kpv rajkumar

whoosh ! dunno where that came from.

love to fly that flicker free fella for a v1610 @ 27,000 fps in far flung mumbai soon !

awesome, rod !

rk

exactly

 

 

 

 

In the end, what i was trying to say, is that technology matters relatively very little when all is said and done. If you're good, you're good, if you're not, you're not, regardless of the tools.

 

my photography guru, an iconoclast who doesn't mince words, once gave me the low down on my apparent fetish for high- technology in camera gear. he observed that even an ape from borneo will quickly learn to press the right buttons if i thrust a gizmo of a camera into its prehensile grip. it's my sensibilities, volume of life experience that i've drunk, as interpreted through my intuitive visual instincts that's gonna make me succeed as a cinematographer ! wow, how true ! thanks frank, rajkumar

Shelly's advice is spot on -- large frames of black for negative fill can help create some contrast.

 

In terms of the overcast sky, I had this great sky only for a few minutes in Montana and grabbed this wide shot in "Northfork":

 

 

The sky was totally socked-in after that. I didn't use negative fill in the close-ups but because everyone was wearing black with hats and I was using a skip-bleach process for the prints, which gave me super blacks, the increase in contrast worked great in overcast weather.

 

So don't ignore costume design as a way of adding some contrast to a scene in flat weather, a figure in a black coat against a grey sky still has contrast to it.

wow, that's a pretty foreboding picture, dave. i'm also imagining it with the red tail lights on ! rajkumar

Chris doyle, roger deakins, bruno delbonell, lubezki and prieto

how about giuseppe rotunno and all that jazz ?

regards,

rajkumar :)

Lol at the Irwin comparison.

 

kpv rajkumar, I highly recommend that you check out In the Mood for Love or some of Doyle and WKW's other collabos.

roger that, tom ! i'll soon be going the whole nine yards on all of his stuff, ( even love his freaked out hair-do !) including 'in the mood for love' and all of his wkw works and not forgeting his work with kaige on 'temptress moon', ( ha ! now i remember falling in love with gong li on time cover years ago !) ! thanks-a-thousand-feet-mag ! rajkumar

It's a bit like saying that Ravi Shankar isn't in the same league as Izak Perlman, or John Coltrane isn't in the same league as Aaron Copland, sort of apples and oranges -- Doyle and Lubezki have different types of talents. Doyle has more of a punk rock or modern jazz attitude that is perfect for certain types of projects, particularly urban tales. He is rough around the edges, by choice. Lubezki would not be as well-suited as Doyle was for a movie like "Fallen Angels" or "Happy Together", though he certainly could do a type of naturalistic documentary style when it is appropriate, but I think Doyle is second to none when it comes to portraying urban night life, especially that of Hong Kong. He's not afraid of being unrefined.

dave, maybe i'm not qualified here, as i have watched only 'rabbit proof fence'. however, i loved doyle's raw-earth camera work in that. but after reading this interesting thread and imbibing the various impressions floaring around , let me chip in my own two cents: chris doyle as an artistic original reminds me of trilok gurtu, the maverick indian percussionist and the incredible crocodile man from down under , the late steve irvin ! rajkumar

Also remember that Rogers background is documentary film where most of the time you just have to use available light .

also, the fact that Deakins is hands-on and does most of the operating , though he has regular operators like Clint Dougherty and Kyle Rudolph ! rajkumar

Have you considered any other options, aside from mounting a DVX on your head?

There are small camera heads that you could tun to a recorder in a backpack.

 

If using a DVX is the only option, how about mounting it on your chest, just under your chin. that gives it a central location. On your head it might feel a bit high, particularly if you get close to people of objects. I'd suggest that on the shoulder would give the most natural perspective, height wise, if you don't mind being slightly off-center.

 

However you do it, you'll probably want to mount it securely, so that it is pointing in the direction your body faces, without relying on the LCD, that might be distracting.

 

The big drawback with the DVX is its mass. It'll be quite unwieldy mounted on your head.

yeah, weighing in about 2 kilos with battery and cassette, you may not be able to lug a dvx for long, meandering, walk thru shots, apart from the possibility of injuring the neck! you may want to wear neck-braces though, and then mount the camera , take care ! rajkumar

Another important safety point is to make sure that all knuckles and extensions on a c-stand are fully locked when not in-use. This may seem like an obvious rule, but I've seen this often on "no-budget" and student sets. In fact, I got a nice little nose fracture last year from someone else's negligence.

oops ! that must have been a nasty little accident . seamus ! from where i come from, i need to also personnaly make sure that the lady's legs are all bootied and laced up, lest she leaves lasting scars on the most expensive parquet flooring ! rajkumar

Negative fill just involves using black cards or cloth on frames off-camera to reduce the amount of ambient bounce lighting filling-in the shadows.

