Adam Frisch FSF

The Hollywood Reporter do at least one of these each year for the awards season and they're always a good watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi37KOyxn-A

Small/narrow source is key. The open face Goya lights are good. You can order them with a black reflector, so that it's only the very bright and very small arc in the bulb is your source. But a normal open source light a Blondie could also work.

The other day we were laughing at how just 10 years ago, adding a handheld shot, was kind of "risky". Today, adding a blocked, rehearsed shot on a tripod is the new risky. 90% of the jobs I do the directors want handheld and they get very uncomfortable when it's on sticks or dolly and too planned out. "It's got no energy", they complain. Forget trying to cut in camera and tying shots together with a pan or a move. They want "options" in the edit. Coverage. Naturalism is nothing new. Cinematography has moved in that direction since the 50's. The DSLR revolution just took it to the ultimate conclusion. But I'm starting to sense a very slight move away from some of the cliches of the last 5 years - the incessant flares, the themes etc. Cinematography will probably not go back to high key or noir styles - except for effect - but it will find a new type of naturalism. Perhaps a naturalism with some flair (not flare). I've always considered myself a naturalistic cinematographer, but it's not for me to say if I am. Last 5 years I've made a conscious effort not to use backlight as part of the standard setup - or at least be very subtle with it - because it makes things look lit and artificial and fake in my opinion. Single source is always the goal, simple, less. Light the space, not the face etc. That said, I have complained over the last year how much my job has just become like a ENG operator for the local news. They don't want to create film magic anymore, there is no time or desire for lighting setups, shot design or crafting scenes etc. They just want you to grab the Alexa and shoot, shoot, shoot handheld in available light so they can have options in the edit. This bugs me, because I didn't get into films because I wanted to shoot documentaries, I got into it because I wanted to create worlds. You can't create worlds when you're asked to be a fly on the wall, hunt for the moment and shoot realism. It's a problem I have to fight in the future, and a balance I have to find. How to stay naturalistic, but with the odd heightened reality. How to show craftsmanship, how to make cinema, when the tools to make cinema are not asked for anymore. This will be the challenge for all DP's for the coming years.

You mean marinate? :)

I saw the Mactech LedSled at Cinegear and was very impressed. There was also some guy that had built a Dino-type light with LED MR16 bulbs. It was huge and it had a tremendous punch. I could light up a wall 40ft away in bright daylight. Not that I normally need that power, but it's certainly an alternative for a night light far away since it's a bigger source than a big fresnel. But Guy, the Mactechs you pictured are kind of not as cumbersome to rig. What would the alternative have been to getting those three wide sources on a crane traditionally on Walter Mitty? 3x6K HMI's with a Chimera in front? Probably not, but with a 4x8 soft frame rigged in front of them or each with individual 4x4" frames of diffusion perhaps? Both those options take longer to rig, not to mention running the amperage to run such big units.

Big fan of Jeffrey. I think Revenge is one of his best personally.

This is one of those classic problems we as DP's run into all the time. The production wants a corridor or hallway that's convenient, but there is no way to light it. In my opinion, it is best to find a location that has the lights and look you need somewhat in place and fight for that. Easier to add to existing, or swap some fluorescents around than building it from scratch. Hanging lights that look like they belong (art department etc), hiding wiring and pre-rigging becomes a big deal, big money thing real quick.

There used to be an old process trailer/projected background formula that said that any footage passing by on the side windows (as when you shoot a profile or three quarter profile) should be shot at 60% speed. Otherwise it would look to fast when cut against stuff looking forward or backwards. Not really adding anything to this, just thought it was a cool little anecdote. I concur completely with what David's said.

