Andrew Koch

Since you are going 3 perf 2.40, you may want to consider shooting super35 for a little extra negative area.

People absolutely DO shoot in 1080P all the time. Many of the newer hi end HD cameras can deliver this. All of the current super 35 sized sensor cameras can do this (D21, Genesis, F35, Red, etc). Some of the 2/3 cameras can as well (F23, HPX3000, etc). These are just a few. There are several others. Broadcast is only 720p or 1080i, but shooting in 1080p is still a good idea because you benefit from the supersampling. The increased resolution is also helpful when going to film or even blueray. One drawback is that most (but not all) 1080P HD cameras are limited to 30fps. 720P cameras like the Varicam go up to 60Fps giving you the option of slow motion. There can also be some increased light sensitivity with some 720P cameras over some 1080P cameras, but don't quote me on that, ask the experts. So yes, 1080P is a very viable way to go, but cameras that give you this native resolution are often more expensive.

I'm sorry that you have had such a problem with crew members. I must be very lucky because most of the crews I work with are very respectful of actors and go to great lengths to help the actors. The grips I work with are usually very good about setting up courtesies for the actors. Also making sure the lighting works is serving the actor's performance. I'm not suggesting interrupting a performance, but some actors don't appreciate the hard work that the crew does to make them look good. I understand that it is important to respect the actor's workspace, and it should be respected, but SOME (certainly not all) of these actors don't appreciate the fact that crewmembers may have been hauling heavy equipment for the last 16 hours. People might make the occassional mistake (I'm not sure if the DP even made a mistake or not, frankly it doesn't matter), there is no excuse to threaten someone like this.

John Schwartzman was the cinematographer for The Rock, Armageddon, and Pearl Harbor, Jerry Bruckheimer was the producer of these movies. The lenses absolutely have an effect on the contrast of the image. Color correction certainly is a factor. Color correction is either software based, hardware based, or a mixture of the two. Final Cut Pro and Avid have some color correction tools as well as Adobe After Effects. For more professional color grading, there are systems such as Scratch, DaVinci, and Lustre. There are several others that I am leaving out, but what is more important than the software is the person who uses it. I would prefer a fantastic colorist on an average machine over an average colorist on a top of the line machine.

Even on the lowest of budgets, I've had this come up. I was shooting a student short where the director/producer was paying for rentals. There was no money for any HMI's so I requested that we at least rent one shiny board for our day exteriors. The director finally caved and spent the 20 dollars for the week. All forecasts said there would be clear skies, but the days ended up being overcast and sometimes raining, rendering the shiny board pretty much useless. I worked around it and made it a soft look, but this angered the director. Every day I was asked by the director when I was planning on using the shiny board that had cost soooo much money. I said due to circumstances beyond our control, we no longer needed it. The director found this unacceptable and demanded that I use it for the next scene which was a night interior. I still didn't need it, but to get the director off my back I put the shiny board on a stand and would have one of the grips shake it up from time to time. It had absolutely no use in the scene, but it fooled the director enough to drop it. I don't like to waste the grips time with such nonsense, but at least it helped to keep some sanity on the set. On another occasion, I had to convince a producer that having P2 cards for an HVX was necessary for storage and not just a luxury. I realize that this is a professional forum and these stories are more from student and amateur productions that I did a couple of years ago, but I figured it might be amusing to share them. I in no way mean to detract from Mr. Pearl's intention with this thread. He is a phenomenal cinematographer and is working at a much higher level than I am currently at. I guess it doesn't really matter what budget your are working with, there will always be a battle to get the right TOOLS, NOT "toys" for the job.

jpeg is a highly compressed format. Once you color correct your raw file, consider saving it as a tiff file instead. You should have an option to set the compression quality as well. The higher the quality, the larger the file. So all you need to do is balance out how much quality you want with how much space you have.

I'm really curious about what you guys were talking about, however I only understand english. Would you please be so kind as to let us know what you guys were discussing.

I completely agree. This is definitely a situation where a skilled and talented gaffer would be quite advantageous because he/she can work out the logistics and help you achieve your look.

