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That’s right. There is no right way.
The effect of a zoom could be likened to you focussing your attention on a part of your surroundings. As it involves seeing an object in more detail but from a greater distance, than if it were a dolly in, it does have a different feel but it is all about context.
OK! I’m confused. You work by eye but how can you ‘work by eye’ if you can’t judge what you are seeing in front of you? Either you need experience or you need a light meter. Using one will give you an understanding of exposure and contrast ratios. Then you can through it away.
There are photometric charts that you can study to find what light will give you the required foot candles and width of beam at any given distance. I would start by looking at the chart for an 18K HMI. To shoot at 2.8 and 800 ISO you need something like 12.5 foot candles depending on whether that is a back light or a front light.
When you steady a shot that has extreme sideways movement in post it can produce a very strange effect because it is not adjusting the foreground in relation to the background. You might just as well suggest the shot be made in AI rather than the real world.
Walking backwards on a flat gravel road should not be a problem for someone who is proficient using a hand held camera. Counter to what might seem logical, a heavier camera may well help you as it tends to ground the shot. Yes, you can use a stabilizing system, of which there are many efficient variations. The shot you mention was made using a stabilized camera rigged to the top of a pole that was being carried by two grips. The slight parallax movement of the characters to the background was a problem and was minimized by the way the grips walked, a kind of Groucho Marx step as is used by any hand-held camera operator. As far as I am aware, though some of the blends between shots were massaged in post none of the film was stabilized that way.
If you really need interactive, rather than the interior lights of the bus, I would use LEDs and create some sort of chase.
I think you have the name of the cinematographer who shot The Master wrong. Mihai Malaimare shot P. J. A’s film.
The lighting should reflect the scene and also fit with the location the scene takes place in. Also, I would caution not to copy someone else’s work. Your film is your film not theirs and you don’t learn by copying.
It is tricky with a bus as it is so large. I have shot ‘poor man’s’ but only created a few lights in the distance nothing interactive with the interior. I did this for a short scene in ‘Empire’. Any exterior light would be minimal relative to the bus’ interior lights anyway.
I used just the flashlight in the basement itself and a warm bounce coming down from above. The camera saw the entire space so there was no way to use anything else, not that I needed it.
The latest electronic finders are good but I would prefer an optical one. Of course, that is no longer an option and we get used to what we have.
Is one green or is the other magenta. I am sure that neither is a true reflection of what is on the DCP. The exteriors were deliberately shot on overcast days to look dreary and they surely tend toward the blue/green but I am sure the YouTube version is a little off.
The flares were real and our effects supervisor had them specially made to last exactly 26 seconds, which was the length of time it took them to cross the frame. They were mounted on wires and computer controlled. We could have just shot them into the air but the results would have been quite random given the wind and other variables, so we opted for control and a wire rig. The set was designed from a model and we used small LED bulbs as stand ins for the flares. From that we could see how the shadows would play out on the full size set.
Isolation? Close shots with a shallow depth of field could work very well. You could take a look at ‘Come and See’ to get a sense of how that might work.
