Alexander Disenhof

If shooting digital, I sometimes like to set my white balance to 4300 when shooting in mixed lighting conditions. That way the daylight goes cooler and the tungsten naturally goes warmer in camera. I also have a few custom LUTS that push tungsten towards a golden yellow. There are many ways to achieve this look, those are just two options!

Hi all, I've decided to sell my beautiful set of Zeiss Superspeeds 18mm is a m2, 25, 35, 50, and 85mm are all m3. They have been recently recoated and overhauled by Stuart at Focus Optics here in LA.

I've shot many, many projects with them, including THE EXORCIST (FOX), CAPTIVE STATE (FOCUS FEATURES) and CITY ON A HILL (SHOWTIME). The only reason I'm selling is that I'll be on several loooong narrative projects these next two years and won't be using them. I'd love to find them a good home!

Please serious inquiries only.

Another thing to remember is that it’s easier to add an eye light without destroying your contrast if you light using higher light levels. For example, if your key light is only 6 footcandles, adding any kind of fill to get an eye light will inevitably effect the contrast more than if your key is at 25 footcandles. Let’s say you need 3 footcandles out of your chosen eye-light source to be able to see it in the eye. That means you’ve made your low-lit scene key/fill ratio 2:1. That said, because an eye light is essentially a reflection, even if you stop down to expose for a scene that’s lit with 25 footcandles (two stops brighter than 6 footcandles), it’s unlikely that you will also need to bring your eye light up two stops to see the reflection. Even if you bring your eye light up a full stop to see it in the eye, your ratio is still 4:1. This means you can maintain a more contrasty ratio while maintaining the eye light.

David is right in saying that you should compare blu-ray to blu-ray. That said, with the Alexa I very rarely put my highlights at 100%. I find to get the mood I'm looking for I often put my highlights around 70%.

Hi Stephen, I know this is an old post, but I'm curious which Blue/Gray filters you used in that first early morning scene in the trench? Looks great!

Very true. Just wondered if they had a digital equivalent buried in the camera somewhere!

Thanks David!

Alex

I'm looking to create vertically smeared highlights that occur when you put the shutter in a film camera slightly out of phase with the film movement. The effect is seen in movies like The Limey and Saving Private Ryan. Anyone know if you can do something comparable to this on the original Alexa, with it's electronic shutter?

Thanks!

Alex Disenhof

Sounds like you need to talk to your VFX supervisor. Will the ghost be fully CG? Do you want the ghost to give off any light? If so I'd maybe float a dimmed down jemball/china ball or something similar then let the VFX guys track and replace it with the digital ghost.

Alex Disenhof

www.alexdisenhof.com

anyone??

Hey all, this could fit in several different topic forums, so I'll post it here...

I'm shooting a commercial next week, and was just contacted by the director that he wants to "degrade" the 5K Epic footage in camera to make it feel rougher and less sharp, almost like 16mm film. Now, you ask, why don't we just shoot 16mm film? There are several reasons, some involving specialty body mounted camera rigs we are using, overcranking issues, and VFX to be done in post. So lets just assume the Epic is the way I must go.

I'm thinking lenses and filters will be my main tool to achieve the desired effect, but I also have some caveats on that end:

the filters must be available as screw ons - we need the camera to be as lightweight as possible and so a mattebox wont do.

The lenses must be relatively fast - we are shooting day into night using available light in an urban environment at night.

the lenses must be lightweight - for the same reasons we need screw on filters.

Lastly, during the day we need to be able to stop down a fair amount, as the shots call for a great amount of DOF. So finding old lenses (like the Super Baltars) and opening them up all the way to get flares and softness isn't really an option.

Any ideas? The director wants flares too, which would help degrade our images, but of course if we have to stop down our lens we are working against that idea....

Maybe I shoot at a high ISO and throw a ton of screw on ND's in front of it?

Put vaseline on an optical flat?

Any lenses that people love that could fit this job?

