In the technological Xanadu we storytellers know as the present day it is easy for outsiders, and some insiders, to forget the person telling the story and somehow think that the camera being used impacts the quality of the story being told. I can’t tell you how many times someone has watched something I’ve shot or directed, and really only had one pressing question at the end. Did they want to know who shot it? No. Did they want to know more about the creative inspiration and vision of the piece? No.

They wanted to know what camera we used.

If you think what camera you shoot on is the answer to great storytelling, then I challenge you with this… Go make a big pile of money doing whatever you want; like a brilliant new app or an alternative energy source. Once you have the cash, you can buy the very best camera. Then you’ll be able to tell the best story, right?

Wrong.

Cameras don’t tell stories, people do. Since we can all agree this is the case, there is really only one thing you need to tell great stories… YOU. However, none of us are born knowing anything about the tools of the trade. In an effort to improve the one tool all storytellers have in common, their mind, a must-have addition to their library is Joseph V. Mascelli’s The Five C’s of Cinematography. I picked this book up a few years ago, and I have learned more from it than any other resource on the subject. I’ve been to courses, classes, looked to chat rooms online, and experimented by trial and error; but none of those things have come close to the pure undistilled story driven explanation of cinematography found in Mascelli’s classic book. In his own words from the introduction:

“On many occasions during the years devoted to preparation and writing of this book, I have felt that defining, explaining, clarifying and graphically illustrating motion picture filming techniques in an easy-to-understand way – is impossible – but not quite. Most professionals instinctively know the right way to film the subject – but seem unable to explain just how they do it.”

Almost 50 years after the publishing of these words, I want to reassure Joseph V. Mascelli that he succeeded in explaining cinematography in an easy-to-understand way. He did this by explaining everything about cinematography in five categories that have one common thread; cinematography functions at its peak performance when it serves the story.

So what are the Five C’s? They are Camera Angles, Continuity, Cutting, Close-ups, and Composition. I want to share with you some of my favorite quotes from each one of the Five C’s. Consider this article the CliffsNotes version of the book; and, just like your English teacher, I strongly encourage you to read The Five C’s of Cinematography in it’s entirety in addition to this summary.

1. Camera Angles
“Camera placement is determined by narrative significance.”This is very important. Why are you looking at what you are looking at? Is it because it looks good, or because we need to see it to move the story along? It should always be to move the story along and never solely because it looks good.

2. Continuity
“Good continuity encourages the viewer to become absorbed in the story-telling, without bothersome distractions. The prime purpose of a motion picture, whether theatrical fiction feature or documentary fact film, is to capture and hold audience attention – from opening shot to final fade-out.” This entire chapter breaks down the nuts and bolts of photographing action in such a way that it makes sense on screen. I haven’t come across a better explanation of “the line” (action axis/maintaining dynamic and static screen direction) in any other book.

3. Cutting
“Always move players into and out of close-ups to allow cutting on action.” Cut on the action. This simple axiom of editing works every time. “It is possible to cut away to anything happening anywhere at any time.” Remember this. You are in the driver’s seat. You are the one putting one shot after the other. What do you want the specific series of sights and sounds you’re placing in order to mean? “Each shot should make a point. All scenes should be linked together so that their combined effect, rather than their individual contents, produces the desired audience reactions.”

4. Close-Ups
Close-ups should be made to count. The stronger the motive for using a close-up, the more the close-up can help make the story-telling truly effective! The consistent emphasis throughout the five sections of the book is this; every shot must serve the story.

5. Composition
“Good composition is arrangement of pictorial elements to form a unified harmonious whole.” Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. However, when you are telling stories for an audience you are not the beholder, they are. The most important set of eyes belong to the audience. Make sure you are making images that look good to your audience, and above all else, serve the story.

6. The Sixth C
In closing, there is a sixth C of Cinematography I would like to mention: Compliment. When you are in the process of shooting or have just finished watching a story you think looked great, make sure you tell the person or group of people who created it. After all, none of us are telling stories just for ourselves. As you continue to strive to be the best you can be take the time to compliment others on their own successes along the way.

Oscar Wilde said it best, “Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success”. The sixth C of Cinematography may just be the most important. Make sure you compliment others whenever you can. After all, we’re all creating for others, and we want to know if we succeeded in communicating our story.

