Stuart Brereton

There have been some discussions recently regarding the relative merits of different Telecine machines. For anyone that's interested, I have uploaded some side by side comparisons from a recent promo shoot. First set are from an Ursa suite, second set from Spirit, identical grades. I have more stills should anyone want to see them. www.stuartbrereton.com/TK test.html

That's right, David. In the UK, grips work in the Camera Dept. The Lighting duties that US grips perform (setting flags etc) are handled by the electricians.

As far as I can see, shot to shot consistency and having a usuable image go hand in hand. There are many things which a Post facility can do, but doing the DPs job for him is not one of them.

The usual post route would be something like: shoot 35mm, then TK via Spirit to HD-CAM. Then do a down convert from HD-CAM to DigiBeta for your off-line. Lastly, conform and final grade at on-line from your HD-CAM masters. You mention having your film 'scanned' rather than just telecined. As you're not going to a Filmout, this is unnecessary.

Jeremy, I don't think it matters which car you use on a brand level. You're not trying to sell the car, you're selling yourself. The deciding factors for me would be: Which car looks the best -both generally and in terms of particular features. What colors are the cars you have access to - some colors look better than others in ads. Have fun,

In the UK we rarely shoot 4:3 anymore. When shooting 16:9 video it is common practice to protect for 14:9. In film terms, you would use the TV safe markings within the 1.66/1.85 frame.

That's a perfectly good way to approximate an ASA for your camera, but you don't even need to be that accurate. You set your initial exposure from the monitor, then use your lightmeter to give you a reading from the keylight . It doesn't matter what ASA your meter is set to, as long as your key remains at whatever stop your meter read in the first place.

Luck may have had something to do with it. I think that 12 years of hard work and study may have somewhat more to do with.

I don't see why I refering to F stops is 'inappropriate terminology'. Video lenses are calibrated in f Stops just like film lenses. A 1 stop scrim is a 1 stop scrim regardless of what format you are shooting. A competent Gaffer may well know from looking at a monitor how much a light needs to come down, but it is not his decision to make. It's the DPs. That's why when I ask for a 1 stop scrim, or a piece of ND.3, that what I expect to get, not the Gaffers' interpretation of what I want. Once again you're using this as an opportunity to vent your dislike of Film and Film people. Your constant whining is tiresome, and if it is really your attitude, rather than just some bizarre pose, then I wonder why you don't find yourself employment in some other field, and spare the rest of us from your bile.

Phil, you have no idea what I have had to do to get to where I am. You have no idea what pressures I have been and am still under. You don't know if I am lucky or not. If you hate the industry so much, why not find something else to do.

I've been thinking about this quite a lot recently. There is a very good case for using a lightmeter on video shoots. Not because you need to meter the light for exposure, after all you can judge that off a monitor, but for 2 other reasons. first, it gives you repeatability. if you know that Actor A's keylight was reading at t4 then you can keep that light level constant. I've done shoots where you judge the key by eye, and think you've got it right, but over the course of a day as you and your eyes get tired, there are variations in the light levels which could have been avoided with a light meter. second, it teaches you to measure light. rather than look at a monitor and say "the backlight is a bit hot" you can look at it and say "the back light is a stop over". then when you ask your sparks to adjust it, you can say 'put a 1 stop scrim in it' instead of 'just take it down a bit'. In short, it engenders a discipline to your work, which in turn helps you to work faster and more accurately.

The only problem being that not all TVs overscan by the same amount, so you run the risk of leaving a visible border around your picture.

You don't get 'dirty shadows' from underexposing. Shadow areas only become grainy when you try to Print them UP. If you shoot a grayscale and your scene correctly exposed at t4, and your shadow areas are falling around t1 or t1.4, those shadow areas will reproduce normally when you print to your grayscale. If you suddenly decide that you don't want the scene as dark as you've exposed it, and you try to Print Up, then your shadows can start to show grain DP's sometime underrate film stock (overexposing it) by a 1/3 of a stop or more, as this helps to reduce grain generally, not just in the shadows.

