The footage I shot as DP has returned. If we play by the rules, we are supposed to wait until this Wednesday for dailies when the entire crew gathers and we watch the footage, synced with the sound in script order. I was going to go along with this until I had to...
Cameras
Your Worst Shot [Cinematography]
Yesterday was our first cinematography class. We had to choose the worst shot from the F3 we were Director of Photography on, bring it in, and discuss what went wrong. It was a good idea, and a good way to learn. My shot (not the one pictured above) was this clunky...
Cinematography Notes
Here are a few notes I dug up from an early cinematography class. They're short and good to keep in mind. Eye first looks at what is moving, then what’s brightest. Film is a 2-Dimensional medium. The idea is to create the appearance of 3 dimensions through...
91 Set-Ups in 3 Days
Yes, we got 91 set-ups ((A set-up is essentially a shot. Every time you move the camera, change lenses, change lighting, or film new action, that's a new set-up.)) in 3 days. That's about 30 a day. The 6 day show had 106 set-ups. Bottom line is we got a shit-ton of...
It’s Dailies, Not Weeklies
In a perfect film set world (real world), you shoot for the day, send the film to the lab that night to be processed, return the next day, shoot some more, and then during lunch (or beginning/end of the day), you watch what you shot the previous day. These are called...
Coffee Break – Blue is the New Red Huge Roast of Links
So a while back I used to post cool links each Wednesday for a Coffee Break series. For many reasons (mainly time and laziness), I haven't posted cool links in a while. But I still have a bunch saved up. So in the spirit of new beginnings, I'm just going to offload...
Fight Scene in a Barn
Monday was a day off, which was nice. Of course there's not really such a thing as a day off. Today we were back at the pig farm. I think this is where Deliverance originated. Deep in their property I stumbled on bones (hopefully animal) spread all over the place. And...
Cinematography – Biblio Film School
A while back I started a book recommendation series where I'd recommend what I thought were the best books in each area of filmmaking. Today we're continuing with cinematography books. Unlike the first category of screenwriting, I've read a lot of cinematography books...
Cinematographe, A History [Video]
Found this short, condensed history of the creation of cinematography. For something so short it's pretty thorough. It has a lot of the famous first things ever shot, as well as the original cameras (or pretty good reproductions). Then it kind of becomes a joke when...