Bruce Greene

Tom, it's great that you're doing these tests to understand the camera! A couple things: A kodak grey card is not the reflectance value for 50%. I would suggest that you try to get something like a DSC greyscale test chart to compare it to. You will see that the grey card matches the grey in the test chart one or maybe two steps below the middle grey square which one might set at 50% on a waveform monitor in Rec709 mode. Second, the REC709 mode on an Alexa is Arri's interpretation of a pleasant image in REC709. It does not match what one would expect of a standardized broadcast video camera. And this is what you should discover from your testing. So, get yourself a standard video test chart with the two greyscale ramps going from dark to light on the top, and light to dark on the bottom. Light the chart evenly and adjust the iris so that the middle square is at 50% (for starters). Look at your waveform monitor. You should see something resembling an "x" pattern. In a standard broadcast setup this would look like an "x" with straight lines. What does yours look like? I know from doing this test that an Alexa, in REC709 mode will show an "x" with curves at the top and bottom, rolling off highlights and shadows. Play with your iris to see what happens as you get close to and beyond maximum white and black (note: light the chart so that you begin at f5.6!) You may or may not like this look, and you may decide that even in REC709 that you will need to grade the image in post production. Lastly, set the iris so that the middle of the "x" is at 50%. Then hold up your grey card in front of the chart and see if the suggested exposure matches the iris and ISO you've set on the camera. It should be pretty close. Have fun!

Oops, i didn't notice that he assumed 2/3stop for the pola instead of 1 2/3..,.

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Yes, of course, by I was trying to simplify and make a clear explanation...if you were referring to my post :)

I think it's best to think of LOG encoding as a compression scheme, rather than a color space. To explain this, let's assume that our recording format can record only 100 tones in each color, red green, and blue. If we look at a grey ramp consisting of only 100 steps, we can just barely see the steps upon close examination, but it's smooth enough for us to perceive it as a continuous tone ramp. If our camera can see only 5 stops of dynamic range, and we record a linear image of 100 steps, the result will look quite normal for the bulk of the image, but highlights, and blacks may well clip, making the image seem electronic. This is the way live TV is basically done. The midtones all look good, but we often lost detail in a white shirt... But is was a good match to our TVs that can show 5 stops with convincing realism. But, what if our camera sensors can see 12 stops of dynamic range? If we record all this data, we can roll off the lighlights and shadows in a film like way, in post, see the detail at the extremes and have a "film" like photograph. In 2005 Panasonic decided to implement this idea in the Varicam. It was called "film rec" mode and recorded all 12 stops into the 100 steps (really 256) of tones that the camera could record. The result was a very low contrast dark image that could have a curve applied in post to create a pleasing photographic image. But there was a little problem. The "meat" of the image was recorded to steps 10-50 on the scale. 50-100 contained only highlights. When a curve was applied in post to create a normal looking photograph, steps 10-50 got stretched to 10-90. And the result was that this created gaps in the tone ramp that became obvious as banding or posterization. So how to avoid this banding? The simple way is to record 1000 steps of tones instead of 100. But this would require files be 100 times bigger! LOG to the rescue! By applying a Log curve to th image before recording, the "meat" of the image could use steps 10-85 of the recording. The idea is that it is very difficult to see gaps in tones in the near whites and whites which now only have 15 tones to represent 3 or 4 stops. In post the LOG curve is reversed, with highlights and shadows gently rolled off, but it all fits in a 100 step, compact (low data) recording. So the idea behind LOG recording is to fit a very large amount of data into a small bucket, while giving the most detail to the part of the tone curve which we most easily perceive loss off detail. So LOG is a way to record a large color space into a small recording in an efficient way so that we don't perceive the loss of data. Eg. A compression scheme.

My feelings exactly Tyler...when they invented the light meter :)

I saw the trailer for "cake" at the cinema yesterday. It looked quite good! Well done Rachel! I'll need to catch the entire film soon :)

Our lead actress refused make up on our last movie. I found a clip on Vimeo. She is in the checkered shirt :) And it was not about looking "weathered" either...

I think this effect has a lot to do with BTS shot from the "wrong" angle. If a scene is back lit and dark to the movie camera it will look bright and over lit when filmed from the side. This is why I sometimes cringe when a director asks to add a second camera...shooting from the "dumb" side of the lighting setup...but, sometimes, you have to do it anyway and try to match the looks in the color grade :(

Welcome to California Oleg!

I just finished color grading a feature. Most was shot with Ziess ultra primes, and a little with Arri zooms made by Fuji. And I have to say, the zoom lens was obviously different looking. And not in a good way. Firstly, the color was yellow. And with a little bit less contrast. But, even after color matching, the zooms still "look" a little bit different. And it's hard to describe, and it's not always obvious , just to make my response unclear... There was something that was just more pleasing about the prime lenses, but I can't say what exactly! Of course no one buying a ticket will see this difference :)

For those who have not seen this "crane", it's not like a traditional jib. The boom is operated by booming the dolly column, which is hard linked to the jib arm. And small balance shifts will be difficult to spot as the arm does not see saw freely. The weight / height vs platform width is quite near its limit which makes it easy to fail. Kick out a couple dolly wedges and down you go. I did use this thing on my last film for some shots looking down over a bed, but with a remote head and no operator, even then, we were quite cautious.

regarding the safety classes that we must take (union members in the US): Without even considering that this was a live train track, it was clear that fall protection gear should have been required to work on this bridge. This is a topic covered quite extensively in the safety class. Even if this was a non-union production, at least some of the crew were union and must have taken these classes. They should have spoken their concerns. So, the most basic issue here is why did they keep silent?

