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Feedback and Q&A

Lesson 11 from: Introduction to HDDSLR Cinema

Vincent Laforet

Feedback and Q&A

Lesson 11 from: Introduction to HDDSLR Cinema

Vincent Laforet

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Lesson Info

11. Feedback and Q&A

Lesson Info

Feedback and Q&A

Okay, yeah, I think it is time to turn over to you. All right, so let's let's, what I'd like to do this morning is give everyone an idea of what's going to happen for those of you who have been watching us for the past two days. Thank you. First of all, that's awesome. Um, the coolest compliment I got is that people have been the first days have never spent this long glue to a television slash lcd screen in my entire life, people actually made it the entire seven or eight hours straight on the first day and as a teacher there's nothing better than I can ask for because the hardest thing is the teachers when people just doze off and fall asleep and you know, while you know, I'm just either it's just too much information or I'm not doing my job, so when I hear the people are staying up all day and all night that's the biggest compliment I can get and thank you guys so much, um, the second day was a lot more instruction as well, you should know if you're just joining us, we have gone full...

through oh, no more than fourteen hours of what you know, apertures are what you know, different handheld rigs, sliders, dollies, lighting we've gone through all of technical stuff you know, ah lot of it, so if you're still wondering what all that stuff is, that would be the reason why you would go back and purchase this information. We're now going to go over and pass the baton over to the eight students that are here with us, to have been with us for the past two days and it's now their turn to take everything that I've thrown at them and turn it into something, and we're gonna witness this yesterday we didn't exercise with an interview that, uh, was a bit of an uphill climb and that's fine, because people, you know, it's one thing to see someone do something and make it look effortless, we've all seen, you know, the chefs cook something and it takes absolutely wonderful and you go ahead and try it yourself and, uh, doesn't quite taste so good and you realize, well, they're making it look easy, right? You know, the one of the best comments going make someone as you make it look effortless, we all know it's quite a bit more difficult when, as opposed to watching someone do it it's now your turn to do it and that's cool, we're going to do it, take two of that and give him a chance today, teo work for all this stuff and shoot a short piece and we're going to kind of do uh a real world thing today where the cameras are going to be following the students from start to finish in about thirty to forty minutes after we have a bit of discussion back and forth we're going to go into full swing and talk about pre production about uh going in and creating a storyboard and then a shot list and then discussing logistics and how to get the gear ready and then hopefully by noon or twelve thirty probably maybe even one o'clock uh let's aim for noon for now we're going to go ahead and actually shoot this and you're going to see them actually take everything they've learned and put it into effect and at the end of that will obviously stop I think we're going to try and stop right at lunchtime maybe a little bit later than lunchtime take a break we're all gonna break for lunch and that will be the conclusion of that hands on of the equipment at that point ed will come in and I will be part of that as well and we're going to start talking to you about the post workflow in other words how do you take this footage and convert it and something you can use? What are the pieces of software that are available to you? How do you sink the sound with the video automatically how do you edit you know, for those of you that never worked with final cut pro or any other any softer we're going to discuss what in and out point is ah, what a jump cut is that we're going to go ahead, put this together and finished by using a tool called color to showyou grading, which is color correction on the footage, which for me is one of the most exciting things you can see happen it's it's basically people are where they have photo shop for their images they don't know their tools to do the exact same thing on a moving image and the first time I saw color I went bonkers um and at the end of it will discuss how to distribute the final film uh, the, uh, the web via blue ray on your website uh or via email and of course on your iphone and now your ipad and you'll have basically gotten in three days everything that I think I can teach you um without blowing your mind too much s so that people who have had some experience khun get some nuggets of winds of or people who've never done this hope they are not too overwhelmed uh it's absolutely expected you'll have to watch it a few times over because a lot of information coming at you but you would have been shown how from start to finish you can create your first short film documentary er or whatever it is that you want to do and that that was our goal and I think we're two thirds of the way there um so what I'd like to do here what has been suggested to me is that for maybe five or ten minutes the students in the classroom are going to talk with me a little bit about what they've learned um some of their ideas and then we're gonna go ahead and open it up tio the world wide web and have people jump in and make comments and share their thoughts and ask some questions that you may still have and at that point we're going to stop and talk a little bit about product pre production as a group and then go off to the shoot so let me ask for a volunteer and vincent yeah, I'm actually gonna take myself and my chair out so I can go take care of