"Gweilo" 35mm, short

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

How much different would the look be if I underexposed on the negative and then pushed the film as opposed to underexposing the film and then doing a timed print? And then possibly even doing the same thing in telecine?

 

In short, find out for yourself! I'm not being cruel, just that we could explain what it would do, but you'll never know until you see an example.

 

Also, for the sake of this thread, you could do a search in the forums and find all kinds of answers :)

[Daniel Porto]

In short, find out for yourself! I'm not being cruel, just that we could explain what it would do, but you'll never know until you see an example.

 

Also, for the sake of this thread, you could do a search in the forums and find all kinds of answers :)

 

Your exactly right! I bought a Konvas 35mm last year and just by shooting on it I have learnt so much. Now I'm gonna save up some more money and start over again and testing to find the answers to the questions I just asked.

[Satsuki Murashige]

How much different would the look be if I underexposed on the negative and then pushed the film as opposed to underexposing the film and then doing a timed print? And then possibly even doing the same thing in telecine?

I can only give you a rough idea, but basically the pushed footage would have more density and thus would print higher on the printer scale than the underexposed footage, so the blacks would be darker. You would see about the same amount of shadow detail in both shots but the midtones in the pushed shots would be brighter. Overall, the pushed image would be more contrasty, more saturated, and grainier. In telecine, the difference would probably be more subtle since you have the ability to move shadows, midtones, and highlights up and down independently as well as changing saturation and adding grain reduction independently. But Jon's right, testing yourself is the only way to know for sure.

 

Jon, I don't know if you got the message - we're screening the camera tests at the Kabuki at 9am Saturday morning. You're not on the the list for some reason, but if you get this and show up tomorrow at 9am, I'll get you in. Call or text me.

[Satsuki Murashige]

Just got back from screening the film tests so I wanted to give my impressions:

 

Fuji vs. Kodak.

The Fuji stocks were noticeably grainier, less sharp, and had less latitude than the Kodak Expression stock. But they also had a softer, richer, more pleasing color palette than the Kodak, which seemed slightly more heavy in the reds and missing something in the yellow/green spectrum. All the stocks performed great one stop under and printed up, I couldn't really tell the difference. Two under started to get noticeably grainy with weaker blacks and three under was very grainy with very little shadow detail. One stop overexposed and printed back also did not make much of a difference to the grain structure to my eyes. So I would probably rate the stocks at their recommended EI or 1/3 stop lower, but no more than that. As stated before, we're getting a good deal on the Kodak stock, so we're going with the 5229.

 

Note: both of my ACs, Jon B. and Alex Worster liked the Fuji one stop underexposed. I recommend that they post their impressions also, would love to hear more from you guys.

 

Lenses.

I was disappointed with how soft the Cookes looked, they never seemed to get tack sharp at all. The 50mm especially seemed a lot sharper in the viewfinder than on the print (the lens aperture was varied from T2 to T16). We had the film projected twice to make sure it was in focus. I expected a contact print to be a lot sharper than that - I've had 16mm prints made that look way sharper (I've never seen them on a 30' screen though).

 

Diffusion.

The front-mounted net looked fantastic, it was much more subtle than I though it would be and it halated nicely on the rim light at 4 stops over. It also did not flare point sources much at all. The director didn't like the halation on the actor's white shirt (6 stops over - spot reading). We figured out that he liked halation on medium and dark tones but not on white, so art is tea-staining the white shirts in wardrobe. We'll use it judiciously and not go all Bob Richardson.

 

The black promist was not as interesting of a look, and 1/2 was even stronger than the net, to an unusable degree. The 1/8 and 1/4 didn't really do much for me, not much character.

[Chris Keth]

I'm looking forward to seeing this short, Satsuki. I love your sodium vapor gelpack. Did you try a plain old 30 Cyan for the mercury vapor look? It's a favorite of mine.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Note: both of my ACs, Jon B. and Alex Worster liked the Fuji one stop underexposed. I recommend that they post their impressions also, would love to hear more from you guys.

