Fabian Prell

Hey everyone, I'm looking to buy some Tiffen and Schneider Filters (IR's and Platinums) in different sizes. As I am not from New York, can anyone recommend any good stores in NYC or the surrounding area? Anything from New Jersey up to Boston is fine. Many thanks! Fabian Aspiring DP London and Frankfurt based.

hmm...okay... the lighting is not bad in alot of it, not bad. Somehow a bit too low light for my taste..there is a big trend to be overstylized at the moment as people think thats what good cinematography is. Cinematography is whatever enhances and supports the meaning of the content with images in my opinion, alot of DPs try to get ahead of any information possibly found in the script and give the image harsh edges and dark faces. Metaphoric movements and framing with location, production design and actors are also getting lost in alot modern showreels. Content is always the key, not contrast. Anyways, the reel is too long but i figured your aware of that. Apart from that your framing is slightly awkward sometimes.. the faces and eyelines are too high in alot of shots I think, it doesn't feel natural to watch. As I said though, the lighting is good. I'm being quite honest about it, but I hope that its constructive too. And in any case, its art, and there is no right or wrong. Good luck with it!

Yeah, quite nice. You have a good variety and it feels like your cinematography is founded within the real. There are too many completely over-stylized images these days by people, who don't look for the content first, but rather try to copy from other pieces, often bypassing the core of the story/content. Good reel.

The showreel is not bad, although I think you are missing shots of a well lit and well composed image. Don't get me wrong, the stuff looks great, its just a bit heavy on the dark side. Very stylized. Well done though!

Hi, I am shooting a short film in 3 weeks and need to book all the lighting equipment pretty soon. That will be dependent on some technical info I have difficulties gathering. The scene is the following: There is a slowmotion scene at night in the woods. Its sort an imaginary fight of a Samurai and some of his martial arts moves withe sword are in slowmotion. The two main lightsources will be light from a fire for the front of his body and a moonlight (HMI) as backlight. Maybe some Kinoflo's and Dedo's as fill-light to get minimum exposure. Usually I would go by the rule and say: for every 25 fps I go up (so 50fps) I loose 1 stop. (or from 24 to 48 in Amercan productons and features). We plan on shooting at 75 frames per second (with the 416) or if we get the 416 plus HS with as much as we can with the light we have (up to 150fps). Usually the lightloss could only be compensated by aperture and the strength of the light source. Now I've heard that the lightloss can also be compensated by adjusting the shutter angle. Logically that would mean more motion blur though. How far can I go with that before it gets blurry and how many stops can I compensate with it? The shutter can go from 45 degrees to 180 degrees standart as far as I know. The problem is..I know I know... I don't have time for tests.. so I need to calculate it precisely and adjust the lights on the day... Can anyone help me with this? Experience with slowmotion shoots on film? The shoot will not have any ramping, just set framespeeds. Many thanks! Fabian Cinematography LCC London

I want my money back - is probably the best way to describe what I feel right now. All these years growing up, watching Pinocchio's nose grow 4% faster, because I was in the UK..... I can't believe that there is no standardization that all movies in the world run at the same speed, no matter if DVD, Bluray, cinema projection, PAL, NTSC... All the years of watching movies too quick.. Schwarzenegger's voice on baloongas (or 4% less manly). Its 2009! I guess next time my girlfriend forces me to watch "Love actually" for the 5380th time I will just get the PAL version ;). Anyways, slightly off topic, apologies... felt like my parents just told me theres no santa clause...

Thanks for all the great answers! Great amount of knowledge! To finalize the understanding of why film gets shot a certain way there are three more questions (before i feel confident to control super 8 to some extent;)): Everyone recommends to overexpose by one stop when shooting with good colour negative film. Why is that? To my understand it is for the following reasons: 1.Negative film shows increased grain when underexposed. Grain decreases (picture becomes rather grainless and fine) when slightly overexposed. So you basically prevent the film from becoming grainy, and you can then later in post, stop the footage down to the originaly intended exposure, without the grain it would have had. 2. Film looses details easier in the black areas, than in the bright areas. Therefore it is overexposed when shot and can be stopped down in the grading process, where the picture will then have the same amount of "brightness" as if it was correctly exposed, just that the detail in he black areas is preserved (and less grain), correct? Would it make sense then to overexpose by one stop when shooting and then tell the filmlab to push it down one stop when developing? Would the result be an image, with the same "brightness" (or stop), as if it was exposed correctly on the shoot, just that there is more detail in the blacks, and less grain? What would be the correct way to bring the image back to the correct exposure, once it has been shot intentionally overexposed. 3. Now a practical question for the upcoming short of mine (shooting this firday, first super8 shoot, wish me luck): We are shooting a scene with a character inside a car. It will be daylight and there will be no extra lighting. My instinct from shooting with digital is the following: If I expose the character correctly, the sky will burn out in the background and the information in the sky will be lost. Naturally I would then stop down so I can get some detail in the sky, without having the character too dark. In post i can then push it up slightly without burning out the sky. Now negative film has a way bigger latitude in contrast and color-range when it comes shooting tricky light situations. But for this scene I am worried: If I (as everyone suggests with negative film) overexpose the character by one stop. The sky will loose detail completely, or not? Not only would I have lost information in the sky through the big contrast of light between the character and the sky, but also would I have overexposed by one stop, which would make me loose even more detail in the sky. What I am asking is basically, will the 200t vision T accommodate to expose for the character in the car, overexpose by 1 stop and still see detail in the sky? Or should I for this particular shot expose correctly, or even underexpose to get the blue sky in the background as well, AND the character (which is suppose to be the main focus of attention, so he has to come out decent)? What are the experiences there? Many thanks!!

