Thom Stitt

Oh my God, David: Bravo - Hearing this just made my day. Worthy of its own topic (I'm sure there's been one or two already though). I watched Hostel out of sheer curiosity - the buzz was strong - critically and financially the movie was a complete success. Then I saw it. I saw it and it basically made me completely sick. Eli Roth is finding a massive market for snuff filmmaking. As far as I'm concerned, this kind of trash is the worst thing in theaters. And now there's Hostel 2 and this new crap: Turistas Go Home???? I'm always down for a good horror film - but Hostel and everything it's doing to the industry needs to STOP. I caught the second half of Videodrome tonight on TV - one of my favorite horror films, and fantastically relevant to what's going on right now. Anyway, so enough of that off-topic rant. I just caught the Astronaut Farmer trailer and came here to post thoughts on it - pleased to see the topic already has legs! It looks stellar. Perfect levels of diffusion - It looks like you're a master of smoke use here. The film looks warm and nostalgic, and the magic hour backlit stuff is, of course, candy. The story I love - home-made rocket into space? Holy crap that's something I would eat up. Unfortunately for me, the trailer really paints a dangerously sentimental picture. Heart-warming is great, but I really hope this doesn't go overboard into sap-territory, because it's something I would otherwise get really into. The end of the trailer scares me a bit, I have to admit. I think they paint a mood with the music and dialogue that seems a fair bit goofier and more cartoony than what you've accomplished visually. At the same time, there don't seem to be a whole lot of family movies being made lately that are of this caliber. Regardless, I'll see it because I'm sure there will be some setups I'll be dying to ask about. What an amazing resource to have you here! And congratulations on this one, it looks absolutely great.

