The Beauty of Still Photography

Contemplation


I shot my first "Fashion Photography" shoot Wednesday night. Its amazing the differences between motion picture and still photography. With Motion picture you have many different elements and 24 frames per second that can go about to make a good shot.Two big elements that can be used to draw out emotion in cinematography are the motion of the camera and the motion of the actor, or subject if there is any.

With Still photography you have 1 frame and 1 chance to get the composition, framing, lighting, look from the model,and pose of the model to be perfect! Sometimes in motion picture films you make use of an offset composition or strange lighting to have some effect later in the shot,novelty moves that you don't have with stills.

Its for some of these reasons that leads me to feel that still photography is harder then motion picture cinematography. However this means that still photography can be a great way to train your eye for motion picture work because of how small the margin between a good photo and a bad photo is. A margin I'm still learning how to hit every time, but that is what practice is for.

When Things Come Together

Signed,
-)_-.

The Problem of White Walls.

I was Gaffing on set this last weekend on a set for a short film which was filled with dream sequences. For one of the scenes the character wonders into a room to find his now dead friend waiting there for him. The room we had to shoot in was a small square room which was completely empty with white walls. Upon first glance I was terrified to shoot in such a room! Then I was given one of my favorite instructions of all time "Light this however the **** you want, and don't let it make since" After looking back at the white walled room I pictured it as a blank canvas waiting to be painted and went to grab my things.

There are a few reasons why white walls can be monsters to deal with on set. The biggest being that they are uninteresting and very flat. When you are shooting a film or taking a picture you are creating a world. Everything within your world has to go together to make it believable, or people will reject the matrix which you created. Another big issue with white walls is that they can overexpose very easily making it hard to get good separation between your characters and your background.

To fix my white wall problem was easy. Since it was a dream sequence I could get away with a very easy trick to fix the wall. I simply started by changing the color of the wall all together by using a Fresnel light with a magenta gel. I then decided to break up the color by cutting a cookie and shining a green gelled light at the wall. Green is the contrasting color to magenta so it provided and interesting mix.I also shined a moving water light, which changed colors, into a mirror which bounced into the corner of the wall providing some extra jazz. Finally I lit the actor with a separate white light to bring exposure to his face. Top it off with a keep out sign and some zombie make up from the art director and you got yourself a pretty interesting scene!


Bad Dream



The lighting was a big hit among the crew and the room got tagged the name "70s Dance Room". Now wasn't that more interesting then a white wall?

Signed,
-)_-.

Frustration

Its very difficult to stay motivated. I tend to jump at opportunities and projects quickly, in hopes that I'll shoot something really great or be able to acquire some new skill. This isn't always the case and occasionally I'll find myself burnt out and frustrated.

The best way I've found to fix the problem is to just push through it. I'm rarely completely thrilled with things that I've shot, but that doesn't mean I can't learn from them. That doesn't mean its completely worthless. We have to take everything in stride and remember to look ahead, keeping our mistakes in the past and our frustrations under our feet as we climb our way through.

You can't ever let frustration defeat you! Besides, you never know when you will come across a happy accident.


Lack of Contrast


Signed,
-)_-.

Competing with the Sun

Awhile back we were shooting for a short film outside in a parking lot on a bright and very hot day. Our character was stuck in a traffic looking through his rear view mirror at the girl of his dreams. It was a simple shot from outside of the car looking in on him as he gazed at the girl. However, the windshield of the car the character was in, blocked the majority of the light from the sun going into the car, leaving his face dark.

The dark face, but bright outside, created difficulty and frustration. If we exposed for the characters face the outside light would be blown out, but if we exposed for the outside light the characters face was dark. Our best option was to try and raise the characters face enough to get us proper exposure while the camera was properly exposed for the outside light.

Making due

This was easier said then done. We only had small tungsten production lights on set , and no flex fills or HMIs. We had some small poster boards whiched helped bounce a little light when used as bounce cards, but weren't strong enough alone. When using the tungsten lights we found that they had to be as close to the character as possible and could not be balanced to daylight with gels due to the loss of light. This combination brought the face of the actor up the few stops we really needed. We were able to get a better looking image, but still not optimal.


In some situations you just have to make due with the equipment you have.

Signed,
-)_-.

Speed Racer

I recently watched Speed Racer, a movie based off the old Japanse cartoon. The movie is filled with bright colors and bright lighting. I noticed the filmmakers used strong key light, which put out soft bright white light on the characters and locations.

Speed

This strong white light is used throughout Speed Racer to bring out the bold colors, contrast, and emotion in the scenes.They also used bright light to create strong reflections off the cars to make them look sleek and fast.

Racer X

The creativity of the lighting and cinematogrophy in Speed Racer makes the movie fun and enjoyable to watch.

Signed,
-)_-.

It Comes From Below

The direction of light on the character is very important and plays a large role in the emotion and subtext of a shot. If the direction of light is not motivated or comes from a strange angle, it can throw off the audience. Sometimes this is used by the filmmaker to envoke a certain feelings in the audience.

When the filmmaker wishes his character to appear evil or extremely angry they will sometimes position the light directly below the character. This is similar to the effect of placing the camera at a low angle. The character feels big, and since we rarely see light coming from the ground it feels unnatural and frightening. This type of lighting is also generally used when depicting the Devil.

Just something to keep in mind I guess.

Signed,
-)_-.

LEDs

I've been seeing more and more LED (Light emitting diode) Lights recently. Their small size and efficient output are making them very popular in flash lights, decorational lighting, and even film production.

There are many advantages for using LED lights on film productions.The first advantage is the fact that LEDs have a very efficient output.A large LED light panel can run off of very little energy.LED lights burn at a tempurature of 5600K, the color tempurature of daylight, making them sutable to use with HMIs and in outdoor lighting situations. LED lights are also very long lasting and durable, which is a big advantage over HMI's and Tungsten lights.

One of the disadvantages to using LED lights is they produce a soft light. This soft light can be hard to control and only appropriate for certain situations. However, given the right circumstances an LED can be the perfect light to have on set.

My small LED flashlight

Signed,
-)_-.