Monday, August 30, 2010
A directory of my best articles, sorted by topic.
This entry is a guide to my best articles, sorted by topic. Enjoy!
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Friday, January 20, 2012
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.
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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Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Placing a fill light properly is possibly more important than placing a key light… and I can prove it!
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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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
When it comes to soft light, size matters.
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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Friday, December 23, 2011
Take a break from reading and listen to us for a change: PVC writers speak at the 2011 Entertainment Technology Expo in Burbank.
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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Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Hard lights are great for textures, but soft lights are great for defining spaces.
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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Thursday, December 15, 2011
What you don’t know about PWM may ruin your next shot—particularly if you’re using a camera with a rolling shutter!
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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Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Hard light and faces… do they go together? The short answer is yes… but be careful!
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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