Satsuki Murashige

Rob, AFAIK the HDMI output is automatically downconverted to standard def. in Live View mode. Was that your experience as well or do you think it actually was outputting at 1080? Phil, thanks for the info. Watched your video review - it was helpful and not nearly as awful an experience as you made it out to be. ;) Nobody mentioned the YUV conversion thing at the DCS meeting and I was busy operating a camera so I didn't ask. Stu at Prolost.com mentioned something about Quicktime 7.6 fixing the clipping problem with 5D footage a while back: http://prolost.com/blog/2009/1/22/quicktim...-5d-movies.html Would you happen to know whether using Adobe RGB color space gains you anything over sRGB with the 5D? Also curious to hear your thoughts about the GH1 after you've had a chance to play with it...

Good points, Adrian. In addition to practicing making exposures on film with a still SLR camera, use the opportunity to test your light meter and make sure it's calibrated properly: (If you already know how to use and check a light meter, then just skip this part!) Purchase an 18% gray card at a photography store (about $15). Set up the gray card so that it faces directly toward the lens and is evenly lit by white light. If you're using daylight-balanced film (which is the case for most types of still film), then that means direct mid-day sunlight. If you're using tungsten-balanced film (which is the case for most types of movie film), then that means direct light from a tungsten lamp, or direct sunlight with an #85 filter (orange) in front of the lens. Set up the camera on a tripod and frame the card so that it takes up about 1/3 of the frame. If you can, also get a friend to sit in so that you can see a skintone under the same lighting. Set the ASA on your meter to the index of the filmstock you're using, and set the shutter speed on the meter so that it matches the shutter speed on the camera. Take an incident meter reading with the dome facing directly toward the lens and in the middle of the gray card. Be careful to shield the dome from any stray light other than the direct light hitting the card. Check the four corners of the card with the meter to make sure the card is evenly lit. Set the lens aperture to the stop given by the meter. Shoot the first frame on the roll. After you get the film back, take out your gray card again and compare it to your test frame. Does the gray card on film have the same density as the one in your hand, or does it look too dark/light? If it looks off, then your meter may need to be calibrated. I recommend sending it off every year or so to a place like Quality Light Metric in LA to have it checked and recalibrated for your peace of mind. Anyway, with the rest of your film roll, try exposing under different lighting conditions - front light, back light, side light. If you're not sure how to expose a shot, bracket your exposures (take successive shots at one stop under, at normal, one over, etc.). Try underexposing and overexposing on purpose so you can get a sense of how it looks on film. Exposure can be creative, not just technical. If you use slide (aka reversal) film, you will end up with positive images back from the lab. You will see exactly how you exposed the film with no corrections. If you use negative film, you will end up with prints from the lab with corrections. So when you turn in your film, ask the lab for prints with "no corrections" so you can see how you did without the lab trying to "fix" your exposures for you. 1. Use the best, sharpest lenses you can get your hands on. The earlier K3s had an M42 Pentax screw mount so you could use Pentax still lenses in addition to the stock lens. The later K3s changed to a proprietary bayonet mount. Modern multi-coated prime lenses will be sharper than older lenses. Of course, you won't find any Pentax still lenses that will function as wide angle on the K3 because they are meant to be used on 35mm still cameras. An 18mm lens on a 35mm still camera is a super wide lens, but on a 16mm film camera, 18mm is a medium lens. You might be able to find something like a c-mount to M42 adapter if you want to use wide 16mm prime lenses (don't know if that would work, but worth looking into). 2. If you have enough light, stop down the lens. All lenses technically perform better at medium f/stops like f/4, f/5.6, f/8. Don't stop down beyond f/8 if possible. Lens performance starts to deteriorate again as you go down to f/11, f/16, f/22. 3. If you have enough light, use the slowest film stock you can get. Kodak 100ASA 7212 is the sharpest negative filmstock you can get today. Slow film generally also has finer grain and more saturated colors than faster stock. Reversal film is in turn generally sharper and finer-grained than negative - the recently discontinued Kodachrome 40 was far sharper, more color saturated, and finer grained to my eye than a workprint off of 7212. And Kodachrome had been around since the 1930s! 4. If you have enough light, uniformly overexpose the film by 2/3 of a stop. The easy way to do this is to set you meter to an ASA that is 2/3 slower than the film's rating. So if you're using a 100ASA stock, then rate it at 64ASA. You don't need to tell the lab to do anything differently, just have them process it normally. Doing this will give you finer grain, more saturated colors, and deeper blacks. 5. Shoot in contrasty lighting conditions. Shoot toward the direction of the sun, so that your subjects are backlit. Use rim light to create an edge around your subjects, and let areas of the frame go dark, even black. Play foreground elements against background by juxtaposing light and dark, dark and light. 6. Watch out for lens flares. Shade the lens so that stray light does not hit the lens, which will lower contrast. Avoid unnecessary filters to reduce reflections and flares. A few filters you may want to use are ND (neutral density) and ND grads which will help you lower day exterior light levels so you can use stops like f/4 and f/5.6. Also, a polarizer will darken a blue sky and remove unwanted reflections, creating greater contrast in the image. 7. Make sure your lenses and filters are always super clean. Any fingerprints, smudges, or spots will soften the image and lower contrast. 8. Most important! Feel free to break any of these rules at any time. Good cinematography is not always about getting the sharpest, cleanest image. It's good to know these basic techniques, but just think of them as variables which you can play with to create the image that you want. *9. Learn how to load and unload the camera properly. Do this in a changing tent, changing bag, or a photographic darkroom. The K3 uses 100' daylight spools which you can load in subdued light with only a little flashing at the head and tail of the roll. However, in practice you'll get more usable footage if you load/unload in complete darkness to avoid flashing the head and tails.

