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4Location Scouting Tips 4What Are Filters Good for Anyway? 4Location Audio Settings for Avid MC5 Workflow 4A Shot Card for that Shot-in-the- Dark with Investors Jim Gucciardo on Anamorphic 35mm and DI Alexandre Aja and Piranha 3D Documentary Camerawork, Locations, and Lighting Symbols and Images for Sex, Love, and Romance • Discounted repair service • Expedited repair turnarounds • Equipment evaluation loans • 24x7 Domestic and International Hotline • On-site support at major events and shows • CPS Welcome Kit Membership Benefits Await. Canon Professional Services (CPS) accords significant membership benefits to individual full-time professionals who use qualifying Canon equipment: International and Domestic 24x7 telephone support, expedited and discounted repair, service and evaluation loaners, on-site support at events, and much more.
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7200_CPS_ad_110317.indd 1 3/18/11 5:00 PM Table of Contents 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Commentary 4 How Do You Get Asked Back on the Next Project? by Thomas McKenney
Pre-Production 6 Location Scouting Tips for Startup Filmmakers by Scott Spears
Cinematography 10 What Are Filters Good for Anyway? by Ira Tiffen
Close Up 14 Jim Gucciardo Shoots Five Minarets in Anamorphic 35mm by Matthew J. Perlman 14 20 Alexandre Aja and Piranha 3D by Scott Essman Documentary 26 Documentary Camerawork, Locations, and Lighting Q&A with David Lent
Directing 32 Elicit an Organic and Believable Performance from Your Actors by Jonathan Moore
Screenwriting 34 Symbols & Images for Sex, Love, and Romance by Pamela Jaye Smith 38 Focus on Plot by Terence Brody
Music and Sound 20 40 Location Audio Settings for Avid MC5 Workflow by Fred Ginsburg, C.A.S., Ph.D., MBKS
Film Business 42 Showing Your Work for That All-Important First-Job Interview by Tony White 45 A Shot Card for that Shot-in-the-Dark with Film Investors by William F. Vartorella, Ph.D., C.B.C.
On Campus 46 School of Visual Arts MFA Social Documentary Film Program 48 Regent University Helps Film Students Find Their Voices 26 Meet the Manufacturer 50 NILA Brings Sustainable Engineering to Light HDSLR Filmmaking 52 Achieve Exciting Shots with indiSYSTEM Solutions 54 Shoot in Snow and Rain using SmallHD DP6 Monitors 56 Producer Selects BeachTek DXA-SLR for Productions New Product Spotlight 58 Ki Pro Mini: Lens to Post in a Flash
60 Filmmakers Networking
On the Cover Mahsun Kirimzigul (left), Jim Gucciardo, and crew working on the 60 set of Five Minarets in New York.
2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers Publisher’s Desk
Do I have a witness? Ignorantly, I used to think good lenses are The # 1 Educational Resource for Film and Video Makers good lenses and pretty much all the same more or less except Publisher / Editor-in-Chief Kim Edward Welch in subtle ways only a master Senior Editor Jody Michelle Solis cinematographer would notice. Contributing Writers This is until we do comparisons Thomas Ackerman, ASC, Jack Anderson, Laurent Andrieux, at a recent HDSLR Filmmaking Anthony Q. Artis, John Badham, Christopher Ball, CSC, Karl Bardosh, workshop at magazine Adam Biddle, Evan Bollig, Heidi Braudenburg, Terence Brody, Kevin Burke, Julia Camenisch, John Carrico, Steve Carlson, headquarters in New York City Chris Cavallari, Pete Chatmon, Vicky Collins, Michael Corbett, with Snehal Patel, and I personally Vanessa Daniels, Carsten Dau, Todd Debreceni, Jeff Deel, Christina witness the Zeiss CP.2’s in action DeHaven, William Donaruma, Dana Dorrity, Pamela Douglas, alongside other lenses. The CP.2 Scott Eggleston, David E. Elkins, SOC, Dr. Gordon Erlebacher, lenses are simply quite impressive. I immediately see the difference Scott Essman, Bryant Falk, Carl Filoreto, Jon Firestone, Brian Flees, Jacqueline B. Frost, Hali Gardella, Daniel Gaucher, in comparison to other lenses. During the workshop, Snehal sets Fred Ginsburg, C.A.S., Ph.D., MBKS, Dean Goldberg, Todd Grossman, up a Canon 5D Mark II on a tripod, and I get my first real taste Leonard Guercio, John Hart, David K. Irving, Larry Jaffee, Ian Johnson, visually of what makes the CP.2 so exceptional. We connect to Catherine Ann Jones, David Kaminski, Michael Karp, SOC, Sam our Samsung 1080P HD monitor and then swap out lenses on the Kauffmann, Christopher Keane, Tamar Kummel, Richard La Motte, Adam camera while watching the monitor comparing identical lighting Matalon, Matthew Marshall, Thomas McKenney, Jonathan Moore, M. David Mullen, ASC, Stacey Parks, Mark Sawicki, Myrl A. Schreibman, environment on the same camera and the same LCD. It is truly Dr. Linda Seger, Sherri Sheridan, Mary Ann Skweres, Pamela Jaye amazing. It has such a brighter image with outstanding rich color Smith, Tim Smith, Scott Spears, Ira Tiffen, Jeff Turboff, Melissa Ulto, Mike clarity. It is an exceptional lens for the HDSLR filmmakers and Valentine, BSC, Saro Varjabedian, William F. Vartorella, Ph.D., C.B.C., convergence shooters, and I highly recommend these lenses. If you Tony White, David Worth, Dean Yamada, Kevin Zanit have not tried them, you should. The Compact Prime lenses deliver the highest image quality and robust construction for HDSLR applications. Lenses for cinematography from Carl Zeiss have a solid history of use by renowned filmmakers and they are helping to create distinctive images in many current productions. Editorial Interns Melissa Chan Don’t miss our upcoming Continuing Education Workshops Matthew Perlman and Networking Events this month and throughout the year. Our intensive professional training and interactive hands-on seminars Advertising & Sponsorship Opportunities: Kim E. Welch 212.255.5458 are dedicated to helping both new and emerging filmmakers and working professionals in the motion picture industry advance in their Contact StudentFilmmakers.com careers, keep abreast of ever-changing and evolving technologies, http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/contact.shtml and learn real-world, practical, and must-have skills necessary to 212.255.5454 (US and International) work in the motion picture industry. The StudentFilmmakers.com Subscriptions, bulk orders, and collections: Workshops also serve as a place for filmmakers and members of https://www.studentfilmmakers.com/store/ the motion picture industry to network with one another. 1-Year Subscription: US$24.95. 2-Year Subscription: $42.84. 3-Year Please enjoy this Special NAB Issue, which is also our Anniversary Subscription: $58.90. Edition. We give a big, special thanks to all of our readers, members, For subscription, mailing address change and distribution inquiries, writers, instructors, sponsors, and advertising partners for helping go to http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/contact.shtml to bring StudentFilmmakers, Vol. 6, No. 1 to the 2011 NAB Show floor. Please make sure and visit our sponsors’ and advertisers’ StudentFilmmakers Magazine, established in 2006, is published exhibit booths and events at NAB. Drop by the StudentFilmmakers. bi-monthly in New York by StudentFilmmakers.com. Opinions are solely com Booth # C10206, and say hello. I look forward to seeing you those of the authors. Letters, article queries, photos, movie stills, film submissions, and unsolicited manuscripts welcome, but returned only there. with SASE. Submissions are subject to editing for style, content, and to exclusive rights provisions in this publication. Advertising: Rate card upon Enjoy this edition! request.
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studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1
Commentary
How Do You Get Asked Back on the Next Project? Attitude of Gratitude by Thomas McKenney
When one is lucky enough to get his or her first job in the from delusions of grandeur to simply slacking off. Fight these. entertainment industry, how does one keep it going? How Attitude is key. does one build a career? Actors face auditions and wait for Talent can blossom from experience but attitude cannot be callbacks in hopes of being cast in a role. It isn’t so different for taught. It is not enough to know light meters, filters, framing writers, directors, producers, and those of us below-the-line. and composition. People make projects and, like any other In baseball, they say that you’re only as good as your last at- business, it pays to get along. Think about it. Crews spend long bat. In basketball, you’re only as good as your last jump shot. hours collaborating to achieve a director’s vision. Who would Management, coaches and the fans ask the question no matter you want in the foxhole with you? what you accomplished in the last outing, “What have you done for me lately?” The first job is ultimately the toughest to get. Every person on a set is essential, from the Show Starting from scratch, we ask a production to take a chance on Runner to their bosses at the studio to the PAs, drivers and our unknown qualities. How do you get asked back on the next generator operators. Everyone comes together to contribute project and the next? their gift(s) to accomplish the final vision. No matter what position you might play on the team, fulfilling your duties is What follows is a lot of common sense, but it can be easily paramount to your individual success and the success of the forgotten amidst 14+ hour days: picture. Do your job better than anyone else if you want to keep · Think of others, not just yourself. it.
· Respect everyone. William Shakespeare reminds us, “There are no small players.” This is true beyond the stage or in front of the camera. · Serve the story. If given the honor of directing a project and the responsibility · Stay on top of the ever changing technical landscape. to a crew willing to serve that vision, respect them. Common courtesies such as please and thank you will serve any If I’m not working on a show, I attend as many seminars, director. expos and training opportunities as my schedule allows. Keeping current is a full-time job, but easier with online No matter what position, do not be complacent. Give industry forums for those who don’t live near production houses it your all. Realize and remember that a thousand women and or can’t get away. men stand in line behind you hoping to take your place. Keep your eye on the prize. Once on a set, several temptations can arise depending on the circumstances. Like the seven deadly sins, they range
studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Look out for safety issues. Respect the property the shoot is on as if it were your own home. More important, look out for fellow co-workers. No one wants to be responsible for an injury to anyone on the staff.
Don’t complain. Robert Townsend’s film Hollywood Shuffle had the tag line, “There’s work at the Post Office.” (All due respect to the good people that move the mail.) Negative thinking has no place on a set. If anyone is unhappy in their work, they should move out of the way. There are others ready to take that place. Talent, at any position, is important but not to the extent where a destructive attitude will nor should be tolerated. If you can do this project better, challenge yourself to put your own production together. Until then, serve the vision as communicated by those who did the planning and pre- production that led to this opportunity.
Think how any action will affect others on the team. For example, do not get so self-involved that a comment about sound might get in an actor’s head and jeopardize the validity of the scene. Channel anything to the actors through the director. These people lay exposed before the camera, crew and eventually an audience and their performance must ring true. They must look as natural as possible in a situation that is anything but natural. If they don’t look good, the production and everyone involved doesn’t look good.
After every wrap, sit quietly and contemplate your own performance honestly. Consider the additions and discords brought to the set. Strive to score above average.
At any moment of the day, be grateful that you can express your creativity with fellow artists in hopes of thrilling an audience. Greet each production day with an attitude of gratitude.
Thomas McKenney is an Emmy award-winning Director of Photography based in Los Angeles, California who reaches out to spotlight the stories in life and put life into stories. His sports, news and documentary experience propelled him to the role of narrative cinematographer. Tom has taken on Little League Opening Day, Super Bowl Sunday, the Academy Awards, feature and episodic works. Tom treats every subject in his frame with the same respect experienced by Tom Hanks, Angelina Jolie, among the Hollywood elite and various Heads of State.
2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers Pre-Production
Location Scouting Tips for Startup Filmmakers “Will it work logistically?” by Scott Spears
One of the biggest factors to a good shoot is location. I’ve been Sound Issues on many location scouts and have seen some great locations and not-so great locations. One of the biggest questions to ask when You have to not just look at a location, you have to listen considering a location is: “Will it work logistically?” The factors to it. Is it on a street with heavy traffic? Is there construction to locations include cost, sound issues, power and logistics. nearby or the potential of it? Is it in the path of an airport? Do a bunch of college party kids live next door who will throw Who should be on the location scout? As many crew people the world’s biggest, noisiest party ever in the middle of your as possible, but it’s not feasible to take the entire crew to each intimate drama? If it’s a multi-story building, who lives location (unless you have a small crew), so you need to pick upstairs? Somebody who stomps around in combat boots? There department heads, the director, cinematographer, 1st assistant are hundreds of noise factors that can grind your production to director, art director, sound mixer and production/location a halt, so be on the lookout. manager. I like to bring my gaffer if possible. These people all look at locations in different ways and will have different If you start to like a location and think it will be high on and valuable input. When all these people aren’t there, your list, take a moment and stand silently. Listen for hums then somebody on the scout should be looking out for them. and buzzes. Find out if they can be eliminated. You should visit Sometimes when it’s just me and the director out scouting, it again at a different time of day to make sure there isn’t some we both have to wear different production hats and not just factor that changes. consider picture needs. Say you visit an apartment that looks perfect in the morning, but it sits above a bar that at night cranks up the music. Well, Cost that would be a sound killer. Some smaller airports cut back on This is the easy one, either you can afford the location or night flights, but during the day your location will have a flight you can’t. A good producer might be able to wheel and deal a overhead every two minute. In general, try to think when you’ll better price. Sometimes you have to use some imagination with be shooting and seek out any sound factor which would slow or a place that doesn’t quite work, but is affordable. This is where halt shooting. Sometimes these things can come out of nowhere the director has to envision the shots he will need. There’s a and cannot be predicted, but you should do your homework. famous story from Akira Kurosawa when he was asked how he achieved a “perfect” frame for a period film he directed and he Power said, if I had panned to the right there was a modern factory A nightmare for gaffers is lack of power. If you need a and if I panned to the left, there were power lines, so the frame shaft of sunlight pouring through a window that is created by was set. I’ve been on scouts where people have said the location lighting, not the sun, and production can’t afford a generator, wouldn’t work because of some factor, but after talking with the then you need lots of power. Older buildings should be given director, we realized that element would never be on camera. special inspections. I’ve shot in apartments that had only two twenty amp circuits, which means if you plug in more than four lights, you’re going to start blowing breakers. We ended up
studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 borrowing power from an apartment two stories above and just location. If you wait until the last minute, like when you have dropped cables out the window to feed our lights. Not ideal, all your crew standing outside waiting to get to work, then but it worked. Does the place have plenty of outlets? Where are the owner my find some “unknown” reason for jacking up the the circuit breakers? You should know where they are so if you price, otherwise known as they’ve got you over the barrel. Have blow a breaker you can get at it to reset it. proper forms and photo releases for the location.
Logistics Final Thoughts
Locations bring their own set of logistics, just like people. Try to leave a location better than you found it. Don’t leave There are a lot of things you don’t think about as you walk a mess because eventually that reputation will catch up to you around a cool location lining up shots and thinking how you’ll and you’ll start getting locked out of locations. use the space, but there’s a lot more to a location than that. Where are the cast, crew and equipment vehicles going to park? A film production takes up a lot of space so there better be Scott Spears is an Emmy Award winning Director of parking. How do you get all the gear to the location? Are there Photography with 18 features under his belt. He’s also written elevators, or is the crew going have to drag a ton of equipment several feature screenplays, some of which have been made into up four flights of stairs? Exterior locations have these same movies. You can learn more about him at www.scottspears.net. concerns. I’ve had to hike about a mile uphill for a shoot with gear on my back and in each hand. Do that six times to start and end your day and you’ll think twice about that location.
Don’t forget about changing rooms for cast and a make-up area. Are there enough bathrooms? Nothing can get you booted from a location faster than to have 30 people trying to use one bathroom and to have the toilet overflow.
When you and your equipment are on set, but where do you put people and extra gear when they’re not working? All the grips and cast not on camera need someplace to hang out while shooting is underway.
Do you have a place for the cast and crew to eat? Is there a large space so everybody can sit together and eat? That’s a great way to build camaraderie (as long as the food is good, but that’s a whole other topic.) If you don’t feed people on site, are there restaurants nearby?
Some locations have special requirements, like no shoes, cover the floors, or be out at a certain time. Make sure everybody respects these rules or you may be looking for a new place. If a location throws on too many restrictions off the bat, you may want to look elsewhere because once you’re there, life may get even worse with more rules and complaints about even minor infractions.
Paperwork
Everybody hates paperwork, but make sure to release forms signed well ahead of the time to shoot at your great new
2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers Cinematography
What Are Filters Good for Anyway? For when all else fails… by Ira Tiffen
The fact is, if everything in front Well, you could wait for Nature to of your camera is exactly right, all you provide a more thrilling countenance. need to do is record and render it back But, what, you say, that’s not in your faithfully to have achieved excellence in budget? Understandable - can’t have imagery. Unfortunately, that happens everyone standing around waiting about as often as winning the lottery. weeks for the right moment. Perhaps, Less often, perhaps. That’s why there’s just maybe, there’s something else you all this other stuff, like filters, to help could try instead. out with the job. Sometimes, no matter how you try, Mountain Silhouette. No filter. Let’s look at the following typical you just can’t time it right or wait for use for which the filter was originally situation. The sky is just not cooperating. things to come around to your way of designed, it does make the scene come Nothing you say can get it to look looking at them. But you can help them alive…in cool, dark, blue tones. This “vibrant.” Can’t offer it a residuals along in some ways. That’s where filters filter also reduces contrast, which you increase, nor a larger dressing trailer, are most useful. can see in the slightly lifted shadows of nor anything that will get it to show its Let’s first take the mountain the mountains. Right away, the image brighter, more colorful side. You could silhouette image. Without a filter it’s projects the quiet new presence of get a set decorator in but, really, apart practically pure black and white; light evening. The day is behind us. This may from hanging some drapes that sky is and dark with no color interest. Now let’s be just what you were looking for. But still going to look washed out and dull. use a Tiffen Cool Day-for-Night filter in case it’s not, we’ll now try something What to do? and see what we get. While not quite the different.
Mountain Silhouette. Cool Day for Night filter. Mountain Silhouette. Twilight 3 filter. Combination: Twilight and DFN.
