M Joel W

Panavision is willing to rent some of its gear very affordably now that demand for it has decreased. Get a few quotes from local rental houses (NYC or LA, you can google the major ones) and see what's cheapest, bid them against each other. You should be able to get a camera package and grip package for next to nothing if you negotiate smartly. Many DPs will reduce their rate if it means the chance to shoot on film, but then you still need a full cast and crew (and locations) in addition to your DP's fee. If you're set on shooting 35mm film, anamorphic, etc. and want a full good non-union crew, my guess is you're looking at $200,000 if you pull in tons of favors to a million.

If you can seal up the edges to entrances and exits (and don't have any pesky skylights) it can be simple: Cover the windows (from the outside) with duvy or even a couple layers of trash bags. Have art pull the shades or blinds to cover as much of the windows as possible. Light as you want.

Very interesting...I talked with an extremely talented landscape photographer who eschews the use of 85 filters, too. He shoots 4x5 velvia with no filtration. Not even polarizers. Pretty amazing, actually. Similar beautiful greens and lush tonality to Tree of Life in his work, but more contrast and saturation. Curious that Lubezki would use polarizers at all given their deleterious effect on skin tone and wonky tendencies when used with wide lenses and camera movement. I read the online portion of the ASC article (should have done this in the first place, didn't know it was available) and they did some interesting stuff. I found their anti-"light sandwich" dictum (negative fill, as you mentioned) surprising...sculptural lighting is generally something to strive toward and for exteriors you've got one light source so how often do you really get this? And yet it seemed like a major concern. I wish I could identify when this was used. And I don't believe Lubezki when he claims they wanted to avoid lens flares and use deep focus. The movie was full of lens flares and shallow focus photography, to the extent that I bet they were using NDs to achieve it. The sunstars and bokeh were gorgeous, of course. The overexposure and DI process seemed to have a lot to do with the look. I read that they wanted to time photochemically but couldn't because current print stocks are too contrasty. I don't think this look would have been possible without the DI. Anyhow, the result is incredible and Kodak should use this to advertise film, except of course that the footage shot on red looked just as good... I might have to upgrade from my dSLR for the exteriors in my next short...I just don't believe this look is technically possible with cheap digital, even with the best lighting conditions.

Never used it. Always thought it was for putting a small fixture above a closed door or something.

Days of Heaven looked amazing, but its technical magic was entirely different from Tree of Life's. If I remember, Days of Heaven got its look by Almendros pushing two stops, shooting with a t1.1 lens, shooting everything backlit at magic hour or blue hour, not using an 85 filter at blue hour, etc. It looked amazing and of course pulling those kinds of things off is an incredible achievement, but I don't think they had the technology to achieve some of the photography in Tree of Life in the 1970s or else it would have looked different. Days of Heaven is a soft, grainy movie and while it looks great, Tree of Life is a technical marvel in a whole different category. (Aesthetically they're both pretty incredible but very different stylistically, imo.) I also don't think "why" is the right question, to be perfectly honest. Why shoot blue hour it like that? Because it looks great is a good enough reason. How do you retain that much highlight detail or light faces so attractively without reflectors or overheads (when shooting with wide angle lenses)? That's a harder question to answer. My best guess is careful grading, compressing the highlights in the DI. Maybe waiting for overcast days that have thin enough clouds where light is still directional and even then shooting backlit. But those are rare conditions. I'm still a total beginner and for me it's easy to see this movie and be wowed by it, aesthetically and technically, but it would be very difficult for me to shoot footage like this (particularly on my little t2i). "Why" is easy for me--I love natural light, wide lenses, the interplay between green and skin tones in a frame, and dramatic landscape photography in general, but I am not a fan of the HDR look, polarizers, or grads. How is my concern right now. I've gone outside in nice light and tried to photograph like this, it's not happening; I don't have the skills (or possibly the gear--again, shooting with a dSLR). It might just be a matter of me being inept, but I want to know "how."

