Adam Frisch FSF

Well commercials suffer from the reverse barriers. When you start out doing music videos, all you hear for the first 10 years trying to break into commercials is: "sure he can light pretty pictures, but can he do dialogue?". Then, when you finally crack it ever so slightly after 10 years of hard slog, they start all over again with films/tv: "sure he can do dialogue in commercials, but can he do long form narrative?". You can't win… :blink: :rolleyes: I'm sure the reverse is true for feature shooters: "sure he can do dialogue/cars/beauty/night/liquids in film, but can he do it in 30 seconds?"….. If you want a good living in this business, then it's all about specialisation. For those DP's (like myself) that resist cinematographic type casting and fight it, it gets less secure and you will have less work. They want you to be good at one thing and one thing only. That makes them feel safe. If you want a secure living, then the best thing you can do is to learn how to became a table top shooter, a liquids specialist or a car guy. Those guys make more money than anyone else and that's all they do. But I couldn't imagine spending my whole life shooting cereals dropping into milk at 1000fps. Cars maybe, but not cereal. ;)

Lubezki will win for Gravity. And he should, even though it was mostly done in cgi. It's his vision and his lighting in the computer and his specialised techniques on set.

There are ways to market yourself and become a more employable DP, but that's a whole different discussion. The discussion here is that the gap between what's produced for theatrical release and the starter film has widened and will become even bigger in the future. And when it does, it favours very established DP's. So the question then becomes, "how do you become an established DP" when the opportunities are no longer there for you? It's a Catch 22. It will all come out in the wash as it always does, but as established as I might be in commercials by now, I can't get arrested in features or TV. My agents can't even get me a script to read, never mind shoot. And if I can't even get to read or get hired on sub $500K scripts with an established reel, what chances are there for a young DP that's just done a short? I'm very grateful I'm not starting out in this business today.

No, I think this is a distinct change in consumption. I used to personally buy a lot of DVD's and it was a mixed bag - theatrical releases but also direct-to-DVD films that interested me. Or art house. Now I don't consume those at all anymore. Now I watch big release films in the theatres (there is nothing else), or TV drama. The rebirth of television, and the quality programming one finds there is great, but it does have one distinct disadvantage for DP's: You're not gonna get a shot at it unless you're already a name. And the better it gets, the less of a chance you'll have. So future DP's face a daunting prospect: shoot charity features that no one will ever see, for decades, unable to support yourself or your family, hoping one of them gets picked up at a festival and gets you validated, or…..well, what? That's it. That's your only option. There is no financial market for these low budget films. There is no venue for them anymore. Where are they gonna get seen? Not on TV, not in cinemas, not online, not on DVD, not on an airplane etc. They'll become like shorts are today, only seen online for free by very dedicated bunch. The feature I shot in 2009 I got paid £500/week on. I've never worked harder in my life. My hourly rate was less than a McDonalds worker. I can't see this segment improving much.

