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As always, my little experience makes my opinion of limited help, but I’d suggest to start from analyzing the movies you like, according to what mood and emotions you want to convey. Joy? Fear? Hope? Sensuality? Find great examples of these moods and try to understand why they worked in terms of types of lights, palettes of the images (for example, cold colors usually give a sad emotion, so i expect to see colder palettes in horror movies than in comedies) , types of shot, how music is used to create emotions, etc etc.
I have not the experience to suggest to you how to improve you camera work or in which areas you could work to get a better result (i leave that to Roger, David or other forum members) but honestly I liked your examples and I didn’t notice any “rubbish” work in the videos I watched. Which is your main area of expertise? Music videos and short movies? As far as I am concerned you are good enough to do that!
This said I think the majority of people has some level of social anxiety, some is better at hiding. I am afraid that, to say one, meeting new people is a problem for a lot people. It’s a problem for me too, for example. I think that there’s a huge gap between being very shy and being autistic, did you do some test with doctors expert in the autistic spectrum to have such a diagnosis?
But actually I think that you found yet the real problem : the networking one. From what I’ve seen in almost every field, not only artistic ones, the real boost to your career is knowing the right people and being the right person at the right place in the right moment. You do a great work with A and when B needs the same work, his friend A will say “Why don’t you call Daniel? He’s great at that job!”
Consider also that , from what I’ve seen in many fields, there’s a diminuition of job offers in the artistic fields (to my opinion this is due to the explosion of AI tools that are killing the dreams, hopes and jobs of countless people) .
I’ve your same age and more or less a similar background, I studied environmental sciences and i work as a science and maths teacher at school but i’d would have liked to do very different jobs (i worked a bit in the illustration and comics field and cinema is an old love of mine). But I have to take care of my family too and I have to be realistic: i need a stable and “normal” job to rise my children, I can’t feed them with my dreams.
So, be realistic : are you in the position to work on better networking to improve your career opportunities? Do you see around (in your city, online, etc) enough job offers to keep a stable career to live of your camera work? Do you think the market in your area of expertise will stay stable in the next future? Does your family depend on your job? Do you have somebody you worked with in the past that could help you networking proposing you for other jobs to people they know? Is it an option to do a regular day job and a second job as camera operator? I did it for some time (working at school in the day and working as illustrator in the night) i admit it was very fun and it allowed me to pick the illustration jobs i liked – i had another source of income – but it was so energy consuming that i had to give up the illustration one. But it could work for you.
I hope it may help somehow!The handheld effect perhaps is fine for action scenes and in general it’s more natural to the eye, but the abuse of it is a problem to me too. There are movies with camera movements so confused that make the audience really sick at a point that it’s impossible to understand what’s happening on screen. Same for the orange and teal palette: for each fine example of it you find many terrible scenes with that palette. Why? I think because both things (the handheld skaky camera and the palette) are a cheap and quick way to look “cool and modern”.
My humble opinion is that the camera movement (or lack of) should be motivated by the story narration, but different directors could tell the same story in different ways. First minutes of “Saving Private Ryan”, for example, have a documentary like approach and they would be way less effective – on me – without the shakiness of the camera. While “1917” has a steadier look and it’s perfect the way it is. There’s no a perfect rule that could work for each movie but just the right cinematography for a given scene, as Roger said many times. And then there are cheap copies of it.
On the other side, I was watching “Fargo” the other day and i had to re-watch a scene a couple of times, since the camera got closer to the actor so gently and slowly that the first time i didn’t even notice it (I just realized that suddenly a smaller portion of the background was visible). I think you need talent and a bit of courage to use such an elegant and classy approach!
PS: the Studio Binder video i was talking about is on Roger’s use of lenses, not on lenses in general (but they have nice videos also on that). Sorry for the confusion! The video offers some visual example (you don’t say? Ah ah) but Is mostly based on the Episode 7 of the podcast, which of course offers a better context to the reason behind choice of lenses.
A bit unrelated to your question, but in One interview (if i remember correctly, i apologize if i’m wrong) Roger talked about the lights of old western movies looking fake once you think about It: if the sun is projecting the classic hat shadow on actor face, where the light on eyes and face Is coming from? Once you realize it, it’s impossible to un-see It.
Episode 7 of the Team Deakins podcast is about Lens choice. On YouTube you can find also a video by Studio Binder on the same subject (i can’t paste the link here but you can find It easily on the site).
I’m a newbie too but the idea i got from the podcast, the interviews, the articles, etc is that a short prime lens (instead of a zoom one) force you to take artistic decisions and create an “intimacy” with the actors (you have to stay closer) and a “natural” view for the audience.
