cinematography
Hello all.
I’ve been directing my newest film a few weeks ago. It is called Metropolitain.
fear.
loneliness.
encounters.
reflections.
love the stills. what camera is this shot with, Colin?
Canon GL1.
A lot of work with the pictures in post-production though….
Darker than your other work, very atmospheric.
“J’etais jeune alors, et mon degout croyait s’addresser a l’ordre meme du monde,” hein?
amazing stills Colin, tell us more about making the movie…or should I say shooting the movie…
Here’s a few stills from my upcoming short film,
Laughing Men.
Conceived as a prelude to a feature I am shooting this Summer, it’s a study of one of the characters— a pill-popping paedophile clown with multiple personality problems (dissociative identity disorder).
Shot on a DVX100B with an anamorphic lens.
Location: a trailer in the industrial wasteland of North Salt Lake, USA, night.
Lighting: a 100 watt domestic bulb on a piece of string.
Running time: not sure yet. Final editing now. Less than 40 minutes.
interesting. Clowns should be used more often. Or ticket takers
And butlers. Always fascinated by butlers. And dressers. Creepy f*cks, subservient, harboring secret resentments.
This film’s not really about clowning, tho’
It’s about masks and actors.
Who played the clown? Some real passion.
Yes T, the passion and the rivers of resources that went behind the stills are clearly evident…looks a winner.
I always want to make shorts, start with something very basic (not as sophisticated or technical as you do) but always wanted to start with something, always feels its around the corner but the time never comes and I have not shot anything yet.
I infest the forum with lots of praises and superlatives but folks in here deserve every bit.
the actor is my friend Dan Morley. He came to audition for another role, but I persuaded him over several beers (and hungover days) to take this project on. He’s astounding, happier with comedy (although actually this is a kind of anti-comedy, a very black comedy) - the shoot was very difficult: a filthy trailer (no stinting on the realism, right down to dead mice on the carpet— although that’s completely lost in the film, more’s the pity) … it was all done in the dead of night (for reasons that will become apparent later— it’s pornographically noisy at points), in the midwinter (subzero), he got sick with bronchitis on day 2 but carried on anyhow… freaking star.
The character is so sick and unpleasant that Dan insisted that I make a film where he plays a cuddly cardigan-wearing father of the bride style figure next, who saves Xmas for the children in an orphanage with only two fluffy puppies to help. But that, of course, won’t happen. He was last seen in Trent Harris’ new film Delightful Water Universe, which just opened in the USA.
re: resources… Andy I have to tell you mate… this is a Garage film, true to the principles… the film cost $50 to make, including all props and costume. There was no crew, no running water, no nothing. The lighting was literally a single 100 watt bulb which I held in one hand and the DVX in the other. The make up I did by painting children’s washable acrylic onto Dan’s face. We begged borrowed and stole everything. No one would fund us, and no one would risk their reputation on the screenplay, which I fully admit is pretty horrible.
Thanks guys. I’ll let you know when it’s finished.
Ooo, I really love the stills shared on this thread. Great job people, and thanks for sharing them!
I don’t have much in the way of sharing at this moment, but I do have an anecdote. A while back I was invited to my old high school to teach everyone (including the teacher) in their brand-spanking-newly-created video production class how to use the cameras and equipment that they had (a Canon GL-2 and a Canon XL-2; three professional three-point lighting kits, I don’t remember which company; Final Cut Pro on Mac OSX; pretty sturdy but cheap directional mics with boomsticks that were just above adapted broomsticks).
I spent a day going over all of the controls of the GL-2, telling them how to set exposure, frame-rate, white balance, non-automatic focus, the works. At the end of my demonstration, a kid raises his hand and sez, “You know all of those functions have an automatic feature, right?”
And I sez, “You know that using those features make your movies look like crap, right?”
Kids these days. Completely unappreciative! Why when I had to walk to school five miles barefoot in the snow….
—PolarisDiB
Polaris, yes
I hear ya. Not so much kids either. I find so-called graduates and professionals relying on default camera settings, and then denouncing the camera itself as incapable of rendering their superior creative vision.
RTFM, I say.
Too many dilettantes out there, imagining that “one day, someone will do this for me”
“Too many dilettantes out there, imagining that “one day, someone will do this for me”"
It won’t happen if you can’t prove your stuff. Your movie looks like crap, people won’t watch it. I say this from the perspective of someone who loves and admires shoddy low budget productions with terrible equipment, because the best of those works are the ones that still know how to use the equipment creatively. Me, I’m a real jerk sometimes in the way that I’m willing to be judgmental, and I’ve told people to their faces that I won’t watch the rest of the movie until they turn off the automatic focus, because I’m tired of seeing the screen fuzz out between physical bodies for no good reason. Luckily as I’ve gotten more involved in the community, I’ve met less of the people who would do that. Go figure. I’m a little wary of burning bridges at this point, so I’ve been a lot more careful lately, and actually it’s worked out better for me, but I still wonder about why people settle for such shoddy craftsmanship.