I have a distinct feel the film business is just entering what the music business went through in the last 10 years - and came out of. A giant shakedown. With DVD dead, there is no outlet for the smaller films and no way for them to recoup their money. Which ultimately means they won't be produced. I used to see a lot of films that didn't get theatrical release on DVD, in fact my whole childhood/teenhood was spent watching that stuff. Now I never do that. Can't remember the last time I bought a film that had not had a theatrical release on iTunes etc. That kind of viewing has moved to TV shows. Consumption has changed. And it's obvious that these new digital deliveries (that I'm all for btw and is the future) is mainly benefitting consumer and content provider at this time, not producer and filmmakers. Have you heard what Netflix etc pay for low budget features? It's ridiculous. You might get $3k for licensing your feature worldwide for a year, if you can even get it in there. It's going to become exactly like the music business: little micro budget features that get self released on a website and never make a dime and are basically charity films, or Jay Z/Daft Punk steamroll machines - and nothing in between. Which means there will only be room for huge Hollywood stuff at the cinemas, or Oscar fodder dramas. None of which a new generation can cut their teeth on. I suppose the bottom line is there are just too many directors, too many filmmakers, too many DP's, too many producers making content. Maybe this is the armageddon the industry needs. However, from a purely selfish standpoint, it does mean that most avenues are closed off for those of us who would like to move to features in the more mature part of our career. The obstacles are: 1. Since TV has become the new film in terms of quality, it means the veteran DP's will rule that domain and that entry into the long form business will now become much harder for us without extensive feature/TV credits. 2. When a young director you came up with gets a shot at a feature, he will never be able to take you along with him. At those heightened entry budget levels, they will demand a veteran DP. They never pair rookie director with rookie DP. They'll gladly take a chance on a new director, but never on a new DP. 3. The only hope for a fresh DP is that a veteran director, who has the clout to push you through the system, takes you on for a film. And why would he do that when fifteen Oscar nominated DP's are falling over themselves to work with him? The entry points are closing like wormholes and I sense it will get a lot harder in the future to make that transition. I hope I'm wrong.

I used the thinnest Fogal as a substitute for the Dior as well, back in the days. Worked fine.

You are correct Greg. But he does speak Swedish, so we'll appropriate him :P. I agree with your summary, tho. He will be one of the DP's that will influence cinema in the coming years.

Fellow Swede Hoyte van Hoytema, FSF, shot this movie and I have to say (and I'm not just saying this because of that) I think it's one of the best shot movies of the year. I think it should have been Oscar-nominated, in fact. It's the best Alexa footage I've ever seen. Simple, tasteful, great compositions and perfectly exposed (as in under exposed just the right amount for many scenes), making the footage reach a kind of creamy quality. Excellent work. I'm not surprised Chris Nolan chose him to shoot Interstellar for him. Please watch it.

You can not win with white walls. They're like kryptonite for cinematography. Yet, we find ourselves in ugly white rooms constantly. It's merciless.

Richard - I should have worded that differently. It's not that they don't know what good cinematography is, because good cinematography is anything that they like. I don't think there is a way to define good cinematography. I have my idea of what it is, but i don't think everyone agrees with that. So you tend work with people that share your aesthetic sensibilities.

A little update. I Just got the brand new Alpha 7 with the full-size chip. I love the camera. I've now played with my old Lomo sphericals from the 60's with a PL adapter on it and the 22mm, 28mm, 35mm give a visible vignetting. The 50mm is almost passable - it vignettes slightly, but not on an overly obvious way. The 75mm and the 135mm don't vignette at all. So when shooting video one can either crop into an APS size on the camera for the wider lenses, and then pop back to fullsize caption for the lenses that cover the whole chip. You don't lose any resolution by doing so, it's all 1080P. Sadly, I dropped my NEX 5 into a snowy crevasse on the last job in the Slovenian Alps, never to be found again. I loved that little camera, so might get a NEX 6 as well just to have as a smaller point and shoot and to use as a directors viewfinder.

There's that famous story when George Lucas had all his directing buddies over to watch a rough cut of Star Wars. This was before he'd finished any of the effects, so in place of the spaceship battles that he hadn't shot yet, he'd cut in WWII footage of Spitfires and Messerschmitts in grainy B/W. DePalma was there, Scorsese was there, Spielberg was there, Coppola was there, Zemeckis, Milius etc. When it was finished they all tore in to him telling him how much it sucked, how it's gonna bomb and how nobody would go see it. All except one. "He's gonna make billions" Spielberg said. He was the only one who could see through that and imagine the final product. Sensmoral? Very few people, even professionals who are supposed to be able to, can "imagine" or see things that aren't finished. That's why you never should show people stuff that isn't cut, colour graded, or where post and audio isn't in place. Presentation is everything and you only get that first time to make an impression. What has this got to do with reels? Well, it means just what Bruce was mentioning. The ones that are hiring us have no idea what good cinematography is - they go by an impression or a feeling that lines up with their personal taste. It's your job to make that first impression count and be palatable. This business is literally run on a succession of gut feelings. There is no system, plan or matrix you can hit.

