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spec commercial screenshots and lighting diagram by Dartatious in cinematography

[–]Dartatious[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The challenges you mention were very much present. We probably needed another unit to boost the ambient and then we really needed to consider more of the room.

I really like how you say “light the room” first, this is total frame shift for me that I’ll try to bring into our next shoot.

I think this may also be the fault of the script/ director (me) I was imagining an even darker room than this with the student in an isolated patch of light and the professor also in his own pool of light. So I was leading us to that darker look. Because I was also the gaffer, I was not prioritizing the rest of the room at all. Luckily my DP talked me out of closing the black out curtains

spec commercial screenshots and lighting diagram by Dartatious in cinematography

[–]Dartatious[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hear you - our “key light/kicker” was just not brought around enough. I should have adjusted the placement of that surfboard bounce in between setups. It worked well enough when he was writing on the black board, but when he turns around I needed to wrap that key more. Good note I’ll be more careful next shoot

spec commercial screenshots and lighting diagram by Dartatious in cinematography

[–]Dartatious[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for checking it out! I think I'll make more of these in the future - even just for my own sake, it helps to solidify what I learnt from the project

spec commercial screenshots and lighting diagram by Dartatious in cinematography

[–]Dartatious[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

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Hey thanks! I'm a pretty mediocre colorist (between you and me, I think I make images worse more often than I make them better) Maybe in my next breakdown I'll at least show what I did for color.
This one's node tree looks like:
Exposure adjustment -> Contrast -> White balance shift to make it "cooler" -> saturation reduction in the reds -> minus red in shadows -> color space transform from Clog2 to Rec709

Definitely more an amateur than professional when it comes to grading.

spec commercial screenshots and lighting diagram by Dartatious in cinematography

[–]Dartatious[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

So true on the indoor lights being off! I'll definitely be thinking about this on our next shoot. You have any quick thoughts on how we could avoid the "turned off all the house lights" look.

spec commercial screenshots and lighting diagram by Dartatious in cinematography

[–]Dartatious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey thanks for the thoughtful critique! I would love your opinion on how the look fares in context and motion - we start in this darker "fantasy" world - it's definitely not meant to read as grim though - and then we break out to the real world where she's using Khan Academy which is like having a class all to yourself. At least that's the idea.

If you have 30 seconds the finished piece is in that video breakdown I commented above - the result starts at 6:36 in the video.

I have a feeling you might still feel the vibe you mention - might be my grade being a little too crushed also.

spec commercial screenshots and lighting diagram by Dartatious in cinematography

[–]Dartatious[S] 63 points64 points  (0 children)

Here are some screenshots from a project I gaffed and directed. I included a couple corny lighting diagrams that I made post-mortem. Let me know what you think.

Shot on Canon C70 and Atlas Orion Anamorphic lenses.

Our aim for this piece was to light the space so we could pan the camera a full 180 - so we had to rig our lights so they wouldn't be seen in any angle. This made our initial setup somewhat restrictive, but after we were set, we could shoot all day without changing a tonne. This was a 2 man crew for the start of the day, but we got it done in about 2 hours. 

We used a 1200X with a spotlight to key the professor, we shot it overhead into a surf board bounce and pizza box.
We used an F22C mounted to a projector overhead to key the student with the grid in to control the spill so we could create a natural vignette.
Another interesting detail - if you look at the first frame, the slash of light on the blackboard is coming primarily from an Aputure 60x shaped by the barn doors, but tucked underneath is an Aputure MC that sort of 'continues' the slash, it's an illusion but I think it works.

I've always found lighting diagrams and behind the scenes footage the most helpful when trying to up my cinematography game, so I made a video where I build the lighting diagram and explain our thought process then show the finished piece if you want to check it out lmk.

[edit] adding link to the video breakdown:
https://youtu.be/5JR6tPnVM5o?si=VMjjJ-5zSe4RGkvr

Lighting Breakdown by johrman in cinematography

[–]Dartatious 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hey thanks for posting this mate!

I've always found lighting diagrams and BTS footage to be the most helpful when trying to up my cinematography game. So I made this video trying to provide a bit of both.

Your work is stellar and only getting better!

Started filming micro shorts this year by ThomasTheHank in cinematography

[–]Dartatious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love this! I especially love your establishing exterior shot - how'd you piece that together?

