freddie bonfanti

hey IF you are in a white room and you are only framing a small part of the wall behind him, say 2 square meters, it shouldnt be a problem to overexpose the background with a couple of 1ks. if you are planning to do a wide shot and if you are in an big white infinity room then i would say that the best bet is to try to rent a couple of space lights or skypans. you hang them overhead and its very effective, no shadows casted. i have used them in a music video recently and we were shooting in an infinity room as well. bring along a spotmeter, too...its very useful and reliable to judge the overexposure of your background if you dont have a proper monitor. all the best Freddie

i cant stop thinking how amazing is the fact that the wonderful composer of the film, Clint Mansell, is scoring my little no budget short "the big forever"...cant wait to see the film here in the UK

i hate to say this, as a digital enthusiast, but Stephen is right...the main problem with HD is that you need to have access to the proper tools to get the best out of it, and unfortunately for low budget productions the costs in the end are almost the same as film (super 16). i had to shoot on HD because we wanted that look but when we estimated the budget suprisingly the costs were almost the same as super 16. FUJI and PANAVISION offered AMAZING student discounts and i was very surprised. i am going to take advantage of it on my next shoot. MacGregor, the person before me seems to have a great point, i have never heard that technique. we just had the chance to do the job in london on a final cut pro HD. good luck mate

sorry to hear that, had the EXACT same problem on my last shoot, we had to bring the tapes down to london and sort it out there...unfortunately the FCP system needs the HD upgrade all the best Freddie

Well, being a huge fan of Savides i am expecting a lot from the film, however i cant judge those apple trailers, they all look good in that format. i reserve my judgement to the big silver screen. however i noticed those anamorphic flares, and even if i dont always agree when theyre not real it looks like they work very well in this case. i believe that with the fincher style of shooting (low key, dim lighting) the choice of digital could have been the right one... lets wait and see Freddie

hi all this video i found puzzles me...some of the amazing slow motion shots seem to look very videoish...i was wondering if thats because of the awful compression or could any of these shots be possibly done in video? thanks http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...eoid=1462706044

no problem, hope all goes well

maybe you got me wrong mate, all i said was to overexpose your stock 2/3rds of a stop and then bring it down in telecine (look back, i specifically told you to rate a 250 ASA stock 200ASA). i did also tell you to use bleach bypass, but i misunderstood your post at the beginning when you said "signature" look, i thought you wanted a very particular look, not necessarily EXACLTY the same one of CSI: i even told you that i didnt think they do bleach bypass on CSI!

yeah, great stuff in there. one of the shots i love is when she walks into the flat and switches all the lights on, one after the other. the frame is pitch black at the start but as soon as she switches on a few practical lamps in the room we start seeing things. i always thought it was a smart way to introduce an environment with light.

no way...i thought Claudio shot it, maybe i assumed that because he is great shooting HD and because hes been shooting a lot of stuff for Fincher, including the new feature, Benjamin Button...

i agree with you on the approach of Miami Vice, however we discussed a lot about it (very passionately) on the miami vice reactions post...in the end its purely a matter of taste, there is no right or wrong

i have to agree with the skintone problems, in some HD films it looks horrible...dont mind the bokeh, though, i think its part of that look. I have seen recently "Session 9" and although i didnt like the story i thought that it looked great for being shot in HD. Zodiac does look beautiful, and thats because Claudio Miranda has an innate talent handling the Thomson Viper. i have seen the Heineken commercial he shot and i was very impressed already. however i reserve my final judgement until the proper cinema screening. what i find uneasy using HD is the whole lot of postproduction and compression issues you get, sometimes it gets very complicated, especially if you cant afford all the proper tools

havy ND to get that CSI depth of field on medium close ups, too...lots of glass

you're right, i shouldnve said saturation...still unsure about these english terms!!! anyway i still wouldnt agree using 500...too fast for bright australian sunlight, but thats my humble opinion. Freddie

mmmh, sorry if i gave a wrong tip! but when i skip bleached my negative, i used 200t, i definitely got more contrast and richer blacks. i was sure that happened with the bleach bypass process Freddie

hey maybe 500 is a bit too fast for bright daylight use, especially if you wanna emulate the finer grain look of CSI. i would use 250 and rate it 200, and if you can afford it do skip bleach the film in the lab. i dont think they do it in CSI but that would definitely help you to get a overall higher contrast, saturated colors and crush the blacks. if youre in a tight budget you can always saturate the colors in post. remember that it also comes down to lighting, they use a lot of bright top backlight and soft keylight on the faces. hope this helps Freddie

im selling the camera to whomever is interested. im just not using it enough and its a shame its laying in a box. excellent conditions

well, the frame grab looks good, but its roughly the same look of any good 35MM video adapters. also, i would need to watch a picture with movement and see how the camera handles it. i must say im not really impressed just now but i hope im wrong

sorry for the delay, it was done at the widescreen centre in london. its just very disappointing. as i said the whole positive looks very good and im gonna try to play it tomorrow through a projector and see what it really looks like. i dont know how it goes in the US, but over here its very discouraging to shoot super 8: too expensive and too rare. freddie

so i just got two rolls of 64t from telecine with miniDV transfer back from the lab. i played the tape and i was upset: the highlights are blown out, especially the sky and everything looks slightly overexposed. when i shot it i used my loyal lightmeter and i thought my exposures were gonna be accurate. fortunately they sent me the positives as well so i checked them out and each single frame looks properly exposed. sky is there, nothing is blown out. what am i missing? was it a bad telecine or am i wrong? the camera was a canon 814xl electronic thanks

thank god you just made the best point, brad. i couldnt agree more.

I personally have not seen "The Departed" but the trailers do not impress me. well then go and watch it then, so that we can keep discussing about it

tim, sorry but i will not apologize for what i said. people are getting this the wrong way. I AM NOT ATTACKING MAX BECAUSE HE CRITICISED A MOVIE, i am doing so because he did it in a very insulting and arrogant way, which i thought was very inappropriate. do you really think someone like max jacobi can get away with insulting a whole film crew like that? if mr jacobi is a director (even if imbd shows he is mainly a clapper loader) then he should know that making a film takes a lot of effort. if someone did not like the film thats fine, ill never complain, but doing it in such an arrogant way its intollerable. sorry, i cant stand smartarses

i think that having a sharp tongue is a good thing, but i believe that there are times when someone should dose it. i am sorry, why would i bother replying to his first post and start a mess again? i just dont understand: he could have directed the best SHORT FILM ever but still i dont think he has the right to say that "everyone involved in the film phoned it big time". that just made me kick off

who said anything against criticism? i cant give you a list of films i think are rubbish...the difference is that i still rispect the work of any filmaker, therefore i wouldnt use arrogant remarks towards a film crew. god knows how much effort these people put into this film. thats why i got mad. cus a nobody like max jacobi disrespected the work of a professional film crew in such an arrogant way.