How to CREATE A CINEMATIC IMAGE | Understanding DEPTH

[@mchampag]

Such great advice. Camera and lens companies sell depth-of-field, a gross distortion of something so much more important to making motion pictures beautiful-depth. Best part: depth is free. What an eye-opening treat this was. Thank you!

[@WillvonTagen]

Thank you so much!

[@oliverpavicevic5387]

Found your channel only because I was searching for bmpcc camera and then I found a great and smart content! Rarely seen on KZbin. I'm happy to find someone that thinks like me.

[@WillvonTagen]

Thanks for watching and thanks for the kind words!

[@wakkowarner8810]

With deep-focus, or a deep depth of field, you need a lot more light to make it look good.

[@lindavontagen952]

Your Mom did see it! Great job Will!

[@WillvonTagen]

Thanks MOM :)

[@WillvonTagen]

What are some of your favorite Cinematic images/moments?

[@cLaunMH]

I'm a simple man, it's the zombie waves around street corners in World War Z, see 1:41 in kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3unoHqZmM-Nn9U

[@WillvonTagen]

@@cLaunMH kzbin.info/www/bejne/qXm0kJSKn72CmNU

[@claytonmedic]

Is “all of 1917” a good answer? Haha. The burning hut thing in Midsommar with the bear suit. Long boarding in Iceland in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.

[@WillvonTagen]

@@claytonmedic I LOOOOOVE Walter Mitty. Such a gorgeous film and overall fun movie!

[@AnandaGarden]

Beautiful. Instruction without sharp angles, so engaging and natural. Thanks for an enjoyable learning experience.

[@WillvonTagen]

Thank you so much! Glad you enjoyed it :)

[@erzhavin]

Best tutorial have ever heard.

[@feltimfilm]

Good job. I really appreciate stumbling onto this.

[@WillvonTagen]

Thank you! :)

[@DEMONT4u]

Very helpful 👌 because i was becoming discouraged not having the correct lenses...i have two blackmagic cameras and just lost my drive to make short films but this information really assured me ,possibilities are tangible...thanks

[@WillvonTagen]

So glad it was helpful! What cameras do you have?

[@DEMONT4u]

@@WillvonTagen blackmagic ursa mini 4k and the blackmagic pocket cinema 6k

[@jkapp374]

Hope you'll be able to create more vids lile this one.. once we beginning in the filmmakers get our hands on a cinema camera, it's now up to us what we put in front of that camera to tell the story in the best way possible

[@WillvonTagen]

I'll try and get some more videos out that are more focused on practice :)

[@wakkowarner8810]

I am going to use the advice I am getting from your KZbin channel to create cinematic music videos.

[@Chris_Carlile-1992]

Thanks to you making this video, I am starting to have better knowledge of adding elements into filmmaking

[@iainmoss3191]

this is great man you deserve to have loads more views!

[@WillvonTagen]

Wow, thanks man! I appreciate it :)

[@MathTeacher80031]

Great advice! I appreciated all the examples from films to drive home your points.

[@WillvonTagen]

Thanks! :)

[@BlackBoxDigitalFilms]

Great information coming from your channel Will

[@WillvonTagen]

Thank you! :)

[@imiy]

but really only the entrance pupil diameter and distance to the subject is what matters for depth of field.

[@claytonmedic]

Great information, thank you. Subscribed.

[@WillvonTagen]

Thanks man! Let me know if there are any topics you want me to hit :)

[@claytonmedic]

Will von Tagen you mentioned “cheap lights” in another episode. Looking forward to that. I actually never heard of that diopter thing either and I’d be happy to hear more about that and the theory on how to set up shots to use one. Things like practical lighting setups, upstage and downstage lighting theories and practical applications. I know *what* it is, but how does a low budget filmmaker with little/no experience in actual set design set this up? I saw your video on how budget shouldn’t be an issue, and I understand what you’re saying, but at the same time, the most important things you brought up, like set design and props and wardrobe for color palettes and such costs money!

[@claytonmedic]

Me too!!! Such a fantastic inspiration for all of us. So many people out there living mundane lives. Taking chances is scary. Things don’t always work out, but one thing’s for certain, they definitely won’t if you never try!

[@WillvonTagen]

@@claytonmedic Great Idea :)

[@philipmillenbah126]

Thank you for taking the time to share your knowledge. It is very helpful info. Subscribed.

[@WillvonTagen]

I'm so glad you found it helpful :)

[@VesaGuardian]

Very thorough. I think I learned a lot. Thanks!

[@WillvonTagen]

Glad you found it useful!

Genial, es algo que venía conversando con los amigos, muchas veces creen que todo debe estar desenfocado.

Your channel is awesome, man ! Thank you ! Keep up !

[@WillvonTagen]

Thanks!

[@Rosomyat]

Thanks for your inspirations .. Learned a lot

[@WillvonTagen]

So glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!

