Micah Fernandez

The lighting fixtures will definitely be permanent, perhaps renting additional units for bigger events like concerts. It doesn't have to be as complex as stage lighting for theater productions, though the principles Karel mentioned definition inform my design. A good peg would be a video lecture such as what you'd find on TED.com.(like this for example) I'll also need to reacquaint myself with theater lights. :) Thanks for the posts. They definitely helped point me into the right direction. I shall be updating/asking more questions as I learn more about the project. Thanks again!

I'm being offered a project to design the lighting for a small auditorium. The client wants to be able to decently capture any lectures/lessons/events they may have in that space. They don't have a huge budget, so I'm thinking I have to transpose whatever knowledge I have of film lighting for stage lighting (as far as technicals are concerned) I've been DPing for a couple of years now, but I have never been tasked with a project like this. I wanted to ask advice from anyone who has had experience doing something like this. How should I begin? What lighting units are more appropriate for this setting? What are other things I should research on concerning the set up that I would not have learned from being a DP on a film set? I know the questions are rather general..I also need to know what the right questions to ask are! :) Thanks in advance for the helpful advice! :)

I was planning to passing on this movie, but now I'm intensely interested in seeing it. :)

It's a week late, but I'm considering this my birthday gift from God. :D

Thanks to all who replied. I was able to go into the shoot better informed and prepared, and as a result the projector was the least of my worries. :)

Hi all! I'll be shooting a music video in a large auditorium with a stage. The talent will be performing on stage to a darkened auditorium, and the director wants a projection of previously shot footage to be playing in the background, with the image sometimes directly projected on her. I figure that I'll need to boost or cut any additional lighting I have to accommodate the LCD projector's brightness, but since it's my first time to be filming a digital projection, I was wondering if there were any other issues I need to guard against, such as the projected image's color on camera, flicker or scan lines, and the like. Any tips/advice is appreciated. Thanks!

As far as I understand it, it is the voters who decide who gets the Academy award, and as David Mullen has explicitly stated in this thread, it IS rather like a popularity contest. That you don't agree with the outcome of this contest in no way disproves the fact that Slumdog Millionaire was a well-made movie that many people enjoyed. That Slumdog won the award does not mean that digital is better than film either. No one's claiming that. It's just that at this point in time, people happened to resonate with the images of this movie more than the other movies that were nominated. The technical merits, yes, we should be able to better describe the processes and tools that went into crafting the images. But the emotional impact and the impression it leaves in one's mind? We are all on an even playing field in that respect, and that is, rightly, what all movies are judged upon.

What these people bring is an immediate sincerity in reacting to what they see, without being bogged down by details like what camera and film stock was used, or whether it was lit with an inky or a flashlight. This is kind of like saying "What does the audience know about movies? They wouldn't know a good movie from a porcupine strapped to their forehead!" Just because they don't know how things are done doesn't mean they cannot comprehend what they are seeing.

Well, if more than a few people think you're saying something to that effect, maybe you aren't communicating as clearly as you think you are? :)

Well, if this is at the heart of your philosophy about cinematography, fine. I, and I'm sure many other working cinematographers, heartily disagree however. I'm not on set to make a shoot "challenging" just so I can be personally fulfilled. I'm on set because the director trusts my creative mind to imagine, in tandem with him, the best possible images for the story and that I have the technical skill to execute those images, to get it on film or digital media as closely to our imaginations as possible. If it means that I have to send in the rigging team in the wee hours of the morning to rig a thousand units, so be it. If it means that I don't have to do anything but roll the camera, so be it. Neither of these approaches are "better", the only thing that matters is that we get the shot we need. If I as a director had a DP that was trying to complicate the shot just for the sake of making things "challenging", I'd have to take him aside for a little chat and let him know that I can't have his grandstanding overrun the production.

I also got a reply from the webmaster, almost identical to Serge's, but with this little detail thrown in... I'm unfamiliar with laws on cyber-stalking and abuse in your territories, but in my country they are non-existent. The situation is a bit more worrying than a regular angry internet tough guy who mailbombs you every now and then.

I have already written the webmaster, thanking Mr. Deakins and the team for their contribution to the filmmaking community along with a plea to reconsider a total site shutdown and instead consider imposing stricter security measures. Hopefully if enough people show their support, they can be persuaded to return. However, I was able to read kamerawhore's posts and he immediately struck me as a deeply disturbed person, not just a rabid internet troll, who would be a likely candidate for exhibiting stalker-like behavior. I would totally understand if the experience has soured Mr. Deakins' taste for the entire idea of being publicly accessible via the internet. But I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.

