Some solutions for low budgets

Article Six

In this article we hear from Pete Harper, who offers some solutions for cinematographers working on no budget.

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We camera-people, we are simple folk.  

We should like to have the biggest and bestest cameras, with the most dynamic range and the highest resolution.  We should like to have oodles of our own grip equipment – shiny track, ride-on dollies, extendible jib-arms.  We should like to have huge, football stadium-filling lights, on a cherry-picker and on stand-by 24/7.

But the fact is a lot of us can barely afford to pay the rent let alone fork out for so much of our own gear.  So here is a brief guide on some very low budget, creative solutions for common lighting set-ups used across film and TV drama.

 

Lighting

Where would a cinematographer be without lights?

Lights made specifically for film-making are expensive.  A single 650w red-head can cost over £100 and one is never enough.  A simple solution?  Workshop lamps such as these pictured.

Lamp photo courtesy of laddersafetysupplies.co.uk

These lamps can be picked up at a local DIY store or online for as little as £20.  The replacement bulbs are easy to come by and fairly easy to fit and will blast an impressive amount of light at whatever you are shooting.

The downside to these lamps is that they are really not very directional – they do not come with any barn doors and often they only have one mounting position on their stand.  They also run very hot, like any lamp does, so care needs to be taken when handling them.

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Diffusion/Light Softening

You’re probably aware of sheets of diffusion that you attach to the front of a lamp in the same way you’d attach a gel.  But there are other ways of softening light, especially if the budget is tight and you can’t afford a whole roll of diff.

Bouncing – this is a great way of using the above example workshop lights, turn the lamps away from the subject you are lighting (yes that’s right, turn them away!) and then bounce the light back to them using some kind of reflective surface.

Your typical photography reflector (that are oh-so much fun to twist back into their tiny little bags) are now available very cheaply online.  There’s now no need to buy a big brand-named reflector, there are loads out there that do just the same trick for a fraction of the price.

Very often on professional sets you’ll see large pieces of white polystyrene boards (referred to simply as ‘poly board’ or just ‘poly’) being used to reflect light but again these can be difficult to get hold of on a budget and the cheap stuff isn’t worth getting for this use.  A suitable alternative is a large piece of cardboard – a piece approx 2m by 1m would easily do the trick.  It’s not very portable but it will reflect the light of your lamps back at your subject with a very complementary tone that you might not get from a harsh white surface.  You could even cover one side with normal kitchen foil in case you need extra light bounced.

‘Silk’ – a common technique used by professional cinematographers to control and soften big powerful harsh lamps is to place a large sheet of material between the lamp and the subject.  This material is just another type of diffusion often referred to as a silk – presumably back in the day they were made from silk? – or a grid or a frame, referring to how the material is mounted.  These are also used on sunny exteriors and are placed between the sun and the actors, not to put them into shade but to take out a lot of the direct blast of our nearest star.

A great low-budget solution to this probably stares you in the face every morning – a cheap shower curtain.  Available in any bargain home store, shower curtains can be your new best friend.  A great use for these is to tape them over windows to give you a more even, soft light for your interiors, especially if you place a lamp outside the window shining indoors, another key technique of movie and TV lighting.

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SAFETY NOTICE: It’s very important to note that whenever placing anything in front of a light, be it a make-shift DIY lamp like that above or even a professional light designed for film-making, always keep a safe distance between the lamp face and the reflector/poly board/shower curtain etc.  Even professional gels melt, poly board fries, cardboard will catch fire and I wouldn’t like to think what a plastic shower curtain would do when it heats up too much!  If the lamp is too hot to be held by hand, it’s too hot for anything else to touch it.

 

Smoke

The biggest favour you could ever do yourself is invest in a smoke machine.  And again, these are very affordable these days; very basic ones can be picked for about £30 with a lot of nice units available at around the £50 mark.

Whenever you’re watching a movie or a big budget TV show and you see shafts of light streaming into a room or when a character wields a powerful torch like a lightsaber, what you are seeing is light being reflected off smoke particles.

There is no easier way of adding texture and depth and atmosphere to your shots then to fill the room with a light layer of smoke.  If gives the image a subtle softness, a mysterious wisp, an unexplainable cinematic feel that will just blow your mind the first time you apply it.

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Movement

Moving the camera is becoming an essential part of modern cinema and television but it doesn’t have to come at a price.  Nor does it mean hand-holding the camera and darting around erratically, all movement should be justified within the scene and should start on a strong image and end on a strong image.