Anyone see this early script review for Tron 2? http://www.cincity2000.com/content/index.p...iew&id=1848 Trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6jfm0hq0bk

Yep. You can always crop, but yes. I was thinking of the new Arri compact primes that cover 24x36mm. Don't think there's much else out there that will cover this.

Given that you don't have a story yet, I can only suggest roughly the equipment you may want on hand. For day interior, get HMIs and kinos with 5500k tubes. Probably 400-800w Jokers and a few 1200w Pars. Get mirror boards. Get something like a 6x6 frame of ultrabounce, maybe a silk. Get 10 c-stands. You should probably just get a one ton grip truck. Get at least 3-4 grips who know what they're doing. For night interior, I'd go with Dedos, tungsten fresnels, and kinos, swap the tubes for 3200K. Build as much as you can into the location so you don't have to constantly move lights around. You could use Chimera soft boxes on the fresnels for key or use something like a Woody light. Maybe some china balls. Watch out for reflections in the window. Use the HMIs to light up the street. See if you can get in the night before after they close to pre-light. I'd hang the dedos above the counter with the scissor clamps, maybe do the same with the booths. Maybe tape some kinos tubes behind the counter, and above the grill area. Maybe have some uplight from the street just outside the window playing on the ceiling.

I was waiting to see how long it would take for the DP to mutter, "POS!" It took about an hour and a half. Seriously though, it's a pain but the footage can be gorgeous under the right conditions. That fact, and the ridiculously low price (if you already own the lenses) makes it all worth, it in my opinion. But yes, for something other than a personal no-budget film, I'd be hard pressed to find a reason to use it.

