Guillaume Cottin

Hi Doyle, Footcandles and lux are two different units of the same measure : luminance, which is the light level (incident readings). In the US you will use footcandles, and in any case, it's very easy to do the conversion as 1 fc approximately equals to 10 lux. It's useful to think in terms of footcandles instead of t-stops. If you say you need x footcandles for your key light, a gaffer knows how much fc a light outputs at a given distance, and it's easier for everyone. It takes the camera (ISO, lens, etc...) out of the equation. Foot lambert and cd/m2 are two different units of reflected light (spotmeter reading). It is a measure of the light that is emitted for a given area, like computer screens (or movie screeens) for example. G.C.

Hi, I'll be shooting on a sony F3, recording 444 S-Log on a Pix240, and at the same time recording a REC709 "proxy" on SxS cards, for editing. I wanted to know how to make sure that the externally recorded footage will properly conform with the proxys. Obviously the timecode will match, but is there a way to have also the filename and Reel name match ? Thanks ++ G.C.

Thanks Daniel, Any pictures of the effect itself ? Can't find any on the internet. G.

Hello everyone, Do you have any info on the Panavision Primo Classic "soft effect" mode? I know it is an optical, variable diffusion effect, but I have yet to see the effect on an image. Any links or screenshots? This function is only available on the 24, 30, 65, 85 and 125mm, and I wonder if it cuts well with the other Primo lenses without the effect. Best,

That's would be a 1436x1080 in HD, 2048x1540 in 2K and 4096*3080 in 4K. Thanks !

Hello, I will be shooting a short film in 1.33 and would like to know what the best practices would be regarding the DCP mastering. I found the standard 1.85 and 2.39 resolutions for a DCP, and the obvious solution for a 1.33 DCP would be to letterbox it, but I would like to keep as much resolution as possible. Is there a 1.33 standard resolution for a 2K or 4K DCP which would avoid letterboxing? Thanks

Hey, I just found this, and it relates perfectly to the topic: http://www.afcinema....32thefuture.pdf

You're right, it's called demosaicing, and it's important to have a good sensor with a good software. The problem often comes from the dyes. Every photosite on a Bayer sensor has a green, red or blue color dye on it, in order to filter the unwanted colors. That is what makes a "green" photosite green. The quality of the colors and the color gamut of the camera depend on the quality of the dyes and their saturation. The more saturated they are, the wider the color space. Also, if the dyes are very pure, there is no overlapping between colors : every red, green or blue pixel gets only the appropriate wavelengths of color. A blue pixel will not receive any green light. But if a filter is not good enough and lets some other colors pass, there is some unwanted color in some other color pixels and that's very hard, if ever possible, to fix in software, because the software can only assume that all the voltage from this pixel is of the same color before demosaicing. Then the demosaicing (or debayering) happens: it takes photosite data and interpolates color of on the surrounding photosites to create RGB pixels. If this matrix calculations are done on incorrect data (= like when the dyes are bad) it creates color shifs, and if the dyes are not saturated enough, then some colors just can't be reproduced. Again, appeal to authority: http://provideocoali...matrix_reloaded

Hi, So we started with the "Impact of digital on cinematography" and now I'd like to avoid the unproductive and neverending Red vs. film argument, for I dared mention a future Red product on a digital cinema forum. Just so you can know me better, I'm a terrible Red fanboy: I don't own a Red camera, I never bought anything from Red, and worse than that: I never created an account on RedUser... for the simple reason that the discussions over there often end up in the same way as this one (oops!). I don't even care if Red's new sensor is any good to prove my point. Like you said, Red always makes last minute changes, which is old news. But the Dragon (or Wyvern, or whatever) is an example that digital sensor technology evolves fast and is becoming better, on a purely technical level, than silver. Is it a heresy to say so? Ask Roger Deakins: http://www.hitfix.co...ot-looking-back That's precisely what I wanted to talk about in the first place. Digital does indeed change the way you light: you can take more risks, go further in your aesthetic choices, and it may be interesting to talk about this rather than comparing spec sheets and how many DR this or that camera has. I'm not saying anything else than that, and I am not denigrating film either, and yes you can do great work on both formats, of course! So could you please be as kind as to acknowledge these shades of difference in my point of view, Mr.Philips, thank you.

