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And by the way, we know Roger’s admiration for Tarkovskij’s movies and for the emotions they convey in an almost abstract way: i think this explains a lot. I think that emotions and instinct are important aspects of Roger’s approach, maybe even more important than the lens or the camera or the Digital vs film debate or whatever (at least It’s the impression i have, only Roger can actually explain his approach and i think the new book It’s the best way to Discover that) .
I think that Roger’s style is an example of “Total bigger than the sum of the parts”. With the same equipments and lights and the same naturalistic approach i think one can obtain the same visual effect, but it will be still miss something i think. As Stip suggested, It has a lot to do with camera movements and placement, but in general i think the story plays a big role in It. Think to Jesse James death’s scene. Perhaps It’s not technically impossible to recreate something similar. But when you see It in the movie, with the story that far, the music, the actors talent (they tell an entire story with just theit eyes in that scene) , their movements together with the camera ones, the angles that Roger used, etc etc. One can create the same scene from a technical point of view, but you need a great story and great actors to create the same emotion and you need a cinematographer like Roger to know exactly how to transform this emotion in a movie frame.
Thanks a lot David, you’ve been very kind!
I’ve the impression that darkening a (slightly) overexposed shot it’s easier for me than the contrary, it makes noise more controllable in low key scenes. But next time i’ll do my best to obtain it right in camera! 🙂
Let me see if i understood.
F/2.8 to F/8 is 3 stops less. So you need 3 stops of ASA more to compensate (from 100 to 800).
2 stops more from that means 4 times the light.
So 100 fc x 4 = 400 fc (for f/8 at 800 ASA).
Is It correct?
Hedging your bets like that isn’t the most effective way to learn and grow as an artist because you never risk failure.
I find this point quite interesting. Errors and failures are opportunities to grow, but sometimes recovering from failures may be difficult or even impossible. One should find a “safe” way to make errors, i think.
Congratulations for the ASC award, by the way! 🙂
I can’t help you with finding jobs because my day job has nothing to do with cinema (i’m a school teacher) , but i’ve been in a similar situation in the past in other contexts and perhaps i can understand you.
A couple of things you may consider:
– your job is not you, it’s what you do for living, support family, pay the bills, buy nice things that make you feel better, etc. You are yourself even when there’s not work. There’s zero work at the moment, you are not zero. They are different things.
– when your job is what you like to do in life and make you happy, congratulations! But it’s not so common. So: if you dream of a career in cinema but the moment is a bit complicated, you may consider finding a new job while waiting for new opportunities in cinema. You can use this time to deal after some personal project, shot your own things in the spare time, learn and study.
– from what i’ve been reading for at least a couple of years, jobs in creative industries (cinema, vfx, games, illustrations, music, etc) are fewer and fewer. I am afraid this is the first immediate effect of AI. Why hiring a [insert human artist category here] when you have AI? I used to do some illustrations jobs time ago, before having kids (i worked at school at morning and spent hours drawing at night) : the same small editors i worked with are publishing their things with AI generated images. It’s happening everywhere and the better the AI the worst for the humans.
Be realistic but don’t give up. Quoting Calvin & Hobbes : “when life gives you lemons throw them back to it and add some other lemons by your own.”
From what i know they are currently on Facebook and Youtube (if you count it as social media) as Team Deakins. I think James has a personal page too.
Roger seems a very fun but quite reserved person, i would be a bit surprised to find him on a social media. Maybe a social media about fishing? Fishbook? Instafish? 🙂 (perhaps they actually exist but i’m too scared to search for them, ah ah!)
Hey James, Really hoping to grab a signed copy here in the UK – any chance Roger might pop by the BSC Expo? That would be amazing! Also, gutted to report that my Amazon pre-order (placed ~6 months ago) just got cancelled out of the blue. Got an email saying earliest delivery is now Feb 2026, even though it was meant to ship today (Nov). Already spoken to Amazon support but they seem clueless. Any chance you/your team could nudge Amazon about what’s going on? Would be hugely appreciated! Thanks so much and congrats on the book!
As i suspected i think that on Amazon they confused publishing date in US and Europe and they didn’t consider ghe shipping cost from US to Europe, so now they are noticing the problem.
Since James mentioned the possibility (if i understood correctly) of an european signed edition we (in Europe) can either order directly from US or wait next year for that edition.
