Satsuki Murashige

On 5/30/2021 at 8:31 PM, Karim D. Ghantous said:

If you're a DP, your whole job is to care about gear.

6 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

You're a DP. You are supposed to care about the technical stuff.

But the debate never ends, because that debate is part of your job.

Karim, you seem to have a lot of strong opinions on what a DP’s job entails. Are you a DP yourself?

If not, then your opinions are a bit like a guy telling his plumber what wrench he should be using because he has a subscription to American Plumbing magazine...

It’s fine if you want to express opinions on your personal taste in lighting or lensing. But frankly, I think it’s ridiculous for you to lecture working DPs on how to do their jobs if you’ve never done the job yourself. Otherwise, you’re  just parroting advice you’ve heard elsewhere, not from any personal experience. And it shows.

20 hours ago, Gregory Irwin said:

Planning a trip Sat? ?

Thanks for the info Greg. Haha, no just curious. Was talking to the DZOFilm people about the lens markings on their new Vespid PL primes, they have Metric on the Operator side and Imperial on the Assistant side. I asked them if they could make a label to replicate the Imperial marks for the Operator side.

There was a discussion about which was more common around the world in professional circles, and I assumed Metric. But thought I should double check, and now I’m glad I did!

42 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

well, most of it is like discussing whether you can play the same melody (the same notes) on synth and grand piano. People playing the same melody on both and then testifying that no one could tell the difference because the notes were the same! 

This is a pretty good analogy. Same thing for guitar amps, whether you are using a vintage Marshall JTM45 tube amp thru a specific cab with specific speakers thru a specific microphone, or a digital modeler direct into the computer. A great musician will make either sound great. But they won’t sound exactly the same, at least to those who know the difference. Is it good enough? That’s for each artist to decide for themselves.

Dear international 1st ACs, 

Please enlighten me! I’m curious if your country and region uses cine lenses with Feet/Inches or Metric focus marks, or if there is mixed usage.

Have there been any changes in the last few decades?

Thanks!

5 hours ago, Justin Hayward said:

It doesn't change my life all that much other than I get some cool screeners and a pension, but my 12-year-old self is super excited.  ?

Congrats Justin!

Is that Jonathan Demme? 

6 hours ago, Vitor Delduque said:

The ones lighted with different CCT values were way more consistent: 44-47%.

I’m not sure what you mean by ‘different’ CCT values, but 44-47 IRE sounds pretty accurate if the target for F-Log is 46 IRE. That would also indicate that the ISO calibration is accurate on your camera and should match the ISO values on your meter, which is great. 

Generally, a luminance (luma) waveform will be more accurate if the camera is white balanced to the light source because the RGB channels will be balanced. The RGB channels get averaged to display the luma signal, so depending on how far the color temperature is from neutral white balance, the IRE value may drift pretty far from 46%.

For example, if you light the grey card with a cool blue color temperature, the red channel would be lower that 46 IRE and the blue channel will be higher. You can see this if you look at an RGB parade which shows the IRE values of each individual color channel.

9 hours ago, Dominik Bauch said:

Thanks, I'll take a look at those. 

I guess 6x6 is the way to go, 4x5.65 horizontal doesn't give much room to repo vertically but who outside a big rental house can carry 2 matte boxes...

I wish there was more behind the scenes details for those Tony Scott movies, it's such a great look. Cinematography today is getting too clean and perfect. 

Very true - ‘Revenge’, ‘True Romance’, ‘Crimson Tide’ (Dariusz Wolski) - beautiful looking movies.

Two matte boxes - well, I guess at least you can afford the anamorphic lenses! Times have certainly changed in that regard. Just a few years ago, smaller rental houses couldn’t get a set of Hawks even if they had the money to pay for them.

Just now, Vitor Delduque said:

That's it. It's not aways coming out at 46%, or 18%.

If this is happening, even if I set the camera using a grey card and then measure something brighter like a either card, I won't be able to tell if the difference between them is real. 

Have you tried metering an 18% grey card yet?

If you have, and it’s still not hitting 46 IRE on the waveform, then there is something else going on. But I would try this first before doing anything else. 

1 minute ago, Vitor Delduque said:

I thought that every surface and color could be measured with the spot and it would be at 45% (or 41%, calibrated for Slog3) if the camera and suggested values were matching. Am I wrong about that?

Based on some Googling, it seems the middle grey target for Fuji F-log is 46%.

If you take readings of the white paper or your cat’s black fur, and set the camera and lens to those settings (and if your camera’s ISO is accurate) - then yes, they should come out at 46% on the waveform, or 18% grey. But then you have to decide if you want white or black objects to look grey? That’s where your interpretation of the meter reading comes into play.

If you want the white paper to look white, then you have to expose it brighter. You could arbitrarily decide that it should be 2 stops over, or 4 stops. But you could be more consistent with your exposures if you first knew how bright the grey card was. Then you have a reference to compare the white paper to. I think the spot meter is more useful this way - having already set your base exposure, you can check how bright the windows are in the background, or how dark the shadows are, and adjust them if necessary. 