Stew Redwine is a Los Angeles-based Director and FreshDV contributor. All quotations from The Five C’s of Cinematography by Joseph V. Mascelli – 1965 – Silman James Press

For those reasons, I invested in an el-cheapo iPad teleprompter kit a while ago. I have used it a few times on client shoots when I knew it would help, and I’ve rented to a few friends for their own shoots. If you already own an iPad, one of these kits is a pretty painless purchase. For the one-man-band shooter, an iPad prompter makes a lot of sense. The $10 ProPrompter app on iOS devices is a dream to use, simple and allows you to control the iPad app from an iPhone over bluetooth. The prompter model I got is sold by LCD4Video, it’s a really lightweight, and does the trick even though it is quite cheaply-built kit. Like anything in life, you get what you pay for…and at $325, you shouldn’t expect much. The reflective glass is big enough for DSLRs and your average still lens, as well as small HD camcorders like the EX3. The iPad holder mount is solid enough, and I don’t mind the frame that holds the glass. And the lens hood works just fine. But the baseplate is an absolute abomination. I’d like 10-minutes in a locked room with the dimwit who designed this sorry excuse for a baseplate. Here’s what it looks like.

See what I mean? As you can see, the baseplate is cut from some kind of thick plastic material. I’m ok with plastic, but the real issue is that it offers almost zero adjustability with it’s stupid plastic shim system. To make matters worse, it uses weak little screws to tie your camera into the baseplate, shims, and to your tripod. It’s a really odd design, completely divorced from any kind of shooting reality. For instance, how would I rig this for handheld use? What if I want to do a simple walk and talk down a hallway? There is no way I trust the wimpy screws to hold my camera safely on the baseplate. Heck, I’m afraid to even tilt the tripod too much, for fear the screws will slip from the weight of the camera. So what generally ends up happening, is that if I need to get a shot with the prompter, I now have to strip my camera down to it’s barest configuration so that I can mount it gingerly onto the prompter baseplate. Highly annoying, and a waste of time.

So after putting up with this frustration for a while, I decided to mod the kit for a 15mm rod mount. Digging around in my gear bags, I found a spare 15mm riser that originally mounted to a Letus baseplate in the Talon Universal Kit. This riser is adjustable in height, with maybe an inch or so of adjustment. It also has a 90-degree flat plate with two screw taps in it that I could run through the plastic baseplate. I like the height-adjustability of this mount, but you could use pretty much any 15mm connector that you had access to. Like these Cinevate Universal Rails Blocks, for instance. Here’s what my mod looks like from the side, attached to a baseplate and rods.

I relocated the rear set of vertical spacers up front, countersinking the screws bolt holes. Then I whacked the back half of the baseplate off with a hacksaw, and attached my riser mount with longer versions of the 10-24 bolts. The end result is rigid enough, will nicely hold the weight of an iPad and the reflective glass, and slips right onto standard 15mm rods. It also still fits in the prompter’s case. Here’s a few more pictures.

I’d like to stress that these little iPad prompters should not be considered a replacement for what a professional teleprompter operator can bring to your production. When you have a dialogue-heavy shoot, a good operator can make all the difference. I look at these cheap iPad setups as a budget stop-gap solution, for when your client stubbornly ignores your advice to budget for a prompter, and then you find out on-set that nobody memorized their lines. It happens often, and sometimes having one of these little guys in the gear bag can save your shoot day. Happy shooting!

And here’s the finished shot, for reference.

Also, here’s s short interview with Larry about his career choice.

If you liked this, you should also check out an old post, The most ridiculously cool Steadicam shot you’ll see this week.

(via @edmoore)

Our project is directly aimed at DSLR filmmakers who are shooting on lower budgets frequently. We designed the entire project to meet the budget, time frame and actual considerations that lower budget filmmakers have for their projects. This is a group that is deeply committed to a high quality final image but wants the lower price tag and flexibility of a DSLR.
We will be publishing our actual shooting budget (below the line) and will be talking about the real hard costs of shooting on DSLR cameras, demonstrating equipment we used on the shoot and outlining the entire process of planning to shoot with a DSLR through post-production. At the end, we will have a concrete answer of why using a DSLR is the perfect solution and will show the results they can expect to get when shooting with the Canon EOS 5D Mark III.

