As you know we are gearing up for our NAB 2008 video coverage. This year we are offering more coverage and we want you to join the FreshDV team. Let us know what you would like to see or what questions you would like to have answered and we will do our best to get those answered for you. Go ahead and start compiling those wish lists now and email them to kendal@FreshDV.com and mjeppsen@FreshDV.com, and we will do our best to get the coverage you want. Also if you will be in Vegas keep an eye for us and make sure you say hi, we would love to meet you.

In the past we have walked through how to setup and calibrate a light meter with a given video camera, but once that’s done now what? Just walk around and randomly spout f-stops? While that may appear cool its not a very productive approach. As I mentioned in the original tutorial metering is mostly a carry over from film and while video cameras over much more intuitive tools such as histograms, waveforms, and other such tools to make setting exposure arguably more accurate for video systems, light meters in my opinion still have a lot of value on set. Determining precise contrast ratios, pre-lighting a scene to certain stop before the camera is setup, or working ahead of camera dept lighting the next setup, matching a scene shot on a previous day, and other task become much more precise with the aide of a light meter.

For example if you will notate meter readings for a given setup and you need to relight that setup later on in the week or you need pickup shots, it becomes much simpler to relight it using meter measurements than just eyeballing it. A meter is also a great communication tool between DP and Gaffer. A DP can give a gaffer a contrast ratio based on a look he wants acheive at a certain exposure range and the gaffer can light a scene to those exact specification rather than just using his eye and seeing things differently than the DP does.

I found several great articles that may help guide you in the right direction in getting familiar with using your meter on set.
Excerpt From the Full Length Primer:
Exposure Meters and
The Cinematographer
by
Gerald Hirschfeld, A.S.C

Published by Temple University and available for download here:

The Incident Light Meter and the Key Light
Using an incident light meter with a flat disc receptor, the
director of photography positions the “key light� (main light),
setting it at 40 fc. at the position of the main action. For this
reading the meter is pointed at the light source, not the camera.
The DP already knows the lens stop selected for that 40 fc light
level is f/4. Since all meters are factory calibrated to offer the
correct exposure for average mid-tone brightness, (18%
reflectivity from a standard gray card) the incident light
reading will be perfect for a normal “look� of average sub-
jects. The stage the DP is working on may be large but he need
only to read the one key light with the meter, all other lights
are set by eye.

There is another big difference between cine and still
photography. The motion picture cameraperson uses a “view-
ing filter� to judge light balances. When working with color
emulsions the viewing filter, sometimes called a contrast
viewing glass, is basically a “neutral density filter� which
reduces the sensitivity of the eye to more closely match that of
the film emulsion. When viewing the scene through the view-
ing filter the cinematographer can judge the relative brightness
of any part of the set, or actors, by visually comparing it to
who, or whatever, is in the key light. Looking through the
viewing filter the DP can discern dark areas that may need to
be brightened or overly bright areas that need reducing. The
viewing filter is held to the eye for a relatively short period of
time so the eye does not acclimate to the lower light level and
thereby cloud the purpose of the viewing filter. Many profes-
sional motion picture cameras have viewing filters built into
the camera’s eye piece for convenience. It does take practice
and experience to learn how to properly interpret, or judge, the
lighting contrast of the scene.

