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At the $1000 to $1500 used price point they are at now the 5Dmk2 is still a very solid camera. I already sold mine about 6 months ago when getting $1500 was still pretty easy. Expecting they have dropped since then. If you've never shot full frame, it really is pretty darn nice.

Didn't spend a ton of time looking for good examples, but found this one right off the bat. A "Dark" scene from Django Unchained. Note the depth, the gradation of the light, the key on the JF's face. That bright overhead (which QT loves) is totally unrealistic, but it sure looks good.

Some of your test shots are a little flat for my taste, but in the ones that look good you have at least a key light (the candle) providing some depth and focusing the eye on a particular part of the frame. When the whole frame is dark (or when the only lit areas are away from where you want the...

Like any technique there are places where it's the right choice and places where it's a cop out. They should move the story forward not just be exposition. Knowing the info revealed in the flashback should CHANGE the present for the viewer.

Steve nails it. Without proper lighting the scene looks flat and uninteresting. You can take a properly exposed and lit scene and make it look very dark, but you can't take an underexposed and poorly scene and make it look good.

"So will a longer focal length create a more blurred background?" Non-technical/simple answer: Yes.

I think there are a couple of styles for this. One is BEGIN FLASHBACK: . . . END FLASHBACK: I think some people use FLASHBACK – TRAIN ACCIDENT . . . BACK TO PRESENT DAY Be very careful as well. The flashback is a notorious crutch of the beginning screen writer. I have used them, and nothing...

I'd agree. If I have the luxury of a good 1st AD (only had this once) I may have them do a "basic coverage" shot list for all the scenes, then I'll come behind and tweak that. Then me, 1st, and DP all confer to create the final list.

You're right. Inferior equipment would just make a great DP have to work harder to make it look "good"/interesting. He'd figure out a way. Lighting gets short shrift on film making message boards many times. I see tons of footage posted, and people saying it looks "great", that is flat as a...

Really glad to see this completed!

I've always contended you could give him a couple of work lights and bounce boards (and his light meter) and give 98.5% of us a 2 ton grip truck and he'd make a better looking film. Gear just helps you execute the ideas and techniques you have in your head. It doesn't give you the ideas or...

Lighting (and operation skill) will have way more impact than the camera also. Give Roger Deakins a t3i and pretty much anybody on this board an arriflex and his film will still look 1000% better than yours.

Sounds like you overcame a lot of obstacles to get it made, congratulations. Just getting a film like this completed is a huge accomplishment. Visually it has some very interesting moments, but also suffers from looking very "flat" a lot of the time on interiors. Probably a result of not being...

Director (or in a perfect world director and 1st AD) do the shot list and then confer with DP who gives his/her input. At least that's how I want it to work, not always reality though.

OK, gonna bump them in the order I made them over maybe the next week.

Bump... My first film. I mean I had never even shot my kid's soccer gamer on a camcorder before I made this film. It's poorly paced (could stand about 10 minutes trimmed), has some really bad acting, BUT it got into the H. P. Lovecraft film festival in Portland and it features not only Lloyd...

Fair enough, and my general policy on these matters, but I actually respect a couple people on this forum, heh.

Kind of a forum etiquette question. I've been non-existent on the boards for about 18 months or so. Would it be bad form to bump one or more of my films in the screening room to kind of re-introduce myself?

Exactly, or sacrifice a little DOF, but never adjust shutter speed for exposure, only for intentional effect.

Done intentionally it can be a very cool effect (as your examples). Done because the guy shooting the film doesn't know better than to change the shutter speed for exposure reasons it screams "Newbie". I don't know how many exterior shots I have seen in 48 hour and other films where every day...