Peter Ellner

Shooting at night really shows the limitations of a camera and the amazing abilities of our eyes! Last week, I went up into the mountains on a camping trip and I brought my DSLR with me. Using an f/2.8 lens, a shutter speed of 1/50, and an ISO of 1600, I was unable to capture any of the stars in the sky... it all came out black. Meanwhile, I could immediately adjust from the brilliance of an iPad screen to the sky above and see the stars clearly. This got me thinking though: how in the world were shots like this one from Close Encounters of the Third Kind achieved using film (likely no faster than ASA 800)? evanerichards.com/wp-content/gallery/close-encounters-of-the-third-kind/closeencounters074.jpg I also recall shots in Lawrence of Arabia which clearly show stars in the sky. So what are they doing, shooting with the ultra-fast lens used in Barry Lyndon? Or is it all a special effect done through optical printers and compositing in post? Thank you!

Edit: I think I just figured out the first one, it's due to the anti-reflection coatings on the lens, isn't it? But then if the light sources look blueish, why don't anamorphic lenses make everything look blueish?

Also, I was gonna start a new topic for a couple of anamorphic lens questions, but maybe I'll just post them here and see if anyone knows: Anamorphic lens flares are characteristically blue...is there any known reason for this? Is it true to say that anamorphic lenses work by basically being hyper-astigmatic, in the sense that their horizontal focal length is shorter than their vertical focal length? If this is true, than how is it possible for an anamorphic lens to create an image that's in focus, since having a different focal length in each meridian of the lens would mean horizontal and vertical features would come to a focus at different points? Thanks for the insights!

But what actually causes that ring in the first place? I can see how having uncoated lenses can contribute to its existence, but why is it a ring of light rather than just a diffused glow? It's interesting how the anamorphic lens actually projects a circular, rather than elliptical, ring on the film. Why is that, doesn't the anamorphic lens "squish" everything?

I'm sorry, none of those links seem to work unless you're signed in to Flickr. Try these: Lens Flare Examples: Blade Runner Example:

In professional work, I often see a type of beautiful rainbow-like lens flare that I never see in less professional work and have unfortunately never been able to create on my own with the tools I have. I would love to know what these types of lens flares are called, and how to purposely and artistically create them. The ones I'm talking about are different than simply reflected images of a light source, veiling glare, or light in the shape of the camera's aperture, but another type of lens flare in addition to those. It often looks like a sideways rainbow, but striped rather than continuous. Here are a few examples if you don't know what I mean: www.flickr.com/photos/12557378@N06/6171005435/in/photostream/ www.flickr.com/photos/12557378@N06/6171549378/ www.flickr.com/photos/12557378@N06/6171005535/in/photostream/ Also, in some films, but not all, light sources will have a circular halo of light around them as in this shot from Blade Runner: This is distinct from the diffraction sunbursts due to a small aperture, so I was wondering what this effect is called and what causes it as I don't see it in every film. Thanks so much guys!

You pretty much hit the nail on the head! Fortunately I'm not paying too much, as I'm just at a community college getting some credits before I transfer to where I really want to go. But this guy is pretty bad. It's not just me, most students seem to either hate him, deal with him, or think his sarcastic, abusive style is entertaining as other students are humiliated. He makes it clear that students who do poor quality work or don't keep up with his fast-paced, breadth instead of depth teaching style will be humiliated in front of the class. I try to talk with him after class to get on his good side because it's clear that he is knowledgeable, but he still gets annoyed when I ask a question that could in theory be answered by me looking through a cinematography textbook. I think he's just cynical and bitter due to the reasons you stated but also because of the general lack of "quality students" who take his classes (it is a community college). Most of my classmates aren't really that interested or dedicated to cinematography, which sucks for the ones like me who really are.

