CineKit

Lock the script first — every department plans from it. Then break it down scene by scene: mark props, wardrobe, locations, cast, and stunts/VFX. From the breakdown, write your shot list (what coverage you need), then storyboard the shots that are complicated: moves, VFX, action, and any frame you must nail.

• Number scenes in the script and never renumber after locking.
• A shot list is a promise to your future exhausted self. Over-plan; you can always drop shots.
• Board with photos: stand at the location with the viewfinder tool and capture real frames.

• Light: where does the sun rise/set relative to windows? Visit at your shoot hour.
• Sound: stand silent for 60 seconds. Traffic, HVAC, fridges, flight paths — hear them now, not in the mix.
• Power: count outlets and breakers; know where the panel is.
• Logistics: parking, load-in path, bathrooms, staging room, neighbors, permits.
• Photograph every wall in every direction and capture frames with the viewfinder using your planned lenses.

Shoot out of story order, in location and lighting order. Group scenes by location, then by day/night, then by cast. Schedule your hardest work when the crew is freshest.

• Rule of thumb for a beginner crew: ~20–25 setups max per 10-hour day of drama; fewer with moves or kids.
• A call sheet answers: who, where, when, what scenes, weather, sunset time, nearest hospital, contacts.
• Send calls the night before, no later than wrap of the previous day.

• Director — performance and storytelling decisions.
• DP / Cinematographer — image: lensing, lighting, exposure, movement.
• 1st AD — schedule and safety; runs the floor, calls the roll.
• Gaffer — executes the lighting plan; Grip — rigging, flags, dolly.
• Sound mixer/boom — the most underrated hire. Bad sound reads as amateur faster than bad picture.
• Script supervisor — continuity, coverage notes, timings.

Decide your lens language in prep: wides that keep geography, or long lenses that isolate? Handheld or locked off? Use the viewfinder tool at the location with your planned sensor + focal length to make these calls before the shoot day, and save the frames into a storyboard.

• Key — main source, ~45° off camera axis, above eye level. Sets the mood.
• Fill — opposite side, softer/dimmer; controls contrast. Often just a bounce board.
• Back/hair light — behind, separates subject from background.

Start every setup by placing the key only, then ask: does it need fill? Does it need separation? Add nothing you can't justify.

• Big soft source (softbox, book light, or a bounced light through diffusion) 45° off axis, slightly above eyes.
• Negative fill (black flag/cloth) on the other side for shape instead of a fill light.
• Practical lamp or window in the background for depth; backlight kissed in at ¼ the key level.

• Let the window be the key; expose for the face, let the window blow slightly or net it with ND gel.
• Push your light through the window from outside for a stronger, controllable "sun".
• Bounce off the floor/wall opposite the window for gentle fill; keep contrast — day interiors die when flattened.

• Expose the shadows to be dark but not empty — protect a hint of detail.
• Motivate every source: streetlamp, TV, phone screen, moonlight (cool, soft, from a steep angle).
• Edge/rim light does the work: shape people against darkness rather than lighting them frontally.
• Haze or smoke turns beams into visible atmosphere.

• Low contrast ratio (2:1 or flatter): big soft key plus strong fill, bright background.
• Even, shadowless, optimistic. Watch for hot foreheads — powder or reposition.

• Silhouette: expose for a bright background, give the subject no front light.
• Hard light: small bare source, steep angle → crisp nose/venetian-blind shadows. Noir language.
• Mix: hard key + no fill + haze = instant thriller.

• The window — free, huge, soft. Schedule around it.
• 1× bi-color LED panel or bulb kit — your key.
• 5-in-1 reflector ($20) — bounce fill, negative fill (black side), diffusion (scrim).
• Shower curtain / bedsheet — full-frame diffusion (keep away from hot lights).
• Practicals: warm household bulbs in frame; a phone flashlight through a milk jug is a soft eye light.
• Black wrap / cardboard + tape — flags. Clamp lights from the hardware store — kickers.

