Good DVDs for seeing lighting setups?

[Shawn Nelson]

Does anyone have any recommendations for DVDs that have Behind The Scenes featurettes that show enough to see how they did their lighting? I find myself frustratingly pausing most BTS clips just to catch a blurry half second of how they did various stuff.

I want a BTS that actually shows me how they made it, not some self-serving meandering by the producers and actors about what they wanted to accomplish with this or that.

[Joel Kaye]

I want a BTS that actually shows me how they made it, not some self-serving meandering by the producers and actors about what they wanted to accomplish with this or that.

If anyone has seen these could you post a review?

http://www.firstlightvideo.com/Kodak_Cinematography.html

(scroll down to The Cinematography Master Class Series)

Some of these videos are $70 for 28 minutes though. They get right to the point. :greedy:

[Shawn Nelson]

Those look interesting, but to clarify, I meant normal Hollywood movies that contain good BTS

[Manfred Lopez]

I also find myself doing the same thing, so I'll be very interested to see what people have to say about this. By the way, for color correction I think that 'Se7en' has some good intro's and demos on the subject.

[Petr Dvorak]

just some basics from Arri
http://www.arri.com/infodown/light/broch/arri_lighting_handbook_english.pdf

[Joel Kaye]

Those look interesting, but to clarify, I meant normal Hollywood movies that contain good BTS

I don't think I've ever seen one and I've watched a lot of BTS. Sometimes the commentaries have nuggets. Maybe they don't think anyone cares about how the lighting was done.

[Shawn Nelson]

I don't think I've ever seen one and I've watched a lot of BTS. Sometimes the commentaries have nuggets. Maybe they don't think anyone cares about how the lighting was done.

I don't want a commentary, I want a BTS that just shows what's happening. I can recognize most fixtures and simply seeing it teaches me the gist of how it was done.

[Paris Remillard]

>If anyone has seen these could you post a review?

http://www.firstlightvideo.com/Kodak...atography.html

(scroll down to The Cinematography Master Class Series)<


My Dad and I bought the VHS series several years ago. They are pretty basic and pretty old as well. They're not bad, though they are pretty expensive. But if you think about them as taking an extension course from a community college or media access center(which was what we did since those were the only places that had filmmaking courses where I lived) They are certainly better than the classes that I took at those other places and the price doesn't seem so bad in comparison.

They are good about showing what instruments are used and where they are placed both on the set or location and also in 3D renderings. And then showing the final scenes that were being lit. A couple of them have 2 different DPs lighting the same (or a very similar) set-up so you can see the effect of different lighting approaches. Also, I think a couple of them take specific scenes from movies,(Dances with wolves and Dead Poets Society, I think) and recreate the lighting setups for those scenes. I remember always wanting more scenes and info, but I feel that way in any class that I take, so...

Sorry, this isn't a terribly comprehensive review. I do feel that I got my money's worth at the time in my learning when I bought them, if that helps at all. I did go back and watch a few of them a few years ago and seem to remember getting more out of them than the first time since I had some experience to build upon. Now I want to go and watch them again to see if they are better than I remember or if I'm talking out of my butt.

Sorry, Shawn, I know that you weren't asking about these, but I have them so I thought I'd go ahead and answer the question.

[jbeale]

That would be fun to see, but I've never seen such a BTS segment either. Hours of FX and CGI coverage but nothing on lighting; I guess it's considered too boring for most people?

[Brian Valente]

You may want to check out this new service called smartflix.com - they are the Netflix of learning DVDs. I have no affiliation with them, but look like a good inexpensive resource for stuff like this

Brian

[William Robinette]

Smartflix seems to be operating around the copyrights on a lot of media.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=93027&highlight=smartflix

[Brian Valente]

quite a thread - just to be clear, I am not endorsing them, just passing it along

Seems like a good idea so I hope they can sort out their business model


Brian

[Dan Blanchett]

I haven't seen many BTS footage that was very useful from a learning standpoint. Although I admit the hours upon hours of LOTR BTS were fascinating. Most movie BTS are not that extensive.

I bought a book recently called Reflections (from theacs.com) that broke down scenes from popular movies and showed the lighting set-ups used. Not as good as a DVD tutorial, but not bad.

[Joel Kaye]

Smartflix seems to be operating around the copyrights on a lot of media.

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=93027&highlight=smartflix

What they do is totally legal.

As a content producer you can only protect yourself from someone else renting your intellectual property if it's downloadable only OR is an audiobook OR music cd. The RIAA has a special exception carved into the law to keep audio material from being rented. Libraries are exempted so you will see music for checkout at libraries.

I can't remember exactly why downloadable content is protected, but it probably has to do with duplication - which would be a copyright violation.

Another argument for VOD... and not selling those rights away unless someone is actually paying you a reasonable amount for them.