Vincent Sweeney

http://pstechnik.de/ps-cam-x35/index.php Anyone else going to CineGear?

I can't find any info on that yet. There is suppose to be an IMAX only sister film to this called Voyage of Time but there isnt much out there about that either. Hopefully Fox will announce something very soon. This/these film(s) will be a cinema benchmark.

Since the other thread on here was about the trailer, I thought a new one was appropriate. Also since the film releases soon and Im sure there will be a lot of cinematography awards/nominations a thread might benefit from a fresh start. This is an interview with Lubezski that everyone will likely be interested in. It proves my own guesses about them shooting IMAX and R65mm. Some fascinating comments in this from one of the best alive. http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Publications/In_Camera/Web_Exclusives/index.htm

Thanks. It's not my favorite genre either but the shooting of horror material is rarely boring (nudity, gore FX, odd locations) and this one has a certain tongue-in-cheek humor running under it, partially due to the lack of budget! There are some funny little "mistakes" here and there that we let go. For example, you can see the price tag on the lamp above. We were given a model home to shoot these scenes in. It was already dressed for us and we didn't or couldn't change a thing. Another example are the cop characters in the film (like the original), if you look closer on a bigger screen you may notice the badges are actually "Loss Prevention" badges due to wardrobe budget issues! Correcting the info for that living room shot: those may have been 60w bulbs instead. I was also using a 1/2 Classic Soft filter for much of the daylight and interior shots. I agree on the 16mm but until the labs realize that prices need to drop 50% on scanning, cameras like the F3 will continue to gain. Most of this shoot is being done in "survival mode" at this point and the camera is usually on sticks. We gave up some of the jib and dolly plans due to crew/time. We will arrive at a location that was often just secured that morning and figure out where to set a major scene within minutes, sometimes due to where light already exists! If light is needed, the PA will move the 3K genny far enough away so as not to screw up the sound or we may get lucky and find an outlet. Marcos, my AC, is often dealing with a T2 while I am pushing the limits with low/available light. Sometimes I am able to push the gain up enough so we can be at a T4 or at least 2.8. The noise at 1600 iso isnt that bad but the blacks do show it. It appears more like film grain though, instead of that typical video noise. This is indie movie making at it's most basic. In this frame-grab our stunt man, J. Sullivan (who has done major stunts on films like Pirates, Iron Man and Fast/Furious, etc) is made up as a zombie and is chasing one of many victims in the film. This was lit with one bare 1.2 HMI way off in the distance and shot with a narrower shutter to reduce motion blur since I knew it would be a freeze-frame shot later in the edit. I was surprised at how the F3 picked up the light you see on the grass/porch that was solely coming from the flames around his legs. I believe this was done at 800 as well at a T2.8/4 on our usual 35mm Zeiss. (I think 90% of this movie is shot on the 35mm.) I was trying to stay near a 4 to keep the fire from overexposing too much. Digital just doesn't deal well with fire at night, although this had more yellow in it than I was expecting. This guy had some tongue problems. Shot with available light in a downtown area. I was trying to color balance for the very odd looking mercury light that this shot was lit by which turned the sodium in the background into an interesting shade of pink, or whatever color that looks like on your monitor.

100w bulbs in the lamps with a dimmed Mole Biax keyed on the couple. We ended up really making use of the very low light capabilities of the F3 about 70% of the time. This was shot at 800 at a T2-2.8

With actual usable cameras like the AF100 and on the higher end, the Sony F3, the DSLR craze for video has little momentum these days.

The question here is why would you bother shooting R16 at all? For a feature, you'd want to use a modern, practical, reliable 16mm camera so just rent a Prod or SR3 and go for it on S16. The prices now are extremely good.

Lubezki could be in the running, or Toll?

Citizens fighting back. That's Brian Krause (Sleepwalkers) in the middle. This was all done with what lighting existed in the little, rural store we were given permission to film in. It was mostly a mix of old florescent tubes. We had no time/resources to change much and didn't want to disturb their store so I went with what we had, which happens quite often. The F3 deals with this kind of thing very well. 35mm SSpeed, usually at a 2.8 or 4. Camera was on a Cinesaddle on an apple-box to give a lower than usual perspective because "something short" had just run by, causing our team to quickly turn around.

A close-up of someone dead, waking up on a city street. 800iso, T2, 35mm SS Zeiss. Open HMI 40 feet away with light bounce from a drug store foam board. I find the differences in these posted frame-grabs on my Mac, as compared to my PC laptop, fairly frustrating. These same .jpg's on the Mac look so much better. On PC's, it's as if they have an ND .3 laying over them, as well as having a more compressed color range overall.

Shooting for 20 days now with an F3 (that I now own). Its looking good even without the S-log. I will post some grabs sometime soon in the production section.

Crap. I may have a KiPro mini for sale shortly. I wonder what the price is and what the wattage draw is.