10 hours ago, Vitor Delduque said:

Using different surfaces (leather, post-its, blue sheets, a cat, etc) it's kinda inconsistent.

That makes sense, since those objects are all different exposure values. So you should get different readings. 

The spot meter should be calibrated to 18% grey (Sekonic is notorious for calibrating to a different value in their meters, but that is a whole other topic). It assumes that you want to know what exposure to set in order to render the object you are metering at 18% grey on film. Therefore, if you are metering something other than an 18% grey card, your reading will require interpretation.

Let’s say you light a scene with an 18% grey card and a white piece of paper. The grey card meters at f/5.6, 1/60sec, 800 ISO. You meter the white card, which reads at f/16. Then your black cat wanders over and sits on the white paper. You meter her fur at f/1.4. Is your meter broken? No - it’s telling you that your grey card will be exposed correctly at f/5.6, that the white paper is 3 stops over, and your black cat is 4 stops under. Which is fine, you want the paper to look white and your cat’s fur to look black. But if you didn’t meter the grey card first, you wouldn’t necessarily know that.

6 hours ago, David Mullen ASC said:

Not sure you should be spot metering to a white card -- "white" can be any number of luminance values above a certain level.  If you're going to be spot metering a card, it should be an 18% grey card.

Based on your still life arrangement, the closest thing to 18% grey was closer to your f/2.0 reading.

Yes, I mentioned the white card specifically to check your highlights. Check exposure with the 18% grey card, absolutely. 

2 hours ago, Seth Baldwin said:

If they removed the mirror, the shutter of the 5D still operated correctly? They'd just be shooting in the dark I assume.

Yes, the electronic shutter still worked. You could only shoot stills in Live View mode. Of course, with the mirror removed there was no way see to an image otherwise.

I think it is possible to put some PL lenses on an unmodified Canon DSLR with a straight adapter, but it really depends on the particular lens and camera model combination. I day-played once on a no-budget feature that Hiro Narita was shooting on a stock 7D with a PL to EF mount adapter. The lenses were Zeiss Compact Primes Mk1. I assume the AC before me had checked all of the lenses to make sure they cleared the 7D mirror shutter. We had no issues that day with clearance.

My guess is that a lot of vintage wide angle PL prime lenses that have protruding rear elements would not have cleared the mirror or the internal housing. But it’s possible that more modern style lenses with rear elements flush to PL mount would clear. For example, I’ve used my Canon Compact Cine Zooms (which are easily switchable between PL and EF) on my stock 5D Mk3. 

2 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

Led lights have gotten significantly better in recent years so that may be the sole reason. That is why I don't want to purchase any used led lights... the old ones tend to be aged, green and nasty

Yes, that’s true. I think OLPFs on cameras have also gotten better, particularly with Red and Blackmagic cameras. Sony cameras used to be really magenta as well, before Venice/FX series.

The odd thing about those ‘green makeup’ days was that it was usually not visible to the eye. I had to call over the HMU to the monitor to see it. Haven’t had to do that since probably 2012 or so.

There are a lot of variables that you have to account for when using light meters on digital cameras.

1. ISO calibration can vary widely on many cameras. It will also change depending on the camera picture profile or gamma settings. You should shoot tests with an 18% grey card, white card, and a waveform to see where middle grey actually lands with your chosen ISO vs what the meter says.

For example, if you lit your grey card to f/4 and set T4 on the lens - middle grey is supposed to be at 41% (Sony S-Log 3) on the waveform and it’s reading at 30%, then you know the camera’s actual ‘ISO’ is lower. Open the lens until it reads 41%, and take note of how many stops you had to open up. This will be your calibration offset value for that camera and lens combination. If it’s a 2/3 stop difference, then your 800 ISO camera is actually 500 ISO, etc. 

Generally, cameras (and also film stocks) are not as sensitive as they claim to be on the box. ARRI Alexa is spot on, otherwise test and make sure. 

2. What lens? If it’s not a T-stop calibrated lens, then you will be underexposing slightly due to loss of light thru the lens. When in doubt, you can open the f/stop on the lens by 1/3 of a stop or so to compensate.

3. Avoid stray light hitting the spot meter’s lens, shade it with your hand. Any lens flare will alter your readings. 

4. When using a spot meter, the angle of the reading makes a huge difference. You can take readings before the camera is in place, but it’s a good idea to double check after the frame is up so you get a more precise reading from the exact angle. 

5. A spot meter is just a tool, sometimes it’s useful and other times not. Depends on the situation. When shooting film, you have no other choice for precise reflected readings. With digital cameras, a waveform or false color will often be more precise. When in doubt, I would trust the waveform. 

Very little, other than taking note of the occasional color cast problems between a particular brand of makeup and a particular camera sensor and LED lighting units. Just hire a great HMU person, really. They are experts at what they do for a reason.

