Richard Swearinger

Do clean waveforms equal better shots?

I was looking at the waveforms of a few different great films and they all shared something. The waveforms were very clean looking and usually surrounded by big areas of black—completely unlike mine which typically look like RGB shredded wheat.

Attached are examples from Roger's The Assassination of Jesse James and Ben-Hur.

Of course there are no shortcuts around careful composition, elegant lighting, and proper exposure, but am I crazy to think that uncluttered, organized-looking waveform patterns might also be an indicator that the image is on the right track visually?

I was looking at the waveforms of a few different great films and they all shared something. The waveforms were very clean looking—completely unlike the ones from the footage I shoot.

I put an example from Roger's The Assignation of Jesse James below

Zebras is a great idea. It's probably an issue of experience—I need to learn to trust them. All I really want out of life is for faces to be the same implied brightness from shot to shot. Sort of like having a reference white and black in every shot.

I'll give zebras a try and see how it goes, and you're right about switching them off—they are fairly distracting when used throughout.

Thanks to both of you.

Great nuances to think about and work on. Thanks.

Love Witch has such stunning lighting—so much beautiful work with highlights and speculars vs. blacks.

How did you meter for that show? Was it all with the monitor? And about how many stops were there between highest and lowest light levels in your interiors?

What is the downside to using an incident light meter to set my exposure for video? I've been doing it for about a month and it has been working well for me so far; but I'm a rookie—those of you with much more experience—what can go wrong in video when measuring light with an incident meter rather than using the various camera exposure tools? I'm mainly concerned with ensuring that faces look the same from shot to shot.

The problem I'm trying to solve is that my style generally includes a fair bit of back and edge lighting which often freaks out the waveform monitor, the RGB parade, and the histogram so I have been getting inconsistent brightness levels.

Using a light meter is also quicker because I can adjust lights and get a reading immediately rather than running back and forth to the monitor to see what has changed.

In his interview on the American Cinematographer podcast, Crescenzo Notarile ASC says when he was shooting CSI that he would do his closeups from 40 feet away using 150mm to 250mm lenses (as opposed to Gotham where he uses 21mm to 32mm).

As mainly a stills photographer, I understand where he's going, most people look a lot better with longer lenses. However, the farthest I get from my still subjects is 10 or 15 feet. Forty feet away would be a whole other universe...

So, in cinematography is there an advantage to shooting with such long lenses besides the flattering look and change in subject-background relationship?

Does it change the actor's dynamic with the camera? What other benefits does it bestow?

Thanks

I have had some weird issues roundtripping between Premiere and Davinci Resolve, so I do everything in Resolve now. One thing that has helped my performance is keeping all the project files on one drive and never, ever, moving them. Another thing to check and make sure is that your hard drives are not starting to flake out on you; I had a drive that seemed fine and worked with most other programs, but couldn't take the high demands of video editing. It even tested fine with the Seagate diagnostic software, but after a couple of days it finally gave me an error code.

There are a lot of moving parts, start with the cheapest, easiest solution which is making sure you are storing your footage in a logical folder arrangement and transcoding it before you start editing; then work from there.

Does anyone use the many animated transitions that come included with editing software in their moneymaking work?

There are dozens of explosions, confetti bursts, peels, wipes, smears, shears, rolls, and flips in my system and I can buy hundreds more online if I want. But I'm pretty much a dissolve guy with the very occasional dip to white or black. Am I just boring and missing opportunities to make my work better?

Are any of these transitions useful in ways that I'm not thinking of for enhancing serious documentary or narrative work?

Stuart, I'm with you on that, I was looking at the behind the scenes for one of the CBS comedies and they all the lights you mention, but also had a stage-wide array of bounce boards on the floor in front of the set aimed about 45 degrees upward so they would send light up under the casts' chins and eye sockets. It must have been hell for the actors.

Phil, you must be a mind reader! That's exactly how I feel when thinking about grading.

It seems like all the color grading information out there is about how to make footage look dark and dramatic but I'm currently working on a comedy that could use its own touch of color timing magic.

So, how does one go about grading a happy, lively story? What are the basic timing decisions?

Common sense tells me that I would want to stick to the characteristic contrast curve and keep the midtowns meaty, but where do I go from there? Is there a highlight color that I should introduce? Do I want to do anything with my shadows? Skin tones? Or do comedies suffer when subjected to a grade?

