Satsuki Murashige

I own a Scoopic 16M, and I never clip the end of the film when loading the camera. Never had a jam, or any other problem. I always load and unload in the changing bag, so every frame from start to finish is usable. By the way, Easton, are you getting a Scoopic 16 (old grey model) or a 16M (newer black model)? Because the 16M (or later 16MS) is vastly superior (better lens, 64fps, macro function, etc). If you haven't already committed to buying the camera yet, I'd highly recommend getting the later version. Also, the 100ft take-up spools are standard - any 100' roll of Kodak or Fuji comes with one. Usually, you leave the spool from the last roll you shot in the camera, and that becomes your new take-up spool. If you don't have one (and you should always have a few extra), you can get them free from any film lab.

Not if his actors are very, very small.

I call it a Zolly (zoom-dolly).

Another strategy might be to light specific but limited areas where the talent will be to a high key and stop down the lens, reducing ambient spill on the walls. For day interiors, flag as many windows as you can, and light with fresnels and other hard sources.

B&W neg. It has less dynamic range than color neg, but appears to have more tonal nuances (at least in skin texture), hence my statement.

It's essentially for anal retentive digital photographers who have a fat wad of cash burning a hole in their pockets, right? What's to get excited about? By the way, Sekonic still sells an analog meter which will probably last longer than film itself. By then we'll all be lighting by the monitor anyway.

What was so bad about them? I've never shot anamorphic, so I've always wondered what it looks like through the deanamorphosing (sp?) viewfinder. Would a newer eyepiece extension (like the Arricam) work? Also, were the short anamorphic eyepieces bad also, or just the longer extension tubes? Thanks, Tony!

Well, not really - modern filmstock is simply less grainy and more sensitive (ie. has more dynamic range) than older stocks. The '18 was released in 2002, while the '22 is essentially the same stock that was released in 1959. If you look at Kodak's film chronology on their website, you can see that their whole history is devoted to consistently making their films less grainy and more sensitive. http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products....26.4&lc=en I can send you some still frames of a film test that I shot along these lines if you'd like. I tested 7212 (100T color neg) against 7231 (64T/80D, Plus-X B&W neg), desaturating the color in telecine, then compared the footage side-by-side. The color neg has more dynamic range, more lattitude, less grain, and a lower gamma, no question about it. So then why would anyone ever shoot B&W stock, if the color neg is so good? For the look! And what exactly is that? Personally, I think it boils down to several things: the grainy texture of silver nitrate, which usually gets bleached out of color neg in the development process; a higher gamma which tends to give the impression of more texture in skin tones (fine lines, pores, moles stand out more); and the older, less effective anti-halation backing, which allows specular highlights to bloom. Of course, you can do all these things to color neg in the camera (lens diffusion), at the lab (bleach bypass), or in telecine (increase gamma), but I've noticed that people who shoot color neg for B&W usually don't want these things - they just want it to look like desaturated color neg. I think David Mullen's work on "Northfork" (only seen it on DVD) and most of Darius Kondji's ENR'd work captures more of the feeling of classic B&W than "Good Might and Good Luck" or "The Man Who Wasn't There" because of their use of silver retention techniques and (in David's case), halated highlights. *EDIT: It's weird to say that LESS dynamic range can lead to MORE tonal nuances (in skin texture, for example), but that seems to be my experience. So let's just say, more APPARENT tonal nuances. :)

If you're referring to lattitude, then color neg has significantly more than B&W neg. So you'd not only need more footcandles from your lights, but also more fill to match the contrast ratios you'd be getting by shooting color neg. That's probably where shooting B&W neg would slow things down the most - you'd be forced to add fill light where you'd ordinarily just let it go.

The same level of ENR though?

Yeah, the problem with the china ball idea is that they may hang too low, cutting into the top of your frame. The skirts make it worse, so you'll likely have to choose between flagging the china ball enough or having it visible in the shot. Depends on how high the ceilings are and how long the corridor is. Sticking to longer focal lengths may help. Do the fluorescent practicals stick out of the ceiling on some kind of beam, or are they recessed into the ceiling? If the former, you may be able to Mayfer clamp some Dedos or inkies up there and hide them behind the beams. Maybe point them up for bounce? Or, you could replace the existing fluoro bulbs with Kinos (daylight Kinos if you want the mixed color temp look). Not sure if they'd work in those fixtures though. As far as getting stuck with a blue-tinted image on the negative, don't worry about it. As long as the frame is blue overall (no mixed color temps), it can be timed out. If you're going to do that, then you might as well light everything tungsten-balanced and maximize your footcandles. I like David's suggestion of gelling backgrounds but lighting the faces neutral - it's the ballsier way to go. Of course, then you'd be stuck with that look.

Wow, that's being pretty picky, the 1/8 ProMist is so mild! (Did he say whether it was White or Black?) I guess that's what makes the great ones so great - paying attention to all the little details. Was his style of shooting wide open developed to capture more nuances of ambient light (like his "room tone" fill)?

Hey, Castro Theatre - Jan. 19-22. SF locals, take notice! Thanks, Sakari.

