Tenolian Bell

I'm sure you are right Phil but of course marketing comes into play. When someone can say my computer is 64 bit and yours is only 32 bit, whether its true or not about speed. Marketing will shape everyone's perceptions.

One other story I forgot to tell from the first day. While I watched dailies I noticed lots of blown out windows. In one shot the background was a giant glass door leading outside that was totally blown out. But you could still see small detail in the background. Like people walking by, or cars and trucks driving by. I told the EP/LA/Dir that I didn't like that look. My first choice would be to bring the glass doors down to exposure or not shoot in that direction. If we have to look that way, I would prefer to place material over the doors so they bloom entirely and no detail can be seen. At least that looks like you did it on purpose for aesthetic reasons. The project is shot on the SDX-900, so I told him that entire back area would all be zebra stripes. After that he became obsessed with zebra stripes. I told him there will be a small amount of zebra's at times. And small highlights are a good thing. The first day of shooting he was watching the frame diligently for any zebra anywhere. I had to keep reassuring him it was ok. On one scene in an office where we had to look towards a window. I closed the window blinds. but little highlights from the sun were peeking through slats in the blinds, and creating small zebras in the monitor. We blocked and lit the scene and were about to shoot it. He noticed the zebras and asked if we could do anything about them. I had the grips place a dark scrim like material over the window to bring it down, but there were still some zebra. I told him it was ok, the windows are in the background, the actors are properly lit in the forground, its hardly noticeable. He declared to me he will not have zebra stripes in his movie. He got on the camera and turned down the exposure until the zebras in the window dissappeared, which of course made the room really dark, then he said why don't you bring the light in the room up. I said you are asking me to match the intensity of the sun, we don't have that much light. Why don't you just try he asked me. Well if you rent us a 10K and a genny that would probably do it, I told him sarcastic but straight faced. How can we not have enough light he asked. We have a couple of 2K's I told him, by the time we CTB them and bounce them into some board it will brighten the room, but still won't match the sun. Well just try he responded. So I had the gaffer add the 2K's, and when we turned them on the room was a bit brighter but still too dark. I opened the aperture on the camera to proper exposure for the light in the room. And the zebra stripes were still there in the slats of the blinds. We need to do something says the EP/LA/Dir, I don't want zebra stripes in my movie. Right after he says that all of the lights in the room go out. We've blown a couple of breakers. So we have to call building security to get the building superintendent to find the breakers and turn them back on. Which takes over an hour. Once the power is back on we are back to where we started in the first place. The EP/LA/Dir comes up with idea and instructs the grips to place gaffer tape over the hot spots on the window behind the blinds. All of this wasted a couple of hours, I'm tired of going round and round with him so I say fine. I figure out the second day of shooting that he thinks the zebra stripes are going to be in the final movie, that's why he was so anal about them. So I turn them off and he never sees them again. From then on I use my light meter to judge contrast and hot spots.

Apple has announced the next upgrade to OS X will be a true 64 bit OS. Do you guys think software developer's will begin building their 64 bit apps? Mostly thinking of Avid I'm sure they should start feeling the 64 bit itch. Knowing Apple right after the 64 bit OS will come 64 bit final cut pro, which they will pronounce as the fastest NLE on the market.

