Hello James. You recently shot and edited two short films. First there is “We Were Wanderers on a Prehistoric Earth” and secondly there is “The Isle of Langkawi”. Can you start by telling us a little more about how you got these two projects off the ground?

Through Vimeo, Tourism Malaysia approached 5 different filmmakers to make a selection of films to promote Malaysia. They approached me because they had enjoyed a film I made called called Splitscreen: A Love Story. Each filmmaker was given $12000 and commissioned to make two films on different subjects, we were given Nature and History. The briefs were wide open so we could do whatever we wanted.

Let’s go into a bit more detail on your film “We Were Wanderers”. Here is the short film (below):

What fonts are you using in your opening title sequence?

Gill Sans and Edwardian Script.

Your opening shot (above) is amazing ! Did you add anything to any of the shots, or are all of the atmospheric qualities and visuals real? Did you use any special effects beyond basic post production work?

I worked a lot in post to get each shot exactly as I wanted it. The whole film has been colour graded which means not only enhancing and adjusting the colour, saturation and contrast but also darkening and brightening specific parts of the image to lead the eye to specific areas. I also changed the speed of some shots. The first two shots have been increased in speed so that you see the mist moving through the trees. Also some shots were slowed down using Twixtor. Apart from that, everything is real, there were no special effects involved.

Your sound design is incredible. Did you use real recorded sounds from your trip or did you build the soundscape from the ground up in post production using library sounds?

I did take a Tascam sound recorder with me to Malaysia, but we could only really take the bare minimum with us into the jungle due to the weight of our bags, so unfortunalty we couldn’t record any jungle sounds. So all the sound you hear was designed by our sound designer Mauricio d’Orey, who did a fantastic job.

It seems like you would have had such a small window of opportunity to capture those atmospheric images. Everything seems “just right”. Am I wrong in assuming this? Did you feel pressured to move quickly before the atmosphere or lighting changed?

For some shots we had to make sure we were in the right place at the right time, for example the two opening shots were taken very early in the morning so we would see the mist. Also occasionally we would set up a great shot only for the sun to go behind a cloud at the wrong moment. However, Malaysia is such a beautiful place that its hard not to get great shots. We were shooting every single day and almost every daylight hour so we had a lot of footage, editing was easy because it was a matter of ‘cherry picking’ the best shots.

Beautiful movement at :24 (above). How are you stabilizing your camera for these long movement shots?

We hired a boat to take us along a river through the jungle. We just set up the camera on the tripod and shot everything that looked good. It was a very calm river so we managed to get some great shots, that was one of them.

:38 looks slow motion to me. How are you slowing down these shots?

We planned to shoot slow motion right from the start but we had to be wise in what we could take while trekking through he jungle, so obviously we couldn’t take a specialised high speed camera. So we shot at 50 fps then slowed it down even more using Twixtor.

You used Excerpts from Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. Did you find this text after you shot the film or were you inspired to shoot the film because of this text?

I knew I wanted to use some kind of poetic voiceover throughout the film but I didn’t settle on Heart of Darkness until I was editing. For a long time I was planning on using excerpts from ‘The Malay Archipelago’ by Alfred Russel Wallace. Its a book chronicling the scientific exploration of Russel Wallace around Malaysia and the surround area from 1854 to 1862. It has some very interesting writing but just wasn’t ‘poetic’ enough. I had been aware of Heart of Darkness but was wary that it would be too negative towards the jungle, when I decided against The Malay Archipelago I reread Conrad’s book and found the excerpts that I finally used.

Is “Heart of Darkness” now in the public domain?

Yes it is. Heart of Darkness is in the public domain because the author died more than 70 years ago. I was aware of that law but I also double checked with various copyright agencies and the publisher of the book. Anyone planning on doing something similar with another book should always check before they use it.

The narrator’s voice is fantastic. How did you go about looking for a narrator?

Finding a voiceover artist can be an annoying subject for a young filmmaker with a small budget. If you go through a specialised voiceover agency they’ll not only charge you the artists fee but you also have to purchase a license to use the recording for a limited amount of time. So I decided to put up an ad on Casting Call Pro, thats were I found Terry Burns, who has an incredible voice and actually much better than the VO artists I was looking at on VO agency websites.

What microphones were used to record narration?

I dont know exactly what microphone but it was recorded digitally in a professional recording studio. The old analogue quality of the voice was added later in Logic Express.

Okay, now a few technical questions. What camera did you shoot on?

Canon 1D Mark IV

What lenses did you use?

Canon 24-70mm
Canon 70-200mm
macro lens
Canon 2x extender

What was the total budget for this project?

$12000

How long from idea conceptualizing to final edit did this project take?

About 1 month

Thank you greatly for sharing your work and insight with our Lights Film School blog readers James. We really appreciate it!

Hello Ben and thank you for taking the time to talk with Lights Film School blog readers about your two most recent projects “The Reformed Troglodyte” and “The Gentleman Shaver“.

Both of these two shorts are branded shorts sponsored by theartofshaving.com. Let’s take a look at “The Reformed Troglodyte” first:

Many people may not know this, but your short film “Apricot” was also a branded short. Can you tell me a little bit about the differences in the relationship between yourself and the companies from these two projects (Art of Shaving vs. Apricot).

Apricot was a filmmaker’s fund that was sponsored by a brand. The company was interested in supporting a filmmaker with an aesthetic that they like and related to and put their support behind it. A little similar to what Absolute did with Spike Jonze’s short ‘I’m Here’. It was creatively my concept, script and execution. Gentleman Shaver and Reformed Troglodyte are fairly different situation, as I didn’t write them. They were developed by the great team at BBDO NYC and I was brought on board to bring them to life. This structure is much more akin to the typical commercial process. With the Art Of Shaving films, there was a much more hands on approach from those who were investing in the project. Perhaps that is the difference between working in USA and France.

It seems to me that there is some potential for some interesting bridges to be built between the two worlds of short fiction filmmaking and advertising.

Companies that are sponsoring these shorts don’t want their product placement to be too subtle or hidden, but filmmakers don’t simply want to “sell out” by filming a product under a soft-box and throwing a commercial jingle in the background. These ads are somewhere in between those two extremes.

You made a really great point, during one of your other interviews with us when you mentioned that your philosophy is to “point at” the realities of your filming environment. When I watched “The Gentleman Shaver”, you made it clear that it was a shaving product branded short. I didn’t get the impression you were trying to hide that. However, with “The Reformed Troglodyte” the shaving component of the film, although it was present, was not as pronounced as in “The Gentleman Shaver”. Can you tell me how these two films work as one? There seemed to be a totally different narrative approach to both films.

