Claudio Miranda

[Adam Frisch FSF]

It's now official that Claudio Miranda, who posts here sometimes, is shooting Fincher's new feature Benjamin Button (that's already shooting). This excites me a bit since I'm a big Fincher and Miranda fan and will be first in line to see it. I'm guessing this one will be shot on Viper as well, since they have a history of collaborating on that format for commercials.

 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing it.

[Chayse Irvin ASC, CSC]

Sweet. Figured it was only a matter of time.

[Claudio Miranda ASC]

Thanks Adam. It has been awhile since I have visited this site. I finally have a 2 day weekend. And yes, I was thrilled to get the call. The script is really good. It is different from the short story.

 

This is a very different movie than Fincher?s past movies. One is that it is a period movie that takes place from 1917 to present. The story has a much softer tone than his usual. I told David that I was surprised that he was doing a kind of love story, he replied that ?it really is about death?. OK? we are making a Fincher movie.

 

For this movie, David had me look into the Dalsa as well as the Viper. We loved the depth of field of the Dalsa and the 4k images, but we needed more time to implement the Dalsa into our workflow. So we are again back on the Viper.

 

I shot the reshoots for Zodiac and this is basically the same method. In the past I have never used magenta filters to suppress the green. Harris did not like the looking at the green hue and started using Magenta?s filters. I have found some advantages using them. One is that when shooting outdoors the green channel is the 1st to clip and by suppressing the green channel, I have more shoulder room. Shooting at night I use a 10-20 magenta (sometimes none) and for exteriors I use a 30 magenta. I also built a very simple LUT that pulls a little green and adds slight amount of contrast.

 

Lighting I try to keep simple. Sometimes I have used a bare light bulb in shot to light the scene. Covered wagons are still a favorite. Lighting to low light levels. With the lenses at a 1.9 or a 1.6 you might be hard pressed to find and incident exposure over a 1.6 If I need more light I will use a 210-270 deg shutter.

 

I still get dpx stills from the S2 and grade them later at night. I am going for a really natural look without the forced gradings we currently see a lot of. The look needs to serve to story.

 

We are into our 26th day of shooting and still have 116 days left. All is going well.

[Phil Rhodes]

I'd be interested to hear your opinion on the S2 recorders.

 

Phil

[Vedran Rapo]

but we needed more time to implement the Dalsa into our workflow.

 

 

sorry what do u mean?

[Claudio Miranda ASC]

sorry what do u mean?

On the S2:

I like the S2. I like the ability to pull DPX files an grade them later. We also tested the Codex because the S2 can not handle the data the Dalsa puts out. A single Codex can record 2 Vipers or 1 Dalsa. S2 can only record 1 Viper. Both are good machines. Once it went back to Viper, we went back to S2

On Dalsa:

We wanted to light to a 1.6 minimum. The only lenses that cover the Dalsa's large format are Lieka's. Some of these lenses are a 1.4 and others a 2.8 and the set, currently, is very limiting. The Dalsa's sensor is way larger than Super 35 and even 31mm super 35 diagonal which Ultra Primes, S4 Cookes and Master Primes are designed to cover. It is almost Vistavision. We looked into using Master Primes at a 1.3 and maybe even S4 Cookes but they only covered 80% of the field. Also this ment no zooms. All the zooms I tested barely covered Super 35 and we needed 31mm. Then we were looking at only using 3.3K of the 4K chip. We did shoot some test and the images were beautiful, but there was another problem. There was this flare issue. When I discovered this flare they realized that this came from a UV filter that was added to the chip. They had solved the problem in Canada and were going to send 6 new camera's with the upgrade, but I needed to run my tests

all over with the new batch. We were 2 weeks from shooting. I ran out of time. I went with what I knew.

The funny thing is that Dalsa makes the Viper chip.

[Keith Mottram]

On the S2:

I like the S2. I like the ability to pull DPX files an grade them later. We also tested the Codex because the S2 can not handle the data the Dalsa puts out. A single Codex can record 2 Vipers or 1 Dalsa. S2 can only record 1 Viper. Both are good machines. Once it went back to Viper, we went back to S2

On Dalsa:

We wanted to light to a 1.6 minimum. The only lenses that cover the Dalsa's large format are Lieka's. Some of these lenses are a 1.4 and others a 2.8 and the set, currently, is very limiting. The Dalsa's sensor is way larger than Super 35 and even 31mm super 35 diagonal which Ultra Primes, S4 Cookes and Master Primes are designed to cover. It is almost Vistavision. We looked into using Master Primes at a 1.3 and maybe even S4 Cookes but they only covered 80% of the field. Also this ment no zooms. All the zooms I tested barely covered Super 35 and we needed 31mm. Then we were looking at only using 3.3K of the 4K chip. We did shoot some test and the images were beautiful, but there was another problem. There was this flare issue. When I discovered this flare they realized that this came from a UV filter that was added to the chip. They had solved the problem in Canada and were going to send 6 new camera's with the upgrade, but I needed to run my tests

all over with the new batch. We were 2 weeks from shooting. I ran out of time. I went with what I knew.