 

Sure thing :)

 

Basically, I still stick to what I said during the screening that the Fuji 500, when underexposed and printed up had something very interesting in the shadows that reminded me of films like Chungking Express. The contrast between the key light and shadows seemed to fade off softer which gave the image a somewhat more painterly quality. The blacks were a bit more milky and the grain wasn't that bad. Alex said something interesting about the skintones with the Fuji, which I also noticed.

 

I agree that when grossly underexposed both Fuji stocks really start to fall apart faster than the Kodak. I felt the Kodak 5229 was very rich in color (meaning saturation), kind of "true color" (as in the old Kodak commercial, ha ha) which is what I'm used to when looking at Kodak, so I didn't expect nor did I notice anything special.

 

Still, since you're getting a deal on Kodak, I'd take that! The film will still look gorgeous :)

[Satsuki Murashige]

I'm looking forward to seeing this short, Satsuki.

Thanks Chris. We're only shooting a bit less than half of the film right now. It's the more expensive half with an ambitious set to build and lots of extras so we figured we'd get that out of the way first. We're then going to raise money for the rest of the film by showing potential investors cut scenes and hopefully impressing them with the quality of the work so far. So it may be quite a while before there's a finished film in the can. We also want to take a little MOS camera to Hong Kong to shoot B-roll and title sequence footage at some point.

 

I love your sodium vapor gelpack. Did you try a plain old 30 Cyan for the mercury vapor look? It's a favorite of mine.

The sodium gel pack was less saturated on the '29 than the digital still, so we will probably end up doubling it. I definitely prefer the yellow to a more orange or even magenta coloring. I thought about trying CalColor cyan for the test as well, but I was worried we'd run out of film and time so we only ended up testing the two gels. But we will use the Fluoro 57 gel on some cool white tubes in one of the stalls to get a cyan toplit look. It's a call shop, with little private booths that have translucent shower curtain-type material. I want to put warm-gelled tungsten inside so that they seem to glow, referencing the warm, womb-like feel of the hallway scenes. I think it'll contrast with the cool cyan nicely. Art is doing an off-white matte paint finish on the shop walls, so they should pick up the colors pretty well.

[Daniel Porto]

I can only give you a rough idea, but basically the pushed footage would have more density and thus would print higher on the printer scale than the underexposed footage, so the blacks would be darker. You would see about the same amount of shadow detail in both shots but the midtones in the pushed shots would be brighter. Overall, the pushed image would be more contrasty, more saturated, and grainier. In telecine, the difference would probably be more subtle since you have the ability to move shadows, midtones, and highlights up and down independently as well as changing saturation and adding grain reduction independently. But Jon's right, testing yourself is the only way to know for sure.

 

Jon, I don't know if you got the message - we're screening the camera tests at the Kabuki at 9am Saturday morning. You're not on the the list for some reason, but if you get this and show up tomorrow at 9am, I'll get you in. Call or text me.

 

Thanks!

[Satsuki Murashige]

So, we wrapped the "Gweilo" market scenes last week after shooting Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. It was an interesting experience - alternately frustrating and exhilarating. Production finally found a location less than a week before shooting began, a 3,000 sq. ft vacant storefront in a mall in Alameda, CA: http://flickr.com/photos/15005161@N06/3224...57608661642321/. We did not get a generator due to the shrinking budget, and we ended up with only three 20A circuits. So we relied only on our kinos (bare single tubes and two Divas), photofloods in china balls and desk lamps, MR-16s, Dedos, and small fresnels. We skipped the "sodium vapor" and "mercury vapor" work lights because of the amperage shortage.

 

This could have been a major issue if we had committed to shooting anamorphic as we had originally wanted - we went from lighting to 80fc to 12fc, so getting enough stop for our high speed shots (48-96fps) would have been a problem. We ended up shooting with T1.3 Super Speeds, but I wanted to use them at T2.8 for more contrast and sharpness since we were already using a net in front of the lens and smoking the set. I also wanted to keep my focus puller Alex Worster happy, since we had so many tough dolly, handheld, and long lens shots (turns out he didn't need the extra stop anyway). I think we ended up shooting one shot at T2, but never had to go WFO. In order to get a T2.8, I decided to rate the 5229 stock at 800ASA (literally 10 minutes before we rolled our first shot). I felt comfortable doing this because our over/under stock test of the '29 showed that a one stop underexposure combined with printing up looked nearly indistinguishable from exposing and printing normally; exposing 2/3 stop under still gave me a very slight safety margin of 1/3 stop. Still, I'm nervous to see film dailies because we lit so contrasty and low-key, and also because our use of net diffusion and smoke lowered the overall contrast - I hope it all comes together in a beautiful way and doesn't turn into a dark mush! I requested Fuji 3531 print stock, basically their version of Kodak's Premier stock, to get contrast and blacks back somewhat.

