Hi, my name is Dave. I'll be your [insert title here] today...

If you've been reading this blog, you'll have read "my clients this" and "my clients that."  Every business around is about providing a service to a client, whether that service is a design or website or even a tall non-fat chai latte.  Fast food customers are clients just as much as a brand is to an ad agency.  Sometimes, however, the whole client relationship can get a bit confusing.  Take my role as a freelance cameraman, for instance.  My clients are usually the producers.  Most of the time, the producers have clients as well.  So that would be the client of my client.  Sometimes there's even one more layer of clients... So who the heck are we serving?  In the most ideal situation, my client, the producer, has his/her client's best interest in mind, so everything is in line.  I'm lucky enough that all of the people I deal with are good enough at their jobs that there is no confusion.  But, oh, I've heard horror stories...

For a freelancer in a crew position (cameraman, sound, gaffer, etc.) most of the time the client relationship is very simple.  You're there to do something you're good at (that's why you were hired) and you really only have to do that job.  When you're the producer on a shoot, though, everything is different.  For the longest time, though, us crew folk never had to worry about the extras.  Things, however, are rapidly changing in the industry.

About a year ago I was in Florida on a shoot.  The sound guy was hired locally, so during a break, I casually asked how the industry was down there... boy, should I just have kept that curiosity to myself.  It's rough, I was told.  Less and less work for sound mixers with cameramen being expected to pull double duty.  Even the camera guys are starting to struggle now that producers are learning how to shoot.  One day soon, the editors will be struggling, after they coach the producers how to cut...  Basically, it's getting to the point where if you want to survive in this industry in this market, you're going to soon have to know how to do EVERYTHING.  Great...

Before you go and think me lazy, I'll remind you (in case you haven't read the "about me" section), I have a very well-rounded formal training in filmmaking.  In addition to cinematography, I studied the ins and outs of editing, sound, producing, writing, and all of that.  I spent a lot of time doing all of that stuff in and out of school.  My B.F.A. was all about becoming a good all around filmmaker.  I know how to record and edit sound and I know how to cut on all major digital editing systems, and even on an analog 16mm flatbed system.  After college, though, one of the biggest accomplishments I was working towards (and was proud to achieve) was becoming a specialist.  It was a sign of professionalism, I thought, to be just a great cameraman.  Avoid that whole jack of all trades stigma...  I shoot for a living, I told people.  I didn't mention the editing or writing or anything like that.  It avoided a lot of eyerolls that I saw my colleagues do when encountering excited interns who were "cinematographers and directors and editors and writers and..." - you get the point.

I think a lot of what has changed as of late  is the accessibility of it all and the economics.  Video cameras and editing systems are easier to use than ever before, so many producers of corporate and industrial video shoot and edit for themselves.  Often, they do very good jobs at it and, being able to do it all, they can keep their costs low and price their services more competitively.  However, for the freelance cameramen (and women) who do a lot of corporate work, this means fewer gigs in that world.  So the specialists, if they want to keep working, need to open up a bit.

So where does one draw the line in defining themselves professionally?  For me, it's been (until recently) easy to keep my experience in one department.  My IMDb page has credits as cameraman, director of photography, camera operator and gaffer throughout.  All of those, you can argue, are within the realm of image acquisition, and in a lot of ways, they all support each other.  The gaffer work illustrates that I've got a command of lighting, which is certainly a boost when I'm being considered for a DP gig.  The operating credits say that I understand composition (also good to think about in other types of work).  I've even recently done a number of days as Technical Director on a multi-cam talkshow (too recent to appear on my IMDb just yet), which encompasses a lot of the skills I use in other crew roles; being able to communicate with the show's Lighting Director and the camera operators and handling the engineering aspects of the job (which I'm comfortable with having spent so much time on the other side of the headset as an operator on multi-cam things).  That's pretty consistent in terms of branding my skillset as a camera & lighting professional.  But wait, there's more...