10 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 11 Cinematography
Using a Tiffen Twilight 3 filter, a notice that the angle to the sun, which is to the first. Here, the individual pink variation on the standard Color-Grad™ almost behind us, is wrong for efficiently and lavender tone of the second filter that has two levels of color, a lavender- affecting the blue sky in this scene with come into their own, strongly aligning blue and a pink, before gradually fading that worthy filter. You’ll remember that with the disparate image segments, to clear, we align the pink section of the sun needs to be to our side or more foreground foliage, clouds and the clear the filter with the brightest part of the overhead (in any case, at about a right sky. The effect is mesmerizing; where image, and we can see and evaluate the angle to our camera’s direction of view) once there was dull reality, now the result. The brilliance of the sun, here, for the polarization axis of the reflected brilliance of color, contrasting lavender is given an ominous power, glowing skylight to coordinate with the filter to and pink, gets the eye’s attention and warmly. The tint creates visual heat, advantage. thus the viewer’s interest. in opposition to the earlier Cool DFN Instead, we’ll first employ an 85C, a And we’ve managed all this without rendering. This, perhaps, may be just less-intense version of the 85 conversion having to wait patiently and exhaustively what you are looking for. But in case it’s filter. The warm salmon tones now for exactly the right moment. Instead, we not, we’ll try combining the two filters pop; the sky is still recognizably real, can give Nature a hand, and our camera to see what we get. yet overall color interest increases lens a filter, and be happily on our way. The combination of the Twilight substantially. Rather than seeming to 3 and the Cool Day-for-Night filters be ‘midday’ as the unfiltered original, creates an almost opalescent aura, pale now the suggestion is variously early or In over 30 years of making optical pink at the luminance source, gradually late, the color that of a sun lower in the filters, Ira Tiffen created the Pro-Mist, fading to cool lavender toward the edges. sky that it actually is. Soft/FX, Ultra Contrast, GlimmerGlass, We’ve combined the strongest elements and others, netting him both a Technical A previously nonexistent chromatic of each filter to come up with this more Achievement Award from the Academy contrast was created by the 85C between energetic enhancement of the black and of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the now-warm tones of clouds and white unfiltered original. While you a Prime-Time Emmy Award. Elected grasses and the cooler blue of the open might eventually see these colors in a Fellow of the SMPTE in 2002, he is sky. Just a simple alteration to the color nature, waiting for them to appear on also an Associate member of the ASC, balance of such a scene adds energy and their own would not be advisable. and the author of the filter section of the visual interest, propelling the viewer American Cinematographer Manual. Moving right along, we’ve got more firmly into the environment, and another standard situation to consider thus becoming more involved in the in the daylight view of moderately story that takes place there. interesting clouds floating high above We can take this a step further, a distant mountain-lined horizon. Nice again with the addition of a second filter; blue sky, but no real drama. And if we and again we’ll add the Twilight 3 grad were thinking ‘polarizer!’ we would soon
Blue Sky. No filter. Blue sky. 85C filter. Blue sky. Combination: Twilight and 85C.
12 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 13 Close-Up
Mahsun Kirimzigul, Jim Gucciardo (behind the camera), and crew working on the set of Five Minarets in New York.
This is the first English Five Minarets in New York language film from Turkish director Mahsun Kirmizigul, whose previous films I Saw the Sun (2009) Cinematographer Shoots New Indie in and The White Angel (2007) both received international acclaim. Five Minarets in New York follows the story of a Turkish scholar’s Anamorphic 35mm wife, as she is arrested by federal authorities in the US for a crime she Jim Gucciardo Talks about did not commit. The film stars Gina Gershon, Danny Glover, and Robert the Digital Intermediate Process Patrick, and is being produced by Boyut Films. by Matthew J. Perlman
14 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 15 Close-Up
The cinematographer Jim Gucciardo is shooting in 35mm anamorphic color. His previous works include features such as Indigo (2008) and Burning Land (2003), as well as various commercials and a documentary for the Discovery Channel. He answered a few questions for StudentFilmmakers Magazine about this project.
Let’s talk about Five Minarets in New York. What cameras did you shoot with?
Jim Gucciardo: The camera package consisted of an Arricam LT as the main “A” camera body, 1- Arri 435 for high speed sequences, and 1-Arri 235 as Mahsun Kirimzigul, Jim Gucciardo (behind the camera), and an additional camera for handheld and crew working on the set of Five Minarets in New York. special Steadicam situations. This project was shot in anamorphic 35mm using the Hawk Anamorphic V series lenses. We choose to work in anamorphic since this gives us a unique look but mostly because this offers us the highest resolution and highest quality image available.
Do you work predominately in 35mm? Is there a specific reason for this?
Jim Gucciardo: Yes, I work primarily in 35mm, because to this date this is still the gold standard of image acquisition. Cinematographer Jim Gucciardo Although I find the digital world to be interesting, particularly in the world of post-production and distribution, I don’t particularly like the look of it. Also, with the exception of the Panavision Genesis or the new Arri Alexa, I also don’t think that equipment currently available is up to the standards of professional use and the workflow of many of some of the cameras out there is not very easy to work with.
Did shooting Five Minarets One of the Arri cameras used to film present any unique challenges scenes for Five Minarets in New York. during the production process?
16 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Director Kirimzigul works with actors on the set. Jim Gucciardo behind the camera.
Jim Gucciardo: The biggest very nice locations. I think the biggest deal. I’d honestly shoot anywhere with challenge for me personally as the challenge of working in New York, is them. cinematographer of this film was working that it’s New York City… New York City I wanted to ask you about your in anamorphic. Anamorphic lenses are a doesn’t come to a halt just because you editing process. Do you use a digital bit slower than normal lenses and also are shooting a movie, so dealing with intermediate for editing? What is pulling focus on them can be a real the reality with a degree of patience is the digitizing process like? challenge. I had to compensate often by very challenging. increasing the amount of light on the set Jim Gucciardo: All the exposed How about in Istanbul? What being photographed and by having and film has been processed at Deluxe lab unique challenges were presented exceptionally good focus puller as part of in New York City [the New York dailies there? my team. were supervised by Thomas Centrone Jim Gucciardo: Working in at Deluxe NYC] and Sinefekt Labs in Where in New York did you Istanbul is a great experience as well. Istanbul, Turkey. I have a very good shoot? I’ve been working here for many years relation with both of these facilities and Jim Gucciardo: We shot all over and have a great crew that I’ve been think that that relation between the DP the NYC metropolitan area and in some through a lot with and rely on a great and the Lab is absolutely crucial.
Director Kirimzigul and DP Jim Gucciardo on the set of Five Minarets in New York.
2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 17 Close-Up
Stills taken by Jim Gucciardo inside the DI suite of the movie being projected during the DI process.
Once the film is shot, it is scanned into a machine [in this case we during the filming process and oversees transferred at a “flat transfer” or “one- are using LUSTRE] at 2K resolution and our dailies. Again, I will state that the light” meaning no corrections have been prepared for the final grading or Digital relation between the DP and the colorist made and the most data information Intermediate [DI] process. [in the old days it would be the negative is available. This is then digitized and timer] is absolutely crucial, and I rely on The final DI will be done at Sinefekt then sent to the editor to do his magic her input as much as I rely on my Focus Istanbul with my dear colleague and on it. Once the film is cut [this includes Puller and Gaffer. The DI process is the Senior Colorist Dilek Sarman Er. Dilek and CG components, composites, or title modern equivalent to negative timing, and I have worked together for over a sequences], the EDL [or master edit list] except we are working in the digital decade on hundreds of TV commercials is then sent to the lab to be matched up format and have much more control and this will be our second feature film to the original in-camera negative. All over the color corrections. After full together. She is basically my “other eye,” the selected and used takes are then re- grading, the image is then printed out to a positive film stock to make the final release prints. I find that there is some difference in the grading when going back out to the analog format due to the inherent differences in positive stocks, but this is usually corrected after one or two tries at the master print. Again, working with very experienced people that I know and trust their abilities and tastes, makes all the difference in the world. I would like to stress here, that even with all the miraculous advances in modern technology in both the acquisition phase as well as the post- production phase, you can never replace good, talented and experienced people that are behind the image.
Jim Gucciardo
18 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 807.344.7153
SIMPLIS DSLR RIG Close-Up
Alexandre Aja on the set of Piranha 3D.
Alexandre Aja and Piranha 3D Converting the Film to 3D in Post
Interview by Scott Essman
The film Piranha 3D is a horror converting the film to 3D in post the tension, I try to make the movie remake directed by French film director production and shooting underwater. more an experience than something Alexandre Aja and features an ensemble that you watch. I want the audience Why did you choose to create cast including Richard Dreyfuss, to cross the screen and live the same Piranha in 3D? Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, and situation that my characters are living Christopher Lloyd. Aja discusses Alexandre Aja: Since I stopped in the story. Storytelling is still the best creating Piranha in 3D, including working in the genre and started immersion tool. The 3D is another tool working on the fear and suspense and that can really help the experience of
20 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 #28839 - Avid SFM_Layout 21/03/2011 12:37 Page 1
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B e c a u s e i t m a t t e r s . Close-Up
being inside the movie. You are in What are the specific advantages Alexandre Aja: I was born in 1978, the middle of having fish flying at you. of converting the film to 3D in so I didn’t see the first one in theaters. post? I never perceived a movie inspired by Did you shoot the movie Jaws, just a different kind of creature stereoscopically or was it created Alexandre Aja: When you shoot movie. Jaws is the ultimate masterpiece in post-production into a 3D film? real stereo and you want to use medium and the perfect movie today. Beside or long lenses, on the water, you want Alexandre Aja: We were supposed that, I’ve always had a lot of affection to use those lenses, but in stereo, if to go with 3D cameras but there were for Piranha because of the top makeup you have a big offset of the two eyes, some technical issues with the stereo artists of our time. It still has a tone the conversion will make everything cameras, you have to have the exact same that’s very unique. The original was look flat. When you use a long lens but light for the left and right eye. Shooting not really my biggest influence in Joe convert the shot in post, you can convert on water, that makes the technology not Dante’s world. My Piranha is much and make it exactly the way that your possible for us. Also, when you make more close to the Gremlins. The second eye would see it. When you set up the a movie in bright daylight, I explored one that James Cameron directed was a distance between the foreground and converting the movie in post in 3D. I different type of movie. background, you are stuck with that. saw 20 minutes in Peter Jackson’s King When you are converting, you can choose How is your Piranha different Kong, and it was the best 3D I’ve ever exactly where to separate that distance. from the original and your other seen. I am working on the conversion into It is a great process only if you have the US films? 3D until the last minute. I could have right people and time. I could have easily worked on it for another five months. It’s Alexandre Aja: What I really like worked another few months. a new technology and will get huge very in Piranha is it is not a straight horror soon. Michael Bay was talking about How much did the first Piranha movie – brutal and violent. It is more an conversion in Transformers 3 how much impress you? adventure-disaster movie. A sleepy town time he took. And we didn’t have his invaded by spring breakers. It’s a same budget!
How much of the film was edited before you could start converting it Film director Alexandre Aja behind the to 3D? camera on the set of Piranha 3D.
Alexandre Aja: We had to wait for the first cut where 80% of the shots would be the ones at the end. There are 1500 shots in the movie and each of them is very heavy into visual effects. You cannot convert a movie starting two or three months before you release the movie. You need at least eight months. It’s like visual effects – you cannot do amazing visual effects in two weeks, three weeks. It’s a human process and a visual effects process. It’s better than the real 3D though because you have more control.
22 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 HDSLR Filmmaking Workshop from Shoot to Post Production with Patrick Reis One-Day Intensives. Upcoming 2011
Dates: April 16, May 28, July 16, Aug. 13, Oct. 22 & Dec. 10. Early-Bird Benefits and Program Details at: www.studentfilmmakers.com/workshops
A Unique Opportunity to Learn HDSLR About the Instructor: Techniques from Camerawork and Monitoring Patrick Reis has shot with 16mm to Audio and Post. and 35mm cameras, as well as a myriad of video cameras including This full-day intensive continuing education workshop will Canon HDSLRs. Growing up in the demonstrate HDSLR filmmaking techniques, tips and tricks. You Hudson Valley near Woodstock will learn HDSLR camerawork and shooting video with HDSLR influenced the artist in him and cameras. Who Should Attend: Any filmmaker who wants to now he travels across the United improve his or her game by being up close and learning with an States and overseas for projects. HDSLR master shooter. Cinematographers and camera operators Reis enjoys the collaborative aspect interested in the new wave of HDSLR technology and techniques. of filmmaking and admires the Still photographers who want to shoot video. Find out the answers filmmaker that can succeed when to these questions: Why choose a DSLR over a traditional video they test the limits of the system. camera? What are the best audio solutions for HDSLR? What is the HDSLR Post Production Workflow process like?
Presented and hosted by Register Online Now at studentfilmmakers.com/workshops Close-Up
Alexandre Aja: When you shoot real stereo and you want to use medium or long lenses, on the water, you want to use those lenses, but in stereo, if you have a big offset of the two eyes, the conversion will make everything look flat. When you use a long lens but convert the shot in post, you can convert and make it exactly the way that your eye would see it. When you set up the distance between the foreground and background, you are stuck with that. When you are converting, you can choose exactly where to separate that distance. It is a great process only if you have the right people and time. I could have easily worked another few months.
Alexandre Aja with actress Elisabeth Shue How much did the first Piranha on the set of Piranha 3D. impress you?
Alexandre Aja: I was born in 1978, being inside the movie. You are in the time he took. And we didn’t have his so I didn’t see the first one in theaters. middle of having fish flying at you. same budget! I never perceived a movie inspired by Jaws, just a different kind of creature Did you shoot the movie How much of the film was edited movie. Jaws is the ultimate masterpiece stereoscopically or was it created before you could start converting it and the perfect movie today. Beside in post-production into a 3D film? to 3D? that, I’ve always had a lot of affection Alexandre Aja: We were supposed Alexandre Aja: We had to wait for Piranha because of the top makeup to go with 3D cameras but there were for the first cut where 80% of the shots artists of our time. It still has a tone some technical issues with the stereo would be the ones at the end. There are that’s very unique. The original was cameras, you have to have the exact same 1500 shots in the movie and each of not really my biggest influence in Joe light for the left and right eye. Shooting them is very heavy into visual effects. Dante’s world. My Piranha is much on water, that makes the technology not You cannot convert a movie starting two more close to the Gremlins. The second possible for us. Also, when you make or three months before you release the one that James Cameron directed was a a movie in bright daylight, I explored movie. You need at least eight months. different type of movie. converting the movie in post in 3D. I It’s like visual effects – you cannot do How is your Piranha different saw 20 minutes in Peter Jackson’s King amazing visual effects in two weeks, from the original and your other Kong, and it was the best 3D I’ve ever three weeks. It’s a human process and US films? seen. I am working on the conversion into a visual effects process. It’s better than 3D until the last minute. I could have the real 3D though because you have Alexandre Aja: What I really like worked on it for another five months. It’s more control. in Piranha is it is not a straight horror a new technology and will get huge very movie – brutal and violent. It is more What are the specific advantages soon. Michael Bay was talking about an adventure-disaster movie. A sleepy of converting the film to 3D in conversion in Transformers 3 how much town invaded by spring breakers. It’s a post? fun adventure ride. This is what I really
24 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 like because it’s like taken on a ride in Alexandre Aja: I love the genre and a roller coaster than put in a blender. If story that puts characters in extreme we use more blood in this movie, it’s still situations. I will keep producing but I a suspenseful scary adventure with a lot would like to develop something different of comedy also. – maybe sci-fi. I grew up watching manga and Japanese animation called Cobra: In Mirrors, I really wanted to make the Space Pirate. It’s like Pirates of the this movie – coming from the roots of Caribbean in space. It’s an amazing sci-fi humanity. After this movie, you can adventure story created in 1977. It took bring that kind of feel with you. Before me years to secure the rights and now I Jaws was made, we had a phobia of what want to take the time to develop this and lies beneath. That was the same thing I make it as my next movie. tried to do with Mirrors. Will you ever return to Europe I had to fight to keep the political to make movies? subtext in between in The Hills Have Eyes. I had to keep that same feel with Alexandre Aja: I really like Piranha with spring break – a rite of working here [in the US] so far because passage, a sarcastic approach that is I have managed so far to get control of crazy and extreme. Whose side are you my movie and have final cut. The day I really on – their side or the piranhas’ could not do the movie I want to make, I side? would do [another] movie in France. What was it like to shoot underwater? Scott Essman started writing about Alexandre Aja: We had an amazing and for entertainment while still at underwater DP. I spent a lot of time in the University of Southern California the water. It was such a cool way to make in the mid-1980s. His filmography as a movie. We had to build up one of the producer, director and writer includes A biggest tanks in America. We found out Tribute to the Westmore, Monster Kids, that to move all of the crew to another Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the pre-existing tank would cost more than Monsters, King Kong 75th Anniversary to build our own tank in Lake Havasu, Tribute, Ray Harryhausen Interviews, Arizona, which is a man-made lake but The Mummy 75th Anniversary Tribute, also a rock-bottom lake, so the water Making the Monster: Special Makeup was very clear. Usually, in a lake you Effects Frankenstein Monster Makeup, cannot see past 10 feet. We had 42 days Jack Pierce: The Man Behind the to make the movie, with eight weeks of Monsters, and A Tribute to the Wizard of prep before this. It was a big amount of Oz. challenges. I like that shoot because it creates a very strong bond between the cast and crew. It’s a surviving story, like the surviving script. Do you want to keep making films in the horror genre?
2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 25 Documentary
Documentary Camerawork, Locations, and Lighting Q&A with David Lent
Independent documentary producer and cameraman David Arriving at the Alexander Palace Hotel in Skopje - Media Lent shares unique and challenging experiences working in Central for the international networks - I was horrified to the trenches on documentary shoots. Lent discusses lighting discover they were all fully-staffed. No work for me. I had issues that documentary film/video crews might face and rented a room with a local Serb family and it didn’t take long shares lighting techniques and advice for filmmakers. to sense that something ominous and chilling was growing in Macedonia. Under the noses of the foreign networks - too Could you share with us one of the most unique or focused on the much sexier refugee crisis and NATO bombing most interesting situations you experienced working in to notice - a civil war was brewing. Faced with the choice of the trenches as a cameraman on documentary shoots? cutting my losses and returning home or staying in Macedonia David Lent: Watching the news reports, in the spring to document what only my intuition perceived as a looming of 1999, about the alarming flood of refugees pouring into conflict, I went all in. Macedonia from Kosovo, I recalled how much money I’d made Problem was, Americans were viewed as the bad guys in freelancing in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the first Gulf this tiny, tense and hapless Balkan nation. As NATO bombers War and decided: “This is for me!” I packed my bags and terrorized Macedonia’s Serbian brothers and sisters, I took a promised my wife and daughter I’d stay out of the line of fire. lot of heat and occasional abuse on the streets whenever I was recognized as an American. Unlike many of my colleagues who thrive on madness, I have relatively thin skin and days passed when I was barely able to leave the house, petrified of getting beaten up or worse. I remember thinking, “How am I going to make a documentary if I’m too scared to leave the house?”
In Van Nuys Airport, Flight Coordinator Jeff Miller of Guardian Helicopters instructs Dave Lent in the sequence of steps necessary to release the harness connecting him to the helicopter, get himself out of it and inflate his life vest, in case they were to go down in the ocean. Behind Jeff is Max Flint, the host of the BBC series of documentaries called Liquid Assets. Photo by Dave Sampé. Dave Lent rehearses the unlocking sequence for Jeff, before he can be cleared to fly. Jeff makes sure Dave can get out of the harness in case of water landing. Photo by Dave Sampé.
