Josh Silfen

I guess that answers my question. Either the post house got the impression that the eventual film-out is more likely than it actually is, or they just fall into the latter category of "purists" who think the flat transfer route is the best option if there is ANY possibility of a film-out. The plan for the HDcam projection copy and any DVD master is to apply the LUT to the graded flat film-out master. What is color banding, and are there any other potential problems or artifacts from the "reverse LUT" route? -Josh Silfen

The flat transfer actually did not look as bad as I was expecting. It was certainly not what I'd want people judging when they watched dailies, but you do get a good feel for what's on the negative and for submission purposes I'm guessing it could be made to look pretty decent with some basic color correction in Final Cut Pro or other NLE. I don't think there was anything wrong with the transfer, especially because with the Kodak-calibrated LUT applied, the contrast looked just as I'd expect it to look. In fact, I thought if I went through this process again, a good workflow might be to get all the footage transferred flat to HDcamSR at the beginning, and at the same time to DVcam with simultaneous time code and the LUT applied for offline purposes. Then you'd have good looking dailies, know what's on the negative, and have the flat transfer SR tapes ready for online purposes later. I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining about the post house (Shooters Post and Transfer in Philadelphia) or the colorist. I think they have done a tremendous job. We had four days of color correction, and we accomplished some pretty amazing things. They were really enthusiastic about the project from the beginning and were willing to work with us in terms of budget and schedule to get the whole thing done in a few weeks so it will be ready for Tribeca this month. I have nothing but good things to say about them. I'm just trying to get a better handle on the technical aspects of digital post production that I don't really understand and see what kinds of workflows others have used. The colorist recommended the flat transfer because of the possibility of a film out later. If we knew we'd never be going back to film, we would not have done it that way, and probably could have gone a little further in the color correction. Basically, the way I understand it, the flat transfer approximates film gamma, so when it is recorded back to film it maintains all the detail from the original negative and looks appropriately contrasty. If you were to do a regular telecine-type timed transfer instead, the SR footage would have too much contrast and you would lose much of the shadow and highlight detail when recording back to film. Therefore, a DI would be inherently more limited than a normal telecine for video finish. This is what I don't really understand; the technical aspects of converting from film to digital contrast and color space and back again. Also, when film is scanned at 2K or 4K, isn't it still some kind of flat transfer to data files? There still isn't any color correction applied during the scanning stage, right? If that's the case, then even though this was done on SR tape, the color correction process should be pretty comparable to a 2K DI. Unfortunately I don't have any HD stills at the moment. Maybe I'll be able to get some later. One other question: I've always overexposed by about a third of a stop to get a denser negative. Does the flat transfer eliminate the benefits of doing this? -Josh Silfen

I just went through the color correction for my first DI, and there are still some issues with the whole workflow that I don't quite understand. Here's the workflow that we used for this film: shot on Super16; got best light video dailies on DVcam for the offline edit; used EDL to re-transfer selects on a Spirit 2K to HDcamSR 4:4:4 using a flat transfer to preserve all detail from original negative; conformed SR footage in Fire suite; color corrected conformed cut on da Vinci color corrector. That's where we are right now. The SR master will be used to make an HDcam copy for festival projection, and someday, if needed, will be used for a film out as well. My first question is about the dailies stage. In hindsight, it would have been easier and cheaper in the long run to get the HDcamSR flat transfer of all the footage from the beginning. I was reluctant to do it that way for two reasons. One, I was afraid that the flat transfer dailies would look really bad and worry people, in addition to not having a good-looking offline copy which in this case was used for submission to festivals, acquiring additional funds, etc. It turns out that I was pretty unhappy with the way the dailies were timed anyway, so it probably wouldn't have been too big a deal to go that way. The second reason is that I was led to believe that in the process of re-transferring the footage from the negative, there would be more information to play with in the color correction stage than there would from any other single "one light" transfer, even the flat transfer that is designed to use as much info from the original negative as possible. But then the post house we finally went with (we didn't have one from the beginning - part of the problem) wanted to use the flat transfer for the whole thing anyway, so that wouldn't have made any difference either. Does this make sense? Is this really the best way to do it? In the color correction process, some of the digital timing I wanted done involved changing a specific color or luminance range, but according to the colorist, this was made more difficult by the flat transfer. For instance, due to the lack of contrast it was hard or impossible to select bright red without selecting much of the skin tones, or to select just the brightest highlights without selecting a fair amount in the midrange as well. Contrast was added for viewing purposes, as well as for the HDcam projection copy through the use of a LUT supplied by Kodak. The da Vinci, however "looked at" the footage before it passed through the LUT, so it saw much less contrasty footage to work with. I asked why we couldn't use all the contrast we could get out of the negative, rather than using the LUT, as they do for commercials and projects that finish on video, but the colorist told me that then the final image would not be in film gamma and that the quality of the film out would suffer severely. I do not quite understand why this is, but is that true? I had always been led to believe that you could do anything in a DI that you could in a normal telecine session. Is that not the case? Does it possibly have to do with the fact that we were working from HDcamSR and not 2K data files? The colorist also said that the da Vinci is not really made for timing flat transfers and that the Lustre could be a better color correction system for DI work. Does anyone know if this is true? Did we go the wrong route from the beginning, make a wrong turn somewhere along the way, or do everything right from the beginning? Any opinions or answers to any of these questions would be greatly appreciated. -Josh Silfen