all the behind the scenes stuff alright cool thank you very much this is thank you thank you, thank you it sure has, uh it's been an experience to say the least in a very good one, so I'm going to ask for a volunteer to kind of share something whatever's on your mind relative to this course and ah go for it scott take a christ christopher well, I think the, uh the most important thing for me was on the first day when we ah ah came together and you started your lecture with the statement that content is king so most of us that are in the media business in one in one form or another um have believed that for a long time but to have you making affirmation to that kind of set the stage for me personally and the other two points I'd make is it was really great to have all of the geek equipment you know, and have the ability to have hands on with the equipment um and for me to understand where I would use, um, hd digital slrs versus other types of cameras like red and that type of things that was important as well and then finally based on yesterday's episode if you want to call it that, um it just kind of reaffirms the need to hire professionals that really know what they're doing in the various roles if you are fortunate enough to have a budget where you can have ah, full crew. So for me, that was the those were the the three big deals for me scott andrew yesterday's uh interview thirty second interview was very, very humbling. The fact that it took eight people over an hour to produce thirty seconds of video was just just mind blowing to me um and you hear about, you know, one hundred million dollar budgets on big walk blasters and you kind of scratch your head and wonder, you know, where they're spending that money, and now we're getting a sense of the complexity behind producing high quality footage movie or for, uh and I wanted to qualify that and say that what we were trying to produce yesterday was a quote, unquote, professional peace I don't want people out on the internet, I think that that should be their goal necessarily, and definitely, you know, we're trying to hold you guys to a high standard here in terms of doing this, the professional manner what's exciting is that people out there may learn to do this in a very new and original way that specifically takes advantage of what they don't have, you know, the key to anything that you do is not to say I want to look like sixty minutes, you know, which is certainly worth showing yesterday and the point we're trying to make was that getting that sixty minutes or dateline look, um is not easy, you know, even though sometimes it could be quite a bit boring when you're watching it, um so think out of the box now you've been shown how it's done quote unquote professionally but that's not that should not asleep be your end goal I mean the your end goal should be to know how some people do it but you should also do it your own way and as you mentioned under you now understand how the big blockbusters are made and why there are so many people uh that being said for I think the majority audience here uh that's not one of them they're aiming for atleast right now maybe if years down the line they're they're dreaming to be uh the next quentin tarantino or the next best dp or the most requested first a sea in the world but or maybe they just dreaming teo shoot a beautiful film of their daughter as she takes her first step which to me is a cz good goal is anything else we could ever have in life um but you know take all this with a grain of salt you know we're showing you the standard way of doing things ah but always aim for something that's pure to you and to where you are right now and yes scott work with fantastic professional crews when you're working on professional high end productions but when you're not doing that yeah this is the best time to work with friends who are learning along with you without that pressure cynthia well I'm the only woman here and I'm also probably the least geeky so one of the things that I'm a fiction writer and so it's you know like me and my pencil and I'm surrounded by you know, millions of different kinds of cameras and just tons of gear and so I just wanted to say that for me I had this dream that I was going to be able to go out with one of the canon dslr tze and you know, shoot a movie I learned really that I'm gonna, uh use my tripod very simple so clear to me that you can't jump around you know with these cameras put the thing on sticks and get a fluid head and that's exactly uh the most simple but basic um kee I think to getting some really, really lovely footage so that's my theory great. So I guess is, uh kind of a long term, uh still documentary photographer I found it fascinating that about a year ago I looked I was like g I have all this equipment uh, dslr stuff is taking off. I should play around with it and pretty much after, you know, a good solid month, I realized that everything that I had done was crap and I just didn't understand I was like I had not had kind of this vision of what I wanted to see and realize that I had one tool in the toolbox and I had made this assumption that all right that's all I needed and I think we're really what I was missing is howto put all the correct tools in the toolbox toe actually make what my creative vision was actually happen and actually got frustrated put down you know did it for two months and then stopped I went back to still and uh when I saw uh this siri's come up I was like I have to hopefully actually learn what the correct tools are so I can actually make what it said my mind actually happen and wanted appreciate seeing a and how to do it actually probably very simply vs having the most amazing thing is uh you know the movie you showed around you know I think it was where the hell is matt I thoroughly enjoyed that film in its one camera one tribe odd one lands and a buddy and he probably don't idea and