Nothing adds production value to your work like a well planned camera dolly but that doesn’t mean you have to invest in a slider.  Got an old skateboard in your cupboard?  Got a small hand-towel or small beanbag?  Support your camera on the skateboard with the beanbag or towel (or even your hoodie), find a smooth surface such as a table or a plank of wood (spare shelf from a book case?) supported between two chairs and there you have your own dollying system.

Even simpler than that, place your camera on a large book and glide it across your carpet – it will look like a million bucks!

 

All these examples are just a few small things you can do to drastically improve the look of your film.  The most important thing you could do however is to get yourself onto a real film set, as a runner or perhaps as a camera trainee, and see for yourself lighting practice and camera movement in the real world.  Learn from the people who have been doing it for years, ask questions (when appropriate and without being a nuisance)  and then apply what you’ve learnt to your own work using the equipment and the tools available.

Remember, this is a creative industry so be creative!

 

Still from short ‘Blink’.
Using the ideas described in article. – Pete Harper

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Next week we focus on the father of the moving image, photography.
Friday 31st Jan 10am (GMT)

Doing It Yourself

Article Five

In this article we hear from Keir Siewert about his approach to the cinematic process and why we should all get out there and make ‘shit’.

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I feel I should start this by saying I am not a cinematographer. I’ve performed the role of cinematographer on a few friends’ shorts but even then the role never felt like it fit me. Basically I would define myself as a director who, at least for the moment, shoots my own stuff. The reason for this distinction comes down to a matter of interest.  I feel my motives for picking up the camera were never out of fascination for the art of cinematography but rather a controlling interest in limiting any barriers between my ideas and the final outcome. It ended up over time, morphing into a sort of free-form style.

This allowed me a certain amount of flexibility and experimentation, which I feel would have been very difficult to develop if there was a second person I had to communicate these ideas to. I have however always been more of an editor then a cameraman as well, which means I tend to think in sequences instead of singular shots, meaning coverage and back ups have always been more important to me than perfecting takes. These are all reasons why I would not define myself as a cinematographer or DP and quite possibly why you should take my advice (and to be honest the advice of anyone who writes about the creative process, because it is inevitably a singular experience) with a grain a salt.

I subscribe to the idea that when it comes to art, there are no rules. This is important to me especially in filmmaking, as it is a collaborative art form, meaning more than any other there is so much room for compromise and the inclusion of arbitrary rules. I think if you go from the perspective that whatever works, works, there is so much more room to develop and create.

This is where I come to what I call the DIY Revolution (Someone may have already coined this term; if I am stealing it, it is purely by accident). Like many, I studied film at university, nowhere prestigious, just your normal University course. I learned on DV tape. I made “shit” for lack of a better word. But that’s okay, that’s part of the process. Film school is about breaking you down, making you realize you know nothing and then trying to rebuild you as a “proper” filmmaker by giving you certainties to cling to.  However what I would say is the true film school I, and I’m pretty certain a lot of people in the last 3 or 4 years have experienced, is the personal film school that came from DSLRs.

Now I’m not one of those people who are going to wax lyrical on the loss of celluloid. As far as I’m concerned, technology moves on and in all honesty it’s hard to grieve for something you never knew. This is why DSLRs are the perfect tool for the masses, a socialist revolution in film technology. Suddenly here is the means with which to make your own personal film school.

I get people sometimes who write me and ask my advice on how to get started shooting something. To be honest it’s hard for me to know how to respond to these messages because I feel the true means to finding a style and progressing is to make mistakes. Three years down the line from first acquiring my Canon 5D MK 2 I can now wear my mistakes like a badge of honor because it proves I’ve learned from what I did that failed and moved on.

So my biggest piece of advice is, go make some shit. And I mean “shit” in the descriptive form, not as general slang for “stuff.” I mean literally go make something bad. The reason for this is people can wait ages, almost like they’re waiting for permission to begin.  However if you start by fearing you’re going to make something bad, how can you have the courage of convictions to stand behind something good? How can you know when you’ve made something distinctive instead of bland?

I’m aware this starting to turn a bit self-congratulatory, I’m the last person to hold myself up as a shinning example of the way things should be done. What works for me, works for me, however I can’t really only approach the creative process from any perspective other than my own, so you may just have to suffer through it and walk away thinking I’m an asshole. However what is key to me is that everyone has to be free to find their own personal style and way of doing things.

A buddy of mine once said to me, “how can you expect to tell a DP what you want, if you don’t even know your own style.”

