C100: I need a New Look for 2017. What's your fave interview lens besides the 70-200?

I'm with you Ned if what it really boils down to is boredom. After shooting literally thousands of talking heads over the past 30 years, I've just taken the plunge into the world of motion control with a 40" Kessler slider plus the 2nd shooter plus bundle. So, main shot is a waist shot in 4K that can be zoomed in post plus the side shot on the 2nd shooter always moving. Wish me luck and less boring interviews in the new year! ( http://www.kesslercrane.com/second-shooter-plus )
 
I've been using my Rhino Arc slider motorized setup occasionally for movement with interviews; most of the time I don't use it, though. Much simpler to setup from what I gather compared to the Kessler.

Interview slider movement is sometimes kind of a gimmick, especially if you're doing a promo style video where it only cuts to the speaker for a couple or few seconds at a time and is mostly on b-roll, hence why I don't use it often. But for factual talking videos with not a lot of b-roll, the movement can help add interest.



 
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morgan_moore said:
That shot screams competence, .. but I think it has the slightly flat look that can come from an 80-200

I feel that, I dunno, there is something wrong in the distance of the placement of the three elements; interviewer, camera, subject

Maybe the interviewer is too far away from the subject and therefore there is a lack of intimacy.

Thinking on this thread I mainly use my trusty 35-70 nikkor and place myself close enough that at the 70 end im getting a nearly ECU

One problem with some 70-200s is the lack of minimum focus capability.. one fills the frame by going tele - not by being close.

So my tip to the OP is that maybe the 70-200 is pushing you too far back from the subject to create intimacy with the subject.
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I think I identify with an objective lens more than a subjective POV, hence longer lenses. Probably watched too many Michael Mann films, I guess.
Though I LOVE Deakins work, I just can't bring myself to shoot his wide angle close ups.
 
OK ned. Time to stop playing. we're gonna go for broke. here's your new look: 8mm lens, youre on a circular dolly track continuously circling talent. talent has flashing light on his/her face from a projector projecting an image of YOU (shot by a go pro talent wears on head). this whole setup is spinning on one of those spinning room rigs like in that Metallica video from one of those albums no one liked. THAT whole setup is filmed with a prototype motion picture camera from the 19th century ( in black and white of course), and the resulting image is scanned, and then scrambled into a cubist artwork by an algorithm. THAT is how you shoot a ****ing interview.
 
I guess it's good it didn't post what I actually typed, otherwise you'd have posted a very different kind of video.
 
bill totolo said:
I think I identify with an objective lens more than a subjective POV, hence longer lenses. Probably watched too many Michael Mann films, I guess.
Though I LOVE Deakins work, I just can't bring myself to shoot his wide angle close ups.
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So you want your subject to be an object. Exactly keep it a subject. Unless you dont want to :)

I think deakins and the 32 is no good day to day, I do 35 for hands to head and then push in to 70 on my $150 nikkor 35-70

It is worth considering that deakins will be on a camera that can boom up like on a pee-wee or a small jib.. and wides are far more flattering when there is absolutely no tombstoning aka the camera is perfectly level.

Most of us mortals are on fixed height sticks which can mean getting proper height is a pain.

There we go - nikkor 28 pc, lock the camera square to the room and control headroom with the shift knob - yes Ive done that for two at a table and it was cool.

Im meaning to pimp my sinar p2 for video.. that would open some options!

S
 
And all my setups have at least two cameras and many times three, (MCU, CU, and variable focal length on Dana Dolly) so I break it up.
But the compression of long shots, wide open appeals to my eye.

Unless I'm on a gimbal, then I'm around 21-35mm's.
 
Thanks fellas! I've been away for two days and will process all this. I did win the bid, it's my minimum wage though, and it's the toughest scenario: Older famous female with a big ego. I have pleaded for a Hair & Makeup artist. My 70-200 looks very similar to Bill T's examples, beautiful, clients love them, but...it seems all my output has a sameness. Perhaps I am bored? I will be doing the gig solo so I am NOT inclined, at these bottom (non-NYC/LA) prices, to throw in the second camera since I am solo plus directing, and Oh Yeah, producing...

