Christophe Collette

Hi, I worked with the hasselblad H2D, the P30, the Leaf Valeo and the P39 from Phase one, I understand what you are saying but there is absolutely no way of judging of the quality of such amazing equipment on the internet. the range that the P39 covers is very much equal to the range you would get from slide film, I'd even say it's better. I find the problem working with high end digital gear is the heavy work that has to be done in post production. No shots can be left unretouched, the P39 captures so much details you can zoom in at 300% on a 30x40in 300dpi and you barely see a pixel, it's razor sharp, scary even. It captures details in the way your Linhof 4X5 would. So when you do beauty shots, even the best looking girl looks like a monster at full size... Debating over digital backs poor rendering of the whites and details in the shadows is an endless entreprise, I would only like to point out that, unless you shoot black and white and print analog, digital and film will give you the same range even if you are getting your negs or positives scanned 16bits even with an Imacon or a Drum Scan. I use to work as an assistant for one of the best fashion photographer in Canada, he swore by film up to last spring when the Phase One rep came to our studio and did a demo on the P39, not only what we shot digi turned out great, it turned out better than the film we shot alongside. That was enough to convince him to move on. He still shoot BW images in film though. By the way, most of the work I do is on film, but I shoot film because I think digital is clinical. Christophe

Thanks Tim!

Hi! I got a Minolta Vf for 150$ on eBay, it's a great meter, I also got the 5 degrees spot attachement for it for 60$. And it's all in good shape. Shop on eBay. I think the best you can get for your money is either the Sekonic 358 or the Minolta Vf or IVf. Christophe

Hi guys, thanks for the good comments, it's very much appreciated. True, I still struggle my way through a day when shooting with film lights and heavy gear, I am learning, my last job is the best, a commercial for an insurance company I shot last week, I have not been able to put my hand on the footage yet... I will put it up here when I get it. This demo was done re-editing existing videos I DPed on in the last five-six months, from DVDs using Mpeg Streamclip, I did the editing in FCP at home, I needed a reel fast, for a job, so I put this up sunday night, I am going to redo it soon starting from the Digital transferts of the films with all the footage shot... It should be more interesting and the quality should also be better. Most of it was shot on film ( all but my first video which was shot on the DVX100A (the silly guy breakdancing) and a few images from a video using the HVX200 ( the deer in the boat and stuff)). So film it is for the rest, 35mm (very few shots), 16mm (most of it), super 8mm, transferred on telecine, either on the Quadra, or the Spirit. I used a Aaton 16mm, Arri SR2 and SR3, Bolex, a crappy minolta 8mm, and a Arri 435... Most of it was shot on 7205. The overexposed shots were exposed just a tad over normal exposure, 2/3 a stop if remember correctly, the rest is just color correction on Quadra, blasted the whites and desaturated... Hope this answers your questions! Christophe

Hi everyone! I just finished my first DOP reel, its very static, not much movement, but hey, I am photographer at the basis and I have only been DPing stuff for 6 months... Its on my website, http://www.christophecollette.com/demo.html, please let me know what you think!! Thanks a lot!!! C :D

Yeah I know what you are talking about Michael, this is weird, my brother has the quicktime plug-in for Windows Media files as well and it does the same on his mac on firefox, I could not watch it on my mac, don't have the plug-in... But it's the right video playing on PC... I have noticed the band already... Sorry Michael, hope they fix this soon, Thanks, Christophe

Hi Andrew, was thinking about someone else I forgot to mention: Alain Duplantier, his work is really good , you should check it out, he has a website, www.alainduplantier.com, I don't know where he is based out of though... Chris