Good list. However, I've always said that there are only two real visually influential films one needs to see to be able to master composition: Triumph Of The Will Once Upon A Time In The West https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XkHsinz7oU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdK0jaLuJL8 All the film school one needs.. :D

Take this for what it is worth, as I've only shot one feature. :blink: When you have a lot of dialogue, the coverage can easily become very predictable and boring. I find that it is the mark of good directors and filmmakers (this includes the DP) to be able to play with the conventions and the art form of cinema. One of the best contemporaries of this today is David Fincher. Take a look at this classic roundtable setup from Zodiac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSuUJ-Scbeg Notice how masterfully Fincher changes from "normal" coverage into tighter eyelines (more over the shoulder) as the tension rises. Finally, he switches from eyelines off camera to in camera just after 1:00 in the clip to really hit high tension. This is very ballsy move from him, yet it works perfectly and you don't question it at all. Don't see that very often, and it's a mark of someone who is masterfully accomplished in his craft. Most directors won't want to do this and will resist such a thing. Things like that, or switching the lines cleverly (by tracking, or bringing it with you in some other way) will elevate your art. If you can convince the director to plan a few of these and breathe some clever life into a couple of dialogue sequences, you will make it more interesting. But it demands discipline and trust in the solution. If you switch the eyelines but then omit the shot that brings the line with you (perhaps for time reasons) you risk looking amateurish. So everybody needs to be on the same page - you, the director and the editor. Lastly, another good advice from Fincher: don't forget to cover the one listening to the dialogue. It's just as important and a good editor will know not to cut to the one talking all the time. And dialogue doesn't need to be covered 8 ways to Sunday - sometimes let it just play in a wide. A CU is a statement, keep them for when they're really needed. Talking heads in closeups a la cheap TV shows get boring real quick. Keep the art and the craft alive! :)

Can't change colour temp without switching out the phosphor for one. But they are bright and give a nice even light.

A soft push is a soft light. A soft light can be defined in many ways, but in general, it's a source that's bigger than the object it's lighting (relatively speaking). A neg is the removal of bounced or direct light. It's one of the most useful tools you can use, especially in bright environments. Have a lot of dark textiles/flags to shape stuff with. Below is a good example of a soft push from the side. It's not only the light hitting her that makes this nice, it's the absence of light on her dark side and on the dark background that does it. This creates contrast and shape. In white rooms, this will be much harder to achieve. A wall behind a subject will not look as dramatic when it's as bright as the key light on her face. It's all about creating separation. Another reason to avoid brighter rooms - you can always light a dark wall behind them, but you'll have a hard time removing light from a bright wall. See the wall texture behind her hair on the dark side? It's ever so slightly lit or brighter, so that it cuts out the shape of the hair. These are classic painterly tools that you are robbed of achieving when you're stuck with a background that's too bright. If you have no choice when it comes to the colour of the walls, you can sometimes turn towards expressionism and make lemonade out of the lemons, so to speak. A good example is in this shot from Remains Of The Day where Tony Pierce-Roberts BSC silhouettes his actors against the bright green brocade of the back wall. It requires blacking out everywhere except for right behind them. The background is probably lit, but it could also be natural light coming in from a top window or something. So you can see how negative fill can become a very powerful lighting tool if used correctly. Finally, one of my favourite shots of all time from Black Narcissus. It sums up pretty much everything you need to know about separation and creating contrast: Key light is from the window. Right behind her brightest parts where the light hits, Cardiff has not lit the wall knowing that the difference between his key light and the darker back wall will create contrast. But on the dark side, behind her head where the light on the tunica is not hitting, notice how he has lit the wall subtly. It's masterful and straight out of the old Dutch masters.

Yes, agreed, white walls are to be avoided at all cost. Second, The Graduate was shot on a built stage, so it will be impossible to get those gradients and cuts on walls/background and actors in a location. If you're stuck with white walls in a location, you're better off trying for a more naturalistic approach and a simpler push from one side and try to neg everything else. With white walls you'll get a ton of fill, so the battle will be fought there - taking away that bounce. If you can at all swing it - try to repaint the walls something darker. That will do more for the look than anything else.

