Fur Missile Productions

The change from film to digital in movie making has created lots of advantages. Among these advantages are: being able record on reusable media, record for longer, and now your digital camera sensor can be more sensitive to light.

I am by no means an expert, but I have noticed a current trend in the cinematography done with the digital camera. You may ask, “What trend could this be?” I think that some people are making their movies look “too HD.” Before you question what I have to say, think about what makes a film seem natural. For me the way that light naturally falls off a subject shows me authenticity. When you have the advantage of a digital camera at your finger tips that can open up to expose all of the darks it’s awesome! However, this is only awesome when used at the right time. Secondly, think about how a movie looks when it’s shot on film. On a tight shot the main subject can be sharp at his eyes but soft at their nose giving us some depth of field.

One thing that I am learning is to not light everything super high key and to not intentionally make all the edges super crisp. There are times when these types of shots are beautiful and even called for to help tell the story, but we have to be careful about when to use them so that the whole project does not look fake like a soap opera. I am a huge fan of the RED Epic and love lighting for it, but also think that we should just be careful with how we use the power at hand. Perhaps, this is one of those “with great power comes great responsibility” scenarios. All I urge you to do is to think about being intentional when lighting for digital. Don’t be afraid to have a shadow here and there. Think about how sunlight would pour through the window and mix with the practical lighting in the room mixing and creating shadows. Our job as storytellers is to make a story authentic and come to life.

This is a company that I work for. Check out some of the lighting and let me know what you think.