Tom Banks

I came across a question this summer while shooting an action feature in which we had a EXT NIGHT scene where a man was lit on fire from some exploding gas cans behind him. I wasn't sure how exactly to expose for fire, if it would read at any f-stop or if it would blow out at a certain point. But I had to light the location and expose for the two at the same time. I ended up just pushing my lights in as close as the FX guys said was safe to get the most punch out of them and try to get the location to read closer to how bright the fire would read. Has anyone had any experience with this or could offer any rule of thumb? Also something I wasn't sure was if the quantity or quality (type of explosion) would determine how bright the actual flame got.

Sounds good to me! As far as content its a good opportunity to post events, workshops, screenings, or even a less formal crew call. I'm sure there are a lot of student DP's like myself that wouldn't mind day or two of free labor in the neighborhood to learn a little. Perhaps some State subforums would be good for DP's working out of town to get acquainted with rental houses, crew, etc...

So there was a lot of great footage in there! My thoughts: The music was very nerving, it made me a little too anxious. Its good to have a solid beat to keep the reel moving, but I think the yelling and atonal quality wasn't helping. As for the footage, I'd take out the quick clip of the girl riding in the car... It's not as strong as the rest. Everything else up until the band footage is good. But I don't think you really need that band footage or anything after it (except the out of focus blinking lights). Also consider grouping footage from the same show. Most of the seasoned DPs reels consist of a montage of clips from each production, but it takes a lot of footage to do that. However, I think applying to bigger jobs, producers will respect that type of reel a little more. Just be aware that no matter that its a cinematography reel, the audience will try to piece together a story from the images. Hope that helps.

Ryan, After reading your pitch I might suggest that you sound a bit more enthusiastic about your project. The post comes off sort of nonchalant and I think that could have a negative effect on trying to get funding. The best way to sell people is to convince them this will be the best short film ever and they will be a part of something exciting, an opportunity they will regret if they pass it up! Remember, people are giving their money away so they want it to be for something worthwhile! Hope that helps.

Kevin, is the Medusa Mirror something you custom made? Or is it a specialty item that some G&E rental houses have? I'm also curious as to if rental houses stock mirrors on their trucks or again if that item needs special requests.

I'm glad this post resurfaced. This short has always stuck out to me. Simple, subtle, and beautiful! I'd love to hear more technical specs.

I've done several photos using the HDR process and this Wierd Al example pretty much fits the description. Its done with several exposures (usually 3 to 5) exposed at key, then incremental stops under and over key. There's a special program called PhotoMatix that cleverly combines the exposures into a rather unique cartoony image. MY personal guess, and perhaps its a bit naive of me, is that everything was in fact in front of the camera. They probably took a RAW picture (since you can't trust a dog to stay still for multiple exposures), then grabbed several exposures via photoshop, then put them into the processing to yield the image. Typically the process will yield an undesired effect on skintone, so I have a feeling they did a less intense process and painted that version in to the skintones. As for the lighting on his face, its probably safe to say there's a soft source somewhere camera right to give a nice wrap to his face. Anyways, this is a really cool, really fun process to experiment around with. There's a great deal of HDR work on www.flickr.com and you can find several extensive tutorials on the process if you just do a simple google search. Here is an example of an HDR image I made off a single RAW file!

There's also a great location in Barstow, CA that has had a long history. 50 yrs ago it was an airfield, then 20 yrs later it was turned into an antenna base. Now, everything has been stripped and left are cinder block buildings and concrete pilings covered in graffiti. The antenna base was built up on a hill so there's a great "underground" area with dilapidated structures and more graffiti. Here are some pictures from a scout I did for a music video: And the final product: http://youtube.com/watch?v=X81ttCDTHu8

I'd also be interested in hearing some responses to this question. I've always approached the subject of rear projection with a bit of apprehension. It seems to be a common enough practice to consider for lower-budget projects, but I don't know enough to feel comfortable going out on a limb and doing this for the first time (at least on film). Dealing with a digital projector, are their sync issues (just like filming a TV screen)? Is there any special way to orient the projector so that the lamp doesn't show through the screen? I'm sure those who have done it before could offer some special pointers to problems that can't be predicted or expected.

