Chris Durham

Hey JVV, I can't help you out with a rental in India but I will say people on this forum are pretty particular about forum rules and you're more likely to get an answer if you follow the rule about using your full name.

IIRC, in AC they said they'd intended for about 25% digital but it ended up being about 60%.

In my opinion Anthony Dod Mantle has shaped up to be the model 21st Century cinematographer because here's a guy who's neither afraid to embrace the media best suited to the production, nor to mix media when it is called for. If you look at his body of work you see it over and over. 28 Days Later was shot on DV in a way that kept the film print in mind because at the time there wasn't a whole lot of digital projection. Last King of Scotland uses S16 film techniques to simulate the feel of the era the movie takes place in. Slumdog uses a combination of cameras, even video from a stills camera if I remember the article, along with high end digital and film. Antichrist uses digital cameras in a number of ways, even raw and unfinished in the last act to such jarring effect that it could only be deliberate. We need to stop this argument about whether the arrival of digital heralds the demise of film and simply acknowledge that it stands as a competitor for film. Competition is healthy because it breeds innovation. I love seeing the emergence of digital capture spurring advances in traditional products. I'm thrilled that digimags are coming that will expand the role of rock-solid offerings from Arri, Aaton, and Panavision. How cool to be able to dual-purpose a film camera. How innovative is it that manufacuters like Aaton can interface with Cooke lenses and send the metadata down the pipe? You get the advantages of a digital workflow with a film image. How sensible is it that Ikonoskop is making a camera that captures a virgin image sequence, applying a film sensibility to digital acquisition. I've stated that in terms of cinematic imagery I think there's been a lot of schlock; but in terms of capability we are in an era of innovation. I think the filmmakers who have embraced the full landscape of cinematic capability without any prejudice are doing amazing things. It's a very interesting time to be a DP.

I played with it a little at film tools as well. It was neat, but the more I played with it the less stable it seemed. Maybe the XL-H1 wasn't heavy enough, meaning with something like a red on it there would be less wobble. I think it could manage an SR3 depending on what else you had on it, but if you're spending the money on a S16 rental, rent a geared head, I'm sure it would be more worthwhile. This is priced for ownership by a production company doing HD commercial work.

If there were one word I'd use to describe the visual style of the last decade it would be "undisciplined." I'm not entirely comfortable being too critical of professionals - I'm still very new to cinematography and I certainly don't want to be perceived as an internet troll - but the more I discover this craft and the heights of artistry of which some of the great cinematographers are capable, the more it pains me to see schlock, and the more I find myself at odds with the frenetic and often careless contemporary visual style. Everything's fast cuts, shallow DoF, overwhelming closeups, and a palette consisting of blue and amber/orange/warm flesh. It makes me want to shoot 5 minute deep focus wide shots with no blue in them. Another trend of the last decade is the witness-cam. Handheld camera with quick zooms and staged focus shifts intended to make the viewer feel like they're in the action, with their own video camera which everyone has now. When I watch films from the late 60's and early-mid70's I'm just stunned by how thoughtful the camera use is, how much can be done without having to be busy with the frame. The opening shot of the Graduate is beautiful and it's just Dustin Hoffman against a white wall. There are few filmmakers these days brave enough to use as much stark white as there is in that movie. It's not all bad today though. Take the handheld work and relatively rapid jump cuts in Antichrist. It doesn't feel sloppy at all, it feel very deliberate. Children of Men was "witness cam" done right. Overall, I think that the introduction of these new styles - influenced by video games and reality TV and made possible by smaller, cheaper cameras - require more discipline to do right. Most of what gets done just looks like cinematic spaghetti thrown at a wall.

I'd be curious to see a digital projection. I think the 35mm I saw was transferred poorly. That said, I wasn't a fan of the film in general, nor of the visual style in particular. I give him credit for going different places though - Che and the Girlfriend Experience were both excellent with the latter just being stunning in my opinion - the best looking Red save for Antichrist. The Informant was just a miss for me, but other folks seem to dig it and I respect it. I think he's got a good handle on the shooting-red-for-film-out thing, but something was off about this.

