Paul Nordin

I've also been using this gel pack for moonlight (HMI= 1/2CTO+WFG). I really like the non-blue highlights, and when the images are desaturated a bit in post (20% or so), the light takes on a lovely silvery quality. That said, for a music video I shot last year I used Steel Blue. That casts everything into the cyan realm which can have an otherworldly look (heavily used to excellent effect on "Pan's Labarynth").

I gotta agree with Nash on this one. There is nothing wrong with zooms well executed, when that's what supports the story or that's the choice for budget/pragmatic reasons. There have been some very memorable zooms in film. Although most of them were executed in the 60s and 70s when they were popular/new, an example would be the opening shot in Coppola's "The Conversation". Many of the suggestions here have been prefaced with the intention of trying to "hide" the zoom. I think a more powerful approach would be to try to stylize the zoom. I would probably want to go over the shot with the director and previz how the shot can be integrated into the action, and/or supplemented with dialog or sound/music to keep the viewer in the story. Depending on the terrain from which you are planning to pull the zoom, you could have a 3rd person perspective added (pulling back to reveal a table of observers, one with binoculars watching the drama on the cliffs unfold)...many options. I guess my main point is to not run from a zoom as if it is unworthy, any more than a static shot is. Its how you frame and execute it and how well it is integrated into the place in the story that can make your zoom an asset. As far as the Academy of Art instructor...I've brought many new graduates from that institution onto my crews and they have all without exception claimed to learn more, and in some cases have had to un-learn from working on a real-world production than they did in 2-4 years at the Academy. That's the nature of the beast I think with all but the best film schools (there are 3 or 4). Although, to the Academy's credit, they do seem to be gradually improving the practical production skills of their graduates, as well as building an amazing portfolio of real-estate investments in the SF Bay Area. Cheers, Paul

Another source of quality China Balls is : http://www.lanternlock.com/ I've been using several of these for years and they are still as strong and unbent as when I purchased. The cheaper ones just don't stand up to the abuse they get put to (or perhaps my crews are more in the guerilla filmmaking category that I would like :D ) Having a stem that fits a standard c-stand knuckle is a real plus too. They are a lot more expensive than the really cheap ones, but I think they make up for it in longevity. Cheers, Paul

The Tango Swing is probably what you are talking about. It works fairly well if you have a 90degree rotation in mind. For more than that you would need something like the Spin Axis 360 Head from Oppenheimer Camera. I've used both, and the Spin Axis is a lot easier to get smooth on axis turns. It's heavy duty and has hand crank wheels or motorized options.

I just wrapped a feature shoot in Mexico where a large number of shots were car/truck mounted both interior and exterior. I was shooting on an HVX200 with a Brevis & primes. We had tried to use a pipe-mounted rig which was rock solid, but that proved to take far too much time to set-up. We ended up using a rig which involved 5 suction cups (woods 6"), a cheese plate for hard mounting the camera, and a bunch of gobo arms and knuckles. It worked really well and we could pretty much rig the camera anywhere we wanted. The best configurations always comprised three connection points to the camera base covering the X-Y-Z axes, and then two more connections: one to the camera handle securing any side-to-side wobbe, and one to the end of the mattebox rails securing any up/down wobble from the front-heavy lens configuration of the adapter/prime (almost a foot out in front of the camera body). This might not be suitable for a zero-budget production as there is -some- cost involved. But, since you are local to SF, if you are interested contact me and maybe I can help out with what I have.

I've shot a few features with this type of a Director/DP dynamic. There can be several good things: the Director is aware of his weakness and hence finding an experienced DP that can help articulate his visual vocabulary, you (DP) get to be a fully creative partner in the filmmaking process, you (DP) get to practice your mind-reading skills by extracting what the Director "means" and turning that into a cohesive shot-list. The bad part is there will be no getting around the learning curve which you will need to spend extra time helping the Director over. You will have to be very patient. You will likely have to spend a -lot- more time in preproduction than you may normally be used to. But if you feel a sense of trust in the Director's vision and storytelling ability, and feel that he also trusts you to represent his vision in the frame, and you feel you can keep a cap on your ego and make space for the Director to Direct as the learning curve is navigated, it can be a very rewarding journey. I don't regret any of the times I've jumped into that situation, and if the project was compelling, and I admired what the Director -is- bringing to the table, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I don't use green filters when greenscreening, and have not had problems with pulling quality mattes as long as the levels are proper and there is separation between fore/background. That said, if I were going to use one, I would not use +Green as it has more yellow that I would want to throw on a greenscreen. I would probably stay with something closer to primary. As a reference here is a excerpt from the Rosco "Filter Facts" pdf found on their website that might help you. "In addition to their use as color effects lighting filters, CalColor can serve a number of technical uses. For bluescreen, greenscreen or redscreen digital compositing, the Blue, Green and Red primaries in the 60 or 90 densityoffer color enhancement for lighting the colored background. The complimentary Yellow, Magenta and Cyan tints in the 15 density then become useful for backlighting the subject. This backlighting will neutralize any spill from the background that would otherwise cause contamination or fringing in the matte."

