The art and science of making media.
Today a very interesting fundraising campaign has hit Kickstarter. The company behind the product is a veteran in the world of successful crowd-funding launches. Building upon their two earlier marketing campaigns, this one will combine elements from all of their…
How do you make a light look soft yet cut it as if it were hard? By using a light that’s both hard and soft at the same time, of course. A director recently sent me a reference image and…
The butterflies that I stop and look at are usually very large and made of grid cloth. Here’s what I use overhead in daylight exteriors, and when. Making actors look good outdoors can be really difficult. When possible I try…
Ever wonder how a company’s background and philosophy affects product development? Let me tell you a little something about Arri and Alexa… I’m a geek. I read cinematography, videography and color textbooks for fun. I’m awful at math so I…
Accessories don’t get no respect. Zacuto’s Z-Finder EVF is a perfect example: it’s a dinky little 3.2″, 800×480 LCD monitor in a lumpy plastic case that looks like something RED’s mechanical designers would make if they worked for Fisher-Price. To…
REDs for the rest of us? The $1995 Blackmagic Cinema Camera and $995 Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera are interchangeable-lens, single-sensor cameras with raw recording capability, capturing wide-dynamic-range, log-encoded images to CinemaDNG files. They also record ProRes422(HQ) and (for the Cinema…
Ever since my days working in film I’ve tried to find some way to equate my sense of brightness to real world exposure. I learned to do this well with film, but HD has been a mystery… until now. On…
In my last article I wrote about lighting a dramatic library scene using only two lights. Here’s how I lit a rich, dreamy bar scene using the same two lights. Bay Area dot-coms are big on creature comforts. I shot…
Sometimes the best shoots are the ones where you just have to make do. A recent music video threw me a challenge: do the best you can with two lights. So… I did. Here’s how… Recently Sony sent Adam Wilt…
When choosing a tripod the range of models available is confusing and baffling. There are so many different tripod weights, payloads and heights to choose from, so it can be difficult. Also while there is such a thing as a good all round tripod (as we shall se in a bit) there is also no such thing as one tripod that will be perfect for every shoot. The most important thing to consider when choosing a tripod is the payload that it will need to carry. This is the total weight of the camera, lens, batteries as well as any support equipment like rods and rails or monitors attached to the camera. Don’t underestimate how heavy this lot can get. You will want a tripod that can comfortably carry the payload you have, you never want to be right on the upper limit.