Excerpt From Fimmakers.com on Metering:
Full Article

Lighting ratios are another concept cinematographers must adapt to. It is important before lighting a scene to be able to visualize the lighting ratio they are going to use. A lighting ratio is the figure given to a measured relative difference in brightness two parts of a scene. It is very time-consuming to have to change the light ratios after it was thought that the lighting on the set was finished. The way films are funded these days, with often a significant amount of the production’s capitalization coming up front from television rights and video sell-throughs, it is important that the cinematographer knows when shooting a scene exactly how it will look when delivered on the two, quite different, media. The key to this is the lighting ratio. The first thing to realize is that the tonal range of the television version is going to have to come from within the tonal range of the cinema version. The most common use of light ratios is in the control of how the human face is lit. If the cinematographer successfully lights a face and is looking for the simplest way of noting their success, the easiest thing to do is to record, or simply remember, the lighting ratio. One way to keep track of you notes, like cinematographer Daryn Okada does, is to use a powerbook. “How did I get hooked on this method? I got into using a powerbook because I hated having to write my notes again and again. At each script revision and schedule came in, I had to find a better way to manage and keep track of photographic details with visual references and the means to accomplish them. At first, I made a lot of lists. Lists of visual ideas relating to the story, if camera movement, lighting, equipment, etc. I’m always writing some idea on some piece of paper. Soon, I began copying them into a notebook but thought it would be great to be able to always refer to the script and schedule, except as we all know, those elements keep changing during the pre-production process. So, I began to try programs and compartmentalize everything.” If the idea was to light a rather light piece with say, a leading lady aged perhaps late forties but playing a part written as thirty or so, a lighting ratio of 2:1 would be very flattering. This is because with the brighter side of the face only twice the brightness of the darker side the shadows in the smile lines by her eyes would only be half the brightness of the lit side of the face.
In order to establish the correct aperture to set on the lens, take a reading (using a spot meter) on the most important subject in the scene.
As there would be little difference in brightness between the smooth skin and the lined skin the lines would hardly show- all very flattering. If, on the other hand they were lighting a more dramatic piece, say a thriller, then they might let the lighting ratio on the leading man rise to 8:1 or three stops difference. The night scenes for the same film might rise to 16:1, but this is very dramatic- the detail in the shadowed side of the face is going to start to disappear soon and will almost certainly show as black on television.In order to establish the correct aperture to set on the lens, take a reading (using a spot meter) on the most important subject in the scene. As this will usually be the main character in the scene, their lit skin tone is generally used. If they are Caucasian then the reading on the spot meter used will be one stop over the setting for an 18 percent gray card. The only other caveat is that all the readings for this technique must be taken from in front of or very near to the lens, for only then will the reflectance of all the surfaces in the scene be the same for the spot meter as for the film. The second most important part of filming a scene (to cinematographers) is the shadows, and measuring these correctly is crucial. If the cinematographer finds that there is an important part of the scene which has read a little above the maximum white but wishes to photograph it, one relatively simple solution is to light the subject’s face a little brighter. This will enable them to stop down enough to bring the highlight within the recordable tonal range. After doing this, they will need to recheck the shadows to make sure none of them have now fallen outside the film’s tonal range. More simply, if there are some shadows that fall below the recordable tonal range then simply adding a little more fill light will bring them up to a recordable level. On an exterior this might simply be done with a reflector.

Well by now its probably preaching to the choir to stress the importance of a fundamental grasp of lighting principals. One of the principals you should understand is the law of inverse square as it applies to light. The better we understand the science of light and how it behaves the better we can then understand how to control its behavior. Microfilmmaker has published a great little tutorial on the inverse square law and how it applies to lighting. It should be noted that this law applies to point light sources, and that soft sources perform differently. Read the Full article here. You’ll find a relevant excerpt below.
Continue reading ‘Learning to Light: Distance Vs Power’

 Mocha-AE Review: Download

Mocha AE Planar Tracking
by Kendal Miller

Imagineer Systems
Retail: $289
FreshDV Score 5/5

Fresh Points: Finally an affordable planar tracking solution for After Effects! An incredible set of tracking tools that brings a professional solution for solving complex tracking problems to the After Effects compositor.

Stale Points: I would prefer to see more seamless integration directly into the After Effects user interface.

IMAGINEER SYSTEMS:

Mocha-AE is custom designed and priced for the After Effects community, this stand alone 2D tracking tool packed with features that make the effects compositors life easier. Now compositors can avoid the guess work and inaccuracies that result from hand tracking challenging shots, speeding up the process of generating solid 4-point tracks, giving position, scale, rotation, shear and perspective matched tracks and exporting the data to Adobe After Effects. Version 5,6,7 and CS3.