I'm assuming the skip-bleached shots were the guy falling on the grass, the poker table and I wasn't sure about the guy being taken to jail. Any others? I'm also assuming that these were fully bleach bypassed as opposed to some kind of ENR process. What kind of exposure compensation did you do? If anyone has any stills from a film that has had a partial bleach bypass or ENR process applied to the negative I would be very interested to see those. Thanks. -Josh Silfen

You would say that 2-perf is 100% larger than Super16 or Super16 is 50% the size of 2-perf. Just for a quick estimate of stock cost, I looked at Film Emporium's website (http://www.filmemporium.com/) and they quoted factory fresh cans of 5218 35mm film at .56 a foot, and 7218 16mm film at .33 a foot. Now 16mm film has 40 frames per foot, and 2-perf 35mm would have 32 frames per foot. One minute of running time is 60sec times 24fps or 1440 frames. Dividing that by the frames per foot of each format, we see that one minute of film is 45 feet in 2-perf or 36 feet in Super16. Multiplying those numbers by the price for foot at Film Emporium, the totals come out to $25.20 per minute in 2-perf or $11.88 per minute in Super16. So for film stock, 2-perf costs more than twice as much as Super16. So you get about twice as much negative area, but you pay more than twice as much for the film, so you're not necessarily getting a better value on a cost per silver halide basis. Now, when you consider the much larger negative area of the 2-perf 2.35 frame, and the relative costs compared to Super16 remain exactly the same, you can see that you would get a much better value by shooting 2-perf 2.35. Of course there are other cost issues involved: equipment cost, which wouldn't be an issue if you owned the 2-perf camera as you are suggesting; processing, which is generally about the same per foot for 35mm and 16mm, although again you get 40 frames per foot with 16 and only 32 with 2-perf so 2-perf would cost a little more there; and video dailies which are sometimes charged per foot and sometimes by the hour. If it's by the hour, it makes no difference what format you shoot, it will cost the same amount, and it it's by the foot 35mm is often less per foot than 16, but when the lab realizes that your 35mm is twice as much footage as they thought because it's 2-perf, they may change that policy. Plus, only certain telecine machines can handle 2-perf (like the Spirit) so you may end up having to pay more to get your dailies from a higher-end machine than what you would be getting if you shot Super16. Ever since I have heard of 2-perf, I have been a proponent of it, but have yet to shoot a frame of it. I wanted to shoot it on my last project, so I called up Multivision235 and asked if they could ship a camera to the US, but they were already booked up for our dates, so we shot Super16. I want to shoot 2-perf on my next project, but I think the same thing will probably happen. Anyway, I've done all the math, and I think that 2-perf widescreen 2.35 is the best deal in filmmaking. For 1.85, I still say your best bets for 35mm projection on a budget are Super16 or 4-perf 35mm. -Josh Silfen

Well sure you can shoot Super16 for 2.35. For that matter you could crop Super8 or DV to 2.35, but since we are talking about the steps necessary for a 35mm print for theatrical release, I'm assuming that most people would not consider a 2.35 Super16 frame an acceptable image for 35mm blow-up. Maybe I'm wrong. Has there ever been a theatrically released 2.35 movie that originated on Super16? http://www.aaton.com/news/index.php?nid=9 Personally, I think that 2-perf should be just as viable a shooting format as Super16. If you're finishing digitally, it's no problem, and if you're finishing photochemically it's just as much of a problem as Super16. The benefits over Super16 are not that great if you're shooting 1.85. Only slightly more negative area, but probably not enough to justify the cost difference. The benefits really come in only if you're shooting 2.35. -Josh Silfen

