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I often hear people conflate cinematography and videography, and that’s always pointed to a misunderstanding (I think) about the difference between the two.
I’m a product of the Vimeo era of the early 2010s, where so many young people were working their butts off to learn the art of lighting and composition and good storytelling and all of the techniques and trappings of cinema.
And for many of those kids (many of whom are now filmmakers at the height of the industry), videography was “grab a camera and film what is there.” “Filmmaking” or “cinematography” was envisioning something different and making it come to life with lighting and as much production value as you could muster for each frame.
It’s always been a journey. Every year you get closer to how you envision it. It reminds me of Ira Glass’s famous discussion about taste building and how the life of the creative is about pursuing the skills to craft how you see it in your head.
These shots aren’t particularly unique but they do show how the final frame looks after lighting, lens choice, composition, set dressing, hmu etc. vs the iPhone shot of “how it looks” without all the other behind the scenes work.
With @thejonathanhay @julian_keene19 @distantmoonhq @ndufoundation
Interview set up for a shoot we did back in December for a series on film history.
The inspiration for this set up was that throughout the early 2000s and through much of modern cinema, filmmakers have leaned towards a color theory that balances orange and blue as complementary colors in the lighting and coloring of their movies. So we placed dozens of small hard “orange” sources throughout the deep background to contrast blue color washes to create the color contrast that has become so common throughout Hollywood filmmaking.
We wanted this shoot to feel like a polished behind the scenes on a film set, which was easy to pull off considering the sound stage we were filming and already had two complete sets that we could frame in the background to feel like we were talking about the history of Film on an active sound stage.
@contemplativedad standing in. Caleb Symons co-directing with me. @mikecurry_dp as DP. Props and all sorts of fun Easter eggs by @d_cool20 and @julian_keene19.
Throwback to an interview we shot a couple years ago for a documentary in Texas. First slide frames from the interview second slide the lighting set up.
An interview setup for a series about totalitarian novels. The concept for the set was to place the host in a decaying library. As if the world of totalitarian novels had come true and the very books we were exploring were banned. To study these books you’d have to find an abandoned place outside of normal society. That’s what inspired this set.
1. Finished frame 2. Straight from camera without color, with boom in shot, and without set extensions of the ceiling 3. BTS of set without lighting 4. BTS of set without dressing or flooring 5. Framing of set with no art
DP: Jordan Bogart PD: Daniel Cooley @d_cool20 Prod. Studio @distantmoonhq
“If you can light an interview, you can light anything.”
I think Roger Deakins was the one who said that in a bts clip years ago around the time he shot No Country for Old Men.
I don’t know if he still agrees with that premise, but it’s always stuck with me. And this scene, shot by my friend @jcarrington3 beautifully shows the overlap in hub that quite is talking about. Essentially a 2-person interview setup that transitions into a 3 person roundtable shot (but in the context of a movie scene).
Long story short: don’t despise the opportunity to shoot interviews or talking heads. Everything in practice and preparation. Keep pushing. W/ @distantmoonhq
An interview shot that’s set on a recreation of the second deck of the famous wailing ship the Essex.
A set built by our Production team at @distantmoonhq , we wanted to immerse viewers of an upcoming series about Moby Dick in the world of whaling and give them a sense of not just the sort of environment that the characters of the novel would have found themselves, but to help frame their thinking about all of the events that take place in Herman Melville’s unbelievable epic novel.
The entire set with the exception of practicals and the key light was lit from outside of the ship using large @aputure.lighting LED‘s to imitate the look of the sun cutting through peepholes and grates on the upper deck of the ship.
The first two slides are shots from the series. The next shots are behind the scenes videos and photos showing what the set and lighting set up looked like.
cinematography by the always amazing @mikecurry_dp and featuring a stand-in blocking video with my friend and producer @jeremiahreganhcoc
Anytime that I walk into a new location (especially for a documentary) I take reference photos for the shots that I envision in that space. This is a great example of a final shot as envisioned compared to the reference photo/what the space looked like without any lighting or talent in place.