They were simply written that way before I came to them. I think there is a huge danger in these sorts of projects and I am not keen to do them unless I feel like they are being done for the correct reasons. People shouldn’t think of them as 5 minute commercials, because they simply can’t be that. The story telling still needs to be the top priority and if it isn’t, then the project becomes very bland and dull to watch. I have worked on those projects when the aim changes mid stream and it never ends up successful for anyone. I wouldn’t say Gentleman Shaver is product or brand specific, in fact you never really get a decent look at the product at all. It is simply a story taking place around the ritual of shaving. There is no lingering or huge close up of a sparkling razor blade. That would really be pointing the finger at it! Reformed Troglodyte has more of a character arc, more locations and spans a greater length of time so if feels quite different to Gentleman Shaver.

Great point. Thank you. Next, when you start to work on these projects how collaborative and open is the process when working with a company? When you start work on a project like this and you meet the people from the company sponsoring these branded shorts, do you get the impression they are worried that a filmmaker may go too “auteur” with the short? Did you feel you needed to put them at ease letting them know you would be respectful to their desired outcome?

I’ve never met anyone from the brand for any of the project’s that I have completed to date. That is usually managed by my production company producers or the creative agency involved. Sure there is sometimes a push from someone for it to be more like some commercial, but when you do it and show them it the edit it is usually pretty obvious that it ruptures the integrity of the short film world that you are creating. Like anything, sometimes it is a challenge but if they are intelligent and smart people you can be very respectful and explain why you want to do it and they are happy to trust you. On some upcoming collaborations for potential projects I am looking at for 2012 I have met directly with the company, they have actually been craving the creativity and filmic qualities for their projects. You have to pick your battles and I have had meetings where both myself and a brand have realized that we are not right for what each other’s creative visions would be for the project, so you simply don’t do it. If you establish what you do, then people seem to come to you for that thing.

From the company’s standpoint, why do you think a company would rather go this route than a regular 30 second advertising spot?

It’s another way to connect with their audience. It delves into the ideas and philosophy of the company in a rich way that 30 seconds simply can’t. Your emotions are much more alive and stimulated.

Do you feel there is a potential shift in the overall advertising world towards more narrative ads? Do you feel that this is a better way to reach audiences?

It has always gone in waves. The same thing happened in music videos that is now happening in fashion films. Narrative comes and goes depending on what the audience’s current tastes are and what the technology facilitates. The role of Vimeo.com and YouTube has a lot to do with the emergence of current narrative based advertising, the same way MTV had a lot to do with the boom in music videos.

Let’s talk a little more about the specifics of “The Reformed Troglodyte”.

Let’s start by talking about your choice of typography. What inspiration did you draw from to come to this choice?

Ha! That wasn’t my choice. But I liked it. It was masculine, strong and had a nostalgic throw back.

You’ve managed to find spectacular locations for these shorts. How long did it take you to location scout these properties? Did you have the help of the sponsors in securing or looking for these locations? For example I love the wide shot at :09 you opened the film with.

The locations were all found, managed and secured by my USA production company The Institute (http://www.theinstitute.tv/index.php).

I landed in L.A. after flying in from Australia, had a shower, wound my body clock back 15 hours and began looking at locations in the car with my great producer on the job, Kati Haberstock. She knows the town very well and listened closely to what I was wanting to achieve. I am quite specific and vague at the same time when looking for locations so it can be time consuming. I am searching for a ‘feeling’ in the location. This might be found in the architecture, surrounding hills or choice of wall paper. Over 4 days I looked at dozens of file images from a location scout and we drove around looking at them.

Sorry. I know you probably get this question all of the time. But filmmakers are curious and need to know the answer to this question…What camera and lenses were used?

Oddly, that is the most common asked question I get asked. Which I find strange, because it would be one of my last. I guess I am always drawn to the more philosophical and thematic questions for filmmakers. But I certainly don’t mind. On Gentleman Shaver and Troglodyte we shot on the Arri Alexa with Cooke Lenses. Eigil Bryld (DOP) had previously shot some commercials with Al Pacino using digital technology that looked great in black and white. Take a look at it below:

I wanted to nod to the qualities of 1960′s black and white film image, shooting 16mm was out of our budget range, so we tried a few things to get an interesting look. I didn’t want to simply desaturate the image in post and call it ‘black and white’. Eigil used sepia and lime coloured filters to create a monochromatic image that captured a lot of mid-tone detail.  In post we drained saturation from the image. Then I wanted the black’s to be crushed so that the shadow detail was lost. Following this, I raised those crushed blacks so that it was actually a milky grey rather than true black. Lastly an over all sepia tint was subtly added. Old film prints transferred to different formats a few times seemed to get a color (either blue or sepia) creep into them over time. I wanted to try and give a healthy nod to that aesthetic whilst keeping other aspects modern.

How much did you light these shorts vs. using natural lighting? You seem to be a filmmaker with a great eye for natural light. This might be a weird question, but tell me a little bit more about your relationship to the sun.

Life doesn’t give you a nice back light on your head and some soft fill, so I don’t like the way over lighting looks on screen. I don’t quite understand my relationship to the sun, but natural light plays a huge part in driving the narrative. I believe you can advance the emotions of the story by miles with a shot of the light doing something particular versus pages of dialogue. I don’t know how to explain it, maybe I never will, but I am definitely aware of it. I think it came from years of teenage and university film making where we didn’t have many resources, just a couple of blown out windows in the location. So I guess you learn how to make that something you can work with.

Gentleman Shaver was lit through the outside windows with a strong source and then some softer lights rigged above the actors just out of frame. But it was all to simulate natural light in the morning. Reformed Troglodyte was very basic too. Very few lights, mostly bouncing some light around with boards. I really wanted that one to look very unpolished as far as lighting and camera work goes, yet the world itself such as the cars, suits and architecture to be very considered. That was what I loved about Godard and the French New Wave films, everyone was dressed impeccably, yet there was minimal lighting and the camera work was very raw.

Let’s talk about cinematography and design for a moment. I love the shot at :27 (above). I see the vertical lines in the wood panel wall. And I see the strong diagonal lines of the mirrors caused by the camera position. How closely do you work with the cinematographer to draw out these design elements? How collaborative is the director / cinematographer relationship?

I get a strong idea of camera position and the design elements on a location scout. I don’t want to waste time on the shooting day and I need to have a plan before entering the shoot. But then I when the DOP gets involved at the tech scout stage I always want to listen to their suggestions. Often they will listen to what the elements are that I like about that angle I have chosen and sometimes take that and run with it for a while, searching for other angles. Then they come back with some suggestions that might improve on those elements that I originally liked. In the end it is just about hunting for good images that fit our storytelling correctly. This happens often in limited time, so there is no place for preciousness. It also is very important that you have similar tastes to your DOP. You want to make sure they don’t want to do some crazy shot in the middle of the world that you created which doesn’t reflect the personality of you or the film.