I had an interesting past couple of days. A couple of months ago a producer I?d worked with called and asked if I wanted to interview for a feature she was doing. I went into the office for the interview, and found the director was someone I?d already met. I?d met her months before through some mutual friends. She expressed that she was really interested in working with me because she?d heard only good things about me. The director called me the following week and invited me to a full cast reading of the script. She told me the Executive Producer wanted to hire another DP but she was really pushing for me. I sat in on the reading and became really interested in the script. I told the director I usually get to read the script and then am able to present ideas to the producer on what I could bring to the show. That is usually how a producer is able to determine whom he/she will hire. A couple of weeks later the producer who asked me to interview called and said they were stuck between me and another DP, that my reel was the best but there were other political reason the Exec Prod wanted this other DP. I told her to let me know as soon as possible what the final decision was because I was getting other job offers in the meantime. After a week of hearing nothing I took other job offers and figured I didn?t get that feature. The director eventually called me and apologized that I didn?t get the job, I told her she was the first to confirm. She exclaimed that she?s gotten funding for a second feature that she will have more control over and she definitely wants me for her DP. I thanked her and told her I looked forward to working with her. Last week I got a call from the producer who originally wanted me to interview, she told me they lost their DP and have their last week to shoot. She asked if I wanted to come on and finish the show. The end of their schedule ran into the beginning of another film I was to shoot, so I told her I could work up until a certain day and then I had to move on to another job. She told me they may be able to finish by the beginning of my next job. So I agreed to take the job. I go into the office the next day to view dailies and get caught up to speed on where they are at this point. I?d met the Executive Producer briefly but didn?t really know him that well. As I watch the dailies I largely see the same actors playing parts that I?d seen during the reading a couple of months before, except for some changes. What surprised me is the Executive Producer in the Lead Actor role. I was a bit confused and a warning bell went off, but I didn?t say anything. As I watched the dailies further towards the end I saw him giving direction to actors while the camera was rolling, and I didn?t hear the director giving them direction. After viewing the dailies I spoke to the director she told me the Exec Prod didn?t like what she was doing and took over directing. So now he?s the Executive Producer, Lead Actor, and Director. Lots of warning bells were going off at this point. I would have declined the job right then and there, but the Producer who really wanted to bring me on was desperate to finish the show and needed a DP badly. The director was heavily invested in that she wrote the script, and wanted the feature credit. I wanted to keep a good working relationship with both of them, and was to coming in to save the day. The first day of shooting the Exec Prod/ Lead Actor/ Dir was an hour late. We couldn?t set up the first shot because he hadn?t told anyone what it was. He?d set things up so that every decision had to go through him. So we couldn?t do anything until he ok?d it. Finally he got there and I got him to explain the first shot. The camera was to pan with an actor he stops at a point an actress walks up from behind and they talk. On the first couple of takes the actors walks but stops at a different place both times, which changes the composition, and changes the relationship between the two in the final frame. The EP/LA/Dir looks at me and says I keep changing the framing. I tell him the actor stops in a different place, lets give him marks. The EP/LA/Dir tells me marks don?t matter I need to keep the framing the same. We proceed to argue about how can framing be the same when the actor doesn?t stand in the same place. Finally the actor agrees to stop in the same place, we get the shot and move on. The rest of the day was pretty eventless. It would take the EP/LA/Dir a long time to block the actor?s and decide where the camera was going to be. A couple of times he wanted terrible compositions and we argued about that a little. A couple of times while I was with the gaffer lighting a scene I caught the EP/LA/Dir messing with the camera changing things, I had to get on him about that. I found out from the sound recordist that once the Exec Prod took over as director most of the previous crew quit. He would have quit but they begged him to stay. I asked him how long did the DP stay after he took over, the sound recordist told me the previous DP was on for one day after he took over. Another really bad thing he did, while the actors were in the middle of their performances he would stop them mid performance tell them to do it a different way and say ?go?. As though they were supposed to stop mid emotion change inflection and jump right back into that emotion, and still give a convincing performance. I think all of this had tension brewing underneath for both of us. The second day of shooting. The EP/LA/Dir was again two hours late. Which meant we sat around doing nothing because no one knew what the first shot was going to be. Once he got to set. He the original director, and AD were talking, but didn?t really explain to the crew what was going on. Finally he tells me the first shot, and we can set it up. We were in a clinic that was supposed to be a poor inner city hospital, but didn?t really look like it. Production Design told me they told the EP/LA/Dir what they needed to make it look like a real hospital, but he didn?t give them the money needed to accomplish the task. We were in the reception area of the clinic looking through a window at the receptionist. She's speaking to a guy holding a bloody towel to his head. We got that shot and then prepared for the turn around. We went around to the other side of the glass and looked out into the reception area. The EP/LA/Dir complained that the reception area didn?t look like a big emergency room waiting area. I suggested maybe we could have the guy blocking most of the frame and have extra?s block the other part of the frame so that it would be difficult to tell exactly how large the room was. As the gaffer and I lit and set up the shot, the EP/LA/Dir disappeared. After we finished we sat around for another 15 minutes wondering what was going on. Finally the sound