Rakesh Malik

When I'm doing outdoor shoots on cold days, I go to my backpacking and mountaineering kits... so: The best bet for staying warm AND dry is wool and synthetics. For outer layers I prefer not to use GoreTex or Event these days, because they tend to get too hot. I prefer to wear an extra layer of wool or similar as an insulating layer and an outer layer of softshell or Pertex or similar fabric. I've had great results using one of the Eddie Bauer/First Ascent BCS200 rain jackets, as well as a crazy light Outdoor Research jacket made of a Pertex fabric. I always take at least one of those on mountaineering trips. I've been using a pair of Windstopper fleece gloves that enable me to keep my hands reasonably warm and still be able to operate a camera (it worked with my 4x5). For extra warmth when I'm no operating a camera I have GoreTex overmitts. Operating a camera with those on doesn't work well, but they're easy to slip on and off, so they've worked well for me on winter camping trips when I'm out in the cold and wanting to set up a shot with a 4x5. Pop the overmitts off, get the shot, slip the overmitts back on. Layers are very important though; if you start to sweat, you need to cool off before you soak your base layers. When trekking one of the first things we tend to do before even setting camp is to get out of the wet base layers and put on dry layers + puffies (down, usually) to stay warm, plus good down puffies pack down to incredibly small bundles and weigh next to nothing, so they're easy to drag along pretty much everywhere. :)

I haven't found rolling shutter to be anywhere near as big a deal as so many people make it out to be, provided that you don't go for crazy-shaky camera work that doesn't look good anyway. IMO it's just an attempt to hide a lack of skill from the audience by making them too dizzy to notice that there's not composition to look at anyway. Regarding the a7 family for quality, definitely. I use an a7r for photography that's gotten into galleries and art shots, and one print that got shown at the Louvre over the summer... though that still was one I captured with a Nex 7, the a7r's predecessor. The Sony cameras have impressive dynamic range, enough that I no longer bother with stacking HDR, and the color rendition is beautiful. From what I've seen of the a7s video footage, I'd say that it retains the color rendition that the camera has in stills mode. Plus, the a7 family is very well built so it will last quite a while if cared for, and I keep mine at my side when on climbs. Plus the lens options are legion, ranging from inexpensive but high quality manual focus SLR lenses to pretty much any price ceiling you choose, probably including PL mount. :)

Even though I do most of my stills with a Sony a7r now, I miss being able to shoot film on my 4x5, though it's mainly lately for logistical reasons (i.e. time -- it takes time to stop and set up a 4x5 camera, so if you're hiking with a non-photography oriented group or on a schedule because you're trying to reach your base camp before the storm rolls in, you don't have time to use the 4x5). I reluctantly stopped using 35mm film for nature photography because the cost of a roll of film jumped quite a bit, and so did the cost of developing. I continued to, and still occasionally continue to, shoot 4x5 film since Ilford, Agfa, Kodak, and a lot of smaller companies whose names I can't think of right this minute are still making film stocks, but getting 4x5 chromes developed is getting harder these days. And the last pro lab in my city that could both develop and digitize 35mm film closed down a year or two ago.

Even if the person who helped you get that gig wasn't pro when you first hired him/her, you should remember them anyway... because clearly you did something right in picking them. :)

Are you shooting this film or directing it? If you're the cinematographer, then maybe it's worth investing in some cinema gear, but if you're directing it, it's probably a significantly better value to put your money into production design and talent instead. Cameras don't produce images. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a camera dongle or a camera salesdroid. Ursas by the way should be largely immune to rolling shutter problems.

Nowadays dynamic range is the "magic bullet" of choice, since 4K is old news now ;)

That's surprisingly common. I see it in a lot of self-promotions from camera dongles also; rather than showing reels, they show their gear. They're really just renting their cameras to people who think that a higher end camera will magically improve their production value, and just coming along for the ride under the guise of being the DoP and providing a free camera rental.

I identify with both sides of the "working with others" thing. I love being on set because the collaboration invariably leads to superior work (more expressive, more engaging, and more sophisticated at the same time). The better the crew, and by "better" I really mean, "more collaborative," the better the result. I've had great results with people who had no clue, but were hard-working and eager to learn all they could (and by teaching them what *I* could, I ended up learning a lot). At the same time, I love the solitude of travel and adventure, and have done some of my best work when it was just me and the mountains or penguins. When I'm a solo crew, there are obvious tradeoffs; I have to limit the amount of stuff I can carry in the back country, so it means I don't carry a jib, slider, gimbal, and that sort of thing, so I have to make up for not having all that gear with exceptionally careful and inspiring compositions. It's good mental exercise though; when a single frame has to be able to stand by itself, it forces you to raise your standard for visual storytelling. I find that working in solitude with just a camera and tripod enhances my visual skills, while working on set with a full team opens my mind. They feed off of each other. Otherwise, I think that my growth as a cinematographer would have been much, much slower than it has been.

Photography was my road into cinematography, so I always carry at least a small camera with me when I travel. These days it's a Sony a7r, which with a 35mm f/2.8 lens fits in a small point and shoot pouch that I can secure against my torso for when I'm climbing mountains, plus a Sony 4K action cam that I can secure on my helmet during climbs and glissades, good for technical sections and glacier traverses where you can't really stop to pull the camera out. I keep the action cam's remote on my wrist for easy start and stop... I just wish it had better battery life. Of course, I also like shooting wilderness, nature, and wildlife... so I carry a cinema camera on most of my trips.

