Tom Banks

Haha I guess you could say that is true. Although I'm not sure how accurate or meaningful that statistic is... It always seems silly when people brag about how many shots they get off or when directors divulge some exorbitant number of films they've directed like it makes them more mature, I guess its the whole quantity vs quality thing. I guess its something for our AD to be proud of. But basically the whole idea behind that day was we could only afford the location for one day (the only interiors of the film) so we better get our shots off! I managed to convince the production to pay for a half day prerig and set dressing so we could arrive on our shoot day and not have to wait for that. The context of the scene worked towards our advantage as well. The initial look of that location was to flood it with rows of fluorescent worklights. Leading up to the scene, the characters reach the waters edge and the whole "X marks the spot" type of story as they find a hatch sunken in sand. They pull the hatch off and climb down into a dark hallway. As they walk through the hallway they come into a brightly lit 1950's bomb shelter that has been unaware of the outside world for several generations, like Blast from the Past but not so much. Thematically I thought it'd be cool to bring the audience into the typical darkness and low key tungsten and then introduce them to this artificially over lit fluorescent environment. As time got closer and we realized there wasn't any way we could afford to dress an entire warehouse basement, we became clear on keeping very isolated views and a more realistic approach. For that day's plan we basically had 3 major setups to do: the hallway, the look towards the drifters as they came into the family's bunker, and the reverse look on the family at the dinner table. Each look in the bunker required no more than 3 4' work banks (2 tubes each) spaced about 7' apart which provided ample light for the scene. We then used a 4' 4bank kino to get the light looking a bit more fronty. All of the tubes were cool white and we shot the color chart under Tungsten so the florescent would read greenish. But once the lights were rigged, there was just dancing around a kino. So from my end, looking at a bunch of setups wasn't anything overwhelming. Another thing important in having the day move as fast as it did was that Joe had already cut the scene in his head and had a clear idea of which part of each shot he needed. We didn't waste any time on getting coverage we didn't need and although they tell you not to do that, Joe and I have always worked this way and have found it to be a more efficient use of our time in a crunched day. This is our hallway setup. This was almost completely prerigged the previous night. At the end of the hallway we had a 1.2k HMI with 1/4 CTO hitting a 2' mirror board at a 45degree angle, all of which was rigged to the ceiling. The mirror board was taped off to create a circular cast on the floor. The idea behind this light was to emulate a shaft of sunlight penetrating the bunker. Down the hallway we had 2 650w lights casting pools of light onto the floor. We dropped practicals just in front of the light to sell as the source, although I'm not entirely sure if they made the frame. At the opposite end of the hall was another practical (I think they call them china hats?) with a 150w bulb that played on its own. Once we started shooting I brought in a divalight to fill in the characters and try to get some separation with their very dark costumes. Here's a prod. still on the left and a film still I took on the right of the whole ladder concept. Here is a look toward the doorway they enter. 2 4' banks above and the Kino camera left And a still on film: So the reverse was the same lighting setup, fairly simple. Also I think its important to mention I had some really top notch Chapman guys who volunteered their time to work on the film, Allen Liu and Nick Erickson as gaffer and Key grip. Also David Libertella and Connor Hartnett as my 1st and 2nd ACs. So many thanks to them! Satsuki - the glasses reflection didn't appear to be an issue while we were shooting. We had fire dancing in the foreground of the actual shot so I think that might help distract from the reflection. Otherwise we were on such a tight schedule there's not much I could've done in a pinch if they were in fact presenting a problem. Jeff - the right angle you are seeing is one of the tents at the camp they've come upon. You can see another tent more clearly behind the guys in the other prod. still. But you've got a good point about seeing the background, I guess it'll be a matter of finding a happy medium.

