Chris Durham

Well, apparently most of the flares weren't artificial. They just seemed that way because they all look so alike, but according to JJ... JJ Talks Lens Flares

It's a matter of taste I suppose, but I think that the flares were really overdone, and that's the only complaint I have about the movie. They looked artificial. I love lens flares but there were just too many of them and I found it more distracting than beautiful. I loved the camera movement though and thought the overall look was very good. As a fan I was very pleased. They got it right.

I'll be at the first screening tomorrow. In Uniform. And I'm certainly wary. Star Trek AS action doesn't do much to impress me. Star Trek WITH action might do the trick. This is supposed to be a shot in the arm for the franchise, but I'm the kind of guy who believes a flu shot might make you sick, so we'll have to see. I wonder why they didn't take a note from Sunshine and shoot the flares for comping. Digital flares rarely live up.

One of the DPs in "Cinematographer Style" - can't remember which - said that when he was young and first interested in film he was told he should be a cinematographer because the cinematographer is the most respected person on set. (I think I'm remembering the story correctly). After having seen that, it inspired me to try to be the most respected person on set. I sometimes fall very short, but I always try to have in my mind that the road to being respected isn't just avoiding the things which lose you respect, it's doing the things that earn you respect. I'm finding that this requires an acute sense of judgment. I DP'd for a director who was irresponsible and abusive and I held my tongue and did my job and did my best to console the crew, support them, and act as a level-headed liaison between the director and them. When he began doing things that crossed ethical lines is when I drew the line, threatened to walk, won out and was able to finish the job - and I had the full support of the crew with small exception. I understand that extremes of personality and ego are a part of this business, however knowing when to draw the line, and how, is probably an important thing and beneficial to us all. There have also been instances where, under stress and frustration, I've blown up on set. This will happen. Again, this work can be very stressful and extremes of personality coupled with passions over a creative endeavor don't help. I think this is where humility is important. People respect sincere apologies and if you're looking for a silver lining a show of willingness to swallow pride for the greater good might highlight that your blow-up was an act of passion for the production, not simply ego. One more thing about what Annie said about food, drink, and sleep. See to the quality of these things. A local Dallas vegan restaurant caters film sets as well. The thinking is that vegan food (and I'm not a vegan or vegetarian though well-versed in nutrition) won't slow a crew down the way that, say, a pizza lunch will. I experienced their craft services the first time a week or so ago and I'm here to testify - I've never felt so good post-lunch. Point is, GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Take good care of yourself and/or your crew and it will help things immensely. Consider it psychological preventative maintenance.

I'm sure they will. the 500T is available in 16mm. Really looking forward to a 50D stock in this series.

I think those Sony's are 4k, but still... *does a shot* ...It's still just such a shame.

Thanks for that Bruce. Good resources. Like your site too.

Sorry Satsuki, I guess I just somehow focused on the first part of your response. Probably due sleep depravation shooting numerous takes on an absurd number of setups the night before. Really - 9 hours shooting just over a page of dialog, and so many setups that using them all in the scene will mean cuts coming fast enough to trigger an epileptic seizure. Just another example of faltering discipline in film making - and against my better efforts to persuade the director to a more sensible and well-thought path. It's ridiculous when you watch these guys work.

Please tell me you're taking the piss. What is the point of a digital 65mm equivalent and how do you imagine it will reduce costs? There are a few reasons for 65mm capture, but most will be described in terms of resolution. Either you're capturing more detail for even more detailed integration into visual effects, and/or you're capturing higher definition for projection onto a bigger screen. Problem is now you need 4K minimum projection for the detail to be worth it, and Ideally 8K. So there's an infrastructure issue; not to mention that half the videots in the world are celebrating the decline of theatrical release in which case something like a 65mm equivalent is once again pointless. Do you think you'll get anything out of 8K in your living room? The costs to manufacturer buses that can put that much data through, cards or drives with fast enough i/o, and drivespace to store it all are still pretty high and won't come low enough for a little bit. Of course there's compression that either degrades your images or increases your necessary onboard hardware (and cost) and heats the camera like crazy. Look at the challenges Ikonoskop face in just getting a 1080 RAW image on a chip, or look at the shortcomings of Red. Not saying Red's bad, just know that you're not buying a camera, you're buying a codec. Now couple that with the fact that you want 30-120 FPS at 8K and tell me it's affordable. Say you don't want 8K. Say you want a 65mm capture plane. Fair enough. Why aren't they making them now? What reasons could there be that folks like Red, Panavision, and Arri are making digital cameras chasing the 35mm standard? I mean, why not make bigger chips? Using chips at 4x the size but with the same number of photosites would get you larger photosites which means a greater dynamic range, and probably a lower manufacturing cost. But the cost of manufacturing a camera with a larger sensor, whether you increase resolution or not, whether you decrease storage and tech costs or not, does not decrease the expense of peripherals, nor does it decrease - in fact it likely increases - the manpower required to operate. Most notable would be glass, because now you have different lenses to use. You've got a larger camera that requires more maintenance and takes more hands. It requires a bigger tripod and doesn't fit on your skate wheel dolly. You don't have a wonderful piece of high definition equipment that further democratizes filmmaking by reducing cost and making large format accessible. You've got a very big, expensive to run camera that doesn't gain you very much and in truth probably doesn't look half as pretty as super 16 film! So please tell me you're joking. Because there's no well thought-out reason that a potential 65mm equivalent has a place even in a film vs. video argument, much less a sincerer dialog as to whether the digital "revolution" is good for the craft of cinematography.