Ah, optical vignetting, then? The bokeh looks pretty uniform, from sides to center frame, though. Wouldn't optical vignetting be more noticeable near the edges of the frame and gradually disappear toward the center?

I took that class last fall - I think you'll really enjoy it. John's a great guy and extremely knowledgable - I'm still referring to my notes on workflow issues, how to prepare for telecine sessions, color theory, etc. I was only disappointed that we didn't get to spend more time in the telecine suite - the term project is to produce a film test on DVD, shooting 100' of 16mm and getting a free supervised transfer, then editing in NLE. You can test whatever you want - different film stocks, exposure lattitude, step-printing effects, shutter angle effects, tricolor. I did a comparison between B&W neg and color neg desaturated in telecine, shooting with two cameras side-by-side. Kevin, the class is through City College - it's pretty much the last class you take after all the pre-reqs: Beg. Production, Beg. Editing, Sound, Adv. Editing, Cinematography, Adv. Cinematography, etc. Bryan, you could be right about that. A director-friend of mine recently had his senior thesis transferred to hard drive, and he mentioned that it was done at "digibeta quality." How they actually did this, I don't know. *EDIT: Misspelled your name, Bryan.

Nice work, I like the angles you chose as well as the camera movement - the tripod pans were very smooth and the handheld work was well done. Looks like you might of had some shutter problems - I noticed some vertical smearing on a few of the shots. Forgetting to close the pressure plate can cause that.

Huh? What do you mean? IMDB has been wrong before...

Sweet! Please keep us informed on how it goes - this sounds very exciting (I've only had my stuff transferred at Monaco so far). By the way, Monaco now does direct to hard drive as well, but they don't have a modern telecine like the Spirit Datacine. Will you be supervising the transfer or getting a best/one light?

Hi Chuck, Thanks for the info on the turret. Would you say the same thing about the steel Bayonet mount on the Arri S/B (which we were using)? I imagine the mount itself should be able to take the weight (I've seen the huge Cooke 18-100 T3 zoom in Bayo mount, after all), but the turret must be the weak link in the chain right? Then what about the turret on the 35mm Arri 2C? Will it be just as weak as the turret on the Arri S/B?

I'll take a stab at this. In this wide shot, I used two undiffused fresnels. The key light is a 300w fresnel gelled 1/4 CTB, and the background light is a 1k gelled with primary red. The other light sources are two dimmed PH211 75w practical bulbs (one is out of frame). In this medium wide shot, I used a 650w fresnel gelled with spring yellow. The background light is a practical bulb which I can't take credit for. In this close-up, the key is a 1k fresnel bounced into a mirror with water from a shower head running over it to create a rain pattern effect. The backlight is a 650w fresnel. Don't know if this is what you were thinking of, or whether you simply wanted to see a direct key from a fresnel. I think that's used less often.

Well, in his defense, he's not a DP anymore, more of a writer/director these days. Still, I thought it was really odd when he told me that before he started teaching the lighting class, no one at my school was teaching the subject at all. Jeez, that's SFSU for you! I agree with you that simpler is better. I think it was Conrad Hall who said that each light should be doing something specific for the scene. If you can't see what a light is adding by turning it on and off, you should get rid of it. My problem as a student is that I usually err by lighting too little and too low-key. Joey, here are a few examples from Blain Brown's "Motion Picture and Video Lighting" book. They show the process of lighting a set and how each light looks when added to whole. Not quite what you asked for, but all I could find in my library (sorry for the poor quality of the scans). (If someone can tell me how to attach these so that they appear full size in the body of the post, I'd be very grateful - the help FAQ is not helpful).

$462!? Ouch. Doesn't really seem worth it.

That's funny, I had a similar experience this semester. My cinematography professor had us put up a basic set on the sound stage and did a lighting demo. We had two walls, one with a window, and the other with a door, with another wall behind the door to create a hallway. Two actors were sitting at a table a few feet from the window, while another actor entered from the door behind them and spoke to them. When he put a 5k through the window, it looked great - very moody yet realistic, late afternoon feel to it. Then he had us scrim it down because the window was "too hot," like 4 stops over (spot reading), and had us supplement the key with Mickey Moles and Minis high up over the walls for key and back lights on the actors sitting at the table. Then he'd have us diffuse them. Then he kept adding more and more lights. And with every light that he added, I kept thinking, this is getting worse and worse! It looked pretty real with just the 5k, and now the set's starting to look like a sound stage. The funny thing is, he apparently learned how to light from John Alonzo, back in the 70s.

Hi Jason, The clips play fine on my PC as well, it's a Sony Vaio, about three years old. Very nice work! Karl, what are "bar lights"? I've been to a few weddings where the banquet hall lights were kept very dim, presumably to set a more "romantic" atmosphere. Must of been hell for the photographer and video crew. Maybe if you talked to the family beforehand, they would let you pre-light the room with china balls and a few par cans or something?

I've never had a dream where an airplane cockpit looks like a square room! I laugh every time I see that. Maybe I thought "Alphaville" was dream-like because I kept nodding off while watching it, only to be awakened every ten minutes by that French Stephen Hawking-with-a-headcold voice.