Manu Anand

You said youve already tried the gain function....well in the 570 you can assign different values to your toggle gain switch's L M and H positions. So the setting they're on depends on the preference of the person who used the camera before you. I dont know what settings your gain switches were assigned but as you said they were degrading the image a lot i presume they were 6dB and higher. The L M and H settings on the GAIN toggle switch can be assigned different values in the cameras advanced menu. There you can assign values of 0dB 3dB and 6dB to your gain switches in case they were higher. An increment of 3dB gains you half a stop. Manu Anand New Delhi(currently in Bombay) DP

Ok This has kind of been bugging me for a while but here goes most Video Cameras in their specifications tell you what there Sensitivity is for example DSR 570WSP = f11 @3200 K ,2000 lux (185 foot candles) which equals ISO 800.... but thats for minimum sensitivity .....and not the cameras ISO now heres my question . What is this sensitivity in terms of the video signal. Is it a Barely visible image....which is ? = what ? IRE 8,9,10,12--------35------50 and my research shows a reading without defining IRE level is actually useless. While lighting for a 570 Ive never rated my meter @ iso 800. But the information provided will let you to beleive that the camera is unbeleivably sensitive. While typing the question i did some research Apparently the EIA has new standards in place. Heres an interesting article i fouind in my research and i finally understand what the defined IRE level should be for minimum sensitivity. http://videoexpert.home.att.net/artic1/250sens.htm In the DSR 570 manual before me for the camera "sensitivity"it mentions no gain up and does not define what results the f11 3200,k 2000 lux gives in a quantifiable manner. In another recent thread recently someone had rated an f11 2000 lux camera @ ISO 800. I think its more around ISO 320 I dont think one can apply minimum senstivity measurements of cameras and directly interchange them to their ISO setting unless one knows the quantitative definition of minimum sensitivity. Anyway i think im repeating myself now Hope to hear your thoughts and insights on the above Manu Anand New Delhi(currently in Bombay) DP

Ron Fricke has been working on the sequel to BARAKA called SAMSARA for the past few years, still in production its slated to eb released in 2005/2006 Shot in 70mm i have a feeling its going to be somethign special. For more information http://www.spiritofbaraka.com/samsara.aspx Manu Anand New Delhi

Maybe this is inappropriate in the 35mm forum and should be in video but since we are talking about netting behind the lens Found this on the net a while back ...ive never used it but having struggled with nets on video lenses with blue tack etc to keep them taut this seemed like an interesting solution. http://shop.store.yahoo.com/cinemasupplies/iring.html Manu Anand New Delhi "Back in Circulation"

There was a film called khakhee before lakshya and day before there was the release of a film called "black" . I think Prime focus is the post facility with most of the investment in HD DI etc. Its great what they are doing. Im not affiliated to Prime Focus in any way. Manu Anand Bombay

Mike if that happens thats great. My point was that i see a greater resistance to the change over in the indian scenario because of cultural , economic and climactic reasons. It will happen but the change will be slower here than in the west. Manu Anand Bombay

An excerpt form one of my postings on an indian cinematographer forum: "Yes but the inverse square is approximated for point sources of light but that does not mean we cant use it in everyday situations First of all the inverse square law is used in situations where the distance is 5 times greater than the greatest dimension of the light For example for a kino flo the greatest dimension is the length for a frosted bulb the diameter of the bulb for a clear bulb the length of the filament. The minimum distance from which you can begin to apply the inverse square law is 5 times the greates measurable dimension of the light. Now lights with reflectors on the other side that focus the light do not follow the inverse square law from the light or say a light with a gateway sheet. They follow it from the point of convergence/origin of the rays Now what does this mean? Say take the gateway sheet, it is diffusing the light, the point of origination is a point way behind the light, (and there are formulas to calculate point of origin, if u need it i'll send it) and it is way behind the gateway sheet. The point of origin is the point from which the inverse square law applies hence Broader sources have less light fall of with distance." Manu Anand