I'm only saying that you can't judge focus by estimating distance with an 85mm f/1.2 canon prime lens that has no hard marks... It would be great if you could put a PL mount and some cine glass on the camera provided that the FFD was correct so you could just run tape and not have to bother the operator for eye marks all the time, but I don't know if that's possible. I know the mirror clearance would be a problem for wider lenses that need to be close to the film plane... But I recall a RedUser thread where Tom Lowe put a Panavision anamorphic lens on his 5D, so maybe it is possible. Now, the Panasonic GH1 doesn't have a mirror and Ilya Friedman (formerly of Dalsa) makes a PL mount for that camera (he'll be at the DCS meeting). Phil, the YUV stuff is over my head but I'll ask Art Adams or Adam Wilt if they will post an article about it on the Pro Video Coalition site. Baby Legs, are you free tomorrow? Why don't you come to the meeting? It's being held at Transvideo Studios in Mountain View. Starts at 6pm, and its $5 at the door (free for DCS members). I'm supposed to be operating one of the BTS cameras so I'm getting there at 5pm.

Sure, I just AC'd my first 5D shoot. The problem is that the camera doesn't output an HD signal to an external monitor, so you must either rely on the LCD using the zoom function for critical eye focus, or you use lenses that have calibrated focus marks (cine lenses). The latter is obviously hard to find, since the camera mount needs to be modified and possibly the mirror may need to be removed, not to mention the image circle coverage and flange depth issues. So practically, the operator ends up grabbing eye marks for the AC, which works ok if you're using a rod system with a follow focus and have the time to do this. We were using a mix of Leica R and Canon L primes with zip tie gears, plus the Zacuto rig with a Chrosziel FF, which worked fine. But since we were trying to move fast (working with kids), the DP ended up pulling his own focus most of the time. The most annoying things for him were the mirror lock-up button, which only stays open for about a minute, and the Zacuto eyepiece, which attaches to the LCD with velcro and was always falling off. If there were a way to get an HD signal out of the camera to an external monitor, then I think a wireless FF device would be ideal. However, there's no getting around the fact that the camera's LCD is the only way to judge critical focus right now without using cine lenses with hard marks. I'm going to the Digital Cinema Society NorCal meeting tomorrow where they will be discussing 5D and GH1 shooting, so I'll find out if anyone's come up with a better solution and let you know.

Ok, good to know. Thanks! Do you guys see any advantage to using the CTB filters over the 80 series filters then?

Basically, from Vision1 to Vision2, the stocks became lower contrast with greater dynamic range, less color-saturated with less red bias in the skin tones, and also finer-grained. I would describe V1 as looking "harsher" in comparison to V2. They are pretty different in look. Also, the Vision1 stocks have been discontinued for some time now. Of the new Vision3 stocks, I've only shot 7219 500T but the main differences I've noticed between it and 7218 500T is that the newer stock seems to have more latitude and slightly finer grain. Otherwise, they are not too different in look.

What's your budget? Optars are pretty comparable to Super Speeds, I've seen DPs use mixed sets of Optar/Zeiss. Super Speeds tend to be softer and less contrasty between T1.3 and T2.8 and sharpen up a lot when stopped down, so I imagine Optars are similar. From most expensive to cheapest, sorry I don't know exactly how much they cost: The sharpest, most contrasty lenses for Super16 are the T.13 Zeiss Ultra16 primes. I think they cost something like $20,000 per lens!! There are some very nice modern zooms out there made by Canon, 6.6-66mm, 11-138mm, etc. The Canon 7-63mm is slightly older but still very sharp and contrasty, good close focus, low breathing. The Zeiss 12-120mm is also crisp and contrasty, cuts well with Super Speeds, but has a 5' close focus (3'6" with vignetting) and breathes like a mofo. The Canon 8-64mm is older still, a bit soft and distorted on the wide end but with good close focus and low breathing, and pretty cheap these days. I haven't used any Super16 Cooke zooms, but the 9-50mm is reputed to be very good. A bit soft in a good way, as Cookes are generally wont to be. I'd say if possible, you should go to a rental house with your camera and ask to look at a bunch of lenses, maybe shoot some tests and see what you like. Call first and ask if it's okay, of course.