I don't want to argue about the merits of this film or its cinematography since I think that discussion has been had ad nauseum, rather I'd like some insight into how this technical marvel was actually made... IMDb claims the film was shot on a mix of 5217, 5219, red, and IMAX with master prime and ultra primes. I've read the film was shot almost entirely with natural light and, for once, I'll believe it (the night interiors obviously had practicals chosen specifically for how they would throw light and the set design--lots of windows and blue/green walls--was specifically tailer for contrast, color, and light, and I imagine they took something out of the truck everyone once in a while for interiors in particular, but still, wow). Looking in the eyes during day exteriors, I never saw a beadboard, 12x frame, anything at all--sometimes to the detriment of a particular shot that might have benefited from a bit more fill or an eye light imo, but overall this is the best cinematography of the year by far and the best natural light cinematography I've seen. Which begs the question--how? The basic tricks were all there--backlit late day photography, blue hour photography, etc. but the look is like nothing I've seen. I've rarely seen overcast days where light was quite that contrasty or directional and the lack of raccoon eyes during overcast exteriors (and the surprisingly lush palette) is impressive. A lot of the day exteriors shot with direct sun have much less contrast than I'd expect, too. Does anyone know what the DI process was like for this film? The light and contrast is breathtaking. The overcast photography looks too good to be real, the direct sun photography too soft and low contrast to truly be unfilled (and yet where are the reflections in the eyes from reflectors--there never were any that I could see)? The blue hour stuff looks too good to be real, too. When I shoot during blue hour the contrast between the sky and foreground is simply too much for a camera to handle. And yet the contrast is just perfect with no evidence of grad filters or polarizers in sight. Furthermore, the day interior photography looked appropriately exposed and absolutely gorgeous. And yet soft light through the window rarely provides a bright enough key. Maybe the wide lenses let them shoot almost wide open? Did this movie undergo a crazy DI or was it simply the strength of the photography? The DI must have been quite good. I can usually tell when scenes switch between IMAX and 35mm--the grain structure and contrast changes. But here it was seamless. And the red and film must have been graded together seamlessly, too, since it all looked great to me, quite an accomplishment since I think red rarely handles greens and skin tones as well as film. Also, how did they do the creation of the universe stuff? Incredible effects. I want to emulate those for a short I'm doing. Anyone have any insight? I did catch one rack aperture...

Just used those on a shoot this weekend because we couldn't afford kinos and I've used the 3500K variant lots before as practicals. Good output, flicker totally dependent on ballast (but even $10 housings usually have electronic ballasts and thus no flicker these days), and good color rendering considering the price. If you have the ability to time out a minor green spike (which might not even be a problem at all) you'll be all set with these lights. With 1/50 you may not see flickering until it's too late, especially with dSLRs. So try out some outlandish fast shutter speeds to see if the lights flicker at all. If they don't, you're good, it's an electronic ballast (which won't flicker until you get to ridiculous speeds). If they do flicker, shoot at 1/60, which should be safe unless they're malfunctioning. Sure kinoflos would be better but these will have more output and just slightly worse color.

That's why I decided to go with the first generation--no use waiting when I'll have a few projects to shoot with it before the new one is released. The CA really isn't that bad, just worse than I'd like and hard to avoid. For stills it's a problem but you can fix it if you shoot raw. For video it hasn't been a big issue so far, but it will show up in high contrast areas. The new revision should hopefully fix this, but don't think of it as a deal breaker. The lens flares are more prominent than average, but they're very pretty looking. For landscapes this is irritating, for music videos and action movies I like it a lot. I also forgot to mention that the minimum focusing distance is a bit long for an ultra wide. This is a very dynamic focal length range for macro style work and Michael Bay style inserts but you can't do that with the lens. The front element is quite small given the 77mm (I think) threads so you can probably use filters on it, though, which is convenient! I recommend it, but also would recommend considering the 10-22mm Canon, which has less CA, is considerably wider, and is only half a stop slower at wide angle. Haven't used it, but I've heard great things. Or just rent!