The real advantage to 2-perf is that it is a way for a low-budget movie to shoot in the widescreen 2.35 aspect ratio. You can't do it in Super16 and Super35 3-perf or 4-perf has all the same added costs in post as 2-perf, but costs more for film and processing. Anamorphic, in addition to the more expensive lenses, requires lots more light (at least a T4, but maybe T5.6 depending who you ask, or 4-8 times as much light as a spherical lens at T2) necessitating a larger lighting package and possibly a larger crew to go along with it. Super16 also has all the same added costs in post as 2-perf, so if it was really that big of a disadvantage, why would anyone shoot it for a low-budget film? Plus DI and other digital finishing options (HD DI, etc) costs are only going to get lower as the technology becomes more prevalent and competition heats up. If you want to shoot 1.85, Super16 or regular 4-perf 35 are probably the best options for a low-budget film intended for a theatrical release. For movies with a budget somewhere around the high Super16 or low 35mm range that want to shoot 2.35, I think 2-perf would be a very viable option if there was more equipment out there. Aaton's new 2-perf camera will probably help make 2-perf a much more popular format. -Josh Silfen

All the shots work within the context of the film and scene they were shot in. Obviously this is far different from knowing which are the most effective on a DP reel. If you think you can accurately judge which shots 'work' without knowing anything about the story or the characters or anything about the film at all, then I think you have a very different philosophy about cinematography than I do. I also think that if being able to separate a certain shot from the experience of shooting that shot and all the work and sweat that went into it were as easy as taking a step back and looking at it, there wouldn't be a forum called "Please Critique My Work." I don't think people just want to be told "you're good" or "you suck," but rather receive specific suggestions for improving their work or their reel. I think as you shoot more, you will quickly begin to realize that there are certain shots that you love, but that no one else seems to see the brilliance in, or shots that you are often complimented on that you were always lukewarm about. For instance, the shots of the two girls changing clothes in the car in the nighttime exterior parking lot scene are ones that I have always been particularly proud of the lighting in. However, as Mark Douglas helpfully noted, they are nothing special, so I'll take them out. What does someone want to see in a DP reel? High Key lighting? Low Key lighting? Elaborate camera movement? Objective composition? Subjective composition? Happy scenes? Sad scenes? Celebrities? Obviously this is different for everyone that watches it, but I'm just trying to get a good consensus on which shots are generally considered effective on the reel and which are not. If you care to help with that process, please do. If not, thanks anyway. -Josh

Yes, but which is which? That's what I'm trying to figure out. -Josh

This story was about a deaf girl who is happy until she get a cochlear implant allowing her to hear. She does not adjust well to the hearing world, so we shot all those scenes with a shift-tilt lens to give an 'off' feel as she experiences her surroundings in a new way. I suppose the countdown is not needed, but I planned to have my name up there anyway, so I figured I might as well put the countdown behind it. -Josh While I agree with most of what you are saying, it seems like much of your criticism is about the acting. Do you think DPs are generally held responsible for performances in a film they shot? Should I fill my reel with the best performances I've shot and not necessarily the shots I think look best?

Thanks for your specific notes. I'll definitely take that advice. I agree that these shots are nothing special, but that kid in them has the highest ranking on IMDB's Star Meter of anyone I have ever shot, so I just put them in in case someone recognized him and was impressed by that. -Josh

I just cut together a rough version of a new reel, and I need help deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. I know I'm trying to cram too much stuff in, but I can't be objective enough on my own to know what should stay and what should go. I also know that some of the films represented look a lot better than others, but I didn't want my whole reel to come from one or two projects. I encoded this on my Mac, and it looks pretty good, but it may be a little dark on a PC. The website is: http://www.joshsilfen.com Click on the "reel" page and then the graphic for the "montage." Any help would be greatly appreciated, and the more specific the advice, the better. Thanks a lot. -Josh Silfen

Wouldn't a separate HD monitor and waveform monitor be a better way to determine exposure than an electronic viewfinder anyway? I don't know why anyone would want to set exposure using a light meter with a digital camera. It seems like an optical viewfinder is better for operators and a digital one would only appeal to a DP who is also operating, but even in that case it seems like it would be easy enough to use the monitor for exposure and enjoy the benefits of the optical system while operating. These cameras are not intended for ENG-style production where the operator is going to be racking the iris himself during the shot.