The thing is, a style develops organically, it comes from trial and error. I’ve been told I have a very distinctive style. This is not because I sat down and theoretically thought out, how I wanted a “Keir Siewert Project” to look, it came down to years of taking a camera out, fucking around with it and finding what I liked.  This I truly believe, is a really important step in my own personal development and I think a wave of the future.

This year I plan to make my first short with a DP in about 4 years and I feel now I am in a position where I know exactly what I want. This has come from a process of making my own stuff, learning about how to use visuals to tell a story, and not just worry about the frame looking pretty.

In the same way I think all directors should take an acting course, I think they should all at some point try their hand and shooting their own work. I think ultimately it will only breed more of an understanding between the cinematographer and the director and steers away from what I think kills an awful lot of projects, which is committee thinking. I see directors ignoring the visuals and acting more like producers, basically leaving the DP to ghost direct the project (meaning nobody’s talking to the actors). Ultimately this leads to bland final projects with no vision and lofty ideas that were never properly realized.

This is what the DIY revolution is to me. It is a means for filmmakers to work away perfecting their art with the means to try and fail with very little at stake. The affordability of technology means you can learn as you go with potential in your grasp to make something ultimately really worthwhile.

Maybe this is slightly idealistic and all this really just boils down to an artistic endeavor and ignores the business and financial side of things. But I have come to the belief that if someone had a truly great transcendent idea, someone could actually make a great film on an iPhone. It requires only the creativity and true transcendence of thought.

And that to me is the DIY revolution, it is democratization of the means, requiring only that true creativity is ultimately the only limitation to making great stuff. So the question becomes how you become truly creative? Well first you got to go make some “shit.”

Doing it yourself

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Next week we bring some simple and cost effective solutions to cinematography, for the low budget film maker.
Friday 24th Jan 10am (GMT)

A Changing Landscape

Article Four

In this article DJ Carroll, New York based DoP, discusses the landscape of film capturing, generation, and acquisition, and how this has changed and continues to evolve.

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In the past things were physical. The way we made movies was constrained somewhat by what existed. So, in a sense were the stories. Now because of digital, things do not face that restriction. Stories, morals and ideals that could not have been expressed before are now more abundant. The CG heavy big budget hero movies of the last decade have supplanted all others as the reigning king of the box office. And so we find ourselves the in midst of a revolution in the way we make and consume movies.

The past decade has seen the mainstream switch for the most part to a purely digital based workflow. However, for the first 90 years of the preceding century, motion pictures were captured, edited and printed on physical film. As a chemical medium and process from start to finish, the pictures that could be produced on this film were somewhat restricted by what existed in the real world.

Though indeed  viewers were aware of the ‘unreality’ of the images, the idea of creating a perfectly believable  image still became the pursuit. The belief held that with a camera light passed for the most part unaltered 1:1 from the set to the screen in front of the viewer allowed more for the credulity of the image. It was a process that could be understood from start to finish. Moreover, it was something that physically existed.

Digital changed all that. While many major pictures are still acquired on film, almost all are put through a Digital Intermediate. With the immediate ability and ease to manipulate the image, a major shift in the production and style of motion pictures began. Instead of months to create an image that might require an extreme suspension of disbelief and major imagination on the part of the viewer, it now takes only hours to easily create an visually believable, fantastical image. And so though the role of the storyteller has not changed, it has become more reliant on technicians. Artists still in every sense, but technicians in that their tools and mediums do not exist outside of a technical or digital realm. This is common knowledge to a contemporary audience.

Therefore there is now an implicit understanding on the part of the viewer that these are  images which, from their inception and by nature of their being, have been heavily digitally manipulated. As such stories which are ‘real’- could have happened to you  by the virtue of the docu-reailty of the image, fall away, and stories now appeal more to the empathy of fantasy.

This allows stories and morals which could not have otherwise been expressed to mould a new generation. Something like Gravity may not have been impossible to make 10 years ago, but it certainly would have been a more difficult and different film, assuredly not as fluid.

And so with this shift in the ease of production, we are seeing a new style of movie dominate. Fantasy Action Adventure films, featuring superheroes, other worlds and generally non Verite styled cinematography are the focus of the major studio system.

In Films of this genre (TRANSFORMERS AVATAR PACIFIC RIM IRON MAN AVENGERS THOR)  the suspension of disbelief is radically evolved into its antithesis.