you don't even need the body so that's what really the future is on this and that the eye opening experience seeing all the tools but knowing that I could do it with just what I have if I do it right sometimes not knowing that a tool exists ignorance can be bliss and I think what I would like to have shown you in the past two days is that all right? These are the pieces of equipment that are out there these are their strength and weaknesses when you bring a certain piece of gear with you it's an advantage and that it can allow you to pull something off well or better it's a potential disadvantage and that it can really slow you down it costs money you have to transport over there uh you have to have people help you now with it depending on what it is and I think one of the key things to learn as a filmmaker pretty much as anything anything you do uh even as a photographer is no what's out there no what's available know what each piece which each tool khun do for you the most important decision you can make in my pain is not whether or not to purchase it but whether or not you need it when to use it know that it exists but the intelligent decision is no when you need to rent it or to buy it or to borrow it and for what reason no extracts with weakness that's why it really helps to get hands on experience also helps to watch something like this and see others when you can't physically get that piece of equipment obviously buying it and having it shipped over to you is a very expensive way to do it. Um but know when to use it just remember that one of the lines I gave earlier on just because you have something doesn't mean you need to use it or just because you can doesn't mean you should and then keep k I s s keep it simple okay, so ah called you do you feel now that uh as you go back out, you may wanna test the waters again with video or you just as as it you're done you ah you want to stick with stills? I think I'll add it in but I think the kind of I would almost say initial arrogance of oh, I have the tool I can make this happen he's gone and now I go it's like, okay, what do I want to accomplish versus you know, what's the angle of it? And well, I think it'll be a mixing of keeping with traditional documentary and then since now there's, you know with block and everything else ableto add to it in kind of the production value and I find that fascinating now you know that you may not need an entire film crew teo, take your search is existing level of production to the next level might be one or two very intelligent tools that you pick that you could travel with and for what you do that's the key is you hopefully have seen tools here depending on what it is you want to accomplish that you can add that next level to what you're doing and probably hope for the best lesson you may have learned or I hope that you have learned is this not gonna be the tool that's going to help you reach that next level it's gonna be up here I think for me the biggest aa thing is back to the first day um also the content is king um you know, when you're working as a photographer depending on your style of photography you're only doing so much concept work or only getting paid for so much concept working a lot of it is execution um and this is totally different there is way more pre production work involved here and working with photo assistance lighting assistance doing a still shoot is tha rast tickly different than knowing all these people you know, first day sees just even knowing the terminology of job rules um it's a huge thing to wrap your mind around um you know, it's kind of cracking up last night about what you had said when you're when you're a photographer, you can get away with being kind of ah chuck norris one man I'm just going to go in there. I know if it's just me in my camera I know I can get the shot I know aiken, um I have a vision in my head and I can accomplish that vision through my work um now when you're working in this environment, there are so many just logistical things in terms of scheduling timing that you have to tell that story clearly to everyone around you it's incredibly different process of being a one man guy with with a vision and then pulling it off and I was just kind of cracking up because we were ahh having a little informal get together last night just to chat about some ideas about concepts of what we'd want to shoot today for a story in every single one of us kept going back to oh, we could get this shot we would set it up like this and we started talking about technique and lenses and depth of field and when this be cool in this pickle and it just kept reminding me we are very visually oriented thinkers and we need to go through this huge hurdle to be um uh well story not just storytellers but even there's an administrative aspect to it what's realistic what's realistic with the budget what's realistic with our timeline what's realistic with the people I have to work with or the gear I have um and I was just kind of cracking up, you know, thinking all of us as photographers, we have websites that are first name and our last name dot com and if you if you don't work in the you know, if you have friends that don't work in the industry and you sent him an email, they usually write you back and say, well, that's kind of a pompously email address you have and I was just cracking up thinking you put those kinds of people all together to come up with a vision for something and it's very hard tio to collaborate and to adjust your way of brainstorming, of being passionate to take other's ideas and come together on a vision that um can work so I think I think your point that photography is not so much a collaborative effort but video very much is is a huge point that I think a lot of photographers should really really think about it it's still just continually and you weren't sure initially you want to come to the workshop right? Uh we