So I'm not a fan of 48-hour film fests. I never, ever, ever direct them, and if I'm involved in any way, I tend to keep it to the "helping out on set" level as a favor. Well this one became a much bigger favor. I wanted to really get dirty with the HVX200 and see what we could do, so I co-DPed this with a filmmaking buddy of mine, Nathan Drillot. The two of us shared lighting and camera duties, essentially making us DP, grip-electric, camera op, and 1st AC. We had two guys helping as G/E. I'll keep my... uuh... criticisms... about how the set was run to a minimum, because this is really about my first experience shooting with the HVX on P2. We shot in 720P in 24Pn. We had 2 4GB cards, and on-location (We shot in a autobody shop), upstairs was an editing suite: Macbook with a P2 slot. As soon as a card was full, we'd send someone to run it upstairs and unload into FCP, we'd quickly double check that it was all gravy, and then clear the card and send it back down. Basically, this was an epiphany for me. I cannot imagine ever going back to tape, nor working on something like a firestore. The P2 workflow - and ours was a ROUGH one, with no fancy software to automate, duplicate, and archive - was a dream come true. I've never in my life shot anything with this level of convenience. We had two minor hitches: The first, we found ourselves missing a shot. We had already cleared the card, but nowhere in the system was the shot found. Lucky for us it was easy to recreate, a standard point of coverage. I emphasize the luck: We hadn't done much testing to iron out the workflow, and we knew what we were getting into without going through a duplication and archiving process. But this only came up once, LUCKY for us. The other hitch was a shot that had a major glitchy blip. It wasn't like digital artifacts in DVCAM, it really looked like a bunch of pixelly green chunks of nastiness over the shot for about a frame or two. We quickly discovered our visual style for the film, the lighting went particularly quickly. The camera work took a bit, but we eventually found ourselves doing what generally goes completely and utterly against our aesthetic in every film we do - but we shot gritty, handheld, long lens. I tend to hate the Tony Scott aesthetic, but I can't imagine us shooting this one any different - all said and done, it worked really well for the show, and it gave plenty of opportunities to roll with new on-the-day ideas and interesting shots. We always were on the lookout to shoot things a little bit differently, and we weren't interested in rushing the look - We found ourselves going for a style that's really not ours (it sort of just evolved that way), but the goal was to at least do it WELL. I should also mention that on my LCD computer monitor, these screenshots look way way darker than they did in-camera and on our FCP system. I find that when I tilt my monitor down and look at it a bit from above it's closer to the original brightness, but hopefully other people are getting an accurate representation here. Also, we didn't do anything in post, the look was all in-camera, which was nothing drastic amongst the camera's settings. Mostly just lighting and camerawork. We tried to mix color temperatures as much as we could. On a few occasions we'd put a 1/4 plus green on our tungsten units to sicken them a little, and our other lights were uncorrected daylight. We had a light I'd never used before, a Lowell Case Light fluorescent fixture, with mirror doors. It was way way punchier than a kino, and the mirrors really helped add a bit more when we needed it. The stand was sort of a pain... but overall it worked great for our purposes. We always stayed on the lookout for ways to separate our actors from each other. The story was a sort of 28-days later thing (not our choosing, it was the 48-hour festival's theme), so we had a trio of characters who fell apart as the fear grew that one of them may have been "infected". Sort of derivative, but better to play the story safe and nail the production value for a deal like this, at least in my eyes. Genre isn't tough to do - the formulas are legion and for the most part they work. Why the long lens? This is why. We'd have shot with a redrock adapter, but we really were unprepared and under-crewed to tackle something like that, considering particularly that we shot what's basically a ten minute movie in 15 hours. I like this shot - it's almost identical to one I did on a short film last year, Bright Lights. (http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o95/thomstitt/vinyl.jpg). There's just something about coolly-lit music equipment I guess. A happy/not-so-happy accident in which the actor went ballistic during a take and accidentally smashed a window gave us all sorts of cool cinematography opportunites. This is a cool shot in motion - What happens is our pissed off friend in the foreground crosses and exits frame to beat our other guy, off-camera, with a wrench. We stayed on the dude in the background as he reacted, but stayed soft, as we blacked out to the sounds of a good skull-beating. What's a horror film without a good blood-pukin' in a nasty green bathroom? These last two were the climactic fight scene between the final two survivors. The plastic curtain is half-backlit by tungsten, half by daylight. We cranked the shutter speed to give us a sickening jitter and basically you have no idea what's happening in the fight, but it looks (and sounds) nasty. Screenshots for this scene are sort of useless, as long-lens/handheld/gritty does not always come across in stills. Anyway: Final thoughts: I am unbelievably impressed by the HVX200's abilities. Surprised at how less light-sensitive it is compared to the DVX, and I understand that with the Redrock adapter this will be cut by an additional stop, and all of a sudden we're in a strange position: Shooting digitally is far less light-sensitive than shooting film on something like 5218. Fancy that. At the same time, we played with overexposing a bit in this film during a couple of scenes and it actually looked nice - something I've been far more hesitant to do digitally. But the big winner here is P2. I've been born again.

Just want to throw my (redundant) two cents in, as Richardson is (also) one of my absolute favorite cinematographers. One of a few whose films I'll see regardless of director or story. Visually, Snow Falling and Bringing Out the Dead are my favorite Richardson films. I've seen both about a half dozen times, and neither film is really a stand-out aside from the cinematography. I do love the stories they tell, but I feel they each lost something in the adaptation from book to screen. But in both instances, it's visual poetry from frame one. Both of these films used a bleach-bypass, and they're my favorite examples of this technique. Bringing Out the Dead gave both Scorsese and Richardson a chance to really let loose and do some crazy stuff - They tell such a delirious story that you always want to see what image is going to follow. The sparks soaring off the high-rise balcony railing. The snow falling upwards as Nicolas Cage heads toward his "ghost". Snow Falling is a cinematographer's dream - When the winter storm knocks out the power and they have to continue the trial by oil lamps and candles, while outside everything just glows softly in the snow. These are flawed films, but I consider them both flawed masterpieces. I can watch these over and over.

