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…
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 spent three weeks on a documentary in the Highlands once, watching a kid half my age try to fix a jittery wide shot by mounting a three-axis gimbal that cost more than my first car. He was sweating, fighting the motors, and still looking like he was filming from the back of a runaway…
I spent the better part of my twenties hauling heavy Arriflexes through rainstorms just to get a single usable shot, back when every foot of film felt like it was being pulled directly from my own bank account. Nowadays, I watch kids spend three months’ rent on a mirrorless body with a spec sheet longer…