![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Oct. 23rd, 2006
"The only thing I wish they had done was cast me in [Galaxy Quest], and have me play a freaky fanboy who keeps screaming at the actor who played "the kid" about how awful it was that there was a kid on the spaceship. Alas." -Wil Wheaton
Galaxy Quest was like every fan's dream come true.
And, as I suppose most of you know, it's always been a dream of a kiffie's to make a fanfilm. Doesn't matter of what, just to have that sort of control over a project.
However, after spending a week or so, on and off, looking at some fanfilms, mostly Star Trek, I'm more and more annoyed. Mostly, they're wonderful. They go to all the trouble of building sets and making costumes and getting top-of-the-line CG- and live action-models for their ships. And yet, no one bothers to ever try and get a skilled cameraman.
So what do I mean?
Well, a good cameraman (along with a good editor and propman) knows that, in order to compensate for camera glare and the like, WHITE SHOULD BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS. All grays need to be at 50% or higher to battle that. This is something a cameraman should be able to tell the set designers right off the bat -- "I can't shoot this, it's too bright." So why not blame the set designers, themselves? Because they're working off the blueprints from the series. While older cameras and copying techniques could dampen the glare, or could deal with downwards of 25% gray, new cameras are much too sharp and pick everything up. This is especially true of digital cameras.
Which brings me to something that annoys the hell out of me every time I see a fanfilm, regardless of fandom: frames per second.
People. Really. Shooting with more frames per second does NOT make your film better. This is especially true for all you Star Trek: TOS folks. The series was broadcast, like all TV, with an exceptionally LOW frame rate. Less frames per second = typical television look. Bumping up the FPS leads to "Soap Opera" look, or making everything seem 'too real'. Yes, it can happen, TV can look too real! It affects the tone of the films, the action sequences, and the composition of shots.
Think of it like a comic book: what has more drama -- a panel where a flying fist blurs across your line of view, the blur giving the affect of motion? Or a panel where the fist sits, in perfect clarity, with no blur and no distortion? I don't know about you, but I like that motion blur. Even in a movie setting, where we are experiencing motion as a standard, being able to FEEL the motion is important. The higher the FPS, the more clear the image becomes, and the less blur we get from movement. I think this severely hurts the final product.
And finally, true scene composition.
It always seems like fanfilms take one of two extremes: the closeup and the longshot. In fanfilms, these two never breed. Cameramen, listen to me! Do not be afraid to mix views, even in a single shot! Do not fear a "waist-up" shot as you move along a corridor, or follow some hero along a wall. It's not a bad thing! I don't know how many times I've stared at a fanfilm scene, sensing something was not right, but not being able to pinpoint what. It wasn't until I paused the scene, took a mental measurement, that I realized that too much of the background was showing, that the angle was wrong for the shot, that... something... was off just enough to trigger my inner critiquer and make it scream bloody murder. It wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the shots were equally as poorly set up. But they're not. Most of the shots are well done, well thought-out, and follow that 'rule of thirds' we hear so much about in film class quite well. But PLEASE, for the love of all that is cute, fuzzy, and multiplies asexually, LET THE LONGSHOT BREED. It wants to make sweet, sweet Pon Farr with the Closeup. Don't deny it.
Galaxy Quest was like every fan's dream come true.
And, as I suppose most of you know, it's always been a dream of a kiffie's to make a fanfilm. Doesn't matter of what, just to have that sort of control over a project.
However, after spending a week or so, on and off, looking at some fanfilms, mostly Star Trek, I'm more and more annoyed. Mostly, they're wonderful. They go to all the trouble of building sets and making costumes and getting top-of-the-line CG- and live action-models for their ships. And yet, no one bothers to ever try and get a skilled cameraman.
So what do I mean?
Well, a good cameraman (along with a good editor and propman) knows that, in order to compensate for camera glare and the like, WHITE SHOULD BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS. All grays need to be at 50% or higher to battle that. This is something a cameraman should be able to tell the set designers right off the bat -- "I can't shoot this, it's too bright." So why not blame the set designers, themselves? Because they're working off the blueprints from the series. While older cameras and copying techniques could dampen the glare, or could deal with downwards of 25% gray, new cameras are much too sharp and pick everything up. This is especially true of digital cameras.
Which brings me to something that annoys the hell out of me every time I see a fanfilm, regardless of fandom: frames per second.
People. Really. Shooting with more frames per second does NOT make your film better. This is especially true for all you Star Trek: TOS folks. The series was broadcast, like all TV, with an exceptionally LOW frame rate. Less frames per second = typical television look. Bumping up the FPS leads to "Soap Opera" look, or making everything seem 'too real'. Yes, it can happen, TV can look too real! It affects the tone of the films, the action sequences, and the composition of shots.
Think of it like a comic book: what has more drama -- a panel where a flying fist blurs across your line of view, the blur giving the affect of motion? Or a panel where the fist sits, in perfect clarity, with no blur and no distortion? I don't know about you, but I like that motion blur. Even in a movie setting, where we are experiencing motion as a standard, being able to FEEL the motion is important. The higher the FPS, the more clear the image becomes, and the less blur we get from movement. I think this severely hurts the final product.
And finally, true scene composition.
It always seems like fanfilms take one of two extremes: the closeup and the longshot. In fanfilms, these two never breed. Cameramen, listen to me! Do not be afraid to mix views, even in a single shot! Do not fear a "waist-up" shot as you move along a corridor, or follow some hero along a wall. It's not a bad thing! I don't know how many times I've stared at a fanfilm scene, sensing something was not right, but not being able to pinpoint what. It wasn't until I paused the scene, took a mental measurement, that I realized that too much of the background was showing, that the angle was wrong for the shot, that... something... was off just enough to trigger my inner critiquer and make it scream bloody murder. It wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the shots were equally as poorly set up. But they're not. Most of the shots are well done, well thought-out, and follow that 'rule of thirds' we hear so much about in film class quite well. But PLEASE, for the love of all that is cute, fuzzy, and multiplies asexually, LET THE LONGSHOT BREED. It wants to make sweet, sweet Pon Farr with the Closeup. Don't deny it.