You know, I've actually heard a lot of really bad things about the firestore. The overall lack of P2 support does kind of suck, I agree, but if you're a mac user there are plenty of options. You don't even need a hub in fact, if you have one of the macbooks with a P2 slot built in. And not to mention Final Cut Pro's built-in P2 import option. You can get a macbook with a P2 reader for around 900 dollars. Install the drivers and get FCP up and running, and/or P2 software like P2 genie, and you've got yourself a damned handy on-set weapon. P2 cards work wonderfully in my (limited) experience with them, and I'd take them over a firestore any day of the week, based on several reports I've heard from people I trust who have tried both. There's just no way, NO WAY, the P2 cards are useless compared to a hard disk. EDIT: I realize I should add here that I'm specifically talking about dramatic filmmaking. If you're talking documentary, that's a different story altogether.

I know that Tideland is in the Babel issue... I just haven't gotten that issue yet. I don't know what the deal is. I know it's not renewal time, so what gives? 13 days into the month now. Anyway - Gilliam did add the introduction to the film after some problems with audience reaction. He encourages us, as you mentioned, to approach the film with the outlook of a child, and dispose of everything we've become hardwired with. I think it's going to be insanely difficult for 99% of the audience to be able to do that. With the extent of the atrocities that they're going to bear witness to (and be a part of) in watching this movie, it's going to be a herculean task to be able to shed a lifetime of perspective and insight about how we work mentally and emotionally. I had a tough time doing it myself, the movie just became too much at times. If I ever had the chance to talk to Terry Gilliam, I know I would really want to discuss this with him. He very much knew when he was doing it that he would sacrifice both critical and financial success in staying so true to the book. And I really wish I had known a year ago, when I got the chance to meet and work with Jodelle Ferland, that the film was like this. I had no idea. I thought then that it would be more Time Bandits, less Psycho. It's such prodigiously challenging movie to maintain perspective through. Gilliam tugs at you at first, and then pulls you, and right when you're dangling on the precipice, unable to bear any more and desparate for repose (this is the point where you'll want to head to the bathroom/conession/parking lot), Gilliam's going to keep pulling until you topple all the way over with him, ready or not. The difference is I think Terry Gilliam's going to enjoy the hell out of the entire ride, particularly the fact that you're uncomfortable and want to leave. And I don't think there's any question whether or not he's at the top of his game in this film. It's stellar. But good luck to anybody who sees it, it's not a very enjoyable, likeable, or otherwise fun experience. It's quite a bit like experiencing a long nightmare. Some people, of course, are going to totally dig that.

Delhomme mentions in the article that a lot of DPs tend to shoot "day for dusk" rather than a true day for night, and creating a "blue and soft" look. Which brings me to Rodrigo Prieto in Brokeback Mountain. He did exactly what Delhomme describes here (and unfortunately I've yet to see The Proposition). But I have to admit, I love Prieto's effect in Brokeback. Check out the scene where they're sitting beside a river by firelight at dusk (the article on the movie describes how this was done). It looks AMAZING. The background works beautifully, the firelight effect is completely believable, and they just nailed the exposure. It's hard to believe it was shot in the middle of the day, which makes for a hell of an effective day-for-dusk scene, one of my favorites.

You know what? I can understand the negative reviews. It's hard not to hate or at least dislike a movie that makes you feel so shitty. Even the sense of humor is too closely tied with the disturbing events, that it never becomes comedic relief. It can be very hard to laugh at, particularly when you're already too engaged in squirming uncomfortably. Most of the negative reviews I see accuse the movie of being exploitative, pure shock value, morally empty. Having seen it, I honestly believe that these statements come from an attempt to justify what's really an instant emotional reaction to how grotesque and disturbing the film is. A critic can't get away with saying, "this movie made me feel gross and gave me waking nightmares. Thumbs DOWN!" You have to justify - it's exploitative, there's no payoff, it doesn't have anything to say, it was poorly-made. I just have a very hard time believing all of these things. Exploitative? No message? Poorly-made? How the hell did HOSTEL get mostly positive reviews, and Tideland gets trashed? Tideland, a movie that ISN'T violent in its disturbing scenes, and is responsible in its portrait of the little girl, which contains a few really stunning, poetic moments... And people accuse it of being useless, exploitative, and shocking for shock value's sake. I just don't buy it. I admit, the movie goes way too far - I have a hard time remembering the really heart-breaking, poignant moments in the movie because I'm too busy trying to block out the nasty bits. But if it did just hold back a bit more, and the rest of the filmmaking stayed just the same, I really do think these same critics would be unanimously hailing Tideland as the next Gilliam masterpiece.

