Satsuki Murashige

If a DP's sole criteria for good lighting is that "the audience can see the face," then he or she would never get hired - that's not even close to being good enough to justify calling yourself a DP. Any village idiot with a light meter can light a face so that it exposes on film. The point is, does it look good? And could it look better? The better the DP, the more often the answer to the first question is "yes" and the second question is "no." If you haven't guessed by now, DPs are perfectionists by nature. :)

I don't know anything about Full Sail, but from having gone to film school (SFSU) I can tell you that the most successful graduates are almost always the ones who know the basics and who are actively making films and crewing before attending school. This is especially true for people who want to be DPs - you need to know more and have more experience than everyone else there, or else why would they want you to shoot for them? The main benefit of film school is having access to free equipment and a pool of contacts with like-minded colleagues. If you don't have piles of ideas for films stored up before enrolling, then you won't be making very many films there anyway. You may find one or two good mentors to guide you, but basically you're education is up to you. So first read everything you can get your hands on about filmmaking, film tech, film history, photography, theater, painting, art history, and know it. Watch lots of films, and make a special effort to see older films, avant garde films, and foreign films that you may not have been exposed to so far. Get inspired. If you want to be a director, write your own scripts or hook up with a talented screenwriter. Get a camera and shoot as much as you can as often as you can - dv, Super 8, whatever. Edit your own films. Show them to strangers, not just to your family and friends. Build a body of work, and don't hold on to the bad ones. Keep improving. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, but learn from them and don't make the same ones twice. You won't find work after graduating if you're not already working by that point, so start from the bottom and crew under more experienced students who will teach you what they know. Try to get onto professional sets even if you have to skip classes. Work for free, but always learn something. Don't neglect to make contacts and keep in contact with them. Keep a list of people you want to work with and like working with and make it a point to work with them as much as you can. Work, work, work. I dunno, I think that's it. It's not magic, it's just hard work, talent and some luck.

Do a search here using "Promist filters" and "David Mullen." He's posted numerous detailed examples at least four or five times in the last few years.

Yes. When you light a wide shot, you are generally lighting a room or an environment. You're mainly thinking about how to make the light look motivated and realistic (or at least interesting) while at the same time creating a mood that is appropriate for the scene. Making the actor look perfect is often secondary to these goals. In a close up, you're more concerned with complementing the actor's performance by modeling their features in a flattering way, getting an eyelight to catch in their eyes, modeling the background to complement the actor in the foreground, and cheating all these tweaks so that the audience buys that both the wide and close up were shot at the same time. The reason the key light in the wide shot is often a compromise is because you often want a larger (and thus, softer) source but you can't get enough exposure with the fixture that you have. So you end up taking the diffusion off, or the softbox, or using a direct fresnel instead of a bounce to get more exposure. So the light doesn't wrap around the face as much and throws a harder shadow than you would like. But for the close up, you can change this. So, then why wouldn't you? With bigger budgets, you tend to have more gear to pull this off. But then the shots become more challenging, so it's never enough. Whatever you can get away with and still achieve the goals I mention above. This frequently requires having lights on dimmers, grips feathering flags or nets on a light, electrics panning lights, and all kinds of other tricks. And if you can't get away with any of that, like on a long steadicam shot, then you live with what you have. But good DPs look at every frame critically and are always tweaking to try and improve the shot - for us, the lighting is never perfect, it's usually just "good enough." Start looking more critically and you will see flaws that can be corrected in every frame. Experience will teach you how to fix a certain problem, or how to create an effect, but there's always more to learn.

Hey Kirk, Why not go for an ARRI 2C and make your life a lot easier? Otto Nemenz rents the 2C for $150/day according to their website: http://s202098837.onlinehome.us/home/22/page/1

As far as focus goes, I assume you will be using wide lenses and going hyperfocal. I'd be surprised if you do much pulling at all (wonder what the useful range of the Preston transmitter actually is). If that's the case, you'll probably want to tape down the focus, zoom, aperture rings so they don't move on you. I guess you need to figure out remote run/stop and remote monitoring. Maybe check and see if any rental houses have the solid-state Red drives available for rent. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

As far as rolling out being bad for the camera/magazine, doesn't it depend on the model and vintage of camera and how it has been maintained? I haven't worked a lot with 35mm, but on a recent 35mm short that I shot we had a camera tech on set who was taking apart the Arri 3 mags once a day and cleaning out film chips after we'd used them for high speeds setups. I think he mentioned that the Arri 3 was more prone to film chips than the BL4s we were using for sync sound work, and that rolling out was a no-no (we had to do it a few times anyway). That advice could have been specific to those particular cameras though since they were beaters.

