Relevance of stock choice

[Glenn Hanns]

Just wondering... With alot of films now going the DI path do you think that stock choice (other than grain selection) has any relevence for the modern cinematographer since any look is now possible via computer?

Cheers,

Glenn.

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, as you said, grain is still a factor although with all the 35mm stocks being pretty fine-grained these days, especially Vision-2, even that's becoming less of an issue. I can see the argument that you can make one stock look like most of the others using a DI as long as the original stock is not too contrasty.

 

But most of us can't afford a DI so having a variety of stocks is still important to us to create unique looks.

 

But with DI's, I find that I can't really judge the look of a particular stock based on how it looked in the theaters. Was the somewhat muted look of "Master and Commander" due to the 5293 EXR 200T stock used or the DI?

[Adam Frisch FSF]

For all visible purposes - yes. Matching Fuji and Kodak is a non-issue. And matching high speed stock with fine grain stock is also quite simple. Just remember how little you noticed the jumps from 50 ASA to 500ASA in the old optical days - that gap can be almost closed in DI and post today. Even really grainy images are easy to polish these days in post.

 

I just did a video where we had to underexpose almost 2-3 stops due to the fact that they had

a) ordered the wrong film, and b.) we had to use a slow old zoom that only openend to T3.4.

Night exteriors, available light. I can't say the images look good (they don't), but all cranked up in telecine (production couldn't afford to push) and with some De-grain in post, the images are passable. I was amazed, actually.

Edited December 11, 2004 by AdamFrisch

[John Pytlak RIP]

I just did a video where we had to underexpose almost 2-3 stops due to the fact that they had

a) ordered the wrong film, and b.) we had to use a slow old zoom that only openend to T3.4.

Night exteriors, available light. I can't say the images look good (they don't), but all cranked up in telecine (production couldn't afford to push) and with some De-grain in post, the images are passable. I was amazed, actually.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Kodak offers a wide variety of stocks for good reason. Grain and sharpness certainly are a function of film speed (Exposure Index EI). Always best to use a film that matches the light source unless a different "look" is desired. Lower contrast / lower saturation "look" films should be used when that is the desired "look". As David mentioned, the lowest cost alternative usuallly is to start off with the appropriate film and work to achieve a "look" with lighting and filtration, rather than spending additional time and money in post production.

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products...d=0.1.4.4&lc=en

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products...0.1.4.4.4&lc=en

[Chris Keth]

Why necessitate doing tons of correction in post when you could choose the right stock, shoot it right and get the look you want without a DI or with very little work on the DI?

 

I'm sure a producer would be much happier with that situation as opposed to one where you shoot any ol' stock and have to change everything in post, costing gobs of cash.

[Greg Gross]

Just look at the cost of DI.

To me choice of stocks is the art of the cinematographer,you decide by

choice of film(stocks) for look achieved. Of course with or with out DI

35mm film still is expensive propisition. I think the Genesis is hot on our

heels.

 

 

Greg

[Greg Gross]

In American Cinematographer(December 2004) Emmanuel Lubezki ASC,

AMC talks about choice of stocks for "Lemony Snicket's". He used just one

stock Vision 500T(5218). He says that this is the first time he's ever used

500 ASA to shoot an entire film. He wanted to use 200ASA but could not due

to large size of the sets. He says unless he's trying to ceate an effect he always

uses one stock. In "Lemony Snicket's" he overexposed by 1/3 stops and some-

times more. He feels his choice of 5218 (lower contrast negative) allowed him

to keep the faces from becoming too hard.

 

 

Greg

[Guest Andy Sparaco]

I saw the "Snicket" film yesterday as a film print in a suburban multiplex. The image quality was superb. Sharp, grainless 5218 is certainly a winner, what a super image aqusition system.

 

Later in the evening I watched "THX-1138, the directors cut" George Lucas enhancing and updating his first feature with state of the art technology. For a film shot in 1970 it looked very contemporary interms of image quality. Film does have legs overtime.

[Marty Hamrick]

I can see the argument that you can make one stock look like most of the others using a DI as long as the original stock is not too contrasty.

 

But most of us can't afford a DI so having a variety of stocks is still important to us to create unique looks.

 

 

 

Maybe it's a good thing DI's aren't affordable for everyone.Sounds like another version of the "We can fix it in the post" attitude.

[Chris Keth]

Not necessarily, DIs have a lot of uses that don't just take the place of hard work on set. There is a lot that would be dumb to use a DI for (I'm too lazy to put a Wratten 85B on the camera...) but there's a lot you can do with the advantage of immediate feedback. anything you do can be viewed in a few seconds, so if you're doing some radical look, you can alter it right there instead of doing it on set (if the looks even possibly photochemically) and possibly ending up with something the director hates and you still had to pay lots of money for.