I realize I haven't even brushed on the topic of the film's cinematography. I'm anticipating this month's ASC still... STILL... Being nearly halfway through the month, I don't know what the deal is, but hey, hopefully next week. Anyway, I can't wait to read the article. That said, I know a lot of people take issue with Nicola Pecorini's stuff in Fear and Loathing. It's not exactly subtle - and that absolutely holds true here. The cinematography's a lot like the production design - it's constantly toying with ugly and beautiful. Wide lenses, dutch tilts, putrid events, the occasional rendering of humanity as a cess-pool - and a magnificent Saskatchewan location frequently shot low and wide - it really really does look like an Andrew Wyeth painting. Only now we get to see what's inside that ghostly house in the middle of the desolate prairie. Trust me - it ain't pretty. I do think Pecorini and Gilliam are just a great match. I understand their pre-planned ideas tend to fall apart for the most part, and so their work, quite comfortably I imagine, occurs in a state of relative chaos. How else could you shoot a movie like Tideland? Or one like Fear and Loathing for that matter? They've got their own brand of delirious ugly-beautiful that's quite appealing to me. Though subtle it's not.

So here's an eagerly-anticipated film that seems to be flying just under the radar: Terry Gilliam's newest Tideland. First-off, I have to acknowledge that The Brothers Grimm was a major miss, and I need to point out that Gilliam himself publicly apologized for that one. Tideland, on the other hand, he is extremely proud of, and being independently made, he had total creative control over. We can trust that this is unbridled, unleashed Gilliam. What more do you need? Git! I saw it in late October - I still can't get the film out of my head. I know it's tough to find a theater even playing the damned thing - but if anyone here has seen it, I'd love to hear some thoughts. My thoughts of the film have been on a teeter totter ever since I saw it. You may have heard the movie was a bit on the disturbing side. So what, right? You can handle it. But no. Please let me really really drive the point home: This movie is going to make your insides feel like a sticky, tarry nightmare substance, your stomach will become a pit of unease, and your brain is going to reject the experience and ask you repeatedly why you just put it through such an experience. You're going to want to leave the theater. I don't care how much you like the movie - you're going to want to leave. That being said, my fears that Gilliam may have lost his marbles I think were sated - He's at the absolute top of his game here. It's in fact one of the warmest films I've seen - It's perspective is so closely tied with the lead character of Jeliza-Rose that we are essentially made to become children again, and to experience a nightmare world the way she does. The film keeps pulling us deeper into her own inner world. You are never just watching, coldly, as the events unfold - you really take the journey with her. It's no surprise that she survives by hiding in a tainted fantasy realm all her own - Some people have criticized the film in saying that she's TOO resilient. But honestly, if I had to sit through that same movie with a more constantly emotionally-ravaged Jeliza-Rose? I don't think I could forgive Gilliam. He's had mercy on us all by giving Jeliza-Rose the kind of defense that only a child could put up. As it is, we get an experience deeply linked with how her child mind operates in the face of what is quite literally a real-life nightmare. Gilliam pulls it off with some amazing visual poetry. I don't want to spoil any of the movie's aesthetic flights of fancy because they're so rewarding. And believe me, you really do have to earn them. All said and done, it's on my list of best films of the year, because I was so impressed and engrossed in Gilliam's storytelling. This is a dark Alice in Wonderland - we're with a child through dreams and nightmares, and this is often an exquisitely uncomfortable thing to go through. It's biggest dilemma is that it takes the audience far over a brink they're just unwilling to go over. I also happen to believe that they DID GO way too far - If they could have just reigned in the grotesqueness a bit, we'd have a masterpiece on our hands. As it is, most of the people who see it are going to run away simultaneously screaming and vomiting. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this makes Eraserhead seem like cotton candy at Disneyland. I also want to mention that I was extremely impressed with Jodelle Ferland as the lead character - she's made to really carry the movie, and some people might be annoyed by her many alternate doll-head personalities (don't ask), but I was extremely impressed and relieved. I had the pleasure of working with her on a short film a year ago near Christmas (I was an electric). She was an absolute joy on the set, she really had fun through the process of it - amazing considering it was late at night and she was surrounded by grown-ups who take their job entirely too seriously. I also thought Silent Hill was complete garbage, which was unfortunate. But great for her in pulling off the giant feat of making Jeliza-Rose a real child, and one we can care about while sharing such a hellish experience. If anyone has been brave enough to seek out and sit through this movie, I'd be thrilled to argue like crazy people about it.

