Bruce Greene

I suspect that there is no effect in the perception of the story. And I also suspect that there will be no research into this "effect" unless you do it yourself ? It seems like asking if listening to music on a vinyl record effects one's perception of harmony vs a digital reproduction... And more in the realm of youtube bloggers than active filmmakers or recording artists.

It's easy to use a still photography light meter for motion pictures. One just needs to know the ISO setting and the actual shutter speed that you will be employing. I believe the Bolex shutter speed at 24fps is 1/65th sec. But one must also increase exposure to compensate for the viewing prism/mirror and that means one should set the shutter to 1/80th sec on your light meter.

I've seen a bunch of scripts with "smash cut to" written in them. But I have no idea how to shoot it!

I did watch this video and the results mirror my on set experience. But not noted in the video, adding gels to LED lights often don't result in the desired correction exactly either. For example, adding a CTO to a daylight LED will not match a true tungsten quartz lamp either. So, this gets a bit tricky as well...

When you forgo the 85 filter you are essentially underexposing the red and green sensitive layers of the film. So that, even metering correctly, you will be underexposing your film. I think, if you insist on not using the 85 filter you should add maybe 1/2 stop of exposure to compensate for better results.

It is really best to shoot tungsten film in daylight using an 85 filter to create a color balanced negative. Under exposing without using an 85 filter will create a quite noisy result with any tungsten film in daylight. It's easy to make a balanced negative blue in post if you desire. It's much more difficult to create a neutral color correction from an unbalanced negative that is also underexposed.

Daniel, these days, the easiest method would be to scan the photographs on a flat bed scanner and animate the zooms and repositions in software. In the case where the photograph is too big for your scanner, you could go to a professional scanning service with a large scanner, or, re-photograph the print with a high(ish) resolution still camera and then animate that photo in post production software. And, your flatbed scanner need not be very expensive for scanning prints. I have an "all in one" office type Epson printer/scanner that can produce very good scans from prints up to 8.5 x 11 inches (letter sized). This printer/scanner is very inexpensive, but the printer ink can cost more than the printer w/inks!

The reel looks very good, but there are maybe 2 or 3 clips that look kind of "low budget" that you might remove. I think you'll know which ones. I'm not a fan of the music though... But excellent work overall!!!!

I should add that the video feed is not an accurate representation of the image and viewing dailies is still necessary. Now, printed film dailies are quite rare, and dailies are viewed from scanning the camera negative instead.

If you are talking about shooting on film, yes, there is almost always a video assist (video picture of the camera viewfinder), and often that is recorded for playback, when desired.

I've been shooting a film this month using mostly LED lighting. Most of our lamps have adjustable color temperature and I sometimes set the camera above tungsten and below daylight and adjust the lamps to the desired colors for effect.

Eh... It's no so bad ?

Sandra, everyone on a film is a tool of the director. Until... the director becomes the tool of the producer! ?

A lot of new editors focus on matching the action exactly when finding a cut point. But, from my experience watching what really good editors do, the most important thing is to make the cut at the moment new information needs to be revealed. And when this is done well, exact matching of motion is no longer really required for a good edit. The most important thing, I think, is to convince the audience that they are discovering the story, on their own. But, in reality, the editor is directing them every bit of the way...

This is a common effect with streaming video. The compression wipes out the grain...

You will need some backlight to see the rain. And, it will be a lot of water, more than a usual rainy day. Be prepared to get everything wet. You might also desire a rain deflector device for the lens, depending upon whether you can keep the rain off the lens... Usually you can avoid getting the lens / filter wet with just the eye brow on the matte box. At least get an optical flat filter to keep the water off the lens itself.

And... I propose that we, in the US, convert to the metric system of measurement! Another good idea that's never going to happen ? In the end, at the post production stage, I just use the delivery format such as 2k scope = 2048 x 858 pixels... Just to confuse things even more!

