Albion Hockney

Oh also noticed your studio has a cyc wall next to your talent too.....are you shooting toward that wall at all too or is it all straight on. with that white wall there you might not even need a fill light depending on how close your talent is to it .....or you might want to make sure they have a black out curtain for it if you want to control the fill light and make sure there is not too much spill.

whats your frame like (CUs or wider)? Im not sure about the lighting of the backround ....seems to me studios usualy of cyc lights which are usually just floods pointed at the backdrop to give an even exposure....atleast thats been my experience the one time i did something like that. if you use the space lights youll probably want to have flags on the backside to cut that light off your talent. for the talent I think your fine this is pretty basic stuff. with a 5k you through diff you should have enough light for 4 at iso 400 I think.....you should check out the arri photometric calculator and you can put in your distance of the light to talent and it will tell you the stop your at....youll just need to calculate for light loss from the diffusion you are adding. if its possible I would use a 10K and I would book light the talent from a bit more sidy of angle and maybe use a 12x instead of an 8x but that might be a budget thing for you? If you do a book light you can get away with prob 1/4 grid....at the very least Id put a 4x4 frame of light diffusion before the 8x frame also in that case you can prob get away with half grid. Double diffusion or booklighting always seems to give a more pleasing light to me then going through on layer of heavy diff depending on how wide your shots are your fill might need to be larger as well and that will also probably want to come at a more sidey angle to fill the side of their face not getting hit by your 5k. don't know much about the BMPC and IR though.

My first thought would be if its supposed to be an intimate scene and its a somewhat natural feel then there prob wont be tons of color....if for example its college kids throwing a party and they have that one LED DJ disco light that will probably just motivate some edges and maybe some color in the backround ....but youll want to limit it a bit so it still feels like a real college party and not a club. So when the director says he wants a lot of color I would talk to him in specifc (and maybe you have already) about how much color and how poppy the image is supposed to be because if its super color full and flashing light everywhere it will indeed start to look like a club especially in close ups and it will become pretty stylized which maybe is ok for what your are doing? That said I think your idea of them having one disco light or party light in the backround is good ...depending on how bright it is and how much movment it has you can probably use that to light the background and provide edges on your talent....I think youll want to do some tests and look into the differnt lights avalible they are all differnt and put out all kinds of light.....How wide is your widest shot....providing some pictures and an idea of your shots would for sure help. .....in situations like this (low key interiors that is) smaller practical sources usually go farther then movie lights. Chinaballs are great to have... the trick with those is to hang duvetyene around them to shape the light so it doesnt bounce around everywhere. another nice tool is strings of bulb sockets (usually reffered to as zip cable? someone?) might be nice to string lights around the backround to get some ambiant exposure and help you out in your wide shots you can put small bulbs in there (25w or so and also put it on a dimmer to dial in the exposure) You can also combine the party light you get with just washing deeper backrounds in strong monochromatic color (think about your depth in from and for example if you see outlines of doorways or other rooms in your shots) .... (use your 1k arris softs or fresnels for that) and scrim it down underexposing it a whole bunch (3-4stops). I have never done a party scene with a lot of light gags ....ie moving flashing strobing lights... so if you want that I'm not sure the best approach but I would assume a flicker box (rather then a dimmer) would help and you might need people on the heads panning tilting them around in shot.

true ...that was a a much slicker film though then I would assume anything the coens would do.

Just wanted to note that Deakins has said that the choice of film is because its a period film and the coens thought it would be best and he of course agreed

Yea I just read the brody review....its really harsh, but I think he makes really good points. This kinda summed up some of my thoughts "The subject of the film and Pawlikowski’s aesthetic converge in peculiar ways. Pawlikowski’s shots strain after a sense of originality with off-center framings and herald their own gravity with their stillness. The director advertises the seriousness of his approach by filming in black-and-white. But the aesthetic also embodies a historical idea: not only is “Ida” a film that could have been made in 1962, but, more important, it’s one that should have been made in 1962" Considering Pawlikowski framed all the shots I think the DP did a tremedous job with the lighting, no faults there

My point was simply that it being shot on the Alexa is irrelevant....and it did indeed seem you were seperating the "quality" of the images from the storytelling as if they were seperate things to talk about, which I beleive they are not....and I think you do to?

I think my previous post in being 3 or 4 sentances is a little overly harsh and generalized, I think the film has some really great moments and some shots did feel like they had good purpose. That said I think the cinematography still does call too much attention to it self. I see how in comparision to a action film you could say it is subtle....and of course it a subtle, slow, "art" film. That said the framing is very strong. I think the idea that it is "god watching over" or plays to the smallness is nice. but it's a little strongly directly symbolic and forced in my opinion... and there are shots where there is additional room not just on top of the frame but to the side as well. I think its also worth noting that Pawlikowski has said in interview he did the framing and the dp lit it, I think the framing of the movie was always a huge part of what Pawlikowski wanted to do and in my opinion that approach in itself is a bit flawed because again it shouldnt be the framing of the image that says something it should be all of the elements together in unison .....in this case I think the camera work was just a bit more powerful then the other elements and weighed too heavy.....going back to my last post again I think the fact the end shot was handheld really shows that pretension, its as if he thought that moment wouldn't work if it wasn't handheld and the whole movie relied on this handheld moment ....maybe in a short film, but after an hour I didn't need that, it felt forced to me. I mean ....I gave the film a 4 on netflix, I enjoyed it in a lot of ways, I just think Pawlikowski needs to not rely so much on the the framing of the camera.