I have used this rig when filmming in Russia. It's a Panther / Magnum dolly. The dolly grip has always said no rotation while on tracks. The wheel base is not wide enough, as you can see in the video...

Another issue with 3d projection is that at many venues the screen brightness (after putting on the glasses) is 1/4 normal screen brightness. Sometimes, even less. What is gained in stereoptic dimension may be negated by the dimensionality lost in in image intensity and contrast...

5 years ago I knew a movie still photographer that shot motion picture film in his Nikon and processed it at home in c-41. He removed the rem-jet backing with a squeegie after processing. This may be the only way to develop such short lengths now without a movie film lab to do it.

set the monitor to REC709 and the monitor out of the Alexa to REC709 also. Make sure not to record REC709 if you want LogC recording. The "REC709" out of the Alexa is a bit low in contrast, I think to allow some grading of the image. But it's way better than viewing LogC on the director's monitor. There is no easy way to to view in a more traditional REC709 mode (to look like a tv camera). There is an app called "Arri Look Creator" that you can download from Arri. But it can only modify the REC709 already in the camera, and with crude controls (lift, gamma, gain, saturation - no curves). You can't up-load a LUT to the Alexa, but I believe you can to the Amira. The "Arri Look Creator" requires that you record a still frame from the Alexa to SD card, load it into your computer, modify the stock Look from the Alexa, and then upload it to the camera. It's not as simple as it should be, and if I remember correctly, may require re-booting the camera at some point to up-load the modified look.

I have seen the same effect, I think. The old shows are sped up to allow time for more commercials. But not all the way to 30fps. I think they just drop frames here and there...

Sorry, I haven't used the Amira yet... But with the Alexa, REC709 is rather low contrast compared to "broadcast" video. There is a bit of highlight roll off built in, which you might compensate for by lighting with a high contrast. So you will need to watch that on the waveform and may even find that you still need to perform color grading to get your optimal image. Just not starting from the log curve. Further, in LOG mode, one still may want to use the Arri LUTs to convert the image to 709 as there is still some color matrix yet to add for the "Alexa" look. It may well also be the case that you will want to use an Arri LUT to apply this matrix from Arri 709 to video 709. But I'm not sure as I've always used LOG with the Alexa.

One more approach to consider: Think first about where to put the camera (and audience!), and then choose the focal length to choose how much of the scene to see in the frame. This also forces one to consider who's point of view is best for the scene, or even just that set up.

As am operator, I don't like front boxes. I usually ask to remove them, as they sometimes interfere with the operation of the camera. Just my little thought of the day...

I've bee shooting comedy lately, and I often don't know what to photograph until I see some kind of rehearsal. I know that we'll do some kind of wide shot that will allow them to play the scene with as little limitation as possible. After deciding on the scope of the widest frame, I usually end up thinking "where can I put any light that is not in the frame?" And that's where I start the process. What's out of frame? How can I deal with that limitation and still fit the story and mood? And make it 3 dimensional. And I'll start from "how does it look with no movie lights?" And work from there. The coverage can have improvements, and we'll start getting that ready on stand by so it can be added quickly after the "masters" have been shot.

and...the story: There are three married couples with who all have 5 year old children. The wives go off to a spa to take a break from child rearing and leave their husbands to care for the kids for a month. The dads are overwhelmed by the kids and run into their old nemesis, St. Valentine at a shopping mall in Moscow. After much drinking the men complain to Valentine about the challenge of parenting and mention that it would be easier if the kids were grown up already. In the morning, they awake, hung-over, and find 18 year old children in their homes. Hopefully, comedy ensues! :o :)

Thanks David, hadn't thought of that!... Hmm, "Love in the Big City 3" is the third installment in a popular series of Russian comedies created and directed by Marius Wiesberg. (LBC3 was co-directed by editor David Dodson). I've worked only on the 3rd installment. This was my 2nd project with Marius, the first, also a Russian comedy, "8 First Dates", released in 2012. We've just completed shooting "8 New Dates", the sequel to "8 First Dates". "8 New Dates" will open New Years day at a theater near you, if you live in Russia, Ukraine, or Kazakhstan. Quite by accident, I've, sort of, become a Russian cinematographer. LBC3 was both a feature film (released new years day 2014) and an 8 episode TV series. We started filming in Las Vegas in February 2013 for 8 days, and then moved to Moscow for 58 more days of shooting and finished in early June. Camera operators were Jenya Muratov and myself in Moscow. Dan Kneece joined us as operator for 8 days in Vegas. Thanks Dan! Gaffer was Nicholai Romanov in Moscow and Jim Wise in Las Vegas. Technical details: Arri Alexa, captured to HD ArriLogC pro-res 4444. Ziess Ultraprimes and occasional zoom lens. I was also the colorist on the film, along with my partner, Price Pethel who has taught me a great deal about color grading! For those interested, we graded using Adobe SpeedGrade and the film was released in over 1000 screens on DCP and about 100 film prints. The LogC was converted to REC709 using an Arri LUT from the Arri web site. A smidgeon of a film emulation LUT was also used to give a hint of Kodak film color response. On our most recent project, I have a new MacBookPro with a calibrated "Retina" screen. Every day I brought home a little USB3 drive with the days work and "graded" dailies on my laptop. I think this is pretty darn cool. I don't grade every shot, but it's a great learning tool for learning exactly how the camera responds and learning how far I can stress the camera. If you're reading this, I hope you've enjoyed the clips:) It is a great adventure to travel to a foreign country to work on a local production, especially when, like me, you don't speak the local language! (I'm learning, but slowly:) It's quite a bit different experience then traveling with a Hollywood crew to a foreign land. I've have had to learn to adapt to their way of working, while hopefully, enriching them with a little bit different perspective. In all, it's been a fantastic experience for me and I've made many new friends.