James scares me when she talks about sloppy exposure

[tjwilson]

I feel so scared when James D talks about the sloppy exposure these days… because no one wants to be that person that’s letting the team down with bad work. But, a lot of times when you’re shooting something it’s very nerve-racking, and you don’t feel confident that what your doing is going to come out okay. What would your tips be to as you put it, “get it right the first time” but with confidence? You can assume I suppose that people have gone out and taken lots of stills and studied as much as they can. I think it would be interesting to hear what you think about making the right decisions in prep and on-set to make sure you just get it right so that your shots fit as best they can in a film.

Topic

[Stip]

A tip would be to shoot and then edit it yourself.

One thing you’ll learn about for example is (in-) consistency between shots of a scene. How much of it is still fine for post (minor exposure shifts to glue a scene together are common), how much is too much and where the devil is hidden (e.g. color temperature or tint changes).

It’s a good idea to always try to get it as close as possible in-camera, but it’s hard to do perfectly and there is a certain wiggle room, and to know that wiggle room can give you more confidence on set.

[quijotesco24]

Every time I need to shoot with a new camera I haven’t I rent or borrow it for few days and test how much I can push the sensor. Lots of under and over tests, middle grey tests, colors tests, noise/iso tests. I also test all the codecs and frames I plan to do on set. I never go with a special LUT, always whatever log to rec709. And I test everything with my meters, I don’t trust monitors, so I know it’s consistent. If I’m lucky I take the tests to grading lab and I do some screening.

Sometimes I have even rent new cameras that have come out just for the sake of testing if I’m on a slow tide.

So my tip to keep it consistent is to do a lot of testing and notes. So once in a busy set you are not guessing and not losing precious time.

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