Based on Imagineers unique 2.5D Planar Tracking technology, mocha-AE helps solve problematic shots that traditionally break point based trackers, such as footage with objects moving out of frame, lack of detail, motion blur and heavy grain. mocha-AE’s innovative AdjustTrack tool helps remove drift and enables the compositor to extract offset tracking data for areas that go off screen.

mocha-AE allows tracking to be completed in less time, with higher accuracy, giving you an unfair advantage versus your competitors!

Continue reading ‘FreshDV Review: Imagineer Systems Mocha AE’

There are those specific aspects of filmmaking that are much harder to learn outside of a film school environment than some of the hands-on “technical” aspects of filmmaking. This things are equally important to the filmmaking process. Set etiquette, protocols, paperwork, and pre-production are a few of the areas that are hard to learn as an indie filmmaker outside of actually working set or taking a class at film school. However the process of preproduction is as critically important as selecting the right film stock or camera. One process is that of breaking down, or de-constructing, a script, Ill Machinima Productions has written a great little tutorial that walks a new director or assistant director through the process of how to break a script down and prepare for scheduling. Below are a few excerpts, to read the full article and download forms for script breakdowns click here.

How
There are two major considerations to breaking down a script: one is isolating components into easily digestible chunks, separating out and then grouping scenes. The second is to figure out what the necessary elements are for each scene and who will be responsible for them.

First, go through the script and draw a horizontal line to separate each scene. The reason for doing this boils down to efficiency. A script is rarely shot in sequence, which means you don’t shoot scenes in order. If you have a serious of scenes that take place on Main Street, but they alternate between day and night, it makes sense to shoot all the day exteriors at the same time and then the night exteriors.

Continue reading ‘How To Break Down a Script’

 FreshDV Film School [54:00m]: Download

FreshDV had the opportunity recently to speak with Jerome Courshon on the marketing and distribution of movies and films. Jerome offers a full course in the “Secrets of Distribution” . If you are a filmmaker of any kind you owe it to your crew, your cast and yourself to watch this segment. From contracts, residuals, and pitfalls to avoid Jerome covers the 101 basics of film distribution and helps prepare you for what you need to know once the ink dries on the DVDs. In Jerome’s words:

So you’ve taken the Sisyphean journey and made a movie, maybe your first. Congratulations! Now what? What do you do to ensure the final step of your filmmaking journey, getting distribution? What is the ‘correct’? strategy to take? Is there even one??

The answer is a resounding YES. Whether you’ve just finished your final cut or are already on the film festival circuit or EVEN if you’ve been turned down by distributors already there is a strategy for successfully getting Movie Distribution that MOST producers & directors do not know. Consequently, most filmmakers give up after spending a year or two spinning their wheels, with only the inner satisfaction of having made the movie.
Continue reading ‘FreshDV Film School: Distribution 101′

As I sit in the Philadelphia airport mindlessly dawdling on my iPhone I decided to do a little blogging in a last ditch effort to keep the synapses in my brain firing. The delays have now stretched longer than the intro credits on 5minute indie film project. As I sit watching my ADD rapidly migrate from one distracted moment to the next, I ponder the meaning of life, the ramblings of philosophers bygone, and of course the ramifications of the ongoing WGA strike. It was then that I retreated to a site I had not visited in a long time Sam and Jim go to Hollywood. This is a podcast series by two guys who successfully broke into mainstream Hollywood as writers after selling their businesses in Minnesota and moving out west. They have a great sense if humor and an insiders view to the strike and the inner workings of the industry. Check them out I’m sure you will enjoy them and if you don’t I’ll chalk it up to an excessive amount of jet lag.

