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 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…
I spent most of the nineties watching light meters dance and praying the film stock wouldn’t run out before we caught the magic, back when every frame cost more than a decent dinner. These days, I see kids scrolling through spec sheets, convinced that a $5,000 LED panel with a high CRI rating is the…
Read More “Choosing Lights by Colour Accuracy, Not Wattage” »
I remember standing in a damp, drafty warehouse in South Wales, watching a producer stare in horror at a waveform that looked like a flatline. We had spent three hours setting up a beautiful, high-contrast lighting scheme, only to have the entire take ruined because a cheap transmitter decided to lose its mind the moment…
Read More “Wireless Audio and the Interference Nobody Predicts” »
I remember sitting in a dark edit suite ten years ago, watching a director try to “fix” a mediocre sequence by layering a massive, swelling orchestral score over shots that had absolutely no rhythmic soul. He thought the music would do the heavy lifting, but all it did was make the whole thing feel exhausting….
I remember a shoot in a cramped studio in South London, twenty years ago, where the producer spent three hours arguing about which high-speed sensor we were using, while I sat there staring at a blank piece of paper. We had the best gear money could buy, but because nobody had actually sat down to…
I spent three weeks on a documentary in the Highlands once, working with a lighting kit that weighed more than the crew, only to realize the sun had done 90% of the heavy lifting for free. Nowadays, when I see people searching for a complete guide to live streaming, they aren’t looking for advice on…