 

The earliest our crew was able to get into the space was Monday morning, which meant art had only two days to build and dress the set. The set unfortunately had a lot of rough edges which were never smoothed over for lack of time, so that meant I had to light fairly low-key to hide some of the seams between flats, etc. There was also a minor disaster - our head carpenter miscounted the number of flats needed for the set so there was some reshuffling of the design at the last minute: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/.

 

I was not available to check out the construction and give input during the build because I had to drive to LA on Monday with the director to help pick up and prep the camera package, which was a mistake that I won't repeat again. Although we really had no other choice on this shoot, in the future I'll definitely make sure that I'm there for a build like this because so many permanent decisions get made that affect the photography - certain angles that we wanted to get were not possible or did not work as well as we wanted because of the placement of key flats. Also, my gaffer Phill Matarrese had roughed in and set most of the practicals by the time I got back to the Bay Area on Tuesday night, so that my job became mostly tweaking and supplementing, moreso than I would have liked. By the time I walked into the space on Tuesday night, Phill had already rigged two 4' 3200K tubes in most of the stalls so that one hung on each wall horizontally. I'm grateful that he did such a great job based on our discussions and choices in prep, but I would have liked to have had more input on lighting the set during the build. Mainly, I would have taken an inventory of our lighting gear as we started lighting each space and concluded that we needed more units - Dedos, single kino tubes, medium base sockets, MR-16s, china balls. I also could have spent more time tweaking each space - I still see little areas in the stills that could use an accent light or three.

 

PRE-LIGHTING.

Here are some set stills showing the final lighting in each stall:

http://flickr.com/photos/15005161@N06/sets...detail/?page=22

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...detail/?page=21

http://gweilofilm.blogspot.com

 

CALL SHOP.

The call shop was an important space in the story - it consisted of four or five booths separated by folding closet dividers with built-in venetian blinds and fronted with semi-sheer shower curtains: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/ The flats were painted off-white to allow colored light to render their proper colors.

 

I noticed on arriving at the set that the space would play better if art dept. had flipped the set so that the stall owner's desk, the cabinet, and all the art behind him was on the right side instead of the left - otherwise, with our planned coverage we'd only see all that stuff in one shot, if that. Unfortunately, it was too late at this point so the best we could do was cheat the desk out toward camera.

 

I asked Phill to pull the kinos off the walls and rig the tubes above the set instead to make the ambience more toppy, less intense, and to help take the white walls down. We gelled the tubes with Lee Fluorescent 5700K gel to make them a pale cyan and added 2' kino tubes gelled with Yellow 101 taped against the hidden side of each divider to create the soft warm glowing effect: http://flickr.com/photos/15005161@N06/3224...57608661642321/

 

And here's what the color balance should look like (only brighter, of course): http://flickr.com/photos/15005161@N06/3224...57608661642321/

I asked art to add a tungsten desk lamp; I think we used a 60w household bulb inside (I probably should have gone with something stronger like a PH212 150w or PH213 250w since I wanted it to key the actor's face). Phill also used two Rosco Litepads taped to the screen of a prop portable CRT TV to do a flicker gag - we simply left the 3"x6" on and turned the 3"x3" on and off: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/

 

TAILOR SHOP.

This was a simple corner set that consisted of two yellow-painted flats, a small table with a sewing machine, and a chair, as well as a few baskets of material and some decor on the walls: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/. Phill had lit it with two 4' kino tubes, one hung horizontally on the right wall, and the other tied vertically to a wooden pole on frame left: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/. I asked him to take the horizontal tube and place it vertically into the basket of fabric rolls on frame right to give the actress a sidey key. We wrapped a bit of fabric around the top of the tube to flag a bit of light off of the wall above her head: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/.