You have some great hand-held work. Not just in this short, but in your previous work as well. There is a very subtle and gentle “feather” to the edges of your frame. It stops the image from feeling too static but Eigil Bryld (the cinematographer for the short) controls the camera enough that it doesn’t appear chaotic or messy either. What are you using to stabilize the camera and what, if any, movement techniques are you using to get that gentle feathered look?

The ‘feather’ as you call it seems to put some people off and others really like it. I find you can really feel the personality of the DOP in their handheld work. On Troglodyte and Gentleman Shaver, Eigil Bryld was the Cinematographer. He is a very sweet Danish guy who’s demeanor isn’t chaotic messy, so therefore his work isn’t. He used a simple tennis ball on top of the tripod to rest the camera on for a few of those shots. It just gives a bit of rock and looseness to the frame with out making it hectic. Other than that, it is simply his steady hand and shoulder. I don’t do much ‘feathering’ or windowing to the image in grade for my work. In fact on these black and white shorts I didn’t want any.

How much of your sound came from the actual environment and how much was re-designed from the ground up?

Gentleman Shaver is pretty much how it was recorded on the day. Just volumes enhanced and diminished later.

As for Troglodyte, it just depended on what the quality of the real audio was. I like to over drive some of the more simple elements of my sound design at times. It is just a cinematic thing I like to do. So often basic things like footsteps or engine roars will be there, but i like them loud to emphasis that this is a kick ass car and our character is heading somewhere definite. My editor on the project Michael Saia at Jump (http://www.jumpny.tv/) had a big hand in the design of the audio, which was great because he knew the genre inside out.

Can you tell me specifically about a few sounds. Which ones were added and which ones were actual?

Footsteps at 1:09? (getting into car) – Added

Birds? (driving scene) – Added

Car? (driving scene) – Actual

Atmospheric sound? (on the cliff) – Added

You had a great team for these shorts. For these shorts you worked with costume designer Amy Westcott (Black Swan) and Production Design by Kiki Giet (Mark Romanek music videos). In our previous interviews you talked about how happy you are when you have design and wardrobe departments working closely together helping you achieve a really cohesive look. Can you tell me a little more about your relationship to these departments and their relationship to each other?

I like to have production design on board from a very early stage and with these shorts Kiki Giet was with me from the first day of location scouting. There is a bond that seems to form when you are driving around in hot cars looking at locations. We would just talk ideas, about what we liked or didn’t like at each location and got on the same page as each other pretty quickly. Coming from a music video background Kiki was really resourceful. She brought so much propping to the films that I was spoiled with choices in some instances. But like all my work, I always look for the inherent qualities in a pre-existing location which the aesthetic can resonate from. The references for the shorts is a much loved aesthetic that you rarely get the chance to do, so Kiki really ran with it. Amy Westcott was someone whose work I have admired for a while and loved that she put herself forward for the films. When working with someone at that level, you can talk to them in creative short hand and they just get it. She brought little touches to the films that really elevated it; the fabric of the suit, the style of undone bow tie. She had worked on Entourage, so she was clearly fairly familiar with how to dress men. Overall, there wasn’t so much of a dialogue between those departments as I usually have, but hopefully the vision was strong enough that they feel cohesive.

For filmmakers interested in getting into this line of work how do you approach companies or have them approach you? You worked with BBDO New York (A very prestigious ad company) for these projects. Can you tell us a bit more about your relationship to them and how they factor into the equation?

That is about getting representation. My production company in the USA signed me for commercial work and they had the relationship with BBDO NYC. It is their job to try and generate work from agencies and brands that might fit your profile. To get signed with a company, do the research on the ones that interest you and show ‘em ya reel! You want to make sure their personality suits your own. If you work together and generally everyone is happy then chances are you will do it again on another project and those relationships build!

Thanks for the in-depth interview Ben. As always it’s a pleasure to share your work with our blog readers. Please keep us posted with regards to your future projects!

Ben Briand

http://www.benbriand.com/

Twitter

http://twitter.com/ben_briand

It seems like only months before DSLR’s came onto the scene, that there was an “adapter revolution” where we were all rushing to attach adapters to our video cameras. One of the most common setups for indie filmmakers was the HVX200 with a lens adapter and a few lenses.The HVX200 was fairly affordable, and for the first time indie filmmakers working with video were starting to capture images with a cinematic aesthetic. For the first time, these adapters allowed us to use interchangeable lenses to better express our cinematic ideas. It seemed almost too good to be true. However, an even more exciting technology was waiting just around the corner. The adapter revolution was short lived.  In what seemed like only a few months later, DSLRs burst onto the scene wiping out the need for most lens adapters.

However, at first, filmmakers were skeptical of using DSLR cameras for video purposes. The cameras seemed too small and their aesthetic seemed to cater to photographers rather than filmmakers (Pardon me! No XLR inputs?).

Filmmakers proved the DSLR critics both right and wrong. It really depended on whose hands the camera was in. Camera operation amongst DSLR filmmakers varies greatly. On the one hand, a quick youtube search provides countless examples of sloppy handheld camera work where you can see the coffee jitters from the morning coffee in the camera operator’s movement.

On the other hand however, some filmmakers studied the limitations of these DSLRs and then found ways to creatively work around these issues.

Cameras such as the Canon 550D (T2i), Canon 600D (t3i) and the Canon 60D have found their way into some very talented hands and the footage being captured with these cameras is nothing short of spectacular (take at  look at the videos at the end of this article for example).

All three of these cameras are great cameras. Your budget, the projects you’re interested in shooting and your ergonomic preferences will determine which camera is right for you. The T2i is the most affordable of the bunch while the 60D is the most expensive. However, with the increase in price comes extra battery life, a bigger and brighter viewfinder as well as an articulated LCD screen. Each of these cameras share an 18 megapixel sensor and, 24p capabilities and they all have an ISO range from 100-6400 making them great cameras for low light shooting.

That being said, the camera you choose won’t make you a better or worse filmmaker. The image quality from each camera is more or less the same. All of these cameras are capable of capturing beautiful video if the filmmaker understands how to use lighting, sound, composition, movement, blocking, design, color psychology, casting, location scouting and all of the many other elements that go into the creation of a strong film or documentary.

Arguably, even more important than the camera, are the lenses you’ll decide to put on the camera. So what are best lenses for the Canon 550D (T2i), Canon 600D (t3i) and the Canon 60D?

In short, there is no one right answer. A while ago we wrote an article about this topic for the Canon 7D and 5D. The information is the same, but now we’ll use sample footage from the 550D, 600D and the 60D to help us illustrate our point.

Best Lenses For The Canon 550D (T2i) / 600D (T3i) or 60D?