—PolarisDiB
Exactly. Every great director knows the whole process from working with the actors right the way down to what the footage will look like in post-production. They make informed choices all along the way.
Anyway, this is what Garage is about in the end, an open school of DO BY SELF and KNOW THY SHIT.
re: burning bridges yeah man —-I feel the same, but at the same time, life is short, and film is difficult, a hard mix of science and art. Why work with hacks and wannabees? I like makers with drive, willing to get their hands dirty. No one knows everything, but you have to be open to a wide, hard learning curve each time you shoot. Brutal, arrogant maybe, but true.
DBS and KTS (neat variant of DIY, BTW) is VERY important to me. I actually have many filmmakers, professional ones mind you, and professors and intellectuals of many types, ask me why I want to know every level of filmmaking “since filmmaking is such a collaborative medium, and you can’t do it all.” It’s because I want to trust in my collaborators by being able to know exactly what they are doing. It’s weird how resistant people are the idea of a director knowing how to capture sound. It’s absurd, and a little scary!
—PolarisDiB
You know why. Because the whole industry is filled with people who start fires and an equal amount just hired to put them out. Because otherwise every creatively sterile grip and gaffer and script boy and second assistant to the first assistant’s hair and make up advisor would be out of a job.
Don’t start me, I’ll be here cussing all night : )
Hello guys. Been away awhile. These are stills from a little movie I made for a reel, and as practice for my first feature. I just finished shooting and it’s not edited yet. Shot on a Canon Vixia HF10, lighting from the screen of a MacBook Pro in that first one.
I definitely agree about the filmmaker’s obligation to know about every element of the craft. You don’t have to start out with comprehensive knowledge though. I command plenty of textbook knowledge about f-stops and white balance, keys and fills and eyelights, etc., but that’s all effectively useless compared to actually doing the work and discovering intuitively what results in what you want.
And all elements of craft, as concerns the director, have to be subordinate to storytelling. Getting the perfect contrast between the light on a face and the shadows on the wall is quite useless if the material is pretentious and inane, or if the actor is unexpressive or phony.
Live-action motion pictures are always the result of an interplay between elements that are controlled and elements that are merely captured in their happening. And on much reflection, I honestly think that cinematography is not an element that requires a lot of controlling, as concerns cinema purely; obviously it is necessary for the creation of specific atmosphere, etc.
So, knowing that I had no budget but a $600 camera, and no time for elaborate lighting setups, I wrote a short script that does not need any particular visual atmosphere to communicate its ideas. Yep, I used autofocus. And automatic light sensitivity too, sometimes!
To be frank, I think the visual element in cinema has always been vastly overrated. I care about how cinema MOVES, not how it looks. The primacy of movement ends up making the sound design MORE essential to good cinema than the visual design, paradoxical as that may be. The post sound work will end up being by far the most expensive and time-intensive element of making this short.
Ultimately, you can very well get away with rough visuals and even fairly rough editing, because those can be aesthetically resolved as creative choices. Rough, amateur SOUND, however, will destroy you.
@Orpheus:
I agree with you on sound. Sound, most would agree, is the one major element filmmakers tend to neglect. And it can certainly disrupt the viewing experience.
However, I disagree that the visual element is overrated. That is like saying sound in music is overrated. That’s the foundation for which all cinema stems from. Certainly, some leeway can be given in terms of quality of images (especially considering factors like budget) but it is ultimately the image that engages the viewer first. There are exceptions (such as musical preludes) but I doubt anyone pays 10 or 11 dollars to watch a movie solely for sound design.
In the context of your film, it’s very much understood. Any low/no budget film really. There usually isn’t time to do elaborate light setups let alone rent out that kind of equipment in the first place. And I’m all for neorealist filming principles. But I will also say that great lighting is very underrated. And lighting doesn’t have to be 1Ks, KinoFlos, HMIs etc. T252’s stills above in this thread were lit only with what amounts to a practical bulb (something you can unscrew from your own ceiling) and they look stunning. And it adds significantly to the mood and atmosphere pertaining to the story.
With that said, I like your second still.
I’m not saying that lighting can’t be incidental or cinematography “on the fly”, but as a visual medium it shouldn’t be lazy. Knowing how to light a scene can even be useful for incidental and natural lighting, and yes, working on the movie itself will teach you more about cinematography than memorizing f-stops (in video, I just use the zebra-stripes. Simple and effective).
