Mark Kenfield

Cheers Satsuki, I'd need to sell the CP.2s to be able to move to a pair of zooms, so matching them isn't a concern. I'm leaning towards the Canons for the same reasons you have I think. Do you have any samples of work online that you've shot with yours?

Thanks guys, Haris, unfortunately those are all way outside of my price range, two $20k lenses is where I top out (which is why the range of the Canons is extra appealing). A lens change is generally 1-2 minutes depending on how much crap is hanging off the camera, but it's not just lens changes, it's being able to fine-tune framing without constantly having to move the tripod/slider/jib around. Anything that gives me more time to light and acquire additional coverage is a big deal for me.

Hi Guys, I'm strongly considering moving from a set of CP.2 primes to a pair of compact zooms to speed things up on set (I'm generally shooting single-camera narrative, with a bit of commercial work here and there), and I was wondering if people could share their thoughts on the options out there at the moment. We seem a little spoilt for choice with 'affordable' compact zooms at the moment, there's: - Angenieux DPs 16-42mm and 30-80mm - Zeiss Compact Zooms 15-30mm, 28-80mm and 70-200mm - Arri Alluras 15-45mm and 30-80mm - Canon CN-Es 15.5-47mm and 30-105mm Each seems to have their pros and cons: - The Angies are lovely, but top out at 80mm. - The Zeisses cover vistavision, but 15-30mm is a bit limited and would require more frequent lens changes than other options, and as nice as having 28-200mm covered in just two lenses would be, I think I'd feel limited on the (28mm) wide end at times with that combo. - The Alluras seem nice, but a little clean/uninspiring optically for my tastes - The Canons cover the most appealing focal range of the lot, but their combination of warmth and high contrast seems like it would be hard to match with a set of conventional cine primes.

I think the industry is going to continue with its current trend of decentralisation. But demand for content keeps rising and the number of people wanting to create (I'll reserve the word 'produce' for actual Producers who appreciate what that word actually entails!) content keeps rising - so I actually think it's a pretty healthy time for production. A great many of the barriers to entry have now fallen by the wayside, which means people have opportunities to work on things that they'd never have got in the past. At any rate, complaining about it won't change the trend - so best to embrace it and make the best of it I think.

My personal preference is always to test a camera thoroughly in terms of over and underexposure latitude before using it on a production. I like to have a really clear idea of what's going to happen to actors' faces at 1-stop, 2-stops, 3-stops and 4-stops both under and overexposure once the log image is graded back to normality with an s-curve applied to contrast. You can then expose the camera confidently. Knowing, (depending on the camera) that 1-stop under will be a little dim, 2-stops under will be dark but with good detail, 3-stops under will be extremely dark with just a tiny amount of detail, and 4-stops under will be virtually black. Knowing these limits for the camera you're using lets you keep noise under control (because you know your baseline), and allows you to expose for precisely the amount of detail you want to be seen in the final shot. It also lets you know how much you need to 'light the shadows' in order to maintain shadow detail. As a general safety rule. I find that 2-stops under (on faces) is a happy medium for dark/low-key scenes. It gives you dark images with plenty of detail, and can easily be crushed down darker if you need.

I'm always at a bit of a loss as to why on set stills people so rarely ask me what my exposure settings are. So I often go out of my way to tell them the settings to use (adjusting the aperture to compensate for a 100/sec photo-friendly shutter). Even more oddly, I find I often have to tell them where to put their cameras in order to catch the light we've just spent 30-45 minutes setting up (surprise surprise - it's on the same angle as our motion camera). It's one of the reliefs of shooting 4K these days IMO - you know that the producer will be able to pull useful stills from the motion images for marketing.

Hi Aidan, the video won't play. Says it's 'private'.

That is exceptionally dark. Beyond the point-of-no-return dark. Personally, for similarly dark setups I prefer to use a bit of fill bounced off the ceiling, floor or a distant wall to lift the shadows on actors faces up to at least 4-5 stops below key, so that when the image is crushed down on the grade, you have to option of retaining some minute amount of shadow detail on their faces if you choose (when you're that far under, crushing them down to a complete silhouette is always an option if you want to).

Personally, I find that kind of film snobbery patently ridiculous. Beautiful images are beautiful images, and stories are stories and I don't think it matters a rat's arse the medium they're captured on, only the impact they have. With the quality of digital cinema cameras these days, there are so many aspects that matter more to the impact of a film (story, actors, soundtrack, production design) than the specific shooting medium used, that I really find the debate kind of silly now. Film was and is wonderful, but the paradigm is primarily digital now, and you know what? ...as terrifying as that prospect was initially, now that it's arrived it's really not that big of a deal.

