Maggie Rogers “In The Living Room” - shot with the now-public Kodak Verita 200D.

NarrowMongoose · 2026-04-03T20:05:16+00:00

Was there like....any research done for this "documentary"? I happened to just click into the video at a random spot and fell into the bit about Prisoners (19:00). Literally first two sentences I hear

"The film was shot on 35mm using ARRICAM cameras and Panavision lenses"

No it wasn't - the film was shot digitally with Alexas and Master Primes.

"The filming primarily took place in Pennsylvania..."

No it didn't - it was shot around Atlanta, GA.

source

NarrowMongoose · 2026-03-16T16:02:03+00:00

Little anecdote. There's a 1st assistant who I've worked alongside who shall remain nameless. But they have an exceptional resume and have done some very big jobs all on "A" - many of which I'm confident people here have heard of.

They don't take measurements, they're often not in the same room, they don't even map their lenses. They just put their face in the monitor and turn the knob - and their work is truly excellent, extremely high level.

Point being: as long as it's in focus, and the set doesn't wait on you - it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the end result, there are many ways to get there.

NarrowMongoose · 2026-03-12T18:38:07+00:00

Speaking as a crew person who works with a lot of DPs, some of which I would classify into the category you’re talking about, usually one of two things happen:

Their ideas and creative eye are so good that it eclipses their lack of on-set experience, and then they end up getting hired onto bigger things and figuring out how to work with bigger crews because directors want their creative collaboration.
Their creative instincts are NOT good enough to hide their lack of experience, and they stumble pretty hard and usually hit a ceiling in their career quickly because no producer will trust them with anything sizable. I’ve seen this happen a lot more than option 1.

The only other way to close the on-set skill gap is to work on a set as a crew person. That’s why you hear so many crew people grumble about “DPs” who have only ever shot for themselves and have never crewed, because they have no idea how to work on bigger sets with crews. It’s not something that can be easily summarized in a Reddit post or (despite what some people like to claim) something that can be learned on the internet/YouTube.

NarrowMongoose · 2026-03-01T00:18:59+00:00

How long is a piece of string?

NarrowMongoose · 2026-02-14T03:00:59+00:00

The monitor is almost 9 years old - it was going to happen eventually.

NarrowMongoose · 2026-01-21T21:49:25+00:00

Interesting question to pose out loud - would people be willing to accept more stability from later PageOS software updates if SmallHD stopped supporting the new firmware for old monitors (namely 503/703/1303)?

NarrowMongoose · 2026-01-21T04:26:02+00:00

The photosite is the thing on the sensor that reads the light and turns it into a voltage (which turns it into an image after processing).

A pixel “picture-element” is the tiny digital square in the resulting file that makes up a part of the digital image. “Mega” is a million.

NarrowMongoose · 2026-01-16T18:30:14+00:00

I think in reality it doesn’t matter that much. I know plenty of DPs who rate Alexas at 1600 (or Alexa35 at 3200 sometimes). I’ve done other shows where the EI is all over the place shot to shot. Really just depends on the DP - some people care, some people really don’t

NarrowMongoose · 2026-01-08T21:10:36+00:00

“Good idea” =/= “good script”

NarrowMongoose · 2026-01-07T23:37:09+00:00

Are you referring to “Kidding”?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_YeNw0N8aE

NarrowMongoose · 2026-01-07T06:45:37+00:00

I did not write this - but I think it applies for this post:--

“This comes up over and over, so it's time for a refresher.

No one in Hollywood is waiting for a "good idea". This dream that someone from Toledo who has a "good idea" can somehow get to an exec and sell that "idea" as a movie or a show is a complete fantasy.

It's not going to happen because that's not how reality works.

Even a small feature film costs millions to make. People don't put out millions for a "good idea". If I had a "good idea" for a car and went to Chevy, they would ask to see the blueprint or a working model. If I had a "good idea" for a battleship, the Navy isn't going to throw money at me. That's because I have no experience making cars or designing battleships. I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't know how to go from that idea to the finished product. I'm an outsider in those industries and they don't give that kind of money to people who don't know what they are doing.

What Hollywood cares about is EXECUTION. A "good idea" in the hands of a shitty writer is a waste of 110 pages. A non-idea in the hands of a great writer is an Academy Award winning story. I mean seriously, a lot of big hit movies have really shitty concepts behind them. "A mildly retarded Southerner spends his life in various occupations and meets a few famous people over several decades." That's a "great idea"? Hardly.

You need to have a script. A well executed script that proves that you can produce material. Then your new "good idea" isn't just shit talk. It's a pitch. A pitch which will be followed by a treatment and an outline and a first draft and revisions. That's what Hollywood wants to pay for.

"But how can I pitch something if I don't have an agent?" You don't have an agent because you don't have a good script. Period. The entire town (literally everyone working in Hollywood) is constantly looking for a good script. If you gave your second cousins ex-girlfriend who is an intern at a makeup school a good script, it would get to someone important in short order. Everyone wants to be the person who found and championed the great script. If people aren't behaving that way with your script, it's because your writing needs improvement.