That's why I said "...in capable hands..." My point isn't necessarily that they have to adjust camera settings, it's that quite often they fiddle with them randomly until they find something that works rather than having a principal knowledge to know what they want and make adjustments to get it. That's not to say that a DP shouldn't need a DIT, because after all there is an awful lot of variety in cameras, but for goodness' sake know the fundamentals. What happens is that the novice digital DP isn't mastering his medium - he might have compositional skills, be able to obtain fluid motion, and have an acceptable eye for focus, but everything else is often turning knobs until something tickles his fancy. Worse, many feel they can put these softer aspects of image manipulation off until post. In truth, I'm not necessarily talking about real experienced shooters - people working regularly in big film and TV. I'm talking about guys like myself who are coming up and cutting their teeth working mini- and micro-budget indie film and want to look at the Red or 35mm adapters or accessible grading tools as the Holy Grail instead of trying to cultivate a mastery over their craft. I think one advantage of film for a burgeoning cinematographer is that it made it more difficult for you to stumble or ease into a good image - you had to know your fundamentals.

At its worst, in capable hands, film looks good. At its best, in capable hands, digital looks good enough. What I see so often these days is somebody throwing up a camera and a monitor and fiddling with settings until they have an acceptable image. That's the dumbing down of this profession. Pure and simple. And you can't do that with film. And you shouldn't do that with video. Digital cinematography can be exciting on a number of levels, particularly to a beginning or very low budget filmmaker. It creates a lot of opportunities. But it has two major pitfalls: 1) without a wide technical standard DPs have to spend energy becoming familiar with varying technologies - energy that could almost certainly be better spent creatively; and 2) it creates the illusion of less discipline, craftsmanship, and experience being necessary than actually is.

This was my first commercial work (most of what I've shot has been low/no budget narrative). I like the way it turned out. Shot on an HVX200 w/ a Letus and Nikon primes. A shortened version may see some cable TV play. Three Nos

I recently sat with a director to talk about shooting her upcoming movie. She already kind of had it in her head that it would be shot digital, probably on the Red One. The first thing I asked was "What if I showed you the math that details how we can shoot Super 16 for about the same price as a Red One?" I later found that the producer has a stiffy for the Red and part of the reason they passed on another DP was that he downplayed the Red. This is frustrating as all Hell. I guess I'll play ball, but I stand by my statement about the cost of film vs. Digital. For microbudget movies, HD is an obvious choice; but for anything with a budget, film isn't as prohibitively expensive as people think. There are a lot of producers and directors (and DPs) who take the economics of digital at face value and don't really run the numbers. It's a shame.

Data wrangling is a must and shouldn't be a 1st AC thing. You need someone to dump the cards, watch the footage, and dupe the footage before handing the card back for reformatting. Nothing exists until it exists in two places. And don't put off dumping and watching for another day, even if you have a dozen cards or hard drives. I've seen cards corrupt. Know as soon as possible if you have to reshoot something and get it same day if you can.

I'd be curious to see how the study turns out myself. Of course it's subjective and i think that the emotional context of scene design - including lighting - is largely subject to how it fits with the rest of the film. There are almost too many factors to play with - you have low-key, high-key lighting; color temperature, color, intensity, shadow, hardness, softness, diffusion, and many other factors in an infinite number of combinations. One thought would be to film the actor in front of a greenscreen and composite the same performance into a number of lighting situations to gauge viewer response.

