[Rick Wise]

A couple of more thoughts:

Kodak offers a free quarterly subscription to its movie rag, “In Camera”. The April issue includes a DVD on Vision3 stock showing the distinct differences between 7218 and 7219, as well as 5218 and ’19. The ’19 has a pronounced deeper reach into the shadows, and also handles “overexposed” areas much better. I suggest you get a copy to see for yourself. You can sign up for a free subscription at: https://tinyurl.com/542h6a. They don’t seem to have the DVD posted as a Flash movie. If you’re in a hurry, maybe you can phone them up and request a copy pronto.

Fog/smoke. Fog/smoke is difficult to control, especially outdoors. But it might add quite a bit to your flashlights.

How will the film end up? Blown up to 35mm for theatrical distribution? On DVD? Will you have a DI? Whatever your final outcome, it would be wise to run a test all the way through the ENTIRE process to the end. Which means, make close contact with all post elements including labs, post houses, etc. If you are printing to 35mm, there are a couple of stock options, and your lab should be willing to print up some tests. If everything will be on DVD, the post house should likewise be willing to run a short test to demo your possibilities.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Are you using Kodak 7218 or 7219, or a Fuji stock? The Kodak ’19 will give you a little more reach into the shadows than the ’18. I have not yet shot any 500 Fuji.

As for brands of flashlight, I can’t help you. I’d suggest you get a few different ones to try out in the dark. Use your light meter and your eye to evaluate, if you can’t shoot tests. A relatively recent option is LED flashlights. I suspect they are much closer to daylight than tungsten, which may make them too blue.

You don’t mention whether or not you are shooting in exteriors or interiors. If the latter, you might want to add a hit of ambient light by bouncing one or more small units off the ceiling/foamcore/muslin, or, on the contrary, bouncing off of the floor. Other options include having hot windows/doorways etc. to justify a little ambient light and/or give a reference white. Don’t want no ambient? Go for the gusto!

Let us know ho it turns out, preferably with a segment on the net or YouTube for us to see.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

There are a number of ways to hide identity: place the subject against a bright window, expose for the outdoors, leaving the person as a silhouette; place the actor against a hot wall or light, leaving his/her face dark/black; shoot from behind his/her head; show only the hands, or maybe just the chin.

None of these ways is particularly satisfying.

Note that if the person is well known, you will also need to distort the voice to avoid recognition.

If you are shooting video, you will be able to see in the viewfinder whether or not you can read facial features. Further, in post, the editor can crush the face even more.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Courtesy and respect to and from everyone on the set is basic protocol. I give and expect it all the time, and spread that to the graduate lighting classes I teach at the San Francisco Academy of Art. I’m curious what school allows such shoddy behavior.

In any case, the focal length question is well answered. If you shoot long enough with the same type of camera, you will instinctively know what focal length you want. I can do that easily for 35mm and 16mm film, but haven’t yet learned it that well for video. But the simplest answer would have been something like, “We are framing just wide enough to cover Actor A and Actress B from head to knees, and the camera will be here. So everything from X to Y will be in the shot.” As the director, you are likely to have a pretty good idea about that field of view. However, there are directors who don’t have much of a clue on such issues, and leave it up to the DP to figure out framing, angles, coverage. As a student director, you will find it more than a little useful to constantly be breaking down your scene into shots, if only in your mind, well in advance of the shoot. When the shoot days come, you will undoubtedly change everything, but having pre-viewed your shots, you will be even more able to adapt and improvise when your actors come up with some new and terrific ideas — though you may decide their ideas don’t really fit the film and have to reign them in. It’s a constant dance between you, the chef d’orchestra, and everyone else on the set.

I have one and only one rule about someone on the set being rude or lazy or indifferent: I never hire them again.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Thanks, guys. You can be sure that my secret handshake, with crisp $100 bills, is in the mail.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

If you zoom in on the larger shot, you can see that the white edge is least visible around light objects (her hair) and most visible around dark objects (her dress, and also her arms which are less brightly lit than her face.) Video has a hard time going from dark to light, cleanly. I suspect the posts about detail are correct. However, as you dial down detail, you may begin to have trouble getting a clean key on her hair.

Try: dialing down detail; putting her in a lighter dress; brighten her arms a bit; and, use 1080i. Ideally you’d try one at a time to see if the change helps.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Terrific idea for very short “dolly” moves. Of course, you are forced to move in an arc, but sometimes that’s a good thing. As for the tripod, what matters is that it have a good, smooth head.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Thanks, but the offset varies from reel to reel. The above solution does not work. I would think there’s a simple patch/add-on for Excel for this purpose, but apparently there is not.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Mike, bingo! That does it. (I do have to remove the FX Timecode for the code to read correctly.) Am I correct that before rendering the final, client copy, I should run the script, “Remove all time code from media”? If I don’t the code will be burned into the client’s copy.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com

[Rick Wise]

Ha, I didn’t even know there was a Timecode FX. However, I am finding that the displayed timecode does not match the source timecode. That is, I have clicked on options/preferences/video/and checked both the Diplay take naes and Display take numbers. While on one of the takes, the generated Time Code from the FX seems to track with a 1-minute offset, on other takes the number generated by FX is totally different from the tiny number on the timeline.

Solution?

Note I have set both the options/ruler format to SMPTE 29.97 drop, and the FX to SMPTE 29.97 drop. I also tried both set to non-drop. The original was shot by someone else at 60i with a Z1u. I have imported with the Z1u convert-to-DV mode.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
http://www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com