Aapo Lettinen

You have to admit that the NeatVideo would be a great idea. Look how polite and respectful the filtered comment sounds on the previous page VS. the original one ?

all comments underexposed and then the shadow detail is lifted up so that you get only the dark tones and lots of noise. We need to see more highlights, I am sure they are there somewhere...

OH WOW this is great, finally I got some scientific results! We can see here that Tyler's attitude has changed 3 FULL STOPS in only couple of years ? First he said that 500T was too grainy. So he wanted to use 200 or 250 ISO stock instead normally exposed. That was good and nice. OK. THEN, he switched back to 500 ISO. AND right away pushed two full stops to 2000 ISO. Sadly, just pushing film does not increase latitude in the same relation than it lifts the middle tones up. So he is underexposing a lot, then lifting if back up in post but just gets lots of unwanted grain and noise and lifts the shadow detail but his tonal range gets shallower. I really need to try NeatVideo on his comments, to see how it goes! I believe it would make wonders and tune the noise levels back to an acceptable level ? OMG it worked great! Maybe we can switch the noise reduction permanently on in this forum?

Learning film history is important, sure. But if wanting to learn anything you need to watch much more than just the American classics and you need to watch films from different cultures and modern times as well. How many African films you have seen for example? Russian ones? Polish movies? Italian ones you surely have seen. Bresson? Loteanu? Danish films for sure but how about the rest of the Europe? Southeastern Asia? Iranian films? India? It is good to watch classic films but it is not enough to concentrate on just them and forget all the rest of the good stuff there is. I think there is lots of unnecessary name dropping and canonising going on in film education as well. There is also the general preposition that the American film classics or American high budget films are good on all aspects. Well, they tend to have relatively good actors and great or incredible production design. But most of them are by my opinion not that great storytelling or are just plain lazy in some aspects. A film can be great in some fields but suck at others. Canonising adds sugarcoating and claims that a classic film is a masterpiece in all fields which it is not.

I think there is lots of problems presented when trying to canonise film classics as references for modern work, especially the very old films and especially if talking old studio films. Well, they had great visual ideas and new angles AT THE TIME they were made but now decades later there is not much you can learn and adapt to current work unless you just want to mimic the look and style of the classics of the golden era. Generally dull acting, most of the stories are boring like on the Citizen Kane one and they don't relate much to modern life. The lighting style and the "new visual storytelling techniques" went obsolete more than 50 years ago. As a period piece or a film history reference it can be interesting but there is not much you can learn from it which you can adapt to modern film work unless you just want to mimic the look and style 1:1. Personally I don't think many films films shot before about 1990 are much useful as references when learning modern lighting styles. They all tend to have this 50's or 60's old style theaterish look to them

Oh snap... I only have the Bolex. Everything else of that is missing ? I think I will just shoot a roll or two with my Konvas, I think my Eastern Bloc winter jacket is here somewhere... though I think that if you want to shoot something with a Konvas camera you must buy one from web without never asking instructions, then make a YouTube video about how you THINK the camera works and should be loaded (total BS content of course and the camera would jam in real life) and then disable comments so that no one can post real instructions how you could get it working. ...unfortunately I am not an uncivilised Youtuber with 20K+ followers who does not want to learn anything new or even do basic internet searches to find out how stuff actually works. So I am really not qualified to shoot with a Konvas camera ? He did a BS video about front projection too among many other things ?

Yes absolutely! Let me just grab my flannel shirt and the nearest RED camera ?

I am just waiting the Shyamalan-like plot twist where both Roger Deakins and Lawrence Sher would join at the same day and would first like to see what this "Dream job, Massive Budget" -thread is all about ?

I counted two with a quick search.... David Mullen and Paul Maibaum posting actively (newer posts than couple of years old). most of the ASC members don't seem to have been very active here in the last 10 years. Maybe visiting sometimes but not posting anything. What happened in the 2010-ish that drew them away from the forum? too much work to concentrate the spare time on internet forums? ?