Good catch mark :huh: somehow I missed that but that doesn't surprise me. I'll gladly forward the correction on. Andrew - the location was pretty epic, and the BLM (bureau of land management) was pretty easy to work with if you can endure a 45 min. meeting at 5am about protecting the Desert Turtle :blink: We stayed in Ridgecrest as well. The flat location is called Poison Canyon which is on the 178 on the road from Ridgecrest to Trona. We also shot at the Pininacles which down a 7 mile dirt road off the 178 a little closer to Trona. I just saw the Pinnacles in the trailer for a new Will Ferrell movie "Land of the Lost" so that was kinda funny. Satsuki - we shot on Zeiss Superspeeds and while we didn't really need superspeeds, I found myself in a pinch shooting once scene when I shot wide open. There was one campfire scene we had planned to shoot during dusk but we found ourselves wrapped with all the daytime shots earlier than expected and had an hour of waiting for light. The put-put geni had been acting up and the production was pushing to just shoot the campfire scene in the daylight rather than wait over an hour on a geni that might not even turn over. I was very hesitant to so quickly abandon the original plan and thankfully on our last try the geni fired up. We had a small put-put and a basic mole kit (2 650's, 2 300's) Because it was slightly overcast, the sky was more illuminated for a longer period after the sun had gone below the horizon. Originally we had anticipated a clear day in which we could start shooting the dusk/night campfire scene once we we were under ambient light. The moles would then flicker to reproduce firelight. I finally realized we could start shooting the closeups that didn't involve shooting the sky. We managed to get the campfire lights 2 stops above the ambient light and that was good enough for me. Luckily we started when we did because by the time we got to the wide shot the sky was just about black. We had grabbed stills of the location earlier that could be used to re-insert the sky to match with the previous shots. There will obviously be minor continuity errors in that scene but I value getting a good campfire scene rather than coping out for an afternoon campfire. Here are some stills from that scene that might illustrate what was going on: This was the first shot. I tried to use the DSLR to get a vague idea of how the ambient light would read compared to the fire light. I also played around in photoshop with levels and one "power window", this coloring should be fairly easy to achieve during timing. Sorry for the image quality on this one, a little blurry And here is a setup for one of the shots. 2 650w's with 1/2 CTO and Opal on either side of the fire. Both were on hand squeezers with some minor flickering. Obviously this photo is a little more exposed than it even appeared to the human eye

So we've just wrapped filming and the shoot went quite smoothly. That might make for little to talk about on here but I figured I'd tryn and break down a few things. A few technical considerations: Although shooting on the 50D, I still wanted to knock the ISO down so I could get a somewhat shallow depth of field. I figure the grain will give us the "gritty" end of things to promote the 70's style content. But I still wanted it to look somewhat large scale and "glossy" so I tried to shoot around a f2.8 most of the time. This typically involved using a Pola and an ND9. One thing I did that might not be kosher in the film world was for the wide shots I pulled the ND and stopped around an f8 or f11. I guess its more of a tradition for still photography, but I'm unconcerned of the discontinuity of f-stop... I'd rather have a sharp landscape. Landscapes and traveling shots were also a major part of this film and something I have never really done before. Its basically the same as finding a frame in photography. I also used a good deal of Grad NDs for all of the wides where the talent did not appear in the top half of frame. Unfortunately the mattebox we were given did not have filter trays that were vertically adjustable so that was a bit of annoyance for framing. The hardest part of shooting the traveling shots was time and distance. There wasn't really any easy way of doing it. We would shoot coverage during the day and when the light became unusable then the camera crew would break off with the talent while GE wrapped the truck. This actually made for a more efficient wrap out each day. With the camera guys it was just some hiking with the camera, filters, and lenses. Some scenics we did were accessible by car, but most involved a good 15min. walk up some kind of terrain. Then the AD would stay with talent on a walkie to direct them for framing. All in all, these were probably some of the more enjoyable shots to get. GE was considerably trimmed down for the entirety of the shoot. Our ext. package consisted of 2 shiny boards, 1 mirror board, a 4x4 bead board, a 6x6 BW Grif, and a few floppies. My initial approach was to use minimal hard lighting and avoid the unmotivated contrasty look that a lot of desert films have. For the first weekend I used the shinys primarily to add a little fill. We were often shooting towards the sun so I either gave a soft edge on the talent or a little bit of fronty fill. One of the lighting challenges we found ourselves dealing with was filling in some light underneath the brim of the cowboy hats. Both lead characters wore cowboy hats, which lead to almost always a muddy area around their eyes. We usually had to take the shinys off the combos and bounce from the ground to get the proper angle. And the idea with this was just to get a little definition and contrast on the characters' faces, nothing too crazy. On the second weekend with some of the more "epic" looking locations I found myself using a little bit more backlight and having an altogether more lit approach. I'm interested in seeing if the slight inconsistencies in lighting will read on a large scale, I have a feeling not. I think the change in location, while still outside, can be a stronger motivator, as well as the content of the scene. Here are some stills from the second weekend that are by NO means how I intend to treat the coloring or any final color scheme. I just thought I'd have fun with a few production stills I snagged with a camera. They are quite a bit more contrasty than my approach for the actual film. One of the traveling shots

Mole Richardson is exactly where you can go. It's not so much aesthetics as it is learning the different units and the math behind powering them. I've only attended a seminar Larry Parker held at Chapman, but I'm sure there are plenty of people here on the forum that attend the seminars and help out at Mole Richardson.

