I once spent three weeks finishing a documentary short, only to have the entire thing mothballed because I’d used a track that sounded “perfect” but lacked the proper clearances. I sat in a dark edit suite, staring at a beautiful sequence that was effectively dead on arrival because I’d prioritized the mood over the paperwork….
I spent three hours last Tuesday watching a junior editor try to “fix” a keyed shot using a magic plugin that cost more than my first car. He was staring at a subject whose hair looked like it had been dipped in radioactive lime juice, convinced that a better sensor or a smarter algorithm would…
I remember standing in a muddy field outside of Galway in ’98, watching a producer stare at a weather app like it was a holy text, convinced that a high-end weather-sealed sensor would somehow stop the sky from falling. We had spent three days prepping a lighting plot for a sunset that never came, only…
I spent most of my twenties watching people panic over bitrates and dynamic range numbers as if they were holy scripture, convinced that a higher price tag would somehow compensate for a lack of vision. I’ve seen wide-eyed kids walk into gear shops asking how to choose your first mirrorless camera based entirely on a…
I once spent three days on a documentary set in a cramped basement in Dublin, fighting a single, flickering fluorescent tube that refused to behave, only to realize the fix wasn’t a new fixture—it was a piece of black foam core and a better understanding of shadow. Most people approaching how to set up home…
Read More “Home Cinema Lighting: Why You Don’t Need More Gear, You Need Better Placement” »
I spent three weeks on a documentary set in the Pyrenees once, staring at a script that was technically perfect—beat for beat, structure for structure—but it felt like reading a technical manual for a machine that had no soul. People spend thousands on masterclasses and software, obsessing over whether they know how to write a…
I remember sitting in a tiny, windowless edit suite in South London, staring at a waveform that looked perfect on my $3,000 monitors, only to have the director tell me it sounded like canned garbage when he played it back on his laptop in the car. It’s a gut punch that never gets easier. People…
I’ve spent half my life watching people spend six months’ rent on a new drone, only to fly it like they’re playing a video game, producing nothing but shaky, nauseating sweeps that no editor on earth can save. They treat this supposed complete guide to drone filming like it’s a manual for a new piece…
I remember a shoot in a cramped, windowless basement in South London back in ’04. We were burning through the last of a precious roll of 16mm, the producer was breathing down my neck about the daylight robbery of the rental fee, and the director kept asking if we could “just try one more angle”…
Read More “Getting the Scene in Four Setups Instead of Nine” »
I remember sitting in a cramped studio ten years ago, watching a kid spend three grand on a high-end cinema camera just to shoot against a wrinkled, poorly lit piece of polyester. He kept asking why his edges looked like they’d been cut out with kitchen shears, as if a better sensor would magically fix…