Andre Lim

I'm in Los Angeles CA.

When I shot w/ the f900, I put my light meter at 400asa and worked from that. If you want to go based on what the monitor shows you, make sure you calibrate it correctly and keep it away from glare. Bigger the monitor the better. If you get LCD monitor, dont even bother trying to measure your lighting with it. I did a test with both kinds of monitors at the rental house, the silk covering of the LCD makes it look a bit darker and depending on the angle of the monitor or ur head, it might look a lot darker than it's supposed to be. In most cases, it's better to under expose a bit than over expose. I'm pretty sure the f900 has a 1.5 over to 4.5 under ratio. If you're having problems with over exposure, you can keep some detail by turning on your knee aperature in the menus. As far as lighting goes, you shouldn't change much of how you would normally light for film. With a decent HD monitor you get what you see, so if anything, it'd make lighting much easier for you. Make sure you dont blow out your highlights and dont worry so much about crushing your blacks unless that's the definate style you want, because you won't be able to redo it in post. Play around with the paint and operations menus and get familiar with it, because for those small tweaks in highlights and color, it's all done in the paint menus. I've heard red bleeds on HD, but I love red on HD. Make sure you and your production designer collaborate on having really deep rich colors which will make great use of the f900. Try not to light hard on sets as you tend to see a LOT of detail with HD and same with make up. You have to make sure that you and the make up artist knows if the shot is going to be a close-up, ms, or ws. The make up artist and the director had an arguement after I was supposed to get a close up of a gunshot wound on the head, the bullet hole was too fake, if you can notice anything on a 19" monitor, you will definately notice it on the big screen. Anyways, if you've got special effects and make up people, make sure you keep them informed because HD will show every litle detail, especially on a close up. I guess the main things are 1. dont over expose 2. calibrate your monitor precisely if you are going to be working off the monitor 3. keep your backfocus set 4. HD shows a LOT of detail, make sure you dont see tape on the set walls or cracks etc. 5. get to know the paint menu Also, unless you get a pro-35 adapter with 35mm lenses, more than likely a lot of you shots with have a a deep depth of field. And I would highley recommend you not use the cannon ENG lens that comes with the camera and get digiprimes, pro-35 adapter, or fujinon wide or long lens. I used the fujinon wide zoom lens, and the glass on the fujinon beat the hell out of the standard cannon eng on the f900. If there's anything else I can try to help you with let me know. P.S. make sure you set your time code to r-run. Watch out for timecode breaks! :)

I actually shot one of the thesis with HD900 and the panasonic HDV. I strictly told the director they wont cut together because like people mentioned, HDV does not shoot 24p, and there is no way I'm going drop the quality of the HD900 to 60i considering most of the important action/dialog was shot what the hd900. The HDV cameras are very simple to use, just like any other DV cameras out there. All that is different from a dv camera is it has more lines of resolution. You still end up shooting with a dv tape. Like David said you can put it on cine frame to make it resemble a 24p look, but when I was testing it out, all it looks like is the frames being taken out so you get a weird strobish look instead of a blur which seemed very odd. If I had a choice for either cameras, obviously it's the HD900. If he's thinking of using both the HDV and f900, just say no. Dont jeppardize the quality of the f900 for HDV. I'm seriously still very upset the director on the project I was working on wanted to use HDV and f900. His reason was because it can fit in cars better since there is a major scene in various cars and no money for a car mount. If you choose HDV, then go only HDV vise versa, but that's just my opinion.

