Mark Kenfield

Hi Guys, This is a bit of a long one I warn you, but I'd really appreciate any advice or suggestions people might have. I've reached a point in my career where I want to focus more purely on lighting and camera, and move away from the various ancillary creative freelancing jobs that have (till now) supplemented my film work. I'm pretty good at what I do now (and perhaps more importantly - I'm good enough) so I want to put together a small lighting and grip package that will allow me to gaffer on projects when I'm not shooting others (and basically just spend more time on sets). Now I am limited by the amount of space I have in the back of my ute (that's a "pickup truck" to my international friends!), but the following package is something I can get away with once I install some custom shelving. In terms of the lighting package my primary goals are speed, precision and control. Any time I can save setting up additional flags/cutters, means more time spent on takes (where it belongs), it's also more efficient - and I like that. Which is why I'm thinking I'd prefer these particular fixtures. The Dedo units offer more control than anything shy of a Leko, so it's easier to get the effects you want with them (having larger 650w units, and a daylight balanced 1.2k HMI version simply extends the scale of what I can do with them - relative to the standard 150w Dedos). I just picked up my first Area 48 Remote Phosphor softlight yesterday after comparing it directly to a Kino Flo Diva 400 (the standard softlight that I'm most confident and familiar with using) and it beats both the light output and colour accuracy of the fluoro unit by a considerable margin (by eye, I'd guess it's got about 1/2-stop more output), and the Area 48 offers the added benefits of being battery operable, lightning fast to switch from daylight to tungsten, and has no colour shift as you dim the unit (so your not having to add +green gels like you often do when you dim a Diva with tungsten tubes - so there's time saved there as well). Now obviously this kit is a fair bit different from the standard small lighting package you get these days - which seem to generally consist of a couple of HMIs, Blondies, Redheads, Tungsten Fresnels, Kino Softlights & a couple of 150w Dedolights. So what I'm most interested to hear, is whether people would actually want to bring in a gaffer with a package like this? I feel pretty confident that I could light everything that I'm used to lighting with a conventional small package, faster and more precisely with this package - but that's irrelevant obviously, if no one wants to hire me with a package they're not familiar with. So what do think guys, is this a solid package? Would you want to work with it? And if not, what would you want to be different and why? This is going to be a substantial investment for me obviously, so any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated! Cheers, Mark (items in bold are the things I don't own yet) Lights: 1x 1.2k HMI PAR 1x 1.2k HMI Dedolight 2x 150w HMI Fresnels (capable of 5600k and 3200k, 650w tungsten equivalents) 2x 650w Halogen Dedolights + dimmers 2x 150w Halogen Dedolights 2x Area 48 Remote Phosphor Softlights (capable of 5600k and 3200k - they're Kino Diva 400 alternatives) 3x Z96 Small LED Panels Grip: 5x 40" C-stands + Grip Heads + Grip Arms 6x standard light stands of various sizes 2x 4'x4' Floppies + assorted blacks 2x Gel/Diffusion Kits 4x Umbrellas (white, gold, silver) 1x 2'x3' Digital Juice Flag Kit (nets, silks, black block etc) 1x 6'x6' Overhead Butterfly (with silk, and ultrabounce) 3x 4'x4' Diffusion Frames (216, 250, 251) 3x Scissor Clamps (for ceiling frames) 2x 2'x3' 4-in-1 Reflector Frames 3x Cardellini Clamps 6x Super Clamps 2x Magic Arms 10x Shotbags Power: 1x 3.5kw Portable Generator

Hi guys, I'd be keen to hear any feedback or suggestions people might have on the new reel I've cut. It's a bit different from most of the cinematography showreels I've seen because it shows sequences rather than montage, so I'm wondering whether people think it works, or whether I'd do better to have a montaged reel that shows shots from a broader range of projects? I figure that for narrative work, the more important aspect is to show that you can shoot cohesive scenes, but it does play very differently to a montage cut to music so I'm a little unsure whether it's a good idea or not. https://vimeo.com/77570224 Password: showreel Any thoughts or suggestions on the cut would be much appreciated. Cheers

Thanks again for the PM Oliver, solved all my problems. Much appreciated.

