Domenik Schuster

Dear community, I am shooting a German film festival's trailer in 10 days - 2 days studio, 1 day on location outdoor (studios Babelsberg, at the doors of Marlene Dietrich Halle). Our talent will be standing at the big entrance to studio 1. I attached a photo. The shot will be approxemately as wide as the picture below (probably a little closer and 1:2,35). At the beginning, the mood will be cloudy, no sun. Then, as he starts walking to the left, a beam of light as when there is a little gap in the clouds will hit the wall (maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the wall, so not complete sunshine - just a "ray" coming through the gap (maybe like coming through a gap in between 2 houses on the other side). I am going to test shoot that in 7 days and was wondering if you had any experience on creating the effect of a cloud moving away from the sun. I thought about a 4kW SUN direct // reflected by a 1x1 mirror and then "blocked" with several layers of diffusion in front of the light/mirror (f.e. 1x1 frost frames that are moved away one after the other in a relatively short time. What do you think? I appreciate every thought! Best regards, Domenik

Hello fellow forum users, this is the first time I use this website - which has passively been of good use - to show something I have worked on. Last fall I got accepted into filmschool in Babelsberg as a cinematography student. In february, I shot my first short in the context of my degree. Synopsis: A guy who has trouble after breaking up with his girlfriend attends a meeting of a local support group. The members, however, have completely different types of problems than he expected. Everything is very exaggerated, especially the three characters and their stories. He has to go through some sort of entrance rite in order to begin his new life. The book was written by a screenplay/dramaturgy student. The synopsis does not sound too great, though, the dialogues are very well written. However, the movie is a chamber drama. Thirty pages of book, 28 of them inside the living room. I shot on a 7D with PL mount. Carl Zeiss 35mm high speed lenses (1.3) and through a 1/8 black pro mist filter. Working aperture was f2.0, 320 ISO, Technicolor cinestyle picture profile. I will post three different situations, you don't have to read and/or comment all of them but I am grateful for every critic joining the thread. First part After arriving at the house, B enters the appartment and we see the shot below. I found it very difficult to light this small space. The guy in the poncho (Buddho) and B (on the right) are talking, Duce (the afro american guy) then joins them coming from the living room. Buddho leaves the frame to the left after a while. We rigged a 2ft two bank KinoFlo under the roof, imitating a spotty roomlight hitting from above. Additionaly, there was a 300W bouncing against a whiteboard at their feet. The still as we see it comes right out of the camera, so now adjustments have been made. What everybody sees: There is too much contrast and the two bank wasn't enough. I think I would have needed + one stop overall brightness, didn't want to go to 640 ISO, though. For color correction, it would have certainly be better to light up the shadows, as well. For example on the red wall. I wanted the light to look a little "shabby" but I didn't want it to look sloppy which I think it does. How would you have approached lighting this room? Second part B hangs his jacket onto the wall. He then follows Duce inside the living room. They turn left. Duce introduces Fallout, they then go right, Duce officially introduces Buddho (who walked into the room very close in front of the camera at some point in the shot.) The director wanted to have long tracking shots throughout the movie and this one was the hardest. I don't like the framing in which Fallout is introduced. He is so close on the ground, the two tall guys standing next to him.. The framing just does not look good. I wanted both of them to kneel down in order to compress the picture, the director didn't want them to do so. The framing while Buddho is being introduced is alright and the light looks interesting to me. After Buddho has been introduced, they all come together and sit down in this wide shot. (this still is a different scene in which we could use more light because it was static, I would like to talk about the wide shot seperately in the third part) How do you approach such a complex scene in terms of lighting? We saw so much of the room. Even though I don't like the atmosphere and look of the room anymore (scenographer made everything look a little feminine), the shot profits from the contrast given by the practicals (in which I put 100W bulbs). Behing the door, there was a 300W pointing towards the ceiling for some room light. Again, all of this did not add up to enough light for my camera settings. Had I used a 650/800W for roomlight, the practicals would have been too dark to serve as nice points of contrast. How would you have dealt with the guy doing push ups on the ground while to tall guys stand next to him? Third part Lets talk about the wide shot you see above. I used the practicals as my keys, which I tried to enforce. Due to the 100W bulbs, however, the only thing I could use were 100W/150W dedo lights rigged around the the four guys. This was a very pointillist way of lighting which restricted the actors movement as soon as some action happened.. That's something I really did not like. Though, I didn't see a way to "light the room" instead of "lighting the talents". Again, to my eyes: The wide shot looks sloppy in terms of lighting. Also, the green wall in combination with the red couch/red curtains doesn't look very charming and I will try to desature both in color correction. The violet shirts two of the talents are wearing just.. suck. It was very important to the director, however, that the color was purple due to dramaturgy of colors (which is very often a very bad idea (which it is in this case)). That should be enough for now. I am looking forward to your comments. What is really bugging me is the question, how do I get enough light to meet aperture in such a situation ..

I shot a short a month ago on which I used a Canon 7D with PL mount and high speed lenses. Which looked pretty neat. Additionally, and this might be of interest to you, I used the Technicolor cine style as the picture profile and a 1/8 black pro mist filter in the matte box. I tested the the filter/picture profile combination on my 5D MK II and the feel became much more organic due to the highlights being softened. Though, as always, it's a matter of taste - but one worth being checked out!

I sent you a PM, Rossana :) Thank you!

Good evening! After I have been one of the quiet forum useres for many weeks I decided to create my own post now. My friend and I are going to apply for film schools in Germany in February 2013. Starting on November 2012, we will be done filming our very own application short narratives and we will be done gathering money. We would love to travel around Europe and help out on different film productions - mainly projects of film students'. Of course, we would not want to receive any payment. German film schools require a lot of experience in the field and we thought that working on student film projects outside Germany would be a great opportunity. I do not expect anyone to say "Alright! Awesome idea!" right away :) We are just curious how students think about this idea of ours. It would probably interesting to know who we are, huh? My name is Domenik, I am 19 years old and plan on becoming a cinematographer. In October 2010, I started working with a local project called "Chemnitzer Filmwerkstatt". They have been educating and working with people that are interested in starting a carreer in the film industry for many many years. Some of the films produced by the Chemnitzer Filmwerkstatt were presented in Cannes - f.e. "Duell in Griesbach". On alle the projects I have been working as the director of photography. My friend's name is Carl, he is 20 years old and graduated from high school last year. Since then he has been working with the "Chemnitzer Filmwerkstatt" on a daily base. His goal is to get into the director department of one of Germany's film schools. Both of us have pretty solid English skills due to his father living in the US and due to my full-year stay in the US. We are very excited to receive your replies! If you know anyone who could possibly be interested in someone helping them out in any department - do not hesitate to share this post :) Also, if there are any questions: Feel free to ask! Best regards from Germany, Domenik and Carl Edit: I hope I am not going to regret this but sharing my mail address might be a good idea. it is: domenik.schuster [a.t] googlemail [d.o.t] com