Tyler Purcell

When I wear the hat of a cinematographer, I always tell the director in advance that we need to cut if there is going to be any lengthy delay OR another take within the same start/stop. However, when you're in a hurry and you've just gotta get things done, it's sometimes a pain to cut, reset and get back up again. On the last show I shot earlier this year, we stuck by a strong start/stop policy until the very last scene where we had literally 20 minutes to shoot 2 pages. We just ran both cameras straight for 20 minutes, but I had to deal with it in post, so one clip wasn't the end of the world. Honestly, "waste" is one of the biggest issues with digital. The other issue is spending too much time on set making things look perfect in the monitor. I can't tell you how many hours have been wasted making a proper LUT on set and getting the monitors to look perfect. Heck, just moving village around all day long, moving that damn tent around in every "element" imaginable, making sure it's perfectly black and dealing with a director who works out of a tent, it's so annoying. Unless I'm getting paid a lot of money, I don't work with those kinds of directors anymore. I'm so tired of "absentee" directing, where the filmmakers don't trust the cinematographer and refuse to sit by their actors. When I direct, I'm right there with my talent, working with them face to face. Even if I don't shoot the scene, I let my friggen cinematographer and camera operator do their job! I'll glance over at the monitor to insure framing is right, but that's it. During the scene, I'm staring at my actors, sometimes even with the script in hand with my notes on them. When a scene is done, I wait a few beats and say cut, every, single, friggen, time. Never do I leave the cameras rolling. My favorite thing to do is shoot something on film, with someone who is use to digital. They'll ask for replay... nope don't got it. They'll ask for a video village... nope don't got it. The first few shots are always amazing because directors are so use to wasting time, they freak out when the camera stops and they can literally move on. It's like, yea... I mean nothing else to do here folks, lets do the next shot. I think shooting on film saves CONSIDERABLE production time and with digital, the gadgets/toys/features, generally bog down the production. You can have all the discipline in the world, but if you have the opportunity to replay a shot, you're going to. If you have the opportunity to muck around with the white balance, shutter angle or ISO, you're going to since the settings are so vast in the digital world. I mean to me the complexity of shooting digital and making it look good, is just overwhelming for some filmmakers and it brings even the smallest productions to a halt. So discipline is really only half the battle.

If the camera has a S16 gate, it's easy to convert it. The lens mount should have markings if it CAN be converted. Where the viewfinder tube goes into the handle at the top of the camera, there are 4 screws that hold that assembly in. All you do is move the little offset plate from one side of those screws to the other. Once you see it, you'll be like, omg that's stupid simple and it is! The problem is your ground glass, that's for sure only standard 16.

I always thought it was always in motion and it moved very slowly... they never really explained it.

I bought up 4 of the CAV original transfer versions for $25 bux at a local shop before they went under and sold them on ebay for $150 each! Now I just have the stupid redux 1997 box set, it's AC3 audio and all, but it's the same as the DVD's, so it has no value. I do have A New Hope, letterboxed, original 1981 pressing tho. That I'm never going to sell.

Eye, that's some special camera man. I've had 3 Aaton's of different generations and none of them had that kind of ground glass, they all had nearly identical ground glass. Makes me wonder what the heck you've got! :P

I think the machine you showed above will work fine.

Dude, you live in France and get your information from social media. I live in Hollywood and get my information from people who worked on the film. Anyway, I don't know the complete story, I could care less, but I know how hollywood works and it's all smoke and mirrors. The truth is generally far from what anyone says on social media and/or in an interview. They're paid well and they only say positive things because they need to make the production look good. My opinion is generally formed from long/heated discussions with friends, after watching movies. I rarely share an opinion about a movie that's simply my own because sometimes I'm wrong and I like to make sure there is some truth to my feelings. With this movie... most of my friends reported on their feelings. Some said it was ok, but not to bother seeing it at the theaters. Others said it was junk, but that was after I watched it. I actually had lunch with three of them yesterday (working on another project) and we chatted for a few minutes about WW. The consensus is meh... Another superhero movie that will disappear from our minds the moment it's gone from the theater. It was funny that even one of my non-technical friends messaged me and found the VFX to be horrible and pointed out the same egregious shots I did. Ohh in terms of box office, WW hasn't dipped yet because there isn't anything else to see! It's made $206M domestic, in two weeks?!?!?! That's nothing man, I don't care how much the dip is, next weekend it will be 50% lower then it is now, so what another $35M? They haven't even made back their expenses yet as it costs around $50M just to market these things. Frankly, I'm happy these big movies aren't making the money the studio's expect them to make.

