I once spent three days on a corporate shoot in a basement with zero windows, watching a kid half my age try to fix a muddy, flickering key by buying a more expensive plugin. He thought the software was the solution, but the truth was much simpler: his light was hitting the fabric at an…
I spent most of the nineties watching a meter run, knowing that every foot of film we pushed through the gate cost more than a decent lunch. That scarcity forced a discipline that today’s YouTube “gear gurus” seem to have completely forgotten. They’ll tell you that you’re one $50,000 sensor away from a cinematic look,…
I spent three hours last week watching a kid try to explain how live streaming production works by pointing at a spreadsheet of bitrates and encoder specs. He looked like he was describing a particle accelerator, but all I could see was a guy who didn’t realize his subject was being washed out by a…
I remember sitting in a dimly lit production office fifteen years ago, staring at a spreadsheet that felt more like a work of fiction than a business document. I had just finished a three-day shoot where the light was so abysmal we spent six hours just trying to find a single window that didn’t blow…
Read More “Quoting a Project Without Undercharging Yourself” »
I spent twenty years waiting for the “right” sensor to arrive, thinking that once I had enough dynamic range, the image would finally stop fighting me. Now, I see kids scrolling through feeds, convinced that the secret to how to shoot for social media is a $4,000 mirrorless body and a specialized gimbal that makes…
I spent three weeks on a documentary in the Highlands, obsessing over the exact Kelvin temperature of a single window light, only to realize later that half my audience wouldn’t even know what was being said because I’d neglected the basics. We spend thousands on anamorphic glass and high-bitrate codecs, thinking that’s what makes a…
Read More “The Complete Guide to Captions and Accessibility” »
I remember sitting in a cramped production office in Bristol, watching a client point at a perfectly composed wide shot and tell me it felt “too expensive,” before suggesting we just make it brighter. They didn’t want better lighting; they wanted a way to feel in control of a process they didn’t actually understand. Most…
I remember a documentary shoot in a drafty community hall back in ’04. We had a subject with a voice that sounded like it was being piped through a tin can, and the producer was convinced we needed a new, high-end condenser mic to “fix” the tone. I told him to sit tight. We didn’t…
I remember sitting in a rental house in London back in ’04, watching a kid walk out with a brand-new Arri package that cost more than my first house, only to see that same kit looking like a relic by the time the next tech cycle rolled around. It’s a cycle that drives me mad:…
I once spent three days on a documentary set in a rain-soaked valley, waiting for a single, perfect sliver of light to hit a subject’s eyes, only to spend the next week fighting with an editor to make the silence feel meaningful. Fast forward a month, and I’m in a windowless Marriott conference room, staring…