One of my better clients a few years ago was a startup marketing/ad/consulting company that was still defining itself.  A very big part of their work was video storytelling, so they had a producer, director and editors on staff.  For the smaller things, the producer or director would grab a camera and shoot.  For the larger, more complex stuff, they hired a DP (me).  It was a very comfortable relationship and very much within my advertised skillset.  A couple of years into this particular client-vendor relationship, however, the company took a shift to the somewhat more cerebral stuff.  They began to spend more time in design and less in the conventional marketing elements.  Shooting jobs with them all but dried up for almost a year.  In that time, there was some internal restructuring there and the staff video guys moved on to other things.  As luck would have it, about a year ago, one of the design gigs morphed for them.  A very large client of this company needed a video and, as I understand it, knew of the quality and style they turned out back when video was big for them.  Suddenly, I was in a meeting, discussing the project as - get this - a producer.  You see, having shifted their staff around, there was no longer any full-timers to handle the producing and editing, so knowing the quality I had always delivered as a shooter, they approached me first to discuss a new relationship.  Eager to rekindle the fire with a company that was, at one time, an excellent client of mine, I obliged and sat down to meet.  It was a very successful get-together and a gentleman's agreement was made at the end of it.  Going forward, I would be their go-to video vendor.  They'd give me the budgets and the directives and I'd make it happen.  Now I can add bona fide producer to my list of credits...  It's been a trip taking on this new roll.  I'm still shooting (yes, now I'm one of those producers who also shoots), although I hire very very competent 2nd shooters for all of the shoots that call for it.  I try to hire a sound mixer whenever budget allows, although sometimes I do have to mic up the interviewees and worry about sound all by myself (so yes, now I'm one of those shooters that does their own sound).  I also usually edit these videos, because it makes the most sense with the budgets I'm getting (sigh, a producer/shooter who edits).

Yep... I did it...  I'm that guy, the one who does it all.

In my defense, this new role only takes up a small portion of my workload.  For the most part, I'm still a camera/lighting specialist, but the variety does keep life interesting.   I mean, hell, isn't that why I chose to freelance in the first place?

Different Is The New Normal

A documentary I shot for, "Different Is The New Normal" (see "Flip Flop Gorilla"), aired to resounding acclaim on PBS earlier this fall.  It is currently available for online viewing at watch.thirteen.org and below.  It is a truly honest account of a young man with Tourette's Syndrome and his quest to suppress, overcome, and eventually accept all that comes with the disorder.  It's a great film.  Take a watch, and enjoy!

Watch Different is the New Normal on PBS. See more from THIRTEEN SPECIALS.

Jaguar/Land Rover USA

A few months ago, my frequent colleague, DP, Roger Grange, called me to gaff a series of videos for him for Jaguar/Land Rover USA.  It was a fun, productive 2-day shoot at the US headquarters of the company.  It was varying sizes of talking-head shots in front of and inside these very nice - and very expensive - cars.  We had a relatively small crew for this - Director, DP/Operator, AC, Gaffer (me), Key Grip, PA, Hair/MU, Art Director and some brand reps - but we managed to make it work.  Take a look at the final product(s) below (click the pic).

WATCH THE VIDEOS HERE

The most fun we had was lighting the cars right.  Lighting talent for this sort of thing is pretty straight-forward, but on top of that, we had to work hard to capture the unique style of these vehicles.  We had to, of course, get exposure, but beyond that we had to accentuate the contours of the bodies while at the same time managing reflections and glares.  It took time, but in the end we got what the client desired.  Below are some snapshots of the set and some of our lighting setups.

Side note: we regularly made use of 2 of my favorite lighting tools on this shoot.  Blondes (2kw open-faced fixtures) and "The Whale" (a 3'x4' white softbox with removable black skirts which allow you to use it traditionally or, with the skirts removed, as a large space-light).

Roger and Me in front of a Range Rover we were working with.

Minty

Late last year, while in the middle of work on the Ruth Messinger video I shot for Philip Dolin of Particle Productions, we found ourselves in the middle of a production day with nothing to shoot.  As is always possible with high-profile (or powerful) interviewees, someone on our schedule was called away for something big that couldn't possibly be moved.  So, we had to figure something out.  Check the link out below for the result.