The SR3 has a small problem, the newer, larger barrel lenses, hit the viewfinder. This is why Arri made the 416, it uses a 35mm viewfinder system and the gap is large enough to make it work. Also I don't know of any SR3 that's only standard 16. They're all bi-platform, switchable between formats and S16 vs straight 16 makes no difference with modern glass like the SuperSpeeds. Its only with older/wider glass, you'd have vignetting between standard 16 and S16. Aaton LTR/XTR's don't have this issue at all. They have plenty of room between the viewfinder and the lens mount, which is why a lot of filmmakers who shoot on 16 use Aaton's. The Superspeeds are the lenses to get, but they're super expensive to own, might as well buy S35 coverage glass at that point. Some of the modern S35 coverage glass does work on the S16 cameras, but you have to test it as the rear elements are sometimes too large for the mirror on the S16 camera and visa versa. I actually cheapened out and bought Optar's for my S16 package and they work great. I have yet to run into any situation where the glass wasn't warm, beautiful and fast. They're super sharp on the projector, even wide open and they're inexpensive to buy used. You can generally get a complete kit used for around 6k if you can find one. The Zeiss glass is better, but is it more then double the price better? Not in my opinion.

I saw Rogue One with the latest 4k Dolby laser projection system. If low-contrast is your thing, I guess that's what you get. I'm a member of the projectionist forum as well, a lot of projectionists called up the distributor to confirm the super flat look was "normal". That's how freaked out people were about it.

Meh, they're terrible in Rogue One as well. Even though I like Felicity Jones, her character has no reason for existence. She doesn't DO anything, how does she survive? Why does she even care about this mission? It's like all of a sudden a switch clicked and she wants to be part of something bigger, give me a break. Cassian? Just a Han Solo knock-off, another smuggler type character to help Jyn. I knew what was going to happen before they even met, it was so played out, so been there, done that. K-250? Comedy relief for children? Give me a break, just flat-out uninteresting and bland dialog. Nothing like C3PO Ohh then the stupidity of the entire plot. The death star has hyperdrive capability? Give me a break. The whole point of the death star is that it was incapable of moving fast. Otherwise, you'd just park it somewhere way far away from anyone else when not in use, but for some reason, it's always found and attacked... gimme a break. Then somehow magic happens and they survive the attack of the death star, really? I mean that's all in the first act... Then they've gotta go to this stupid library thing with LTO tapes and steal one of them? WOW really, is this the year 2000? What genius came up with that ridiculous decision. Again, nothing about Rogue One was "better" then TFA, it was just "different" and seeing as I'm not a fanboy, I can look at it from the point of view of a "movie", rather then how good they did at translating or filling in gaps within the Star Wars universe. Yes TFA had some stupid things... the creatures on Han's ship, the planet falling apart at the end, poop like that. However, I'm more invested in the TFA characters because they were part of the original trilogy, to a certain extent. Anyway, we could go on about this forever. I can just say from an outsider, who doesn't read the books or comic's, who just enjoys the movies for what they are, TFA was far better achieving the look and feel of a Star Wars movie. Rogue One just felt like a made for Netflix movie.

The film out adds contrast no matter what you do. The digital release of Rogue One was very flat and unappealing.

