Bradley Stearn

Thanks for sharing Kenny, that was an interesting watch!

I'm currently pre-planning a documentary film that I'm going to be shooting for one of my final film projects at university. I have decided I want to produce a documentary on the topic of bullfighting in Spain, a film that explores the dying tradition, whilst looking at why people still/don't attend the bullfights in spain. It's definitely a hot topic around the world right now, so I thought it would make a good documentary subject. I've had a lot of interest from fellow filmmakers in my area who want to help out, and already have Spanish crew members who will be producing/translating for me throughout the shooting days. I plan to start filming early 2016, but will be visiting Spain within the next few months for holiday/scouting. It would be great if you could please follow the films page on Facebook to keep updated on our production: https://www.facebook.com/pages/El-Matadores-Muleta-Documentary-Film/112767035724248?fref=photo

I'm still technically a trainee myself, however I do still work as a focus puller on shorts and music videos. A laser disto is a piece of kit I don't own yet, however there have been minimal times when I've actually thought I needed one. Most of the time I find myself measuring for distances of around 4 to 15 feet, further than that and I'm happy to start judging. I use a stanley fat max most of the time, I find it quick to take out on my own to get quick reference measurements. For example a reference from the camera to a corner of the wall in the scene. A shot I had to pull on a few weeks ago was 100mm pretty much wide open, a shot of the character walking from 5 to 80 feet, I got the 2nd AC to run out with a 50foot soft tape and make marks for me at different points. What happened was that I was late hitting each mark, because I was over confident and thought I would do it without a monitor (I actually didn't have a reference monitor on this shoot, I was supposed to be sharing the Red monitor with the DOP). That was just my skills lacking more than wrong measurements. I feel like a laser disto would have made it quicker for me to get my reference marks for this shot.

Today whilst on set I was observing light coming through into a kitchen, through a small frosted glass window on a door. The light was a beautiful green daylight shining into the room, that shone perfectly onto a nearby bar stool. The house was in a forest, with a lot of greenery throughout the garden, hence the green tinted light being bounced into the kitchen. It was a dark and rainy day today as well, so the light was already extremely diffused. It was a really nice light, and something I would love to re-create when I get the chance to/a script that would call for this kind of lighting. I suppose I would try and set it up to be as natural as possible - diffused HMI, bounced off of polyboard (with green gel to represent the 'trees', and finally through a trace frame of opal diffusion (or similar). Im sure there are a million ways to re-create this light, any ideas? Also which 'green' lighting gel would you specifically use for this quality/colour of light?

Gregg do you have a link to the plastic cases? Also what filters are you selling?

Miguel, that guy on BBlist actually listed that for me. Sadly he wont go any lower than £50, which seems a lot of money right? Considering most flight cases go for that price, and its a tiny flight case compared to the normal size!

I am looking to buy a hard case to store some 4x4 filters. I am hoping to spend around £30-£40. I'm based in London, so can pick-up if local.

Also another question, what/when were 3x3 glass filters used? Were they designed for Super 16mm formats?

It's a 5x5 filter tray

This was my setup for the original photo posted on this thread.

For my setup I did use a book light. I bounced a 1.2kw and 575w HMI into two poly boards, which was then further diffused by two 6x6 trace frames. What other methods could I have used to create softer light? Would adding another layer of diffusion behind or in front of the trace frames, hanging from a c-stand arm work? Or starting with a softer source such as a tungsten open face light? I chose HMIs for this project as 2 out of the 3 scenes where primarily blue, with twilight being one, and moonlight the other.

Thanks Dominik. The reference photo isn't accurate, as I cheated white balance quite a lot to get the blue tone, but in a similar way that you can cheat the way we see twilight. When our eyes have balanced for tungsten light when inside a house, stepping outside during twilight will make it look very blue, after a while your eyes adjust to more of a white light. I suppose the best thing to do would be to use a colour meter to get an accurate reading during twilight, and then try to replicate this in a studio. With my studio shot, I suppose you could say it is set during the early stages of twilight.

I've been discussing filters over on another thread, and decided to make the move and purchase a Tiffen Black pro mist 1/8 to start my 4x4 filter collection off. I sometimes dislike the sharp look of shooting on digital (not that I have shot on film to compare), but I feel that using a low grade black pro mist works wonders, and it isn't too noticeable with the lower grades. Today on a shoot we had CP.2 primes, and used a Tiffen black pro mist 1/4 for the whole day, on wide shots and close-up shots. It wasn't overly noticeable as a filter, but you could definitely see the difference when compared to with/without the filter. I suppose as mentioned before, if you want to go for an obvious dream/flashback sequence, then a higher grade such as a 1/1 or 1 black pro mist would really help to sell the effect, practically in camera, which is always a bonus. A DOP I was assisting last week said something along the lines of 'just going for it' when doing in camera effects. We shot a whole short film on the Red Epic Monochrome camera, which obviously meant the only way forward was to shoot black and white, with no going back. The Red Epic Monochrome had a beautiful image, one of my favourite images that I've seen from a digital camera, and probably a lot better than changing a normal digital colour file into black and white in post. I guess my point here is the same with filters, you will probably get a better effect using lens filtration, than adding lets say a pro mist effect in during post production.