Any other suggestion? 🙂
Remember to do some test with the led lights to avoid light flickering, It’s complicated to get rid of It in post.
Roger, David and the others can answer better than me but I the impression i have had reading the forum and many interviews is that there’s not right or wrong answer, you have to choose based on what works better for the narrative point of view, not only aesthetic. I think Roger moves the camera instead of changing the lens (or, in theory, using the zoom) to put the audience where the action is and to create a more intimate relationship (if i am quoting him correctly) with the actors: it’s different to sneak from awar away with a longer lens (or zooming in) and to stay in front of an actor for a close up. Besides that i think that keeping the same lens create a more homogeneus look for your scenes: a different lenght changes also depth of field, angle of view, distortion, proportions of the face, etc etc, so it can offer you the way to create a different effect and a different relationship between the character and the landscape, but if It’s what you are looking for.
By the way, isn’t it a bit unpractical to change the lens for a close up in a dialogue? If it’s a OTS shoot you’ll be close to the other actor, so it seems more practical to simply move the camera, unless there’s something that forces you to do that.
Thanks again Stip! Somehow, even if with my poor camera and poor technical knowledge, It’s (more or less) what i did for my short, i did many test, set the picture profile and in camera Rec709 preview (it has no LUT preview but somehow i built it with settings). Little knowledge but a bit of old school common sense, ah ah!
So the LUT Is created from the initial tests in pre production, is It correct?
Thanks David, you’re always very kind!
You are right, my poor phrasing made the question a bit confused. I was referring to this thing Stip explained to me in another post:
Look development of a project is usually done before shooting. Colorists call this “Show LUT”. The main driver is mostly the contrast curve and saturation, then there might be some hue rotations or tinting of shadows, highlights. This ‘look’ is applied to all scenes. The LUT is loaded into cameras/monitors and the project is shot under it. Costume or set design choices should be made under the show LUT as saturation and density changes can change a color’s appearance…
So, if i understood, the show LUT is loaded in the camera and the scenes are shot with the LUT on, to obtain in real time an effect close to the final one. What confuses me is that, being little experienced and self taught, i noticed a common trend around the web, i mean the suggestion of use a LUT for post production (what i roughly called “look LUT”) to speed up the grading (or at least have a decent starting point), but i’ve seen really rarely mentioned the show LUT created. It seems more reasonable and logic to have a “pre” LUT and work around that, instead of altering everything with a “post” LUT (you know, those like “Famous Movie Look LUT” that are everywhere around the web). So my doubt is that if it’s a common practice to use both a “pre” and a “post” LUT, or if the latter is just an unprofessional quick turnaround.
Experiment! Get fun and see what works better for the story you want to tell! When i asked on the forum for some example of “good” cinematography Roger told that i should focus on the “right” cinematography for that particular story instead.
I was thinking about your shot and i think that i’d try with another solution : rotate the scene of 90° (so your talent is facing one wall and has the window on his side, instead of on his back). Of course you couldn’t show the entire room with this approach, but it would offer some interesting opportunities:
– if the window is on the side you can have some side lighting for a better contrast ratio, shooting on the “smart side” (with a negative fill on the dumb side to decrease the bouncing on it, or adding some bouncing in the dumb side to decrease the contrast ratio, according to what is best to create the mood of the story)
– you can shot your talent from the side within the frame of the window (instead of a frontal shot) , i think it would create a quite interesting composition
– if you can find a way to create it, you could add some haze to create a ray of light from the window. Think to “True Grit” scene in the court for example : perhaps not something so strong and powerful as in True Grit, but it could create a quite interesting shot (if the story needs it) . Experiment and have fun!The supply of signed books for the ASC is NOT limited. We are visiting there often to sign yet more books.
I apologize, it seems i misunderstood what they wrote on the ASC page dedicated to the book, but anyway i meant that usually the signed copies of a book are, for practical reason, in a smaller number than the ones printed and sold around the world.
We hope that some signing events are organized locally since we do enjoy meeting the people. But I haven’t been contacted by anyone who wants to organize that.
I think that the more the book will get popular (and from what i’ve been seeing around the web, people are looking forward for it everywhere) the more you’ll be asked for that! If there will be one within reach i’ll pack the family in the car and i’ll be there for sure, ah ah!