I.e. In order to enjoy or engage with the film on more than a superficial level, one must willingly disregard any notion of the films photo-reality relating to their own. There is no suspension of disbelief. The viewer accepts this is a created, manipulated image.  So in something like the Avengers where the viewer cannot empathize or relate with the superhuman actions or situations in the film, she must on an emotional level focus on the overall motives and actions of the characters.

Why is this important?

Though now it is being supplanted by the internet and new forms of expression, Motion Pictures still remain one of the main forms of dissemination of cultural ideals and values. they act as a cultural Tudor. Assuming the place of ‘village’ in –‘it takes a village to raise a child’. This is nothing new. Now though a majority of time and resources of a film are put into special effects,and it often seems that the core of these dominant films lack the character to give them substantiality.

So, in an alarmist sense, “what are we teaching our children!?!”

Of course it is not so bleak. Television, independent film, and internet entities (netflix hulu) are pushing back hard with serious, plot driven pieces.  At this point it becomes a classist argument, wherein the poorer, less educated areas only have access to the pieces with the widest distribution and marketing, these new hollywood films.

As previously noted here, the digital revolution is making thousands of new filmakers annually. So the question is not will these films be supplanted but rather when will they be, and what form will the new dominant style take. Will it continue along the lines of  Avatar and Gravity, or will audiences want to find their place again within the picture, and how we will ensure their place in the new media market?

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Next week we look at how to Do It Yourself.

Friday 17th Jan 10am (GMT)

The Digital Revolution

Article Three

In this article Steven Cook discusses the pros and cons of the digital cinematography boom.

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DSLR’s have arguably reshaped the market in the last 6, 7 or so years. As far as I’m concerned it’s been for the better, for my career anyway. When I started out, I was expecting to work my way up the ladder in the traditional way, thinking I’d maybe be shooting by the time I was 40. Production companies tended to hire filming equipment rather than own it and there weren’t many people who owned a camera, sound equipment and an edit suite! How times have changed.

I started out after College doing various Camera Runner roles, then Camera Trainee roles on a couple of Features before earning a 4 episode stint on TV series Rebus as trainee after filling in for two weeks the block before. This gave me the opportunity to learn and be loading by the 4th block for 2nd Camera days. I then loaded on a few local commercials on 16mm and Digi-Beta; I was then offered a full time job at a production company, covering everything from Castings, Offline Edits, Shooting, Camera Assisting, and lots more. I took that job thinking, well its regular money and I’ll still get to do camera assisting and even a little shooting as well as everything else, so it’ll be great experience and I’ll come back to camera in a year or so. I was there for 5 years!

In this time DSLR cameras literally exploded on to the scene. Results were quite frankly stunning, in the right hands of course! I wanted one, I owned a Canon 450D at the time so was very familiar to Canon DSLR’s for taking stills. It felt like the logical step. The go to camera of the moment was the 5D mark II, which had been used on certain TV programs in the States. I couldn’t afford one, then the 7D came on to the scene, a little more aimed at the video side but remaining a great stills camera. I bagged a little corporate job in my spare time to pay for it.

I started to shoot small corporate videos with it, I started to shoot music videos and I even shot my first of many short films on it. This was amazing to me, I felt like I was handed a key to chase my dreams. I started a collective with my brother and a friend, an aspiring Director/Editor and aspiring Writer respectively. We had the key ingredients to shoot, and that we did. The idea was that we would shoot, practice our crafts and we’d build a body of work that would get us work in the industry.

Long story short, here I am 3 years later, with a couple of show reels, one made up of films and music videos, the other of Corporate/Online and a TV Commercial work. I’ve shot on various cameras’ now including the C300, C500, Alexa, RED and Sony FS700. I’m about to shoot my 2nd TV commercial in January and have had films screen at festivals in the UK and Germany. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for DSLR’s allowing me to learn as I shoot or giving me the opportunity to show what I am capable of.

There are arguably negative points to the changed landscape too. Has the ‘one man band’ driven daily rates down, or forced people to pick up new skills to be able to compete? Has production companies owning relatively cheap ‘film’ look cameras had an impact on hire companies? Do new shooters with no professional on-set experience lack discipline and professional conduct that you pick up when starting as a trainee and working your way up?

I’m interested in opening a debate about this new time and market, with camera’s like the Black Magic’s giving cheap RAW and 4K, the market is still evolving. Is it all for the better and how has it affected your career?

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Next week we continue discussing the evolution of cinematic language.

Friday 10th Jan 10am (GMT)

Teamwork and Discipline

Article Two

In this article, Alan McLean gives us his view on how to keep focused on your job.

