Daniel Porto

Ignore the bottom half I forgot to un-attach the original lower quality image.

My apologies

DANIEL PORTO

Hello Everyone!

I have some screen-grabs below from a short film titled 'Why Inspector Charlie Smith Drinks Early' which was shot on the HVX-202. We are currently half-way into production and it is a comedy/murder-mystery.

I would like your feedback based on the selected frames you see below. Tell me what you dislike, tell me what you loath. Basically anything you think I can improve on. (Please note that all screen-grabs below were taken directly from the camera and no color correcting or image manipulation has been applied)

Thank-you in advance!

DANIEL PORTO

I'm sure the first thing you should probably work on is getting scuba certified, just so you know...you can actually go underwater. I admit I'm not very knowledgeable with the topic at hand, but I do know that the set lighting technicians handbook had a chapter on underwater lighting. It was a nice little intro to it.

 

Good luck.

On Alien Resurrection they actually hired someone who specialized speciacally in underwater photography because it is completely different to being on land. Anyway, on the special edition DVD is there is feature which describes how they accomplished the underwater seqeunce. Perhaps you could watch this feature and personally contact this man and ask him how he got into the business.

If you are doing a D.I., there's no reason to not use Full Aperture / Super, whether for 1.85 or 2.40 -- yes, when you do the film-out, it gets resized to fit into the 4-perf 35mm sound aperture projection format (standard Academy / 1.85 / anamorphic).

 

Yes, if you are not doing a D.I., you could shoot "Super 1.85" and then optically reduce it to standard 1.85, but the extra quality of the slight optical reduction is counteracted by the graininess of working with dupes and copying in an optical printer, plus the higher costs, so there isn't a real advantage compared to shooting in standard 1.85 and being able to contact print everything. Though shooting in 3-perf may give you enough savings to make up for the optical printer work. But generally, if you are not doing a D.I., it makes more sense to shoot in a standard format that can be contact printed for making release prints with sound.

Thank-you once again David!

Use the HMIs (1200 or 4k) and point them up into an ultrabounce so that you get a nice fill over the entire scene. Use different angles on the lights to get a broader range for the fill. You can either do that or rent some balloons to have over the set.

 

Just make sure you don't go too crazy with the light and make it too bright, use what you have for practicals (headlights, taillights, dashboards, flashlights, etc.).

Depends if the moon is out or not. You can still use shadows and don't necessarily need to use fill light (I prefer contrast at night.... and at all times) but obviously these shadows shouldn't be too hard and too bright like Steve said otherwise you might loose a sense of realism (but of course up to personal opinion). I remember David Mullen once saying something along the lines of that it is not by how much you light but how much you underexpose.

Super-35 can be either 3-perf or 4-perf -- it just means shooting Full Aperture (Silent), not Academy Aperture (Sound), so it's slightly wider than Academy.

Do most features shoot Academy aperture? Or does it not matter if you shoot Super 35? (as in DI it can be shrunk down in post to accommodate for sound?? or perhaps there is some other way of shrinking the recorded image size using the traditional way??

----

With the economy crisis at the moment a lot of commercials are starting to shoot Super 35 to save costs (at our rental house). I suspect that in future if digital takes over like everyone thinks, film will still stay alive and will mostly be shot 3-perf or even 2-perf. But obviously this would usually only apply to those productions which don't have ridiculously high budgets.

Any Film Stock can be 'good' in the desert.... let's start at the beginning.. what do you want your image to look like?

 

btw... I wouldn't let a Tungsten Balance Film stump you as you will (should) be using Filters for day ext work.. what is the difference in putting in a ND 3, 6 or 9... or an 85ND 3, 6 or 9?

 

May I recommend the book FILM LIGHTING

David I swear you should get paid for all the recommendations you give to people to buy this book! But it deserves every single one of them

The only thing I disliked about the Public Enemies trailer were the long shutters, not the fact that it was shot on digital. However it is because of digital that most of these long shutters are possible

I have been testing rear projection with moderate success.......

The only thing that stands out to me in terms of using near projection for realism is that the light that is on his face is not shining on the wall.

Hey Everyone

This is a scene from a short film, that never got finished. Please take a look and let me know what you think.

 

 

Thanks

-Paulo Uchoa

Positive criticism:

There was one shot that I thought was a little bit too wide. Also I felt that at times the operating could have been better for example when he stands up to leave the camera tilts up to accommodate this (you did you but after around 5 seconds of him standing up and this drew too much attention to the camera where it could have been hidden).

I am all for crossing the line but usually only for brief moments of a scene and if the story really deserves it. But even then I will still try to disguise this but using medium-close ups so then the effect works on an unconscious level.

David Fincher and Darius Khondji

:o So I understan that RED new camera is coming out...

 

 

http://www.red.com/epic_scarlet/

 

 

:unsure: I might be late to this topic, but I cant wait to get me one.... COOOL :lol:

I never knew that there was a cinematographer named RED...

Hey Dude,

Don't know you well but get better soon! Ill be waiting for all those informative posts!

DANIEL PORTO

Well it depends if you are a performance driven director or camera driven director or BOTH.

David Fincher: Is BOTH and yes he does work behind a monitor but it doesn't mean he is restricted by it. He is a masterful director and will do whatever is necessary to get the right performance, and sometimes that might mean yelling from behind the monitor or getting close and personal with the actor.

Steven Soderbergh: Is BOTH bur does not work behind a monitor because he operates the camera himself (most times) and says this is the best way to work as he is the closet person to the actors and is able to give feedback efficiently and effectively.