I'm a huge fan of small crews. Coincidentally, I'm also not a fan of being around big-budget movie sets. When I see a hundred trailers circling four blocks of the city, two hundred people standing around with nothing to do, and a tiny little scene being shot involving a couple of people having chat, clearly being filmed in standard over the shoulder coverage... Oh man. It just makes my soul ache. As far as quality goes, I'll point to Kubrick on this one - He loved working with extremely small crews of hugely talented people. This was mentioned - fewer pros versus more greenhorns - I think it's a great way to work. I think this forum's going to make it clear that this really isn't for everybody. As long as you have a hands-on DP who's into this kind of shooting - who's got a really tight-knit, very small swing crew of people who can work together like clockwork, then I don't think the lighting will suffer at all. I've seen this go both ways - I've seen small crews fail. People working on a film they didn't care too much about, who were pretty green, and the movie definitely suffered, with setups being dropped because of time lost. I've also seen the opposite - A tiny group of people (crew of ten to eleven plus cast) where everything just works. Those are my favorite shooting experiences. I'll take the intimate route any day of the week. Let me point to Martin Scorsese now, who's planning to depart (no pun) from the studio system and make smaller-budget indie films from now on. I know this is because of creative freedom over crew size, but we all read the ASC article on The Departed, in which a tiny kitchen scene was being filmed with a skeleton crew on location - while outside the house, an army of crew people waited under tents with nothing to do.

Man, Canada gets screwed on that list! When are we going to get some more of this Real-D action?? When Cameron's crap comes out?

I noticed that too! It was the cameras! The cardboard cameras in his brain-studio are made from the film stock boxes, the 8573. Yeah, they were probably pinching a few pennies.

It was weird to hear Braham mention a 7-stop latitude in film, I've always shot film with a 10-stop range in mind (though the extreme zones have been definite murky areas). He based his statement on certain specific tests he did (that aren't detailed in the article unfortunately, other than they transferred from the HD data to film, and compared with the same tests shot on film). I'm not sure, but I imagine Braham's figuring that there's more latitude in the low end, maybe his tests were done in low light conditions. I realize this is basically a roundabout way of saying the Genesis is faster than any reasonable film stock, but who knows. I'll ask him if I happen to see him at the grocery store.

I was walking in downtown Vancouver when I stumbled upon a commercial that was shooting on Granville (I think it was Granville). I chatted with a P.A. for a few minutes about it, and learned that Kaminksi was DPing. I didn't see the man in action, but it was a cool feeling that he was in such close vacinity. That's how you know you're a cinematography nerd.

