Adam Frisch FSF

Easy-Rig with the Flowcine Serene dampener and the 2-Axis Puppeteer kind of does the trick. That takes the curse out of handholding. Almost eliminating the walking shakes. The 2-Axis Puppeteer (also from Flowcine) eliminates the last bit of trouble - the string getting pulled at an angle and transferring shakes that way. I'm doing a feature with that setup and a Ronin head right now. But it's early days.

Interestingly, in the clip above, when Harmonica fires his gun, Sergio jumps the line. He's technically on the wrong side. Now today with the advanced film conventions and shorthand, that's fully acceptable. As long as you know who's where in relation to the others, an audience doesn't question that at all today. But to do that almost 50 years ago? Way ahead of his time.

Fantastic film, fantastic blocking and camerawork. And timeless. Still feels modern in its visual language. Sergio's films are like a film school in themselves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyuwBW9lNa8

What's his name?

Lomo's. I have an old set of OCT-18's that I'm about to convert to PL. Mine are same vintage as Cooke Speed Panchro's, which they're modeled after. A good trick for all Lomo's and Lenkinap lenses is that the first two numbers in the serial number always refers to the year of manufacture. So these lenses are early 80's lenses.

Stuart's version is correct. Fincher talks very briefly about it on the commentary, how Khondji wasn't too happy about every shot being mapped out already, down to the lens size and the height above ground.

I'm a private pilot on the side. Helicopters don't really like to fly much higher than a few thousand feet with a load. The controls get sloppy up there and they run out of power. A nose mounted stab head normally means the helicopter can only see about 180-270 degrees (depending on model). That means it will be impossible for it to lead the aircraft and look back. You can do it by flying the heli sideways, but then the speed is very limited. So with a helicopter solution you'll have to contend with the aircraft passing by the filming platform. There's no way to keep up with a jet. Even at top speed of an Astar, you're looking at a max speed of maybe 130kt. The jet will have to deploy flaps and fly at minimum speed, if even, to go that slow. Still looks cool, though. Good luck!

This is a mix of classic hip hop ring light and a slightly higher single source. I've done this a lot. Ring lights are normally bigger bulbs arranged circularly on a board, and you stick your camera through the hole in the middle. They can be built or rented very easily and cheaply. As RnB videos evolved, the star-like arrangement of kino tubes radially became a staple. It reflects well in the eyes as well as in glasses. This is whats used in the video you referenced for all the shadowless stuff at around the 1:53 mark (BTW, Taral Hicks was the cute love interest of Robert DeNiro's son in the film A Bronx Tale). Make sure you have a good makeup person that can add the correct sheen. It is key for that silvery, metallic look. The other lighting is probably a slightly bigger source above camera. The way I normally do this when I do beauty ads is I get a Mole Big Eye 10K. They have a larger fresnel front lens that work very well for beauty portraiture. I undersling it on a goalpost and float it right above lens. To not nuke the talent, I normally change the bulb to a 2K via a step-down adapter that fits in the 10K (can be rented from most bigger rental houses). If that's not possible, one can dim it in conjunction with scrimming. But adding too much scrimmage can sometimes give a pattern that's visible, so best is the step down solution. This type of lighting can also be achieved in other ways - a small Briese, octadome or a built cutout solution. I've done all variations, but the Big Eye 10K solution always works for beauty. Sometimes, when a more Helmut Newton or fashion flash light look is desired, you can use a smaller source that creates a sharper shadow. This can be anything, but the size will determine how sharp the shadow is. I've used PAR's, Dedo's and everything from a pea bulb up to a 5K to achieve this look. Big Eye 10K on Garnier beauty ad I did. The underlights are what I call the Savides-lights as Harris used to use these for beauty fill. In general, when you're working with human eyes, you want round objects reflected in them. Any other shape has a tendency to look warped and strange due to curvature of eye. So to achieve this with square lights, one trick is to use round cutouts like I did on these panel-lights. Can be hard to tell in picture, but one can see that the right panel-light has this. Example of old school ring light. The star or radiating ring light used in tons of hip hop and RnB videos. Example of using Savides-lights in bottom of eyes on a beauty ad I did. Doesn't work for everything, but it's a good trick for beauty fill light. http://artistry.net.s3.amazonaws.com/Frisch_Garnier_1_Ed_Nammour.mov

