C300: Interview Demo Reel (100 Samples, 100 Seconds)

doubledark said:
Bill, does the blown out window bother you?

and for what it's worth, I really like the light on the lady; I know it's not as soft as many try to achieve but I think it looks great
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Of course it does, but I was down voted by the producer. C'est la vive.
Had to shoot dozens of these R&G style interviews on this day, so I could only influence the shoot so much.
I picked the cameras, lights, lenses, filtration, etc. I tried to guide the producer to the stronger camera angles, but sometimes they have something else in mind.
 
bill totolo said:
Of course it does, but I was down voted by the producer. C'est la vive.
Had to shoot dozens of these R&G style interviews on this day, so I could only influence the shoot so much.
I picked the cameras, lights, lenses, filtration, etc. I tried to guide the producer to the stronger camera angles, but sometimes they have something else in mind.
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Most of the time we are just the hired help and have to do what the boss says, I feel for you, been there many times. It doesn't look bad though, just a bit "why is that window blown out?"
 
puredrifting said:
Most of the time we are just the hired help and have to do what the boss says, I feel for you, been there many times. It doesn't look bad though, just a bit "why is that window blown out?"
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This just gave me an idea for a feature I want on future cameras. I'll call it, "Selective exposure." We have face-detection, why not an electronic ND which can ND certain parts of the frame; say in this case, to make the area not around the person's body darker, or the brightest parts (the window) darker.
 
puredrifting said:
Personally I am more impressed with DPs using minimal gear and making it look good. It's easy to have a RED or an Alexa, a 10 ton full of G&L and a crew and make everything perfect, you hire good gaffers and they tend to know just what you want or need in a shot. A documentary I shot in 2016 will premiere at SXSW next month and at the Toronto FF soon and all of the interviews in the documentary were shot with the lowly C100 MKI, all lighting was before I bought my Aputures and Brightcasts, I used my ancient, cheap Coollights, which were five years old at the time and had lost a lot of their output. Both the director and the colorist said it's some of the best looking interviews they've seen, we had interesting real locations all over NYC. I will post some stills but currently under NDA so can't yet.

Do more with less is much more interesting to me than do more with tons of gear and crew. Being more of a documentary type person, I like DPs who work from the bottom up, rather than the top down. What can you do with this old, far from state of the art, cheap gear and a good eye?
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I think ideally a DP would know how to work with more gear or less gear. But a DP who just goes around priding themselves in using less gear when a job actually has the time and budget to use more gear which is better suited for it is, uhm, not a good situation.

Philip Bloom using a Barbie cam to show he can still shoot a decent video is a fun idea, but it doesn't mean he'd ever use the Barbie cam on a professional shoot. Even you no longer use your old lights as primaries now that you've got new ones. Being a DP is not about intentionally creating challenging situations to overcome; if you can make your job easier, then make it easier. More gear doesn't always make your job easier, but when it does and you have access to it, I say go for it.
 
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Here's BTS from a one-man-band setup I did which I also was producing. I got another monk to ask the interview questions.


And here's another setup which had a sound guy and producer, but I was one-man-band in terms of camera and lighting.

 
Eric Coughlin said:
Here's BTS from a one-man-band setup I did which I also was producing. I got another monk to ask the interview questions.


And here's another setup which had a sound guy and producer, but I was one-man-band in terms of camera and lighting.

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That's a lot of work for OMB! I hope you can charge extra for that. Nice work.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
This just gave me an idea for a feature I want on future cameras. I'll call it, "Selective exposure." We have face-detection, why not an electronic ND which can ND certain parts of the frame; say in this case, to make the area not around the person's body darker, or the brightest parts (the window) darker.
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Using Canon LCD and a stylus just draw out the area which needs to be darker by 1/3rd or 2/3rd or couple of stops. The signal will be processed accordingly. So the power windows from post will come over to the cameras. It will take couple of years to happen.
 
Eric Coughlin said:
I think ideally a DP would know how to work with more gear or less gear. But a DP who just goes around priding themselves in using less gear when a job actually has the time and budget to use more gear which is better suited for it is, uhm, not a good situation.

Philip Bloom using a Barbie cam to show he can still shoot a decent video is a fun idea, but it doesn't mean he'd ever use the Barbie cam on a professional shoot. Even you no longer use your old lights as primaries now that you've got new ones. Being a DP is not about intentionally creating challenging situations to overcome; if you can make your job easier, then make it easier. More gear doesn't always make your job easier, but when it does and you have access to it, I say go for it.
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You misunderstood my post, I am not saying "go for less and cheaper gear all of the time" at all. I love having decent budgets, crews and the right gear and I get that some of the time. But that's becoming less and less a given. For my work, I will usually take a sound mixer over a gaffer as I can do my own or even have some PAs who can help me light. Lighting goes more hand in hand with camera operating whereas audio, to me, is more of a separate function, although I am decent at audio. It just seems with the proliferation of good cheap gear and Millenials and younger willing to work for peanuts or nothing, DPs need to be versed at working with cheap, inadequate or lack of state of the art gear because budgets seem to shrink almost every year. Also, in the documentary realm, real documentaries mind you, not documentary style shooting, smaller, lighter, and less gear is almost always going to get you better material as far as talent opening up and sharing their soul with you. Most documentary subjects, unless they work in media or have media training, for interviews, freak out if I show up with an Amira or full loaded up RED, versus if I show up with a GH5S, it's still a knee jerk reaction that seems very real, at least based upon my experience.