[K Borowski]

Using a DI to fix in post is just as flawed an attitude as is thinking that shooting a certain stock will make your pictures look beautiful or that shooting film will make your images look better than video. It is important to remember that before Fuji introduced their 250T stock back in the early '80s and Kodak followed suit, there was only one MP negative stock available at a time from each of the two film giants, as was the case until about that same time with C-41. It is so so very important to remember that all of the different looks of all the films made before and after the introduction of multiple negative stocks is due to LIGHTING, not a certain film used. That is not to say that improvements made to film technology aren't great and that fast films are unnecessary, but there's a hell of a lot you can do with Vision2 100T that a lot of people are too lazy or too ignorant to do because they've bought into available lighting everything or minimal lighting or fixing in post with DIs. DI not only stands for digital intermediate, it stands for dilution of the image. I find it fascinating that cinematographers at one time had the wherewithal to light indoors for a film that was only 50 speed! I wonder if cinematographers today could do the same. . .

 

Regards.

~Karl Borowski

[John Pytlak RIP]

I find it fascinating that cinematographers at one time had the wherewithal to light indoors for a film that was only 50 speed!  I wonder if cinematographers today could do the same. . .

 

Regards.

~Karl Borowski

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Even more fascinating if you count the original Technicolor 3-strip system, or the earliest EASTMAN Color Negative which was EI 16 daylight!

[Martin Hawkes]

Even more fascinating if you count the original Technicolor 3-strip system, or the earliest EASTMAN Color Negative which was EI 16 daylight!

 

Respect!

 

Martin Hawkes

[Sam Wells]

  I find it fascinating that cinematographers at one time had the wherewithal to light indoors for a film that was only 50 speed!  I wonder if cinematographers today could do the same. . .

 

Regards.

~Karl Borowski

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I wonder if some still photographers could've gotten the looks they are famous for if they didn't have the choices of burning & dodging in the darkroom, various contrast printing papers etc. :)

 

-Sam (militantly pro-DI) Wells

[K Borowski]

I wonder if some still photographers could've gotten the looks they are famous for if they didn't have the choices of burning & dodging in the darkroom, various contrast printing papers etc.  :)

 

-Sam (militantly pro-DI) Wells

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I assume you are trying to liken DI to dodging and burning as well as variable contrast papers in B&W. There is another method, common with printing of Cibachrome, that was used called contrast masking. Similar things were done in movies for optical effects such as junk masking, hold-out masking, beauty-masking. There is no reason why corrections can't be made to movies optically using masks in the same fashion as they are used in still photography. So please don't say that without computers, one can't control contrast and relative light intensities of motion pictures. Also, cinematographers usually have a much better grip of lighting than still photographers, who rely much more often on available lighting in my opinion. For instance, dodging and burning is used seldom for studio portraiture because the still photographer has the same control over light there that a cinematographer has over the light in his movie.

 

Regards.

-Karl Borowski

[Sam Wells]

Short answer: I'm living in 2005, not 1955, 1965, 1975 :D

 

-Sam

[David Mullen ASC]

The only time I've ever even heard of masks being used to create lower-contrast positives is in an article on Jim Danforth, I believe, who used that method to create low-contrast prints for rear-projecting backgrounds for stop motion miniature sets. And even he said it was a pain-in-the-a...

 

It's never been a viable method in cinematography to increase information in select areas of the frame.

[Sam Wells]

I have NO objections to purely photochemical solutions when appropriate.

 

OTOH, the thing that's really new & different in DI as opposed to SOP in commercials, music videos etc is the res & bit depth. Oh yeah, the film-out when going to 35mm print.

 

Maybe I should give NYC walking tours in midtown; we'd visit the sites of former Optical FX houses.

 

AFAIK the "father" of optical printing Linwood Dunn was working on "Digital optical printing' in the late seventies ?

 

-Sam

 

And yes, Pat O'Neil rocks !

[Marty Hamrick]

Even more fascinating if you count the original Technicolor 3-strip system, or the earliest EASTMAN Color Negative which was EI 16 daylight!

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When I was interning back in the 70's the stock of choice was 7252 ECO.It had an EI of 25 for tungsten and 16 for daylight with the 85.I remember being a 110 lb 15 year old helping to carry several cartloads of lighting instruments.

Marty

[Dominic Case]

Over twentyyears ago I was hawking our optical effects showreel around town. The optical department was up against digital video effects for the first time. Of course the showreel was on tape:-( We had to put a title card in, saying "all of these effects were produced by optical printing - no video was used". I lost count of producers who said " I didn't realise you could do that on film".

 

So I too get annoyed by people who say "of course the DI path made this effect or that correction possible: we couldn't have done it on film". The truth is, we probably could have done it on film: but if digital makes it easier and or cheaper, then it's idiotic not to do it that way.

 

Chris says there's no sense in a digital grade just because you are too lazy to put the 85 on. True (though there's no need for a digital grade either - believe it or not you can correct colours with film grading too.)

 

But there is every reason to use a post process - for example - if it avoids spending a half day gelling a window on the 10th floor. Or if you can improve on your day-for-night with a few digitally lit streetlamps, rather than waiting for dusk and not having time to get the shot properly.

 

But so far as cinematographers who used to achieve what they achieved with only 25 or 50 ASA stocks to work with, someone at Kodak once mentioned to me that the advances in grain minimisation didn't actually result in finer-grained pictures, they simply made for reduced lighting budgets.