Trying to achieve THIS look...

[Luke Toyer]

Hi there folks!

 

I'm planning on filming a short in the near future, and there is a particular 'look' I want to achieve for the visuals. Admittedly, my sphere of knowledge/experience in the field of Cinematography is limited, so I was hoping I could run it by one of you pros!! :D

 

Here is a link to a pic of what I want to achieve, the questions will follow:

 

 

This photo has been shot in existing lighting conditions. I know that a lot of these night photographers use long exposure times to compensate for low lighting conditions (which I imagine is not very practical for filming at 24 frames per second), but I was curious if it might be possible at all to achieve a shot like this on S16mm film using available light. If not, is there anything I can do to compensate, i.e. use faster film, open up the aperture, etc?

 

I know that it'd be a REAL challenge to emulate that level of fog too!!! :blink:

 

I realize that this is probably quite a naive question, so please go easy on me! ;)

 

Cheers,

 

Luke

[Guest fstop]

If you got up at the crack of dawn December/January time you could easily get hold of that look without having to use any fangled tricks, but it would take a bit of patience.

 

Do you need actors in the frame? You could do this controlled as a tabletop miniature with a slow shutter speed for max depth of field- it's pretty stylised and abstract stuff you've got here. Have you seen Caligari or anything by Murnau?

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Two problems: Smoke is never even and never stays in place in real life - it just blows away, even on windless days. Besides, a fog like that is virtually impossible to do on location. So you have to go for the real thing, more or less.

 

Secondly - those practicals are very overexposed and probably done with long exposure times. In film, you don't have the luxury of long exposure times (unless you can undercrank), so you have to increase the speed of the film instead. I'd probably push 7218 2-3 stops (that's probably the absolute limit) to get closer to that look and then lift it a stop in telecine as well. A Varicon or a pre-flash might even be useful to lift the "foot" of the film, too.

 

It will be grainy on 16mm, so if you could do just those shots on 35mm, that would help much and intercut better.

 

Not impossible, just very hard. I'd say, go for it :D

[Luke Toyer]

Cheers for your helpful comments guys! :D

 

I can see I have a lot of testing to do, and I'll probably have to limit the number of the shots I use in this particular location, and possibly simplify them (reduce actors/dialogue) to maximize the chance of getting all the shots I need before the environment changes too dramatically!!! :blink:

 

I'll definitely go for it though!! It's a style of photography I really love and the film wouldn't feel the same without it! B)

 

Cheers,

 

Luke

[Nate Downes]

You can push Kodak 7278 4 stops and get pretty close to this look. It will be grainier than this, but it will be a good proximation.

[Guest Daniel J. Ashley-Smith]

Give a fog filter a try, although do some testing BEFORE you shoot the film. You may not be happy with the results.

[Landon D. Parks]

Im not sure if this will work or not, but I'll say it anyway. (And if I'm wronge, disguard this post):

 

If you know how to do bluescreen, you SHOULD be able to shoot the actors in front of the bluescreen, then super impose the live actors over the still photograph. Possible even the photo you have on this page.

 

Maybee this will work? I Dont know. Its just an Idea.

 

PS) You will only be able to move the actors though. You cant pan ir anything like that I dont think,

 

PSS) No, Im not a Special FX wizard. I just know my Photoshop.. Nor am I an experianced DP by any means.

 

PSSS) Oh, and for what its worth. If your skilled, or know someone who is skilled in Computer animation, you can shoot the actors on bluescreen and then have the background computer animated to give the look you want. this is a more expensive, but will yeild better result. (Are you sure that photo of the background you have up there is not computer animated? It sure looks like it). If not, then computer animating somthing just like that, or even better than that is a pretty easy job.

[Luke Toyer]

Landon, your idea is actually not so different from an emerging style of cinematography I've seen recently in which ALL the footage in a film is shot in front of a blue/greenscreen, and ALL the backdrops are added later in post. This allows for some very stylized visuals (See "Sky Captain and the Work of Tomorrow" or the "Sin City" trailer for more info) and allows you to isolate your actors and BG into seperate 'layers', not unlike photoshop. You can then apply filters and colour correction, etc to one without adversely affecting the other.