Thanks

Great stuff. Thanks. Since it's NBC one assumes they're using just plain old Kinos or Lightpanels. But maybe not. The other place I saw this phenomenon was Carson Daiy's eyes on the NBC new year's countdown. I'll poke around for production details and see if I can find out anything.

During a couple of recent broadcasts, notably "Peter Pan" on NBC, I've noticed some pretty vivid fluorescing from the teeth of the talent. It was most vivid on the actor who played Peter Pan and was even mentioned by a couple of the TV critics. I've also seen the whites of eyes doing it as well.

Do we know what causes this to happen? Is it an effect that is being used incorrectly? Is it something to do with the latest generation of camera sensors? Is it lighting related? Is it a chemical thing—something in the teeth whiteners or tooth veneers that is causing this? Is it only with broadcast-style cameras?

And, of course, Is there a way to avoid it?

Thanks

In Variety, Peter Jackson said that in The Desolation he worked to address criticisms that Part 1 looked too much like high-def video:

By tweaking the picture digitally, he says, he was able to keep the advantages of HFR, he says, but tone down the hi-def-video look. “I was experimenting all the time and trying different things. It’s to do with diffusing the image a little but, using what’s called a Pro-Mist; it’s the saturation of the color. Scene by scene I’d make decisions and choices as to which way to go, so it wasn’t really one magic button to press.”

When I saw the picture last night (in 2D) some of the scenes, even though sharp, seemed on the higher side with regard to halation and flare; they looked almost milky, some of them.

Now, my question is this: Is it better to under-difuse a little because you know the downstream technology will multiply any effects you add? Or is it a case where the digital diffusion you see on your monitor is exactly what the audience will see?

Just to be clear: California State University at Long Beach is not a community college.

G

Indeed CSULB is an amazing school. Sorry about putting GL there if he didn't attend and sorry if I somehow implied that it's not a full-scale university.

My point remains: community colleges can be an awesome stepping stone because doing well there can get you into some pretty great places. A friend of mine got a BA at a university but then followed that up with TV production classes at LACC which he then spun into a successful 30-year TV career.

Bottom line: if you're a typical kid like Reuel living in this screwed up economy where a four-year degree can cost as much as a house, community colleges (and if they still have them, IATSE training programs) are a great way to get your foot on the ladder.

I feel your pain, brother. Bio can be a cruel mistress.

There will never be a clear answer on whether college has value because people are so different. I think it depends on the kind of person you are. Some thrive in college, others not so much. At the default, it makes you much smarter and more interesting than you were before you went in.

And luckily for you there's a very do-able way for you to get your degree without going bankrupt: community college. I know lots of people with less-than-good study skills who completed the first two years of their college degree by taking one class a semester at community college and then transferred to a university.

Not only are the community colleges a more supportive academic environment than 4-year schools, but attending one will keep you out of the clutches of the rip-off artists that are so prevalent in the private education industry.

People teach at community colleges for a variety of reasons, but of the teachers I've met, most of them are there because they genuinely like to teach kids like you.

Bottom line: There are more options than you think. Once you take the excellent advice above, and finish high school, start taking one class at a time at your local college while you work as a PA or catering slave or whatever (make sure to take an accounting class so you'll be able to tell if the studios are giving you your fair share of the box office).

Before you know it, you'll have an AA degree which generally guarantees you admission to your state colleges. Remember, Lucas and Spielberg both spent time at Cal State Long Beach.

swearinger,

Please change your user name to your real first and last name. It's a rule on this site. Thanks.

Done. Thanks for the guidance.

I was reading an article by Stephen H. Burum, ASC and he mentions a lighting instrument called the "Miss Francis." Does anyone know what he is referring to?

And how would you create one with normal studio equipment?

Thanks

RS

Here's the paragraph where he talks about it....

"What about fluorescent, HMI?s, ellipsoidal, plano convex spots, far cycs, space lights, coops, dinos, maxis, sky pans, minis, quadlights, cliplights, gators, bo bo lights, scoops, cones, obie lights, the ?Miss Francis?...? The effects these lights give can be easily reproduced with a combination or modification of the units (mentioned in the rest of the article)...."