SeeingEyeBlog

Yesterday Was a Lie is featured on Apple’s trailer site! That means it has potentially had more views today than all the views it has had since it was released.

I’m glad black & white cinematography is becoming more and more accepted. It should be available to filmmakers at every budget level as a creative choice, just as it has been in the past. In fact, the only other piece I’ve had featured on Apple was also B&W. I could go my whole career shooting black and white exclusively. Directors/producers, contact me if you have an upcoming black & white project!

I updated my Cinematography Reel page with an embedded playlist. Now, instead of linking to different pages for each reel, I have a single page where all my reels reside. Plus, they are now truly streaming rather than pseudo-streaming.

I’m using Flash Media Server and Flowplayer for the embedded flash player. Just watch out if you click the flowplayer logo if you are in full screen mode. I’m using an inline frame, and it will load Flowplayer’s website inside that iframe. Oh well. Soon I’ll upgrade to the non-free version that has no logo.

The next step will be to change the grey playlist buttons to something more fitting for my site. Maybe white on black.

Check out this music video that was created out of the documentary footage I shot for the upcoming Battlestar Galactica Season 4.5 Blu-Ray/DVD. I followed composer Bear McCreary and his team while they recorded the music for the finale. Enjoy.

I am hoping this scenario never plays out again. I’ve been working for over six months doing pre-pre-production for an indie feature. The script had buzz, there were some impressive names interested, and there was 7-figures worth of dollars pledged to us–but not released. Our team consisted of a writer/director, myself the DP, a production designer, two producers and a line producer. We were very much ahead of the game, and by the time we got into regular prep, we had a lot of the logistical detail worked out. Storyboards, locations, floor plans for set builds, bids from contractors for visual effects and post/finishing. But then we realized our financing fell through because the financier was apparently running a scam.

When I joined the project, it was a sub-million dollar labor of love. I watched with excitement as the project expanded, the budget growing to just under the limit for SAG low budget. It seemed like we were getting everything we wanted, and everything was going smoothly. It was going to be done right. Just when it started feeling like it was dragging, we got what appeared to be a green light, with the stipulation that the money wasn’t quite in the account yet, but it was in transit and would be there “next Tuesday.” But three weeks later, no money. Now it’s time for plan B, which is start over on the financing end.

It’s just a little annoying to be attached to a project for so long with the promise that all your days of prep will be rewarded because the money is “almost there,” only to face the reality that you just worked 6 months for free, AND the movie may not be made at all. The good news is, I’ve been writing my own screenplays. Maybe I can attract a scam artist too.

Among the other new developments in my life and work is the trend towards color timing. I got into color work a few years ago, through watching a colleague and friend on his own color timing jobs. I realized that with an all-digital workflow (particularly with the RED), there is temptation at every step–zoom & reframe a shot here, use the wrong codec there–to either disenfranchise the cinematographer at best, or cause irreversable image degradation at worst. It was clear to me that I needed to be my own colorist. I would have no one to blame but myself, and it would assure me of committing to projects on which I actually want to spend the extra effort. Luckily I was ahead of the curve and had a couple years of practice long before Apple acquired Silicon Color and democratized everything. But Apple’s acquisition happened at the perfect time–just as two features I had shot were going into online/color. We got a great deal at a post house whose FCP/Color room was well below the radar compared to their normal da Vinci suite. There, I color timed Yesterday Was a Lie (F900) and Broken Windows (S16). Currently, I have an upcoming feature which will follow a similar DI process to Laser Pacific’s inDI, with little old me at the helm.

An oldschool colorist may not agree that the software solutions are worth their salt. But I don’t care much, and here’s why. A discerning eye can tell the difference between a print finished photochemically versus one put through the digital intermediate process, and most discerning eyes will usually agree that the photochemical finish looks sharper with better detail, yet the DI gives you far more control (which, psychologically, can make up for sloppiness on set and cause a false dilation of the good/fast/cheap triangle). So my point is, we’re clearly taking a step backwards, but technology is catching up fast, bringing with it many steps forward. This step backwards is the time we as cinematographers need to change the game. There is so much control available to us in the color suite, we need to master it all. It’ll enable us to truly preserve those beautiful houses of cards we so delicately assemble on set. Learn to color time your own work, and join the movement to make “DP/Colorist” a commonplace term among producers, directors and post supervisors. That way, when a DI looks as good as photochemical finishing, we will retain our mantle of image quality shepherd. Maybe some of us can even pioneer this at the union bargaining tables next time. I would love to get a clause in my contract for my color timing efforts.