Hey Matthew,As they say in DVD's "all opinions expressed here are solely my opinions". Saying my post is garbage was a bit harsh reaction, wasn't it? But it may start a real discussion on the topic. When I say that digital has a better dynamic range than film, my point is that the best digital cinema cameras are now at least equal to film stock in terms of dynamic range. The Kodak 5213 (200T) has up to 13 stops of DR (depending on the source!), which is equal to the Alexa's performance on the paper. But digital is not only the cameras but also the post-production. In order to pull the most detail out of the film stock you are better off doing a DI, so you can really bend the gamma to get details everywhere, as opposed to a classical photochemical finish on which you could just "shift" the exposure" and use the extra DR as exposure latitude. My second point is Red's new "Dragon" sensor which is expected to natively show between 18 stops and 20 stops of DR. That is way more than film, and that's what is coming in the near future, and I can only imagine the performance of the following generations of sensors. With so much range, blowing the highlights will be increasingly difficult, the need for compensating windows with interiors is reduced, unless, again, there are stylistic reasons to do so. Of course, it is very easy to clip highlights on most current mid-range or broadcast HD cameras that have 7 to 10 stops of range, and I don't even try to compare them to film in this regard. Yet a lof of progress has been made and I can name half a dozen mid-range digital cameras that can hold at least 12 stops of DR. The thing is, when the whites do clip it always looks a little bit digital, contrary to film that has a very gentle and natural-looking highlight rolloff. Film has more range in the highlights while digital is better at shadow rendition. When I said shooting film was disorienting, I was talking about my personal experience. I had my first computer when I was in primary school, and I learned computers, HD, digital etc... early. This is why, when I first shot a short film, on a Bolex standard 16mm camera without video tap and a dark prism reflex viewfinder, I was really disoriented! My point though, is that I learned digital first and film second, contrary to previous generations. Hey Keith. Many DP's accustomed to shooting film are asked to shoot digital on a growing number of jobs. Does it makes them cab drivers? I think video production is so widespread that I think it's not really a "speciality" anymore. High-speed, aerial, documentary, studio work, etc... these are specialities to me. I know that when a production decides to shoot on a specific format for some reason, they may look for a DP who's a "specialist" of this camera. But if a DP doesn't know the camera well enough, he'll hire a good camera assistant and/or DIT who does. I think DPs are able to work equally well on any format, since does not fundementally changes the core of the job: framing, shots, lighting, camera moves, composition, etc, etc... which are also the DP's duties and will never be obsolete.

Hi Joe, This is a very interesting topic, but also a very broad one. I do think that advances in digital cinematography are changing a lot of things. 1. I believe camera technology can somewhat free the DP's mind from some technical issues (like, not blowing the highlights, compensating a contrast ratio, etc...). These "techniques" will always exist but they will no longer be motivated by technical reasons but by aesthetic choices. It also means that the cinematographer's job ressembles more and more the one of a "lighting designer". Deakins says he uses more lights from practicals when shooting digital -and he likes that. 2. I like IP video technology. Teradek products and many others (light iron, etc...) give real-time streaming and H264 encoding to a cloud server where the dailies can be viewed during production, and the metadata can be edited. 3. Given my relatively young age :-) I shot mostly digital in my life, though I was lucky enough to shoot film too. Shooting film for the first time was disorienting because you can't see the final image on set. It requires you to be more rigorous in your approach (and maybe more conservative also ?), and that disciplin is a very good thing to keep for digital. On the contrary, with digital you can push things further and take more risks in lighting. 4. Well, there is a triangle between quality, price and time. You can't have the three of them. If you want to go faster, do more setups a day, and keep the same quality, it's going to cost more. Shooting digital does not really change this triangle. Digital is not so much cheaper than film if you count post-production and storage and everything. Digital it allows to shoot more quantity of footage per day, but if you do so you will increase the cost of the storage, and if you do 16 takes per shot instead of 6 just because you can... then you won't finish the day! 5. The DP is a very important position, and I don't think this will change with digital. I don't see a power shift, but the DP maybe lost a bit of his "magic" compared to film, as on film he is the only one on set to know what the dailies are going to look like. 6. I like digital. For those who think digital cameras aren't "natural" : our own eyes are digital cameras. Dynamic range is better on digital, the color gamut is also better on some newer cameras. There is no grain (it's always cleaner to add grain rather than degrain), and it IS possible to make digital look like film, while the contrary is not really possible. No scratches, no hairs in the gate, no stability issues. And if you want to have an optical viewfinder, that's possible too. Now what I like with film is that all the color science is much easier and does not depend on the camera you use. And film can be part of a movie's aesthetics, and in this case, not having the possibility to shoot it on film is just sad. 7. Like I said, I was born in the digital world, so I got used to digital very fast. I'm not saying it's easy -it's rather pretty complex actually, especially if you get into the details and if you really want to know how your tools work. No need to be a mathematician, but it's important to get the logic. Now, I talked only about digital capture, but digital distribution and theatre projection is a big thing. It's digital distribution that pushed digital capture.