Movie theaters aren't going to die. They will have to change form a little bit though. I think they could get very clever about their "product," and may well have to. I'm a single 35 year old guy with a decent job and going to the movies is an easy choice. Sit in the front, let it take up your full field of vision, feel the rumble, try not to be disturbed by the living room manners of other people, chomp some popcorn, watch the credits, discuss with a friend. Done. But I talk to people with families and going to the movies is an affair - a family of 4 spends $35 on tickets and $35 again on concessions. $70 isn't bad for a family outing, but not something you can do out of hand. That's what theaters need to contend with. If they got clever about making a trip to the cinema an easy choice for a weekend afternoon they could rake it in. I also think they need to differentiate themselves from the living room not just in terms of the A/V experience, but the "going" experience. Bring back ushers to make the rude people shut up without me having to run out and miss 3 minutes of the movie to find a manager. Pressure the FCC to allow cell phone jamming in theaters. The theaters I see doing well right now are Studio Movie Grill in Dallas, where you can take a date, order decent food, have a beer, and not be overrun by over-casual viewers; and the smaller indie houses that have midnight movies and specialty viewings. Covering a niche is always a good thing. By the way, I went to Grauman's Chinese Theater yesterday for the first time - it reminded me of everything the cinema experience should be. It was just beautiful.

Thanks John, that helps. What was confusing is the "50mm lens is a 50mm lens is a 50mm lens..." thing because it doesn't take into account AoV; but when you state it like that - DoF is deeper in a smaller format at the same AoV - it all comes together. What I was trying to reconcile is the notion that 50mm is 50mm is 50mm, but at half the format size is effectively double - it's a little confusing. Thanks for the link to the spreadsheet - was looking for it earlier. I did my own math again though because it helps me learn: 50mm lens f/4.0 CoC .0254mm (.001", 35mm film) Subject Distance 10m Hyperfocal = 2500mm / .1016 = ~24,606mm = ~24.6m Near Limit = 246 / 34.6 = ~7.11m Far Limit = 246 / 14.6 = ~16.85m DoF = ~16.85 - ~7.11 = 9.74m ---------------------------- 25mm lens f/4.0 CoC .0127mm (.0005", 16mm film) Subject Distance 10m Hyperfocal = 625mm / .0508 = ~12,303mm = ~12.3m Near Limit = 123 / 22.3 = ~5.52m Far Limit = 123 / 3.2 = ~38.44m D0F = ~38.44 - ~5.52m = 32.92m So, it all makes sense now. It made sense before, then a discussion I thought I understood made sense in another way, then someone told me otherwise and muddied the issue again. Now I have it, with numbers. Thanks everybody.

Nope, I'm still missing something. I went and did some math using some DoF formulas from wikipedia - basically I used Chris's suggested CoC figures for 35mm and 16mm formats, and did calculations for a subject at 2 different distances. Focal length and aperture remain the same. The problem is according to these numbers 16mm yields a NARROWER DoF, all other things being equal, which is exactly opposite of how things are supposed to work. What am I missing? 50mm lens f/4.0 CoC .0254mm (.001", 35mm film) Subject Distance 2m Hyperfocal = 2500mm / .1016 = ~24,606mm = ~24.6m Near Limit = 49.2 / 26.6 = ~1.85m Far Limit = 49.2 / 22.6 = ~2.18m DoF = ~2.18 - ~1.85 = .33m ---------------------------- 50mm lens f/4.0 CoC .0127mm (.0005", 16mm film) Subject Distance 2m Hyperfocal = 2500mm / .0508 = ~49,213mm = ~49.2m Near Limit = 98.4 / 51.2 = ~1.92m Far Limit = 98.4 / 47.2 = ~2.08m D0F = ~2.08m - ~1.02m = .16m **************************** 50mm lens f/4.0 CoC .0254mm (.001", 35mm film) Subject Distance 10m Hyperfocal = 2500mm / .1016 = ~24,606mm = ~24.6m Near Limit = 246 / 34.6 = ~7.11m Far Limit = 246 / 14.6 = ~16.85m DoF = ~16.85 - ~7.11 = 9.74m ---------------------------- 50mm lens f/4.0 CoC .0127mm (.0005", 16mm film) Subject Distance 10m Hyperfocal = 2500mm / .0508 = ~49,213mm = ~49.2m Near Limit = 492 / 59.2 = ~8.31m Far Limit = 492 / 39.2 = ~12.55m D0F = ~12.55m - ~8.31m = 4.24m

Thanks everybody. I think I have a better grasp of all the concepts involved here now. Accounting for smaller CoC's was the thing I hadn't really considered. I think I have a good idea of the basics of how these play together, and if I go do some math now it will help me internalize it all.

