I don’t do windows.

Liam Hall said:
I'm old enough to still call it either telecine or colour timing!
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Ha, me too, for film transfers. I remember my first tape online color session, mid 90's...I didn't realize how much could be done (previously having only had access to a proc amp). The colorist said "first thing I do with Betacam footage is bias the green down, because Sony cams lean green" and when he made the correction, I gasped. From that point on I added 1/8 and 1/4 minus green to my swatchbook of CTO and CTB that I used to "cheat" the white balance (pre-dating "warm cards") and from that point on my clients used to tell me how amazing the skin tones were in my footage. Them's the days!
 
CharlesPapert said:
As it is, I sometimes have conversations with my operators about nuances of their choices and will tell them "you just forced the scissors", meaning they have hamstrung the editor into having to make an edit which limits their options. A classic example is when a character walks out a door or stands up in a closeup--do you follow them out the door or out of their seat, let them out of frame, or "nickel them out" (meaning, give them a little bit of movement to keep them in frame just a bit longer and then let them out)? Those choices all have to be made based on the best guess of what the editor will want--it is surely that much harder to deliver that if you haven't been in their seat.
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How much discretion do camera operator's have? In your example you listed three ways operators could handle the situation. How do you decide when to give an operator the freedom to choose vs. getting them to precisely/literally follow a set of instructions?

As a guess, is it more to do with speed? Moving through set ups in a fast-paced environment or in a multi cam set up?
 
rob norton said:
How much discretion do camera operator's have? In your example you listed three ways operators could handle the situation. How do you decide when to give an operator the freedom to choose vs. getting them to precisely/literally follow a set of instructions?

As a guess, is it more to do with speed? Moving through set ups in a fast-paced environment or in a multi cam set up?
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Every job is a little different--every DP is a little different! I try to only hire operators with great instincts where I don't have to give them many notes on this, but it still comes up from time to time. Usually we only discuss broad strokes when we are setting up the shot with second team, then as needed we will discuss the nuances. If we are in a serious pressure cooker, I may have to give it up. Most of the time we are on walkie headsets so I can feed them notes between takes even if we are doing rolling resets.

Not sure why this particular shot came into my mind, it was one I did in my Steadicam dayplaying era when I was bouncing around the TV shows. For those with a Netflix subscription.

https://www.netflix.com/watch/80014...bf6ba6-b090-488b-b796-3bdb33fe4b1e-28541426,,
start around 26:34

"Gilmore Girls" had a very long and complicated set of "rules" for operators. Over-the-shoulder coverage was done wider than normal with two cameras cross-shooting at once. I was also told that they were sticklers for Steadicam moves in general and didn't like cutting on the move. So when this master shot came up that required following Lorelai into a 50-50 shot, I made sure to make the move very briskly so that I could stop exactly when shed id and lock off the frame so they could cut to coverage as early as they wanted. Very often in these situations the Steadicam operator may be a little behind and land late, and/or take a few beats to "settle" the frame.

For anyone who bothered to dig that up (and is in Netflix), I did a 2.5 minute one'r in that episode at 9:58 that was actually the first thing I did when I came onboard the show. It's a lot of talking and not a lot of ground covered, but it had probably 15 different marks and a lot of dialogue cues for me to learn. It is actually interesting to see it in 16:9 because we shot it 4:3, the frame had much less room on the sides and again they had some very specific compositional rules.
 
James0b57 said:
How so?
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I assume you typed that from your phone or tablet. I could not even survive that - if I had to do it for all work emails and communications. Even though speech to text has made my life easier - even if I wasn't video editing or transferring footage - or doing web stuff - or photo editing or etc... I'd still have a decent computer just to send / receive email and a place to save documents. Have to have a real keyboard too... not just the touchscreen type.
 
CharlesPapert said:
Below during my tenure as cameraman/editor at a small production company in the late 80's...everything in this picture feels like it's from a million years ago!
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Good stuff Charles. That was all "high-tech" back then. One thing I don't miss (maybe this didn't happen in bigger markets) - is working your tail off to get a spot just right for broadcast - and putting it on that 3/4 or Beta master...with bars and tone of course at the beginning - only to have "master control" person at the TV station - make the transfer to whatever format (I believe it was 1" when I started) the commercial would actually play from when it went to air - without checking or lining up scopes. So the colors you worked so hard get just right - would be off when the spot aired.
 
markfpv said:
I assume you typed that from your phone or tablet. I could not even survive that - if I had to do it for all work emails and communications. Even though speech to text has made my life easier - even if I wasn't video editing or transferring footage - or doing web stuff - or photo editing or etc... I'd still have a decent computer just to send / receive email and a place to save documents. Have to have a real keyboard too... not just the touchscreen type.
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No. I borrow my mums computer to post on dvx.
 