had a discussion about that. Yeah, and can you can just discuss that quickly? Sure. Um I've kind of um grown up doing my work half video half photo and so knowing that this might be something targeted more towards photographers I wondered if uh you know, it might be better to have someone else come who hasn't had experience at all with, uh, any kind of production stuff but um there's still like you said some people have said I learned more in these workshops that I did in my first year of film school there is so much you can learn just from seeing the way that someone does something differently or sets up something differently and particularly I think for me the video industry has traditionally been full of a lot of technically ordinance people and logistically orin and people not so much the photographic minded, creatively oriented thinkers and so to get kind of a little bit of a picture of your experience of transitioning from this very visually driven context too a story driven context where it's not just about every shot being the absolutely perfect winning shot it's about the sequence of those shots leading up to something that as a whole is very powerful um and then even just um you know, seeing the level of production around here and the, um getting a bigger picture of what it's like to work with the bigger crew is a huge deal um so glad you came very glad I mean it's been best money I think I've ever spent it's been it's been very good cool thanks for coming I'd like to take this opportunity just to thank vince and as being a photographer doing for a living myself and that's my passion you know, uh I can't imagine doing anything else, so, uh, appreciate guys like vincent and chase there are not only pushing the boundaries creativity creatively, but they're, um they're willing to share their knowledge and that's just just amazing, so I'd like to thank him for sure um and just being here and seeing, um all the gear and things like that it's really uh it's really amazing you know, the amount of time and let's take vincent to, you know, explore these different pieces of gear get him altogether things aren't working I mean he's he's making this stuff up as he goes along building equipment of building things like that and as someone is trying to push themselves creatively myself I mean it's just like for himto him he just saved me five hundred hours of going around the country and ordering parts and visiting things and building things myself. So I think that's pretty pretty amazing um and ah, what I've learned this weekend was was coming from the photography field of being the man in charge and doing everything myself and we all have those those visions that we sit in our bed at night and we see that image and wow oh, my god, okay, I'm gonna go out tomorrow I'm going to take that picture, but I think this is why there's forty five thousand people watching this this weekend is ah, those photographer people you know, it's like we're in glue were stuck in quicksand and it's just how do we make that vision come alive and the collaboration and and all this and stepping back away from the camera, taking my eye out of the camera and now I have to rely on someone else and so what I've learned this weekend is is it's I feel like I'm one foot out of out of the quicksand you know, one foot on the dirt ready to go okay, now I can see how these stories come alive and I can see who's porton in you know, an editor at having a good editor things like that and you know, I mean that's why people go to film school and spend forty, fifty, eighty thousand dollars to go to film school to learn this process so I think what's really help me is is you've kind of given us that kick of ah this is really what it takes it's not you anymore it's about your team it's about relying your team and being able to convey your vision and these are the tools whether it's people whether it's gear um so you know, I just I really appreciate it I really appreciate that you know, the two years that I don't have to spend that you've just shown me and ah, again, this collaborative environment of creative live is totally cool because, um, it's not about learning something and hoarding it it's about sharing this and like, I'm sure stuff bounces back on vincent and chase when they get around people and they're learning ideas and they're able to experience this and make mistakes eso then when they go out and shoes next you know sir video or whatever it's like oh yeah you know from the twenty five hours straight with no sleep that I spent on this weekend um I I learned a ton you know and next time we'll do it differently so I think it's for me it's you know I'm way ahead I'm I'm uh I'm really happy with with coming here and I appreciate everything you're welcome jared thanks very much. Well for me um uh kind of reiterate what scott and everyone else kind of said his content is king and it truly is and ah me being a still photographer my content is confined in one frame and that whole concept of the sequence of frames or telling story is really the king and um aside from all the technical stuff still photography and the lighting camera it's all kind of the same but the vernacular is different and I've learned that and uh for me being a still shooter I tend to like, run and gun I could move my camera pretty quickly and I realize that moving a rig with that much weight on a larger tripod uh was much more difficult and time consuming and that was uh that was a real eye opener because I just never crossed my mind I thought well I could just move from here to here get my shot tweet this you know the whole monitor that whole side kind of blew me away as far as uh the time factor for that um a lot of cool toys I learned it there's so much that are built for these particular dslr sze ah that was does realize opener didn't realize all the rigs and and so forth um collaboration is key even in a still shoot