Abdul Rahman Jamous

In an interview with with Gordon Willis, he said that in order to keep the sense of consistency in his picture. He tries to keep shooting at the same f stop.

did I get what he is saying right? does this technique consider as "old school"? 

Hi guys hope that you are doing FANTASTIC!

I am reading a book called "Master of Light" 

in an interview with Owen Roizman, he mentioned a term called force-develop, I wonder what is it?

there is a movie called "stardust" a lot of its scenes are shot in forest. the image is very decent looking yet I think it is not that complicated to achieve

Good day to you and hope everyone is being FANTASTIC. 

So I saw the movie "The Whale" dieected by aronofsky and photographed by Libatique and I do have three observations  I'd love to share with you. 

1- the aspect ratio of the film is 1.33. I feel it meant to be this way so your eyes is forced to see the subject infront of you, there is no room for your eye to escape. 

2- For me I believe that when you are shooting a fat person it is better to use cropped sensor, It makes the subject looks more "beautiful". But in this film they used a full frame camera because they wanted to capture the full tragedy. 

3- I love the way how they made the camera sometimes turn around the subject as if it is telling us that the protagonist is turning around a circle

Just felt like sharing... what do you guys think about the movie and about the way how it was shot???

Personally when I have no projects, I tutor my nephews and sometimes I relieve some of my frustration on them,,, lol 

good day to you brother and hope that you are doing fine and being safe. 

Yes it's very important to know theory.. but you won't understand the theories till they get practiced in front of you

My advice is you should attend a lot of shootings, be helpful, humble and hard worker. and then try  to find an experienced gaffer or DP and ask them all the questions you want, but of course you need to find the right time to ask them, and don't get offended if they refused to answer you, excuse them. at the end of the day it's not their job to educate you, but it's your duty to keep trying to learn for them

also I guess a lot of DPs in this forum are from England, contact them, perhaps they would allow you to attend their shootings

All the best!

On 3/16/2023 at 8:59 AM, Deniz Zagra said:

Let's say you are working on a feature film, and the director wants the aspect ratio to be 2.39. Would you prefer to shoot with anamorphic lenses or shoot S35 or 2 perf and crop? What aspects of production would influence your decision (low light, speed, VFX)? Do you think the difference would matter much? Which lenses would you prefer?

I really don't think that a budget of a movie should be a factor on my decision, if you have a small budget you may get an attachment that make an ordinary lens an anamorphic. 

Hi guys and hope everyone is doing FANTASTIC!

I found this short cable in the Forza 500 power unit. I am curious about it. does anyone know its function????

to be safe, a dp should use a monitor for his own to record the footage so he may use it as as reference for his reel 

Brother it is a matter of taste. For me it felt as if the light is cutting the head away from the rest of the body. I would feel better if  the camera angle has changed or if the light was removed.

Brother... when shooting you may do whatever the F you want. I just highly recommend you that you do a lot of tests. 

Congrats. The whole thing looks very decent.  But at 00:13 it bothered me when the head of the masked model is infront of the lighting I can see the aura of the light is invading the space of the head.

Hey awesome people, hope everyone is doing well!

I remember back then when I used to study in Malaysia, I used to watch a lot of movies made by Indonesian film makers. it fascinates me how they manage to achieve high artistic value with a limited budget. 

if you have never watched an Indonesian movie before than I highly recommend you watching "marlina the murderer in four acts".

Hey guys hope everyone is doing FANTASTIC!

I saw a YT video called "The Video Game Adaptation Curse"

In the video, Stuckmann tries to question the videogame adaptation "curse".

I find the video very interesting. And it occurred to me that an example he didn't mention is "Dragon Quest: Your Story". 

"Dragon Quest: Your Story" is a movie based on a video game and it is very well made. the ending never failed making my eyes teary.

what do you guys think?? can you tell another good videogames adaptation???

15 hours ago, Stephen Perera said:

I found the bars on the side less annoying that the bars top and bottom that you get with very wide aspect ratios.

so true!