 

BUTCHER SHOP.

My favorite set: http://flickr.com/photos/15005161@N06/3224...57608661642321/ Art did an awesome job creating all the hanging sausages and meats from paper mache. They even made a bunch of what looked like severed human fingers, in a nod to "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom": http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/. All I had Phill do was put some full Plus Green on the kino and make a topper out of blackwrap (we pretty much did the same with all the bare kino tubes, adding siders, toppers, or bottomers to control the spill). Adding smoke made it look like something out of "Delicatessen." Most of the sets are being featured in slow motion tracking shots for the title sequence - we shot the butcher shop at 96 fps. Most of the other sets were shot at 60 fps or 48 fps.

 

WOK SHOP.

Another simple corner set with a wire-mesh wall: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/ Phill hung a vertical 2' kino tube in the mesh and I had him add a Dedo on a baby plate spotted on the containers against the back wall which also slashed across our stall owner's shoulder and gave her face a slight fill. We only had three Dedos and one ladder, so once they were up it was a real hassle to keep adjusting them.

 

LIQUOR SHOP.

My least favorite set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/ As you can see, compared to the other sets it lacks texture and depth: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/ So I just tried to keep it dark and used the Dedos to pick out the stuffed owl on frame left and the liquor bottles against the back wall. At first I tried spotlighting the big antlers on the wall but it didn't make sense to feature that and not the liquor so I kept them dark. I also used a Diva on the ground behind the counter to uplight the wall a bit and give some separation. I really needed more small fresnels and fluoros to pick out little spots but we just ran out of time and lights. Also it's one of the least important sets, so I just let it go.

 

FRUIT & VEG. STAND.

Another simple set, but tricky to shoot: http://flickr.com/photos/15005161@N06/3224...57608661642321/ We had a couple of 2 1/2 page dialogue scenes to shoot here. We had originally planned to do a lot of coverage, two shot profile, profile singles, overs. It was tricky to get the profiles because of the placement of the flats and the plastic tarp that acts as a third wall. Also, in profile the set appears very flat, whereas shooting into the set looked better because I could flag light off of the back wall: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/

 

We adjusted for the 2nd scene by shooting from the other side, toward the tarp. That helped us get a nice 3/4 keylight from the practical kino which wrapped around our actors' faces in a more flattering way. We also shot some nice tight overs of our leads which I was pretty happy with. I just placed the actors where the existing practical worked best for their faces, added a 4x4 floppy for negative fill, and and used a 300w thru silk to give a little sidey texture on the foreground subject: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/

 

ELECTRONICS SHOP.

This was a rather dark set, which had me a bit worried: http://flickr.com/photos/15005161@N06/3224...57608661642321/ Phill had taped a 2' kino tube under the counter with a flap of 216 over it and put up a 1' cool white above and to the right of the red "Tech" sign to highlight some of the hanging merchandise. I knew we needed more fill above the set, but at this point this was one of the least featured sets and I had more important things to concentrate on so I kinda just let this one go and hoped that the filmstock would be able to render some detail in the dark wall.

 

SNACK SHOP.

This was a dense set consisting of two small counter/showcases with 1' cool white tubes underneath, shelve-lined walls holding a variety of props, and a little table with a cash register. Art had also strung up a bunch of small colored china balls: http://flickr.com/photos/15005161@N06/3223...57608661642321/

 

I had Phill replace the overhead kino with a medium china ball and a PH212 150w bulb for a warmer, more toppy ambience. The walls were painted a dark eggplant color so I probably could have used a large china ball and a 250w bulb instead. Since I liked how the fluoro under the counter was keying the shopkeeper at the register from a slightly low angle, I had Phill add another 1' cool white behind counter to augment and softened with 216. We ended up wrapping our prep day around 10:30pm since our call time the next day was 7am. A lot of set elements still needed to be finished and a lot of lighting needed to be rigged, so I was quite worried. Luckily, we had planned the schedule so that we only had only four shots before lunch and then opening montage footage after.

 

THE SHOOT.

The next morning in the snack shop, I had Phill hang 5 MR-16 bulbs skirted with blackwrap to spot light the countertops, the register, and a few shelves. I would have loved to have been able to add more accent lights (like a 1' fluoro taped underneath the top shelf on the back wall), but we ran out of fixtures and time. Here's the final lighting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/.