Just some perspective from the country that shoots the most films in a year(some of them need never be talked about ) but still India lives on films . more than 50% of programming on television is film based. Films are everywhere. we have no panavision cameras, in the entire country some 5 HD cameras. One in Delhi. One in Bangalore and three in Bombay. But we have loads of film cameras. HD costs more than a s16 camera to rent. it costs almost as much as a 35mm camera to rent. the post facilities are not yet up to the mark but are getting better. The reason i feel not many people are investing in HD here is becauseof the danger of the camera becoming obsolete in a few years. The time it would take for them to start getting some returns on their investment..... BAM theres a better camera in the market so we dont need to hire your camera anymore. Where as the technoolgy of the film camera is such that i dont need to buy a new camera. i can use better stock or better lenses.... So there is a reluctance to invest in HD. The film camera would serve me for many more years if i mantained it well . There is a certain hype being created around the HD camera in Bombay as well its being used for a lot of Ad work but i dont think for any major film project yet. what has been an interesting development is the DI process. with the arrival of the spirits and the arrilasers DI has become a reality in india. Just saw anotther film that went through a complete DI... and the results are improving since the last DI film. Soon im sure Di would becomre more ubiquitous. But HD just because of the nature of the Technology lends itself to be a problem Electronics... in indian conditions tend to breakdown faster. And we dont UPGRADE that easily as a cultural tendency. Im not argueing on one format over another but on the economic feasability of an HD camera in India. I shoot on film as well a lot of video and was impressed with the HD camera the first time i used it and am still impressed....but dont see it making inroads into india for many years especially in the film world. The ad world yes. Manu Anand Bombay

I've asked the organizers for transcripts of the talk. They were a bit worried about giving it to me, anyway if i manage to convince them Ill upload them and you all can have a look. Manu Anand

Recently Shot this short film which was a visual recreation of a certain historical event in India. Before the shoot i proposed to the director to shoot 16*9 on the DSR570 which was in her budget and i felt it would be better and more suitable to the visuals we had in mind. She agrees and even loves the 16*9 look and raves about the footage. BUT then she is the one who is editing it as well Suddenly i get a frantic phone call " you never told me about loss of quality etc etc in 16*9. i spoke to so and so he says how could i have done such a thing shooting in 16*9 etc etc" I try to explain to her that what we did will not cause any loss of quality... about true 16*9 etc etc I try real hard to convince her but she wont listen to me coz she spoke to so and so director who had a real hard time with 16*9 footage . I goto her studio take out her FCP manual and show her the relevant paragraphs she still wont listen. She just wont listen. This happened because not many people shoot 16*9 here and as this project was not for television i didnt see the need to restrain myself by 4:3 because i felt the story would be better told with the wider format. Anyway finally after almost a week she realised somehow that the director she had spoken to had had problems coz like her his editor had no clue about 16*9. This happens because ive noticed directors, not knowing the technicality of certain things just get paranoid real fast and then would only listen to other directors. Well it worked out fine after my Director/Editor saw the light :) Manu Anand New Delhi

Thanks Marcel for the information. I wasn't sure whether you could touch the dials which is why i asked how you did it. B) The handles seemed restrictive from the behind the scenes footage. I do have good eyes :) but your right not good enough. Had one question though about "jamaal"' The end of the movie left me very concerned. Have the problems been sorted out? Thanks Again Manu Anand

Just attended a Q&A sesssion with Chris Doyle who was visiting New Delhi for an Asian Film Festival as we are having a Wong Kar Wai Retrospective. The Q&A wasnt totally cinematography oriented as a lot of people in the audience werent cinematographers. And the organisers had asked him to talk more generally than specific technical stuff. Have been watching one Wong Kar Wai film a day :) Anyway Chris has just shot two films with the Fuji Reala500D and was very very happy and was joking that the Fuji folks ought to give him some beer for saying that. He showed some clips from a film called" three " which was shot a lot day for night... but the interesting thing was the day for night was green and not blue like we are used to seeing. Chris' take on that was that it depends on the city each city has a different night aura some cities are golden some blue some green... it depends on the city. Someone asked him about DIGITAL. Chris' response was that he feels that the video folks are getting it wrong by trying to look like film. he felt that its a different medium and the evolution of it cant be like film. it has its advantages as well as disadvantages. It has to find its own line of evolution and its own space. Talked about "days of being wild" Shot 320T pushed two stops and sometimes with as much as four filters infront of the lens. Lots of anecdotes from Fallen Angels and Happy Together. Talked about music and..... Repetition..... Movement...... Suspense...... Frame......... all elements that like in cinematography exist in Music. Looking at In The Mood For Love the above makes perfect sense. Wong kar wai's most oft said sentence to Chris" Is that all you can do Chris?" Also saw the film he shot last year in thailand" called last life in the universe" 2046 has taken five years to make....and is reportedly beautiful. One could go on and on but each film is a seperate topic All in all a fascinating talk. Manu Anand New Delhi