For anyone curious, this is the set-up. (I switched to a TV Logic monitor.) The small built-in camera monitor makes life for the AC a lot easier. The focus-assist Sony built in has really come in handy. The KiPro we were using had some major glitches a few nights ago but AJA was super helpful in getting a new one over-nighted to me. The new one was flawless last night after 98 takes. Playback is very nice with the KiPro as it's very easy to move through clips and pause, go frame by frame and back and forth, all with a few tape-deck style buttons. I'm using two 32gb Extreme Pro Sandisk cards which are among the very few approved for use by AJA. This gives you around an hour for regular 1080 prores 422. Im using a Series7 battery (95wh) to power the KiPro and the camera when we go into a tight spot or handheld. Otherwise it is powering the KiPro only, which pulls about 15 watts. I modified a DieHard "12v power unit" with an XLR socket soldered into it to power the camera for much of the day. It has a 144wh battery in it and cost about $55 total.

Phil, you need to go to 5K to see any benefits from that far away. ;) Of course since the new Sony has an 8K sensor, it'll still be fine when the upgrades to theater screens comes and 70ft. heights are the new standard.

Avoid yet another SLR (esp. the 5D) short like it's a virus. 16mm has a look all it's own and I might use it because it is not 35mm, and not anything else as well. Rent an F3 if you must go digital. Im using one now on a 35 day shoot and actually not minding it.

Thanks Jonathan, I saw the same thing when testing the KiPro out and have been sure to keep those settings off. We are several days in now and I am very happy with the F3 so far. There have been a few shots that would have been very hard to do with most other cameras. I went to "1600 iso" more than a few times so far which really saved me. There is a little noise in the blacks at that point but its very acceptable to me; it appears a lot more like film grain rather than the typical noise I have seen in the past digital cameras. As long as the shot has some decent contrast, I feel good with that iso when needed. We finally did some int. day shots two days ago and the DR is very nice. We have about 12 stops or maybe more and I'm using Cine 1 or 2 in the gamma menu mostly. I made two custom profiles for the film but have only used one of them so far. The other profile was set up to saturate color more, cool it off and increase contrast for certain shots that need a different look for some montage and credit sequence shots. My main profile has the color matrix option turned off. You can push the white balance either way automatically after setting it to your lighting so I set it to warm the shots over normal white-balance a tad, overall. Working with a lighting package that would almost fit into most car trunks (along with the lighting crew) is making for some interesting challenges. Anything at night has been done with a 1.2 HMI (some off-brand model I have never seen with a crappy reflector and spotty lenses) and a 150w bulb from LOWES, or street lights! Having a very sensitive camera with Superspeeds has become a necessity to say the least. I'll post more soon, on a day off. Tonight will go till 6am likely.