 

Art still had a lot of work to do on the elevator that takes up the center of the set, aging and dressing the exterior, painting the interior, building and fitting the doors, and making sure they could slide open from the inside. There was still a lot of lighting to be done, mainly in the snack shop. Only having one ladder really boned us, timewise. We got our first shot off five hours into the day, and only got two shots before lunch! Thankfully, we rallied and only ended up owing a handful of opening montage shots after a 12 hour day. We only went over on day three, by 1.5 hours (the .5 was just me and Alex, plus our two interns grabbing four opening montage inserts that they came up with).

 

What really killed us was our huge problem getting appropriate extras - we had originally wanted only non-Caucasian actors, the rationale being that the main character was supposed to be completely lost in a foreign land and visibly out of place; if he were to see a fellow "Gweilo" in the market, he would probably make a beeline for them and the whole premise of the film would be ruined. Unfortunately, our casting director totally dropped the ball by not following up on the large list of extras we'd compiled from auditions months before so that we were literally scrambling to get bodies into the film on the day of the shoot (I had several cameos as a sketchy call shop customer and a john, as well as just being a random body). This meant we would not have enough extras to shoot the first scheduled scenes which included a long tracking master shot that revealed the entire marketplace, so we were forced to reorder the shooting schedule several times a day to accommodate the extras' availability. Ultimately, I think we only missed one or two shots from the body of the film and a smattering of title sequence inserts. We got progressively faster each day, which was impressive considering that the shots kept getting harder and more complex everyday.

 

I operated on the first day, which was a lot of fun but ultimately counterproductive. Luckily, we had a fantastic camera technician, Zakk Eginton, come up with the cameras from LA who was a highly seasoned camera operator, so I had him operate on days two and three. Zakk worked out the blocking of many complicated dolly and handheld shots, solved a lot of framing issues, and figured out how to do a complicated ramping shot with the Arri III C.E. Base, which was not designed to do what we wanted it to do. Our ridiculously talented directing intern David Larsen directed this shot: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/.

 

(Just to give you an idea: Alex had to pull focus from a ECU of a handwritten note in the actor's hands 12" from the focal plane to a crowd of extras 18' away as the paper dropped out of frame, then rack back to follow the actor as he stepped into frame, hit a mark, and walked away into the crowd; Zakk had to flip the C.E. Base dial from 48fps crystal to 24fps on cue; Jon had to pull iris from the barrel on the same cue; the actor had to hold the paper to the close focus mark, drop the paper, and hit his mark on cue; Nick the electric had to handhold a 4' kino tube to light the paper at the right mark next to camera, then get the hell out of the way; the extras had to hit their marks; oh, and the camera was in a tiny corner top floor on the standard sticks, with Zakk operating from the ladder; it was nuts).

 

Zakk was also a huge help with one MOS scene where we wanted a simple series of wide, medium, and closeup shots of our hero Jerome trapped against the elevator doors as a flood of natives rush by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/...57613036202093/. I started to get a little too creative with the framing and got really lost on how to shoot the scene - the initial idea was that the audience would not notice Jerome in the wide shot, so I wanted to place him way off to the edge of frame and cropped at the neck. It was a neat idea but Zakk quickly pointed out that it would be difficult to cut into a medium and CU from that angle. We'd have to radically shift the angle for each setup to get a cuttable sequence and we only had about 20 minutes get it all done. He suggested instead that we go the opposite route, framing Jerome centered and then punching in with progressively longer lenses. While I agreed, I was also still searching for a way to convey the sense of an unbalanced, out-of-place mental state. I had the idea to shoot undercranked, 6fps for the wide, 9fps for the mid, 12 fps for the CU. Our actor had to stay perfectly still. We also were losing extras by this point so the technique helped us maintain the illusion of a throng of bodies.

 

Zakk also did some 2nd unit shooting for us, grabbing some title sequence inserts with our director and cinematographer interns while Phill and I were lighting some other part of the set. Having a top-notch operator was such a luxury for a crazy shoot like this, I never want to leave home without one again! Big props to the rest of the camera crew as well: Alex, Jon B., our loader/carpenter Greg, you guys were amazing - I hope I get to have all of you on board when we finish the rest of "Gweilo" in a few months.

