Eric Lin

Hi all. I'm shooting a music video next week where, in post, all the footage will be reversed and played backwards similar to the legendary Spike Jonze Pharcyde music video for "Drop". But we are doing a different aesthetic with tight shots, etc. I will try to do a down and dirty test this weekend, but I'm just wondering if anyone has played with different shutter angles for backwards footage? For faster action, the motion blur can be cool but sometimes not. We might be doing some slow motion as well so I'd love to hear any input. Thanks! Best, Eric Lin NYC DP

Thanks for the reassurance Kevin. That's great to hear that your thoughts. I wish I had screen grabs to post but unfortunately I don't. I did send timed photos to the dailies timer so they did a good job of getting the dailies close to the final look we are going for. We aren't doing anything too crazy so my thinking is even if it is 422, we won't be bending the colors or the images too far and thus won't exacerbate the lower color sampling of the masters. Hopefully, it's well shot (hee hee). Thanks! Best, Eric Lin NYC DP

Thanks Will. That's reassuring to hear though loosing the flexibility I think we'll need is a painful prospect. Going straight to hard drive was something we considered. But, since they didn't have a post supervisor, or anyone really to manage the post end of things (drive, conversions, etc.) along with a very tight deadline (no time doing the down-ressing format conversions), we thought it was best to go to tape. But, it is something I had done in the past. Thanks! Best, Eric Lin NYC DP

Hello all. I'm hoping you can help me with some real world experience. I shot a low budget project that is going to a festival soon, so post, as always, will be a little rushed. Our original workflow was this: Shoot Super-16mm, transfer flat pass to HDCAM SR and use the SR tapes as our masters. Edited Pro Res 422. Re-digitize the HDCAM SR selects from the picture lock final EDL and bring into the DI for final color correct. It seemed the most cost effective and best way to maintain image quality in the final film. We are confronting the possibility that the original HDCAM SR dailies were recorded at 422 instead of 444 because a lot of miscommunication that we are trying to sort out. Ugh. Thinking ahead, because of budget constraints and our time constraints, we may not be able to re-transfer the film to HDCAM SR 444 and may have to go forward and use the HDCAM SR 422 material as our masters for the DI. Have folks out there done DIs with Super 16mm material transferred to HDCAM SR 422 for theatrical projection? Has anyone done real world comparisons of 444 versus 422 in terms of doing a final DI (I know the technical difference)? Our material is a road trip so there are a lot of extreme exposures (hot highlights outside the car, etc.). I haven't had a chance to look at any differences between 444 and 422 in HDCAM SR in post before and would love any input you could provide to arm myself with information as we try to figure out how to go forward. Thanks so much! Best, Eric Lin NYC DP

Great tip! I'm going to have to try that sometime soon.

Thanks for the responses! Yes, the viewing situation is another one I'm concerned with considering we're in a dark room and can bring time at low levels that in the real world (someone's living room or office) may not read. MJW, I'd be curious about that as well, how low you can go and pass QC for broadcast or distributors for scenes like this. This director was fighting me on set in terms of just the lighting of the scene, wanting it really dark and it was already all rim lighting with no fill and the rim lighting was already more than two stops below my exposure stop. I don't remember what the IRE was reading on set but in the grade, he's wanting to push it down further.

Hello. I'm currently timing a feature on Resolve, shot on Red MX, and would love some real world advice about how low some the IRE levels of highlights can be at before they are lost on the myriad of monitors out in the real world. In our film we have four or five night scenes in an apartment with the lights off. I primarily lit through the windows but the director is very sensitive to "film lighting" for night scenes and his impulse is to push all the highlights down in the color correct. The level he likes it at is around 10 - 12 IRE for the highlights off of the skintone in the room. Even the shadow details are readable on the plasma we are correcting on. I'm worried about how low we can go before we lose detail when it's not seen on a color corrected plasma in a dark room (i.e., pretty much most of the monitors outside of a color correcting suite). I hate the idea of timing for the lowest common denominator and normally try to get the best look in the color correction in the best possible environment, but for this situation, I'd love any input from your experiences in how low IRE shots hold up across various viewing situations. What's have you found is "safe"? We're going to do some tests outputting the clips to various formats this week but may not have time to test it that broadly. Would love to hear your input. Thanks! Best, Eric Lin DP NYC

Thanks Dave. This is great advice and makes a lot of sense. I'm thinking of saving the '17 for an Arizona section which will dovetail with both the emotional tone of the film as well as with your advice of saving it for contrasty situations. Placing the '17 grain between '13 and '19 gives me a good picture of what to expect. Thanks again! Much appreciated.

