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Chris Clarke

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Everything posted by Chris Clarke

  1. I recently finished my first project to be shot on film (I'll upload some stills for critique when I get a final copy). A big thing to come out of it for me was metering tequnique. I had a quite a range of exposures to judge during the 2 day shoot - elevator interior, hotel night ext, roof night ext, corridor tracking shot, basement night int) As the shoot progressed, I found my metering getting better but I definitely relied upon my DSLR for reasurance. I was wondering if any of you know of any useful metering exercises I could practice to improve my technique? I could set my meter and DSLR to the same settings and compare results. Other than simple situations, what 'problems' could I create for myself to get to grips with exposure? I want to get more comfortable with the spot meter and interpreting its readings better. I have to say what a great learning experience I found going into the telecine suite a few days after we wrapped to view my footage was. We had a great operator who gave me good honest feedback that was as interesting as the shoot itself. Thanks for any replies. Chris.
  2. Lots of the films I've worked on, the DP has used notes with the grayscale as per David. Sometimes these refer to specific looks that the DP and grader have discussed during testing. But I've also seen them use notes of a more creative description, thought up on the spot, to give the grader/colourist a guide and in some cases to stop them from interpretating the scene wrongly.
  3. A film I worked on a few years ago that was lit by Andrew Dunn utilised both of these. Bat lights are varying lengths of 2"x1" wood with BNC bulb holders fixed to them. You then place whichever bulbs you wish (photofloods, household...) on them and usually wire them to a dimmer. You can place them in the tightest of places, behind sofas, next to tables, behind bottles on a bar - anywhere you want a little bit of light. Covered wagons look like pretty much how they sound. There's a metal frame that consists of a rectangular base with 3 arches, 1 at each end and 1 in the middle creating a half cylinder shape. Inside at each end are BNC bulb holders. You can attach diffusion or whatever you fancy to the metal arches, hence creating the 'covered wagon' image. The rectangular base has flanges so that white card can be slid in to boost the level of light a bit. Again, these are often run through dimmers. On the film I saw them, they always had 216 with straw and 1/2 CTO as the filter package, through a dimmer at about 60% with a little flicker. They were put next to actors on the ground hidden behind set dressing producing a really nice fire light effect. From memory it was in a study for a night int. scene. Very soft, warm and cheap to run! Don't know where or if you can actually buy bat lights or covered wagons. I think the sparks made them up on the job I saw them on. But I do know that quite a few of them are in my garage now thanks to a very generous gaffer :) Once had the bat strips (another name) rigged around the lens for a ring light on a promo that I lit. As each one could move independently, you could really fine tune the reflections in the eye with all the bulbs showing up clearly. Hope this helps.
  4. Have a look at the Powell/Pressburger film Black Narcissus (1947). Jack Cardiff created some beautiful exterior scenes set in the Himalayas that were shot in Pinewood Studios. Wonderful film as well.
  5. Thank you David, once again for your advice! Chris.
  6. Hi there. I worked on job once where the DP did an interesting thing with a night int. car scene. He lit the car with daylight balanced kino's (4' 4banks around the sides/back and a miniflo taped to the sun visor) and got his look by shooting on Fuji 500 daylight stock. The man and woman in the car were colour balanced normal but the background was all over the place but looked great. The car was driving around central London so there was very mixed lighting everywhere outside - sodium vapour, neon, blue headlights, yellow headlights.... It really created a speparate world inside the car with this 'hot' night outside. If you're shooting on tape, then you can white balance off the daylight source in the car and get the same effect. Look at the AC article on Collateral on their website. The taxi in that was covered in velcro so they could rig ELD panels wherever they wanted, supplemented by miniflo's. If you find a light weight light source this could be a good solution for you. I've also seen cameramen use other vehicles with their lights on full beam driving around the action car to create interesting effects. Have fun!
  7. I have a night shoot next week which I had intended to shoot on 7218, but due to budget reasons I'm now shooting on Fuji 8673. How similar/different are these two stocks? I was going to rate the Kodak at 320 for a less grainy neg, is this something that would help the Eterna as well? Cheers, Chris.
  8. A new development on my 'night/ext' shoot... The director would like to shoot on a stage with a painted backdrop of a city night landscape. She is worried about about weather (England...) and the effect of the cold on perfomance. I've seen a photo of the backdrop which is 50ft wide and 16ft high and it looks pretty good. I was thinking of switching to 7217 200T for better grain and contrast. I'm still planning on lighting the band in the same way with about 1 stop overexposure as they get closer to the camera. How far away should the set (about 20ftx20ft in size) be from the backdrop? I'm not sure where to begin placing the exposure for the painted background though? Should I take a spot reading from a highlight? I should mention that the backdrop has got lots of well lit city buildings on it. Thanks, Chris.