26 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Dave Lent with his Audio Recordist and longtime “In this shot you can see that if I were to lose my grip on colleague Dave Sampé. “Dave put a lavalier mic inside the camera, it’s not going anywhere. In the early 80’s, while my headset so the conversation between the pilot and me flying over Kings Canyon National Forest in California, a could be recorded. On some aircraft, the sound person gust of air ripped the camera away from me. But in those can plug directly into the communications system.”-DL. days, the camera was attached by an umbilical cable to the Photo by Nigel Bellis. record deck; it dropped about six feet and I was able to hoist it back on board. Ever since then, I put a leash on it.”-DL.
“As we head for the Hollywood Hills, let me direct your attention to some of the unique challenges of shooting from the open door of a helicopter. First, it’s cold up there, even though it might be mild on the ground. So I’ve got my North Face jacket, liner and gloves. Without appropriate eyewear - tinted ski goggles are ideal - the wind would tear up one’s eyes making it impossible to see the “This shot gives a better view of the harness. I’m viewfinder. I removed the camera mic and lens hood - both could wearing a seatbelt, but don’t feel comfortable unless be easily blown off against 150mph windspeeds. I’m cradling the I’m also attached to the bulkhead by a separate camera so my arms can act like a Steadycam, absorbing the harness.”-DL. Photo by Dave Sampé. vibration. And I have a microphone and headset to communicate with the pilot.”-DL. Photo by Dave Sampé.
2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 27 Documentary
I came across a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: “Go joyfully into the horrors of the world.” This became my mantra. I decided that whatever happened, even if I went down, I was going down having a good time.” I put a “F—k NATO” sticker on my camera and carried a half dozen amulets for safety and good luck. My driver, who I trusted with my life, became my bodyguard; I supplied him with a two-way radio and earpiece and instructed him to alert me to any approaching threats. In three trips to the Balkans, I shot Hotel Macedonia, recording the sequence of emotional changes that lead a society to war. Among the things I discovered there is that we learn courage by being courageous. It’s just practice. I also discovered, in the place I least expected to find it, the darkest side of human nature. I saw it in myself. Chinook C47 moving sandbags for barrier on Louisianna beaches. Did you ever experience “Murphy’s Law” on a news or documentary shoot?
David Lent: I’m frequently humbled by the sheer number of ways that things can come undone in our business. Fortunately, over time, experience teaches us ways to respond gracefully to the pressures of things (or people) falling apart, not showing up, getting lost or damaged or mysteriously malfunctioning. I’m often reminded of this quoted from Arthur Jones, inventor of the Nautilus (exercise) machines: “Success comes from good judgement. Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.” Whether it’s an equipment or people problem, I find that stepping back, approaching it from a different direction, trying something different - as many times Photo taken by Cheryl Gerber, shooting for the New Orleans as necessary - usually leads to a solution. Times-Picayune. Example: I work with a news anchor and making her happy with the way she looks is challenging. Often she needs to do a standup in the midday sun, making it difficult to light her since it’s just me and a sound recordist with five minutes to set up. So I bought a 42-inch translucent flip-open reflector and asked the sound guy to hold it over her. She now looks much better in this light than she did with a 400w HMI in her face. Low tech solutions are often the best ones.
What would you say was one of the most beautiful locations that you had the opportunity to shoot in?
David Lent: It’s not easy to pick one because there is so much beauty everywhere. But the Arabian desert is breathtaking. One of the most inhospitable yet haunting and beautiful environments I’ve experienced. “The downwash from this giant Chinook helicopter would have blown me over had my producer not wrapped And the most challenging location? himself around the tripod.”-DL
28 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 David Lent: I had stupidly shared my remaining bottled Photo taken by Cheryl Gerber, shooting for the water with my Sudanese traveling companions before arriving New Orleans Times-Picayune. at a home for street kids outside of Khartoum. Once there, our hosts offered Pepsi and, dizzy with the early symptoms of dehydration, I eagerly accepted. But it was delivered in a glass with ice cubes. In my compromised judgment, I actually convinced myself, “If I drink it fast, I’ll be ok.” Wrong. The ice was from contaminated water and I was fortunate that (1.) I didn’t get sick until I arrived home two days later and (2.) A local urgent care physician with experience in tropical diseases provided the right treatment, allowing me to make a policy: Don’t share your water with people who don’t need it. The Sudanese, like many in that part of Africa, don’t perspire as we do and their bodies have adapted in ways that use water more efficiently than ours do.
What are common lighting issues that documentary film/video crews often face?
David Lent: I’ll speak for myself. Occasionally a producer or correspondent will ask me to put a “slash” of colored light on a wall behind an interview subject. As a student of the Sven Nyquist (Ingmar Bergman’s cinematographer) school of lighting, it must be logical and I don’t want a viewer wondering, even unconsciously, “Where the hell did that slash come from?” So I find myself in the position of doing my best to please my client and at the same time needing to please myself. If I win more of these small battles than I lose, it’s because I feel strongly about lighting and am usually able to convince the client, in the words of the great director John Huston, that “notice the work and Interview with BP Exec after spill. the magic is gone.” This is as true for camerawork, audio and editing as it is for lighting.
Another issue I find common is the tendency of many of us to throw up artificial lights without exhausting the natural light available to us. Today’s cameras are so sensitive that artificial light is often unnecessary. Hell, just move the chair close to the window. Pull that lamp over. Replace the 60-watt bulb with a 100-watt and there’s your key light. Switch the gain to +6 and you have a nice fill. Perhaps I exaggerate a little but my point is to first use what’s there, if for no other reason than it’s free.
I recently shot a short doc about DC gang violence. Never used an artificial light. The gain switch, flashing police lights and streetlights were the only sources. “Airboat trip to damaged marshlands, Grand Isle, LA. Could you share with us one or two lighting My soundman on left is Rob Shire. We’re joined by a techniques or solutions? still photographer and our airboat captain.”-DL
2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 29 Documentary
David Lent: When I light a one-person interview, for news David Lent: I’ve always been a Sony camera / Canon stories in darkly-lit government buildings and think tank lenses / Lowel lights guy. That being said, I can assure you conference rooms, I use a Lowel Rifa 44 - either tungsten or Panasonic, Fujinon and Arri make equally wonderful tools. I’m fluorescent - as a soft key, placed above the reporter’s head. I learning the PDW-700 and like it a lot, especially for its weight, put up an opposing backlight - a Lowel Pro Light 125w with a but I often shoot P2 with an HPX2100, heavier but equally snoot covered by 1/4 blue gel - on a small boom arm behind and beautiful images. I took a Sony PDW-350, a half-inch XDCAM, above the subject so it hits the shoulders and, softly, the back to Honduras this year, with a 13x3.3 lens and loved it. of the head. The quarter blue on the back light is something I My favorite videomaking tool is one I designed myself: the learned from a Hollywood DP; it gives a slight color temperature SteadyBag. In the early 80’s a guy in a wheelchair came up to contrast between the key light and backlight - not distinctly me while I was shooting a local news story in San Francisco. visible but the effect is a slight coolness. I’ve been doing this He said he wanted more than anything to be a shooter but he for 20 years and clients love the look while having no clue as to couldn’t use a tripod from a wheelchair. I couldn’t get him out why it’s so appealing. of my thoughts and eventually made a beanbag camera support The HD you do is limited to live shots for Fox News so anyone could have a rock-solid shot from any surface. I was Channel. Could you tell us more about this and kind of the butt of jokes until one of the KRON-TV veterans, Dick give us a behind the scenes of what goes on and your Williams, started using a SteadyBag I made for him. Then the workflow? station bought twenty of them. Now they’re everywhere.
David Lent: If I didn’t have to do the job of a mule to What are your thoughts on HDSLR filmmaking and pack, haul, unload, set up and reload all the gear required for 3D? network live shots, the work would be totally fun. So I don’t David Lent: My dad used a Polaroid 3D still camera as I do it often, usually only when my partner Grant Peacock (The was growing up and the photos he took with it, viewed with Washington Group) is overbooked or needs a second camera at a stereoscopic viewfinder, are mind-blowing and make me feel a location. For me, the fun part is the pressure. While we’re as though I am there. I can only imagine that 3D videography setting up, say at one of the Senate or House office building will produce similar amazement and pleasure. I’d love to get Rotundas, the assignment desk will email a schedule of “hits” my hands on one of these cameras. for the day. Video and audio lines will be connected to a central patch bay serving all the crews in the Rotunda and the shooter HDSLR. Everybody I know who has a Canon 5D or a T2i will be connected to a “bridge” so we can hear the director loves it. These cameras bring people into the craft that might of the particular show whose host will be conducting the not have had easy access before. And throughout my career interview. Either a Senator or Congressman, with or without it’s been heavy cameras that have discouraged a lot of women media staff, will show up, get a mic dial up box and earpiece from the field. Most of what I do is hand or shoulder-held so a so they can listen to the show. Quite often things go wrong: the wide angle lens is critical for these small, lightweight cameras. control room can’t see the Senator or she or he can’t hear the I understand that many of the issues associated with HDSLRs, anchor or the volume on his or her dial up box is barely audible such as overheating and audio limitations are being worked or the battery is dead. Or you suddenly find out from the desk out. Much of what I do, professionally and personally, involve there will be two guests, not one, and you only have one dial interviews lasting up to an hour, so I’ll be near the head of the up box. Or one of the other crews has a problem with your light line when that limitation is pushed away. being in their shot, across the Rotunda. Or you can’t break for lunch because you’ve got to be available for an unexpected, If you could share one piece of advice for new and last-minute hit. Amazing how much can go awry. But it’s live aspiring filmmakers and video makers around the television and brings great satisfaction when it’s done well and world, what would it be? nothing unforgivable happened, i.e. no one notices the work. David Lent: When I first picked up a video camera in 1971, What are your favorite cameras and film/video I didn’t know the value of a great teacher as I do now. Granted, making tools? the technology was new and there weren’t a lot of us practicing
30 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 the craft, let alone good enough to teach it. But now I know that David Lent’s Filmography Includes: with a mentor or coach the level of mastery I reached in twenty 1990-Present: Dave and Company provides news and years could have been accomplished in ten. So my one piece of documentary cameraman for numerous domestic and advice is: Get a Guide. Find someone whose work you admire, international broadcast clients. someone who is doing the kind of work you want to do. Find a 2005: “The 5 Keys to Mastery,” Video Documentary; Director/ way to make yourself useful to that person. Do whatever you Cinematographer/ Producer. have to do to become an apprentice. 1970s: David co-produces and shoots three prison And I can’t resist adding one more absolutely crucial piece documentaries, including the critically acclaimed PBS special, of advice: Follow your passion. “When you follow your bliss, Life Without...Inside San Quentin. that thing that truly electrifies you,” as Joseph Campbell said, 1980s: David produces, shoots and edits a large body of “four things happen automatically. (1) You put yourself in the news, corporate and documentary programming. With Susan path of good luck. (2.) You meet the people you want to know. Burgess-Lent, he co-produces the documentary feature, Staying (3.) Doors open where there weren’t doors before. And (4.) Doors Alive, inspired by Studs Terkel’s best seller, “Working.” open for you that wouldn’t open for anybody else.” The expanded and updated edition of “The Laws of Camerawork,” called “Video Rules,” will be out in the spring of 2011.
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GZ\ZciJc^kZgh^in^hVXXgZY^iZYWni]Z8dbb^hh^dcdc8daaZ\Zhd[i]ZHdji]Zgc6hhdX^Vi^dcd[8daaZ\ZhVcYHX]ddahidVlVgYVhhdX^ViZh!WVXXVaVjgZViZ!bVhiZgh!VcYYdXidgViZYZ\gZZh#8dciVXii]Z8dbb^hh^dcdc8daaZ\ZhVi&-++Hdji]ZgcAVcZ!9ZXVijg! 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 31 Directing Elicit an Organic and Believable Performance from Your Actors The Acting is the Thing by Jonathan Moore I always enjoy the look on my that the performances of the cast be Oftentimes, the most valuable element students’ faces when they learn that organic and believable. Giving attention of this exercise is not having each they will have to act in a scene for my to the actors, first and foremost, is the student to act in a scene, but to feel what Directing for Film and Television class. most significant action that a director the actor feels when getting direction. Is At first, they exhibit surprise and even can take when attempting to craft a the direction good? Bad? So-so? When shock. Many students are likewise good story and film. a student is subjected to particularly surprised to hear that for at least the good – or bad – directing, they learn first third of the class, no cameras or Actors crave tangible, playable a great deal about the effectiveness production equipment will be used. The direction. Telling them how to feel or of communicating with actors. The entire first part of the class – sometimes what kind of emotion they should project lessons learned can be applied to their much more – is dedicated to learning is not competent directing. Actors must own directing exploits. A well-known the basics of how to communicate be given something to PLAY. An action cinematographer and film educator once with actors and elicit an organic and verb, an objective, etc. But more than said that if one wanted to be a director, believable performance from them. that, an actor must know his or her then he or she should study acting. I super-objective – or overall life want/ couldn’t agree more. One can practically hear them need – for the entire story. In order to exclaiming, “this is not what I signed up get to this point, a director needs to have The director/actor relationship is of for.” thought clearly and deeply about what the utmost importance. Studying and drives each character in the story and in learning about that relationship can But it is. each individual scene. Next, the director be beneficial to filmmakers. Several Unbeknownst to many beginning should communicate these things with years ago when I was in graduate film film students, the performance of the the actor at length, communicating his school, I worked on the crew of a friend’s actors is a director’s most important or her thoughts and ideas in rehearsal thesis film. A multitude of production responsibility and his most valuable tool and meetings. assistants showed up to work for free, of storytelling. Students enter college eager to learn and get something to put No camera or production equipment on their resume. But instead of watching film and video production programs is required for any of this. more technically advanced than ever my friend, the director, work with and before. By the time they sit in front of Perhaps my favorite part of the class briefly rehearse the actors before he shot the instructor, they have shot hundreds is the first project, when the students each scene, they all huddled around the of hours of footage on digital cameras, must direct each other in a short scene. I very expensive and impressive camera edited many of their own projects and marvel at how, suddenly, the previously and admired it greatly – almost as if it inserted sophisticated graphics and raucous and outgoing student is were a golden calf. Nearby, the director effects. But some of the most technically muffled into nervous silence. Likewise, was taking his actors through the paces, talented students seem to forget that sometimes a particularly timid student experimenting with different direction, none of these things matter if they do will blossom and come alive when acting answering their questions. When I later not know how to effectively tell their in a scene. It only makes sense for a asked several of these young production story. And story – is what it’s all about! director to put herself in the shoes of the assistants what their long-term career A satisfying story, complete with great actor, experiencing what it is like to give goals were, each and every one of them characters, structure and plot, requires a performance and to take direction. said they wanted to direct. 32 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 They were observing the wrong scene if the performance of the actors viewfinders and shot lists dancing in my thing. is flat and unbelievable? The true head, and not a kernel of an idea of what magic of filmmaking is when both the to tell her regarding her performance. Many publicity photos of well-known performance and visual elements of a directors feature them behind the film are married together in a union of Actors do not automatically know camera, looking through the viewfinder, beautiful artistry. But the first thing a what a director’s vision is. I have met framing a shot and participating in any director must do is to discover exactly many brilliant and talented actors. Not number of technical activities. But this what kind of performance he wants – and one of them proved to be telepathic. They is not all there is to directing. It is a then take the vital and necessary steps must be communicated with. But before part of directing, yes, but not the most to achieve said performance. Once that that can be done, the director needs to important element of it. has been done, then the technical and know what her own vision is. She needs to have done her homework. For sure, a director must know visual pieces of a film can be crafted. cinematography, lighting, sound, and During the second half my Directing No matter how beautiful the film many other things that make up the class, students are asked to direct two looks, or how wonderful the locations and physical craft of making a film. But more scenes and incorporate those sets are, or how breathtaking the music there are others to help with those crafts, technical elements. The challenge is, and sound effects are – if the living, including the director of photography, the again, to remain completely and totally breathing creatures who are playing the camera man, the grips and gaffers, the committed to the actors’ performance characters in the story do not produce sound mixer and so on. But there is only while also working, in collaboration, a competent performance, the film may one person who has the responsibility, with the rest of the crew - on the floor be flat, uninspired and amateurish. Lay authority and license to give actors plan, shot list, lens and lighting choices audiences will not remember coverage direction: the director. Likewise, there and other nuts and bolts of technical or great lighting. They will remember a is only one person that the actors look directing. When faced with these added good story! And a good story starts with to for guidance, leadership, creative responsibilities, students find that they good acting – which comes from good inspiration and overall mentorship: the start to forget about the performance directing. director. Too often, the actors are left and neglect the actors, falling prey once alone, to fend for themselves, while the Now more than ever, student again to becoming drunk on the visuals filmmakers need to understand that director obsesses over a camera angle, and the allure of the camera equipment. a light or some other production matter. actors are not the only ones who need to The ones who can integrate both “break a leg.” Directors: by all means, become involved disciplines into their craft while placing in these things, but only AFTER you the actors as their top priority stand Action! have tended to the needs, questions the best chance at becoming effective and concerns of your cast. If a cast is storytellers. continually left in the dark and not At 7’0”, 300lbs, Jonathan Moore given adequate attention and direction, Directing is not for sissies. It can could be the largest filmmaker in the they will begin to direct each other and be a sobering moment when you realize world. Occasionally his height allows themselves. This is the quickest way to that you have several actors – real, him to play bit parts in movies. This lose control of a set and film. If you want live human beings - looking to you summer he had the great distinction of to give up all your authority and creative for leadership, inspiration and good, shoving Robert Pattinson in the back control, alienate your cast. playable direction. Some beginning in a scene for the upcoming film, Water filmmakers are naturally intimidated for Elephants. An assistant professor The other aspects of directing by this moment of realization and the of Cinema/Digital Media at Vanguard – coverage, framing and the visual actors themselves. I know this feeling University of Southern California, aspect of a film are also important. all too well. Years ago when I directed Moore is currently completing a feature Many directors find that they are my first scene, a beautiful young actress length documentary about women who intoxicated with how their film looks. looked up at me with large and soft are married to the coaches of sports teams. His work has been screened in They can expend enormous amounts brown eyes and remarked, “I’m waiting many film festivals and broadcast on of energy fixating on the coverage for you to direct me, Mr. Director.” It public television. An avid screenwriter – the camera angles - framing of a was a moment of terror for me. I had and director, Moore loves telling stories scene and the cinematography. But no idea what to do. I had visions of what good is a beautifully shot and lit that touch the heart. 