Hi Guys, I'm editing my first Alexa project in FCPX and for some reason the clips are being displayed in what appears to be rec709 gamma (when they were recorded in Log-C). I want to keep the footage in Log-C so that my eventual export to Resolve for colour grading works properly. But when I try and export the footage at the moment, it's being exported in rec709 and I'm losing a tonne of my highlight detail as a result. Is there some way to switch this automatic rec709 display off? Any help would be much appreciated. Cheers, Mark

Hey guys, I'm planning out some fairly extensive additions to my lighting kit and I'd be keen to hear people's thoughts on the Dedolight 650w units if anyone's used them? I love, and I mean LOVE, the little 150w Dedos. They'll undoubtably be a part of my new kit. But I'm interested to hear how the 650w units compare to a more traditional 650w Fresnel, particularly in terms of spill control and light output (i.e. are the 650w units just the same as the 150w units with 4x the output?). I'm spending extra to build a lighting kit filled with fixtures that are as controllable as possible in order to allow me to set-up, pack-down and light faster. So if the 650w Dedos can save me from having to rig up an extra flag here and there (compared to a fresnel), then that's what I'd want to get. Any thoughts would be much appreciated. Cheers, Mark

Great news! The idea of having to send off 16mm reels to Asia just to get processed did NOT sit well with me. Guess there's no reason to hold back now on scrambling together those off-cuts to shoot another S16mm short!

Just drop down to a 1/2 CTB if that's the case.

Thanks guys, sounds like the way to go is to record LogC, but monitor in Rec709 with faces in pink for false colour. I've been through the literature but am still a little confused on the exposure level for 18% Grey, do you expose it at 38% when recording in LogC or when recording in Rec709?

Hi Guys, I've got my first shoot on the Alexa coming up next week, and as circumstances prevent me from being able to run exposure tests on the camera beforehand, I was wondering about using the camera's false colour feature. We'll be shooting in LogC No-Matrix, and I'm wondering what colour I'd want to see on caucasian skin? Is it pink for properly-exposed Caucasian skin? Or is pink just for the highlights on caucasian skin? Cheers, Mark

I can't really see any way (or reason) that a film's cinematographer could be considered the film's author. The writer certainly. The Director if they leave an indellible personal stamp upon the film as a whole. But not the cinematographer; their role is to create the visual imagery of the story, it's a hugely important role, but it does have singular importance of a project's authorship.

All Nikon f-mount lenses ever made (FX, DX and Pre-X) will cover the F3's sensor without issues. You need an adapter for the F3 which will allow aperture control over 'G' lenses, but apart from that the must-have and most useful lenses in the Nikon range (to my mind at least) are the 17-55m f/2.8 and the 70-200mm f/2.8 - they're fantastic pieces of glass and hugely versatile in terms of the range they cover - to get similar focal-ranges and glass performance from cine-lenses costs a not-so-small fortune. I'd highly recommend the Optitek Nikon Pro-Lock mount for your F3, it's the most functional and fully-featured Nikon adapter you can get for the F3, and although it's considerably more expensive than the alternatives, it more than makes up for it in the added versatility and ease of use it will provide. It has actual markings for aperture values on G-lenses, and it has a positive locking system (like the standard PL mount) to prevent Nikon lenses from moving or rotating on the lens mount - which could easily save you from nailing a take.

It's the march of technology, try as you might you'll never stop it. At the current rate of progress we're seeing, in just another 2 years digital imaging will surpass film capture in every regard, resolution, dynamic range, sensitivity, clarity, colour - the lot. I thought I would be sadder when the time came, but now that it's upon us - I've really just accepted film's demise for what it is, inevitable. And really, once image quality reaches parity between the two mediums (film & digital), is it such a big deal? The change-over from film to digital capture hasn't 1/10 of the impact or significance that the introduction of sound to moving pictures did, or the change from black and white to colour film stocks. The vast majority of films captured on film in the past decade or so have been digitally scanned and run through a digital intermediate post-process anyway. Digital has simply become standard now. The real impact of the digital age lies in the issues of distribution, illegal downloading and dwindling market share for non-blockbuster films. These are the real areas we need to concern ourselves with. It's sad to lose such a lovely, tactile medium as film. But really, the advantages of digital capture offer more opportunities than they strip away. So let's focus on the positives.

