Michael LaVoie

Most production companies in the US have east and west coast and sometimes central reps that put them in front of ad agencies. A commercial rep is the person you're going to try to contact. Not the actual ad agency. For example, http://ringer.tv/ Go to their contact page and you'll see an example of what I'm talking about. If you want to produce spots, get a .tv extension for your site, have a similar layout and get some reps behind you. You'll find that one example is pretty much the standard. At least in the US. Now, if you want to know how you can interest a commercial rep, that's where the above advice of personal connections, very strong portfolio and yes Richards advice of just taking the plunge and sending out an email and if you get a reply, follow up. But I wouldn't actually harrass anyone.

The specialization and freelancing nature of the work allows people to have pretty loose filters on their own speech and they can unload on anyone who isn't their own direct client without fear of repercussion. Especially if they believe the person they're berating will never be in a position to hire them. I think that's the number one reason people feel free to explode. It's when they assume you don't matter and will never be in a position to impact their career down the road. It's a very shortsighted philosophy. Especially given the way people can self produce much easier and find themselves steering their own ship at any time. Best to treat everyone on set as the producer on your next film because you really never know anymore.

Richard, This is just a general producer question. If you frequently encounter agents submitting counter proposals, would it not make more sense then to begin with a figure that's lower than what you can afford? In order to create the impression that you are able to play nice and then eventually arrive at the figure that you already knew you could afford? I am just curious if that's something that you maybe tried in the past but abandoned in favor of "This is the offer, take it or leave it." If so, what led you to giving up on negotiation? Was there just endless pushback from the agents that continually broke your ceiling?

I will often hand my viewfinder over to the director and they wind up keeping it all day so, I totally recommend getting your own. It's much easier when the director can find the shot they're after and say, "Yup, over here. On a ....50." Just makes it much easier all around. I like a pocket mini cause they're lightweight, cheap and it's always on. No batteries, charging, etc. For tech scouts, I'll usually use a camera as it's easier to storyboard a scene and put the images together later for reference.

A good budgetary comparison of Indie vs Hollywood is Let the Right One In vs. the remake Let Me In. LTROI cost 4 million. It doubled that in revenue. LMI cost 25 million and barely made half that back. LTROI is generally regarded by fans and critics as a much better film. It's a good case study in cinematography too because LTROI definitely has a much more original style to it.

Bigger budget means bigger actors w less availability which means fewer and much longer days. I heard Ben Stiller has a rule about keeping to a 12 hour day. No idea if that's true but it'd be great if more actors took a stand on that and insisted on enough actual days for each shoot. Since their availability seems to be the biggest factor impacting the schedules.

If you mean AFI, that is expensive but from what I hear it's worth it. Any film school is what you make of it. The real key to directing is being able to finance, develop and sell the films you want to make. If you can do that, then the artistic creative side of the process (which you can study in any number of ways) will either come to you or not but if it doesn't, you'll at least be able to get in the game as a producer and work with really great directors and help get their films made. So from that point of view, I'd recommend studying producing. Look for a school with really solid classes in the legal and business (financing and acquisitions side to film production. Keep your creative inspirations open and always replenish the well of creativity for when you can direct but stay grounded in how to develop projects because that's really the key to breaking in when you don't know people already inside. In a perfect world you'd meet your producing partner in film school and he or she would handle all the boring business stuff for you but I wouldn't roll the dice on that happening.

This is the rain cover for the FS7 It's a Portabrace but you can see that it stops at the end of a rather short zoom lens. It's not meant to be put over a rig like this: I haven't found any rain jackets or bags that will let you quickly protect or carry a rig like this.

The problem with rain bags built for cameras is they aren't usually sized to account for the rods, mattebox etc. So I usually end up using a clear plastic trash bag which is in some ways easier as you can see every part of the camera through it. But I wish there were more bags and rain jackets that were built with a "mattebox and accessories" in mind.