There's a scene in Lord Of War where Cage and Leto talk in this open air ruin. Mokri choses to negative fill/black the camera side and have them play as a silhouette, even though that could probably not happen for real in that location. But it looks great and creates contrast. Mokri has always been full of little slightly-pushing-the-reality tricks like that, which makes him very interesting. Here's a terrible clip of that scene in pan and scan, but it was the only one I could find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMX9RVx2idM

Bit of a lost art, but Spielberg is a master as mentioned. Munich is like a master class and a film school onto itself as well as most of his older stuff. Sergio Leone another one - look at the intro to Once Upon A Time below. Genius blocking and composition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyuwBW9lNa8 John McTiernan is another good one - Die Hard is excellently blocked throughout. Scorsese another master. Look at the blocking and shot solutions in this scene from Casino: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Pku1zXM5g

A very rare interview with Amir Mokri. In fact, I think it's the first one I've ever seen - and I've been a fan of his all the way back to Pacific Heights and Blue Steel. Never seen an AC article about him ever, despite all he's done. Slick, but a masterful cinematographer.   http://variety.com/2015/artisans/news/d-p-amir-mokri-fills-in-the-blanks-with-imagination-1201477816/

Plus, it's directional, not omni-directional. So it won't play at all with the reflector. You'll get light out of it, but as a small spot in the middle of the fresnel at all focus settings.

For all of you thinking of the Dana dolly, there's a Swedish dolly I grew up with that's similar. The difference is that this one rides on straight ladders. Ladders you can get at Home Depot, so you can travel with it and always have access to track. It's a real simple and cool design. I used it a lot on my early music video stuff. Just chuck a ladder down and you're ready to go. No need for stands or assembly. It's cheap as well. http://www.cameradolly.se/cameradolly.se/Eng_Home.html He's even added a new electric model which didn't exist when I started out. Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S41tdouQGBI&feature=youtu.be

RIP Ondricek. A beautiful film Amadeus. It's like the Barry Lyndon of anamorphic photography.

Sure they'll complain about the lighting list. That's standard procedure. So we do the dance - I knock some stuff off and then everyone feels happy. But to have a producer call an agent after the shoot to ask for a refund after it's all done and dusted - that's a new thing.

My only complaint is that it gets a little spotty halfway in and towards full spot. It's just how it's constructed. The LED array doesn't "fill" the whole fresnel as much as an incandescent. But it's a great light nonetheless. And the color rendition feels natural.

Arri just released the L10 - look into that one. I've used the smaller L7C many times and absolutely love it. The full RGB spectrum saves so much time, and the Fresnel lens makes it palatable and one source. I personally can't wait for LED units but bigger in the L-series from Arri. There's no time to cut gels and glue it to frames anymore, that's the reality. Better to just dial it in straight on the lamp. Filmmaking is changing. There isn't time to do the stuff the way we've done them in the past. The new naturalistic generation of directors/producers cut their teeth on 5D with flares, no lighting and expect minimal lighting time, if any at all. Only way you can keep it cinematic, put your stamp on it and be able to light at all is if you're quick. LED's help with that. I heard from my agent just the other week how a producer on a commercial had complained to the agent that the DP had used an 18K HMI for an exterior on only one shot. They wanted to know why and they wanted a reduction in his fee because he had rented such an expensive light and only used it once. True story. That would never have happened just 5 years ago. Expect more of that stuff in the future.

They got the job because they're good, simple as that. Hoyte is a great DP. I saw his first feature when I worked in the cinema in Sweden in like 1997. It was a stupid comedy, but he lit it like it was a dark noir film. Minute I saw the first frame I knew a new DP talent had arrived. He's delivered ever since.

For a DP it's about $120/month. Plus they take 1% of all your earnings. Plus they want $13K when you join.

