Guide to Cinematography for Photographers - Part One

[Christopher Sanderson]

I have posted Part One of this new tutorial in the Store

There is a description and Preview video on this page.

A detailed Table of Contents can be read here.

Part One is a series of dialogs between Michael & I on aspects of cinematography that may be new to photographers getting in to video for the first time.

Parts Two & Three will be published later this year.

There wil be a 'bundled' product of all three parts but not available until all parts are complete. A customer who buys the first two parts, will be eligible for a discount coupon for the third part that will match the bundle price.

I appreciate any feedback & comments.

Chris

[purdee54]

Just downloaded the video but not getting any sound. Are there any parameters I need to change. I'm viewing it through windows media player. Thanks

[Christopher Sanderson]

WMP and QuickTime do not play together nicely and you will experience problems using WMP.

If you want to use the chapter markers, do a fresh install of QuickTime.

For plain vanilla playback without problems, use VLC Player.

All this and the appropriate links are detailed in the FAQ

[purdee54]

Thank you! My problem is solved.

[PierreVandevenne]

First things first: thank you for delivering on that one. I've really enjoyed LLVJ and I believe that's, in great part, because of the work you put into it, Chris. I am really eager to benefit from what you share in that guide. 

As far as the pricing is concerned, and in the context of recent discussions here, no need to proactively defend it: how many times, in our daily routine, do we spend more for less interesting stuff?

Very minor quibble: your credit card processor/my bank requires my RSA token device for the order, so I'll have to wait until I get back to its physical location before I can enjoy the guide. But the good side of it is that is that I will probably will avoid the bandwidth rush. 

[kaelaria]

Playing the preview in quicktime, the audio is out of sync, about 1/4 sec ahead

[Dan Carter]

Chris & Michael,

I downloaded and viewed Part One this weekend, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Though I thought it might be too basic, I learned more than expected.

Thank you for another fine educational product. Can't wait until Part Two.

Kind Regards,
Dan Carter

[sselinger]

Chris and Michael, to echo the other comments, thank you for your new tutorial. Just finished part one and I have learned a lot already, can't wait for parts two and three.  Your timing is excellent. I am upgrading from my old GL1 video camera and am planning to upgade my video activites. I have learned a lot before I start my shopping.

Thanks again.

[PierreVandevenne]

Just finished it - I did learn a few things as well. Couple of comments:

- the pace is a bit slow at the start.

- I would have loved a few examples of the things that were discussed. Something along the lines: "here's an example of the problem we are talking about, here's an example when we do the right thing to mitigate the issue". It gets much better in the second half of this part, for example with the demonstration of the benefits of the Marshall monitor. Before the tutorial, I used to think, "bigger version of of the camera screen, big deal!" Now I clearly understand how useful they can be.

- Michael talks a bit too much ;-0 Not really a complaint, Michael is obviously more comfortable than Chris on that side of the camera... Still some times I had the impression that he was basically summarizing information provided by Chris and Chris's only role was to agree.

- fun note: the gardener and the cleaning lady(?)'s hand were definitely more annoying than the chirping bird.

- what a cliffhanger at the end!

This is meant as constructive minor criticism: the tutorial is extremely valuable for a newbie like me, and I would have avoided at least three significant mistakes in a small project I shot this week-end if I had seen it before: 1- the face tracking that was following the pianist became confused by the partition's page turner. 2- the sound recorder hiccuped at a falling chair 3- my frame rate choice was probably sub-optimal for the lighting conditions.

thanks - will definitely go on with the serie.

[tokyojerry]

Hi.  I just purchased and downloaded this Guide to Cinematography for Photographers today.  Being an amateur in videography for the most part, the videos have been helpful in my understanding of concepts.  In particular, the 5th video I might have to watch again to grasp some of these concepts about frame rates, and shutter speeds, etc.  I just read today an interesting short article 
which mentions about Cameron and Jackson.... that is,  THEE  (James Cameron and Peter Jackson) are planning to do away with 24p all together.  You might have a read at the link as it caught my eye as being interesting in that so many still aspire to maintain this 24fps concept in the interest of the 'film look'.  Click up on the link for more info.  Cheers,

[PierreVandevenne]

Interesting link (which leads to other interesting stuff) - but they also state "24p just happens to be the frame-rate which works best for 2D cinema." They're thinking in terms of 3D cinema. As far as I am concerned, I have been unable to watch a single 3D feature film. Regardless of the process used, I've always experienced nasty flicker in my right eye. That probably indicates something is wrong with it, my optical pathways or even brain (I wouldn't be surprised ;-) )

[Henk Peter]

I really enjoyed watching & listening the videos and learned a lot, thank you for that. I agree with Pierre about the missing examples in the first five parts, I have only been listening to part 3-5 without watching the footage.

[Christopher Sanderson]

I am putting together the material for Part Two at the moment - let me know what examples you would find useful.

[Henk Peter]

Thanks Chris,

hmmm... I'd have to re-watch the videos but two I do remember: when you speak of how DOF can concentrate the attention to the subject and the "jaggies" you get when selecting too fast shutter speed.

Regards,
Henk