with a wider lens of course. The other unit tested is a RGB led and the output i measured at same distance with the led set in white mode was about f 5.6, that of course dropped when choosing a single color (less leds used). In the RGB they have very useful effetcs that can replace for sure a flicker box and colored gels for light gags like fire, TV, police etc. They are a useful tool if you have budget to spare and a lot of these FX to do. I hope this little testing will help somebody

Yes, I've seen the Hive lights and they look amazing but pretty expensive right now. I think I doesn't want HMI for the power draw and heat...Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to check out these lights and report back

Adrian, you are right on the diffusion 100%, but in the rare occasions that you'll need it, it would be bad to see multiple weird shadows from a single light. Again this is just my concern and I'm not sure that's the case Stuart Thank you for your input. I'm not stuck just on LED, but I'm probably stuck on those because the director really likes them, apparently he used them in another project, and for some reason he's really against HMIs....don't ask. Anyway, I will go to see a demo and report back. Thank you guys

Thank you for the great tool. I'm going to see a demo next week...I'm just very worried about light output and that not being a single point source light..

Hello guys, I'm going to start shooting a feature soon. Somebody I know suggested the use of the brightshot luminator LED lights to completely replace 1.2 or 1.8 HMIs for the shoot. I'm a little skeptical honestly. I saw the demonstration videos and they seem very good lights, just for different puropses than HMIs. I wanted to ask you, what is the light output for the lights ? I mean does it compare to a 1.2 HMI ? and I don't mean in spot mode at 3ft, I mean longer trows and use in daylight scenes and night exteriors . I donwloaded the specs form their website and I'm a little confused, there seem to be more than 2 models, one rgb and one white. and with very different specs. I know that of course a white light it's going to brigheter than a colored one, but that's phisics, I'm just worried that replacing HMI completely with those would be a risky move. I will still rent them for other puropses . I hope you colf give me some information to anybody that have used them . Thank you..

thank you by the way I love your work in United states of Tara!

Hello I just saw this movie last night and I was incredibly surprised by the cinematography. Wonderful colors and camera movements, very original. I was wondering about the candle light scenes. There are some shots where the charachters are walking and they are lit only by the candle in their hand. Now, It's not a simulated light, the light is coming from the candle in my opinion. My question is, do they have special candles? From IMDB I read that they used 35 mm (Fuji Eterna 400T 8583). How they did that? I rememeber the old discussions about Kubrick's Barry Lindon and special lenses...but I don't think this is the case... any ideas?

Hello everybody, As all of you I would like to be a cinematographer one day. Let me tell you something about myself. I'm 26 and I moved to LA 2 years ago from Italy. I started working as a camera op an assistant when I was 19. In italy i worked mostly for small documentaries, small commercials, events, shorts. I worked also a lot in the electric/grip department. since I moved here I'm doing 2 things: I'm working pretty often in electric department, as electric or bestboy in bigger projects like spec commercials, independent features, music videos etc. At the same time I worked on several things as AC. For smaller budget things I was lucky enough to be the DP and I shot 2 independent features (very very low budget), several shorts, and a webseries (12 episodes), a TV show pilot. I would like to join the union at some point but I really don't know which path to focus on. My final goal is to become a cinematographer and my question is: start collecting my days in the camera department or in the electric department? I don't want to find myself stuck in the wrong union where is not possible to go further.Thank you very much I don't want to call myself a cinematographer right now, I think that I still need to learn so many things and I want to be humble. Thank you very much for your help

Hello I would like to ask a question. everybody knows thta it's very hard to find a paid gig right now. I get most of my gigs trough connections i have made on previous jobs but still I apply online on mandy.com and craigslist. Do you know other websites with crew job offers? Thank you

The price I got for this package, lights only, no grip stuff or stands was about 1800$.. i have to rent from this place anyway http://www.woodennickellighting.com/ thank you

Hello everybody. I have to shoot this sitcom pilot but I have some problems staying in the budget for the lighting, grip equipment. The episode will be shot in this studio about 36'*69'*12'. We need to shoot with a few brakes and we won't have time to change the lights shot to shot. I was thinking about this setup but It can't fit the budget 8 Chimeras medium size with 1000w globes inside hanging from the ceiling 6 Kino 4ft 4 banks from the bottom wall creating backlight for all the people in the scene 4/6 Kino Parbeam 400 for frontal fill (cameras side) Anyway with this I think (but I might be wrong) that I will have an evenly lit room with an acceptable backlight for the talents... please I need your help doing the same lowering the budget to 700$

Hello everybody I have to shoot a car scene with eos 7D in a few weeks and I need some advice from someone who did it before me. The scene is a daytime conversation in a normal car between 2 people and the car is moving. In the actual shoot the actor will not drive the car which will be towed. I have to do few main shot from the storyboard. you'll find it in attachment I tough about a way to shoot it but I would like to have some other opinions. For the side shots I will use ND gel on the opposite windows (the one behind the actor) and also a bounce board set on the car hood bouncing the sun trough the front shield. Unfortunately I can't plug any big light into the track which is towing the car. I'm sure that the biggest issues will be the t-stop difference between the interior and the exterior of the car during daytime. We have also some small litepanels wich go with normal 12v of the car. Thank you for your help

you are totally right...in fact I need to add my latest stuff in RED and 7d..this is old stuff

I would love to but I'm located in Los Angeles...

Hello this is my reel. http://www.materoproductions.com/reel.htm The reel is not yet updated with RED and 7D footage I recently shot...