Worked a lot with Company 3. They're great. Dave Hussey is an excellent colorist that I've worked with for many years. Beau Leon is another. Both of them have extensive background in music video and commercials. Stefen Sonnenfeld is the owner and senior grader (every blockbuster you can think of), Stephen Nakamura (Seven, Panic Room etc). It's a solid shop that can do everything from the smallest MV to the biggest Hollywood blockbuster. http://www.company3.com/artists-page/?section=senior-colorists

You will be vetted for the rest of your career. Khondji wasn't allowed to shoot Seven initially until Fincher put up a big stink. Fred Elmes wasn't approved to shoot The Hulk because he hadn't done big effects before. There are a million DP's who got a big success with an indie film, but wasn't able to follow on to the directors big studio project because they weren't considered experienced enough. They'll take a chance on a director, but never on crew. This happens everyday of the week in this business. When you start in music videos you can't get arrested in commercials because you haven't shot "narrative". When you finally break into commercials, you can't get features or TV because you haven't done "narrative longform". Then they won't let you shoot cars because you've not done "sheet metal". When you finally break into that, your narrative stuff suffers. So you veer towards beauty. But you can't shoot beauty, because you have too much sheet metal. So you make an effort to get back to more narrative stuff again and when you finally make it back to that that they say you can't do music videos, sheet metal or beauty because your reel is "too narrative" now. And the cycle starts over again. It never ends. :blink: :)

Use them all the time. Especially the biggest 88 model. It's a perfect softlight and can also just be chucked on the floor as a soft uplight in certain scenarios. Only bad thing is the buld goes easily if you move them when they're on, so always turn them off before you move them.

The Royal Tenenbaums was shot entirely on a 40mm anamorphic I think. To be honest, I could do 90% of my work on the 32mm and the 40mm spherical and I often have. It's to the point where the AC's don't even ask in the morning - they stick the 32mm on knowing it's the one that's most likely getting used.

Jack of all trades - master of none. This is the time to specialize. If I had a dime for every DP I knew who started directing/shooting and literally overnight lost all their directors (because why would they want to employ someone who they're in direct competition with and who's also by logic lost his interest in cinematography?) and then didn't make a success of it, I'd be rich. Some of them came crawling back to DPing, but most faded into the great vista never to be heard from again. This is in commercials, but you can make the same argument in features. I can't think of many DP's who turned director with great success. Maybe Barry Sonnenfeld. Maybe Guy Green. And if you're talking DP/directors in features, I can think of only two: Peter Hyams and Steven Soderbergh. If you have a plumbing problem, you want someone who's done plumbing, and plumbing alone, for the last 30 years. Not a watchmaker or a butcher that dabbles in plumbing on the side. Same here. There will always be work and a market for a professional cinematographer and lighter. They're all going to have to light or frame their shots, no matter what the format of the future is. And for that they'll employ someone who's done it before, has a track record, who can calm their fears, someone they can trust. There will always be work for professional specialists. You just need to specialize. Pick one thing, and do that as well as you can.

Good lenses, but unfortunately haven't really taken off. One of the reasons is that Otto Nemenz decided not to buy the sets and instead help develop the Leica's which are smaller and nimbler but still deliver similar performance. And Otto doesn't just buy one set, he buys a lot, so that was probably a majority of the lost sales right there. The S5's and the Master Primes suffer from simply being too big in these all handheld times, too. And with the crispness and the ever higher resolution of digital cameras, old glass has come into vogue again to take the curse of that ENG sharpness, which didn't help the S5 case. I use the Leica's a lot. They remind me of a warmer set of S4's, that happen to open up to T1.3. They have that organic look and are perfect lenses for these times. When the budget can't afford those (which happens quite often), it's easy to botanise amongst the old stablehands: S4's, SuperSpeeds, High Speeds, PVintage etc and get them for a song and a dance. Even the UP's are too sharp for me. I love the old Zeiss T2.1's - they're tiny and have a really nice feel to them. ANd the PVintage series at Panavision is really nice. If there are trends in lenses, I predict that we will soon see really small and thin retro lenses in the style of 60's Cooke Panchros or Lomo's all again. Chromed housings or even brass. The day of the big honking prime is probably over.