Yeah, S5s are crappy and inappropriate for modern day shooting. If you ask me owners should salvage what little they can from the glass and sell it off at firesale prices... ...please.

Someone on here recently pointed me in the direction of 'Living in Oblivion' which is delightful. Some of the portrayals in it are a little cartoonish (the DoP in particular!), but Steve Buscemi puts in a note-perfect take on the craft of Directing. Highly recommended.

I haven't used Premiere much. But I've done plenty of in-NLE colour correction over the years, and in my experience - taking your footage into Resolve yields MASSIVELY better results. You just have much greater control over the finer points of the grade, and that seems to make a big difference to the end result from what I've seen.

Granted we're all well off topic now, but I have a bit of a hunch that the specific gender inequality in camera departments is going to improve quite rapidly over the next 5-10 years. The majority of my ACs (and my go-to people in particular) are women these days. Most of the sets I'm working on have a very even spread of men/women. And I'm having more and more frequent conversations with girls who are expressing interest in cameras, blocking, colour, movement, composition and their respective impacts on mood and storytelling. Lighting still doesn't seem to get much love or interest from the ladies, but camera certainly seems to be. I think we're in for a bit of boom of female cinematographic talent in the coming years.

If you do have issues with a green spike from the stadium lights, consider adding green to your 'movie' lights to match them - that way you can time out the green in grading pretty easily.

Great breakdown, thanks Matt!

I hope they find some way to wrangle a Primo 70 mount onto the new Alexa 65 - methinks that'd be a match made in cinematic heaven.

Well done Jared, I think most of that came up a treat. The dappled light across faces worked particularly well. The main suggestion I'd make would be to look out for shadow positioning when you have actors facing each other. At several points you have the backlight on one character casting a strong shadow across the face of the other whilst they're talking - in those situations I'd strongly suggest altering your blocking to keep those shadows off the character the camera's capturing (or adjust your lighting to compensate).

That's extremely generous Frederick, thank you.

If commercials are where your income comes from, I'd opt for whichever one is more popular in your area Red or Arri. With the Dragon sensor, Red has taken a big step forward IQ-wise in my opinion. But I'd probably lean towards the Amira personally - just seems like the nicest camera currently on the market to shoot with (when raw isn't a necessity at least).

Well it's possible that I'm an exception to that particular rule, but it certainly hasn't been my experience. As a younger fella whose career in this silliest of businesses has finally been taking off in the past 12 months; my experience of the situation has been that the jobs I've landed have skewed entirely towards what I can achieve visually. And I can say that with some confidence as I doubt even my worst enemy would accuse me of sycophancy, and I'm constantly told how bad my taste in shoes is. Certainly, word of mouth has also been good to me, and it's brought a lot of work in too. But cold calls, chance meetings and my showreel have been netting me the bulk of my work. So I don't agree that being 'cool' or overly ingratiating are the answer. Personality is obviously a key factor too. But that's always the case for any and every industry ever.

Huh? This thing has a S35mm sensor, 2000 ISO base sensitivity, 14-stops of DR, does up to 60fps in 4K, 180fps in 2K, a sensible form factor, powerful and affordable media (XQD cards), the ability to mount just about any lens ever made to it, and can quite affordably be expanded to offer both ProRes recording internally and raw recording via an external recorder... and it does it all for just $8000. What other camera on the market comes even close to that feature-set/price ratio? Sony have certainly had their share of snafus over the years, but I really can't see how anyone would think this camera doesn't offer an incredible value proposition.

I was reading up on the production just the other week, apparently Dougie Slocombe lit the whole damned thing to a T/8-T/11(!) - so I'd expect it to be pretty sharp!

Given how dingy the basement looks, I think you could quite easily get away with something like tungsten work lights as believable practical sources. They give you a tonne of output to work with and you can place them wherever you like to create mood and depth.

That's certainly looking much better Stephen. I'd suggest trying framing up from a lower angle; that will bring the top of the piano more in line with the top of the actor's head (which will cover up more of the whiteness to left of frame). You could then perhaps place the dimmed lamp on a lower table behind the keys, which will give you a bit more contrast and separation between the actor and the piano (it'll light up the music sheets more and give a stronger edge to the actor's features. I'd also try backing the Dedo into the far right-hand corner of the room to give the back of your actor an edge light from that direction, it'll give you more separation between them and the blinds behind.

It's been a while since I last shot S16mm, but I quite liked setting my DSLR for 500 ISO, 1/50 and f/1.4 and seeing what it got me. It's a nice way to confirm the spot readings I was getting from my meter.