How many ASC members we actually DO have here regularly posting? David is active of course but I haven't seen Shelly J. post in a long time. Any others?

Sorry if I accidentally opened a can of pixels here. Now they are everywhere, spreading around like worms in a trashcan :(

Yeah we are talking about real film sniffing not those amateur soap operas! Keep those smelly pixels in the can, adding some grains of salt does not make them any better!

This discussion starts to feel like that Man of Steel movie with the main characters pointlessly smashing each others through brick walls for 2 hours

if cleaning with a lens tissue it really needs the fluid to work correctly. Think the fluid as a lubricant which takes of the friction between glass and the fibers so that the tissue can just wipe all the dust to the sides without actually touching the actual glass surface much. Like using oil in a bearing VS. trying to run it without any oil at all. If you want to clean something WITHOUT lens fluid then the only possibility is a brush or a microfibre cloth though I personally don't like them because you can't be certain that they are always perfectly clean because for being more expensive they are used multiple times unlike lens tissue which is single use only. (it would be a bad surprise to clean a 50K+ priced lens with a microfibre cloth only to find that there was some sand dust in the microfibre you did't notice and now there is micro scratches all over the place...

I use almost exclusively a blower bulb for cleaning lenses. that is partially because "compressed air" bottles don't work in very cold temperatures so on half of my shoots they would be totally useless. Always keep a bulb with you and it is best to be one of those silicone ones which are much much better than rubber. If you want a really really reliable very clean REAL AIR source you could use a small scuba tank (like a 40cf or less) with normal scuba regulator and attach an air blower 'gun' to it. It has the disadvantage of having maybe too much pressure, the intermediate pressures of the 1st stages are normally somewhere around 10 bar range which may be quite much for this application. A scuba store could tune down the 1st stage if you want so that it would be at the pressure range you want. I personally mostly use Rosco tissue and fluid for cleaning lenses. About two drops of fluid is normally enough for most lenses. the fluid goes always to the cloth/tissue, NOT on the lens surface where it would just flow to the side and seep between the elements without helping the cleaning process at all

double post sorry

as others said there is a line at the bottom of the mag for correct loop length. If I remember correctly the film needs to be measured by not going over the pressure plate but next to it to get the correct loop length. so it goes from the top channel, passing the pressure plate NEXT TO IT NOT OVER IT and then goes relatively tightly down to the witness mark on the bottom of the mag. maybe this was the problem, was the film going over the pressure plate when measuring? there is also possible to miss the loop length when feeding the measured loop to the takeup side, that's why the perforation needs to be cut on half before starting to load the mag to get it to properly to the sprocket rollers by just gently pushing the film head to the feed or takeup side until the roller catches it correctly. if it still does not work then there might be something wrong with the mag and servicing it might be a good idea? the SR mags should be very easy to load because you can do almost all of it in daylight and they are as simple as possible for a quick change mag. I actually purchased a cheap used SR1 mag years ago just to practice loading them even when I don't own any of those cameras. It was cheap and I got some good parts out of it but otherwise it was not much needed because loading was so easy that it was actually not much needed for practicing at all

Quality can also be one aspect of it. Why the more practical solution should be visually or technically worse option? you would choose the best possible package for the job and that has many aspects to it. Using IMAX camera for shots which would be more practical to make with other cameras is partially an aesthetic choice and partially a marketing gimmick. It's the same with Tangerine style productions or Soderbergh using Red One on the "Che" movies or shooting some other projects with iPhones. People do this with 3D too and did extensively only couple of years ago, the story might have been better told in 2D but they wanted more marketing potential to it so they chose unsuitable technology and style to get more money out of it. It is a business after all. Movies are not high art, they are entertainment for the masses and they have to sell well if you want to make them in the first place. The easy way is to add these "tricks" like IMAX and 3D or over-the-top VFX to sell a mediocre product which would otherwise fail in theaters. That is what most Hollywood films are anyway, people just come to look the incredible production design and their favourite characters and actors (Like every superhero movie out there, all the action films, the Hollywood "dramas", etc.) and the script can be anything they fished out of the sewer in 5 minutes. I don't claim all the Hollywood films are bad but they don't have much to them if you remove the stunning visual elements and well-known actors you like. By my opinion the incredible production design is the only thing most Hollywood films are worth watching for :) yesterday I even watched the After Earth movie which is generally pretty bad flick but most of the production design was great and the main monster was well made as well

