Satsuki Murashige

I think it's a pretty safe bet that the scene you mention was mostly imagined that way by Scorsese. There are very few directors who are that cinematically gifted and have such a distinctive voice in their films, really. One factor in the director/DP relationship which can have a strong effect on the structure of a film is the dynamic of power between the two filmmakers. Relative age, experience in the business, personal history, and personality often play into how much power the DP has in putting his or her own stamp on a film. A famous example is the work of Gordon Willis in "The Godfather." Willis has very clear ideas of what he feels is good photography (contrast of light and dark, well composed frames, simplicity of coverage, limited camera movement). He is also (by all accounts) a very opinionated person who has no problem telling his director (or anyone else) what he thinks. So when Francis Ford Coppola wanted to get a high angle overhead shot of Don Corleone getting shot in the street, Willis challenged him on it, asking him whose point of view that was supposed to be. He was implying that he didn't believe the shot was appropriate for the style of the film that they'd agreed upon and was trying to get it nixed. Coppola famously responded, "it's MY point of view" and he ended up getting his way. Of course, it's now one of the most recognizable shots in film history. But Willis got his way for the majority of the picture and it shows, which is why he's so frequently cited whenever people discuss the film - he's a de facto co-author. That kind of influence can be either a good thing or not, but it's definitely something to look for when asking these sorts of questions.

What - REALLY??!! I've been using the 85B for years at 2/3 stop compensation for reversal film, you're telling me I've been underexposing by an additional 2/3 stop? I find that really hard to believe... My Kodak Cinematographer's Field Guide says the 85 is 5500k to 3400k and 2/3 stop, whereas the 85B is 5500k to 3200k and 2/3 stop. Looking at my Samuelson's Manual, it shows slightly less than 0.1 stop more light loss for the 85B, which being a slightly stronger amber filter would make sense to me. That's very close to the 85 not to be noticeable with color neg. With reversal, maybe rating at 250ASA would be more correct. I definitely don't understand Kodak saying 200ASA though, that's 1 1/3 stops light loss! I think it must be a typo on Kodak's part...

Sorry to dig up an old post, but I just caught this film for the first time in HD on tv and wanted to comment on the diffusion used. It looks to me like a net, though of course I can't say for sure. I thought it worked beautifully for most of the interiors and night work, but looked horrible on many of the day exteriors, especially against sun. It made me wonder what I would do in this situation since they clearly wanted to impart that diffused look to the whole film. I think maybe I would have shot the day exteriors clean and used digital diffusion in DI for more control. Or if no DI was possible, then there's the old trick of burning select areas of a front mounted net with a lit cigarette. Or even using ND grads may have helped to keep the skies from blowing and leaching into the blacks. It's a tough situation since the effect is pretty heavy, so simply removing the filtration for some scenes probably would have been too inconsistent for the audience. Loved the film though. I started watching at like 5am and couldn't turn it off. Wow, I understand Miles waaay too well... :ph34r:

85 and 85B are both 2/3 stop compensation. There's only a very slight difference between the two, which when shooting color negative not really noticeable. You may see the difference when shooting reversal film. I think the 85 is slightly cooler by around 200k. 500T with an 85B should be rated at 320ASA. Can you link to the Kodak site that says otherwise? Oftentimes, an 85B filter is just referred to as an 85 for simplicity. So you may hear the DP call for an "85" but he may really mean "85B" and the 1st knows what he means.

Yes, you're basically describing lens flare, which as you probably know lowers contrast and becomes increasingly out of focus the wider you open the aperture. This creates a general veiling glare or flashing effect, effectively milking out the blacks in the image. Modern lens designs combat this effect in two ways: first, the lens coatings are extremely efficient and cut down on internal reflections inside the lens, reducing the amount of multiple reflections that create the general soft flare and leaving only the hard "shaped" flares that appear around point sources in or just out of frame. Second, lenses like the Cooke S4s are never fully wide open optically - the iris is still closed down a bit at T2. This accounts partly for the large size of the lens barrel relative to older lens types, since the f/stop is partly determined by the size of the front element. So while they probably could have made the S4s T1.4 lenses, I think they decided to keep them at T2 and increase their performance at that stop you could use them wide open without lowered contrast or sharpness. I suspect the Zeiss Master Primes are designed in a similar way.

Greg, thanks for sharing your experiences on the high end of feature production - I find it's a pretty valuable viewpoint since I've never worked on anything remotely this big. I'd like to hear more about the kinds of challenges you have managing a large camera crew with multiple units, and also about how you ended up getting focus for that 180mm 'scope remote head shot. I think I would be tempted to pull by eye from a monitor on such a long lens shot. Any tips and tricks you can share?

