Eric Coughlin
Veteran
So I keep hearing people (I'm looking at you, Dan (puredrifting)) saying how videos are all about story and equipment isn't that important (comparatively speaking), and while technically true, I just think a qualification needs to be made whenever someone says that.
The qualification is that story is primarily the job of the writer, director, and producer, and typically not the DP. Many of us on this forum such as myself are freelance DPs, and to us, story is often not our job, equipment and the skill-set and technical knowledge to use it well is our job. So when downplaying the importance of equipment, it's best to say, "As a producer..." and then go on about how equipment may not be as important to telling the story as the story, acting, etc., while meanwhile, to the DP, the equipment is very important for them to do their job well, and as an own/operator who rents out their gear when hired, it's very important in relation to profits for their business model.
If I'm hired to shoot an interview and given frame grabs to match previous interviews for a documentary, then I know exactly what I need to do. The story is irrelevant to my job because I already know how the interview needs to look, so what is relevant is my knowledge of how to use my equipment to replicate the look. Meanwhile, for the producer asking the interview questions and framing the story, story is very important. But again, not my job.
I do also produce and write, so I'm well aware of the importance of story, but 90% of my work is as a freelance DP and for that generally speaking, story is heavily irrelevant.
I recall back when I did weddings I followed the wedding video company Stillmotion, and their reoccurring mantra was, "story, story, story." Once they even blamed a technical error on, "We were so focused on the story we didn't notice the light changing [for an interview]." Ha. I bought into it at the time for wedding work and spent time "getting to know" the couple, learning their story, and then hoping to somehow integrate what I learned about them into how I filmed and edited their wedding video. The result, I ended up shooting and editing their video exactly the same as I would have had I not wasted time trying to get to know their story. It's pretty basic; you have vows, speeches, etc., and edit them together in a way that flows well. The fact that they were thinking of adopting some children, how they met, or that he was an engineer, etc., was completely irrelevant to me choosing a 70-200 for the vows, or editing in the father saying a nice thing at the speeches. Perhaps if I had spent less time wasted on a failed attempt to integrate story, and more time on technical mastery, the film would have turned out better.
Now when it comes to DPing narrative work, the DP can use the story to help frame their choices for lighting, lenses, angles, etc. Then again, they could approach it more simply and just try to make it look good, focusing more on technical aspects, while of course in a more basic way making choices that are appropriate (e.g., more dramatic for horror, less dramatic for comedy). They are different approaches and I don't think it's accurate to completely put down one over the other. For myself, I'll often veer toward the latter. People ask me, "How are you going to shoot this to reflect the story?" I say, "Check out my demo reel, previous films, etc., and you can see the quality of my work. I'll give you a similar quality for your film."
This one time I was DPing a feature, spur of the moment, mid-shot, I decided to start doing a long focal length Steadicam move wrapping around the three characters in conversation. Director loved it, and asked what inspired me to do that, if it was the character's state of mind (frantic), etc., and I just said, "I thought it would look cool."
I'm not promoting a simplistic view of cinematography and motivation, but I am putting down people who B.S. to sound cool ("Yes, I thought how frantic she was so that clearly was the reason for the motivated movement"), but don't actually have quality work to backup their B.S. Just to qualify myself, I do think my narrative work is better than many who approach it from a very story and character motivated approach, so I'm just saying, that way isn't always the absolute best approach as some seem to imply. It depends on the person, either method can work, but for myself, I tend to focus more from a technical point of view. I'm analytical and was a math major before switching to film, so perhaps that explains some.
At the end of the day, good is good, great is great, and whether your motivation came from technical knowledge and/or a deep understanding of the story, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll get better results one way or the other. To fulfill technical mastery, you need the skill-set to do so and equipment capable of doing the job. The better your equipment, the easier it is to do your job well, which generally translates to better results.
Another pet peeve of mine is when a producer calls me and expects me to get all excited about their story; I get over 400 inquiries a year for jobs and I'm supposed to find your particular story so exciting that you'll hear a raise in the excitement of my tone of voice over the phone? I've literally lost a couple jobs because the producer didn't think I sounded excited enough about their story on the phone; my passion isn't for other people's stories, it's for cinematography, equipment, technical knowledge, getting good shots, etc. I'll do the job well but don't expect me to ooze passion over other people's stories. I need to discuss what equipment you'll be wanting, date, time, location, budget, and again, the story is the producer's job. Sure, I may appreciate a quick summary of what the video is about, and some stories are more interesting than others, but it's lower on my priorities since it has little effect on how I'm going to do my job, and please don't take 10-20 minutes giving all these story details when there's a 70% chance you can't even afford my rates.
The sooner producers realize that a DP's involvement with the story is often not important, the better off we'll be to be able to do our actual job.
End of rant/PSA.