why change styles if they can just change to another camera system which better suits their working style and the material they are after? it will make both the job easier and the end result better looking because the camera system suits the project perfectly ? sometimes projects are made to suit a specific camera system, that is called a Camera Test Project and it is sometimes done even on feature films though normally it is a low budget thing where friends scrape some money together to be able to rent an Alexa and some nice anamorphic lenses for one day and then they shoot whatever half-assed script they can make up at short notice so that they can have a woman and a man who have a romantic evening outside and they walk around so that the friends can shoot street lights and some dusk shots and such where there is some people on the foreground. The main purpose is just to show that they can setup an Alexa and focus it properly and maybe get one or two OK looking shots for their reels. Otherwise those projects tend to be pretty much garbage which is not even suitable for vimeography release ? that is what I meant, the project chooses the camera and not the other way around. If you find a better working alternative then you switch to that and there is no reason to always stick to only film or digital origination unless there is some marketing advantage to it

To me this whole "great cinematographers overwhelmed by flawed camera technology" case is very absurd but it is of course very entertaining even at 4AM here with no booze available ?

There is no need for me to do a A/B comparison by myself. they are stupid anyway because cameras are chosen for other reasons than how they look side by side in exactly the same shooting scenario. If you would really shoot that scene in real life production you would tune it to look nice on the particular setup you are using, NOT making an approximate all-around setup which is OK for everything but not good for anything . Those A/B comparisons are mainly made to just justify camera purchases and for entertaining creative people and there is not much other use for them. They are not even much use for comparing noise levels because you are not using all the camera systems on their ideal territory, the scene setup is only made for one system and the other cameras just try to get by without dragging behind too badly. The thing is that you will always optimize the setup for one type of system which is required to standardize first to make the test interesting. Like using the same lenses which are NOT optimal for all the camera systems in that scenario. The whole test procedure is flawed because you are not using the camera systems for work they are best suited for and thus will never get optimal results from more than one of them which, of course, happens to be your favourite camera in the first place because you made the testing conditions and lens choices and lighting setups for it. the thing is, as a cinematographer you need to know how a camera or shooting format or lens approximately looks like in all your upcoming shooting scenarios and what are the operating limits of it, especially the physical limits like size, XYZ dimensions, weight, connectors, monitoring options (especially if using viewfinders whether optical or electronic) , how much time it takes to change setups with it. Also subjective limits like how much noise you can stand which affects both low light capability AND available dynamic range. You will choose the best setup from your options which suits those scenarios. If it happens to be a film camera or digital camera does not matter because you know that you are using the best camera system and workflow for that particular project with those determined shooting scenarios and no other available system would deliver better results if shooting that same project on those exactly same conditions, same schedule, budget, director, sets, lighting, vfx, etc etc. If you would change the camera you would also change how you shoot it, light it, what type of setup times you need, what type of camera moves can be made and how much time it takes now. The camera choice is always more practical than aesthetic no matter what they claim in the making offs (the making offs are not real btw, it is just marketing material made to raise interest) I have a test for you as well ? Next time you shoot a longer project, first do everything normally and pre plan and choose the best camera system and lenses etc. for it and then when actually shooting, do first half of the movie with the system you chose. AFTER THAT, go to the rental house, blindly pick random camera package with random lenses and shoot half of the remaining movie with that and try to adapt to still make the best out of it without changing anything from your pre plans! THEN, go to another rental house and pick camera system and lenses which are not either one of the previously used but now they are ones you have NEVER used before and this remaining quarter of the movie is a test run for them to see how they behave and what you can get out of them! now you can change anything you want from the pre plans to adapt the best way possible. - How it went? Did you get the best possible results all the time? how much changes you had to made because of the changing camera systems?