Out of frustration with the rolling shutter effects seen in my own footage, I looked into the cause and discovered that it's really just because the entire frame isn't exposed all at once but rather from top to bottom during the exposure period...this leads to the jello effect and other rolling shutter artifacts seen in DSLR and other CMOS sensor footage. But here's my question: isn't the way that film is exposed by the rotating shutter in a motion picture camera similar to that of a CMOS sensor with a rolling shutter? So why, with the same shutter speed and sensor/film size, would a CMOS sensor camera have rolling shutter effects while a film camera recording the same thing (say a fan or helicopter blades) would not? And while on the topic, I'm wondering what used to be required when film cameras shot scenes with TVs in the frame. Was it simply a matter of changing the shutter angle to equate with a shutter speed of 1/60? And even in that situation, since the frame rate of a film camera is 24 but the refresh rate of a CRT is 60, wouldn't some frames show an empty screen while others would show an image due to the fact that the frame rate doesn't match the refresh rate of the TV? I"m a little confused. Thank you for the help!

Thanks David, super thorough and informative. You're great and I appreciate your deep knowledge and ability/willingness to explain things!

My cinematography teacher isn't the most friendly, approachable or helpful guy, and he makes any student feel bad for asking questions, unfortunately :( Fortunately I've discovered this forum and the wonderful insights from professionals and amateurs alike has been very valuable. So thank you! Anyway, I have a bunch of little questions with simple answers that I'm very curious about. So instead of clogging the forums with a new topic for each little question, I was hoping to just put a list here and any answers will be most appreciated and will hopefully be useful to others as well. And sorry for the ignorance on display here, as you can tell, I'm trying to do something about that. Here goes: 1.) In the days before digital video, how was a live video feed tapped from a film camera? What allowed a Steadicam operator in the 1970's to see what was being shot on a screen in front of him for example? And even today, how is what's being shot on film simultaneously recorded and sent to a screen? 2.) What is the beep sound that happens right after the slate claps in outtakes on DVD extras? 3.) Getting exposure right can be very difficult, even today with a modern digital camera. So how did cinematographers know they got proper exposure before digital and the ability to check exposure immediately? What about with the 8mm cameras budding directors in the 1970's used? Did Spielberg or any of the countless others making 8mm movies use a light meter? If not, how else did they know how to get the right exposure? 4.) How is exposure changed perfectly during a single take following someone going from a bright exterior to a much darker interior? It can't just be the aperture because that would cause a noticeable shift in depth of field, right? 5.) How were films like Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later (shot on DV) converted from interlaced DV quality to progressive 35mm theater prints? 6.) How do you approach doing close-ups or extreme close-ups with a wide-angle lens? Minority Report, for example, was shot with no lens longer than 27mm and yet there were extreme close-ups that didn't have noticeable distortion. 7.) How were text and titles added to film before computers? I know that sometimes text was written on boards and those were just filmed, but in other films text was clearly fading in and out on the screen, and it wasn't filmed, and it wasn't hand drawn on the film either, so how was it done? 8.) If certain films or shows are designed to only be shown on TV's, were they always just filmed at 24 fps, or did they often shoot them at TV's rate of 30 fps? If not, why... wouldn't it be much simpler and easier? Thanks so much! I have some more, but I think this is enough for now.

Thank you, I had suspicions about this, but it makes total sense. Thanks.

I just realized another reason why this doesn't make sense to me: for larger formats, the size of the acceptable circle of confusion is actually bigger, therefore for any given projected image size, larger formats actually have a greater depth of field, not a shallower one. So the 5D should logically have a deeper depth of field, not a shallower one, but it doesn't...

From my understanding, depth of field is not determined by format size, but rather by subject distance, aperture, and focal length. Given this, why do so many people claim that the 5D (VistaVision) has a shallower depth of field than the 7D (Super 35)? And I do have to agree, as it seems like the 5D has a shallower depth of field, even when using the same lens. Thanks, ignorance is not bliss.

I often see scenes in movies where a car pulls up in front of the camera, or the camera is outside of a house right in front of a reflective window, and obviously due to the shot and the location of the camera, there must have been a clearly visible reflection that was erased. My question is what is normally done when it is known that a shot will show a reflection of the camera in order to minimize it, and if the camera's reflection is erased, how do they fill it in with what would be there otherwise so it doesn't look like they just erased a reflection? Before digital effects especially, how was this done? Thanks so much.

