The place to discuss, share content and offer advice and tips on all things lighting, framing, cameras, lenses and technique
Film Scene 11 of GOLEM brings Lucas Dubois into the Élysée Palace, where an unexpected report forces the political leadership to confront a problem they do not yet understand.
The warning is on the table.
The consequences could be serious.
But no one knows the cause.
GOLEM is an international science-fi...
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Hi Cinematography Lounge Fam!
There are so many scenes in film and television that land with enormous impact without a single word spoken, and I love that as a craft challenge. When you take dialogue off the table, everything has to be carried by the frame: the blocking, the lighting, the lens, where...
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Rakesh Malik that’s one of those scenes where the visuals and music are so completely in sync that words would almost weaken it. Great pick!
It's just too good not to keep mentioning, Fran Tabor. It hits harder when you know what’s coming. On a first watch, you’re discovering their life together. On later watches, every little moment carri...
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Love Breaking Bad, Jahnavi Kannan! And I love this choice because it proves you don’t need dialogue to create unforgettable villains. Mystery is often more powerful than exposition! Sometimes the most...
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I absolutely love this perspective Hamid Cyrus. I think every filmmaker benefits from studying silent films or challenging themselves to tell a story without dialogue. During my entire first semester...
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YES, Kelvin Wilson! John Wick… absolutely. Those opening sequences tell you so much before a single line is spoken. Those films also just have such a distinct visual style and tone to them. Honestly,...
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This may sound like heresy, but I believe the “one film, one fixed aspect ratio” model is becoming obsolete.
The same feature film may now be watched in a theater, on a television, laptop, tablet, or phone — yet we continue d...
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This is a conversation the cinematography community needs to be having more openly. The assumption that one locked frame serves every viewing context equally has always been a compromise -- we just ac...
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This is an interesting topic, especially when you dive into the history of aspect ratios, and realise that aspect ratios were never fixed, in the sense that there was no one aspect ratio. It was the w...
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Thank you, Lindsay. You understood exactly what I was trying to say. I’m not arguing against the director’s original frame — I’m arguing for giving the director more control over how that work reaches...
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Exactly, Kevin. That history is one of the reasons I started thinking about this. aspect ratios have always evolved alongside technology and viewing habits. I don’t think cinema should abandon wide fo...
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Hi Stage 32,
I'm Eugene Onzere Kaiga, a Director of Photography and cinematographer based in Nairobi, running around East Africa with a Sony FX6 chasing wildlife, conservationists, tech innovators, artists and the occasional zebra that refuses to hit its mark.
Twelve-plus years in: DIT/camera assista...
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Welcome, Eugene. Twelve years working the East African landscape for BBC Earth, CNN, and conservation organizations is a remarkable body of work -- and the point about knowing the light and logistics...
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Thank you Lindsay Thompson really appreciate the warm welcome, and glad the introduction landed well.
You're right that East African light is its own animal. The quality shifts fast — golden hour on th...
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Eugene Onzere Kaiga Hi Eugene, welcome to Stage 32!
Your experience across cinematography, documentary, conservation, and post-production is quite interesting, especially having worked in East Africa r...
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Hi Eugene! So nice to meet you, and welcome to Stage 32! Your work sounds incredible, especially getting to chase stories across East Africa and capture wildlife and conservation from such an authenti...
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Let's chat about some favorite light source setups in films of all scopes and sizes as a reminder that good lighting does not have to also be complex lighting.
Scenes using one light and bouncing some fill here and there qualify IMO.
I have two. One is the nighttime city scene in "1917" and the other is the climax of "Skyfall."
This one has been in my back pocket for a while and it is still worth sharing -- StudioBinder put out a video earlier this year called Everyone Gets This Wrong About Cameras, and the title is not clickbait.
The premise is simple and a little uncomfortable: most filmmakers know their camera's brand. F...
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The most common misconceptions that I encounter are that bigger sensors = higher sensitivity, and that the lens determines perspective, and that bit depth determines dynamic range.
There are a lot of v...
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Particularly since even for films shot with celluloid post production is still largely digital, what do you miss most about shooting with film?
Rakesh Malik, for me, what I miss most is how intentional every single decision had to be. When I was in film school, we weren’t allowed to touch a digital camera during our first semester. We had to...
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The responses here echo my own opinions; what I miss most about using film is the discipline in filmmaking, and along with sacrificing the discipline, many filmmakers who began after the digital revol...
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That's a great way to put it Rakesh Malik .
I miss the gels. Lighting meticulously with gels. The way the light just looks different on film. The only time I use clothes pins now is for laundry.
Totally agree with Ashley Renée Smith about there being a lot more intentionality about every shot, especially on low budget shoots. You rarely now get movies where you get that "every frame is a pain...
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RB shared a great video this week about how director Boots Riley brought I Love Boosters to the screen, and there is a detail in it that belongs specifically in this lounge.
The cinematographer on the film made a deliber...
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