In my experience this is (perhaps crassly) what's most important on a falling scale: 1. Your success and how "big" you are. You have to understand that it's not just show business in front of the camera, it's behind the camera as well. Ad agencies/clients/financiers want to be able to say on Monday over coffee with their partners that they were working with Roger Deakins or an Oscar winning DP. Coolness by association. I know for a fact, because I had it from his agent himself, that commercial clients will wait or work around Emmanuel Lubezki's schedule. When he's off a feature film all he needs to do is call up his agent and say "I have 2 months off, can you book some commercials?" and they book as many or as few as he wants. But understand that this only happens at the very top level. No client or ad agency will wait for us lesser DP's. 2. Recommendations and reputation. Directors will base hiring on sometimes unresearched recommendations from other directors or producers. Sometimes they might ask around about you, or someone else mentions you to them, or your name has a buzz at that moment. This is very common and once you have been vetted by their peers, they'll hire you based on that and not the particulars on your reel. It is very, very common that if you do a successful or good ad at a certain production company (and you and the director get along), you will pick up other work from other directors at that production company. They talk about DP's all the time. 3. Reel/CV. And here we have different tiers. Obviously a bigger reel (notice I didn't say better), with more things they recognise or have seen, with known actors/stars, stand a better chance than the ever so nicely shot thing they don't know about or haven't heard of. They need the stamp of approval of familiarity, or success, to be able feel confident in your skills. It's the sad truth that a beautiful reel on its own will not get necessarily get you more work. However, it will get you those first jobs that then can help build your reel. Being a DP is great. But it's a long hard way to make it in to a successful career. It's just like life - it's not going to be fair, it's not going to be equal. I've had focus pullers that used to work for me and assistants that used to load my camera truck (at 4am in the morning) who today are shooting big Hollywood features and are much more successful than I am. Some of them got an easy ride and found success very quick by being at the right spot at the right time. That's OK, you just have to stop comparing yourself to others and not feel intimidated by the fact that it's not always fair. It doesn't mean you're a worse DP or have lesser skills. That's very important to remember.

Love that movie.

All great cinematographers with differing styles, all gentlemen. I reserve a special place for Phedon Papamichael who I've talked to a few times at the ASC clubhouse. His reel is so versatile and always serves the subject. He can be real pretty and slick (like when he works with Verbinski and others), or he can be really naturalistic and simple. Almost to the point of being ugly when it's the right thing (esp. in his work with Payne). There's always this pressure in the business to put you in categories and have you specialise, so it's nice to see that Phedon resist that and shows that you can have a great career having a visual style that can accommodate all types of visuals. I model my career ambitions after him, only hoping to achieve a fraction of his success. :)

Ads are rarely well blocked or staged at all, unfortunately. There's no time there, you cut your way around it. Master blockers/stagers: Spielberg (probably the best - Munich is a masterclass), Sergio Leone (genius at this), Kubrick, Zemeckis, John McTiernan (Die Hard and Predator are very well blocked) and many of the older hands like Hitchcock etc. Polanski for sure - one of the best. Mike Nichols The Graduate. Fincher in his later years (Zodiac is excellently blocked). French noir director Jean-Pierre Melville also very good at this. Basically, when there's a will and desire on the directors part to create shots in camera that doesn't necessarily use a cut to tell the story (this is scary as it gives no options and that's why it's not done as much). When the staging accomplishes what the cut was there to do. As well as map out the action. That's what I call good blocking, although in my understanding of it it's the same as shot design.

BTW, that's what Ridley Scott always used to say when he operated. He found that actors responded really well to that, because he was close to them. I don't think he operates as much as he used to anymore.

