Still in the first chapter and this book has completely turned my world around, what IS a POV shot anyways?!
As far as my school goes, we were all taught that a POV shot is from the actual ‘point of view’ of a player within the scene. For example, If we were having Person A and B conversing, and we were to put a POV shot from person A’s prospective (towards Person B) results would show Person B looking straight into the lens, assuming he’s not checking out Person A’s sweet new kicks. However, in “The 5 C’s of Cinematography” I am now being told that my perspective of a POV shot is actually a ’subjective’ shot, and an actual POV shot would take place just to the side of Person A (as if we were standing right next them, causing Person B to be looking off screen). Below is a quick diagram I made to better show “5 C’s” description. 
Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on January 26th, 2009 | No Comments »
So recently with the new purchase of my Canon EOS 40D, I knew I would want to do some wide landscape compositions and figured the wide end of the stock lense (28mm) would hold true to it’s measurement…until I started shooting. I wasn’t able to get the amount of horizontal view I wanted!
A few weeks later I received an interesting article from a buddy, Mat Schramm (fellow 40D owner), pertaining to cropped sensors and their properties both advantages and disadvantages, which helped explain this problem I was having.Keeping in mind that the lenses focal length and aperture do not change, an EF lens (Canon’s Full Frame series lens) put onto a camera with an APS-C cropped sensor is going to lose some of the lenses angle of view by a factor of 1.6x. For example, the 28mm side of my lens is actually giving me an angle of view of a 44.8mm, therefore limiting the angle of view of the wide side of my lens. However, on the other end of the lens (135mm) I am able to achieve the angle of view of a 216mm lens, which again only gives me the tighter composition of a longer lense and not the narrower DoF.
For a better explanation on the “crop factor” or “digital multiplier” go read the article, could be of some use to those of you who shoot! Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on January 25th, 2009 | No Comments »
This past Tuesday and Wednesday I was hired to work on a commercial spot for Disney’s new ‘American Idol Experience’. Opening up February 18th, you’ll be able to perform and be casted into the final stage of the competition where you’ll perform for an audience full of Disney World visitors who will vote on the next Disney’s American Idol.
It was a great experience being able to work on a professional crew who was able to show efficiency in everything that was done. Being a production assistant, I would do whatever I was told to do, so throughout the day I helped with the placement of lights, C-stand, flags, etc. Towards the end I was locking down side doors during the rolling shots and was able to observe everyone do their jobs, which was very pleasing to watch compared to student film shoots and our chaotic methods.
The entire spot was shot on the Genesis from Panavision, which I had not yet had an opportunity to see before. Andrew Rowlands, the DOP, was a pleasure to watch during the shoot along with his Gaffer, John Swanson.
Overall it was a great experience, to be around the professionals I was able to learn from. My assumption is that the spot should be airing sometime before it’s opening, February the 18th. If you have any more questions about the shoot please comment below! Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on January 16th, 2009 | No Comments »
Although you will probably not see large mobile onions moving about aimlessly, Big Techonions has just come out with an easily accesible tool for all your social networking needs.
Social Web Research allows users to send in clients e-mail addresses, and essentially receive information on their whereabouts in the social networking world. Along with this information they supply suggested tactics at going about reaching the clients more effectively within these environments.
It’s a great tool definitely worth your time checking out!
-Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on November 18th, 2008 | No Comments »
My happy 31st consisted of class, basketball, and a visit from the Joker. A buddy of mine decided to dress up as The Dark Knight’s Joker yesterday and never break character.
Let me know what you think!
-Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on November 1st, 2008 | No Comments »
Here in about 6 months I will be graduating from school and have to move out to find a real job in the industry I really want to be a part of. It’s a hard thing to wrap your head around, knowing that the contacts you have made in the past 15-21 months may or may not help out in finding you a job. Although it can be intimidating, I have faith i’ll be in just the place i’m needed whenever it’s time! -Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on October 27th, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Today was the third and final day of the UCF production I shot, “The Art of Box Pleats”. We entered the doors of Silver Lining Studios three days ago, and have hopefully now come out with some sufficient footage for the project. I had a great time going through the process of pre-production, and creating some “rules” for our characters and the environments in which they interacted within. Even though we might not have executed every point we wanted to make to it’s fullest extent, I learned a lot and had a good experience doing so. Thanks again to all of those who helped complete the project. Look forward to the screening! -Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on October 26th, 2008 | No Comments »
The weekends here, so back to work! Today was full of talent, lights and chaos starting the first days of the UCF production I’m shooting titled, “The Art of Box Pleats”. The story follows the life of a photographer who longs to express his passion for creative portraits with obscure wardrobe, in times of financial trials. I will keep you all posted with the progress as we start our second day of principle photography tomorrow! -Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on October 24th, 2008 | No Comments »
Arrived in Mansfield early last Saturday, just in time to enjoy a chili cook-off, Sunday morning church and go to some of April’s classes at the University of Texas in Arlington(www.uta.edu) . It’s quite a contrast from the trade school i’ve become so use to, for the main reason that people aren’t in classes they really care about. Out of the 15 months at Full Sail (www.fullsail.com) i’ve had over 21 classes that for the most part i’ve really enjoyed or gotten a lot of useful information out of them for the future. Being at UTA for one day, 3 out of the 3 classes we went to had little or no interest to me. Just a contrast…all i’m sayin’. 
Go Mavericks!
Anyways, been working on a new UCF script im shooting when I return titled, “The Art of Box Pleats”. So I hope all is going well for those who read, and will update you on the current project when things progress!
-Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on October 20th, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Last few days my father and I have been enjoying a good time waking up to donuts, and getting into free movies! We were able to see both “Fireproof” and Ridley Scott’s “Body of Lies”, which both seemed to give my expectations a complete 180. Never was I expecting to say that I would rather rewatch Alex Kendrick’s “Fireproof” over the next Scott movie. Although i don’t think “Fireproof” could touch anything like “Blade Runner” or “Gladiator”, i really felt the production value improvement made from his first film (”Flywheel”) was remarkable! Although I do realize that the DiCaprio/Crowe/Strong trio wasn’t even touched by Kirk Cameron and his band of no namers, I still found myself more interested in the relationship between him and his wife.
Unfortunately that’s all i have time to talk about the two movies tonight (which isn’t as far as i would had liked). I’ve got to start/finish packing for a nice trip to Mansfield, TX tom to visit April and her family!
Hope all is going well!
-Spencer
Filed under: Uncategorized on October 17th, 2008 | No Comments »
