[LucaM]

Thanks a lot David, as usual your notes about this subject have been very useful to understand!

[LucaM]

Grazie Max! 🙂

I see examples of what you wrote in many movies in effect, even if i think most of the times the practical aspect is quite relevant. Anyway, this discussion helped me make my mind around my shot, not only about the blowing out but also in terms of relationship between character and everything else, it’s an area in which i need to really improve in my directing skills (not that it will require a lot of effort, given that my skills are close to zero).

[LucaM]

Grazie Max! 🙂

I see examples of what you wrote in many movies in effect, even if i think most of the times the practical aspect is quite relevant. Anyway, this discussion helped me make my mind around my shot, not only about the blowing out but also in terms of relationship between character and everything else, it’s an area in which i need to really improve in my directing skills (not that it will require a lot of effort, given that my skills are close to zero).

[LucaM]

Thanks Tyler! I appreciate your inputs! I agree with you, it has to do with how the character (and in general the scene) relates to the outside world.

While i like the effect of (at least partially) blown out windows what actually makes me curious is  this famous shot by Roger, the coin scene in No Country for Old Men. That window was a perfect candidate to be blown out (a dramatic scene, the warm tones of the landscape, the actor perfectly framed within the window, etc) but Roger did not. And of course the scene is perfect as it is. Knowing when not to do something is even more important than knowing when to do that, i think.

So, trying to understand why he did not blow out that window my answer is that the thresher (or whatever it is) in the background is important, for example to visually emphasize for this character the background of a pacific country man, while a blown out window would have separated him from his world (and in that scene the connection between that man and his world is important).

Or simply Roger likes tractors.

[LucaM]

Thanks!

Well, if you need to see through the window or if you are obliged to blow it out (because it’s a set or anyway the background is not the right one) the choice is forced. But when you have two options (blow it out or not) it’s an artistic choice, and i find interesting to understand how the choice is made.

In my little short i’ve got a shot with a window, it turned not so bad after all but it’s quite boring. I tried to blow it out a little the window in post production and the shot became more visually interesting. I’m learning on the way and i’m going by instinct (a nice way to say i actually know nothing about what i’m doing, ah ah! 😀 ) so i’d like to understand how real cinematographers decide what to do in these cases.

[LucaM]

I’ve been listing here on the forum the movies recommended in articles, podcasts episode etc. I was thinking about updating the list with recent movies quoted in the podcast. Among the recent ones i remember “Don’t Let the Dogs Out Tonight”  . I haven’t seen it yet but in general i’ve discovered great movies thanks to Team Deakins suggestions, both recent ones and old gems to be re-discovered.

[LucaM]

Happy birthday! 🙂

[LucaM]

Not a DP and perhaps you know yet but i’ve heard in a podcast episode (not Team Deakins but i can’t remember which one) that Christopher Nolan is color blind. I guess color blindness is a bigger problem for a DP than a director but if It’s true i find amazing what he’s been able to achieve even with that limit (i admired him even before knowing that of course, ah ah!)

[LucaM]

Thanks! One could simply describe the scene as “two women talk while walking” (i think that was the description in the script, more or less, at least from a version i found online) , it’s amazing what cinema can create from such a simple starting point.

[LucaM]

You are really kind! I’m editing the trailer, i hope to be able to show it in a few days – i’m not so presumptuos to think that a 10 minutes short needs a trailer, but they ask for it in many festivals  so let’s do that.

The more i watch what i shot the more i find errors and things i could improve, but it was the very first time i put a camera (literally) in front of someone face while directing him or her and for reasons i can’t understand they trusted me. Somehow i feel that i need to take the best out of this very tiny little project to repay them for their trust, it’s not my project, it’s a team project and i need to make this little paper plane land safely because they all are counting on me. Poor people.

Yes, i’m not creating a short movie, i’m trying to avoid a disaster, ah ah ! 😀

[LucaM]

I am at the beginning of the music videos chapter and i keep on thinking that this book should  Will be turned in a movie. From a yacht trip around the world to smuggling film across the border in civil wars Africa, and everything before and after…It’s a movie yet! With, uh, Adrien Brody  playing your part. I think he has the right kind of energy. 🙂

[LucaM]

My copy arrived a couple of days ago. It looks an amazing book and i didn’t expect It to be so big. I really really love how simple and elegant the graphic style is (well, simple and elegant is my idea of Roger’s style, so It makes sense) .

Thanks for writing it. 🙂

PS: and thanks for adding the autobiographical chapters at the beginning of the book. They…well, thanks.

[LucaM]

I’m the least experienced person of the forum but in my little i noticed some decent result using a nd (cheap but variabile) filter to keep a wide aperture but avoiding overexposure of highlights, a diffusion to soften a bit highlights and some reflective diffuse surface as fill light  to reduce contrast ratio (but It depends on what effect your shoot should create). Then in post production i looked for a scene i liked in a movie and i tried to match levels of the waveform to have a good starting point. I Hope It helps somehow!

[LucaM]

I’m reading “In the Blink of an Eye” and Walter Murch describes this problem as “seeing around the edge of the frame”, in other words considering everything that was around the camera while shooting the scene (and that’s why he writes that an editor should know possibly nothing about how the scene was shot) to focus only on the narrative aspect of the editing and not on the human factor (effort, struggles, mood on the set etc etc) that lead to that shot. The idea i’ve had reading the book is that the editor is on the audience side, not on the crew one, since must see things how the audience will. Not the best thing for the DoP i guess, but in theory the best for the movie.

[LucaM]

It’s Team Deakins forum and website, of course he can. But we all have questions for Roger, posts are a lot and answering to each of them would be a full time job to be added to their jobs, the podcast, the promotion of the book, interviews, signing events, every day duties and more important priorities (as we all have). The forum It’s a great gift from Team Deakins but we need a bit of patience and common sense. 🙂

[Author]

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