Hey sorry for the dead link, I will repost it as soon as I fix this! Chris

Hi there, you can tell from your second image posted that what you referred to as grain is actually digital grain, not film grain, it looks to me as if the person who scanned your image saw it was soft, so he just added excessive sharpening to make up for it. Filmstock is in both discipline is fairly equivalent to my knowledge ( I would just say that kodak portra NC or VC is less contrasty than vision2 at equivalent ASA, you have more details in the blacks on Vision 2 stocks ), but remember that 35mm in photography vs 35mm in cinema is not the same, the image on your negative in photography is at least one and a half times bigger ( I don't know the exact ratio but film plane is much bigger, you are using the negative horizontally ) therefore increased size should make for less grain and more details on the neg so making image look sharper. So the problem is not there. I am both a Dop and a photographer so I can tell from experience. Get your film scanned in a decent place or ask the operator for -2 sharpening on their initial settings, that does it for me, I often go to 1h minilabs and with this note it comes out just fine. Get some decent lenses too, very often I can tell straight away when looking at a photo if it has been shot with a leica or contax for example, their lenses are so sharp it makes a world of a difference. Stopping down is also a good idea, lenses are less sharp when wide open and shooting below 1/60 of a second on an SLR can produce not so sharp images especially with a tele or zoom lens. Zooms are soft, don't use them if you don't want soft images or get a good one ( very expensive ). If you want even sharper images, then move up from 35mm to 120mm, lenses are often better and film size will allow for more details on the neg. You can find great medium format kits very cheap these days, 200$ gets a long way, a Mamiya 645 even. Lighting also plays a role, flash is sharper, especially if you are backlighting as well. And finally, get both your camera and your eyes checked if you still have softness problem, it sounds dumb but it's really important as a photographer or Dop to have 20/20 eyesight if focussing manually or pulling focus yourself. Hope this helps, Chris

Hey no problem Andrew! I wish you all the best in your project, please let us know who you secured for the shoot, that would be interesting for us all actually! Christophe

Hi Steve, I don't where you are at in your project but I just posted a link to a video I did using 7217 tranferred to BW in post using a Spirit. You might be interested in checking that out, it might relieve some stress if you have not transferred anything to BW yet. We had no lighting and it was a gray day, I was a little nervous about transfert but it went alright, we managed to get a decent BW image without a lot of playing around, if you have a good constrasty image, it is a piece of cake to transfert and grain is very minimal ( I used an 85 filter by the way). Also, please note that the video is a joke, don't take it seriously, we pasted the head of the singer on this bodybuilder (greenscreen).... Well, you'll see but since you probably won't understand what he is singing (french), I'd rather warn you! :D Take care! Chris

Hi Michael! I can't be of great help here, I am using a mac and this video is a Windows Media Player one... I actually posted this without seeing it a priori! I only viewed it on DVD, not on the web... But did you go in the video section? You can access it from the top menu, or straight from the ad they posted on the page as you enter the website, if you did, then just click on the tumbnail #1 and it should be fine, the song title again is Tu me manques, not Que des Mots, that also might be why, you did not click on the right song.... Hope this helped you a bit! Chris

Hi, thanks all for the comments! I actually have no clue how it looks on tv! I had a 1:33 groundglass and I framed for tv safe zone, I watch it on DVD it looked good but I have not seen it playing on Musique Plus, our provincial MTV if I can say so... I guess it probably is quite tight... I am really no big fan of 1:33 ratio in 16mm, I think it makes it look like DV... ...The director wanted it to be 1:33, in his mind, bigger is better. I told him i'd be more comfortable in S16mm with more reasonable ratio, 1:78 or 1:85. It is big crop in the negative, which is already quite small... But it turned out better than I expected, not much grain actually, I was quite happy. But I look forward to a production with sufficient money to allow 35mm!! It should soon come, I helped out a friend on a video sunday, he was shooting anamorphic, I fell in love with the lenses.... Serie E, not the best but beautiful flares and a particular softness which I quite liked... Well, I am of topic here! Thanks again for your comments! Christophe

I thought a little more about it, that picture does not mean he actually shot the movie with this camera. Milorad Glusica was Dp on this. Maybe this was Kusturica's own camera... Not the production camera.... Well, again we'd have to see it to know really!

Wow... So you think he shot this with that small cam, what is it anyway, looks like HVX200 or DVX100 but I know nothing about those cams... I am a film guy! .... I am astounded.... Well it was really hard to see from the youtube file... Thanks for letting us know!

