Kevin Horn

I've got a great dolly grip and we're just going to be using our remote controlled wireless follow focus on the zoom ring. Thanks.

Hey guys. I'm shooting a short at the end of the month and the last shot of the film is a Panic Room inspired Zolly shot. I've never done a Zolly (the right way) before and was wondering if anyone had any tips. Here's what I'll be working with: RED Epic RED 18-50mm T3 zoom 36' of steel tube track Matthews Doorway Dolly on skates Are there zoom rigs that I should be looking into? I've never done a zooming shot before. Here's the shot in Panic Room that this is based off of: (skip to 3:04) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIOBGdX36uM

Also, the aspect ratio of this photo is also not the aspect ratio of film so you most likely won't be seeing all of that ceiling and all of that floor at the same time. If you can make that work, more power too you, but it'll make it harder to light. If you see that much ceiling in your wide, then skip the Leko for backlight. Stick with the overheads, they will naturally be backlighting your subject already and if you move in for closeups you can massage a backlight in there if needed.

I guess it all kind of depends on your location. I can tell you one way of lighting this scene in the hallway pictured, but without seeing your location it's a bit hard to tell you what you could do. Say your location looks exactly like this, high ceilings and all, I would replace the ceiling fluorescents like you said. I'd also tuck something up in the ceiling towards the end of the hall, something with a wide beam to backlight them all the way down the hallway. If you want to see all the ceiling fixtures then I'd shy away from ND'ing them. Also, I'd supplement a higher wattage fluorescent in the very back of the hallway to make the wall pop a little brighter. This will help create contrast between your subjects as they walk down the hall. A big part of the look in this photo seems to lie in the color grade. I'm sure it was pretty gritty like this on set but it looks super crushed down. They were blessed with a great location as well, that floor soaks up the reflections beautifully. Say your location has more of a matte floor, you could try greasing the floor or mopping it right before the take to help soak up reflections from the overheads.

While you may be going for a film noir look, that doesn't mean you should be underlighting things. In fact, you'll probably end up doing more lighting work than usual to get high contrast ratios and a noir styled look. With that being said, I would always shoot at ISO 800. I always light for RAW so I have maximum flexibility in post and the cleanest image to work with. Though you may be getting a "milky" or flat looking image in your monitor, you can always refer back to a picture style, or use a light meter to keep your ratios in check.

In my experience hazers tend to work the best because the haze doesn't dissipate as quickly as smoke machines. What I usually do is run the machine in between takes, roll camera and call action when the smoke looks perfect. I'd say the biggest reason why these rays are so pronounced is the units used outside the windows. They're seemingly larger units with either a fresnel lens or possibly no lens at all, getting the sharpest ray possible. The best haze I've ever seen is in Blade Runner. It's pure atmosphere, stylized yes, but it's not trying to be all that subtle about it.

This upcoming weekend I have a shoot for a short film that requires a shot from the POV of a mirror. The mirror needs to be steamy and the character wipes it with his hands and fixes his hair in it. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to do this? My initial idea would be to put a piece of glass in front of the lens to act as my mirror. I'm just struggling with figuring out how to fog the glass independently from the rest of the room, I don't want to risk condensation in the lens and fogging the camera up. I'm open to ideas.

Adam, I use china balls on every shoot, both 12" and 24", and have also struggled with adding gel to my light. I typically add a duvatyn skirt to all of my china balls to mask off any unwanted light onto walls, other subjects. I found that if you have big enough sheets of gel, you can clamp them to the bottom of the skirt around the bottom of the china ball.

Brandon, I'm not sure which RED body you're shooting with but here are some tips that I use when shooting with RED Epic: -When shooting day exteriors, I set ISO at 320 and will ND from there. My compression ratio is always 6:1 -When shooting night exteriors, day/nite interiors, my ISO is always 800. Compression ratio stays at 6:1 -I ALWAYS light for the RAW image, never RED Color. I like to light for my look in RED Color and then crush it a little further in post. I find that the RED Color picture settings tend to be noisier and lighting for RAW gives me my maximum exposure and cleanest image. I like shooting dramatic contrast ratios too and don't find it all that hard to get that while lighting for the RAW image. You can always double check your ratio by using a light meter, don't always go off of the RAW look on the monitor.

Sorry, meant to add more to that reply. Why would you want to use CFL's over Tungsten bulbs? You're shooting on Tungsten balanced stock, don't mess around with the CFL's if you don't have to. They also tend to have a green spike, so unless you're going for that look, stick with Tugsten bulbs. Chances are you're not going to be able to light a scene with table lamps. Especially with 120w and 300w bulbs in them, if they're in frame they will be huge hot spots. You can motivate light and keep your Tungsten bulbs in the lamps, adding something as small as a 100w bulb in a China ball somewhere in the scene for soft fill, or if you have access you can motivate a lamp with a 650w Tweenie or a 1k with some opal over it. I also don't recommend shooting night exteriors at ISO 200 unless that's the only stock you have access to. Your lighting package will need to be pretty big, even pushing to 400, those CFL's especially won't do well.

Wax paper will catch on fire. Been there done that in film school.

His enthusiasm for the company feels so forced. I'm sure Canon pays him well to promote this stuff because as a guy who came from the world of film, why would he care so much about these cameras? He does have nice things to say about becoming more efficient when shooting with these packages but that seems to be the only advantage. The 1DC seems like 4k for the sake of 4k. They rushed a camera out before it was fully developed because they were afraid of falling behind to the competition. If anyone has seen Shane's short "The Last 3 Minutes" I think that was his best work with the Canon DSLRs. That was on the 5Dmkii+Canon L series lenses and to me it looked better than this. The 1DC still feels really video-y.

Shane Hurlbut, ASC has a great review of Canon's new 4k DSLR, along with the first short film ever shot on it. Check it out here. Thoughts? I thought it looked great most of the way through. Where I thought it lacked was the 8-bit color depth. I still can't believe Canon would step up to 4k but is still in 8-bit. I also thought the 60p stuff looked pretty awful but I'm pretty sure Hurlbut kept it to a low shutter speed to compensate for light. Definitely a step up from the C300 and 5Dmkiii but I don't see this giving RED or Arri a run for their money.

I apologize if I read you incorrectly, but you're trying to motivate light from a practical desk lamp correct? And your problem is that when you set up a light it's too hot or directional, creating an unmotivated shadow? Key your subject with a china ball/100w bulb and throw a dimmer switch on it. This will give you a soft, shadowless key replicating what a desk lamp would bounce off of a desk onto your subject. If that doesn't work for you try using that practical lamp to bounce off the desk into your subject's face (assuming you're lighting a person at a desk). White paper on the desk would work great for a practical bounce. Wood also looks great as a bounce, so if your desk is wooden then try just simply bouncing off the desktop.

In no particular order: 1) Road to Perdition 2) Seven 3) American Beauty 4) Brazil 5) Children of Men 6) Assassination of Jesse James 7) Requiem for a Dream 8) No Country for Old Men 9) Inception 10) There Will Be Blood I'm not all too familiar with international cinematographers, so pardon my list for being very American and Hollywood. I like what I like, regardless of location or time period.