I shot with the 14mm yesterday. It was a very small room and I needed to see almost everything in it. And it saved the scene. Couldn't tell this story without it. This is only the 2nd time I've used the lens on this project, and it has remarkably little distortion, considering the field of view. Perhaps, a 12mm would have been better, but... I didn't have one with us. When you get to 9mm, that is really kind of a "fish eye" effect, and one needs to be careful that one doesn't see one's feet or the tripod in the shot ? And moving the camera with a 9mm really shows off the distortion and creates a kind of dreamy effect, especially on a Steadicam where the speed change of the steps becomes quite pronounced. Most of all, I'm grateful that the producers haven't demanded that I send the lens back to the rental house, as I use it so little. But, I can't accurately predict when it will be the very thing needed when we're shooting. So, these two shots will actually cost an extra $1000, but really really worth it to me!

I believe, if you are using a preston, that it's possible to change the calibration torque with an adjustment inside the MDR module. Check with Preston, if this applies to your model about how to do this.

How about using a mono pod instead of a tripod?

I have the Pentax digital spotmeter and have been very pleased with using it. I'm not sure that the zone VI mod is desirable for use with digital cameras though, as I think this mod tunes the meter for color negative film response, which might not match digital camera sensor response. Just something to think about if using this for digital capture.

What David said! I'm shooting now with the old Ziess Super speeds from the 1990's. I don't use them wider than T 2.5. And they ARE hard to focus. I feel for my poor focus puller... But it's a small film, with small money, and... thus, small lenses ? But they do take very nice images! When I used the even much smaller Ziess standard mount/speed primes years ago, it was with my Arri BL 1 enclosed in a lens blimp, which had a very wide diameter gear on it. Using the Preston follow focus, the focus marks could be made much wider apart, and they worked pretty well. And in dailies, no one ever noticed a difference with the Panavision Primo primes from the "A" camera. Not saying there wasn't a difference, but it was never noticed ?

This is not the case. My little Ziess lenses are T2.1 which is darned close to T1.8 ? I think the larger lenses with lots of glass are designed to eliminate a lot of imperfections, but not so much to allow more light to pass through. All things being equal, of course T1.4 lenses are larger, but not so much larger as the modern lenses.

Older cinema lenses can be quite small. Even too small for accurate focus markings and following focus. Cinema lenses started getting larger to accommodate larger focus rings and accurate focusing. Lens sets were designed so that all had the same size front to make changing lenses faster also (fits in the same matte box quickly). Newer cinema lenses are more complex designs and have gotten much bigger and heavier. As have still camera prime lenses. And not all large prime cinema lenses have apertures larger than T 1.8 ? I have an older set of Ziess primes made for the Arri BL I or II and Arri IIc. They are maybe 1.25 inches in diameter and maybe 2 inches long. And they are not so easy to focus as the rings are so small ? And they don't have gears on them either...

T stops take into account loss of light transmission through the lens, while f stops are a simple mathematical calculation from the focal length of the lens and the diameter of the iris. Thus, the T stops are more accurate for measuring exposure. That said, I don't believe T stops are measured for each individual lens and diaphragm setting. And most likely, though I'd really need to google this, an overall correction for the lens design. Way back, when I used to own lenses, I took my set to Panavision and had them measured for MTF and transmission at different apertures and I learned a couple things: 1. Shadow detail did not improve between T2.0 and 1.4 due to increased flare. Yes, there was less depth of focus, but no more shadow detail could be recorded. So the exposure "advantage" of T1.4 was not nearly so much as I expected. 2. The T stop markings were only truly accurate with the lens wide open. And, the spec for my Ziess lenses for iris accuracy was + or - 1/3 stop for each mark on the iris ring. And I would expect the same for lenses marked in f stops. In general, complicated lens designs such as zoom lenses will have the biggest difference between f stops and T stops regarding exposure accuracy. And if one is concerned about setting the iris "just a hair" differently, in the end, it won't make any meaningful difference ?