Mint Theater - NYC (Vimeo album)

This was a fun one - we were given a nice, large, interesting space to shoot in (which is becoming a rarity in industrial work these days).  I also had the benefit of controlling the stage lighting, so I set my frame, built my key and adjusted the stage light levels to be about a stop under my key.  My key was a diffused 4bank fluorescent, with bounces for fill and edge.  I also used two 250w Pro Lights to shape the seats in the background.  Sound was recorded by my cohort, Bret Scheinfeld.

A Founder's Vision

If you've been following this blog, you'll remember a certain star-studded video I shot last year for Philip Dolin of Particle Productions and the American Jewish World Service ("And Many Happy Returns...").  In March, Philip and I headed down to Florida to shoot a follow-up piece on one of the founders of AJWS, Larry Phillips (of the Van Heusen apparel company).  It's a simple interview-based piece, like the Ruth Messinger tribute, with a similar style to the previous video.  Enjoy.

Produced, Directed & Edited by Philip Dolin & Molly Bernstein
Cameraman: Me
Sound recordist: Roy Chase
Production Company: Particle Productions

New Doc Reel

Here's the new doc reel, a montage of clips from various projects through June 2011.

The Interview

One of the staples of documentary filmmaking is the interview.  It's a useful device for providing exposition, transitions and so much more.  Ken Burns's films, which are largely based around archival material, rely heavily on interviews for coherence.  Errol Morris's works, use them as the main narrative - and his use of the Interrotron (a contraption designed to allow the subject to comfortably address the camera directly) provides an amazing intimacy.  "The Office" (I know, it's not a real documentary), uses them to deliver joke setups and often, punch lines.  "District 9" (another fake documentary) uses them as a setup to the mystery/story at hand.  However they're used, shooting interviews well is an important skill any good documentary cameraman has to master.

If you look to your local news for an example of good interview shooting, stop a second, go jump in the shower (use COLD water), then dry up, come back and never do that again.  The News, which is VERY dependent on interviews, does only one thing good - it delivers content quickly.  The camera and lighting setups are designed to be quick.  In the lamest of news interviews, the cameraperson will turn on the on-camera light, set the subject much too close to the wall and roll.  The result is a nasty, flat - albeit properly-exposed - shot.  Got the job done, though... delivered the content about as quickly as it's happening.

The next step up is the news magazine - your "20/20" or "60 Minutes" programs.  Better?  Yes.  Cookie cutter?  Hell yes.  Soft, pleasing, almost frontal key light.  Add some fill to flatten the faces out.  Then a hair light and edge.  Then put some sort of element in the background that has something to do with the story.  Usually books.  Light those with some colored light.  Usually blue and frequently gobo'ed.  Done.  Sure, this is pleasing.  The subjects look nice, there's some nice modeling going on, and they're separated from their background.  Sometimes this setup is the very best setup for the sake of the story, but not always and not often.

The good documentary cameraman goes into a project without preconceived ideas for how to light the interviews.  Different projects will call for different styles.  Sometimes, there's a look to the piece.  Perhaps all the interviews need to be dramatic and contrasty, or maybe they need to look natural or bright or whatever.  Sometimes, there are protagonists and antagonists (like in fiction), and the good guys should be more modeled and bright, and the bad guys, more low-key.  It depends on the film.

Here's a piece I shot recently for Philip Dolin of Particle Productions/Circle Terrific Media.  It's almost a narrative of interviews.  I'm quite pleased with how they came out.



For this piece, Philip and I decided that all of the interviews needed to be bright and pretty but of course, throughout it all, not flat or over-lit.  My approach to the lighting was to make all non-key lighting elements subtle and based on reality.  That is, I was never going to just setup a kicker and work in a hard edge for the hell of it.  I wasn't going to just throw a light up on the background.  It's got to flow.  See below for an example.

