doing another D.I.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Hey David,

 

A question came up in my film processing course today about DP supervised lights or DI timing, and whether they get paid by the production company to sit in on the process.

 

Is it basically something that's written into your roll as a paid DP, or have you ever heard of a DP possibly receiving a bonus for supervising a film's timing?

Edited February 7, 2007 by Jonathan Bowerbank

[Alessandro Machi]

Time, time, time, time...

 

We work very fast on a typical movie shoot. Some of us haven't found the time to develop any system of previz despite the nice idea. We set-up a shot, grab a meter reading, shoot, move on to the next shot. I'm lucky if I have time to shoot a grey scale at the head of the day.

 

 

You mean there isn't time to wave a developing polaroid still in the air for a minute as it "develops", yeah, I could see that as sort another time waster.

 

Perhaps though for shots that are he "shot of the day" or require the most "manpower" that day, it might be a wise move to cover one's assets.

 

I'm still intrigued about this shot that was underexposed but appeared to show some of the nuances that you liked. What if the shot was put on an optical printer and time-exposed? Since it's just a particular set-up only and not the whole movie, the slowness of the time-exposure process would not necessarily be an issue. One might have to make two passes, one in which the overall brightness is brought up via time-exposure, then a second optical print would be made at a "normal" level, The two shots would be electronically mated together so the hotter spots don't wash out but the darker parts would be brought up at the same time.

[David Mullen ASC]

An underexposed shot has a lack of shadow detail that no method of brightening will replace. Exposing it longer in a printer or using printing the neg at lower printing light numbers, etc. doesn't make a difference -- the shot will still be grainy once brightened and will still lack shadow detail. Underexposed shots only expose the larger grains on the film and the smaller unexposed ones are washed away in processing.

[Alessandro Machi]

An underexposed shot has a lack of shadow detail that no method of brightening will replace. Exposing it longer in a printer or using printing the neg at lower printing light numbers, etc. doesn't make a difference -- the shot will still be grainy once brightened and will still lack shadow detail. Underexposed shots only expose the larger grains on the film and the smaller unexposed ones are washed away in processing.

 

 

I recall you saying that there was something about the underexposed shot that you liked. If you can see remnants of what you liked, than the optical process might be the best option at bringing out those remnants, and quite possibly it could be better than DNR in certain instances. I think it's just been assumed by many that the DI can do everything better, but I think some of the older school ways can still be better in certain situations, especially if it is not all the footage that would require this process.

 

I do agree that if you don't see it on the negative at all it's not going to magically appear because of an optical print, but if it's there on some level, rexposure via optical, at longer time exposures, might produce a decent result.

 

Michael Hinton is an expert in this area, I wonder what he thinks about this concept.

 

Michael Hinton

INTERFORMAT

San Francisco