John-Erling Holmenes Fredriksen

I would generally thrust Stephen when he says so, but even though they're website doesn't specifically say it's an LCD, it does say the viewfinder features: "1:1 pixel zoom in viewfinder while recording for checking focus. Histogram.", which would strongly suggest LCD.

This is unfortunately no answer to your question, just a reminder that you need to change your display name to your full name. Those are the rules.

I think the dfilm-guys have the right approach to RED-shooting. They are very conscious about the fact that they're bringing a computer onto the set, not a film camera, and plan for all the stuff that we all know could happen when you bring your laptop out into the wild. It won't be happy to get rained on. It will be sensitive to temperatures. It will at some point fail. They specialize in supplying long drama productions, and always try to have a backup-camera available to replace the one on set if something happens. You might very well be right about the hardware, I am not a RED-expert in any way, but it seems obvious that hardware would be one of the reasons why they're pushing out a new RED so soon to replace the RED One.

Again, this is Norway, and the rest of the world is probably different. But most of the big rental houses here have built complete and confidence-inducing RED-packages already, most of them with moving filmlabs that have extensive backup solutions. And it seems that the RED is very much taken into consideration for most drama and commercial work here. I know at least one feature going into production now on the RED, and more will most likely follow. The DoP on that TV series was very happy with the RED, they hadn't had a single crash on the camera for the entire two or so months of the shoot, and he felt it was very inspiring to work with the "hourlies", as well as the safety net they provided if they needed to redo anything. Judging by the amount of rentals putting together solid packages, educating DIT's to work for them, as well as production companies and post facilities building good workflows for the RED, I would say it's only gonna grow in Norway. But then again, that's Norway. We eat brown cheese, and enjoy watching men in the woods on skis for three straight hours.

Some experiences? Using it outdoors, you need to be very aware of the wind. Just the slightest breeze will make the Airstar go all over the place when you raise it up. And I mean just the slightest bit of breeze. Also, it will cover a quite small area, so for outdoor night use, you'll probably need more, or supplement with other units. But the light is very nice. Helium is expensive though.

http://dfilm.no/bilder%20fra%20Honningfellen.html Norwegian TV-series shot entirely on RED by one of Norway's most acclaimed DoPs. That company (dfilm) has specialized in building a cinema production package around the RED, delivering full support and a rolling digital filmlab to go on set.

You'd need heavy ND to get it that much down, probably starting at ND18 at least, and then working your way up until you're satisfied.

When the manufacturers try to give you an idea of how much light output a light will give, they usually compare it to the output of an incandescent. What it means is not that your Compact Flo will magically make 75 watts appear out of thin air, it just means that it outputs the same amount of light as a 100-120 watts incandescent bulb. It just means that the Compact Flo is an efficient light, using less power to give more light. This has been common for a long time, and fluo's are generally power efficient lights. So are HMI's. An HMI is generally considered to produce 4 times the amount of light, compared to a same-sized tungsten lamp. So a 2,5k HMI fresnel will be roughly 4 times stronger than a 2,5k tungsten fresnel, and have an output closer to a 10k tungsten fresnel. Someone please correct me if I'm not completely accurate on some of these points, I'm not an electrician :)

I haven't tried using only tungsten on a daylight-balanced film, but I do like mixing in some pure tungsten in a daylight-scene, without filtering. I've attached an uncorrected framegrab from a recent short. The scene was shot on S16mm Kodak Vision2 250D, and in the picture you will see a man who's face is entirely lit by tungsten, while the general ambience of the room is daylight. Maybe this will give you a rough idea of the color.

You mean like a 2,5k HMI?

Balanced Frame

You can still get the 558 off Ebay if you want.

For what it's worth, I wrote a few lines about it here. Basically, I think it's a nice tool for some things. And terrible for other. You can do some really cool moves, narrow turns, exact repeatable moves (although the exactness may vary, use the degree-charts), macro stuff, but you're also limited by the lack of pan/tilt, and the fact that you need a table or some kind of board to use it on. I had some boards carved out, that I put on top of low-boy's, but it's a bit of a hazzle, and if you're trying to use it as a replacement-dolly, you'll often have trouble keeping the boards out of frame. As long as you know about the limitations, you can do cool things with it.

Even though a lot of directors are very into the visual and technical aspects of filmmaking (and they should, it's a big part of the movie experience), there are also directors who just don't care, and get by because they have a DP who covers for them. So blowing him off for not knowing might be a bit unfair.