The short film is about 15 minutes long, and is just damn solid filmmaking. It’s an engaging and gripping story, I recommend you check this one out. They’ll also be posting BTS videos in the coming weeks.

In pre-production, everything is all rosy and beautiful. Every piece of gear works perfectly, cables function flawlessly, and batteries last for hours. “Yeah, that shot setup is no problem, I could build that rig in my sleep.” Once you arrive on set, reality bites. Tripod screws and plates vanish into the ether. Cables commit harakiri. You quickly burn through your camera and accessory batteries, only to find that someone forgot to charge the spares. You forgot to bring an essential screwdriver, or TSA confiscated it before your flight last night. Shit happens. And when it does, and you’re burning through your shoot day, you have to suck it up and find a way to get the shot.

#1 – It’s a Bird, it’s a Plane, it’s Zuperman!
On this project, I was brought in to shoot Steadicam for a live stage event. The client had also hired a crane operator to get some over-crowd shots. Due to a miscommunication between the crane op and whoever was providing the camera package, the crane operator didn’t have the appropriate remote zoom/focus controller for the EX3 camera. He did have a spare external zoom motor and gear, but it had the wrong size rod to mount to his baseplate. He could make sweeping crane moves with the lens at pre-set focus, but had no way to pull off complex compound moves with the zoom motor, or even change focal lengths without docking the crane and making a manual adjustment. This wasn’t really my issue, but during a break at the event, I started digging through my gear bags to try to find a way to help this dude out. After a little trial and error, here’s what we came up with.

It’s ugly as hell, but it worked. Here’s what you’re looking at; I screwed a Zacuto Gorilla Plate underneath the back of his camera baseplate, and then hung a Zamerican arm from the 15mm port in the plate. On the other end of the Zamerican arm is a Zaffer, which is basically just a Bogen Manfrotto Superclamp with a 15mm Zicromount attached to it. The Zaffer is clamped around the zoom motor arm, holding the zoom gear in place below the lens. We then held everything tight to the lens using a zip tie. Like I said, it looks terrible, but it allowed him to change focal lengths and limp throughout the rest of the shoot. There’s a case for carrying spare arms and grip bits.

#2 – The Case of the Missing KinoFlo Parts
We had a sit-down interview shoot scheduled with a prominent Congressman in his Washington, DC office, and about 30-45 minutes of setup time scheduled before he was to arrive. I called ahead to the rental house a week in advance, reserving two daylight balanced KinoFlo fixtures, stands, stingers, and two tripods. I would fly with the camera package (2x DSLRs), and also my Road Rags diffusion and modifiers kit. We flew in the night prior to the shoot, picked up our rental items first thing in the morning, and went straight to the Congressman’s office. As our soundie was setting up his boom and audio gear, I built cameras and started to light the set. Our producer paced around nervously. This was a crucial interview piece we needed for a larger project, and it was a sensitive subject. We needed to be on-point.

As I grabbed a Kino Flo fixture to attach it to the c-stand, I realized in a flash of horror that we had an issue. The Kino didn’t have any parts that would attach to my standard C-stands. Normally you’d have some way to attach the Kino to a stand, either with what’s called a lollipop (which you then secure in a gobo/grip head), or they have a lollipop with standard receiver for a baby head. These Kinos just had the curved part that grip the lollipop, nothing that would interface with our stands. I had overlooked this issue when I quickly checked the kit at the rental house. Meanwhile my producer is still pacing, and the secretary sticks her head in to let us know that the Congressman is on his way. So we had to find a way to get the Kinos on the stands. Here’s a few pics that show how we rigged the fixtures directly to the c-stands.

As you can see, I was able to clamp the fixtures directly to one of the stand stages. It wasn’t super-secure, but it held. This kept me from placing the lights exactly how I would have preferred, but at least now we had lights. I was limited in how I could place my key light, but the Road Rags and Mini Grip Kit allowed me to angle my diffusion and shape & flag the key light nicely. The end result (frame grab above) turned out well, and we nailed the interview content we needed.