[@Rosomyat]

@@WillvonTagen 😍

[@SunklifeFilms]

You’re such a master 📸 Perfekt Video ;)

[@WillvonTagen]

Wow, thank you :)

[@JonasStuart]

This is great and I've learnt this by trial an error over the past few years. Great to have it so well summed up in this video thanks! I am currently slowly collecting Zeiss Milvus Superspeeds. I love how they render the image/colours. I mainly shoot between f2.8 and f4 but wide open, it gives a lovely smooth shallow DOF when needed and is also REALLY useful in lowlight (paired with a metabones and P4K it's an amazing low light set-up!) Thanks, I subbed and look forward to a lot more from your channel °¬)

[@WillvonTagen]

Thanks for watching! Those are great lenses.

[@VilkanVisions]

I knew about all those things, but it was a good reminder because I was just considering if I need go full frame :D I would also add fog to the list :) Subbed for more content like this :)

[@WillvonTagen]

Hey! Great comment. I didn't include fog/haze because I generally consider that more of a specific tool for rather specific circumstances and moods. It definitely adds depth 100% and I LOVE adding it to scenes when appropriate, but I tried to focus more on elements that can generally be added to any scene--regardless of the mood/atmosphere being established :) Thanks for the Sub!

[@williambrowne]

Completely agree, been heavily debating whether to go full frame or buy a the original bmpcc. Needless to say this was a healthy reminder that my original choice, the bmpcc because of it's colour space and amazing price, will be perfectly viable for any situation so long as I put effort into it. The camera won't inherently make my work better but it will definitely motivate me to make it better :D

[@DerrykSchieck]

Watched a few of your vids, this is a good one! subbed :)

[@WillvonTagen]

Wow, thank you! :)

[@DerrykSchieck]

@@WillvonTagen :) i knew you werent bullshit after talking about the bmpcc in another vid. I recently bought it, check out my last short 'a day out'. (No nd filter:( ) i am however thinking about going to the 4k for future proofness haha.

[@WillvonTagen]

@@DerrykSchieck The 4K is definitely easier to use (especially "out-of-the-box"), and you will want 4K for client work or Stock Photography etc. The original does have a very unique look tho which I will always love :)

[@matthewhartman7176]

Seriously, you have one of the premiere indy filmmaker channels. One factor that you forgot to cover is lift. What is lift? Practically in filmmaker nomenclature is handled by haze or fog, lift lifts mids, and shadows. So, how does lift create depth? My thoery is that it simulates atmospheric depth. Objects closer to the eye/camera have more contrast, and as you gaze backward into space, objects exponentially lose their contrast the farther away they are in distance to the eye/camera, thus creating contrast seperation in z depth. This helps subjects lift from their background. Many vintage lens' produce this effect out of the gate. Modern clinical glass tries to correct these "imperfections" to bring the entire image to neutral 0 across the entire frame, in the xyz, but it's these imperfections in contrast (lift) that we associate with cinema. This is why so many cinematographers love Cooke. Cooke's produce great lift, which helps define parallax clearer. As an independent filmmaker, I say get yourself a working set of FDs.

[@njokde1003]

I work with this guy! :) :)

[@richardweddle3408]

Color me confused. I seem to get a deeper depth of field and a sharper image on a smaller M43 sensor. However I'm shooting with the Blackmagic 6K Pro which is an APSC / Super 35 sensor. I don't ever want a shallow depth of field. I want deep focus, deep depth of field and sharpness from front to back. My brain rebels against blurry images.

[@WillvonTagen]

A smaller sensor will yield a deeper dof, so on an MFT that will be the result vs s35. Set your lens to an f/11 or so and you’ll get a flatter image.

[@headwerkn]

It is interesting to note how recent series' of The Handmaid's Tale have increasing used razor thin DoF to a (subjectively) distracting degree. I'm sure all the soft, mostly blurry up-the-nose shots of June are meant to visually portray her increasingly overwhelmed mental state... but IMHO it is so heavily and over-used over such long sequences, it's getting tedious and tiring to watch. You can see the poor focus puller struggling too ;-)

[@WillvonTagen]

Great observations! I haven’t seen the latest handmaids tale season, I will need to check it out :)

[@Yodd]

Even though You are one of the few people on youtube who talks about depth as the main ingredient of the cinematic look. You did make a couple of mistakes. Focal length doesnt impact the depth of field directly, it is the distance to the subject, either physical distance ( by moving the camera) or focal distance ( by zooming in) basically if the subject is the same size in the frame depth of field will be the same regardless of whether its 25mm or 100mm. However because the backgroudn gets closer to the subject in the 100mm it magnifies the background which also magnifies the blurryness. Aperture doesnt impact depth of field directly, it impacts the size of the entrance pupil. Entrance pupil impacts depth of field directly. And the final mistake is the clean vs dirty frame. Yes dirty frame adds depth to the foreground, however it should not be used for that purpose alone. Whether you use a clean single or a dirty single depends on what you want to tell the audience. Good filmmakers never put the look of the frame above the visual language of the frame. Calling it nonsense is just wrong. Its a good video, much better than others that tell how to achieve” the cinematic look”.