Michael LaVoie

The skin tones on this look pretty decent. I watched it on a calibrated HP Dreamcolor display. That said, it had a few shots in direct sun where they definitely overexposed it. Overall not bad. Haters be hating. Same old story.

IFP.org has submissions for various labs throughout the year. It's open to everyone and worth checking out. This one may be of interest to you You will find at IFP it's way more of a "what you make of it" situation. I joined a few years ago and it's awesome if you're in NYC because you have access to screenings and events and can meet filmmakers, producers and financiers. So if you're good at networking, you'll find it worth the membership. But for those who are remote, you can still submit to certain labs. There are some labs that are meant for those who are already "in development" and others for those just getting started. Anyway, check it out. Good luck.

You have untill June apparently. After that Amazon Studios will stop taking unsolicited submissions altogether.

Not sure I'd agree with that. Best case scenario, you're sitting on an idea worth stealing. In which case, you better protect yourself....See this article on Stranger Things You can always follow that suit and see how it pans out. It's tough to pitch a concept and require an NDA every single time you mention it to anyone. Also, if you're pitching a junior exec, they will have to repitch it to their boss so you can't handcuff them to an NDA. It's tricky for sure. You don't want to seem paranoid to people who may be interested, but I don't think I'd blindly send a script to just anyone these days.

Amazon studios submissions avenue is likely a waste of time. Also to cover their asses, they pretty much reserve the right to steal your I.P. by making you waive any rights to claims should they go into production on anything similar by "coincidence". You will find most people unable and unwilling to help you as a "first time" filmmaker. You have to get at least one title under your belt and have the film miraculously do well before anyone will entertain a quid pro quo on future projects. Right now you have nothing to offer but risk.

You're better off with a monitor that has a waveform feature rather than false color. Much easier to use. You can get really cheap used meters at BnH btw.

"China silk" is or was an actual name in the Matthews catalog I believe. I doubt "Hampshire frost" is made in Hampshire. Lots of odd names for film gear. Almost a given.

China silk is a great fabric you can get from Matthews. Nice to use in a booklight as described above.

You can always reserve the right to forfeit credit as the DP. Before you take an IMDB listing or onscreen credit on anything try to view a cut of the final film with the director. If it's a trainwreck due to poor color correction or just a bad film, use a pseudonym on it.

Curious. Do you retain a firm like Brigade for that? What is the PNA fund in percentage terms to the budget?

An S9 or Experia Z2 phone in a DJI Osmo could be really great for run and gun productions where there's no time to rig a Ronin / DSLR rig. That's the only use I see for the extreme wide angle HDR features of these camera phones in any kind of professional use.

You can work as a set tech while you quietly build up a reel that showcases the type of shooting you want to do. You don't need big expensive cameras to do that anymore. Just know the current trends and looks of the productions you want to end up on and fill your reel with that type of material. Shooting specs, events, shorts, fashion, whatever it is. While working as a set tech on productions keep your eyes open and observe all the setiquette and protocol and know everyones job and duties. This will help you feel comfortable when you eventually land a job on one of those sets as a DP. Good luck!

I believe a tiffen Glimmer Glass filter will do the desired effect. They come in varying strengths so you may want to just rent a set.

I might rack focus myself for intimate closeups on objects or actors when my eye is supposed to be the viewer and I'm deciding what they'll see. When I'm scanning the frame and rolling back and forth through it slowly. That kind of thing is hard to communicate to an A.C. cause there are no real marks. It's intuitive. And for cramped quarters when you can't fit a second person and there's no wireless then yeah, you have to do it alone. Much prefer a good focus puller for the basic moving from A to B stuff. Frees me up to see the lighting and frame better. Also sets up a dangerous precedent. I already have a hard time fighting to keep a good 1st A.C. on the crew. To suggest you don't need one for focus is really self defeating. Cause you'll end up with no camera department eventually. You'll be carrying all the gear, slating yourself and doing all the DIT work. haha. It's a slippery slope.

Not sure if this helps but I was dealing with incredibly long render times and lots of system crashes until one day it occurred to me to feel underneath my laptop and around the back of it. Sure enough, you could fry an egg on the surface of it. I took the whole thing apart and all of the thermal paste was nearly gone from the GPU and CPU. I did a thorough cleaning and put Arctic Silver thermal paste onto the heatsinks on both and now it's running perfectly fine. The whole computer operates much quieter and is a lot faster. Not saying this is the case for you but ya never know. It was unexpected but so was the problem. Sometimes it's hardware and just physics. On the other hand, if all this is happening just because of the update, that's a different thing.

