Michael LaVoie

The crew and gear package should be scaled to the budget on any film. My advice was just that as a DP/Producer he should probably team up with a production staff that has more experience than him so he can learn set procedure / protocol and setiquette and avoid the "fish out of water" syndrome when you go from commercial to narrative. You don't want Christian Bale barking at you cause you're in his eyeline. That sorta thing. I wasn't suggesting that every tier 1 project has their act together. Far from it. Just that there's more likelihood of meeting potential colleagues who can recommend you on bigger stuff if you hire them on your film. If you go with no production staff and just a splinter crew of set techs in an effort to "trim the fat" you lose that opportunity and create more of a headache cause you have to run the show and shoot the show at the same time. Not recommended.

Yes, and the reason it's fundamentally "wrong" is that you could comfortably watch it with the house lights on.

If you do decide to self produce your own shorts to get more narrative experience, just be sure to attach a qualified 1st A.D., upm or coordinator so your experience is the same as it would be if you were hired on a regular production. If that is, you're looking to get "experience" that will help you feel more confident on legit sets. Surround yourself with qualified professionals and that will help ease you into the whole thing while taking the pressure off because you're the boss at the end of the day. It can also get you in front of people who may in turn be able to hire you on their shows.

All they need to satisfy their fan base is a phone with a micro-HDMI input & output to be used as a monitor/recorder in airplane mode. That and super long removeable batteries that are flat and lightweight and I'd put an order in for sure.

4x4 gel frames and bead are almost always the dealbreaker to the DIY grip package in anything smaller than a van. Have you looked into a roof rack? Could be a useful solution for 4x's . If you put them all in a 4x choroplast sleeve box or bag and rig that it should be safe. I don't know the dimensions of a scion though. If it's super narrow, maybe not.

A lot of city busses are more like subways in the rear third of the bus. With seats that face to the side rather than the front which is more of a Peter Pan/Greyhound type setup. So depending on the script, I'd go for that setup if you have a choice. Cause you can shoot coverage on sticks with a lot more freedom and you won't have to worry about filling the bus with a ton of extras.

Most bluray players have a USB port for playing files directly from a flashdrive. That's always more reliable than an actual disk. I've traveled to screenings with a backup projector at times just in case and have had to use it on more than one occasion.

If the financiers, and bond company have anything to say about it, the selection of the DP will be a committee decision. If the filmmaker is taking a significant step up from their typical budgets, they usually have to work with a DP that's already at that level. That said, I saw a podcast where Guy Ritchie was discussing the difficulty of getting an opening weekend for King Arthur. That's how crowded theatrical is currently. If Guy Ritchie is having trouble, I wouldn't count on getting an indie into a multiplex. An arthouse run, maybe.

I would disagree. High Art is pretty great.

Always been a fan of Jacobs Ladder. There's an interesting contrast between that and a movie like Ghost. Both were shot at the exact same time. Set in the same city and written by the same screenwriter and essentially, about the same thing. A person caught between life and death. The approach to each however was nowhere near the same. I think that maybe what you mean by natural. Jacobs Ladder has a much more natural seeming "unlit" and grittier look than Ghost which looks like your average Hollywood dramedy. Both look great and are lit to perfectly match their respective tones.

I've had two experiences with fantastic 1st A.C.'s and their personalities were so drastically different. One was oscar the grouch, the other was a basket of rainbows no matter what the conditions or gear we were working with. Both were awesome at what they did. I asked the grouchy A.C. early on during our first feature together if something was wrong and he replied everything was fine. He seemed genuinely confused that I was even concerned. Puzzled, I just chalked it up to his personality and never took anything he said or did personally and we got along great. However I did have to explain to the director on one feature we did that he was actually just "like that" and not really upset at anyone or anything. It takes getting used to when you get a grouch and you may want to prep the crew not to worry about him or her. Cause in his case he never directed anger at anybody in particular so he never pissed anyone off directly. It was odd but everyone has their quirks. In a way, having a grouch on set can make everyone else really nice. It's like when the tension is super high and someone explodes inappropriately and it kind of can mellow out the whole crew for the rest of the day. I will say that the other guy who was always super positive and nice and friendly was also great and that kind of positive vibe tends to be contagious among the crew so it's great when someone projects it. At the end of the day, I couldn't tell the difference in their work. Both were always tack sharp and I'd hire either again.