I am soooooo old I have seen many styles come and go. Someone mentioned doing it handheld, although it's hard to interview while handholding, but that look was popular awhile back and as a DP I often dreaded it if I knew it would go on forever, the cameras were much heavier back then. At first we called it AT&TCam because it was their spots that started it, then it devolved into what we called MonkeyCam or GonzoCam because less talented shooters would mimic that look and mess it up. Then a style where they added constant drift. Then after awhile a style where the servo was disconnected and there were short crash zooms for no reason. And then oh yeah, they insisted on a groping fake rack focus look for no reason.Then there was the Dutch Craze, where all the shots had to be at an angle, and remember when the second camera was B&W and film scratches were added? Then there was the absolutely No Fill Look. I'm so glad that the "camera always sliding" is waning and I expect to see a lot of sliders on Ebay, quite a few now on Chicago's CraigsList. So styles come and go and this "the background must be totally soft", starting with the 5D introduction, is finally waning and that got me to thinking about a new lens. When I am "just the shooter" and I have a young client, sometimes they are also shooters, if they are "under a certain age", I know their creative universe is: "The camera must always be moving and the background is to be soft as much as humanly possible". Fortunately that is also waning. I don't know what's hot now, seems a smorgasbord? I'm a Netflix documentaries addict and there is a trend to do "environmental portraiture" ala Eric's nun when the room makes sense to add, but if you have ten interviews in a doc or corporate video, you have to have wides for everybody and some will have a sloppy area that looks like crap, correct?

Perhaps I HAVE been doing this for too long so I am getting the 37 Year Itch? Kind of like when you get new car fever, every time you then get into your present car it feels like a beater. But I now feel that if I have to do 20 two minute videos, and I find perhaps 4 or 5 angles for new backgrounds by merely rotating the axis of the camera and doing a MINIMUM amount of light changes, I'll have the depth needed for the 70-200. But now I have cold feet about using a new lens on this because I know middle age women! I will light so soft there's nary a crow's foot! This would not be a good one to try something that may be too sharp and the gig is next week so little time to test. I feel that the size rooms and offices I tend to be in a 50 and 85 would be most helpful?

By the way, speaking of "Cams", notice my username? As a take off of Stedicam, GlideCam, MonkeyCam, AT&TCam, HelmetCam back in the '80s I became NedCam! It was a nickname for my handheld work.

Everyone have a healthy and prosperous 2017!

Ned
 
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Sounds like you're versed in all the styles Ned. Have you gone down the filter rabbit hole?
Perhaps some new interest can be sparked there? Then take a hiatus from interviews, let your mind rest.
 
It is worth considering that we might just be mailmen delivering messages.

Now a mailman may be bored by just moving envelopes around all day - but the recipients are engaged by the content of the envelope

From fisheye lenses in my über youth to tabbaco grads in my mid twenties ive been most visual places.

Now basically my work is 'boring' or to be more self flattering it is or attempts to be 'invisible'. And that invisibility is possibly what one should seek - because it lets the subject shine through direct to the viewer.

Fish eyes and tabacco grads and 85 1.2 bokey and blue rim lights and tilt and shat all date badly too.

So maybe consider that being a mailman is just delivering messages and if that is now boring do something else for a while or just be happy to take a dollar for an honest trade ?
 
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Maybe. I think of those distinctive styles as something more suited to more "artistic" projects. . .commercials, music videos, narrative TV/movies. Not so much this ENG/talking head stuff (a doc can go either way. . .look at Errol Morris' stuff). But really it's whatever keeps you from getting fired/keeps you getting hired. The bold DP mentioned earlier who did whatever the eff he wanted and eff 'em if they didn't like it, good on him for being ballsy, but that business model won't work for everyone. I say you gotta go where the clients want. They want boring, give 'em boring. They want insane, give 'em insane.
 
Josh Bass said:
They want boring, give 'em boring. They want insane, give 'em insane.
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What you are missing here is that a nice steady mid dof 80-200 shot of Buzz Aldrin saying 'we did not land on the moon it was a hoax' is not a boring shot - it is an insane shot - the bordom/insanity does not come from the lens choice but from the content.
 
Liam Hall said:
Sam, you're confusing content with technique.
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Not at all - im saying the teqnique should be the technique of invisiblity to allow the content to shine.

invisibility is a technique

fisheyes, tabacco grads, tilt/shat, monster bokey, cropping in on just the gob or eyes, are techniques that are the opposite of invisibility

I rekon f3.5 70mm simple soft key and hair are a great look

Grey trousers are a look - the 'no look' look. And incidentally an NWA hoody or tweed cap and curly tash are equally visible and do not help on set. We are not the show. Can you remember any of Deakins clothes? I cant - mission accomplished by him.
 
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By invisibility, I take it you mean that the filmmaker should not get in the way of the content. I can agree with that, but even on simple point and shoot jobs you can affect the viewer in a subtle way, camera height is an obvious one - level, above or below eyeline...
 
Those "looks" may not help on set but they don't hurt either. Are you suggesting a uniform? The crew members very much are the show! What actors have ever been put off by a crew member's clothing? I get your point about eliminating distractions but disagree that clothing is one of them. We can make up a bunch of outrageous outfits but professional actors deserve more credit. This is completely different to a diva celebrity throwing a tantrum over some production assistant's t-shirt during a non-fiction interview. The NWA hoodie is not to blame! Although, maybe Need for Speed would have been rated higher than 23% on rotten tomatoes had Shane Hurlbut worn less offensive button up shirts..

WARNING: HEAVILY OFF TOPIC^^^
 
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