Stuart Brereton

As far as I can tell from the user manual, 6k is first windowed down to 5.7k (5744 x 3024) then scaled down to 4K, so it sounds like you lose a little of the sensor area initially. This assumes you are shooting 4K DCI. If you’re actually shooting UHD 16:9, it’s scaled directly from the 6k

1 hour ago, Robin R Probyn said:

fancy leather tape measures .. with the brass winder .. I still have mine ..

The famous Rabone Chesterman tape measure... I still have mine too.

1 hour ago, Robin R Probyn said:

Sadly departed .. but thats another story ..

Yes, very sad, and a terrible accident.

16 hours ago, Robino Jones said:

Cued a video about Kubrick's solution to pulling focus with the F0.7 lens in Barry Lyndon.

 

Many years ago, I worked as a trainee for Doug’s son Mark. He used this exact system on a number of difficult shots.

11 hours ago, Rajavel Mohan said:

Hi Stuart, what lens have you got for the 6k camera? 

The director has some Canon L series primes. If I end up shooting his project, I’ll probably use my own Cine-modded Asahi Takumar set.

Thank you very much, Jae. Hopefully, this project will come together, and I’ll have a chance to find out how the BM cameras look.

5 minutes ago, Phil Rhodes said:

I don't know if this stuff is taught in acting school.

I think it varies. Old school screen actors came from a stage tradition where hitting your marks was part of the trade. These days, I think many acting schools emphasize emotional reality and improvisational skills over technical competence.

58 minutes ago, Gregory Irwin said:

 It used to be that actors would be held accountable for their part in hitting their marks and finding their light. They would also have the awareness to find the lens every time and understand frame size. Those days are over. Now we have to pander to their whim of where and when they move, try to unbury them from behind another actor who has also missed his/her mark. A lot of my success is knowing when and how the camera will move to compensate. 

I’ve worked with some actors who were fantastic for this. One in particular took it as a point of pride that whatever he did in the rehearsal, every gesture, every movement, he would do in the take at exactly the same point. And if he forgot, or did it differently, he’d come over and apologize afterwards.

Other actors, well, some of them, if they land within three feet of the mark, you call it a win...

3 minutes ago, Justin Oakley said:

Gotcha. I guess I was getting wrapped around the axel about the idea of some improvised stuff. Kind of forgot about blocking and rehearsals and multiple takes and whatnot. 

Another important point is that the actor's movements are as much a part of their performance as the words they are speaking. A good actor should be able to show you what their movements will be, and to repeat them accurately from take to take. Even when actors are improvising, they are often doing so within certain boundaries, or certain areas of the set, so you at least have a fighting chance of anticipating their moves.

11 hours ago, Justin Oakley said:

And what about with a really shallow depth of field? I guess that’s what I wonder the most. When it’s a game of inches is it ever just a guessing game? Again, for shots with a lot of energy. You’re watching the actor...the hips, etc. They bolt up, lean in, and bitchslap the other person across the table in like a second and a half. Then as soon as they got up, they’re back in their seat. You throw the wheel that fraction of a millimeter or whatever, and hope and pray they’re in focus?

Assuming that the stand, lean and slap are something that you know is coming, there's ways of dealing with it. You know what the distance is when they're sitting. As people stand, they lean forward. That's measurable too. Then they lean across the table. How far? Well, it will be to their arms length of the other actor because they're going to slap them. Again measurable. You'd be surprised at just how predictable body movements can be, even when they look fast and uncontrolled. Another mitigating factor is that big movements don't play well on tight lenses, so you may have a little DoF than you would on a long lens.

No focus puller gets it right every time, particularly not at wide apertures, but a large part of their skillset is being able to read an actors movements, and to "feel" where the focus should be.

2 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

They're exactly what I'm feeling at the moment. Remember, Internet forums are a place to express yourself. There is no other reason for them to exist. 

We’ve been here before. The vast majority of contributors here, including the site’s owner, consider this to be a learning resource, not a chat room.

There are many beginners and hobbyists here, certainly in this, the Student and New Filmmakers forum. They are looking for help and advice, not flights of fancy. They may not be able to distinguish fact from opinion. I sometimes wonder whether you can either.

Specifically in this thread, the OP came looking for information on focus pulling. I don’t suppose for one second that he was particularly interested in how you were “feeling in the moment”.

