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NAB 2019 Handouts
As I mentioned on a previous article, I’ll be presenting several workshops at the upcoming NAB Show in Las Vegas.
The handouts for the main three sessions are out of the oven, and we are making them available for free to anyone interested.
We also added two new onlines courses, and updated our two most popular courses:
- Filmmaking Essentials for Photographers (here’s the online course, and here’s the book)
- The 41 Essential Items for Hybrid Productions
There are several mini tutorials (under 90 seconds in length), and ALL are available for free.
Take a look, I’m sure there’s something that will fulfill your needs.
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Cool Podcast Interview.
Street photographer Valérie Jardin has a Podcast called “Hit The Streets.”
We had a really nice conversation about the skills necessary to go from still to motion, and why photographers should add filmmaking skills to their arsenal. The conversation is now available as the latest episode of “Hit The Streets.”
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Understanding Steven Soderbergh. Part 2.
On my previous post I wrote about Steven Soderbergh’s professional life. The goal was to give some context on why I consider him a leading force in the future of filmmaking, regardless the quality or financial success of his most recent movies.
I started paying close attention to how Steven Soderbergh works around 2014 when he released the Cinemax show The Knick.
On this post (and the next one) I’ll share everything I know on Soderbergh’s production schedule, using the iPhone to shoot Unsane and High Flying Bird, his approach to scriptwriting, and why he prefers working with skeleton crews.
The huge advantages of small crews.
Let’s start with that last part. By now you know I prefer to shoot with the smallest possible crew and the least amount of gear. So much so that I recently started a new website called the 1 Person Crew. There I shared why Robert Rodriguez is also one of my heroes. But here’s Steven Soderbergh’s take on the advantages of working lean and mean:
“One of my favorite shooting days on High Flying Bird was when we did the opening scene at The Standard hotel. We took a break, and then we started walking downtown New York with a crew of four or five people, and André. I’m walking and I’ll go, “Okay, stop, we’ll put the camera here.” Shoot that, walk, walk, walk, okay, we’re stopping here. It was really fun. It took us two hours to walk and shoot our way down to the World Trade Center.”
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh’s iPhone
“‘I don’t want to wait on the tool, the tool should wait on me.”
Steven Soderbergh quoting Orson Welles.
High Flying Bird and Soderbergh’s previous movie Unsane were shot on an Apple iPhone. It’s all about size, and the ability to get the shot he wants in tight quarters. In Unsane when space got particularly tight, Soderbergh would just tape the iPhone to the wall to get the frame he wanted.
The visuals are harsh and uncompromising, but Soderbergh sees that as part of the appeal. Unsane is a great worst-nightmare movie, a tense piece of low-budget auteurship that plops the viewer into an absurd scenario and then ratchets up the tension for the next 90 minutes.”
The Atlantic
For “High Flying Bird” Soderbergh originally wanted to shoot anamorphic, and have a much cleaner, slicker look. But the challenge was gaining access to real-life locations that embodied an affluent world. For a small, nimble production, the advantages of the iPhone outweighed the image fidelity of an ARRI or RED cameras that cost a hundred times more.
“The iPhone seemed to me a pretty natural fit for that approach. It still is, in my mind, in terms of the scale of it, the speed that was necessary to execute it, in the time we had allotted.”
Steven Soderbergh
On High Flying Bird there’s a shot where three actors are walking down an office corridor. As all three break in different directions the camera follows one actor into an office, and then retreats.
A 350-pounds dolly? Screw that! Instead, Soderbergh sat in a wheelchair, holding the iPhone on this tiny Gimbal mimicking a mini crane movement.
“Using a more traditional approach with normal-size cameras would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. To get the lens where I wanted, to be moving in certain way or have the camera reach multiple destinations without either somebody getting hurt, or the shot being compromised because of the size of the equipment. A normal size dolly, weighs 350 pounds. Moving quickly can be dangerous and somebody could get hurt. And we could have been there for hours.”
Steven Soderbergh
“I get very frustrated when it takes a long time to execute it. Like, as soon as I feel it, I want to shoot it. And so, that’s one of the biggest benefits of this method — the time from the idea to seeing an iteration of it is incredibly short, like, a minute, like, maybe less. For me, the energy that that creates on set, and I think on screen, is huge.”
