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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

my film look for my first independently produced film which I'm also directing

s. swift said:
by the way that answer: shoot with chip/sensor that has dimensions of 35 mm will 100% give me the film look,

i think there's truth there would others agree.

p.s. don't shoot down other peoples ideas because some of u pensioners are frightened that they my be right. like everything has to be extremely complex when in essence it could be simpler.

I'm looking for direct answers to the question I asked thankfully after the first 2-3 replies the answers vastly improved - so thanks and keep it coming.

much adue and obliged.
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Pensioners? Pensioners?

Oh wow....most of the people here have years and years of experience in the film industry. Would you call Roger Deakins a pensioner?

As someone above me posted, and as I have posted before. You want something to look like film, shoot film. Kodak supports students to the point that they will occasionally give out free stock, especially if it's their Vision 2 stock.

Panavision is also extremely supportive of the student and independent world. If you talk to any rental house and tell them your budget, they will work something out for you, guaranteed. PS Production Services here in Toronto has been amazingly helpful with student films.

It never hurts to ask.
 
i'm sorry if i offended people by calling them pensioners.
the person who called me a brat is only the 2nd person other than my father who called me one last summer to call me a brat.

I think though it's quite noticable that in every post I thanked everyone for their answers - and took nobodies help for granted.

anyway I'm very much interested in further help.

are there any red one camera's that cost less than 17.5 grand (I can save up but could get one quicker if it was maybe 2-3 grand cheaper) , as in 2nd hand that are in reasonable condition. also what are the cheapest lighting kits I could get.

sorry for sounding like an amateur - my knowledge of cinema/production/writing/film business is greater than my knowledge of being able to instantly make a scene look filmable.

Could someone perhaps help me answer this question also: when a director is choosing a scene to film, does the cinematographer take into account what the image already looks like; as in would they say that this location is wrong beacause wer'e not able to make it look filmic, or does a modern day d.o.p./cinematographer instantly know how to make every scene look filmable and automatically tell the gaffer/ grips to place these lights there or there etc. or do this do that etc.

Basically can they instantly turn any interior/exterior into a film look?
 
Being appreciative goes beyond a mere "thank you". You should demonstrate real thankfulness by being kind and respectful of anyone who bothers to offer aid, whether you agree with them or not. If you ask with arrogance you are likely to get a poor response. When you clearly lack expertise and criticize respondents who do have some, you come off as arrogant.

If you deal with your DP on set in the same manner, things are likely to go poorly for you.

Sorry if this sounds like a lecture, but if your own father has called you a brat within the last few months, then that lends credence to Craig's assessment.
 
As to 1
I guess you could pick up a minimal executed R1 M package at bellow 17,5 k.

As to 2
You're starting off in the wrog end IMHO...
Any location can give a "film look". Just playing with moving the camera an inch or a foot, up, down or to either side may quickly change the "look and feel" of the scene.

A main difference (if one can generalize on these subjects - which you know I think you can't) between a "TV" and "film"-look is that you take into consideration your intended format. A big theatre, or a 20" - 50" screen.

Going "all close and shallow DOF" can be quite annoying and privatizing on a big screen (but if intended, that's just cool), while TV photographers tend to go that direction, because it suits the format (i.e. smaller screen...)

Also I think film-photographers tend to be much more "brutal" in their exposure practises, letting things burn out and go black without worrying too much, while TV photographers more often are affraid to expose "out of the limits".

This can give some really interesting looks.

Start playing with shooting through things, like windows, doors, branches and furniture to give your image richness and depth and enjoy the compositional oportunitiest offered by the larger screening-format. Just basically: Test and have fun and find out what YOUR film should look like, rather than going for a "filmlook".
I still think that the best advice I can give you is to schmoose yourself into sets with DPs you respect and see how they compose their images. You might get surprised at how practical they are, as to achieve what they want....

I was in Iraq with a really fantastic DP doing a local independent film. We basically had no lights, little grip, to few assistants, no useable filters, had to cook up reflectors etc as needed, and crap lenses, but every single frame I have seen from the film screams "Film for the theatre".

It's really not magic, just photography.
And what makes a look is knowledge and confidence as to your artistic toolset.

Kit won't give you that. Practice, persistence and analyzing skills might...
 
The internet is full of pages on this. Study a little.

The question is not the film look. What you are looking for is what is cinematic. There is a few ground rules. 1/48 or 1/50 shutter. Add some ND to knock down the light so you can open up and decrease DOF a bit (don't go crazy like all these DSLR DOF whores who are basically not only showing they are amateurs but also have no grasp of follow focus and come off looking evenmore amateurish).

Its not about what lighting, more about how you control the light.

We shot a film in Poland last year with several HV30s and only available light. The film looks fantastic. We could have shot on a variety of formats including RED but for practical reasons we didn't.

Shoot Progressive.

The grade is gonna be pretty restrained if you can't get a nice clean image.

Denoise a bit and add some grain to stop banding and other issues.

Giving a ratio of importance is pointless.
 
Learn to see, not just look. Expose yourself to great films, great paintings, photography, sculpture, etc. Learn by observing what works in other media. Learn to see the world as if you were filming it.

I used to give this as an exercise to my assistants when they first started. Take a black 8x10 piece of cardboard and cut a 1.85:1 rectangular 7" wide hole in it.

Observe everything through this mask. Lighting on people and landscapes. Composition. Move your eye closer to the mask and it's a wide angle lens view. Move your eye further away and it's a long lens view.

Do this as often as you can. Believe it or not, such a simple device can teach you more about seeing and developing a film look for yourself than getting a list of the right equipment or devices. When you learn how you like light to look and what angles you like to see things from then you're ready to take the next step and begin to discover how to achieve your look. It's a process, and it takes time. There is much to learn. None of the greats got there overnight, and they all keep seeing and learning all the ttime.
 