We actually did have a dolly/porta jib shot and getting the focus was a real challenge especially cause I didn't even have a whip. I found that the kroziel follow focus gear with zeiss primes do not work well together. Many times i'd have to losen the lens a tad to be able to stick the follow focus gear on to the lens. Either gear would hit the back end of the lens or hit the part of the mount to secure the lens. When i would have to rack focus, the lens would shorten and hit the gear which I was also concerned about since it could tweak one side of the lens. Are there smaller follow focus gears to rid that problem or is there an easier way? I think I should definately get a siemens chart and the depth chart also, that seems really helpful. I always made sure the witness marks are on the operators side and I use feet since it's more common in the US. We were actually using a 1.8k HMI par, but I did not know about any flickering nor did the DP say anything about it. I'm going to have to talk to him about that. If I wanted to just double check on the focus, I took my lighter out and lit it to set the focus on the flame, do any of you do that? I also heard if an actor leans towards the camera a bit, it's usually a 1-2 feet difference. Anyways, I appreciate the information you've given me. When I scrounge up some money I should get me those 2 charts. Oh, as for enjoying the job, I loved being first AC. I love being around a camera, but the only down side was I was 1st ac/grip/PA/craft service/gaffer

I'm at day 5 of a 6 day shoot and I have had bad and good moments on my first time as a 1st ac. For the last 3 weeks I've shot 3 different students thesis on HD but this was my first time working with a s-16 or any film package for a thesis. I'm so pooped out, I just want to make sure what I've been doing is right. 1. Putting all the camera department related items in one designated location 2. cleaning and checking gate before first shot of the day, after lens change, after unloading mag. 3. do nessesary cleaning of lens before mounting it on the camera. 4. created an AC box for my 2nd AC and me to put various tape, small plates, washers, slate boards. 5. get measurement on mostly every set up, unless the action is past infinity on the lens, 6. following focus for the most part. 7. checking the equipment after wrap 8. not letting anyone touch the camera other than camera department 9. rigging up seats, camera mounts, whenever there is an akward position the DP is trying to shoot from. Being a cinematography major I realize how important lighting a shot is, so any time the DP is trying to move the dolly or camera to the next position, I would tell him to just concentrate on the lighting and I'll put the camera/dolly/jib where ever u need it to go. I think it takes a ton of load off the DP with a small crew. #5 started slowly saving me a lot of time getting to know the lenses I was working with, first day it would take me about 20 seconds to mount the lens, getting measurements just to realize when I got to changing the focus, it was at infinity. Knowing the max and minimum distance and being able to mount a lens in a snap definately helped pick up the pace a lot. #4 The first 2 days before I made a makeshift AC box, my 2nd AC and I ended up misplacing a lot of little things like washers, nuts, screws etc. This little box I think saved us the most time. #9 In my opinon helped the DP a great deal, being able to keep steady in very tight spots where a tripod wouldn't fit. This I think helps you think fast on your feet and thinking logically. I heard if the actor leans towards the camera, it's about a 1-2 feet difference in the focus, how crucial is that on lenses wider than 25 on a MS? Since the lends package we go has 4 lenses 9.6, 12, 16, 25, following focus and marking focus is so difficult, on a zeiss. The numbers jump from 5 to 15, 10-18, etc in such a small space on the lens. How the heck do you know when your focus is right on the money, and what if you have to follow focus in that small area? I don't want the dailies to be out of focus or I'd be letting a lot of people down. Anyone have good ways of knowing/marking the focus ring etc to get almost precise focus in between the gaps? I also was unloading a 400ft mag when half of it unravled on me. It took me soooooooooo long to roll it back together and a lot of condensation was getting inside the tent. Would that damage the film? Is there a way to keep the inside of a loading tent dry? It was not exposed yet, so I was wondering if they would still be able to use it even if the tent had moisture in it. If anyone else has anything to add on here to keep things more organized / keeping the DP happy / speeding up any 1st AC tasks please feel free to reply. I didn't find one thread about 1st AC in this forum, even though this forum is for cinematography, I think first AC and gaffer are the backbone to a good DP.