In our opinion, your first lenses should be lenses that don’t quickly become redundant. It’s also helpful to have a “normal”, telephoto and wide angle lens. You’ll be looking for quality, speed and adaptability. But of course lens preference is subjective. What works for one filmmaker may not be ideal for another. For example a fiction filmmaker looking for a moody, textured and shadowed look will want to shoot in dark environments which means lens speed would be a priority. On the other hand a documentary filmmaker working on a project about animals in the wild would likely place more emphasis on the telephoto capabilities of a lens rather than just its speed.

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LEARN MORE ABOUT DSLR FILMMAKING BY ENROLLING IN OUR INTENSIVE ONLINE FILMMAKING COURSE HERE.

Message by: Lights Film School
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And of course, price is always and issue for documentary and fiction filmmakers alike. Some filmmakers will be able to spend $2500 while other filmmakers will only be able to spend $300. Some filmmakers will like the colors and contrast of the Carl Zeiss lenses and others will prefer the colors and contrast of Nikon lenses. The point is there is no “one size fits all” answer. Different lenses have their own “character”. The world of filmmaking would be in a tragic state if we could mathematically deduct what the “best” or “perfect” lens was.

So where do we start then? Well, if you’re looking to start an adaptable lens kit that will allow you to work in both indoor and outdoor environments, with landscapes and portraits, during both night and day and lenses that won’t break the bank, then the lens choices below will serve as great starting point.

Canon owners looking for lenses may become quickly confused when starting their search for compatible lenses. Let us help clear the air. Just because you have a Canon body that does not limit you to only using Canon lenses. New adapters are being created that allow you to attach Nikon and other lenses to your Canon body. In fact recently a new adapter was built that would allow you to attach your older FD lenses to your EOS body (Called an FD to EOS adapter).

There has also been the development of the PL adapter which allows DSLR filmmakers to attach older cinema lenses to their Canon body. This is all leading towards some pretty exciting times!

Similarly, there are “independent” lens manufacturers such as Carl Zeiss and Sigma who manufacture lenses that fit directly on to the Canon 550D (T2i), 600D (T3i) and the 60D. These manufactures make lenses with “mounts” that will fit different camera bodies. For instance Sigma makes lenses with different mounts to fit Canon, Nikon and Pentax bodies.

The point being is that the options are slowly working their way towards limitless. As a filmmaker you’ll work on different projects and hopefully get the opportunity to work with different lenses along the way. Through this process you’ll discover your own aesthetic preferences. A good place to start would be to rent lenses. The cost of renting a $1500 lens is often only $35 – $50 / day.

That being said let us guide you with some ideas and suggestions that would help you start building your own lens kit.

You’ll need to start somewhere. One of the most important first lenses to buy would be a 50mm prime lens. Prime lenses are lenses with a fixed focal length which means that they don’t have telephoto capabilities. A 50mm lens is also roughly comparable to how the human eye sees which is why you sometimes hear them called a “normal” lens. They are neither too wide nor too narrow. They are also relatively inexpensive, generally costing anywhere from $200 – $500. You should consider a fast lens for your “normal” lens. I’ve used many but I really like the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4.

Next, I would buy a telephoto lens. Canon makes some really great telephoto lenses but they are more expensive than some of the independent brands available. Carl Zeiss isn’t making telephoto lenses anymore but you can get used, as well as older (never been used) Zeiss lenses at camera equipment stores.

In fact, I was just in a camera store this morning. I myself use the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 which is a great lens but it also costs around $1600 to buy new. While in the camera store I looked through their used section and I found a little Nikon 80-200mm f/4 lens for $200. With an adapter I could attach this to the 550D (T2i), 600D (T3i) or the 60D and I’d save $1500. The lens was in great shape. The only down side is that it wouldn’t shoot as well in low light and it requires manual focus.

Another option in this range was a new Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 lens for $1059. It has almost the same specs as the Canon EF 70-200mm (mentioned above), but it’s roughly $500 cheaper.

Given these options, if I didn’t already have my Canon telephoto lens I would have gone with the $200 Nikon lens and used an adapter to put it on my Canon. It would be a great lens if you are on a tight budget.

Next, I would buy a wide angle lens. I really like Zeiss lenses. I love the color and contrast they offer. True, they can be a little expensive, but you can get them built with a Canon mount so they’ll fit right on your 550D, 600D or 60D body. That being said, if you have a limited budget I would recommend getting the Tokina 11-16mm. It’s a popular lens amongst DSLR indie filmmakers and it’s been used in some of the most breathtaking work I’ve seen. Best of all… it only costs around $600.

Now let’s look at some short films shot on these cameras:

Short film shot on the 550D (T2i)
Lens used: Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM

Short film shot on the 600D (T3i)
Lenses used: Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8 II USM, Canon EF S18-135mm f/3.5 -5.6 IS, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM, EF S17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM, EF 35mm f/2 + macro lenses.

Short Film shot on the 60D (used the following
Lenses used: Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6, Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6, Canon 50mm f/1.8)

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Lights Film School video tutorial on the 180 degree rule and other shot sequencing tips. But before we begin we’d like to take a moment to show you our lighting setup for this tutorial. We always like to do this to remind you that you don’t need a truckload of lights and equipment to create strong compositions and well lit shots. Here we have a wide shot showing our scene. In this shot we’re only using two lights. We have an overhead practical light exposing our main character and a small kino flo in the background acting as a “rim light” and giving our background a bit of texture.

Here is how it looks in a medium shot with a third light located behind the curtain turned on. Now we’ll show you one by one what each light is doing. We’ll turn our rim light off so you can see specifically what it accomplishes in this scene…. Now we’ll turn it back on… It’s intensity is a bit too “hot” so let’s turn it back down to ensure we don’t “blow out the whites” around our subject… There we go… We still have a nice highlight around our subject but now the bright areas of the frame have been tamed.
Now we’ll turn the light behind the curtain off. And now back on again.

Now we’ll turn off the overhead lamp above the main subject. As you can see we are left with nothing other than a little rim around the subject, some light behind the curtain and a small splash of light on our background. Not quite enough for a proper exposure so let’s turn our lamp back on… There we go.

Okay, so let’s get back on topic and discuss the 180 degree rule.

First, let’s establish our scene geography by creating our “line of action”. Let’s look overhead to see how we establish this line. Here we draw a line towards the subject and the person or object they are in communication with. In this case our subject is reading a piece of paper so let’s draw our line in this direction. The 180 degree rule states the the camera cannot jump the imaginary “line of action”. This helps ensure your scene direction stays consistent and you don’t disorient your audience.

Now let’s see how it looks on the ground if we break the 180 degree rule. Notice if we change the camera position from here…. to here.. the image reverses like this… and gives the impression that the subject is talking to himself. In “Shot A” he’s looking camera left and in “Shot B” he’s looking camera right. This disorients your audience which for the most part, and of course there are exceptions, but you’ll try to avoid.

