Cinematography like "The Office" on the Red

[yves d]

Hey guys,

I've got a job coming up for a mockumentary to be shot similar to The Office or TLC's Hoarders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMn272A60MU

Did some researching and for gear people recommended Sony's. For budget purposes I'd like to stick to the epic dragon. Are there any settings or colour profiles I can use to get it as close as possible to the style I'm trying to achieve?

For the lens people have been telling me the fujinon cabrio 19-90. Does anyone have experience with the Angenieux 17-102mm T2.9?

For lighting I'm not entirely sure how to go about this. I was thinking of renting a sky panel and just bouncing it off the ceiling and using duve to create a skirt on the ceiling to control spill. But I'm thinking it might look too toppy/setup.

Any advice?

 

[Shaeden Gallegos]

Any zoom would probably be good; the one thing that would help might be a servo on the zoom. Also, the show doesn't always use a shallow depth of field, so you will probably be fluctuating between t-stops for certain shots that need the separation (2.9 should be fine for this).

For color, the show seems to be very warm. So an Angenieux plus a warmer color temperature would help. The show is also contrasty (but not too much so), and has a rich saturation (not overly done). If you can, I would take a higher quality still from a scene and replicate it in Davinci or other program and export a LUT. This would give you a general idea of the look. I would recommend to shoot raw though and edit the curves and tones later.


Lighting discussion for the show:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cinematogr...mockumentary_like_the_office/#bottom-comments

 

[Peter Lyons Collister ASC]

The Office was shot on Sony F900s and then they did the same thing for the first 3 seasons of Arrested Development. For the reboot of Arrested we shot Red Epics handheld and on Stedi with Fuji 19-90mms and then also the small Angies

 

[Drew Thomas]

That's so cool that you can ask a question and get an answer directly from the source. Such an awesome community we have here!

 

[Marc Wielage]

For lighting I'm not entirely sure how to go about this. I was thinking of renting a sky panel and just bouncing it off the ceiling and using duve to create a skirt on the ceiling to control spill. But I'm thinking it might look too toppy/setup.

We often wind up using several power windows essentially as "digital flags," adding shadows to backgrounds in order to bring out the actors in the goreground. Sometimes, we're placing flags where none could exist in real life, because they'd be visible in the shot. I sometimes use a top flag/window to help hide the light source, particularly with night shoots using Airstars or similar lighting balloons.

Color-wise, I think all that stuff can be done in post. But it does help to shoot color charts on set to aid in matching the cameras, in a multi-cam situation.