you need the cooperation of all your assistance and and you're creative team that's pretty similar now we were kind of thrown into this not knowing each other's skills and you know half of us here didn't even know how to operate a candid camera so um that was kind of interesting when you threw us into the fire there and uh a little bit unfair but yeah eso but again I want to say as jared said thank you vincent for um providing your time for this and creative life for the forum toe broadcasts uh this this experiment really and I've learned a lot it's been awesome well, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts vince I'd certainly like to thank you I feel uh I've got a new pair of shoes and I need to hit the ground running uh I've gained a tremendous insight into the industry both as a photographer who with the concept as it's been explained is capable of going out on your own get up in the morning with with an idea and go out and shoot it simply or be a part of a larger team with the concept and go out and shoot it as a za collaborative effort. The thing that I probably would like to be ableto leave this experience with is it's possible? Everything is possible even if you have a simple point and shoot digital camera it's converting light to electronic images and if you take your time and you go at it methodically even if you're just animating in your bedroom on your table you khun do it you khun you can simplify your camera moves you don't need an elaborate crane shot there is one on the internet that is with one hundred foot crane that that just boggles my mind. It covers several blocks and from inside of a warehouse I mean, I would like to be able to shoot that I don't think I ever I have a need for it, so keep it simple. You can do whatever you want with the equipment that you have or can borrow or steal, but as well the collaborative effort of creative live uh to bring these uber geeks together with the creative minds and hands and hearts uh in one place I'm just overwhelmed inspired thank you, thank you and uh, I'll tell you what makes me swell up inside when I watch a film is rarely that's a hundred foot crane uh or two million dollars special effects shot what makes me ah emote uh as an artist myself is when I see ah thirteen year old kid shoot something or have an idea that is so incredibly original and refreshing and maybe it's far from perfect technically but it's just sheer uh intellectual or artistic or just experimental brilliance and I think a lot of us are in that boat is that the reason content is king is that ideas are king emotions or king um you can't forget that uh a docile yeskey novel is meant to, uh do certain things to the reader intellectually uh and it's a certain kind of experience as is a photograph that hangs on a wall it's something that's there for you to see it's not going anywhere it's not moving it's not changing you can walk right past it you could stop and glance at it and keep moving or on newspaper or websites front page or you could stop in your tracks and get lost in that photograph and come back to that museum year after year after year and see how your interpretation of that piece works whereas in general of film ah a tv show a documentary is meant to be consumed by your audience in a very different way it's meant to entertain the challenge them to make them feel something and you've got a respect you understand that and and realize that it's about communicating with an audience and connecting with them and I think the world where the hell is matt thing was a good example for that reason I think everyone reacts well to that and no one talks about steady cams versus james on that one and that makes me happy you know because, uh I want people to see all the gear that's here and realize that and help you make uh uh quote unquote I want to say better films let's just say more sophisticated films technically but that that doesn't really make for a good film um so you gentlemen are going to are you ready to show those four different sections or a few minutes so we're gonna open up uh the internet uh, wave do you guys think you need to gather off camera and keep working on what you're doing so once you guys go ahead and get up and go into the other room um we're going to bring you back um when it is ready to show you um what happened with that train wreck from yesterday and, uh you will be so happily surprised um uh what uh a great editor can do for you um and let's go ahead and open up the internet um, questions I've been uh from the chat room we have gathered many questions this morning, and so I'm just going to start in, uh, first of all, did you receive the idea? Seemed rigs that were lost by courier. Is there any chance to see those? No, it's sunday. So, felix, you're not delivering. Okay, um, so can you expand more on about being having small group shoots with just two or three people instead of the whole cast of characters? Dp and like, like we, uh, kind of had yesterday, um, how that changes things? Well, when you work with two or three people, it simplifies things tremendously. Uh, in a good way. Sometimes I mean, the reason you have a large cru ise to fold one, you could do more complex things, you can have more than one light. Um, you can have more than one camera, you obviously can have actors, but the real reason to have a big crew is that you can see how long the stuff takes. And when you're on a budget you can't afford to like yesterday, have the crew take one hour to set up two cameras, four lights and two seats. Um, it's, you know, that part of this is it's a business, and you've got to go ahead and stay efficient, um, but if you're not on a deadline you don't have a client bring breathing down your neck you don't need you know ten twelve fifty or a hundred people to do this you have all the time in the world um also when you have a large group it's kind of like, you know an elephant