Hi guys! thanks all for your input, as I mentionned earlier, I ended up shooting 7217, which proved to be a really good choice, You can have a look at the result. It is a funny video, don't take it seriously! We portrayed the singer as this muscular guy, which he is far from, and the member of the bands as bodyguards... He walks naked on a beach... Just plain silly. We had to shoot on a green screen the shots at the end to fit his head on the body of the bodybuilder. Enjoy! the contrast is a little off on this file but here it goes anyway! Christophe

Hi! The sun was in one of the day for night shot, right over the head of the character. And it looks great. it does not flare at all, pretty much looks like the moon. Christophe

Thanks a lot Francesco! It answered all my questions!

Hi! This is a good short I had not seen! Althought the quality of the youtube file is really poor, I would highly doubt it is anything but 16mm or 35mm, it is obviously not Super 8mm, it would not make sense to crop super 8mm to 2:35 ratio. My guess is 35mm, a grainy stock, because it is unusual to crop 16mm to 2:35 ratio as well. But it could be 16mm since you are mentionning the incredibly grainy images. We'd have to see to know. And I am positive it was not shot on HD, Emir Kusturica is a film guy. Christophe C

Hi! Here is a link to the latest music video I did the DP on, video is of Marabu, another band from Quebec. Director is Martin Fournier, he let me do pretty much everything I wanted to do, I shot this on 16mm, 7205, used long lenses for quite a bit of it and lit everything with HMI, I had a 4K, a 1.2K and 2 x 575W. Simple package, but this is my best lighting so far I think. http://www.marabu.ca, then click on video, the video is of the song "Tu me Manques", song #1 Please let me know what you think!! :D Christophe

Hi! Video is of Les Trois Accords, a really funny silly band from Quebec, mandate was to make the singer look like Mister America taking a walk on a nudist beach, surrounded by his bodyguards, members of the band making sure the path is clear... We had a prostetic of his head moulded but ended up doing most of the head on the body scenes on a green screen on the beach... I shot this in 7217, transferred in BW on Spirit in post. We were a bit unlucky with the weather and did not have budgetted lighting, all we had was a sungun powered by a battery belt... sketchy but in the end it worked out. Let me know what you think! The camera was SR3 and unfortunately I was not able to rig it so that I could frame with my left eye, (the viewfinder does not flip to either side like the SR2.. I just figured this out on location...) I had to frame with my right eye, so have the camera on my right shoulder, which I am not used to at all, so things are a bit wavery... Thanks for watching! Christophe :D

Hi! Here is a link to a video I was working on last week. I was second camera on the masters and the band shots, Dp on the second unit which took care of a bunch of the inserts, mainly the close-ups, stills and animations. Philippe Roy (really good Dp in Montreal) was the main Dp on the shoot, the lighting set up for the masters and the band shots is his. We shot everything in a day in 7218, transfert was on the Spirit, Arri Sr3 with zeiss lenses. I particularly enjoy my animation at end of the video. Thanks for watching! Christophe http://www.ottoblix.com/clients/NuFilms/Vu...res_machins.mov

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Hi Andrew, I am amazed that you managed to get that many answers while being new here and quite rude, but here goes my answer anyway, hope it helps! Cesar Charlone is a great DP, very much in the style of what I think you are looking for. He has a great handheld camera. If you have not these two movies ( but you probably have ) you should have a look at them, The Constant Gardener and City of God. Benoit Delhomme's work ( Scent of the green papaya, Cyclo, among others ) you should also have a look into. There is also a whole scene of incredibly talented DPs doing handheld work in China and Korea, well throughout asia actually ( handheld is very much in vogue there it seems ). Unfortunately I only have Yang Lun in mind now. But I also agree with everyone's comments, I think you should meet as many people as possible and if you can meet with Prieto, well, meet him first! Christophe C

Gorgeous photography on that movie, I am very much amazed by the night shots, I would like to know how he did this, I figure it is day for night, but if someone knows how he did it, I'd be great to share this. I also wondered if the film was transfered in DI. The color palette is amazing. Some day shots look ENR processed too.