So does the optical viewfinder work just like a film camera, with a mirrored spinning shutter, or is it some other system? If so, do cameras with electronic viewfinders have spinning shutters as well? -Josh Silfen

I know that many people seem to think an optical viewfinder is the way to go for the new 'Digital Cinema' cameras, (is the Arri D20 the only one that currently has one?) but some people don't agree. I'm wondering what the advantages and disadvantages of each system are. -Josh Silfen

I've been reading a lot on these forums about the new "Digital Cinema" cameras - Arri D20, Viper FilmStream, Genesis, Origin, etc, and they seem to make a lot of people nervous. I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I assume that this is where filmmaking is headed, and from what I've read it seems like what makes people nervous is not the image quality (even if it's not there now, I think most people know that it will get there eventually, probably in the next few years) but the fact that it's a new workflow that people aren't used to and they are concerned that the DP will lose control over the image creation process, while more and more decisions are made by Digital Imaging Technicians and Colorists. I think this is a valid concern. I've never used one of these cameras, but from what I understand the reccomended mode (from the Viper FilmStream, for example) involves recording a flat, green image that, while ugly, captures as much detail of the scene in front of the camera as possible, in order to have as much leeway in the grading stage as possible. I have heard people say that this is more like shooting film than shooting video or other HD, and I have heard people strongly disagree. To me it seems like getting the broad strokes captured on set and doing most of the fine tuning later on is more like shooting film. I think that the time it takes to get it exactly right in camera, like you see on most HD shoots, is something that the average film production cannot afford, and it needlessly limits your options later on. There is one major difference in the workflow, however between film and FilmStream, and that is the dailies timer. Nobody wants to see flat green dailies, just because from a practical standpoint that is going to give more choices later. Nobody wants the producer to see them and nobody wants the director to edit with them and grow accustomed to them by the time the final grading comes around. Even if he knows that this is not what the film is going to look like, editing with footage that looks nothing like the look that the DP was originally aiming for, means the grading is pretty much a blank slate, where anything can happen, and a DP doesn't want that. A DP wants their "look" baked in to the footage as much as possible so everyone's on the same page from the moment the camera rolls until the moment it hits the screen at the local multiplex. The reason I say that this is more like shooting film is because often with film, the look isn't inherently visible on the negative any more than it would be with the FilmStream output. You have daylight-balanced or tungsten-balanced film as a starting point, and anything else you do is by using filters and gels, etc. That's what ends up on the negative, just as with these digital cameras, presumably there's a daylight and a tungsten setting and then any other correction you do is using filters and gels. The difference is that with film, the DP communicates with a dailies timer to make sure that the dailies that are viewed by production and used for editing, look the way he intends, regardless of what's on the negative and there seems to be no such intermediate step with the digital cameras. For example, say you are shooting in a large supermarket and you don't have the time, money, crew, or inclination to swap out hundreds of cool-white fluourescent tubes with properly balanced Kino tubes. What do you do? You shoot a gray card under the cool-whites or make a note on the report to "time out green" or something like that, and your dailies come out looking just how you imagined them (in theory), but this has no bearing whatsoever on what is actually on the negative. If you looked at an untimed workprint of the scene, it would still be green, but that doesn't matter because no one sees that and you know that you can correct that in the final timing of the print or DI. I think the workflow for "digital cinema" projects would be exactly the same as long as there was some way to ensure that the look you are going for is somehow applied to the footage, not just during the final grading, but every step of the way; some system that would be the film equivalent of the dailies timer. It seems like this would be very simple. I have heard that with these cameras, the footage, as well as being recorded in its RAW, uncompressed, flat, green form, can be sent through some sort of color correction or LUT device so that the on set monitor has a pleasing image. It seems like a very simple matter to just record whatever settings are used on this device to a file and have the file sent with the uncompressed footage to the post house, and apply the same settings to the footage when it is down-rezzed for the offline edit. Then you have essentially low-res "dailies" for editing that look basically however you want them to look and yet this has no effect on the orginal hi-res footage which is still in it's flat green state so that the look can be tweaked and fine-tuned in the grading. This paint box or LUT box or whatever you want to call it could have simple controls to allow you to get the approximate color balance you're looking for, play with contrast, crush blacks, even have preset settings for skip-bleach or cross-process types of effects. You could spend a minute or two on set setting this up without any need for a DIT, and you don't have to get it perfect because it doesn't affect the actual image, but it does estalish a look that will stay with the film until the final grading. You could still use a second monitor with a feed of the actual RAW footage and/or a waveform monitor for determining exposure. This seems to me to be just like a film-post workflow (even better possibly because there's no chance of miscommunication with the dailies timer) and maintains the same degree of control that a DP currently has over film images. Maybe there are already systems like this in place, I don't know. As I've said I've never shot with one of these cameras, but I expect to sometime in the future and I don't want to have to fear that day because I don't know what to expect or how to retain control over the images I shoot. It just seems to be a reasonably simple process that is or could be very similar to shooting on film, so I don't know what's so scary. If I'm missing some big point or some bigger picture, I'd like to know what that is. Any thoughts are appreciated. -Josh Silfen

