Cinematography – Page 3 – © Gatesman Photography

Forced Perspective in Motion Photography

[dc]C[/dc]an you teach new dogs, old tricks? It seems these days if you want to show something out of the ordinary in your film or video project, the default option is to composite, green screen, photoshop, or fix and create images in post, on a computer, in a digital realm. But before the days of instant-gratification cameras and super fast, powerful and affordable computers, a lot of special effects had to be created “in-camera”, meaning they were accomplished with lighting, optics and physics, which are the key elements in creating forced perspective images. In this article I’ll go over some history of the technique and show you how I used it recently. Continue reading “Forced Perspective in Motion Photography”

Tulum ruins in the Yucatan

The ruins of Tulum, an ancient Mayan city outside of Cancun.

Carroll Shelby’s Wife drives a mini van

Last week I was working on a project being produced by 21st Century 3D which will ultimately be a 3D Imax film about legendary car builder Carroll Shelby. As much an American Icon as his cars are, Shelby is a true original who, over the course of the past nine decades has been everything from fighter pilot to chicken farmer to race car champion and Philanthropist. Without an engineering background he designed and created cars that crushed then world dominating Ferrari race cars and has gone on to develop some of America’s greatest automobiles. So it was rather humorous, as we shot in his Gardena plant, to see his wife drive up in a generic mini van.

I’ve always been a huge fan of his work and had a rare opportunity to grab a couple stills of the cars in his collection.

The film will likely be in production for some time, but keep a look out for it. I’ve been a big fan of Shelby for a long time and after meeting him, and though he is well into his eighties, he is absolutely a larger-than-life character whose story you won’t want to miss in 3D.

Time lapse of the full moon rising over Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree National Park is a surreal landscape in the high desert called Mojave that is scattered with the foreboding, tree-like cacti from which it is named. It’s unique beauty is also reflected in the myriad of other hearty plants that dot the landscape and is oddly interspersed with other-worldly piles of gigantic rocks.

Toward the end of June the full moon came out and I shot some time lapse of it as it rose slowly over one such gathering of rocks appropriately named Jumbo Rocks.

Culver City Car Show 3D!

The George Barris Car Show came to Culver City this past weekend and I worked with the 21st Century 3D team to capture all of the fuel injected fun in 3D video.

21st Century 3D's Jason Goodman with "talent" — 21st Century 3D’s Jason Goodman with “talent”

21st Century beam splitter with Red cameras

Director of Photography reel

I have recently updated my DP reel and made it available here.

There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.

⎯ Ansel Adams

I have been working behind the lens for almost 20 years, as Director of Photography, Photographer, and as a Studio Chief Lighting Technician. I believe that the language of visual storytelling is a complex one that invollves composition, optics, light and movement. This is the first reel I’ve put together in awhile, but it won’t be the last. Consider it a work in progress and feel free to comment.

My experience includes working with 35mm and 16mm film cameras, broadcast video, High Definition, and all of the latest digital cameras.

View the reel in High Def here, and see more of my films on Vimeo.

See What I’m Saying music video shot on Canon 5D MkII

I just cannot stop marveling over this camera. We recently shot this music video with 3- 5D’s and a variety of Canon L series lenses.

The video is for the title song of the documentary of the same name. See What I’m Saying, the Deaf Entertainers Documentary is just that: a film about 4 deaf entertainers and is the first of it’s kind as it is open captioned to be accessible to a hearing impaired audience. The music video is open captioned as well, and as far as I know, is also the first of it’s kind. The video was directed by Hilari Scarl and the music is written and performed by the Los Angeles based group Powder.

The video was shot using a total of 3-5D MkII cameras and a variety of support devices. Post production was done in Final Cut Pro and After Effects while the look was created in Color and using the Magic Bullet Looks Suite filters. The workflow included downloading CF cards to external hard drives on location and then transcoding the h.264 footage to Apple Pro Res 422 HQ for editing in Final Cut.

The Camera Crew

Jeff Gatesman – Director of Photography
Barry Berona – Additional Camera Operator
David Farkas – Addditional Camera Operator
Pedro Guimares – DIT and 1st camera assitant
Tiffany Aug – Additional 1st camera assitant
Alexander Brennan – 2nd Camera Assistant

Full Contact Scrabble

Stories of what a film crew can do when left unsupervised, with several days off, on a distant location are legendary. This is not one of those stories. Recently I was working on a film in Shreveport, La., and with 4 days off due to circumstances beyond my control, got together with some of the other crew members and made a short film of our own.

[vimeo 8825229 w=500 h=282]

FULL CONTACT SCRABBLE from Jeff Gatesman on Vimeo.

I shot this film entirely with a canon 5D Mark II and grip and lighting equipment purchased from Home Depot. Our one prop was purchased at a swap meet for $7. Of course the film could not have been made without the great talents of our cast and crew, and a ready-made set.