Just wrapped my first S16mm-shoot as cinematographer, and thought I'd share a few pictures and some experiences. I've enjoyed this part of the forum very much in the past, and hope someone will like to have a read and a glimpse of what we've been making as well. The film, a short by director Viktor Enoksen, is about all the stuff that passes through our head, even when we're awake. We follow into the mind of our main character, and get an impression about his life, as he's making breakfast for his kids in the morning, but keep falling into a myriad of thoughts. We shot on location in Tromsø, Norway in late July, using an Aaton XTRprod, mounting a set of Zeiss Super Speeds, and loading Kodak Vision2 250D and 500T. The equipment was lent from "grandpa" Stefan Hencz in North Sweden, who was very supportive and gave us a really good price. He's a super guy, and an immensely experienced filmworker. The concept of doing my first project on film was as terrifying as it was exciting. Being a young, aspiring cinematographer with a background in HD, I've worked a lot of professional sets that have shot on film, but just barely touched the format myself. At this stage, getting the funding to go that route isn't always attainable. Big props go out to the fantastic Andy Gardner who flew in from Belfast and was the best first assistant/focus puller/hand-holder a first timer could ask for. The film is largely based on two different visual styles. One is a handheld POV-like style, used on all the scenes being played out inside the main protagonist's head. They are mostly one-takes of the entire scene, intended to be chopped up a bit in the edit. Sometimes they also include the main protagonist in the frame, but still quite subjective and handheld. The other style is based on constant dolly-movement, used for the scenes outside of his head (in the "real" parts of the movie). All setups are constantly circling the scene, starting with some sort of circular pull out from the protagonist's head, and continuing to move around the scene before pushing into his head again. For this purpose I wanted to try out the Skater Mini, a tabletop dolly that I think is mostly intended for product photography. We were able to do some distinctive moves with it, circling really close to objects and doing narrow turns, but there were also some limitations we had to work around. For instance, you cannot pan or tilt in motion. Still, I think it payed off in terms of achieving the shots the director wanted. We used 250D for the "real" parts, and 500T for the dream sequences. On recommendation from a more experienced cinematographer friend of mine, I exposed the 500 as 400, and with an 85 on it most of the time, it was basically 250 as well. We also used a lot of ND to be able to keep consistently open (around 2/2.8). The Zeiss lenses were quite old, and some were a bit tight on the focus ring, but it worked out in the end. The 500 is noticeably quite grainy, as I expected, but it suits the style of those scenes. The production was wrapped up after five intensive days, and the film sent off for developing and scanning at Nordic Film Post Production in Oslo, Norway. The onelight came back last week, and I'm including a few grabs below. Dream sequence, shot on 500T, onelight HD scan, uncorrected Real life of the protagonist, shot on 250D, onelight HD scan, uncorrected Dream sequence, shot on 500T, onelight HD scan, uncorrected Dream sequence, shot on 500T, onelight HD scan, uncorrected Dream sequence, shot on 500T, onelight HD scan, uncorrected What surprised me the most was that I hadn't screwed up exposure on a single frame. The hardest part for me was daring to be bold, in terms of lighting and in terms of trusting the film to hold up as well as I've been told it should. And I think it worked out well, I'm very much satisfied with the results, and often surprised at how well the film holds up in shadow and highlight areas. Now we just need a good edit, and hopefully the funding for a best light afterwards. In the meanwhile, I'm hunting for more work that will allow me to explore the format even further :) My Blog

Haha, took a few seconds before I found the soundguy ;) Shots look nice though. They're shot on film as well?

On 500T with 85, I would use plain uncorrected tungsten sources for warm tones, and put at least 1/2 CTB on daylight sources if they need to be cooler than white. Use your eyes and make judgement on color, if uncorrected tungsten is too warm for you, put 1/2 CTB on them.

A shutter (not shuttle) speed of 1/25 would be the video equivalent of an open shutter. Especially at 50fps. Which would explain your motion blur. You should put it at 1/50 (at 25fps, 1/100 at 50fps) to get that 180 degrees shutter angle look, which I guess is pretty much standard.