I hope It’s a good starting point!
You might light the space in exactly the same way and then it is just multiples or larger lamps.
This is a detail I still don’t completely understand looking at the lighting schemes you put on the site: I see rows of multiple lights but how do you calculate their number (experience apart of course) ? Is it on the base of lux emitted (at a given distance) by one lamp and the total surface you have to cover (to allow you the lens aperture you want to use) ?
Thanks Roger! Full speed then!
By the way, I said to my wife you encouraged me and It seems this finally convinced her about helping me with my short movie (She’s not very confident abouout my ability, ah ah!). So, I owe you!
Incidentally, this means also that, in case of a complete disaster, she will consider you too responsible of that…so i’ll do my best to avoid to put you in trouble! Ah ah! Don’t worry anyway, she’s not that dangerous.
Usually.
Of course i can’t answer for Roger or David pr all the other experienced DoPs on the forum, but I see It somehow like trying to have a date with the most beatiful girl in town. Jokes apart, I think that even an established professional could be interested to work on an amazing script. Having a great story would be a good starting point.
Then i guess that, even with low budget (perhaps an indie project could be interesting for him to have a change from routine) , a professional approach could be an important selling point for you. Show you actually know what you are doing, that you know how to solve technical problems due with creativity , since Money are not an option.
If he’s very busy and very famous he could suggest you to work with some people he trusts, but It could be a kind of test of he could trust you for the future.
Sorry if i said some nonsenses and let us know if you managed to have the date…ehr, the collaboration!
Thanks a lot for sharing It! How timely, I was thinking just the other day that a collection of posts from the forum would create a precious knowledge and then here It Is!
Thanks a lot Roger!
I’m sure that a master like you can judge by eye better than any artificial tool , but i’m just an unexperienced amateur and i feel the need to some kind of objective reading.
I’ve to say that with the camera metering, the histogram, false colors etc etc it’s not that difficult to calculate the correct exposure. What i find way harder is to find the right lighting style and photography for a given scene, that is something that comes only with experience.
Anyway, in a couple of weeks i’ll be shooting my first short movie and i’ve to trust my instinct about finding “the right” photography for it. And I feel i’m going to jump full speed in a disaster, ah ah. The new Ed Wood could be among you, be aware!For example in this shot where would be the right point to read the light meter? I suppose the goal of the shot was to preserve the details in the shadows to make the actor still visible without overexposing everything else, so my guessing is that i should read it by the actor and dim the light in the background in a way that what is under the key light is not completely overexposed…is it correct (or at least not too far from the solution, ah ah!)
About this subject, i’ve got a question about the exposure of multiple subjects under different lights, as David was describing in his post.
I’m planning a low key full shot in a quite dark room, with just a couple of practical lights (in theory, managing to actually shot it it’s another story, ah ah). I’ve read that distance from the camera doesn’t affect exposure, so if i understood correctly the reading i’d obtain if i’d use a lightmeter near the actor should allow me to expose him correctly even from some distance.
But in such a situation I should expose for the subject under the practical light (perhaps underexposing the shadows) or aiming for the right look for the shadows but overexposing the actor?
Sorry if it’s a quite stupid question and if there are errors in my reasoning but i’m trying to learn!I know the comics and illustration world and this is happening yet: people are losing jobs because of this abomination of AI, besides the huge copyright problem of the softwares (their “training” database are full of copyrighted images used without permission). Surely it will impact the cinema world too, but i see a big difference : while it’s almost virtual impossible to say if an image is AI created or not (or, better, you can say that, but it’s getting better every day and soon it will be impossible), it’s impossible to claim to have shot a movie if all the actors and crew are…not existing. I think that AI will be used for commercials and maybe for some vfx shots. Maybe for low budget production and short movies.
But my very humble opinion is this one : i’m making my very first steps in cinematography and i’m trying to learn something new every day. It’s difficult, complicated, hard and so on, but it’s the right way to learn. If an AI could create for me my short movie in a couple of minute i would not use it as well. It would take the creative pleasure away , for me.
Thanks to you all for your answers!
I know that for some recording profile (s-logs for example) they suggest to overexpose a bit, and perhaps the idea expressed by the teacher was something in that line. But i’ve had the impression that he was meaning a general approach more than a requirement of some types of files, so i was curious about how diffuse is that idea among professional DOP and from your answers my guess was correct: if you want a scene to look in some way, commit to the idea and manage to shot it in that way (and this may not be easy if the budget and the experience are limited, but this is a completely different problem).
