Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson (Post 1957863)

You are hung up on mimicking big budget cinema production - giving each shot a 'title'. You are constantly talking about this "panning shot" as if it's somehow something special, yet in your movie, it seems to be just another connecting shot in the story telling.

Pete's talking about focussing on a real cine lens, while you seem to think that turning a focus ring on a lens is pulling focus, in terms of a role, or process. You've got into thinking technical terms are indicative of the link with a role. The difference between a photography lens and a moving image lens clearly you haven't quite got a handle on, so when people give advice, they have to guess if you really mean what you ask?

I'm often left wondering if the movies you shoot would be better off made on a simple handicam - point, zoom, and shoot. Some of these have quite decent sensors, but are a balance package of components. You could plonk the camera down, jiggle the actors around and have a notional lens angle of say 73mm, rather than this mystical movie focal length of 85mm? Would it matter? For you I doubt it would - you could use the zoom to set the composition, and wouldn't need to reblock actors and move the camera.

You are trying to shoot movies with tiny bits of pro movie production technique, and this isn't working. You started out with a training course that did NOT cater for your individual learning style, so you have picked up lots of really bad habits that you cannot now shake off. You have a warped interpretation of technical matters, and have nearly understood things. People give advice. You take little strands of it, and then apply it in new situations out of context. You MUST start to try to understand this. You are building a rule book that is flawed, yet you cannot understand this, or why it has happened. You are treating movie making as a collection of little elements that when all done guarantee a great movie. Your scripts - the very basic building block of movie making are from what we've seen, not very good at all. You use actors who really cannot act, mixed in with a few who can. You struggle to direct them, or often, let them direct themselves.

Nothing you can do with technology will improve the fundamental problem. I think yesterday we finally convinced you that lenses don't magically change the speed of light, and that fast lenses can produce deep depth of field - something you really should have been aware of when trying to make buying choices. Today, your cine lenses turn out to be photographic lenses. What else have we misunderstood from your posts?

Ask yourself some questions. Do you NEED cine lenses, or will the ones you have work well enough in your production. I suspect they will. Have you ever checked how accurate the lens markings actually are? Pop one on, find a suitable subject and find the sharpest focus setting - measure it. Then change the stop and repeat. Does the sharpest point shift? You may be surprised how much it does. Next question is does it matter? To a professional focus puller, used to marking tape with pens, yes it does. If the cameraman needs to change aperture, all the marks will be wrong. Is this something you're aware of.

If your team's technique is to set up, and then focus visually and then shoot, that's actually fine - but it is not how real cinematographer crew work. Is all this stuff sorted in your head?

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson (Post 1957863)

You are hung up on mimicking big budget cinema production - giving each shot a 'title'. You are constantly talking about this "panning shot" as if it's somehow something special, yet in your movie, it seems to be just another connecting shot in the story telling.

Pete's talking about focussing on a real cine lens, while you seem to think that turning a focus ring on a lens is pulling focus, in terms of a role, or process. You've got into thinking technical terms are indicative of the link with a role. The difference between a photography lens and a moving image lens clearly you haven't quite got a handle on, so when people give advice, they have to guess if you really mean what you ask?

I'm often left wondering if the movies you shoot would be better off made on a simple handicam - point, zoom, and shoot. Some of these have quite decent sensors, but are a balance package of components. You could plonk the camera down, jiggle the actors around and have a notional lens angle of say 73mm, rather than this mystical movie focal length of 85mm? Would it matter? For you I doubt it would - you could use the zoom to set the composition, and wouldn't need to reblock actors and move the camera.

You are trying to shoot movies with tiny bits of pro movie production technique, and this isn't working. You started out with a training course that did NOT cater for your individual learning style, so you have picked up lots of really bad habits that you cannot now shake off. You have a warped interpretation of technical matters, and have nearly understood things. People give advice. You take little strands of it, and then apply it in new situations out of context. You MUST start to try to understand this. You are building a rule book that is flawed, yet you cannot understand this, or why it has happened. You are treating movie making as a collection of little elements that when all done guarantee a great movie. Your scripts - the very basic building block of movie making are from what we've seen, not very good at all. You use actors who really cannot act, mixed in with a few who can. You struggle to direct them, or often, let them direct themselves.

Nothing you can do with technology will improve the fundamental problem. I think yesterday we finally convinced you that lenses don't magically change the speed of light, and that fast lenses can produce deep depth of field - something you really should have been aware of when trying to make buying choices. Today, your cine lenses turn out to be photographic lenses. What else have we misunderstood from your posts?

Ask yourself some questions. Do you NEED cine lenses, or will the ones you have work well enough in your production. I suspect they will. Have you ever checked how accurate the lens markings actually are? Pop one on, find a suitable subject and find the sharpest focus setting - measure it. Then change the stop and repeat. Does the sharpest point shift? You may be surprised how much it does. Next question is does it matter? To a professional focus puller, used to marking tape with pens, yes it does. If the cameraman needs to change aperture, all the marks will be wrong. Is this something you're aware of.

If your team's technique is to set up, and then focus visually and then shoot, that's actually fine - but it is not how real cinematographer crew work. Is all this stuff sorted in your head?

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale (Post 1957862)

I suspect they were suggesting you find another method for you to shoot your chase scene that doesn't involve using a long focal length lens. However, since you regularly seem to be given 4 + 4 and yet manage to come up with 3 it could be a misunderstanding on your part.

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson (Post 1957893)

Interesting one, Brian. Ryan needs to watch this because it demonstrates how you can break loads of rules of normal camerawork and still have an end product that works for the purpose.

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson (Post 1957898)

You don't use a shot to give a camera operator a break - that's plain silly!

You also never told us this was the kind of shot you had in mind, or we wouldn't have wasted time with all the circular running stuff. The long lens fast panning stuff hasn't, as far as I can see, been mentioned before. If we knew that's what you had in mind, then all the go closer and wider stuff we'd not have bothered with because for this shot, a wide angle would not work. You take responses literally, without understanding context is everything. Give us poor or incomplete info and you get wrong advice.

That shot uses a very long lens, and a background that's far enough away to blur really well. I doubt your 300mm would be enough for that one.

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson (Post 1957907)

The snag is that the G,B&U clip isnt a chase - it's a travel of one person. A garage cannot have that amount of fast travel can it?

Now you've said garage, I'm surprised you dont use a car for the camera, and drive past the parked cars at the actors running speed? You've then got an option to cut away to the chaser, then cut back to the first subject, but having gone back a bit to give the impression the car park is much longer. Concrete and colours in soft focus while subject legs it would look pretty good. If it's a concrete style multi-floor structure, you also have the great edit opportunity the passing vertical supports create when you want to cheat.

In my mind I'm now seeing for the first time, a scene that could really work with your basic kit, and be complimentary to action, not a barrier.

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson (Post 1957907)

The snag is that the G,B&U clip isnt a chase - it's a travel of one person. A garage cannot have that amount of fast travel can it?

Now you've said garage, I'm surprised you dont use a car for the camera, and drive past the parked cars at the actors running speed? You've then got an option to cut away to the chaser, then cut back to the first subject, but having gone back a bit to give the impression the car park is much longer. Concrete and colours in soft focus while subject legs it would look pretty good. If it's a concrete style multi-floor structure, you also have the great edit opportunity the passing vertical supports create when you want to cheat.

In my mind I'm now seeing for the first time, a scene that could really work with your basic kit, and be complimentary to action, not a barrier.