Nick Centera

My main concern is that when I have taken some basic ratings outside for the 500T I get a F22 or 32, should I get an ND filter just to bring it down? That is why I was asking about pulling the stock.

Hey, I am going to do some testing on the kodak 7219 stock and I am going to shoot outdoors during the day without an ND then pull it down a few stops. Has anyone had any success doing this? I know that in the interrogation sequence in the The Dark Knight that Wally Pfister did this. I am also looking to bleach bypass the film too. Any suggestions or advice? Thank you

Hey, I was wondering if there was a mark on the body where to put the end of a tapemeasure for focusing? Or if there is none, where should the mark be theoretically? Thank you

Hey, when you take meter readings for says practicals, windows, lights in the background of a scene, where do you usually take the reading? Do you take it from where your subject is? I would think that just because a lamp in the back of a room may give off say a 5.6 when your 5ft away, but if your subject is 20ft from the lamp, it would not appear as bright I am assuming.

quote You choose your CoC and then you use the appropriate depth of field and figure out focus from there. Don't get too wrapped up in this concept. Spend more time thinking about focus and depth of field. Some depth of field charts don't even give you a choice so it's built in. Thanks for the help! I have another question of topic from here but still on dof. All the new dslr cameras seem to have a very abrupt fall off. Maybe I am the only one to notice? But the dof on the video from them always seems unrealistic. Comparing it to 16 or 35 where the background gradually goes out of focus, on the dslr they seem to just jump. Any explanation?

The table is great! I guess my next question, and I am sure sounds kinda dumb, but when you choose your CoC, you do not do anything physically to the lens right? Now I am wondering how to actually apply the tables to when I'm shooting. I understand the concept much better but not how to implement them?

Hey thanks for all the responses! That pdf attached really helps! What I am thinking of relating it to in my head is when, for example, street lights in the distance get turned into the circles. I guess my next question would be should one always stay in between a certain range for the CoC? I know its a dp's choice, but are there limits/standards that you usually don't cross?

Hey, I have been searching for a visual explanation of the circle of confusion and hyperfocal distance. I have been reading the Camera Assistant hb by Hart but I still do not understand what it is and why it is used? I am a more visual learner, so if you know of any visual representation of these ideas or have any advice, I would appreciate it. Thanks

Hey, I have been searching for a visual explanation of the circle of confusion and hyperfocal distance. I have been reading the Camera Assistant hb by Hart but I still do not understand what it is and why it is used? I am a more visual learner, so if you know of any visual representation of these ideas or have any advice, I would appreciate it. Thanks

Why do you want to "use" printer lights if you're not printing anything? Sounds very counterproductive. Since I am a student, its pretty much a matter of money (less time in the telecine booth = less money spent). I understand what your saying though.

Hey, I am interested in using Printer Lights on my next project. It will be a low budget project so answer prints will not be an option. My question is, can you still use printer lights even though your not doing dallies? Can I still tell the timer in the telecine to time to X-X-X? Thanks Nick

Hey, not sure if you actually want to see the window with the "sunlight" coming through, but from looking at the room in the image, you could probably cheat the bed away from the window a bit more then put up a 5k gelled with 1/2 or full CTO (depending on how intense you want the sunrise to be) then have it bounced into a silk. That would give the whole room that golden feel. As for actually seeing the sun, you could try to get some 2nd Unit footage somewhere else (where you could get the warm sunrise feel). Hopefully this helps or gives a basis to go off of. Nick

However, if you think this means it's better to just gel HMI's to 3200K, think again -- the color is a bit odd when you do that. I see. I have heard of people using HMIs a lot for interior lighting and studio light, and as you say you, just because you gel an HIM doesn't mean it will look correct, then why is it that people choose to use them? If shooting on tungsten balanced stock, whats the benefit for using the HMIs when you can get rid of the light loss of gels and extra equipment of ballasts? I guess what I am saying is, what is the advantage of using HMIs on nights and interiors on T balanced film?

Hey, I was wondering if the output from an HMI source is great then a tungsten source of relatively the same level. For example, if you had a 2k HMI and a 2k fresnel, would the footcandles be the same? Or do HMIs have a greater output? Thank you Nick

Hey, we shot all of it on 16mm except for a small scene.