And storytelling is only one thing you can do with film. If your focus is to make a story (as 99.9% of directors do), then I agree that focusing on the storytelling is more important than getting caught up on every single detail of making the movie look like a series of gorgeous still photos, a perfectly continuitous edit, and immaculate staging. You focus on the big stuff first and the details will make themselves apparent, and if the lighting is ugly for a shot it’s not going to ruin an audience’s experience unless they are bored enough to notice. So really, we’re in agreement, but I honestly do think that automatic focus is a key indicator of laziness in any production, it really pulls me out of the story.
And I agree fully on sound. It’s really terrible because so very few beginning directors understand the importance of sound, and it’s so awful having to sit through their movies, even when the image looks spectacular and the acting is good and the story is original and all of the other elements add up (though honestly, if there’s a problem with one element typically there’s concurrent problems with others).
—PolarisDiB
I just mean that the visuals always get overemphasized. I can’t tell you how many projects of film school friends I’ve helped out on where they agonize for absurd amounts of time over getting a frame just so, or precisely adjusting for the right light, when the nature of the scene being shot doesn’t require anything like that kind of precision. I want to yell, GET AWAY FROM THE FRIGGING CAMERA, DIRECT YOUR ACTORS AND CALL ACTION.
Basically I only mean that the idea or tone or, generally, the MOVEMENT of whatever is being shot needs to be prioritzed. When the central idea is clear, then the right visual design will fall into place, based on its importance, whether it’s an elaborate tracking shot that moves through different regions of light intensity and color temperature, or whether it’s a handheld camcorder set on autofocus.
I agree with you in regards to film school projects. Although I understand that not everyone in film school has the same level of experience going in and making a film (for the first or second time in many cases) can be very stressful. After all, that’s what everyone is ultimately there for: to learn more about filmmaking. I was fortunate enough to have shot films and watch films regularly before ever applying for film school but most everyone I’ve connected with there have never shot anything and aren’t familiar with much of film history. Regardless though, everyone brings something to the table.
I feel visuals tend to be overemphasized too. But I think that further supports the idea that cinema is visual first and foremost. It’s only natural. It’s kind of like how Bazin went against the formalism of silent cinema by embracing sound and the camera’s inherent capability to capture the real.
I also agree with your second point. The idea and visual design should be clear before ever stepping on set (barring any last minute inspiration).
Sorry in advance if there’s a rule against doubleposting.
These are some frames I took off of my short film I made for my production class. The one limitation was that it had to be made in the course of a single 12-hour day. It’s about 3 minutes and is meant to be a tribute to one of my favorite filmmakers, Ozu, as well as Ken Ogata who passed not long ago. So there is an element of Mishima I was trying to incorporate too. It’s a hybrid production of 16mm (Aaton LTR-S) and miniDV (DVX100).
As for lighting, a 1K was housed in a softbox that we utilized as toplight. A 650 was used as fill. We tried to cut off light to the black behind them but wasn’t entirely successful. The miniDV footage was natural light and was preplanned for black and white. I would’ve liked a rim of backlight but lights weren’t available by then.
16mm tatami shot in a soundstage type setting like some of the scenes in Mishima.
The upper frame is miniDV. This is the frame without B/W filter and no boost in HSL contrast.
This is the same frame with B/W filter and a boost in HSL contrast. An edge feather filter was also applied.
There are no rules on multiple posts.
OK, in reverse order ↑
Jung this is a 16mm/DVX hybrid? what lens did you use on the LTR-S? did you have problems with noise from the camera itself?
—-thanks for the thorough write up.
So this is an Ozu / Ogata homage? I can see that. Did you keep the camera low to the ground (the zen position) in all the scenes? I’d like to see the finished film.
Orpheus—- how did you find working with such a tiny camera? Did it effect the way you filmed movement, or did you maintain classic filmic poise? I love small HD cams. I had in mind once this idea to shoot with one in the Paris metro (and I did in fact, but I had no budget for the camera I wanted, so I had to use a battered Canon ZR500, which meant hours of cleanup in post)—- the potential to do something secretive, cinema verite, almost surveillance based. I feel these kind of cameras are all about potential for obtuse angles, unexpected handheld movements, a new language in filmmaking.
when do you begin shoot on your feature? what camera/kit will you be using for that?
I can’t see much detail in the first still (that said, this monitor isn’t the sharpest of beasts)— but the third—- I’m liking these pinks and oranges, this pastel spectrum, nicely saturated. Natural light?
re: sound: try to keep this to cinematography, on topic. We’ll open a thread on sound, sound production, microphones and soundtrack composition when there’s a way to paste sound clips into the forum (bear with me). But I hear you. Post-production on sound is exhausting, and you are right, bad sound will kill your film dead in the water. I’m having these exact problems right now with Laughing Men, lots of work to get it clear, and some dubbing, which I HATE.