I would actually first decide whether i want a sparkling effect or a more of a softer luminescent effect. If i really wanted the water droplets to sparkle i would choose a harder smaller source to catch the sparkle off the droplets. But if i just wanted the drops to have nice big highlights i'd use a bigger softer source. The amount of fill would be dependant basically on the effect im looking for. Manipulating the shape of the object you use as a fill you could get an interesting reflection of the opposite side as well, if you want. Try with different shapes and see one gets very interesting reflections of the convex surface. Manu Anand New Delhi

Just saw a Film called "Lakshya". Its shot by the LA based DP Christopher Popp. Some intro on the film : a ) Massive budget when it comes to Indian Standards b ) Shot in beautiful Ladakh at 15000 ft and above and the film boasts the highest crane shot ever at around 17,500 ft c ) Its the first Indian film to go through a complete Digital Intermediate. d ) Its 35mm anamorphic. Now The DI was done at PRASAD LAB in Bombay ARRILASER. Now i saw this in one of the largest screens in DElhi. the locations are so beautiful in the Himalayas But the RESOLUTION was really really BAD. There was so much grain in the Image. And not jjut grain in the blacks even in the mid tones. The image was pulsating madly a kind of flickering efffect which was most noticable in the bright areas... so much so i went and complained to the manager he said the projectors fine its in the print but i think it was more a projector problem.... could it be a DI problem? I just couldnt fathom why anyone would want to degrade their image to such an extent when the colour correction seemed to be a standard one which really didnt need any digital intermediate process. Its not like a completely different look has been achieved like in where brother art thou...... I just feel that sometimes the film companies try and push a technology even when its not ready and it just makes me sad to see the quality of the image going down so drastically. One thing i dont understand is that even LOTR was DI but i read somewhere that Andrew Lesnie was not happy with the 2k scanning until the DI folks figured a way out to reduce the grain from popping out. Anyone know anymore details on how they managed that ? Manu Anand New Delhi

Just saw IN THIS WORLD and would like to congratulate you on your work. I enjoyed the fluidity with which the camera moved and your use of the ambient light. I might be shooting a road film for which your work is what the director pointed at and said " i want it to be a simple and beautiful as that, unintrusive camerawork" we'll be shooting on the panasonic DVX100A with an anamorphic adaptor On the DVD i saw the trailer of the film and somehow the colours looked desaturated and more natural than in the DVD?? I think after looking at the behind the scenes footage it seemed like you didn't touch the focus at all once it was set and sometimes it looked like the camera was in autofocus, am i right? i dont think my director is ready to go so far yet to stay on auto focus hes talking of a follow focus setup. Some of the shots looked as if the camera was on auto iris? as the exposure changed dramitically in the shot. a certain shot from a train in which the sun appears from behind the buildings.... DId you feel that the double handed grip in that sense restricted you from setting up the camera? also the dvd seemed to have certain filtration efects like a graduated filter but i had read somewhere that you didnt filter the image at all while shooting? was it all added in post? Could you please elaborate on the look of the film(filtration etc)? and how different the DVD looks from the film if at all ? since you were shooting docu style, i think, did you have the luxury of NDs on windows, battery lights etc? The double handed grip that you designed does it have any sort of stabilization system? Since its your own design could you shed some more light on it ? Any Design plans? Thank You Marcel and congratulations again. Manu Anand New Delhi

Congratulations David, After Northfolk i remember asking myself "whoaa this guy isn't an ASC member?" Methinks it was high time To a new beginning and a longer credit on the big screen :P trumpet drum rolllllllllllllllll crescendoooooooooo DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DAVID MULLEN, ASC Manu New Delhi

NSC new york mantains and sells K3 cameras. Their site has the camera manual and other technical info. http://www.k3camera.com/ Reel Trading also has information on the K3 http://www.concentric.net/~Jdq/reeltrading.htm Manu Anand New Delhi

