Arsen Avi Romanovich Bortnik

I was the "A" camera focus puller on the movie and the head of the camera department. I must say that it was quite the experience from a 2 perf aspect to being a part of this project. I loved every minute of it and I believe that we may have made a very good picture. I haven't seen it yet (I'm in Thailand on "The Hangover 2" currently and will miss all of the screenings) but I'm certainly looking forward to seeing it when I can. I'm glad to hear that the 2 perf held up. We photographed the entire movie hand held and on steadicam with Master Primes and the new Aaton Penelope. I had all 3 cameras in existence imported to Abel Cine Tech in New York from France. Abel did a spectacular job supplying and supporting our movie. Having the only 3 cameras that had been manufactured to date was a huge risk but they worked out beautifully. I wouldn't recommend the camera for every theatrically produced picture but they were the correct call for the style of cinematography for "The Fighter". Their compact, ergonomic design allowed us to fly the cameras all around since we did not have a single mounted shot. We did have a constant problem with gate hairs but we knew that they could be dealt with via the DI. To say that Christian transformed himself for his character is an understatement. He was simply miraculous! He is a complete, professional thespian - and a complete delight to work with. Melissa Leo's and Amy Adams' performances are very noteworthy as well - spectacular. Also, I can honestly say that director, David O. Russell is also a pleasure to work with and I look forward to the next time. The cinematographer is from Sweden, named Hoyte Van Hoytama and he did an exceptional job lighting 360 degrees to allow us to see all directions at any given moment. We rarely rehearsed a scene or shot for camera thus allowing the cast to move and do whatever they wanted. We never knew what was going to happen till we shot it. As for the boxing scenes, we photographed those sequences with outdated Beta Cams that were actually used to broadcast the actual fights back in the day. We even had the same HBO director and cameramen who worked all of the Micky Ward fights for HBO with us recreating the realistic tone of those fight scenes. I hope it's a good picture. I don't get excited about many of the jobs I do but I am excited about this one. I guess we'll all know on December 10th. Cheers, G Just saw the fighter, and the making of the film, They said that Wahlberg pushed to have it filmed with the HBO boxing crew cause it would take 3 days to film rather than 20 plus, or whatever figure they gave, I can only assume that the old beta cams have an output of 1920x1080, unless I am wrong please correct me. 2K projection is roughly 2000k by 1400k, if the old betas were actually 1920, how did that boxing footage blend in? I can't imagine stretching the footage vertically.

Copy that, it's not something I'm interested in, I know there have been slot of talks about it, plus I can only assume getting a larger raw format or even a newly based 2k to 3k or whatever the filetype may be out of the 5d will probably heat up the sensor even quicker, that would be great though, to have a fully uncompressed resolution out of the 5d, a euphoric state of mind for us all. I appretiate the input on the GH2 my friend! Will actually check that out now. A full raw resolution at the highest 5k by 3G roughly would def be great to eliminate the Moire, that that's not even in the question, I work with a smallhd as well as a vizio 22 inch razor LCD to make sure I have no moire patters, if theyappear I simply go to shallow dof, for shots that don't call for a shallow dof artistically I try to get it shallow enough to not have a crazy dof where I need to elistrate emphasis on a scene, for example rack focus from an important prop to character

For now that is correct, I found a very interesting article in The Cinematographer about the making of 127 hours, they actually used two cameras, I forget which ones, but they basically stripped for example a viper, where they had at one end, the lens and as little of the camera operational ssystem as they could all wired to a control type device with the rest of the camera functions, they used two such cameras as well as what appeared to be two 5.6 HD monitors. There had to be a better solution for the enclosed space that they were working in, either they had no other choice, or placing an robotic articulating arm in that space was costly, or they simply wanted to do hand held work, which in my opinion can't be mimicked from a controller, especially reacting to an Actors real time subtle actions. The most interesting thing that Boyle's Cinematographers tried to do was to strip the 1D and they tried to get the raw format video out of the Canon 1D, and were unsuccessful, if you have seen the film there are some instances where we see Franco in somewhat of jittered, or skip type footage where you only see about every other frame. One of the Cinematographers technique was to use the 1D's fast burst of 10 pictures a second in raw, and basically Im assuming dropping the sequential shots into the editor, giving it a 24 fps along with the film, its def not flowing 24fps footage but its a pretty cool effect which can be corrected in the Raw format, of course with D Boyle's films, he does a lot of experimental shots, split screens etc, Iv'e always found such sequences undesirable, but have recently learned to love all aspects of Directors film making; I have to note that I am a recovering OCD Perfectionist, lol... You still have to do excellent work in everything you take on, but when you are a perfectionist, what may seem not perfect to you just may be of opinion, and actually look great. I really wanted to try to accomplish some sequences in burst mode, but with the 7D's 8fps mode, and then tripling it to 24, giving it that skipping effect. Only thing; I don't want to mess with the integrity of the camera's actuations, I rarely use my 5D for photography, and have read that dslr's life cycles, go any where from 75k to 200k and the camera's cooked.