For the first time today 4x4 filters didn't fit into the filter tray. I think production had hired kit from different places so it didn't all match. Had to use tape to hold the filter in, luckily we stayed with the sam black pro mis 1/8 for the whole shoot day.

Thanks for you input Miguel. I think when I start working on bigger productions, I will probably use multiple bags as well. Could you explain more about your 'marks bag', and how you would use it? Do you mean you place little bits of tape, ready to mark the follow focus with? I use red camera tape to mark an exposed card. Now here is another question for everyone, what are your thoughts on placing the camera tape over the end of the card/mag? I was told to do this, to eliminate anyone accidentally formatting the card, as it would involved taking tape off to do that. A DIT was telling me a few weeks ago that I should never do that, as the tape residue could damage the contacts/pins on the car really badly. A car would be amazing, but there is no way I could afford to run one in London.

Most of the time I am working with 4x5.65 trays, so it would make sense to go for that size filter. Can 4x4s still work in 4x5.65 trays?

Yeah my tape is on a lanyard. I work in London, so to get to jobs I have to take the underground train everywhere. Carrying a lanyard of tape can get annoying, but as you said I should probably pick the right tape for each job, instead of carrying everything to each set. Thanks for the tip for keeping BNC barrels organised, i'll definitely give that a go! I always keep cheap paper tape on my lanyard, just for Art Department :)

Bongo ties are the best invention ever, I keep some on me all the time, they come in handy in the least expected situations. Apologies for hijacking the thread, but I have another question relating to kit, I didn't think it was worthy enough to start a whole new thread. Basically I've built up a fairly big collection of different kinds/colours of tape now, enough that they fill over half of my small panavision floor bag. Does anyone have any tips on better ways to store/transport tape to and from set? I'm thinking of using a separate run bag (stanley tool bag that I own) to store tape, and then for batteries and camera accessories once on set. Thoughts?

Another great tip that a DOP mentioned to me once, is to always judge the distance between the camera and the subject, even when you are 2nd ACing. For example if you are a 2nd AC taking the tape measure out for the focus puller, then you could guess the distance before reading it out to the 1st. Just practice with judging distance whenever you can basically.

Thanks for the response Adrian. I guess I will keep an eye out for Tiffen filters, they are the brand that I always hear of. First time I heard Formatt was yesterday whilst searching on BBlist at secondhand filters. Most filter trays I work with seem to have 4x5.65, but from experience I think 4x4 filters also fit into these trays.

I'm considering starting a collection of 4x4 glass filters. Probably going to start with a basic ND set, and then move on to getting a set of Black Pro Mist. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience using Formatt filters? I'm not sure whether I should just look out for second hand tiffen filters? Obviously 4x4 filters are cheaper than 4x5.65, but what are your opinions on 4x4 filters?

I've been freelancing as an AC in London for just over a year now. I would still consider myself a trainee, but I have had plenty of experience focus pulling on a variety of productions. The best thing I was taught was to start judging distance, so to pull focus without a monitor. Since moving away from pulling solely with a monitor, I have become a much better focus puller, as I am more engaged in the action that is happening in the scene, other than playing the 'videogame' of 'following' focus on the monitor, which usually ends up in me being late with the pulls. In the UK we measure in feet when pulling focus. I find it is quicker to judge that an actor is 10 feet away, than hunting on a monitor to find that. I would then suggest using the monitor for critical focus, so usually that is 5 feet or under. When measuring for focus, you can use floor marks and actor marks to pull focus from. You will then see if an actor has hit is mark, 6 feet away lets see, or not. You would then judge that the actor has missed his mark by 1 or 2 feet, and you can compensate for that.

I was handheld operating the Alexa for the first time a few weeks ago. I found that movements where I could twist around on the spot with were the smoothest shots. What I struggled with were unmotivated movements, such as stepping away or towards a character. These shots always resulted in my 'step' being noticeable within the shot. Motivated movements where always fine, but unmotivated not so. Does anyone have any tips for making unmotivated movements smoother whilst handheld?

Thanks for the replies Albion and Stuart! Both great responses. From my personal observations, after being in a tungsten lit room, and then going outside during twilight, I see a very soft pale blue light. I took a photograph of this light a few months ago, along with my hand for reference. I was trying to replicate this quality of light for the above shoot. Maybe a more muted, almost gray coloured light would be a more realistic twilight look?

I lit a music video last week, and one of the setups called for lighting as if it was 'twilight'. I knew just using CTB to get the blue light of twilight wouldn't work, so I did some research and ended up buying some Lee Filters 161 Slate Blue. I used Slate Blue on some HMIs, and softened and diffused the light as much as possible to get the soft blue light that you see just after sunset. I was quite happy with the outcome, but it wasn't really the kind of blue I was after. I was wondering if anyone else has had experience using special colour gels to light for twilight? What kind of setups did you use? With the power of grading nowadays, is it easier to just fix the colour in post? I guess it's an interesting debate, but I do like to get what I want in camera, so that minimal things have to be changed in post. More about the shoot on my blog.