9 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

The only reason you dislike what I said is because you're butt hurt that I could say such a thing about camera operators, when in reality I'm referring to A PERSON RUNNING A CAMERA, not some job title on a film set. 

I’m not butt hurt in the least, Tyler. The purpose of challenging you is to get you to explain what you actually mean, rather than the sweeping, hyperbolic statements that you are so fond of making.

On 8/16/2020 at 11:53 PM, Justin Oakley said:

 When watching videos of focus-pullers/1st ACs work, a lot of the time their eyes are often not on any monitor. They are on the action—which is technically the “correct” way?

I'll defer to the actual 1st ACs on here, but you need to split your attention between what the camera "sees", and what you see. If you just watch the monitor, you are basically just reacting, and that means that you are always slightly behind whatever the actor is doing. If, however, you watch the actor, you can anticipate their move and adjust focus as they do it.

Imagine you are pulling focus on a head and shoulders close up of someone who is sitting down. Halfway through the scene, they stand up. When people go to stand up from a chair, the first part of their body that moves tend to be their hips, as they start to sway their body forward in order to stand. If you were just watching the monitor, you would never see that happen because it would be out of frame, but if you were watching the actor, you'd see it coming, and be able to anticipate the move they were making. It's the same with many other movements that people make. It's almost always feet or hips that move first, upper body second. If you're not paying attention to that, you're going to be purely reactive in your focus pulling. A large part of the job is learning how to read an actor's body language and movement. Those skills also carry over into operating.

3 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

So yes, if a camera system is only 90-95% accurate at determining focus when running, I'd call that pretty damn useless. The moment there is uncertainty, then it's not a good system is it? 

By this rationale, every system is useless, because no system is 100% perfect. I don’t even know what you’re talking about any more. If you had just said that judging focus could sometimes be tricky for an operator, no one would have disagreed, but instead you proclaim that operators are useless for checking focus, and that any camera system that is only 95% accurate is also useless. Do you even know what useless means? Why do you always insist on doubling down on every statement you make, no matter how ridiculous?

10 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Why anyone would get angry by saying film cameras are a bitch to get focus on compared to digital, is beyond me. I simply summarized two dozen sentences into one that contained my personal frustration with it over the years. Then again, I'm not a union member, so that must be the reason why. 

I’m not angry, just disagreeing with you. You stated that camera operators are “pretty useless” for judging focus. That is manifestly untrue. It maybe your personal experience that you find it hard to see focus, but that is not how you framed your comments. Instead you made a sweeping statement that was phrased in a way to make it sound like accepted fact (“remember...”)

I’m well aware that you often speak way beyond your experience, and that you have little regard for facts. I’m just asking you, once again, to state your opinions as such.

18 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

the way I see it, voting on this forum is NOT working like "I like this = upvote, I dislike this = downvote) . 

But it is more like: 

- "I like this post or it contains lots of useful information" = upvote 

- "This post insults other members and/or purposefully tries to spread false and misleading, potentially harmful information even when the member who wrote it has been notified about this before" = downvote  

- "This post contains no useful information at all and is only a personal opinion stated as a absolute fact without any reasoning" = downvote or neutral . Though if it is funny enough post and does not insult anybody, one can upvote it if one likes 

A simple like or dislike is easy to convey. Trying to express more complex opinions, like the ones you've suggested, is asking a lot of a simple green or red arrow. If people have opinions that they wish to share, they should do so, and not anonymously. That is, after all, why this is a real names forum.

2 minutes ago, David Mullen ASC said:

I don't even see how you vote up or down on the forum or where the result is posted... I do see a "heart" symbol which I guess means a "like".

If you hover over the heart symbol, you get a green up arrow, or a red down arrow. Your up or down scores used to be displayed under your profile pic.

21 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

 I said the operator is pretty useless on a motion picture camera when it came to one thing; focus, which is what this thread is about.

And which is exactly what I'm referring to. Describing camera operators as useless because there are occasional buzzes is like saying focus pullers are useless for the same reason. A ridiculous statement.

24 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

I figured everyone understood I was comparing film to digital. I also figured the OP has not been using a motion picture camera for 30 years+ as a union camera operator and that he probably will not be using one for long enough to gain the experience those veterans have. I also figured the OP probably asked the question because they wanted to know WHY and I explained why. I figured other people would understand my explanation was not a dig at union camera operators, but was an explanation of the limited technology film cameras have compared to modern digital when it comes to things like focus. 