I've directed a couple of shorts, one that went well and one that was basically a mess. Since, I've shot lots of shorts and web series and one feature. What keeps me on the camera side and not pushing to become a director is that I love the aesthetic challenges that the DoP gets to work with, coming up with ways to get looks the director is asking for, designing shots, and basically doing the visual art. I like working with people (or else I would be sticking to wilderness photography :) ), and I like watching a good director turn an actor into a character... but I'm not good at that, and since I don't love DOING it, I probably will never be. So... I stick to the camera department.

I've been putting stock footage up on Nimia, which is curated. https://app.nimia.com/profile/WhiteCrane

I find that theory rather amusing. Several of my mentors in photography detested the rule of thirds because so many people followed it so dogmatically that they prevented themselves from ever growing and developing any sort of visual style, let alone their own. The rule of thirds is like training wheels. You use them to get you started riding bikes, but you get rid of them as soon as you can ride on your own... and then you go on to learn to do cool stuff now that you're no longer fettered by the training wheels attached to your bike. The goal of both media is to tell stories with images. You use the composition to guide the viewer's eye through the frame. You use time differently in stills, of course, but that viewer's eye still works the same way whether the image is still or moving.

Agreed. Not much of the satirical humor made it into the film.

I agree with you Tyler, I just hope that their business model is sustainable. It's generous and it's enabled a lot of people to move up to producing professional quality footage by not being limited to the heavy compression of dSLRs, but it's hard to see where their margins are. I'm not complaining about what BMD's done and is doing, rather I'm hoping that they'll be able to keep it up.

Disruptive is a good way to describe BMD. And it's not just the cameras, it's also now visual effects (Fusion) and already included color (Resolve), and will soon include editorial (Resolve 12). I don't see how BMD's business model can be sustainable, unless they're planning on either continuing to move up-market, or convincing current owners to upgrade every 2-3 years. Or possibly just by having a huge product portfolio. :) Sony already is doing like you're predicting, and odds are others will as well. The cameras that NHK was showing at NAB captured in raw at 120fps... the data rates must be astronomical.

You should read more... Marvin is from Douglas Adams' 4-book trilogy called, "The Hitchhiker's Guide the Galaxy." :)

That's what I'm dealing with. The standards here are painfully low. In a local group that formed recently in an attempt to revive the film community, we had a bunch of short films shot, one of them done (and won a contest, earning a screening at SIFF -- I was DP). I think there are another four or five that haven't seen the light of day yet, and two one-scene "short films" that were intended to showcase two actors' acting skills. In both of those shorts, the speaking character even when dominating the frame was out of focus more often than not (well over half of each film), and one of them had serious logical mergers... The community thought they were great...

I've been feeling the same way where I am. Most of the talented folks here on both sides of the camera are moving elsewhere for that reason. The community's exceedingly low standards makes it difficult to keep improving because the community itself is striving to drag everyone involved down with it instead of working to get better. Most are heading for LA. I'm heading to Vancouver. (Can't quite bring myself to leave the Cascades just yet, but I'll probably wind up spending a lot of time in the Range of Light after relocating.)

I purchased my gear with the same intent; to work on my own stuff. I'm building a reel with it, and also a stock media archive, so it's helping. I am looking at it as a long term investment, though. A lot of scripts these days are largely dialog, for sure. It's frustrating, because it makes for weak storytelling, but in one community that started up recently, there's been a lot of noise regarding the dialog-oriented nature of the scripts so that's starting to change for the better. At least it's a start. Now to get them to understand what the difference is between a DP and a camera operator...

I agree with that. I didn't buy the gear with the intention of marketing my gear, I bought it to build a reel... so for quite a while I didn't include much info about my gear in my profiles, but instead concentrated on building and sharing my reel... and constantly, I got queries about what gear I had. Sometimes it was reasonable queries, like we need wireless lavs, do you have them and if not, we'll rent some, but most of the time, they just wanted to know what kind of camera and lenses I had. I've been fortunate to find several directors who don't care what I'm shooting with, and in some cases chose to work with me based more on my stills than on my film reel, but these folks are also just getting started, and so are also trying to find ways to generate money to fund projects, so they can't pay either... but at least they're leading to stuff that's worth putting in my reel. The rest I'm just staying away from.

I think that's the less likely case. Based on my experience and what I've seen of what the indies especially around here are making, they just assume that that the DP's job is to point the camera and press the record button, which is easy. They assume the gaffer's the one deciding how to light the scene, and that "camera operator" and "director of photography" are synonymous. They're often more concerned with what gear the "DP" is willing to lend them than with that person's reel...

I agree completely with this. That also has lead to one of my biggest frustrations with the independent film community in general, which is the perception that the DP's primary job is to provide the camera package. A lot of these indies are happy to pay their editor and actors (not what any of them are truly worth, of course), but they invariably want the DP to volunteer AND provide gear. Needless to say, I avoid projects that don't seem like they'd be worth putting in my reel these days.

I agree that it is more difficult to get it all right in a single take, but then you don't need the 20 angles, so in the long run I think it's actually more efficient even so. However, even if it weren't more efficient, it's quite a bit more powerful when you craft a shot so that the composition, set design, lighting and shadow, and blocking all work together to enhance the storytelling. I don't pretend to be there yet, but it IS what I'm aiming for. As much as I've come to enjoy having the freedom to move the camera smoothly with very little setup and effort, I'm most satisfied when we're able to make a compelling static shot by combining all of those elements together.