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If i remember correctly you used this technique for the lantern in the tent scene of 1917, is it correct? I think it’s a very smart way to use practical lights, but how do you avoid the doubling of shadows? is it noticeable?
I think different DoPs would light the same scene in different ways (think to Suspiria, it’s in that way because Tovoli was not convinced about working on horror and decided to create something unique and never seen before as a condition to do it, but another DoP maybe would have created a completely different movie) . I am unexperienced like you but i think the choice depends on the story you are trying to tell. A romantic scene requires a different approach than a scary scene, i think, but there are sad romantic scenes and happy romantic scenes, melancholic horror movies and disgusting horror movies. You could try by recreating scenes from movies you like or using the same gear to create completely different effects.
I understand your point, halfgrain, but i don’t think it’s impossible to do a “one man show” as long as one has realistic expectation for the result. At least, that’s what i hope, ah ah! I think that me and emigal are in a similar situation and i hope we can help each other in this learning and planning phase.
I’ve been working for a lot of time on my first script and since i love to work with other people and organize team work i involved a lot of people, from actors to audio guys , from make up artists to musicians etc etc. Somehow i convinced many of them to work on a friendship base for free but I’d like to do a fundrising to collect the funds for this short movie, but i realized i couldn’t ask people for their money just on a trust base without showing that i’m least able to hold a camera. So i did a step back and i begung working on a simpler project to use as example for the fundrising. For this one i’m doing literally everything but acting and music: from set decoration to prop making, from 3d modelling to lighting etc, but i’ll ask to some friend to help me as boom operators. I took my time to learn withouth rushing (to be honest, i felt that the script, even if very simple, needed more work and i used that time to learn, to study cinema, movies, techniques, problems, gears, etc. I am unexperienced but they use to say i’m a fast learner let’s hope it’s true…). Of course i had to plan everything to make it possible and i have realistic expectations about it, but on the other hand it has been a great learning experience, since it gave me a clearer idea of what everybody does and how to achieve a coherent vision and an idea of problems a director may face. For example, I had to block my scenes knowing where i’ll put my lights and where i’ll need to digitally extend the set, how to use a practical light as a motivation and how to “fake it” where needed, how the choice of a palette of the scene means that you need to use a coherent hue also for the walls and the props, and so on. You know that better than me.
Summing up, i humbly hope to achieve just a decent result and i’m using this first step just a learning phase and an introduction to a way more complex project, but taking the time to learn how to achieve this simple result has been like a crash test on cinema. That’s just my experience but i think something similar could work also for emigal, as long as we both have realistic expectations about what we are doing and why.
As always, since i’m just an unexperienced amateur don’t take my words too seriously, but somehow i think i can be of some (limited) help since i’m in a similar situation: i’m working on my first short movie and more or less i’ve been through similar doubts. My case could be completely different from yours one but here they are some tips I gave to myself
1) The story is the most important element, don’t rush it. When you think you are done with it, work again on that (after a while you don’t see flaws anymore). Ask people you trust to read it and to highlight problems and don’t take critics personally, they are opportunities to grow. How many wonderfully crafted movies with a stupid story have you watched yet? And i bet there are a lot of movies with limited budget that found a place in history of cinema thanks to their stories.
2) Be realistic : what can you actually shoot, in terms of budget and technical abilities? In your script there’s the coolest scene ever scripted, but there is zero chances you’ll actually be able to shot it as you figured. Well, if is relevant to the story find a turnaround and a creative solution to do something similar, if it’s just a cool shot but it’s useless for the story do yourself a favor and erase the scene.
3) Even to my naive ears “no control on lighting” sounds a bad way to start such a project. You can’t control the weather and clouds etc etc but you can carefully plan many other things (the position of the sun, the angle of the light, the type of light and so on). When you create a shot list from your script you may think how actually shot it and how to achieve the visual result you are looking for. There are apps for sun tracking that allows you to calculate exactly where the sun will be in a given moment. Does the shot requires (in your mind) a close up of the actor in the sunlight? Than stage the scene considering how the sun will light your talents: given that, you may need to diffuse or reflect or block etc the sunlight. You’ll need some location scouting, at least on google maps or similar apps. And if after all this careful planning the weather will be horrible…well, it happens. If possible come back there but use it as a last resource (more shooting, more time, more cost) . Consider the time you’ll need to set the scene and that , well, the earth will move in the meanwhile, so the position of the sun will change.
3 1/2 ) In general, using the “shot as we go” approach for the entire project could turn in a really complicated one, unless your goal is to create a real documentary of a road trip and no matter how the scene will look and how the audio will be (and it seems it’s not your case). Don’t rush the pre-production phase, plan everything. And think to a B-Plan .
4) Perhaps i’m wrong but months for color grading seems a bit too much to me. If you are so scared by that you could think about hiring a professional colorist (within your budget) or do some test with, for example, free version of Davinci Resolve. It’s not that complicated to achieve decent results with log profiles once you understand how they work. You can’t use them as they are but they are not such a monster. Or you could consider Hlog profiles, that should work better on 8 bit and are way easier to color correct and color grade than Slog (you can almost use them as they are and while they have not the same dynamic range of SLog they offer some decent space for color grading) . Also consider that Slog may need to be overexposed (please correct me on that if i’m wrong) and to achieve that you may need…planning.
5) Great audio with poor cinematography or great cinematography with poor audio? Or, given the budget, a balance between the two?
6) There’s not “the right” lense, there’s the right lense for your story and while there is plenty of advices and suggestions and opinions on the web, only you know how that scene should look. Does it need an intimate approach? How the characters relate to the enviroment? What feeling should the audience experience watching the scene?