Thanks all!

Alex Disenhof

DP

www.alexdisenhof.com

There's a few things you could do - of course it all depends on the position of the sun. If the sun is a little lower in the sky, you could position the actors perpendicular to it and then shoot the over their shoulders on the far side, creating a nice far side key for both. You should be able to diffuse the light as well if needed, as you aren't looking towards the sun and thus wont see any stands or flags. If the sun is further overhead and you can't reschedule the scene, you could use a large diffusion and fly it directly overhead, diffusing the light on both actors. Then you could use mirrors, bounce, or lights to get light onto their faces in whatever direction you like.

All of this said, the feel of your photography should fit the scene that you are shooting. There are plenty of great looking scenes out there with a frontally lit actor conversing with a backlit one. Phedon Papamichael, ASC actually said recently that "you'll never see me do two people opposite each other, both backlit" (AC 1/2012). There is a certain naturalism to it that can work well.

Alex

Another example:

Hi all,

Just curious to all out there who have done a lot of beauty and fashion stuff, what are your favorite methods of getting that flared, washed out image that you see so often in beauty work? Obviously the lenses you choose matter, but what kind of lighting tricks do people use? Has anyone used a flashlight right next to the mattebox?

See this image for reference:

Hi David, beautiful work. Truly an inspiration.

Hey everyone.

I'm shooting a music video soon where a guy transforms into a werewolf and the director sent me this image, saying that he would love to achieve something like this. This image is obviously heavily manipulated in post, but I'm trying to get something close to it with VERY limited resources. We are shooting in a wooded area near a house at either dusk or night, and I have to work with only lights that I can power off 20amp circuits (we'll have house power plus maybe 1 or 2 6500w putt putt generators. Shooting RED, probably at around 3200K or 4000K. I'm thinking using lots of haze, backlighting him with something like a 1.2K with 1/2CTO high up and letting the light spill onto the haze behind him. The taking two more 1.2K up high on either side, backlighting the trees on the left and right, but with no CTO so they stay cooler. Let the haze fill in the shadows a little bit, then do some vignetting of the image in post to augment the falloff.

Either that or maybe bouncing light into a 12x ultrabounce overhead behind the actor to get a soft pool on the trees and the haze, leaving him in silhouette.

What do people think? Any ideas? I'm looking for some inspiration.

Alex

Wow, looks great. What lights did you use for these shots? Did you have something in the water as well bouncing back up under her chin? Also, did you use any filtration, or is that blooming effect around the highlights just from the light hitting the water particles?

Very impressive, 120fps as 5K is a big step forward for them.

Alex

Hi David, the film looks beautiful. I especially love the look of the night shot, and how you utilized the (I assume?) existing streetlights outside. What ISO did you shoot this shot on? And what source did you have in the room to get that toppy edge light on him? Did you correct with a gel to match the lamps outside? It looks great, I love the shape of the light on his face.

Alex

Hi Christopher,

Even with an overcast day, 3 2ks gelled with CTB will give you very little output compared to your sunlight, so I doubt they will be very useful. If you want to put a light to the left of frame on an overcast day, I would get a larger HMI source (6Kpar, 12K, or 18K) and back it up and put it though a large diffusion frame. That way you can achieve a nice soft light that creates contrast on your actors. It will also have more spread, which is necessary for a scene that you are playing wide like this. Maxibrutes through CTB would be a cheaper way to do it too, and you could most likely get the output you'd need from these as well.

If you don't have the means for these lights, try larger solid frames for negative fill, and large bounces (although, depending on how overcast it is, may not do anything at all) to create contrast. Also (and this goes for any way you end up lighting this) try to time your shots to when the light is the most ideal! You may find that you don't need to light it at all until you go in for close ups!

Alex D.