Meh, they're all crap anyway. I admire Christopher Nolan for taking on the challenge of re-inventing Batman, his trilogy is pretty good. Outside of that, there are some one-off movies which are decent, the original Ironman for instance, not bad. Outside of those? Meh... I believe comic book stories should be a once a year thing like Star Wars, not every single big movie at the theaters all year long.

Ohh she was there... she just there are a lot of moving parts and she was brought in to bring a "female" element to the production. It wasn't "her movie" like Batman V Superman was Snyders.

I mean, I have a dual processor, 12 core, 24 thread system with double 4GB graphics cards and lots of I/O for monitors and stuff. Do you need all of that power? Nope... but it's nice to have when you're using DaVinci and you want to grade 4k material in real time. The key is to have MORE then you need, so the system never slows down.

I'm constantly re-framing in post. It's not a "cinematography" thing or has anything to do with the photography side of things, it's all about post production. As someone who edits most of the time, I can attest to the countless hours I've spent re-tooling scenes in post. Generally directors first go-to, is to re-frame because it allows them to maybe use a better performance in the wide, to a medium where it seems more intimate. Shooting in 4k doesn't really matter, most movies are distributed in 2k anyway, so shooting at 3.2k with an Alexa is fine. You just want a little bit of wiggle room so you can work the image in post, that's all. The point's above are all very accurate as well.

Well, I had dinner with a friend of one of the producers last night. She told me, Jenkins was really not at the helm at all. Snyder was suppose to direct it, but he had a loss in his family which prohibited him from being more involved. When you watch the movie, you can clearly see Snyder's influence, it's everywhere and it's so hastily thrown together, it's just sad. Some of the big effects scenes were 100% fabricated in the computer, zero photographic elements at all.

Got me lost there... PT and OT? I thought The Force Awakens locations worked well for the story. Considering Episode 4 was basically a desert and a few sets in London, what JJ did was pretty good in my view. I don't "like" The force Awakens, it's not a movie I would own or really re-watch, but neither is Rogue One. I'm a nerd and all, but now you've just cruised way over my head. As a filmmaker, I watched Rogue One and the notes I made above about it's blandness is what I feel. I honestly didn't like anything about it. I would have walked out, had I not been there with friends. It may have worked for you, but it didn't work for me at all. It made money because the series has a huge fan base and you could make pretty much anything (Episodes 1 - 3 for example) and people will still go to see it. Where I did think the connection at the very end with Episode 4 was tastefully done, the rest of the movie was a joke in my eyes.

The story had better locations... I mean it had more scale. I thought cinematography wise, it was very flat and had a dystopian color pallet that wasn't very exciting or appealing. I felt The Force Awakens had a much broader color pallet and was more in line with the 'star wars' look. Considering they re-shot more then 40% of Rogue One and completely changed the ending, I'd have to say JJ wins on the "directing" front. Deakins doesn't shoot film because the lab infrastructure imploded on itself from 2013 - 2016. There are 5 labs opening up this year, 3 of them were older labs that were re-instated. Thus, re-building some of the missing infrastructure. There is an even bigger push to open more labs by the end of 2018, there is just so much work. The commercial industry is also shooting film more today, thanks to the labs, so it's growing again. Most filmmakers shoot digital, film has been relegated to smaller projects, but the vast majority of big hollywood movies shoot digital because in their minds what's the point of shooting film? They don't care about longevity of their product, they don't care about a unique theatrical experience, they don't care about keeping the technology alive. They care about making money and that's what the industry is all about... outside of a few whack jobs like myself, who care about the artistic side more then the money side.

Go the other way with your camera, like you're using it, rather then from the front. You may not see them because they're so faint. Here is a pix, you can see in the upper right the word "Aaton" and the number "4". This is a good indication of which camera it is.