I agree that 5293 was a great stock that helped to create some excellent looking films in the late 90's. I think Leon used 5293. Along with Braveheart. You can try to mimic that look with digital but many newer filmmakers probably don't see the point. To me what defines that look are the deep rich blacks and the true to life skin tones. It's probably the most difficult hurtle for digital as well as for colorists at this point is to make skin tones look natural. I see many digital features today that look as though they simply gave up during the grading and exported the log version of the film. Everything is muted or given a monochromatic tint to compensate for whatever. It's hard to make this point without also making sweeping generalizations. If there's a takeaway, I suppose it's that the "baseline" look of any movie before digital had at least a standard of skin tones looking natural, and true black in the image. Colorists today feel a lot less inhibited to abandon that approach and go with whatever.

Look up some comparable films to the ones you've worked on. Films of equal budget that maybe were distributed by the same company. Or follow the producers of the film and see what else they've done. Then look at the crew names, google those names, find the websites or online profiles and download their resumes to see what format and information they're including. The NY Production Guide has a list as well of professional crew you could try googling. Not everyone will have a website where you can download their resume but some may. But to narrow the search to relevant results, try the steps prior to that.

When shooting all your primary business of the day use B-cam next to ACam as a way to get punchins on the frame at the same time. Avoid shooting opposing angles at once until you have a situation with enough time and crew to light multiple angles at once. Most of the time, practical interior locations make this impossible. They are just too small. Outdoors are easier for that. Remember, B-Cam can also double as your 2nd Unit. So take all those shots in your list that don't involve actors. All the inserts, cutaways, exteriors, "hands on doorknobs" type of shots and delegate that to the B-cam crew. This will speed up your shoot tremendously and you will be using 2 Cameras in an efficient way rather than in a manner that will slow you down.

They're all pretty awful actually. The extremely small surface area of the bottom of the FS7 due to it's inner curve, the lack of any rubber on the bottom of the camera or the face of many of the plates out there makes it very hard to secure it without any play. When you add the torque of the handle to the face of the camera and the length of the front and back ends which have no support you have three forces in three directions trying to spin the camera away from the plate under it. I remember being at Abel Cinetech when I bought mine and me and Matt tried out every single baseplate they had scratching our heads as to why nothing would actually hold the camera securely. Even with two screws in place. Chrosziel might have the best one out there. But I still had to modify mine with a rubber pad to actually keep the camera from slipping left and right slightly. The pad was placed on the area that's curved because there's a gap between the camera and the Chrosziel plate in that area. Now it's rock solid and doesn't move. But I always secure the handle to the chrosziel pad. Not the camera as that makes it more likely to spin the camera off the baseplate.

I assumed the same until I started calling around. There are a handful of distributors who actually have contact info on their sites. I reached out to a few to see if anyone would look at a trailer. Everyone was willing. The trouble is actually getting a phone number or email address that is not an info@ address which is just a blackhole to nowhere.

Define clients. If you're talking about companies that are not involved in media production at all but want videos done, you need to find out their experience with contracting out that sort of work. That should be the first question you ask a potential non industry customer. If they've never done a video with a company ever? Run. It's rare that I would ever take on a brand or startup directly as a client. There's almost always an agency or media production company that's booking me. I have had more than a few interactions with startups and businesses who wanted me to do everything and act as a full production company for social media videos, commercials and other projects. Most would not be forthcoming with their budgets ever and would never clearly define their goals. Not so much as a comparable youtube clip to let me know what they're aiming for. So yeah, almost always these discussions died early on. I don't ever regret anything as I've never lost an opportunity as much as I've just saved myself a ton of hassle. You have to really have a great deal of patience to tolerate a brand or company that's new to this. Most believe they're wasting their money hiring a professional and are totally convinced they should have their nephew come in with an Iphone and call it a day. If I have your question wrong and you're actually dealing with experienced production companies and agencies that are blowing you off consistently, that's likely a professional or personal issue and I couldn't really speak to that point unless you describe a certain situation.

Are you saying that your discussion you had with someone said that 10% of the time opportunities for you both were successful? Meaning that 90% of potential jobs fell through in the negotiation? Or the opposite. Hard to tell what you meant based on how you wrote that. If you're getting 90% of the gigs you go after, congrats. That's awesome. I wouldn't complain considering how flooded the labor market is and how wonky the rates have become. If you only get 10% of the gigs you go after, I'd check whether you're quoting rates properly or doing something in the initial discussions that may put off a potential client. Negotiations and initial talks are where you see all the red flags of who you do and don't want to work with. And vice versa. Sometimes, it's you who's dodging bullets. You can see those clearer with more experience.

