Giray Izcan Posted July 25, 2015 Share Posted July 25, 2015 (edited) I just watched the movie again after a long time... Man, what a piece of art and a powerful story. I miss seeing movies that powerful I guess... Edited July 25, 2015 by Giray Izcan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Bill DiPietra Posted July 25, 2015 Premium Member Share Posted July 25, 2015 Very effective lighting in that film. Simple and to the point. For some reason, I always loved the heavily diffused look it had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giray Izcan Posted July 25, 2015 Author Share Posted July 25, 2015 Yea, to me the movie looks like they underexposed it and printed it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Adam Frisch FSF Posted August 2, 2015 Premium Member Share Posted August 2, 2015 Kimball is a very underrated cinematographer. He did excellent work with Tony Scott as well. Check out Revenge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregg MacPherson Posted August 2, 2015 Share Posted August 2, 2015 I saw Jacb's Ladder when it first came to New Zealand. It was a real shock to me. Quite un-nerving. The sense of an alternate level of experience...seemed very real. When it came clear that these experiences were provoked by the chemical fiddling of some evil (military?) folk I was less in awe, but, I still felt they had reached out further than most everybody else to explore.... I still remember the blured heads oscillating back and forth, as though they had simply undercranked the camera. Though now, thinking on it, one needs a more careful controll of shutter angle as well. Do any of you chaps here have a feeling what fps and shutter angle they used? Or am I the only one who was scared s---less by that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Bill DiPietra Posted August 2, 2015 Premium Member Share Posted August 2, 2015 I still remember the blured heads oscillating back and forth, as though they had simply undercranked the camera. Though now, thinking on it, one needs a more careful controll of shutter angle as well. Do any of you chaps here have a feeling what fps and shutter angle they used? Or am I the only one who was scared s---less by that? Are you talking about the head against the car window as it passes Jacob? If so, off the top of my head, that looked to be no more than about 72fps with a 180 degree shutter, but I could be wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregg MacPherson Posted August 2, 2015 Share Posted August 2, 2015 It was a while ago so hopefully I haven't created some alternate fancifull thing in my head (though that does sound fun). The camera was fixed, I think. The figure was stationary, apart from their head, which looked like it was leaning left to right at high speed, mostly just a blur. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Bill DiPietra Posted August 2, 2015 Premium Member Share Posted August 2, 2015 It was a while ago so hopefully I haven't created some alternate fancifull thing in my head (though that does sound fun). The camera was fixed, I think. The figure was stationary, apart from their head, which looked like it was leaning left to right at high speed, mostly just a blur. Now that you mention it, I think there was another shot like that where the head was moving at something that looked liked 1fps in one of Jacob's hallucinations. But I'd have to watch it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giray Izcan Posted August 2, 2015 Author Share Posted August 2, 2015 They ran the cameras at 4fps I am pretty certain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregg MacPherson Posted August 3, 2015 Share Posted August 3, 2015 They ran the cameras at 4fps I am pretty certain. For the blury vibrating head shots? Did you read that somewhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted August 3, 2015 Premium Member Share Posted August 3, 2015 It certainly looks like under-cranking was involved -- with a film camera, there is no way to get extra-long shutter speeds for more blur without dropping the frame rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giray Izcan Posted August 4, 2015 Author Share Posted August 4, 2015 The director mentions it in the behind the scenes of the movie that they shot those at 4fps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregg MacPherson Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 Is there some documentative stuff on the some of the DVD issues? Or is it Online? Giray, a pointer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giray Izcan Posted August 4, 2015 Author Share Posted August 4, 2015 I watched it on my Blu-ray copy. I would assume they would have it on a DVD copy also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregg MacPherson Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 Thanks Giray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giray Izcan Posted August 5, 2015 Author Share Posted August 5, 2015 My pleasure Gregg. Well I'm off preparing for a pretty small budget feature we are shooting starting tomorrow. I just picked up the film from Kodak. Let's see how it goes... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Bill DiPietra Posted August 5, 2015 Premium Member Share Posted August 5, 2015 My pleasure Gregg. Well I'm off preparing for a pretty small budget feature we are shooting starting tomorrow. I just picked up the film from Kodak. Let's see how it goes... Congrats and good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giray Izcan Posted August 5, 2015 Author Share Posted August 5, 2015 Thanks Bill. I appreciate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregg MacPherson Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 I gave you a second up vote for shooting a small feature on film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giray Izcan Posted August 5, 2015 Author Share Posted August 5, 2015 Thank you Gregg. We're shooting on s16 and some 35. It will be interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Adam Frisch FSF Posted June 6, 2017 Premium Member Share Posted June 6, 2017 Just re-watched parts of this for a last minute job interview. And again I got reminded of how fantastic the cinematography is in it by Kimball. I've always enjoyed his cinematography, and this and Revenge is some of his best work. I miss that heightened, smoky 'Brit revolution' naturalism that was ushered in by the likes of the Scott brothers etc then. Even though we are deep into a new wave of naturalism right now, trend-wise, it looked so much different then on film. Doesn't look nearly as good these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member David Mullen ASC Posted June 6, 2017 Premium Member Share Posted June 6, 2017 You could question just how "natural" that approach was, it was also very stylized in a way -- strong contrast from (often) artificial lighting simulating natural light sources combined with smoke. Assuming one did everything the same in front of the camera, I think one could spend some time replicating that look using an Alexa with older anamorphic lenses and running it through a process like Live Grain, grading for a certain contrast... but the real issue is that filmmakers and audiences today seem to prefer more straightforward images: less smoke, diffusion, telephoto lenses, grain, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Premium Member Adam Frisch FSF Posted June 6, 2017 Premium Member Share Posted June 6, 2017 Yeah, I use the term naturalism a little loosely here. It was an emulated naturalism, but in reality quite lit. Big soft single source pushes, atmosphere and also longer lenses. Reason I call it naturalistic is that it very often lacked backlight as part of the standard setup. Sure there could be very backlit scenes (just look at 9,5 Weeks), but they were often found on their own, just silhouetted. But the lenses are also a big thing - longer lenses. Today, cinematography tends to shoot much wider lenses. Not necessary framing wider, but just wider focal lengths. I'm looking at a few shows right now on TV, and I'm always struck by how ugly their lens choices are. Bowing, extreme wides, weird compositions, converging lines. Puts me right out of it, if I'm honest. It's as if the drone aesthetic has morphed into cinematography. I'm not saying the way I do it is better, but it looks more pleasing to my eye: very rarely do I shoot anything wider than 25mm. Seems like my normal range is around 30-40mm. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael LaVoie Posted June 6, 2017 Share Posted June 6, 2017 Yeah, I use the term naturalism a little loosely here. It was an emulated naturalism, but in reality quite lit. Always been a fan of Jacobs Ladder. There's an interesting contrast between that and a movie like Ghost. Both were shot at the exact same time. Set in the same city and written by the same screenwriter and essentially, about the same thing. A person caught between life and death. The approach to each however was nowhere near the same. I think that maybe what you mean by natural. Jacobs Ladder has a much more natural seeming "unlit" and grittier look than Ghost which looks like your average Hollywood dramedy. Both look great and are lit to perfectly match their respective tones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elizabeth Hylton Posted June 7, 2017 Share Posted June 7, 2017 Watched this movie a few weeks ago and was admiring the lighting. The grittiness is extremely effective! I agree with you, Adam, the "natural"/ "gritty" look, while in reality quite lit, perfectly matches and enhances the tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now