Well, considering that you're posting in the camera assistant forum, I don't think you'll find very many folks who'll agree with you... ;) I know what you mean though. Having spent the past year assisting full time and shooting only four short projects during that time, I really missed having a creative outlet. On the other hand, I learned a great deal about lighting, gripping, managing a crew, and dealing with clients and producers from the DPs I worked for. I also made a ton of connections from them, which has gotten me more work. And I've been able to borrow a lot of gear from one DP in particular to shoot my own projects. So on the whole, I'd say I learned more from assisting than shooting last year, though how much you get out of each shooting experience depends on how much you stretch yourself to try new things you've never done before. Anyway, I'm content to assist for now and shoot on the side when projects that interest me come my way. My goal ultimately is to be a feature DP and I know I've still got a lot to learn before I can make a living doing that. I can make living as an AC and learn at the same time, so that's what I'm doing. It's not a path for everyone...

It's for a school club called the Cinema Collective at SFSU so it's free. My friend Spenser Nottage is the club president this semester so he asked me to come and teach a few workshops. They're scheduled for Thursday evenings on the SFSU campus, on the soundstage there. The dates I'm doing are 3/12 and 3/19, two hours each. I'm going keep it pretty basic since not everyone in the club has production experience, but if you'd like to come check it out I can ask Spenser if I could have an extra person attend.

Ah, now I understand your frustration! It's really terrible when you feel like your AC doesn't have your back and give you what you need. If the image looks soft, then it's SOFT and arguing with the DP or anyone else that it "shouldn't be" because a chart said so is a waste of time. I had that lesson beaten out of me early on working on my first Steadicam show with a HPX500/Digiprime combo that had serious back focus issues. I never argue with a DP about focus, if he's watching monitor and he tells me it's soft then either I missed it or something's wrong with the backfocus, etc. Then I work out what the problem is and I fix it. I think you're exactly right about why you had better focus on those anamorphic shows. If the 1st isn't pushing him or herself to get the best focus possible and being hypercritical of their own work, then unfortunately the DP or operator has to push them to that place. We get paid to have ulcers, just like the DP. Like Chris Keth said awhile back (think it was Chris), nothing makes you a better focus puller quickly like hearing "it's soft" on set a lot.

Hi Jeff, Thanks for the offer. We had planned to start up again around Spring Break, but as of now the producers still need to raise more money to fund the 2nd half so the project is in limbo at the moment. It's pretty much out of my hands until they tell me that production will be starting up again. Still waiting to get the collated lab reports from the director so I can help him decide which rolls to print. It doesn't help that he's in LA and I'm in SF. He works as a grip, so I suspect he's also working on set to replenish the coffers right now. I know I've been getting a fair amount of AC work lately so I've been concentrating on that. I'm also teaching a lighting seminar entitled "Lighting Spaces vs. Lighting Faces" in a few weeks to some SFSU students, so I'm relatively busy. I'll update when we get back into the swing of things! :)

Hey JD, How is 1/2 Straw supposed to give him a cool, bluish moonlight effect? Just nitpicking...

I understand what you're saying David, but I don't entirely agree. I think you have to use depth of field for steadicam/handheld type shots where the camera is usually fairly close to the subject, and the camera-to subject-distance is always changing as well as changing from take to take, and thus virtually impossible to keep "perfectly" focused down to the inch 100% of the time. I think the 1st AC's dirty little secret is that because we normally shoot these shots with wide lenses, that we're able get away with estimating rather than knowing exactly the focus distance at every moment for this type of shot. Naturally, the bigger the format, the better at estimating we have to be. But if you really think about it, it's just not humanly possible to be a human Panatape while running backwards behind the steadicam op with a Preston and peeking over his shoulder, though some guys get very close to that. Then again, maybe I just don't have enough experience pulling focus yet to be the human Panatape. But I have to think that even the top 1st's in the business start sweating when they have to do these types of shots wide open on anamorphic. If I can ask, what has your experience been with your 1st's over the years as your budgets have gotten bigger?

Generally true with film cameras and cinema lenses, providing that the flange focal distance of the camera's lens mount has been set correctly, and the lens has been calibrated correctly. You should really test to make sure that eye focus through the viewfinder matches the witness marks on the lens barrel before taking the camera out to shoot your project. Some exceptions would be if you're using still lenses (since they're not calibrated), or if you're using diopters in front of the lens (since they change the focusing distance of the lens), or if you're using behind-the-lens filters in a Bolex or Panavision camera (since the thickness of the filter will alter the flange focal distance). Also, some Panavision lenses have two witness marks on the barrel, one for shooting wide open and one for shooting stopped down. I think that's purely a Panavision thing, but I'm not sure. With video, as Ian said most ENG lenses are loosely calibrated to measure from the front of the lens. On the other hand, 2/3" cinema lenses like the Canon cine-style zooms focus from the focal plane, and some like the Digiprimes actually focus 17mm behind the focal plane. I understand that this is because the focal plane marking on most 3-chip 2/3" cameras is placed at the beamsplitter prism which splits the image into three colors for each of the CCDs which are 17mm further back into the camera body, and that to be more accurate the focus should be measured from the CCD itself.