Thanks K. Our Arri does come with a zoom so I may just do a quick comparison with the zooms up on both the Arri and the A-Minima on the first shoot day (does that still count as a test?) and decide from there. Needing to stop down 2+ stops won't work with many of our lighting setups however. I may restrict using it to daylight exterior scenes in that case. Best, Eric Lin NYC DP

Hi Charles and K. Thanks for the suggestions. Compartamentalizing the stocks for certain sequences may be the way to go. It is a road trip film with a loose plot but I think there are scenes that are self-contained that I can switch to the other stocks based on different locations. I guess I'm looking for assurance about how subtle the jump will be between the two stocks. We are doing DI finish so I know I can control contrast and color to get it where I want. I'm just worried about the grain difference. Different locations can help hide that difference maybe. I just wanted to hear how pronounced the difference might be in people's experiences. Best, Eric Lin NYC DP

Thanks Stephen. I haven't had the chance to use a Cooke zoom (mostly Angenieux, and Canons) before but have used Cooke Speed Panchros and Cooke S4 primes so I'm going to guess that the look is in the same vein, yes? Good to know about the softness wide open. Best, Eric Lin NYC DP

Hello all. I'm curious if anyone has had experience shooting and comparing these two stocks side by side. We have an incredible deal to shoot 7217 (200T) for a feature which is what I tested and are planning to shoot for all daylight exteriors and interiors. A situation has come up where we may also get a decent amount of 7213 stock to shoot as well at a big discount. But, I didn't test the 7213 and won't have a chance to test it before we start next week. Having shot other Vision 3 stock (7201, 7207, 7219) and having tested the 7217, I think I can get what the grain and contrast will feel like on the Vision 3 stock. Testing is the best way to go, I know, but time right now won't permit before we start. I'm wondering if anyone can speak to how noticeable the jump be between the two stocks if one scene is shot with 7213 and the next scene is shot with 7217 if both are daylight exterior scenes and similar lighting conditions (ie daylight exteriors)? The look and feel of the film was supposed to be pretty consistent so instinctually, I'm against shooting both stocks within the same film. Especially if they edit the film differently and reorder things, a sequence I think would be later in the film and be helped by the look of the older stock may end up being re-edited or cut apart into sections between scenes shot with the newer stock. But, financially it may help us free room in the budget to do more if we take both the 7217 and the 7213. How subtle do you think the difference would be? Have you ever seen films that did something like this and can provide examples? Films that mix stocks that come to mind are HAPPY TOGETHER and was done to great effect, but this film is not that raw in terms of feel. Any input will be much appreciated. Best, Eric Lin DP NYC

Hi there. I'm shooting a feature on Super 16mm. Our A camera will be an Arri SR3, PV mount with Panavision Ultra Speeds. We have the option of a donated A-Minima that has a PL mount Cooke Varokinetal 10.4 - 52mm zoom. I already did stock and lens tests with the Panavision lenses and love the look. I won't have a chance to test the Cooke Varokinetal on the A-Minima before we go out. Can anyone with experience shooting these lenses comment if the looks will be close. What's the character of the Cooke Varokinetal? I appreciate your input! Best, Eric Lin NYC DP

We tried that but it wasn't enough to hide the shape of the frame of diffusion. E.

