Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
This is my own opinion so take it as is.
In cinematography as many other professions once you have reached a certain level of knowledge and practice it’s not about what you know anymore. It’s about who you know. But you already knew that.
So don’t worry anymore about if you have what it takes or not. Do you know everything or will you know everything at some point? No. Does your knowledge helps you to find those answers in case you need them? Yes. Even the greatest DPs don’t know everything but they know how to learn it and/or who to ask for help. I bet even Sir Deakins learn new stuff at every shoot he does. If you embrace that, the passion for learning new things everyday, you will be fine.
Talking about your autism. Everyone has to deal with their own issues. No one is perfect. So we are all humans and we all suffer from one thing or the other. So everyone is trying to deal with their own issues. Some are milder and easy to work around others are more difficult. But don’t think the rest is having it easier than you. You never know what the others have gone through to improve themselves. So focus on you, focus on improve your own shortcomings.
About the lack of work. We are right now on a low period. Everyone more or less is struggling. Still networking is very important. Some people, myself included, have hard time networking, for others it’s easier. But it’s something you have to do. And if you feel your location is not giving you enough work you change location, change the type of work you do. Cinematography has a very broad spectrum. For example if commercial is stale at the moment you try to find documentary gigs. I even know DPs with big awards on their pockets shooting weddings, so yeah, we all do work to put food on the table.
Personally I come from a journalism background and I have no problem to return to it shooting docs or even news reports If I need to. Actually I enjoyed documentaries more than commercial gigs tbh. There is money to be made anywhere. So your job is to tell stories with images. Embrace that and don’t feel less of you if every gig you do is not the perfect film breaking it on the next film festival. The things you will learn will help you at some point. Sir Deakins has mentioned many times his past work as camera man shooting documentaries help him in his career as narrative DP. Christopher Nolan shot corporate films and Sean Bobbitt was a news cameraman for years. Will you make it as big as them? Who knows. Does it really matter? No. Enjoy your own path and don’t stop learning and improving yourself. It doesn’t guarantee anything but you will be happier.
I do think the process of composing is or has to be more visceral than cerebral. It’s a group of personal feelings and ideas from your part, it’s about your taste.
Im coming from the documentary world and before that I was a photojournalist so I’m used to find images anywhere I go and do it fast. But I don’t think in those terms of shape, depth, as those concepts are already inside my vocabulary. So my method would be find the frame and then polish it.
One of the issues I see when having a more reflexive approach is that at the end images don’t look natural, they look forged. Same thing happens when everyone is looking at same still reference images. The amount of same-same images lately, with same lighting is just plain boring to me.But everyone has to start somewhere so I think the best you could do is to start taking pictures daily, exercise your mind, get used to frame everything everywhere so you start shaping your vision as a cinematographer. Also look at photographs, paintings from all eras. You have to absorb as much as you can. Great part of your job will be to become the most visual literate person on the set and you have to work on that.
About the Chinese lenses. I agree, I did try few of them and even I have a full set of Meikes s35 and waiting for an anamorphic set to arrive that I recently bought.
IMO Problem with them is not optics, I’m sure in a very short time glass quality will be there as it is already scratching top contenders. But manufacturing and quality control is still bad or basic. They have their place and I enjoy using them but a mass produced lens will never reach a certain level and a skilled optics technician will always set up a lens better than a machine. I may be wrong. We will see.Dear Roger,
Yes. 20k is the average price for an Arri, Zeiss, Angenieux or Cooke prime lens nowadays.
Half world is using 20k+ perfect lenses or all the corrections in camera to have the cleanest image possible while the other half is using the dirtiest lenses available and filtering to get the most rough image available.
Test with or without corrections and decide what you like most. There is no correct answer apart what you like most.I do like zoom ins. But I understand they are out of trend nowadays.
A zoom in it’s easier to perform than a dolly in. No waiting time for the track to be laid down and cheaper on production.
Agree with David. Our eyes can’t zoom in but our minds do. So in part both movements are natural to us.
We should all agree the dolly in has been abused to the limit to the point you see it perform when it doesn’t make much sense.Without entering to stylistic and fashions trends, to me the difference between a dolly push in or a zoom in is on the dolly you take the audience and bring it closer to the character you are pushing in and with the zoom in you are isolating the character from his surroundings.
