afs242

In regards to whether Kaminski uses his nets in front or behind the lens, I watched Munich in the theater yesterday and saw one instance where the material's weave was obvious for the latter part of the shot. It appeared in a bedroom scene (sorry I can't explain exactly which one as there are many) as the shot began facing toward the door and as the men's action progressed the lens moved to face the windows, creating the typical halation/flares, unfortuntely revealing the material overlaying the scene. This would lead me to believe that for that particular instance he used the net in front of the lens. My wonder is with the high level of filmmaking achieved on this production, why would he or Spielberg allow this shot to remain in the edit. It is one thing when a happy "mistake" occurs, but it felt like this technical giveaway just drew attention to the camera and took away from the drama.

I have attached some pics of CU's I have shot since some have been asking for examples with explanations of lighting (Sorry, I can't figure out how to get them any bigger without taking up to much space). The first is a wide to give you an idea of the room followed by a CU. S16mm shoot on Ilford FP4 Plus. The whole of the room was light by the exterior sun bouncing off a wall next door. Fortunately it was consistent for over 8 hours of the day. The windows are covered with tissue paper (a very cheap, and economical way to create atmosphere and prevent outside image issues) Over each window is a 1K parcan with opal reading 2 stops over to continue the "shaft" of light from the window. At the camera's 7 o'clock is a 1.2K HMI fresnel with a silk in front reading even. This provided a cross light or a fill light depending on the angle of the lens. The intensity was altered depending on which purpose it served. The beauty of this situation was that I had my gaffer light the whole warehouse like this (120'x60' space using only 10 lights) so we could shoot in a full 360 degree direction at any angle the director spontaneously wanted with very little manipulation to the various wides and only a little fill of a 4x2 kino for fill and eyelight on the closeups such as the following pic. As Mr. Mullen and most others will attest, the simplest setups are almost always the way to go. It usually will result in the producer and director rehiring you for economical reasons of time and money.

David, quick question regarding the pic of "When do we eat." You state that the light elements used were 1 4'x4' softbox and a small kino. I may be mistaken but it appears to me as though you had to have used at least 2 softboxes, one for the dining room and one for the living room (I am assuming the softbox was lighting from above). It seems like to big of an area for that size of a softbox to cover as well as expose the camera side of the little girl's face. As well, the shadows in both rooms fall straight down (ie. the table and chairs and the background and the pillow on the left couch in the foreground) I'm not stating this for arguments sake just trying to see the light effect of each photo and this one just wasn't matching up to my understanding

A project coming up is wanting a 2.35 aspect ratio with the desire to print to 35mm. I know that the F900 allows for this framing but it is with the loss of resolution after cropping. If the pro35 adapter is connected and then anamorphic lenses are used the resolution is no longer lost. However, will the difference in the image quality on the print be worth the extra cost of the additional equipment? My desire is to actually use the varicam for speed changes, however, with image quality in mind will it be better to use the F900 or will the difference be negligable? Any additional opinions or thoughts on this matter of using film anamorphic lenses would be appreciated.

I am currently in pre-production for a short which is shooting with a DVX100 or Canon XL2 with the Teknic adapter and Elite anamorphic lenses for the purpose of printing to 35mm. Has anyone had this experience that might have any suggestions or troubleshooting tips? Since we are going to be doing a DI would it make sense to just leave the softening filter (ie. BPM) for the post process or do it in principal photography? Has anyone worked with DuArt or Heavy Light Digital in Manhattan for the digital to film process with any opinions towards their experience? We will be using a steadicam with the intent to capture a German shepard running close to full speed. The location (for you manhattans) is in riverside park, a paved area. The initial idea is to work with a golf cart as the moving vehicle, but my concern is for the operator and his/her ability to safely mount themselves/or the rig to the cart. Any ideas in this arena of steaicam would be great. Any thoughts, ideas, concerns about these situations will be greatly appreciated.