Joe Marler

David, thank you very much for the thoughtful reply. My concern is when shooting a darker scene (ie the final graded look will be darker or more moody), yet a DP exposes mainly by how a log gamma monitor or straight Rec 709 monitor looks, which can lead to an underexposed image and noise. Yet requests for more light result in the reply "we like it dark and moody", which implies the monitored non-LUT image must convey via lighting at acquisition time the tonal and color range of the final graded product. In the below examples it appears that productions often use a brighter exposure when shooting than the final graded image will convey. I thought if they want help in visualizing a dark scene, the best way is use (say) -2 stops on the monitor LUT, etc -- not actually shoot at -2 stops. That can also be baked into the dailies to help them visualize the look. Is that a valid approach? Examples: https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-SVJfn38/0/10988003/X3/i-SVJfn38-X3.jpg https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-kMvXchj/0/3fcc242d/X3/i-kMvXchj-X3.jpg https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-2mjzqLt/0/3a291dc4/X3/i-2mjzqLt-X3.jpg https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-fRx5jsd/0/d0643a91/X3/i-fRx5jsd-X3.jpg

I sometimes see inexperienced filmmakers shooting a dark, moody scene with waveform peaks at 20 IRE, or on RED with the "traffic lights and goalposts" exposure tool at the bottom. The given rationale is the scene is dark and the DP needs to monitor a Rec 709 image which conveys that. I admit years ago I did that myself. Is it not better to use a higher light level, assure the right contrast ratio, then make it dark in post? Can the DP not use a monitoring LUT to approximate the darkened final look while using sufficient light for quality image capture? How is this best done? In professional industry productions do they shoot it dark or make it dark in post? By "dark" I mean an overall scene illumination of under 5 lux or 0.5 foot-candles.

I recently saw the 2021 PBS Frontline documentary "Boeing's Fatal Flaw": https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/boeings-fatal-flaw/ For many interviews they used negative look space on the 2nd camera. I was always taught this was wrong and to my eyes it looks abnormal. Is this some new accepted technique? Example frames Below. The DP was Jeremy Gould: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm1020495/filmotype/cinematographer?ref_=m_nmfm_4 Example frames: https://joema.smugmug.com/PBS-Boeing-Documentary-Interview-Composition/n-ZSD25f/