The three Sony lenses are now up on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140890467304 Cheers, Mark

2-perf is a natively wide-screen format (it's why its so cost-effective, it's half the size of 4-perf) - so you wouldn't shoot 2-perf with anamorphics because you'd be stretching a frame that's already wide-screen. I loved the film though, terrifically tense stuff.

Price drop to $8299.

Tough, tough question. I can't write these as a definite list, but these ones are all undoubtably 'up there': Films: - Lawrence of Arabia - Children of Men - The Prestige Directors: - David Lean - Alfonso Cuaron - Quentin Tarantino Cinematographers: - Dean Semler - Jeff Cronenweth - Freddie Young

Cheers Phil. One nice point with the cameras, and this is a point I think a few people are missing when they consider the price of the 'body only', is that this isn't the same thing as a Red 'brain only'. You don't HAVE to buy the other standard accessories to get anything working - you can throw one of your existing V-mount batteries on the rear end of the camera, attach your existing Zacuto/SmallHD/Cineroid/Alphatron/etc. EVF to one of the monitoring outputs, and get shooting straight away with nothing more than some SxS media (of one sort or another).

What would you guestimate the weight to be (rigged up with RAW-recorder, battery and EVF Phil? The specs are saying just about 2kg for the body alone, so I was expecting a fairly lightweight setup (compared to Alexa, Epic and F65 at least).

Hi guys, I've got a 4-lens set of PL primes (25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm) that I'm looking to send to a new home. The set's comprised of three T/2.0 Sony PL Primes (35mm, 50mm, 85mm), and a Brand-New Zeiss 25mm CP.2. The Sony lenses were only ever pulled out of the box once for a couple of hours testing inside the studio, so they're in mint condition, just like new. Their construction is mostly plastic but optically I've got to say they're really quite impressive, we found they were only a hair off the performance of our equivalent Zeiss CP.2s, it's a surprisingly close match - they also have a slightly cool, punchy look to them - so they can be intercut with the Zeisses almost seamlessly. The Zeiss 25mm is brand-spanking-new and unused, and was only just pulled out of its box for the first time this afternoon to take the photos for this post. So I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a cleaner set than these. I'm looking for $8500 plus shipping for the four lenses. Also happy to send interested parties samples of the test results from our comparison of the Sonys with their CP.2 equivalents (we were quite surprised by how close the results were). Cheers

They look terrific, everything I love about the Alexa and the Epic squeezed into an elegant, streamlined package (and almost half the weight of the Alexa!). The F55 really does sound like the camera to somewhat halt the cycle of constantly updating and replacing cameras every 1.5-2 years. I've said it once, I'll say it again - it's a bloody exciting time to be making motion pictures for a living.

I made a couple of little films on a VHS handycam when I was about 12 or 13, I had no way to edit anything though, so everything had to be shot in sequence (including the opening and closing credits written on A4 paper), "Indiana Will & the Walk Around the Block" was one of them I think :D Then made some more extensive 15-20 minute films in high school, until my teacher told me I was being too ambitious and I gave up on my school's media department entirely. Instead, from about 14 onwards I spent a lot more time shooting and processing B&W stills in my school's darkroom - our photography teacher let me just do my own thing, playing with different types of processing and even having me take groups of up to 5 other boys into the school's older (and substantially smaller darkroom) and teaching them myself. Those were good times.

Any idea of what the projected image circle is for the 8mm Todd? I wonder which of the S16mm lenses will offer coverage for the BMC.

The 14-blade iris on the CP.2s is certainly a nice improvement over the standard Distagons. However, with wider lenses and ZERO focus adjustments mid-shot - I think the advantages you'd get from going with the CP.2s would be minimal. So given those particular conditions, I'd suggest sticking with the Distagons, and putting the additional budget into more important aspects of the production... like catering :D

I'd say 4K RAW footage would certainly be the pick for that sort of project. However, given you're framing people standing up, you can always turn the F3 on its side and record the full 1920 pixels vertically - which will net you a roughly equivalent resolution to the Red.

I can highly recommend the PIX240 if you have to one-man band it. Feed one or two audio channels into the camera (and have them recorded through the video feed) and then run the remaining (and most important) audio channels into the PIX itself. You'll come out with a single set of ProRes/DNxHD files, with three tracks of sync sound, and a drag and drop archiving and editing workflow. Highly recommended.