recordist comes to me and tells me the shot is being changed. I find the EP/LA/Dir out in the hall way I ask him what?s going on. He yells that he?s been trying to explain for the past 10 minutes. I look at the sound recordist and gaffer and ask them if they?d heard of the shot being changed and they said they didn?t know. So he explains to us what he wants. He wants to set up a plexiglass rig, to look like the window, and shoot in the hallway so it look like a larger space. I think to myself that the plexiglass looks nothing like the window we just shot through. The window was a clean, thick glass, with a greenish tint, and most importantly antiglare. the plexiglass was flimsy, scratched, and revealed every glare. Instead of objecting I just began to set the next shot. In the middle of setting up the plexiglass rig, the EP/LA/Dir comes back and announces everyone stop, grab everything and come downstairs. I tell the gaffer not to change anything, because the lighting is still set up in the real waiting area. I go downstairs to see what he was talking about. There is a thin hallway that opens up in a larger area. And he has decided he wants to shoot there. "Do you really think this is worth it", I ask him. We are about 4 hours behind of a 12 hour day. It will take at least an hour and half to bring all that stuff down here set it up, light it, and get everyone in place. We are still set up in the waiting room, does this shot really add that much production value? He responds ?you are the DP just light it and shoot it, don?t worry about anything else?. I respond, ?ok if you want to be that way, once my 12 hours are up these sneakers are walking out that door?. He responds ?do what every you want?, ?I will? I agreed. The cast and crew bring everything downstairs. We set up the plexiglass rig, and I have to turn off every light from the camera side because of glare. Once we get the actor with the bleeding head in front of the glass and under his lighting, it quite obviously doesn?t match, and makes him look dark and moody. I have to light from his side, if I turn on a light from the camera side it creates glare or washes out the glass. The EP/LA/dir and I get into an argument about this because he want me to turn on a frontal light camera side, I tell him it doesn?t look good. He argues just turn it on and see what it does. I turn it on, he goes and gets a blanket. We cover the camera with the blanket that blocks most of the glare, but also blocks most of the frontal light on the actor. There is also a slight reflection of the camera on the glass, and the light washes out the glass. I bring that to his attention he say?s its fine. After that shot we eat lunch. All department heads are complaining about how terrible of a show this is, and how their needs are not being met. The script supervisor is frustrated and wants to just quit. She argues that we all should quit and leave the EP/LA/Dir high and dry. I?m the one encouraging everyone to stick with it, there?s only a couple of days left, we?ll just get through it. After lunch the producer who brought me on shows up. She asks me how its going. I tell her the EP/LA/Dir and I aren?t getting along too well. I tell her he won?t listen to me, he?s a terrible communicator, and he?ll just change everything at any moment. She tells me to be patient with him, I tell her I?m trying. I go with the gaffer and begin to set up the next shot. I hear the EP/LA/Dir voice down the hallway yelling, and I hear him yelling about me. I have finally had enough and get angry I go down the hallway, and I see him yelling about me to the producer who brought me on. He?s telling her I?m belligerent and won?t follow instructions. I get in his face and tell him I was trying to tell you this shot down here on this plexiglass would not match what we shot upstairs in the waiting room. I tried to tell you that light was washing out the glass and it didn?t look right, but you won?t listen to me. When you try to edit that together it won?t match. And right there we have it out right in front of the entire cast and crew. He argues that he didn?t like that shot upstairs. I argue that I understand but we are on a time limit and the crew shouldn?t be punished because he came to set unprepared. He asks how was he unprepared. I said I?m sure this building has been here for the past 10, 20 years, he could have come here at any point, scouted the location decided that he didn?t like the waiting room and wanted to shoot the turn around downstairs. While we were shooting the upstairs shot the crew could be preparing the hallway down here for the turn around. You came unprepared. He argued that he?s the director I?m the DP I should just do what every he says. I say we have a time limit, you are not paying us over time, and I?m not willing to work over time for you. We have been severely behind time the whole day, and you aren?t doing anything to help us move any faster. He says there?s was one thing I failed to understand. Director?s hire DP?s not the other way around. One day he?s going to have his 30 million dollar film and he gets to pick as his DP. I say that is your choice to make but for right now that does not stop me from telling you how fu**ed up this whole production is. He goes into how many features he?s worked on. I tell him it seems you would have learned how to run a production by now. He begins to attack me and say that I was taking too long to light scenes. At that moment the gaffer walks up. He says ?you two why is it taking you two so long to light the scene this isn?t Titanic?. The gaffer says ?well this is a rudderless ship?. He begins to yell at the gaffer, the gaffer says ?don?t yell at me, you don?t know me.? He begins yelling at me saying that I must be a sad person because I?m the only one complaining, I tell him the rest of the crew feels exactly the same way, I?m just the only one saying anything. He begins yelling what a terrible DP I am. I look at the gaffer, he looks at me, and we walk away. We left the EP/LA/Dir standing there yelling at us. See all of the grip and electric equipment belongs to the Gaffer, he brought the entire package. And at that moment we?d both had enough. We walked back to the set, the gaffer announced to the crew ?everything that?s mine pack it up.? We begin taking down all the lights, c-stands, grip equipment. The EP/LA/Dir, comes back yelling at us more. He tells the AD, ?get both of there names, every Director I know, every Producer I know, every AD I know, will have your names, and you will never work again.? As we pack the gaffer?s truck, we see nearly the entire crew packing up all of their stuff. The sound department, the script sup, the grips, PA?s, all quit. I speak to the producer and original director, apologize and tell them I can no longer work with this guy.

