Bradley Stearn
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Everything posted by Bradley Stearn
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This is definitely a question better suited to a photography forum, however I'd rather be active on cinematography.com as I find it one of the best forums in terms of the community feel it has. I recently invested in an old Pentax Super ME 35mm camera, and was just wondering if someone could shed some light on what the little switch to the left of the lens mount does? You can pull it down, and then it slowly ticks back into the start position. Is it some kind of self timer?
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Here is my instagram, a mixture of behind the scenes from different sets I'm working on, and some of my phone photography. https://instagram.com/bradleystearn/
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Thanks for the responses everyone! Personally I would want to stay away from the Chinese knockoffs at all costs, I'd rather invest a second hand light thats older than me, knowing that it was built to last forever. Even if it means taking it to a qualified electrician/spark to get it refurbished or re-wired for safety. I'd be afraid of the knockoff arri lights falling apart after a year of using them, or internals melting due to heat etc.. Though these lights are for my personal DOP work that I am doing on the side of camera assisting, so at the end of the day i'm not after top equipment. But I think safety will always be first. If anyone here is selling any lighting kit please do let me know.
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Those MR 650w tweenies look great, i'll definitely keep an eye out for them as well. It's a shame the one you shared doesn't come with barn doors.
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It seems pretty cheap on this UK website: http://www.depron.co.uk/prices.html -
That explains it really well Miguel, thanks Gregg as well. So as an example, depron in front of a 2kw open face won't burn/melt?
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Miguel could you explain more about using depron on an open face lamp please? I know depron as a type of foam, im assuming it's something else in the film world?
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A few new cinematographer interviews
Bradley Stearn replied to Matt Mulcahey's topic in Cinematographers
Thanks Matt, some great articles there! -
Great question Haydn, I am following this thread as I too would like to hear some answers. Lets say the actor was sat down on the arm chair or at the table. If you wanted to enhance the soft/flattering light on their face, and you didn't want any spill, maybe a small light like a Dedo 150w just off frame, with some diffusion might do the trick?
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Yeah I've been checking ebay quite regularly. The UK site is filled with all of those 'AS Arri' knockoff lamps. I suppose if postage isn't too bad It might be worth checking the US sight. Thanks for the link
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I am looking to purchase an Arri 650w fresnel. Does anyone in London or UK have one that they are looking to part with? I have around £150 to spend on one.
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Hey guys. So I was working with the Atomos Ninja 2 prores recorder for the first time yesterday, alongside the Canon C100. I have some questions that might sound stupid, but I didn't have time to figure out a solution yesterday. So I'm recording with the flat cinema picture style internally on the C100. The Atomos monitor was showing a really contrasty/nasty looking image, and I wasn't sure if that was actually what was being externally recorded onto the SSD. I had no way of finding out if the Atomos was recording into c-log, as my mac (and other people macbooks on set) wasn't reading the Atomos card. We kept getting a message after 30 seconds saying 'card cannot be read', and it then would eject itself from the laptop. If anyone can offer any advice it would be highly appreciated.
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A cameraman I have worked with within the last year recently did a test for Lee Filters, comparing different diffusions in a studio environment. I haven't had a chance to watch the results myself yet, but have had it bookmarked for future reference. Might be worth having a look at the comparison videos Vivek. http://www.leefilters.com/lighting/diffusion-list.html#nd-videobox
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Horror Short Film - Tungsten & Moonlight
Bradley Stearn replied to Bradley Stearn's topic in Lighting for Film & Video
The kit is coming from my university, and the kinos only come with daylight bulbs. I appreciate the reply Albion. I'll probably stick CTO full onto the kino (Because of the daylight bulb situation) and use that as the base. -
You guys are great! You know more about my setup than I do haha :)
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Horror Short Film - Tungsten & Moonlight
Bradley Stearn replied to Bradley Stearn's topic in Lighting for Film & Video
Also has anyone used the Lee filters Moonlight Blue gel before? What are your thoughts on it? -
Now I think about it, the light was positioned long ways, more behind the actress, like a backlight, but with some light hitting her face. Which is why the backlight seems stronger, but it was all from the same kino. I can't remember if we had bounce for this frame, but I might have had a 2x2 white polyboard doing a bit of bouncing.