In this setup, the subject, Joy Levitt, is somewhat of an academic and the bookcases were something the producer definitely wanted to include.  The room was DARK.  I started with a large key, a 4 bank fluorescent through a 40" square diffusion frame.  I used an unbleached muslin bounce for a warm, soft fill.  For the rear bookcase, I bounced a small 250w fixture off of the column you see in the shot.  It was a nice, soft, subtle illumination that gave me what I wanted without drawing attention to itself.  Lastly, I knew I needed further separation for the subject so I added an edge light.  My first choice for an edge is always a bounced one.  It's much more subtle a touch.  Typically, it's a small gold/silver stipple flexfill reflecting the key.  In this particular situation, having such a soft key with limited throw (positioned high to avoid reflections in the subject's glasses), I had to do something a little different.  My edge for this shot was another 250w fixture shot into a 22" white flexfill, bounced back onto the subject.  You can see how nicely it plays over the subject, separating her from the background in a nice, subtle way.

Another example of my favorite setup for a natural-looking interview setup can be seen in this grab from our interview with Elie Wiesel.  Simple key from the fluorescent, bounce fill and bounce edge.  As you can see in the still, it's modeled, all the necessary separation is there, but it doesn't look "lit."  In my opinion, that's the best lighting - when the technical work doesn't draw attention to itself and lets the subject matter take the leading role.  You can view the setup in the still below (featuring my frequent collaborated, sound mixer Bret Scheinfeld).

So all this lighting stuff is well and good when you've actually got lights and power, but what about outside?  On a project with a large budget, I'd bring on some big HMIs and a load of grip (and a big crew to help manage it all).  In doc work, though, we're often working on as small a budget as possible.  So what if it's just you and natural light?  Well, there's a way for that, too.  A good example of that from this specific piece with Philip was our interview with Mia Farrow at her home.


As you can see, the modeled lighting present in the rest of the interviews certainly carries over, even though I was working with just the sun.  The first step is deciding how to use the sun.  Diffuse it and use it as a key?  Sometimes, that's the best way to go.  For Ms. Farrow, though, I decided the best use for the light as we had it was as a backlight (which also let me shoot the direction you see with the very nice background).  For Ms. Farrow's key, I used a large white flexfill to bounce the sun back on the far side and then used my trusty unbleached muslin flexfill for some fill.  And that was it.  As you can see, it looks natural and Ms. Farrow looks good.

So you've got the lighting aspect down.  Great!  Now what?  It's a shame, but so many up-and-coming camerapeople tend to light their subjects beautifully in front of boring or oddly-composed backgrounds.  Blank walls of various colors, weird architectural lines, or dead on flat with some sort of background element...  Yuck.  Us doc guys are usually stuck with whatever space we're thrown into.  No production designer, no set dresser, nothing.  We have to be able to look at a space cinematically and find the one great angle in an otherwise-crappy location (there is always one somewhere).  Find interesting lines and use them well.  Take this grab below, of our interview with NY Times columnist, Nicholas Kristoff.

Look at the lines in the background.  This is an example of using lines in your composition.  The floor, the walls, the vertical windows are getting smaller and smaller.  They lead your eye to Nick.  What if we had left our cameras where they were, but flipped nick and the lighting setup.  Well, A) the key light is less motivated, but B) the lines don't lead anywhere.  They're just there.  They don't do anything.

Beyond lines, you should also look at elements.  As mentioned with the interview with Joy Levitt, the bookcases were an important element of the shot (and by the way, the lines also work to our advantage in that shot).  Sometimes in the "20/20" stuff, it's a flag or a poster or some other prop.  My favorite personal use of relevant background elements is in an interview I shot with video artist, Bill Viola.

This was for a short documentary on an installation of his.  The piece was a deeply personal expression for Bill, an exploration of memory and the subconscious.  I suggested to the producer that we integrate him into the piece for the interview.  As you can see, we incorporated part of a screen into the shot.  Even moreso, though, I positioned him in such a way that the actual projection would play over the fill side of Bill's face.  His key side is exposed properly and modeled and I bounced some back for an edge to pop him out from the black on screen-right.  But the fill is all projection.  It's subtle but what I loved about it was that it only plays out in that left-most (screen left, that is) part of his face.  I lit the key side bright enough that the projection doesn't interfere with it, but only reads in the deepest of the shadows.  It plays over much better in the video as the projection moves, but you can still see a bit of the effect in the stills above.