Thanks guys. I checked out prices at Yale film and video and it's definitely a steal! I'll be shooting Ektachrome, recreating old 70's band footage reminiscent of The Yardbirds, Small Faces, Led Zeppelin, the films of the Maysles brothers (Gimme Shelter) as part of a music video sequence. Should be fun!

Hey guys, I'm starting pre on a music video and part of it requires to be shot on Super8. I don't think Clairmont has Super8 cameras so I'm wondering if anyone has any recommendations on rental houses or even recommendations on a good camera to shoot on. This will be my first time shooting 8mm, but I'm assuming the processing and telecine will be the same as 16. Thanks, Tom Banks

I thought the text was a bit distracting. But there are many strong shots in there. I would cut the narrative section shorter by eliminating some of the shots that don't hold up. It starts out with some very strong shots, but somewhere in the middle there are a few shots that don't need to be in there.

anyone ever do any HDR (High dynamic range)? Here are some of mine that I'd be proud to share:

Mr Mullen, I would really be interested in hearing a little more detail as to achieving that clean and polished look. Specifically with the lighting (types or size of diffusion, gels, placement) There's a scene during the beggining of Almost Famous with the boy on his front lawn as his sister is packing her car up to leave. His CU has such a glossy, almost surreal look. I'm not sure if this is just the film stock or time of day the scene was shot or something completely different. Thanks, Tom

Here's a H.264 to do the HD transfer a little justice. Still working out some kinks with the compression, you'll notice some green flashes that appear randomly in the video and I can't figure out whats causing it but I'll work on it. www.banksfilm.com/tripdavon.mov (55 mbs)

Tim, glad you liked it! And also glad to year that the Pan's Labrynth look actually came across. That was one of our major influences during conceptualization but as the date got closer I guess we got in tune enough with that visual style that it eventually slipped my mind that we were coming from that area. If that made any sense... Please do send me a link when you're project is out. I'd love to see your take. Matt, During camera prep we shot a framing chart and taped off the 16X9 lines on the monitor. I really wanted to get a 16X9 ground glass for the SR but our school didn't have any and we didn't have it in the budget to get otherwise. On set I was eventually able to get the hang of what was outside the 16X9 area, but the director was at the monitor a lot and helped in letting me know when I needed to adjust framing. Towards the end of the shoot we were hustling so much and shooting in the woods without a monitor that I guess framing for 16X9 became second nature, since all the footage from the forest seemed to fit perfectly once we put it into 16X9.

Hey Guys, The final product is finally up on Google video. I'll try to get an H.264 online soon because I know how much everyone hates the shitty youtube quality (as do I). But until then, here it is: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=76...amp;q=tripdavon

Here are some stills we got back from our SD Telecine. I believe there is a little correction in these that we will match when we go back for the HD transfer.

Evan- we're definitely doing a supervised transfer. We're going to Matchframe to do a 2hr. SD session. Once it is edited we're going to look over it, possibly reframe shots (since we're cropping from 1.33 to 1.77), and go over how we want to seriously correct the shots. Then we're taking our EDL back to Matchframe to do a HD session! I shot on 7218 because believe it or not, this was the first actual film shoot as a DP. 7218 is such a forgiving stock and it was able to achieve a similar look that we were going in recent features like Pan's Labyrinth. I exposed just about everything 1/2 to 1 stop over key. I had talked to our colorist previous to shooting and we both thought this would be a good idea to get a healthy negative to work with. We were originally going for S16, but unfortunately since this was an independent project under the Chapman process, we had low priority and were unable to secure an SR2. We thought about going outside of Chapman for camera but didn't' quite have it in the budget. Then I realized that it would actually benefit the look to see a little more grain on screen. We were going for a gritty look at times, and our art department was great but I think regular 16 might smooth it over a little better. Adam - Ironically enough the new Spirit at Chapman is not up and running yet... Typical. I think its the kind of situation where they bit off more than they could chew with that. Not to mention they have yet to hire a trained operator and/or colorist. So while your stuck with a stone-age machine, we're stuck with driving up to LA for a telecine session (which I don't mind).