#3 – Inversion Therapy
A client hired me to shoot a couple VFX plates. It was a very straightforward shoot…they needed two shots of a 1980′s era cabinet-style television. The kind that sits on the floor. They needed one long dolly push shot in towards the screen, and one lateral slide parallel to the screen. There were of course lots of little details with the location and set-dressing, but that was the crux of this project. My client wanted to use their dolly for the shots, and I would be providing the camera package, lenses and accessories. The camera package was a Sony FS100 with my Zeiss Contax prime lens set. They provided an Indie Dolly, one of those skateboard-type dolly setups, with a portable lightweight track system. It’s a pretty solid dolly system, and the way you get the camera onto the dolly is to put a tripod on the dolly, one leg in each of the dolly’s three arms. I brought my tripod, and also brought along some appleboxes, in case we needed to get low and strap the camera directly to the dolly platform. I neglected, however, to bring straps.

On the day of the shoot while building our dolly, we determined that the lens height needed to be at around 19.5 inches. This was so that we could center the lens height on the middle of the television screen. 19.5″ happens to be far below the lowest height of my tripod, once it was mounted on the dolly. We could have gotten to 19″ with appleboxes, but some moron forgot the tie-down straps! And we had to have straps, since this dolly has a freaking bolt head right smack-dab in the center of the platform. After mulling over this challenge for a bit, I decided to try inverting my tripod head. The tripod was a Libec RS-350 with a 75mm ball head. I hung the ball head upside down between the legs, and tightened down the screw from the top of the ball. After hanging the camera upside down, I was surprised to find that it was quite solid!

There was no way to pan the head, but these were simple lock-off shots so that wasn’t a concern. To level the head, we had to get creative with the length of each tripod leg, but after some careful adjustments we were in business. I ran some rods out the back of my FS100 baseplate, and used a short Zamerican arm to suspend a SmallHD DP6 monitor, and then a short Letus articulating arm to attach a Atomos Ninja recorder to the SmallHD monitor. This is a slightly ridiculous stack of gear, and HDMI cables were all over the place…but it worked. The SmallHD has an option to flip the image, so we were able to monitor right-side-up, and we would simply have to flip the image in post. Most importantly, we were able to get our shots without busting our shoot day. Here’s a few more behind the scenes pics of this setup.

What are some issues you’ve run into on-set, and how did you creatively solve them?

Andy Shipsides over at Abel Cine just posted a bunch of tests with the FS700, including some comparisons with the FS100. He charted the dynamic range at around 11 to 11.5 stops, which matches what the FS100 will do. If you watch the candle test comparison with the FS100, you’ll see that the addition of CineGamma modes from the PMW-F3 has helped how the highlights roll off on the FS700. On the 100, you can often get what looks like a “video clip,” that is to say when highlights clip, there is a visible line between what is clipped and what is still held by the sensor. You can see this type of highlight clipping in a Brantley Gilbert live music video I shot for Anthem Pictures…the venue used LED lights that not only clipped hard on the FS100, but also tended to have a funky color tone to them in the clip.

If you watch the Abel Cine candle comparison closely, and see how as the ISO on each camera is raised, the highlights clip into two distinct gradients on the FS100, and tend to remain as a smooth gradient on the FS700. That’s the new CineGamma modes at work, smoothly rolling off the highlight knee. Andy suggests that CineGamma 1 and 2 are the best options for highlight retention, and 3 and 4 are more general use modes. I’m looking forward to shooting a few more live concerts on the FS700 and seeing how it handles the same type of LED lighting.

Andy also checked sensitivity and noise, and while the FS-700 is just as sensitive as the FS-100 (that is to say, VERY sensitive), it’s slightly noisier, particularly above 2000-4000 ISO. This is likely due to the fact that the 700 sensor is higher resolution (4K capable), and therefore has smaller photosites. The footage shows nothing unreasonable as far as noise levels go, but it’s a comparison worth noting.

