Director of Photography

RYAN RANDALL

Shooting Spring was a family affair for me. It was the first project I had shot since becoming a father in early August and was the first time my wife, Laura visited me on set with our daughter, Rebecca (I am sure a tradition will be started soon). Spring also marked the cinematic debut of our lovely Golden Retriever/Husky cross dog Hazel.

Technically, I had a few challenges to overcome: first this would be the first project that went to production on the Red Camera (I prepped a previous project but it was disbanded before we went to camera). Secondly, we would be shooting interiors with a red & white colour palette (which is always hazardous in the world of video) and would have to shoot springtime exteriors in mid-October, in Toronto in 1 day with no lighting contingency for overcast skies and no rain day contingency.

Spring was shot in 2k on a Red Cam from PS Production Services, they outfitted us with a super16 Zeiss primes for our interiors and we relied on a Zeiss 12-120 zoom for exteriors to keep us moving fast. All the media was shot onto the RedRaid hard disk drive and transferred, in triplicate, to external firewire HDDs.

As whenever I shoot digital video I lean to underexposure (to various amounts depending on camera, codec, resolution, etc.) as opposed to overexposing film negatives. I found my self thinking like I was shooting film and had to reset the urge to overexpose mostly due to the form factor of the Red and that we had Cine lenses as oppose to the ENG lenses that are usually fitted on the HD cameras I shoot.

The major difference when working with the Red was the raw format so all compression and decompression happen in post as well a the application of a ‘white balance’ and the refinement of the ‘look’ would be in the colour correction stage. I drew on my experience shooting raw on my DSLR. I knew what I could pull out the bottom end while under exposing to retain the highlight, in situations where there was no time for finesse lighting I knew we could balance the highlights and shadow in post. I was quite comfortable with how far under I could go (especially when shooting the all red & white interiors) and found that I was bumping up the brightness on the monitors in video village and reassuring that with the Red Cam the monitor feed is a 720p preview and not what the final image will be (again much like on film cameras).

After the shoot RedLab in Toronto handled all our digital ‘footage’, transcoding the 2k material to HD for the edit as well as the conforming and colour correction in their beautiful Lustre Suite with the eagle-eyed and speedy Hardave Grewel. For more on this check out my website at:

Ryan’s Spring Lustre Suit Review

As with all films and videos Spring could not have been done without the depths of knowledge and skill of the crew. I had worked with some of the crew on numerous occasions and some were new; even though we were small, we were mighty. Gaffer Mike Gillan has been by my side for 2+ years now and aways has a story to share as well a wealth of knowledge and always ribs me when I try his idea second and go with it.  James Gordon the human motion control rocked the dolly on the Hitchcock ‘compression’ shot. Rick Kearney stepped in on day 2 and was indispensable. Chris Hatcher, Dan Parkinson, and Spencer Maybee rounded out the lighting and grip crew and were a genuine pleasure to work with, as well was the Red Camera assist/DMT ninja Spencer Gray all of whom I hope to have the pleasure of working with again. Producers Stepanie Chapelle & Anneli Ekborn and Production Manager Tim Friese ran this ship smoothly and never let on one bit that they were worried about the weather for exterior day. Finally the visionary Lynne, she will never let me live down the fact that I split the rear of my pants mid way through the second day that grew progressively worse as the day wore on, at least I had a sweater to tie around my waist…

Biography: Ryan A. Randall is a Toronto-based cinematographer and independent filmmaker who shoots commercially, independently, and works with established media artists. His stunning film & video work has screened and exhibited internationally garnering numerous recognitions.

Spring Note: Lynne and Ryan met on set of an art film as the only two crew members and Ryan dug Lynne’s inspired flame throwing ability with hairspay. Lynne adores that Ryan too is a smiley MacGyver who just loves to play make movies. Ryan DOP’d all eight episodes of Lynne’s I Love A Luger webseries that also is playing on Cultural Olympiad screens. Ryan is beyond a DOP, he is film family. Lynne discusses projects with Ryan even before the script exists. The two enjoy geeking out chatting about lighting and camera techniques, latest issue of American Cinematographer, gels, lenses and how to pimp out an equipment package.