Satsuki Murashige

Hey Kate! Nice to see you around these parts, we miss you in the Bay. Nothing I can add really, other than to maybe try to look into the specific model of tanning bed and see if there’s some kind of ballast running it? Dunno about an optical flat, but a UV filter might help a bit. I’ve never seen one in 4x5.65, just the usual screw-in sizes.

Yes, there’s nothing quick about moving from the pistol grip to another rig with the 2C! I suppose you could mount an Arca Swiss plate to the 3/8-16 hole in the camera body behind the pistol grip and put a quick release plate on the monopod for fast switching. You kinda need three hands to manage that though. The best solution for me was to just put the camera down on a CineSaddle or similar pillow between takes. But then you have the battery belt cable getting in your way when you want to step away from the camera. The CineSaddle has a shoulder strap so sometimes I rest the camera on it while its hanging above my belly, which at least takes the weight off of the arms until I’m ready to start shooting again.

Yes, horizon level is easy to fix in a stills frame. Not as easy in motion pictures if it’s constantly drifting back and forth during a shot. You could try to stabilize the footage thru something like Warp Stabilizer in Adobe Premiere, but it’s much easier and simpler to shoot it correctly in the first place!

Hi Margaret, I have an Arriflex 3C, very similar to your 2c. I haven't tried using a monopod with the flat base motor yet, but it seems like it should work just fine. I've put fully rigged Sony F5 and Red cameras on my Manfrotto monopod with no issue. Also have done it with my 16mm Canon Scoopic, though that is much lighter. You'd want a beefy monopod, and I'd go directly from the 3/8-16 screw into the base, rather than using a ball head in-between. It seems like the Gitzo you specified has a max payload of 66lbs, so you should be ok. One thing that I've noticed when using the monopod this way - it can be very difficult to get shots with a stable horizon if you have a long camera build. My Sony F5 with 30-105mm Canon Cine Zoom and a battery on the back gets pretty long, and it's easy for the weight to pull the camera one way, and then the other. It can feel like you're on a boat at times, trying to keep the shot stable. So the lighter you can keep the load, and the more centered over the monopod, the more stable your footage will be. Use 200' mags and small prime lenses if possible!

Yes, this level of exposure is possible with 5219 500T film stock and a fast T2 or T1.3 lens. The only truly ‘low light’ scenarios here are the night exterior alleyway shots. Where her face is full lit for a large area of sidewalk, it looks like there is a separate mobile key light on here on camera right. Probably something like a handheld LED Litemat on a battery or similar. Otherwise, you can see how dark she gets at times, when she is just lit by the ambient street lights. Re: testing on the cheap If you want it try it out on the cheap, get a 135 roll of Cinestill 800T (5219 with anti-halation backing removed) and shoot in a cheap 35mm SLR stills camera. That will give you an idea of what exposures are possible at the required shutter speeds. Here are some of my Cinestill 800T frames from NYC in some of the same areas that this music video was shot, taken on an old Pentax MX 35mm stills camera with a 35mm f/2 and 50mm f/1.4: https://satsukimurashige.com/play The shutter speed was usually around 1/30 or 1/60 for the dark interiors and night exteriors since it was all handheld. With a motion picture camera at 24fps/180 degree shutter, the shutter speed is 1/48, so in the ballpark. You could make up the exposure difference from 1/30 with a faster lens or adding more light. I did take some stills at 1/15, which would be the equivalent of 8fps, so you would need to add a significant amount of light to those areas to show up on film. Re: other options You can also push the film stock a stop in the lab - it may help make the dark exposed areas of the frame brighter, at the cost of more visible film grain. But it won’t add extra shadow detail that wasn’t already captured by the film to begin with. If you want to get really creative, you can do as Christopher Doyle did in ‘Chungking Express’ and lower the frame rate to increase the shutter speed, then ‘print back to 24fps’ (or for digital post, set the playback speed of the scanned file to whatever frame rate you shot at). This will create a trippy motion blurred effect, but the speed of action will be in real-time rather than sped up.

The simplest method I have found is VLC Player. It’s multi-platform and doesn’t require multiple steps to output jpegs like Resolve. Just pause and hit the shortcut keys. You can also assign a destination folder and automate the naming convention for the files, which I find useful for organizing frame grabs by project. With Resolve, I find that I have to save a grade to my library, right click to export still, select jpeg and destination (by default it is set to DPX), and then manually delete the grade file and rename the still in Finder. Maybe there is a faster way that I’m not aware of? I only do this if I have to show different versions of a grade or Log vs Graded versions of the same frame.

I believe the film was made in place of the New York City Ballet’s usual annual gala. Since they’ve been shut down for the last 14 months, obviously there have been no live performances. So I guess the film is meant to take the place of that. It’s also possible that they may want to sell the film to other platforms. But I do hope they leave it up for free for much longer, I think it does more to promote the arts to the public in the long run.

Hi John, Good to hear from you! What did you not like about the film? I’ve only seen it once in the theater, but I enjoyed the experience immensely. I’ve found that most of Mr. Tarantino’s films play better in a packed theater, preferably in a midnight showing. Knowing Quentin’s preferences, perhaps that is the way they were all intended to be seen. The only films of his that I didn’t enjoy were ‘Kill Bill, Vol.1’ and ‘The Hateful Eight.’ Perhaps his most gratuitously violent films, without enough comedy to lighten the black mood. I saw the former in a near empty theater on a date, and the latter in 70mm with my mom. Big mistake on both counts! I think ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ is a bit meanderingly indulgent, although it’s namesake films by his hero Sergio Leone are also equally indulgent, so perhaps it is appropriate. I find the film’s sprawl and digressions to be charming and amusing. I think the tension is well-earned, and not knowing where the film is headed, the sharp-right-turn-into-catharsis worked for me - the theater erupted with shocked laughter for nearly the whole sequence when I saw it. It was a thrilling theatrical experience.

