David Mullen ASC

Yes Dinos, MaxiBrutes, Jumbos create tiny multiple shadows though there aren’t always obvious and becomes less of an issue if the light is really far away. But if the goal is a window pattern shadow then you need a sharper single source and if it’s supposed to be sunlight then it has to be fairly powerful (depends on your ISO and f-stop). You also need some space to back up the light which is also why it can’t be too weak. But also remember that daylight is a mix of warm sunlight and cool skylight so if you’re on stage you need to create both outside the window unless naturalism is not important.

I mean the light bulbs in the fixtures, if that's what they are. I guess they could be those U-shaped fluorescent bulbs that can never be swapped...

4'x4-banks Kinos are too bulky -- I'd use a Litemat, like a Litemat 2 over each stall with a tight honeycomb grate. Ideally you'd be allowed a few screws into that ceiling to set them but if not, a wall-spreader will work but you may need a cover that is painted to look like a architectural beam to cover the end facing camera. Litemats are light enough that even a thin wooden goalpost built and painted to match might work, just something to allow you to screw the Litemats into place. You will need to dress out the power & ballast cables. I'd consider spottier bulbs over the sink if you want more mood, or keep the bulbs but use a small cylinder at the bottom of each can light to limit the spread more. The window is up to you -- frost it, ND it, color-correct it, whatever you need. The mirror opposite may need to be covered or reduced in size to make shooting easier unless all your wider shots play towards the window, so if the mirror is off-camera, cover it in black. By the way, you can put Astera tubes in Kino housings to have the advantage of the barndoors, etc. but without needing cabling to a ballast. But I think it's all too bulky.

That's interesting, I figured he probably used a 50mm on his VistaVision cameras -- a bit like how the early CinemaScope films were shot on a 50mm but now with a wider field of view. But there's nothing special about the number "50" so there's nothing special about sticking to a 50mm when switching to VistaVision: he would have gotten the same image with a 35mm lens on standard 35mm as the 50mm on VistaVision, so same subject size, same relative sizes between subjects, same perspective, and the same field of view (just less depth of field with the VistaVision image). So there was no reason to stick to using a 50mm other than not understanding these issues; it's just because the number 50 has some sort of mistaken value at that point. Relative sizes of objects to each other is based on camera placement relative to the subject, not focal length. All focal length is doing is providing magnification / cropping.

There are some long-lensed shots in "Rear Window" but only when replicating the perspective of Jimmy Stewart looking through the telephoto lens of his still camera.

Looks like the edge of the gate is reflecting the white clouds?

High ISO gives you more noise and more highlight detail. In some ways, it feels more film-ish due to the texture and the long roll off to white.

I was looking at a review of a new blu-ray of this old movie and wanted to point out the lighting by Oliver T. Marsh, ASC. Some people think that old movies all had hard lighting but the truth is that soft lighting -- with soft lenses and/or diffusion -- was in vogue in the late 1920s and 30s despite the slow-speed of stocks. It was part of what was considered glamour back then, but it also has the effect of feeling more modern sometimes because of small rooms being lit softly. Poor Marsh (brother of actress Mae Marsh) died in 1941 at the age of 49.

Easier to use an on-camera flasher like a ARRI VariCon or a Panaflasher (I think now there is a Panavision device for flashing in front of the lens like the Varicon). Trouble with pre-flashing on set is that if you use a camera to flash a roll, you have to rethread the stock to match the perf you started on because the flash is bordered within the framelines.

It's a deliberate use of old-school lighting that worked so well in "Geronimo" (1993), which was shot in 35mm anamorphic film, so I think the grade of this trailer is one problem, the black level, contrast... but maybe it is accurate to how the feature looks. The lighting feels sort of reminiscent of a Howard Hawks western from the 1960s. I'm sure the cinematographer struggled with the time and the use of multiple cameras, which sort of works against that classic Hollywood western style (or even the style of Sergio Leone) but I think Hill has always liked that approach, being a Kurosawa fan. If I had any observation, it's just that you get into a 'neither fish nor fowl" problem if you don't commit fully to recreating a classic old-school look, but that also happens when your budget and shooting schedule are tight. If I were going to do a lot of hard lighting for a period western, and pull out the color, I might have tried to go for a deep depth of field such as in b&w classics like "The Westerner" or "My Darling Clementine", or a Sergio Leone movie (though those have normal color). But that would have been the opposite of modern trends towards shallow focus and soft, underexposed natural light. And it takes time to do that. Anyway, it looks like a Walter Hill movie, most of them have this style. Just with better black levels than this trailer.

Red, green, and blue stripes rather than a Bayer mosaic pattern. The main advantage is that all three colors are equally sampled. It's also a "simple" conversion -- in the case of the Genesis camera, you had full HD resolution total for each color, i.e. 2K per color, a 6K sensor total. The main disadvantage is color moire, plus if you want a 4K image, you'd have to have a 12K sensor.

Trouble is that when people see those videos shot under real moonlight, they think "I don't need to light!" -- not realizing that these images are only possible on the few days per month when the moon is full and the weather is clear. Imagine trying to plan a 4-week feature around a real full moon and hope the weather is clear those nights.

Sure, I think John Galt at Panavision might have once been working on a 4K version of the Genesis, maybe with a full-frame sensor -- I think the original Primo 70 lenses were developed for that. Just a rumor though.

I'm not sure many real-world colors fall far outside of P3/Rec.709 unless you are shooting fireworks and neon signs, etc. Wasn't P3 based on film print color gamut anyway?

You would think a lot of fine micro-tones in color would not fall far out from Rec.709... that sounds more like a resolution and bit depth issue.