There are cases when you can jump the line of action. The most common reason would be when you need to establish a new line of action because the area of action has changed. For example, imagine a large group of people standing in a circle engage in a conversation. Let’s imagine that character “A” and “B” start talking, but then Character “D” has something to say. In this case you may need to break your initial line of action to establish a new line of action. A “master shot” at the beginning of this sequence will help your audience orient themselves to your scene geography so once you start cutting they will know approximately where the actors are positioned.

Alternatively you can jump the line of action by doing the following things:

You can insert a shot with neutral screen direction in between the other shots. The insert shot helps bridge the shots where you crossed the line of action and it will soften the impact of the otherwise jarring transition between those shots.

Some people call “insert shots” “cutaway shots”. Either way these shots should have substance and help push your story forward and not simply be used as a technical tool to break the line of action.

You can also cross the line of action during a take. This way the audience stays oriented with the geography of the scene because they are moving with the camera.

Lastly, you can also use a visual “anchor” to help you provide a reference point within your scene. For example, imagine two men standing stranded on an island. On one side of them is open ocean stretching for as far as the eye can see. On the other side of them might be dense, intimidating jungle. Again, as long as you establish a clear sense of scene geography during your master shot you may find you have more liberty to jump the line of action. That being said, if you don’t need to jump the line of action, you should try to avoid it.

What we’d like to explore now is a shooting and editing practice to help you add a little more dynamism to your shot sequences.

It’s often visually a little more interesting when you come back to a shot if there is a slight variation in it. It will often be the case that some emotional change or circumstance will motivate these visual changes. So let’s create a scenario. Lets imagine our character is face to face with his lifelong nemesis. Our character is reading his nemesis an incriminating transcript from a taped conversation from a few weeks ago. Our “shot A” establishes that our character is reading from a paper.

Notice that our “shot A” is a little bit “hot”. let’s turn down our rim light to tame the “burnt out” whites on the back of the subject’s head. That’s better.

Okay, now let’s start thinking about this shot. Why don’t we do two takes of the same shot from slightly different depth perspectives. Our first shot (Shot A) will be when our protagonist is going over the transcript for the first time. The second shot will be a close up “insert shot” showing the paper he’s looking at. The third shot will be when he looks up from the paper having discovered new information. For this third shot we want to be psychologically a little closer to the inner workings of our character so let’s punch in a little bit like this…. There…. That’s much better.

These shot choices and framing variations not only help you compliment the narrative thrust of your story, but they also ensure your editing and shooting style is dynamic and changing with your character rather than being static and lifeless. Remember, your camera needs to act as a sort of metaphor to things that are happening within your story.

Let’s run the scene once in a static fashion by keeping our shots A and C the same with an insert shot in the middle. this is how it will look.

Here we have shot A. Here we have shot B. And here we have shot C which is identical to shot A.

The shots side by side would look something like this:

But now, let’s change our “shot C” from our “shot A” to compliment the emotional change experienced within the scene. Again, here we have shot A. He’s looking through the transcripts for the first time. He finds a piece of information that troubles him. And so he hesitates.

We follow this up with “shot B” the “insert shot” when he looks down at the piece of paper.

Now as we come back to “shot C” he has new information he doesn’t yet know what to do with. He thinks… and thinks… The camera is positioned closer to him than it was in shot A to help bring the audience closer to the inner workings of his mind. This camera setup compliments the nature of the story better than the first camera setup did. The first example was far too static. The changes in the second example are subtle, but the impact is fairly dramatic. The shots side by side would look something like this:

Now let’s compare the two shot sequence options side by side.

Above is the more static example.

Below you’ll find the example that is much more dynamic.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Lights Film School video on ISO

Before we begin, let’s talk about what ISO is.

An ISO setting is the digital equivalent to Film’s A.S.A setting. Simply put, your ISO is your camera’s sensor sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO speed, meaning the larger the number, the more sensitive your sensor will be to light. The lower the number, the less sensitive your camera’s sensor will be to light. Your ISO setting combined with your aperture and shutter speed work together to give you your correct exposure.

However, when shooting in low light environments, better light sensitivity doesn’t come without a cost. Let’s take a look at this image at night in the park for example. As you increase your chip’s sensitivity to light you also increase the amount of “noise” in your image. “noise” is a sort of digital degradation within your image. It manifests itself in different ways in different cameras but it has a general characteristic as a sort of digital grain.

Besides your ISO setting, heat and sensor size also impact the amount of noise in an image. There are also different types of noise. For example, “fixed pattern noise” may be caused by long exposure times. Next, “Random noise”, which is seen in this image, is the type of noise most filmmakers struggle with, and is caused by high ISO speeds. Lastly, “banding noise” which plagues some cameras more than others, may be caused when the shadowed parts of the image are lightened.

All of these different types of noise look slightly different but they all share 1 common characteristic: They degrade the picture quality of your video. Noise is usually identifiable by a bunch of flickering or moving pixels on a surface that should otherwise appear smooth.

Again, look at our park image and notice how “noise” manifests itself throughout the different parts of the image.

Now let’s look at two shots with roughly the same exposure but shot at two different ISO speeds. Notice how there is virtually no difference between the image on the right and the image on the left.

But let’s look again, and closer this time, at what happens when we zoom into the image on a larger screen. The image on the bottom-left shows a noise free image. However, the image on the bottom-right is suffering from some pretty sever noise. However, if you look above at the images those close-ups were taken from, both images seem almost identical and noise free.

This is because image noise is often subtle when viewed on small LCD screens on the back of your camera. In fact, it’s often not until you’re watching the footage on a larger monitor that you uncover the problematic issue of noise and image deterioration.

Of course noise has an impact on the small videos as well, but for any filmmaker out there with television or theatrical ambitions ISO and noise will become increasingly important for you to be aware of. As soon as you enlarge your image noise will become substantially more noticeable. So be aware of your ISO settings when you’re capturing your raw footage to avoid problems later on in editing.

ISO ‘sweet spots” are another thing you may need to be aware of for your specific camera brand and model. For instance tests, show that different ISO speeds handle noise differently. For example, on some Canon DSLR’s there is actually less noise in the ISO setting of 160 than there is in the ISO setting of 100. These are technical details you need to look into for your own particular brand of camera..

Every image has noise, but for the most part in lower ISO images, noise will appear less noticeable. The Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR or S/N) is the universal way of measuring the relative amounts of signal and noise in your shots.  High ratios will have very little visible noise while low ratios will have lots of noise.

Noise reduction software also exists to help you get rid of unwanted noise. For example, Neat-Video offers a great solution for both MAC and PC users. Again, it’s advisable to get as strong of a raw image as possible, but noise reduction software such as Neat-Video can help you salvage otherwise useless footage. Again, here is our footage shot at a high ISO setting of 6400 and here it is again after being run through Neat-Video noise reduction software.