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 33 Screenwriting Symbols & Images for Sex, Love, and Romance Connect Your Audience to the Rich Stream of Meaning by Pamela Jaye Smith In our multicultural, instantaneously interconnected global of sex, love, and romance to create powerful poetry on the village, we speak hundreds of languages and thousands of screen. dialects with diverse and specific cultural backgrounds. How In History, Myth, and Contemporary Times can we communicate effectively across all these borders? The creation myths of many cultures begin with sex, Symbols and images affect people emotionally – hence typically a father sky and mother earth, though sometimes their exceptional effectiveness. Because there is no particular it’s a solitary act, such as the Milky Way being the result of rational attachment to them, visuals are a universal language a deity’s self-pleasuring. Sex, love, and romance are a regular that engages our intuition and imagination. part of many deities’ existence, among themselves and with The more consciously you use symbols, images, and codes mere mortals. Sometimes the immortal sex partners aren’t in your stories, the more effective your message will be. Using human at all; Greek king-god Zeus surely holds a record for appropriate visuals will heighten the emotional impact of shape-shifting for his romantic trysts: a bull, a swan, a shower your story and will connect your audience to the rich stream of gold, etc. of meaning – conscious and unconscious – that flows through Fairy tales often have sexual innuendoes hidden throughout: humanity and our arts. magic kisses that awaken the sleeper (Sleeping Beauty), rings Passion is vitally important in stories. Without it you’ve got of fire or glass coffins surrounding a maiden (Brunhilde and a dry old report, not a vibrant lively story. Let’s explore sex, Snow White), tall towers and long hair (Rapunzel), tempting love, and romance and some effective ways to use symbols and apples and anatomically suggestive glass slippers (Cinderella). imagery in your own media to enhance these aspects of your Bernini’s white marble statue of Saint Teresa of Avila stories, documentaries, and marketing. surely depicts romantic if not downright sexual ecstasy. The Along with volcanoes and tsunamis, sex and love are arrow held by the Cupid-Eros angel standing over her and among nature’s most powerful, overwhelming, and radically lifting part of her garment can certainly be read as phallic. The transformative effects. Love, lust, affection, power plays, moment is taken from her writings, describing a spiritually reproduction, surrender, ecstasy, commerce, degradation, transcendent moment. The connection between sexual and consolation, the mercy boff, persuasion, deception, betrayal, the spiritual communion and illumination is deeply embedded in death of love... the entire gamut of human experience can be many mystical traditions, be it the spring mating of stand-ins reflected in sex. Add love and romance and you have yearning, for the gods, Krishna and the Gopi cow-girls, or Christ and his delight, and poetic inspiration. For the lucky ones, sex, love, bride the Church. and romance can become transformative and enlightening. Though in some cultures women and sometimes men as As poetry expresses in a few words the numinous potency of well are almost completely covered head to toe, in others near- our awareness of life, so too can you use symbolic illustrations naked is everyday attire. Clothing can thus say worlds about a person’s and a culture’s attitudes toward sex and romance. 34 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 It can also hide attitudes and actions, such as sexy outfits Watch Mad Men to see how girdles and neckties can be beneath a burka or garter belts under a pinstripe suit. quite sexy in their constraint, holding back all that fire and desire. Then compare it to the dropped-pants muffin-top look of Depending on the time and culture, same-sex love often has today where nothing is left to the imagination. Which is more to rely on secret signals, symbols, and codes. Whether a style of tempting and attractive? clothing, a mannerism, or a phrase, these codes open doors to an otherwise forbidden realm. In Apocalypse Now Redux, when Captain Willard and the boat crew reach a U.S. military base preparing for a visit by In Media Playboy Bunnies, they find the waterside stage decorated with Cultural mores have influenced what gets shown in media upright missiles (phallic symbols) and banks of lights in half- since humans began drawing on cave walls. Classical Greco- circles (breast symbols). In contrast to that rocking, raunchy Roman art is resplendent with nudes. Middle Ages Greek sexual sequence, when Captain Willard makes love with and Italian art featured buttoned-up pious churchgoers. In the French plantation woman, the tone is genteel, romantic, Victorian England, piano legs were considered too sexy for and yearning, filled with classical music, fine furnishings, viewing, much less real women’s ankles; less than a hundred billowing fabric, and soft lighting. Both sequences are about years later Britain led the fashion world with miniskirts. Time putting body parts together, but the feel is radically different isn’t the only divider of what’s appropriate; witness the severe because of the visuals and pacing. clothing restrictions in many strict religious cultures, even Two very effective pieces of media that can send people when surrounded by anything-goes modernism. into swoons of desire are Richard Wagner’s Liebestot (love- death) from his opera Tristan and Isolde and Maurice Ravel’s 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 35 Screenwriting orchestral piece Bolero, which became the theme song for the The first romantic kiss in Australia happens during the first 1979 movie about erotic desire, 10. Both works use sustained rainstorm of the monsoon season. The sheen of perspiration is tension and specific pacing to create the mood. Listen to this often a cue for sexual exertion. music for excellent patterns of how to pace your sentences, your Air: In times and cultures where showing physical contact camera moves, your editing cuts. between a couple is forbidden, the camera often swings out a Attitudes about sex are cyclic. For differing uses of symbols, window to the open sky to indicate wider horizons, limitless images, and codes to indicate same-sex love and how attitudes possibilities, and freedom from old ways. Showing the sun change over time, watch Maurice, the wrestling scene in coming up through the same window in the same room says Women in Love, Brideshead Revisited, In and Out, and the they’ve been in bed together all night, even if they aren’t director’s cut of Lawrence of Arabia. In the 1920s and 1930s, both still in the room. The balloons in Up are colorful, tender violets symbolized lesbian love, and the gender preference of symbols of the old man’s love for both his adored, departed wife women wearing men’s attire was highly suspect. In the 1930s, and their mutual sense of adventure. Paris supposedly forbade Marlene Dietrich to appear in public Sensual food: from bubbly champagne, to caviar and in slacks — or perhaps it was just a studio publicity stunt. oysters, to the blatant fig-eating scene in Women in Love, For various treatments of that type of sex and love, watch the culinary references can say delicious indulgence on many progression of the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle in levels. Lolita’s lollipop oozes nymphet seduction. Ice cubes the mid-1990s TV series Xena: Warrior Princess versus The L were never the same after Nine 1/2 Weeks. Chocolate contains Word series, Boys on the Side, Bound, and The Hunger. oxytocin, the feel-good bonding hormone, so a babe reclining Other examples are Gustav Klimpt’s painting The Kiss; on a sofa eating bonbons and petting a perfumed Pekingese is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; probably up to more than just relaxing. The effects of chocolate Atonement, In Harm’s Way, Secretary, Mrs. Brown, Kama sustain the entire film Chocolat. Sutra, Raise the Red Lantern. Disheveled hair and clothes: particularly when Specific Symbols contrasted to a formerly neat appearance. The popularity of the bedhead look is doubtless its implication of having just risen Underwear: in various stages of presence or absence. from a sexual spree. Clark Gable and Marlon Brando made undershirts really sexy. Madonna made underwear outerwear. Context matters: Use Underwear twirling on the ceiling fan says something quite · To show a deepening intimacy or commitment between different from underwear neatly folded in a drawer. Different characters. styles of underwear communicate different kinds of sex and love. In Fatal Attraction the good wife wore modest white · To show a sexual or sensual connection. cotton panties; the dangerous lover wore scanty lace lingerie, if any at all. · To show the yearning for some kind of connection. Fire: Deepa Mehta’s film Fire has excellent examples of · To show out-of-control emotions, or emotions too much the different types of loving and sexual connections centered under control. around different types of fire. Mythic Norse hero Siegfried · To indicate the crossing of a no-going-back line. must pass through a ring of fire to claim the warrior princess Brunhilde by waking her with a kiss. But first he thoughtfully · To show danger, devastation, or destruction via sexual removes her armor ... riiight. threat or actual assault. Water: Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott-Thomas sit · To parallel the breaking of an individual’s or people’s together in a bathtub after first making love in The English spirit — rape as a weapon of war. Patient. A rain-drenched kiss in Streets of Fire brings former lovers Diane Lane and Michael Pare back together, for a while. 36 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Cinematic Techniques a piece of music, you’ll want it to begin tentatively, then move to slow and languid caresses, then increase the pace of actions- To be symbolic rather than explicit as in actual pornography cuts-angles to a crescendo, a pause, and then a relaxation. or the likes of Grand Theft Auto, keep in mind what creates Listen to the musical pieces suggested above for ideas on sexual and romantic tension: yearning. Move in closer to the pacing. “target,” – a pair of luscious lips, a hand, a lock of hair – but stop just short of contact. Sustain that visual pause to raise Be sure to find and show the passion in your projects using the tension before completing contact. Or stop before visible symbols and imagery to convey your meanings. It’s what we contact; it all depends on the style and plot of your story. will all gravitate to and dwell on – unconsciously, instinctively and if you’ve done it well, delightedly. To indicate sex about to happen, let the characters move down out of frame, or turn the lens away from the characters. Make great media and great myths! Or send then toward a bedroom like Rhett carrying Scarlet up Pamela Jaye Smith is a mythologist, writer, story and that grand staircase in Gone with the Wind. production consultant, and award-winning producer-director. Down with Love is replete with sexual symbolism and Credits include Microsoft, Paramount, Disney, Universal, GM, spoofs on same, as is Austin Powers: International Man of Boeing, and the US Army. Pamela attended UT Austin film Mystery. Both use the placement of props, camera angles, and school and has taught at UCLA Ext., USC, AFI, RAI-TV Rome, intercutting to make visual sexual jokes. National Film Institute of Denmark, Pepperdine, and many others. Her books for media makers include “Inner Drives,” Sexual charge and tension are created by friction, literally “Power of the Dark Side,” “Beyond the Hero’s Journey,” and as well as imaginatively. If you think of a seduction scene like “Symbols. Images. Codes.” www.pamelajayesmith.com Photos taken during the “Hands-On 3D Production Workshops with Julian Chojnacki DGA, SOC, SOA” at the StudentFilmmakers.com headquarters in Manhattan, NYC. Register online now for professional training at studentfilmmakers.com/workshops 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 37 Screenwriting not focusing on the problem, but focusing on the solution. And it was said it as a Focus on Plot result of conflict… or plot. As independent filmmakers, we Don’t Depend on Your Characters Alone strive to expose the internal struggles we all go through in our lifetime. A great filmmaker finds a way to parallel by Terence Brody that internal struggle with external conflict. This way we not only feel what Have you ever come across films Dynamite doesn’t have to. However, our protagonist is feeling but we see that have very vivid and interesting he does have to be challenged. Our what he’s up against. And films are a characters, but often the circumstances protagonists need conflict, and we can’t visual medium after all. The “Unwilling they are in aren’t that interesting at be afraid to challenge them. When we’ve Hero,” as an example, may be a bit on all? decided that we have made it as difficult the nose, but he’s certainly more popular as possible for our heroes, throw yet in Hollywood than the “Willing Hero” Writing great characters isn’t easy. another obstacle at them, maybe two. these days. His reluctance shows that he We better know them very well before It’s not easy – we love our characters. has his own demons within to deal with we share our story about them. So we do We don’t want to see them get hurt, and and hopefully the resolution of the plot our homework, and we delve deep into it’s downright painful to watch them will in some way provide a solution to their past to dig up all the experiences squirm, but it’s absolutely necessary. his inner conflict. that make them who they are today, right? If you’ve ever been mired in the I love great dialogue, and let’s be So many Hollywood movies produced unforgiving muck that we call the honest – we don’t get enough of it. It’s are based on a logline. “A paraplegic “second act,” then you learned that your very satisfying when an interesting marine, dispatched to the moon characters need to be fully developed character says something that really Pandora on a unique mission becomes before we can move on past Page 30. makes you feel something. A simple torn between following his orders and Filmmakers are inspired by characters. line of dialogue that puts everything in protecting the world he feels is his home.” It is other human beings that fascinate perspective. Cool Hand Luke escapes The characters come later. But James us and force us to put the pen to paper from prison to attend his mother’s Cameron doesn’t develop a story devoid and roll the camera. But what is it that funeral but returns in a timely fashion. of terrific characters. So if we’re going to your main character has done that’s so When the guard apologizes for punishing start with the amazing protagonist that darn interesting, and why do we care? him, Luke responds, “Saying sorry don’t everyone needs to know about, we better make it right, boss.” Why does that put him in one heck of a bind. As a script reader for The Shooting line stick out in my head? It is much Gallery, many moons ago, I read more than just a well-defined character numerous screenplays that were flawed delivering a great line. That character Terence Brody is a screenwriter from by how often nothing happened in the goes through hell up to that point, and New York. He wrote the produced short stories. After a while, I thought it was the last thing any of us want to see is film titled, “Beer, Chocolate or You,” a cruel joke being played against me. Luke getting punished again. The line which can be seen on minimovie.com. So many funny, sweet, interesting, just breaks my heart. Most recently he published the novella, and quirky characters with so little “Rescuing Madison,” based on the to do. Now, don’t get me wrong, your What makes us spew memorable screenplay he wrote. protagonists don’t have to save the dialogue in our own lives? Ask the closest world. We all know Napoleon Dynamite person to you what words of wisdom isn’t going to wrestle the missing nuclear you shared with them that they won’t bomb from the spurned CIA agent bent ever forget. I would bet that your most on getting revenge for being used as a profound utterance was a result of some hitman for most of his adult life. But unfortunate situation, unfortunately. I it was certainly proven that Napoleon would also bet that the line was positive, 38 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Production Sound Workshop with Six-Time Emmy Award Recipient Richard H. Topham, CAS Learn real-world production techniques and new HDSLR sound tips, tricks, and best practices from a six-time Emmy Award recipient and 30-year veteran in the motion picture industry. What You Will Learn: • Psychology of Production Sound Recording. About the Instructor: • What the Sound Mixer really hears. • What the Camera Operator, Director and the rest of the Richard H. Topham Jr. has worked with many major world hears. films, televisions series, sitcoms, commercials and • Cocktail Party Effects. industrial videos. His clients include Paramount, Universal, Warner Brothers and all major networks. • Digital Recorders. In addition, Rich has set up musical sound • Sound for DSLR. systems for Record Companies, Music Videos, • Microphone Basics. Band Rehearsals and Tours for Madonna, Frank • Selection and Application of Microphones. Zappa, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and • Boom Operator Techniques. Bruce Springsteen. The N.Y.P.D., L.A.P.D., U.S. • Practical Usage of Lavaliers and Wireless Mics. Including Postal Inspectors, the FBI, DEA, CIA, ATF and IRS How-To Rig Lavaliers. Advanced Use of Plant Mics. have also all used his services in setting up their • Portable Mixers, including both ENG Mixers and Mixing surveillance systems. Rich is also a member for Boards. National Associate of Technical Investigators with top security clearance, and NRA Range Safety • Set Etiquette. officer and teaches trap and skeet shooting. Event Date: Who Should Attend: Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 Filmmakers, Videographers, Directors, Venue: Producers, and Sound Department Crew StudentFilmmakers.com who want to improve their skills, keep 1123 Broadway, Suite #307, New York, NY 10010 updated on tools of trade and take their productions to the next level. Presented and hosted by Register Online Now at studentfilmmakers.com/workshops Music and Sound Location Audio Settings for Avid MC5 Workflow by Fred Ginsburg, C.A.S., Ph.D., MBKS Here is a concise guide to selecting 30fps, when in reality they are trying Media Composer Version 5, that was the proper double-system audio and to say 23.976 or 29.97 frames per second just released this summer (June 2010). timecode settings for your digital audio (video). Then there are the 2:3 pullups As of November 2010, these settings are recorder, when recording sync sound for that are added to the 23.976 frames recommended practice. SD video, HD video, and film projects to bring them up to the 29.97 video Dr. Ginsburg is a production sound that will be imported into MC5. standard that television sets and VTR’s mixer with over two decades experience demanded. So it makes a lot of difference These are very confusing issues for in professional filmmaking and video to editors whether or not we are shooting the newcomer as well as for us seasoned and has recorded production dialogue for video release in 29.97, 23.976 HD, veterans. When I began my research to on feature motion pictures, episodic or returning to sprocketed film. And find what I considered simple answers television, TV commercials, reality, whether or not our editing software can to simple questions, I was shocked that documentary, corporate, government, handle actual 24 frame footage, or fakes even many of the industry experts had to and music videos. He has a long list of it in a 29.97 virtual world! think carefully about the answers… for credits including: Beverly Hills 90210, not only has the technology of film and The location Sound Mixer has to Platoon, The Island, Clear and Present video production crossed each other’s choose what bit rate and sampling rate Danger, Terminator 2, and Patriot lines, but changes have come about in to use, and what the proper timecode Games. Fred has written and published the world of Avid and the way we deal settings need to be. This guide skips more than 100 articles on production with these myriad files. over the theory, but presents the techniques and authored the “Guide latest consensus on what settings are to the Nagra 4.2 Sync Recorder and For example, video likes to confuse preferred, based on the capabilities of Production Sound Recording.” film folk with terms like 24fps and Picture Format Avid Project Type Location Audio Audio Timecode Notes 16bit 48k .BWF* 29.97 ndf timecode No pulldown of audio required. No pulldown of audio required. 24bit 48k .BWF 29.97 ndf timecode 29.97 SD video 30i NTSC Check with postproduction before using 24 bit. No pulldown of audio. Avid can autosync audio w/o TC by 16bit 48k .WAV Non-timecode recorder marking IN points at head slates or OUT points at tail slates of video and audio clips. 16bit 48k .BWF* 23.976 timecode Pulldown of audio not possible. 23.976 HD Pulldown of audio not possible. Check with postproduction video 1080p/23.976 24bit 48k .BWF 23.976 timecode before using 24 bit. 16bit 48k .WAV Non-timecode recorder Pulldown of audio not possible. Avid can pulldown audio to match picture speed; set Avid Audio 16bit 48k .BWF* 30.00 ndf timecode Source Tape TC Rate to 30.00 fps. Avid can pulldown audio to match picture speed; set Avid Audio 24bit 48k .BWF 30.00 ndf timecode Source Tape TC Rate to 30.00 fps. Check with postproduction Film 24fps about using 24 bit. or true 24p 24p NTSC 16bit 48k .WAV Non-timecode recorder Avid can pulldown audio to match picture speed video 16bit 48.048k Although recorded at 48.048, files are stamped by recorder as 30.00 ndf timecode .BWF only 48.000, so Avid plays them back at 0.1% slower, same as if they had been pulled down. Make sure that audio checkbox 24bit 48.048k 30.00 ndf timecode is DO NOT CONVERT or else you will pulldown the original file .BWF twice! *Industry most prevalent choice of settings. Special thanks to: Joe Schwartz (Calif. State Univ. Northridge, CTVA Dept.), Sam Kauffmann (Boston Univ., author of “Avid Editing”), Charles Parra (Denecke, Inc.), and Mike Paul (Location Sound Corp.) for their consultations on this matter. 