Tim Hole said:
The internet is full of pages on this. Study a little.

The question is not the film look. What you are looking for is what is cinematic. There is a few ground rules. 1/48 or 1/50 shutter. Add some ND to knock down the light so you can open up and decrease DOF a bit (don't go crazy like all these DSLR DOF whores who are basically not only showing they are amateurs but also have no grasp of follow focus and come off looking evenmore amateurish).

Its not about what lighting, more about how you control the light.

We shot a film in Poland last year with several HV30s and only available light. The film looks fantastic. We could have shot on a variety of formats including RED but for practical reasons we didn't.

Shoot Progressive.

The grade is gonna be pretty restrained if you can't get a nice clean image.

Denoise a bit and add some grain to stop banding and other issues.

Giving a ratio of importance is pointless.
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It's hard to do follow focus on a DSLR as any slight jitter translates into an earthquake through the lens because the camera has very little mass to stabilize it.
 
s. swift said:
i'm sorry if i offended people by calling them pensioners.
the person who called me a brat is only the 2nd person other than my father who called me one last summer to call me a brat.

[snip]

Could someone perhaps help me answer this question also: when a director is choosing a scene to film, does the cinematographer take into account what the image already looks like; as in would they say that this location is wrong beacause wer'e not able to make it look filmic, or does a modern day d.o.p./cinematographer instantly know how to make every scene look filmable and automatically tell the gaffer/ grips to place these lights there or there etc. or do this do that etc.

Basically can they instantly turn any interior/exterior into a film look?
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Not the DOP on their own. Making a film look "professional" (which seems to be what you mean, as opposed to making it look like it was shot on actual film) is equal parts camera, lighting, casting, acting, mis-en-scène (I'm including camera placement and lens choice in here), and art direction (I'm lumping costumes, makeup, etc. into art). Sound is as important as those things, but obviously has no effect on the look (to be literal).

It's a common mistake of gear fetishists / amateur filmmakers that the camera and lighting are what make a movie look professional. You could hire Roger Deakins to shoot your movie, give him every piece of camera and lighting equipment in existence, and the crappy actor with bad skin in the rundown suit in the slum apartment still won't look like a good actor with good skin in a $10,000 suit in a penthouse in Manhattan.

Not to be pedantic, but it does sound like you might be falling into that all-to-common trap.

Lot of good info in this thread, though, to get you started.
 
making a movie look like a movie is more than just lights camera and action..
you need amazingly good audio both location and post
set decorating is huge, as is costuming..

if any piece is missing, you may miss the boat on what your aiming for.
 
You should shoot everything with the aperture all the way open, preferably a 1.2 or 1.4. Try and get it so that even when the eyes are in focus, the nose is blurry. This is the hallmark of the film look, and it is called shallow depth of field.

You should also buy every type of film related accessory that you think may be useful. Get them all, as you can always use them on set.

Don't worry about script either, or sound. It's all about that money in the bank shallow depth of field.
 
The tools do matter, to a degree. You give a 35mm movie camera to a 6-year-old and it will look like film. You give a 60i HDV handycam to Spielberg and it will still look like video.

Now, of course the 6-year-old's film footage will be crap, and Spielberg's HDV footage will be awesome, but that's not about having the "film look" as much as it is about having the footage look "pro," which is what I think you're after.

It's the "pro" look that requires lighting, composition, coloring, production values, etc. And to achieve the "pro" look you need talented people working with you, as others have discussed here.

But at the very least, use a camera that shoots in 24p. That alone will make a huge difference in the feel of the footage.
 
Well all I can say is - if your script sucks, none of this (NONE of this) matters. None of it. No one pays to see the pretty pictures without a story. And no one in the audience gives a fk whether you got the "film look" or not. If you're directing, I'd spend way more time worrying about your script & actors than your choice of lenses or how much attitude you can put on an internet forum. You did say "directing", did you not?
 
DCC Erickson said:
Well all I can say is - if your script sucks, none of this (NONE of this) matters. None of it. No one pays to see the pretty pictures without a story. And no one in the audience gives a fk whether you got the "film look" or not. If you're directing, I'd spend way more time worrying about your script & actors than your choice of lenses or how much attitude you can put on an internet forum. You did say "directing", did you not?
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To be fair, people paid to see Resident Evil Afterlife...and that was pretty pictures, but no story.
 
i've already written the script you idiot - it won awareds and is being financed by warner brothers independent film department, so please take your unnessecarry negativity and ill will and jump off a cliff.
 
i've no doubt that someone will say you spent awards wrong, and therefore your script must be terrible - don't bother, thanks to everyone else,
 
I was just wondering can anyone explain why the red one used to be priced at 17,500 and is now at huge 25,000.

More importantly is it now impossibe to buy one for 17,500?
 
You are good at making friends...

Have you heard about the MX upgrade to the RED now being sold included?

As i mentioned, you can probably pick up an executed un-upgraded-to-MX original R1 minimal package at or below 17.500.

Cheers!
 
What 'independent' department of Warners would that be, then? They shuttered back in '08.
 
s. swift said:
i've already written the script you idiot - it won awareds and is being financed by warner brothers independent film department, so please take your unnessecarry negativity and ill will and jump off a cliff.
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Ah, the sweet, sweet rage of children...or people that act like children. Here I was thinking this is a professional forum, full of adults, but it's good to know there's at least one who isn't.

I hope you realize there's more that goes into development and pre-production than just the script. Also, scripts rarely win awards until after the film is done.

These people are trying to explain to you that really the only thing you can do on a digital camera to get a film look is set it to 24p. The rest of the "look" is done through lighting, shot composition, etc. This is the truth, and no matter who in the professional world you ask, you will hear the same thing.
 
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