[Community Project] Cinematography

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wheatgrinder

Discussing all aspects of cinematography for the ongoing IT Community Project.

Topic starters:

  • Image Quality
  • Meta Style
  • Common shot sizes
  • Mise-en Scene
  • Serving the story

Image Quality:
23.976 FPS, 1920x1080 progressive.

Meta Style:
Apply stylistic flourishes in all remote scenes to tie it all together.


Common shot sizes
It seems to me that one thing that will help keep our various efforts looking similar will be the shot framing size. For example, If we define that a Close Up shot has the eyes the upper third line, tight enough to crop the top but not so tight as to clip the chin and we all do our CU's to that specification we will have a nice coherency in our CU.


Mise-en Scene
This basically comes down to production design. Since we have many different locations and varying resources to apply to production design we can instead establish some basic look and feel guidelines for wardrobe and set dressing. Such as no full white shirts, no floral patterns. Wardrobe blues and grays only.


Serving the story
Guidelines for using cinematography in support of the story. I think this will mostly likely be a list of Don'ts rather than a list of dos, but lets see where this goes..
 
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16:9 would be my shout unless anyone steps on with strong opinions to the contrary.

C&C: because you're shooting first, if any of this info hasn't been provided for you then the rest of the units will just have to match whatever you do.
 
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I believe most the cameras in use on this project support 23.976 rather than 24p. Probably need to go with the most common option here.. so 23.976 fps.

If your doing sound, get those all important slate, claps or banging on pots in the shot and get decent on camera audio for sync reference. Iv been using the adobe ppro cc sync to wave feature to great effect with just on camera audio, minus slate or claps in many takes.
 
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I want to argue for wider than 16x9. say, 1920 x 800 .

This will give some latitude in editing for adjusting eye lines, headroom issues etc. I also like the way it looks better. However, the horse might already be out of the barn on this one and I'm not completely committed to it.
 
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I agree with what you're saying wheat. Unfortunately your post came after my shoot. I figured it safer to shoot 16x9, since it's a more standard format, and didn't really want to lock everyone into a wider format. We can potentially look at reframing wider in post for my stuff, but that is likely going to be hit and miss (I'm about to do a rough edit of what we've got, minus cutaways and a few pickups, so I can see if it works).
 
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cheeseandachallenge said:
We can potentially look at reframing wider in post for my stuff, but that is likely going to be hit and miss (I'm about to do a rough edit of what we've got, minus cutaways and a few pickups, so I can see if it works).
Click to expand...
This works for most shots - and they do look better. There are a handful (though in the minority) that frame better in 16:9 rather than 2.35:1

Pickups tomorrow. What do you want me to do? Shoot for 2.35:1? Or 16:9, then give the footage to Cracker (he can do a rough edit, try reframing, if it works, everyone else can shoot that way)?.
 
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Well, it's easy enough to frame for 2:35:1 when I shoot if that is what we decided to do.

Cheese, how is that working out for what you shot? On paper it's an easy crop if you shoot with it in mind, but you might have to adjust too many frames too much for the codec to hold up.

The couple screenies you posted looked like they might re-frame. (working from memory)

At this point I think (Wheat, tell me if you concur) we should go with the frame that works best for what's been shot and the rest of us will match that aspect ratio.

Mr. Supervising DP (Wheat) - where did we land on motion in the shots? I have an idea for using few nearly imperceptible moves to add a bit of an unsettling feel - maybe just towards the end with the phone call, maybe starting earlier. Still discussing with my director.
 
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I like 2.35:1 and I reckon, having seen a rough edit of the Wellington scene, that it'll reframe quite nicely. Obviously, it's your footage C&C, so if you're not comfortable reframing then let us know.
 
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As no call was made before I shot last night, I couldn't really pull that on my DoP at the last minute half way through a shoot (well I could have, but he wouldn't be happy) so we stuck with 16:9. I haven't had a chance to look through last nights footage, and I'm away for a week or so, so I can't do a rough edit/try reframing. I bought my memory card, and will take a quick look on my laptop when I get the chance.

When I cropped reframed in my test edit, most of it did indeed look better. There were one or two shots worse off with the reframe (particularly this one - http://imgur.com/ZF3c0dX - I didn't take the best still from it, but the lamp sits a bit cleaner in the top corner, with Laura in the bottom corner - lamp frames a bit awkwardly with crop) - but they are the minority.

I'm happy for the reframe. My DoP may be a little annoyed, but I can handle that :p I'll look through the footage from in the next hour or two and say if it'll reframe ok.
 
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I think the viral doesn't need to be cropped, but scaled, so it has blackbars on the left and right.
I would suggest the same for the footage from the filmcrew in the Dutch scene.
Actually the pyramid wouldn't even fit in a 2,35:1 frame :P
So I shot it 16:9. Which sets it apart from the story as being a video in the story. :)

@Jooble: I'll send you a preview, so you can see what I mean.
The other filmunits have seen my preview, right? (I know CF, C&C, Nick and Dave have)

BTW, the fly-over works great!
 
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Just putting this idea out there (not that i have a preference on this) but the film could change aspect ratios based on location... crazier things have happened :P some films do it.
 
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I think the 'viral video' can definitely have a different aspect ratio, but we should stick with 2:35 for the body of the film. If you want to stylistically separate the 'News' segment of your piece, Walter, then I think the scaled down version works pretty well.
 
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