Yes, but it's applicable here - this is a job-related website and you're potentially burning bridges in your local industry because of some out-of-line comments you made to a stranger on a web forum who, as it happens, may end up being your boss (or knowing your boss) in the very near future. All the more reason to behave as the professional that you are while you are here. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but I've been realizing more and more as I meet other film industry professionals in the real world that your reputation often precedes you. Venting spleen = angry ranting verbal diarrhea of a cyclical nature (my definition).

Apparently, Schneider has come out with a new series of blue camera filters called CTB that work like the 80 series for balancing tungsten to daylight, but with much less stop loss. Looks ideal for use with the Red camera. Check it out: http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/aad...er_ctb_filters/.

Mrs. Grain is soooo hot... :P

Would a painter's mask filter out particles that big? Scott, I'm really curious to know what the story is - I had an idea for a short years ago that involved a dust mote coming to life which started with a scene like this. Wish I knew about the forum then, I could have really used this info...

Awesome! Looks great Eric, this makes me want to see the film...

Karl, would you please chill out dude? We're all intimately familiar with your position on film vs. video by now, so you're just wasting bandwidth on this subject by flogging a dead horse here. I've noticed a lot of your posts lately have been unnecessarily rude in tone. I find it personally offensive and I'm not the only one. And if you're going out of your way to attack someone, Frank is one of the last guys you should be venting your spleen on, considering that he's a well-respected member of the forum who's always been cordial to others and a DP (who shoots film, FYI) from your neck of the woods. You do know the saying "don't s**t where you eat", don't you?

More like an extra 5 seconds. 10 seconds max if you haven't worked with the camera in a while and forget where it is in the menu. You can't change roll #s in camera if you've already shot on the media. You would have to reformat it to do so. You may be able to do it to the media after its been dumped by renaming files, but I've never done it and feel very wary about doing so...

I also like G-Tech. I've heard of people having issues with Lacie drives, but the D2 Quadras and Ruggeds have always worked great for me. Rockstor and Caldigit get used quite a bit on set and are fairly reliable too. I think in your case though, since G-Tech is well known and widely considered to be the most reliable brand out there, that's what you should recommend to production. CYA and all... Stay away from Western Digital "My Books". They're not very reliable, and I've had several that I could not get to eject after copying. Never used OWC, sorry to hear that they suck! Whichever brand you go with, eSATA is the way to go for sure - keep your source and destination drives on separate buses. I don't think it'll be way faster, but it should be faster than it is now. (I really like the R3D Data Manager app, but boy is it slow compared to Finder copy...)

Why? You can easily order it online if you're not close to an expendables store: http://www.filmtools.com/percolprinkr.html. No. Paper tape is more opaque and a bit thicker, making it better for labels. In some cases, yes. You could use it for floor marks in a pinch but normally you'd use different colors for each actor. Painter's tape only comes in blue, as far as I know. It's probably easier to just order the right stuff online... There's no real substitute for 2" matte black paper tape either, very useful stuff for making impromptu hard mattes, blacking out stands, taping down cable, making paper mustaches...

Really? Cuz I just had to deal with this on Build 17 last week... Haven't played around with Build 18, 20 yet.

I do this too. For some reason, I've found the various cameras I use always want to reset to a random roll number after formatting. And if you're formatting in camera anyway, it only takes an extra three seconds to do it. Instead of "System>Media>Format", just go to "System>Media>Change>Mag#>Format". There are very rare instances where you just won't have the time to do it, but that's rather unusual.

Depends on where you are located. In LA, there is a very sharp division of labor between grip and electric departments. Up where I am in the San Francisco Bay Area, grips will generally do both grip and electric work on non-union shows, working under the gaffer and are sometimes referred to as "swing."

Great work, Jayson - love the frame grabs! Thanks for taking the time to post such a thorough journal. Sounds like a great team effort by all departments. Art department really is the cinematographer's best friend. Looking forward to seeing the trailer down the road, please let us know when it gets up. Congrats!

John, just wanted to say I always enjoy your posts! I wish there was a filter I could run my posts thru to make them come out like this. :P