WARNING RANT:
Okay so today I was working on a PC and I don’t know what it is about PCs that for some reason makes me feel like I’m back in 1997, 1998 again, but today was one of those cases. We were just marveling on FreshDV the other day during on of our podcast at how fast and far technology has come in 10 years. Tapeless media and workflow combined with the promise of 4K acquisition make us techno nerds heady at times. We live in a day and age of blogs, the iPhone, YouTube, and social networking sites such as MySpace. Its a different world, technology is good, or so you would be lead to believe. Then suddenly something comes along and crashes you back to earth dashing all dreams of a stability and technological utopia evaporate. While working on VideoToaster system today there was some issues with stream hangaing and freezing on ingest so it was suggested by Newtek that I flash the bios. Now I’m very proud of my techno geek status and very few technological feats scare or intimidate me. I have flashed my share of bios in the day (mostly in the late 90’s early 2000s) so I figure no sweat. So I proceed to the SuperMicro site and after a short perusal through the documentation am able to ascertain with a relative degree of certainty that I have in fact downloaded the correct files. Continue reading ‘How Far We Have Not Come.’

Review: The Power of Lighting Series
By Kendal Miller
Instructor: Bill Holshenikoff
Website: www.PowerofLighting.com
MSRP: $34.95/each or $139.00/4 DVD Set

Cinematography is essentially about controlling light. Here at FreshDV we break that control into two categories; Internal/Camera and External/Light Sources. Internal light control is accomplished by using camera or camcorder controls such as aperture, shutter speed, gain, etc to control light. Once you have maximized the control over your image using your camera controls the second realm of image manipulation involves external lighting control. This is where you actually begin to use lighting instruments to shape light before it enters the camera. Cinematographers and shooters should have a good grasp of lighting and light control if they want to deliver stellar images.

Director of Photography Bill Holshevnikoff, author of the Arri Lighting Handbook, has created one such series aimed to help understand the science of lighting. The series is a four-part DVD set entitled “The Power of Lighting”. Disc topics include “Lighting Faces”, “Lighting Interviews”, “Color Correction and Filtration”, and “Lighting Backgrounds”. Each DVD disc is approximately 45mins long and retails for $34.95, which easily places it as one of the more affordable series I’ve seen. Read on for review details and a few short video excerpts from the series.
Continue reading ‘FreshDV Review: “The Power of Lighting” DVD Training Series’

VIA YAHOO:
By MAY WONG, AP Technology Writer 54 minutes ago

SAN JOSE, Calif. - In an apparent about-face, Apple Inc. will allow third-party applications to work directly on the iPhone, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in a posting on the company’s Web site Wednesday.

Apple infuriated developers and some iPhone users when it issued a software update Sept. 27 that disabled unofficial programs installed on the handsets.

Until Wednesday, Apple had tried to control which applications consumers had on their iPhones.

Now, Jobs said the company intends to release a software development kit in February that will let coders create applications to work directly on the iPhone and the iPod Touch. The Touch is the new iPod portable player that resembles the iPhone but lacks the function of a cell phone.

“We are excited about creating a vibrant third-party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users,” Jobs said in the posting.

It is easy to find many unofficial programs for the iPhone on the Internet; users just had to take the risk of installing them, knowing that any damage to the iPhone stemming from unofficial programs was not covered by Apple’s warranty.

“I’m thrilled,” said Erica Sadun, a Denver computer programmer. “I hope it is exactly as they say, full third-party development.”
Continue reading ‘Apple Accept 3rd Party Apps for iPhone!!’

Thats right folks tonight at 9:30pm CST again we’ll be discussing a variety of topics and we want to chat with you so stand by and be ready to call in you can tune by simply visiting our FreshTV page. You can email any questions you may have in advance to: Kendal@FreshDV.com

VIA APPLE.COM

Packed with more than 300 new features, Mac OS X Leopard goes on sale Friday, October 26, at 6:00 p.m. at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers, Apple announced today. And, beginning today, customers can place pre-orders on Apple’s online store. “Leopard, the sixth major release of Mac OS X, is the best upgrade we’ve ever released,� said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And everyone gets the ‘Ultimate’ version, packed with all the new innovative features, for just $129.�

From Imagineer Systems Press Release. Finally an affordable planar tracking solution integrated directly into After Effects at the low price of $299. All that remains to be seen is how the performancce will stack up against other solutions.