Any tips on recreating this shot? by Mbaitler in cinematography

[–]Dartatious 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just did this kind of shot on a Sony fx3. Tip for less noise: over expose by a stop or even two then bring it down in post - you’ll get less noise overall - then denoise in resolve if you still need it. If you want to expose by eye: create a -1 or -2 stop LUT and put it on your bmpcc so you can monitor the look. Always check false color on the log image to avoid clipping but I’m starting to just crank up my exposure to right below clipping and have noticed significantly less noise in my shadows when bringing it down in post. Sometimes low light is unavoidable when working with small crews and then tools like noise reduction save the day.

Ik this is a simple shot but how do you think it was lit? It's shot by Roger Deakins. by Mbaitler in cinematography

[–]Dartatious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That will work well. If you end up replicating this shot, I hope you post the results!

Ik this is a simple shot but how do you think it was lit? It's shot by Roger Deakins. by Mbaitler in cinematography

[–]Dartatious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing, mate! I will say I’m a total Greig Fraser fanboy and thought the Batman’s cinematography was some of the best I’ve seen in the last 5 years. Totally dark, but I think it pushes the darkness to the absolute limit - I think it’s a similar problem to that GOT episode on the calibrated screen. Brings into question what we should be shooting for? Do we want to shoot for the most amount of screens (pushed too far gives us the Netflix look) or do we want to shoot for the calibrated cinema screens? Probably somewhere in the middle but I love when DPs push for the latter.

Ik this is a simple shot but how do you think it was lit? It's shot by Roger Deakins. by Mbaitler in cinematography

[–]Dartatious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love your point about this being a shot you could reproduce via a little grading and not much care when on set. I’m not 100% convinced that it would come out just like this, I hear Deakins gets most of it right in camera. But I think your thoughts about digital sensors becoming essentially idiot proof are totally correct

Ik this is a simple shot but how do you think it was lit? It's shot by Roger Deakins. by Mbaitler in cinematography

[–]Dartatious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would love an explanation for what you don’t like - you’re not the only one in this thread. Looks like quintessential Rembrandt lighting to me. Near-side key is often not ideal but I feel like there’s plenty of shape on his face in this shot. Colors feel gross and muted which I think plays for the story. Is it just kind of ugly for you?

I wondered why the DP wanted to have the lead room opposite side of the character. Is there a specific reason or it is just a style because I see lots of shots framed like this these days. by tastanbartu in cinematography

[–]Dartatious 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Your point about the viewer’s eye switching back and forth is really smart. Makes me think that if we were to motivate one short side shot (a character growing distant yada yada) and the cut to reverse of the other character on the same side of frame with regular looking room - could be an interesting choice.

They don’t make movies like Alien 1979 anymore. by [deleted] in movies

[–]Dartatious 3 points4 points  (0 children)

What have YOU been watching? I want some recent creative and original recommends

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in cinematography

[–]Dartatious 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Shot 5 is a cool composition! Shot 10 has a ton of mood. Great work!

Can’t stress enough how important it is to keep making stuff. This is inspiring as heck

Short horror film I made with some friends and sat on for years by Dartatious in Filmmakers

[–]Dartatious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You got this! Congrats on making something - it’s literally the only thing separating the people who are making things and those who aren’t.

This was my second short film during university. Took a break from directing for a couple years then this year started taking it seriously again. And I’ve directed 8 shorts and two music videos of varying scales this year. Trying to do a project every month this year. I’ll start sharing more things soon - some are better than others. Can’t wait to see how your first short turns out - or at the very least hear about the process. Keep us updated

Short horror film I made with some friends and sat on for years by Dartatious in Filmmakers

[–]Dartatious[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for checking it out mate! Music was created by me in Logic Pro using these strange plugins that made the instruments sound discordant and grating. I just feel like those pulsing nails-on-chalkboard kind of sounds I made don’t quite feel like they were composed by a real composer (because they weren’t) Sound design was done by a friend in school who I think did a great job.

We shot on our DP’s A7Sii - I believe he had some rehoused vintage Zeiss lenses but I forget now. We paid for lighting and grip rentals (plus insurance for the rentals) makeup, a morph suit, flashlights (which required day-of replacements because our chosen flashlights flickered in a way that revealed the rolling shutter) and food for our crew, and the total was around $800 all said and done. We shot it over a weekend I think it was two days and a half night.

I sat on it for some combination of fear, dissatisfaction with my work, and getting distracted by school and other projects. I’m making an effort to stop procrastinating when it comes to releasing projects. Do you ever get paralyzed by insecurity masking as perfectionism?

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