1. 1st AD: “Quiet on set — picture is up.”
2. “Roll sound.” → Mixer: “Speed.”
3. “Roll camera.” → Operator: “Rolling.”
4. 2nd AC slates: “Scene 12 apple, take 3.” Clap.
5. Director: “Action.” … “Cut.” Only the director calls cut.

Tail slate (upside-down clap after "cut") when you couldn't slate the head.

• Photograph every setup: wardrobe, props, drink levels, hair. Match action between takes (which hand held the cup?).
• Draw the axis between the two actors — keep the camera on one side unless you cross visibly on a move or cut to a neutral shot.
• Eyelines: closer to the lens = more intimate; keep left/right consistent with the master.

• 3 copies, on 2 different media, 1 off-site/cloud — before cards are formatted.
• Never format on set the card you just shot until copies are verified (checksum if possible).
• Label: PROJECT_DATE_CAM-A_CARD-001. Roll cards, don't fill them to 100%.

• Nobody touches electrics with wet hands; sandbag every stand; tape every cable run.
• 12-hour max days, real meal breaks; 10 hours turnaround between wrap and next call.
• Never rush a shot involving vehicles, heights, water, or weapons — walk through at half speed first. If it feels unsafe, it is.

1. Ingest & organize — bins by scene/day; rename nothing that breaks relinking.
2. Sync sound, build stringouts of every take.
3. Assembly — the whole film, too long, from selects.
4. Rough cuts — structure passes; kill scenes, reorder.
5. Fine cut → picture lock — no more length changes after lock.
6. Sound edit & mix, color grade, titles, delivery.

• Cut on action — motion hides the cut.
• J-cuts & L-cuts — let sound lead or trail picture; conversation scenes live on these.
• Cut when the audience's eye wants to move — a new question, a look, a sound.
• Walter Murch's priority: emotion > story > rhythm > eye-trace > screen plane > spatial continuity. It's okay to break geography for feeling.
• Enter scenes late, leave early.

1. Balance every shot first: correct exposure and white balance using scopes (waveform for luma, vectorscope for skin — skin sits on the skin-tone line).
2. Match shots within each scene so cuts are invisible.
3. Look last: a gentle global grade — contrast curve, split-toned shadows/highlights, saturation choices.

• Shoot log? Apply the manufacturer's conversion LUT (or color-managed workflow) before grading.
• Protect skin. Every look bends around faces.
• Grade on the same screen brightness you expect viewers to have; check on a phone too.

• Dialogue first: clean, de-click, level every line. Fill gaps with room tone (record 60s on every set!).
• Layer: dialogue / effects / ambience / foley / music — on separate tracks.
• Sound effects sell reality; add door thumps, cloth, footsteps at low level.
• Mix targets: dialogue ~-12 to -6 dBFS peaks; loudness ≈ -14 LUFS for web, -23 LUFS for broadcast.
• Music last and less than you think. If a scene only works with music, the cut isn't done.

• Master: ProRes 422 HQ (or DNxHR HQ) at timeline resolution — archive this forever.
• Web: H.264/H.265 MP4, 4K ≈ 45–60 Mbps, 1080p ≈ 16–24 Mbps, audio AAC 320 kbps.
• Frame rate and resolution must match the timeline; never upscale at export.
• Watch the full export before publishing. Every time. On the worst screen you own.

Exposure is a bucket filled by three taps: aperture (how wide the pipe), shutter (how long it runs), ISO (how much you amplify what you caught). Each stop doubles or halves light — f/2.8→f/4 loses one stop, 1/50→1/100 loses one stop, ISO 800→1600 gains one.

In cinema, shutter is locked by the 180° rule and aperture is a creative choice (depth of field), so you balance with ISO and ND filters.

Film cameras had a rotating half-circle (180°) shutter: exposure = half the frame interval. At 24 fps that's 1/48s — the motion blur audiences read as "cinematic". Faster shutters (1/200+) look crunchy and anxious (the Saving Private Ryan beach); slower smears dreamily.