 

When it becomes cheaper to do, it may become a common practice for films attempting to achieve an ambitious visual style which would not necessarily be photographically possible in the realms of reality! ;)

[Landon D. Parks]

"When it becomes cheaper to do"

 

Actually, when you think about it. it is already cheaper to film in a bluescreen stage than on location. Computer Part is where the money comes in. IF your shooting film, you have to scan it into the computer and then back out again. Can rack up the price.

[Ryan Puckett]

"You can push Kodak 7278 4 stops and get pretty close to this look"

 

I am going to test this in the near future.... But I was worried about how much color shift there might be in the blacks. Has anybody here pushed the Vision 2 stocks this much with acceptable results? I know its going to be grainy and contrasty, but could it be a viable option?

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

I guess you're shooting in B&W? You could also try a Day for Night technique using a high speed film and a Wratten 25 to 29 at magic hour (after the lights come on/or you trip them yourself). Maybe combined with some underexposure. Of course that won't help with the fog effect.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

I forgot who it was who said that "there is no such thing as a 3 stop push". Beyond a certain

point it is diminishing returns - you can only go so far. That remark was however coined before todays better stocks, so who knows, maybe today you could get away with a 4 stop push?

 

Anybody tried?

[David Mullen ASC]

Gordon Willis said that. The problem is pushing is not a sustitute for sensitivity -- SOMETHING has to get exposed on the emulsion in order to get denser with extended development. By the time you get to a three stop push, you are mainly getting increased base fog level and a lot of grain and corrupted blacks and colors with very little gain in detail.

 

The other problem, which Vilmos Zsigmond found out when he pushed some of "Deer Hunter" by three stops, is that you have to be perfect with exposures because you may have an acceptable image at 3 stops under but unacceptable at 3 1/2 stops under.

 

Also, pushing is not very exact at labs in that you don't really gain three stops worth of density when pushing three stops, so your negative may end up thinner than you like.

[Michael Nash]

This photo has been shot in existing lighting conditions.  I know that a lot of these night photographers use long exposure times to compensate for low lighting conditions (which I imagine is not very practical for filming at 24 frames per second), but I was curious if it might be possible at all to achieve a shot like this on S16mm film using available light.  If not, is there anything I can do to compensate, i.e. use faster film, open up the aperture, etc?

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If there is no movement in the frame (such as this one) you can shoot at a lower frame rate to get a longer exposure time.

 

Basic rule of thumb I go by for night exteriors under streetlights like this is f1.4 at 640 ASA (24fps, 1/48 sec. shutter). In color negative, you could try shooting 7218 pushed one stop at f 2.0 and come pretty close. This pic seems to have about one more stop of exposure, though. Maybe try a 2 stop push.

 

Keep in mind that grain in a moving image has a different quality than in a still image. In moving images the same relative grain size can look more distracting and like a dirty veil on top of the image, instead of like a texture to the image surface the way it does in stills.

[DanStewart]

I'd expect fog movement to be an issue on a long exposure on a shot like this. At the least you'll probably get an apparent decrease in sharpness.

I agree with the minature or mother nature approach. Maybe perfect timing at dawn would lift the ambient level without taking away too much - I think it's good advice not to push more than 2 stops. I don't think you can fake the fog at full size.

 

As for the bluescreen approach, it's a possibility to do whatever you need to get the exposure on the b/g and comp in the f/g action from a shot taken at almost the same time. But the fog will give your compositor a headache. This shot is too nice to try and reproduce with CG. Best of luck.

[Sam Wells]

"I forgot who it was who said that "there is no such thing as a 3 stop push". Beyond a certain

point it is diminishing returns - you can only go so far. That remark was however coined before todays better stocks, so who knows, maybe today you could get away with a 4 stop push? "

 

Even a one stop push with Tri-X reversal will likely yield considerably more contrast than that example. As was said, you can't really increase a film's sensitivity this way.

 

4 stops I have no idea, it's equally possible that much development will give you a bunch of big swimming grain with some highlights sticking out, and not neccesarily a deep Dmax either.

 

-Sam

[Filip Plesha]

Street lamps are very weak for photography. If those lamps are something like those where I live then this is probably somewhere around f/1.4 at 1/15 with 400ISO or any eqivalent of that.