7) Is it a documentary on the beauty of the landscape or is it a road movie? Does the landscape plays a relevant role in the story or is it just a cool background? An ugly background hinting to the struggle of the characters could be more effective that a wonderful landscape that has no relationship with what’s happening.
I hope that helps a little! And as i wrote in the beginning, I’m in a similar situation and i need help too, ah ah!
I thought “The Holdovers” looked great and was appropriate for the story.
Thanks David! In general, for what kind of stories would you suggest to add the grain effect?
Most people would opt for film grain simulation software (as “The Holdovers” did, using Live Grain and adding some subtle gate weave).
What do you think about the simulation? I understand that it gives a vintage feeling to the images, but I’m curious to know the opinion of experts like you about something that, basically, in a certain way “ruins” scenes that have been carefully studied and prepared to fake the look of past movies. I feel it like adding fake scratch noises on a cd to fake the effect of a vynil. Different times, different techniques, different results. What about you?
I’ve the impression that besides looking at good examples of something , a good way to be on the right track is looking at bad examples of that, not only about handheld movies, i mean in general in life. Find handheld scenes that don’t work and find where the problems are.
A movie I watched a couple of days ago – a movie with famous actors in its cast, so not some kind of indie production made by unexperienced beginners – was almost entirely handheld (I suspect to create some kind of realistic effect and immersive effect on the audience), but it was so horribly shot that it was both a painful experience but also an useful one: as long as i will do the complete opposite of whatever they did i could obtain a decent work even with my very limited knowledge.
Searching around there are so many different answers to this question that I think it’s a subject that confounds everybody. Here’s what i understood (and i hope more experienced people on the forum will give better answers than mine and correct my errors).
It has to do with our eyes perception of light. What our eyes perceive as the middle point between white and black is a not the shade of gray that reflects the 50% of the light (as the logic would presume but that would look too bright for us) , it’s a shade of gray that reflects the 18% of the light (so, it’s not the “real” middle gray , it’s perceived in this way). That shade of gray is the zone V of Adam’s Zone System and in theory should the shade of gray cards used for exposure.
In a real generic scene there are brighter spots that reflect a lot, darker ones that reflect less and everything in between and the average of all of them is more or less a 18% reflectivity (again, to our eyes) , at least in theory and apart from scenes with an extreme lighting conditions. So exposing correctly what reflects the 18% allows to create what we perceive as the natural light of our world and being in the (perceived) middle of black and white should allow to expose correctly also the highlights and the shadows. The camera metering system, if i understood correctly, treat everything as 18% and indicates 0 when the 18% is correctly exposed.
I hope i didn’t write too many wrong informations, ah ah!
It seems the bug Is still there. I usually have It also when posting, not only when editing. The strangest thing Is that the edit button (even if not working) disappears after a while. The mistery deepens, ah ah! But i Hope It’s useful to find the bug!
Just out of curiosity, may I ask you why do you want to begin working on film instead of digitally?
I am the very less experienced among the forum users but my humble opinion is that cinematography has more to do with “how” you tell the story (with lights , camera movement, lenses, position , etc etc) than “on what” you record it. A feature movie may require (apart from a good story, of course) an important budget and a lot of knowledge by itself, working on film could make things even more complicated: Just think about learning how correctly expose the film. Good luck anyway!
I hope i am not saying a complete nonsense but is it possible that on “FPS variabile” the camera tries to keep the exposure constant, so when the ISO is changed the FPS are changed accordingly by the camera to compensate?
Thanks a lot David! I always appreciate the time you and Roger dedicate to explain and teach things to unexperienced people like me.
I’m doing some tests to see what works better, but i think that making clear to the audience what is coloring the bouncing light could be the right solution for me. Thanks for the tip!
I have a doubt about the color of bounce light.
I was watching a movie with some scenes in a dark room with only flashlights as practical lights, with a very cold color, somewhere around 5500/6000 k. The walls of the room were made of wood with a warm dark color. To make the scene possible the actors had some bounce light on their faces, but the lights had the same cold color of the flashlights. Now, if their motivation was that the light from the flashlights bounced back on the actors, it should have been a warm light, not a cold one (that was caused by a white surface in front of the flashlights to create a fill light on the actor). The scene was done in a very good way, in my opinion, and I think that as audience we are so used to this effect (the source and the bounce having the same color) that if they had used a warm light on the actor it would have made the scene a bit confusing. So, what’ s your advice?
Going for realism and using a bounce light of the same color of surfaces around the actor but risking a disorienting effect, or going for a traditional route and using a white surface (so a bounce of the same color of the source) but obtaining an unrealistic effect?
In my humble opinion Sicario is the modern “heir” of The Untouchables, it has the same continuous menacing feeling that comes from not being able to divide the good ones from the bad ones, everybody could be a traitor. And the Juarez scene is simply amazing, a gem in a wonderful movie.
[qu ote quote=216034]…As a group we scouted the Bridge of the Americas, between El Paso and Juarez, and the build was based on that location as well as the action as scripted. As it was impossible to shoot on the real location…[/quote]
I hope to remember correctly what you told in the podcast, but was one of the reasons to use VFX the fact the scene of the hanged men was so realistic that could be traumatic for the local people, since they actually witnessed something like that? I know drug wars in Mexico can be gruesome but i thought that was a touch to make the story more dramatic.
Thanks David, you’re always very kind! Your knowledge and experience are always precious!
I’m going for the green screen, i think It will allow me more freedom for the camera movement and It seems the simplest solution. To achieve the 180 degrees movement I still have to figure If It’s simpler to work with a green screen with maybe 3 sides around the actor or edit two shots and “hide” the cut, but the rotating platform could really be a great idea!