40 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Film Business Showing Your Work for That All-Important First-Job Interview Break into the Animation Industry by Tony White Today the odds are always stacked against the first time Also be versatile and open-minded with any job opportunities job seeker as there are quite often more individuals seeking come along. First-time job-seekers invariably do not find their work than jobs to satisfy the need. Therefore, as a young and ‘ideal’ position from the get-go and so they have to be prepared emerging animator it will pay you to prepare for your own to consider a ‘plan B’, or even a ‘plan C’ if necessary! The most career path wisely. Self-evaluation is of paramount importance important thing these days is to get a start anywhere you can, and certainly more than a cursory evaluation from individuals until the day comes where you can navigate a move to where within the industry will serve you well. You will definitely need you eventually want to be! to be prepared in one or two unexpected areas. Traditional art, for example, is one such area. ‘Networking’ is your biggest friend as it’s far more effective for you to build your connections within the industry from Skills in traditional art techniques are still very valuable a position of employment than from an outside position in the modern digital world. The ideal is that if you both draw while unemployed. Students should always seek ‘internship’ well and learn how to operate software well at the same time. opportunities whenever they can, for although these are If you succeed in doing this you will certainly be more of a usually unpaid positions the networking opportunities that premium to an employer than someone who specializes in just open up are invaluable. one of these skills. The 3D animator who also knows about ‘color’, ‘perspective’, ‘anatomy’, ‘form’ and even ‘2D animation’ is Today the odds are always stacked against the first time definitely a better catch for a studio than a sole CG technician. job seeker as there are quite often more individuals seeking This could well put you ahead of the pack – especially with the work than jobs to satisfy the need. Therefore, as a young and bigger and more accomplished studios. emerging animator it will pay you to prepare for your own career path wisely. Self-evaluation is of paramount importance Consequently anyone considering a career in the and certainly more than a cursory evaluation from individuals contemporary animation industry should consider only the within the industry will serve you well. You will definitely need schools that give some kind of traditional art training in to be prepared in one or two unexpected areas. Traditional art, addition to a CG one. Therefore would-be students should be for example, is one such area. very discriminating when they choose their school. Don’t rely on a school’s name or reputation alone. First and foremost, Skills in traditional art techniques are still very valuable check the current faculty and the program that is being in the modern digital world. The ideal is that if you both draw taught. Degree programs are invariably many years long (and well and learn how to operate software well at the same time. expensive in terms of loans, etc.) so you don’t want to eventually If you succeed in doing this you will certainly be more of a discover you made poor investment years later! premium to an employer than someone who specializes in just one of these skills. The 3D animator who also knows about Despite the desirability of a well-balanced education offering ‘color’, ‘perspective’, ‘anatomy’, ‘form’ and even ‘2D animation’ is traditional and contemporary art skills, students should use definitely a better catch for a studio than a sole CG technician. their time to specialize in one favored area of production if This could well put you ahead of the pack – especially with the they can. The bottom line is that you need to understand your bigger and more accomplished studios. market and your own personal skillset - and know it well before preparing your portfolio of work for your job search. Passion for Consequently anyone considering a career in the what you do and what you have done is another attraction for contemporary animation industry should consider only the a potential employer going through the hiring process. If you schools that give some kind of traditional art training in don’t convince them of your passion then you might as well not addition to a CG one. Therefore would-be students should be show up for the interview! very discriminating when they choose their school. Don’t rely on a school’s name or reputation alone. First and foremost, 42 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 check the current faculty and the program that is being One thing that is a major feature of the modern animation taught. Degree programs are invariably many years long (and world is that most jobs are cyclical in nature and it is therefore expensive in terms of loans, etc.) so you don’t want to eventually important that you always give the very best of what you can discover you made poor investment years later! offer to the studio when you are working for them. Most jobs these days are limited time contract jobs so even if you are in Despite the desirability of a well-balanced education offering the industry you always have to think of ways that you will traditional and contemporary art skills, students should use remain in the industry! So even while you are hired, don’t close their time to specialize in one favored area of production if down your job-seeking instincts. Keep your ear to the ground they can. The bottom line is that you need to understand your for upcoming opportunities and check them out if they present market and your own personal skillset - and know it well before themselves to you. preparing your portfolio of work for your job search. Passion for what you do and what you have done is another attraction for The animation industry has never been one for jackets and a potential employer going through the hiring process. If you ties and by and large the artists and animators in the animation don’t convince them of your passion then you might as well not world dress casually and live their lives less conventionally show up for the interview! than most. That said personal appearance and demeanor is still very important when you go for that all-important interview. Also be versatile and open-minded with any job opportunities This doesn’t mean that you have to look and behave as if you’re come along. First-time job-seekers invariably do not find their attending church or a funeral. It just means that you have to ‘ideal’ position from the get-go and so they have to be prepared present yourself in such a way that the person interviewing to consider a ‘plan B’, or even a ‘plan C’ if necessary! The most you feels comfortable and not threatened. Remember, most important thing these days is to get a start anywhere you can, animation production is a ‘team experience’ and therefore you until the day comes where you can navigate a move to where will always be judged if you appear acceptable as one of the you eventually want to be! family! ‘Networking’ is your biggest friend as it’s far more effective Now it’s time to discuss the do’s and don’t’s of presenting for you to build your connections within the industry from your work. You are only as good as the work you show. Your a position of employment than from an outside position work has to be accomplished and have quality. It needs to be while unemployed. Students should always seek ‘internship’ opportunities whenever they can, for although these are usually unpaid positions the networking opportunities that open up are invaluable. The biggest challenge any job seeker is confronted with when seeking that first job is ‘work experience’. Quite often someone can be totally suited for an advertised position but is denied employment because they don’t have any. This is a hard one to get around and often reveal an eternal question: ‘How can I get a job if I don’t have industry experience but can’t get industry experience if I don’t have a job!’ The best advice I have for students is to chase those internship opportunities when you can, or if that’s not possible, offer yourself as a pair of free helping hands to any studio that is in need of help. Remember that most importantly you are indeed gaining industry experience and building your personal reputation and networking contacts at the same time. Another way of networking is to attend seminars, conferences, events, and even comic book fairs with at the very least your current business card in your pocket. You never know when you will have that magical moment of being in the right place at the right time, which nobody can legislate for. However, if you aren’t there you will never get the opportunity to prove yourself, so you always need to be prepared to be ready for such moments. Ideally you should have your portfolio or animation showreel with you when you go to such event opportunities – and at the very least always keep your business card with you should a chance encounter with a potential employer occur. 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 43 Film Business imaginative yet it has to be relevant. It also has to answer the Showreel length: A consensus of opinion suggests that needs of what studios are currently looking for. Yet it has to showreels should be something between 3 - 5 minutes long, no be unique and versatile too! As indicated earlier, studios are more. mostly looking for a person who’s good at everything and yet can bring something entirely new and exciting to the party. Content: Show your very best work that will turn heads but not everything you’ve ever done. Studios prefer seeing a Here are some thoughts on what should be presented short piece that is packed with animation goodies than endless when applying for an animation position. repeats of mediocre or widely varying work. Today the very best animators are not just software jockeys. First 20 seconds: The reality is that only the first 15- They are artists in their own right that just happen to know 20 seconds of your animation work is guaranteed to be seen! how to operate software too. Often film and game production Employers are under extreme time pressures these days and so are done under great time and money pressures, so it is better they will tend to decide whether they want to see more or not for a studio to have an employee they can switch from their in that amount of time. So, always put your best work at main specialty to support the needs of other departments when the very front of your showreel. the crunch comes. More and more studios are now feeling that drawing is so important to their artists that they even hold Packaging: If the content of your reel needs to look weekly life drawing classes for everyone. I therefore cannot professional then so too should the packaging. So keep the stress enough the importance of drawing for the working packaging elegant yet simple. Keep the information it contains professional in this competitive day and age. A strong portfolio to a minimum too. Just have your name and the contact of wide-ranging drawings, designs and illustrations is still information on the front of your presentation package and one of the strongest support weapons a job seeker has in their nothing else. portfolio - in addition to their regular animation showreel. You Short film content: Because of the need to show initial may have already developed your own drawing or artistic style. impact and versatility, it might not be ideal to just show only a The once great Disney studio has specific requirements when short film as your animation showreel presentation. they reviewed a showreel… Core content: The following is a recommended outline of Gesture drawings: These were required to demonstrate a what you should show to demonstrate your animation ability. feeling of life, movement, volume and structural clarity. (i) Core actions - specifically walks, runs, jumps, idles, Sketchbook drawings: Applicants were expected to keep tumbles, deaths, etc. a personal sketchbook, which would record observations from life as well as from the artist’s imagination. They called these (ii) Other full body bipedal reactions. ‘Café drawings’ and were expected to be generalized sketched observations of people going about their everyday lives, (iii) Facial actions - with or without lip sync. especially in the form of action poses. (iv) Quadruped actions – natural quadrupeds and/or Animal drawings: Portfolios were also expected to show fantasy beasts, etc. drawings of animals in both movement and at rest. (v) Principle actions - with secondary actions and follow- Figure drawings: Applicants need to offer drawn through movement where necessary. explorations of the human form – clothed or naked – with a (vi) Special effects animation – but only if you’re simple but clear examination of the unity of form and a more interested in this kind of work. detailed examination of things like hands and feet with a special emphasis on how a character moves and behaves. I wish you ’good’ luck with your future job hunting! Refined drawings: For further evidence of artistic skills, applicants were advised to show more developed drawings that included portraits, much more detailed hand and feet drawings Tony White is an award-winning director, animator, author in terms of the human figure. and educator. Currently a full-time senior lecturer at DigiPen, Tony studied animation with industry legends Ken Harris Finally let’s discuss what is required of an applicant’s (Warner Brothers), Art Babbit (Disney) and apprenticed with animation showreel, which is by far and away the most Richard Williams - 3 times Oscar winner/author of “The important element of the animation job interview. Animator’s Survival Kit”. Tony has written three best-selling animation books and is now proud to add a fourth, “Jumping Through Hoops: The Animation Job Coach” via anibooks.org. Blog: http://blog.animaticus.com. 44 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 between a reading and a shooting script. Give them A Shot Card for that an oral synopsis, not the full treatment. They can read the shooting script when they’re on location in Shot-in-the-Dark Keokuk. Another good reason for a tight elevator pitch at the beginning. And remember this: Not everyone can with Film Investors visualize film from a script. Lots of words here would be superfluous for Hitchcock. 7 Important Tips (5.) Budget: Emphasize what you’ve raised or scrounged and explain Monte Carlo Film Economic Theory: 1/3rd lose money, 1/3rd break even, 1/3rd make at least a by William F. Vartorella, Ph.D., C.B.C. modest profit. Plus, note that most indie films come in on-time, on-budget. Summarize above-the-line and It’s been said the reason legendary director Alfred below-the-line costs in a couple of sentences. Plus, this Hitchcock came in on time and under budget was because he is what has already been invested and what we need to had every shot already planned and executed in his mind. finish the project. Real numbers: “25% of the budget is That’s the message here. Hitchcock, as you will recall, made already covered,” etc. On this, no longer than the time more than 50 films and often spoke about “pure cinema.” it takes your buddy to hot wire a car in Manhattan. Unfortunately, pure cinema, however it is defined in today’s (6.) Distribution: If you have even marginal domestic, economy, is purely about money. you’ve got a shot at capturing investor interest. Don’t fall into the black hole of saying you’re going directly to Whether your elevator pitch to investors is planned or DVD, worldwide. Investors aren’t used to suspending impromptu, you need a shot card to stay on message and to belief. anticipate questions. (7.) Trailer: The only reason you have a SmartPhone Be prepared, keep it elegant, simple, and real. The invasion is to store your trailer for instant viewing by an of Europe was reportedly summarized in one page. This is investor. Otherwise, when you are talking about your film. Try this: Take out a three by five-inch card (call it a “shot film project, keep it “off.” Trust me, that’s not Alfred card”) and make a simple list that you can carry in your wallet Hitchcock calling from the “great beyond” and everyone or purse. (Copy it to your SmartPhone, but don’t depend on knows it. (“Half pepperoni, half veggie would be technology.) great.”) Visualize the movie trailer from North by (1.) Elevator pitch: Remember short and evocative – Northwest with the biplane scene. Short, evocative. Fellini’s La Dolce Vita meets Hitchcock’s Vertigo. That’s it. Your “shot card” is full. An observation – if you go (2.) “Stars attached?” Forget about it. Everybody to any major film premiere or insider reception, look around. It’s knows your cousin Vinnie may have met that A-lister the folks drinking bottled water you want to talk to. They are at some film school seminar or reception, but he can’t either serious producers seeking investors or investors keeping get him or her on the telephone. Keep it real. If you a clear head to discuss projects. Hitchcock always has the final have someone who has agreed on a napkin, well, that’s word: a start. Don’t linger on this. “The length of a film should be directly related to the (3.) Gratuitous sex and violence. (Shower scene, see endurance of the human bladder.” Same is true for your elevator Hitchcock.) You don’t have the experience or the actors pitch. Only shorter, like the attention span of an investor. to shoot the first or the second unit specialists for the second. With your luck, you’ll get someone pregnant or killed. Yes, there is a love story and Marsha gets her Bill Vartorella recently has been on the other side of the hair pulled. (Or make that “Bob”. Whatever.) `Nuff camera, with a “sketchy” appearance in All for Liberty and, said. most recently a historical television docu-drama (release 2011) in which his 12 lines took 12 takes. Each. The British lead (4.) Script: Circulate it to investors at your risk. They’ll suggested, “Don’t give up your day job.” hate it and everyone knows there’s a big difference 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 45 On Campus School of Visual Arts MFA Social Documentary Film Program Gives Students the Skills They Need to Realize Their Vision “Documentary films have helped shape our history and, more importantly, the stories we tell about ourselves.” The School of Visual Arts MFA Social Documentary Film program moved into its brand new home in the summer of 2009 just before welcoming the inaugural class. The department is located in the heart of Manhattan on 21st Street and 6th Avenue, and houses state of the art editing suites with sound mixers, a film and text library and voice School of Visual Arts MFA Social Emmy Award winning documentary over recording room. Each student has Documentary film program students. filmmaker Deborah Dickson in the classroom with her students. Photo work space available to them and access taken by Bao Nguyen. to the latest in HD video cameras and lightweight industry HD cameras; lighting and sound packages; and Legacy of Cotton, and The Education of Final Cut and Avid Editing Systems. Gore Vidal for the award-winning PBS Directing for The MFA Social Documentary Film series, American Masters. Dickson began Documentaries department gives scholarships in the teaching at the School of Visual Arts second semester of the program to help when the new MFA Social Documentary Quick Tips from Deborah Dickson fund thesis film projects. These are Film department launched and classes merit based scholarships based on work began in the autumn of 2009. Dickson (1.) Be prepared, i.e., know your done in the first semester and faculty helped develop the curriculum for the subject. recommendations. new division. (2.) Watch and listen. StudentFilmmakers Magazine “What is unique and wonderful (3.) Make sure your crew is catches up with faculty member about the program is that there is a happy, i.e., feed them well! Deborah Dickson, an Emmy Award- great deal of synchronicity between (4.) As for post production winning independent filmmaker whose classes – between directing and editing – structure, structure, filmography includes Frances Steloff: and camera/sound,” says Dickson. “The structure. Memoirs of a Bookseller, Lalee’s Kin: The benefits of pursuing an MFA in Social 46 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Documentary Film at SVA are learning the art and craft of making documentary films. And with an MFA, one can teach.” Dickson recounts when she first realized she wanted to be a documentary film director. “When I was a junior, I started taking still photographs and really loved it. I fell in love with light. I took a class in filmmaking when I was a senior and that did it – I was hooked.” Dickson’s teaching philosophy is to help students find their voices and to give them the skills they need to realize their vision. “It is also to challenge them and to encourage them to take risks,” shares Dickson. “I have been very lucky December 2007 to work with the people I did when I was April 2008 StudentFilmmakers.com The #1 Educational Resource for Film and Video Makers US$5.95 StudentFilmmakers.com The #1 Educational Resource for Film and Video Makers US$5.95 beginning – Leo Hurwitz and then David Q&A with DP John Seale, ASC Format, HD, and and Albert Maysles. And I have had Digital Technologies several incredible collaborators – Anne Belle, Susan Froemke and Scott Anger.” Lights, Guts, and Glory A Conversation with Daniel Pearl, ASC Clearing the Air with Filters Day-for-Night: Here’s How It Works Tech Focus: Reduce Your Film’s Carbon Footprint Shoot Cinematically, Regardless of Format 4 Tips for Shooting HD The Digital Stereoscopic Renaissance HD Lens M. David Mullen, ASC: Insights Column Guide to Running Efficient, Effortless Auditions Audio for Television: Mixing the Basic ‘Event’www.StudentFilmmakers.com Workshops | Forums | Network| Showcase | Tech Focus Time-Saving Techniques for Editors Adapters 2010, Vol. 5, No. 1 The School of Visual Arts MFA Social Audio for the Digital Age Plan the Workflow of Your Next Production SF2008_April.indd 1 3/30/08 7:26:57 PM www.StudentFilmmakers.com The #1 Educational Resource for Film and Video Makers US$5.95 2010, Vol. 5, No. 2 The #1 Educational Resource for Film and Video Makers US$5.95 Documentary Film department’s faculty, Full HD 3D Camcorder 3D CGI Story Plans mentors, and guides include a long list of multi-award winning filmmakers and of them include one of our country’s most Unlocking the Hidden Beauty honored documentary cinematographers, by Mike Valentine, BSC HDSLR Cinema H2O Filmmaking John Bailey, ASC on Brief Interviews with Hideous Men ßStill and Motion Imaging Collide A High Fall and a Helicopter: Capturing the Stunt ßAudio Solutions Rainforest Filmmaking Crash Course Tom Hurwitz, ASC who has received PLUS Live from New York, It’s Alexander Serpico 4Close-up Lenses Exclusive Interview Mixing Panel Techniques for Location Dialogue 4Oliver Curtis, BSC on Camera Moves 4Vertical Screen Challenge Director Vincenzo Natali Shedding Light on Homegrown Flare Effects 4Short Documentary Editing Splice numerous awards for his work including 4SMPTE Timecode in Sound Recording Directing and Writing for Science Fiction and Fantasy two Emmy Awards for Cinematography, four Academy Awards for Best Full- length Documentary, and over 12 Emmy Awards. More about the School of Visual Collect All the SF Editions Arts MFA Social Documentary Film program, faculty and department can be for Your Reference Library found at mfasocdoc.sva.edu. For immediate delivery, order online at: www.studentfilmmakers.com/store Keep track and stay abreast of the ever-changing technologies. 