Hydroflex makes an underwater housing for the Minolta Spotmeter F. They are pretty expensive to buy, but you can rent them as well. I couldn't find one for rent anywhere in the Northeast, but I had one sent out from Hydroflex in LA. I think they may have a housing for the incident meter as well, but I don't really see how useful that would be since the exposure will obviously be affected by the distance from the camera to the subject. (The more water you shoot through, the more light you lose.) I think the easiest way to meter is to use the underwater spotmeter housing from the camera position and take a reading off a waterproof 18% gray card where the action is going to take place. There are also old Sekonic Marine Meters (underwater light meters) that you can get for pretty cheap on eBay, but they are still photography style reflected meters and I'm not sure what the best technique would be for getting an accurate reading. -Josh Silfen

Those frames bring up a question that I have from time to time on set. In particular, I'm referring to the middle frame, the close-up of Jeff Bridges, which I think is a beautiful image by the way. I know that the term "three-point lighting" is more of a general idea than an actual way of working which is always or even usually adhered to in practice, but in my experience it seems like it's generally agreed upon that there is always a key light. When I see that close-up, I only see back light and fill. I'm guessing that in this case most people would call the back light the key light, but to me, it doesn't seem to fit with the only definition of key light that I am aware of: the predominant light on a subject or scene. To me it seems like the fill light is the key light, and in that case, does it mean that there is no fill? Or does there not always have to be a key light? I know it's really just a question of semantics, and it doesn't really matter as long as everyone's on the same page, but lately I've shot some stuff in a similar vein -- with fill and back light and nothing that really strikes me as being a key -- and then the gaffer starts talking about the key light and I'm not exactly sure what he's referring to. So, in an effort to avoid confusion, my question is: is there a general consensus on what these two light sources should be called? Thanks for any opinions. -Josh Silfen

Bob, Thanks for the info. Are the crime scene recreates shot on 35 or something else? -Josh Silfen

I was wondering if anyone was familiar with how they achieve the look of the show CSI: Miami, specifically what units are used to create the hard edges and backlight seen in virtually every close-up. Are these just regular fresnels or something harder and/or more focused (xenons?)? On an unrelated topic, I'm also curious how they shoot the flashback sequences. Are they 35mm that's been degraded somehow in post or possibly another format (16mm or Super8 or some video format)? Thanks for any information. -Josh Silfen

You can probably get an acceptable image by correcting it in post, but a better solution might be to shoot with the 85 and get the cool look you want by using the color correction tools in post. That way you start with a clean image and have more control over the look later (particularly in skin tones). Film is especially sensitive to UV light, so tungsten balanced film may go too far in the blue direction if shot uncorrected. Another option is to use partial correction. I just shot a film where I shot the gray card with the 85 and then took off the 85 and shot the scene with the LLD. You get partial color correction and filter out the UV light, but still get a cooler look. At least that's the theory. Unfortunately the lab timed out the blue in the dailies anyway. -Josh Silfen

The brightest flashlights are the Xenons, such as those made by Streamlight (www.streamlight.com) and Surefire (www.surefire.com). Some have an adjustable beam and some don't. It is probably desirable to get one that does for your purposes so you can control the shafts of light. You will need smoke in the room to see the shafts though. -Josh Silfen

I seem to remember a DVD commentary on "Fight Club" by DP Jeff Cronenweth where he talks about using those worklights, but they were used as practicals that played in the scene. -Josh Silfen

We shot on an Aaton XTRprod from TCS (http://www.tcsfilm.com). The crew list is on imdb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460721/fullcredits) but most of the crew isn't on there yet. If you want to know more about the crew specifically, email me off-list. -Josh

Maybe I am being naive, but I'm not questioning whether or not he would WANT to hire me, only whether or not he would be able to. I guess my question is more how likely or unlikely it is for a film to jumpstart a DP's career as well as a director's. They let the guy who shot "Clerks" shoot "Mallrats", and they let the guy who shot "Slackers" shoot "Dazed and Confused." I can't really imagine David Gordon Green making a movie without Tim Orr anytime soon. I'm curious just how rare these types of situations are. -Josh Silfen