Jump to content

Satsuki Murashige

Premium Member
  • Posts

    4,560
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Satsuki Murashige

  1. I think you need to come up with your own formula. There is no universal standard for exposure metering, even on celluloid film. Some people use a spot meter and a grey card, others only use an incident meter and footcandles, still others rely on a waveform monitor, and some just light by eye. You just have to test, test, test and find what works best for you. Personally, I would be wary of using reflected readings for setting the stop based on foreground skin tone as a rule, other than as a double check after getting 90% of the lighting in. Otherwise, you risk the background exposure going up and down as you ride the stop based on each person’s skin tone. I find that is more of an ‘available light’ style of shooting, which can look good but will tend to be all over the place if relied upon all the time. If possible, I prefer to set the exposure for the set/background first and work my way downstage, adjusting the key/fill last by eye. I find it results in more consistent exposures. But of course, in some cases one has no choice but to rely on available light as well.
  2. Tough one. Have you had private conversations about this with the AD team and some other department heads already? Personally, I’d wait to bring it up until you get a majority of keys to back you. It would be a lot easier if the 1st AD, 1st AC, Gaffer, Key Grip, or DP talked to the PM about it as well, asking for changes to be made.
  3. 1. If you adhere to the ‘expose to the right’ philosophy, then yes. If you want consistency from shot-to-shot, then no. ETTR really comes from still photography where images are usually processed, edited, and presented one at a time. A single photographic image can stand on its own. But with motion pictures, shots are part of a sequence. And if you want the audience not to be jarred from cut to cut, then continuity matters - not just in terms of screen direction and mise-en-scene, but also focal length and perspective, depth of field, noise/grain, lighting, etc. Knowing how much you can cheat continuity shot-to-shot takes experience. So yes, an ETTR shot can be brought down in post - but will it cut seamlessly with the other shots in the sequence? It depends. 2. This happens frequently in film, where what works for visual continuity is very different from reality. For example, let’s say you have two matching OTS shots in a late afternoon day exterior. Angle 1 is backlit by the sun, with a soft sidey bounce key. Realistically, Angle 2 should then be front-lit if the two people are facing each other. But frequently, Angle 2 will also be shot backlit so the edit isn’t as abrupt. The content of the scene, the tone of the story, and the blocking determine whether you draw attention to the difference in lighting, or try to make it more seamless. In that sense, exposing ‘properly’ for the intended effect of your final image is the only way to go in motion pictures. If you want your images dark like ‘Arrival’ then light it that way. If you want it bright and washed out like ‘Jarhead’ then expose it that way. That’s how you create a look for a project, not by ETTR and then finding the right exposure in post. But that means you do have to know what you want the picture to look like, before you shoot it. As you can see, consistency in motion pictures is largely an illusion. Often, very little actually goes unchanged from shot-to-shot. What’s important is that those changes help the shots flow from cut to cut. But one thing you can do is to leave the camera/lens settings the same as much as possible and instead change what’s in front of the camera. If it doesn’t look good, you can change the angle, the blocking, the set dressing, the lighting, filters, etc. It’s all fair game, as long as the final effect is seamless. 3. Just look at each shot after you’ve set up the camera, and make adjustments from there. With experience, you’ll be able to pre-visualize problems and solutions in prep, and you’ll become much more efficient on set. But even the most experienced cinematographers run into problems and surprises on every shoot - that part never ends. Check out the Team Deakins podcast, it’s full of problem solving stories from some of the world’s best filmmakers. In the meantime, just keep shooting and learning as you go. That’s the fastest way to get there.
  4. The Venice is a rolling shutter camera. Ben, on the Venice you should be able to use Synchro Scan to adjust the shutter angle or shutter speed in minute increments. Start with 1/60 sec (or 144.00 degree angle with 24fps) and adjust from there.
  5. Some basic questions: What angles are you shooting? How wide do you need to see in your widest shots? Are you shooting any slow motion shots? How stylized of a look are you going for? What camera system/lenses are you using? What’s your budget / G&E crew size situation? I think unless you’re shooting fairly narrow angles, I would consider going with tungsten Maxi Brutes or Dinos instead of HMIs, as you’ll get more spread over a larger distance. They will basically do the same thing as the stadium lights, but you can place them where you like and turn off individual globes if you need less output. They’ll also look realistic from a distance as a stadium light source if they get into frame.
  6. If incandescent is available, get those. LED string lights tend to flicker quite badly.
  7. If you’re going to be loading a lot, I would recommend the Harrison Changing Tent: https://cameraessentials.com/product-category/harrison-film-changing-tents A tent is a lot less annoying to use than a changing bag, as you have more room inside and it won’t get as hot and sweaty. I have the regular size, which will just barely fit a 1000’ 35mm magazine. If you find yourself loading 1000’ loads often, you’ll want the Jumbo size. For 400’ mags and Bolex style cameras, the regular size is fine.
  8. Smart to shoot the wides first with clouds on the horizon! Re: schedule Yeah, not much you else you can do with 24 shots to get in 4hrs. Usually commercial shoots are 10hr days in my area, not including 30min for lunch. Still, 24 shots is a lot, 10-12 would be more manageable. Maybe you could have used multiple cameras to grab 2 shots at a time. Re: script Well, I’d be happy to take a crack at it! Work is completely dead here, so I need to do something. I’ll PM you a sample treatment.
  9. Look great, Alissa! I prefer ‘completely crazy,’ if it’s the bottom frame. Go big or go home! ?