One of your goals before you hit the record button should always be to ensure you obtain the best image quality possible using the lowest ISO possible.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Lights Film School video tutorial on lighting on the “upstage” side of the camera. As filmmakers you’ll often be looking for ways to add depth and dimension to your images. One way to do this is to “light on the upstage side of the camera” – meaning the side away from the camera. This will mean that your shadows will fall towards the camera rather than away from the camera.

Before we begin let’s take a look at how this concept is used in cinema. Here we have a subject that is looking camera left with the majority of the shadow falling “towards the camera”.

Generally actors won’t break the “4th wall” and look directly at the camera. This means that one side of their face will be closer to the camera than the other side. The angles will often be very subtle, but you’ll soon find that one side of their face will be closer than the other, with only a few exceptions. For the purpose of demonstration we’re exaggerating the contrast ratio on our subject’s face but If we wanted to avoid such dramatic lighting we could always bounce some of the light back on our subject by using a bounce board or even just throw a rim light on him like “this” to give a better exposure to the downstage side of his face.

There are multiple ways you can keep your shadows towards the camera. You can achieve this look by working with flags, subject placement or light placement. But let’s start with the easiest setup. Let’s imagine we have one primary light source: A window. Because your can’t move the sun or the position of the window, this means you need to think of ways to position your subject and your camera in a way that will keep your shadows “towards the camera”. In our case, because we’re shooting in a black box studio and don’t have access to the sun, we’re using a couple of 650 watt lights from our “Arri baby blue kit” to throw some light through our curtains.

As usual, before we begin we’d like to show you our lighting setup for this shot. So let’s take you behind the scenes to show you how we setup and lit this scene.

It’s a really simple setup. We’re just using 3 lights. 2 behind the curtain acting as our subject’s main key light and 1 practical lamp hanging from the ceiling to give light to our background and seating area. So before we bring out our subject let’s light this scene.

Here is a wide shot of the studio before it’s been lit. Now let’s go to black and start to build our lighting from the ground up.

At this point you can see we’ve turned the lights on behind the curtains. We’re going to be sitting our subject on the bed so this light acts as our “key light”. The fabric the light is passing through acts as a sort of diffusion which softens the light.

Now let’s turn on our practical lamp. Notice it’s not positioned properly. We’d like the light to catch some of the flower and vase in an upcoming scene so let’s quickly reposition it so it highlights a more specific part of the frame… There. That’s great.

So that’s our scene lit. As you can see it didn’t take much!

Now let’s sit our subject in the scene. Remember that his key light is coming from behind the curtain. Just so you can see how we’ve done that we’ll zoom out so you can see behind the back wall.

Okay, let’s get back on topic. Now that we have the subject in the scene we need to find a way to position him. Since we want him to have nice side lighting on his face let’s position him so one half of his face is positioned towards the key light and one half of his face is positioned away.

Now let’s give him some action. Okay, now he’s reading a book. So we have our light positioned, our subject positioned and now we need to position our camera. Let’s give this shot a try.

This is really not a bad shot. We have a nice contrast ratio on his face, we have a strong sense of depth and a simplified colour palette. It’s not bad and it’s a perfectly usable shot. But let’s change our position so that the shadows on the left side of his face are directed towards the camera rather than away from the camera.

I like this shot much more. We still have our simplified colour palette, a strong sense of depth and nice contrast ratio, but now we have shadows that are positioned towards the camera rather than away from the camera.

Here is a similar shot with a slight variation in framing.

And here you can see all of our shots compared side by side.

Again, there are many exceptions to this rule, but you’ll often find that keeping your shadows towards the camera will give your shot more depth and a more interesting sense of dimension.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Lights Film School video tutorial on using flags. A cinematographer once said that “Great cinematography is not about knowing how to turn a light on, it’s about knowing how to shape and mould that light”. The intention of his video tutorial is to help you understand that shadow is light’s creative equivalent.

Let’s begin by talking about what flags are:

Flags are pieces of black duvetyne held together by metal frames. Flags are generally held up by c-stands in an effort to cut or shape light and provide “negative fill”.

It’s important to mention that when using c-stands you should first position your flag exactly as you want it with the c-stand joints loose. Then when your flag is ready, tighten the c-stand joints in order to secure the precise position of the flag. This will not only help you precisely establish where your shadows will fall, but it will also save you a lot of time during your setup.

Many independent filmmakers rather than using black fabric flags and c-stands, will instead use tripods, clamps and black foam core. A large piece of black foam core can be purchased from an art supply store for around $10-$15 and it will have essentially the same impact. In fact, virtually any opaque object can be used to flag light.

Where to position your flag?

Knowing how and where to position your flag is important. A flag that is positioned close to the surface the light is being project onto will appear dark with clearly defined shadows and edges. However, as the flag starts to move towards the light source the shadow will become slightly more diffused with softer edges.

Moving your flag.

Once you have your flag in position you can start controlling where your light falls by re-positioning your flag. Here we wanted our flag close to our light to give a soft shadow with gentle edges that “feather out”.

There are many applications for using flags but let’s discuss how we can use flags to control the spill of light while filmming a subject.

Notice how we have a subject in frame and we are moving the flag back and forth. You can see the impact this has on the image. However, it should be noted that it’s easier to control flagging different layers if there is a noticeable separation of depth. So let’s pull our subject off the wall a little bit… Much better. Here you can see how the flag impacts the image as we move it back and forth. The flag’s purpose is to help filmmakers highlight the parts of the frame that are most important to them while muting the areas that are less important or distracting. Picasso even said it himself when he stated that “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”

But now let’s start from scratch building a shot from the ground up.

We’ll begin by turning our overhead lights on so you can see the room before we start to design our light. Now let’s walk around the set so you can see how the flags are blocking the light. This flag, directly in front of us, is stopping the 1K zip light from hitting the back wall. And this other flag is going to be stopping the light from hitting our subject. Notice there is only the smallest sliver of light shining through as we move in front of the flags. Most of the light is being completely blocked. We can now manoeuvre these flags to shape the light to our liking.

let’s go to black.

Notice how these two flags stop all of the light being projected from the 1K zip light from hitting the background. Now let’s introduce our subject to the shot. As predicted, only a sliver of light is making it’s way though the flags.

Now let’s look at what happens when we open up the background flag. Notice it has no impact on the subject who is still only being lit by a small sliver of light.

If we open up the flag on the subject the following will result.

But now let’s block the light on our subject and our background again. At this point we’ll turn on a small practical background light. We’ll also open up the flag hitting the subject so a sliver of light comes through.

Because we’re getting closer to our final composition lets now also turn the rim light on.

Let’s walk around the studio again. Here is the flag flagging our actor. Watch what happens when we move it right to left. Notice it has no impact on the background.

Now let’s look at the other flag that’s stopping spill from hitting the background. Watch what happens when we open and close that flag. Again, notice this has no impact on our subject. Having this flag stop the spill of light from hitting the background allows us to keep our background darker giving us more contrast and a dramatic and moody look. When we open the flag up the composition becomes flatter.