Unlike many of the soundstage shoots we do where we build custom sets, this was a real war games room at National Defense University (@ndufoundation) with my friend @thejonathanhay.
With the fabulous crew @dehrenberg @taylorroesch @julian_keene19
One of the desires we had for “The Moment” was that it should feel like a fever dream for much of the party. Emily partly wants to be there, partly doesn’t. Her friends have ulterior motives. But on top of that, between drugs and alcohol consumption, she’s already under the influence by the beginning of the film.
We wanted the party to feel like something like the heightened form of what viewers experienced at a crazy high-school party. It had to feel exciting but dangerous. And viewers had to feel like even while they were making decisions, it was constantly at risk of spinning out of control.
@jcarrington3 @stuhaightvideo and the rest of the lighting team really crushed the intense and sometimes oppressive feeling of the constantly evolving lighting of the party. The entire party component of the film and all scenes at the house had to be filmed in something like 10 days, so it was a mad rush getting through the setups and our crew and cast crushed it.
Once production ended, the even harder challenge of post began. I’ll talk about how @nathanbittnerfilm and I tackled that in upcoming posts.
For “The Moment”, my DP @jcarrington3 and I discussed the use of color for helping audiences feel like they are truly experiencing different alternate paths through the main character’s experience in the movie. There were over 30 different possible story combinations and many of them took place in a single house party at night time, so it was important to make the decision pathways feel extremely unique and like different worlds.
In these three shots, you can see the different color approach for the first point that a viewer has to choose between three options: “explore the party,” “get a drink,” or “take the pills.”
This first decision pushes you into three very different feeling worlds with different color palletes and dozens of follow up choices that ultimately make the character’s life great or horrific, depending on how the night goes.
Our protagonist, Emily, was brought to life by the great @piper.viper and the role of her best friends were crushed by @lisameyerovich and @brent_bentz_13.
I’ve shown a lot of BTS of interview lighting, set ups over the last week, and I thought I’d start showing frames and behind the scenes from my choose your own adventure film “The Moment.”
The moment is a film where the audience gets to walk in the shoes of a high school girl as she’s dragged to a house party by her best friend. A cautionary tale about the consequences of your decisions and a story that’s meant to empower young people with the understanding of their choices, the moment has 30+ different branches that have user can experience based on their decisions.
In these frames, I wanted to show how lighting and set dressing can create a space in otherwise ordinary house. The first few slides are shots from the film. The next couple slides show the houseparty alcohol bottles, trash, and beer cans set dressed, but without any lighting in the final slide shows the house before the art department came through “destroyed“ the environment. The objective was for the space to feel overwhelming and in some ways claustrophobic. Art department led by @d_cool20 and the g&e and camera team led by the incredible @jcarrington3 really brought the world to life. Production by @distantmoonhq
This shot is another example of an extreme wide for an interview set up, where a host of lights had to be in the main A shot in order to light the talent appropriately and separate them from the room.
You’ll see in the first frame, the final composite with all lights removed and the multiple A-cam plates meshed together in post.
In the second shot, you’ll see what it looked like on the day on the monitor for the filming of the interview. In order to get beautiful Rembrandt lighting for all camera angles. It’s often necessary to get the lights closer and lower to the talent so that the light doesn’t spill all over the room and so that it has a nice shape on the subjects faces.
This technique is also loved by our sound mixers who are able to get the boom mics way closer to the talent without having to rely on lav mics which often introduce clothing movement or more muffled audio than well-placed boom mics.
The other shots show the location scout that happened a week earlier with stands @yettanother and Brittany Baldwin sitting in.
Shot by @dehrenberg with lighting by @taylorroesch and @stuhaightvideo produced by @d_cool20 and @maktrob
Music from my new film Revolutionary America by @ryanmoorecomposer and @timfain
Connect
Social Proof
Real Impact. Real Results.
Filmmaking vs iPhone.
I often hear people conflate cinematography and videography, and that’s always pointed to a misunderstanding (I think) about the difference between the two.