So let me make sure I understand this all correctly, because I've been seeing what is probably a very similar thing written in different ways. I want to put what I understand into my own words and see if I get it right. Changing the format (capture plane size) without changing the coverage (diameter of lens projection) does not change DoF. Changing the format without changing the coverage does change AoV, which perceptually increases focal length (zoom, blow-up, crop factor). Changing the AoV, perceptually zooming in, results in perceptually larger circles of confusion. These "larger" CoC's, taken with the perceptually increased focal length result in a perceptual DoF which matches the format at the adjusted (perceptual) focal length. I'm not sure that seems right to me. These circles are very confusing.

This is what I thought, but then someone I respect said something otherwise and I had to do a sanity check. So theoretically (even though it's not out yet) when the Ikonoskop camera comes out, if I put Canon lenses on it, I should get the same DoF as if I were shooting on a 35mm (full frame) camera, right? Same thing if I had a PL mount and used, say, 35mm speed primes?

35mm coverage

This is an elementary thing, I know, and I thought I had it figured out but there's so much muddled information on the topic. Someone says something contrary and it confuses the notion. If I put a 35mm lens on a camera with a smaller capture plane, say 16mm, is my DoF based on a 35mm capture or 16mm? I thought that because the 35mm lens was projecting for a 35mm plane, the DoF would be the same as if it were 35mm film. In other words the 16mm film just captures a smaller portion of what the lens projects, which incidentally narrows the field of view (i.e. crop factor). Am I wrong in thinking this?

My advice is don't throw away SD if you have it, but don't buy it today. I own an XL2 and I LOVE the camera. I love the glass for it. I love the form factor. I love the true widescreen (non-anamorphic) image. I love its ability to tone an image. There are a couple of gripes I have but mostly I love it. But the world is moving along. HD is becoming standard. I predict that in 18 months wedding videogaphers won't be able to charge a premium for shooting HD. Blu-ray and HDTV are reaching greater levels of ubiquity and all of the main online hosts support HD in some form or another. Tapeless workflows are emerging and for the most part we love them. Tape will be matter of user preference for the next few years before tapeless completely takes over (I like the ability of some Sony's to do both). Any decent computer - PC or Mac - bought today will handle HD just fine. Even if you're delivering in SD, it looks better downsampled from HD. Mr. Keth was right. Obsolescence is a real danger in the digital world. I bought the XL2 almost 3 years ago knowing that SD had about 3 years of life left. I shoot on other cameras a lot now. Still love the XL2, but It only fits about a third of what I shoot. I applaud Red and others for their attempts to mitigate obsolescence but we're not there yet. The good news is that we're coming into decent standards. 1080p will be around for quite a while, so will 24p. A brand new 1080/24p camera might get you 5 years now. I think the biggest thing to worry about when buying a new full HD camera now (aside from budget, bells and whistles, etc per personal preference) is the format/codec. We have acceptable standards for delivery and viewing, so the area to make improvements is going to be in the integrity of the image through the pipeline. Or you can future-proof yourself entirely and just shoot film. Even low budget stuff - modern Super 8 stocks are really amazing, and there's an interesting resurgence of super8 filmmaking.

Really? I guess I find the name game is either self-defeating or self-serving. I used to fear calling myself a DP or Cinematographer (I think I've got a thread on here somewhere about it) because I'm not in the same class as a big-leage pro (Deakins, Mantle), or because I haven't come up through the system and "paid my dues" to earn it. My first *real* gig I felt like such a damn charlatan. But then I started to put things into perspective and realized that if I ever don't feel like a charlatan then I'm doing something wrong - either letting hubris get the best of me or failing to challenge myself or both! So I use the term cinematographer and I don't think it's pretentious, it's what I do. A cinematographer is someone who draws cinema, like a photographer draws light or a cartographer draws maps & charts. Drawing Cinema, as in bringing the various disciplines involved - photography, light design, camera choreography, etc. - to paint a moving image that tells a cinematic story. It doesn't matter if I do it on video or film. It is separate from the discipline of videography, which is a discipline in its own right, in that videography seeks to capture an event, usually un-orchestrated "live" event - where cinematography conspires with a set of orchestrated events to capture a moment. I don't know if I'd call that a pretentious distinction. I think the term shooter is very generic. I'm not overly-fond of it but if I think about it, the times I might have used it have been to describe someone I know works with a camera, but I don't know in what capacity. Cinematographer, Videographer, Operator, Good, Bad, dunno? That' a shooter. DP is a job title.