So now let’s punch into our final framing. Let’s look one last time at the impact that the flags have now that our rim light, background light and our key light are all turned on. Here we move the flag controlling light on the subject back and forth. Again, notice this has no impact on our beautifully lit background. Now we can experiment by opening up the background flag a little bit… But it was nicer with a darker, richer background, so let’s put that back. And here you have it… your final shot!

The idea here is to think about lighting in terms of layers and depth. Light your background, middle-ground and foreground separately by using flags to help you control the spill of light.

TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Lights Film School video tutorial on framing heights. In this video we’ll discuss the importance of properly cropping your subject within a frame. Three common mistakes filmmakers often make when framing a subject are:

1. They leave too much ‘room” above the subject’s head which creates “dead space”
2. They fail to leave enough room above the subject’s head “clipping” the top of their head with the top wall of the frame. While this may be advisable for some close-up shots, this is not advisable for medium or full shots.
3. They “cut off” or “amputate” their subject at the joints of their limbs.

Let’s start by looking at a full shot.

Notice how your entire subject fits nicely within the frame. A full shot is great for providing context as well as orienting your audience geographically within your world. The full shot allows more than one character to be in the frame at the same time and it’s wide enough to allow your characters to use body language to express themselves. Notice how a bit of room is left both below our subject’s feet and above his head.

Next we’ll look at the medium full shot.

This shot is similar to the full shot but instead of cropping below the feet we are making our first cut just above the subject’s knees. Notice there is still room above the subject’s head at the top of the frame.

Next we’ll look at the cowboy shot

Enough space is left below the waist of the subject so if they dropped their hands their wrists would not be cut off with the bottom wall of the shot. This is of course helpful for cowboys who need quick access to the guns in their holsters. In non-western films this shot is equally important for subjects who simply wish to put their arms down to their sides.

Next, we’ll look at a medium close shot

The medium close shot is a great shot when you want to include even less environment and gain more insight into the emotional state of your character. Small emotional nuances may start to register with this image size. That being said, this shot is still wide enough to fit multiple elements within the frame. This shot choice allows you to multitask the character’s emotional state with their body language while at the same time giving you the opportunity to include other characters, props or surroundings.

Next we have a close shot.

This is really one of the first shots when we’ve made the commitment to focus primarily on the emotional world of our character. Notice how in this shot we’re slightly clipping the top of his head with the top wall of the composition? Let us take a moment to fix that by ensuring that the top wall rides just a sliver above our subject’s head… Much better! The actor’s face is the main tool used to convey information when you’re in this close. As we continue to move closer to our actor his body can still communicate expressiveness, but it’s the actors face, and specifically his eyes, which start to become the centrepiece for these shots.

Punching in even closer we have the wide close up

Close up shots are used to gain access into the inner world of your characters. The top part of the frame usually rides just above the top of your character’s head while the bottom of the frame includes just a sliver of the arm as it starts falling off from the shoulder.

Let’s give our character a little bit of lead room which will give him some breathing room and help ensure that our frame has a more dramatic sense of balance… There we go.

Now let’s talk about the full close up.

This shot can be tricky since the framing can quickly become awkward if we loose the subject’s eyes or chin. As a general rule of thumb you want to keep the subject’s eyes in the top 2/3rds of the frame and you don’t want to clip the subject’s chin with the bottom frame of the composition. In this shot we’ve included a little bit of the subject’s shoulders and now we’re allowed to cut the top of his head with the top wall of the composition.

A medium close up.

A medium close up will punch in a little bit closer. Notice we start to loose more of the top of the subject’s head. His chin is also getting dangerously close to the bottom wall of the frame. The benefit to this shot is that it allows you to dig even deeper under the character’s skin to see what is beneath the words they are saying.

It should also be mentioned that budget minded Independent filmmakers often like tighter shots like this because they are cheaper and quicker to light.

Now let’s move into an extreme close up.

An extreme close up goes a step further and we allow the chin to dip below the bottom wall of the composition. In this shot we frame the bottom wall just below the subject’s lips This is as close as we can get into the inner world of a character before moving into macro close ups.

Macro close ups.

Macro close ups allow us to feature a particular part of the body. For example a wrist watch, as we can see in this case. This shot is common when a filmmaker is trying to punctuate a narrative point. For instance a character walking along the side of a desolate highway at night by the themselves might hear something moving in the bushes to the side of the road. The filmmaker in this case may decide to shoot a macro close up of the character’s ear to help “punctuate” the sound.

There are no absolute rules for framing heights. Many filmmakers will simplify framing height terminology by using only three loose terms: Full shot, medium shot and close up. The definition of some of these framing heights vary from set to set. So make sure you talk with your crew members beforehand to make sure you’re all on the same page.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello and welcome to our tutorial on Head-Room, Lead-Room and Anticipatory Framing. For this tutorial we’ll discuss all of these concepts providing visual examples along the way. Let’s begin by talking about Head-Room. 

What is Head-Room? – Head-room is the space between the top of your subject’s head and the top frame of the composition

Let’s look at our first shot “here”. Our actor is sitting and reading a paper. At first you’ll notice we’re not giving him much breathing room above his head so let’s “inch up” just a little bit so we’re skimming the top of his head with our frame. There we go. Much better.

As a general rule of thumb your subject’s eyes should be placed roughly in the top third of the composition. 

As you can see, if we tilt up further we add an undesirable amount of head room above our subject’s head. The space above his head becomes what is known as “dead space”. 

Now let’s push it to the extreme to see what too much head room looks like. As you can see our subject’s eyes are now placed on the bottom third of the frame and we have an astronomical amount of dead space above our subject’s head.



Let’s move on now to discuss “lead room” and “nose room”. 

what is lead room?

Lead room is the space where dramatic energy is directed. For close up shots, lead room will often be referred to as “nose room”.

Let’s have a look at this composition with the man looking camera right and reading a book. 

Notice how we left more space in front of his face because he’s projecting energy in that direction? 



Now let’s look at what happens when you don’t leave enough lead room.

Notice how the energy being projected forward towards camera right is being pre-emptively cut off by the right wall of the composition. There is more space behind the subject than in front of him.

Almost everything you’ll be interested in filming will have an energy to it: For example, a rolling ball, a moving car or a man reading a book. You need to take this into consideration when framing your shots. 

It should also be mentioned that these rules should be used as guidelines that work most of the time. However, there may be times when you might find creative or narrative motivation to include less lead room or more head room. David Lynch’s film “Elephant Man” for example uses an abnormally large about of head room, while some filmmakers may wish to use less lead room to give the shot a bizarre sense of balance or to purposely hide visual information from your audience. So experiment with what feels right for your story.