On those projectors with 72 Hz shutters, does that mean that the film has to move faster through the gate, since there's less time between exposures? And I'm not sure if anyone knows this, but why do projectors use a two or three bladed or really fast moving shutter that projects each frame multiple times but for short durations each time instead of simply projecting each frame once for slightly less than 1/24th of a second and then quickly advancing the film in the remaining time? Seems like this would be better than having a high Hz flicker rate, no?

This clears quite a bit up. Thank you. So just to see if I understand correctly: in film cameras, the shutter typically has an angle of 180 degrees, meaning each frame of film is expose only once and for 1/48 second. In theater projectors, the shutter has two blades, each with a shutter angle of 90 degrees, meaning each frame of film is projected twice for 1/48 second each time. And on an LCD computer monitor...? Also, the flicker I notice only happens sometimes, but now it all makes sense. I notice it more in the corners of the screen or when I'm not looking directly at the screen (peripheral vision is more sensitive to motion), and when there is a white background (brighter light makes the rods in the eye able to perceive the flicker better). Thanks.

I'm just curious as to how projector lenses (non-anamorphic ones) work in comparison to the lenses placed on a camera. Since I have only dealt with the latter, I actually realized that I don't understand how the former works. For example, since the projector lens is usually very far away from the screen compared to its distance from the film it's projecting, the focal length of the lens must be measured in meters, right? So how is it able to focus so closely and yet project a focused image so far away? And on the topic of film projectors, I'm interested in understanding how film projector shutters work. Is it just like how the film was exposed, where there are 24 frames projected ever second, but each frame is only shown for 1/48 of a second, followed by 1/48 a second of black, and then another frame, etc.? If so, then over the course of a 2 hour movie, are we technically watching 1 hour of dark screen, if for every 1/48 a second of visible frame there is 1/48 of a second of black screen? And, I truly apologize about all my ignorance, but I can't help but notice that computer screens don't show flicker while the same movie in a theater does. Is it because each frame of the movie is shown for precisely 1/24th of a second on the computer with no time between frames while the theater has a period of darkness as the film advances, or something else? Thank you so very much!

I am going to be directing my first music video for a friend's band, and I realized that I actually don't really know how :( What do you actually do in order to have the singers in sync with the music over the course of many different shots in many different locations? Do you just have them sing the whole song for each shot with the song in the background? What's the process like? Anything else I should know specifically related to directing a music video? Thank you so much, I'm completely ignorant and I hate it.

Wait a minute, now I'm really confused! In your first post you said that focal length doesn't affect depth of field, it only magnifies or minimizes the size of the out of focus regions (and I assume the extent of the in focus region is what you define as depth of field since this is what I go by). So focal length doesn't affect depth of field, this was my thought prior to reading your post, which you only backed up. But now you're saying the size of the aperture doesn't affect the depth of field, but rather the f-stop. How can this be? If, as you say, the size of the aperture doesn't affect the depth of field, and the focal length doesn't affect the depth of field... then how can the f-stop (focal length divided by aperture diameter) affect it? Either the size of the aperture is the only thing that affects the depth of field, or both the aperture and the focal length can affect the depth of field individually and together, but I don't get how neither the aperture now the focal length can affect it while the f-stop can. Since the f-stop is a function of both, I don't see how two things that don't affect the depth of field can be taken together to create something that does. I trust your expertise, but I must be really confused because it seems that you're contradicting yourself.

Quick follow-up question: correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know, the size of the aperture determines the depth of field because it determines the range of angles that light rays in a scene are accepted to the image plane. A small aperture gives a deep depth of field because it acts like a pinhole camera and only allows a small portion of light rays to pass through, thus preventing all of the light rays from an object overlapping and creating an out-of-focus effect. But here's my question: in order for a zoom lens to maintain a constant f-stop throughout the zoom range, the f-stop formula tells me that the size of the entrance pupil (apparent size of the aperture as viewed magnified through the lens) would actually have to increase. So that means that the size of the entrance pupil at the telephoto end of a lens is actually larger than at the wide end. Thus the depth of field should become shallower when a zoom lens is at the telephoto setting than at the wide setting...yet this doesn't seem to be the case, as depth of field doesn't change when a lens with a constant f-stop zooms. So why isn't there a shallower depth of field if the size of the entrance pupil is bigger? Thanks, a really appreciate it!