Slating is a good idea. Have the slate already in place by the moment the operator his "record." Later when the editor is tabbing through takes or looking at thumbnails of the clips, the first thing he or she will see is the slate info. Helps you log, or if you're not logging it helps you make sure you keep coming back to the same place. There's nothing I hate more than having to scrub back and forth through a clip to make sure I've got the right one. Even on DV I have someone slate and try to have a script supervisor helping me track what's what. Very useful

Ack! Karl, you've given me too much to respond to on a Friday. Just one point though: Couldn't agree more. I think comparing Newspaper to Film is kind of askew though. An online newspaper still gives me, or at least has the potential to give me, quality reporting - both in text and imagery. Text on a screen is no better or worse than text on paper and a newspaper photo and a web photo are generally both a degradation from what an actual print would be. Film on the other hand is still more pleasing, still produces a higher quality image than digital (the skill of the filmmaker notwithstanding). In my opinion I don't lose anything in the newspaper going digital. I do lose something with cinema going digital. I'll admit that loss is growing smaller as technology progresses, but for now it stands and will for some time.

I agree that the "filmic" thing is a BS. On the other hand I think 30fps looks ugly in comparison. It's not a matter of what's filmic, it's a matter of what's pleasing. Now we could argue about why that is. I suppose you could say a lifetime of 24fps has programmed me that way and that the standard of 24 was born out of technical necessity rather than artisctic decision. And that would be fine. By the same token a lifetime of looking at movie and tv starlets and models has preprogrammed me to not find fat women attractive. I'm quite alright with that as well. A concession I may be willing to make is 48fps. James Cameron and others have advanced that steroscopic is better viewed at higher framerates. He's advanced 48 has a standard and I wonder if, being a factor of 24, that might be less visually disruptive than the jump to 30. In any case, I think the addition of 3d as a storytelling tool probably warrants the change, particularly if that tool is perceived better at that rate. I do believe though that 2d motion is best at 24.

And the digression continues. I won't argue the recyclability of newspapers vs. computers. You're right, at least on the paper. Though I imagine there's an equal amount of industrial waste created in the printing of that newspaper, or at least in 2-3 years worth of printing that paper vs that of the computer, not to mention bleach and wastewater in the production of white paper itself and the energy used to process it. But I don't really know those numbers so I can't reliably argue them. On the other hand, I have a computer. two. I have one that I need for my day job and need for my livelihood, and another at home. I wish they could be one and the same, but life won't permit right now. But let's just consider my home PC. I use it for editing, color correction, reviewing footage, photo processing - it's a creative tool. It has also replaced my TV. And my Radio (well, admittedly I have an ipod as well). And my DVD player. And my newspaper. And my phone book. I may live in a state that's 38% energized by coal, but I use the only 100% green energy company in the state (my girlfriend sells it). On top of that, I recycle like a fiend. If I didn't have a computer getting a newspaper and recycling it wouldn't be wasteful. But since I, and the majority of Americans, and you I presume because you're posting on the internet, have computers the addition of a newspaper is absolutely wasteful. (and just because 99.999% of a newspaper is recyclable material doesn't mean that much gets re-used. There's a good deal of loss in the recycling process). Okay, didn't want to get too far off on a tear. Oops. I like that this forum is largely apolitical, and while I'd prefer environmental issues to not be tied up in politics, they seem to be. My point was really originally light-hearted. I can immediately think of a reason to scrap newspapers; but on the other hand I agree that the expense of film should not preclude its use.

Bad example. They should stop printing papers. It's wasteful. This is an area I'm fully happy to ride the digitial wave on.

