Showing posts with label list. Show all posts
Showing posts with label list. Show all posts

Sunday, March 22, 2015

How to Get Great Interview Footage

9 Tips to shoot an interview Documentary Style
Create an outline with several points you want to cover.

Have the subject repeat the question in their answer.


Shoulder rig with follow focus used during documentary interview.
[frame from Shooting a Documentary Style Interview - Video Tutorial - YouTube]
Shoot your interview with two cameras. Choose the camera positions by where you would like the subject to look. One wider shot showing the subject in their environment, and a close up camera that creates intimacy with the subject.
Capture two audio sources in case one of them has a problem. A wireless lav mic is great for interviews because it cuts down on background noise. A shotgun mic can capture a second audio source.

When a question sparks emotion, follow it up with questions along the same line.

Make the interview conversational and always look at your subject so they feel comfortable.

Get B-Roll about everything possible that your subject talks about.  It will make the editing process go much smoother and makes the piece a lot richer.

Don’t give out specific questions in advance
I cannot stress this point strongly enough. It’s perfectly acceptable to give someone a general idea of what the interview will be about, but do not give them your list of questions. If you do, they will try to memorize their answers in advance and you will lose spontaneity and freshness. Your interview will end up feeling stale, unauthentic and rehearsed. [via: Top 10 Video Interviewing Tips for Documentary Filmmaking]

Learn more:

What I Learned After Conducting 40+ Interviews for My First Feature Documentary

Top 10 Video Interviewing Tips for Documentary Filmmaking

Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Best Cinematographers in the Last 25 Years

Roger Deakins - IMDb
The Cohen brothers' man of choice.

Skyfall
True Grit
Doubt
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
No Country for Old Men
A Beautiful Mind
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The Big Lebowski
Kundun
Courage Under Fire
The Shawshank Redemption

Janusz Kaminski - IMDb
Spielberg's cinematographer

War Horse
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
The Terminal
Catch Me if You Can
Minority Report
Saving Private Ryan
Amistad
Schindler's List

Things usually work out better than you plan. When you're shooting a film you're so close to it, it rarely lives up to your expectations while you're there. You always want it to be better, more perfect. When you see a cut, maybe two or three months later, you come to it fresh. It's generally much better than you thought it would be.

Someone said to me, early on in film school... if you can photograph the human face you can photograph anything, because that is the most difficult and most interesting thing to photograph. If you can light and photograph the human face to bring out what's within that human face you can do anything.

The prep period is especially important. Joel and Ethan Coen and I really enjoy it. By the time we're on the set, we're discussing not what we're doing that day but rather something we're doing later that may be a problem.

Emmanuel Lubezki - IMDb
Alfonso Cuarón's go-to cinematographer
Birdman
Gravity
The Tree of Life
Burn After Reading
Children of Men
The New World
Meet Joe Black
A Walk in the Clouds
A Little Princess

Jeff Cronenweth - IMDb
David Fincher's favorite master of light.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Social Network
Fight Club
Hitchcock

Wally Pfister - IMDb
Christopher Nolan's right hand man.

The Dark Knight Rises
Inception
Intersellar
The Dark Knight
The Prestige
Batman Begins
Memento
"Sadly, some people think of good cinematography as a beautiful sunset or a spectacular vista. I believe we affect the audience in a much more subtle way. We're manipulating them emotionally with light, darkness, colors, contrast and composition. I know the Dogme 95 theories, but I believe actors respond to light. Just look at a Rembrandt or Caraveggio painting or any of the Dutch masters, and tell me light isn't important. The pictures have to be true to the narrative, but I like to test the boundaries and see how far I can go."

"Film has an enormous amount of exposure latitude and dynamic range, which gives us infinite creative ability in creating images. I can underexpose it by 3 stops and overexpose it by 5 stops within the same frame and see the entire spectrum on the screen. That's simply not possible in any digital format I've seen. Every digital camera is trying hard to emulate 35mm film, and there's a reason for that."
 
Robert Richardson - IMDb
Django Unchained
Hugo
Shutter Island
Inglourious Basterds
The Aviator
Snow Fall on Cedars
The Horse Whisperer
Casino
JFK
Born on the Fourth of July
Platoon

Bruno Delbonnel - IMDb
Inside Llewyn Davis
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
A Very Long Engagement
Amelie

John Toll - IMDb
Braveheart
Last Samurai
The Thin Red Line
Legends of the Fall
Cloud Atlas
Gone Baby Gone

Eduardo Serra - IMDb
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I and II
Defiance
Blood Diamond
Girl With a Pearl Earring (Oscar nominee)
Unbreakable
What Dreams May Come
The Wings of the Dove (Oscar nominee)


Caleb Deschanel - IMDb
Passion of the Christ
The Patriot
Anna and the King
The Natural
Jack Reacher
Fly Away Home

Matthew Libatique - IMDb
Cinematographer for Darren Aronofsky (4 of his last 5 movies as of 2014)
Black Swan
Iron Man 2
Iron Man
The Fountain
Everything is Illuminated
Requiem for a Dream

Andrew Lesnie - IMDb
Lord of the Rings Trilogy
The Hobbit Part 1 & 2
King Kong

Michael Seresin - IMDb
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Directed by Alfonso Cuarón)

Newton Thomas Sigel - IMDb
Drive
Three Kings
X-Men
X-Men 2


Danny Cohen - IMDb
Les Misérables
The King's Speech

Bill Pope - IMDb


The Matrix

John Mathieson - IMDb


Discover more cinematographers

IMDb: Masters of Cinematography - a list by TarquinMcLusky



Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Gear list and checklist for DSLR film shoot

After a handful of shoots, here is my checklist for gear when prepping my DSLR for a shoot.  At this point I've done three outdoor shoots and four indoor shoots.

Main gear
  • Camera
  • Lens(es)
  • Video tripod(s)
  • ND filters
  • External audio recorder
  • Mics 
  • Monitor
  • SDHC Memory cards (empty and formatted in-camera)
  • Boom Pole
  • Boom/Reflector holder
  • Shoulder mount
  • AA batteries
  • 9-volt battery (if using Rode VideoMic)
  • AC Adapter for camera (if you own one)
  • Headphones
  • Air blower
  • AC adapter for External audio recorder
  • AC adapter for second camera
Miscellaneous tools
  • Gaffer tape / artists' tape
  • Surge protector
  • Extension cords
  • Notebook
  • Pen and pencil
  • Water bottle
  • Protein bars
  • Sack lunch
  • Pillow/foam pad for comfort
Gear prep checklist
  • Charge batteries
  • Dump / backup / format memory cards
  • Blow dust/debris off of lens filters
  • Pick-up rental equipment