Amen. I'll take an amazing crew with less than amazing equipment over vice versa. That said, let us know what exactly you are planning on shooting, your location, your look you want to achieve and how you intend to light it. Also mention how many people you have in your electric department and how many in your grip department and the experience and skill of these people. What is your film speed? Give as much info as possible and we will be better equipped to help you come up with some strategies. Also, get Set Lighting Technicians Handbook by Harry Box. I and many others consider it the electrician's bible. One thing I can tell you right now is that if it is going to rain, you need keep your HMI heads and especially your ballasts completely dry. Make sure your crew knows how to make covering for these lights. Obviously, make sure everything is grounded. In LA it is legal and more practical to have a floating ground, but I don't know what the law is in New York. If a floating ground is not legal there, you may have to drive and 8 ft stake in the ground. Anyway, I'll try to help you more once I know what you are dealing with

There are plenty of incompetent directors on big budget films. You can have a first time director that the producers hired, who can be a risk to the investors. They may have been hired because of nepotism, they just got lucky, or any other reason. This is not true of the DP. It's pretty rare to have a first time DP shooting a huge budget hollywood picture. A seasoned DP could be shooting 4 pictures a year, whereas a director could be working on one film for several years, so in some cases, the DP could be much more experienced working on set than the director. I'm not saying this is an excuse for the DP to take over, but if the director is fumbling and running the film into the ground, the DP might need to help the director out. The DP is responsible for the photography of the film no matter what the situation. What drives me crazy is the notion that people don't need to earn respect. A director who is on point and prepared and treats people kindly is someone who deserves respect. A director could be totally unprepared and tyrannical. If the DP makes a suggestion, this person might pull rank and say "you can't tell me what to do, I am the Director with a capital D. It's my film, even though someone else is paying for it" Of course I would never suggest that it is okay to disrespect your boss even if he is incompetent. I have only been at this business for about 5 years, but here is my observation. I would love to hear from the more experienced on this one because I'm pretty sure you would know this better but anyway, here I go: I have seen a couple times where the DP took over. Two of the times it was because the Director was unprepared and at one point even fell asleep during a take. There was one shoot I was on where the DP was self serving and made the director do things so he could have pretty stuff on his reel. (unacceptable in my opinion)These were unusual situations. These were not the majority. Most problem shoots I have been on were when the Director would try to take over the DPs job. Most directors I shoot for are fantastic to work with and I find it very enjoyable, including first time directors. However, some first time directors I have worked with thought they knew everything and would try and take over. Here are some of the things these directors would do without discussing with me at all: Grabbing the camera in the middle of a take so they could operate and get the boom in the shot, going directly to the gaffer and telling them how to light the scene, choosing the filmstock, telling the AC when and where to rack focus, color correcting the footage. These were rare cases, but they are an example of DIRECTOR TAKEOVER. This can also be the DP's fault if they do not establish boundaries and also prove their competency.

You need to change your username to your full first and last name as per forum rules. Do this by going to "my controls" at the top of the page

Daniel explained it great. I would just like to add something because I remember this being a confusing thing when I was in filmschool. Backlight is in reference to the camera direction. If a subject is facing the camera and the light is behind them pointed in the direction toward the camera, the subject is being backlit, but here is where it can get confusing. If the actor has his/her back to the camera and the light if shining on the actor's face in front of him/her, this is still backlight because the light is still shining toward the camera. The light is still functioning the same way. So, as Daniel said, it is the function of the light that gives it it's name.

When all things are equal (lighting, lenses, production design, post, Cinematographer) there are less variables with film on set, but these variables do exist. With film, the variables are more about the type of film stock and less about the particular model of camera. In digital, the camera's brand and model plays more of a role in the various looks of a project. The settings of the cameras themselves add a another variable to the look. I'm NOT saying the camera is the most important factor in deciding a look for digital, but it is something to think about. In my opinion 24p is not such a large part of the equation when shooting digital. Every professional and nearly every professional digital movie camera can now shoot 24P in NTSC countries or 25P in PAL countries. If one doesn't, I'll even settle for 30P if I have to and if I know it won't be a problem for post. The largest difference, in terms of motion, between 24P footage and lets say news footage is the letter "P" in 24P. It is progressive footage, whereas news in the US is usually 60i, the "i" standing for interlaced. Film captures images progressively (one full image at a time). That said, the farther you stray from 24fps, the harder it is to make the motion look traditionally filmic. Since 24P is fairly standard, I would say things like dynamic range, color rendition, noise, and sensitivity, detail, are more of a factor when looking at a digital camera's characteristics. Resolution is also a factor, but I don't really want to get into that because these specs can be quite misleading sometimes and people start getting obsessed with pixel count and forget all of the other factors mentioned in this paragraph. Resolution is certainly not irrelevant (in fact certain networks are quite specific on their resolution requirements for deliverables), but it is not everything.

The DVX100 and the HVX200 are both made by Panasonic, just like the Varicams. They are different models in different price ranges. The more expensive models tend to have cleaner images with more image controls and functions. Just wanted to clarify something from a previous post about the HVX resolution. The 3 chips themselves are 960 x 540. Panasonic uses a technology called pixel shifting to uprez the output to either 720P or 1080i. Regardless, you will definitely see a significant difference between the DVX and the HVX

When you registered for this forum. it stated very clearly that your username was supposed to be your Full First and Last name. You ignored this requirement. You were reminded to once by one of the members to fix this this. You again ignored the rules. You were reminded a 2nd time by another member to change your name. If I remember correctly, they sent this warning to prevent you from having your posts deleted. You ignored this poster as well. The moderators will delete your posts if you do not change your screenname. That is probably why your thread was removed. This is a professional forum, not a general chatroom for anonymous posts. Please change your screenname. All you have to do is go to "My Controls" at the top of this page. Then go to the left side of your screen, under "personal profile" and click on "change display name."

I personally have to disagree with you to some extent. I don't see how it is inappropriate for a Cinematographer to discuss camera moves on an emotional level. The Cinematographer has the shared responsibility with the director of telling a story visually. It IS his job to evoke a certain feeling through a camera move. A director might be the final person signing off on the camera move, but this does not relieve the Cinematographer of his/her duty to the camera department. At least in Los Angeles, the Cinematographer is pretty much the head of the camera department. I also want to comment on your paragraph about who gets the credit for elaborate shots. In reality, the average audience member usually gives the credit for crazy shots to the director, not the cinematographer. But I digress, my point is that impressive camera moves are not the work of one individual. Those shots are achieved by the ingenuity of dolly grips, cinematographers, directors, etc... Filmmaking is a collaborative process. The director might have the final say (which they usually don't, especially in television where the producers run the show) but it is my opinion that it is not accurate to call a movie the director's film unless that individual made every single creative decision on that film. Even Cinematographers will give credit where credit is due. I saw a panel discussion with Wally Pfister ASC about the Dark Knight. He had members of his crew on the panel to discuss the film's cinematography as well as himself. He repeatedly mentioned how working with a great director and a great crew allowed him to work at his best. I really respect for that. He never once referred to the crazy 360 shot on the roof as his shot or Nolan's shot. It was a shot that the director wanted and Pfister and his Gaffer figured out a way to light it and his key grip figured out an ingenious way to rig the lighting to make the impossible become possible.

I have been on this forum for over 4 years and have learned a tremendous amount from it. When I first joined I hardly ever posted. I just read as much as I could and only posted when I had a QUESTION about something that I was having trouble finding the answer to in school or through research. The reason I limited my posts was because I knew this was a professional forum and I was not yet a professional and I was in no position to give advice. After I had been out of school for a couple of years, I started posting more responses, but I kept it limited to simple questions where I knew I could be of help. The more I learn, the more I try to be of help on here. Stuff that was appropriate to my experience level. I still consider myself fairly new to all this and would never dream of giving advice on something I don't know about, such as shooting with the Phantom HD or IMAX (Sorry, very random examples). I have read books and articles and talked to people about stuff I don't have firsthand experience with, but if I were to mention any of this on here I would make sure I mention where I heard it and not talk about it as if I know that this is the way to do it. The point I am trying to make is not that I want to brag about being some model forum citizen (I have made plenty of mistakes and I apologize if this post sounds self aggrandizing). What I am trying to say is that it is important to know where fit on this forum. This is a PROFESSIONAL forum. Advice here needs to be based on some sort of experience. You have admitted yourself that you have ZERO experience. What position are you in to give advice on film making if you have not done it at all? That would be like having a doctor with no medical degree and training. Why would you pay thousands of dollars to get medical advice from this person? I think it is great that you want to contribute to this forum. My advice to you is that since you are brand new to this business, your greatest contribution to this forum at this time would be to ask questions. And I don't mean any old questions. I mean the questions that haven't been asked over and over again. Other people may have these same questions and might benefit from the answers. I meet a lot of young filmmakers like myself. The one's who think they know a lot stick out like a sore thumb in this industry. They are not unique and they are not respected. When I see a young inexperienced director barking orders at me and the rest of the crew, I don't think to myself "wow, this guy really knows what he is doing." I am thinking "Wow, I am going to have to work really hard to prevent the director from plunging this movie into chaos and destruction." On the other hand, if a new director comes to set and is humble and not afraid to ask for help or advice, I haven't met a crewperson that would hold that against the director. It is not a bad thing to be new. I think it is a rather exciting thing. I still remember the day I got my first roll of 16mm B&W reversal back from the lab and viewed it on a projector. I can't remember how exactly it turned out, but I'm sure it was horrendous. But it was just practice and you learn from your mistakes. When you make your first feature, it will not be an exercise. You will have everything riding on it. Clerks was shot for just $27000. That may be nothing for a studio, but for an individual charging it onto credit cards (That's how Smith said he paid for it) that is a huge amount of money. It will be like driving a car on the freeway without first learning how to operate the car. Making a short doesn't have to cost money. All you have to do is write a 3 page script with two characters and stick them in a simple location. you can shoot it on video. It's just a good way to practice setting up shots and working with actors. You could do this for as little as 100 dollars, maybe even less. Don't even think about where it will take you. Just try to make it well. If you say you don't want to even bother with something as simple as this because it won't make you money or recognition, then that just shows an unwillingness to learn and put in the necessary effort to learn the craft. But if you are as passionate as you say you are, I'm sure you are up for the challenge.

Benson, lets look at the response that John gave you that you found offensive. He was responding to the quote above. The phrase "News flash for John" could be interpreted as offensive. It implies that you have information that John does not have about filmmaking, that you understand the business aspect of filmmaking better than him. This is uncalled for when John has earned MUCH more years of experience than you. It would be like me, a person who has not published any major works, arguing with Shakespeare that his writing is too long and thus not as easy to sell "Newsflash William: Writing is a BUSINESS!!! It's called brevity. No one is gonna watch a play with all that talking." It needed to be made clear that you are not in a position to be making such remarks. These twenty years of experience don't just happen. It doesn't just come with time. The people on this forum work their tails off to earn this type of experience. You have to be tough to make it in this business and people will have no sympathy for self victimization. You will be judged and you will have to deal with it as all of us do. It is a judgement of your abilities, not your character, so don't take it so personal. John gave you great advice. Learn from it. Don't tell me you are stuck and that there is nothing you can do about having no experience. It is not us who are holding you back. Get off of your behind and get some experience. You need practice. Make something. You have to be humble and know your place. I will only post advice for stuff that I have some experience with. I am still only a few years into this business so I try to not write about what I don't know. People like John have been doing this way longer than me and I would never dream of talking to him the way you have. Please, show some respect to those who HAVE earned it.

Steward. You need to change your screenname to your full FIRST and LAST name as per forum rules. Go to "My Controls" at the top of the screen to do so.

It's a bracket receiver for a tripod head. It is usually attached to a square piece of wood. The hi hat allows the camera be very close to the ground. There are other things you can do with it, like securing it to a latter for shooting up high. Here are some pictures. (I don't work for B&H, just the first place I looked) http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/shop/3912/Hi_Hats.html

It depends a bit on where you live. If you live in Los Angeles there are tons of ways to learn about film and digital with little or no money. There are rental houses in many major cities where you can look at these cameras. There are seminars where people discuss these things. The internet is a great resource, especially this site. Any time a term appears on this site that you don't understand, look it up. There are hundreds of books out there. There is a whole section on book recommendations on this website. There are so many resources out there. Take advantage of the ones that are available to you and work toward accessing the ones that are not currently available so that you can benefit from them in the future. Try to get some experience shooting film. If you can't afford to rent 16mm, try practicing with 35mm slide film. Basically what I am saying is that since you are a student, now is a great time to learn as much as you can about filmmaking. If there is stuff that you don't have access to, you can still learn about what is out there. This stuff takes time and doesn't necessarily have to be learned all at once. Of course the majority of what I just said is stuff directly related to Cinematography. This is stuff a cinematographer must know. For you as a director, I don't think you need to know all of this stuff in as much detail, so don't go to nuts about it. I just mentioned all of this so that if you really wanted this kind of knowledge, you could go for it, but it might just be a distraction from developing your skills as a director. You are absolutely right that it the Director's job to make good decisions. A huge component of that is the personal he/she hires. A good director will find a good cinematographer and the two can work together to effectively bring the vision to the screen. Your job is to know your story deeply. Communicate that story well. It is the cinematographer's job to research and test the various mediums available for shooting. They will have this information for you and can advise you. You do not need to do this yourself. You will be too busy working on casting, working with other departments. But since you are a student, I think you should have a basic working knowledge of filmmaking mechanics. You need to learn about shot sizes and focal lengths. I would also recommend doing some work on sets as a grip, electric, camera assistant, etc... so you can understand what the crew has to go through. It will help you to relate to the crew better when you are working as a director.

If you have a laptop, or know someone on the shoot that has one, you might consider buying a copy of DVRACK. It is a software program that gives you a vectorscope and waveform monitor among other tools and a video monitor that you can calibrate. You run it with your camera plugged into the computer via firewire cable. It think it is about 200 bucks, but then you will never be without your tools. If you are a student, I believe they have good discounts. If you are not a student, then nevermind,

Check out showscan. There were experiments done with it to create extreme "realism" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showscan Our perception of "realism" in cinema changes with each generation. How about the film over 100 years ago of the train coming toward the camera. The legend is that people thought the grainy, black and white image of the train was a real train coming at them and people started running. I have also heard that this is not a true story. Regardless, films like these were very realistic for their time. Something that is considered "realistic" today could be deemed over the top by future generations. I am glad that you are trying to answer the question yourself, as it is a very subjective thing. I still feel that you are trying to come to some sort of objective conclusion about artistic decisions. Don't take this the wrong way, but this could lead to you being a difficult director to work with in terms of discussing creative, open ended things with a cinematographer. But I'm sure you do not want to be that way. I hope you will stay open minded and flexible as you gain more knowledge and skill. If you want objective information about which is more realistic, film or digital, I would recommend you look at both mediums in a different way. Let me explain. Film and Digital are simply tools. Neither is inherently better or worse, just different, with different characteristics. So do some extensive research on film characteristics, both 35mm and 16mm. What are their dynamic ranges. Exactly how clear or how sharp are they. How do they handle color. How do they handle depth of field? How do you subjectively feel about how different film stocks handle certain situations? Not every film stock is the same. Film does not have one inherent look. Basically figure out what film can and cannot do. And make sure you are accurate about these findings. Do the same evaluations for video and digital cinema cameras. Do as much as you can, and get the best information possible. If possible, shoot tests, lots of them. When you have a solid understanding of the characteristics of the different formats, you will have this information at your disposal when you are ready to shoot a script. When you have a deep understanding of your story and what you want to say this will inspire your visual approach. If that approach happens to be "realism," it will be a realism that you will understand deeply and be able to better communicate. You will now be able to be very specific about the visuals. Once you know what the film needs to look like, you can start thinking about how you can achieve that look. Among other things like lighting and production design, you will now need to decide on a shooting medium that will fulfill your requirements for the "realism" that you have discovered from the story. Since you will have already acquired all of that technical knowledge beforehand about digital and film, you can now pick the medium that has the characteristics that suit your story. This way, you are holding true to the specific story and letting it organically lead you to your medium rather than deciding on format based on a general philosophy about realism and imposing it on every story. This would be like a filmmaker having a preference for extremely blue images and making every movie appear super blue regardless of the story. Some directors might say "research every single camera and film stock? This is way too much of an investment of a director's time." I actually agree, this is why a Cinematographer is so vital to a film. All you really need to have is a deep understanding of what you want to achieve. Let the Cinematographer figure out how to achieve it (including which medium to shoot on. You don't have to be completely out of the loop, all I am saying is that in this aspect, the Cinematographer can help you out tremendously)

The reason you are getting so many different types of answers is because there is no definitive answer for your question. There is absolutely no manual, whether it be written or not, that says "for Naturalism, realism, etc.., it is best to shoot with X and for over the top sensationalism it is best to shoot with Y." Filmmaking is more nuanced than that. This is why it continues to be enjoyable. There are not supposed to be autopilot decisions when being creative. You are asking a question that has no answer, and that is a good thing. It's sort of like asking what is the meaning of life? Would any person's "definitive" answer truly be satisfying or not debatable? You find your visual style (including your format choice) in your story and it's on a story by story basis, not some overarching concept of Realism, Naturalism, etc... People have responded to your question with things other than the acquisition medium, such as lighting, acting, directing, etc... and you continually tell people to stay on topic. I can understand your desire to do that, but there is a reason people are leaning away from the topic. It is because format is not necessarily the most important thing. I'm not sure what answer you are looking for. Do you want someone to say "X is better for this than Y?" I certainly will not give you an answer like that because I would be doing you a disservice.

Like I said before, I have not heard that there was a trend for newer theaters curtaining off the top and bottom for 2.39. My question to you is, how sure are you that this is the new trend? I'm sure there are theaters that do this, but how have you come to the conclusion that this is the direction that theaters are heading? Have you been to new theaters all across the country. What city do you live in? I am not saying this as a criticism, if you have information about the new specs of screens, I would love to have access to that. That said, even if you are right, this still is no significant reason to stop shooting in 2.39. If 2.39 tells a certain story more effectively, then who cares if the screen is not as tall? I'm talking about artful framing, not necessarily filling up the most space on the wall. In terms of talking about the future, people involved in this industry are always looking to the future. David Mullen, ASC doesn't make a habit of assumptions about anything related to filmmaking. He researches and constantly updates his skills. The same is true about companies like Arriflex and Panivision. If 2.39 were a dying format, then why do they keep coming out with new anamorphic glass? Why has there been a revived interest in 2perf techniscope and super 35? I just looked up the 10 top grossing movies in the US this year. 8 of them were 2.39.