The Sophomore

Mitch Gross · August 7, 2007

That is one of the most frustrating things about HD for me. Straying off topic....are there any HD cameras with a 'safe' area like film? Possibly the cameras with optical finders, like the D20 or Dalsa? Of course if you're cropping there is....I'm just wondering if a viewing system has been created with this in mind.

The Phantom HD can do a version of it with more to come.

The camera is native 2048x2048 (a big square), but most people shoot 1920x1080, which is the same width as Super-35 (24mm). Often people shoot 1280x720 (same as Varicam), and when they do this with a 1920x1080 window, the camera can display the picture area in color and the outside area in monochrome. In the future there will probably be programable framelines. If there was a video standard for the full 2K image than we'd be able to similarly mark 1920x1080 inside that. More developments on the way.

Chris Keth · August 7, 2007

That's encouraging, Mitch. Not only are HD systems becoming more and more capable but they are getting more user-friendly as well.

Satsuki Murashige · August 7, 2007

It's a noir-ish mystery-comedy set in a Catholic (i.e private) high school... There is some vague 1970's conspiracy movie feeling to the story, so I suggested 2.40 to the director, who was interested. I was thinking of movies like "Klute", "Parallax View", etc.

Hi David,

Sounds like an interesting project - I notice you've been talking about the look of these 70's films lately (especially in conjunction with Gordon Willis's work) and was wondering if their minimalist aesthetic was influencing your approach this time around. There were some interesting comments made in the "Bourne Ultimatum" thread about the place of documentary-style realism in narrative films, and I thought your comment that films like "The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3" (which are often cited as influences on "Bourne", etc.) were shot more naturalistic than realistic was an indication of the direction your work might be taking.

Can you talk a bit about what kind of challenges the project presented to you? What first drew you to the film?

The stills look beautiful, by the way. Good luck on the shoot!