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Best gels for cold morning blue


Elliot Rudmann

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I'll be shooting interiors with 200T stock and I'm trying to obtain a cold blue-ish hue that defines early morning. Something like the scene in Crash when Matt Dillon gets out of bed to help his father in the bathroom. Would greatly appreciate any suggestions as to what gels I could use to obtain this look. Thanks!

 

Elliot

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Frank -

 

In terms of post, we aren't doing a supervised transfer or any ENR type manipulation to the film (it's a student production and we only have about $600 to spend on this film), but we are getting a scene-by-scene color corrected telecine transfer to hard drive from Cinelab. What type of suggestions did you have in mind?

Thanks

 

Elliot

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Well, let's back up a bit. If you place a theatrical blue gel on a tungsten unit you will not have much exposure left. What units do you have to work with? Perhaps you should be using a higher speed T stock.

 

F

 

 

then you'd be better off lighting with daylight lamps since you'd be getting the same color temp from light coming in from your windows.

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yes HMI is the way to go of course but I was assuming that a student project with "$600" for a film would not be able to afford the rental of HMIs. Besides, my guess is that they are shooting this weekend since Elliot has been silent for the past day or so.

 

f

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Hey guys, thanks for your suggestions - and no, I didn't shoot anything this weekend, principal photography starts on the last weekend of October so I still have some time to figure stuff out. I was being silent because I thought this post had died. but thankfully it's not.

 

In terms of exposure, yeah, 200T is cutting it a little close, however, I do have 250w daylight balanced Chinaballs (4800 K, not exactly daylight, but close) that I can use, which I've thought about using because the apartment we're shooting in is pretty small. Otherwise, I've got an Arri 1000w softlight, and 2 650w Arri fresnels (all tungsten) to work with, plus a 500w tungsten balanced chinaball which will most likely be the motivated key (kitchen light) for the protagonist. I plan on shooting at T2.8 (maybe a T4 if I can boost the light)

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Yes, 7218 seems to have it's place. But I'm not too crazy about it for dramatic work either. There are other options: Kodak 7229 which (I haven't used yet but will at the end of the month) by the desciption sounds interesting."Soft colors" might work for you. Then there is Fuji high speed. I've never used it but I will at the next chance.

 

I was a big fan of 7279 but alas they discontunied that...

 

anyway my point is that when a high speed film is the right choice for you (and I think it might be) and you don't like the one kodak stock that everybody is using right now you shouldn't just go down to a slower stock. there are options that should be explored.

 

Experimentation is good.

 

F

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Frank - I appreciate your advice, and yes I may end up shooting 7218 if the lighting tests for 200 ISO don't go so well. 200T wasn't simply a fallback or a rejection of the popular 7218 (although virtually everyone at my school uses it so maybe I am partly rejecting it to be different) - but it was a compromise because initially, i wanted to shoot 7212 but I knew I wouldn't have sufficient light for it.

 

I've heard good things about Vision 2 Expression, however, the low contrast is the last thing I want for this film.

 

The cold-morning/blue look i am looking for is also something similar to Soderbergh's Traffic - certain scenes with Topher Grace and Erica Christenson in the house doing drugs have a very distinct blue look. Does anyone know if filters were used for this? Or shooting uncorrected tungsten film? If there's an ASC article I'd greatly appreciate a link. Thanks!

 

Elliot

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i don't really like 7218 either in "low light low key" situations. the blacks just get grainy and i've found that underexposed 7217 is actually less grainy. if you light everything though (which doesn't necessarily mean high key) it looks great. and if you really need 500 asa i like 7229 better. i haven't shot it myself but i've used it on a couple of shorts and promos i directed. much better skin tones and very clean shadows. (maybe those dp's were just better than me though) ;-)

 

/matt

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