http://filmemporium.com/

If you see a movie on Netflix or in the theater that you like, and the overall vision fits with yours and the kind of content you want your company to produce, follow the trail of logos at the front of the film and check out the websites of the companies for examples that are "comparable" to what you want to do. Depending on what you're doing, you may want to be unique and somewhat different. here's an example. http://www.likely-story.com/ If you look under the projects on that site, you've heard of a lot of those films but probably not the production company. This is because the parent production company doesn't usually do a lot of branding of it's own as it's mostly an HQ for all of the individual LLC's that form for each movie. Those get more effort. On the other hand, there are some horror production companies that tend to stick to that genre and the branding of the company, name etc. usually fits that type of content. Most production companies operate in modest anonymity and you haven't heard of them necessarily. Here's one that took that approach literally...haha - http://www.anonymouscontent.com/

If you go on slated.com and you sign up for a membership, you'll be asked to enter your filmography of things you've worked on. The reason for doing this is that the site wants to immediately rank you in industry relevancy. While entering the credits, you'll have a chance to add awards and festivals each film or show has been in. That list of options is all on a drop down menu and yes, it's curated. In short, only a few festivals or awards actually matter. And no, smaller festival award wins do not automatically open doors to larger festivals on their own. Influencers have to see the work and recommend it. If you're doing a film under 60 minutes. I'd just call it a pilot and pitch it as a series rather than a short. Go for a development deal.

Of course. The director can be a former or current DP and may know exactly what they want. If you're paying for the film yourself and working with your own funds, then you need to be aware that asking for very specific shots can be more expensive because it often requires altering the existing locations, sets, or renting a stage and constructing locations, sets. That's the only way sometimes to get exactly what you want. Working in practical locations requires you to be more adaptable with your shotlist. This is why I always like to do a walkthrough with a director in the actual location and do a blocking and shotlist there so that we all see how things will really look. Much more useful when shooting on location than a storyboard that's just concept art. I would suggest that you schedule walkthroughs with your DP and bring your shotlist and then you'll probably find that working together you'll be able to collaborate more effectively and prep the scenes together. You'll be on the same page when you actually shoot it. At the end of the day, the DP is there for technical guidance and creative suggestions. It's your film so if you want a particular shot, stick to your guns. If it sends you over schedule and budget, don't worry. You can't fire yourself. haha. But be aware that going over budget and schedule when you're hired by a producer, may be something to consider when making demands.

These got good reviews on Amazon so I tried em out since they were so cheap. https://www.amazon.com/VILTROX-L132T-Dimmable-Panasonic-Camcorders/dp/B01L75TMSM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489582482&sr=8-1&keywords=viltrox Pros - One Sony NPF970 will power it for 5 hours Daylight or Tungsten No green or magenta issues Super lightweight You can easily get a 2.8 when put through diffusion at ISO 800 when about 5 feet away. Great eyelights, closeup lights and insert cut away modeling lights. These do what I used to do with cliplights or small fresnels. But much better and easier. (You can't spot or flood or throw the light a far distance though) So not exactly the same. Cons - You won't light up a large commercial location or mimic daylight through windows with these units. Not at 800. These are just to fill in subjects in a room you've already lit from the outside or to augment available light. They spill everywhere, they don't come with barndoors so make some out of choroplast or foamboard. The superwide reach can be a pro at night when you just want to raise the level in a large space. Nobody knows the brand name so they have no resale value. But given the price, it's hardly an issue.

I would not recommend investing in a lighting/grip package as a DP. It's a financial money pit. You will never have enough lights for every job and after a certain point you'll need a van or truck to put it in. Then you'll be stuck on set during the wrap. Wrapping out every piece of equipment at the end of a long day into your van or truck really sucks. Don't do it. Get lights from a grip or gaffer or a rental house on a per job basis. Having said that, I just bought 3 battery powered LED panels for run and gun and corporate interview stuff. They are awesome. Small and very lightweight. Those make sense to own. Way more than HMI's or Kino's. Put simply, if you can't carry it in a normal car, don't buy it. Rent it.

That can be really difficult if you're also operating. When you are stuck on a dolly and don't know what's happening and you have the A.D. whispering to the director that they really oughta ask for a lens change or a lighting adjustment and you're not involved in the decision, they are taking advantage of the fact that you are operating the camera and they are ignoring you as a DP and treating you as an operator. I had that happen where the director who was always fine with my work, was suddenly getting really nitpicky and tweaking everything on me. Micromanaging every shot. It came out of nowhere 3 days into the film and correlated with the arrival of a new 1st A.D. I had to put the brakes on that. What I did was ask my 1st A.C. to operate on every locked off shot, and I would watch at the directors viewfinder, within clear earshot of both the director and A.D. At no time, while I was present at the monitor, did the A.D. have an issue with anything. I didn't have to say anything. Just being there was enough cause he no longer felt comfortable to "backseat DP" the project. It was my first lesson to always go for an operator in the budget when possible.