But push ins have been used for isolate characters too and zoom ins to give us closeness to the character we zoom in.
There is no proper or a single way to tell something. That’s what is great about what we do!IMO without ingent budgets or even with them, time of the day and proper carefully planning and scheduling is what it is when doing exteriors.
There is no wrong or bad and different stories need different approaches.
And some people favor certain approaches more than others.
Personally I avoid sun-sandwichs like the plague, but few super awarded DPs use them all the time. To me they look unnatural and that’s my reason to avoid them. But the audience are used to them. So it’s personal opinion. When backlighting were you using proper flags and avoid the sun entering the lens? Were you bouncing some level back to the actors?
Usually what I do is plan the wides to be shot at the exact time I want because I can’t control the sun. Mids and CU can be faked easier with flags/reflectors or lighting.Knowledge, Intention and sincerity.
Without a proper deep knowledge of visual language you can’t talk with images.
It’s like learning a new language, you need to know the codes in order to communicate.After it comes the intention. Once you know how to say something you need to say something meaningful that moves you.
And sincerity because you have to be real to yourself. No point on working on anything if you are not truly speaking yourself. There is only one you. To watch others I watch others films. But people watch a film by you to really know you. So don’t waste your time and everyone else’s if you don’t plan to put yourself on it.
Realistically any production that could afford a V-Raptor and a set of Master Anamorphics wouldn’t be so stretched for budget that the data rate would become the deciding factor in something as essential to the look of the film as the choice of lenses.
I know I’m leaving the main subject of discussion. But data management and postproduction dpt requirements have, at least in my experience, mandate many times how we need to film something. Even on crazy cases as the one you exposed.
If you feel overwhelmed about what focal to use think where should the camera and by definition the audience stand.
In my mind, the distance between subject(s) and camera it’s what’s important. And it’s what tells the story. Imagine a 2 people conversation in the middle of the street. It wouldn’t be the same standing 2 feet away of them than 20 feet away.
Once you know that, you choose which focal length to use based on what shot size you want. On the example of the 2 people conversation in the middle of the street. If you want a close-up of them and you are standing 20 feet away you will need a very long focal length. If you want the same close up shot size standing 2 feet you will use a wide lens. Shot sizes are the same but what has changed it’s the distance between camera (audience) and subjects. And this is what really affects us as viewers. The distance between camera and subjects, not which lens was used.
Some lenses are more common than others because they cover standard shot sizes at common distances we usually stand on our daily routines. So they feel natural to us and they feel natural to the audience watching.
Being that said lenses have also particular characteristics. Sometimes a meaningless difference between focal lengths as a 28mm and a 30mm lens doesn’t seem much but it can be quite different because the distortion or lack of it a lens has or because a lens is rendering completely different, etc. This also happens to same focal lengths but different lens models.
As you start working and employing lenses to create images patterns will emerge in your work. You will favor more some focal lengths than others in an organic way. This is why people tend to stick to same focal lengths for most of their work. Because it’s how they see and relate to the world.
An iPhone is a phone but also a camera with a lens.
Same as an Imax camera. Which is also a camera and a lens.
Life appears the same on both of them. You can use an iPhone to learn all cinema theory and even to shoot all the movies you like.
The actual lens of an IPhone is actually a 4mm lens I think. But the field of view it’s equivalent to 26mm or 28mm found in 35mm film photo cameras.
I don’t want to be the smart ass kid in class here.
But as someone who is starting is asking questions is better to have this right on first place.Focal length has nothing to do with image compression. It’s all about distance from camera to subject. And subject to background.
Focal length is only the field of view we are able to see.
I know it’s a common mistake but as I said, if someone who is starting get this right at beginning, understands how important are distances between camera, subject and background the easier the ride will be.
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.
Just a quick question. Did you get the funding without a script?
Before any style comes the story. What story is and what you want to tell with it. Then you can plan how to tell it, a budget of 100k€ isn’t that low for an indie production in Europe, if you keep other expenses at minimum you don’t need to shoot it ala Dogma 95 because there is no money.