First of all this was all hypothetical. only asked because there is misinformation. "Oh, for crying out loud - here we go again. The answer to these questions is "No." It's always no. It'll always BE no. Not for thirty seconds, ten seconds, or five seconds. You are absolutely not allowed to exploit other people's rights. Look, this is really very simple. If someone else made it, they control it, and this is fair and just." Second If you read the first link that i posted its not all fair and just . Especially when corporations manipulate governments to extend copyrights. There is a danger when copyrights extend for so long. Works that corporations deem to be no longer profitable will just disappear because they will not reprint or release them and wont let anyone else release them either. Long after the creators death even. "When the government tells us we can't use those scraps without permission from Disney, Fox, or the Sherwood Anderson Trust, it constrains our creativity, our communications, and our art. It tells us that we cannot draw on pop songs the way we once drew on folk songs, or on TV comedy the way we once drew on vaudeville; it says we cannot pluck pieces from Star Wars the way George Lucas plucked pieces from foreign films and ancient legends. The consequences are staggering. Imagine what would have happened if, 100 years ago, it had been possible to copyright a blues riff. Jazz, rock, and country music simply could not have evolved if their constituent parts had been subject to the same restraints now borne by techno and hip hop." Jesse Walker from http://reason.com/0003/fe.jw.copy.shtml Sorry to bore you further Phil :P :rolleyes: Manu Anand

I dont think it was the dust and pollution alone. My friend thinks it was just overheating.Also we were shooting in Feb-March. The temp is around 10-25 degree celcius(pleasant). Wonder what would happen if its used in peak summer when the temp is 45 degree celcius in north india. :blink: Manu Anand

Thank You Wendell Points are unthinkable in India for crew members.The HIGHER UPS guys do get them though in some films. But certainly not lowly cameraman <_< The term used here though is "back end' This does remind me of a film made in the 70-80s in India . A film called Manthan by Shyam Benega-a true story about dairy farm co-operatives. The film was funded by 500,000 farmers who each gave 2 Rupees( 44rupees=one dollar today). The film was a success and was viewed in more than 150,000 villages with 16 and super 8 projectors. Villagers arrived in droves to see the film in trucks lorries on foot. I'm not sure but i think they even got some return on their investment. Do you know of any films funded like this ? Manu Anand New Delhi

Thanks Rob, Wonder where this rumour started. Now that we are on the subject of copyrights. just have one more question. Say I am making a short film in which i need to use some footage say of a John Woo, silent films, archival footage, some news casts etc etc.... any visual content is there a minimum amount i can use without infringing copyrights. Like copyrights over books expires; maybe i'm incorrect publishing rights expire a certain time after the authors death; is there anything like this in the world of cinema. Does cinema ever become public domain? Manu"its 4:00 am" Anand New Delhi PS. Did some research before posting. http://reason.com/0003/fe.jw.copy.shtml http://www.cybercollege.com/tvp067.htm The Sonny Bono Act is being reviewed this year. Mmmmm Is there absolutely no amount of work(in terms of time) i can use(not even 6 frames)?

I have a friend who recently made a short film and had no money to legally license any music. Now he claims that he used music pieces upto 30 seconds and for that he doesnt need licensing. I have heard this before but am not too convinced . Is this true ? Also if you loop the same 30secs does it still count as 30secs or more ? I know music licensing usually varies from country to country. Am just curious if this 30 sec loophole is true ? Manu Anand New Delhi

>>>>The accounting system in the studios is so crooked that unless you have GROSS points it's almost useless to insist on net points. Excuse my ignorance but what do you mean by points ? Manu Anand New Delhi

Was recently working on a shoot where the sound department was having a nightmare of a time. Basically the sound recordist had acquired the new 8 track portadrive and was facing a lot or problems. After five days of shooting the machine basically packed up. Gave an error message that the portadrive people said they had never encountered in their testing. Anyway luckily the sound recordist was able to transfer his data and hadn't lost that. Anyway I think it was a new machine that came in after a few days and the same thing happened it packed up too after a few days but by now he was recording everything on DAT as well. I guess it was the stressful indian environment. Anyone been using the portadrive. How was your experience? (I'm in the wrong forum for this sorta question I know but just thought I'd share this with all of you since we have this Production Sound Forum) The sound recordist who is a good friend was quite distraught, having spent all that money. Manu Anand New Delhi

Miguel, A meter selection depends on your way of using a meter. Each cinematographer has his own way. some just spot, some just use incident some use both.Some dont use any meter at all . So you have to figure out what your comfortable with. I started out using the L-398 studio deluxe master is what its called i think, in film school and still love that meter. The way the analog needle lets you see how the light is falling of is something i miss in digital of late ive been using the L-508 cine and am quite happy with it. It has a spot meter as well. But for more accurate spot metering i find the minolta F better(its just a spot meter) Heres a link with an interesting discussion on meters and metering. http://www.cinematography.net/MetersMetering.htm Manu"still loves the L-398" Anand New Delhi