• 24 fps → 1/50 · 30 fps → 1/60 · 60 fps slow-mo → 1/125.
• Flicker: in 50Hz-mains countries use 1/50 or 1/100 under artificial light.

Depth of field — how much is in focus — shrinks with: wider aperture, longer lens, closer subject, bigger sensor. Shallow focus isolates and romanticizes; deep focus (f/8+) makes the audience choose where to look, great for staging in depth.

• T-stops (cine lenses) are f-stops measured for actual light transmission — trust T for exposure.
• Wide open, focus is a knife's edge: use peaking/magnification, and give your focus puller (you) marks.

• Wide (12–24mm FF) — geography, energy, distortion up close. The world dominates the person.
• Normal (35–50mm) — human vision; honest, documentary.
• Long (85mm+) — compression, isolation, intimacy or surveillance. Backgrounds leap closer.

Perspective actually comes from camera distance, not the lens — the lens decides how much of that perspective fills the frame. Dolly in close on a wide = intense presence; stand back on a long lens = detached observation.

A 25mm on M4/3 frames like a 50mm on full frame. Most cinema history was shot on Super 35 — full frame is not "more cinematic", it's just shallower and wider for a given lens.

• Candle ≈ 1900K · tungsten 3200K · sunset 3500K · daylight 5600K · overcast 6500K · blue shade 7500K+.
• Set WB deliberately, not auto — auto WB drifts mid-shot. Mixing temps is a tool: warm key + cool ambient = the classic night look.
• Shoot a gray card or white sheet at each setup for a grading anchor.

• Log profiles (S-Log3, C-Log3, V-Log, BRAW film) store more dynamic range in a flat image; grade later. Expose log 1–2 stops brighter than it meters unless the manual says otherwise (noise lives in shadows).
• LUT = a color transform; monitor with a conversion LUT so you judge real contrast on set.
• Bit depth: 10-bit minimum for log. Bitrate: higher = fewer compression artifacts. All-I edits easier than Long-GOP.

• ND — sunglasses for the lens; mandatory outdoors at cinema shutter speeds. Variable NDs are convenient but can cross-pattern at extremes; fixed NDs are cleaner.
• Polarizer — kills reflections on glass/water, deepens skies; costs ~1.5 stops.
• Diffusion (Black Pro-Mist 1/8–1/4, Glimmerglass) — blooms highlights, softens digital edge; the "why does their footage look like film" filter. Start at 1/8; 1 is too much.
• Modern sharp lenses + mild diffusion is the classic current recipe (used across countless features and shows).

Place eyes on the top third line, subjects on the vertical thirds — instant balance. But composition is meaning: centering reads formal, confrontational or comic (Kubrick, Wes Anderson); placing a subject low in the frame with heavy headroom reads small and oppressed; shoving them against an edge creates unease.

• Headroom shrinks as shots get closer; a CU can crop the top of the head, never the chin.
• Lead room: give walking/looking characters space to move or look into — unless you want them "trapped" against the frame edge.
• Eyeline height: camera at eye level = equal; below = power; above = vulnerability.

Cinema is 2D pretending to be 3D. Build every frame in three layers: foreground (a doorframe, a shoulder, a plant), midground (your subject), background (context, life, light). Shooting through things — glass, rain, foliage — adds instant production value.

• Leading lines (roads, rails, shadows) steer the eye to the subject.
• Frames within frames (windows, doorways, mirrors) trap or isolate characters.
• Diagonals = energy/instability; horizontals = calm; verticals = strength or imprisonment (bars, columns).
• Visual weight: bright, large, high-contrast, face-like things pull the eye. Balance or deliberately unbalance them.

• 2.39:1 — scope: landscapes, ensembles, epic distance.
• 1.85:1 / 16:9 — the neutral standards.
• 4:3 / 1.37 — portraiture, intimacy, the past, confinement (The Lighthouse, Ida).
• 9:16 — vertical/social; compose for faces and verticals.