Steven Soderbergh
Soderbergh’s lighting package (shooting with the iPhone or proper cinema cameras) has been stripped down to a 12-inch by 12-inch LED panel (like this) in recent years. The look can be more evocative of a filmmaking student than an Oscar-winning director with 30 features under his belt. But this is as much an aesthetic as a practical decision, especially since 2000 when Soderbergh took over the cinematographer’s role on his films.
From Script to Screen.
The Knick’s original script called for 10 episodes. Instead of working on complete episodes one at a time Soderbergh turned the script into a “10-hour movie” shooting the first season in 73 days. In other words, Soderbergh shoot eight to nine script pages a day, double the typical rate for a TV drama. This wasn’t a new approach for him. Back in 2003 each episode for K Street was plotted, scripted, shot, cut, and broadcast in five days. Same exact story for the 2017 Netflix series Godless.
“The original script for Godless was 175 pages. Instead of chopping one of its limbs off, we thought “why don’t we turn this into a series?” So we approached Netflix with the idea and they said “Go. You’re starting tomorrow. Netflix ability to move that quickly and that definitively is their biggest advantage.”
Steven Soderbergh
On my next post I’ll share the gear, schedule and workflow Soderbergh used the the Cinemax series The Knick, and why I believe his production approach will be the way how many TV shows and features will be produced from now on.
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Understanding Steven Soderbergh. Part 1.
Today I’d like to share a bit about Steven Soderbergh’s professional life, and why have I’ve been following him for years. On two upcoming posts I’ll share everything I know about his working methods, including his shooting schedule and preferred workflow and gear. Cool? Let’s go!
Thirty years ago Steven Soderbergh became the pioneer of independent cinema with his first movie Sex, Lies and Videotape. Today he leads the future of filmmaking and might be even shaping the future of the NBA.
Last week, Steven Soderbergh’s latest film “High Flying Bird” launched globally on Netflix. I waited for weeks to watch it and… let’s say it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.
To be fair, I don’t follow professional sports, and the film is about an NBA agent and a rising basketball star who try to change the business of professional basketball. With only 72 hours to pull off a daring plan, they try to outmaneuver the other players with a strategy that could change the game forever. The outcome raises questions of who owns , and who should own, the game.
Interestingly, the characters in “High Flying Bird” imagine what could happen if pro players took their careers into their own hands using the power of the internet. Well, that is EXACTLY what Steven Soderbergh has been doing with the Hollywood studio system for a very long time.
For example, back in 2005 (before anyone thought is was possible) Soderbergh released Bubble simultaneously in theaters and as a home release. In 2009 he tried the same approach with The Girlfriend Experience with adult film star Sasha Grey.
In 2017 with Logan Lucky, Soderbergh
“crafted a project that bypassed traditional Hollywood production and marketing formulas, targeted his advertising to find the right audience, edited trailers himself, and ignored the usual branding paradigms.”
The Atlantic
Who is Steven Soderbergh?
He is the guy who once directed Out of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and Ocean’s Eleven, all within a three-year period.
Many people forget (or don’t know) that in 2000, Soderbergh received two Oscar nominations for Best Picture, and won Best Director for Traffic.
As of right this second, Soderbergh has 42 credits as director, 49 as producer, 28 as cinematographer and 23 as editor. He has 28 features and over 30 hours of TV series. His directorial work alone have grossed over US$2.2 billion worldwide.
“Soderbergh has worked in every genre and at all levels of the studio system. He directed glossy franchise entertainment (Ocean’s Eleven), Oscar-winning successes (Traffic and Erin Brockovich), hard-boiled noirs (Out of Sight and The Limey), and low-budget experiments (Full Frontal, Schizopolis, and The Girlfriend Experience).”
The Atlantic
In other words, Steven Soderbergh is not a human from planet earth.
Steven Soderbergh’s Oscars Acceptance Speech.
“There are a lot of people to thank. Rather than thank some of them publicly, I think I’ll thank all of them privately. What I want to say is — I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating. I don’t care if it’s a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece of music… Anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us. I think this world would be unlivable without art, and I thank you. That includes the Academy. That includes my fellow nominees here tonight. Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for this.”
Steven Soderbergh
That’s a powerful message. So powerful that the Academy Awards recently held it as “the ideal of an Oscar speech” probably because it is short and to the point.