I can't find the post that I have read in either red user or on the actual red site itself, stating that each redcode raw frame is 37MB roughly, this is just what I read, if I stumble upon the article I will reply a post, of course you gotta be careful where you get your info from on the net, but as I recall this was a professional article, not from a anonymous user/blogger. The way I got roughly 4MB for each frame size out of the 5D --> 4GB CF = 12 min of video at 24fps | 24fps x 60 sec = 1440 frames x 12 = 17,280 total frames from a 4GB card | 17,280 / 4GB (4096) = 4.22 MB... actually just thinking about this calculation that I did a while ago, and knowing that the 5D or 7D records 12 min for every 4GB of space, I have to assume they are referring to 30fps which in that case is 5.27 mb a frame. although video compression borrows data info from every last frame, and so on... when it comes to exporting just a single frame out of a given editing software such as fcp, I have to assume that all the color information frame to frame that was compressed via the 264 codec will be in every single frame when you choose to export, where as if you have recode raw or any other raw footage obviously each frame contains all the information from the get-go. I just exported a single frame from 5D footage at it's highest quality jpeg at roughly 1.2 MB and a Tiff at roughly 6MB I know Red has an option to record onto CF cards, though it is a hectic system, constantly reloading cards and footage, I am not completely sure what you meant by that quote, I have read that they have just released a 128GB CF card that is capable of recording 4:4:4 uncompressed footage, though at $1,200 I hope thats the least it can do, personally when I switch to the Red system I would go for the red mags, or Im sure they have already developed or will be developing other external recorders with greater capacities. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=SanDisk+128GB+Extreme+Pro+Compact+Flash+Card&N=0&InitialSearch=yes

I hope some of this information can and will help you out, as far as color correcting with the 3 way in FCP, the best way to shoot that I have found is to primarily get it as close as you can to the proper exposure, I like underexposing my footage, maybe by a stop, than bumping up the whites, and lowering the blacks 2-3 increments or as you see it fit without degrading the footage,this will yield great contrast. I have a 5D Mark ii, and about to get a 7D as backup, as far as I am concerned with my experience using the 7D in the past, and all the post I have read, the footage from the 5D 7D 60D is very close to being of same quality, in respect to contrast it has been brought up by Professional Cinematographers that the 5D has a greater contrast than the 7D as well as the 5D, because the 5D has a bigger sensor it grabs more light. ironically it is because of the bigger sensor that there are moire patterns with these dslr's simply because of the real time down sampling of the footage. the 5D 7D 60D with their large sensors around 19MP yield a picture of around 5000 to 3000 pixels, vs the HD signal that is 1920x1080 pixels, so if this camera could handle the full picture spec of nearly 5000 x 3000 pixel output than you would have a similar Red Code 5K footage, maybe the 5D mark 5 for example would be able to handle that when these two technologies really merge together, but I can certainly guarantee these dslr's will be broken into reg versions to pro video versions, with a price range differential of anywhere from 3-5k if not more or less. I plan on using my 7D as B cam for alternate angles during dialogue or just as a B footage cam to bring with me rather than lugging around a 5D, I would not use this two cameras in low light conditions together as the 5D is better in low light, but at iso of 100 to 500 I would assume that I would get the same type of footage in regards to grain. As far as closing or opening the iris it depends from scene to scene, if you are filming talent with a medium shot for example you may want a shallow dof, blurring out the background, this solution is ideal not only in telling your story but as a workaround to the problems you amy encounter with moire problems, I am not sure you have any knowledge on ND filters but it is something you may want to think about purchasing, I have a ND 2-8 set which stops the iris down to a 5.6 helping you maintain your dof, thats why we use these cameras, for the dof besides the amazing skin tones and overall quality of the dslr's. Honestly the best way to see what you want out of your 60D is to hook it up to your laptop or desktop and check out the footage live. You can change all your camera functions, aperature, shutter, iso right there on your computer and get instant feedback. If you have not already checked out Shane Hulburt ASC, the primary advocate of the DSLR system, mainly the 5D, it is a must, and this guy knows what he is talking about... check this out and you will feel as if your back in Toys R Us as a youth.. http://www.hurlbutvisuals.com/blog/category/cinematography/ and check out the latest videos he is doing for B&H photo's priceless information http://www.hdslrhub.com/ If anybody is responding to this post thinks I have supplied some false info, or have a difference of opinion, please share, always good to have some inputs. As far as slightly underexposing, this is not something I derived from my own experimenting, but rather from professional Cinematographers, of course you don't want to lose your highlights, or minor details, but for the sake of getting the best picture in your situation, do you really need to see the clear details of everything in the frame unless it is an object that is vital in telling your story?

Correcting footage for the 5D 4:2:0 post work is very limited, but I may have a work around; this is theoretical at the moment, but wanted to see if anybody had any thoughts. I am not sure how FCP or other non-linear editing programs execute color correction, but I think color correcting a single frame in Photoshop out of FCP or AE may have higher correcting capabilities without damaging the frame. In the past for rotoscoping purposes, and other effects I did with my projects I would export 20 seconds of footage at 24 fps x 20 would = 480 frame/pictures. The frames export out of After Effects in sequential order as well FCP. I would do my effects frame by frame, than import them back into FCP, and you have the same clip with a Photoshop work-around. For this situation you would apply an effect to one frame of the 5D footage; if it would be color correction; after correcting one frame, you would apply the same effect to the rest of the frames via a batch execution. I estimate that each frame out of a 5D is roughly 4MB, compared to Red Raw Code at 5K which is roughly 30MB. Of course it is simple to go to your 5D footage in FCP 3 way color correct and be done with it, but the matter of fact is we are in an industry where we take pride in our work, and any work around with our art is truly worth it. Back in the old days in order to colorize an original B&W film they would do it frame by frame, roughly 90k frames, sometimes much more. In conclusion, just wanted to see if anybody had any thoughts on color correcting in i.e. FCP vs the proposed process of Photoshop, is there possibly an advantage in doing it in Photoshop, with a greater forgiveness, and tolerance without changing the integrity of the 5D footage. I am not talking about important sequential frames of your whole project; say 40k frames for a short film, but just the scenes where you might need it most.