Chris D Walker

Published this last Friday: Women of Contemporary Cinematography

This follows from another thread in the Cinematographers sub-forum. For the last three months I've been writing weekly about the creative talents behind the camera. There's also a little history and technical discussion going on and I would value any feedback about my writing so far. I like riding the line between being informative without being informal, but sometimes I can't help myself from going into too much detail. Christopher Daniel Walker on Medium There's posts about the cinematography of Dean Cundey, ASC; Matthew Libatique, ASC; and Grieg Fraser, ASC. ACS. I've also written about production design, film and digital technology, and most recently the costume design of Sharen Davis.

By chance I've written and just published an article about this very subject: Reading Light - Tradition and Modern Tools But I'd say the same as the other responses you've gotten here. Use a light meter, test your camera and your film stock.

Cinematography - Greig Fraser, ASC, ACS Next week: Reading Light - Tradition and Modern Tools

Costume Design and Production Design - Kristi Zea Next week: Faking It - Emulation of Aesthetic

It's Friday which means a new document: Lighting and Photographing Skin Tones Next week: Costume Design and Production Design - Kristi Zea

Another new document. So far I'm sticking to my weekly schedule: Cinematography - Matthew Libatique, ASC

New document just published: Production Design - Carol Spier

I've recently started writing a blog called Film Craft and Artisans. My intention is to write one article each week and I started with a post about the cinematography of Dean Cundey, ASC. The plan is to write about cinematography, production design, costume design and anything else that takes my interest. Cinematography - Dean Cundey, ASC Any thoughts or suggestions for me proceeding forward would be very much appreciated. My next document, out on Friday, is about the production design of Carol Spier and I'll be starting another soon about the cinematography of Matthew Libatique, ASC Many thanks.

Black and white nitrate film by the late 30's had equivalent speeds of 80 and 160ASA (Kodak Plus-X and Super-XX). Technicolor film was much slower. Carbon arcs and large incandescent bulbs in fresnel and broad lights were the main sources used. Hollywood films of the 40's were shot in studios and as a result hard light sources would often create overlapping shadows without diffusion. In the early days of motion pictures muslin was hung above a set in the place of a solid ceiling to diffuse sunlight; the move to constructed sets saw less diffusion being used. Cinematography, ed. by Patrick Keating is a good reading of the craft from the late 19th century to the present. I'm currently reading another in the series about art direction and production design.

Overall I'm excited if not as jazzed as everyone else seemingly appears online. I am a big Star Wars fan but I'm ambivalent about what J.J. Abrams and Disney have planned. Good points: - "I am Chewbacca! I am a Wookiee! I fight the Empire!". - Oscar Isaac enjoying himself flying a X-Wing. - The charred Vader helmet was cool. Observations: - Chewie does look weird and a lot of it is down to the eyes. Instead of a shaggy dog he looks like a groomed Pomeranian. - The footage of the TIE fighter chasing the Falcon appears to have taken its visual cues from the BSG remake - faux verite handheld and zooming. - We see Han and Chewie, but no Leia. I don't know whether Carrie Fisher can carry it off after 30 years and the filmmakers know it, too. - Someone else already said heavily processed anamorphic 35mm and I agree.

It's not only the green or magenta spike DPs need to be concerned with. If you shoot a Macbeth colour chart with several LED sources there is an unpredictability in which lights will affect which colours. AMPAS did a test with a model wearing a dress with detailed hues of blue, violet and cyan under different sources where an LED didn't have the full spectrum to accurately reproduce the colour, so appeared as merely a blue dress without the fine gradations present in a tungsten-lit scene. Some LEDs can reproduce colour with fidelity but testing is needed to be sure. You can't trust manufacturers measurements of CRI. LED lighting is taking over in lower budget, independent filmmaking because of their efficiency and small size. They can be great for augmentation in smaller spaces. I don't know whether this practice still exists but productions shooting on a stage payed for the space and the number of days being used, not the electricity they were drawing from the stage tie-in. For this reason productions weren't concerned with the efficiency of their lights because they weren't paying the bill. Carbon arcs were loud, DC, and had a short life; we're talking 30 minutes. Incandescent was quiet, AC, and had a much longer life. It made sense for studios to make the switch on stage, although carbon arcs did see use on exteriors until the 80's when HMIs were introduced on a larger scale.

One problem with LEDs is different manufacturers will have varying processes such as the number of diodes, the binning process applied, and the phosphors used to produce 'white light' that they will not match. A tungsten light from Mole will match with a tungsten light from Arri. DPs have to test for the quality of an LED and whether it is a satisfactory match with other light sources. Big lights won't disappear from large budget films. Productions are not only shooting in low light scenarios; you need big units to fight against natural daylight or for long throw on a large scale set. I can think of maybe two LED lights powerful enough to match the intensity of 6K HMI and they're very expensive to rent. I can rent a kit of three blondes for the same price as a 1x1 Litepanel. LEDs have vastly improved, but they have yet to fulfill the requirements and variety that tungsten lights have in size, punch and accuracy. This might be of interest, too: http://www.newsshooter.com/2015/02/27/bve-2015-how-accurate-are-your-led-lights-ex-bbc-expert-alan-roberts-has-the-surprising-answers/

It looks like a relatively small space so your kit should be enough. Like David said, diffusion outside of the window and sheer curtains on the inside. Are you aiming for diffused north/south skylight or sunlight streaming through the window? How about using smoke to diffuse the light inside the room? I would suggest moving your 650w fresnels, gelled with 1/4 CTB perhaps, as far from the window as you can to reduce the falloff into the space and make it less contrasty. Consider raising the ambient light with lanterns or bouncing a Litepanel or 300w fresnel off a wall or ceiling, too. Best of luck with the shoot.

There is a breakdown of the scene somewhere online but from what I can recall and gather from the clip: - This was shot on an Alexa unlike the rest of the show which was 35mm, most likely because of the length of the shot, the distance traveled and the space that needed to be lit. - For the cyan/green cast inside the stash house I'd guess it's mostly industrial fluorescents concealed behind furniture both from high and low angles. It could also be gelled Kino bulbs. - The mercury vapor and sodium vapor lights lighting the exterior are probably a combination of gelled tungsten and HMI pars for hard shadows in unison with practical street lamps. - There are pools of light in the exterior portion, maybe coming from smaller units. I don't know about the DI process, but it's likely there's been tweaking for the Alexa footage to match the 35mm material.