The real-life story behind the speech is fascinating:
“I had nothing prepared because I knew I wasn’t going to win. I figured Ridley Scott, Ang Lee, or Stephen Daldry would win. So I was hitting the bar pretty hard, having a great night, feeling super relaxed because I didn’t have to get up there.”
Steven Soderbergh
So the combination of lots of alcohol and lack of preparation worked well that night. Going back to Soderbergh’s professional life,
On Marketing Logan Lucky.
“Logan Lucky was released on August because historically, it has been a good time to release something of quality. There’s typically a dead zone before Labor Day. The big summer movies have played out, and there are three weeks with some breathing room. You just need a lot of marketing money, more than we had. I was aware it might not work. I learned a lot, and it was absolutely a worthwhile thing to do, to try and create an avenue for projects that don’t fall in any of these tiers or to want to have creative control over everything, with more financial transparency.”
Steven Soderbergh
On my next two post the plan is to share everything I know on Soderbergh’s production schedule, his approach to scriptwriting, and why he prefers working with skeleton crews.
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The Sound of Roma.
I started thinking about a “Roma” blog post a few minutes into the movie.
Why Black and White? What do those almost endless pans mean? How similar or different is the composition compared to “Gravity“? What’s the meaning of “water” for Cuaron?
But as I started reading more about the movie, which by the way was written, directed, produced, shot, and co-edited by Alfonso Cuarón, my attention quickly drifted to the film’s sound design.
First things first.
I am assuming you know about Roma. If you don’t, here’s the executive version. Roma is a semi-autobiographical take on Cuarón’s childhood in Mexico City in the early 70’s.
So far Roma has won the Golden Lion in Venice, received 10 nominations at the 91st Academy Awards—including Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. It is tied with The Favourite as the most-nominated film, and with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) for the most Oscar nominations ever received by a film not in the English language.
It also won Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film at the 76th Golden Globe Awards, Best Director and Best Picture at the 24th Critics’ Choice Awards, and at the 72nd British Academy Film Awards won Best Film, Best Film Not in the English Language, Best Direction and Best Cinematography.
UPDATE 20190225: Roma delivered Netflix its highest Oscars prestige yet, contending in 10 Academy Award categories, and wining three: Best Director, Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography. Alfonso Cuaron gave Mexico its first foreign language film Oscar.
Sound Design.
Now, back to sound design. So it happens, the sound supervisor and re-recording mixer was the Academy Award-winning Skip Lievsay, who also worked on “Gravity“, “Children of Men“, “Y Tu Mama Tambien” and all 18 movies by the Cohen Brothers.
The most informative resource was this interview with Skip Lievsay on YouTube. Here are 3 of my favorite sections:
The full interview.
I highly recommend listening to the complete interview to learn:
- How not having a musical score keeps the audience guessing what will happen next
- Why it was important to Cuarón to have the dialog emanate not just from the screen channels but from all around the audience
- The stunning five-day loop group recording session with 350 actors
- How the final mix of the film took 10 weeks, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day.… wow…..
The technical stuff.
Filmmaker Magazine has another great article on Roma’s sound design. It’s a bit technical but enjoyable.
“In Atmos, we were able to use the x-axis and the y-axis as well as the z-axis. That’s the trick — using the z-axis in terms of extra reverbs or spatial ability.”
Filmmaker Magazine
A (much) deeper interpretation.
If you are interested in a more esoteric approach to Roma, pay close attention to these comments by another maestro, Guillermo del Toro.
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Cinematography Lessons from Pixar’s Inside Out.
Pixar’s “Inside Out” is one of my favorite Pixar movies (right up there with Coco and Up and The Incredibles). The story, music, colors, animation, everything seems flawless. Of course, it’s a Pixar movie! But what can we possibly learn about cinematography from a Pixar animation? Clearly, a lot. Here are some thoughts.
Cinematography
First, the virtual cameras used by Pixar mathematically replicate real cameras. They have lenses, focal length, F-stop, lens distortion, and depth of field. Like a real camera they can be on a track, dolly or crane, or be a Steadicam or hand-held.
Second, the camera structure in animation is the same as the camera structure in the physical world. We need to choose lens, a type of shot, decide whether the camera should be moving or not, and if it moves, what type of movement it should have.