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I'm no expert, but I'd like to explain a simple overhead setup that I recently did. I once tried a tungsten 650w fresnel as a top light and got some horrible shadows (I would never try that again unless shadows where wanted). On the next shoot I tried a kinoflow 401 coming from a top angle of 45 degrees from behind the actress. I was quite happy with the result, the softness of the kino wrapped around the actresses face really well. It was an extremely simple setup, but I'm happy with the results. I also used a Pro Mis 1/2 filter on this shot as the scene called for that kind of feel. I'm DOPing a short film in a couple of weeks time. The scene is set in a really small prison cell, and the actors walk around throughout the scene. So I can't place light stands to be honest, so I've planned to use polecats on the ceiling to rig lights out of the way. I think I'm going to go for a kino top light again, and might try some +green gels to make it lot gritty like an old prison cell would probably be like.
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Hey everyone. I'm DOPing a short 4 minute horror film in a couple of days time. Just a last minute thing that I've been bought onto. It's a basic story with two characters in a house, with a few jump scares, a fairly standard horror. It's going to be set at night, so we will be tin foiling windows and blocking daylight from every room we are filming in. With the long days in the UK right now, filming during darkness isn't really possible. The script calls for the scenes to be lit mainly with practical lamps which is great, the production team are thinking a lot about the right kinds of lamps to buy for the sets. I'm planning to shoot at a kelvin of around 4000-4500k, as I am planning to light our actress with tungsten, and have moonlight spilling onto the backgrounds when possible. Not for every scene, but wherever that mixture seems right. I've tested a lot of moonlight combinations, and have never been happy with full CTB on tungsten for moonlight. I plan to buy some moonlight blue gel from lee filters, and will be using that on some daylight kino flows as background/set lighting. My main question is, is there a gel that will make a daylight kino seem 'inviting' to the audience, a nice warm tone that works well on a pale skin tone. Would a gel such as Bastard Amber work in this instance? I'd like to try something different than just putting CTO on the lamp,
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''Leafy Road" Travel Short
Bradley Stearn replied to Bradley Stearn's topic in Please Critique My Work
Thank you Miguel! I'm really happy with the outcome of this piece. I haven't produced something for myself in a while, since starting camera assisting that is. -
Over the weekend I was on a corporate job in the Cotswolds, and ended up shooting a little travel video in the spare time that we had. The fact the car we where travelling around kept braking down made for an interesting little short film, so I thought I would edit the footage together into a short. Would be great to hear what everyone thinks of the final film. I shot this on the C100. The sound is 50% in camera audio, and 50% recorded with a Tascam Dr-05 audio recorder. i was surprised with the quality of the internal microphones on the C100, they really are't bad once you've set the levels. [VIDEO] [/VIDEO]
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Thanks for the response Satsuki! Turns out yesterday the rental house gave us two mate boxes anyways, the LMB-15, and an arri swing away similar to the MB-19 that you mentioned. The LMB-15 was for a rotating polariser in a 4x5.65 tray, and then the swing away mattebox with the bellows was to hold our diopters. We ended up not using the diopters yesterday, I think on our second day of shooting (wednesday) they play to do an extreme close-up of an actors face, so we will probably be using the diopters. Thanks for the explanation of how they work, I will try and make the judgement for the DOP to let her know which diopter would work best in relation to the lens we are using/shot. I had a play with the diopters during setup yesterday morning just to make sure I could get them into the mattebox, to save wasting time/looking bad when the DOP asks me to put one in during the day. I thought we had the wrong clamp on ring, but I then realised it involved screwing the ring off, and then placing the diopter in between that ring and the clamp. At least I know for next time though!
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If anyone could offer an explanation towards how Diopters actually affect the close focus of a lens that would be highly appreciated as well.
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I'm going to be focus pulling on a short film for a couple days starting tomorrow. In terms of camera kit it's all fairly simple, we're shooting Amira with a CP.2 prime kit. We're going to be using an arri LMB-15 mattebox, with 4x5.65 filter trays. Due to being busy this week, I wasn't able to attend prep at the kit house with the DOP. Something I haven't worked with yet are Diopters, and we have a set of 138mm diopters on this shoot. I've seen them used before on a set I was 2nd ACing on, but didn't pay as much attention as I should have towards how the 1st AC placed the diopters into the mattebox. Am I right in saying that diopters sit in a tray just behind the mattebox? If anyone can offer any advice that would be great, I'm sure it's simple, but if I learn anything new now I can avoid any mess ups tomorrow morning.
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Awesome thanks Miguel! What part of Spain are you living in? Do you have a local bullring/ranch?