Choose in prep and mark your monitor — don't decide in the edit.

• EWS/WS establish geography · FS full body · MS waist-up conversation · MCU chest-up drama · CU face/emotion · ECU detail/obsession · Insert object · OTS relationship · Two-shot togetherness.
• Progressing WS→CU as a scene intensifies is the audience's emotional dial. Save the tightest size for the biggest beat.

• Pan/tilt — follow or reveal.
• Dolly/track — physical movement through space; a slow push-in = rising importance; pull-out = abandonment or scale.
• Handheld — nervous system of the scene: urgency, realism, instability.
• Gimbal/Steadicam — floating, inevitable, dreamlike.
• Zoom — mechanical attention (retro/doc flavor); zoom ≠ dolly, backgrounds behave differently.

Two people talking define an invisible line. Keep all cameras on one side and everyone keeps looking at each other across the cut. Cross it and they suddenly both face the same way — geography breaks. To cross legally: move the camera across during a shot, cut to a neutral on-the-line shot, or let a character's movement redraw the line.

Same law for travel: a car exiting frame right should enter the next shot frame left.

1. Block the scene with actors first. Watch. Then place the camera.
2. Shoot the master (whole scene, wide) for geography and safety.
3. Punch in: matching OTS and singles both directions, then inserts.
4. Keep continuity of action, eyelines, and pace across every angle — you're shooting the edit.

• Distance between characters = the state of their relationship; change it as the scene turns.
• Who moves first, who turns away, who sits/stands — power dynamics without dialogue.
• Stage in depth (one close, one far) instead of flat side-by-side.

Hard light (small/far source: bare bulb, sun) makes crisp shadows — drama, heat, interrogation. Soft light (big/close source: window, softbox, bounce) wraps — beauty, calm, honesty. Modifiers move you along that scale: diffusion softens, bounce softens and redirects, flags cut, grids narrow.

• Front — flat, glamour or blankness.
• 45° (Rembrandt) — the classic triangle of light on the far cheek.
• Side — split face, inner conflict.
• Back — halo/silhouette, mystery.
• Under — horror. Top — judgment, isolation (interrogation lamp).

• Key:fill ratio — 2:1 (1 stop) airy, 4:1 (2 stops) cinematic standard, 8:1+ noir.
• Think in zones: where do you place skin (typically ~1 stop over middle gray for light skin, at/under for darker skin — expose for the face in front of you), where do highlights clip, what stays black?
• Use false color/zebras/waveform, not the LCD image, to judge.

• Warm/cool contrast is the cheapest production value there is: tungsten practical inside, cool "moonlight" outside a window.
• Complementary schemes (teal/orange, green/magenta) vibrate; analogous schemes soothe.
• Let one color own each scene, and let the palette arc across the film with the story.

• Waveform — luma plotted 0–100. Skin highlights typically ride ~50–70 IRE (lower for darker skin, and deliberately lower in moody work); clipped flat lines at 100 are gone forever.
• False color — the fastest on-set check: green ≈ middle gray, pink ≈ standard skin zone, red = clipping, purple/blue = crushed.
• Zebras — set one at 95–100% for clip warnings, one at ~55–70% aimed at skin.
• The LCD image lies (brightness, ambient light); scopes don't. Meter faces, protect highlights, and when shooting log remember the image is supposed to look flat.

A character wants something external, needs something internal, and the gap between them is the movie. Act 1: ordinary world, inciting incident, the choice to pursue the want. Act 2: escalating attempts and failures; midpoint raises stakes or reveals truth; the low point strips everything. Act 3: armed with the need, the character faces the final test; climax answers the dramatic question; resolution shows the changed world.

• Every scene: someone wants something, something resists, the scene turns (+ to − or − to +). No turn, no scene.
• Cause and effect: "and then" is a list; "therefore / but" is a story.