The masterful cinematography work on “Inside Out” differentiates two worlds, the world of the mind (inside Riley’s head) and the human world (outside her head). Let’s see how:
Outside World
The outside world is based on actual locations (San Francisco and Minnesota) so the camera feels more organic, like being handheld or at best on a stedicam. We actually seesome lens distortion (based on the S4s lens), and a few out-of-focus shots, which makes this world feel a bit “imperfect”.
Inside World
The inside world is the opposite: perfect, methodical, organized. The camera seems to be on a dolly, tracks or cranes, so the movement is more graceful and controlled. The inside world is imaginary, so it is virtual and perfect and it was based on the Ultra Prime lens.
Camera movement was also used to express Riley’s emotional states. When things are going well we see Steadicam and tripod shots, when things are spiraling out of control, we see handheld shots. It is a similar approach to what David Fincher did in the final scene of Se7en.
Screen direction
Screen direction is super consistent thoroughout the move. If Riley is looking at screen left, there’s a cut to the inside world, and Joy should be looking in the same direction.
When you LEAVE the inside world the camera moves screen RIGHT.
When you ENTER the inside world the camera moves screen LEFT.
Cinematic Composition
Riley is often framed in the center, with her mother and father on either side. She’s the center of their universe. That is until she has issues with her parents, then she is framed to the side, portraying an “unbalanced” relationship.
Riley grows up in Minnesota. Her world is very wide and big, so we effectively see wide shots with strong horizontal and flat lines in the background. When Riley arrives in San Francisco, her world gets much smaller. We see mostly medium shots that squeez into the frame, which also has more vertical and diagonal lines in the background.
Minessota
San Francisco
Super tight shots represent adulthood. At the beginning of the movie we see tight shots of both parents when Reily is born. We also see a super tight shot of the father when he yells at Reily. Later we see a close up on Riley to show that she has begun to grow up. At the end, the only tight shot of Reily is when she embraces her parents.
Consider watching the courses below on Lynda.com to keep learning!
Want more? Watch Phyllis Smith on being the voice of Inside Out’s Sadness
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Here’s the most travel-friendly tripod for filmmakers.
For the past month or so I’ve been testing a pre-release version of MeVIDEO’s “GlobeTrotter” video tripod.
I am very impressed with the tripod’s features, and especially that MeVideo has been able to pack a full featured video tripod AND video monopod into such small footprint and weight.
The GlobeTrotter’s main features include:
- Reverse folding legs that allow for a more compact folded form that makes it perfect for traveling.
- Integrated Leveling Platform for precise, intuitive positioning of your camera on the center column without needing to adjust legs.
- Removable Flat Base Head featuring ratchet-style metal adjustment knobs for leveling.
- Head can be used on other flat surfaces such as certain sliders, jibs, half ball adapters and more.
- Split/center column allows you maximize flexibility as well as gives you the ability to get very low to the ground.
- Support for multiple cameras ranging from the Sony A6500, Panasonic GH5, Sony A7SII, Canon 5D Mark IV and all the way to the Canon C200.
- Independent locking positions for the legs let you set up your tripod anywhere.
- Integrated, stainless steel spikes can be expanded or retracted into the rubber feet for stability on any surface.
- Converts to a monopod. Simply unscrew the center column and combine with the padded leg.
- Available in anodized aluminum or carbon fiber in black or titanium and comes with a padded canvas carrying case for additional protection when traveling.
The MeVIDEO GlobeTrotter will start shipping in a couple of months, but you can move ahead of the line by supporting their Kickstarter campaign which only has a few days left.
Kickstarter contributors will receive a discounted rate of $349 for the aluminum and $499 for the carbon fiber model. When MeVIDEO publicly launches the GlobeTrotter, the retail price is expected to be $499 for the aluminum and $699 for the carbon fiber model. Hurry up and get it cheaper while you can.
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Camera Movement Techniques – Panning and Tilting 101
There are many simple techniques you can use to craft and enhance your video productions and sculpt your audience’s perceptions of your stories. Below we’ll provide some ideas on how you can effectively use panning and tilting in your next shoot.
Go ahead and move your head from left to right. Now move it from right to left. That’s panning, plain and simple. This technique is great for following a subject as it moves across the frame, or, you can use it to redirect the viewer’s attention to reveal new details.