Which scenes were too flat? I was actually astonished that the studio let him get away with using so much negative fill on close ups. A technique he brought over from The Matrix. Which I think creates a more interesting composition, I'm kind of tired of perfect hair and rim light no matter what enviornment the character is in.

The issue isn't so much about technical color gamut and what is acceptable with in color space, its more about how that color feels and does it match the feel of the scene. Most of the time you wouldn't want purple reproduced in that way, and few would want to go through the trouble of correcting it later, if there were an option that you didn't have to in the first place. What if you were shooting a field of flowers, or the director wanted the actress to wear a purple dress that reminds her that has some significance to the character or whatever, we generally wouldn't want to go through a whole film correcting that dress. Vision 2 stocks have been engineered to give us neutral color and neutral skin tone. Which much of the time is the desired look. I would want a digital system being offered as an alternative to film to offer me the same option. Even if you were going for saturated colors or an off kilter look, you want to know where neutral is.

On a short film that was going to live on video. I shot 7222 at 30 fps. Came out very sharp, a lot of details in highlights and shadows. I remember the antagonist was pulling a gun out of his black jeans. The handle of the gun was black also, but you could clearly see grip marks in the handle even against his black jeans. I shot the film with Zeiss super speeds mostly outdoors, on a cloudy NY day. Telecine on a Shadow to Digibeta.

An interesting scene was the conference on business opportunities in the liberation of Iraq. One of the interviewers said people may suffer and some will die, but its good for business. How could Moore have spun that statement, that was that guys own words at a conference where they disucuss carving up the business from the war. I'm sure a lot of what was said in the movie could be argued, but that segment and that guy's statement was enough for me. It seems like it would be fundamental knowledge that US companies should not profit from death and destruction in someone elses country.

If any one was wondering about the current state of HDTV broadcast in the US. Here it is, a confusion of standards and technology walking out of step with each other. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/technolo...4hdtv.html?8dpc

I didn't think super 35 would be a wide enough frame to covef full 2.4 anamorphic.

Raising Victor Vargas looked really good projected also. Very sharp. I don't know its exact post flow, but I'm sure it was an optical blow up. I spoke to the DP about a year and a half ago, if memory serves I believe he said he shot it on 7274. We need to dispel the S16 too much grain myth. 7289 and 7212 are both S16 but look very different projected.

WHAT??? I just noticed this..... I've had transfers from several post houses in NY, and have never paid $1,000 an hour. If all of the top colorist charge this for every job, they'd be sitting around doing nothing much of the time. They do cut deals and if you become friends with them they will do you favors because they recognize you are a client and they want to build a working relationship with you. Top colorists know they can charge their top rate to a Hummer commercial, they also know a short film cannot handle their top rate, but they still want to work, and build a working relationship with DP's.

With out a doubt the Genesis produces a nice image. I think it will erode if not eliminate shooting 35mm for television. I wish the same DP's who were sitting at the Vision 2 demonstration were sitting at the Genesis test. They nit picked and were really critical of every little nuance of the film and the way it performed. I would've been curious to hear their reaction to the Genesis test. As far as cost no one really seemed to know. I'm sure it won't be a cheap camera to rent. The tapes at uncompressed 4:4:4 are 23 minutes (less at high speed) but I didn't hear how much they would cost. And certainly uncompressed HD SR editing and film out won't be cheap. We haven't seen Genesis under 2K or 4K digital projection, and since the sensor is square what will they do about scope. Will we only use the pixels that cover the aspect ratio? My concern would be delivering the movie going audience the highest quality we can produce. They need a reason to leave home, pay $10, sit in a dark room with a crowd of strangers. We need to deliver picture fidelity far and beyond what can be seen at home.

I agree it is unfair to compare poorly projected film with digital projection, but it looks like the hype machine is going to roll right over logic. I think this is a place where hype and the drum beat of the future will roll right over the truth. Kodak has used this method to their advantage in the past and it seems to continue in the future.

I saw a picture of a guy holding the 235 in full war paint: matte box, follow focus, etc. I don't think Arri would bulild a camera that wouldn't accept their own accessories. It's not supposed to be a replacement for the 435, its just to be a smaller camera. Anyone who doesn't want to use it certainly doesn't have to

I would argue that Panavision's test pretty much did show example of what a typical film print would look like in theater's today. But they certainly did not present 5218 at it's most optimum even if had gone through a DI. They scanned the film at 4K but then down rezzed to 1080 so that the exact same color corrections could be applied to the film and Genesis. If we could've seen 2K or 4k scans on the screen would the test still come so close? I imagine as more nonPanavision tests are done we will see.

