Would using a star filter for cinematography be too weird?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, are you saying I should choose takes based on continuity first and performance second then?

[Pete Cofrancesco]

I agree the dp didn’t know what he was doing. As the director it was your responsibility to speak up while you were shooting. But I don’t think you even noticed until we pointed it out.

[Ryan Elder]

Well as far as speaking out goes, how do I, who is not a DP, suppose to know when they are moving the lights in a good way, or a very bad way? Say next time, I speak up but the DP is moving them in a good way, and doing his job right.

Since I am not a DP, how would I know?

[Paul R Johnson]

You're getting two separate things mixed up in ways that don't work?

When the director says cut - s/he will know if that take was a good one. At that point, the HoDs signify their perspectives - the DP is Happy, audio is happy, but continuity says "hang on, can we check......."
Then the director decides if it needs reshooting and makes sure the people who messed up, get it right. If at the end of this take continuity are happy but sound aren't, then while it's annoying - the sound people were 100% right to printout the error. Sometimes the director decides (maybe with consultation) if it can be fixed in post? Sound might say - we can replace the aircraft noise with the clear sound from the earlier take, and the Director accepts their professional recommendation. This is how team work saves the day. The Director is like the ship Captain - the focal point on which everything sits. You need to be this person.

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Ryan Elder

Oh okay, are you saying I should choose takes based on continuity first and performance second then?

You need both because you need to cut the film together, especially if the object in question is in foreground of the shot, The performance isn't there if part of the action is different, it's your job as the director to sustain the performances of both actors.Often you can get away with stuff in the background, but not in the foreground.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. Well sometimes when I replay the footage back, I don't notice a lot of things until later on a bigger screen. Perhaps I should arrange to play it back through a large laptop screen when shooting, so I can see more of the little things?

The aircraft thing happened before, but when an aircraft passed by, I would just call cut and wait for it to pass, and then restart the take, if that was best, rather than record a take with an aircraft on it. Replacing a take with sound from another take, never works in the past, cause the actors will say the lines a little differently, and usually you can tell the sync is a bit off.

[Paul R Johnson]

Not if somebody competent does it. Hell - I've used snippets of audio from lots of takes to fix errors. Clearly if it goes over somebodies line - that's a cut - but in the background, which is what I meant, it's not a problem - but the sound people need the guts to call a stop.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

What's the point of only looking at it when your at home editing when you can't fix it?

This is obvious stuff, look at her face. Not only is it too dark it's light from opposite direction and doesn't even remotely look like the first shot.

[Paul R Johnson]

In these two shots (without going back through the movie) were they cut together? The lighting is different but they've completely changed positions too - the lighting is just odd. her left cheek in shadow, but her hair and the guys face are bright? Why on earth was it lit like this?

[Josh Bass]

Cross lighting...her hair light is his key from another angle and it wasn't changed for the reverse

[Ryan Elder]

I am not sure, that shoot was a few years ago now. One thing I noticed is that when I shoot on the camera, the image is very flat and faded looking on the monitor. That is what it looked like in it's flat S-log 3 format.

So I didn't notice how apparent the difference in shadow was, until after the color grading later. The contrast, was not near as high before color grading. Next time I can put a LUT over the footage so the lighting contrast will be more obvious during shooting, if that's best.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

In these two shots (without going back through the movie) were they cut together? The lighting is different but they've completely changed positions too - the lighting is just odd. her left cheek in shadow, but her hair and the guys face are bright? Why on earth was it lit like this?

I know it's hard to believe, I took frame captures from the same scene a few seconds apart.

[Ryan Elder]

Well I think it's because of the S-log 3 formage being so flat, that you can hardly even see the shadow patterns as a result, until grading later.

[Brian Drysdale]

You may have gotten away with the lighting if you'd put in a turn to face the male character, because it would've fitted in with light not coming from the direction of the filing cabinet.

[Ryan Elder]

Well next time I will just get a much more experienced DP, with more varying styles to choose from, if I can find that good of a DP. But I won't go ahead with the project until I do.