  9. I normally work as 2ndAC so my focus puller is going to be my day job boss! Hope he still employs me with T1.3 :o Thanks again guys, appreciate it. When it's all done (beginning of March) I'll post some pics. Cheers
  10. Not sure about the look, but I know that for some of those sequences they had Russell Crow lay on a platform that also had the camera mounted to it so they could track along with his head 'floating' over the ground with the camera overhead. Kind of a large dolly with actor and camera moving together. Would be interested to hear others views on the look though. Maybe cross-processed reversal? Strange colour shift and more contrast?
  11. Thanks for all your responses! Will probably shoot on Distagons, so T1.3 is my fastest stop. Is this going to be too much or is there no such thing as too much on a night exterior? I was actually thinking of using Classic Softs for some shots after seeing Munich. I really liked that patterned halo on the point sources in shot. It could look really good on the sign behind the girls as well as their skin. For flares I was thinking of a Dedo with some coloured gel off camera with the occasional flash down the lens. As I wont get the opportunity to test, what strength of Classic Soft would be the maximum to use? Is this something that could be judged through the viewfinder? For my frontal light on the girls I was thinking of a maximum of 1 1/2 stops over the shooting stop. Averaging out at a stop over for most of it. Does this sound about right or could I go further? Cheers, Chris. P.S. That thread on Kaminski's diffusion was really interesting, especially as I read it before seeing Muncih. Thanks!
  12. One thought I had would be to use a SLR to get a general reflected reading from the highlights in the background. Do you think this would give me a good base to work from? Thanks, Chris.
  13. All the labs have got their own TK departments now. Technicolor: 020 8759 5432 Deluxe: 01895 832323 A friend of mine who shot a short recently got a deal from Technicolor - Negative Develop, 1 light TK and sync all for 25.5pence per foot. That's their standard 'student' rate. Good luck!
  14. I have a shoot coming up that is a first for me. I've never shot night exterior before and need some advice regarding exposure and lighting. It's a music video that is set on a city roof top. The promo is for a girl band and the look has to be glossy and slick. The groups name will be in lights next to them as will 3-4 dancers. Similar to the Channel advert with Nicole Kidman. We will be shooting with a London skyline in the background but have not found a location yet. For the roof itself I'm planning on having some architectural lighting and obviously the sign as well. Maybe a little smoke/steam that I could backlight. The girls need to be lit in a colourful and glossy style i.e. not naturalistic. Ring light for close ups maybe? Kinos under the lens and maybe some neon motivated colours. I thought of having the makeup oil them up and get some nice reflections and shine from their skin. As I have never shot at night before I don't know where to begin with placing my exposure for the background? I'm worried about overlighting the roof top and just having faint twinkles of detail behind. How overexposed can I let the band go in comparison to the background? Another point is shooting speed. The director wants to shoot some double speed playback - 50fps for certain shots. We're shooting on a 500T 16mm stock. Will I have enough light for this or should I push 1 stop for the 50fps shots? Lots of questions, I know!! Any advice or previous experiences... This place is SO great for planning and thinking about shoots. Thanks again!
  15. Hi Ben. I have a similar shoot to yours on the horizon. It's a music video set on the roof of a hotel. Lots of neon lights with a choreographed dance in the middle of it all. The background will be a city scape, maybe London, and the whole thing's set at night. At the moment we will be shooting against a green screen on a stage with all the backgrounds being added afterwards. Would love to hear of your experiece and any surprises of tips they came up! Regards, Chris.
  16. Thanks for the reply David. Do you think there is a benefit in shooting a greyscale at each step to help with the grade? I've been thinking of what to use as my source. It needs to be daylight balanced and soft, powered from a battery and hand held. I'll gel it with 1/2 CTO and then Full CTO as the light goes as you suggested. But I also need to balance the level so that I get a good exposure in my background. When we recce the location I'll take some meter readings at different times to get an idea of where my background will be. Any advice as to what would make a good choice of light? Thanks again!
  17. Thanks for the info John, I wasn't aware of this stock. Would you still recommend correcting the daylight part of the shoot with an 85? Also does this stock respond well to slight overexposure as the other Vision stocks do? Rating at 320 or 400 maybe? If anyone has any thoughts on the colour correction of my light i.e. going from daylight to tungsten then I'd be grateful! Cheers, Chris.