Just last night I lit through a doorway in to a room with elevators with a 1k fresnel, I couldn't keep the shadows of the actors from hitting the wall and keep the shadows of the background objects behind them. I was thinking I could use another 1k on the shadows to knock it out or soften it a bit but the actors blocking and the angles made it so they would cast a shadow from the 2nd light. Obviously my experience isn't great enough to figure it out in a fixed amount of time and i could not rig any lights from the ceiling. Any of you guys have fast ways of knocking off big shadows with limited time and lights? I had 2 1k fresnels and 2 betweenies, single, double, 2 flags, and 2 silks. It would've been a lot faster if I've seen the location before during preproduction and would've gave me more than enough time to review pictures and light setups. The location was notified to me the time I got to shoot. What would be some of your solutions? I ended up going in for a tighter shot, silking half of the 1k so the light hitting the actors wasn't so hard and gives the more of an even light when they move around, and use the other half to hit some of the background to give off some shadows. I was thinking of using a flag but it seemed more logical not to since some spill from the silk would blend in to the background. I figured that was the fastest way without setting up 3+ lights and various c-stands ( no permit for the location ).

I did get to practice a bit w/ the SD monitor but I haven't done side by side comparisons yet. I talked to the producer and director and the budget is about $5k. We're supposed to start on a tuesday and end on saturday but I told them that it'd be best if we start weds and end sunday so we can get an extra day with the prime lenses. I'm trying to find the best way to cut some costs so we could afford both HD monitor and prime lenses. I'm hoping whatever rental house i go to gives us a good deal. I'm going by prices by Brins and Sawyer, cause theirs seems the cheapest of the ones i've looked in to.

avid works wonders on saturation w/ DV projects and it lets you do the opposite and desaturate the whol image so you can have a B&W film.

They also don't restrict you on putting the aperature/focus marks on the left side of the camera like the Panavision mounts. It's great for ACs that have no space on the left of the camera and mostly all of european Operators and DPs shoot from the right side.

Well there are I'm sure tons of students that would love to shoot your movie for free, maybe even pay for their own meals. BUT when someone says that, most likely they'll do it to add something to their reel and spend tons of time lighting it perfect while your horribly behind schedual. I'm not saying all of them are like that but a lot are even if they say your script is so thought provoking etc etc. There are some good DPs that'll work for free if they thought the script was really really good. So good that it'd win awards at festivals. Maybe the best thing for you to do is to try extra hard on revising your material then presenting it to DPs. If it's good enough, you'll never know. There's so many ads on our school's bulletin boards like "will be in many festivals" "An orginal story of how an ugly girl becomes beautiful over night", you would really need to stand out on originality of ads. I don't know about anyone else but when I see the phrases silmilar to that on the want ads, I don't bother looking at it anymore. You might even think about changing the script based on your budget. If it's some epic war drama or film noir style movie, you won't be able to get a DP that'll dish out huge chunks of money for lighting and camera equipment. If a lot of your script is based outside or inside w/ natrual light, you might be able to use a 24fps DV camera (owned by the DP) which would costs you very little just to rent a small lighting kit and would be even better if the DP had that as well. Movies w/ all natural lighting is not impossible and with a good solid script and a dp that can control exposure well. That's just a small solution I can see. Good luck w/ finding a DP. It's a very tough industry, especially for directors. :(

Thanks a bunch! I'm going to still push the directors to get an HD monitor but knowing this gives me a a good back up plan. I was told the focus would be a bit blurry on an SD monitor, maybe cause less detail(?) but I can check that shooting some tests. Thx for the help. :D

lol, this is the wrong place to vent ur frustrations out. Maybe you should go to a producer's forum and ask them for tips on how to get a good DP to work for your project. Coming here and bashing cinematographers won't help you land a good DP any time soon, but luckily for you, your under an alias. Pizza 2-3 times a day almost every day doesn't cut it for good DPs and crew =)

Is it ok to use SD instead of an HD monitor? What is noticable (and not) when using the SD compared to HD? I've been told it varies between DPs so I'm guessing it's not horrid, but they're also professionals that have been working a lot w/ the camera so they'd have a good feel of the HD capabilities where as students don't. I plan on practicing with both monitors now most likely side by side stictly at school since we can't use the HD monitors outside of school. Since rarely any rental houses rent HD monitors seprate from the camera, if anyone knows of a rental house that rents out HD monitors seperately for a reasonable amount of price please post it on here, because some of the other students in my class are also wondering where to go for that as well.