Finally, Andy also showed off the slow motion capabilities of the FS700. At 120 and 240 fps, it’s beautiful full-resolution 1080p. Slo-mo takes are time-limited by the size of the camera’s internal buffer, and after each take the footage is written to SD card. For 120fps, the buffer will hold 16 seconds of footage, and 8 seconds at 240fps. At 480 and 960 fps, you’ll see resolution drops off noticeably. 480 is probably usable for web in certain situations, but there is a resolution and image noise price to pay. 960 looks pretty rough, in my opinion. Head on over to the Abel Cine link above to watch all those videos. And thanks to Andy for knocking out these tests so quickly…it is greatly appreciated! For more info on how slow-motion works on the FS700, check out this blog post from XDCAM User.

Another lovely piece of footage posted recently is from Frank Glencairn, a narrative docu short shot on a pre-production FS700 and the FS100. It’s a good real-world example of how the camera holds up in what looks like available-light shooting situation. You can watch that below.

I’ve shot quite a bit with the FS100 since it was released last fall, and I really like the image from the camera. It looks to me that the FS700 offers nearly all of the strengths of the FS100, and also fixes some of the annoyances I have with the camera; lack of built-in ND filters, HDMI-only monitoring, highlight handling, and a weak top handle. None of these annoyances are deal-breakers, and they can all be worked around in most situations. The FS100 remains an incredible value, and this is probably a great time to pick one up used. But the FS700 does look like a worthy upgrade, for the ND filters, HD-SDI, and CineGamma alone. It’s still affordably priced, and for those that care, offers a 4K upgrade option at some point in the future. I’m excited for the chance to shoot with one soon.

The Miro M120 is a very compact camera system capable of shooting 800 fps at 1920×1080 resolution to internal RAM, which is then transferred post-record to CineFlash storage. At maximum fps, you’ll get about 4.7 seconds recorded before the RAM buffer fills up. Like all Vision Research cameras, it will do higher framerates at reduced resolutions. The M120 offers one of four lens mount options, Nikon F-mount, C-mount, PL or Canon EOS, and is available for rental from Vision Research dealers like Abel Cine. Or you can purchase your own base camera system (sans accessories) for $33,900.

UPDATE: Lensrentals got the first of their fixed Mark III cameras back in, and naturally they dissected one to see what how Canon did the repair. The fix is tape.

Also worth the read is this stream-of-consciousness analysis by Mike Curtis.

As a side note, I’ve used the first two models quite a bit, and personally own a H4n. While the H4n is a fine recorder that has served me well, when buying again, I would probably choose a different model over the H4n for one reason alone…when the H4n battery dies or if power is disconnected, the clip it was recording is not written to the SD card, and is not recoverable. This is a huge issue if/when it happens, and is exacerbated by the fact that the H4n chews through battery power when using a 48v phantom powered mic. I am always incredibly jumpy about how much battery is left on the recorder because of this concern, and it’s a distraction when shooting.

It’s a compendium of short interviews with working screenwriters on the following topics; The misconceptions of being a screenwriter, Screenwriters on writer’s block, Identifying excellence in screenwriting, Screenwriters on finding an original voice, Highlights and challenges of being a screenwriter, and Advice from screenwriters.

And if you’re just getting started and looking for an introduction into screenwriting, the Academy has a teacher guide on the topic that will serve as a nice short intro to the art and process. Happy writing!

You should also check out Shane’s audio podcast, The Edit Bay.

Related links from the interview:
www.dellalucestyle.com
www.twitter.com/mjeppsen
ClearCreek Productions DP Reel

NAB 2012 stillmotion App – SMAPP from FreshDV on Vimeo.

Patrick Moreau walks us through the new stillmotion SMAPP app, an iOS/Android app for shooters that offers quick tips and tutorials, as well as tools to help you make informed lighting and lensing choices that support the intent of the content you are shooting.

NAB 2012: GoPro WiFi remote with iOS/Android Monitor and GuardBot from FreshDV on Vimeo.

GoPro adds the ability to control their Hero 2 devices through a WiFi remote. You will also be able to monitor your live camera feed through an iOS or Android device. GuardBot is an unique piece of equipment. It can basically go anywhere, you have to see it to believe it!

NAB 2012: Den Lennie shows us the Sony FS700 from FreshDV on Vimeo.

Den Lennie, one of the design consultants of the FS700 gives us a tour of it’s features. Being one of the first people to shoot on it, he tells us his experiences with the camera.