Stunning Good Looks
Cinematographer Art Adams has worked in the film industry for 25 years. He shoots spots as well as corporate marketing, visual effects, web and interactive/mobile projects. He also consults for a variety of motion picture equipment vendors in the areas of usability and interface design, equipment training, and scientific comparative testing of products.
Art likes to write articles that explore the hidden side of the tools and techniques many take for granted. He's been published in HD Video Pro, American Cinematographer, Australian Cinematogra...
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Water, ice, fire and a prototype Sony FS700 slow motion camera. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
By Art Adams | April 13, 2012
Adam Wilt gets to play with the best toys, in this case a prototype Sony FS700 slow motion camera. He invited me over to play, and the results were really, really interesting. Adam's article talks about some of the technical issues he ran across, so in this article I'm going to focus on the lighting side of what we did.
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There's one color that will always bother us if it's wrong: flesh tone. We tested ten common LED lights against a tungsten Inkie and a Kino Flo... come see the results!
By Art Adams | April 09, 2012
Color comparison tests are hard. Color science is witchcraft, and objective color is exceedingly difficult to quantify. Comparison is really the only way to judge color, so we tested ten LED lights against two tungsten Tweenies and a 3200K 2'x4 Kino Flo. The results are... interesting.
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Where there's smoke there's fire... or a production company shooting a PSA for a non-profit. This is how you create a high-end look on a budget.
By Art Adams | April 06, 2012
When production companies ask me to shoot spots on the Canon 5D MkII I don't flinch anymore. Sure, it's not the most user friendly camera in the world, but I can't complain about the images I can make with it. And no one else does, either.In this case, half the battle was putting the camera in the right place at the right time--and quickly. It was the perfect camera for a small, fast-moving project.
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A dozen lights, an Arri Alexa, an intrepid crew... what could go wrong? Lots, which is why we had to work extra hard. Tests are never easy, and comparison tests are among the hardest of all.
By Art Adams | April 02, 2012
"LED Light Shootout" sounds so dramatic, as if a collection of motley illuminants met in a dusty western town to settle their differences with bullets instead of marketing. It's actually tedious, mind numbing work… and a real eyeopener.
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Cameras used to be SOOOO boring. Now every new camera is a mystery to be unfolded: What does it do well? What tweaks can make it better? Here is my first C300 article that addresses these questions...
By Art Adams | March 30, 2012
I've shot a lot of web and broadcast spots on the Canon 5D and while it makes pretty pictures the controls are very limited. It's also not a camera that can be used quickly. At the moment the Canon C300 is a bit of a mystery to me: before my recent tests I didn't know whether it's a 5D with more controls and a cinematographer-friendly form factor or if it's something more. My initial conclusion: it's more. A lot more. In my next few articles I'm going to take a peek inside the machinery and see what I can find. With the help of charts from DSC Labs I hope to shed some light on the inner workings of the C300 and try to figure out what its niche is.
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It used to be so simple: pick a film stock, pick a lens, shoot images, process and print, repeat. It wasn't rocket science. Now, though... it's rocket science.
By Art Adams | March 28, 2012
Not so long ago the toughest choice we had to make was which film stock to use. It was possible to learn one or two stocks really, really well and use them predictably over the course of many years. Now a game-changing camera comes out every year, introducing us to new strengths and weakness. Not so long ago cinematography wasn't rocket science. Now... it is.
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"Just for the web" is no reason to skimp on a project's look. A few simple tricks made this web spot shine.
By Art Adams | March 26, 2012
A web spot may be seen by more people than a broadcast spot, so making it pretty is more important than ever. In this case, simple but elegant lighting and custom gamma curves made this spot shine. (And when shooting kids, "simple" becomes very important.)
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OLED monitors are about to change the way we view images, both at work and at home. Prepare to look better than you ever have before.
By Art Adams | March 06, 2012
The first time I laid eyes on a professional Sony OLED monitor I knew my professional life had changed. In a few years I'm sure we'll take this technology for granted, but right now it looks AMAZING compared to any other monitoring system I use on a regular basis. For a slightly-technical-but-mostly-educational look at why, read on...
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Lighting a bounce card is easy, right? Right... IF you know the basics. Here they are.