A hectic run and gun shoot with 35mm depth of field (on steadicam, no less!) sounds like a terrible idea. I would think about going with a 1/2" or 2/3" camera system so you have more depth of field and worry a bit less about focus. I'd recommend the Sony EX1 or EX3. Both are true 1080P cameras with 1/2" sensors. You get long recording times on SxS cards, and as long as you have an AC or data wrangler dumping cards and checking footage on a laptop, you can keep shooting all day. The EX3 has a removable lens, which when combined with the B4 mount adapter allows you to use all the fine 2/3" cine-style lenses out there. Fujinon, Canon and Zeiss make great 2/3" B4 cine lenses, both primes and zooms.

Do you have the new Macbook Pro? One DP that I work with has similar issues with the SxS driver - it takes him 5 minutes to boot up his system but after that it works fine. He has the new 15" MBP. After he uninstalled it, the boot time returned to normal. Now we just use my old 17" MBP to dump SxS footage which works fine. As far as I'm aware, there's no fix for the bug yet.

Do you have to shoot in the classroom? Either choose a new location that works for the story, or change the story to work with the location that you have. That's really all you can do if you don't have any time, budget, or equipment. Otherwise you are setting yourself up for failure.

What exactly does that mean Phil? I don't wanna get punched in the face or anything...

No, not unless you want even lower contrast. I don't even think most labs will be able to pull 2/3 stop, so if they pull 1 stop then you'd be 1/3 stop under again. 400T is a low contrast stock to begin with and the little extra overexposure will help the blacks.

Well, either is probably fine. I'd go 250ASA for the tightest grain and good blacks.

I would not underexpose and print up by any more than one stop if you're finishing photochemically. The grain structure of 400T really falls apart fast after that. I find the stock to be a bit more contrasty and a little grainier than the Kodak 5229 500T Expression, if that gives you any idea. Are you shooting regular 1.85:1 or anamorphic? My comments were based on a 1.85 workprint, so if you're shooting anamorphic you may find the stock to be less grainy since you're working with a bigger negative.

No prob, glad to help. Yes. I had a 35mm shoot a few months ago where 85mm Mk.2 Superspeed we were using was off by about 3". As you know, the Superspeeds have very poorly spaced marks on the barrel compared to modern lenses. That 3" doesn't seem like much, but if your focus puller is a few degrees off on the barrel then that compound error is the difference between the actor's eyes being in focus or his shirt being in focus. I feel the situation is worse with the Red because: 1) focus is hyper-critical and unforgiving in 4K, moreso than in 35mm; 2) the backfocus ring adds another variable element that needs to be constantly checked and doesn't provide a benchmark to test the collimation of the lenses. Unless the lenses come from a decent rental house with a lens projector, who knows if they're actually collimated or not? I've had to deal with a set of Superspeeds where each lens had a different on the mark on the Red's backfocus ring. You can imagine how much fun that was to deal with on a daily basis. :(

It's all about the lighting. Think about creating separation and contrast by modulating the brightness of foreground, midground, background elements, use backlights and edgelights, don't be afraid to let large portions of the frame go black. Use a light diffusion filter like black promists so bright highlights will halate. Do all that and it will sell, even if all you do is desaturate in post. If you're trying to specifically emulate b&w film stocks, then you need to think about adding some kind of faux film grain in post and tweaking gamma and channels to get that "silvery" look.

Perhaps this is obvious, but it depends on how well the camera has been maintained. If it has been regularly serviced and loaded correctly, then it should be fine. You may need to throw a barney over the mag for very tight interior locations. If it's a beater film school camera, then who knows.

I don't know about Ultra Primes (non LDS), but the S4s are pretty darn big. If the Ultra Primes do fit, then consider renting the Zeiss Ultra 16s. They use the same housings as the Ultras but open up to T1.3 and go as wide as 6mm. They are the nicest Super 16 lenses out there.

Hi Patrick, I shot a macro lens test using some of those lenses and a Red camera back in December. I've uploaded some large frame grabs here with descriptions: http://www.flickr.com/photos/18675976@N03/...2187735/detail/. You should be able to click on them and see a large pic. I've included the distance measured from the subject to the focal plane. The lenses are: 60mm Arri Zeiss Macro, 100mm Arri Zeiss Macro, 200mm Arri Zeiss Macro, and a Zeiss Superspeed Mk.2 85mm with a 2x extender and diopters. All shots were taken wide open. I found that the Superspeed combo looked the worst and needed to be stopped down to T4 to look decent. The Arri Macros have variable maximum apertures that close down automatically as you focus closer. They looked best stopped down to around T11 when focused closer than 1'6". Of course, we ended up shooting with them on set wide open. :rolleyes: I like to shoot CUs in 35mm with the 85mm. But be careful, focus is extremely critical at those focal lengths. Make sure you've got a great 1st AC or give them a reasonable stop to work at, make sure your lenses tape out, etc.