The film was conceived and written by Nancy Breaux and myself, and we borrowed the strengths of our stunt coordinator, Gregory Brazzel, electric best boy, Ken Ballantine, key grip, Scott “Scooter” Hillman, set decorator, Mary Beth O’Connor, and location manager Kendrick Hudson. Our three actors were the stunt crew from the feature: Jennifer H. Cobb, Gregory Brazzel (stunt coordinator) and Tracy Thomas, who also wrote and recorded all the music for Full Contact Scrabble.

Sound for the film was recorded on the 5D using the built-in mic, which is less than desirable. Fortunately during post, 2-time Emmy-award winning sound designer Adam Johnston stepped in and trashed all of the location sound and replaced it with a mighty soundtrack complete with cicada’s, buzzing flies and the snapping gum that helps define Jennifer’s character.

If you liked the film, leave a comment for us. If you didn’t like it: what the heck is wrong with you?

Nancy Breaux: writer/producer
Gregory Brazzel: stunt coordinator
Ken Ballantine: gaffer
Scott, “Scooter” Hillman: Key Grip
Mary Beth O’Connor: set decorator
Kendrick Hudson: location coordinator
Ron King: location re-recording

Tracy Thomas: original music
Adam Johnston: sound design

cast: Jennifer H. Cobb, Gregory Brazzel and Tracy Thomas.
co-written, directed, shot and edited by Jeff Gatesman.
Watch it again in High Def:

Shreveport, LA. Part One

Pre-production for the latest feature film I am working on has begun in and around Shreveport, LA, a city built on oil money which seems to be fairly wet, with lush green landscapes and some of the prettiest sunsets I have seen in awhile. Hopefully I will find an interesting point of view of this place over the next 2 months and, through my lens, bring it to you.

A lot of the buildings seem to be crumbling well before their time in this part of the country, as if they get saturated with all the humidity and rain, and then the real storms come through and just tear open the already weakened structures.

The last curtain has fallen on this theater

Ken Ballantine, the Best Boy, and his mosquito protection — Ken Ballantine, Lighting Best Boy, and his mosquito protection

And then there are the mosquitos. This Pump Jack is deep in some woods near Oil City, LA and apparently the center of all things Mosquito. In this photo Ken Ballantine, our Best Boy, models the latest in personal Mosquito attire. They are so thick in this wood that they practically create a haze in the air, in fact they are so dense that you cannot eliminate their bites, you can only minimize them.

More Shreveport to come…

5d Mark II – a sound camera

I got my new 5D Mark II a few days ago and I haven’t been as thrilled by new machinery as I have been about this in quite awhile. Without getting into all the really cool things that make this camera great (see any one of a million articles already published on the internet or in magazines), I have my own needs for this device and one of them is the ability to shoot 1080i HD video with my own compliment of Canon glass and get luscious, shallow DOF shots. Mostly I will be using the camera to shoot episodes of the firehouse cooking show Feeding The Fire, and the biggest concern for me has been sound, so I found a solution that works best for me.

The problems with sound on the 5D mark II is the tiny internal mic that picks up everything in a large radius around the camera, which is not good for recording dialogue, or anything else you want to use as a soundtrack for that matter, and the camera’s lack of control over audio recording, leaving the user with the less than desirable auto-gain only. The latter seems to be solved by a firmware update being offered by Magic Lantern. I say that is seems to be solved because the firmware is not quite ready for general release (see their wiki for more info), but it looks very hopeful as the option to give us audio control until Canon comes around to the idea, but if the history of the L1 sound issues are any indication, they will be in no hurry.

The solution for me seemed simple enough: I have a short shotgun mic that has been working great for me for years, and so I got a hot-shoe mounted shock mount to hold the mic above the lens, but needed a power supply for it. I wanted to stay away from the manufactured adapter boxes by Beachtek and Juiced because I think they are pretty pricey and relatively noisy. So I went with a clean sounding PSC 48V phantom power supply and a balanced to stereo mini plug adapter made by the good folks at Coffee Sound in Los Angeles. This gave me the ability to record clean audio, but the physical setup was to have the 48V PH on my belt with cables going from mic, to belt and back to the camera. I immediately thought of the high repair bills as I imagined all the ways this setup could cause the little mini plug to be ripped from the camera, not to mention the sheer inconvenience of it all, especially shooting documentary style when speed is all important.

So I opened the 48V PH box to get a look at where the electronics where and where I could punch some holes. A couple of minutes with some drill bits, a 2″ 1/4-20 screw and a locking ring to keep it from falling out, some flat cork, and I had a way to attach it nicely to the bottom of my camera. One more hole and a 1/2″ screw and I had the quickplate for my tripod attached to the bottom of the box and I was ready to go.

I just shot an episode of Feeding The Fire in River Grove, IL and this setup worked great. The images are incredible: the shallow depth of field give it a rich texture and the sound is just perfect.