Day 3: Sunday, for those of you living in Southern California, you might've noticed the rain and clouds. We had planned to shoot day for night at Oneil Park in Santa Ana. Unfortunately rain was in the forecast so we pushed back the call time until about 12 noon, almost canceling the day. The rain cleared around then and we got some sunshine for about two hours. The director and I decided not to fret about maintaining direct sunlight for the day for night effect (for which I researched quite a bit) and decided to see what we could do with our footage in telecine. We had a full day knocked down to a half day and had to cut/combine shots and rush to finish before the sun was completely gone. Again this is one of those times where the shots we managed to get off looked great (so I thought) but it is hard to judge whether that will give us enough footage and whether that footage will cut nicely. 36' setup We were also dealing with a Fisher 10 and 36' of track to level. The director and I walked over the location drew up a game plan previous to the crew arriving. We were able to map out a fairly decent schedule to shoot around dolly setups. We knocked off 20+ shots and two major dolly setups from 12 noon until 5:30, thanks to my camera team (Pierce and Katy) and some speedy lens swaps. 20' move with Joe Dietsch, great director and great friend, on frame right: A rough frame of the previous setup: Alice coming out of the chest: CU of Alice with the chest on apple boxes (oldest trick in the book!) Two wonderful girls! Ok guys, hope this was worth the read. Despite the time crunch, this was probably the most enjoyable set I have been on so far and I can't wait to share my experience. I feel lucky to be a part of this project and to have such a great cast and crew. Thanks!!! Tom Banks

Day 2: This was by far our most ambitious day. We had from 8am until 8pm to shoot in a loft space that had to be cleared out, blacked out, and set dressed for the scenes of the "evils nursery" and "monster's lair", which both required extensive art and set dressing. We had some great girls on this that pulled it together on a shoe string budget. We consolidated our shots down to 15-20 ambitious setups that we barely pulled off. The lighting came out fantastic, however I am slightly worried that since we were forced to consolidate some shots might not cut as well as they should. Our space: Lighting was simple for the first setup, a match shot of Alice on her bed as she comes into the new world. Lighting on Alice was primarily a top light, un-gelled focused in a pool over her. Second setup was looking towards the child as Alice approaches. We consolidated down to one dolly shot with several takes of different actions once we reached point B. The 7 yr. old girl we had had a beautiful face, almost like a doll. She fit perfectly for the part and was a joy to work with. Lighting her we used a 2k shooting through 4x4 diffusion. We also spilled some green (I forget the #) onto the set with a 650w. My favorite photo! Third setup was again a top light focused onto a chest that the child takes Alice to. I forget the details but I believe we added a little side light for direction and definition on their faces. The "lair" scene was by far the most ambitious attempt and going into it I had no idea what to expect art/set wise. The director and I had looked at a scene from "The Cell" and also one from "The Fountain" for framing and color purposes. We also fogged the set with Rosco's "Light fog" juice. I was going for more of a haze effect than the light fog could achieve, so during some of the shots the fog was more visible moving through frame. But the director was happy with it and I think it could add a magical quality to the set. We lit the monster and his throne with a top/back light gelled with Steel Green (the gaffer was excited to finally use it) and a fill from camera right with steel green. The set contained hanging doll parts around the throne which were lit from the side with a 1k gelled with Chrome Orange. The mask was provided generously by Creature FX. It was made for the feature 300 but didn't get used, so we had our monster, played by Ivan Van Norman, go in for a fitting. Thanks a lot Josh and Mark @ Creature FX!!! And finally, another top light setup of Alice, played by Brenda Marie, a very talented and wonderful actress!