I think this one of the best films this year. That's not to say I wasn't disappointed - I think it's important to forget about Eternal Sunshine, forget about any similarities in the stories or how they look. It's such a different film that you're only setting yourself up to be disappointed if you go in expecting another Eternal Sunshine. That said, I know The Science of Sleep is going to grow on me over time. I plan on picking up the DVD and watching it many times in the future - there's so much there, both visually and between the characters, that it's going to be a new experience with each viewing. Gondry's created an eccentric little underdog, but removes the sentimentality we're used to with these kinds of characters. Instead we get to know a real person, with real feelings - it's complicated, and he's oftentimes extremely unlikable - but we know him intimately - we live inside his head, we get to know more than just the man himself - we get to know the childlike pilot in the cockpit, all of his flaws bared. Gondry's dream sequences are so incredible that I really ended up regretting seeing the trailers and clips that I had watched online before seeing the film. but onto one of my favorite aspects of the movie - It fits into this kind of independent filmmaking that I will always subscribe to - the goal being to wittle down the filmmaking machine to its most basic and required parts. I don't think you need over 60 20K fresnels to shoot a simple newsroom, as they did in Superman Returns. I don't think you need to run miles and miles of 4OT to enormous lighting fixtures on every street corner of a town, as I've heard they're doing on the new Coen Bros movie (I should also mention that I love Deakins' cinematography). I'm making extreme comparisons here between major hollywood blockbusters and tiny independent projects I know, but nevertheless: I look at Half Nelson and A Clockwork Orange, and even Eternal Sunshine and Science of Sleep, and these are films that barely used ANY lighting compared to the usual Studio fare, and they look real, they look believable, and they look good (though some people will argue that Half Nelson is too grainy.). These are projects with cinematographers and directors that are simply making the active decision to to cut down on the size of the filmmaking tank - This isn't Dogma 95 in the least. I see it as a little something I like to call "reason". I agree that The Science of Sleep didn't really live up to its full potential. It's sort of a tough film, because you have such a hard time sympathizing with such a damaged character while having to literally take the experience inside his brain. But I expect time to be very kind to The Science of Sleep. This is going to remain one of my top favorite films of this year, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it more. Oh, and 80% of the film was shot on the brand new 500T Fuji Eterna 8573 stock, which the filmmakers, in testing, found to hold underexposed images much better than Kodak's 5218 that we all know so well. The rest of the film was shot on Fuji 250D 8561, Kodak EXR 50D 5245, and for the stop-motion animation sequences, Vision2 5274. The camera was an Arricam Lite with Zeiss G.O./Superspeed primes and a 100mm Canon Macro lens. The stop-motion sequences were shot with a 25mm Debrie-Parvo L camera with Kinoptik lenses. The filmmakers actually wanted to keep postproduction in the analog realm, grading photochemically, but producers actually imposed a D.I. The cinematographer refers to Gondry and himself as "prisoners of technology" through the process. All from the October ASC!

From the trailers I was so amazingly uninterested in this film... But then I read the ASC article. Henry Braham was so impressed with the Genesis that the article became the most convincing commercial for the camera I've heard yet. "I'd say working with HD is like using a quill pen, working with film is like using a typewriter, and working with the Genesis is like moving on to a fabulous word processor." "I was amazed at the Genesis' dynamic range, which is massive. Whereas the typical range of latitude on the film negative is seven stops, we were seeing a range of close to 10 stops with the Genesis. Suddenly a whole lot of new possibilities opened up, and the prospect of shooting digitally became exciting." "You can shoot skies that appear to be hot and white, but when you start grading, it's as though the heavens open up with detail. The camera captures all the data..." Braham found the rating of 640 ASA a safe range - and expects to rate the camera higher in the future. He also details one of my favorite things to hear about on film sets: Using the sensitivity of the camera, he was able to use "very little film lighting", trusting any dark areas to register in the Genesis' data. Anyway - Of all the articles I've read regarding the Genesis, this article really stood out due to the level of excitement expressed by the cinematographer. There's no doubt about it, the Genesis is a beast. A hell of a strong tool for any cinematographer who knows how to play to its strengths.

There's a featurette you can watch - it doesn't go into details, but you can get a pretty good visual idea of how they made this film 3D. It seems like a fairly painstaking process. http://media.movies.ign.com/media/846/846389/vids_1.html

Ron Fricke! See Koyaanisqatsi, one of my all-time favorite films. The entire film is entirely composed of absolutely stunning images. I don't think I've ever seen a film with such gorgeous city-matography.