I’m a product of the Vimeo era of the early 2010s, where so many young people were working their butts off to learn the art of lighting and composition and good storytelling and all of the techniques and trappings of cinema.
And for many of those kids (many of whom are now filmmakers at the height of the industry), videography was “grab a camera and film what is there.” “Filmmaking” or “cinematography” was envisioning something different and making it come to life with lighting and as much production value as you could muster for each frame.
It’s always been a journey. Every year you get closer to how you envision it. It reminds me of Ira Glass’s famous discussion about taste building and how the life of the creative is about pursuing the skills to craft how you see it in your head.
These shots aren’t particularly unique but they do show how the final frame looks after lighting, lens choice, composition, set dressing, hmu etc. vs the iPhone shot of “how it looks” without all the other behind the scenes work.
With @thejonathanhay @julian_keene19 @distantmoonhq @ndufoundation
Interview set up for a shoot we did back in December for a series on film history.
The inspiration for this set up was that throughout the early 2000s and through much of modern cinema, filmmakers have leaned towards a color theory that balances orange and blue as complementary colors in the lighting and coloring of their movies. So we placed dozens of small hard “orange” sources throughout the deep background to contrast blue color washes to create the color contrast that has become so common throughout Hollywood filmmaking.
We wanted this shoot to feel like a polished behind the scenes on a film set, which was easy to pull off considering the sound stage we were filming and already had two complete sets that we could frame in the background to feel like we were talking about the history of Film on an active sound stage.
@contemplativedad standing in. Caleb Symons co-directing with me. @mikecurry_dp as DP. Props and all sorts of fun Easter eggs by @d_cool20 and @julian_keene19.
Post sup: @brandondetraglia
Abel. Dallas, 2023.
All natural light. Captured for a documentary. Playing with spaces and compositions.
@distantmoonhq
Throwback to an interview we shot a couple years ago for a documentary in Texas. First slide frames from the interview second slide the lighting set up.
@distantmoonhq #lighting #documentary #behindthescenes
An interview setup for a series about totalitarian novels.
The concept for the set was to place the host in a decaying library. As if the world of totalitarian novels had come true and the very books we were exploring were banned. To study these books you’d have to find an abandoned place outside of normal society. That’s what inspired this set.
1. Finished frame
2. Straight from camera without color, with boom in shot, and without set extensions of the ceiling
3. BTS of set without lighting
4. BTS of set without dressing or flooring
5. Framing of set with no art
DP: Jordan Bogart
PD: Daniel Cooley @d_cool20
Prod. Studio @distantmoonhq
“If you can light an interview, you can light anything.”
I think Roger Deakins was the one who said that in a bts clip years ago around the time he shot No Country for Old Men.
I don’t know if he still agrees with that premise, but it’s always stuck with me. And this scene, shot by my friend @jcarrington3 beautifully shows the overlap in hub that quite is talking about. Essentially a 2-person interview setup that transitions into a 3 person roundtable shot (but in the context of a movie scene).
Long story short: don’t despise the opportunity to shoot interviews or talking heads. Everything in practice and preparation. Keep pushing.
W/ @distantmoonhq
An interview shot that’s set on a recreation of the second deck of the famous wailing ship the Essex.
A set built by our Production team at @distantmoonhq , we wanted to immerse viewers of an upcoming series about Moby Dick in the world of whaling and give them a sense of not just the sort of environment that the characters of the novel would have found themselves, but to help frame their thinking about all of the events that take place in Herman Melville’s unbelievable epic novel.
The entire set with the exception of practicals and the key light was lit from outside of the ship using large @aputure.lighting LED‘s to imitate the look of the sun cutting through peepholes and grates on the upper deck of the ship.
The first two slides are shots from the series. The next shots are behind the scenes videos and photos showing what the set and lighting set up looked like.
cinematography by the always amazing @mikecurry_dp and featuring a stand-in blocking video with my friend and producer @jeremiahreganhcoc
Final shot vs location scout.
Anytime that I walk into a new location (especially for a documentary) I take reference photos for the shots that I envision in that space. This is a great example of a final shot as envisioned compared to the reference photo/what the space looked like without any lighting or talent in place.