I'll repost an entry I did in the Professionals Forum:

 

It's good that you have the informed view that an agent would legitimize you, but not really give you much work. This is certainly true - anyone who expects agents to sit on a pile of work that they then dole out accordingly to new signees is in for a rude awakening. After I signed with my first agent, it took years before a job came solely though them - it was all my own work in the beginning. Obviously, as you get more experienced and have more stuff on the reel that people have seen (this is way more important than if it's shot well), the task of selling you becomes easier. Now, most of my work is through my agent.

 

It's important to try to see yourself from an agents point of view: they're in this business to sell talent. Just like a car salesman, they will want to sell cars that people want, not try to flog some impossible import than no one has heard of. They're work goes up exponentially with an unknown, and the monetary rewards are non-existent (for a new DP). So why have to work 100 times harder for something, when you could just sell BMW's?

 

If I may share some of my experiences: Agents are just like you and me, human beings (although some might argue this). And if you're not available, out of sight, get bad feedback from clients, naggy, not someone they like, then you're name is not going to pop into their mouth when that odd client calls looking to work with someone new. I have had a US agent for 3 years now, but since I chose to base myself mainly in England for the first years, not much came through the US. The odd job here and then, but nothing sustainable. When I decided to move here, it was like the floodgates opened. All of a sudden they really sold me. Now the reverse is happening in the UK (where I'm well established) - now that I'm in LA all the time, they don't really sell that hard, even though they say they do. So out of sight, out of mind. And you can only really serve one market at a time - even though you could physically cover the whole world on short notice, the reality is that all business is local in a way. I don't know where you live, but if it's too far away from wherever they're main business is, then that will be a problem even if you have an agent.

 

I always paraphrase a Swedish popstar in regards to agents: "When you can finally afford to buy your own drinks, that's when they're all free". That's exactly how it is. When you don't need them to sell you anymore, that's when they finally can do so.

 

An agent will find you one day, until then enjoy not having one!

Adam, thank you so much for your honest and thorough answer. I'm dealing with some decisions about whether to get an agent or not here in LA and your answer was illuminating and very helpful for me. Thanks

Alex

Great, thank you both for your feedback. I'll get my hands on some of that Cyan 30 gel, and also go to my local home depot and buy some cool white tubes and see what works best.

I've attached a photo with a particular color cast that I'm trying to emulate. I'm curious if you guys think this cyan coloring was done in post or with gelling the soft overhead/side source, or if its something of both. If done in camera, does anyone know of some good gels that push towards cyan? (I know Rosco's "Peacock" gel can get a pretty strong effect, anyone know of something more subtle?) I'm trying to achieve this look and I'm on the fence about doing it in the color correction or trying to do as much in camera as possible. In camera would be preferable but I'll do whichever one achieves the desired look more effectively.

Alex

Thank you Adam for your informative reply.

Alex

It really is a matter of what you are shooting but I feel that in most situations you should shoot with Neutral or better yet a preset called "Superflat".

 

I like to shoot "Superflat" and then color correct the image in post to get the most dynamic range out of the camera.

 

Here is a link that demos the setting and includes a link to download the file. http://vimeo.com/7256322.

In my experience shooting in Neutral yields much better colors than the superflat preset. Superflat tends to "grey out" many colors, and they can't be brought back properly in post color correction. You can actually see this quite clearly in Tyler's Vimeo post.

After shooting with these cameras since their inception, I've settled on usually shooting at the Neutral setting with the sharpness brought down one or two clicks (depending on the lenses I'm using) and the contrast brought down two or three clicks.

Alex

Here is a new music video I just stumbled across that takes this effect to another level from these commercials. The rappers are moving in real time, while everyone else is frozen, and there are various different kinds of camera moves (handheld, crane, dolly, etc...). Any insights on what method(s) Joseph Kahn employed to make this happen?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuJDaOVz2qY

Saul, I come from a family of teachers and I can tell you that teachers DO NOT get paid for their summers off, and many actually take part time jobs during that time period. Teachers make pathetically little money for what they contribute to society, I hope you understand that.