In a motion picture camera it would be somewhere around f/1.4 with 500ISO film pushed one stop (or two If you are going to a brighter look)

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I shot some available light night exteriors on vision 200 super-8 a few months back. Can't remember exactly where it was - some little cinema near the USC campus, under a lot of white-looking street lighting, Bill Totolo will know. Haven't been able to get it transferred yet, but there's definitely something on the neg, and not just hilights. I did shoot at 18fps, though.

 

Phil

[Filip Plesha]

Night streets have quite a range of brightness. If you are in a place like Vegas with

light all over the place you can get a decent exposure with a fast lens, but

the picture this man posted looks like lonely road lamps.

I have been shooting some pictures of similar scenery, and had problems with

trying to do it handheld (50mm lens needs at least 1/60 sec), It's a similar

challenge to trying to shoot it at 24fps (1/48)

[Laurent Andrieux]

Do you have to use the existing light sources or can you put yours instead ? You wouldn't have to push so much if so... (Putting some 2 kw quartz open face blondes in place of these ones would be my firts idea...)

 

I'm afraid the day for night won't only be a problem with fog (I actually don't figure out about the fog problem if d for n) but with the lights in the frame !!!

 

(are these lights that you guys call praticables in english ? -I'm french for those who don't know me yet, sorry)

[J. Lamar King IMPOSTOR]

I'm afraid the day for night won't only be a problem with fog (I actually don't figure out about the fog problem if d for n) but with the lights in the frame !!!

 

(are these lights that you guys call praticables in english ? -I'm french for those who don't know me yet, sorry)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I was talking day for night at magic hour, after the sun went down and the sky a very dark blue. The street lights would come on or could be tripped by the crew.

 

Also, yes those would be practical sources... a.k.a. existing sources.

[Luke Toyer]

There are definitely a lot of good ideas here, and a diverse selection of options to look into!! :D

 

 

Thanks to everyone for sharing your thoughts on this so far!!! I appreciate all the input! ;)

 

 

The 'Magic Hour' idea is my favourite at the moment. Though, I must admit that to co-ordinate a 'perfect' scenario in which the actors are on site, the fog is on cue, and the streetlights are doing their thing, would require some SERIOUS planning (providence), and the pressure on everyone to consistently 'get it right' in the small window of opportunity was be fairly harsh too!

 

But it certainly sounds possible, and would be a very nice achievement! B)

[Sam Wells]

If only "Magic Hour" lasted an hour.

 

Well it can depend where you are I guess. Iceland might be good (I have a DP friend who shot there on a doc and practically wanted to move there for this reason)

 

Maybe Bjork's available ? :D

 

-Sam

[Bill Totolo]

Hi,

 

I shot some available light night exteriors on vision 200 super-8 a few months back. Can't remember exactly where it was - some little cinema near the USC campus, under a lot of white-looking street lighting, Bill Totolo will know. Haven't been able to get it transferred yet, but there's definitely something on the neg, and not just hilights. I did shoot at 18fps, though.

 

Phil

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Phil,

 

If memory serves, that was near UCLA in Westwood outside the Fox theater. Anyone who watches red carpet arrivals will recognize the theater from all the premieres it hosts. Decent ambient light level especially under a streetlamp. The Fox however is lit up like a Xmas tree. Tons o' light.

Then again you may be referring to another locale but I'm pretty sure it was Westwood.

 

This is probably a good place for me to ask for some opinions. I'm shooting a little 3 minute MOS short and I'm debating if I want to shoot with a Pro8 camera using KODAK VISION2 500T Color Negative Film or a Panasonic AG DVX-100a.

 

The camera will be locked off in the passenger seat of a car framing up the driver. It will take place from sunset to sunrise. I was thinking the V500 rated around 400 might give me some latitude and have an interesting look. I'm already pretty familiar with how the Panasonic can look.

 

The project will be tranferred on a DaVinci and up-resed to HD to filmout.

 

I know I can expect a lot of grain from the Super8, wondering how much DNR can reduce that.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks,

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Yeah, that's the place. I'll look into getting it transferred - it's been sitting on the shelf for months - and post stills if I can.

 

Phil