Just got a Tokina 11-16mm. It's okay but like many lenses seems overpriced for what it does. Good contrast wide open and more than sharp enough for video at f2.8, flares a bit more than most lenses but the flares are pretty aesthetic. Bokeh is fine. Build quality is quite good. Distortion seems minor, but linear perspective distortion is dramatic with an ultra-wide and kind of hides it. The focus ring is smooth and has hard stops and a throw of about 90º, which is sufficient for a lens this wide, imo. But I don't mind AF lenses so long as they have an okay throw; if you do, well, this is one... So far so good, but... It's not nearly as wide as a 14mm lens on full frame. Not even the same feeling. The chromatic aberration is really out of control, not that this will matter that often, but it's true even stopped down. Even the venerable 17-55mm IS has bad CA, so it could be worse, but should be a lot better. You won't see it in video that often is my guess, but it's pretty bad. The zoom range feels almost pointless. There's a difference between 11mm and 16mm for sure, but if you're going for ultra wide why would you zoom in to slightly less ultra wide? It's good, but not great. My guess is the second generation model, coming in the next few months, will correct for some of these shortcomings. Pretty useful, though, really a dynamic focal length at 11mm.

1/4 CTO should eat almost no light. I think 3/4 CTO (which brings HMIs to 3200K) eats maybe 2/3 stop? Way less than CTB. If you're lighting ONLY with HMIs, this seems like something you could do in post very easily. There are other colors you could use, too. I forget what they used in Pan's Labyrinth but I think it was some sort of green/teal gel? Could be totally wrong but that looked great. HMIs vary pretty significantly in color temperature so you could easily have one at 6000K+ and another around 5000K. So some might need more CTO (and possibly some minus green) than others.

Thanks, both of these replies are very helpful. Glad I won't need to hire a leko for this shot only. Can you rent insecticide sprayers, though? Or would one of the small ones from home depot work as well? I have seen glycerine, but not for this, and that's a clever trick. I have a couple 2k location fresnels I could use for this and I can see if the lens is removable, too. So I'll put my 1/2 CTS/1/2 CTO cocktail on that and maybe expose at key or a bit under. For CUs I'll fill from the same direction at a 3/4 angle with a small soft box with the same cocktail, dimmed down so that it reads primarily as an eyesight? Other than that maybe two kinoflo fat men (surf and turf) with half green through the windows as mercury vapor ambient light, two stops under? I'm excited to try this set up...and it even begs to be graded orange/teal, which is convenient.

Tried ultra flat. Didn't like it. Have shot neutral since. The tonality is much better and there's less posterization after grading. Just meter and light correctly in the first place.

I'm likely trying an 11-16mm zoom soon and will probably buy it. I haven't tried the Samyang but I'll tell you how the Tokina compares with the 14mm f2.8 L on the 5D (which is wonderful--the lack of distortion is remarkable). My guess is that the Tokina is probably the right choice for APS-C. It's also much wider than the 14mm on a crop body. And much less wide than the 14mm on a 36X24mm body. The 17-55mm f2.8 IS is kind of useable for video, even if I wished it had different ergonomics, and pulling focus is less horrible with ultra wides, so I'm not that worried about ergonomics.

Thank you, that's very helpful. And it gives me an excuse to watch/rewatch some good movies. Since I'll be cropping to 2.35:1 (or maybe 2:1) I'd want to go even wider than the equivalences you've indicated, I think? So maybe super wide isn't crazy anymore. The human vision thing is a ridiculous argument to get into, but I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a good reason why my favorite lenses (28mm or 35mm on Super35, 135mm on 4x5, 35mm on 135) hover around the same focal length as the diagonal of the format. I've tried directing and any shot that's longer than 50mm and isn't meant to feel distanced feels...weird too tight or too alienating for the most part.

Tri-X is notoriously hard to expose and a third stop slower under tungsten than under daylight. In theory the above (1/50) will work (although some 16mm cameras have 1/60 shutter speeds or finders that eat 1/3 stop of light), but I agree--just borrow a meter. Edit: Re: the above answer, there are lots of us in the dSLR crowd who use meters, I'd like to think most serious dSLR shooters use meters.