A growing number of horror/sci-fi fans are expressing their views, sometimes loudly, as to whether or not doing a remake of a film made famous because it is "so bad, it's good", is a good idea or not, but like usual in independent film opinions are often ignored and things get done regardless. So with encouragement from one of the original actors of the 1959 classic film, along with lots of free help, state/regional film office support and enough budget to cover basics, two years of stagnation was suddenly dissolved and the production wheel was set in motion. Not so much a "Dogme 95" doctrine but more one based on the reality of the current indie film market, this title is facing some of the same conditions that must have fallen on the first one, which has caused us to loosely self-impose some rules which should help get it done "no matter what". Entering into this with a clear idea as to what will not be available is important so some general rules are helpful to everyone involved and should speed up communication and douse some frustrations. These guidelines aren't concrete but do involve such things as using what light is available whenever possible, composing to hide set faults, using very little lighting and support so the small crew can move efficiently; the usual things you would expect but more often with smaller films that this and by small I mean in concept or scope as this one has a lot of set-ups, actors and locations. The only surprise might be that very little is to be hand-held. Camera woes: This was to be shot on film, even the investment trailer was on S35mm. As budget and crew size realities set in the idea was to explore options no matter how unconventional, while keeping in mind that we'd likely go to S16mm, which was my first choice all along given the material. I personally spent many nights until 4am doing research into the possibility of changing the whole look and shooting style by using the Super 8mm system. After exploring just about every camera/processing/scanning price and possibility, I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't right for this one, mostly given the reliability and functionality issues with the 8mm camera options. (One surprise was that the pricing difference of 16mm vs. 8mm wasn't large) Also, the effect on distribution possibilities by what your technical choices are must be considered. This led me further away from a format that I love for so many other reasons. As time went on and more was put into narrowing down the best possible deals on 16mm, a budget comparison had to be made to what many might see as a comparable digital option. Sony's new one: When the usual suspects (as of April 2011) were looked into, an average savings of $10k over 16mm was too much to ignore for a film of this kind so, to make this short, the Sony F3 was chosen after all options were laid out and considered including red's stuff, SI2K, AF100, the SLR's, F900, etc. Ease of use, low-light abilities, quality of image, price, lens options, DoF control, post issues, reliability and support was why it easily won us over. My only concern was with the on-board codec which will certainly work for many applications, and is proven with the EX line, but for a feature that will surely rely on color grading at times and will have a few FX shots, I wouldn't settle for anything less than 10bit 422. Some product releases occur at the best moment: The AJA KiPro mini was just released which will allow us to record straight out to 10bit 422 ProRes. The fact that the F3 offers this out of the box, from its HD-SDI output, makes this a perfect marriage. We have two 32gb sandisk cards, which are one of the few approved by AJA, that will handle around an hour of recording. Battery power is of some concern but with the KiPro and the F3 on, we are only looking at about 35 (40 max) watts total. I have some on-board aftermarket 95wh Series7 batteries with a power tap that will keep things running for more mobile occasions and a small block battery when needed. I'm building a couple of custom cables to make power work and to hook into the 6watt monitor if its own battery goes out. I'm still looking for the best deal on a set of older Zeiss primes to finish the package out. Exhausted. A lot of relief is now felt after deciding on a camera system. So many 4am bed-times have gone by trying to find a way to make all of this work efficiently. Some of this relief also comes from deciding to embrace the digital option differences. The F3 makes this even easier. It doesn't fall apart or look anything like SLR footage (which is something I have grown to really dislike) and doesn't have that overly "digital look" that some do. Having a perfect sized, metal-bodied camera with a little weight and lots of usable features like 8 user-programmable buttons, lots of 1/4 20 mounts, is a good thing too. The F3 does something a little different than the rest and this tool fits this film well, now, finally. Keeping in mind the crew size and issues mentioned, and the fact that we don't want to do lots of hand-held zombie shots like is seen so often these days, we are going to use an updated Vancejib for several of our set-ups. It's very compact and light but will support a loaded camera well in tight spots. Cineventions, who makes the Vancejib, is going to release a new product called the "Zoomcrane" at NAB and we may get to test it out in the middle of production as well. The idea behind using a small jib much of the time is to keep the camera moving, even if very slightly in many shots, along with a compact dolly. In keeping things small and mobile, the new-to-me and impressive "smallhd DP6" monitor is the main on-board reference. The camera's monitor is too small but I have to say, the focus/edge enhancement Sony built in is really nice in some situations. You can color it red, blue, yellow or white and with a little practice, you can grab focus in an emergency yourself. The smallhd monitor will update itself via a usb drive so we should have that done before shooting starts. The new firmware release is correcting a yellowish tint lean that it has, and is adding some frame-guide options to an already impressive feature list. Matching it's look before-hand via a high quality monitor will help in nailing down what we are recording in the field. As far as the fairly deep F3 menu settings go, I am still testing/learning. This is little info out there to help someone understand it all. (When will Abel offer a class!?) What is obvious though is that using one of the Cine (1-4) settings under gamma options looks good as a first step. These Cine settings are what Sony people refer to as "hypergamma" apparently. A poor-man's version of their S-log, I was told. The F3 has an S-log update coming but we won't have it in time. It's no secret that I am not overly technical so I will end up using what we like most after testing and trying out some basic grading extremes, while closely watching the effect on overexposed (or close) skin and makeup/blood FX. Some of what you prepare for goes out the window in a flash, especially on this kind of film. That's part of the excitement though, I hear. In a rush, as long as we keep the blacks where they need to be and balance colors appropriately, we will be fine for grading. More will follow over the next month or so. I'll post some grabs from testing if wanted. I don't know what might be of interest to people here, technically, so I will post what I can and more if asked (if I can).

To follow up: Markertek came through with a custom one for $32

Well S**t, shooting for 32 days instead. Can you post a followup afterward? (or email me!)

Wow, that's a privilege! I assume you read that he came out of retirement for The Tree of Life recently. That's sure to be another milestone in cinema. I enjoyed his own film "Silent Running"; one of the best sci-fi endings ever.

Still may happen... its been an insane time crunch. Testing so far shows no issues at all.

Thanks Phil. The cable in this case is 1.5ft. long. I would think that if there were any loss or issue the KiPro would warn me. I will give them a call to check as well. This is the (75ohm) connector I am using: http://www.filmtools.com/bncelbow.html

Anyone out there have an opinion on whether or not its ok to use a 90 degree BNC adapter on a short, on-camera HD-SDI cable that is recording out from camera? I need to use one to make cable routing more comfortable on the camera. It seems obviously ok to me but I'd like to make sure there isn't some odd little factor that I am not figuring in here. It's a critical connection so of course I want to make sure I'm not introducing some possible problem by using one.

Some of you are bound to be interested in this one. Comes out 5/31/11 http://www.wbshop.com/Stanley-Kubrick-Limited-Edition-Collection-9Films-10Discs-BD/1000175414,default,pd.html?cgid=

Going into (short/rushed) prepro on a feature now. Guess what camera was decided on after considering almost everything? Hopefully I will be able to write up some sort of basic production report. I'll post it in the "in production" section and share what I can over the next two months. Initially all I can say is that this may very well outperform everything else practically available right now, in terms of low-light ability/price/ease of use.