Oh, I see. So 'pretty useless' was doing quite a lot of heavy lifting here to try to convey all the things you assumed other people would take from your post. Perhaps you should try to actually say what you mean in future.

29 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

You need to re-watch ALL of Christopher Nolans 35mm movies and then come back and talk to me about focus. You really think Wally and Hoyte are bad camera operators or do you think perhaps, the technology limits their ability to get focus, making all that starting into the viewfinder, pretty useless if the end result is soft focus. 

So you're assuming that they were unaware of these buzzes. I can think of one member of this forum with direct knowledge of that who would say different.

If you want to speak from your own experience, feel free, but please don't make statements on this forum that are not supported by the vast majority of professional practice. 

On 8/19/2020 at 6:35 PM, Stuart Brereton said:

Ah, the downvote for no apparent reason. Some people just love to make their opinion known, anonymously, of course, because nothing encourages debate like faceless lurkers disagreeing with you...

 

Sure enough, this post got downvoted.

Edit:  Now up to 3 downvotes. And 2 on this post.

You do realize you are making my point for me, right?

On 8/19/2020 at 2:22 AM, Mike Krumlauf said:

Yeah Ive noticed that at OFF if you are tight on a subject with the digizoom, the detail is very film like but maybe a tad too soft. Wide shots need the detail on to some degree. How much im still trying to figure out. I like my detail, but i HATE the hard line video look.

There was a BBC white paper written by one of their techs giving recommended settings for a “film look” for the 900R. Might be worth a look, even just as a jumping off point.

In fact, it’s actually available on this site, courtesy of Stephen Williams.

https://cinematography.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=4839

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea they are pretty useless, but you're accurate in saying they are the only person who truly knows. 

This is nonsensical.

8 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

You know these things, so I have no idea why you're trying to fight me on them. 

Please don’t presume to tell me what I know or don’t know. I’m disagreeing with you because your assertion that an operator cannot see accurate focus is wrong.  Before high def video assists were available the operator was relied upon to see focus. It was as much a part of their job as composition and framing. Did they spot every buzz? No, of course not, but they most certainly were not ‘useless’. Perhaps you find it hard to see focus, but that doesn’t mean that professional operators suffer from the same problem.

10 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Nobody is saying otherwise. 

Actually, you said otherwise. You said the operator was useless.

12 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

working with a film camera, especially when stopped down, is a bit tricker because you really never know what the focus is once the mirror starts spinning. Sure you can see the ballpark, but no way can you tell the type of perfect/crisp focus through the viewfinder that you can on a digital camera. 

I’m not talking about digital cameras. Anyone within 6 feet of a monitor can tell whether they are sharp. I’m talking about film cameras. The operator was literally the only person on set with a good enough view to see focus, and it was their job to call buzzes if they happened. A focus puller could get fired for bad focus, but so could the operator if they didn’t speak up. No excuses about ‘never truly knowing’, it was their responsibility.

23 hours ago, Phil Rhodes said:

(Edit - it's still true whether anyone wants to downvote it or not!)

Ah, the downvote for no apparent reason. Some people just love to make their opinion known, anonymously, of course, because nothing encourages debate like faceless lurkers disagreeing with you...

2 hours ago, Stephen Perera said:

How about we make this the thread where we post our FILM work and we can ask questions and stuff about what we see.....make it the 'go to' thread' on this forum for 'shot on film' we can actually watch......links to pieces and if 'big time' links to IMDB trailers etc etc....there is a LOT of great stuff I keep missing on threads I don't follow......

I’m not sure why we need a specific Film thread. There is a whole sub forum for people to talk about their work. What information are you hoping to glean that wouldn’t otherwise be covered?

By all means go ahead, of course, but it just seems a little redundant, as well as likely to get hopelessly cluttered once multiple projects are being discussed.

11 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Remember, the operator is pretty useless on a motion picture camera because the shutter drops the brightness of the viewfinder substantially and being able to tell something is in focus or not, can be challenging through the viewfinder when the camera is running. With digital, you can tell if something is right immediately, which makes it much easier. With film ya never truly know. 

The camera operator is the ONLY person who knows if it was sharp. Operators used to get fired for not calling out the buzzes when they saw them. Saying “you never truly know” wasn’t an option. It was their job to know.

16 minutes ago, Giray Izcan said:

. Recans are great maybe for shorts or music videos, but for a feature? I don't think so.

I don’t think you’d be able to get production insurance if you were planning on using recans.