By Art Adams | January 29, 2012
Is bounce light really just about aiming a light at a white card and walking away? No. There are a couple of tricks to getting the most out of your bounce source, and I can show them to you fairly quickly using a 4'x4' bounce card as an example.
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Sometimes all it takes to make a beautiful picture is placing one light--as long as it's the proper light source. This still photo shows an example of one style of soft lighting that's been in use for centuries, and for good reason: it works.
By Art Adams | January 28, 2012
There are few things more elegant than lighting a shot with a single light source. It doesn't always work, but when it does--it's magical.
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The best books about cinematography aren't necessarily about the art of cinematography. They're about getting all the other stuff out of the way so you can practice cinematography. This is the book that tells you what you didn't know--but need to know--about becoming a cinematographer.
By Art Adams | January 20, 2012
This book is not for everyone. If you don't eat, breathe and live cinematography... maybe you should read something else. Seriously. This book may not be for you. (But if it is... you'd better not miss it.)
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Placing a fill light properly is possibly more important than placing a key light... and I can prove it!
By Art Adams | January 17, 2012
In this article I wrote about classical key light placement and classical portraiture to illustrate how artists and cinematographers have traditionally gone about lighting faces. Fill light is often derided as the light that simply opens up the shadows, but it can do much more than that. It can have a shape and beauty all its own, and it can save you when your key light placement is not optimal.
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When it comes to soft light, size matters.
By Art Adams | December 27, 2011
It's one thing to understand that soft sources make soft shadows. It's another thing to understand why. Fortunately a friend from the insect world can help us if we will look at soft light through his eyes.
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Take a break from reading and listen to us for a change: PVC writers speak at the 2011 Entertainment Technology Expo in Burbank.
By Art Adams | December 23, 2011
A rabble of PVC writers (yes, that's the collective term) spoke at this year's Entertainment Technology Expo in Burbank. If you want to see some of the people behind the ProVideo Coalition content curtain, including myself, this is a "must see."
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Hard lights are great for textures, but soft lights are great for defining spaces.
By Art Adams | December 21, 2011
In a previous article I described how to place a hard key light. In this article I'll look at why soft sources are a bit more realistic in color cinematography, require less precise placement, and can help define the volume of a space.
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What you don't know about PWM may ruin your next shot--particularly if you're using a camera with a rolling shutter!
By Art Adams | December 15, 2011
Here's the deal: there's this thing called "pulse width modulation," and under certain conditions it doesn't play well with rolling shutter cameras. Most of the time it's no problem, but we don't get phone calls from post when there's no problem. Here's how to avoid that phone call.
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Hard light and faces... do they go together? The short answer is yes... but be careful!
By Art Adams | December 13, 2011
The most important thing you will ever learn about lighting is this: LIGHTING IS NOT A FORMULA. Learning about lighting, though, is a process of becoming aware, and in this first of many articles I'm going I'm going to try to increase your awareness of one specific thing per article. The more awareness you have the more easily you'll be able to adapt your lighting to your circumstances because you'll see, with your own eyes, what you need to do to make an image that satisfies your inner artist.I think the best place to start is with classical key light placement. This knowledge is not something you will use verbatim as this is not a style that is in vogue at the moment. The underlying principles, however, should be of daily benefit.
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Years in the making, this technique works in almost every situation and makes almost everyone look great. That's about the best you can hope for when shooting talking heads on a tight schedule.
By Art Adams | November 17, 2011
For a long time my primary source of employment was shooting corporate marketing communications videos. As these consist primarily of "talking head" interviews, I tried every lighting setup I could think of to make people look their best quickly, as many of these shoots have tight schedules and not much turnaround time between interviews. This setup is the result of years of experimentation.
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New toys are great, but what's more important is who plays with them.
By Art Adams | October 31, 2011
Technology is always advancing, and we're at the point in this industry where we'll always have new toys on the near horizon. My question is: how much do these toys matter when it's the people who use them who provide all the creativity?
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Fill light isn't just for controlling contrast; its quality and placement can make or break your shot.
By Art Adams | September 27, 2011
The day I stop learning about lighting will be the day my EKG goes flatline. There's an extraordinary amount to learn and absorb, and I doubt I'll ever learn all of it. That's okay, because it means I'll never run out of new things to learn. My most recent fixation is on the one light many think about the least: the fill light.
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