If you can, I would do a couple of simple tests ahead of time to make sure you are going in the right direction for the CG/post person. If the background is evenly lit (per all the others I like 1 stop lower than key) to minimize spill, there shouldn't be a reason to pump up the green. Very clean (as far as DV will go that is) matts can be pulled that way, and pushing the chroma too far can create more problems than they solve some of the time. Do you not have good separation between background and subject? Just wondering what problem you are trying to avoid. Cheers

I don't know how this one got missed, but in my humble opinion (and I've seen just about all the other movies listed by others...and pretty much concur with the baddness of them all (Starship Troopers excepted. I enjoyed that one), nothing done by Ed Wood compares to the utter egregiousness of "Bloodrayne". Uwe Boll must have totally pissed off his entire acting corpse...er I mean corp, before the first roll was exposed.

Your post doesn't mention budget, which is a big factor in any gear recomendation. That said, one of the best boxes you could get for this is the Sound Devices 744T hard disk recorder. www.sounddevices.com I've been using it for a couple of years for field recording, and it is truly great at what it does. It is used by many of the audio big guns in Hollywood for FX recording, as well as for dialog.

It might be easier to reverse the scenario from a phone mounted on a rotating platter in front of a static camera, to a phone mounted on a static mount (with the cards placed around it as you currently do) and moving the camera around the phone. A mini skater dolly can be rented for a shot like that for a very reasonable amount, or if you have the $$$ you can buy one. http://www.zgc.com/zgc.nsf/c7a682995edb4e7...f2?OpenDocument

Yes, well of course the project's budget will determine everything: my day rate during principal, what gets deferred (if anything), percentage of net, etc. Keep in mind I am talking exclusively about feature work here. The criteria is different (at least to me) for other types of project like short films, music videos, and commercials. So the question remains. For those of you out there working low to low-mid budget features, are you adding a fee for CC in your DP contract, or considering it an included item baked into your day rate for Principal Photography? I guess I'm looking for some "best practices" advice, on what others are doing.

Over the last few years I've been working my way into features that actually pay more than it costs me to shoot (thank the gods). I've never charged any of the productions I worked on for Color Correction, and have considered it a baked-in part of my fee for principal photograhy. However, I am starting to wonder if it's time to charge a fee for supervising the CC phase. Keep in mind, I am still in the low-budget indie world. I'm just curious how many of you charge for CC, and how you set your rate? Cheers, Paul Nordin

I'm in the early stages of pre-pro planning for a noirish, martial arts, heavily stylized feature I'll be shooting in January. This is not your every-day action pic, and there are a couple of shots I'm mulling over trying to figure out the best approach for. Both shots are of action sequences involving one - against many fighting. #1) In the first shot, the scene starts in a downpour, then when rain stops camera tilts down to a puddle and films the bulk of the scene in a puddle's reflection. Obviously this reflection needs to have a certain level of "image fidelity" for the shot to work. I doubt I can get that without some on-set effect help. I was considering two options. First one is to place a mirror or other reflective surface in the puddle just below the surface level. The second approach would be to try to work out the angles with a half-silvered glass oriented so the tilt is horizontal. The challenge to that approach will be the tilt-down from a view of the action directly to the puddle reflection. I've not worked much with half-silvered glass before, though I do understand the basics. The other challenge with that approach is at the end of the shot, the puddle's calm surface will be disturbed and break up the image into ripples. #2) Similarly to #1, the scene is in an alley and starts as a normal dark/night sequence. At a certain point, the camera pushes past talent and watches the rest of the scene play out in silhouetted shadows on the wall. Sounds pretty simple, but I'm not sure where to place camera so that its shadow is not also in the frame. I want the shadows of talent to be full figured, so anything else in the path of the light will obviously be on the wall as well...like camera. I was thinking of using a very long lens and orchestrating a designated clear line of sight between talent. But I don't think the physics will work for that approach. I need to see clearly diliniated shadows of 2-4 characters on a wall. Obviously they need to be close to the wall or their shadows will diffuse, so I can't shoot a long lens and not them and keep them close enough to the wall for good shadows. I guess another approach would be to again use some form of a half-silvered mirror and shoot it from above pointing down with the key light passing through the mirror and camera still seeing the wall on the mirror. I know that I could get a lot of this done as post/CGI work. But, I was quite inspired by the work of Dick Pope on "The Illusionist" who did so much of the "magic" in camera rather than in post. I very much want to take that approach on this project, and am willing to go to some extremes to get the exact look I want in camera. Any suggestions or advice would be welcome.