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So, what DO you do?

When people ask me what I do as a camera assistant, I tell them I’m like a golf caddy for cameramen. There’s a lot more to it but that’s the simplest comparison and tends to satisfy them enough for me to get on with things.

The strange thing is when these people are the director of photography. I know nothing of football but I can see the difference between a skilled team of professionals and a playground scramble for goal. a camera department is also like this, unless people understand what everyone, including themselves, are meant to be doing it can get real messy real fast. One of the best lessons I had was on a shoot when the DP asked what my job was.

Trying to impress, I rhymed off a long list of things only to be told I was completely wrong, those were my duties, my JOB was to help the DP do theirs and nothing else. I didn’t work for the director or even the producer, I worked for the DP and they worked for those people, any other assistants worked for me. Some people don’t understand how important that hierarchy is and it is often forgotten about altogether on no/low budget shoots as everyone lends a hand to whatever’s needed.

Unless you’re the DP stop thinking and acting like you are and focus on the job you do have as part of the team. There’s been occasion where I tried to impart words of advice to help someone become a better AC only to be told they didn’t find it important to know because they were set on becoming a DP. This was their failure as an AC and will no doubt lead to their failure as a DP because they don’t fully understand what a camera crew is all about.

Understanding the roles and how they complement each other isn’t hard, keeping within those roles seems to be a different matter altogether. Teamwork has become something of a catchphrase with little understanding to it and too often used as a way of motivating the troops into action. In an industry largely ran by ego it’s hard to step back and let others take the lead but unless you’re in one of the top jobs that’s what must happen. Be humble enough to know your place in the team but keep adequate ego to be the best at what you’re there for, whatever that is.

Alan McLean’s words of wisdom

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Next week we start a discussion on digital video equipment’s impact on the hierarchy of the camera department.

Friday 3rd Jan 10am (GMT)

The Image

Article One

In this article Alan C McLaughlin explores the origin of cinematic convention and the idea behind the image.

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It is an industry rapidly grown with a history spanning little over a century. How often do we stop to think where the image began; what was the transition like from still to motion; and how was the image shaped by the world it was set upon?

Hugo Münsterberg’s essay from 1916, ‘The Photoplay’, explores in great depth the development of the moving image during a key period of cinematic history. During the early 1900s movie theatres started to rise in popularity.

“Everybody’s purse allows him to see the greatest artists and in every village a stage can be set up and the joy of a true theater performance can be spread to the remotest corner of the lands”

No longer was the expense laid upon a theatre, studios were built and one stage could travel around the world endlessly, without fatigue. Theatre, viewed through the moving image, is exactly how Cinema is today. However, the key difference is the time travelling ability of the movement.

“We see the soldier on the battlefield, and his beloved one at home, in such steady alternation that we are simultaneously here and there”

With a moving image you can immediately be transported from location to location, just as changing the set pieces on a stage. But with the moving image this process is seamless, without pause, continuing to lure the audience into the world of the image. It was through theatre that the conventions, or language, of cinematic art were discovered and developed, but it was through thought that they continued to expand.

“If we want to shape the question now in the same way, we ought to ask how it is with the emotions of the spectator”

By asking the question of what a spectator wishes to see it is easy to follow the logic that the close-up, two shot, extreme-wide, were all simply answers. Unachievable on a stage, to see the hint of anger in an eyeball, so why not bring your audience to a point where all they can see is that very thing. This process must be logic bound, because the chances are slim that a cinematographer could bring these feelings to a convincing expression without understanding the spectator.

Although we are aware of the ‘unreality’ of the images captured, we continue to express whatever it is that has made us view the world through a lens. Although something may appear to be a true representation of understandable reality, it will forever be a point of view. Cinematography is an opinion, expressed through an image, and at all times is influenced by motivation.

“the central esthetic value is directly opposed to the spirit of imitation”

What that motivation can relate to is infinite. By allowing emotion, story, or action to dictate the style of framing, lighting, and movement the image can become unique.
But as we have evolved, and live, within a world of natural restraint, and no matter what we do to escape that, our images will always be an imitation of nature.

 
References from:
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The Photoplay (1916)
Hugo Münsterberg

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Next week we have an article discussing teamwork and discipline.
Friday 27th at 10am (GMT)

Origins of the Image

In our first week

We welcome an interesting article discussing the origins of cinematic language and the idea behind the image.

Article live on Friday at 10am GMT

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