 

Thanks for reading!

[Jon Rosenbloom]

Hmmm. Sounds complex. Maybe it's why I don't have a flourishing DP career, but if I were shooting something like this, I think I'd often find myself saying "Gee, that sounds like a really tough shot, maybe we can simplify it." Of course you want to carry out the director's vision, but you also want to not blow all your time threading the camera through the eye of a needle, so to speak. But, if you got all those tough shots, then more power to you.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

I too was impressed with Zakk's work, I'm certainly keeping him in mind.

 

And just one correction, I myself was ramping from 48 to 24 and bracketing simultaneously, while Alex pulled and Zakk operated. There's a pretty sweet photo of it somewhere in that set of Flickr pics.

[Satsuki Murashige]

Hmmm. Sounds complex. Maybe it's why I don't have a flourishing DP career, but if I were shooting something like this, I think I'd often find myself saying "Gee, that sounds like a really tough shot, maybe we can simplify it." Of course you want to carry out the director's vision, but you also want to not blow all your time threading the camera through the eye of a needle, so to speak. But, if you got all those tough shots, then more power to you.

Yeah, I see your point. Being responsible isn't always sexy, but producers will remember you for it. Of course, if you get them awesome footage then they'll remember you too and conveniently forget how painful it was to get! I tend to agree with you unless I feel I have the crew and the gear to pull it off in the time allotted; this is the first time I've had the luxury of not compromising the photography of a film to the extent that it was no longer recognizable as what I envisioned when we started because of a lack of resources, which I must say is gratifying. I also realize that this is a pretty rare opportunity in one's career as a cinematographer regardless of budget, so I'm very grateful for that...

 

Jon, sorry I didn't realize you were doing both things simultaneously, much props to you sir! The footage was sent in to Deluxe yesterday, so I hope we'll get dailies back sometime next week.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Jon, sorry I didn't realize you were doing both things simultaneously, much props to you sir! The footage was sent in to Deluxe yesterday, so I hope we'll get dailies back sometime next week.

 

Really couldn't have been done any other way probably, it was much easier to synchronize the two moves that way. I'm just glad I didn't have to hold a flashlight between my teeth to see my marks, so thanks for the Kino tube! ha ha

[Daniel Porto]

So did you get the dailies?

 

If so, how did it go??? Pictures??

 

THANKS

[Satsuki Murashige]

Still waiting on dailies. We had initially wanted to get print dailies first, before we did the telecine. But Deluxe mentioned to us that they would have to cut the negative to print circled takes, so they recommended that we do an offline telecine first. We didn't budget for that, so the producers are trying to raise money for that now. Sigh. At least the negative has been processed... :ph34r:

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

HD telecine, or just some cheaper SD telecine just to have something to show potential investors?

[Satsuki Murashige]

Well, actually the plan is now to print two or three whole 400' rolls (since we are getting 2,000' free printing and we used up about half of that on the tests) and show those to investors, then do the telecine afterward when more money comes in (hopefully). We just have to pore over the camera reports and decide which rolls to print. I hope we're able to do an HD telecine, but a one-light SD transfer would also be fine for offline editing purposes as long as they go back and do a supervised HD transfer for the online.

[Jeff Locke]

So what is your next step? It sounds like you are not finished shooting, correct? I am only 3 1/2 hours from The City, so if you need any help on set, electrical, gripping, set construction, just say the word and I'll be there.

[Satsuki Murashige]

Hi Jeff,

 

Thanks for the offer. We had planned to start up again around Spring Break, but as of now the producers still need to raise more money to fund the 2nd half so the project is in limbo at the moment. It's pretty much out of my hands until they tell me that production will be starting up again. Still waiting to get the collated lab reports from the director so I can help him decide which rolls to print. It doesn't help that he's in LA and I'm in SF. He works as a grip, so I suspect he's also working on set to replenish the coffers right now. I know I've been getting a fair amount of AC work lately so I've been concentrating on that. I'm also teaching a lighting seminar entitled "Lighting Spaces vs. Lighting Faces" in a few weeks to some SFSU students, so I'm relatively busy. I'll update when we get back into the swing of things! :)

[Jeff Locke]

That sounds like a great class. Is it open to the public? If so, does it cost anything? I would love an excuse to go to San Francisco.