The number of shots where it looks like a phone outnumber those shots where it doesn't. My bad. I wasn't clear about my point. But that's what my example was about. Hotel and Timecode have no shots that look like movies. Both of those films were also experiments and it's impossible to enjoy the story because of that. For me anyway. Box office and reviews on those were definitely not great. So I'm not alone. I think the issue is the unnaturally wide angle. That was the case in nearly all three films. It's not like it resembles a Kubrick film either. I don't know how you'd fix that? Some kind of post correction? To make it at least closer to a Terry Gilliam, Eyes Wide Shut kind of look? Depending on the story it may work or not.

Anyone remember Mike FIggis's experimental film Hotel? Where all the actors wore body cams? Or his earlier feature Timecode. A quad screen one take experiment? Both of these looked like casting auditions for the movies he intended to make someday. Unlike his best film Leaving Las Vegas which was gorgeous and a great simple story shot on film. Shooting on phones is no different. Any "technique" that draws attention from the story does a disservice. Unless it's supposed to be found footage. Like the horror anthology VHS which has phenomenal effects and cinematography inside a found footage aesthetic. Brilliant and with a purpose. They use Go pro's, spycams and security cameras and it's all with a point and part of the story. The best shots in that trailer are when you can't tell it's a phone. So, yeah, what's the point again?

Watching that trailer it makes even less sense to me. It looks like most of Unsane is shot in controlled locations. Like they had a crew, production staff, locked off areas and rights to use the spaces they were in. All of which costs a considerable amount of money no matter what you shoot on. Tangerine was shot on the streets and there was a practical reason to use the phone cause they had no permits or money to pay the locations. Conditions seem to be night and day from each other. It seems that Unsane could have been shot with any camera and it wouldn't change the shooting conditions much.

No matter whether the camera is a phone or an IMAX rig. Doesn't change the fact that in most cases, you're going to want a decent lens, mattebox, rods and focus wheel on the front of it. This fact hasn't changed in over 100 years. So my hunch is after he puts it onto a beastgrip with all of that, it's going to look like any other rig. Minus an orientable viewfinder. Why do that to yourself? Full Frontal looked terrible. Bubble looked terrible. Erin Brokovich? Traffic? Both were beautifully shot by him and shot on 35mm. Guess which two were nominated for Oscars in the same year? I guess after that kind of success you can say whatever you want. But really, after a while, you're just beating your chest about what you can "get away with". Because of who you are and what you've accomplished.

Fortunately for us NY'ers we recently got the FIFA law put into place. It provides an easy way to collect on any invoice that's unpaid. Best part is that it requires any freelancer to be paid within 30 days of the work performed. Yup 30 days and you are owed full pay. Unless you enter into a written contract with different terms the default is 30 days. So there's really no excuse anymore for those ridiculous 90 day windows.

I'd be worried about overheating issues with DSLR's and documentaries because on a lot of docs the cameras always running for long periods of time. Anyone know if the GH5, 5s or Sony still cameras have issues with that?

Poor mans process is a much easier sell if it's a night-time driving scene. In addition to the safety benefits, you also benefit greatly from not having the audio of a moving car or trailer, truck and road noises. There are things you can do in post to sell the effect. Such as adding in reflective transparent foreground plate footage on the windows that are closest to camera. Assuming the windows need to be closed. Such as when it's too seasonally cold for them to be logically open. When you shoot plates, try to shoot something for that side that'll work as well. Small details like that really help. As does the movement of the sunlight which reflects off lots of elements in the surroundings. Unless you're trying to sell a very obviously overcast even look. Wonderboys has some okay and some awful poor mans process stuff in it to check out. Tom Richmond did a great job of it in both Waking the Dead and Killing Zoe. Two fairly low budget but great looking films.

IMDB is hardly a "user friendly" site to begin with. The biggest complaint most people have is that you can't manually control the movie posters that show up above your credits as what you're known for. Even celebrities have no control over this. IMDB's response to industry frustration over this has been quite dismissive. IMDB claims that even they have no control over it. It's all an algorithm that changes due to the popularity and relevance of certain titles over others. Really? They have no control? I would think a simple code injection could allow for anyone to go into their profile and select the posters they want under their name. I'm not surprised that Amazon wouldn't accomodate this in spite of how popular a request it is. Nor am I surprised about them dropping user participation in general in the form of reviews. Year by year tech somehow gets less and less friendly.

A 2K Arri Fresnel can use a 1K bulb. If you go for it, get 2k and 1k bulbs so you have options However, take a look on ebay for some used 575 HMI's as that's about an equivalent output but a much smaller draw. Bigger cost but way more light than an LED.

The Matthews HD-DC slider was by far the best on the market. It's been discontinued. Probably due to the exhorbitant cost. $10k or so. I actually just had a place in Brooklyn make me a Dana Dolly / Dutti Dolly hybrid. So its wide enough to go on standard track and like the Dana, it can take curves unlike the Dutti. Best of both. Cost $200 for the steel and cutting. It's a pretty simple thing to have made.