We have locked all locations for the film, which is unusually early on from my experience. The film commissions were extremely friendly and easy to work with. We will be filming one weekend in Trona, CA and another weekend in the Salton Sea. We scouted Trona about a week ago and although we initially came to see the Salt Flats, we found several other locations that worked well. Unfortunately all the salt flats in that town are owned by a refinery. The next closest flats are about 5 hours from LA. But with some grading we should be able to get comparable results with the Trona locations. What I think might be one of the more interesting locations is where the group stumbles upon a makeshift cannibal camp. At Trona we looked at the Trona Pinnacles for this scene. They've fairly recognizable from Star Trek and Planet of the Apes, but it provides a hostile backdrop to the scene. It also works logistically when the Drifter and Aldridge have a great dialogue moment as they watch the cannibals tear apart a corpse below them. As far as camera specs, we are shooting S16 on an SR2. We will be shooting 50D for all daytime scenes (80% of the film). And as I mentioned earlier, we will be cropping to 2.35. We have looked a bit at some of the old Sergio Leone films for framing references, like the opening scene from Once Upon a Time in the West. At the same time, we are going for a 70's exploitation vibe - which is why we specifically chose 16mm over something like RED or even 35. But with the 50D it should hold up very well on the big screen. Here are some stills I shot on 35 and cropped to 2.35. This place is located just outside of Trona and called Poison Canyon. It will probably replace the Salt Flats look. The sands aren't quite white, but they can be desaturated in post to help the effect. In this still I desaturated them slightly. This is another location on the way to the Pinnacles that could serve as a Salt Flats replacement. Or as a backdrop to one of several traveling shots we will need to cram into our day. And finally the Pinnacles. While this may not be the frame, the idea is to place the cannibals in one of the low points. The characters come from over a hill and briefly spy on the camp before confronting them.

Hello everybody! It’s been a while since I’ve posted in the “In Production” forum, but hopefully this will be a fairly comprehensive report from start to finish of a film that is starting to get working. The film is a Chapman University thesis film for director Joe Dietsch. Joe and I have had a long working history, having already shot few narratives and several music videos (some of which are posted on this forum). We are about 3 weeks away from shooting, with everything moving along more smoothly than expected. After coming off several “professional” jobs I am excited to get back to a well run student set. I’ve found the good ones are always highly organized, and usually include a very talented and devoted crew. Joe and I have worked together enough that we have a pretty good handle on how our sets run and what to expect and plan for. This is also a bit more of a pet project for me which is always more rewarding. I’ve been involving myself in more aspects than usual (costume, locations, casting) which I find good to start a dialogue with Joe and wrap my head around everything possible I can expect on set. From Joe’s plot summary. I tried to whittle it down, but there were too many good things to leave out – “In a subversive take of the classic western, The Fourth Horseman tells the story of the drifter, a bandaged gunman on a desperate quest to survive the nuclear ravaged remains of 1950’s America. He is taken under the wing of the reverend Jake Aldridge, a sociopathic preacher, the leader of a dangerous array of men on a holy quest through the wasteland, their destination unknown. Their journey takes them across a twisted desert where they encounter a horde of cannibals and we first see the reverend’s true psychotic nature. With the drifter’s life in balance, he is forced to remain with the gang as they near their final destination. The goal of the journey is revealed to be a bomb shelter, containing a 1950’s family – straight out of a bad sitcom – a surrealistic juxtaposition to the horrifying nuclear wasteland that thrives on the surface. It is here that the drifter’s basic morality takes over and his conflict with the murderous reverend comes to a head, leading to an unexpected conclusion…”

Thanks everyone for quite a comprehensive response! I was initially hesitant to use any scotch tape methods because I've heard how when peeling off the tape it can remove the normal markings and make for a costly repair or replacement of the glass... But sounds like I shouldn't worry as much about that. We are shooting on a modified SR2 so S16 in combination with the 50D will make for a pretty nice image. I shot another short on regular 16 and 50D and after the HD transfer I was highly impressed with the image quality, so I'm looking forward to this. We're choosing 16 specifically because the director is going towards a 70s exploitation vibe. I'm about to put up a post in "In Production" with some location stills I shot already if anyone's interested. Thanks again everyone! Tom