I go to LA film school and it definately has it's ups and downs. I guess I'll start with the good things. Equipment, teachers, and hands-on experience I think are what drives that school. Getting to watch everything you make in a real theatre. Meeting people from every where in the world. Lots of film supplies and equipment very close to the school. Cinematography classes at Mole Richardson (only 2nd quarter though). Nice editing/sound mixing rooms, although it's a bit buggy sometimes. You learn about every aspect of film your first term from production design to producing. Teachers are very knowledgeable and are working professionals, (no local cable commercials). Peer/teacher reviews on work you've done. Things I don't like : Way too many students. Students flaking out on shoots they're supposed to work on. Below average communication between school and students. Seems like money the school spends go in to the worse places like new painting and carpets. False promises from Open House to a full student. Open House they showed an HD camera w/ the HD monitor saying we can use both. When the time comes to need to use HD monitor, we are told to downconvert to a normal monitor or you can't take the monitor outside the school since they only have 1, yet 3 hd cameras. Other than all that non sense, I still think it's been fun but hectic. Class hours from day to day are random for the most part. Sleeping was cut down a bit heh, but that only prepares you even more for when you're actually on a real set. I think all of this, more or less, prepares you for post graduation. You're DAT machine can break down, or water starts to leak from the ceiling of one of the sets, actors call you an hour before you're supposed to shoot saying they can't make it. People actually went through that and for the most part overcame it and found other ways of doing it. If everything was all perfect and hand fed to you, it would've been totally different from what actually happens in real life. That shouldn't be an excuse the school should be using on us but it's true. So I guess I can say even the bad experiences turned out good (as far as learning goes) and I never thought I'd learn so much in such a short amount of time.

would you guys know the price ranges for the rentals on HD monitors average around hollywood?

the camera is from the school so we get to use it for free

I'm going to be shooting thesis projects on HD-900 and I would like to put in a lot of practice on the camera before I get on set. We can't checkout the HD monitors to play around with. Is there a way to get some good practice in, obviously the menus and settings would be the best place to start, but you can't really tell the difference on a b&w viewfinder. =( I was wondering if I took my still camera took a picture with a slate w/ info like ASA, f/stop, shutter speed, etc. Then slated the HD camera with the preset settings, do a test shot, then slate the changes I make to the menus, then shoot again, watch it over on a monitor in school, would that be the best way to see the difference? If that makes any sense to anyone and would know a better way to practice w/ a HD-900 w/o a monitor plz let me know =)

What I plan to do if I when I make a DVD reel is catagorize narrative reel, artistic reel, and still photograpy (maybe), and one reel with the best from both combined. I feel that if they like my main reel, they might want to see more of what I can do. This would probably happen after I've shot many films.

I really liked the macro shots in the beginning of your reel. The lighting was great for the most part. Personally, I'd chop that thing down to half and put in music that'll keep someone's attention. Great job.

www.betterphoto.com You can get your own gallery for free or upgrade. There are also monthly contests. You can see all the previous photos by the winners and some are just really really amazing. I'm currently using one of the photos on their as my background on my desktop.

note taken thx for the info.

have you tried gelling the lights w/ a -green gel? If you are actually filming the office lights, you can switch the bulbs.