The funny thing is that Dalsa makes the Viper chip.

 

Claudio,

 

did you test the D20 or Genesis?

 

keith

[Max Jacoby]

Also this ment no zooms. All the zooms I tested barely covered Super 35 and we needed 31mm.

The Arri/Zeiss Masterzoom is very likely the one zoom that covers the biggest negative area.

[Stephen Williams]

Also this ment no zooms. All the zooms I tested barely covered Super 35 and we needed 31mm.

 

Claudio,

 

If you check out the Cooke Optics or Arg. websites, the manufactures don't claim S35 just R35 coverage. However from testing my 30 year old 20-100 Cooke (without the front mask attached) it does indeed cover S35 1:185 at all foclal lengths & all focus distances.

 

Stephen

[Claudio Miranda ASC]

Claudio,

 

If you check out the Cooke Optics or Arg. websites, the manufactures don't claim S35 just R35 coverage. However from testing my 30 year old 20-100 Cooke (without the front mask attached) it does indeed cover S35 1:185 at all foclal lengths & all focus distances.

 

Stephen

I am not talking about covering Super 35. I am talking about covering the 31mm diagonal which is 15% larger than Super 35. Dalsa's chip is approx 30% larger than Super 35. All the S4's I have tested covered the 31mm diagonal for the exception of 14 and 18 which would be too wide for our show. Seeing now a 14 is not a 10. Master Prime and Ultra claim 31mm coverage. I do not need to go to a WEB site, I have personally mapped these lenses for fall off and sharpness at various low end stops. On the Zooms I have tested 25-250HR, All 3 Optimo's and the new short S4 short 15-40 and all did not cover 31mm. On Primes I tested, S4, Ultra Primes, Leicas and Master Primes. All the lenses I have tested have fall off toward the edges. Even in the R35 range. You would be amazed the amount of fall off. I was surprised. To better understand I will post a lenses chart I shot with a 25mm Master Prime at a 1.3 on the Dalsa.

 

http://www.claudiomiranda.com/dalsa.html

 

All the tests I have done were very extensive. I put both cameras operating in a humidity chamber a 95% at 130 for 6 hrs. Both came out dripping and both past. I have done vibrations test. I have done RF interference. Testing difference gyro heads to make sure there was no interference. Plus the normal exposure, filter etc tests.

 

On the Master Zoom. It was not available for testing so I can not vouch for it.

 

I have shot the Genesis. It does record to tape and does have some compression (which David hates). David basically hates tape (might as well be 8 track to him). I was talking to David about using the adapter to get the 4:4:4 dual link and run it straight to the S2. But he was not interested.

 

On the D20:

I have not shot with it. I would like to. There was not enough D20's for our show so we did not bother. When I am finished I will do some testing on the D20. I am not certain, but maybe someone in this group can answer, I think the D20 at Clairmount goes to a SWR5000 tape machine (compressed) and not uncompress hard drive. I am not sure if anyone is capturing the full 4:4:4 raw data uncompressed.

[Claudio Miranda ASC]

Also The Ultra Primes and Master Primes also covered 31mm. We wanted to use Master Primes, but we could not get enough lenses. If we went with Dalsa we would of probably gone with S4 cookes.

[Mike Rizos]

Hi Claudio,

Dalsa lists a set of lenses under the "Dalsa" name. They are 19,24,28,35,50, and 80mm. Are these rehoused Leica lenses, and if so are these the ones you tested. Either way, what did you think about the Leica lenses you tested? I know you mentioned, you wouldn't go with them because some of them are slow.

[Claudio Miranda ASC]

Hi Claudio,

Dalsa lists a set of lenses under the "Dalsa" name. They are 19,24,28,35,50, and 80mm. Are these rehoused Leica lenses, and if so are these the ones you tested. Either way, what did you think about the Leica lenses you tested? I know you mentioned, you wouldn't go with them because some of them are slow.

I did love the Lenses. The 2.8 on some of the lenses was the deal breaker. And yes I did test those.

 

On Benjamin at night my lenses 95% of the time is at a 1.9 or if needed a 1.6 and never a 2.8

[Mike Williamson]

On the D20:

I have not shot with it. I would like to. There was not enough D20's for our show so we did not bother. When I am finished I will do some testing on the D20. I am not certain, but maybe someone in this group can answer, I think the D20 at Clairmount goes to a SWR5000 tape machine (compressed) and not uncompress hard drive. I am not sure if anyone is capturing the full 4:4:4 raw data uncompressed.

 

Hey Claudio, congratulations on your current film, very much looking forwards to seeing it once it's done.