Three rules to keep in mind: 1. Every light source that you put up is going to throw a shadow. So if you have two lamps on the actor, you're going to get two shadows. 2. How hard or soft of a shadow depends on the lamp's relative size to the subject - the bigger the source is compared to the subject, the softer the shadow will be. 3. Shadows will appear directly opposite the lamp. This should tell you where you need to place your lamps to avoid getting shadows on the walls - anyplace where there isn't a wall opposite the lamp. Think about flagging any unwanted sources off the walls, which should be pretty easy with sidey or toppy sources. Remember that the flag goes between the lamp and object that you're flagging - the closer the flag is to the lamp, the bigger and softer shadow you will throw on the object. Additionally, just because the walls go to the ceiling doesn't mean that toplight is not possible. You're not actually seeing all the way to the ceiling, are you?

If you can rent it out and transport it easily, then yes. I have a filmtools senior, it's been great for me. They usually rent for $35/day or thereabouts up here in SF Bay Area, so that's what I rent it for, I include it in my kit rental. On the corporate shoots I mainly work on, it's mostly used as a data cart, for hauling gear, or occasionally as a desk for one of the producers. :rolleyes: *Everyone seems to think it's a cupholder for their coffee as well, which is a BAD thing (especially when there's a laptop on the top shelf).

I think part of the problem is in the composition - it's unusual to center a sitting subject, especially with that much headroom. If you look at David's frames, the subjects are all pushed frame left or right, and he uses depth of space behind the subject to help create the illusion of dimension. You're making things difficult for yourself by putting your subject in front of a white wall and placing a practical lamp that is between your subject and the his key light. Though it's not casting a shadow on him, it's something that you have to work around and without it you would have more freedom to move the key more frontal. On the other hand, if you had placed the practical on the other side of the couch then it might even have made sense to have it on, since the (supposedly) window-lit side of the frame would be on frame right, and thus should be brighter than the left. As for lighting, as David said, you usually to start with the idea of what you want the frame to look like before you begin placing instruments. So if you want it to look like a sunny morning, then create a picture of that in your mind. Then start with the key light first and get it to where you want it. Once you have that placed where you like it, then start adding other lights. Add the fill light last. That way you won't be confused as to what effect each light is creating.

John, This information is readily available in many other posts on this forum and also on Wikipedia. These questions have been asked and answered here too many times already, so please do a search first and try to find these answers for yourself before you ask these questions here - it's a waste of bandwidth and of people's time to do otherwise. Phil already explained what the OLPF was in this very thread, post #12.

Yikes, I'm sorry to hear that John. Please take care, we'll be thinking of you.

It should be a free service, but if you have a lot of rolls then maybe they'll charge you. Still, processing is charged by the foot so it won't be much at all. They only need around two feet of each roll.

Gordon Willis said that if something you've lit doesn't look right, then you are either trying to do too much (over-lighting) or you have placed the key light in the wrong place (conceptual mistake). I believe the latter is a more critical mistake because it changes not only the feeling of a scene but also the meaning of it. It seems clear to me that the more experience you have, the fewer conceptual mistakes you make; you just spend more time trying to perfect the small details. I still make a lot of conceptual mistakes, though I learn from every one. I don't usually make the mistake of over-lighting though, I usually under-light. Hope I get the right mix one day.

Hey Mike, I'm pretty impressed, though I think that a bit less sharpening/denoising would look better - in the car interior shot there's an artificial black line between the man's coat and shirt post-sharpening that wasn't there in the first frame. And the girl's dark hair doesn't have much detail in it after processing, probably because it was buried in the noise of the toe of the curve to begin with. I also think the skin tones after denoising look too plastic and smooth to me, whereas leaving a bit of noise in the image would have made it more natural - after all we're all used to shooting 500T film with acceptable results, which are not grainless. That's just nitpicking though, I'm sure you can fine tune your method to get very acceptable results. I've only shot a few projects with the Red, but my testing showed me that 250ASA was as high as I wanted to rate the camera in non-5600K circumstances, noise-wise. I think you've just changed my mind. :)

Well, actually the plan is now to print two or three whole 400' rolls (since we are getting 2,000' free printing and we used up about half of that on the tests) and show those to investors, then do the telecine afterward when more money comes in (hopefully). We just have to pore over the camera reports and decide which rolls to print. I hope we're able to do an HD telecine, but a one-light SD transfer would also be fine for offline editing purposes as long as they go back and do a supervised HD transfer for the online.

How about a tight shot of the sun in the sky (ie. not a sunset or sunrise)?

I could see this system being useful in certain situations, for example in historical locations where you can't rig lights inside, run cable, or bring in lots of stands. Or in remote locations where you don't have access to a lot of amperage. Or when you have to hide your lights for a long steadicam shot. But for normal shooting situations it seems rather finicky and time consuming. Maybe you can get the same kind of control with the various reflectors as you can with conventional lamps and grip gear, but it'd be far slower and thus ultimately more expensive for production.

It's risky. I operated on a short recently where we used refrigerated 7218 stock from 1 1/2 years earlier. I haven't seen the footage yet but apparently the difference was quite noticeable in telecine, coarser grain, milky blacks. We overexposed by a stop as well. With 3 1/2 year old stock (unless it was actually frozen, not just refrigerated), I'd say your chances of getting usable footage are not good. Do you have time to do a clip test at a lab before you shoot?