Cinematography
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Show-Focus: The Future of Pulling Focus
Guillaume Couche, a Masters student at the Royal College of Art in London with a background in mechanical engineering, has created a prototype for what he calls “Show-Focus.” Designed to facilitate the duties of the on-set focus-puller, Show-Focus renders a physical representation of the invisible plane of focus so that the precise focal point can be deduced, and captured, at any time. The model is compromised of two components, communicable through a wireless connection: the camera module and the controller. The camera module, which is attached to the body of the shooting camera, provides a real-time 3D map of what […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 28, 2014 -
Hitchcock to Scorsese: 47 Years of the Dolly Zoom
A week ago, I posted a rundown of the visual effects at work in The Wolf of Wall Street, which, at least to this eye, appear fairly seamless. As wonderful as computers are, however, there’s nothing quite like a good, old-fashioned in camera effect. The dolly zoom — pushing or pulling the camera while zooming out or in (respectively), and keeping focus locked on the subject — lends its resulting surrealistic planes to thrills, suspense, action or even a meaningful chat. The invention of a Paramount second-unit cameraman, Irmin Roberts, and a favorite of Scorsese, Hitchcock, Spielberg and Tarantino, this new video […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Jan 20, 2014 -
Cinematographer Gordon Willis Explains the Elegance of Simplicity
The simpler the better, or so says Gordon Willis, celebrated cinematographer of The Godfather, Manhattan and Annie Hall. Willis echoes Steve Jobs in his belief that simple outshines complex and stresses sticking only with the necessary in making choices. As he sees it, one natural window light can do much more than six artificial ones, and the bare bones of an idea often do the heavy lifting in communicating the story to an audience. The full Craft Truck interview with Willis can be viewed here.
by Nadia Ismail on Jan 7, 2014 -
D.P. Sam Levy on How Blocking Determines Lighting
Blocking is everything to Sam Levy, most recently the cinematographer of Noah Baumbach’s black-and-white feature Frances Ha. Levy talks about his approach to lighting – one that foregrounds blocking above all else. First comes the blocking of the actors in a scene, including their movements and pacing. Next comes the camera blocking which, according to Levy, works best if it’s responding to the setup of the actors. And finally, the lighting emerges as a natural consequence of these two things. As Levy says, “you block, you light, you shoot.” All of Levy’s interview with Craft Truck can be found here.
by Nadia Ismail on Dec 19, 2013 -
12 Years a Slave D.P. Sean Bobbitt on Handheld Cinematography
“You always have to question when a director says, ‘Let’s go handheld.’” At Poland’s Camerimage International Film Festival a few weeks back, d.p. Sean Bobbitt gave an ARRI workshop keynote on the role of handheld cinematography in filmmaking. Far too often, directors, according to Bobbitt, resort to the use of handheld simply because they have no other ideas: “If we do handheld, it will feel kinetic!” and the like. But a knee-jerk instinct is not good enough — Bobbitt believes you should be able to justify every technical decision in the script: “The first and most important consideration is, does […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Dec 17, 2013 -
D.P. Sal Totino on Finding the Edge, and Falling Off
In the latest video in our Craft Truck series, Sal Totino, who was the cinematographer on features like Frost/Nixon, Cinderella Man and The Da Vinci Code, advocates knowing the rules but only in order to break them. Using an apt metaphor of cooking, he says that one could follow a recipe step-by-step or break away and “put a little bit of your soul into it.” Nothing is guaranteed, as Totino cautions, especially not when straying from convention, but you have to know where the edge is — and sometimes fall off — to learn your limits. Watch the full interview here.
by Nadia Ismail on Dec 12, 2013 -
In Conversation: David Cronenberg’s D.P. Peter Suschitzky
Peter Suschitzky has photographed films for John Boorman, Ken Russell and most notably David Cronenberg, but the 72-year-old d.p. still prepares each film with the written word. “It begins with a careful reading of the screenplay,” he says in a polite English accent over the phone from London, “trying to get a feel for, subconsciously, what’s in that script.” Suschitzky is giving interviews to promote, Evolution, TIFF’s celebration of hometown boy and horror master, Cronenberg. Evolution launches Hallowe’en week at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in downtown Toronto with a multimedia exhibition of celebrating Cronenberg’s five-decade career that began long before […]
by Allan Tong on Oct 31, 2013 -
Cinematographer Reed Morano on Climbing the Ladder
Waitressing, temping and working as a grip and electric intern were some of the odd jobs Reed Morano had on the way to becoming a d.p. In this latest Craft Truck video, Morano makes the case that grip and electric is “not putting the light up, it’s what you do with it once you get the light up.” You can watch the full Craft Truck interview here.
by Nadia Ismail on Oct 25, 2013 -
Cinematographer Reed Morano on Learning by Doing
In the newest installment of our Craft Truck video series, cinematographer Reed Morano offers the career advice of figuring it out as you go, even if that means bluffing a bit on set. In the rest of the interview, Morano, the d.p. of the crime drama Frozen River, discusses how creativity is the answer to limitation, particularly when she learned that she only had one day to shoot on ice in Frozen River. You can watch all of Morano’s charming interview here.
by Nadia Ismail on Sep 6, 2013 -
Test Footage and Drawbacks of the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera
Many pundits predicted a serious shakeup when Blackmagic announced their new Pocket Cinema Camera back at NAB in April. Priced at just $995, the Super 16 handheld, complete with 13 stops of dynamic range, seem poised to encroach upon DSLR’s steadfast popularity. As the camera underwent initial shipments in August, homegrown test footage began popping up here and there. Dan Chung, co-editor of News Shooter, recently took his BMPCC out for a spin in the Sanlitun area of Beijing — at night. The experiment yielded mixed results. Armed with a Voigtlander 17.5 mm f0.95 lens to maximize light on the […]
by Sarah Salovaara on Sep 4, 2013