Hey guys, I'm a film student at Chapman University and an avid reader of the forums, so I thought I'd post up a music video that shot this past weekend. The premise was about a girl "Alice" who is distressed in her room doing drugs and falls into a dark wonderland type of world. Her bedroom changes into an "evil nursery" where she finds a child in the corner. The child points out a monster hiding in the shadows and takes Alice away. They transition into a forest through a magic chest Alice climbs into. In the forest the child takes Alice to a hiding spot and digs up a dagger wrapped in cloth, then they spot the monster in pursuit. Alice runs away but trips onto a route and falls into the monsters "evil lair" where the child is sitting on his lap. The dagger unrolls from the cloth and as the monster approaches Alice she picks it up and thrusts it into him. She takes a last look at the child (as a smile comes across their faces) before Alice wakes up the next morning in her bed. So metaphorically speaking, the child is Alice's innocence while the monster is her addiction. With all that said, we had a VERY ambitious project and quite a modest budget. We got our camera and lighting from Chapman. We shot Regular 16mm on an Arri SR with ZEISS superspeeds. We also had a B&W tap installed thanks to Clairmont. Filters were compliments of Tiffen's student discount (thanks Jessica!) Our lighting package consisted of a Studio 2k Fresnel, 2k Mighty (open faced), 1k Fresnel, 2 Mole kits, and a 4' 4 bank Kino. Grip consisted of a 2 ton package from Acey Decy and I must thank them for the generous student discount. And Fisher gave us a great student discount on the Fisher 10 for the weekend! And crew came compliments of Chapman University. Great people with great attitudes!!! If anyone ever needs a hand please consider our guys! Visually speaking, it was tough hammering out a look because our locations didn't lock until only about three days before the weekend. The director and I had discussed several music videos and their looks (Alice in Chains, Tool, System of a Down's "Aerials") but until I knew what I was dealing with I found it difficult to completely visualize each scene in my mind and where the lighting was coming from. For those reasons a lot of the lighting on set was improve, going off intuition and then tweaking to get it just right. I had a great gaffer, Chris Richmond (also a talented DP) who really helped this process along. Day 1: We resorted to shooting the band green screen due to lack of a sufficient location. The footage will be keyed, rotoscoped, and composited onto a book that the child is reading in the evil nursery. This was the first time I had lit a greenscreen as a DP, but we were able to get a fairly even light across the screen. Thankfully the chroma value is not as critical, since in post they are using it more as a reference to draw over. Later we shot the two bedroom scenes where Alice passes out and wakes up. The room was fairly small, but had wonderful dark wood paneling. We keyed off a practical to the side of her bed, installing a 300w bulb in the lamp. The night scene was shot first (during daytime) so it took a while to rig up a big enough black box outside her window to fit two 2k's to illuminate the curtains. We also ran into the problem of getting the right color off the curtains. The curtains were made of unbleached muslin (I think) which gave off a very yellowish color when hit with light. We started by gelling our moonlight with Steel Green but this combined with the curtains gave off a very yellow color, so we scrapped the steel green with 1/2 CTB and that did the trick. For the wides we added a 650w on the lamp side to rap the lamp light around her face a little more. Unlit: Steel Green messing with the curtains: Final product: Later that day we shot her room for when she wakes up. For this we stripped the 2k's of CTB and hit the windows. We bounced a 1k onto the white ceiling of the room to give off an ambiance and hid a 650w with 216 in a closet to give Alice a little shape to her face.

looking forward to it!

Is it necessary to call out scene and take number if the sound recordist is already recording those for his own reference? In that case would you just call out ?marker?? Or is calling out scene and take also a courtesy to keep everyone informed on set?

I enjoyed it too. everything looked very solid! How did you achieve some of the sweeping moves on the tennis court?