You might be looking at lead acid batteries because of their high c rating, but those are huge. Alkaline batteries have a terrible c rating (very low drain). I discovered this the expensive way. I would use CFLs rather than tungsten bulbs for their efficiency and lack of heat. There are 75w 12v tungsten lights but even then... 6 amps. You could get a few of these and switch them out: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/815655-REG/Bebob_Engineering_A90RM_3_Stud_Snap_on_High_Draw.html Normal Anton Bauer camera batteries might offer similar performance. You could rent them to save money. My guess is running 12v lights at 14.4v won't make them explode. I've been wrong before. You could run 12 9v batteries in sequence to a 110w fluorescent light. With lithium batteries you probably can get some acceptable amperage, too. Warning, you could get shocked at a potentially lethal voltage? I'm not an electrician. Probably don't do this. There's a video where someone runs a 220V fluorescent off a single AA alkaline battery by cannibalizing a fuji disposable camera circuit board. I recently ran a tungsten balanced triphosphor 15w 12v CLF off 8 lithium batteries. I used the battery pack for a marantz sound recorder but similar battery packs are a few dollars, $20 for the batteries. Very lightweight and pretty small. 60w equivalent and about 1.25 amps each so with a lithium camera battery that can output 12 amps you'd have a very bright prop indeed. NihM batteries are rechargeable but I'm not sure they have a high enough c rating. Alkaline batteries do not! The bulb flickers a lot. Maybe I'll build a portable fire rig out of a bunch of these. Getting a spherical diffuser that doesn't eat too much stop will be a challenge for your art department. There are spherical hard plastic soft boxes for some strobe lights. Look around! Is this the only source in your entire movie? You might want to put a chinese lantern on a fishing pole at the very least and bounce some very soft fill when the light is on.

Super 35. Well, t2i. Same thing. It's amazing to me how many directors and DPs (particularly capable ones) pick that as their go-to lens. Sometimes the 40mm. I was just thinking Brazil as an example of wide lenses used well when you brought up Gilliam. But he goes pretty extreme and makes the distortion visible. I've heard Spielberg's favorite lens is the 27mm, but that's not too wide and I don't know the source of that information. I didn't realize until I looked it up that there was a 10mm Primo (still t1.9!). I had the chance to try the 14.5 but didn't take it. Partially I'm just wondering how to approach 2.35:1. I rarely go beyond 17mm at 1.85:1. Do people who shoot wide screen find themselves going to 14mm or wider?

I want to shoot a scene, city night futuristic slums interior with most lights off or dimmed way down, primarily lit through windows--soft 1/2CTB 1/2 green for mercury vapor ambient light and 1/2 CTO 1/2 CTS for sodium vapor key (street light outside window). The look is Darius Khondji, the shots are Spielberg. Hopefully! I want it to look sort of like the talent is crying because it's raining outside and the street light is projecting rain shadows onto faces...would I need a leko and how would I go about focusing it to make this read? Planning to use a hose to spray rain on a window. Thanks!

I might try directing something (for fun and practice) and need some advice... For narrative video I don't know if I've used a lens wider than 17mm or the format equivalent. Space starts to feel very distorted beyond that point and I hate the "ultra wide HDR" look in landscape photography. But I shot a music video with a very wide lens and it was a lot of fun, very dynamic... For the purposes of this short video, I'm a big fan of Spielberg and Michael Bay. Maybe Ridley Scott (Alien and Blade Runner). Also enjoyed Star Trek and Hellboy 2/Pan's Labyrinth and even Avatar a whole lot. I figure I'm going to have to shoot 2.35:1. Going for an anamorphic feel but shooting spherical and cropping... I was wondering what kind of focal lengths I'm looking at. I've heard Spielberg is big on the 20-30mm range, I assume that's in terms of cropped super35. Does that sound about right? So would I be all set with 17mm as my widest lens or do I have an excuse to buy this 11-16mm zoom? Narrative DPs, how wide do you go and how do you get away with it? I feel like an ultra wide could be really fun for some action scenes.

