Justin Hayward

When I was a little kid my grandpa occasionally let me borrow his video camera. Knowing nothing about wide compositions (or anything about composition), it suddenly occurred to me that if I got far away and zoomed in on someone that it somehow looked more like a real movie. Of course I eventually learned why I thought that. If little things like that don't occur to you after watching hundreds of movies in your lifetime and having an intense desire to make a movie of your own, then you probably can't be taught pre-visualization. But when something like that does occur to you, the learning never stops. So I think there's an evolution, but you have to start somewhere.

Storyboards can be stick figures, but still lay out a plan. Without watching the whole thing (just that promo), I assumed he meant some sort of preplanned shot list, not necessarily high quality drawings. I don't care if someone wants to use storyboards, shot lists, or come up with everything on the day. Whatever works. It just rubs me wrong when a "teacher" draws the line in the sand with a statement like, "Storyboards are the instruments of cowards." Of course nobody is forcing me to take that class either.

My only issue with these types of things is the filmmakers tend to teach their personal preferences as the one way to work. In that promo Herzog says, "storyboards are the instruments of cowards". Some poor student will listen to that and show up totally unprepared on their student film set (or worse their family funded feature) armed with that philosophy, but with none of the talent, skill, artistry, or experience of Werner Herzog and fail miserably. I've never actually watched one though and I'm sure there's plenty to gain if you do.

Back in my PA days I worked for a company that would take forever to pay, but would also try to knock my rate down for ridiculous things. They once found out I lived right next to the location we were shooting so they asked if they could take $25 off my rate because I didn't have to travel. They didn't provide lunch either which I found out the hard way when I showed up with no money.

Not from a reel point of view, but from a reputation. I've taken jobs I knew shouldn't have just because it was a big agency and when I didn't deliver what they hoped, I didn't hear from them again.

Considering Mad Max was basically in pre pro for about ten years, I can only imagine the shocked look on George Miller and John Seale's faces when they were presented the final look of the movie by the colorist. :P

I've used this scene from the 2005 "War of the Worlds" as an example of what filmmakers can bring to a script. "The machine makes a large vibrating noise as if calling out to other robots. It arms it's disintegrator beams and opens fire. People can be seen to disintegrate as they are struck with the beam. The beams, when fired make a zap sound. People start exploding into dust and their clothes are blown away. Ray misses numerous beams by a foot or two as he goes into a convenience store. Again Ray runs out the back door and misses another beam by inches. He runs his ass off trying to escape the robot. Disintegrator beams strike off rooftops to clear a walking path. Ray hides behind a building as the machine walks by."

That's going too far. The robot would have to shoot on film. :P

I would be interested in watching a movie made by writers, actors, and editors, but no director or cinematographer. Could be an interesting experiment. You would at least need the editor on set to make sure the camera angles cut together. Which means the editor would have to choose the shots. I imagine the actors would want somebody to talk to about what they're doing. Maybe the editor can handle that too? Know anybody that can handle all of that at once? I'm looking at you Tyler :P :lol:

In his book, Making Movies, Sidney Lumet says we all need a healthy level of self-delusion or we'd be too afraid to get into this. I tend to agree.

If you decided to augment the fire with purple light you would be affecting the story. That's not something that would go unnoticed because the performances were good. We're talking about movies here, not plays or books or radio programs. You can make a movie without a script or without actors (might not be a good movie, but...) You can't, however, make a movie without a camera, so cinematography tells the story in movies by design.

What if the script says the power in the city goes out in the middle of the night and everyone lights bonfires in the streets?

Well, we associate hand held camera work with documentaries and we associate documentaries with realism, therefore hand held camera equals realism. :blink: But I imagine any documentary cameraman that shot a legit doc as shaky as anything in the Greengrass Bourne movies would be fired on the first day. :lol:

As a friend of mine put it, this is one of those rare cases where the spirit of an ad actually feels sincere. Love the look and style, love the music, and freaking love the performance. It just works.

So rad... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5uNxudzDM8

I was flipping through channels with my kids yesterday and landed on the Eddie Murphy Disney movie, "The Haunted Mansion". Since it was released in 2003 I knew it was likely shot on film, but if it was released in 2015 I would have guessed the Alexa.

Looks like I have plans September 8th. One More Time With Feeling trailer

I maybe see a third of the comic book movies released a year, but the cinematography in this one looks nice... Wonder Woman trailer

A radio guy I listen to has often said you have to work in the field you want to work in for a minimum of ten years before it really pays off. Trouble is, filmmaking is full of famous success stories that happened to far younger people than that theory. The truth is, we're not all auteurs. We're people that enjoy making films on all sorts of levels, but are also, unfortunately, not brilliant at the craft, but maybe okay. We have to learn. We have to gain experience. Of course my twelve-year-old self is screaming at me right now :) I think DP's are more accountable than directors though, because their skill is based in talent as well as experience, which I don't think is a scrutiny a handfull of directors often face.

Yes. And his elbow is likely resting on something, so his hand is rock solid. This is something that's done all the time. Like rigging an orange juice carton to a motion control arm that will always deliver the perfect pour then having a hand model rest their hand on the carton to look like they're pouring it free hand. Very common in table top.

I also didn't feel like I should change my title on this forum to "director" until directing was no longer a hobby, but my day job. Granted, I direct mostly low end commercials. Weird thing... I've always wanted to direct movies since I knew what directing a movie was, but I feel like I'm only learning now (at 38 years old) what it means to make a good movie. Although I've had this conversation in my head about every year of my life, so next year I'll think I'm on to something new :) Of course I'm not mentioning that the best films start on paper...

Looks great. I still really love film.

"DP" or "cinematographer" is fine. I directed a national commercial this week and our fine cinematographer was listed as "DP" on the call sheet. Nobody was confused.

Yes, good point. I hope so!