And then you have projects where there is no background - the black void interview (or the Apple-style white limbo).  These types of setups are hardly my favorite, but sometimes they're necessary.  Perhaps the production intends to put text or graphics in the blank space.  While it is simpler to not have to worry about lighting or composing a background, there are a number of commonly overlooked elements.  You start with your subject and light them (again, you can do any number of things and light them for beauty or for drama).  Now what?  Just put up a black cloth and shoot?  Uh... no (see the photo above - there's a lot going on, lighting-wise).  One of the most frequent problems folks have shooting black void stuff is noise in the blacks or, heaven forbid, detail (a wrinkle or fold of the background, or maybe even a shadow).  The key for keeping the black black is separation.  First, like with most other backgrounds, put as much distance as you can between the subject and the back.  A shallow depth of field will take care of all but the worst wrinkles and other sorts of imperfections in the background.  Also, the distance will make it easier for you to control your light and keep it from spilling all over your clean black void.  Use flags and blackwrap liberally.  Lastly another frequent issue - and this is specific to the black void interviews - is lack of separation.  Most of the time, you won't want the subject's shape to just melt into the background.  To prevent this, you'll want some sort of edge or kicker or hairlight.  Framing is also pretty crucial.  If you've got a void that won't have graphics or text laid in (see below, left), you want to play your shots on the closer end.  This rings more true for shooting 16x9 or wider.  If you pull back too wide, you will have a ton of negative space on the eye-side of the frame.  When shooting 4:3, it's less of a problem because there's less horizontal frame space, but it's still something to remember.

I guess the point of this post is to illustrate the importance of versatility in the documentary cameraman.  This is important for your work that is seen on screen (being able to produce different types of lighting for different situations) and off screen (using your tools effectively).  Going into situations with little to no information (which happens all too often in doc) also means being prepared and being experienced enough to know what will work before you even get a chance to set it up.  For instance, I know for a natural-looking interview, my key-bounce-bounce interview setup is a good place to start - that saves a lot of time on the first setup.  I always remember that physical separation between subject and background helps A LOT.  Through and through, though, I'm always ready to break my rules if it fits the story or the goals of the film.  So get out there and light.  The more you do it, the more you understand it.  You'll discover what works and what doesn't, you'll figure out creative solutions to common problems.  Take your girlfriend/boyfriend/mother/father/
brother/sister/whatever, sit them down, and light them.  See what happens...

Follow Up: A Greenscreen in Harlem

UnemployedWorkers.org has launched and features the material I blogged about last.  I shot the interview with Christine Owens (bright office) and Roger Grange & I shared the duties of shooting all of the interviews against black.  Those particular interviews were shot on greenscreen (see "A Greenscreen in Harlem") - the decision to go black background was done late in the game.  Otherwise, we'd have shot it on black for real.

And... segue...  Here's another video I worked on recently that features interviews against black.

Producer/director Larry Locke shot the b-roll, while I lensed and lit the interviews (against actual black).  There are a lot of digital effects over the video, diffusion, color stuff FX, etc., but the solid work is there.  I'm happy with how the interviews came out.

The setup (forgive the Blackberry photo quality):

Simple duvetyne backdrop (velvety side towards camera), 4bank flo for key,  Lowel Pro Light for edge, and an unbleached muslin reflector for fill.  A lot of blackwrap and black foam core for control (which, along with a good amount of distance between subject and BG, is essential for good interviews against black).

Soon to come - a big post on interview lighting (and shooting).  Stay tuned!

Authorship

Many art forms are the result of an individual's painstaking commitment to his or her craft; countless hours toiling over the piece, funneling their own emotions and experiences into this very personal expression.  In these such cases, like poetry and other forms of writing, music, and visual mediums like sculpture, painting, sketching, etc., it is always clear who is responsible for this work.