Bill I really dislike the phrase " I have seen better shot stuff with the Alexa" its just a very quick shallow statment the one assumes the camera has much to do with how "good" a film looks and 2ndly it makes it seem like your interest is some visual "quality" I dont think you can measure how good films look like in that way....its based in how well the images tell the story and how meaningful they are. That Said I felt Ida was pretty pretentious in its use of the camera. The 4:3 b/w seemed a bit like a gimick and of course a film that looks that way is going to be called upon as an example of great cinematography it seems akin to an actor cast in a film playing someone with a mental illness getting an oscar nomination. I felt the framing choices didn't serve the story as much as they were just pretty for prettys sake with no real intent. I think this shows through as well in the choice to make the last shot handheld ....its an obvious choice and its trying to hard to tell the audience something with the camera work.....I thought the film was acted well and the story in itself was interesting, but the camera work was over blown and weighed way to heavy on the story.

It has subtitles hit the close caption button

Thought some might find some interest in this. Sven Nykvist interviewed about the light in "winter light" He discuses the idea of not needing to make "beautiful" images when working with bergman and also his plan to create soft shadowless light. I made another post earlier about the orgins of soft light ....this certainly has to be part of that history. He talks of building frames with Wax Paper http://youtu.be/8GJXFWlneYA?t=15m

I hear your points ....I guess I was little overly harsh.... I still feel for the price point and what they are doing the Zeiss stuff is a little over priced they are 4-5k/lens and the still lenses are like 1-2k /lens the the benefits of the cine lenses don't seems to quiet match the price when the optics are so close. I mean the reason they have so many focal lengths is because they already had the optics designed for the still lenses so its a much quicker process. That said I think they are nice lenses and if they were maybe a couple thousand dollars less a lens I think they would be a great option ....with the price point at what it is I would rather rent Cooke panchros which are optically far superior and usually 20-25$ a day more to rent. the all said if you look at tests between the cp2 and the xenons the xenons out peform them for sure and have a nice look....the cp2s are not super consistent across the range optically some are better then others and wide open the super speeds are pretty terrible. xenons have 18, 25, 35, 50, 75, 100 .....pretty close to full set. not sure if the 18 is out though actually .....they just need a 135 or 150 and its pretty full up.

I would find out what kinda lights they are and also shoot some tests. The green spike can be an issue, but you can also embrace it depending on what you are going for. I have shot some stuff on a field that had lights from Musco before and it was great....Think they were daylight balanced and we had no problems at all ....used some kinos to augment here and there.

If you are canadian you CAN come to america. If you want to do it long term at somepoint and eventually permanent that is another story....what I am saying is it is possible and a lot of people do it. The specfics I dont know much. That said your probably better off coming to LA with some work or building a stronger resume then rental tech in montreal before hand. everyone says different cities in canade is the hollywood of the north. People used to say that about vancouver too.

Agree

That is the truth, that is unless you are a dp in the ASC ; ) Guys who get caught up in that work for the money (which can be really really good) .....the worst is union crew that do alot of commerical/corp shoots for really generic things .... not to generalize a whole group of people Im sure there some guys doing that who are cool but I have seen some of these older guys in passing a few times and the crew is the most cynical jaded group of people ever clocking in and out like they work in a factory making pencil sharpeners

great this is everything I wanted to know.... yea commericals are weird ....from what I know the more interesting the spots or young/creative the prod company the less likley it is to be union ... even big budget stuff as david said. I have done a couple projects that even that paid over union scale that is non union and they were not big deal projects or anything

If I want to bring my gaffer who is in a union on to a non commercial what issues might arise ?

I have several questions regarding union film shoots. I am non union but many up and coming crew members I work with have been joining (ie my main gaffer and key grip) What makes a project go union or not ... Why would a given producer decide to go with union members? Or what power does a union have to push a shoot union? Talking mostly about commercials here If a dp is non union can a shoot still be union for grip and electric crew? .... In addition if one union is hired like iatse are other positions like transpo with other unions also need to be union? What are rules for union crew working non union commercials?

there is a great making of the shinning shot by I think his daughter?

in terms of filters there are a few things everyone uses all the time then there are FX/Diffusion filters for stylistic choices. ND filters cut down light with no change to the image quality so you can achieve a particular fstop at a given ISO. If you are using a digital camera and ALOT of ND (1.2 and above generally) you may also need a "hot mirror" filter which helps cut down IR pollution which can cause the picture to go a bit purple/red Polarisers are for removing reflected light. for example if you are shooting a window they also help saturate the sky (google for more info...there is lots) and then there are FX filters mostly which are made to lower contrast or create a soft/hazy look. there are a ton of options for this. but the Black Pro Mist filters are the most popular. other then that there is a couple weird quirky things out there like star filters or streak filters but they are pretty much speciality use only.

Wow big diffrence David .....glad you got the 2nd go at it

This would be so great to have

Jon Ronsons "Kubricks Boxes" is the best. https://vimeo.com/78314194

All of the technical reasons mentioned are right on....just wanted to add one point...Satsuki seems to have just touched on it but passed precision I think using primes changes the way you work. With a set of primes and making choices about the implications of differnt focal lengths before shooting a film you are creatively limiting yourself and it forces you to find certain frames and think a certain way. I think this is super important as someone who had done a good deal of documentary work in addition to narrative (shot on both primes and zooms) I can say with zooms you always take advantage of the fact you can reframe with the lens but when you have a prime you think more and you are forced to make better frames. Im sure some people are past this and it might not have such a strong effect on the way they work, but for me its huge. on some productions I have worked with directors where we use as few as 2-3 lenses and limit ourselves in that way.