It's not specific to my phone. I think the camera 4 api in the new Android OS 7 (Nougat) should allow most phones built in cameras to do a lot of that. But yeah, maybe it's not inherent to the Iphone yet. The only reason I got the LGV20 was the removeable battery. I wish the DJ Osmo software worked with it and I could use those gimbals. Sadly they haven't added support for it yet.

I downloaded Filmic Pro a month ago when I got my new LGV20. I then realized that my new phones camera had all the features of Filmic Pro built in so I got a refund on Filmic Pro. The LGV20 has selectable frame rates, UHD, ISO, shutter, white balance and rack focus. It's pretty sweet. And 23.98 seems to actually run at that which has long been an android issue. Many new phones have evolved to where you no longer need that program.

Optoma GT760A 1080p 3D projector. It's awesome and incredibly cheap at $500. Got 2 pairs of glasses and a 9ft screen. 3D on TV sets is kinda meh cause of the small size but on a 9ft screen it's pretty cool. Now if only there were better 3D films.

If your project is small and you know how to light it, you can easily get by without a gaffer and just hire swing crew. Make someone a best boy, someone a key grip and call it a day. Cause it sounds like all you need are hands to move and rig stuff safely. Sometimes there isn't time to "discuss" every lighting decision you make. I've had gaffers who suffer suggestion syndrome where you can't ask for something without getting back a hundred substitutions for it. That can be frustrating in a time crunch scenario. A gaffer has to trust you and have your back or they can really slow down the shoot and make it a grind. So if I can get away without one, I'll just hire a really experienced swing crew. That said, I'm assuming you have some sort of background in G&E and you understand safety concerns, protocol, setiquette and the like and won't make dumb mistakes that a qualified gaffer would stop you and the rest of the G&E crew from making. G&E gear is dangerous to newbies and you can make horrible errors that can cost people personal injury and property damage if your not careful. But assuming you know all that... It all depends on the shoot. If you are doing a ton of electrical distribution, huge night exteriors etc. Then you will absolutely need someone in charge but for basic shoots, maybe not. As Adrian said, it really depends on your crew and their personalities.

Yup. 23 years ago that video inspired me to pick up my first camera. It was a similar Super-8 camera I found in my folks basement.

There was an issue watching The Love Witch at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg Brooklyn a few weeks ago. It was a DCP but something tripped on the slide projector and the film stopped 2/3rds of the way in. Everyone was having a lot of fun though so nobody good too upset. I highly recommend everyone see The Love Witch in a theater with an audience. Whether it's a DCP or 35mm. It's definitely a film to see with an audience that can appreciate camp and ironic absurdity. I can totally see it developing a Rocky Horror cult type following to it. With audience participation etc. Was that Anna's intention? Will she release a set of guidlines for performers?

BLUEMAX are still out there. I made a few softboxes at one time with them. Really bright and although the CRI is 93, you might need 1/8th CTB to match HMI's. At one time Home Depot has these bulbs : They were discontinued cause they cost too much. But they were really close to Kino's Just needed 1/8th - green. On the other hand, if you want a unit that just matches most overheads, those were perfect. In the average office interview, you just turn em on and you're good to go.

Are these two scenes supposed to be a shot-reverse shot of a single interview where one person is the interviewer or are they two different interviews and both are subjects talking to someone off camera? If it's the latter, the eyeline in the first one might be a bit high. Almost as if she's talking to someone who's standing to her left. The second one the eyeline is better because the subject is looking more at someone close to camera. it's the position of the outside eye that you can really tell the difference. Just looks better in the second one. In any case, the cameras match well from the wide to close. In general I try to get a subject who's off camera as close to the mattebox as possible and make sure they're head isn't too high or low for the person on camera. This is tougher when the rooms are small and you can't get far away enough. The closer you are, the more pronounced the angle of their gaze will seem. As far as the lighting, I can't judge because I don't know the tone you are going for. If this documentary is meant to satirize the subjects or to support their claims. If the intent is neutral and the tone is sincere, than personally I think the colors are a bit strong. If it's campy and fun in nature, then its working.

