[Richard Herd]

We’re all entitled to our opinion of course.

My opinion is “your premise is foolish” when you infer the script was less than decent. I would argue there are really only three dramatic situations:
— Individual v. Individual;
— Individual v. Society;
— Individual v. Nature.

Gimmick? Again, my opinion is “your familiarity of historical artifices” is lacking context. Consider “Hamlet” for example. The main draw was some kind of effect that made the ghost appear scary, probably with mirrors, so other actors could walk through it, but we don’t actually know the technique because it was lost to the ages; recall also The Globe was played during daylight.

The point being the big three of narrative (artifice, character, and action) have always been around and will always be around. Calling the artifice a gimmick is just plain… well, gimmicky criticism.

[Richard Herd]

[Mark Suszko] “I really think that 3D is just another tool in the artist’s arsenal.”

YEP!

[Richard Herd]

The over the shoulder shots were amazing.

Guy in foreground in front of the screen and soft focus.
Subject on the screen in sharp focus.
Background objects behind the screen in soft focus.

[Richard Herd]

Here’s a phrase to live by: “Manage Expectations.” 🙂

This one time, I really messed up bad. $10,000 contract and I was proceeding slowly, so slowly that I felt I should include the “right” people in the cutting process, so I showed a rough cut to the Creative Director who showed it to the client who fired my ass.

I don’t do that anymore. No one gets to see a frame until I’m feeling good about it, ready to put my best cut out there every time no matter what because everyone has an opinion and they pride themselves on having an opinion that’s different from the other persons!

Under no circumstances should a screening be prefaced with “now, this isn’t finished yet.” Instead have the mind set of this is my best damn work.

Sorry, you didn’t clarify in the contract, first.

[Richard Herd]

The standard calculation is:
[frame rate] * [shutter angle] = Shutter

Consider an example from film: 1/24 fps * 180/360 = 1/48 shutter.

Beyond that calculation, experimentation is your friend.

Trying to run through the various calculations gets cumbersome. For example, 1/24 * 1/x = 1/2000
1/[24x=2000]
x=83.3

1/83.3=y/360
y=4.3 degree shutter

Feel free to check my math.

IMO, you should keep the shutter mostly fixed unless you’re doing specific effects (Saving Private Ryan, for example with a narrow shutter). But if the whole movie is that way, then nothing is that way. Make sense?

Video is 1/29.97*1/2=1/60, so that’s where a quote-en’-quote “normal” picture should be.

[Richard Herd]

Funny you should mention purple. The brand I advertise, we use (92, 45, 145) as our brand color. Wow, what a pain for daylight balanced, RGB.

It helps to shoot in tungsten balanced–as you mentioned–not anything else. Why you ask? Well, there’s a long seminar worth watching on panavision’s Web site on all things digital imaging, part of which is how white balance works. Here’s that link: https://media.panavision.com/ScreeningRoom/Screening_Room/Demystifying_Part1.html

As I remember it (always a suspect problem, my memory so please check for yourself) is, basically, when you shoot in day light, you have to “remove” blue from the picture, which is done by clipping the blue signal before it even gets digitized. In other words, purple is a “pita” because there isn’t enough blue in your signal, the hardware, the electronics, to mix with the relative amounts of Red and Green (and of course, there is more green in the signal). Tungsten will render purple because tungsten is normally when all RGB levels are equal.

You might want to experiment with other white balance “fixes.” What will happen if you use a yellow filter and white balance? In order to compensate, will an extra amount of blue photons be yanked through the yellow?

[Richard Herd]

They can sue regardless.

There’s more than one license involved: sync, festival, distribution. Other folks will have fancier terms, but that’s the gist. Probably you’ll need more than a boilerplate, and you might be walking a fine line between exploitation and bona fide business practice — meaning you could lose the aforementioned suit at a tipping point of increasing revenue without just compensation. How much revenue is unjust? And what is exploitation are all complicated legal issues to avoid now.

Is there any way it might be a work for hire agreement?

[Richard Herd]

You’re shooting on spec. Just sayin’ :_)

[Richard Herd]

You can change that setting and then save it as a preset if you want. The AE Help menu has the answers you’re looking for.

[Richard Herd]

500w Photo Floods and china lanterns STILL look amazing. A decent set of silks and flags to shape it beyond the china lanterns soft glow does wonders too.