 

We recently shot a small scene for one of my classes at AFI using a D20 hooked up to Technicolor's Digital Printer Lights system to preview possible looks for a filmout. We recorded to an HDCAM-SR deck (not sure what model) rather than going to hard drive. If I recall correctly, the Arri tech who was with us said that they didn't have a hard drive system in place yet. I think there was talk about the possibility of using Venom mags or S2 disks for capture, but I don't think Clairmont has that workflow set up as of now. The workshop was shot by Curtis Clark, ASC, which was great as he's been using a variety of the new digital cameras in his commercial work and seems very knowledgable about them. TDI is working on a filmout of the material, very curious to see how it turned out.

[Keith Mottram]

[q

On the D20:

I have not shot with it. I would like to. There was not enough D20's for our show so we did not bother. When I am finished I will do some testing on the D20. I am not certain, but maybe someone in this group can answer, I think the D20 at Clairmount goes to a SWR5000 tape machine (compressed) and not uncompress hard drive. I am not sure if anyone is capturing the full 4:4:4 raw data uncompressed.

 

Claudio,

 

I'm pretty sure that the D20 can record to S2 in the same way as the viper, although i've only used it with SR. Are you using Venom packs on the feature?

 

Keith

[Lance Flores]

On the D20:

I have not shot with it. I would like to. There was not enough D20's for our show so we did not bother. When I am finished I will do some testing on the D20. I am not certain, but maybe someone in this group can answer, I think the D20 at Clairmount goes to a SWR5000 tape machine (compressed) and not uncompress hard drive. I am not sure if anyone is capturing the full 4:4:4 raw data uncompressed.

Claudio,

 

I'm pretty sure that the D20 can record to S2 in the same way as the viper, although i've only used it with SR. Are you using Venom packs on the feature?

 

Keith

[Michael Collier]

Sounds awsome. I hope you will be able to keep us updated with an in production blog and maybe some pics. I know how hectic a film shoot can be (for small indies, a film on this scale would obviously be much more intense) but I would like to hear back from you on your experiences. When does the shoot start?

[Vedran Rapo]

yeah that would be superb... a few photos from the set... :D

[Claudio Miranda ASC]

Unfortunately all my photo's are owned by Paramount and I can not post. Even the tests I have shot have to be kept under lock and key.

 

On Venom: We are not using Venom. David has not been a big fan of steady cam or handheld so it has not been an issue.

 

On shooting: We are already on out 6th week of shooting.

 

On D20 recording to S2: I would love to know for certain, but I can check on my end. As far as I know there has not been an S2 recording a D20.

[Wendell_Greene]

On D20 recording to S2: I would love to know for certain, but I can check on my end. As far as I know there has not been an S2 recording a D20.

 

 

December 2005 Archive News - S.Two website

 

 

In Los Angeles S.two are chosen by The Disney Corp. as the master recorder in a group test of state of the art digital cinematography cameras. The decision was made by Disney to use S.two as they wanted to see the cameras uncompressed throughout the production process.

 

The D.P. was Daryn Okada, ASC who shot a short film on the Disney ranch, across two shooting days mixing a variety of locations and scenes to show the cameras under all lighting conditions. S.two recorded the Arri D20, the Sony F950 and Grass Valley Viper cameras, all in 10 bit dual link RGB uncompressed. Also shot along with the digital cameras were S35mm film and the Dalsa Camera. Post is at Technicolor.

 

 

Congrats Claudio! I wish you well on the rest of the shoot!

[Michael Collier]

Well good luck! I have been a big fincher fan since 'seven' (about the time I was old enough for the theaters to let me in his films!) he has always had a great look to all of his films, I assume its due to close collaboration between him and a very talented DP. Let us know what your experiences on set are.

 

 

At least you know there are high expectations, so really you can only excell magnificently, or fail misserably. No quiet mediocrity on this one! If fincher chose you I am sure its the former. Very eagerly looking forward to it.

 

as for the pics...understood. Paramount has to protect their investment. I assume that applies to photos you take on personal digis on set.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

SDI is SDI, after a certain point. The average hard disk recorder neither knows nor cares. The fact that system A can be recorded on recorder B is not noteworthy; it'd be news if it didn't work.

 

Phil

[Michael Most]

SDI is SDI, after a certain point. The average hard disk recorder neither knows nor cares. The fact that system A can be recorded on recorder B is not noteworthy; it'd be news if it didn't work.

 

The whole point of file based recording is to be resolution and hardware agnostic. There wouldn't be any point to any of this if it wasn't.

[F Bulgarelli]

Hello Claudio,

 

I'm curious to know; being a period piece, was film ever a consideration?

Are you going for a very particular look and were you able to define it through tests using the viper and DI?

 

Thanks for all the info,

 

Francisco

[Claudio Miranda ASC]

Film was never an option because of the huge post on this job. Plus David loves the Viper. Although we are shooting some film for the Caribean portion and a battle sequence that we want to shoot at 96fps, but that will only make up 5% of the movie.