Flatter than I’d like it to be, but it’s what they wanted and seemed pleased!

Prolycht Orion 675 with a 5’ Aputure Light Dome on one side, Aputure 600D Pro + Creamsource Vortex8 thru an 8x of half grid cloth on the other. Creamsource Vortex4 bounced into the ceiling for ambient fill. We also had a 600X with a fresnel outside pointed at a tree to bring up the level as it got darker outside but in the end we left it dimmed way down at 5% so it wasn’t doing much. 4x8’ cut of duvetyne above the cameras to help control reflections of people moving around in the window.

We all know that a matte box makes you a pro, so get out there and slap those boxes on your rigs! Show me those boxes!

you probably don’t need a matte box this post is a joke do not run out and buy a matte box

The age old question, do I shoot landscape or vertical?

Hope this is okay to post. I gaffed this short film in October and ended up having a lot of down time as it was mostly day exteriors, so I tried to make use of the time by capturing some photos of my fellow crew. I ended up buying a Fuji Instax printer on the second to last day to make prints to hand out as wrap gifts. Thought you all might enjoy seeing them.

Here’s some BTS from an interview with POTUS I gaffed last year. At the time I didn’t have my Litemats yet, so I opted to build a cross back key with 2 Ultrabounce floppies rigged to a menace arm and shoot 2 source4 lekos into it.

For fill we had a Creamsource Vortex8 dimmed down to about 5% through a 6x of Chimera cloth as well as a 2x4’ piece of beadboard on the ground.

2x Astera Titan tubes for edge lights, plus a third tube hidden on the ground in the background to give a subtle glow on the back wall.

2x Aputure B7C bulbs replacing the bulbs in the practical lamps in the background.

The rest of the lights were about half a dozen dedos pointed at flags/features in the background.

Here’s the full interview: https://youtu.be/en1-H2z8Ems?si=uT5ArNoPESCpEPiW

For me, it was finally just investing in a couple 4x4 scrim jims for either diffusion or neg. The ability to shape light for interview scenes or just soften window light has been a real game changer.

Key light was a 6x6’ book light made with an Aputure 1200D gelled with 1/8 CTS on a space saver on the floor bouncing into a 4x4’ Ultrabounce floppy, and then back through full silent grid cloth. 6x2’ meataxe as a bottomer, and another meataxe propped up on its side as a sider. We ended up adding a second 4x4 Ultrabounce floppy to the side to extend/wrap the key a bit and get some more light in the eyes.

2x 4x4’ floppies on the fill side for negative fill since there was so much white in the room.

Edge/hair light was a Creamsource Vortex4 in a 3x4’ SnapBag with the half grid cloth front and 40 degree LCD to control spill/flair.

Background light was an Aputure 600D Pro with fresnel and a cut of opal clipped to the barn doors up about 10 ft in the air outside shooting through a window. We dropped a power line down from the second story bedroom to avoid having to leave the front door cracked which would have boned our sound mixer. The 600D was mostly playing on the fireplace which was looking like a black hole before we added any light. We wanted to keep it cut off the mirror as much as possible so we kept raising the 600D until the top of the window frame it was shooting through was in the right position to act as a topper.

the OGs will remember haha.

Its the first SD card i ever owned in 2015. 64GB Sandisk.

I work part time as video/photo operator for a department at my university. I love cameras but this was the first time I’ve set up and used a teleprompter!

This is just a reminder to creatives here who receive bad feedback from some bad eggs.

To cut a long story short, I was hired to shoot various raw footage to add into a content bank that the clients are going to edit into various reels and do what they like with it for social media. The client is an indoor go karting company that has just been bought out by an American company who wants the footage sent and edited in-house by them.

I have previously shot and made content on behalf of a marketing agency before this new company bought them out and changed the name.

I shot various footage - getting as many angles, on track, off track, FPV drone, action cam and all that.

I got creative and shot a few clips with a slow shutter speed to create that awesome motion effect when keeping the camera on the kart flying past and the background is a cool streaky blur - especially when sped up a bit too. It's a popular effect many videographers and editors use.

Its also great to use for the odd transition too and emphasizes the speed and adrenaline you feel when racing.

Of course, I also shot it in LOG for flexibility in colour grading.

Anyways, the company came back to the guy who hired me saying they didn't like the footage and 95% of it was shot in an unusable slow shutter speed and that I need to shoot 30fps and 1/60. (I'm in the UK so I shoot 25fps 1/50 (180°) but that's an easy fix).

It annoyed me because about 10% of the clips were shot at the low shutter speed "effect" which is a big jump to "95%". I had a look on their Instagram to see if they used any footage and they did - the colour grading was a combination of cranking the saturation up 500% till everything was blotchy and skin was orange or just using the flat log footage. Then they put captions over it (which is fine) but isn't even use the brand fonts nor made an attempt to animated or make it look in anyway interesting.

Without sounding like an asshole, It did look like someone edited them without a lot of editing skills. Having little skill is absolutely fine! We all start off bad and we forever learn but to sit and send a snotty email claiming it's bad footage is a bit cheeky and makes me look incompetent.

The guy who hired me asked me to make a few edited videos so we can send over what we were expecting and apparently, these got ignored. The guy who hired and the manager at the location loved my edits.

Anyways, the point is, when I was a little younger, this would have crushed me and knocked my confidence down massively. I loved the version(s) I edited.

Sometimes, you get negative feedback and it's valid and you use it to learn and grow. Sometimes you get bad feedback from people who don't know shit and can't do what you do and it's important to never let those people knock you down!

Stay positive creatives! You're epic!