RogerDeakins.com

Roger Deakins... You only think you don't know who he is, but I'm sure you've seen his work. Roger Deakins, BSC, ASC, is a multi-award winning, 8 time Oscar Nominated Cinematographer, who has shot almost every film by the Coen Brothers, Shawshank Redemption, Revolutionary Road, Doubt, The Assassination of Jesse James... the list goes on.

Needless to say, he knows his stuff. And the best thing about him is that he's not a secret keeper. He shares his knowledge with anyone who asks.

RogerDeakins.com is a great resource for anyone interested in cinematography, I spent nearly a whole day roaming around the forums reading through his responses. So, check it out. He gives out way more information than any other pro that I know of.

So the next time, you watch a The Big Lebowski, you'll know who sat behind the camera, shooting "The Dude."

Raindance Resources

There's some good articles on the Raindance website. Check it out. Learn something. It'd be good for you.

http://www.raindance.co.uk/site/index.php?id=37,138,0,0,1,0

Dale and The Laughing Turtle

Here are a couple of stills from the current project that I'm shooting for a friend. It's called Dale and the Laughing Turtle. It's turning out fantastic. It's keeping us busy, but we're about 2/3 of the way through shooting with one more big weekend ahead of us.

The film stars Lucas Ross and Ra'chel Lowery.

Enjoy...

Life After Film School

i saw this on a blog the other day, can't remember whose it was, sorry.

but i thought it was pretty cool. the ones i've watched are doug liman, seth macfarlane, and jason reitman. they were pretty good and had some interesting things to say.

worth checking out.

http://www.hulu.com/life-after-film-school

Musical Locations

A couple of days ago, Ryan and I had the honor of shooting a short piece for Crystal Woodman Miller, a Columbine survivor, who has turned the tragedy she went through into a message of hope.  

Since Columbine, Crystal has traveled around the world to share her experience with people who have encountered similar acts of violence.  We had a great time with Crystal although the shoot almost didn't happen at all.

Two locations cancelled on us at the last minute, a couple crew didn't show, and one extra didn't show as well, that's why you'll see me walking in the background.

However, the guys at "The Old School Bagel Cafe" were fantastic, we called them at 1:30 and showed up to shoot at 3:00.  We shot after they closed and squeezed everything in by sundown. It was a miracle.

We shot on a Canon XH-A1 using a Redrock Micro w/ Zeiss lenses 35mm, 50mm, & 85mm.  For lighting, we had 2-1K's, 1-500w, and 2-250w's, and a massive set of windows on the west side to let the sun set in on our scene. 

Here's a couple of stills pulled from the footage.  Thanks again to "The Old School Bagel Cafe"!

A steaming cup of hot... water... they had already cleaned out the coffee.
This is Petra, the "extra" (more like a friend) that showed... she was brilliant, professional & patient, with us while we were shorthanded.
Here's Crystal, mid-sentence, it's hard pulling a still of somebody talking.
The flower in the ashtray is part of the story that Staples (Ryan) came up with... get it beauty from the ashes... huh... nice.
What did we learn from this... Always secure a controlled location.  When one owner says that they never have customers after 2pm, they're lying.  And when another owner says they think that you can shoot there, plan on them saying "no!"  

Over all, I think it turned out real nice, it was chaotic, but it all worked out in the end.

Box 7235

Two weeks ago, a couple of us headed up to The Salt Flats, in Nowhere, Oklahoma (actually it's near Cherokee.) It also just happened to be the coldest day all winter with 35 mph winds, making the windchill 11 degrees F.

But thanks to the Staples' stubbornness, and the 2 1/2 hour drive to get out there, we proceeded with the shoot.

Miserable, doesn't even begin to describe it. Ben, our one and only actor, was an amazing sport about the whole thing. All of the crew was bundled up, but Ben was out there with nothing on his ears or his hands, and I didn't even hear him complain. In the end, the short turned out great!

Staples has already finished the edit and we're preparing for the web. It'll be on our websites March 20th.

So, make sure you catch it, joshmckamie.com & staplesx2.com. It is my favorite of the last three that we've done.

Here's a couple of stills. It was a lot colder than it looks.
Staples and Ben talking in the coldDustin Faust and I, freezing.

OTS (Over the Shoulder)

Lighting The Burrow Log

Lighting outdoors can be easy, cheap and still look good. Here's a couple of things that we did on our recent outdoor shoot, The Burrow Log.

The first thing to do, is pick the time of day. Unless the story, calls for "the mid-day sun" to be" beating down, relentlessly" on the characters, I would recommend shooting either in the morning to early afternoon, or late afternoon to sundown. This is what we did for The Burrow Log.

We shot late afternoon to sundown. The sun is lower in the sky, and therefore, not as bright as the midday sun. Does that mean that your story has to take place during that time frame, not necessarily, most people won't realize that it is late in the afternoon, they'll just know that it is light outside, and therefore, daytime.


Another thing to remember is to always try and position the sun as a backlight on your talent. This is sometimes a hard habit to get into since the natural thing to do is position the light on the actors face. But if you put it behind the talent, the Sun will give a nice rim or "halo" effect on their hair.


The only two pieces of lighting equipment that we had, was a 3x3 ft. piece of foam core, and a black bedsheet. The foam core, or Bounce board, was used for just that, to bounce the light from the sun back onto the actors face. To give your image depth or shape, position the light source, in this case the bounce board, off to one side. We had it above our actor pointing down to give it a natural look. If the bounce is too low, it gives the spooky, campfire story feel.


So what was the black sheet for? Negative fill. I wanted more shape to the face so by using the black sheet, we cancelled out ambient light that was hitting the actors faces.

And that's pretty much it. I guess the only thing to add is what kind of camera rig we were shooting on so here you go. We used a Canon XHA1 with a Redrock Micro lens attachment, that's what gives the image so much depth of field. Those lens attachments aren't cheap, but it sure "ups" the production value.

All in all I think the shoot turned out great!

Check it out here, if you haven't already.