Actually, Harrison & Harrison used to make graduated Fog filters called "Scenic Fogs". I think they're pretty rare though. G.

Hi Rolfe, I actually had a chance to play with this light a little bit and I have to say I was very convinced by the remote phosphor technology. All the good things they say about this light are true. Continuous spectrum, no green/magenta tint, dimmable, no flicker, etc... I only tried the 3200K panel, and it was impressive not being able to tell whether the light was coming from an LED or a tungsten lamp: it felt very "organic". Great technology. Also, it is very soft because the LEDs are not pointed forward or even bounced onto a white surface: the panel itself is the light emitter, and glows in reaction to the blue (and UV ?) radiation of the LEDs behind it. Nilas and Creamsources for example, are great efficient sources that create a lot of lumens per watt, but they have a more standard technology and don't have nearly as good a color temperature and CRI as the Trucolor. They are also harder sources and need diffusion to avoid multiple shadows (one for every LED...). The Trucolor is a great light for documentary, run and gun situations or even car day exteriors (through the windshield) : it seemed so bright that I can see it competing against the sun as fill light, at close to medium range. G.C.

Hi Brady, You're asking for a recipe here, which is fine, but my first answer is that it would be even better if you forged your own opinion by getting the Rosco and Lee color swatches (they're free at your local rental house) and then choosing the colors you like. They have gels for these specific purposes, like Red and Orange gels for fire, and Bermuda Blue for moonlight, but I never use those. To answer your question -and I will probably disappoint you because my recipe is so simple- I mainly use CTO and CTB gels, since 1/they're already in the truck, and 2/, CTO just lowers the color temperature and that's exactly what you want for a realistic candle effect (which you seem to be looking after). However, I like to add some straw (yellow) to fire/candlelight situations, to avoid going too orange, and because I like a slightly yellowish tint. Using multiple sources with slightly different combinations of diffusion and color will help simulating a fire. As for moonlight, well, it depends on the source behind the gel (is it tungsten or daylight), but I do it with CTB. I shot films that called for some very bold, unrealistic, blue moonlight effects, but for a more realistic result the main trick is to tone it down (in camera or in post), because in my view, realistic moonlight is more about lowering the saturation than finding the right tint. In a night exterior moonlight situation, I was shooting digital and I choose not to filter the HMIs to keep maximum output. Then I added some blue and had saturation lowred in post. If you have candlelight and moonlight within the same shot, I would suggest not to push the blue cast of the moonlight too far, while you can at the same time go with a strong warm tint for the candle light. Depending on the camera you will be shooting on, be careful with the saturation, especially with the Canon DSLRs who looove red and are likely to clip the red channel, resulting in an uncorrectable image. Best of luck for your shoot, G.C.

+1 for Lowell, because they have a good choice of integrated lighting package options (including cases), and the Rifas are good chimera lights, not too expensive yet powerful. Take also a look at their DP light (which basically replaces a redhead), and their small L-Light, fast setup, perfect for lighting a background detail or to give a kicker or a small backlight in an interview situation.

Interesting topic. It's good to bear in mind that one can always *add* motion blur in post, while the contrary is not possible. By choosing a 1/64th shutter (and not 1/60th like I mistakingly wrote earlier), Lesnie stayed on the safe side : a 1/96th shutter (180 degree at 48fps) would probably have created a less pleasing look at 48fps, while making the 24fps conversion more difficult. I wonder about the editing of 48 fps material. We know that a cut has sometimes to be frame-accurate. Do 48-fps cuts also work seamlessly at 24fps, or is there some tweaking needed to adapt the editing for the lower framerate?

Hi everyone, HFR or high framerate can be beautiful and lifelike, but is also very demanding indeed. The smallest bump on the dolly tracks reveals the existence of the camera. Handheld footage, although very fluid (the safe panning speeds are doubled) is unforgiving. On the Hobbit, Andrew Lesnie has resorted to Technocrane for most shots. When shooting HFR, the sharpness of the diminished motion blur is compensated by using a more open shutter. "The Hobbit" used a 270-degree shutter as "standard" (as opposed as to the usual 180 degree). Combined with the framerate of 48 fps, this equals to a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second. Which is not very different from the traditional 1/48 shutter speed -and therefore movment rendition- we are used to. It still remains twice as fluid as standard footage. We have the habit to associate 24fps footage with cinema, and more fluid footage with documentary or TV. Over a century ago, 24 fps was conceived as the smallest speed to allow sync sound. This norm emerged from a technical compromise : it does not correspond to the way we see the world. But eventually, we all got so used to it that it ended up being a signature of cinema, helping to put the viewer in a "suspension of disbelief" state, and I think this is why many people who watched "The Hobbit" reported the feeling that they were looking at a documentary and not a film. The more films will be shot and released in HFR, the more this cultural obstacle will be overcome. The case of The Hobbit (since it is the only feature film widely released in HFR so far) is a bit special also, because not only was it shot in HFR, but it also is very heavy in special effects! I found that some special effects felt fake : shot by shot, and sometimes within the same shot, I could tell with certitude what was filmed on set and what was created with CG. I think that it is due to a very slight difference in motion rendering between computers and cameras, even if both are set to the same framerate. I would love to investigate that issue. Apart from that, I believe that Peter Jackson and his team experienced big schedule issues and had to release a film that was... well, unfinished -on the special effects side -but not only. Courage, Peter! You still have two more films! G.C.