I can't add much to what David was saying, but just say that very, very often even on professional sets you'll often find a fundamental lack of understanding of soft lighting. It has very little to do with the unit itself - any source can be soft. I'm talking about frames with hotspots in them, Chimeras with hotspots in them, sources far away with some diffusion clipped to the doors etc. The list is endless and I see it all the time. Sometimes that's what we want and the hardness helps what we're trying to achieve, but sometimes you need real softness and then you have to ensure that's what you get. Creating truly big soft sources takes time and effort. One of my favourites happened just the other year: I was in Atlanta. My gaffer was a local 20 year veteran. I asked him to soften a 5K for me and he put a single scrim in and came back and said "There, that's a bit softer". :rolleyes:

If anyone wants to see an example of the Hawk 1.3x squeezed anamorphics you can watch Gus van Sant's Promised Land shot by my old buddy Linus Sandgren, FSF.

Maxim Ford - you have fallen for the oldest fallacy there is: that economics are a zero sum game. They're not. If someone makes 1 million, does NOT mean someone else lost 1 million. This is simply not true and it has never been the case. Learn some economic history and theory.

I'm sorry to hear that. I don't speak from great feature film experience, but a lot of commercial experience. Whenever you have trouble meeting up/prepping or getting the director in a room, it's normally because they're either overwhelmed and/or haven't figured it out yet. That can be because the producers/financiers keeps the director in the dark, or it could be the director itself. Here's my experience: whenever that's the case, whichever it is, you're much more on the hook or likely to be thrown under a bus. And your experience will be less pleasurable. You will end up getting the blame for stuff that didn't work because of that and they will most likely not hire you again. Those are the sad realities of shooting politics. Not always the case, but more often than not in my experience. Here's my tip: when they're weak, you have to slightly steamroll and take more charge. Be bossy. Your name is on that project, too. They'll feed you to the dogs if you're too subservient and yielding to a rudderless ship - they just want someone to take charge. By taking a bigger creative part, they might think overly so, at least the film has a more honed point of view and is something you can stand by. What you got to lose? It's a fine line, but there's ways of steering things in the right direction without overstepping your bounds or taking power away from people.

Nice one, David. Yeah, I was going to get a NEX 6 as an upgrade (as you know, it has better controls and a built in eyepiece), but when I saw that the Alpha 7 and 7R are coming out in Dec, I'm going to wait for those! Looks like they will be killer. The wider film lenses will probably not cover the full image sensor, but that's OK - I can zoom in a little for those shots.

Below is a little test commercial I shot for a director friend of mine at El Mirage dry lake bed. Our budget was non-existent, so we used my little Sony NEX 5N with a PL adapter (can be found on Ebay) and a set of Zeiss Standards T2.1's to save some cash. Film was professionally graded by a post house. Shutter was set to about 1/100th to mimic a 90 degree shutter feel. Worked very well, although I had to make a bracket and rod for the remote focus motor to attach to, so my AC could pull remotely. It gets a little fidgety with HDMI's and all the rest of it coming out of such a small camera, but it can be done. I've had my NEX 5 for almost 2 years and I'm still blown away by how good it does video, considering it's so tiny. That big APS-C chip really delivers. Everything is controllable and pretty easy to get to and it takes stellar imagery. I've used it with my PL adapter as a C-camera/B-roll on many commercials, and the footage from it gets cut in right alongside Red and Alexa footage. Nobody can tell the difference. I do however protect my highlights religiously, use a Tiffen Ultra Con 3 (to bring contrast down even further) and have all detail and the onboard contrast settings set to minimum. The only thing I can fault it for is what it shares with every other stills camera out there: rolling shutter. For everyday stuff it's not noticeable, but for any action stuff or fast paced stuff, it gets visible. You can see it on the car shots in this film. There are ways to minimise it, but it can not be eliminated. Can't wait for all cameras to have global shutter.

You can check out http://globalcinematography.com/

Great advice, David. I'm stealing that and keeping it for future use.