They have a pretty interesting look to them, I like it. I'd pretty much second what Terrence said. The major problem here would be separation. The contrast is so incredibly high here that you've run the risk of losing your character's black clothing into the dark backgrounds, which is exactly what's happened. Work on separating. Just put dress lights on the walls/objects behind him, or try to light and backlight the character a little more. My favorite frame is the first one - Full shot of a character completely surrounded by gauges. It's a great looking set, and I'd say as a DP you've definitely achieved a "look". Unfortunately your lighting has also come close to creating a floating head. In this frame, you do have some light in the back, but his wardrobe is so dark you've lost all detail. Just bring up the ambient on him from the front to get some detail... But this is also a prime example of when a DP's job intersects with wardrobe and art. If the production's going to have such a high-contrast look achieved through the photography, the wardrobe shouldn't be pitch black, or it's going to cause problems for the DP. Anyway, cool looking short though.

I hate it when producers pull this kind of thing. I once signed onto a low-budget feature as an electric - I should have listened to the warning signs early on. It was a last-minute call, and I didn't see a single sheet of paper, deal memo, call sheet - I saw nothing on the first day. It was "meet here at this time" over the phone by the best boy electric, with a promise from him that I can expect around 150 a day. A 16-hour day, and no money. I'm talking with - whoever it was that showed up at the end of the day - line producer, UPM - it wasn't THE producer, I know that much. I told him that I was promised 150 a day. Oooh, that's a lot of money! Someone promised you that? Yeah we can't afford that. Tell you what, I can give you 100 a day for maybe a little while, but not today, I don't have it today. Come in tomorrow, I'll pay you then. Sound a little sleazy? More warning signs. Some people may have considered bailing at this point, but I needed some quick cash, so I worked the second day. Early on day one, I had my reservations, so I began planting the seeds for a possible bail. "I have another shoot" etc, "I may need to take a couple weeks off, maybe I can help on weekends," etc. At the end of the day I had to practically wrestle the cash from the producer. It came to 50 bucks a day. Two long days, at only 50 bucks a day, and he mentioned that that would likely be the last he'd be able to pay. After that it was volunteer. I'm telling you this kind of abuse is outrageous. I completely understand how tough it is to produce such a low-budget feature, crew is a really really tough thing to manage, and it can get expensive. And I have to say I felt terrible about bailing on the lighting crew, but the best boy promised me pay, and obviously he didn't know what he was talking about. The entire production was so unorganized - I felt I had no other choice. So many people get taken advantage of by the producer who I think generally feels he has "bigger fish to fry". There's this ASSUMPTION that you can get volunteer crew on any no-budget production, kids fresh out of film school hungry to get on set. But they get little out of it, and really it becomes this dangerous assumption made by the producers trying to shave costs. At least it was catered!! They spent more money on food than they spent on crew. When you get into productions on these kinds of budgets, consider it the part of the filmmaking map labeled "Here by dragons". Proceed with caution.