Conversely, I shot a dance piece for Sony on a stage a few weeks ago, four dancers, four camera shoot with a jib, slider, hair, makeup, two grips, three PAs, gaffer, sound mixer, choreographer, assistants buzzing all over the place, but those are becoming rarer and rarer for me. But I would always want the best the budget can support for those type shoots. I like being on a stage with the bigger, better gear. But most of my work is tiny crew, on location and the smaller, cheaper, more accessible gear works better but I am still expected to make things look good. I respect DPs who can do a lot with a little was my main point.
 
puredrifting said:
You misunderstood my post, I am not saying "go for less and cheaper gear all of the time" at all. I love having decent budgets, crews and the right gear and I get that some of the time. But that's becoming less and less a given. For my work, I will usually take a sound mixer over a gaffer as I can do my own or even have some PAs who can help me light. Lighting goes more hand in hand with camera operating whereas audio, to me, is more of a separate function, although I am decent at audio. It just seems with the proliferation of good cheap gear and Millenials and younger willing to work for peanuts or nothing, DPs need to be versed at working with cheap, inadequate or lack of state of the art gear because budgets seem to shrink almost every year. Also, in the documentary realm, real documentaries mind you, not documentary style shooting, smaller, lighter, and less gear is almost always going to get you better material as far as talent opening up and sharing their soul with you. Most documentary subjects, unless they work in media or have media training, for interviews, freak out if I show up with an Amira or full loaded up RED, versus if I show up with a GH5S, it's still a knee jerk reaction that seems very real, at least based upon my experience.

Conversely, I shot a dance piece for Sony on a stage a few weeks ago, four dancers, four camera shoot with a jib, slider, hair, makeup, two grips, three PAs, gaffer, sound mixer, choreographer, assistants buzzing all over the place, but those are becoming rarer and rarer for me. But I would always want the best the budget can support for those type shoots. I like being on a stage with the bigger, better gear. But most of my work is tiny crew, on location and the smaller, cheaper, more accessible gear works better but I am still expected to make things look good. I respect DPs who can do a lot with a little was my main point.
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My main audio guys are also very good gaffers(much better than me), as are a lot of them in this market. If I had shoots that allowed for separate camera, audio and lighting, I would actually have my #1 guy as my gaffer instead of audio(which is why he is my #1 guy). I would actually use my #2 guy as a dedicated gaffer, too.
 
Run&Gun said:
My main audio guys are also very good gaffers(much better than me), as are a lot of them in this market. If I had shoots that allowed for separate camera, audio and lighting, I would actually have my #1 guy as my gaffer instead of audio(which is why he is my #1 guy). I would actually use my #2 guy as a dedicated gaffer, too.
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Wow, your market is different, none of the sound mixers in LA will touch a light. Most will help me haul gear, tear down, load out but they are audio guys. Most of them are union too, even though I am hiring them non-union, that may have something to do with it possibly? Interesting, I'll have to remember that when I have a NC shoot, that saves some money and or focus on what I would have to do.
 
puredrifting said:
Wow, your market is different, none of the sound mixers in LA will touch a light. Most will help me haul gear, tear down, load out but they are audio guys. Most of them are union too, even though I am hiring them non-union, that may have something to do with it possibly? Interesting, I'll have to remember that when I have a NC shoot, that saves some money and or focus on what I would have to do.
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We are lucky here in my market and have a lot of talented people that are multi-faceted with their skills. My #1 shoots and lights and kind of fell into audio. If I had to break down his skill sets, shooting and lighting are over audio. I've actually run audio for him several times. It's actually nice sometimes for a change of pace. Another shooter in-town and I used to swap it up all the time on this series we used to shoot for. One of us would shoot a few, then do audio for a few and vice-versa.

Of course, we do have audio guys that are ONLY audio guys. They may help you get gear from point A to point B, but they're not going to be lighting or AC'ing or griping. And for the majority of my shoots, I don't call them. Nothing against them and their audio skills/talents are top-notch, but for what I'm doing most of the time, I need more than a one-trick pony.
 
It may specific to one's region or what those sound guys specialize in. . .if they're used to big sets where everything is super compartmentalized then they may well only be used to doing sound and not know how to grip (or have it programmed into them not to touch another department's stuff). If on the other hand they work mostly on small corporate/ENG shoots that seems less likely.
 
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