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 47 On Campus Regent University Helps Film Students Find Their Voices and Bring Their Stories to Their Audience “Filmmaking is a problem solving activity and cameras and lights are tools to help us solve those problems.” StudentFilmmakers Magazine drops in on Regent tools change we are changing how we teach these tools and University to find out what’s new on campus. Professional how we handle them. Our focus is the student and allowing in Residence Douglas Miller talks about Regent University’s them to have a foundation that provides the understanding Cinematography and Advanced Directing Courses, and shares and flexibility to adapt to the next generation of tools. his top three tips on filming in foreign countries. Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Soderbergh, David Lynch Douglas Miller has over 35 years experience in television have all issued challenges to rethink the very stories we are and film production, including writing, directing, staging, telling in light of these new tools that we have at our finger lighting and photographing in studios and on location. Doug’s tips. This generation of filmmakers that are currently coming experience has taken him around the globe shooting in through school have their own unique stories that need to be over a dozen foreign countries. He has lit large-scale multi- told and exciting new tools to tell them with. We are here to camera productions as well as single cam 2-man shoots. His help them find their voices and develop the skills and abilities film experience includes 35mm and 16mm, commercial and to bring their stories to their audience. theatrical release as well as documentary. Whether hanging Could you tell us a little bit about Regent University’s from an ultra light or bobbing in the ocean, Doug goes to Cinematography and Advanced Directing Courses? whatever lengths necessary to get the shot. Douglas Miller: On an undergraduate level the What’s new at Regent University? Cinematography class is designed to give the student a broad Douglas Miller: First thing that comes to mind is that we understanding of cameras and their use. But I take a problem have added two new faculty, but that is only an obvious sign of solving approach; filmmaking is a problem solving activity and some major reflection and evaluation. We have spent some time cameras and lights [Lighting is a separate course] are tools to looking at what has been working, what hasn’t and where the help us solve those problems. They are our brushes or chisels industry and world is going. We recently concluded a review if you look at it as painting or sculpture. On the graduate level of our curriculum to find areas that need revising and areas we take this a step further and look at cinema as a language that need strengthening. We are still story centered but as the and the student is developing their individual voice. Through 48 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 mastery of the tools and practice they become eloquent and We still have several 16mm film cameras and use them from able to express themselves in a subtle and effective way. time to time. I use the film cameras every semester I teach cinematography, because I believe that they are a great way to Could you tell us about some of the newer teach the mindset and discipline necessary to be a professional technologies that Regent University has incorporated production person. If you approach HD or Ultra High Def with into their Cinema-Television Department? the same care you would approach film you will make much Douglas Miller: We have begun our migration to tapeless better projects. production. We have equipment broken into tiers; access to There is no magic camera or tool; all are good in some the tiers depends on classes taken and then the top tier is for circumstances and bad in others. Picking the right tool for large projects. Tier two is primarily tapeless and tier three the right project is essential. People get hung up on individual is completely tapeless. Rather than investing in one top shelf elements, shooting 24p, this or that lens, this or that camera, a camera such as the Red, we have chosen to put more cameras in particular filter. I constantly say it is not the tool but the hand more hands. But that is not to say that we won’t, if the funding the tool is in that matters. In the end is the audience moved? is available, look at that option in the future. We spend a good Did the technical get in the way of the story or support the deal of time looking at and talking about all the tools available story? Nothing separates bad films from great films more than including film. indulgent filmmakers missing the point and thinking they are cool because of some gimmick. What is your teaching philosophy? Douglas Miller: I am a filmmaker. I have a disease Filming in it is called production and I am contagious. I am not sure I can teach anyone anything but I know that I learned and I can guide you in your journey. I feel like I am a back country Foreign Countries guide, I know the forest and love it and can help you travel along the way. This causes me to have conversations rather Douglas Miller Shares Pointers than lecture. I make presentations and structure the semester to make sure we make it to our destinations, but each class and “Tip number one is relax. If you relax and try not to force each semester is different because the students are different your timetable you can see actually where you are and how and have different needs and goals. I am as much a student you can work with those around you. They are people and as anyone and I am learning every day. My attention span is you must treat them with dignity, you must listen to them, short, I get bored easily, that is why I love production, new and not “use” them to achieve “your” goals. problems to solve all the time. “Tip number two. Prepare, do your homework, know I believe in asking questions. Questions directed at the what you have to do and anticipate possible issues and student, at myself, about everything. Some of the questions solutions. But be creative and flexible in the details in order have answers, some of those I know the answers before I ask, to achieve the main goals. Remember what is in front of some questions the answers need to be worked out. But living you might be far better than what you planned but you in the questions is an essential part of how I work. won’t be able to access it if you don’t see it. “Tip number three. Focus on the major points and let the www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/undergrad/cinema-tv.htm minor things slip away. You went there for a reason keep that in mind and make sure it shows on screen! And relax. 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 49 Meet the Manufacturer Nila Bringing Sustainable Engineering to Light locations and the people I have worked Jim Sanfilippo, Founder and CEO of with are almost always associated with NILA Inc., at the “Lighting to Create a Mood” Workshop with Peter Stein, positive experiences. My most memorable ASC, held at the StudentFilmmakers. project has to be the IMAX movie Brain com headquarters in Manhattan, NYC. Power. The film is centered around the Tour de France, and I spend almost three months in France with Rodney Taylor, ASC. We have a great time and are able to get some amazing footage. For that job I put an IMAX camera on a Libra Head on a motorcycle that travels in the peloton and is operated from a helicopter. StudentFilmmakers Magazine: When did you begin designing and building LEDs? Jim Sanfilippo: My first time using LEDs on set is on the films for the Luxor Pyramid in Las Vegas. I was working for Douglas Trumbull shooting miniatures. We use red and orange LEDs for indicator lights and accent lights on the miniature models. This is before blue or white LEDs existed. StudentFilmmakers magazine staff meets Adventures of Tintin. During his extensive Since then I have used LEDs on many with Jim Sanfilippo, Founder and CEO time on motion picture sets, Jim saw the more miniature shoots and became very of NILA Inc., at the “Lighting to Create problems and shortfalls of motion picture familiar with the technologies. In 2001 high a Mood” Workshop with Peter Stein, set lighting. Jim started NILA Inc. to bring brightness LEDs hit the market, and I get ASC, held at the StudentFilmmakers. the highest quality environmentally friendly some samples to play with to see if I could com headquarters in Manhattan, New solid-state lighting equipment to the motion use them for my VFX work. After my initial York City. After learning about NILA’s picture and television industry. Some of the tests I had to build a larger array to see if new revolutionary LED lighting solutions, projects and clients that use and have used it could compete with traditional fixtures. which Jim demonstrates at the continuing the NILA Lighting System include; Movies I founded NILA Inc. shortly after building education workshop, StudentFilmmakers Quantum of Solace (James Bond), Race that test array. magazine catches up with Jim for a quick to Witch Mountain, Angels and Demons, interview after the event. Oprah, CNN, China Central Television, StudentFilmmakers Magazine: What Channel 4 France, TV-Globo Brazil, HUD, inspired the design of NILA LED lighting Jim Sanfilippo, a 21-year lighting veteran of FAA, The United States Senate and the US solutions? motion picture and television production, House of Representatives. has worked on a diverse blend of high and Jim Sanfilippo: The two main drivers in low budgeted motion pictures and television StudentFilmmakers Magazine: What are designing our LED fixtures are all about the projects including over 500 TV commercials some of your most favorite and most environment. The first driver was a desire to and visual effects for feature films including: memorable productions that you’ve replace HMI globes that have a tendency Armageddon, I Robot, Day After Tomorrow, worked on? to explode or break on set, which releases The Departed, Vertical Limit, Mars Attacks, Mercury vapor (very toxic). The other Dante’s Peak, and Talladega Nights. Jim Jim Sanfilippo: The most memorable driver was to reduce power consumption. also built the lighting and motion capture projects are usually the ones that are High Brightness LEDs are now capable of grids for Avatar, A Christmas Carol and The the least amount of fun to work on. The replacing HMIs and dramatically reduce 50 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 United States Senate Continues power used without the use of any toxic heavy metals. “Greening of the Capitol” with NILA StudentFilmmakers Magazine: By the way, what Energy Efficient LED Lighting inspired the name of your company, NILA? Helieon by Bridgelux and Molex Allows Upgrades as LED Jim Sanfilippo: In the naming of our company we Technology Advances wanted to be associated with sustainability more than lighting. We chose a name that was short Continuing its “Greening the Capitol” initiative, the United States Senate has and easy to remember that had no associations renovated the largest hearing room of the Hart Senate Office Building using with lights or lighting. The name NILA means high performance, energy efficient LED lighting from NILA Inc. The renovation dark blue in Sanskrit and comes from the Blue program included the replacement of traditional incandescent lighting Nile. technology with NILA’s NH LED lighting system for enhanced video recording applications, as well as, a custom down light installation using the Helieon® StudentFilmmakers Magazine: What is your Sustainable Light Module. newest LED light? Prior to replacement, the incandescent lighting systems in Senate hearing room Jim Sanfilippo: Our newest light, the NILA SL, has SH-216 consumed over 55,000 watts of electrical energy. Only about 7,300 been in development for more than two years. watts are used after conversion to LED lighting, a savings of nearly 49,000 watts The goal with the SL is to have the light output or over 86%. of a 6,000 watt space light and the versatility of a 4K HMI par. The use on set for the SL is anywhere “The antiquated lighting systems in the Senate hearing rooms were the source you would need lots of light. The SL has been of a number o problems,” said Jim Sanfilippo, NILA’s president. “Video used for increasing the ambient in large spaces recordings have replaced stenography as the official Senate record, making the [casinos, sound stages] and as direct light source quality of the video critically important. The traditional lighting technologies [key or hard back light]. in use failed to produce the quality or quantity of light for the unique needs of video recording. Further, the heat generated by the traditional lighting StudentFilmmakers Magazine: What are you required significant energy to be used to cool the environment for the comfort exhibiting at NAB? of the hearing participants. The NILA NH system was an elegant solution that delivered bright, crisp light and precision dimming control capability while Jim Sanfilippo: We will have all of our products enabling energy savings and a 20,000 hour lifetime that will dramatically on display at NAB as well as lighting up the reduce overall maintenance costs.” camera display area for JVC. Our newest product is an inverter to power a NILA light by using your “In addition to addressing the unique lighting requirements for the hearing Anton Bauer or V-Lock camera battery. rooms’ video application, the Senate wanted to continue their efforts to reduce utility costs through the implementation of eco-friendly, energy efficient LED StudentFilmmakers Magazine: If you could share down lighting,” said Sanfilippo. “We designed a custom luminaire for the one lighting tip with filmmakers around the hearing rooms using the Helieon Sustainable Light Module by Bridgelux and world, what would it be? Molex. Helieon modules allow the luminaire to be easily modified as lighting requirements in the hearing room change, or easily upgraded as LED technology Jim Sanfilippo: The best technical tip I could give advances, without removing the luminaire from the ceiling. LED lighting was a filmmakers is to be aware of lighting wherever natural fit for both of these applications.” they go. In a restaurant, in your house, at the supermarket look around and see how the light The Helieon Sustainable Light Module is the first plug-and-play module to is affecting the people and objects round you. integrate high-efficiency precision lighting with an easy-to-use socketed Understanding lighting is to understand how solution. As LED technology improves, the Helieonbased down lights from different qualities of light effect different people NILA can be easily changed or upgraded with the simple twist of a wrist after and objects. As you look around and start to installation without the complexity and expense of removing the luminaire. notice lighting take a cheap digital still camera and take pictures to see how your perception changes from “reality” to the camera’s image. 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 51 HDSLR Filmmaking a monopod and a rig that allows you Achieve Exciting Shots While mobility to basically shoot on the streets, very low profile, with the ability to not get too much attention – this is very important Raising Production Value because Lovely to Me is about being able to be real, and has that kind of documentary essence within it. It is important that what Award-Winning Filmmaker Shoots New Documentary we choose to bring out on the streets is something that we can literally just be a with indiSYSTEM DSLR Solutions fly on the wall. I think what indiSYSTEM is able to do successfully is create a number of camera support systems, rigs, and gear that have outstanding quality and customer service, and at the same time, where the filmmaker is not having to pay an arm and a leg for something that’s going to get you the right shot. The cameras are constantly changing and evolving, and ultimately, they’re going to get smaller, and they’re going to get cheaper. StudentFilmmakers Magazine: Could you share one of your unique experiences using the SNAP! Gears on your video shoots? Gary San Angel: There are a couple of music indiSYSTEM Bulldog and indiSYSTEM BallGrip with a videos I do for a local artist by the name Schneider-Kreuznach Variogon 18-90mm f/2 using the of Wayne Hsu, where we just basically Panasonic GH2. Chrosziel 20601S follow focus. shoot around 1am in Chinatown. There is a completely blank, empty street with just Gary San Angel is a Philadelphia-based something that people cannot only see on a few cars passing by. We want to really do award-winning filmmaker, director, theatre YouTube but that can be submitted to film a different kind of music video by basically artist and songwriter. Within the last three festivals as well.” creating a sort of live environment and just to four years and when revolutionary having him play live. And at the time, Tim digital SLRs started appearing, Gary starts StudentFilmmakers magazine gets together is sending me a few of his SNAP! Gears to moving towards his passion for film. Using with Gary San Angel to find out more about test out. And these are gears that you place several of Tim Ovel’s indiSYSTEM DSLR how uses the indiSYSTEM camera support on the lens. They literally snap on, and you rigs and gear, Gary and his crew create a systems, rigs, and gear. can take them off immediately. They’re documentary, Lovely to Me (Immigrant used primarily for your follow focus for Mother), in collaboration with community StudentFilmmakers Magazine: Tell us basically focusing your lenses and getting arts organization Asian Arts Initiative and about how you use the indiSYSTEM DSLR that critical focus that you need when New York-based artist Taiyo Na. The film rigs and gear for your documentary, Lovely you need to rack focus your shots. One premieres as an official selection at the to Me. of the interesting things that I’m trying to Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival work with Tim on is the idea of, yes, these presented by HBO (autumn of 2010). Gary San Angel: One of the interesting things is this kind of marriage between Gary says that he and his crew are able to content technology and aesthetics. With the shoot the documentary for very little money indiSYSTEM rigs and gear, it really is about and with the help of using an indiSLIDER going with gear that’s going to provide us and indiRAILS pro MP from indiSYSTEM. the ability to do things that people do in “We are enabled to be low profile and Hollywood films but under a very, very tight do some interesting things and produce budget. Being able to use an indiSLIDER something that aesthetically is exciting and and indiRAILS pro MP, which is basically 52 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Gary San Angel Shares Real-World Applications indiSLIDERmini Deluxe: For Lovely to Me, we need a slider that we could use on a very crowded street. We can’t have anything big because we are right there on the edge of the corner of the street. The performing artist is doing his piece in front of the Chinatown Arch in Chinatown. What is exciting about it is we could use our wide angle lens and cinematically as he is talking really have the ability to move our camera, to push in, and get a nice tight shot of him. And Tests with the indiSYSTEM Bulldog and the then, also still be able to get the background and the busyness of the street. prototype of the indiMATTEwide/slide using the It’s that Hollywood feel of being able to use a dolly but in this case a $99 Panasonic GH2 and Canon B4 lens. indiSLIDERmini that didn’t take up room. I could put it on my tripod, take it out, lock it down on the tripod, and go back and forth, and get the right shot that I need. It is also important because we have a fixed position on the street. So if I didn’t have that indiSLIDERmini, I would have to move the camera at a few positions, which is impossible because of the crowds and cameras are getting smaller, especially, in particular, people down the street. the one that I am using is the Panasonic GH1, which allows you to use small 16mm lenses. The problem indiFOCUS and SNAP! Gears: is the lenses are really small. In order to really use them in a cinematic way you would need a follow I think the indiFOCUS is really kind of married in respects to the SNAP! focus. One of the interesting things, just back and Gear. To me, both components combined really are great for the price and forth conversations that I have with Tim, I say, is there functionality. The gear box is excellent. There’s very little backlash. And with a way that you could make something with your the SNAP! Gear it’s wide enough that you have enough room to be able to SNAP! Gears that will allow me to use these 16mm put it on a number of lenses, from very small V-mount lenses to large lenses. lenses? And so, he creates a collar that fits around the I think it’s a very unique solution because you can just snap on. There’s what lens, and then when you snap the gear on, it allows Tim calls squish, which are these little spongey tape-like pieces that allow you to pull focus with very small cinematic 16mm you to use it on the SNAP! Gear so that it can fit snuggly on your lens so lenses. That’s what I use to shoot with Wayne Hsu on that you can really have a snug fit. And then you can remove them and put those pieces. And again, very advantageous because different ones depending on the lens you have. So, it’s about being able to I can get this very old man’s quality to this amazing create something that a filmmaker can use both functionally and easily. The camera. It’s the fusion of the old and the new that last thing we want to do is have to worry that the gear fell off. Or that the is really exciting. Part of what I think is exciting tolerances on the gear box is off. I mean, I never had a problem. about the indiSYSTEM gear that I use, in particular, Bulldog: the SNAP! Gears, is that there would be no way to be able to use these lenses in a cinematic fashion What’s interesting about the Bulldog is you can really do three different kinds without it. And nobody has created a follow focus of shooting styles. You can put it on a tripod, you could shoulder mount it, gear as indiSYSTEM has that can snap on the lens just and then you can handhold it. For the Bulldog, this rig just came out recently, as easily and be removable and with the nuances, if so I’m playing around with it. One of the things that I am able to do is find a it’s specifically with these kinds of lenses that you’re way to use the Bulldog as a means to follow my nephew around. It is just a using. Most of the things I see or use have screws small piece that I’m doing. And the interesting thing with the Bulldog is that that can hurt the lens and those types of things that it has this very odd mount called the indiSYSTEM BallGrip. It’s kind of alien looking. It has these two balls on each side. And it locks down onto your rig. quite frankly you’ll take a long time to set up. With Well, I don’t know exactly what that is at first, and I call Tim, and ask, how the SNAP! Gears, particularly for this shoot – just do you use this thing? And basically, it made sense once he explains it in snap it on, put on the follow focus and, boom, I’m that people want to figure out how to pull focus with manual lenses, with a ready to go. handheld rig. What the BallGrip allows you to do is, your hand just fits like a glove over the ball and you can immediately grip it, and immediately grip your follow focus and still pull focus while you are moving your Bulldog in Visit indiSYSTEM at Booth # C7341 at NAB 2011. this case. That is really exciting too because in most cases you can’t do that. With the Bulldog and with the BallGrip, it allows me to really move around and pull focus at the same time. That’s something that I hope to use more in some of the upcoming projects that I’m be doing later this spring and summer. 