I went to Purchase for Cinematography. They weren't happy about that. Haha. At that time they wanted to graduate writer directors. This is going back a while. I dont know if they screened that documentary Misfire for you but if not, they really should. It's all about The Shooting Gallery and their rise and fall. When I was at Purchase most of our cinematography teachers were out on location shooting so we often had substitutes. A regular sub was an operator on Law and Order. He extended an open invitation to us all to check out the set sometime. So when I randomly bumped into them on Broadway I dropped his name and got a tour of their sets. It was pretty cool. Eventually I ended up in a truck chatting with a DP. Nice guy. I mentioned I was a student at Purchase and he said "What are you doing here? You don't want to get into this. You should be hanging downtown at The Shooting Gallery" Not long after that, The Shooting Gallery closed up shop. Meanwhile Law and Order went on to create a few spinoffs. My point is, I think your idea to go straight into union work and contacting studios to join something stable is a good one. Indie work is not at all what it used to be. I recently asked some folks at Purchase if there was any alumni who had any development funding that would be open to hearing a pitch or two. Not surprising that there's pretty much nobody. Maybe one small outfit is still holding on. Hal Hartley crowdfunded his last movie and released it on Vimeo. If that isn't a good indication of how unreliable this business is, I don't know what is. I think you have the right idea.

A fun mirror trick is to stripe the face of it with clear packaging tape and then gently and randomly crack it from behind. Shining a light into it will then produce a broken up pattern of light similar to using a cookie.

As far as I know, this is the brightest battery powered LED Fresnel. Equivalent to a 400 watt HMI. Has anyone tried using these?

Very few in the general public can separate professionally shot work from work that's acceptable or even quite bad. I equate it to my ability to hear a perceivable difference between a .wav and a .flac. Yeah you can hear a difference but it's only a huge difference on quad dac headphones. Which most people won't have. Makes it hard to argue for a decent rate when people don't even know what they're paying for.

Sharegrid.com Kitsplit.com, cameralends.com and many others have changed the game entirely. You can rent out using any of them. But just be aware that the market is totally flooded with people renting their wares at bargain basement prices and you won't get much action out of any of them. Unless you're buying at the very high end of the market and even then your pool of clients is harder to access.

I'll wait to hear from the guys at Sony repair in Teaneck NJ. They seemed keen on the idea. If they can't make it happen then I will have to use a rod mounted support for lenses. Not a huge deal. Would have been nice. But yeah, Sony in general is probably not in that frame of mind. Off the assembly line and straight to the trash is the overwhelming mentality of large corporations.

Just saw this. Don't believe the reviews which are pretty harsh. It's great. I don't think "NWR" is taking himself seriously at all. I think the tone, style and everything is exactly supposed to mirror the "over the top" nature of the content itself which is like Showgirls but for models. So looked at from that point of view, it's awesome. As much fun as Starry Eyes. Check it out. Its fun to see a slower moving horror. Not too many people doing it lately. Under the Skin was great and much more subtle but it was more straightforward. Neon Demon is definitely campy .

When you finance a camera, you're required to have insurance. Generally the resale value is estimated at 0 when you sign the papers. Even the banks are aware that the camera won't hold any value by the time the lease is up. If you do lease, make a sizeable downpayment so your monthly payments are small and you pay it off faster. An advantage with Red is the ability to upgrade the sensor when there are improvements. I bought an FS7 when it came out 2 years ago and there's already a brand new version of it. I'm currently investigating whether I can have my original Sony FS7's lens mount replaced with this new locking lever that apparently can hold the weight of actual lenses. Also going to see if I can get the variable ND filter wheel that just got added. Unlikely since it's probably more than a physical addon. But in general, Sony is not known for upgrades like that. We'll see if they can do it...