Saw the film, loved it for its story and the way it was told. It was really a fresh take on this type of love story (childhood sweethearts). Can't comment too much on the technicals as I saw it on my humble 30-or-so inch LCD TV (although some shots did feel a bit murky), but I loved the camera angles and framing- especially since they did nothing but enhance the narrative. Boyle's dealt with such a wide band of genres and done them all rather successfully.

Hi all. Sorry if this is a rather simple question, but I have no prior experience with 35mm lens adapters. :) My friend recently bought an encinema35 adapter that fits into a 43mm size lens, meaning smaller video cameras. I was just hoping there was a way to attach it to larger cameras, like an HVX200 at the very least. Is there any solution for this? Can step rings be of any use?

I've been hearing a lot of stories on set about veteran DPs who are so used to the lighting craft that they know what t-stop a certain lamp will give them as a certain distance without having to check a light meter. Since I'm still a relative newbie, I was wondering I would be able to make up for my inexperience by studying the relation of lamp illumination and aperture opening in order to be more precise with my selection for renting (especially on lower budget shoots) as well as choosing fixtures more precisely on set. Is this practical, or even possible? If it is something I should already know (or should be learning), is there a lux-f/stop chart somewhere I can consult? What real world factors come into play beyond the manufacturer's photometric specs that should be taken into consideration when on set? Thanks to all who answer, and I hope those questions made sense. ;)

A legend has passed on. :(

Well, that was a simple reply, and yet it made me see things in a completely different light. Thank you for that. My friend HAS been telling me to make myself more visible around set, and I didn't quite understand what he meant. I had the mentality that they've got they're own little crew and if I helped around too much I'd be stepping on toes. Asking to be assigned work for some reason did not occur to me to do. Well, at least today I was able to change the ultraprimes a couple of times. :) Another question: the DP I work with is Japanese and doesn't speak our language very well, though his English is acceptable. The camera and lighting crew speak our native language primarily, so miscommunications (minor, but they do waste time) happen frequently. I speak both languages very well, and sometimes feel like jumping in to make sure instructions are carried out properly. However, I hold back again on account of fearing that I am overstepping my bounds. Is this a valid concern, or do I need to branch out more as that bridge for the DP and his crew?

I've been helping out at a commercial production company as a lackey of one of the DOPs for several shoots now. While I'm learning a lot about the craft and have been making friends among the technicians, I don't see myself getting any work continuing in this vein. My cinematography mentor told me that I should get chummy with the producers, but the director and DOP (both friends of mine) don't really help me in the social networking department, and I'm generally a shy person. It might seem like a really dumb question, but what can I do to get the right kind of attention?

Anyone have the movie's technical information? :)

As far as filming on the actual location, I have nothing further to contribute except to mention that our business is dealing with believability, not reality. I'm sure any capable outfit would be able to build a fake location that would be closer to what you as director would require than filming on ground zero. And that's minus the hassle of having a consultant for the radioactivity, wearing suits, lining sensitive equipment with lead. I highly doubt those "authentic" aspects of production would leak onto the celluloid and make a better movie. As far as the story, if people here think that it sounds like a B-movie, it's only because you've pitched it as such. Group of crazy youths off on an adventure get more than they bargained for by stumbling onto a hidden secret that forces them to fight for their lives. Classic B plot line. :)

I used it yesterday to run some lens tests on a TV commercial shoot (they were already paid for and it wasn't obstrusive, so no one minded). Workflow, at least for the tasks of shooting and reloading, is similar to 35mm, you just have to make sure that you have enough cards to keep a cycle of having a fresh card, while unloading used cards. I would definitely not shoot a documentary, or a Wong Kar Wai-style feature (long takes, almost unscripted action) with it unless I had a certain number of P2 cards available.

I'm just taking a stab here, but I would suppose that a DOP in an animated feature is responsible for the same things he would be on a live set: decide the dramatic requirement of the scene and have the lights placed where he wants them. Though instead of telling his gaffer, he would be telling an animator in charge of the lighting effects.

Great movie. I like the overall tone of the scenes in Laurence Fishburne's study (how did you get the golden-ness? I seem to vaguely recall you saying balancing on 1/4 CTB or am I mistaken?) and how the spelling bee scenes strongly resembled the real thing. Speaking of which, was the movie influenced by the documentary "Spellbound"? I noticed that one of the last words was "logorrhea", which was the winning word in the documentary. Also, after I watched Spellbound, I immediately thought that it would have been interesting if the Indian guy's dad was all militaristic and overbearing after he lost....lo and behold, along comes this movie. :D Great work David. Nice to see good photography doesn't need to be flashy.

I don't know if it was the screen I saw it on, but a lot of the night interiors were terribly murky, and not in a good way. It felt like all they had were 3 600w pars. Am I alone in this opinion?

sorry, wrong thread...