The Roaming DP: Cinematography, Filmmaking and More The Roaming D.P.

What's the difference between videographer and cinematography? And when do we know we can/should call ourselves cinematographers? If you're aspiring to be a cinematographer you don't necessarily need initials after your name (ASC, BSC, CSC for example) to be one. But you do need to have experiences and education that elevates you from being a videographer.
For more content including techniques for film making, examples of work and more follow me at The Roaming DP, on my YouTube channel and on Instagram

The sun is one big ol' light that can't be beat - unless of course you have rows and rows and banks and banks of lights. So it's easier to work with it as it moves across the sky during your shoot. Diffusion, bouncing, blocking it with negative fill - these are all ways we modify the sun's light to make our scenes look good. But we also need to plan ahead to know where the sun will be during the day. 

This podcast / video includes an example video of positioning the camera and talent through an afternoon to keep a consistent look to the short film.
For more content including techniques for film making, examples of work and more follow me at The Roaming DP, on my YouTube channel and on Instagram

The bad news (don't worry - see good new below): LUTs aren't a magic bullet for cinematographers. If you're a cinematographer and doing your own color grading, don't fall for the promise of a LUT making your footage look amazing. LUTs will only get you so far. There's a ton more to consider - lighting, wardrobe, locations, etc. And all these things go into your picture. LUTs are good for changing your footage in certain ways, and each LUT does it's own thing, but they won't take a bad shot and make it a good one.

The good news: if you know what to expect from a LUT, and how to film with that LUT in mind, you're going to be very happy. 
For more content including techniques for film making, examples of work and more follow me at The Roaming DP, on my YouTube channel and on Instagram

There's so much that I love about cinematography and film making, but it wasn't hard to come up with my 3 favorite things about it. I found film making a little later in life. I spent a lot of years working my way around the corporate ladder, sitting at desks and computers, driving delivery trucks, playing music on the West Coast and Southwest scenes. But when I found myself behind a camera, everything changed for me. It took a long time (and is still a process) to learn enough to consider myself good at this. And looking back, these are the top 3 things I love about it. 
For more content including techniques for film making, examples of work and more follow me at The Roaming DP, on my YouTube channel and on Instagram

In this episode, I talk about how to light a film scene that is supposed to be dark, even though lights are required to see actors, environments and other things in the frame. And how do we do that and maintain a nice, clean image? Meaning, how do we make sure the shadow parts of the scene don't have a lot of camera/ISO noise?

A big part of the answer is to "light for your sensor." Another part of the answer is that we need to use shadows to tell the audience that the scene is supposed to be a dark place - outdoors at night, in a basement, in an attic, in a bar, etc.

This audio is taken from a video I created for my blog. In that video I show practical examples of what I'm talking about. Feel free to listen here or continue to my site for the video on my blog.

Gear:
GVM Lite Panel
Godox SL60iid
Sennheiser Boom Mic SKE600
Aputure Accent b7c
Godox Softbox
For more content including techniques for film making, examples of work and more follow me at The Roaming DP, on my YouTube channel and on Instagram

In this next installment of "Small Setups for Cinematograpy" we'll take a look at a quick and easy setup that was small because of time and space. No, that's not a reference to Dr. Who. It's actually about having a very, very small amount of time to get a good look in a very small space. This setup uses 1 Aputure C300 with a softbox and grid, and 2 GVM Lite Panels.

This podcast is the audio from a video on my blog. In the video you'll see the setup and different things I talk about here. So please feel free to watch the video for those insights. See the link to my site below.  
For more content including techniques for film making, examples of work and more follow me at The Roaming DP, on my YouTube channel and on Instagram