Guy, none of these were inexperienced. I was however in Philly so the crew was new to me and perhaps not as on it as they are in LA or NY. Whenever I work here in LA or NY I work with the most experienced crews there are. Top of their game. But. Sometimes (and more often than not) there isn't that time, money, locations and patience (new generation of directors) anymore. We can fight it, but ultimately we'll all be unemployed if we don't go with the times. Another pet peeve of mine is that lighting hasn't caught up with the sensitivity of the new digital cameras yet. And what I mean by that is that lighting manufacturers are still stuck in "brighter is better" mode. I don't need brightness anymore, I need adaptability and customisability - and size. I'd much rather have a twice as big turnkey soft source that's ten times less bright, then the opposite. Hard light is fast, soft takes time. Just setting a big bounced indirect light in a location, flagging all the spill, crating it with Lighttools etc etc is a 30min deal involving gaffers and grips. When all that was really needed was a bigger custom made light. Add 30 min here, 10 there, 25 there and all of a sudden you won't make your day and you don't get hired again. Don't even get me started on doing big soft boxes at night for car commercials etc - they literally take hours and hours to build. And then they're always too bright, too heavy, can barely be moved etc. When again, all that was needed was something simpler and less powerful in the same size. It's not only a huge problem from a time perspective, but what ends up happening is that because these things take so much manpower, time and resources, the producer leans on you and ultimately veto's you and now both your creative work and the film suffers. In today's naturalistic cinematography, mainly shot on locations, we can't still treat it like a build on a set where there's tons of room, tons of juice and we have a full swing gang. I think it's been 2 years ago since I last shot on a built set on a stage. Everyone benefits from simplicity.

Phedon is a gentleman and a great cinematographer. I've bumped into him a few times at the ASC house and he's always accommodating and a calm raconteur. He's done some stellar and varied work over his career and he's managed to never really be typecast, which takes skills.

Let me be the contrarian then. I think any job that gets you closer to what you want to do is beneficial. You learn from everything you do. And it might get you the opportunity to get on sets you wouldn't otherwise have access to. I know of at least one very big DP who started loading trucks at a camera rental house. There's as many routes to becoming a DP as there are DP's.

The new type of Phospor exciting LED's like the Cineo TruColor series is a huge step up. But even with the multi LED units we use most of the time, with a little diffusion nobody can tell it's multi point or not full spectrum. Hey, less spectrum might even be an advantage sometimes. It's a bit like the talk about megapixels vs film resolution when digital started. People will choose ease of use and low price over quality, as was evidenced in that battle. Ultimately LED is easier, cooler, draws less and it's good enough. I'm a convert.

