Ravi Kiran

With the speed of film stocks in those days plus the deep-focus, they must have been pouring light onto those sets! What stops do you think some of those deep-focus shots were achieved at?

David, thanks for posting those caps. Kurosawa was one of the filmmakers whose images first captivated me as a kid. Heh, I never intended for this thread to become a debate about the "viability" of 2.40:1 and/or anamorphic! It makes about as much sense as Fritz Lang's "funerals and snakes" comment. Why is this even a question? I'd love to see someone like Bordwell analyze Indian films' use of 2.40:1. Pretty much all mainstream Indian films (at least in the major languages) from the late 80s into the 90s and early 2000s, were shot with anamorphic lenses. I don't know what lenses they were using, but they often used zooms. Most of the films are indifferently composed, but every now and then we'll get a beautifully shot film like Lagaan (2001): In the past 5-10 years, I've been seeing more and more Super-35 Indian films. I'm not sure why this is, but it could coincide with the rise in CGI and DIs. Seems like even the average films without any SFX or particularly extreme looks are going through a DI, similar to how it is in the Hollywood.

With the ubiquity of HDTVs and letterboxed DVD/Blu-ray transfers (at least in some countries), are producers and filmmakers less concerned with the 4:3 versions of their films, and hence, they feel more comfortable shooting anamorphic?

It seems like more movies are being shot anamorphically these days. If there are indeed more anamorphic films, what could be the reason for this? Is it really just the stretchy bokeh and lens flares? I'd think that the sharpness benefit is largely negated by the 2K DIs many of these films go through.

I've been a DIT on a few RED projects. A few music videos, a corporate video, and a feature. On the feature, I backed up the footage to two drives on-set, checked for technical errors and things like filter reflections, etc. I also made TIFFs of every set up. I didn't do any one-lights or creation of LUTs. We had some camera problems, so I fixed whatever I could fix and arranged for backup bodies when we had to send our camera in. Thankfully the DP knew a lot about the RED. On a music video and the corporate video I did the same thing (except for creating TIFFs), though I did a one-light in RedCine, since we were going to be grading from ProRes files.

I stepped in for the DP on a film shot with an HVX-200, a Brevis, and still lenses, which was not fun. The lenses weren't very good, plus having to go through all that glass meant that we were blasting the scenes with light. Some of the stuff I shot was underexposed, and if I could go back and redo those shots today I'd throw more light on them.

I saw it projected in Xtreme Digital Cinema (which I couldn't find any info about), which could be why it looked strange, especially considering the DP.

What was this shot on? It didn't look like film to me.

Is that any more ridiculous than this?

Would 4K projection look much better than 2K projection on the average movie screen or can the difference only be seen on larger screens?

What kind of tape measures do camera assistants generally use? I've read that actors are sometimes uncomfortable with having a metal tape near them. But I've also heard that fabric tape measures sometimes stretch and give inaccurate measurements. Would a regular Home Depot tape measure suffice?

I'm researching cameras and accessories and I am wondering what are some good 35mm lenses and video lenses to consider. I'm leaning towards the Brevis 35mm adapter and possibly the Panasonic HPX-500 and Sony XDCAM EX 3. What are your recommendations for video and 35mm lenses? Thanks.