[Satsuki Murashige]

That sounds like a great class. Is it open to the public? If so, does it cost anything? I would love an excuse to go to San Francisco.

It's for a school club called the Cinema Collective at SFSU so it's free. My friend Spenser Nottage is the club president this semester so he asked me to come and teach a few workshops. They're scheduled for Thursday evenings on the SFSU campus, on the soundstage there. The dates I'm doing are 3/12 and 3/19, two hours each. I'm going keep it pretty basic since not everyone in the club has production experience, but if you'd like to come check it out I can ask Spenser if I could have an extra person attend.

[Jeff Locke]

That's a bummer, Thursday evenings don't work for me. Thank you for the offer though. If they had a class on the weekends, I could do that.

[Satsuki Murashige]

We finally have footage to screen, 2000' of 35mm workprint! It's coming up from LA on Saturday, right now we're expecting to have a Sunday morning screening, so I'll post my impressions afterwards. Jon, if you can make it I'd love to have you there. Alex, we'll have another screening soon at SFSU, I'll see if we can schedule it for Tue or Wed.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Totally gonna be there :)

[Satsuki Murashige]

Finally watched the workprint!

 

THE GOOD:

Most of the shots looked pretty good, I'm constantly surprised at how forgiving film is compared to digital video. There was a huge amount of shadow detail even rating the 5229 at 800ASA and most of the shots actually looked too bright, but we can print them down later so that's not a problem. The blacks were just on the edge of being too thin. I only went too far in underexposure on one shot but even that looked pretty good and had nice contrast. The net looked fantastic, very smooth and subtle with the halation that I wanted. This print was a lot sharper than our test with the Cookes, so I wonder if there might have been an issue with the projection or print the first time instead of the lenses. We watched our workprint on a smaller screen with a smaller magnification factor, so that may have had something to do with it as well. We shot the film with Superspeeds, usually at T2.8.

 

Ultimately, I think the bold choices in exposure, lighting and coverage paid off - even if they weren't always perfectly executed I feel the vision or intent behind the shots was strong enough that somehow they communicated what they needed to. There was a scene where we undercranked 6, 9, 12fps on Wide, Medium, CU of the lead actor standing still against an elevator door as a crowd of extras stream by. That came out great. We also had a 48-24fps ramp shot with the Arri 3 which came out perfectly, despite the camera not supposedly being able to do the shot. And the dolly work was excellent, which is saying a lot because my dolly grip had very little experience pushing dolly before, and there was a lot of it.

 

THE BAD:

The color was a bit more desaturated than I would have liked. We printed on the Fuji 3521 Eterna which looked good, but I would like to try Kodak Premier if we go to print (eventually). There was one shot that was really underlit in the snack shop, part of the opening slo-mo montage - while there was enough light on the actors, the space itself needed more accent lights for texture and looked like a muddy black hole: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17986251@N05/3234999436/.

 

I knew it was underlit when we shot it but decided to let it go because we were behind schedule, and now I'm kicking myself for not making my gaffer pull lights from other parts of the set to get what I needed. There were flicker issues with the kinos on some of the high speed shots, so I'm again kicking myself for not making sure we shots at flicker free speeds - 96fps was pretty bad, while naturally 60fps looked fine.

 

The worst thing was the focus issues we had on a three of the CUs (sorry Alex). We had two that were unusably soft, focus was 6 inches too long on the 85mm (I think), you could see the shirt was crisp and the eyes were out. I should have caught one of them since I was operating, my operator really should have caught the other one. Anyway, it all falls on my shoulders as DP. Next time, more stop on long lens CUs!

 

Overall, I'm fairly happy and have learned tons from this experience. I'm going to start being tougher on my operators and ACs (sorry guys) to make sure they get focus and will emphasize more teamwork in terms of checking and double checking each other (me included) about all the technical details to make sure we nailed them. We're hoping to have a telecine of all the footage done in about a month, so I will post frames when that happens.

 

Anyway, thanks for reading. :)