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 53 Meet the Manufacturer Convergence Shooters Film On Location in Snow and Rain Using Photo courtesy of Collaborative Film. Photo SmallHD DP6 Monitors Credit: James Douglas Shields. StudentFilmmakers Magazine catches Garner continues, “So that means, negative 47 degrees with around 50 mile an up with Carson Garner and Ric Kasnoff to someone starting out could be shooting on hour winds. So what we would do is, we find out about their experiences with the a 7D or a 5D and then they don’t have to would run a V-Mount, or an Anton Bauer SmallHD DP6 monitors and how they are invest in an SDI model until maybe they style battery to power a Canon 5D or an using the DP6’s on their productions. add an F3 or an AF100 or ENG camera AF100, because regular internal camera into their production. And they can invest batteries die so quickly in that extreme Carson Garner is a documentary at that point to upgrade their SmallHD DP6. cold. I standardize everything to D-Tap or photographer, filmmaker, and producer. They’re doing lots of firmware updates.” P-Tap connections. So that means that one He is the founder of Collaborative Film Anton Bauer or one V-Mount will power (www.collaborativefilm.org) and owner of Garner is currently using SmallHD DP6 both the SmallHD, the camera system, an F9 Photo & Film (www.f9photo.com). Ric monitors on the Collaborative Film project’s audio system, NanoFlashes on the AF100s, Kasnoff is a photographer and certified documentary production. “If you just or anything. So that way you have one trainer (www.rickasnoff.com), and currently look at our crew list, we literally have an power system standardizing all our lighting serves as the national Vice President of amazing crew who come from the HDSLR, systems and camera systems.” the American Photographic Artists (www. motion video, and motion control worlds.” apanational.com). Everyone in the crew volunteers their time to come out and shoot for a broadcast 44- What’s the big reason for using SmallHD Carson Garner’s primary focus is being minute documentary on the life and work DP6 monitors on this production? Garner an off the beaten tracks documentary of Ski Patrol at several Montana Ski Resorts answers, “I think it’s almost 11 to 22 volts photographer. However, having an as well as the Search and Rescue teams it can take as a standard input. They have a engineering background allows him to that respond to winter emergencies in the Canon 5D battery mount on the back. You coordinate and design a lot of remote backcountry. can switch between the Canon 5D batteries power systems for running cameras in and 7D batteries to power it, or you can run locations such as Mount Everest and in the “We’re in the middle of production,” it on D-Tap. So that flexibility really allows middle of the mountains in Pakistan. Garner says Garner. “In fact, Vincent Laforet and I it to shine. And if you’re on the mountains, now does a lot of motion control work were just doing helicopter shots yesterday. I you can only carry 70 batteries, you don’t with programming small micro-controllers used the SmallHD on a RED camera, RED want to carry different types of batteries. to control camera systems. “I had gone to MX, RED One, Panasonic AF100, 1D Mark We could standardize everything to 5D a SmallHD DP6 maybe almost a year ago, IV, 7D, and a 5D. We have 5 SmallHDs batteries and V-Mounts.” right when they released. Primarily, I base a on the production. We ended up using lot of my stuff as kind of out of studio. Things primarily SmallHD for standardization.” Before Garner goes back on set, need to be kind of tougher and stronger. I he shares a quick monitoring tip. “For like the fact that the SmallHD DP6 has both Garner describes the production’s external monitoring, look after you record HDMI and the SDI connections. And I also power system setup. “What we primarily something, do a lot of testing with it before like the fact that you can buy the HDMI do is, I try to run everything off a powered to see the color you’re getting in the version and upgrade it later.” system because of filming in the extreme monitor, how it looks with the actual output cold. Some of the filming is done at about of the camera.” Ric Kasnoff’s Top 3 you’re shooting and how you’re shooting way out of whack. These camera files that and everything about it. If you don’t have the HDSLRs are producing are not that Monitoring Tips a monitor that’s capable of producing forgiving. They’re not stretchable, they’re great results then you’re hurting yourself not pliable. If you’re not calibrated and more than you’re helping. if you’re not getting what you’re seeing, (1.) Don’t shortchange yourself with you’re hurting yourself. a low price monitor. You’re paying large (2.) Calibrate, calibrate, calibrate. money, you’re investing in good camera When you get that monitor make sure (3.) Make sure the monitor you get is equipment for high definition quality. that you can calibrate it and that you upgradable, updatable. It’s a big thing. Your monitor is like your lenses. You have test, and you test, and you test. Because If you can’t upgrade your firmware to to have the best that you can afford, or if you’re looking at something and you’re take advantage of the leaps and bounds maybe even a little more than you can thinking you’re getting great exposure of technology then you’re really hurting afford because what you see controls what when you’re actually crushing the blacks yourself. or blowing out the whites and your scale’s 54 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 D7000s, which we decide to adopt as the Ric Kasnoff: We do a lot of multi-cam Q&A with Ric Kasnoff class camera. And as I am looking around setups with three cameras, D7000s. And I notice on the boards that this company the DP6s allow me as the lead photographer StudentFilmmakers Magazine: What called SmallHD is being mentioned very and teacher to look over at cameras that are are some of your unique experiences with favorably. I hadn’t seen anything about 6 to 8 feet away which are being manned the SmallHD DP6 monitors? them. I am trying to settle on a monitor by students who aren’t yet familiar with solution, and I contact Reed over there and the equipment – and monitor the whole Ric Kasnoff: Most notably my photo arrange for a demo. And I am amazed of situation, no pun intended. It is such a simple safaris in Japan I use the DP6, which is when I first get it in my hands. Number thing, but it is so valuable to me to be able the trip that really seals the deal for me one, the build quality is light years above to start pre-building the camera angle cuts with the SmallHDs. They are incredible for anything else I have encountered that is in my head and hinting to the students to travel. They’re light. They’re sturdy. I am in made for the HDSLRs. The aluminum case, move their cameras a little bit, or be ready pooring rain, freezing rain, flurries, hail, and the packaging. I mean, just the case it came for something, and to direct the talent. they never burp once. They are completely in. The first time I take one (DP6) out into One [classroom example] in particular is reliable. And being in situations like that, weather, I’m not worried, and I am amazed a singer does a nice little one-and-a-half the thing I love the most about them, is that nothing goes wrong. I have never had minute song. So we are building class files coming from a luke shooting situation a problem with the use, and I don’t want around that. Teach multi-cam shooting and on the HDSLRs to the monitor solution, to brag about it, but I throw my equipment leading up to multi-cam editing techniques it allows me to maintain my situation of into my bag when I run from place to place. in Final Cut Pro. What this enables me to awareness. Which – in the type of shooting I’m not really careful about re-wrapping it, do is maintain my position at the main where you’re doing the nature or travel stuff taking care of it and everything. It’s a job, camera, camera one, and monitor what the is really important. Being able to see what’s I’m out there, I’m trekking up a muddy path, students are getting on cameras two and developing just outside the frame and see I’m getting on a boat, it’s raining, it’s cold, three while directing the talent. After one or what’s going to impact footage in the next the bears are over there, we’re running. So two run-through’s I am able to almost hand few minutes, being able to anticipate and the equipment doesn’t get babied. And it is single and choreograph the singer through get ready for it. amazing how well the SmallHDs are built, that and at the same time highlight for the how well they are sealed, and how well they students that the talent is coming their way StudentFilmmakers Magazine: Could just keep on going. So far I’ve used them to their camera. And this is made possible you tell us more about your photo safaris in Egypt, out in the desert, shooting camel through the DP6s and isn’t something and the benefits you found in using the markets and bazaars, traveling all through we have even thought about before. And SmallHD DP6 monitors? Egypt, Mexico. Some of the interesting ones how we’re conceptualizing now creating a is out on Magdalena Bay. We are trying video village because they do come with Ric Kasnoff: We will pick an interesting to shoot the whales. It turns out that the the HDMI splitters. And running it back location whether it’s the grizzly bears in SmallHDs with their little hood is a much to a main director’s monitor. Which is Alaska along the Katmai National Forest, better solution for us. Even in the small something that’s a totally new concept for the snow monkeys in Japan, along with a boats rocking in the water. Then, of course, these still shooters coming over to HDSLRs. monastery in traditional Japan. What we do going to Japan for the snow monkeys. The Where video village – having an AD or is we shoot during the day and we learn at freezing rain, the constant wet conditions. somebody looking over your shoulder may night. September/October of last year when The activity of the monkeys themselves just be familiar territory to somebody who grew my student ratio from still photographers to lent itself to the monitor’s solution. Being up in the video world. Still shooters are what I call convergence shooters – people able to see the situation developing outside pretty independent. And they’re learning all who shoot both still and video with the the frame, and being able to immediately this team work. So this a great opportunity same cameras – when the percentage rose be ready for them. to teach how valuable working in a team over 50% we had to start including more and how necessary working in a team is the equipment, the methodology, the StudentFilmmakers Magazine: Tell us in this new environment, this convergence training, everything, in our course. So I go about your experiences using the SmallHD that’s being created. out and start looking at the available options DP6 monitors in a multi-camera setup in a for equipment. I am shooting a loop-based classroom setting. system, and Nikon had just announced their ©2010 Karin Kasnoff | photographer. ©2010 Ric Kasnoff | photographer ©2010 Karin Kasnoff | photographer 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 55 HDSLR Filmmaking TV and Media Producer Antonio Battista Chooses BeachTek DXA-SLR for DSLR Productions Active XLR Adapter for DSLR Cameras Ever since the DSLR Revolution and growing demand for online equipment will mean that we will get professional audio and don’t content ranging from online news broadcasts, commercials, and have to worry about stray noise inserted into the audio tracks. product ads – to webisodes, shorts, and features playing online – tools for producing content and getting them online have become In my opinion the reason the DXA-SLR is so important to more important than ever for filmmakers and producers. Content productions, is that when it comes time to post the material there creators and storytellers are always asking: What are the best tools is no need to sync the audio with the video as you would need to for getting the footage and content online? do with external audio recorders. All that’s left is the sweetening in audio programs such as Audition, Soundbooth or any other audio StudentFilmmakers Magazine takes five to chat with editing software. I love the fact that the DXA-SLR can Antonio Battista to talk about the BeachTek DXA-SLR, disable the camera’s AGC control to give you great which has become an important tool for filmmakers audio levels. Another great feature is being able and videographers shooting with DSLRs. to monitor the audio through the headphone input. Antonio Battista has worked in television since 1987. He started at Shaw Cable in StudentFilmmakers Community Television, directing Magazine: What benefits and producing, editing and training features, would you say, separate volunteers. Battista also spent a the DXA-SLR from other XLR lot of time in front of the camera adapters? hosting various television shows. He later designed and built the Antonio Battista: Harry Cable12 Community Channel in Kaufmann at BeachTek is Nassau, The Bahamas in 2005. In amazing. As a musician, I was the past few years Battista’s focus very impressed by his ear for has been back to productions and audio. He understands the need producing corporate videos, and for great clean audio needed for product ads for both television and video productions. In my opinion the web. the DXA-SLR is perfectly laid out, with the XLR inputs at the left side, all the StudentFilmmakers Magazine: controls easily accessible from the back, On what projects do you use the the 9 volt battery at the right hand side BeachTek DXA-SLR? can be easily replaced and attaching the DSLR camera is a breeze not to mention the Antonio Battista: In the past sturdy construction of the case. I leave my I have used cameras like the camera plate attached to the DXA-SLR, so in Panasonic HVX200, which put out a a production I slip it on the tripod, attach the great picture and are very reliable but lately camera, hook up the microphones ad headset I am very impressed with the quality HD picture on the new DSLR and we’re ready to roll. cameras like the Canon 7D which I purchased last year. I use it for studio and field productions. Just to clarify, the decision for using StudentFilmmakers Magazine: Could you describe one of your the Canon 7D DSLR was for the incredible picture quality on green best camera/audio setups with the DXA-SLR? screen productions, which I do a lot of, not to mention the depth of field film look. But what the camera excels in picture quality, it Antonio Battista: I’ve used it in single channel productions such lacked in the audio end. After searching for a solution, I came across as news stories with a Sennheiser wireless mic, to dual channel BeachTek and was surprised they were based out of my home town for interviews. Being a musician as well, I plan to do multi-camera of Kelowna, British Columbia. I met with Harry Kaufmann, the owner video music productions and concerts. Being able to take the live and designer of the DXA-SLR, and he gave me a unit to try on a few mix from the sound console will give as a clean bed track directly productions I was working on at the time. The DXA-SLR performed into the main camera with the DXA-SLR and room audio on the extremely well. I was blown away with the sound quality. Wow, we other cameras will be recorded with a microphone so I’m able to could actually use XLR mics on a DSLR camera, thank God! synchronize the video with the main audio in post. How sweet is that! I want to use DSLR cameras for almost all our productions and looking to add various rigs to the camera for ENG and One thing I would like to mention, even the greatest equipment location productions, and we can’t do this without DXA-SLR. It’s doesn’t guarantee that the productions will be perfect. You still need indispensable to all of my productions. Being able to use XLR to make sure you know how to use it and let’s face it, it’s not rocket science but practice makes perfect. 56 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 All StudentFilmmakers Magazine advertisers accept full responsibility for Global Marketplace the claims made by their advertisement. StudentFilmmakers Magazine assumes no responsibility for the content of any For print and online classified text and display ads, please call 212.255.5454 advertisements. EQUIPMENT RENTAL, SALES, FILMS & SERVICE “Get In-Sync.” Go to: www.insyncpubs. com. Motion Picture Equipment / Video. PRODUCTION MUSIC MOTION PICTURE / VIDEO PRODUCTION EDUCATIONAL CDs & DVDs www.take8films.com EDUCATIONAL BOOKS 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 studentfilmmakers 57 New Product Spotlight Ki Pro Mini: Lens to Post in a Flash Visit AJA Video Systems The AJA Video Systems Ki Pro Mini is the smaller, lighter version of at Booth # SL4420 its breakthrough portable tapeless recorder that captures to the Apple ProRes 422 codec directly from camera. With its miniature form factor and ability to mount easily to a range of digital cameras and at the NAB Show 2011 accessories, Ki Pro Mini makes for the smallest camera and recorder package available for the capture of high-quality 10-bit 4:2:2 files that are immediately ready for editing. Editing Insights Ki Pro Mini bridges production and post, effectively eliminating log and capture. It supports SDI & HDMI cameras and key features including: Organization • 10-bit full-raster recording to Jay Ignaszewski Shares an Editing Tip: Apple ProRes 422 SD and HD formats (including HQ, LT and I came up the old-fashioned way. I came up through the Proxy). apprentice, assistant, and then cutter editor position. • Recording of SD/HD files A big thing I learned by doing that is organization. And from digital video cameras to I think that’s where we have a shortcoming nowadays in Compact Flash cards. non-linear editing systems. People don’t take advantage, • Mac OS X friendly media and they just get it in their bins, they don’t really organize it by native QuickTime files – no scene or takes, wide shot, medium close-up. Which, what log-and-capture required. we used to do as assistants and apprentices is, we were • Professional video always organizing the show. So the editor would walk in, connectivity through SD/HD- and he would say, ‘Ok, I’m cutting Scene 23 today, I need SDI and HDMI I/O. all the master shots.’ You should be able to turn around and • 2 channels of balanced XLR pull that box and have everything in hand. The same way it audio with switch selectable should be with Avid, Final Cut Pro, or Premiere. You should line/mic levels. be able to go to your bin, and have your show all laid out • 8 channels of embedded and organized before you ever start cutting anything. digital audio over SDI and I mean, I’ve seen editors spend days just viewing their HDMI. footage until they know it so well, before they ever make • Flexible control options a cut, just to get familiar with it and where everything is. including familiar front panel That’s the big issue. I think a lot of stuff gets lost. Producers and web browser interfaces. want everything sooner, cheaper, and they don’t give you • Simple, plain-language file much time. So, our technologies (AJA Video Systems) is so naming. you can convert footage into a form that makes life simpler • Optional Ki Pro Mini and faster. There is a lot of meta data that’s available that Mounting Plates that attach to you can take advantage of but you just have to know what hot shoes, battery plates and Ki Pro Mini to look for and how to use it. And that just takes a few virtually any other accessory bracket. minutes to figure out. What day was it shot, what scene • Optional Mini Stand for convenient desktop operation. number, what reel did it come from, what camera shot, • Aircraft-grade aluminum construction that delivers light who’s directing, who’s the cameraman, and where does weight and maximum ruggedness. it go in the script and story… And those kinds of things there, just think about a bit... Ki Pro Mini is a key component in a streamlined Apple file-based production-to-post workflow, recording native Apple ProRes 422 AJA’s Jay Ignaszewski has a background in film. His QuickTime files onto CF cards, which are formatted as HFS+ filmography as an VFX Editor and Post Production volumes that are instantly connected to a Mac computer via off-the- Supervisor includes Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the shelf CF card readers. It includes two CF card slots, one active and Jedi (1983), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), The one standby, enabling users to switch from one card to the next at Fly II (1989), Twin Peaks (1990), Eraser (1996). the push of a button for non-stop, run-and-gun recording. 