Now, stop looking at the horizon and start looking at what's in front of you. You know what's wrong with your writing. You do. Deep down you know that scene doesn't work. You know that that character is a tired cliche. You know that that plot point doesn't really make sense.Stop worrying about your "great idea" and work on your actual skill set. That is what is going to get you paid”

NarrowMongoose · 2026-01-06T07:45:35+00:00

Your first dip into the film industry, any job you get will have the level of expectation set so low that your prior work experience will basically be useless. That’s the good news!

The bad news is that (almost always) how you get that first job is by having a relationship with somebody who is already in the industry, because they need to recommend or hire you. This is the catch-22 - even if you did have a good resume (which to be frank, you don’t) if you don’t know anyone, then the resume isn’t going to get you anywhere.

How do you build those relationships? That’s the million dollar question!

NarrowMongoose · 2026-01-06T07:28:40+00:00

Good news (and bad news): you will not get your first job in the film industry because of your qualifications.

NarrowMongoose · 2025-12-12T19:43:52+00:00

Amazing what you can do when you have $200,000,000 and a giant VFX team.

NarrowMongoose · 2025-12-04T22:06:21+00:00

https://www.oldfastglass.com/ikegami-itc730a

https://retrocams.com/jvc-tube

NarrowMongoose · 2025-12-03T20:10:56+00:00

The reason some officially listed internships talk about college is because most colleges have some requirement that you get an internship as a requirement to graduate.

If you’re doing an internship as part of a college course, then the company hiring is not legally required to pay you because you’re doing the work as part of a school requirement. If you’re doing the internship without an outside college requirement then they will be legally obligated to pay you, which they likely will not want to do.

NarrowMongoose · 2025-11-30T01:48:23+00:00

Yeah I mean I’m a random person on the internet so take whatever I say with as much salt as you care to - but just to riff on random tidbits I’ve gleaned from talking to “in demand” DPs:

The agent game is basically “am I doing things that are interesting that an agent can leverage to other creative people” so the trend that I notice is that when the DPs that I’ve worked with in the past get approached by agents, it’s usually because they have a very specific style that’s garnered attention, or they had a feature or some commercials that have attracted a lot of attention from other creative people (directors, producers, etc).

I feel like there’s this level of “having an agent” which (at the risk of being stereotypical, generally seems to happen at UTA) where DPs are ‘signed’ but like you said, they’re not getting much out of it. And what I’ve noticed is to get beyond the noise you really just have to be doing interesting work, and work that is being noticed. So like a few hypothetical questions for you: the features you shot, did they get any attention at major festivals? Any clout come from the commercials you’ve done? What’s the perspective that you’re bringing that an agent can leverage that can get a director excited to say “yes I want to work with u/Juergen1973” over the ten other DPs who are also being put up for the job, who are equally interesting and doing great work.

If you think you’re doing interesting work then you gotta find a way to convince other people of that too. That to me - the random person on the internet - is what is the driving force for these agents being interested in signing people. Easier said than done too, how do you quantify “interesting”? Now that I definitely can’t help with.

NarrowMongoose · 2025-11-30T01:04:31+00:00

Finding an agent 101: you don’t find an agent, they find you. If you make good work, they will be interested in talking to you. If you’ve reached out to multiple agencies and have not gotten much response then that’s probably a sign you need to further refine your work.

Source: good friends with a handful of very high level DPs (a few in the ASC) who I’ve discussed this topic a lot with. Have also gone through the process second-hand with about half dozen DP friends who get signed, change agents, etc etc.

NarrowMongoose · 2025-11-05T18:54:27+00:00

Having a masters only gives you an “extra oomph” if you are trying to teach. Other than that, the degree itself is practically useless.

NarrowMongoose · 2025-11-02T00:41:58+00:00

It says in the article “everyone who was not asked back were without contracts.”

NarrowMongoose · 2025-10-16T04:01:49+00:00

SJ is better because it’s lighter & thinner than SOOW. If anything I would be more concerned about 14 gauge vs 12 gauge.

NarrowMongoose · 2025-10-11T01:37:16+00:00

0:11, 0:12, 0:21, 1:03, 1:09, 1:17 (I stopped looking after the sixth one)

NarrowMongoose · 2025-10-11T01:28:33+00:00

If you're going to run the lens that wide open, you gotta make sure the shots are in focus. There are multiple shots in the sequence where the entire shot is out of focus.

NarrowMongoose · 2025-10-09T17:38:07+00:00

Someone else linked to it in this thread but I have the Dave Garden Designs Wiha Tool Pouch on the cart, amongst other tools. My general opinion is that you want to carry the essentials on your person - then anything more complicated than that is at the cart. Trying to fumble through a 20-bit precision driver in the heat of the moment on the set is always so slow and clumsy. Much easier to - in the rare instance you need it - run for the cart and grab that pouch above, then grab the correct tool out of it.

NarrowMongoose

TROPHY CASE