  10. Thanks for sharing a preview, David! It takes courage to share your work online, so cheers on that front. Looks like you managed to make the sun-lit and cloudy footage all match, well done. How did you end up working around losing the sun on set? The product shots were also very nice though a bit different in style, studio rather than location photography. Would have loved to see a Corona-style pack shot, with the beads of condensation on the bottle and blue ocean and palm trees in the background. If I have one criticism, it is more on the directorial front. Coverage-wise, it looked to me like you didn’t have enough shots or story to work with, so you ended up repeating the same shots too frequently in the edit without anything new happening. I think if the sequence had been designed so that each camera setup fulfilled a specific purpose, and each cut then propelled the sequence forward to a new angle, then the story would have been more engaging to me. This would probably be less objectionable as a 15 or a 30, but for a 60 second spot, the edit really drags. I think for a 60, you actually need one or two more story beats/complications to keep things moving. The hard part is, these beats need to be easy to remove for the 15 and the 30. One thing with online commercials is that they are very easy to skip after the first five seconds, so you’ve really got to make each shot and each cut memorable if you want people to watch the whole thing. Anyway, those are just my thoughts. Please take what you find useful and feel free to disregard the rest, I am always learning too and certainly don’t always have the right answers. Hope this was helpful, and best of luck on the next one!
  11. As stated before, that would actually require me to watch the film! As there is no chance of that ever happening, I will leave that to others.
  12. I haven’t used either camera yet, but I think you’re going to find your answer here. I suspect that people who go for the Komodo probably do see a difference (however small) and find it more suited for their style of shooting. Same as it ever was. Every camera person has their own preferences - some prioritize a beefy codec, others great highlight roll-off, still others ergonomics and ease of use. So on, and so forth.
  13. Two thoughts come to mind, both technical. 1. If the film was shot in 4-perf 35mm, and they protected the whole 1.33:1 negative, then maybe Mr. Snyder just wanted to show the full frame for some scenes? So not really pillarboxing but rather removing the letterbox, so to speak. 2. There may have been a lot of VFX shots in the original aspect ratio that they didn’t re-render from the first release, so to fit with the new aspect ratio they needed to pillarbox those shots to match the new aspect ratio? No idea about the artistic justifications, as that would require actually watching both versions...
  14. Cheers Mark! I agree, 50D is great in all the versions I’ve tried. Still got a few rolls of Fuji 64D in my freezer. 200T is great too.
  15. I think this is the cinematic equivalent of eating a large bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in one sitting. You know you’re gonna pay for it later...? *Yeah, I have no personal experience with that. No experience. None. Don’t quote me on that. {munch, munch, munch, crinkle}
  16. Beautiful work, Rene! Love the compositions and the edit. You found some fantastic frames. What were the biggest challenges for you on this shoot? Is that you in the video singing? It must have been difficult filming yourself without a monitor. How much help did you have? What was your workflow like? Did you end up carrying the exposed rolls around with you to each location and processing when you got back home? Anyway, thanks for sharing and congrats on the fine work!
  17. The angle of the gears should remain parallel, that’s why you need the wider gears. If they shifted angles, the gears would bind.
  18. Either install a focus gear that is extra wide on the lens, or on the follow focus itself. Or a combination of both, if the extension is extreme.
  19. That’s a nice video image, but I think I would prefer the optical viewfinder just from an ergonomic perspective. Handheld on the shoulder must be rather uncomfortable with that thing in your face!
  20. You’re right that the film and the viewfinder don’t see the same 1/48 of a second slice of time when the film is in the gate, since one path is closed while the other is open. However, it’s not accurate to call each 1/48 sec interval a ‘frame.’ The only frames are the ones recorded on the film.
  21. No, most video taps use a beamsplitter that takes some of the light going to the optical viewfinder and redirect it to there tap. Usually it’s an 80/20 split, so 80% to the viewfinder, 20% to the tap. There are also 50/50 and 100% video beamsplitters. So you always see what the viewfinder sees. Video assists were additional accessories, so the camera movement and reflex mirror shutter wouldn’t have been designed to split the light three ways, taking light away from the film.
  22. Sure, any footage is better than none when it comes to editing! You definitely might as well record the tap image, for playback at least. I have a Video Devices Pix-E7 that I was planning on using for this purpose. I’m just pointing out that you’ll have to do the manual work of ingesting, multi-clipping, binning, and syncing twice, since the only correlation between the video tap recording and film scans will be the visual reference of the slates. But as you say, it’s better than nothing! ?
  23. I don’t think the ground glass image would be ‘good enough’ for a 4K backup, though YMMV. For a quick preview edit, sure. Though it wouldn’t be nearly frame accurate enough to do an online/offline workflow, so you’d just be redoing all of your editing work manually after you get your scans back. I’ve had a potential client ask for an Indiecam Tap + clean ground glass, so I guess that’s a thing now. I sent them to Keslow and Panavision, as that’s well out of my league. Also, if you want to shoot with both cameras simultaneously, I think you would want two systems (one per camera) and keep them built on the cameras, as they more or less need to be calibrated for each camera. It’s a very simple thing to remove and replace the Video Assist on the SL, with its locating pins. But I think it would take way too much time on set to swap a universal tap like a CEI between different camera bodies and have it focused and framed correctly. But that’s just my take, maybe I’m wrong about that.
×
×
  • Create New...