Depends on the DP, the kind of pressure they're under at that moment, and the size/type of the show. If the DP has been a focus puller before, then he or she will know what you're up against on a difficult shot and will probably cut you some slack. On no-budget indie shoots the DPs usually know your predicament and will stand up for you, it's the ADs who are usually breathing down your neck. I've found DPs who shoot a lot of broadcast/corporate video to be more hardcore. A lot of that is just the nature of those types of productions - everyone's getting paid union rates and getting overtime, so they move very quick. The producers, not having worked with film, do not understand the time-saving value of rehearsals. That said, the bigger the stakes are, the higher the expectations get - you ultimately want to be known as "the guy who can get the shot no matter what," not "the guy who always needs another take." If the DP is under pressure from production to get the shot quickly and move on, then you're putting more pressure on him by blowing a take. So yes, you do your job the best you can, but you also should be aware of the situation and be able to up your game accordingly. I had a commercial shoot with guys who shoot a lot of corporate where I was expected to get remote focus on a 25' jimmy jib shot with a 35 adapter and wide open superspeeds when I had no idea where the camera was going to be. The jib op was "finding" the shot while we were rolling on rehearsals and kept changing camera positions on his move. The "rehearsals" (if you can even call them that) were for him, not for me. I ended up getting the shot by pulling from the tech's HD monitor. Anyway, do your best, don't complain, but do stand up for yourself when you need another take. And have fun!

Pick locations that don't have white walls or white buildings in the background. Avoid buildings with windows that will reflect the sun. Select wardrobe that doesn't have any white or black in it. Shoot under overcast light. Do you have a budget for grip gear? Use frames of silk to cover the actors when the sunlight is harsh, 20x20' or 12x12' for wides and 6x6' and 4x4' for mediums and CUs. On no-budget stuff, you can even use a flex fill as a silk on tight CUs. As a last resort, shoot toward the sun so the actors are backlit and use shiny boards, reflectors, or bounce boards to create a soft key light where you want it. This will bring up the exposure in the foreground to better balance an over-bright background. Use frames of nets behind the actors knock down a hot background. It's all about finding ways to balance the exposure in the foreground, midground, and background.

This is so true. It takes a pretty humble person to take this approach, but it does work amazingly well. You may find that even though you started out "pretending" to be naive, you actually did learn a lot during this time. I know I did, especially about the business side of things.

Well, I've never shot anything anywhere near those budget levels, and I still prefer to have an operator when possible... I mean, if there's someone who is better at operating than I am and I have the chance to work with them, then it's a no brainer really.

Sorry Leo, what's a "pootertoon"?

Finally watched the workprint! THE GOOD: Most of the shots looked pretty good, I'm constantly surprised at how forgiving film is compared to digital video. There was a huge amount of shadow detail even rating the 5229 at 800ASA and most of the shots actually looked too bright, but we can print them down later so that's not a problem. The blacks were just on the edge of being too thin. I only went too far in underexposure on one shot but even that looked pretty good and had nice contrast. The net looked fantastic, very smooth and subtle with the halation that I wanted. This print was a lot sharper than our test with the Cookes, so I wonder if there might have been an issue with the projection or print the first time instead of the lenses. We watched our workprint on a smaller screen with a smaller magnification factor, so that may have had something to do with it as well. We shot the film with Superspeeds, usually at T2.8. Ultimately, I think the bold choices in exposure, lighting and coverage paid off - even if they weren't always perfectly executed I feel the vision or intent behind the shots was strong enough that somehow they communicated what they needed to. There was a scene where we undercranked 6, 9, 12fps on Wide, Medium, CU of the lead actor standing still against an elevator door as a crowd of extras stream by. That came out great. We also had a 48-24fps ramp shot with the Arri 3 which came out perfectly, despite the camera not supposedly being able to do the shot. And the dolly work was excellent, which is saying a lot because my dolly grip had very little experience pushing dolly before, and there was a lot of it. THE BAD: The color was a bit more desaturated than I would have liked. We printed on the Fuji 3521 Eterna which looked good, but I would like to try Kodak Premier if we go to print (eventually). There was one shot that was really underlit in the snack shop, part of the opening slo-mo montage - while there was enough light on the actors, the space itself needed more accent lights for texture and looked like a muddy black hole: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/3234999436/. I knew it was underlit when we shot it but decided to let it go because we were behind schedule, and now I'm kicking myself for not making my gaffer pull lights from other parts of the set to get what I needed. There were flicker issues with the kinos on some of the high speed shots, so I'm again kicking myself for not making sure we shots at flicker free speeds - 96fps was pretty bad, while naturally 60fps looked fine. The worst thing was the focus issues we had on a three of the CUs (sorry Alex). We had two that were unusably soft, focus was 6 inches too long on the 85mm (I think), you could see the shirt was crisp and the eyes were out. I should have caught one of them since I was operating, my operator really should have caught the other one. Anyway, it all falls on my shoulders as DP. Next time, more stop on long lens CUs! Overall, I'm fairly happy and have learned tons from this experience. I'm going to start being tougher on my operators and ACs (sorry guys) to make sure they get focus and will emphasize more teamwork in terms of checking and double checking each other (me included) about all the technical details to make sure we nailed them. We're hoping to have a telecine of all the footage done in about a month, so I will post frames when that happens. Anyway, thanks for reading. :)