58 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Event Date: Saturday, April 30 through Sunday, May 1, 2011. Venue: StudentFilmmakers.com 1123 Broadway, Suite #307, New York, NY 10010 TWO-Day Hands-On RED Production Workshop with Jon Firestone, Tim Hardy and Scott Pelzel Presented and hosted by StudentFilmmakers.com About the Instructors: Jon Firestone has written several articles published StudentFilmmakers Magazine with topics ranging from camera movement and camera techniques to following the RED ONE Camera from conception to new developments, and shooting What You Will Learn : with the RED Camera for his action/fantasy/science fiction film, co-directed with Mark Steven Grove, Gathering of Heroes: Legend of the Seven Swords. The film stars Martin Kove (The • The Technical Aspects of What Makes Shooting On RED Unique. Karate Kid, Cagney & Lacey, Rambo: First Blood Part II) and • How We Treat “Shooting On RED” Differently Than Film or HD. Christopher Atkins (The Blue Lagoon, TV’s Dallas, the cult • How to Get Exposure Correct. favorite The Pirate Movie). Jon works as a freelance director and cinematographer when he is not pursuing his other passion • How to Get Focus and How to Adjust the Back Focus. as a Visual FX Supervisor and Animator. Jon is a partner in the • Shooting at 5600 Color Temperature. Denver-based production company, Asgard Entertainment. • What is the true ISO? • Lenses, Filters and Lighting. Tim Hardy works as a freelance DP and Camera Assistant. • Different Recording Options: Resolutions, Aspect Ratios and High He has had the opportunity to work with the RED camera on numerous feature films and projects logging over three years Speed Frame Rates. of experience with the RED. He has learned the in’s and outs • Sound Recording: Internal Sound and Dual System Sound. of the RED camera and often times works as a digital imaging • Timecode Sync Options, How to Use Sync and Link in Post. technician as well as a Camera Assistant. • REDCINE: Analysis of the Footage. • Data Management. Scott Pelzel has been an Editor and Cinematographer for 15 years now. His commercial work includes both shooting and • Dailies. editing national commercials for Victoria’s Secret, Ralph Lauren, • Color Correction options. CoverGirl, American Airlines and Macy’s. Additionally, his work • Output, Deliverables & Archiving. includes international commercial projects, as well as short films and documentaries with extensive experience with the RED workflow in production and post production as both an Editor Every attendee will shoot a clip during the workshop, and Cinematographer. with one-on-one camera assistance. Learning by Doing. Sponsored by: Guarantee your seat by Registering Online Now at ® studentfilmmakers.com/workshops Filmmakers Networking Alex Fuerst. Alex Fuerst Profile: PCTakeDown Job: Director of Photography Location: Texas, United States Alex Fuerst. Photo by Andy Anderson http://networking.studentfilmmakers.com/PCTakeDown/ Alex Fuerst is in post-production on his most recent project, TV pilot, Soulicitation, which was shot with a Canon 7D. He shoots Alex Fuerst: I own a Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 USM IS (kit) mostly HD, especially with HDSLRs, but has experience working and a Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM prime. I will borrow or rent lenses on several 35mm and super-16mm film productions. His most if necessary for certain projects. On my personal lenses I put on recent film project, Knife, is a short film executive produced HOYA Super Quality HMC (Multi-Coated) UV (0) filters right out by Dennis Bishop, directed by James M. Johnson, and starring of the box. This not only filters unwanted UV light but protects Charles Baker. His next project, which is a short, will be shot the glass on the lens. It’s very easy to clean or replace a filter with a 5D Mark II and 7D. compared to the glass on the lens itself. One of my favorite filters is an H&Y variable ND filter that allows me to control my Why did you choose to shoot the TV pilot on DSLR versus depth of field in very bright shots. another kind of camera? In reference to working with these HDSLR cameras for Alex Fuerst: Time and Budget. The project has been volunteer- making movies, what are you doing for audio and sound? based so far and on a shoe-string budget. Originally this was going to be shot with one of the Panasonic P2 cameras but Alex Fuerst: Where these HDSLRs really fall short is on their a camera test comparison easily convinced the director to ability to capture good audio. I’ve tried inputting mics directly embrace the more cinematic 7D. Also, footage could be played into the Canon’s 1/8” jack and the results are still terrible. I back on the spot to make sure we got the shot. In post the HD strongly recommend a digital field recorder like my ZOOM workflow is a lot smoother than that of film, being that the final H4n. It has built in compressor/limiter, phantom power, and a format would be HD anyway, so there was no nail biting while plethora of other great tools that can be useful in post and for having negatives developed and converted to a digital intermediate. But, until those who are musicians as well. I have also used the Marantz this project gets studio backing, film is most likely to stay out of the picture. PMD-671 that the film department of the University of Texas at What’s your Canon 7D camera rig equipped with? Arlington makes available for students to check out. I prefer the H4n. Alex Fuerst: My rig purchases were definitely not made quickly or all at once. I acquired each piece after much research and consideration to what would Could you give an example of a scene from Soulicitation allow me to have the most effective and versatile gear without breaking the and the camera/equipment setup? bank. I currently own a G-170s shoulder support rig by Gini, Zacuto Z- finder, Zoom H4n, Manfrotto tripod 503 head with 745XB legs, and a Manfrotto 577 quick release adapter. Alex Fuerst: My favorite scene we shot required a very moody and intimate feel. To accomplish the shot I used a very fast lens Are you using different lenses and filters? between f/1.4-2 and a 85mm focal length to get plenty depth 60 studentfilmmakers 2010, Vol. 6, No.1 of field that creates that creamy bokeh we all love. What we Cut Pro. This is a great tool I use for every project since I got did for the lighting made the scene though. We back lit with it. Editing with Pro-Res footage has been very smooth at full a 1K gelled to a rich amber hue and had a few diffused fills 1080p HD footage and I highly recommend it. coming from just left or right of camera. I got chills on several What are your favorite cameras and film/video making shots in this scene and I knew this was going to be a stunning tools? project to see finished. Alex Fuerst: I can’t stop praising the Canon HDSLRs. They What would you say are some challenges of shooting/ have changed the game and left other makers behind. The editing with HDSLRs that you’ve found and applied Panasonic AG-HVX500 is a favorite of mine to shoot video with solutions or alternative solutions for? when not on a film project. I really miss the CamMate 2000 series jib that I had been operating for the last 3 years before Alex Fuerst: Capturing good audio is the biggest hurdle. returning to school. The now available camera sliders/dollies Once you get past that the next challenge is being able to are really cost effective tools for cinematic movement but pull focus accurately. Especially without a follow focus. The there is nothing quite like using a J.L. Fisher dolly. Steadicam lenses that are made for these HDSLRs are designed for and systems are another favorite tool I have used. excel at fast autofocus photography. A cinematographer must recognize this and find methods of overcoming the If you could share one piece of advice for new and aspiring short range and sometimes the ‘play’ of the focus ring. Best filmmakers and video makers around the world, what solution for this: know your glass and practice with it! Only would it be? buy or use the lenses that focus well. Even with a mediocre lens a good follow focus will help tremendously. Zeiss, so far, Alex Fuerst: Story! Without good story, we have nothing. is the only lens manufacturer to give the HDSLR users lenses With the technologies that are available at more and more with features that have been used on film industry standard affordable prices nearly anyone can produce something that cinematic lenses for decades. “looks” great. However, the tools do not make a good film or filmmaker. You can have all the gear and gadgets and still have What do you edit with? a film that does not connect with the audience. Purposefully make decisions that progress and develop the story for Alex Fuerst: I have used everything from iMovie to AVID to the end audience. This applies to everything from films to Final Cut Pro that I use now. I have a MacBook Pro with Final commercials to bar mitzvah slide shows. Now, go share your Cut Studio 3 and Adobe CS5 Production Premium. Being a vision and change the world. student, a laptop is the most practical for me but I do miss the power of my old 8 core Mac Pro I had at my last job. www.alexfuerst.com For Soulicitation we imported and converted footage to Apple Pro-Res using Canon’s free EOS Movie Plugin-E1 for Final Alex Fuerst. Photo by Sara Pintilie Alex Fuerst (on the left) Alex Fuerst (on the right). Photo by Sara Pintilie. 2011, Vol. 6, No.1 studentfilmmakers 61 Filmmakers Networking Chris Sgaraglino Profile: csgaraglino Job: Lifestyle and Photojournalism Photographer and Cinematographer Location: Colorado, United States http://networking.studentfilmmakers.com/csgaraglino/ Lifestyle and photojournalism it did not take me long to get used the photographer and cinematographer EX3’s controls... I was impressed how easy Chris Sgaraglino shoots his first film, it was to actually shoot in full manual... A Step Back in Time, in Harmel’s Ranch Resort up in the Colorado Rocky What are your thoughts on HDSLR Mountains. Sgaraglino shares one of his filmmaking and 3D? unique experiences working on the set and advice for aspiring filmmakers. Chris Sgaraglino: I have no experience with 3D, but I just bought a Nikon D7000 So far, what would you say is one of DSLR. I am excited to get this into my the most unique or most interesting next production. situations you experienced working on the set? If you could share one piece of advice for new and aspiring filmmakers and Chris Sgaraglino: Shooting in the video makers around the world, what mountains at altitude (~9,500ft). It really would it be? affects you and your crew in so many ways... But the most noticeable was Chris Sgaraglino: I think, listen to your energy... It was amazing how fast we gut... There was a time during the shoot got tired... But seriously... When in the that our guide “thought” he knew how to mountains of Colorado, it’s incredible get back to a place we scouted a couple looking across mountain ranges and of weeks before. This did not pan out as seeing all that God has created. expected, and when we looked at the scene we wound up at... Well let’s say What were some of the reasons you that it was less than desirable; but we decided to shoot in HD versus film? were up against the rising sun... Charles said nope… This is not the vision and I Chris Sgaraglino: I have only shot film want what we scouted... The shot turned photography... After getting into digital, I out to be incredible! The moral, listen to Chris Sgaraglino on the Sony EX3 shooting don’t think I would ever shoot in film... your gut, follow your heart. for the Harmel’s Video Shoot up on top of One Mile Road at about 9,100 feet. What cameras are you working with, www.outdoorstudiosphotography.com and how many? Chris Sgaraglino: We had two Sony EX3s, two Sony A1Us. What are you editing the movie with? Chris Sgaraglino: Sony Vegas 10 and a MacBookPro. What are your favorite cameras and film/video making tools? Chris Sgaraglino: I have little experience with different cameras, but I will say that Amie & the director reviewing the footage. 62 studentfilmmakers 2010, Vol. 6, No.1 Could you share with us one or more composing tips or techniques? Marina Zhuravleva: (1.) Listen to the feeling you would like to express. (2.) Depend on that, choose a general mode for composition - major or minor. Or, perhaps, there should be both? (3.) Imagine your composition as a story. How it starts? Where will be the climax, how it will end? (4.) Find the temp, try different rhythm-styles. (5.) If you work with a keyboard, listen to different instruments. Sometimes, the only sound of an instrument might bring Marina Zhuravleva you an idea for melody. Keys Profile: Ametist that go up the scale will give Job: Composer more positive, cheerful, hopeful Location: Russian Federation feelings, than the ones which http://networking.studentfilmmakers.com/Ametist/ go down. (6.) Harmony is a way, melody - a What instruments and tools do you In the list of inspiring things there are: path. When you have a melody, use to compose and edit your music? Sea, Night, Rain, Blizzard, Grey Autumn try different harmonies to find Day, Blue Spring Day, View from the Top the most logical, beautiful one Marina Zhuravleva: PC, Realtek Audio of the Mountains, Loneliness, The Road which will light the melody up. AC’97, no mixers/studio tools. Yet. Itself, Busy City, Wild Nature, etc. Yamaha PSR-E313 together with USB- What is your favorite tool for MIDI interface from M-audio. As a multi- Could you share with us a little bit composing? track recording software I use Mixcraft 5. about how you create music, and what Sound Forge is good for editing voice or your process for composing music is Marina Zhuravleva: Difficult to decide single instrument. I also use an ordinary like? whether it is intuition or imagination. sheet of paper and a pen in moments when digital resources are not available. Marina Zhuravleva: The process If you could share one piece of advice of composing can start differently. for new and aspiring composers When you’re composing music, Sometimes, unwillingly, I clearly hear around the world, what would it be? what kinds of things do you use for the main theme or just some notes, inspiration? What inspires you? with words or without, and need to Marina Zhuravleva: Genial things write it quickly not to forget it, as it are simple. Explore, experience with Marina Zhuravleva: It is usually some disappears as suddenly as appears. It enthusiasm. Knowing possible variants it kind of spark in my mind, which gives does not happen very often. The other is easy to pick up a suitable one. Knowing a flow of inspiration. This spark can be way to start is composing on purpose, nothing it is possible to create something a result of any emotional shake – love, because of inspiration or just a wish. new. Dare! I would like to wish everyone happiness, sadness, surprise, deep I simply invent melody and work on to be honest in their creativity, not trying understanding of some fact. Music, its development experiencing with to copy styles of other talents. There is a especially classical music can bring harmony lines, rhythms; if I use PC, unique way to open one’s personality. emotions to a new level. Often inspiration trying new instruments works very good comes with dynamic changes in life as well. Important: Tea or coffee with or anticipation of an important event. chocolate is a must in this process. 2011, Vol. 6, No.1 studentfilmmakers 63 Filmmakers Networking a high off of working with others’ ideas, it actually makes me more creative and gives us that unique edge to make a film that connects with our viewers. What do you edit with? Shawn Kessler: Believe it or not I rough cut in iMovie and finish in Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro and sometimes color. I (Pictured left) Shawn Kessler directs. do all this using a Mac G5 and two G raid Shawn Kessler SATA 500 gig drives for storage. Profile: skessler Job: DP, Editor Location: Missouri, United States What are your favorite cameras and http://networking.studentfilmmakers.com/skessler/ film/video making tools? Tell us about yourself and your was so slight that I was able to color Shawn Kessler: My dream camera to background in filmmaking. correct with no problem in Final Cut Pro, use would be the Red Camera. I also instead of going into Apple Color for like working with Motion a lot. It’s Shawn Kessler: I have been interested in hours of editing time. unbelievable how customizable that filmmaking for 20 years but I have only program is and what you can do with it. been an active filmmaker for 10 years. A What cameras did you shoot A Day in magazine in Walgreens called Camcorder the Park, and how many? What are your thoughts on HDSLR sparked my interest when I saw that you filmmaking and 3D? could edit linear tape on a computer Shawn Kessler: A one-camera shoot and make master tapes. I thought it was with a JVC GYHD-100 with the stock lens Shawn Kessler: I am not a big fan of an amazing idea and it was defiantly and the DR-HD100 hard drive. HDSLR and here is why. Recently I was an something I wanted to do. This led me extra in a feature film where they were to doing years of weddings. Using this Could you tell us a little bit about the using one of these and it was constantly experience I hooked up with a writer I story, and what inspired the story? overheating. The DP had a cold pack knew and we started making a feature covering where the memory card was to film that took forever. I knew that after Shawn Kessler: Alex Whitmer is the keep the heat down because of the high that experience I wanted to do my own writer of the story. I purchased this story resolution. I prefer a hard drive instead. As shorts. in 2009 from him. It is a drama about an for 3D It is funny you asked this question elderly lady and a young skater punk as next week I will be an extra in a 3D Do you shoot film or HD mostly? that happen to meet and she answers short that’s looking to be syndicated on his question, “What do you know about 3DTV, so I guess I will find out then. Shawn Kessler: I mostly shoot in HD but love?” This short has an ending you don’t I am not opposed to film… see coming. As far as I know the story is What’s in the project pipeline or completely made up. coming up on the horizon? What would you say are some challenges of shooting and editing So far, what would you say is one of Shawn Kessler: I have several but I in HD that you’ve found and applied the most unique or most interesting am currently finishing up principle solutions or alternative solutions for? situations you experienced working photography on a short comedy entitled, on the set? Hunny, I Love You, Too. Then next will Shawn Kessler: One challenge I find in be Across the Tracks, a story addressing shooting in HD is working in low light Shawn Kessler: When the Director, DP, homeless prejudices. Then hopefully later situations. When I was shooting A Day in and the actors connect to the material I this year Irisis, a story about a young man the Park, I had a situation where it was a would have to say. If I can connect with in a car accident struggles to find who he partly cloudy day and we had sun only in one member on my crew it seems like is in life through a rehabilitation center. some shots and not in others. Turns out we can work through any problem with And a nurse who comes to his rescue. when I got back to post the discrepancy the rest of the crew. I’ve always gotten 64 studentfilmmakers 2010, Vol. 6, No.1 Never Stop Learning. Never Stop Networking. Get Exposure, Find Crew, or Join a Production using the Filmmakers Social Networking Site at http://networking.studentfilmmakers.com Post Your Questions and Find Answers in the Interactive Forums Moderated by Experts at www.studentfilmmakers.com/bb/ Attend Motion Picture Production Workshops at http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/workshops/ Reach Over 45,000 Film and Video Makers of All Levels Every Month As working professionals in the film, television, and motion picture industry, we never stop learning in our careers. With all the new technologies and new techniques, we’re all life-long students. Continue to learn cutting-edge techniques and best practices covering pre-production, production, post production, distribution, film/video production commentaries, and more. Many Thanks Pamela Jaye Smith Terence Brody Scott Essman William F. Vartorella, Ph.D., C.B.C. Ira Tiffen Tony White Jonathan Moore Fred Ginsburg, C.A.S., Ph.D., MBKS AD Index Adobe Systems Incorporated www.adobe.com/go/productionpremium P68 AJA Video Systems www.aja.com P21 AlphaDogs, Inc. www.alphadogs.tv P35 BeachTek Inc. www.beacktek.com P41 Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts www.cdiabu.com P7 Canon www.usa.canon.com/cps P2 Carl Zeiss www.zeiss.com/cine/cp2 P11 Cinevate www.cinevate.com P19 Five Towns College www.ftc.edu P9 Thomas McKenney Matthew Perlman indiSYSTEM www.followfocus.com P13 In-Sync Publications www.insyncpubs.com P57 juicedLink, LLC www.juicedlink.com P25 Maine Media Workshops and College www.mainemedia.edu P43 Nila Inc. www.nila.tv P5 Regent University www.regent.edu/communication P31 SmallHD www.smallhd.com P15 Studio 1 Productions www.studio1productions.com P57 For advertising and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Kim Welch at 212.255.5458, Scott Spears or send an email via our online form at Photo by Bill Dow www.studentfilmmakers.com/advertise.shtml 66 studentfilmmakers 2011, Vol. 6, No. 1 Cinematography Workshop Series with Peter Stein, ASC Presented and hosted by StudentFilmmakers.com Venue: StudentFilmmakers.com Headquarters, Manhattan, New York City. Upcoming 2011 Continuing Education Workshops Early-Bird Benefits and Program Details at: www.studentfilmmakers.com/workshops About Peter Stein, ASC: As the Director of Photography on over 50 feature films, TV movies, and documentaries, Peter Stein, ASC has One-Day Intensives: photographed classic cult films in various genres, including May 14: comedy and horror, as well as major studio and independent Screen Direction, Coverage and Shot Listing. releases, and noted documentaries. He was invited to join the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers in 1999. July 2: One of his first feature films as a Director of Photography Documentary, Interviews, and Hand-Held Shooting. was the horror film classic Friday the 13th Part 2, the second Aug. 27: largest grossing film in 1981 for Paramount. Among other horror genre films he shot are Stephen King’s blockbuster hit Analyzing and Replicating Lighting: From Cinema and Pet Sematary, C.H.U.D. and Steven King’s Graveyard Shift. Famous Paintings. He has photographed numerous documentaries such as Oct. 15: the critically acclaimed A Midwife’s Tale for PBS’ American Experience and the feature documentary Just Crazy about Composition and Camera/Actor Choreography, Using Horses which played theatrically in New York and LA. Among the Location to Best Advantage. other documentary work is HBO’s Laughs and The Mystery Dec. 3: of the Morro Castle. He also shot the PBS documentary Tupperware which was the front cover story in the Sunday Lighting Workshop. NY TIMES television section. Register Online Now at studentfilmmakers.com/workshops For advertising and sponsorship opportunities,please contact us at 212.255.5454. Supercharge your productivity. Adobe® Creative Suite® 5 Production Premium software ups the ante with industry-leading, breakthrough performance. Accelerate video editing and production with native 64-bit and broad native file-based camera support, and rotoscope in a fraction of the time. www.adobe.com/go/productionpremium