• Objects carry meaning: a wedding ring fidgeted with says more than a speech about the marriage.
• Behavior over exposition: show the soldier polishing boots at 4 AM, not "I'm disciplined."
• Production design is character: what's on their walls, in their fridge, on their floor?

Decide the film's argument ("isolation destroys", "control is an illusion") and derive rules from it: lens set, movement policy, palette, ratio, light quality. Write these as a one-page look book and obey it — style is consistency of choices, and breaking your own rule once, at the climax, is the loudest thing you can do.

• Whose scene is it? Give them the closest sizes, the most singles, the camera behind their shoulder.
• Subjective tools: POV shots, shallow focus on what they notice, sound narrowing to their heartbeat, handheld when they panic.
• Withholding POV creates dread — we see the danger they can't.

• Match cut (shape/motion/sound) links ideas across time — bone to spaceship.
• Sound bridges pull us forward; prelap the next scene's audio.
• Montage compresses time; a single unbroken take insists on real time and earns tension.

• Rewatch one great scene 5×: once for cuts (count them), once for lens/size, once for light, once for sound, once for blocking.
• Steal structure, never surface. Ask "what problem did this choice solve?"
• Starter studies: Children of Men (long takes), The Godfather (light & power), Mad Max: Fury Road (center framing & eye-trace), Moonlight (color & POV), Parasite (blocking & verticality).

• Philosophy: serve the story with the simplest image that works; if a light isn't motivated by something in the world of the scene, it shouldn't be on.
• Signature moves: single soft sources, silhouettes, practical-driven night work, precise operating (he still operates himself).
• He distrusts shooting "coverage" for safety — plan the shot that tells the moment, not six angles of it.
• Study: Blade Runner 2049, 1917, Skyfall, No Country for Old Men.

• Philosophy: exposure is a dramatic choice. He let Brando's eyes fall to black when the character was hiding something, and held The Godfather in a tight amber palette when the studio worried it was too dark.
• Lesson: don't "fix" darkness. Decide what the audience must not see, and protect that decision through post.
• Study: The Godfather I–II, Klute, Manhattan, All the President's Men.

• Philosophy: color and light carry ideas — he plans films as journeys between light and shadow, warm and cool, each pole standing for a force in the story (Apocalypse Now: civilization's light descending into darkness).
• Practice: assign a meaning to your key colors before shooting and let the palette arc with the character.
• Study: Apocalypse Now, The Conformist, The Last Emperor.

• Philosophy: available and natural light, wide lenses close to faces, long developing takes that keep the audience inside the moment.
• Practice: he schedules around the light — whole days on The Revenant built around brief magic-hour windows — rather than forcing light to match a schedule.
• Study: Children of Men, The Tree of Life, Birdman, The Revenant.

• Philosophy: expose dark skin richly and low rather than brightening it flat; softness and density over sharpness and punch.
• Practice: meter faces and place them deliberately; test how far under your camera stays beautiful, and live there when the story wants intimacy.
• Study: Arrival, Selma, A Most Violent Year, When They See Us.

• Philosophy: the image should feel remembered, not decorated — naturalism with one emotional idea per scene. First woman nominated for the cinematography Oscar (Mudbound).
• Practice: start from "what does this moment feel like?" and work backward to light and lens — never the reverse.
• Study: Mudbound, Fruitvale Station, Black Panther.

• Philosophy: format and texture as storytelling — IMAX (Dunkirk, Oppenheimer) for physical presence; grain, flare and imperfection embraced as honesty.
• Practice: pick your "texture rules" (clean vs dirty, steady vs breathing) per project and commit.
• Study: Her, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Oppenheimer, Let the Right One In.

• Philosophy: perfection is sterile — he chased happy accidents (rain on glass, blown windows, stray reflections) and kept mistakes that felt true.
• Practice: when something unplanned happens in a take, shoot it again on purpose before you kill it.
• Study: Road to Perdition, American Beauty, Cool Hand Luke, In Cold Blood.