Ryan Sherwood

Looking to add a FlowCine Serene arm to my EasyRig Mini Strong. Unfortunately the Flowcines are crazy expensive (for me) at around $2.3k. I found that there are knockoff Flowcine arms out of china for $300....I'm strongly considering this especially because it doesn't require drilling into my easyrig. Anyhave have thoughts/experiences on if this is worth it? Link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/As-EASY-RIG-flowcine-serene-arm-for-film-camera-dslr-DJI-Ronin-3-AXIS-gimbal-USA-/232167874744?hash=item360e48a0b8:g:u48AAOSwtGlZE-AZ

Hi all, I'm looking to achieve a certain effect in camera filtration. This particular piece that uses it well (although a bit heavily): I've used pieces of optical glass to get the distortion effect in a corner or half of the frame, but I'm wondering what options I have to create the effect around the entire frame (vignette). The obvious answer is to use a UV filter with various amounts of smeared vaseline and either hold it in front of the lens, or place it in a matte box tray that can be rotated. Are there any other techniques or glass objects you have found work well? Thanks

Lately, I've been very interested in experimenting with various glass/flashlights/translucent objects to distort the frame. I wanted to gather feedback from other people on objects or techniques they've found to work well. I've used various pieces of beveled glass, vaseline smeared on UV filter, water bottle and got some pretty cool results. Using a flashlight to veil the lens gets pretty nice results, but it's hard to find consistency using some of these techniques since the results are so variable. Anyone ever rig a flashlight to 15mm rails so the veil stays in the same spot? I'm also interested in getting the "double edge" look and experimenting with glass beads. It seems that when using caustics two of the big rules are: 1. Use longer focal lengths. 2. Shoot into backlight. Two notable examples: 1. 2.

Hey Mark- I have been thinking of getting a light meter for a while...and the Sekonic L758 Cine was the one I was planning to get. Why don't you like it? Is there another, cheaper meter you'd recommend for my first one? Thank you.

Hi everyone. I'm very interested in being able to breakdown lighting ratios from inspiration using the same set of standards that I use when shooting (mapped IRE false color values on a production monitor). However, I'm having a bit of trouble grasping the best way to accomplish this. It's clear to me that images read best on camera between 2 stops over/under key. I'm shooting in slog3 on FS7, but monitoring in rec709 LUT on my monitor. I've brought up a chart from the app "LutCalc" that displays relative IRE/stop values for a certain monitor LUT- in this case going from slog3->rec709(800%). (Attached) So from what I understand here are the following values for +- 3 stops from key. -3 = 14% -2 = 20% -1 = 30% 0 = 44% +1 = 63% +2 = 84% +3 = 97% Does this mean that if I assign each relative stop to the corresponding IRE value in False Color using the same monitor I shoot with that I will be able to accurately breakdown lighting ratios and seamlessly recreate said ratios on set by matching colors?

Hi, I'm looking to shoot a scene where a huge banner/flag (40ft x 100ft) is unrolled from the top of a building. Of course doing this with real props isn't on the table, so I'm looking to create the effect in post. I think I'll have to shoot some sort of smaller banner on a green screen or creating it in cinema 4d. So far I'm thinking of shooting it wide in 4k, locked off tripod. Then after the banner is comp'ed in, I'll add handheld shake digitally. Any ideas?

Hi everyone. I'm looking for advice on lighting interviews with a tiny crew (2-3 people) out at sea on a small 30-40ft boats. I'm frequently booked on these gigs but I find that 99% of the time I never dig the look of the interviews. It's always a matter of finding what looks the least bad. For most EXTs (on land) I'll backlight and try to shoot into a BG that's in the shadows...but of course on a boat there aren't any shadowed BG's, except maybe a tiny part of the deck. Most times we end up settling for front lighting the subject and holding a foldable silk to diffuse the light a bit, but even then the BG is well over key. At least that way the talent and BG are both reading okay to camera. It also doesn't help that typically the entire boat is painted a hot white and constantly rotating in relation to the sun because of heavy winds. Sometimes I shoot up in the pilothouse but that's proved the most difficult- even after ND'ing the windows I can't get nearly enough level on talent without blinding them. Are there any general best practices for this type of lighting?