Film, however, is in a gray area.  Occasionally you have a movie where one person conceived and produced a work in its entirety - including shooting, editing and other parts of the process.  More frequently, however, the final movie is the result of many individuals' hard work and expression.  And yet, so often there is a certain credit that reads "A Film by [director's name]" at the beginning and end of the movie.  This brings up the question of true authorship.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately after a friend asked me who's responsible for the shots of a movie, the director or the cinematographer.  Is the D.P. just a technician that does what the director tells him to?  I've been lucky enough so far that all of the directors I've worked under have really allowed the process to be collaborative - thorough discussions of look and feel before shooting and then come time to roll camera, I am entrusted with the image.  A lot of this may be due to the fact that in documentary, there really isn't an opportunity for the director to nitpick my shots.  On "Director's Cut," the narrative feature I'm currently working on, my relationship with the director is similar to my doc work.  She has put so much trust in me that the process of shooting is stress-free and fast.  Prior to shooting, Elana and I figured out our style for the film and from then on, we just do it.  Elana does her director thing with the cast as my crew and I set up the shot.  Then she comes around to her monitor, smiles, and calls action.  So for "Director's Cut" the direction of the film is Elana but the compositions and a lot of other visual elements are very much mine.  As I understand it, the process is very different with other filmmakers.  James Cameron, I hear, is meticulous with his planning and shooting.  I think he even operates the camera.  While he doesn't set up the lights himself, I'm sure he has a heavy hand in that stuff as well.  AND he edits.  So perhaps "A Film by James Cameron" is appropriate.

I guess there is no single answer for my friend.  Different films have different hierarchies and different degrees of trust between crew members.  Sometimes, the singular authorship of a movie is valid.  More often than not, though, these "A Film by" credits ignore the crucial creative contributions of many key crewmembers.  I've found that also more often than not, I tend to think the more collaborative movies are better anyway.

A post by Dave Dodds.

Karma?

So in my last post I mentioned something on the horizon that would be very exciting.  That something was a trip to Sweden for the Gevalia work.  Well, unfortunately, that trip fell through about a month ago.  It's still happening but for a variety of reasons, the director has to now do it on his own.  So I was a little bummed for a bit.  Then, less than a month after Sweden went away, I got an opportunity to go to Budapest, Hungary for a shoot with a different client.  I was reminded of the "even steven" episode of Seinfeld - it all tends to work itself out.

So Budapest was last week and it was cool.  It was a very brief stay, arriving Wednesday afternoon and leaving for home very early Saturday morning.  Thursday and Friday were shoot days and we did a lot of shooting.  It was an industrial for an ad agency, Wunderman, involving one of their big clients, Nokia.  Same sort of idea as my Texas trip last November.  Anyway, all in all, it went well but it was definitely an eye opener.  Early Thursday, about 40 minutes before we were due to roll, some of the producer's gear began acting up - a wireless mic that was do be on a key player in this shoot.  Needless to say, this was a serious problem.  Luckily, we had a great P.A. on board (a local) and within minutes, she was on the phone to a rental house arranging to rent a replacement wireless system.  By the end of her conversation, we figured out the problem with the producer's gear and the P.A. arranged to have a replacement part also sent over.  Within 20 minutes, the gear was there and we were rolling.  The next day, we were presented with another issue - as it turned out, there would be two key players in that day's shoot (which was not the original plan).  Luckily our system was working again and we had the rental on hand so yet again, things worked themselves out.  Had we not had the unexpected and somewhat stressful mic failure occurred the day before, we wouldn't have had the second wireless system.

All in all, it was nice.  With the work schedule, I didn't get to do much touristy stuff but I had some fantastic local food every day, saw a great gypsy band and stayed in a very nice, historic hotel (the Hotel Gellart).

Anyway, the weekend before Budapest, shooting commenced on a feature film I'm working on, "Director's Cut."  It's a low-budget film with a rather small crew and the weekend was a great icebreaker.  My frequent cohort, Bret Scheinfeld, is aboard as sound mixer and I've got a pretty nice support crew.  Marcus, my gaffer, is cool, and I've got a couple of G&E-dedicated P.A.s that are really into it and very quick learners.  I think the Spring shoot will go pretty smoothly.