What do you think about those who DOP and Direct as a combined role?

Someone who will play the part differently then Heath

Are you sure they were not talking about the interiors of a camera, about the procedure of 'checking the gate'?

I have never heard that using proper canned air is bad for lenses.

The gaps between glass on the lens aren't air tight and using such a high pressure does have the potential to blow into the glass

So did you get the dailies?

If so, how did it go??? Pictures??

THANKS

I always loved when I was stuck with the video camera at the family functions. Soon I began making little videos with my little green army men. It just snowballed from there! I just LOVE it!

When I was born I had a light meter strapped around my neck

Doctors didn't know what to do

Tried it once:

 

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=35231

 

Wanna' try it again. We don't pay enough attention to bokeh (Max, being the exception). But, it is on the screen a whole lot of the time. I'm referring to this description of bokeh:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh

 

and not the lesser phenomena of visible aperture patterns in bright spots. What I want to do is ask the members to think of bokeh as if it were, now, the single most important thing in movies. What, then, would you do to use bokeh creatively or to innovate the presence of bokeh into an artform? Even, make it into the central subject of movies?

Perhaps the amount of attention paid in the forums correlates to how much it really matters???

Yup.

Could perhaps Walter or anyone for that manner step in a give a technical reason why this is the case?

THANKS!!

Most people when looking forward are right eye dominant. It has nothing to do with handedness but about 85% of right handers are right eye dominant. But your eye dominance changes depending on the angle of the eyes. In other words if you look to the right, your left brain is 'out of range' of the site so you become right eye dominant. One of my mentors, a legend in sports shooting Barry Winik was left eye dominant and had his film cameras always set up so he shot off the right shoulder using his left eye. And he had custom viewfinder diopters as it was imposible to look though his viewfinder cause of his poor eyesight. Of course he loved to show me every day that his name was one after Gordon Willis in the IA roster book as if that meant anything.

I remember David Fincher saying once that a camera operator told him to check the composition of shots with your right eye, and to check the focus of shots with your left eye (it could be the other way around). He said it has something to do with the right and left side of the brain if I am remembering correctly.

Is this true?

That's all Flounder can do... is look up (ward)... to look down they would have to see through their bodies. As a fisherman in Florida I can assure you.. they can see up... they see the boat.. they see us.. they see the spear.. they see the lure gliding by over their head.. they see my grill... looking up all the while... until I flip them. :P

 

Edgar, it was very distracting the first day I experienced this, but now, I love watching each frame!

You know that happened to me the first time I ever operated a 35mm camera (shutter at 150) I could see every individual frame and I couldn't concentrate. But then the second time it was all in my fluid movement and its as if my mind found a way to stop this from happening

Any cine camera, and Konvas cameras, this is high precision system of mechanical and optical parts.

Konvas camera have shutter mirror disk with 150 degree. ( angle of shutter disk open ).

The working of shutter disk synchronize with all transport mechanism of camera and claw mechanism.

The claw mechanism have two main points : " the point of begin of moving of film " and " finish point of film moving".

That's why, If you wish change of angle of shutter disk, you must take into account of all technical sides of this idea.

Theoretically, you can use of shutter disk with less angle of opening without problem. ( less of 150 degree ).

The shutter disk with more wide angle of openning - do not possible, because, the film will exposing at time of moving of film at film gate.

and , you wil have degraded picture on film.

 

That's why, theoretically, you can setup of shutter disk with angle ( angle od shutter disk open ) less of 150 degree. ( 45, 90 ).

 

From practical side, you will have problem to realize of this idea.

The variable angle of shutter disk do not possible,

because, you must have two shutter disks, one - mirror 150 degree, second - black disk.

This is disks must set on one axis and black disk must be mobile.

The similar design have 16 mm Kinor-16 SX-1M, 35 mm cameras Rodina and other.

But, the design of Konvas camera do not possiblity to install of additional mobile black disk with system of control.

 

Other idea, to setup additional black disk under of main mirror disk.

yes, theoretically, this possible.

But, the black disk must have small thickness, will need setup of fucusing screen on other positon and will need re-adjust of all optical system of body of camera.

From other side, will need re-balancing of shutter disk axis, because, the additional part will destroy of balancing.

And you received camera with fixed shutter disk.

If you will need re-adjust of angle of shutter disk, you will need do of all procedure of adjusting of optical system of camera.

This is do not good.

 

Possible, to have of a few bodies of Konvas cameras with different angles of shutter disk can be better from financial side.

 

You can see, this is complex procedure.

That's why, if you wish have camera with variable angle of shitted disk, you need choose of cine camera with variable angle of shutter disk, like Rodina and similar.

I thought that the shutter angle was 180. But I must be wrong

Also you might not notice but when you are curious about what you are looking at you tilt your head around to try to give the brain a slightly different impression of it for evaluation.

Some people squint their eyes also and I suppose that has to do with giving the brain and slightly different impression of the surroundings. Possibly just zooming in on the wide angle lens we have to concentrate on a particular object.

Interesting

I think for the sake of the experiment it would be more interesting to give the clip without saying when the flash appears.

So the person watching is not getting ready for 3:06 by concentrating his full attention to the inserted frame, but watches the clip as it goes.

Defiantly, I considered that removing the time in which the frame occurs but I thought I would leave it considering I only want answers from those that have seen the full movie in the first place (because they are fully involved in the story and in suspense of if mills is going to john doe, and thus more likely to miss the flash frame.)

When did you first notice it?