Hmm, let's do some reverse engineering. If you look closely, the edges of the frame are more blurry than the middle. I would put some translucent nail polish on a spinning glass in front of the lens (a device used to prevent water drops on the lens), then shoot at a high fps with a shutter as slow as possible, and of course, a wide angle lens. Then in post I'd double or triple every frame.

A key grip friend of mine carries a 20 inch machete. And believe me if you will, it proved itself very useful more than once!

Knowledge is an endless pit : the more you learn, the more you discover how much there is that you don't know yet. I love watching films, but I am also very technically oriented, and I learn new stuff every single day ! Far from being frightening, this is what makes things so interesting, this is why filmmaking is so awesome. You will never get bored. Whenever you think you mastered a skill, you soon realize you can always dig deeper. It may take 10000 hours to just start at being good at something, but mastering the craft is the work of a lifetime. Since there is no way to remember everything (unless you have eidetic memory!), at some point, I decided that I would organize my knowledge. I started a notebook where I write down useful lighting tricks and other useful stuff that I learn over time. I filed all the papers and documentation I had gathered on cameras and gear over the years. I also organized my browser's bookmarks, etc... There are also a few books I trust, so if ever there is anything I don't know, at least I know where to find what the information I need. That being said, we're talking about knowledge here, and it is different from pure practice. You learn different stuff by experience than by reading books (or blogs). Both are necessary and complementary. Now about going blank about how to shoot something. Just think about what you are trying to tell. Think about your story's themes. The best shot angle, the best lighting are the ones that help you express what you want to tell. But do not worry, because from what I see in your video, you do have a very good sense of composition, and there is an atmosphere that emanates from your images. You'll learn the rest. Step by step.

Great stuff ! Thanks :-) G.

Hey, I'd say the main source is definitely a rectangular overhead diffusion frame over the table that also gives some backlight effect on the main characters. The lantern must be hung quite low, I'd say just above the frame, (so the effect on the hair is exacerbated due to the inverse square law). Some poly bounce and the white papers ont the table provide fill on the actor's faces. A diffused light on the guy in the background, making sure that the contrast matches with the foreground. Something like, I'd say, single tube 4ft kinos gelled in 1/8 blue provide the blue-ish ambience for the room. And of course a light outside on diffusion gelled windows. G.

Hi Olliehm, I would agree with your guess: HMI's through diffusion on windows, and fluorescents as overhead (slightly backlit overhead). That's for the prelight. Oh, and some negative fill on the downstage side of his face. If you look at the shadows on his face, the keylight is very hard, like a Fresnel or a par. Maybe it is one of the big HMI's outside, or maybe it's a Jokerbug with the beamer a few feet away, but anyway, it's direct light, and the eye is tricked into thinking that it is soft light because the contrast between the key and fill is low. So the trick to achieve this look would be a very hard and specular key, but with an intensity just above the fill light level so it blends seamlessly, keeping a low contrast ratio. G.

Hi Ian, The EPIC can't indeed desqueeze in another format than 2.35. You will have to go for the 5K 2:1 and then crop (it is useless to use the 5K FF mode since you are going to crop vertically anyways). As for lenses coverage, some 35mm PL lenses will not cover the 5K sensor. As far as I know, the Angenieux DP lenses will not cover the sensor and they even might hit it since the rear element of the lens protrudes a lot. There is no rule, and you should test the lenses before renting, but usually primes will cover, and big zooms will not. Angenieux announced new "expanded coverage" versions of the 17-80 and 25-250 so they can cover FF5K. As far as on-camera monitoring is concerned, I can only recommend the TVLogic WFM-056WP, which allows to completely personnalize the ratio of your video. But it's a small 5.6" monitor, and your 3.5:1 image will be really tiny ! Unfortunately I don't know of a set monitor that has this function. Best, G.C.

"Wow". Thank you Guy for this great, thourough, very informative reply! I couldn't dream of a better answer. G.C.