How often do you watch dailies? If you are the A camera Op do you give feedback to B cam?
Always always watch dailies. Only way to learn from your own “mistakes” but also see what is working well for the show. Watch everyone’s work and show appreciation for the other cameras contributions as well as what could be done better/differently going forward. It’s a collaborative effort and dailies keep everyone on track including the director/DoP.
I was working at a studio recently and the operator on another picture came in early. I was there to use the gym. And I was like
“hi, what you up to ?”
He said -
“I’m going to sit in the studio cinema and watch the dailies with the DOP and director.”
And I thought that’s cool, I think that’s what they used to do way back when - I always read of Kubrick being late for set as he watched the dailies.
I’ve never been offered that on any job I do, I get the dailies on my jobs sent through to me, but to be honest I very rarely watch them. Simply because there’s nothing I can do to change them, I was there and I know what I did and most of the time I’m happy. Maybe it’s because of being more the digital era than the film era ?
If on the next day we are continuing the scene from the day before, quite often I go home and once the day and family life has ended I lay in bed and visualise the next day and what I need to do and that’s an important method of how I work. I visualise anything that I might think won’t work or need to change so when I go in first thing I can speak to the relevant people about any thoughts.
Then if I need to? I’ll speak to the Scripty about specific shots, and where we are headed in the day.
Personally I never get to look at other people’s dailies - but I’d welcome it !
It is very important to watch dailies after every day however not always realistic due to the length of hours worked. I tend to watch in the beginning of a film to make sure things are on track and if a shot was challenging I’ll watch back to see how it came out and I always see how the shot could be improved. Sometimes you can can learn what lenses look better on different faces and make subtle suggestions. A lot of times there will be lens tests in pre-production so the DP should have a feeling of what lens is best for each actor, or on the contrary what lens pushes the feelings in another way. A lot of times you can see how wide of a lens you can get away with on an actors face without too much distortion or maybe you want to use that distortion. Watching dailies also helps to see how the coverage of a scene is going. Are we getting enough shots to tell the story? Or do we need more detail shots or shots for transitions between scenes?
It is surprising how much you can see when not on the eyepiece. Meaning you can always see mistakes in movement when removed from the actual camera or the energy around that shot in the moment. It helps to be in a different state of mind when watching dailies. I always learn something when I watch dailies back like oh I like how that move was or oh I didn’t like that extra adjustment I made at the end. Then next day you can go in with that knowledge and improve your technique.
I have watched the other cameras dailies to see what they are doing but more out of curiosity. I don’t think I would offer feedback to another Op unless specifically asked to by the DP. I would stay in my lane so to speak. I know I would be offended if another Op was watching back my work and offering critiques. I think it is the DPs role to offer corrections.
The more you deep dive into the work the better you will become as an operator but sometimes after 12-14 hours on set and an hour drive to and fro home its hard to put yourself back on set by watching dailies. Sometimes you need a mental break from it all. But weekends are a great time to brush up and prepare for the next week of work.
Oh how I miss sitting in dailies beyond the fact that it was gut wrenching as a young op. Now I watch on the weekends occasionally but in reality the digital online experience is so frustrating most of the time that I dont as much as I’d like. I have a general idea of what I can expect at this point. I’m not saying it’s the best way to be, but its reality and struggling with an online poor system at the end of a 13 hour day isn’t in the best interest of the project. IF I have a newer B cam op I’ll usually watch their work the first week or so.