  18. Hi all. I'm going to be lighting a music video in the next month or so and I have some questions regarding the stock and colour correction that I'm going to use. The video is set in an English seaside fairground. It's going to be shot mostly from a doggicam bodymount on super 16 looking back at the singer. We will start shooting around 11ish in the morning and will continue through daylight, dusk and into night. Lighting wise I am going to key my main artist with a hand held soft source, a little over exposed, just above the camera. This will be daylight balanced. The background will be natural daylight with lots of practical illumination coming from the fairground rides and stalls. Going into night, the background will really come to life with lots of colours...etc. My worry is regarding the cross-over from day into night. I was planning on shooting on 7218 500T with an 85 for the day stuff. I know that I could just pull it at some point and let the telecine take care of the rest, but I kind of want to do it properly and go to an 85B, then maybe an LLD before shooting clean. What are your thoughts? Would shooting a new greyscale and macbeth as I change filters be of help in keeping a consistent colour? At what point should I start adding 1/2 or full CTO to my lighting source? As much as I want to keep it correctly filtered, the difference in colour temperature as the sun goes down will really help with the feel of the video which will probably be cut with different times of day mixed up. I should also add that we are going to be shooting at different speeds possibly with some step printing for some blurred effects. Maybe some out of phase shutter as well. I would love our budget to extend to a final grade after the edit but I think I am going to be limited to a best light. I haven't shot much film before but my main work is as a 2nd AC on features. All help and suggestions are much appreciated! Thanks, Chris.
  19. Hi Jon. Don't know about punch filters but I saw a DP use a similar idea recently that I thought was interesting. He had this material that was kind of like spun but black. I think it was a very light and quite brittle silk. We would stretch it over the barrel of the lens and secure it. Then cut a small hole in the centre and fray the edges of by pulling at it. To ensure that the 'hot spot' was in the correct place, we had a short length of solder cable looped to the size of our hole. We would hold it in front of the silk while the DP looked through so he could see exactly where hole was. Looking through the lens you couldn't really see much effect, nor on the monitor, but when we saw printed rushes... Wow! It was suprisingly subtle but really altered the mood of the scene. Highlights bloomed quite nicely with a promisty feel but where the hole was there was this nice definition to the image. It really drew your eye to the character framed there without being too gimicky. I'm gonna try it on a short film or something if it seems appropriate. Cheers, Chris.
  20. Hi. The major studios, if your talking feature production, are all located around the outside of London to the west and north. As a consequence this is where most feature people live and production companies are based. If a studio were built in Kent the production companies would have to overnight the whole crew and pay them per diems. It's swings and roundabouts though. I live in Essex and on my last film I had to travel to a hill just outside Aylesbury (not too far from Pinewood) every morning, a 1.5 hour journey each way and I was not paid mileage nor given the option to stay overnight. At the end of the film we had 2 weeks in Chatham, Kent - a 30 minute drive for me. I got a hotel and per diems for the whole time! Win some lose some... Sadly for all us east of London people, we'll always have to accept a lot of travelling on top of the days work. Regards, Chris
  21. Hi everyone. My first post.... but a long time reader. I work as a loader (2nd AC) in the UK industry and from reading these posts you would get the impression that there's no work here. Admittedly it's not fantastic but it's still pretty good at the moment. A few examples: The Bond may have gone abroad but both the main unit and the action unit have taken English camera crews for the 'A' cameras. And from the experiences of recent films abroad (where there has been major trouble with local crews leading to UK camera crews getting drafted in) it's expected that lots of us will get a shout once Bond settles in Prague. Harry Potter kicks off in Feb with 2 units shooting for 6 months, all out of Leavseden. Kenneth Branagh's shooting an Opera at the moment in Shepperton. The sequal to Elizabeth (The Golden Age) starts in April. 2 cameras shooting in the UK and Prague (Yes, British crews do travel to these places to shoot) Tim Burton's got a new picture coming up to be lit by Phillip Rousselot again. And these are only the big films. There are many smaller productions out there and from what I hear, the commercials are picking up. The new tax breaks coming online from April will see a further boost with things really picking up from September onwards. Lots of my colleagues are starting to get calls and it looks like it could be a busy year, hopefully a full return to a 'proper' sustainable industry. It's true that the sudden withdrawal of tax break support shook the industry up badly. It wasn't necessarily the withdrawal but the way in which it was done (overnight with no warning!). Time will tell whether or not the current set up is conducive to growth. But our industry here has of some of the best technicians in the world. When I work with big American DP's they are always impressed with our crews although they are a little surprised at our wages! Now that's an area that needs to be addressed... ;)
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