Now move your head up and down, as if you are emphatically saying Yes. This is tilting. You can achieve a great deal with a simple tilt, including:
• Bringing the viewer into a scene
• Emphasizing the significance of a subject
• Revealing details in a scene
• Showing the vertical size of an object
Panning and Tilting in Practice
As panning and tilting motions are similar to how our necks move, feel free to use these techniques together in a production. You can craft a character’s point of view (POV) or make it appear as if the action is being observed by someone else.
Remember to consider the height of the camera when plotting your shots as this will determine the physical and psychological perspective from which the audience views your subject. For example, if your camera is at about eye level with your subject, when tilting up it looks like someone is looking at the subject’s shoes and then up to their face. When tilting down, it appears as if someone from a higher vantage point is looking downward and has suddenly discovered the subject. A few more things to remember when performing your pans and tilts:
• Very quick pans can be used as transitions between scenes. This is what we call “in-camera editing.”
• A slow pan or tilt allows the viewer to take in all the visual information in the scene.
• A fast pan or tilt, something typical from Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson films can disorient the viewer and jolt their attention to a new point of focus.
Smooth Moves
More often than not, we want our pans and tilts to be steady and fluid, unless, of course, the story calls for the camera to shake. In order to capture truly smooth movements, it is essential to properly set up and counterbalance the tripod. Be sure to fine tune the tension, so the tripod does the heavy lifting for you.
If you’re able to block out shots in advance, practice the movements several times before even rolling the camera, and adjust the tension accordingly. Generally speaking, you’ll want to set the tripod’s head with less tension for close or fast-moving subjects, and increase the tension for slow movements.
To sum up, you can achieve a great deal in your next video/film production by using the relatively simple techniques of panning and tilting. From guiding your viewer into a scene to crafting a unique transition between scenes, you can employ pans and tilts in a variety of ways to finesse your narrative.
Want more tips? Watch our filmmaking courses on Lynda.com
Have specific questions? We’re here to help. Contact us today and let’s meet on-site or online.
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Camera Movement – Tripod or Monopod?
Unlike still photography, filmmaking is a medium defined by motion. Motion is the action within the frame—but it’s also the motion of the frame itself. Even a series of well-lit and well-composed shots can be perceived as a slideshow rather than a story in motion if the shots remain “stagnant.” Nowadays we’re so used to seeing camera movement in Hollywood films that we expect to see movement in all the videos we watch—even if we don’t know much about filmmaking.
Here’s the same scene shot handheld, with a monopod and on a tripod. The mid ground between these two extremes, is the monopod. It has a little bit of movement, which adds a layer of realism. It conveys a scene straight out of a reality TV show, perhaps.
On this article we discuss the primary tools for accomplishing camera movement—and when to use which.
When, and why would I use a monopod over a tripod? If I have to pack light, I’m working by myself, need to be very quick, I’m using a light camera system with a shotgun, and a little bit of movement is okay, I would choose a monopod.
To learn more, watch our new course Camera Movement for Video Production on lynda.com.
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Same but different – Intro to Digital Cinema.
As a professional photographer, transitioning into the HDSLR Cinema world for the past 3 years has been a fascinating journey. I would like to share the five main similarities and five main differences I have encountered. Read through, I can guarantee it will save you some time.
Similarities
• White balance. Think Jpg. You can tweak the White Balance in post, but you are very limited to what you can do. Instead of using Auto White Balance, set a specific color temperature (5200K for example), especially if shooting with more than one camera.
• Exposure is very critical. Pay special attention to the highlights. It is time to use again that good old Light Meter or get one specifically designed for HDSLR shooters like Sekonic’s L-308DC. Like White Balance, do your best to get it right on camera, not in post.
• Camera Settings. We are still using ISO, aperture, and shutter, but because of the frame rate, the shutter is not really a variable factor anymore. Now, we also need to add fps (frames per second), picture styles, and other interesting things to the mix.
• Composition. We go back to the basics. Rule of thirds, symmetry and patterns, texture, depth of field, viewpoint, and cropping. Luckily, that has not changed. If you have a good eye, you are good.
• Lighting. All cameras are light-tight boxes that admit controlled light only through a lens. Just because we can push sensors to 25,000 ISO does not mean you are telling a story with light. You need to light.
Differences
• Lighting. Wait! Wasn’t this one of the similarities? Yes, it is also a big difference. Remember strobes? They turned into hot lights and continuous lights. Also, keep in mind that now the camera moves, and the light should work for several angles.