TL;DR: DP's job is filming, equipment, technical mastery, not story; leave story to writers, producers, and directors. Equipment is important for the DP.
The qualification is that story is primarily the job of the writer, director, and producer, and typically not the DP. Many of us on this forum such as myself are freelance DPs, and to us, story is often not our job, equipment and the skill-set and technical knowledge to use it well is our job. So when downplaying the importance of equipment, it's best to say, "As a producer..." and then go on about how equipment may not be as important to telling the story as the story, acting, etc., while meanwhile, to the DP, the equipment is very important for them to do their job well, and as an own/operator who rents out their gear when hired, it's very important in relation to profits for their business model.
If I'm hired to shoot an interview and given frame grabs to match previous interviews for a documentary, then I know exactly what I need to do. The story is irrelevant to my job because I already know how the interview needs to look, so what is relevant is my knowledge of how to use my equipment to replicate the look. Meanwhile, for the producer asking the interview questions and framing the story, story is very important. But again, not my job.
I do also produce and write, so I'm well aware of the importance of story, but 90% of my work is as a freelance DP and for that generally speaking, story is heavily irrelevant.
I recall back when I did weddings I followed the wedding video company Stillmotion, and their reoccurring mantra was, "story, story, story." Once they even blamed a technical error on, "We were so focused on the story we didn't notice the light changing [for an interview]." Ha. I bought into it at the time for wedding work and spent time "getting to know" the couple, learning their story, and then hoping to somehow integrate what I learned about them into how I filmed and edited their wedding video. The result, I ended up shooting and editing their video exactly the same as I would have had I not wasted time trying to get to know their story. It's pretty basic; you have vows, speeches, etc., and edit them together in a way that flows well. The fact that they were thinking of adopting some children, how they met, or that he was an engineer, etc., was completely irrelevant to me choosing a 70-200 for the vows, or editing in the father saying a nice thing at the speeches. Perhaps if I had spent less time wasted on a failed attempt to integrate story, and more time on technical mastery, the film would have turned out better.
Now when it comes to DPing narrative work, the DP can use the story to help frame their choices for lighting, lenses, angles, etc. Then again, they could approach it more simply and just try to make it look good, focusing more on technical aspects, while of course in a more basic way making choices that are appropriate (e.g., more dramatic for horror, less dramatic for comedy). They are different approaches and I don't think it's accurate to completely put down one over the other. For myself, I'll often veer toward the latter. People ask me, "How are you going to shoot this to reflect the story?" I say, "Check out my demo reel, previous films, etc., and you can see the quality of my work. I'll give you a similar quality for your film."
This one time I was DPing a feature, spur of the moment, mid-shot, I decided to start doing a long focal length Steadicam move wrapping around the three characters in conversation. Director loved it, and asked what inspired me to do that, if it was the character's state of mind (frantic), etc., and I just said, "I thought it would look cool."
I'm not promoting a simplistic view of cinematography and motivation, but I am putting down people who B.S. to sound cool ("Yes, I thought how frantic she was so that clearly was the reason for the motivated movement"), but don't actually have quality work to backup their B.S. Just to qualify myself, I do think my narrative work is better than many who approach it from a very story and character motivated approach, so I'm just saying, that way isn't always the absolute best approach as some seem to imply. It depends on the person, either method can work, but for myself, I tend to focus more from a technical point of view. I'm analytical and was a math major before switching to film, so perhaps that explains some.
At the end of the day, good is good, great is great, and whether your motivation came from technical knowledge and/or a deep understanding of the story, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll get better results one way or the other. To fulfill technical mastery, you need the skill-set to do so and equipment capable of doing the job. The better your equipment, the easier it is to do your job well, which generally translates to better results.
Another pet peeve of mine is when a producer calls me and expects me to get all excited about their story; I get over 400 inquiries a year for jobs and I'm supposed to find your particular story so exciting that you'll hear a raise in the excitement of my tone of voice over the phone? I've literally lost a couple jobs because the producer didn't think I sounded excited enough about their story on the phone; my passion isn't for other people's stories, it's for cinematography, equipment, technical knowledge, getting good shots, etc. I'll do the job well but don't expect me to ooze passion over other people's stories. I need to discuss what equipment you'll be wanting, date, time, location, budget, and again, the story is the producer's job. Sure, I may appreciate a quick summary of what the video is about, and some stories are more interesting than others, but it's lower on my priorities since it has little effect on how I'm going to do my job, and please don't take 10-20 minutes giving all these story details when there's a 70% chance you can't even afford my rates.
The sooner producers realize that a DP's involvement with the story is often not important, the better off we'll be to be able to do our actual job.
End of rant/PSA.
TL;DR: DP's job is filming, equipment, technical mastery, not story; leave story to writers, producers, and directors. Equipment is important for the DP.
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