A short film by Sofia Coppola, made for NYCB’s 2021 Spring Gala. Only available on YouTube until May 20! https://youtu.be/cS-_IjGYWv4 Film proper starts at 5min, 51sec. I think this is a beautifully-shot, sensitively- edited, stirring, soulful experience. Having spent four years of my middle childhood years at the San Francisco Ballet School, I feel a deeply-rooted connection to the material. Those empty echoing halls, those creaky floorboards, the squeak of leather-soled dance shoes on vinyl - the film brings all of those sensations back. I love the fine line the filmmakers ride between documentary style, dramatic flair, and capturing true performance. This is perhaps one of Sofia Coppola’s best talents as a director. And only captured with two cameras, according to the credits! The color section at the end of the film appears treated with a two-strip Technicolor look, at least to my eye. Maybe it’s just the lighting, in combination with the makeup and costumes, but there seems to be quite a bit of green removed from the image which pulls the film out of the modern context and creates a ‘classical’ feeling - you’re not quite sure if this was shot in 2021, or in 1951. Whether it was intended to have this effect or not, it worked quite well for me.

There are only two B&W Kodak stocks avail currently for motion picture use, 5222 Double-X in 35mm and 7266 Tri-X Reversal in 16mm. It costs an incredible amount of money to develop new stocks, so I doubt Kodak will be doing that anymore. Certainly not for B&W motion picture camera stock, which is not exactly a big seller these days. It would be easier for them to cut down and perforate T-Max or other existing stills stocks than it would be to make a new version of Tri-X. If you’re talking about stills film, then there are a lot of other options available. My preference is for Fuji Acros and Ilford Delta 3200, but I still have tons of Tri-X 400 120 in my film freezer.

Rental houses are great places for this sort of thing. Where's the FIZ unit that you'll be using coming from?

Ah, I see. Depends on how rough your are with your gear, I guess. The Miller Solo legs are a lot more rugged in comparison. I’ve heard the spreader on the 100mm Flowtech is better built than the 75mm. That said, it’s very easy to swap out the spreader if something happens to it. Have not used an Activ head yet, so can’t say for sure. But Sachtler heads are generally pretty dependable. My Cine 30 HD has not needed service yet after 6-7 years. All of the Sachtler rental heads I’ve used seem to take a beating and keep on working.

Can you just get the Flowtech legs and continue to use your Miller Compass head? I have Miller Solo 100mm legs as well, and I will often swap out for a Sachtler Video 15 SB or Video 18 SB without any issue. Sometimes the variation in tie-down diameters from different manufacturers can result in fit issues even on the same size ball diameter, but there are plenty of after market tie-downs that can help with that. The Flowtechs are pretty nice to use overall. I’ve only used the 75mm and not the 100mm version. I think the spreader on the 75mm legs are a bit plasticky and flimsy. You definitely need it though, the legs become floppy and annoying to use in my opinion without the spreader.

Clear 1” P-Touch labeling tape: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ptouchdirect.com/amp/ptouch/tze151.html

Best of luck Simon! Let us know how it goes.

I don’t think you will really need any ‘room tone’ fill for the look you want unless you’re shooting on slow speed film. I suspect the fog/haze will do most of the heavy lifting for you contrast wise. But if you’re shooting up into the sky towards the light like the reference, then you might need something up there additional unless you want the sky to go black between the wisps of haze. Maybe a large backlit rag, hard to say for sure. I would also consider maybe going with multiple units to get more spread thru the trees. But that could get tricky if you need to look up all the time and only want to see one ‘sun.’ So it may be hard to say exactly what’s needed until you diagram all of your shots out on an overhead.

A bit off topic, but Phil do you know if the Aktiv10 will get a Touch and Go plate version? I need to replace my Cartoni Focus F101 100mm head and I do not like side-load plates (except on beefy OConnor/Sachtler heads). Already have 100mm Miller Solo legs that I would like to keep using.

Nothing is going to feel like an OConnor 2575 head except... an OConnor. Even my Sachtler Cine30 HD is a step down (half the weight for a similar payload, though). For a few hundred bucks, I’d consider the Benro S6 Pro with a flat base on some photo legs. At least it has the tilt lock on the operator side, unlike a Manfrotto 502. Have not tried the 504X. Never been a fan of Manfrotto. If you can go $500+, the Cartoni Focus 8, Miller DS-10 are decent options. Above $1000 USD, I’d go with a used Sachtler, Vinten, Miller (or OConnor naturally).

What’s your budget?

From a recent thread: https://cinematography.com/index.php?/topic/86817-a-scene-solely-with-red-lighting/&tab=comments#comment-540715 It’s also been discussed in many other threads over the years. If you can’t get red gels, then I would try to get a hold of a Red #25 filter at least. I would think a few sheets of Primary Red gel would be cheaper though.

Does it have 1/4-20 and 3/8-16 threaded holes on the bottom so that you can at least attach your own tripod plate?

Thanks Ben!

Nice! Did it come with the single rod holders for the top plate and the lens adapter support? I’m curious whether the single rod holders are correctly spaced for LW15 when used at the front of the top plate. I’m thinking of attaching the LCD/Zacuto loupe with a Bright Tangerine Axis EVF mount to front top rods.

Makes sense, thanks!

Looks great Uli! Did you use blue/greenscreen outside then? Did that limit your ability to do any camera movement inside where you see outside? Or did you just put tracking markers for those shots?