Would using a star filter for cinematography be too weird?

[Ryan Elder]

I can, but I don't want to get carried away with all this equipment. Can't I just use a gimbal for the vertical movements, to save money and do a few takes if necessary, or is a gimbal not accurate enough?

[Paul R Johnson]

Ryan, I'm wondering if you actually watch movies thoroughly enough? You seem to locate scenes you want to copy, but don't appreciate how they were actually shot at all. If a movie has a steady cam operator then ask the question why they also had dolly shots.

I'm confused as to why you cannot determine the correct tool for the job? Hand-held, gimballed hand-held, stabilised, jib mounted, dolly mounted, cable flown, remote headed.

The rotate around the subject shot we did to death ages ago, didn't realise you still had it planned. We said dolly and track back then. I don't think we changed our mind, but of course you still want to do it your own way. we thought it was unlikely to work with a long lens, but did you ever try?

As for your gimbal accuracy. It's down to the gimbal and importantly the operator. Can you do the movement with it. My own limited experience with the things is that controlled panning is a weak link - fine on wider angles, but on a long lens, less controlled i.e. jerky!

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Ryan Elder

I can, but I don't want to get carried away with all this equipment. Can't I just use a gimbal for the vertical movements, to save money and do a few takes if necessary, or is a gimbal not accurate enough?

This isn't all this equipment, it's pretty basic stuff. Many of the short films made here have this type of kit.

You can do without it, but you need to stop pretending you're making a 1960s Hollywood thriller. You could make an edgy Paul Greengrass style thriller, which could be better than the one you're planning.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Ryan, I'm wondering if you actually watch movies thoroughly enough? You seem to locate scenes you want to copy, but don't appreciate how they were actually shot at all. If a movie has a steady cam operator then ask the question why they also had dolly shots.

I'm confused as to why you cannot determine the correct tool for the job? Hand-held, gimballed hand-held, stabilised, jib mounted, dolly mounted, cable flown, remote headed.

The rotate around the subject shot we did to death ages ago, didn't realise you still had it planned. We said dolly and track back then. I don't think we changed our mind, but of course you still want to do it your own way. we thought it was unlikely to work with a long lens, but did you ever try?

As for your gimbal accuracy. It's down to the gimbal and importantly the operator. Can you do the movement with it. My own limited experience with the things is that controlled panning is a weak link - fine on wider angles, but on a long lens, less controlled i.e. jerky!

Oh well I didn't think that I was copying scenes, if I am using a different tool, am I? I thought that all my movements, had purpose, rather than copying.

I can use a dolly to rotate around the subject, if that's better. I thought that I could save money if the gimbal operator was skilled enough, but I could get a dolly for it. I did a similar shot with a long lens before, and it worked, but just need more practice.

Originally Posted by Brian Drysdale

This isn't all this equipment, it's pretty basic stuff. Many of the short films made here have this type of kit.

You can do without it, but you need to stop pretending you're making a 1960s Hollywood thriller. You could make an edgy Paul Greengrass style thriller, which could be better than the one you're planning.

Oh okay, but who says I am making a 1960s Hollywood thriller though? I never thought of it that way. I don't want to use Paul Greengrasses style though. I mean his style has several lens zooms and it was said on here before not to use lens zooms because they look cheesy. I only wanted to zoom in one shot so far, for something, but Greengrass's style has zooms all over the place. So wouldn't those zooms look cheesy, as it was said on here before? Plus I would have to get a zoom lens then.

Greengrass's shots are also all handheld all the time it seems, and I would really like to use a tripod for a lot of the shots, and a gimbal and/or dolly for smooth movement, rather than go all handheld. Plus I am trying to come up with my own style rather than duplicate Greengrass. But am I taking a bad approach by coming up with my own?

[Brian Drysdale]

A lot of the references you've used has been from the 1960s, with back lights, deeper focus etc. Even thinking about using black and white.

The use of the zoom isn't something that springs to mind with a Paul Greengrass films, since a lot of it is handheld, although he does cut in the middle of the zooms at times. However, you don't need to cut on zooms

The Bourne Supremacy (4/9) Movie CLIP - Fighting Close & Dirty (2004) HD - YouTube

The stony itself comes up with its style. driving what you need to do. Given the very basic way you're thinking, getting something that's watchable over the length of a feature film may be the real issue, rather having your own style. ,

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, the were a lot of zooms in The Bourne Ultimatum and Green Zone. It's been a while since I've seen Bourne Supremacy, so I can watch it.

I don't remember saying I would want to shoot in black and white. I said monochrome color before, as in scenes being tinted one color. I never saw that in a 60s movie before.

I thought a lot of movies after the 60s have had backlight as well. But I don't want to copy Greengrasses style, and thought I would use my own more. Plus that kind of style Greengrass use I find to be limiting. For example, the rotating dolly shot I talked about doing, you would never see in a Greengrass movie. So some of the things I want to do, he wouldn't do, but is that okay, to use my own ideas?

Plus I don't like the way Greengrass composes a lot of his shots, because a lot of his shots, are shot from the side more of characters, and there is less intimacy that way, with the characters, at least for me. Not all of his shots, but a lot of them. I also find the shaky cam during fight scenes and action scenes to be really annoying, and want to reduce that, if possible.

[Paul R Johnson]

Ryan - we often forget you can't process figures of speech - it's hard to remember you take everything literally. When I say copy - I mean you see a scene in a movie, like it and want to replicate the components indoor movie, not copy a complete scene - just steal the important bits, and Brian (if he'll forgive me) doesn't mean you really are trying to make a 60s movie, just that much of what you say and do would fit that genre rather accurately.