So yea, I'm kinda surprised nobody is talking about Wonder Woman on here. Now, I'm not a superhero guy... so it can't ever get over a 8/10 for me, even the best of Batman and the best of Ironman, is still no better then that. Honestly, I haven't seen a superhero movie since Batman V Superman and I only went to support the 70mm film print release. Wonder Woman is a side story (back story) to the character that was in Batman V Superman. I haven't been very excited about this movie, but the fact they shot it on 35mm, are doing 70mm prints AND it was a female director, those kinda made me spend money. The good reviews helped substantially, but I was set on seeing it no matter what. The movie... well, it is what it is. As a filmmaker, I saw right through the multiple directors, too many cooks in the kitchen and the cut-down's/re-shoots. It's hard for me to watch a modern movie, especially a big one and not over-analyze those things. Needless to say, some of the live-action dialog scenes were ok, but the action scenes were too gimmicky, relying on show-off style visual effects, rather then seriously well-done action stunts. Almost all of the big scenes were done with green screen of some kind and/or composites of some kind, which was sad. With all I read about the cast training for the production, I'm just saddened they never really let the actors do their thing. I think the message is good, but it's too soft. I think the concepts were also good, but they were just not executed to the level they COULD have been, in order to ground it in some reality. To me, what makes a superhero movie good is it's ability to ground itself to reality of some kind. This is what Nolan's Batman films did. This is what the first Iron Man film did as well. They worked so hard to keep things somewhat grounded, but it's sad to see these modern filmmakers thinking they can make a movie in post and that somehow it will make more money. Anyway... enough with the rant. I saw the movie over at Arclight in Sherman Oaks because it was playing in the small theater at Hollywood, where they have a Kinoton... ohh, one of my favorite projectors. They have a Century JJ over at Arclight and it was a mess last time I was over there, but it looks like they fixed all the problems because the 70mm print was outstanding. Fotokem did a great job, the color and consistency from reel to reel, scene to scene was spot on. I was surprised at how the color retention was, but that's mostly due to Stefan Sonnenfeld who worked hand in hand with FotoKem to make the prints look amazing. He also did Batman V superman, the guy does like 15 of the biggest features a year, it's insane. Technically I felt the movie looked good, the film grain was almost non-existent. It was spherical as well, so probably 3 perf? So the negative was pretty small and it held up really well. Over-all it held up well on the big screen, usually 35mm blown up to 70 looks pretty noisy and it wasn't in this case. Anyway, ya know if you're into superhero movies, maybe it's worth seeing? I'd give it a sold 7/10, but not much more then that. Woman power was good... but I felt it fell short.

Just saw the 10 minutes of Dunkirk ahead of the 70mm prints of Wonder Woman... WOW all I can say is that it looks amazing. I love "realistic", in-camera shots and the scene chosen was perfect. I can't wait!

I load the entire magazine in the dark, including the side with the sprockets. It does make a huge difference in light leaks. With daylight spools, you have a higher likelihood of a bit of light getting through multiple layers, especially at the head. I load my Bolex the same way. K3 is a bit harder because mine is all manual, no auto thread.

On the ground glass where the frame markings are, in the upper corners there are letters. The left side says AATON, the right side says the camera model. Just take the front cap off (no lens) in a bright place, take your camera phone and shove it in the viewfinder hole to snap a pix of the ground glass. In terms of 100ft spools, yea the camera works great with them. There is a little set screw on the side of the core mount on the supply side of the magazine. Just unscrew that set screw until it sticks out from it's recessed hole. Then simply wiggle/pull that core mount out of the magazine. This will give you a place to push a core on. Now I always load 100ft daylight spool cameras in the dark, so yea you would still load it in the dark, just to make sure. But at least you can use them. One other tip, your footage counter doesn't work with 100ft daylight spools, so make sure it's set to the "off" position, which has the little lever inside the magazine to the "locked" position... if that makes any sense.

Interesting... so it's got slightly different electronics probably. Now that switch makes sense, that I see the front of the camera. The switch on the right of your picture is the actual run switch btw. One direction is single frame, the other direction is "run". Ohh and what does the ground glass say on it?

It's an 11-110, it's the "super 16" Gen 2 version of the lens. It's the same glass, it's just got a different last element for the super 16 frame size.