Hey, so this was my first 16mm project that I had shot on my CP-16R. It was shot standard with a Zeiss 10-110 T3. I used Vision 3 500T because most of the shots were interior or at night. I ran into a few problems with the camera, but was able to get it fixed for the shoot. The shoot was barely a 2:1 shooting ratio. I used an Arri kit, that had 2 300w, 2 600w, and 1 1k. It was a very minimal kit, but I am used to using it. I also used a couple 100w bulbs in the cans you get from home depot. All the film was donated from Kodak, which is the only reason this film happened. I was so happy to get all the help I did from them and Fotokem. I definitely recommend exercising that word “student”; doors will open. I also mixed footage from the Canon A1 for shots in downtown San Diego. Day 1: All interior stuff in a house. The actor walks through 3 separate rooms, which lead him to find the “bad guy.” For the first room where he finds pictures we shot a 1k gelled blue through the window, this didn’t even give me a reading on my meter so we gave some fill with a small light that was handheld. For close ups, we used a 100w bulb frosted pointed at the actor like the flashlight bouncing back. For the bathroom, shot the 1k w/ blue through the window and used a 300w behind the door. The bookroom we used the 1k once again for backlight moonlight. There was a bare bulb in the scene in a lamp which we used as the key, because he was kneeling right next to it. For the final room, the kitchen, once again, we shot the 1k through the window and used a 300w gelled teal as a side accent light. Day 2: We were in an office space. Since this office space was not ours, nor were we paying for it, I could not go through and check the fluorescents that were throughout the whole office. I was worried if the fluorescents would flicker or something so for almost all of the shots, I used a 300 w/ frost on a c-stand directly above the actors. In the conference room I used the 1k as sunlight coming through even though there were windows all across the back. I was shooting on the 7219 Tungsten without a 85b filter so I wanted to try to alter any of the sunlight coming in to tungsten. I used a 600w on the opposite end of the room as fill. For the work office scene, once again I had the 300w on a c-stand. I wanted to give it a dusk feel so I put a 600w gelled with orange as backlight for him at the desk and light spilling into the room. Also down the hall, I used the 1k gelled with orange. Another 300w w/ frost was used as fill. For the final shot of the day, it was a dolly shot of the leading lady walking from an elevator down a hall. I could not have the fluorescents off or it would have looked weird, so I used 2 300w and one bounced 600w as fill light and to offset the fluorescents color. Also, since this shot was supposed to take place during the day but was the last shot well into the evening, I utilized the 1k another time putting it down the outside hall as sunlight. Day 3: We did not get permits for the shoot so for the downtown coverage we shot on the Canon A1. Shooting digital made it quite easy to sneak the camera around and not get any trouble from people. We had to shoot a small restaurant scene and ended up only using a candle as fill for the actress’s face. The last shot downtown was in a darker place so I had to push the gain on the A1 to get a decent exposure. This is not how I wanted to shoot the scene at all, but for time constraints and not having to deal with getting shut down, digital was the best call. For the townhouse door we used the same location for day 1. This we shot on film. I tried to match the lighting as best I could from the downtown stuff. I used the 1k and a 600w both gelled orange. A 300w was used on the inside of the door for backlight and a slight silhouette. Day 4: We had shot this basement scene previously, but the actor we had dropped out and this was when the camera began to have problems. So we re-cast then rearranged for the basement to take place on the last day. In San Diego there are no basements, so we had to cheat a garage as one. I wanted to have a yellow light coming in like there was a street lamp outside coming through windows. I set up a c-stand and put 2 100w cans gelled yellow and used screen as a scrim. There was a hanging 100w bulb, which was the key. I wanted to give the basement a hazy look but we could not afford to rent a hazer. We used a smoke machine, but the smoke was much too thick and would disperse to quickly, so we cut it all together. The processing and transfer work was done at Fotokem in Burbank. I got a standard transfer because we were not able to afford an HD scan. I know most of my setups are very minimal and guerilla, I am posting here so I could get any help and advice from anyone, so I would really appreciate any and all criticism or advice. Nick

Thanks for all the responses. My main problem once a lit the scene also was that the light looked more like a fixture was lighting it then "moonlight". Is this a common occurrence because I can see the whole set, or is it actually how I am lighting it? I tried messing around with the angle of it, but it still gave a more unrealistic look to me. I am going to the telecine tomorrow and will have frame grabs up hopefully by tomorrow night.

Hey thanks for the thoughts. Tom- What is black leader? And I agree, I think I should have moved somewhere else where we could fit things in. Satsuki- I think i will do that next time. For the backlight, do you think the placement of the light should be low or high? The only reason we did not bring moonlight in from the doors was because they were closed and would be opened for a later part of the scene. This was my first time setting up for a night interior, and I will go into it with more experience next time.

The scene was a detective in a house searching for the "bad guy". There are no praticals, only moonlight and a flashlight. No windows, but a few doors and a room at either end.

Hey, I was just on a shoot and I had to light a very small and tight hallway. This was on an actual location and not on a set where the roof or walls could be moved. How would you go about lighting a hallway and framing the camera? I had trouble with the camera throwing shadows too. Thanks Nick

Hey, yesterday on a shoot, my CP16 take up motor crapped out. All that was shot was lost unfortunately. I am in San Diego and I need to get the camera fixed up. If you know of any decent repair shops in the LA area that still work on CPs, please let me know. Thank you. Nick

I put the DVcam into a pd170 and watched it on an Tv, and it did look kinda bad on that too. But I was thinking it was because it was an HD tv, or lcd. I have had trouble getting a clear image when I connect with Red/white/yellow cables so ya. What do you recommend or think is the issue? As for what was mentioned above, I do not have the money for anything else. This was a test for a shoe string budget short I am doing in the beginning of January, so money for anything else is really not able to happen.

I do not think it is the tape heads, because I have batched on two completely separate decks and gotten the same results. Usually I do not have an out running to a tv so I can not say for sure, but through the small batch window that FCP has, it is not clear. And yes, I am pretty sure I had set them up for it, but then again when I put the clip onto the timeline, it asked to change the sequence settings which I did. Should I open a new project and set it to DV NTSC then rebatch it? I am not sure if that will really change anything, but let me know what you think. Nick

Hey, so I just came back from Fotokem yesterday, got my stuff transferred down at a Standard scan to DVcam. When I batched into FCP, the image was very noisy and slightly pixelated. I used a deck to batch it. When I was in the Telecine suite, the image looked much better on their screen ( I know they have very good monitors, but it should look better on my comp). If you have any advice or knowledge of the problem I have here please help me out, I would really appreciate it! Thank you Nick