you know racing through the room trying to go unnoticed ah there's a beauty and being uh a small package of people that moves quietly through wherever you're shooting and uh doesn't have an impact you want you know, the one of the terms we use all the time is a low impact shoot meaning you don't want to disrupt the entire location of where you're shooting you want to just you know, make your little movie or your little documentary without drawing too much notice yourself. So in an ideal world I think the reason people are gravitating towards these hd dslr cameras is that it's allowing them to do more with less uh some people want to save money but others just wantto kind of do things more simply and um pull off some of their ideas uh without an entire production behind them and uh that's where all this technology is bringing us you know it's allowing us to take what's in here in our minds and our hearts and translate that into a moving document a document that you can share over the internet? Yes yes from steel k b what early obstacles did you encounter moving into the motion forum and you're because he's commenting that you've had a quick experience that's taking you very far um reverie was my first experience with film and that actually went really smoothly because I didn't think about it too much uh I didn't have a client uh I didn't really have a self imposed deadline I don't know what I was doing and that's you know ignorance is bliss and that was wonderful ah the next year was a very difficult and I had many, many, many obstacles to go through ah lot of which you witnessed here ah the reason I purposely let the students break that you know the line and not pay attention with one eighty rule yesterday was because I learned that the hard way the first time I did an interview you know and someone whispered to me oh you're crossing the line and like huh what you mean I didn't go to film school you know I let it later you know what it was explained to me and I got it right away you know um but I think it's absolutely natural to have not one but you know hundreds of questions that you ask yourself because you've got to remember for twenty years I've been a still photographer and I love doing that that's my first passion it's still my passion and going into filmmaking um has required me to learn quite a bit, and I think the beauty of life and one of the best lessons I've ever learned was from my father who's, a photographer and he said he was in his late forties when he told me they said you know what, vincent? The reason I love being a photographer is that no matter how much I do it, I never ever stop learning there's always so much more left for me to learn and he'd been doing at that point for thirty years and to see my dad say that thirty years into his craft, he was still learning on a daily basis. You made me say, you know what? It's not a bad career and the same goes for filmmaking. Yes, in the twitter chat room, sean from l a is asking, what have you done to make sure you can communicate with your actors effectively so you can get what you need from them? Um, one of the best pieces of advice aiken aiken share with you ah, is to actually taking acting class yourself or at least sit in on one. Um, see if you can do that because it really help you to either have acting experience, um and to go for the motion so that as a director, um, you have a better understanding of what an actor is going through and most importantly you will learn the type of language to use with actors um you rarely want to tell someone I would like you to be scared but I'd like you to just cry on cue was a very different language of communication with actors um that is involved and as a director you need to learn to clearly communicate ah with your actors to draw out of them ah, the desired result and the language you use is this is a whole separate course I can't really get into it now um is quite a bit different than the way we naturally talk to one another as uh as he citizens of the world uh it's a very different creative crosses at process and uh that's another you know, big point is a lot of directors air fantastic at how to move the camera at visuals at transitions but they honestly the best people at communicating with actors and they're also very different types of actors they're actors that you you know you just kind of they like to just be unleashed and they know exactly what they're doing. You know, if I find wherever toe work with um morgan freeman or robert deniro uh I would do my best as a direct actor to communicate you know where I see the scene overall and the movie uh as a bigger piece and have a discussion about it of the genre of what I'm trying to get the subtext to the screenplay uh but I would be very reticent to give him too much input in terms of what they should do because those were some pretty you know, incredibly experienced actors that pretty much bring ah lot to the table uh that being said as a director you have to know what you're looking for and they're looking to you um the big mistake though is with with sometimes them depending what they're looking for especially in experienced actors is just saying, you know, go ahead and do what you want because they may not know what they want they may not have the same understanding of the script that you do or ah, you know, as a director this is your body of work ultimately your vision that you're trying to um make happen and you have to be able to communicate that with the entire team so that you're all on the same page the biggest problem of the biggest mistake you could make it a filmmaker is to assume that everyone knows what you're thinking in here it's all about communicating clearly and concisely and specifically what it is what the end result isthe and spielberg is known for being really really good at that he knows exactly what he wants he knows how he wants it shot he knows pretty