Now lets discuss anticipatory framing

Anticipatory framing establishes that the camera needs to anticipate the movement within a scene rather than react to it. If you’re reacting to movement you’ll generally end up with jerky, reactionary shots. You want to be able to predict the movement within a frame. This is even more difficult for documentary filmmakers who often don’t have the privilege of marking or blocking out their scenes. For this reason it’s important that filmmakers practice camera operation.

A great way to practice camera movement is to have a friend walk back and forth in the frame while you try to keep them properly positioned within that frame. Try to “feather in” and “feather out” at the end of your movements. Remember that your camera represents your audience within a scene.

You’re supposed to be creating an “invisible 4th wall” between your actors and your audience. An uncontrolled camera won’t be strong enough to support the 4th wall and instead of engaging in the story, your audience will be constantly reminded of the people standing behind the camera, which will break the illusion you’re trying so hard to create. The camera shouldn’t draw attention to itself. It should be controlled, subtle and motivated by the movement within the frame.

If you’re editing other shots or shooting on more than one camera make sure the movement and dynamism of each shot can be integrated into other shots in the scene. This is called the choreography of movement. And to us filmmakers it’s our own little ballet. So you need to figure out the “tempo” of your movement which will then in turn determine what type of dance you’re doing.

Here is an example of what not to do

You need to avoid jerky, corrective and reactionary shots. If you’re operating a camera and you make an adjustment for a framing error, simply retake your shot. Do not use these shots in your final video. A shot with uncontrolled movement will temporarily draw attention to the camera and pull your audience out of your story. Your goal as a filmmaker is to keep your audience as engaged in your story as possible. You want your stories to be creatively as well as technically well constructed.

Movement is an essential part of cinematic expression and it’s important that you don’t prioritize convenience or ease over technically well-constructed shots.

Wow! What an incredibly unique story concept told in a clear and concise manner. I have to ask… Where did this story originate?

This story came from just a random conversation with some friends, I think it might have even been at a Chinese restaurant and somebody said ‘wouldn’t it be funny if there was a Chinese restaurant where they had hidden mics under the table and then you got a customized fortune in your fortune cookie based on your conversation?’ I immediately thought what a great film that could make, but it wasn’t til about two years later that I actually did it.

I find that for me the best ideas usually always happen in that way, when I’m out actually living life instead of locking myself in a room and trying my hardest to come up with something.

Can you tell us about your casting process? How long did it take you to find the actors and when did you know you found your team?

Casting was relatively painless and uneventful. I contacted a few of the local agencies and put out a casting call on a few websites. I read about twenty people for each role. The biggest surprise was the role of the recordists, who we cast Isaac Kim in, a young guy who hadn’t really done any acting before. But he had such a perfect look and was really natural in front of the camera that as soon as I read him I knew we had our guy.

You shot on the Red Cam. Can you tell us why you made this decision?

The Red Cam is such an amazing camera that I try to shoot with it every chance I get. I knew I wanted this film to look slick and that we were going to be shooting everything in one day, so it was a no-brainer to spend a little extra money to rent that camera for the day. DSLRs are wonderful, but the Red to me seems to offer a much more cinematic image that gives you more flexibility in post production, so it’s my camera of choice practically every time.

What lenses did you use?

I can’t remember but it was two basic Nikon lenses. A 50mm and a 17-35 or something like that. I find that the brand of lens you use is almost irrelevant since 99% of people can’t tell the difference between a $2,000 lens and a $200 lens. I think what is vastly more important for people to think about is which lens to shoot with (25mm, 50mm, etc) and your lighting setup of course.

What microphone did you use?

Sound was the roughest part of all of this. We didn’t have a sound recordist (a potentially fatal mistake that I never would make again) so all we did was plug in a boom mic into the camera and have a PA hold it out of frame. Luckily enough most of the sound during the close-ups was great, but all the wide shots had to be done in ADR, which was a huge pain!

Your sound design, cinematography and direction is great. But let’s talk specially about the shot at 1:17  (above) – This shot has great lighting. Can you tell us a bit more about how you approached lighting and composing that shot?

Well I knew I wanted everything in the restaurant to look smooth and pretty and everything in the basment to have more of an ominous tone, so the actors in the restuanrant were lit with soft light (an open faced fresnel bounced off of a white bouncecard) and everything in the basement was lit with hard light, again an open faced fresnel, but with no bounce, instead pointed directly at the actor to produce high contrast and strong shadows).

The shot at 1:17 I don’t remember the exact lighting specifics, but I know we had our key, the open faced fresnel off to camera left, and we just flagged it off so it didn’t blow out the wall behind him. I’m not sure if we had any fill camera right, but if we did it was pretty minimal, probably just a bounce card.

How much of your locations were designed? How did you go about securing such great locations? I really love both the basement (above) and the restaurant.

Well we basically just hit the pavement, going around all the Chinese restaurants around town, looking for one that would be big enough to allow us to shoot with a very low depth of field. I knew I didn’t want my actors sitting in a booth or against a wall because that wouldn’t be very visually interesting. Finally we came across this one, which my friend happened to be managing at the time. He said we could shoot there in the morning before they opened so that’s what we did.

The basement was a little trickier because I live in Austin, and here houses don’t really have basements. So we started looking at businesses, theater houses where we could potentially create a basement set, and then we lucked out by finding this amazing abandoned building with this enormous basement. I loved it so much that we came back there a year later and shot a horror short in it.

How much did Table 7 cost to make?

We shot in one day, and the crew all generously donated their time for this and all the locations were free. So all in all what we ended up spending $ on was rental of a dolly and jib, the red camera, food, and a few props we couldn’t find to borrow such as two of the typewriters. All in all it was around $1,500.

Referencing shot at 2:18 (above) – How are you lighting that shot?

That shot is lit with two open faced fresnels, one camera right and one camera left. The one on the right is lighting the actor on the left and is also providing the hair light for the opposite actor. And the other way around for the other light. I believe we also had a soft light lighting up the backgound. My DP was David Blue Garcia and all the credit goes to him for the lighting. I asked him once about his approach to lighting and his advice was “always figure out your key first, use it to light the short side of the face, and then light the background.” Sound pretty simple, but not being a lighting guy myself, that little bit of information greatly helped me in the future.

If you could turn back the hands of time and do something differently what would it be?

Honestly, I’m really happy with how this project came out and is one of the few films that I’ve made that I watch and don’t say “I wish we could change this or that about it.” Production wise, shooting everything in one day made it pretty tough, and towards the end of the day the crew was really starting to feel it. But because of lack of $ that was the only way to do it at the time. Sound was a mess and I would definitely never go into a project without a sound recordist again. Of course in the editing room I was cursing myself for not having certain shots, but in the end, this is a film that I’m really proud of and turned out pretty much exactly how I envisioned it.

What project do you have planned next?

I am currently working on getting my first feature off the ground.