You can get fluorescents in different color temperatures, for instance something close to 3200k which would be the temperature of a "regular" light bulb. But if you also have a lot of daylight, you might want to get fluorescents that are closer to 5600k. This is what I mean with prepping, you might have to spend some time in advance swapping bulbs to the color of your choosing (and probably a bit of budget to acquire those bulbs). You could still use 3200k practicals on the desks, maybe with half CTB to keep them a bit warmer than the rest of the light (if you end up using daylight as a basis), but that's a creative decision. Seeing as you don't have a lot of wide shots, I would try to put a lot of practicals on the desks and round'n'about, just to create motivation for a bit of creative lighting in the closeups (rim-light, side-light, kickers and so on). But as you probably understand, this is very much up to you and your creative vision. You can go for the very illuminated office, with a bit less contrast and a very omni-present light, or you can go for the more contrasty version, playing down the fluo's in the roof and base yourself more on the very directional daylight coming through windows, and practicals on the desk. Both things can work and look great, it just depends what you want (and what your location looks like, maybe also what means you have available to accomplish this). Hope this helps. One tip though, I wouldn't be afraid to use different color temperatures, as long as they are motivated. Indoor lights are warmer than daylight, and you don't necessarily have to correct everything to the same color of white (unless you want to for creative reasons). But be careful using a too wide range of temperatures. For instance, if you're shooting video with daylight-balance, you might want to put a bit of blue on your tungsten-lights, or they may not turn out very pretty (especially on video). As I mentioned, maybe put half CTB on tungsten, still keeping it warmer than your daylight and daylight-balanced lights. You could also shoot some tests with your specific setup to see how well your camera (and videoformat) handles a range of temperatures, before you decide how you want to do your colors.

If it's a large room, and you are doing some large shots as well, I would use the fluo's in the roof as a basis. This might look a bit flat, but you can use light coming from practicals on the desks, and/or light coming through windows to get some direction as well. You can also hide some lights to create points of interest, and maybe draw attention where you want it. Or you could decide that you want that flat "office-look", and not do so much with it. You might have to either gel the windows, or swap bulbs/gel your lights to match the color of light coming from outside. Light coming from outside can also help raise your overall ambience if you need it. When moving in for closer shots on your talents, you can light them individually, motivated by the light sources you see in the large shots. To me, that stereotypical office lighting is often characterized by a lot of ambient light and overhead light, and not too many shadows (which is what happens when you fill an entire white room with fluorescents). If that's what you're aiming for, then I don't think you have to do too much with it. You might have to do some prepping though, checking the color on the fluo's, maybe swapping them all before the shoot. If there's a lot of sunlight coming through the windows, you might have to gel them all with ND. I also like to put diffusion on the windows, to make the light "fill" the room a bit more. If you have the means, it might be desireable to flag the sun away from the windows all together, if that turns out to be a problem. Those are some ideas at least. I also like to do a somewhat less stereotypical office-lighting sometimes with more practicals on the desks, and a bit less overall ambience/overhead lighting. Maybe even a stronger motivation from the light coming through windows. But that's your choice to make.

I have a Sekonic L-758CINE now for my main meter, and a Sekonic L-398 in backup. Very happy about this now. Gives me both spot and incident metering, as well as a backup meter that doesn't run on batteries. The L-758 is quite advanced and versatile, but you may or may not prefer a less complicated meter.

You could say that ND is a gel for controlling out-of-focus, as it would allow you to open up the iris in some cases, but for that use you would normally put the ND filter on your camera, not gel your lights. As for other methods, yes, shooting wide open (F1.4 for instance) will give you less depth of field, while closing down will gradually increase the depth of field. You can also control depth of field by choosing to use longer lenses for less depth of field, or wider lenses for more depth of field. You can compensate a bit for framing by moving your camera closer or further away.

The other solution is to light your dark areas too, lifting them a bit on set, and then bringing them down if you want in post. (Be sure to use very soft non-directional light, or it could look unnatural. You don't want a motivated source, just a bit "lighter" darks).

Yeah, you should probably consider going really wide to achieve the far-away-effect, as long as he doesn't move close to the camera.

Well, basically, you alter the way movement is captured on the film. With a larger shutter angle, the film will be exposed to light for a longer time, and you will get more motion blur, movement will therefor be perceived as smoother. On the other hand, a smaller angle will give you sharper frames, but more "stuttered" motion. In extreme cases, with a very small shutter angle and a lot of movement, objects can even appear to be jumping about. Obviously this also affects your exposure, as less light will be hitting the film if you decrease the shutter angle.