For cinematographer Sherri Kauk, Sigma Cine lenses have become essential tools for bringing an elevated look to reality television. Learn how Sigma's full-frame High Speed Primes and Aizu Prime lenses help shape the visual language of shows like "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives" and "Million Dollar Nannies".
The post Sigma Cine Lenses Level Up the Look of Popular Reality Shows appeared first on…
_Obsession_ has grossed over $290 million worldwide on a budget somewhere between $750,000 and $1 million. Its driving scenes look like something shot on a major studio stage.
They weren't! They were lit inside an LED volume by a small crew doing a lot with very little.
The film follows Bear, a character obsessed with Nikki, who just likes him as a friend. But after he makes a wish on a One…
_One Battle After Another_ , __Paul Thomas Anderson's action drama, shot by cinematographer Michael Bauman in VistaVision, is one of the best-looking films in recent memory. We've written about it at length here. Obviously, there's a lot to learn about the style and technical finesse of how the film was shot.
But cinematography YouTuber cNOMADIC (Chris Tinard) took a different pass at the…
During IndieWire's Craft Roundtables, McCormick explained why creating beautiful shots is not unlike taking iconic historical photographs.
Analog filmmakers struggling with aging and hard-to-repair 16mm film cameras can now eagerly anticipate the release of the Cinelux Sixteen, a hybrid 16mm and HD digital camera boasting “live film simulation designed for a new era of filmmakers.”
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Category: Photography, Consumer Tech, Technology
Tags: Filmmaking, Cinematography, Video Cameras
Night shoots. Sometimes the idea alone is enough to cause a panic attack in a filmmaker. They're hard, they take a lot of time, and they create unique challenges for your cinematographer.
Moonlit night exteriors sit at the edge of what cameras can capture, if they're dark enough to feel real. But they still require legible faces and readable geography, otherwise the audience won't know what…
High production value is one of those things we're all probably striving for, but it can be elusive. When we say that, you probably think that the story feels real and everything looks and sounds good, because you're working with a team of professionals. If one thing is off, the production value is lowered.
For one thing, your budget might not be enough to cover your vision, so you end up…
In a 2017 talk with the International Documentary Association, the incomparable Werner Herzog said something that will probably make every filmmaker wince a little.
Young filmmakers shooting 550 hours of footage, he said, made his heart sink. "They don't know what they're doing," he said.
But, seriously, we get both sides. There's nothing like the feeling of being with your editor and…
Think of one of your favorite films. How does it handle its locations? How does the film give you an idea of the world its characters inhabit? Maybe a big sweeping crane shot? A long wide?
Chances are, you get the lay of the land in one of these kinds of shots, also known as an establishing shot. If I think about _The Lord of the Rings_ , which I often do, its locations are so important. In…
If you haven’t been watching _Widow’s Bay_ , get out of this tab right now before you spoil yourself. Then come back, because we’ve got a behind-the-scenes look at one of the show’s best episodes below.
Episode 106 of _Widow's Bay_ , "Our History," is a flashback episode—like, flashing _way_ back. We learn the lore of the island alongside Sarah Warren (Betty Gilpin), who arrives as part of…
When you're deep in a screenplay draft, it's easy to obsess over dialogue and structure and forget entirely about how your scenes might be lit. That's a production concern, right? The DP will handle it. Worry about it later.
But if you really want to make an impression on a reader, the goal should be to conjure images in their minds, and light is arguably the most important visual element in…
Most comic book movies use the source material as a mood board. The 1990 adaptation of _Dick Tracy_ used it as a rulebook.
I can still remember seeing the trailer for this for the first time as a child—how bonkers it looked, the wild use of color, that Madonna song with its jerky choreography. The whole thing just looked so otherworldly. I was immediately obsessed, and I remain obsessed to…
Christian Sprenger, ASC, is a two-time Emmy winner for his work on _Atlanta_ ("Teddy Perkins," "Three Slaps") and a decade-long collaborator with director Hiro Murai. (He also shot a gem of an indie movie, _Brigsby Bear_ , co-written by Kyle Mooney and a buddy of mine, Kevin Costello. Sprenger said I should put that in.)
His new project is a horror/comedy series, which Murai directed and…
Christopher Nolan has never met a green screen he couldn't replace with something real, expensive, and logistically nightmarish. It's a pattern that runs from Dunkirk's Spitfire cockpits to Tenet's very real, very destroyed Boeing 747, and it continues with The Odyssey , which is shaping up to be the most ambitious practical production in recent memory.
When I was a kid, I made a bunch of silly sketch videos with my cousins. I would never want to go back and try to talk about those videos critically because I know they’re bad. And I think most filmmakers would feel the same about things like their student work, which often gets buried in our memories somewhere.