 

This is used often either on overcast days to create a little contrast, or in a white-walled room, for example, when the key light or backlight is bouncing back into the shadows and lowering the contrast too much, so you tape some black cloth over the white wall where the light is hitting it to get rid of the bounce-back.

thank you, dave. now i got it !

what is negative fill ? can somebody explain when this becomes a necessity and how you set about finessing it ? many thanks in advance, rajkumar

thanks a ton for the info, bill. now, at the risk of sounding naive, tell me what happens to the image when you drop the master black level to -3 ? and how does this choice delimit our options in post ? btw, the warm delectability of the image is finessed by your highly nuanced choice of 1/4 bpm ! good little national spot to begin with, bill. reminds me of giuseppe rotunno and all that jazz ! cheers ! rajkumar :P

 

 

I dropped it to -3 as opposed to going further, that's all. We wanted to add some contrast to our shadows but not too much.

 

And the 1/4 BPM went into the 900, not to warm it but to add halation to the practicals and soften it a bit.

 

And you're much to generous with your compliments, but thanks.

wow, you're welcome and thanks a tonne again , bill ! much friendship, rajkumar

Thanks Raj, just to be clear I was just B camera op. on this.

 

Obviously we didn't need anything lighting her face than the practicals in the shot. I positioned an arri 300 over her shoulder to add some detail to her hair, our DP put a cosmetic gel over it. He hit her from behind with an arri 650 and a large Chimera. The DP, hit the clothes rack in the b/g with a 300. I suggested a 1/4 BPM for the A cam, I thought it'd be nice to get a little halation around the practicals. The A cam was an HDX900 and I felt the the image was a little "too" crisp by comparison. The BPM was a good touch.

 

After we viewed the dailies (we had an editor doing rough cuts on-set) we all kind of fell in love with this setup. In fact I just found out that they're going to release the out takes to "Access Hollywood" for a segment on the actress.

 

We shot cine V 720/24P, std. settings but I dropped the master black to -3. We didn't want to limit any options in post.

The Redrock is a 35mm adapter, Raj. I used old Nikon AI primes. This was an 85mm wide open at F2.0 and the camera iris was set to "open". I was about 5 feet from the actress.

 

As far as framing, I had a brief rehearsal and we were off. So I really had to decide pretty quickly how I wanted to crop her and how much I wanted to emphasize the lead room in the shot. I've always kind of liked chopping foreheads.

 

The director was an accomplished photographer here in Hollywood. We really had to be on our game. I overlit a plant at one point and he gently came up and reminded me that we were going for a 'natural look'. Got it. A true gentleman, there's a lot to learn from him.

 

I don't know if there's much art to shooting junkets but I just pulled a one man band for a couple that will air on MTV U. They should air next week in support of Horror Fest, so I guess these will be my first national spots:

 

thanks a ton for the info, bill. now, at the risk of sounding naive, tell me what happens to the image when you drop the master black level to -3 ? and how does this choice delimit our options in post ? btw, the warm delectability of the image is finessed by your highly nuanced choice of 1/4 bpm ! good little national spot to begin with, bill. reminds me of giuseppe rotunno and all that jazz ! cheers ! rajkumar :P

HVX200, redrock, nikons (85mm f2.0), cine v

 

 

my 1st national ad (sorry for re-editing).

bill, hi ! this is raj . wow, tone looks gorgeous. warm. like honey and treacle to me. straight out of a panavision rather than a panasonic ! tell me what's redrock and what adapter did you use to dock the nikon. and i presume you shot it at 720p, on cine-like, right ? and how did you light the subject. i'd be delighted to lap up a lighting diagram, (if any), much friendship, rajkumar

Shoot at 25fps with a 180 degree shutter angle, or shoot 24fps with 172.8 degree shutter angle.

hi mike ! the last time i shot a computer screen one of my first ac fiddled around with the computer's scanning protocol and got it in clean sync. i did'nt pay attention at that time so i really did not know what he did. are they any different from tv screens ? can you help. many thanks in advance! rajkumar

I really want to be a cinematographer and want to go to art school. I love photography and wish I was a professional photographer. In college I might try to double major in cinematography and photojournalism. Several people have told me I've got a good eye when it comes to photography. I am kind of worried that when I get to learning about cinematography more in college that it will be totally different from photography and I will feel like I'm starting it all from scratch and that my experience with photography won't matter. That, of course, is really just the worst case scenario. I really hope it's not like that at all.