Thanks for all the answer guys. I think its really weird that a film filmed on 24fps just runs 4% faster on PAL DVDs and TV and noone cares, if this is true. So the common thing to do is to just let it run faster? Is there no technical way of getting a film on a DVD in a PAL country and actually see it at the original speed it was recorded? It sounds weird to me (I know that Blu-Ray films are now universally 24p and that HDTVs are including this native 24p support more and more to replicate a cinema projection), but still, with SD there is no option get a 24fps film in the right speed on a PAL TV with progressive pictures? Even if I wouldn't see it, just knowing it would annoy the crap out of me.. am I missing something?

Thanks for all the answers, I just want to summarize this in my own words to see if I understand correctly, verication appreciated: 1. With 16mm and 35mm there is no lightloss from the lense to he film, correct? That is why the lightmeter gives you the stops, that you should set the lense to (Or at least the lightmeter is already set to account for the stoploss in 16mm and 35mm cams). However, on a the Nizo 651, there is a specific lightloss, between the lense and the gate, which a handheld light meter does not take into account: 3/4 of a stop, correct? 2. The lightmeter of the Nizo rates 200T Kodak V2 as ASA100. Thats why I can use the in built camera reading and close down by one stop (If I wanted to expose on the spot). That would mean, that for every 100 ASA less that a filmstock has, I can simply compensate by opening up the aperture by one stop. That means if the light meter give me a 5.0 reading at 500ASA film, it will give me a 3.0 reading at 300ASA, a 2.0 reading at 200ASA and so on (just an example to understand how the ratio works)? 3. Now to the 1/60 shutterspeed setting on the hand-held lightmeter: The shutterspeed of a Nizo with 24fps and a shutterangle of 151 Degrees is 1/57. So you set the lightmeter to 1/60 because its the closest it can get to 1/57? This would mean that the shutterangle of 151 is basically set in the lightmeter by the 1/60 shutterspeed, correct? It sounds correct to me, just by logic and maths, my question now is: Does the 1/60 setting on the lightmeter take the 2/3 stop loss of the lightpath into account already or not? Or would I do a reading with the external lightmeter at 1/60 shutterspeed (24fps, ASA200 for 200T) and open up the aperture by 2/3 of a stop on top of it? I will probably go with the lightmeter of the camera. Lets say I want to expose for the highlights, then I would have to walk to the area with the highlight and take a quite close reading with the camera to get the reading for the highlights, like a refelective lightmeter, just that i have to go close to the object, right? The lightmeter of the camera does not recognize the zooming in from a distance and close down its reading area, does it? This hole thing just made me a bit worried of how to actually expose best for the highlights with the camera now... or how to control what I expose in the picture.. thats why I thought a handheld lightmeter would the best option... hmm.. seems like it isn't with the nizo's... Sorry for the long post, just want to know how to control exactly what i will get as result. No room for experiments in his upcoming shortfilm of mine...and no time for tests anymore either..

Thanks for the reply! What I am asking though, is: If I shoot at 24fps, but the transfer to Digibeta happens at 25fps. And I then import this footage into final cut pro to edit it, wont it be 1frame per second too fast? Wont I have to slow it down again to get the speed, that the action happened at, when recorded in 24 fps? The method to achieve this would be some kind of pulldown or simply a reduction of the clip speed in final cut pro. But would I have to do that in the first place or do the guys at lab ensure somehow that it will be on the Digibeta tape in exactly the speed I recorded it. Thanks!

Hi, I shot a project on Super 8 with 24fps I live in the UK and want my project professionally telecined on to Digibeta I have the following questions: How is it done to ensure that the filmed speed will be right when looking at the film on tape, in other words: PAL Standart is 25fps, I beleive that this is the speed that PAL Digibeta works at too. So there a following options: 1.The telecine runs at 25fps, so my film will run slightly faster then recorded. I can then transfer it into fcp and slow it down by 4%, and will have the image as it was, a 24fps speed. 2.Before tranfering on to PAL digibeta a 3:2pulldown takes place. In this case, wouldnt the flm run weird, (dropped frames or duplicated frames?) How does it usually work and what is the best option to be able to edit it in the speed i actually recordet it. I will record sound as well, that has to be synced with the image, so it is extremely important that i can edit at the same speed i recorded.. Thanks for the answers!

Hi there, I am planning to shoot a short on Super 8. Just have two questions regarding the correct exposure: 1.My Nizo has a shutter angle of 150 Degrees (or 151 as the manual says). I am going to shoot at 24fps, which gives this a shutterspeed of 1/57. As I am using a vision2 200T, so the in-built lightmeter will not recognize the stock and I cant use it. As a result I am using a handheld lightmeter. The Lightmeter I am using is fixed at 180Degrees. So lets say I set everything correct in Lightmeter (24fps, 200T), and the Lightmeter gives me a reading of 4.0 stops. What should I set my camera to (in regards to the difference between the 150Degrees on the cam and the 180Degrees the lightmeter is set to). How do I calculate the difference? Is there a formula? Or do I just overexpose by 1/2 - 1 stop when shooting? 2 I am shooting outside. But I am using a 200t (tungsten). To correct this I am using the in-built correction filter of the nizo. How much light do I loose through it? Should I still keep the lightmeter set to 200T, even when shooting outside with the correction filter? If the lightmeter gives me 4.0 at 24fps and 200T, how do I set my camera to make up for the light-loss of the filter? Many thanks!