“To be frank, I think the visual element in cinema has always been vastly overrated. I care about how cinema MOVES, not how it looks. The primacy of movement ends up making the sound design MORE essential to good cinema than the visual design, paradoxical as that may be.”
ouch, contentious. But movement: YES.
I recently watched Ceylan’s Climates. His work is photographically exquisite, but it’s his camera movement, how he waits for his actors, how he plays them to the camera—- and how in the next instant he then returns to slow measured shots that isolate his characters, perfect frozen time—- this is what struck me most… Everyone interested in this subject should check it out. It’s free to watch for a few days yet. Give your eyeballs a bath. Auto-didactic learning. Watch, absorb, digest, create. We’re all standing on the shoulders of giants.
@T: The Aaton cameras are very quiet compared to the other cameras our film department owns (old Bolex, Eclair, Arri 16s). But even then, I couldn’t come out unscathed. You could hear the soft rattle on the sound track. I was able to use ambience to smooth it out a bit but it’s still kind of there. And if I remember correctly, we used a 25mm lens for that shot.
And no, that was the only shot we did in that low position. There are mediums, CUs, etc. also. I’m just about finished editing it and should have it uploaded sometime in May. It’s far from perfect but it was my first time working with film. But I’ll let you know friend.
I look forward to it, mate.
I kept my camerawork fairly classical, and I think going handheld on such a small camera actually results in a smoother feel because your muscles don’t get fatigued. The camera is definitely optimal for truly renegade, surreptitious work however. I may try a little project like that soon.
The Vixia can shoot at 24 fps, which is nice, and I like the picture it gives. There’s a model with a slightly larger lens which would give a better viewing field at short range, but it was beyond my pocketbook. Still, the tiny thing gives data density of up to 17 megabytes per second, which I think is just about the point at which digital fuzz starts to look convincingly like a rugged, grainy stock.
As you can see from the first still, I like darkness. That is particularly dark, as her face is at an oblique angle from the light source. For one shot I used nothing but an iPhone display for the faintest blue light on the face and in the eyes. Other than that, the entire picture was shot with unaided ambient light.
The feature is going to be a real movie, so I’d like to be able to use the Genesis and those delicious Panavision lenses. Alternately, I could do what Jonathan Demme did in Rachel Getting Married and use a Sony fitted for Panavision lenses. I will have a DP and very specific lighting schemes, but I do intend to rely on sets in which the only light source is a computer screen on a character’s face.
As liberating and instructive as it is to shoot handheld with a nifty small camera, the experience has definitely taught me that elements of feature film grammar — a smooth track-and-pan, a slow dolly-in, having a visual range of primes from 18mm out to 300mm — really are essential to what I want to communicate emotionally in the feature. My budget will likely be less than 500k, but I’m really going to push for as much production value as possible.
I am very curious about Ceylan’s work. Every shot of a sky in his movies seems to be astonishing. Climates is atop my Netflix queue (I prefer DVDs to watching online movies: image quality. Even Netflix’s streaming service has this incredibly irritating skip-frame issue). I unfortunately missed 3 Monkeys when it played in LA theaters.
@Orpheus: I really like how silky the black looks. I’m very impressed by how well these small camcorders are handling them. I remember how grainy and gray blacks looked just a couple years ago on my old handicam. And way to frame to take advantage of all those existing light sources.
Yeah, the technology is getting pretty impressive. Eventually Hollywood is going to have to realize that they’re not going to hold onto their prestige through technological advantage, and that vapid styles like Paul Greengrass’s handheld megaproductions or Michael Mann’s ugly attempts at urban authenticity through HD are precisely the wrong way to proceed. They will have to return to strong storylines and actual, disciplined production values (i.e., elaborate human choreography and precision timing) to keep themselves distinguished from the mumblecore amateurs.
T
kinesis κινησις (movement) and grapho γραφω (to record)
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for the cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography
This thread is for the posting of stills from films that show great composition or invention, or from your own work, and discussion of technique.
Where possible (if you know) > write a little on what cameras/lenses were used, or any anecdotes or opinions you have on the images. If you post stills from your own movies, explain a little what you were trying to achieve, how you solved problems, what the thinking was behind the shot. If there’s homage to another director, show and tell.
n.b.
To post a still >
The forum uses a mark-up called TEXTILE.
it’s a shortcut language. so to post an image anywhere in the forum,
1) find the URL of the image.
2) paste it into your post.
3) put exclamation marks before and after it, no spaces.
e.g.
here’s a URL to an image I have in Photobucket >
http://i465.photobucket.com/albums/rr19/tobiasmorgan/lajettestill-2.jpg
I put !! around that and it shows up onsite like this