But Avery Dohrmann put his work under a microscope in a recent video. Most…
If you shoot by yourself, maybe you’ve always defaulted to handheld or a gimbal because they feel productive. You're moving, covering ground, getting all the angles. But your brain might also be constantly occupied by whether your subject is going out of frame, or you’re losing focus, or everything is super shaky.
Brandon Li noticed the same thing about his own gimbal work and decided to…
"Less direction is better in pretty much everything."
This is insight from award-winning filmmaker Matt Porwoll, DP of _All the Empty Rooms_ , which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short at the 98th Academy Awards. The film, directed by Joshua Seftel and streaming on Netflix, follows CBS correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp as they document the untouched bedrooms of…
Wandering DP (Patrick O'Sullivan) recently reviewed a spec Nestle commercial submitted by a viewer. I really enjoy these videos because, much like reading other scripts and feeling what bumps, seeing a finished work and where it could be improved is extremely instructive.
You might not have a lot of interest in working in commercials or shooting food, but this is still helpful guidance to…
When we talk about Michael Mann’s 1995 masterpiece Heat , the conversation usually turns to the street shootout or the high-tension diner scene between Pacino and De Niro.
But I feel like this movie doesn't get enough credit for its sweeping camera work.
Today, I want to look at a brief clip I found online that details one of the coolest shots in the film.
Let's dive in.
-…
We know you probably aren't just running outside, picking up a camera, and shooting a big action or sports sequence. You're probably planning fight choreography and lighting and stunts, and your prep work is extending to your cinematography, too.
What's one easy way to heighten your action sequences?
The DP Journey has some advice for us.
We've all gotten into a debate about a movie with our friends. One says it sucks, another says it's great, and they go back and forth. If your friends are anything like mine, it probably gets personal after that.
But that's not the way it should go.
If you want to work in Hollywood, be a critic, or make films or TV shows, you should know how to speak about them in an educated way.
Late…
I guess we're on a tear this week or feeling nostalgic or something, and our YouTube algorithm is only happy to feed into that, because today we have yet another cinematography video essay about the current look of film and television projects.
I think many us are in search of a way to stand out in our cinematography, because today, a lot of it feels a little flat and lifeless.
So today, we…
There’s no denying that TV just looks different these days. We could do a deep dive on Netflix lighting and try to diagnose the source of a visual illness that seems to have sucked all the life out of modern-day images, but we only have so much time.
So let’s check out this new video essay from Wow Them in the End, which puts a name to that nagging feeling. The original series had warmth in…
Back in March 2025, the Academy Museum opened _Director's Inspiration: Bong Joon-ho_ , which was the first exhibition ever dedicated entirely to the _Parasite_ filmmaker, featuring over 100 original objects from across his career, like storyboards, props, concept art, and creature models.
To mark the recent April addition of new _Mickey 17_ objects to the show, Director Bong hosted a special…
The Wandering DP Patrick O'Sullivan is at it again, looking at a viewer’s submitted project to critique their lighting and shot choices. A brave soul gets to share their work, and a professional DP shares insights into what succeeded and what could have been improved. We’re loving this series and learning from it every time a new video pops up.
There's a plateau most emerging…
In the world of contemporary independent cinema, few films capture the claustrophobic intimacy of a single night as effectively as _Take Me Home_.
While the narrative thrives on the chemistry between its leads, the film’s visual soul is crafted by cinematographer Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi.
His work on _Take Me Home_ isn't just about lighting a car interior; it’s about mapping the emotional…
Horror as a genre lets you get creative at so many levels, including look. Horror cinematography can be colorful and hyper-stylized, or dark and realistic. You can have the neon colors of the original _Supiria_ or its grittier remake, which leans into grimy post-war Germany. Films like _The Conjuring_ and _Annabelle_ have a distinct dark aesthetic. Some are like fever dreams (think…
The Singers just won an Oscar for live-action short film. It’s a huge accomplishment for a film that didn’t take the usual approach to many elements of its production.
Director and cinematographer Sam Davis set out to make the short with no script, no shot list, and a cast of non-actors he spent a year hunting down on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. The result is a warm, funny, deeply felt…
You know what they say—rules are meant to be broken! Yes, even filmmaking rules.
If you’ve had any formal training or studied the craft at all, you know that general guidance is to match your white balance. Shoot a lot of coverage. Respect that 180-degree line in dialogue scenes.
And, look, these rules exist for a reason. If you break them, you risk incohesiveness in your projects and…
I've made it my goal to watch more visually engaging movies. So, I scoured the internet to make a list of movies I could learn from. Once I went down that rabbit hole, I found myself actually making a list of the best cinematography of all time.
These are movies that inspire me, that tell their stories with the scenes on screen, and are so beautiful you could watch them without sound and…