markfpv said:
Good stuff Charles. That was all "high-tech" back then. One thing I don't miss (maybe this didn't happen in bigger markets) - is working your tail off to get a spot just right for broadcast - and putting it on that 3/4 or Beta master...with bars and tone of course at the beginning - only to have "master control" person at the TV station - make the transfer to whatever format (I believe it was 1" when I started) the commercial would actually play from when it went to air - without checking or lining up scopes. So the colors you worked so hard get just right - would be off when the spot aired.
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Absolutely! I believe I used to cheat the volume a little bit down on the bars+tone so the spot would come in a little hotter on air, to get people's attention! Can't say as I worried much about the picture since everyone's TV's were so wacked out anyway. We had a little TV in the edit room as a QC check to help see what things would like at home. One thing I found out that way was if I did a flash frame of white as an effect, I had to keep it around 80 IRE or so otherwise the sync would drop on the home set and the picture would spaz out.
 
Some stuff I cut myself, more stuff I have a dedicated editor cut, even more stuff I hand over. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but the Producer is King/Queen in this day and age and if they want to screw up the edit that's entirely up to them.
 
CharlesPapert said:
Absolutely! I believe I used to cheat the volume a little bit down on the bars+tone so the spot would come in a little hotter on air, to get people's attention! Can't say as I worried much about the picture since everyone's TV's were so wacked out anyway. We had a little TV in the edit room as a QC check to help see what things would like at home. One thing I found out that way was if I did a flash frame of white as an effect, I had to keep it around 80 IRE or so otherwise the sync would drop on the home set and the picture would spaz out.
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So you're the one that started that! And I used to like you, Charles... ; )

Tha amazing thing is, how rampant that STILL is today, at least on certain channels. Usually it's the "second tier" channels that I run across this the most on. Not the majors.
 
CharlesPapert said:
Every job is a little different--every DP is a little different! I try to only hire operators with great instincts where I don't have to give them many notes on this, but it still comes up from time to time. Usually we only discuss broad strokes when we are setting up the shot with second team, then as needed we will discuss the nuances. If we are in a serious pressure cooker, I may have to give it up. Most of the time we are on walkie headsets so I can feed them notes between takes even if we are doing rolling resets.

Not sure why this particular shot came into my mind, it was one I did in my Steadicam dayplaying era when I was bouncing around the TV shows. For those with a Netflix subscription.

https://www.netflix.com/watch/80014...bf6ba6-b090-488b-b796-3bdb33fe4b1e-28541426,,
start around 26:34

"Gilmore Girls" had a very long and complicated set of "rules" for operators. Over-the-shoulder coverage was done wider than normal with two cameras cross-shooting at once. I was also told that they were sticklers for Steadicam moves in general and didn't like cutting on the move. So when this master shot came up that required following Lorelai into a 50-50 shot, I made sure to make the move very briskly so that I could stop exactly when shed id and lock off the frame so they could cut to coverage as early as they wanted. Very often in these situations the Steadicam operator may be a little behind and land late, and/or take a few beats to "settle" the frame.

For anyone who bothered to dig that up (and is in Netflix), I did a 2.5 minute one'r in that episode at 9:58 that was actually the first thing I did when I came onboard the show. It's a lot of talking and not a lot of ground covered, but it had probably 15 different marks and a lot of dialogue cues for me to learn. It is actually interesting to see it in 16:9 because we shot it 4:3, the frame had much less room on the sides and again they had some very specific compositional rules.
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I completely missed this post. I looked at your Steadicam shot, you had to move fast! And I see what you mean by getting there quick enough to give post the option to cut sooner or later.

I checked out the one'r as well, that's great work. I imagine many marks within a small space would be more difficult than using larger "landmarks" like an entire hallway, top of stairs etc. - what if operators have a bad memory?!

I didn't realize the volume of episodes the show put out, pretty impressive.
 
rob norton said:
I checked out the one'r as well, that's great work. I imagine many marks within a small space would be more difficult than using larger "landmarks" like an entire hallway, top of stairs etc. - what if operators have a bad memory?!
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Thanks! I actually preferred doing these kinds of shots back in the day, the more subtle ones vs the bombastic running down hallways or hurtling up stairs. A bit more cerebral and nuanced to operate, and I liked the challenge of precision. Definitely required a good memory!

It's also interesting to see the genesis of ideas that led to "Marvelous Miss Maizel", from the same creators.
 
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