That's the idea, or at least my interpretation of it. As for light sources in scene, that's one time I personally use a spot meter--when a light, the sun or moon or clouds, an overcast sky, a lampshade, some 1000H, etc. is in frame. I guess in those cases the scene dynamic range is usually pretty extreme and the source just blows out, but I feel cool using a spot meter. I'm sure photo printers would love to get their hands on some of that black hole emulsion, btw. The best people I know work primarily intuitively, and I often feel embarrassed talking technically around them since their work far outstrips mine and with less pretense, but I'm a verbal thinker so I go through these cognitive hoops with any creative endeavor. You should read the (somewhat brilliant) twenty page neoformalist manifesto I wrote to pitch the horrible short film I never finished. Some day, hopefully, my work will speak for itself--or at least speak the same language I do.

At least in terms of how I approach it, contrast ratio is the key to fill ratio as read through the incident meter. So 1000:1 is a ten stop contrast ratio. Dynamic range is the range from brightest value to darkest value in a given scene. So, assuming a 1000:1 contrast ratio, and assuming a subject with a roughly five stop range under even lighting (a big assumption, but one I'm guessing the author made), you'd end up with 15 stops of dynamic range in the scene through the spot meter. It still doesn't totally make sense--each scene has a different color palette and five stops is a lot of contrast for flat art. But I think this is what the book is getting at. Either that or it's a typo! Anyway, what you and David have said makes perfect sense; I'm just not sure the author is outright wrong about this, though. I'm sure every capable DP or gaffer approaches this differently, just as some people light primarily with an incident meter (which makes a lot more sense to me, personally) and some with a spot meter. I'm self-taught, too, excluding one intro course in school, so I could be wrong.

No, Chris. Of course you're right but you misunderstand what I wrote. Under even illumination flat art is at most six stops (in reality closer to five stops) apart (in terms of diffuse, not reflective/specular light). So if you have a scene that's 1000:1 (ten stop contrast ratio), chances are the dynamic range of the scene is about 15 stops. So it's sloppy writing (and obviously the exact number varies based on subject), but since the book references the subject and not the lights themselves, a 1000:1 contrast ratio correlates generally with a roughly 15 stop subject dynamic range. Six stops on the print itself.

The difference between a very bright and very dark object (through a spot meter) is generally around 4-6 stops. In my experience, black fabric and white fabric are about four stops apart and I believe that the best black and white photographs approach six stops of contrast. Obviously reflective objects, street signs and reflective tape, specular highlights, and anything with UV dye pushes that a bit, but who meters for specular highlights? My guess is the 15 stop figure refers to the approximate dynamic range of an average scene when lit with a 1000:1 (ten stop) contrast ratio. Especially since the book mentions the subject, not the ratio itself.

I see Sekonic dual meters on set more often than any other meter, and yet everyone I talk with says to get a Spectra, since they have the reputation for being more accurate. Odd. Fwiw, I don't use the spot meter much, but I do use it. If I'm trying to blow out a window or dim lights up to the same level or check and see what something in the distance looks like it's useful. For shooting slides it's great. It all depends on your priorities. If you want a general purpose light meter, the 758 cine seems good and it's pretty accurate, apparently more so after calibration. But for general use an incident meter is fine. Stopping and checking the spot meter to see how bright everything is can be very interesting, but for actually shooting it's too slow. The incident meter is much more useful (and the surplus of cine modes kind of pointless when 99% of the time it's 1/48 24fps).

From what I remember it looked good, though I saw it a while ago and don't remember specifics. It's hard to protect yourself as a DP, especially on smaller projects; directors almost always take performance over lighting/focus/composition, which I guess makes sense but I've suffered from that in the past, thankfully on movies no one will watch. I suppose that makes sense, lighting for a consistent style in day exteriors rather than based on source, but it seems like a ridiculous amount of work to me. But I guess that's what differentiates the huge movies from smaller ones. Thanks for the insight!