Sony's selling 4K projectors to just about every Leows' I believe. Man I hate these discussions. The numbers game of 2k vs 4k doesn't matter in most cases. The majority of movies - particularly those that aren't vfx intensive - look fine in 2k. But that doesn't mean that 2k is the equivalent of 35mm. There are those who say 35mm is much closer to 6k. But none of that matters because resolution is relative to size of the projection surface and your distance from it and is not the most important factor in our perception of the quality of the image. And the only concern for rates above 24fps in theatrical projection should be 3d. This is an age-old debate over framerate, but you will generally find in this forum the factual opinion that 24fps looks better anyway. Motion blur is a standard cinematic tool, even in action movies. I don't care how fast or intense the action is, I don't want it to look like my football game. 2k vs 4k isn't a no brainer, but it has nothing to do with framerate; which in any case is a problem technology will overcome shortly.

You could create a DVD menu with 2 options - one or Play, which just plays the standard dvd content, and one for Watch HD which points to the 1080 quicktimes, or maybe another menu page with the instructions for downloading them. That way you give options for people who are savvy and also for those who are not so savvy.

Well that's just it. The raw image from a camera isn't the same thing as a "raw" image to the eye or a "raw" image on celluloid. A sensor collects light in a linear fashion. Light hits a photosite and that photosite measures it and outputs a value. The human eye, like film, is more or less sensitive to various intensities of light. This is why a logarithmic space is also sometimes called perceptual. So a truly raw image off a sensor is going to appear flat to our perception. Don't be confused by RAW on your still camera either. I have a Canon camera that I shoot stills with and I bring it into Adobe Camera Raw and it already has the AdobeRGB color space applied. The camera has preserved the raw data, but applied a default curve and gamut to it, much the same way you can use RedSpace to view a more "real life" sample of the Red output on your monitor. But a truly Raw file is going to be neutral. I don't know about the D21, but take a look at the Genesis. It doesn't have a Raw output. By default it applies a Panalog curve to the output. There are other things you can do with LUTs and whatnot, but, much like any non-raw video camera the output is pretty much gamma-encoded for you. Another camera to look at is the upcoming Ikonoskop A-Cam dII. The few samples that have come out are very flat looking, but this camera is outputting a true raw file (Adobe DNG sequence). The expectation is that you will manipulate it in post. To put this in film terms, you are basically designing your own stock because you get to define the characteristic curve on a shot by shot basis.

As a Red question this probably belongs in the Red or at least the HD forum. The desaturated look is by design. The Red is designed for a post-intensive workflow which favors a neutral image. Most video cameras without a raw workflow, or in fact film cameras with the characteristic curve of a particular stock, aren't a pure expression of captured light. Typically sensor data is interpreted and then gamma-encoded and defined within a color space. This information is burned in to the image. With a raw image you basically have what was captured at the sensor, and because it's raw you have a lot of detail to manipulate. With an encoded image, when you grade, you're manipulating pre-manipulated pixels as opposed to raw where you're manipulating, well, raw pixels. (You can make the argument that as red is compressed they are manipulated, but it's *effectively* lossless so whatever). So to answer the question about desaturated images, that's what you want so you can do whatever you want with it in post. Now if you're talking about what you see in the monitor, if it's desaturated looking it's probably a settings thing. The camera lets you apply a gamma curve and a color space to the image for display so you at least have on set a better idea of what you'll be getting. You can use Redspace, Rec.709, or a pre-defined custom LUT if you like. This way you have a closer notion of what the final image will look like. As far as over-exposure goes, well it's still a video camera and you have to treat it like one. I've seen people get this wrong a lot. Part of it though is the camera. From what I gather 320 ASA on the camera is really more like 250. I've also seen people set it to 500 because they didn't like what they were getting on the monitor but still don't realize they need to be metering at 320. Actually most people I see with this camera don't meter anyway, they trust the to the histogram which isn't a bad tool, but... Supposedly, the Red excels on daylight too. Tungsten balance isn't the sweet spot, so that could account for some of the deficiency you see. But don't take it necessarily from me. I've only assisted with the Red a couple times. Most of what I know is regurgitated from Red Centre. I'd actually be very happy to be corrected by people with more experience.