Filmmaking Quote #20 (Gale Tattersall)

The past three days I caught a large chunk of the creativeLive HD-DSLR workshop that featured director of photography Gale Tattersall. The emphasis was on shooting with cameras like the Canon 5D with a large portion dedicated to lighting and low-budget filmmaking. Tattersall made some waves last year when he shot the season finale of House with a Canon 5D (a $2,500 camera). I have 20 pages of notes that I’ll condense for a later post, but Tattersall showed how you could do excellent lighting with $20 lights from Home Depot, cheap white poster board, and a $3 China ball from Pier One Imports. You could build a lighting kit for under $100.

Most of Tattersall’s work over the years in features and Tv has been in 35mm, but he’s embraced the HD-DSLR cameras for certain types of shooting. Not that you need to even buy one, as you can rent all you need for a weekend for $500. (Or better yet find a shooter who will let you use his.)  Bottom line is the cost of doing business is way down. So that’s the context of today’s filmmaking quote:

“If you have a dream to make a movie there’s no reason why you can’t do it anymore.”
Gale Tattersall
Director of Photography, House M.D.

P.S. When asked which area he would scrimp least, Tattersall said the scriptwriter—then the actors. Again, that’s why you should keep an eye on what Edward Burns is doing (he’s got those areas covered well). And FYI, the Canon 5D is the same camera Burns used to shoot his latest film, Newlyweds.

P.S.S. Just found out, the second E-Filmmaking post (Rapid Prototyping) got a shout-out from Edward Burns’ website. Add that to TomCruise.com & Diablo Cody’s Twitter shout-out last year and I’m starting to think we’re on a roll. More big news to announce in six days.

Scott W. Smith