In today's world of commercial cinematography - whether that's features, TV, commercials, documentaries or music videos, one thing is certain: There is rarely the time and manpower available to use the conventional lighting equipment I cut me teeth on. This becomes clearer and clearer for every project I do. I can't recall a single job in the last 5 years where there has been enough time to set, build and control light they way it's supposed to be done. Or the way we used to. This even on big budget commercials. There's the director who's come up through the new school and used to shooting, now, now, now with no lights on a 5D with available light. They look at you with that face that goes "what's taking so long?". Producer is circling you wondering the same thing. You shoot so quick that you can never get ahead and start lighting the next set. You're step in step with the director and producer. The minute you step onto the next setup, they're right behind you asking "how long before you're ready to shoot?". For me, it's time to say goodbye to lights and procedures that can not help me be ahead of the curve or speed things up. Let me give some very recent and random examples. I was at a NASA type facility where we could load in 8.30 in the morning and had to have a hard out by 5pm. It was very complex setups where I basically had to attach 8x8ft single Kino tubes to a wall behind a centrifuge that spins at 10G with lots of air moving. We also wanted a red warning light spilling down over a control panel in the background. I had suggested clamping and securing a LED panel above it to some pipes, but that proved to be too weak after we gelled it. So the gaffer suggested hiding a 575W HMI above the pipes. Took forever to get the bigger light secured up there compared to a panel. By clipping gel to the doors, we now had a ton of spill everywhere, ruining the illusion this was a real red warning light. Cue gaffers trying to black wrap the whole lamp, but still small sliver of spillage coming out everywhere. Wrap more. Still spill. Now lamp overheats and shuts down. Remove blackwrap. We get it going again. Still too bright, stick scrims in there. They smoke. Now the gel has been upset and more white leaks, gel burned in the middle and colour is now pink in middle and uneven, back up again, lamp can't be pointed straight down or it overheats… Probably lost a good 20 minutes on that lamp alone. Next a shot in the control room. Manage to hang some Kinos from ceiling without them being visible in shot by the skin of my teeth. Too bright compared to the window in background. Turn them to low setting. Still too bright. Switch off tubes. 4, 3, 2,… OK, 1 tube is enough. But now the quality of light is not as good as the source has become smaller, they have sharper and ugly shadows on their face. OK, bring out the ND9 gel, oh, it's on the truck 10 minutes away, run, run. Get it on, turn 4 tubes on and shoot after having lost 15 minutes. And it's not just on smaller lights, it's the same on huge rigs, too. Big soft box/moon box for night exteriors or shooting cars? Cue 4hrs of rigging by a team of 4 guys to get that soft box up in the air…. You get the idea. This is just one of a thousand examples like this that we have to deal with everyday. There just isn't time to halt the shoot, break out a scissor lift, drive onto set, have a gaffer go up to scrim the big HMI, drive out and start over again. That should be on a dimmer or remote. Today I need self contained units that can dim quickly, are not bulky and ideally can also change colour temp. If it's a soft light, then it's built like a soft light - not a hard light that's been adapted by means of bulky chimeras etc. And I simply don't have time to break out gels to counteract a tungsten dim, or breakout ND's, nets or scrims to hang on lights. For me, it's time to say goodbye to: Chimeras (always spilling, bulky and sagging) Kino tubes (can't be dimmed, unwieldy, heavy, hard to hang) Small HMI's (can't be dimmed, spill problems, can't easily be gelled) Joker Bugs (always spilling everywhere, nasty, time consuming to change lenses) Vista Beams (too bright for their size, heavy, not easy to use) etc The future is LED. Either as panels, phosphor exciting or fresnels/PAR's. I love using the Arri L7C light - easy, fast, dimmable, colour changeable and I can't wait for bigger units in this series. Same goes for those 1x1ft LED panels that are battery powered. Use them all the time - just chuck them in there as a little edge light or clamp them onto some plumbing as a toplight etc. I use the Celeb light from Kino all the time, and the bigger one is a perfect replacement for the Kino 4x4 tubes. I love the Rifa tungsten light. Although it colour changes when you dim it, this is less of a problem when you're in a tungsten world, I find. I have my gaffers build covered wagons I chuck on the floor. And with the new LED household bulbs in them, they dim without colour change as well. I will still continue to use old school self contained favourites like the tungsten zip lights and big fresnels. Time has moved on. I hope within the next decade we'll see 18K HMI lights replaced by similar LED units that draw a quarter of the power. Can dim all the way down, can change colour temp.

Although heavy on the ochre tones (just like many of the early stuff in The Godfather), it's an exquisite visual treat to watch the work of Darius Khondji on The Immigrant. Almost refreshing in these days of ubiquitous naturalism to have real composed shots that are not handheld or where the film wasn't "hosed down" and constructed in the edit. Just honest classical cinematography. The slight ProMisting Khondji drapes the old lenses with adds a great visual feel. Feels fresh as well - haven't seen much of that used recently. Film has its flaws, but it looks amazing (if a little too yellow at times). Please watch it just for the cinematography, even if story or period might leave you cold.

A titan of film photography. Certainly one of the most influential. And for me personally, a cinematographic hero. Bold, fearless, unconventional, minimalist. Although he retired too soon, at least he left a legacy it will be hard to improve upon. Also, most directors did their best work with Willis. Probably because he forced them to come prepared, think visually and block through scenes and always put story before style. He wasn't always the easiest to work for because he was such a purist and demanded mis en scene. The `shoot it from every angle and figure it out in the edit`-policy certainly didn't fly with Gordon. And as that became a more prevalent way to work, that's also when he retired. He didn't enjoy working that way - he wanted real filmmakers, points of view and not just image collectors. I couldn't agree more with Gordon in this regard. Today, blocking and planning shots that don't involve coverage is almost a lost art. Coppola said himself that it was "touch and go with Gordon" on the first Godfather. There was the famous shot when Brando gets gunned down as he's buying oranges at the market. Coppola wanted to shoot it from overhead, so as to see all the oranges scatter as he falls down. "Who's point of view is that?", Gordon asked. Coppola said he just thought it would look interesting and they had a big fight about it. Begrudgingly Gordon shot it that way, and it did end up in the cut. It's a great shot (and in this particular case maybe Gordon was being too conservative), but it's a fair question. Why do things for effect if it doesn't help the story? Why be self-indulgent? That's the kind of purist he was. In the end Coppola and Willis became very close and Coppola readily admits he learned more from Gordon than the other way around.