I think you guys are going to have to give in on the film projection argument. Digital projection is getting really good, while film projection is pretty mediocre. Mostly due to the poor upkeep of the projector and print. There are a lot of issues with digital projection to be worked out, but I don't think those problems are with the technology itself. I was totally impressed with the 2K projection I saw of Troy. Before I saw that I thought digital projection was blah. To improve the viewing experience for the audience and really show the majic hiding in those little silver crystals, it doesn't look as though film print will be able to carry us on. A print can't really show much more resolution past 3K, the MTF begins to equal out with 2K. But a 4K projector will display the full 4K file.

A wild guess on the contrast range I saw was probably 11 stops or so. But in the test 5218 still had better contrast. I don't know if they'd exposed for the shadows more the highlights would have held. A part of the test was to shoot at the exact same T stop. So we were looking at the Genesis and 5218 with the same lighting, same T stop, and seeing the latitude of both. I guess you could've gone into the camera controls and adjusted the gamma, but the Panavision guy said thier ideal was not to be bothered with any of that, just shoot and post like film. I heard another Panavision guy say that the Genesis didn't have a knee control. I over heard that and didn't get to ask any questions to elaborate.

The Genesis has an electronic shutter. I asked about an optical viewfinder and mechanical shutter. They said they will wait and hear what DP's want as far as the viewfinder, but don't have plans for a mechanical shutter.

I joked with the Sony guy if we were going to see the test with the new 4K projector. He said "no do you know what Sony means?" I said "no". He responded "soon, only not yet". I would be curious to see Genesis material in 4K projection. Even though the sensor is 4K, ultimately its still down sampled to 1080. With film you still can shoot 5212 (100 ASA) scan that at 6K 16bit (Arriscanner) scale that down to 4K 10bit and project it 4K.

This was actually the darling of the show. Even though the Genesis is talked about. More people crowded into Arri's booth and were asking more questions about the 235. For good reason it comes from the 435, and can be integrated into the film work flow immidiately. Actually in a way its not a big deal camera. It's really stirpped down with less fringe. It's sort of reverse thinking. While the 435 becomes more advanced with more bells and whistles, this is the opposite. Simpler, smaller, less electronics, more in line with being a black box to store and expose film. Admittedly a very well designed black box.

There were no tell tale signs of digital in the shots. No aliasing, banding, or even highlight or shadow clipping. No hot spots in the highlights. No signs of artifical sharpening. Very good detail and color reproduction. In some scenes there was more apparent sharpness than the film, and in some scenes the color was more saturated. But looking with the critical eye. I did see some things that were still better with the film. We know 5218 is a rather latitude flat and color neutral film. In that context it was not made to produce overly vivid colors, more neutral colors, which could be percieved as dull next to a saturated color. I know no one will believe this but the '18 was less contrasty and saw into the shadows better than the Genesis. While looking at the test I could see in some shots more saturated color and in some shots where the shadows were deeper. I know '18 is a neutral film so i knew it didn't produce the vivid colors, but I also thought the Genesis was seeing into the shadow's better. But it turns out that was the '18. My personal taste would be for the neutral color. I know from shooting thousands of feet of '18 that you can always saturate the color well beyond the edges of the vectorscope. I'd rather have the choice. Plus some of the colors in the Genesis were somewhat too colorful almost cartoonish. Especially a scene where they rack focus to some violet flowers. They were very very purple, but purple in an unnatrual way. I can certainly see this camera taking over television, it looked really good.

They showed a demonstarion of the a scene where film and Genesis where intercut. Allen Daviau shot the test scene. Panavision rates the Genesis at 400 ASA. Allan shot 5218 rated it at 400 ASA. It was an interesting test and I would have to say finally a digital camera that looks just like film.

I tried to ask as many technical details as I could but the Panavision guys were pretty mum on the details of how it works. It doesn't use Bayer. It does have RGB pixels. But they wouldn't go into any more detail than that. It uses a custom made Panavision Accuscene viewfinder. It is very bright very sharp, better than any HD viewfinder I've seen to date. The dynamic range was great. I pointed the camera out into a crowd that was partly in bright California sun and partially in shade and it held all of it. Highlights rolled nicely and did not clip sharply. In the Accuscene viewfinder the clipped highlights still had an electronic look to them. The deck can connect to the camera on top and the back, and can be easily taken off (even though no one ever took it off to demonstrate). I asked about the type of connections from the deck to the camera but never really got a straight answer. It was larger than I thought it was going to be though. The XL2 was demure and petite compared to the Genesis. The 1000' magazine on the XL2 was far larger than the camera body.

I just got home from Cinegear and watching test footage of the genesis.