Director of photography · Pittsburgh, PA · Reading scripts for spring. Commercials at four weeks.
You cannot judge cinematography from a frame.
A director of photography in Pittsburgh. A reel is ninety seconds cut from the best three seconds of forty jobs, so instead of one this page opens with a real shot list: one scene, twelve setups, and what nine hours actually produces.
Scene 14 — the hillside, night
12 setups. 58 takes. 4m 2s on screen.
Two pages. One location, blue hour into full dark, a nine-hour day.
- 14A Wide, city below 25mm · Locked off 4 takes · 22s Shot first and shot fast — the blue hour that makes this frame lasts about twenty-five minutes and does not come back.
14A · 25mm · locked off · take 3 - 14B Medium, over the shoulder 40mm · Slow push 7 takes · 18s The push is a foot and a half over eighteen seconds. Nobody watching will notice it and the scene stops working without it.
- 14C Clean single, him 65mm · Handheld 9 takes · 31s Nine takes because the performance changed, not because the camera did.
- 14D Clean single, reverse 65mm · Handheld 6 takes · 28s Shot after the turnaround, which costs forty minutes of relighting and is the single biggest scheduling decision in any scene.
- 14E Insert — the hourglass 100mm macro · Locked off 3 takes · 6s Six seconds on screen, forty minutes to light. Inserts are always the thing that gets cut for time and always the thing the edit needs.
14E · 100mm macro · locked off · take 2 - 14F Silhouette, backlit 40mm · Locked off 5 takes · 14s One source through haze, everything else off. The simplest lighting on the day and the frame most people ask about.
14F · 40mm · single source · take 5 - 14G Tracking, along the ridge 32mm · Dolly 8 takes · 26s Eight takes to get one where the track is not visible in the grass. Dolly on uneven ground is mostly carpentry.
- 14H Two-shot, low 32mm · Locked off 4 takes · 19s Low because the hill is doing the work. The camera height is the only real decision in this setup.
- 14J Night exterior, the treeline 25mm · Locked off 3 takes · 17s Moonlight is a large soft source a long way away, which is expensive to fake and cheap to wait for. We waited.
14J · 25mm · available moonlight · take 1 - 14K Hands, detail 65mm · Handheld 5 takes · 8s Cutaway insurance. Half of these never make the cut and the half that do save a scene.
- 14L Exit, wide 25mm · Locked off 2 takes · 12s The same setup as 14A relit for full dark. Reusing a position is the cheapest twenty minutes on any schedule.
- 14M Safety wide, whole scene 32mm · Locked off 2 takes · 41s One continuous pass of the entire scene, always shot last. It has rescued more edits than any other single habit.
Fifty-eight takes, twelve setups, nine hours on a hillside. What reaches the screen is barely four minutes, and most of it is from the takes nobody predicted. A reel shows you the three prettiest seconds of that and tells you nothing about whether the day was run well.
9 hours on the hill · 27s of screen time per hour worked.
Format
Chosen before a lens is.
Aspect ratio is chosen before a lens is, and it changes blocking, headroom and how many people you can hold in a frame. It is also the decision most often made by whoever built the delivery spec rather than by anyone who will be on set.
- 2.39:1 Anamorphic scope Buys width, costs headroom. Faces sit low in frame and a two-shot stops being a compromise.
- 1.85:1 Theatrical flat The compromise nobody notices, which is exactly why it is the default for most features.
- 16:9 What the platform wants A hair narrower than 1.85 and the only one that will not be letterboxed on the client’s site.
- 4:3 Academy A decision, not nostalgia. It privileges the single over the two-shot and makes a room feel taller than it is.
Credit
Three sentences on what is not mine.
- The grade is the colourist’s. A great deal of what people call cinematography is decisions made weeks after the camera was packed, by somebody who was never on set.
- The room is the production designer’s. I choose where to put the light; they chose that there is a window there at all.
- Holding the shot is the director’s. Almost every frame anyone remembers is remembered because somebody decided not to cut away from it.
A DP who takes credit for all of that is describing a job that does not exist. What is mine is the light, the lens, the movement, and getting twelve setups done before the location goes dark.
Rates
Day rate and kit are different lines.
- Day rate, DP only
- $950
- Ten hours including setup. Prep and recce days are billed at half.
- Kit — camera package
- $650/day
- Separate line, always. Conflating the two is how a quote looks cheap and an invoice does not.
- Kit — lighting and grip
- Quoted
- Priced against the look, not against the day. This is the line that decides what is possible.
- Prep and recce
- $475
- Half day rate. A scene shot without a recce costs more than the recce did.
- Overtime
- 1.5×
- After ten hours, and I will tell you at hour nine rather than on the invoice.
- Travel and per diem
- At cost
- Agreed before, itemised after.
Common questions
Before you send the script.
Can I see a reel?
Yes, and it will mislead you the way every reel does — ninety seconds cut from the best three seconds of forty jobs. Read the shot list on this page first. It tells you more about how I would run your day than any montage can.
Why is the kit a separate line?
Because a day rate and a camera package are different things and conflating them is how a quote looks cheap and an invoice does not. You are also free to hire the package elsewhere; I will tell you if the price you have been given is fair.
How many setups can we get in a day?
Twelve on a single location with one turnaround, which is what the scene on this page was. Add a company move and it is eight. Anyone promising twenty either has two units or has not thought about the relight.
Can you get that look on our budget?
Sometimes, and I will say so plainly rather than quote and disappoint you. The lighting and grip line is the one that decides it — not the camera, which matters far less than anyone outside the trade expects.
Who chooses the aspect ratio?
Ideally the director and I do, in prep. Frequently it is decided by whoever wrote the delivery spec, and then we find out on the day that the two-shot does not fit. It is worth ten minutes in the first conversation.
Do you grade your own work?
No. I supervise and I have opinions, but the colourist is a specialist and the difference between us is visible. Budget for them — it is the cheapest way to make everything else you paid for look like what you paid for.
Enquire
Send the script, or the deck.
Dates and locations decide more than anything else in the first email. Fields marked with an asterisk are required.