Greetings my awesome fellows, hope everyone is doing FANTASTIC!

let's say that the focus of the lens I'm using is set 2 meters away from the camera. If I used a diopter ( strength  +1/8 or +1 ), naturally the depth of field will shift closer to the camera. my question is how to calculate that shift??? 

I feel that one of the things that differentiate between the director and the DP is that the director judges by the eyes, but the DP judges by numbers. 

having great technical knowledge about lighting and photography doesn't always guarantee you that you gonna have breathtaking visuals. but it helps you to save time. It helps you to be precise, calm and confident. and most importantly knowing the technical aspects of photography would prevent you from looking stupid. 

I feel that doing a lot of research is also a sign of commitment. and this sign of commitment would encourage other production houses to employ you.

At the end of the day. if someone wants to hire you that person would hire you, but if he/she doesn't want to hire you he/she wouldn't hire you. it's your job to keep improving yourself.

On 12/20/2020 at 7:17 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

I think the opposite, that all that matters is what gets captured inside the frame.

Very interesting! 

perhaps what matters the most is not what is inside the frame or what is outside it. but what is inside the viewer.

on the other day I watched Storaro lecturing about his color theory and he explained that how the same color can have different interpretation according to each viewer. may be the same can be applied to our topic here

let's say you spent your childhood in brazil, now you are an adult and you saw a movie that was shot in brazil, in the same city in the exact area you grown up in. while you watch the movie a lot of your memories come back to you  and perhaps you daydream so hard that you wouldn't pay any attention to what is happening inside the frame.

also let's say that you are watching a great thriller and the movie reached to the point where the protagonist is inside a forest searching for the one that kidnapped his/her daughter. at this point you as a viewer is very engaged in the story and you actually check every inch in the screen to search to find the kidnapper. at this point what you see inside the frame is the only thing that consume your attention.

Happy Holidays,

luv u !

last video I did during the shutdown... I feel that my comparison is a clever one 

during the quarantine I did some youtube videos that talk about the history of cinema. they are all terrible so please watch them, LOL

I was the clapper of a Netflix series. after it got wrapped. I spent my time translating a lecture of Storaro talking about his color theory and now I'm working a video devoted to anamorphic lenses

get an interesting story that has interesting characters. hire actors who would execute it well. and then you may shoot it by using your Sony A7 III. just make sure the sound is right. I don't thing that you need to upgrade anything. 

but if you are insisting of buying a new camera. I suggest that you rent some of them for couple of days and then you see with which one you would fall in love with.

all the best. Spain must be cold right now. but beautiful as always!

On 11/20/2020 at 9:37 PM, Satsuki Murashige said:

I have learned the hard way to turn off the center crosshairs on the camera markers when using the Pix for this purpose!

lol

7 hours ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

I suppose the main question is, do you need recording capability? For myself, when I was an AC and operator, it was totally unnecessary. But as a DP, I found it very useful both for playback and for having my own Prores copy of the dailies for reference.

Super interesting!

these dailies are necessary when the DP is making his/her reel

1 hour ago, Satsuki Murashige said:

Being organized as a 2nd AC is great. Anything that helps you be more efficient and better at your job should be welcomed. I hope you’re able to get other local 2nd ACs to standardize on some systems eventually.

I think starting your career at the top (producer, director, DP) has it’s downsides, rather than starting from the bottom. It’s harder to build rapport with your peers and you don’t get to learn from their mistakes. Of course as you’ve pointed out, sometimes good mentors can be hard to find when starting from the bottom as well!

I'm at the start of my career and as you know it's a very sensitive phase. The last few months were very hard and I felt that every decision I made was crucial. Luckily for me the quarantine has given a lot of time to reflect and to find out how to deal with others and more importantly how to deal with myself. Nowadays things are getting better and hopefully a great opportunity will come to me and I would have my chance to shine. 

Right now my priorities are to learn focus pulling  and camera operating, then I'm eager to have some sort of intership with a mastercraft Giffer and Keygrip.  Hopefully by 2022 or 2023 I would have my debut as a DP. 

wish me luck. I seriously need it!