In my experience DSLR's have severe latitude problems and are too contrasty. I've had good success by turning these things down to a minimum: Sharpness Detail Contrast On top of that I've very often added a Tiffen UltraCon (low contrast) 3 filter and I've also used soft and hard edge ND's or attenuators to brings skies and bright objects in line. Avoid any fast movement, pans or even messy handheld, or otherwise you'll end up with jello effect and leaning structures as the camera doesn't have global shutter. Protect your highlights at all costs. That's what will screw the footage up, especially on exteriors. If in doubt, underexpose. Shooting at a slightly narrower shutter seems to help getting away from a video and motion blurry feel. I often shoot at 90 degrees (which is a shutter setting of about 1/100th at around 24fps). Here's a test film I shot on a tiny little Sony NEX 5 last summer for a director friend. I used the Zeiss T2.1's and an UltraCon 3 with the settings as I described above. You can see that the fast action car footage has some leaning due to rolling shutter, but otherwise this worked pretty well. https://vimeo.com/74776832

No traditional light will replicate the speed of lighting by turning it on or off. Tungsten is too slow. Here's a couple of good ways to do it if you can't afford Lightning Strikes units or can't find an old carbon arc lamp you can strike with: 1. Get a venetian blind shutter for a 5 or 12K. Most big lighting houses still have them hidden away in the back with the old stuff. Works surprisingly well and was how they often did lighting effects back in the days. Looks like one of those things they used to have in front of lamps on ships to send morse signals between them during WWII. 2. Rent an Atomic Strobe. They have a single strike button that looks very realistic IF you can catch it on film. It discharges so quick, you sometimes miss it. It also can create banding on any non-global shutter camera, but not in every shot.

A legend. And one of the English cinematographers that had a "modern" style similar to the new French wave cinematographers. He was ahead of his time. I personally was blown away by how simple and well lit and how contemporary his lighting was in films like The Odessa File and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. His Bond movie and classics like Guns of Navarone show that he was equally comfortable in a higher key, more traditional setup as well. Excellent career, excellent work.

I think you wrote the book on cynicism, Phil…. ;)

Expanding on what David hinted at: To have enthusiasm is commendable and necessary. But Miguel, you're talking from the perspective of someone probably just starting out; when everything is exciting, your building a reel and you can live cheap and don't have a family. This will change with time and you'll one day get a little more battle scarred. It's inevitable. As for taking any job that comes along to get experience, that's great when you're starting out. I did everything then, too. But in the long run that actually hurts you. There is nothing harder in this industry than to build your reel and steer your career towards the projects that interest you and eventually forward you as an artist/craftsman. I could write a book on the subject. Saying no to certain things is much more important than saying yes. If you become a slush pit that will do anything, paid or not, they will end up regarding you as such. I've seen it happen a million times. You're only as good as your last job - and you're name is on that thing too, after all. Human psychology is at play and like with everything else, they regard things offered to them for free, or with too much eagerness as suspicious and as lower quality. You can easily be tainted by that brush if you're undiscerning. BTW, this is one of the reasons I don't own gear. I don't want to be the DP that they call when they want a cheap deal or all-inclusive on a Red or some lenses. I want them to call me because they like my work. Chivo is not where he is today because he said yes to everything, he is there because he said no to all the poop. But don't lose the enthusiasm! Enthusiasm is great and it will get you work. :)