Guermo Del Toro and Guermo Navaro Danny Boyle and Dod Mantle Coens and Roger Deakins has been mentioned but warrants repeating

Here's a topic that has been and will be debated for a long time. I agree that 24fps is poorly suited for stereo - particularly during fast actions or frame moves - however, knowing this limitation I'd say the filmmakers should shoot around it until another standard is established. In my opinion, that standard should be applied to that medium. What applies for stereo doesn't necessarily apply to standard film, which doesn't necessarily apply to the evening news of football. I like watching the Cowboys in hi-def 60i - it's crisp and I get to see every detail which is good because technical minutia are important. Not so much the case when I'm watching a movie. I like my 24 frame motion blur. I don't want to be distracted by the crispness of an image. I don't want to see in intricate detail that portion of the screen where the receiver's hand would be grasping the ball. In cinema I want to be concerned with the whole image and how it tells the story. This is something I cautioned an editor friend about recently when he was moaning over minor bumps in a dolly movement when the rest of the image was otherwise good. The advice I gave was that if you spend too much effort worrying about a PERFECT image you might lose the opportunity to produce a BEAUTIFUL image. This argument over frame rates is analogous to the argument over video vs film. The technology chosen should suit the subject. 48fps is probably optimal for stereo, as James Cameron has suggested. That doesn't mean that we have to re-think the frame rate of standard cinema. 24/25 works, works well, and is beautiful.

I personally like Dutch angles. Overuse can be a bit distracting, but throwing them in with a little more thought than just changing the angle is alright. Danny Boyle's movies use them to good effect. My favorite use of dutching is for framing, when the subject's too large to show everything you want to vertically, you change the vertical space by dutching. But just rolling the lens axis around is a little silly.

Hunter, that looks amazing. When I first got into filmmaking the A-Minima appealed to me. For the past three years I've been shooting video and have just now started getting into shooting film. I've always wanted to, and now that I've done it I'm in love with it. This is a little camera that I'd love to have and when I'm in the market for a personal camera upgrade I'm going to look really hard at the A-Minima. thanks for sharing the work.

Unfortunately, even despite whatever testing you may be able to do you'll rarely be able to figure out how to work around reflections until the day. I often find myself working in a very narrow margin between two or three reflections, lifting lights to crazy heights, flagging a light at the last minute before going for picture, or hoping that a bright reflection that lasts for just a few frames will simply be forgiven. One of my least favorite things is windows on doors. You set lights, frame everything up just right, and call a camera rehearsal and then you see your lights bright as day when the actor swings open the door. Glasses are lots of fun too - especially in a small room where you can only get the light so high. What's even worse is creating a scene where you count on the reflections. I shot 3 setups in a scene this week where we see an actor's reflection on purpose - one of which we were revealing another actor in the background through reflection. In a small hotel room lit with china balls and the camera on a pee-wee dolly you can imagine how fun it was to get this set up. The best advice I can give is to allot time for this shot and figuring out the difficulties.

Yeah, graininess is an accepted, and mostly desired, aspect of this shoot. We'll be pushing the 200T. The 50D is expected to show less grain, but of course this will be magnified on blowup. 500T will certainly be grainy, though I'm hoping the finer grain of Vision3 will compensate for some of the difference.

It's funny. I saw the roadshow edition with a filmmaking friend and we both came into the intermission saying "wow, they really did a great job of making the black and white Red footage look filmlike - it looked a lot like Super 16!" And then we looked in the program where they thanked Red and Aaton. Oh, that makes sense. Just goes to show how much difference there still is.

Aren't the sensors in the Ikonoskop dII Kodak-made? Kodak needs to step things up for sure, because the only way to preserve film is for them to stay at the front of the digital curve.

I saw this a while back and mostly dismissed it. I thought the Red footage looked like junk, and, like most here I was pleasantly surprised by the HPX. Really it wasn't a surprise that I liked it that much - everything I've seen out of that camera has surprised me. I would love to have seen some Sony footage compared because I've been using the Z5U a lot and am pretty impressed with it. Also conspicuously absent is S16 footage - I mean, theoretically we're looking at the stock, but the reduced size does change things a bit and 16 compares more evenly to HD (though still better I think). All in all an unscientific comparison, but still interesting. I'd like to see a more scientific comparison done independently, say by the ASC or similar organization, comparing top cameras at various tiers from different manufacturers with different capture methods and sizes. Make the playing field as even as possible and see how it looks.

Thanks again, everybody, for the response. In the end, we decided to simplify everything by going with a single stock, Kodak Vision2 200T. We'll have to push it some in the interiors, but it's by all counts a very versatile stock. Since this is my first real foray into film I'm trusting my AC who has worked with this camera (SR3) and these stocks before. From what I've seen I'm pretty fond of Fuji stocks but I'm starting in the area of greatest familiarity. To make things more interesting, we've decided to shoot Super 8 for B roll. For this we're ordering stock from Pro8mm and going with the 50D for exteriors and the Vision 3 500T for interiors counting on the smaller grains to help us in the blow up. The finished product should be contrasty and grainy so I think this will be a good thing in the end.