Thanks Pat, I think you're very perceptive. What you wrote in your third paragraph is pretty much all true. I just want to say that I completely understand how hard it is to create a movie, let alone one that lots of people enjoy. And I am equally cognizant of the fact that the people behind many B movies are just like you and me, and they're trying to make some money to feed their families and survive. My question wasn't about B movies that I would call "innocent" in the sense that they are created by inexperienced people that are just starting out. I am completely understanding of those sorts of movies and, more importantly, the people behind them. Rather, my question was really about the B movies that are seemingly intentionally bad. You know the ones I'm talking about: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Snakes on a Plane, Troll 2, Battlefield Earth, Starship Troopers, Uwe Boll films, etc. (By the way, I'm not talking about movies like Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, as I can completely understand how and why that film was made.) I'm talking about the ones that are so campy, cheesy, and painfully awful that I just can't imagine the writer and director not realizing it unless they have absolutely no self-awareness and no experience of what a good film is. And this is what bothers me: as a film student, I'm told all the time how difficult it is to make movies, and how hard it is to make it in the movie industry, and yet there are movies that are being made all the time that are so bad, so completely tasteless that I simply don't understand why and how they're made. And I know that if I were to be like that, I wouldn't even have a chance. I'm not arrogant, I'm actually just threatened. Threatened by the ubiquity and continued production of movies that almost everyone seems to hate, and the fear that I could make one just like that.

I am saddened by the existence of B movies, those terribly written/directed, badly acted, horribly uninspired movies that usually go straight to DVD or Netflix, or are made specifically for TV. But I just can't get over the fact that they even exist. How? Isn't it rather difficult to get into the movie-making business if one doesn't have some talent and understands how to make films? Haven't the people behind B movies gone to film school and learned about lighting, composition, how to tell a story, etc.? It seems like a huge embarrassment to have one's name even associated with a bad B movie, yet there are so many of them and they're made all the time. Where do they find people to make these movies, I mean how can they not realize how unbearably bad the movie is while they're making it? They must, right...I'm sure none of the movies they enjoy watching are B movies, but rather well-made, interesting films with actual artistic merit. I'm sorry if this is coming across as arrogant or pretentious, but I'm just a student who would like to become a director or DP, and the thought of creating something so painfully bad as some of the films made by The Asylum scares me more than anything. And I really just don't understand how these films get made...it's not like everyone's just doing it for the money, since the budgets are by definition very low. So can someone please help me understand B movies? And if you were ever involved with making one perhaps you can enlighten me with your experience. Thank you so much!

In many Hollywood feature films, there are explosions, and they look great. But I'm curious as to how shots with explosions are exposed so that the explosions don't completely blow out and yet the surrounding areas are not underexposed. Do they expose for the explosions, or do they expose for the background/environment? And how do they end up getting both the explosions and the environment/background properly exposed in the final product, as it seems that properly exposing for one would incorrectly expose the other. Thanks for the enlightenment!

I am very curious how scenes that are shot in a specific location over the course of days or even weeks are made to look consistent so that in the final film they can come together to look like they were all shot at the same time (because obviously if the light kept changing than it would take audiences out of the experience). Consider a film that's being shot in the downtown area of a city, the scenes shot in this location are meant to take place over a few hours on one afternoon, but in reality they were filmed on different days over the course of a week or more. Beyond just filming at the same time each day, many other environmental/ambiance things change from day to day, so how are all those shots kept looking consistent on feature films? Thank you so much!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned one of the most visually stunning films of the past decade... Tarsem's The Fall. Filmed over the course of about 4 years in over 24 countries around the world, everything from the locations, the framing of the shots, to the vibrant colors and the interesting characters, truly a film to watch for visual storytelling. You can even find it on Netflix streaming, but in the meantime, here's a little montage from it: