My 2009 Demo Rizzle

Ryan,
All I can say is excellent work. Damn! Your lighting is impeccable (accept the hallway scene...LOL! I remember it from one another viewing of your work so I had to bust your chops on something...don't want your head to swell too much.) In all sincerety you are ready to bust out! No reason you can't get to the top of the heap with work like this. As soon as I write that script worthy of your work...then it's game on!
 
Ryan Patrick O'Hara said:
http://www.ryanpatrickohara.com/demoreel.html

Leave comments or questions. I'd love to hear what you all have to say.

I'm temporary hosting on Vimeo until I can find a compression that doesn't look like garbage and can stream off my site... any suggestions on that as well would be awesome!

Later! :beer:

-ryan
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I haven't found a good way to 'stream' other than having my stuff on something like vimeo, and making references to it. On the other hand, streaming off of vimeo, means I don't have to pay for the bandwidth...

The video clips looked pretty good, but the one thing that put me off was the music... I realize this is a big problem, that is getting music to work... but if each clip had more of a unique musical clip, I think it would work better. The music as it is sort of creates dissonance... either in the more 'tender' shots, blasting through, or in the heavy action shots, sort of not quite 'action' enough.

I'm thinking of the robbery sequence in the start of "Snatch"(2000), where there's traditional 'klezmer' music while the guys, we are to presume are 'nice' chasidic diamond couriers, is playing, then... blasto in to raunchy fast paced in your face music, when the 'couriers' pull out guns and the robbery is off and running...
 
I am green right now. I forgot the dude with the mask and the gun was in your reel, but that shot has stuck with me. That shiznitis is a look sample for a project of mine. Did you rent a Phantom for that material or one of those film zippers that does a 1000 mag in a second?

I gotta go with clark here, the music kind of takes me out of the reel. Just a disconnect from the image rather than supporting the vibe you know? Plus I always question the use of music with vocals. The vocals make me pay attention to the song and not the image. Key.

I don't think using different songs is the answer though, unless they cut together in a hot way. I think for starters the reel itself is way to long. If you're trying to get a job the video's gotta be hot all the way through. That means you gotta cut all the shots that are basically coverage. Look at everything in the reel and figure out what makes each shot special in terms of cinematography specifically (the rain, the slo-mo, sweet green lasers, the quality of motion, pure and simple awesome, what have you), and if you can't figure that out for a shot, ditch it yo. Set-up time doesn't count, the viewer can't see that. The lighting has to be just stand-out for a CU to make it in there I think...not that you shouldn't have any; don't want to miss a job from jackasses who think you can't cover a scene I guess.

I realize you want to represent every aspect of your abilities, but you might want to make that distinction better in the cut. So basically a drama section, with violins and mournful pianos and shi*e, take your pick, and then an action section where we kick out the jams. Sometimes breaking up the material is a good thing, if you're grouping by vibe or the music will benefit something better if it's right over here, 'cause the motion goes well to this particular sound... The shots don't need to hold as long in some instances, in others showing the performance you captured is justified--that's a judgment call I think.

Hope this is helpful.
 
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Really nice work Ryan! The duration is alot longer than most people would suggest for a reel but it held my attention well and unlike Justin above, i felt that the music served it well!

I would maybe loose the corridor scene as the on-camera light doesn't really work for me although i did read the discussion about it...


Good work man


Tom.
 
i loved that. I've seen reels where people have songs that don't line up or are to fast but the music fit nicely.

Everything is so well lit. Good work for sure.
 
Ryan:

1. Nice work overall. You are a good DP.

2. Way too long. If I were hiring you, I would have checked out at about 1:15. The old show-biz directive is to "leave 'em wanting more", isn't it?

3. I agree with you about the music. I would hire an editor who is a good music mixer or I would hire a composer. Your reel is full of cinematic images yet your music isn't in the least bit cinematic. IMHO, you are shortchanging the power of your images with random, dissonate indie rock music. If I were you, I would cut the reel to 2:00 and give a good, starving composer (there are so many of them) $500.00 and let 'em loose. It would be so much better because NOBODY does it.

4. The whole RED shot at the end seems like you are saying, "I have a RED and I am not afraid to use it". If you have a RED, this makes sense. If you don't own a RED, I think you are shooting yourself in the foot. Once again, as a producer, I wouldn't hire you if you were pushing your RED package because I personally don't like the RED or the RED workflow. You are limting your appeal to producers who dislike RED because we are now confused by this. Will you only shoot with RED? What if I want to shoot with the Viper or with a 3700 or a Panavision? Will you know how to use it and light for it? See what I mean? IMHO, DP reels shoul not refer to any specific cameras unless you are an owner/operator and are pushing your camera. Even then, it limits you. As a DP, I always am happy to use whichever tool a producer or director wants to use whether that is my HPX170/5D MKII or an Arri 535. Doesn't matter to me. So I would never put a reference to my little cameras in a DP reel.

Thanks for sharing, I like your work but IMHO, your reel needs some work as far as re-cutting it and cutting it way down. People these days have almost zero attention span, over five minutes is really long when you have a an hour or two to view a dozen or more DP reels.

Dan
 
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As a DP that was phenomenal and I drooled a few times. I like how you separated it by film but you have so much great footage you need to give it a chance to be seen. You should shorten each section to add more diversity.
 
puredrifting said:
Ryan:

1. Nice work overall. You are a good DP.

2. Way too long. If I were hiring you, I would have checked out at about 1:15. The old show-biz directive is to "leave 'em wanting more", isn't it?

3. I agree with you about the music. I would hire an editor who is a good music mixer or I would hire a composer. Your reel is full of cinematic images yet your music isn't in the least bit cinematic. IMHO, you are shortchanging the power of your images with random, dissonate indie rock music. If I were you, I would cut the reel to 2:00 and give a good, starving composer (there are so many of them) $500.00 and let 'em loose. It would be so much better because NOBODY does it.

4. The whole RED shot at the end seems like you are saying, "I have a RED and I am not afraid to use it". If you have a RED, this makes sense. If you don't own a RED, I think you are shooting yourself in the foot. Once again, as a producer, I wouldn't hire you if you were pushing your RED package because I personally don't like the RED or the RED workflow. You are limting your appeal to producers who dislike RED because we are now confused by this. Will you only shoot with RED? What if I want to shoot with the Viper or with a 3700 or a Panavision? Will you know how to use it and light for it? See what I mean? IMHO, DP reels shoul not refer to any specific cameras unless you are an owner/operator and are pushing your camera. Even then, it limits you. As a DP, I always am happy to use whichever tool a producer or director wants to use whether that is my HPX170/5D MKII or an Arri 535. Doesn't matter to me. So I would never put a reference to my little cameras in a DP reel.

Thanks for sharing, I like your work but IMHO, your reel needs some work as far as re-cutting it and cutting it way down. People these days have almost zero attention span, over five minutes is really long when you have a an hour or two to view a dozen or more DP reels.

Dan
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I just have to agree with all the points. I was thinking exactly the same things as I was watching your reel. Good content.

Listen to Dan, spend the money. It will return to you tenfold. :beer:
 
check out exposureroom.com

a lot of people on these forums, including myself, prefer ER to their competitors, ie: Vimeo and YouTube. they don't have the greatest interface, but in my opinion its a little more professional due to it being less of a communal site.

cheers,
Mike
 
Hey everybody...

Great points all around. This was made to be a 'long form' demo, and I'm gonna make a shorter 'clusterf*$k montage' in the near future. I'd love to have a composer do my reel but they would have to be really good and not the classical type meaning I'm not going for the cinematic/cinemagic feel. I want inspiring progressive music... Not sure if you remember my last demo reel... but it was non-lyrical and very 'Snatch' Guy Ritchie sounding.... funny that one poster mentioned that... probably was thinking of my last reel. The song was called 'Brakes on' by Air. I might do my new 'short version' demo to it. I'd love if anyone has suggestions for songs out there for that type of demo.

As for Vimeo, it was just a temp solution as i pay enough money every year to my interwebs hosting company to host my own video file and pay the bandwidth... I just can't find a codec/file size that can stream fast enough to not make people wait too long and still look good. I'll check out exposure room, but in the end, there is nothing more classy then hosting you own video on your own site. Any tech geeks out there who knows a thing or two about this can surely feel free to point me in the right direction.

Thanks so far! :)

-Ryan
 
Great demo. I agree with what Dan said, he always has very helpful information.

Also, great website, are you a web designer as well? Or did you have someone else build the site?

Look forward to seeing future work.
 
artforme said:
Great demo. I agree with what Dan said, he always has very helpful information.

Also, great website, are you a web designer as well? Or did you have someone else build the site?

Look forward to seeing future work.
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Thanks. I did build and still personally maintain my website. It's nothing more then HTML and some tables. Simple stuff I code manually or breeze through in dreamweaver. That main page carousel is simply a free java script I customized to fit my needs. Someone else did the hard work on that part!
 
Ryan.

1) I think it is safe to say you are one of the best DPs on this forum. Knowing this before watching your 09 reel, I have high expectations.

2) Do you usually use a light meter or waveform monitor?

3) For some reason, maybe from an old post I thought you were an HVX/redrock shooter. Didn't know you upgraded to red yet. But for some reason, it felt like all of your footage was 1/3 DVCPro HD adaptor footage. Mostly bc it fells like you commonly use shallow DOF. Looks like your common stop is 2.0. In my opinion your lighting techniques and composition are defiantly good enough to shoot at f/16. I would love to see you utilize slower stops with your lighting and a 35mm lens. A couple crispy sharp images will give much more diversity to your reel.
 
nickmicros said:
Ryan.

1) I think it is safe to say you are one of the best DPs on this forum. Knowing this before watching your 09 reel, I have high expectations.

2) Do you usually use a light meter or waveform monitor?

3) For some reason, maybe from an old post I thought you were an HVX/redrock shooter. Didn't know you upgraded to red yet. But for some reason, it felt like all of your footage was 1/3 DVCPro HD adaptor footage. Mostly bc it fells like you commonly use shallow DOF. Looks like your common stop is 2.0. In my opinion your lighting techniques and composition are defiantly good enough to shoot at f/16. I would love to see you utilize slower stops with your lighting and a 35mm lens. A couple crispy sharp images will give much more diversity to your reel.
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Haha. You've pretty much nailed it on the head.

1) Thanks.

2) I use an incident light meter to check ratios, and a spot meter to place everything in the zone system within my head. I like that system best. Otherwise, in camera or otherwise I do not use a waveform as much as I perhaps should. I like using the spot meter to determine exposure. Lately though, I've not had the luxury of taking the time to do this often, so I find myself flying by camera zebras and a monitor to keep the schedule on track.

3) You nailed it on the head. Many of those films were shot on HVX200/RedRock setups, the newer ones on Red, and etc. One of these days, (and very soon), I'll get those 5k, 10k, +20k's and I'll stop down to a 5.6! (I really don't wanna go deeper then a 5.6. Probably stick to a f/4 :) ) Right now, the type of films I'm shooting restrict me to lighting fixtures which plug into the wall <20amps... I personally would love to shoot at f/4-f/5.6 all day long. The blacks when shooting wide open are usually polluted with ambient light more so then blacks shot at a higher stop. I'm hoping 2010 will be a good year.
 
Awesome haha.

With the art direction, car explosion and the red one, tt looks like you are apart of some bigger budget indies. So I figured you would have access to more power. Some day I hope you will be able to stop down farther! 5.6 sounds good still! I only dream of the day when I can shoot around there!
 
Wow. Incredible work Ryan. Probably the best Dp work I have seen on this forum and that is saying a lot with some of the talent on here. I can't wait to see what you do in the future.
 
The diner scene and the rain scene following that are definitely your best shots. Bravo!

However, it does feel much too long. Only the best of the best and cut the rest! :)
 
i enjoyed it, i liked the lighting scene in the living room with the "lightning" especially. edited because my question was answered just too lazy to look. and i can also say that it was a bit long, but there's not much wrong with that.
 
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