You'll get great service from John Chater, I've been renting from him in SF for years. I think the problem you will run into is maneuvering the jib arm + tripod head + doorway dolly in a hallway all at the same time. Jibs like the porta-jib (I own a Microdolly jib) will even in their most compact length extend just beyond the limits of comfortable reach from the dolly platform. To execute the move you are hoping to, you will need to operate the camera on the jib manually, which means holding the tripod head which is mounted on the end of the jib. From there you can manually control jib up/down, and camera pan/tilt. That can look great when you are standing still, or taking a step or two. But if you are walking behind the dolly tracking talent walk towards you down the hall, while dodging dolly track stands, and dealing with slight speed changes in dolly movement (which will happen with newish/student crews - best to expect it), it will be very hard to keep the camera locked for the tracking shot without a bit of wobble. One trick I have used in the past is find a crewmember with a delicate & quick touch, lock the jib arm and tripod head for the tracking part of the shot, then with you holding camera, have your assistant deftly release the tripod head - then the jib arm locks the split second before you need to articulate them and hopefully as you stop walking. It will take some rehearsing to get the timing down, but is possible to get a very good low-budget indie result. It would really be far easier though to rent a pee-wee dolly which is really not that expensive for a daily rental ($200) and will likely give you better results in a far shorter period of time...fewer takes. Good luck

I'm also in the process of preparing for my first shoot outside the US. In my case it's Mexico. As far as insurance, you can get world-wide insurance for productions. The negative, is that fthe insurance companies I have contacted will only issue equipment riders on an annual policy, not just for the duration of the production.

Actually, I have to differ slightly from Gunleik's advice. Not that I think he is wrong, exactly, just that I am not a fan of the limitation of the firestore. I think a few P2 Cards & a P2Store are quite sufficient for feature work. I've shot 4 features this year with the HVX using 2 4GB P2-cards and one P2 Store. I've almost never had to delay production to wait for downloading. And the ability to record 720PN with the frame rate & playback flexibility has been very useful.

I agree with Mitch. I have all three of the century adapters (.3, .6, .75). The wider ones were used as part of a feature shoot that required that distorted look. But for general use, if the 25% increase in field of view is sufficient, the .75 is far more flexible with far fewer distortions.

I've got a feature shoot coming up in 6 weeks and need to find a good insurance company that will issue certificates to rental houses. This is the first production I'll do in Mexico (I'm based in San Francisco), and my normal insurance company does not issue policies for productions that cross the border. I'm sure this is a common thing in LA, but not up here in SF. I'd appreciate any recomendations or leads. Cheers, Paul Nordin

Hi Jim, They are around $900 each, and a set of two with all the accessories is around $1900 (check B&H for current pricing). I'm not sure what you mean by "work well with digital cameras". They are wonderful lights for what they are, are daylight balanced, light & compact, have reasonable and variable intensity. They work equally well for film or video. I wouldn't use them for a key light in any situation except something like a car interior. But for a frontal fill, and eye light, they rock. Cheers

Brian, you might also consider using an on-camera LitePanel LED light. I've used them several times with DVXs in music videos and on low-budget features to quite good effect. They have attached batteries, are fully dimmable, and for me the added weight is just right for making the camera smoother for hand-held work. http://www.litepanels.com/ Cheers, Paul Nordin El Mundo Bueno Studios San Francisco, CA

Thanks for the feedback. I was second guessing my recommendation thinking that perhaps I missed something. Cheers

This is a bit of a newbie question, so excuse if this has been covered before. I'm preparing to shoot my first feature and getting into a bit of a debate with the team WRT best practice around lighting/shooting straight vs. getting close to the desired result in-camera. The feature will be shot on my XL2. And is a very low-budget (almost no-budget) production. In particular we are discussing a fairly long sequence for which the desired final result is a high-contrast, theatrical (stage) feel, taken to the Nth degree. We want to have almost zero background visible (ie; black/darkness) with various objects that are to be focused on like an actors and a vase of flowers lit and brought out of the black with tightly focused spots. Kind of like a Bob Fosse feel. I guess I come from the production focus of wanting to get as close to the desired lighting scheme in-camera. I had been thinking of using a combination of one or two xenons and some dedos for the small objects (this sequence will probably be shot on a stage). My thinking was that if I manage to control spill it would be fairly easy to keep the subjects 3-4 stops brighter, which is all that would be necessary when shooting DV. I would expose for the highlights, keeping skin-tone around 80IRE. That would help black out the things we want to, while still allowing plenty of detail for the post manipulation of contrast/gamma. Someone else on the production team is pushing to shoot the sequence as straight as possible, to keep the options open in post. That approach would entail cutting masks around the subjects and actors and manipulating the background expose/lighting/look via alpha channel (probably in something like After Effects). My basic question to you more experienced DPs is how would you go about making this lighting/effect decision in particular, and in general what lighting/atmospheric elements do you tend to save for post when shooting tape, not film? Thanks