What I did before heading off to film school when I was in high school and some college, I got a job at Hollywood Videos. Sole reason for me applying, I get all the free rentals I want. I think around 11th grade I wanted to be a cameraman, it's always been in the back of my mind, I used to really enjoy filming skate videos with my friends w/ one of those movable heads with a huge LCD screen by Sony, forgot the model. I took some film courses in high school/college and I gotta say I was hooked. After I went to school I'd go to work and you'd be suprised w/ all the stuff you can learn by working at a video store. Just the small but neccessary things like aspect ratio, how production companies handle DVDs and VHS, (I learned it costed the production companies more $ to make VHS) ya, a lot of people knew that but I didn't when I started. At the end of the day, you can check out any 3 movies you want for free. So instead of paying $ for netflix or blockbuster online (which I use now). You can get $ for working + get all the movies you want. What I did was check out the movies that won best cinematography or ones that people highly recommended to me visually. I watched the whole movie through, then I would go to the very complicated lighting shots and think what's the motivation of the lights, why the certain lens, why at this angle etc. I left my lighting questions to the simpler shots like a basic medium shot, OTS, CU. (Main reason is because I did not know a lot about the various lights, gels, and overall process of how to light complex scenes... even now I'm still trying to learn all the light names <_< ). I actually even got some really crappy homemade looking indy movies that found it's way in to the store. You can analyze that and see what you would've done to make that scene more effective. Like jamerikaner said, still photography is a great way of learning. If you can't afford an SLR camera, you can buy a pretty nice digital camera from about $350-$700. I just recently purchashed a Canon Powershot G6 7.1 MP w/ manual controls for about $499 total. It'd be best to get a camera with all manual options where you can practice exposure, depth of field with aperature, white balancing, composition, etc. You really learn a lot about what color works best together {knowing the color wheel is definately a big bonus, what colors compliment each other etc.) in editing your pictures in photoshop. Playing around with de/saturation, contrast, chroma, etc. I had a lot of practice with this using color correction tool on an AVID during my spare time on projects I've shot, by just playing around you can cool down spots of over exposion, I tried blue and it worked well with a blown out yellow. Stuff like that I would've never known unless I just played around with color correction. Other things you'll start to learn just with a digi or video cameras are small but very important things like: - Lighting a blue object with yellow light will not turn out to be the blue you saw with your eyes. Your eyes automatically "white balance" so-to-say by skin tone, not by the actual light in the room etc. I learned you can actually close your eyes for a certain amount of time in a flourescent lit room open it and everything will appear greenish for a couple seconds. (well, I thought it was cool the first time :P ) - Flourescent lights flicker and are usually yellowish green. - Sunlight balance on tungsten will turn orangish, vice versa. - Lower ASA = film speed, (slow is around 100~, normal is around 250-300~, fast is around 400-500~) slower the speed the less light it recieves. It's great info if you use film, it's basically the amount of silver halide crystals that are on the film that obsorbs the light. It gets very techinal, my brain almost blew up while my cinematography teacher was speaking faster than one of those fine print radio ad people, trying explain to the class the first week of film school. Obviously if you use a DV camcorder or DSLR or Point and Shoot camera, there wont be film. The light is captured on a CCD (charged coupled device) chip which gathers the information of light that was captured and puts it either on the DV tape or on your camera/memory card. (Actually several steps before reaching that, but long story short) - Aperture wide open like f/1.8~ (depending on camera and lens) will let in more light with shallow depth of field (ideal for focusing on a subject not wanting background distractions) where as a closed down aperture to say f/5.6 will let in less light but give you a greater depth of field (this is the usual choice for landscape/scenic photography) - Shutter Speed - On a real camera like a 16/35mm there is an actual shutter that is shaped like " D " like half a circle spinning, covering the exposed film for a certain length of time usually ranging from realllllly slow 6-8 seconds (moving objects are very blurry will also let it tons of light since it exposes the film to light for a long amount of time) * (shots like lights on cars blurred on freeways, dream-like, indicate fast movement) to 1/4000th of a second or faster so the shutter exposes the film for only 1/4000ths of a second (which captures very sharp still life images on still cameras and some what of a strobe-like effect on a video/film camera but this will require a lot more light since the film is only exposed to light for such a short amount of time. * (Good for Birds, still shot of a moving car, etc) - Remember 1, 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11 etc. These are your f/stops, just remember 1 and 1.4. Basically the every other number is doubled other than 11. Going down 1 stop (higher #) of light will give you half the light where as going up (lower #) will give you double. f-stop is the diameter of the aperture relative to the focal length of the lens. The explaination of the f-stops are quite difficult to understand at first, maybe it's cause I hate math. I've always been told to learn the rules before you break them. Every light, angle, lens, composition should have a meaning. Sure these are opinions, all were handed down to me by my teachers, (which I try to go by on the most part) but realistically, it's up to you on how you want the shot and no one can stop you (atleast in still photography). Also try to visualize what you are trying to shoot before you shoot it like how the lighting looks precisely in your mind. I think that helps a lot. I think that film schools and film programs can only teach you the technical aspect and method and reason, only. No matter how much technical detail of cinematography you know, visual and artistic form is something you are born with or a trait you increase with practice and more practice (sometimes not, I see great tech savvy people who would make great ACs but bad DPs no matter how much they tried); that is something no film school can teach you. Technical knowledge of cinematography is something everyone can learn and understand equally. The artistic style, even if you're lighting a scene that's influenced by a great artist/dp/photographer, it's your vision that's unique in it's own way. Everyone has has an influence, even the best DPs have their influences. To say that someone is coping another man's work, imo, is asinine. Each DP is unique in his method, visually and artistically, which is why it's great to watch and learn from everyone, they all have little bits of information that can help you with all aspects. I hope the above paragraphs help you understand the basics although there are tons and tons more which can easily be searched online or done by practice. "where is a good place to start?" Good place to start - - Some basic info on top of the page - Pick up anything you can shoot and practice - Books - Online resources like here or other good place is www.cinematography.net but that's more for intermediate to advanced cinematographers, I still don't understand half the stuff going on at those forums :( - For still photography, magazine photos are a big help. Trying to light the shot the way professional photographers shot, I think helps a lot as far as lighting and exposure goes. "What are some good schools?" Good film schools really have a lot of factors invovled in it like - - How much are you willing to pay per year or semester? - Planning on getting getting a well rounded education or get hands-on experience with high end equipment? - Planning on getting a job while going to school or an internship? - Want to spend 4 years and get a BA to possibly a MFA or do you want to try and find work right away? - The cost of buying equipment like light meters, gels, AC/grip tools & equipment etc. are mostly not covered by the school. DV tapes, HD tapes, 16/35mm are also provided or self bought depending on school. - Are you willing get a loan and how much? - Small or large classes? It's just too broad of a question when someone asks, "What's a good school?" One could quickly say USC, NYU, AFI, UCLA etc etc, but it really depend on what type of school you're looking for. I wouldn't really take anyone's response too seriously even if it's a notable school because they've never studied at all the schools and so it would be very biased if they went to AFI and said go to AFI cause they have the best teachers etc. Also one school might be strong in one concentration and just suck in the one you're interested in. One person could want a hands-on experience while another wants to get a well rounded eduation, or one person can be richer than another. You can try filmmaker.com and look at L.O.A.F.S guides on the left bar. Alumnis write reviews on their experience at their film schools. Some come in handy and some are just stupid rival film school student trying to talk trash on a school etc. You can spot those easily though. P.S. I know the first post was made in december and he might or might not be back to check up but I hope this helps for anyone else that wants to get in to or sitting on the fence about getting in to this profession from a student's point of view who's in the middle of his film school.

