Have you heard of Alex Buono? Alex Buono is a working cinematographer in film, television and documentary. He’s also pretty famous in online filmmaking circles for his cinematography classes and has appeared on YouTube shows like Film Riot. Let’s take a look!   Alex Buono…

There’s a rule in filmmaking that an actor should never look directly into the camera. It’s called the eyeline match, but it’s a guideline more than a hard and fast rule. There are times when an actor should look at someone or something other than…

What isa foot candle of light? This is a question I am often asked by people who are not familiar with lighting. This can be a difficult concept to explain to someone who doesn’t know much about lighting. A foot candle is a measurement of…

An arc shot is a type of film shot in which the camera follows its subject in an arc, usually from behind. This type of shot is used to give viewers information about the environment and make them feel like they are there with the…

In photography, there are two main types of lighting used to create images: high contrast and low contrast. Most of the time, photographers are after a high-contrast look. It’s the go-to for most portrait photography or for when you want to create images with bold…

As originally conceived by Paramount engineers Robert H. Gottschalk and William C. Garity, VistaVision was intended as a large-format alternative to other widescreen systems such as Cinerama or Cinemascope that had been developed in the early 1950s. However, the high cost of converting theaters (and…

In the simplest sense, a film gate is the opening in a camera through which light passes. Taken more broadly, however, a film gate is simply a hole that controls what an image sensor (such as film or an imaging chip) sees. This hole can…

Ambient light refers to the natural light already present in a scene before you set up any lighting equipment. Sometimes referred to as available light, ambient light is generally soft and diffuse and can come from the sun or moon, streetlights, windows, or other sources….

Rodrigo Prieto was born in Mexico City, Mexico. He is a Mexican cinematographer of international stature winning an Academy Award for his work on Brokeback Mountain and Babel, as well as a BAFTA Award for The Wolfman, both directed by American director Ang Lee. Prieto…

If you’ve ever watched a TV show or movie where there was a person behind the camera, one of the things you’re likely to have noticed is that they never seem to be shooting directly at their subject. This is because of something known as…