So the most important rule we've got to follow for this shoot is the K.I.S.S. principal ("keep it simple, stupid").  There's just so much to get done on such a short schedule, so the setups need to be versatile and quick to change.  So we're lighting things in broader strokes and keeping things relatively high key.  It's a comedy, anyway, and the director definitely wants a brighter feeling for most of the film.  Below is a still from one of our scenes.

A 4bank fluorescent for the key and a large diffused window for fill and ambiance.  Behind the actor, a small HMI for edge.


We're shooting on the director's camera, a Panasonic HMC150.  It's a prosumer model that shoots 1080/24p video to SDHC cards.  If time and money allowed, I'd shoot 35mm for this - or at the very least Super16 or RED.  But the budget is what it is and the schedule is tight so the best format available to us is what we've got so that's that.  Besides, I'm a pretty format-agnostic cameraman.  I really believe that with the right lighting, composition and settings (including digital tweaks and optical filtration), you can make great images no matter the format.

Coming up later this week is another shoot for Gevalia with director, Bradley Farrell (again with Bret on board for sound).  It's a tasting party for a new blend and apparently there will be some "celebrities" there.  3 camera shoot at Gevalia's corporate kitchen with a Canon 5D and two HVX200.  With the amount of coverage and the fact that at any one time a camera could be shooting in any direction, the lighting approach has to be pretty simple (and of course, good).  The available light is pretty nice there - high ceilings with warm fluorescents for an overall base level.  Accent lights under the cabinets and these small frosted pendant lights positioned over the granite islands.  I'm thinking I'm going to fly a couple of 250w fresnels (flooded) crossing as back/edge lights (they'll be attached to the drop ceiling).  I'm hoping that'll be enough but I'm prepared to bounce something into the ceiling from the front of the space if necessary.

So that's all for now.  Pictures from Gevalia to come.

Bye!

What's Up, Doc?

My life as it relates to film has taken a number of unexpected turns over the years. When I first got into film, I did so because I had an idea for a film and wanted to follow through. That particular movie has not been made yet. It is shelved but not forgotten. Through college, I maintained my interest in narrative films, particularly in becoming a successful Hollywood director. When I started learning about cinematography, I found I had a knack for it, and my classmates noticed too. As I shot more and more, I realized that I might be happy becoming a big-time Hollywood DP. And then life happened...

When I graduated college and had to figure out how to make a living, I realized that if I was going to direct, I'd have to spend a lot of my own money. So I turned instead to the camera and lighting departments, where I'd work for all those directors-to-be who were spending their money.

Remember that whole bit about being a Hollywood DP? Yeah, not the easiest thing to do on the opposite coast. There is a lot of fiction work in NY, but the most work for a cameraman in NYC is in documentary. I assisted under some of the most notable documentary cameramen and slowly but surely began to really feel my place was there. In time, shooting documentary work became my bread and butter. There's something special about it - it's spontaneous, energetic... I enjoy it more and more on each doc shoot I do. There's always something new and interesting and I always learn something. Sometimes, I figure out a new way of shooting or lighting. Often, I learn just stuff I never knew or never thought I would ever know because of the documentary subject itself... and I love learning.

And then there's stuff like today. Today I shot an interview with video artist, Bill Viola, for director/producer, Philip Dolin. First of all, I was very pleased with how it looked. Found an excellent framing and the lighting was great. The film is about his latest installation, basically a room of screens and this carefully constructed beautiful display of audio and visual white noise. We framed his sit-down so that the background was half black (directly behind Bill) and half his piece. I set a daylight softbox as Bill's key (daylight to match the color temperature of the projections), bounced some of that back for an edge, and let the projections subtly play over Bill's fill-side. Everyone was really happy with the visuals.

On top of the look, Bill was probably one of the most kind, profound, funny people I've ever met. Such a sweetheart with such amazing things to say about his work and inspiration, life and death, love, religion... it goes on... coming out of the interview, I just felt good.

That's documentary for ya'. And I love it.