or using dubstep music in commercials

By my personal experience the lighting and color grade affect skin tones more than most digital cameras themselves. If there is time in grading the skin tones are handled separately anyway if there seems to be a problem with them... Might this be a problem with digital productions as a whole? if the shooting medium dictates lighting and color grade so much that it makes these "flat and dull looking images" but we blame the camera technology for it when it is really more about the different artistic choices which are made in various stages of the production and have been above the (in the end pretty trivial) shooting medium/camera system choices all the time? The formats can be made look as good or bad as you want them to look. You can make film look like crap with lifeless skintones and you can make digital look like crap as well. Sometimes it may be good for the story to have the crappy skintones, maybe they were more into nice looking interiors or cityscapes or explosions and vfx. Maybe the skintones were just not important to them and they concentrated on other thing. They could have make them look good if they wanted, there was just other reasons why they were made look like that. The cameras don't make movies, people do. If you don't like their artistic choices maybe you should look for alternative options rather than trying to claim the poor camera manufacturer because the director and producer and DP wanted to make everyone look like zombies. I don't blame Venice for the look of that new Bad Boys trailer either, someone wanted it to be graded that way because of reasons and on some other production the exactly same camera system and workflow would produce completely different results. It is difficult to hear that someone purposefully made the movie to look bad to tell the story the way THEY liked? Don't pay for it if you don't like it. They will adapt and change if they learn that audience does not like what they are doing. They transferred from 3D to large format and anamorphic again because audiences did not see enough value in 3D to justify it in every production. People are paid to do stuff which audience likes and if the audience loses interest the industry will change and adapt. They don't use much that crappy extremely low contrast and grey "log look" grade on movies or commercials anymore either, it went to the same garbage bin than digital 3D, most VR productions and full-greenscreen virtual set movies ?

yes it varies from country to country and in some countries the copyrights will expire in a specified time but in others they will not. Also the "fair use" can work in some countries but for example in Finland there is no such thing as a "fair use of copyrighted work" and you cannot publish it if you don't have a release or the copyrights are not expired (there is some exceptions if you are doing TV programs or political satire for example but that's about it and you still need to pay even then) on the other hand, we have generally pretty good copyright licensing system here which makes most of the local music easily licensable for most uses because there is national copyright management organizations which represent most of the copyright holders and you can get permission from one or two places and there is fixed prices for most normal uses (not like in some other countries like US where you may need to ask every artist performing on the song and other copyright holders of it separately and pay separately to each and every one... there may be 10 of them or more per single song so it can be an absolute nightmare and any one of them can say no to your use which will ruin everything ) In some cases it may make it easier if you are doing a documentary or similar stuff but you really need to know the local legislation extremely well before using anything. If using the songs only as a background music there is probably tons of alternatives which could be used so it does not matter if someone denies permission to use something...you can as well ask them, would be much easier than trying to do illegal stuff without getting punished ?

general audience does not care what medium the movie or series was shot on unless they have to pay something extra for it... even then they will forget about it after watching the first couple of minutes if the story and characters and themes are interesting. The problem is, most of the films are not as good as they could be so the audience may start to notice the visuals or lazy composing or over the top sound design or bad acting performances and writing at some point (it is like removing all the explosions and car chases and battle scenes from a Michael Bay film, no one would want to watch it anymore no matter what format it is shot on) . then it may benefit a lot to have a bad film which at least looks nice even when it is otherwise horrible. (though it would still need some xplosions to save it in the eyes of the audience ? )