David Mullen ASC

In dramatic fiction, an actor's face will often not be at 70 IRE within a space, it all depends on where they are in the room -- brighter when they are by a daytime window, darker when they move away from it, etc. IF you are shooting at an ISO that gives you an acceptable noise level, then you should be fine with having dark areas in the scene (shadows, dark clothing, etc.) But you will get more noise as soon as you try and manipulate it in post unless you are recording a very high-quality codec (low compression, high bit rate, decent color subsampling rate), and even then, you'll get more noise as you lift anything because that's the same thing as increasing the ISO in that area. So don't "push" things, shoot them in camera the way you want them to look. And it's always safer to not underexpose a dark scene too much, save some darkening for post, or drop the ISO to darken the shot rather than close down the iris.

Congratulations to my operator Jim McConkey for his SOC Award last night!

Sure a camera can deliver clean blacks in a dark scene. If you are shooting a bright day exterior at a low ISO, does the noise increase if you stick the lens cap on and the frame goes black?

Haven't done it myself.

In DCPs, 2.39 uses max width and 1.85 uses max height.

I guess a Digital IMAX screening might use a 4K 1.89 image.

I wasn’t being dismissive— just pointing out that black dirt is a sign that a positive was used instead of a negative.

From all the black dirt, I’d say he started out using prints of these movies.

The extra depth of the PV mount I think was a holdover of the Mitchell mount, and allows behind-the-lens filters to be inserted that wouldn't come into (much) focus on the film plane.

"Never get out of the f---ing trench, man! Never get out of the trench!"

It's a decent movie but no "Paths of Glory", "Gallipoli" or "All Quiet on the Western Front". I could have done without the white-water rapids with a waterfall sequence -- war is dangerous enough, you don't have to threaten the character with drowning, smashing into rocks, and then falling over a waterfall! That was the only sequence that felt extraneous to me, like I was watching an Indiana Jones movie for a brief moment. The night work alone -- in the burning village and the moving shadows from overhead flares -- is well-worth the price of admission for any cinematographer! The advantage of the single shot sequence is that it tends to be very subjective and emotional, putting you in the middle of the action with the main character. The disadvantage is that it becomes harder to fall back into more objective angles that place the character into a broader social/historical context. So with this single shot technique you feel the plight of the soldier more, not knowing what dangers lie ahead, knowing nothing more than what they can see and what others tell them... but you have a harder time knowing the military objectives nor get to see opposing viewpoints. But that's just a different story I guess.

Well, I'd try and do it for real and hope you don't burn a lot of film -- maybe bring multiple cats? Otherwise I agree with Phil. If you can build a partial set, perhaps create a wall out of diffusion material and project the real cat's shadow from behind the wall to give yourself some room, plus that way the cat can be closer to the wall for a sharper shadow. You'd have to deal with the bottom edge of the wall though somehow, can you live with a shadow of the bottom wooden strip holding down the material.

The thing is, I'm less interested in creating images where the lens used is the most interesting aspect of the shot, hence why most fish-eye photography doesn't interest me. So in an ideal world, I'd be able to create any effect I want within a more "normal" range of focal lengths. But sometimes you need a wide or telephoto lens to create the effect you want.

Sometimes you want to compress the space and make a far background object loom larger, and other times you want to stretch and expand the space and make the background recede faster.

Even with complete freedom, you pick a lens according to how it renders a subject so it depends on the subject and how I want it to look.