THE LOOK
Following up on what we talked about on the call, I just want to dive in a little more on the look of this spot. I see us shooting Large Format (abbreviated as LF) for a couple reasons.
The first being it provides the maximum amount of resolution for different crops. The native aspect ratio of 4k open-gate LF is 4:3 with a delivery resolution of 4448 x 3096. That’s a ton of information, more than enough for us to stick with a largely “centre frame” weighted composition for the shoot. That will let you freely crop between 16:9, 4:5, 1:1, and 9:16 without sacrificing image quality or us spending time on reshooting different compositions on the day.
The second is it gives everything a much more cinematic look. The larger sensor literally makes things look “grander” because it captures more of the image. It’s going to make our establishing wides of our lookout and our starry sky setups look incredible. It also shoots portraits beautifully, so our coverage of talent is that much more memorable to look at.
The last reason is the larger sensor is more sensitive to light, therefore requiring less grip and electric to light a pleasing image. I think given our locations and wanting to remain nimble, this will net us the best bang for our buck regarding time and equipment.
I think “cinematic” is a word I would use to describe all my work, but sometimes that can be misconstrued as “moody.” Maintaining our “grounded” approach to performance also means we need to approach the visuals the same way. And while that keeps us tied to which light sources naturally present in a scene— I want to reiterate that does NOT mean these will lack sufficient lighting. While having a scene happen at night, having it darker only makes sense, otherwise it feels fake, disingenuous, and overdone... But at the same time, we will ALWAYS be able to see our characters face and performance in full exposure and detail.
Discussing my overall approach, I really see this as tasteful and minimal when it comes to camera movement. Always on sticks, never handheld, with establishing wides and then moving to medium coverage. I can see some potential sliding or dolly movement to accentuate the comedy on things like the mom monologue in Lookout, or the reaction shot to the name in Radio.
Again, a starting point for discussion, but I hope you agree!