You also have started to constantly mention budget as if it's a killer factor when you told us money was fine. Saving money is a sensible thing to do - but thinking you can avoid essential hires by doing things with a gimbal is not saving money - probably wasting it.

Let's go over your circular camera move (despite having done it to death) with a dolly on a track the camera points to the centre of the circle where the actors are, so panning will be gentle, only needing to keep the subjects in frame if they're not dead on centre. If you are doing it with a gimbal then the gimbal's normal mode keeps the camera locked to the compass direction by default. If you want to keep it centred on the actors, you will need to add in control movement that is effectively a continuous pan in one direction. My modest one would struggle with this. My basic gimbal seems to be able to do this smoothly only if the circular movement speed matches the gimbals speed. I tried to do your shot walking in a circle in the garden, and it was pretty horrible. I can almost do it on wide angle with a hand held camera. I cannot do it on a standard lens setting and it's no use at all on telephoto. Have you tried this shot with a gimbal yet?

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Paul R Johnson

Ryan - we often forget you can't process figures of speech - it's hard to remember you take everything literally. When I say copy - I mean you see a scene in a movie, like it and want to replicate the components indoor movie, not copy a complete scene - just steal the important bits, and Brian (if he'll forgive me) doesn't mean you really are trying to make a 60s movie, just that much of what you say and do would fit that genre rather accurately.

You also have started to constantly mention budget as if it's a killer factor when you told us money was fine. Saving money is a sensible thing to do - but thinking you can avoid essential hires by doing things with a gimbal is not saving money - probably wasting it.

Let's go over your circular camera move (despite having done it to death) with a dolly on a track the camera points to the centre of the circle where the actors are, so panning will be gentle, only needing to keep the subjects in frame if they're not dead on centre. If you are doing it with a gimbal then the gimbal's normal mode keeps the camera locked to the compass direction by default. If you want to keep it centred on the actors, you will need to add in control movement that is effectively a continuous pan in one direction. My modest one would struggle with this. My basic gimbal seems to be able to do this smoothly only if the circular movement speed matches the gimbals speed. I tried to do your shot walking in a circle in the garden, and it was pretty horrible. I can almost do it on wide angle with a hand held camera. I cannot do it on a standard lens setting and it's no use at all on telephoto. Have you tried this shot with a gimbal yet?

Oh okay, sorry if I wasn't understanding. I just didn't think of this project as a 60s style, aside from a lighting reference from a movie, and a blocking reference from another. But yes, I should have taken it as a figure of speech :).

We did a similar circular move around a subject in the one short film I did. It's at 5:09 into the movie:

Battle Damaged Souls - YouTube

That was done on a gimbal on an 85mm lens. I thought you could unlock that mode though, unless I am wrong. But is that shot good enough? If not I can get the dolly. For this current project, I want to do a shot going around the actor, but don't want a wide lens, to avoid barrel distortion. The shot is in a completely different context though of course, but with a similar move of going around the actor.

As for money being fine, well it depends. I am trying to save in a lot of areas, so camera movement wise, I thought I would just go for a pan and tilt tripod, a gimbal, and a car mount, for the car shots, but not anything more like a jib, etc. Unless I really could use more?

[Brian Drysdale]

The circular shot doesn't look the same as one on a dolly, it really depends on what you're trying to achieve and the nature of the scene. It's more in the Paul Greengrass style than a classical circular track.

[Paul R Johnson]

I didn't find it worked, to be honest - it started good with the rotating around the subject but then the pull away to wobblycam of the graves spoiled it for me - looked uncontrolled. When it finishes there's that awful edit from similar shot to similar shot - and that one wrenches - and of course all those war graves that aren't vertical - that's weird. A dolly would have sorted that out wouldn't it?

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, well for the next shot I am not going to move the camera over to a bunch of graves after. I was just going to rotate around the actor only, if that would work?

And if the it's Paul Greengrass's style to use a gimbal instead, then maybe that's his style, but I have never seen him do a shot like that, where it circled around someone. I could use a dolly, it's just int he past, when I tried to use a dolly, there were bumps in the footage here and there, so I decided to throw those shots out and not use them. We ended up getting a gimbal for the shots, and that worked a lot smoother, or so I thought, because the bumps in the dolly track were more obvious. But as far as that gimbal shot looking uncontrolled goes, do gimbals always look uncontrolled in their movements, or can one make a gimbal controlled?

[Brian Drysdale]

You're being literal again, whether or not he does a circular shot on gimbal doesn't matter, it's closer to one of his handheld shots than a circular track on a dolly. It's close up and personal like a handheld shot.

The DSLR cameras you use are so poor for handheld filming you need to use a gimbal

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. I just haven't seen Greengrass do circular type movements, so I thought his style was totally different in comparison. But if it's closer to Greengrass, then it is.

But if it's similar, should I use a gimbal then, since Paul R Johnson pointed out that it looks uncontrolled and doesn't work?

[Brian Drysdale]

Why would you use a shot that doesn't work?

A shot can be uncontrolled and work brilliantly.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh I am not saying I want to use a shot that doesn't work. What I mean is, can I use a gimbal at all, if it was pointed out that it doesn't work, because it looks uncontrolled. Can I do a rotating shot around someone with a gimbal, and uncontrolled, or will that not work?