much every single minutia what's happening in the film but his gift is not only in knowing that but being able to communicate that to the entire team in a very effective manner so that everyone's on the same page sure so from the chat room could you then um talk further about your theories on lighting um and uh sorry I lost one of my question was exactly well this trying to talk about my theories on lighting is like asking me to do a three day workshop on lighting and one question I think lighting is one of the most important tools and photography or filmmaking and if I had to break it down into three or four five sentences I would say that lighting really helped set the tone as much as anything else so harsh light versus soft light uh tends to draw out a very different emotion from someone ah warm light feels much more comfortable and um welcoming then really cool light does it makes you feel cold it makes it feel more lonely or dangerous the angle of light is very important the exact same light from below make someone look like a goon from a horror flick bring that light off to the side uh and it only captures half of someone's face and you can use that in a certain way to tell person perhaps the person is two sided uh and lying or has ulterior motives whereas a frontal light um implies entirely different connotations um so that's the best I could do in thirty seconds, but understand that lighting is an incredibly powerful tool to help guide your audience in terms the emotion that you see, uh, think about a film, uh, like trying to think of a very popular film. Um, the lighting in transformers, for example, uh, is all about making things look glitzy and sexy and cool and full of color and harsh light and commercial? Almost or as the lighting in, uh, blade runner is quite a bit different and, uh, trying to elicit very different responses. If you haven't seen blade runner, you should look at the opening scene. Uh, look att uh, the apartment that, um harrison ford looks in and how that light moves on a different subject throughout the film. Um, and you'll get an idea what we're talking about. Two related questions. What what projects do you have coming up and do you ever plan on making a full length feature film? Um, I do have several projects coming up, and I I can't really discuss them because they're for clients and you'll see chase and I always say things like, I can't tell you who the client is or what I'm working on, and I hate that, uh, because it sucks. But the client you know doesn't want you to know about what we're shooting until it's released because they wanna you know have control over that um I'm I can share that I'm gonna work on a little piece uh for playstation promo uh in a week uh I'm doing something in italy in july and um I've got several other ideas that involve um some projects I'm working at one point I'll be up in the sierras with tom lowe doing sometimes scape a photography for his film he is working on also supposedly in july I wish I had more time in the calendar to do the things that I want to do, but in terms of making a feature film uh, I think what you saw here today yesterday in terms of having people not prepared uh for what they're about to do can lead to a disastrous results and I want to make sure not only that I'm very prepared to shoot a feature film that I'm absolutely comfortable I think the only reason you become comfortable of what you do is you practice and practice and practice so my goal right now is to work on smaller films and uh smaller short films and commercial work over the next few years and become extremely comfortable uh doing what I've been doing is that remember I have twenty years experience is a photographer I feel very comfortable as a photographer I have about two years experience as a filmmaker, and I'm very well well aware of how I feels a filmmaker versus as a photographer because I've got ten times the experienced on one end, so I want that to balance out a little little bit and, uh then will come the chance to perhaps to a film. And if there's one thing out I think is a good way to end this conversation is to say, I'll do a feature film once I've had a chance to find a film that I want to make and that's something I'm still looking for, um, everyone wants to be a director. Everyone wants to be a dp everyone wants to make a film, but in order to do that, you have to first find what that film is, and then everything comes together. So if tomorrow I see an idea or read a book or have a screenplay land on my lap that I actually fall madly in love with guess what? I might be making a feature film next year. Who knows? We'll see. All right, I think we're going to take a break. Thank thanks very much. Thank you, thank you.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

DSLRCinema01-01_Intro.pdf
DSLRCinema01-02_HDDSLRS.pdf
DSLRCinema01-03_Audio.pdf
DSLRCinema01-04_VideoGear.pdf
DSLRCinema02-01_ShotSelection.pdf
DSLRCinema02-02_SupportLight.pdf
DSLRCinema02-03_FilmCrew.pdf
DSLRCinema03-01_ShootWorkflow.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I would recommend this class to anyone needing a refresher on video in a DSLR world, but I would imagine that some of the technical topics might be a bit too much of a deep dive in an introductory course like this. Not everyone is going to be creating staged events and so the attention paid to blocking and focus might be less interest. Overall, for someone who graduated in film/video a while ago, it was great to get up to speed on today's cameras and hardware.

Marvin Løvenfeldt
 

Seems like an update to this class is needed. he talks about the Canon 5D mark II. Several better cameras have come on the market since including several other brands, many better options in 2017.

Johnnee Lin
 

Why should I buy the class again to see it since I have bought the package ?

Student Work

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