One of the best shots were from Amelie where the camera booms up on the waterfall to an over-the-head of amelie, then coming down on the otherside looking at her as she skips rocks on the river. WOW. Not only was the camera move very very well done, but the lighting, colors, coreography was perfect. To have the balls to be throwing rocks towards the camera was also crazy =P

Some times you just have to let people go through the process to realize their dreams might not always come true, especially in such a competitive industry like this. No matter what you say and suggest, some people will not or can not distinguish fact from fiction. Because their emotions and stubborness might be a bit too high. Of course you want everyone to make it, especially because I consider people in the cinematography side of the business more friendly towards each other. Unlike directors. You wish everyone for the best, but some times you have to step back let them fall and pick them back up. I see that you were born in 1988 which means you are 17, not even done with high school. I don't know how much experience you've had or what you're capable of doing, but on a shoot it comes down to experience. I can almost 100% guarantee you that finding a job as a DP at the age of 17 will be nearly impossible. People I see that fail the most are the people that expect to be at the top too fast. They can't get to where they want and quit. I just think that you're expecting too much, too fast. Maybe you get extremely lucky, meet the right people and have the artistic mind of Conrad Hall. I don't know. Just remember people don't like working with arrogant people. Being confident and being arrogant are 2 different things. I wish you choose to be the first one.