GUILDFORD, UK (October 16, 2007) Imagineer Systems (www.imagineersystems.com), creators of next-generation VFX tools, today announced mocha-AE, a powerful, affordable new planar tracking tool developed specifically for Adobe After Effects artists and modelled after the Company’s recently released standalone tracking solution, mocha.

mocha-AE is a stand alone 2D tracking tool for the After Effects community based on Imagineer Systems’ unique 2.5D Planar Tracking technology. mocha-AE helps solve problematic shots that traditionally challenge point based trackers, such as footage with objects moving out of frame, lack of detail, motion blur and heavy grain. This helps the artist to generate solid tracks, giving position, scale, rotation, shear and perspective matched tracks and exporting the data to After Effects in less time.

Continue reading ‘Imagineer Announces Planar Tracking Solution for AE’

Lighting is critical to being able to record the best image possible working around the limitations of your particular camera. Working in interiors you can use cheaper work lights on an indie budget but moving outdoors requires a completely different set of tools. HMI lights are pricey and expensive to rent. Enter the reflector and indie filmmakers best friend! ASC has a great little article on utilizing reflectors. Check it out.

Augmenting available daylight with reflectors requires planning and staging according to the arc of the sun throughout the day. Burum offers, “When the studios used to have their large backlots, they oriented their streets so that they were built running north and south. As far back as the silent-film days, they’d always try to shoot toward the south, because that way they’d always have a consistent backlight and would be able to use reflectors to fill and model the actors’ faces. Reflectors were positioned on the actors in exactly the same way you’d use lamps on a stage.

“You never want to plan your shoot for a whole day at a location that runs east or west, because you’ll only have half a day of consistent light. If you have a street running north and south, in the morning the west side of the street is lit and the east side is in shadow. If you choose to shoot in shadow, you’d start out in the morning shooting east. When the sun starts to flip over, you’d begin to turn around, shooting south into backlight; then, as the sun begins to set in the west, you’d shoot toward the west.

Owyheesound has some great resources for lighting for film, located here make sure you check out the entire article its an excellent read.

The human eye can see a wider dynamic range than any normal motion picture medium. As such it sees a greater range of detail in the shadows and highlights of a lit scene.

A poor quality imaging device with a narrow dynamic range will crush the details in highlights and shadows to white and black respectively.

Film can come the closest to capturing the details that the human eye can see, but only when properly exposed and developed. Even then some detail is lost.

However, film, professional video, even the least expensive video cameras can be used to create images that ‘look’ like what the human eye sees. The key to this is understanding how wide the latitude of the medium you are using is and lighting accordingly.

If you are using a medium that can capture a wide dynamic range of light then lighting can be set fairly dynamically with fairly dark shadows and and very bright highlights. But if you are using a medium that can only capture a very narrow dynamic range of light then the shadows of you scene need to be relatively bright and the highlights need to be subdued. The result of bright shadows and subdued highlights when using a narrow latitude medium is a normal exposure that ‘looks’ like what the human eye sees. The problem with setting lights for a narrow latitude medium is that is can be very difficult to control light to the fractions of a stop needed to create the subdued highlights and bright shadows. This is why it is commonly said that it is harder to light for video than film.

The following photos represent the same scene but lit with varying degrees of dynamic range of light.

The expectation of lighting the scene with less dynamic range of light is that for cameras with a narrower dynamic range will produce (output) an image that ‘looks’ like what the human eye sees.

With careful lighting a camera with a very narrow dynamic range can produce an image similar to a professional film camera, in terms of dynamic exposure.