As a DP, when I've found myself getting pretty pissed off, it tended to be toward one or two individuals as opposed to the entire crew. What helped me in this situation was to just look around for a minute at the set. There are the actors - great people. The director, my friend, the AD, surprisingly as well, on very good terms with me. A few people on the lighting/grip crew may also be on great terms with you. A great group of people. It became instantly not worth it to ruin the mood on the set by blowing up at one person. Believe me, I wanted to so, so bad. Sometimes it helps a little, if there's room for a bit of a focus shift while DPing, to fantasize about a totally sweet Van Damme style fight scene on the film set. You grap a C-stand, he grabs a junior stand, and it's ON. aaaaahhh... I tend to become kind of the comedic relief on set, if there is some level of tension. One time I was tweaking lights during a fairly steamy make-out scene - One actor was fantastically inexperienced, and the other was an absolute professional. Well, the inexperienced one thought he had permission, I guess, and started doing cute little things in between takes, flirty little moves to the actress that were utterly inappropriate. It would end with her slinking away from him and shooting the most intensely cold stare at him - Meanwhile I'm inches from these guys taking a light meter reading. The awkwardness lasted a few seconds, so I made a joke - something like "Ah damn I've seen that look. Here comes the switchblade." The actress continued the joke, and the tension was released at least a little. But never fully. Is it cool or appropriate to essentially tell an actor he deserves to be stabbed? Not really. But in this situation, I just reacted on instincts and I think overall it helped. The worst it could have done for the actor is embarassed him, and that's absolutely what he should have felt. That was the only time it had to do with actors though - the rest of it for me dealt with crew members. So essentially, I'm seconding what's been mentioned about humor. It's a priceless, priceless tool in calming people down, shifting attention and mood to the lighter side, etc. But here's another technique, especially if it's a really really long day. In the middle of a crucial setup? Ready to go all "Hulk Smash" on the crew? Just walk over to crafty, indulge in your absolute favorite snack on the table, and get some energy in you. Spend a second or so enacting a cool move or two in your Steven Seagal fight scene. He just loosened a riser and swung the stand wide at you - you blocked with your C-stand, reached into the nearby 2K, pulled out the scrims, and frisbied them at his eyes. If you can do this and get a smile out of it, finish your snack and head back to work.

I think the best point being made here is that a DP should have a very good handle on the entire process - and it's an obvious rule of thumb that the more "trench" experience he has, the better he'll likely be assuming the role as Boss. But I absolutely agree with everyone here stating that a DP by no means requires an in-depth technical training like a union gaffer working on big films would. The extreme, however, occurs, and it's a crying, crying shame. Anyone here who loves the craft of cinematography - would you ever even dream of leaving the lighting entirely up to your crew, based on an overly generalized "direction" by yourself? I think that's half the fun of being a cinematographer - you're a painter, and light is your medium. You should know the texture of your tools, the palette with which you will work throughout your career. It is a craft, a collaborative one, and I know many of the best DPs in the world wouldn't be able to do their job without equally amazing contributors on their lighting and camera crew. That's one of the best things about cinematography. Some DPs betray that collaboration and offset a pretty good balance that most workers have going. What I'm doing in this thread is trying to gauge what the proportion is. How many of these off-balance pseudo-DPs are out there getting paid 10 times more than the crew doing their jobs for them? *furiously strokes beard in the process of extreme contemplation* Wow, that's an interesting turn of events. Good for you, I have to say you're pretty lucky it turned out that way. The film set tends to drip with egos, so that was a bit of a risky move. I admire you a bit, because I've found myself in the same situation, but I didn't take that step forward. It wasn't so much fear of an ego overshadowing my own, more of a... laziness. Oooh that's what it was... they had these tasty fruit salads at crafty... so tasty...

But... then I couldn't be such a sarcastic wise-ass! *kicks a puff of dirt* (It's a good point nonetheless)

It's not so much that I'm scared about the idea of being on a big shoot - that's not it at all, in fact, if any DP isn't scared on day 1 of a big shoot, I think they're probably in the wrong business. It's more of the old fist-shaking bitterness that we all feel from time to time being in the film industry. I mean, Brett Ratner, in the middle of a shooting TAKE on X-Men 3, saw a girl crossing the street and ran up to her, and hit on her. Cameras were rolling, and he was macking. Brett Ratner made, I think it was 97.3 billion dollars, and he's hitting on some girl during a take. Meanwhile, Billy DP over here's telling me to "make it subdued", I'm doing HIS job for him, and he gets the credit and the payday. I have nothing but respect for gaffers, especially the really good ones who know their stuff inside and out. I also firmly believe that there are some good gaffers out there who are saving the asses of some incompetent DPs. "If my name wasn't on this", I can hear them say, "I'd light this thing like a reality show." Good mention on the Key Grip too, especially on the bigger shows. That's not a job many people are cut out for. It takes a lot of ingenuity.

If you think the script sucked, then it makes the example all that stronger. I mean, wouldn't you say it was a strong film in spite of the script? Good performances, great use of tone, beautiful cinematography - it adds up to an engaging film.