Hey Guys, So I've got a project coming up in which we're shooting on the SR2 and we've decided to frame for 2.35. Has anyone replaced the ground glass in the SR2? I've already talked to Clairmont, Otto Nemenz and Hollywood Camera, none of witch owned any ground glass marked for 2.35. Hollywood Camera said they had a way of marking on the glass, which makes me a little nervous. If anyone has any previous experience I'd love to hear it. I've got a few more camera houses to call before I settle with other options. Thanks, Tom

It's been slow to no work for a few a few months for me, but I've just started shooting 2nd Unit for a feature in New Orleans. 28 day shoot on 2 Moviecam compact MK IIs

This seems to be the best method I've found to achieve the look referenced in the stills above. The main thing to watch out for is keeping talent on their mark. I usually end up going softer to keep the eyelight from standing out too much if the actor moves up/down.

There are some great shots but I can't get past the interlacing. I would work to de-interlace your footage if at all possible.

The layout is nice and simple. You may look into having your QT movie auto load when the page comes up. That way when the viewer presses play they won't have to wait as much for the load time. I would identify what the three films are below with just a centered title above all of them saying something like "Complete works" or something along those lines. Just watch out that you visually distinguish your title from the "reel" text. Also I would lower the "other works" and "resume" buttons so they don't get lost with the titles of the pieces above. In fact, your contact info could stand to move down the page a bit too. That might be different depending on the size or resolution of other viewer's screens, but for mine right now there's still a bit of empty space at the bottom. It might solve your problem to reduce the size of your text a bit. Don't forget to title your page, right now it appears as just "reel". This will come in handy for Google searches and it always looks better on the top of the browser. I'm also having trouble loading your reel. In the time I've typed this it's only loaded about 10 percent of the way. Check the speed of your server or think about using a flash player or something more manageable. Looks good though!

Hey Daniel - I noticed on your website you had an 832 number, are you from Houston?

Do you know what mount you'll be on? The Tyler Mount has the ability to adjust how far the arm sticks out the side of the door. But if you're shooting on any gyro-stabilized mount you'll be best off keeping it out of the wind as much as possible, and there's a good deal of wind! You will probably find it best to strip off the matte box (someone correct me if I'm wrong) but I found it to be unnecessary considering the amount of wind it was catching. Other than that, filming out the door is quite difficult to keep steady. You'll have to be incredibly focused on operating, and I would recommend trying to rig up a monitor for either the director or appropriate person to watch to act as a second pair of eyes. Also as someone mentioned already, communication is key. Check to see what kind of headsets you'll be having and make sure they're voice activated and not push-to-talk. You'll get the most out of this if you look over your route or fly-area and come up with several "moves" that you want to capture, then go over those in detail with your team before you take off. If your pilot is experienced with filming, then he'll probably already be fairly familiar with certain moves such as elevation changes or circling. If not, you might have to be especially explicit with all variables of your envisioned shots. Depending on what lens you're on, moves might have to be exaggerated to achieve the desired effect. Depending on how much time you have in the air, you may be too busy trying to grab shots to give a lengthy explanation of the move you're trying to go for (if things aren't going the way you planned), which is why it is critical to be as explicit as possible in the beginning.

Hey Rod, The stills look great, I'm sure that was a fun ride despite the conditions. Paris, TX is a great piece. I was lucky enough to be introduced to it by the 20th anniversary screening in Houston, TX. The actor who played the kid spoke at the screening, by that time about he was probably 30 yrs old! But there are definitely some beautiful visuals and moods created that have stuck with me. The DVX looks like it performed well, all the shots appear very crisp. Please post a link when its completed.

Is there an email where we can reach you?

Hey Justin, I really enjoyed your reel, there are some very nice shots in there. You seem to have it down about grouping shots and keeping sequences to show continuity. A more objective note - its always nice to start with a title and then fade into the shots. There seemed to be some strange pausing and no fade in, just a little jarring when you press play. But the music was a good choice. There are a few shots you might consider taking out: the sequence that occurs around 1:03, and a shot thats a little too grainy at 2:06. There's also a series of closeups that occur from 2:19 to around 2:37 that you don't necessarily need. They're nice and all, but we've already seen plenty of shots of those characters in the same visual style, so its not really adding to your reel, only tacking on more time that the viewer doesn't want to sit there watching basically the same shots. Other than that you've got a great reel on your hands!