In my experience, any band/record company that can afford to shoot film, WILL shoot film. They are not interested in resolution, color sampling or latitude. They care about the prestige of shooting film rather than video. Right or wrong that's how they think. The original question was 'what camera should I buy?'. Well, I would follow David Mullens' recommendation. Any one of those cameras is capable of great results, and at a price that won't scare people off. Owning a film camera is not going to convince a band to shoot film - Camera rental is a small part of a budget anyway, so they won't be saving much. A 24p/25p DV camera is going to be much more flexible. Wendell Greene posted a link recently to a promo by a band called Buckfast, which was shot on DV. Forgetting for a moment the obvious budget of the video, it still shows what a DVX100 with some good lighting and a nice grade is capable of. Use a DV camera to polish your skills, then when a film job comes along, hopefully someone else will be picking up the tab....

I've never subscribed to this idea that you have to sell your soul to get a break in the film industry. You have to learn your trade well, you have to work hard, you have to sell yourself, sure - but so does anyone who is just starting out in business. It doesn't matter whether you are a self-employed carpenter, plumber, gardener or cameraperson. You start at the bottom and work your way up. You accept that it isn't going to be easy, keep you head down and keep plugging away. Sooner or later, you will get a break, and you'll take a step up. Of course it's hard when you see your contemporaries doing better than you are. I have friends from film schools whose careers I would love to have! My philosophy is that when my abilities match my ambition, the next break will come along, and I'll be that much closer to where I want to be. Then the whole learning process continues. But, if I don't try, don't keep improving myself, then it will never happen. I guess I believe in making your own luck.

An 85 filter has a Mired shift of 112. An 81EF a mired shift of 52. Any warming filter with a similar shift (164) will have a similar effect, although Straw, Coral, Tobacco etc have their own individual qualities. It's all a matter of taste.

I've just come from a Telecine session where we were discussing this very question. Obviously, you want to use the highest quality format you can afford, or that fits your post pipeline. The colorist I was talking to was of the opinion that as long as you are not doing specialist work, like green or blue screen, and you are not planning to do extensive grading of your final cut, then DVCAM is fine. If you're finishing for TV, then most people wouldn't be able to tell the difference between DVCAM and DigiBeta, certainly not on a domestic TV.

Well, an 85 and a 81EF would add up to 1 1/3 stop compensation, so you should really be rating 5218 at 200asa, unless you are underexposing. if you just want to lose some glass in front of the lens, I would try a heavy coral flter. Coral 5 is usually the equivalent of an 85 (depending on manufacturer) so you could try a Coral 7 or 8 according to taste.

Here are some stills from the shoot today. I'll try to post up the actual screengrabs, so that you can see how they compare.

I posted recently about having done this on a promo shoot. I've just done the same again today. I take stills with my Canon EOS 10D, then view them on my laptop. If we have time, i might put them through Photoshop, just to give the director (and Client) a rough idea of what it will look like graded. I find it an invaluable tool, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of a shoot. That said, I know that it has far more contrast than Film Neg, and that my highlights will not reproduce faithfully. It's useful mostly as a backup. If it looks OK on a digital still, then you know that it will be fine on your neg.

...and how old is that, Adam?????.....

Most of the NTSC DVW 700/790s in Britain tend to be Owner/Operator packages, as there's not much demand for them as rental items. Optex might be worth a try, but it's certainly going to be easier (for you, anyway) and cheaper, if you hire a regular PAL 790 and let them worry about the conversion later. If you do shoot NTSC remember that UK fluorescents, streetlights and HMIs will flicker at 29.97 or 30fps You should be looking at around £275-£300 a day for a PAL digi kit, plus £75 for a wide-angle. You may get it for less if you rent from outside London ;-)

I have three Promos that I shot recently showing on a UK music channel. Every one of them has the band squeezed and skinny. Apparently, whoever digitized them into their system managed not to see the Large 'ANAMORPHIC 16x9' sticker on the tape case. They must also have missed the identical sticker on the tape, as well as the ANAMORPHIC written large on the clock. It's not that difficult to get it right, surely?

Another option may be to use the soon-to-be available Sony DVW970 24p Digibeta. This will give you the Progressive Scan look, with the proven workflow of digibeta. Optional cards for the 970 will apparently enable it to shoot at 'slow' shutter speed (like DV cameras) and to do Timelapse. Given a choice between HDV and 24p Digibeta, I know which way I'd jump.

I doubt that David actually takes his spotmeter to the cinema very often. Looking through that 5 degree viewfinder makes it hard to follow the story....