Unlike many of the soundstage shoots we do where we build custom sets, this was a real war games room at National Defense University (@ndufoundation) with my friend @thejonathanhay.
With the fabulous crew @dehrenberg @taylorroesch @julian_keene19
One of the desires we had for “The Moment” was that it should feel like a fever dream for much of the party. Emily partly wants to be there, partly doesn’t. Her friends have ulterior motives. But on top of that, between drugs and alcohol consumption, she’s already under the influence by the beginning of the film.
We wanted the party to feel like something like the heightened form of what viewers experienced at a crazy high-school party. It had to feel exciting but dangerous. And viewers had to feel like even while they were making decisions, it was constantly at risk of spinning out of control.
@jcarrington3 @stuhaightvideo and the rest of the lighting team really crushed the intense and sometimes oppressive feeling of the constantly evolving lighting of the party. The entire party component of the film and all scenes at the house had to be filmed in something like 10 days, so it was a mad rush getting through the setups and our crew and cast crushed it.
Once production ended, the even harder challenge of post began. I’ll talk about how @nathanbittnerfilm and I tackled that in upcoming posts.
@piper.viper @brent_bentz_13 @taylorabigailactress @matt_perl @lisameyerovich @themagicswaggin @faithandtrust86 @snjohnson1014 @d_cool20 @brandondetraglia @nathanbittnerfilm
For “The Moment”, my DP @jcarrington3 and I discussed the use of color for helping audiences feel like they are truly experiencing different alternate paths through the main character’s experience in the movie. There were over 30 different possible story combinations and many of them took place in a single house party at night time, so it was important to make the decision pathways feel extremely unique and like different worlds.
In these three shots, you can see the different color approach for the first point that a viewer has to choose between three options: “explore the party,” “get a drink,” or “take the pills.”
This first decision pushes you into three very different feeling worlds with different color palletes and dozens of follow up choices that ultimately make the character’s life great or horrific, depending on how the night goes.
Our protagonist, Emily, was brought to life by the great @piper.viper and the role of her best friends were crushed by @lisameyerovich and @brent_bentz_13.
I’ve shown a lot of BTS of interview lighting, set ups over the last week, and I thought I’d start showing frames and behind the scenes from my choose your own adventure film “The Moment.”
The moment is a film where the audience gets to walk in the shoes of a high school girl as she’s dragged to a house party by her best friend. A cautionary tale about the consequences of your decisions and a story that’s meant to empower young people with the understanding of their choices, the moment has 30+ different branches that have user can experience based on their decisions.
In these frames, I wanted to show how lighting and set dressing can create a space in otherwise ordinary house. The first few slides are shots from the film. The next couple slides show the houseparty alcohol bottles, trash, and beer cans set dressed, but without any lighting in the final slide shows the house before the art department came through “destroyed“ the environment. The objective was for the space to feel overwhelming and in some ways claustrophobic. Art department led by @d_cool20 and the g&e and camera team led by the incredible @jcarrington3 really brought the world to life. Production by @distantmoonhq
This shot is another example of an extreme wide for an interview set up, where a host of lights had to be in the main A shot in order to light the talent appropriately and separate them from the room.
You’ll see in the first frame, the final composite with all lights removed and the multiple A-cam plates meshed together in post.
In the second shot, you’ll see what it looked like on the day on the monitor for the filming of the interview. In order to get beautiful Rembrandt lighting for all camera angles. It’s often necessary to get the lights closer and lower to the talent so that the light doesn’t spill all over the room and so that it has a nice shape on the subjects faces.
This technique is also loved by our sound mixers who are able to get the boom mics way closer to the talent without having to rely on lav mics which often introduce clothing movement or more muffled audio than well-placed boom mics.
The other shots show the location scout that happened a week earlier with stands @yettanother and Brittany Baldwin sitting in.
Shot by @dehrenberg with lighting by @taylorroesch and @stuhaightvideo produced by @d_cool20 and @maktrob
Music from my new film Revolutionary America by @ryanmoorecomposer and @timfain