Haven’t seen the color cast thing in a long time, but there were issues with some of the earlier Red cameras rendering some foundation makeup green under certain types of LED lights. Don’t remember the specifics, but I haven’t noticed it in the last 5 years or so. I also don’t use a wide variety of LED lights regularly, so that maybe why I haven’t experienced it lately. 

A lot of sunset grads were custom made for individual DPs back in those days. And a lot of DPs had a huge box of 6.6x6.6 filters.

Nowadays, I would suggest trying Coral, Chocolate, Maui Brown, and Antique Suede grads from Tiffen and Schneider Optics to get a similar look. 

Due to the wider field of view with anamorphic, I think you would want horizontal 4x5.65 at least, or 6.6x6.6 for the wider/larger front lenses.

Thanks for sharing the news Heikki, very sad tidings. Rest In peace, Bernie.

2 hours ago, Nathan Smith said:

I've used the green Kino Flo tubes, I felt like I got more green spill on my subject with them & went back to daylight tubes - though I don't have any empirical evidence to back that up. But, in any case, I didn't see a big difference in the quality of the chroma key background with green or daylight tubes, so it probably doesn't matter if the lights are green or not. 

Having said that, those green Flolight kits look really nice, and the price isn't bad either.

I agree, I don’t think green tubes are worth the trouble. I’ve noticed the same difficulty with controlling spill as well. 

Thanks for the details Mark! The ‘guts’ practical FX sounds like it was a lot of fun to shoot. No better feeling than getting it done in-camera!

Having somewhat recent done a macro eyeball shot myself, I know how hard it is to light and hide reflections. Well done mate, great film and gorgeous work by you and your team. 

On 12/9/2020 at 9:27 AM, Satsuki Murashige said:

If your camera is small enough, I really like the Orca bags. They are well padded and tall enough to fit most cameras with top handle attached. I can fit my Sony F5 almost fully built inside my OR-12 and can still put it in carry-on luggage. 

Just an update, in case anyone finds this later. My Orca bag is actually an OR-8, not an OR-12. An OR-12 would probably be too big for carry-on. 

Break down your shot list, shot by shot. Take lots of location scout photos, trying to recreate the angles you want to shoot as much as possible. Line these up against your reference images. Discuss with your team what your best options for each shot are. Schedule shots based upon the plan you come up with. 

For example, if you have wide shots where you need to see the sky, it would be smart to prioritize those and shoot them at the right time of day. 

If you have tighter shots or angles that avoid the sky, then those can be scheduled later. Probably ideally under overcast skies, unless you need morning sunlight.

4 hours ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

Not knowing much about focus pulling, isn't it all mapped out ahead with focus test, lens marks, stops and notes? They can reshoot ad nauseum as well.

Hi Daniel, 

That’s not really how it works these days. It’s very rare that you’ll get focus rehearsals and actors hitting their marks these days. Generally, 1st ACs are expected to adjust on the fly and keep everything sharp without marks or rehearsals. That’s the main reason there are so many soft shots these days, even with modern focusing aids and monitors.

You may be able to set floor marks with stand-ins in rehearsal. But once the main actors get in front of the camera, then it’s really up to the director and actors whether they’re allowed to roam freely with the camera chasing them, or if they need to hit a particular mark and eyeline for the shot.

Also note that while the actors are moving around, the camera may also be freely roaming. From a stills photographer’s perspective, imagine shooting street photography with manual focus lenses, but without being able to rack the focus in/out to find your sharps in the viewfinder before releasing the shutter - you just always have to be sharp, all the time, while your eye is in the viewfinder. That’s what it’s like. 

On 5/22/2021 at 1:50 AM, Mark Kenfield said:

Here's a direct link that should make scrubbing through the full session easier:
 

Password: TOMI2021

Beautiful work, Mark! I’d suggest including the time stamp for the film so people can find it easier. 

The actors were fantastic, the cyclical story structure along with the sound design worked really well to keep cranking the tension, and the production design, lighting, and lensing nailed the too-perfect ‘Mad Men’ vibe. Loved it!

You guys fooled me with Chekhov’s gun, I thought the rat poison would come into play on the third time around. Instead the trigger turned out to be something we saw in the foreground and also didn’t see just outside of frame. Can you talk a bit about how you and the director came up with that bit of storytelling sleight-of-hand? 

Love the practical FX you got in there. The bulb filament popping with the smoke was a nice touch. But I was wondering how you did the ‘guts’ shot and whether you used a probe lens for the mouth/eye shots? I’m guessing you had to paint out the camera reflection in post for the eye shot? 

Also, I’m assuming the space void transitions were VFX, but maybe that’s what you were referring to? 

Anyway, lovely work Mark. You and your team should be very proud of what you’ve accomplished with this one. Congrats!

Thought I would share this short documentary series about the legal battles of David Lee Hoffman and his ecological art masterwork, The Last Resort.

Shot and directed by the very talented AJ Marson.

http://thelastresortlagunitas.org/david-lee-hoffman/

I love the mini doc format. It’s not easy to pull off, but I think this genre is where a lot of the most creative and inspiring cinema (in the historical sense of the word) is happening today.