Hi all. I just finished a night exterior shoot involving a cop pulling over a drunk driver. Given it was a low budget indie short film, we didn't have large units to light up and down the street, just a collection of babys, kinos and a gelled 1.2k HMI. My idea because of our limitations was to play the scene as if it were all lit by car headlamps so I placed units low on the ground as far as I could (which wasn't that far). We did a lot of dollying alongside the cars and panning between cars and the director favored wider frames and as such, I was often looking along the length of the car and catching reflections of my units and getting crazy hard hits on the car. In order to get them out, I would have had to move them into the shot, if that makes sense. I felt like I got stuck seeing a lot of hard hits from our lights because I couldn't move them where they needed to be. What are some good techniques to light the car without catching your units based on these limitations (small units, low to the ground)? Would the solution have been larger units through larger frames further away? I feel like I would have seen the same reflections though given then angles they needed to be. I'd love to hear some of the techniques you might have used when shooting night exteriors involving cars and not seeing your reflections. Trying to learn from my own and your experiences. Thanks so much. Best, Eric Lin NYC DP

I shot with Redspace on but used the histogram and exposed to the right without blowing my highlights. I definitely paid more attention to the histogram than the image Redspace was giving me. I wonder if it is reading the metadata incorrectly. I'll try setting it to REC 709 and see how it feels. Flipping it to the RAW files looks the way RAW files do so that seems fine. I'm just surprised how flat it looked when the proxies and the Red Monitor all looks super contrasty sometimes too much so. When you first popped the Redspace on in Scratch did you get that impression also? Thanks. Best, Eric Lin

Hi all. I just started grading a feature I shot on the Red one over the summer. We are working off the RAW files in SCRATCH. I liked what the Redspace gamma gave us on the Red monitors and in the QT proxies and wanted to use them as a base to start tweaking the image. When the timer applied Redspace gamma to the Raw footage in scratch, on the calibrated HD monitor I was surprised to find that it looks super flat and desaturated. On the Red monitors and the QT proxies I always felt that the Redspace was a little too contrasty. Is it because I'm looking at it on a HD REC 709 monitor? I'm slightly confused... Help me wrap my head around this. Thanks. Best, Eric Lin DP NYC

Hi all. I'm prepping for a low budget (and by low I mean micro) red one indie feature. I may have to lose one lens from the prime lens set I want and am considering a Zeiss Mutar or Optex 2x extender as a cheaper alternative. I've never used one before and won't have a chance to test until close to the shoot but I need to get them an equipment list now. I know they lose two stops of light but I'd love to hear people's experiences and their opinions about the optical quality of the extenders. Acceptable? Horrible? Let me know. Thanks! Eric Lin DP New York

Thanks Stuart. I'm doing some testing tomorrow for a low budget feature and probably won't be able to get the Digital Praxis curves so I'm glad to see you can get a great look in camera on your own. Thanks for the response. Best, Eric Lin DP New York

Hi Stuart. You mentioned you used one of the film gammas, was it one of Sony's film gamma curves or one of the film curves from digital praxis? Please let me know. Thanks! Best, Eric Lin DP New York

Thanks for the insight from everybody. That's kind of what I suspected with the 235 but couldn't find any hard info on what db the camera noise ran at and haven't had a chance to get my hands of one to hear for myself. Super 16 is the next option we are considering because of compactness and cost. Thanks again.

Hi. I'm about to go out on a shoot that requires a significant of handheld, 35mm, all exterior, next to a river for part of it, so a quiet camera is not a huge issue. The added logistics of the shoot are that we may need to do some hiking to get some places so a lightweight camera makes sense. We wanted the Moviecam SL but it may be too costly. Only a couple of small houses have it in NYC and they aren't letting it out the door for cheap even though we are a student shoot. Now, in talking to a tech guy, he was trying to convince me that the Arri 235 could be used for synch sound shooting outdoors. Is he on crack? Has anyone done this and had usable dialogue? The reason the Arri 235 is an option is that CSC in New York (God Bless them) might be able to get us a deal on the Arri 235. I trolled around the forums online and have heard people say both: yes, it's quiet enough, other's saying no, no, no, too loud. Haven't been able to find any sound (db) info on how loud it is. Does anyone know? The 235 makes great sense in terms of our production logistics: handheld, remote locations, etc. Please send me your experiences or thoughts. Much appreciated.