Mark Kenfield

I'm a little surprised that you'd be "shocked". The celluloid industry here collapsed almost overnight with the arrival of viable digital cinema production. It started declining rapidly in 2008 with the arrival of the Red One and 5D MkII, and the coffin was sealed as soon as the Alexa arrived in 2010 (along with the widespread adoption of 2k Digital Projection). The labs all collapsed, and the only gear that wasn't sold off or scrapped, was bought up by a few tokens individuals who valued the history of it. So there's been almost no celluloid infrastructure down here for over a decade. For quite a few years, we were having to send film over to Singapore for processing - until a few small operations opened up again to cater to the limited demand that still remained. 16mm has been seeing something of a resurgence locally over the last few years, as hip (predominantly Gen-Z) cinematographers have been exploring it for music videos and a bit of commercial work. There's very little use of it reaching narrative production (outside of the odd short film). But the important point is - you can shoot and process S16mm locally these days, and get it scanned at high quality. I have a couple of rolls of 7207 sitting in the fridge that I'd love to use up before they become completely useless - so if you can get the song together I'd love to get involved! It's not easy to convince people of the aesthetic value of it these days.

Saw it last night and really enjoyed the experience. Very engaging and it didn't feel over-long or drawn-out (which is something I felt very strongly with Silence). Looked fantastic (never a surprise with Rodrigo behind the camera). I particularly loved the look of the daytime exteriors - which felt rather more "lit" than the average daytime exterior these days - I thought it was a lovely, it wasn't obvious and didn't draw your eye to it, but it felt like you could really see everything. There was one scene that I couldn't quite wrap my head around the lighting for though. In the saloon/cafe where Ernest gets arrested. The location had big windows, but the action started so deep in this (really quite dark-walled) room, and then moved right up next to the windows, and the exposure was just perfectly even throughout (with the windows never blowing out). I'd love to know how they did that, I'm sure it can't have been anything as simple as an iris-pull.

Cameras certainly move more now than they used to, with handheld being a far more dominant style than ever before. But tripods are going nowhere, and still form the backbone of most production (outside of perhaps the largest and lowest budget productions).

I've never seen anything like those numbers. I have heard of some scanning-related considerations - something like "you have to scan at 6k to resolve the full 3k". But I don't think I've ever seen S35mm out-resolve 4k.

From all of the tests I saw when the digital transition started happening, S35mm appeared to resolve approximately 3k in horizontal resolution. More than 2k, less than 4k. If I'm remembering correctly, I think most of those comparison tests were generally shot on 200 ASA stocks. So I'm sure you'd probably resolve a little more on low-grain 50 ASA stock, and a little less on 500 ASA. But at 200 ASA, the grain structure stopped revealing any additional detail at about the 3k mark. I think this is part of the reason the Alexa was so effective at replacing celluloid, because you weren't really giving up anything in capture resolution. From my own tests comparing scanned 35mm full-frame film to early DSLR cameras, I found that at 200 ASA, a 12-megapixel digital sensor effectively matched a scanned frame of 135 for resolvable detail. That was the point at which I bought my first digital camera (the Nikon D300). If you run the math, 12-megapixels (approximately 4300 pixels wide) at a full-frame aperture, scales down to approximately 2900 pixels wide at a S35mm aperture. So my tests (on stills stock) would seem to align pretty well with the tests on motion picture stock. Now obviously there are some added elements to all this. You can blow up a S35mm celluloid image, much further than a digital image of equivalent resolution - because the grain structure doesn't break down into nasty individual pixels in the same way as a digital image does. So to compare them in terms of resolution, you really do need to talk about "resolvable detail", and on that front about 3k pixels wide for a S35mm frame does seem to be roughly the point of equivalence between the two.

Thanks David, I'll check them out ?

Just saw this trailer for the restoration of Out of the Blue (1980) directed by Dennis Hopper. Not a film I've heard of before, but I was kind of shocked by how contemporary Marc Champion's cinematography looks. Extremely naturalistic lighting (with soft/invisible/ambient keys), lots of shallow focus lensing (even outdoors) and the liberal use of handheld. It's got me thinking, what were the very first pictures to embrace these contemporary sensibilities that have now become the default?

Hi, how many hours on the body? And what model is the battery plate?

That film was far too awful to pay much attention to the images.

As an ultra low-footprint key, it sounds like a pretty great option. Is there a decent, reasonably painless softbox option for it?

That strikes me as a pretty bonkers concept really. What if you have a really close-focus shot? If you're shooting at a wider aperture, your longer-lens shots will have stupidly shallow DOF. If "consistency" is the goal. Altering your aperture to keep DoF feeling similar between shots (regardless of focal length or subject distance) is going to be a far more effective tool (in my opinion). But Gordie seemed to do just fine for himself (whatever the approach might have been), so what do I know ?

One of the absolute trailblazers of contemporary cinematography. The world just got a stop darker. RIP.

I'd have pegged it for a LongGOP encoding artifact of some kind? What format did you record in?

What do you mean by “decent character”? While all three of those sets have “character” (in terms of optical imperfections), that character mostly amounts to the usual things you see with cheap glass. Their actual rendering can vary a lot between focal lengths, and may or may not suit your tastes. The Xeen 85mm for example, has a really beautiful look, but the Xeen 24mm is just awful. And the wider DZO primes have pretty horrendous distortion (but their longer focal lengths aren’t too objectionable).

I spent January/February shooting a narrative series over in the Middle East, so I can offer a few tidbits (documentary is probably a bit different, and I assume you're bringing your own camera kit, rather than relying on local rentals - but nonetheless, most of these points will probably hold...) WHERE in the middle east you shoot will make a big difference. Richer countries like the Emirates with have photo/video stores that you can source some gear from if needed. But on the whole (and especially in the more remote or poorer middle eastern countries) don't expect to be able to source niche parts or equipment without shipping them over from Europe. Redundancy for cables and battery chargers would be a big thing for me (two dual-battery chargers over a single quad-battery charger for example, and duplicates for ALL of your cables). All the necessary tools/allen keys you need - and NEVER forget to pack them in your check-in luggage (lest they get confiscated from carry-on). Lighting is tricky, because it's impossible to carry grip gear that's as strong as you'd like it to be (the baggage cost is just too high), so make those decisions based around how much you expect to do outdoors vs. indoors, and bring kit that you feel you're going to be able to setup securely enough with the grip gear you can travel with. I actually think something like a 3-head Dedolight kit, with one or two compact stands and a couple of cardelini clamps (to rig the lights when the stands won't suffice) can be a great way to go - you'll just want to factor in some kind of diffusion or bounce material, to soften your key light - lighting umbrellas are the easiest option there.