Albion Hockney

Yea I agree, that is well said. those movies would be very different with out the budgets they had. However I will say much more of a concern seems to be just having films with creative intention/vision that are given budgets that are sustainable. So many talented and even acclaimed filmmakers struggle to even get 1-5million to make a movie they care for and would be valuable to be made. and again for Morrison to not be creatively fulfilled with out that scope, it just seems like missing the point of an artist practice which is often about creative problem solving.

Deakins is also a very wealthy individual. He could certainly make enough money shooting lower budget films if he chose, and also can shoot commercials whenever he wants if he needs the cash This whole thing is a sorta woe is me for the very highest end of the industry.

Do you see the grain in the source file you upload to vimeo? Often you need a quiet high bit rate to resolve grain.

I don't wan't to assume this quote represents morrison's feelings as a whole but...You need a 100million dollar films to be creatively happy? that is a little ridiculous. Especially considering I'm sure Morrison is quite wealthy. I think we need more 5-25million dollar films with strong creative vision. The fact that 20million is looked at as not enough to make a movie seems like a problem. Maybe the way we are shooting and organizing the production of these projects needs to adjust so budgets can be used in a way that benefits both crew and production. “I love shooting. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do and if they were still making $100 million dramas, then that’s what I’d be doing,” ...and your directing films because you can't shoot huge breadth films for 100million with large scale crew. If your creativity is only fostered by this scale and level of capital...maybe you need to adjust. Just rubbed me the wrong way.

If your going to shoot your own or others lower budget projects to build your reel an Alexa Classic can make sense. Its not a great financial investment in terms of pure business sense, but maybe it is the right thing for you if you think it will get you some work that you can build a reel with. I would plan for at least 10-15k to get it up and running with all the AKS.

Pola will not impact the look of other filters. And Pro Mist or any other diffusion filter will not impact saturation. Pola doesn't really create contrast, it does cut down on reflected light and in doing so can make a more contrasty image if there is a lot of reflections in a shot. Diffusion filters work very differently. Its sorta an apples and oranges situation - Although both can have an impact on contrast they work very different. From what I know most people use Pola to either create a Bluer sky OR to cut reflections down when shooting reflective surfaces (cars/windows/sometimes skin). I would assume the Arri rota pola is of good quality, probably better if not as good as the tiffen and I always assume I loose about 1 stop of light with Pola - not sure exactly about "1.2" stops that is very specific, but Arri isn't one to get something like that wrong.

was shane hurlbut really the first to use a book light? seem dubious

Hi, I'm shooting a music video project. we have some "surreal" sorta "dreamy" close up shots in a scene near a swimming pool and I'd like to motivate some reflective water effects on face of talent. I'm curious if anyone has done this with bounced sunlight off a mirror or shinny board w/ something to distort the light?

in terms of output the Skypanel still beats all of the competition that I know of and when you are working in even a middle tier market there is no reason to ask for anything else from the rental house. The lightpanel gemini is fine, but a touch less versatile and not as bright and usually rents for $50-75 cheaper /day at most... and it feels plasticy, it might not last as long as a skypanel - though with tech changing so fast it might not matter I guess. there aren't many 400W LED soft lights on the market. The only other option is to use several of the lesser power 1x1 panels or something like a Joker 800 through diffusion. of course they are too expensive - all Arri gear is, but the gear is designed better and there aren't too many other options.

I think it depends on how you will use the lights. The S60 is a more conventional light. It can replace a conventional tungsten or small HMI lamp (assuming you would diffuse them) and is a great versatile key. The lite tile(although it does fill that space) has less throw and doesn't do RGB. The flip side is you can mount it anywhere and it can act like an S60 through 4x4 diffusion all in one step. Great to rig to ceilings. The light tile will take more setup time. FYI it comes in strips of 4x2 panels so you will need 2 of them to make a 4x4. I would also look at photometrics I think both kits are about 400W of LED so it should be similar but worth checking out. If you are renting them out, the skypanel is such standard kit these days I would think it would rent more often. I believe lite gear is making a 4x4 litmat - not sure if it's on the market yet, but you might interested in that too.

It can be easy to conflate the look of lighting w/ other production elements (PD/Art direction, Good Casting, camera angle etc). Not all high key commercial's are lit super soft, although book lights or larger sources through windows are common. I would look for specific references that are similar to your project and analyze all the elements that came together to give the look you like. There is definitely no one size fits all approach. If you are matching daylight outside of windows your light sources are too small to come through the windows. shoot at a time of day you like the look of the background and then just lift your talent up with the sources you have. If you can get your hands on them Skypanels, 800W joker's, Light panel Astras, or even Kino's can do this. You just need bright, soft, daylight balanced lighting.

I always wonder about this. my approach has been that eye lights are reflections therefore a point source far away is the best bet - like a household bulb. The source itself will reflect brightly, but the distance will minimize actually lighting talent. Usually works ok, although I don’t do it very often.

I would recommend trying to not light the background. use practicals or natural light and just light your talent. that is a good way to learn and honestly in many situations especially on smaller shoots how a lot of people work.

there edge light is more toward the rear and hitting a little hotter. The key light is much more sidey almost rear third so the front/front fright of the raspberries go a little darker which creates that nice contrast ratio. They are probably using bounce or another light to fill in the front camera right side of the raspberry. There key light does look a bit softer to me it has a nice fall of from the back of the raspberries, but I wouldn't assume its super far away or huge. you could probably get away w/ a 4x4 frame or even a 2x3 frame close the edge of frame. notice the difference in the lighting on the spoon. see how the front edge of theirs barley has any light on it. that shows the angle of the key light they also have a little pop light in the BG that is either coming from the source creating the edge or a 2nd source just for that BG effect. you could achieve this with a small amount of haze in the room and have the light just outside of frame. this light was also cooler or colored cooler in post for a nice color contrast w/ the red raspberries Lastly they are using shallower depth of field w/ only part of the raspberries in focus, which gives a nice polished cinematic look. oh and there camera angle is a bit lower shooting up which really gives the raspberry a hero effect. to me looks like they are also on a wider angle lens. the cameras color depth and post work is a part of it too, but you can get a lot closer with the lighting. With the color red for something like this almost always in color grade you can pull a selection on red and work on the saturation/hue to get a really clean vibrant color - all cameras have trouble capturing that.

I would recommend "Mother of George" it was a smaller movie and Young's approach is super daring and beautiful. Chayse Irvin is also excellent, his work is very grounded and honest. There is so much good interesting work right now from DP's. I think people are taking more risk then ever which is very exciting.