you sure have good eye , julia ! i can see that ! :P rajkumar

I want to know if his skills would translate well onto the moving medium, and if any one of you guys have had this experience or are in fact a converted still photographer.

hi, richard ! i'm one of those converted still photographers who moved into cinematography/videography with only a lot of gumption and confidence in the absence of any formal film school training. i should encourage you by saying that today i'm making a living by shooting decent corporates/commercials which could not have been possible but for my do or die exposure as a still photographer shooting with film. i did move on to digital still photography due to market compulsions. so cheers and go get your friend ! rajkumar

dear dave ! here's a little tribute straight from my heart ! i'm right now looking up a back issue of the AC with misty eyes , and there's a B&w picture of two great doyens that i loved deeply - jordan cronenweth and conrad l. hall -as they share a beautiful moment in their hey-day. but i thank god for jeff cronenweth and john toll , for carrying on the grand tradition of 'the professionals' ! lot's of friendship, rajkumar

thank you , matt for starting this wonderful thread ! lot's of friendship, rajkumar.

dear dave ! here's a little tribute straight from my heart ! i'm right now looking up a back issue of the AC with misty eyes , and there's a B&w picture of two great doyens that i loved deeply - jordan cronenweth and conrad l. hall -as they share a beautiful moment in their hey-day. but i thank god for jeff cronenweth and john toll , for carrying on the grand tradition of 'the professionals' ! lot's of friendship, rajkumar

and to not forget dear connie w. hall too as among the torch bearers of that grand tradition ! lot's of friendship, rajkumar.

dear dave ! here's a little tribute straight from my heart ! i'm right now looking up a back issue of the AC with misty eyes , and there's a B&w picture of two great doyens that i loved deeply - jordan cronenweth and conrad l. hall -as they share a beautiful moment in their hey-day. but i thank god for jeff cronenweth and john toll , for carrying on the grand tradition of 'the professionals' ! lot's of friendship, rajkumar

and not to forget dear connie w. hall too as among the torch bearers of that grand tradition ! lot's of friendship, rajkumar.

There was a good interview with him in the March 1974 issue of American Cinematographer about a small movie called "The Nickel Ride".

dear dave ! here's a little tribute straight from my heart ! i'm right now looking up a back issue of the AC with misty eyes , and there's a B&w picture of two great doyens that i loved deeply - jordan cronenweth and conrad l. hall -as they share a beautiful moment in their hey-day. but i thank god for jeff cronenweth and john toll , for carrying on the grand tradition of 'the professionals' ! lot's of friendship, rajkumar

I'm glad you mentioned David Boyd - I did a number of episodes of Without A Trace with David, and instantly developed both respect and admiration for him (not to mention that I just really like the guy!). He's not only talented - that's obvious - but he might be the "happiest" cameraman I've ever met, someone who genuinely loves what he does and brings that love to the set every day - and it's infectuous.

hi mike ! just chiming in to say how much i'm enjoying this th(read) and how much i'd like to be seen as someone like david boyd too, by the filmmaking fraternity here in this part of the world lighting up lives. it's infectious indeed ! thank you dave ! thank you mike ! kpv rajkumar

hi, john ! as i understand, '1920' are the horizontal lines and '1080' are the vertical lines '24' is the fps and '8' is the video's vtr bit-quantization, right ? but what is the '2' ? please clarify. thank you, kpv rajkumar

Nook lights are tungsten.

wow, thank you, dave ! so that means spacelights would normally come with tungsten lights , right ?( gosh! the color temp looks so much like daylight to me in a photograph) i have'nt seen or felt one myself as they may not be available so easily at south indian rental houses. but i read that ravi.k.chandran , chennai's own(my home town too! :P ) and among india's top dop's used them for all its worth in bollywoods' 'savariya' ! thank you once again, rajkumar

They have 6 1K nook lights placed around a wagon wheel type shape, all pointing straight down into a silk cylinder, the bottom can have diffusion and gel clipped in. It uses Soca cable, which is AC bunched up into one cable and given different heads in which you need male splays (turns the soca cable into 6 individual AC heads) to connect to a distribution box, where you can control each lights output. They are really cheap to rent, not sure how much they are to buy or where to buy them. I'd call a local rental house that has them and find out where they buy them.

hi, chayse ! i just joined the party late. but please tell me whether the nook lights are daylight or tungsten ? and another friend in this thread says that he uses a blonde. are'nt blondes 2k open faced tungsten they are called 'multi' in chennai, south india ? much friendship, rajkumar