Hey, So I think you a good amount of strong material. However, I think you could cut out some of the weaker footage and get your reel down to a running time of more like 1:30. First, I would put your title at the start of your reel. As far as how it's cut, I would not cut back and forth from drastically different looking footage. It happens at the beginning with the BW and Color footage. Ii think you're best off keeping clips from the same project grouped together or relatively close to each other. I would also take out the split screen effect. It becomes distracting when the editing or effects dominate the visuals. The BW transition to color was a bit strange too, unless it was part of the original project I would take it out. For the most part, all of your BW footage is nice to look at. I would take out the one shot of the girl walking with the briefcase towards the camera. The shot of her walking away from camera would hold without having to cut away. Also there are shots that are clearly not as strong, such as the dolly move with the two guys standing at the tree (the operating is just too shaky). The shot of the guy in sunglasses is not the strongest, so you should definitely not hold on it for 40 seconds. I also don't think the preceding two shots at the bar are strong enough. I think your reel will have a much more positive impact eliminating shots that aren't quite up there with the rest of the shots. You seem to have enough material to make a long enough reel. People's attention spans don't last for more than a minute or two before they start fast forwarding through things. Anyways I hope this helps, I know there are a lot of cutting notes, but there are some very strong shots and I think if you can detach yourself from your footage you will come to realize how whittling it down will help.

I usually take a 12" by 12" piece of blackwrap and cut a tiny slit through the middle (about 3" long). The slit doesn't have to be more than a few millimeters wide. Then rig the blackwrap with a C-Stand or something with the cut going horizontal. Then take whatever size unit appropriate (the slit will knock it down quite a bit) and focus it through the slit so that the light coming through lands on the eyes. Depending on how far away the black wrap is from the light, the harder or softer the cut will be. Then just poke at the slit to widen it or make it narrower. This is pretty easy. The hard part is getting the actor to stay on their mark and making sure their movement doesn't give away the "eye bar". The more movement they might have in the shot, the softer I go with the cut.

I've got a project coming up in which a SWAT team searches a dark hazy hallway. The director wanted to simulate the effect seen below, with the flashlight beams from their guns cutting through the haze. We'll be shooting 250D around a f2.8. Can anyone estimate the amount of lumens we'll need to make a significant beam? The production designer has used the SureFire flashlightsis before with somewhere around 300 lumens. Thanks guys!

Yah mike that's an interesting problem that could go either way... I think it depends on who you're showing your reel to. I lean towards grouping footage because thats what I see most successful narrative DPs do. Grouping is good because it shows you can maintain a visual consistency and displays a bit more regarding shot selection and cutting together. But if you're showing your reel to a music video or commercial producer they basically want to be entertained as much as possible, so if you can do that while grouping then you've got the best combination. My current reel has about 5 projects shown in groups and I've been told by some director friends that they prefer the montage, so who knows! I think the best option is to cut both, and use them depending on the job you are applying for.

I think it moves way too slow, because the music is very slow paced and drawn out and because some of the shots hold longer than we really need to see. Since you have less moving shots and more static shots its even more important because the shots won't hold the audience for very long. I always think its better to group all the shots of one scene or film together, so I would minimize things like cutting back and forth between the B&W film and some of the other work. Also steer away from showing more than one or two impressive shots per scene/look.

Hey Jayson, thanks for the insight. A few things I'm curious about: Did the RED offer any guidelines in the viewfinder/monitor for cropping to 2.39? I know you shot a framing chart but I'm just wondering how you maintained your framing while shooting 2:1. Also, I wasn't aware that you could apply LUTs to the monitors. I'm assuming this is correcting the fact that you are shooting below the recommended ASA, but does that mean you can only use RED's field monitors?

I posted a topic a while ago in Production that gave a little detail on my last cinema set up http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...showtopic=29400

I think there's some confusion as to the definition of "falloff". I used to make the same mistake. Jon, you're thinking of falloff as how brightness decreases as you get farther away, in which case your right about the inverse square law and how it basically applies universally to all forms of light. Michael and the majority of us use "falloff" to describe the way the edge of the light reads. For example, if you were to shine a Kino and a Leko against a dark wall, the Kino would have a softer edge and less falloff, where as the Leko would have a hard cut and a much greater falloff. Its looking at the decrease of light on an X-Y axis rather than the Z.