AJ Young

Matthew Allard, ACS did a really great break down of the camera, costs, and what it can do.

https://www.newsshooter.com/2020/09/14/achtel-9x7-65-megapixel-motion-picture-camera/

Spoiler alert, the price tag: $143,000 USD

On 9/8/2020 at 4:29 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

Half Soft Frost is similar to Opal without all that rattling noise in the wind...

I mean, just kidding! ?

2 hours ago, Mitchell Priebe said:

Yes, I should have mentioned that in my post. Thanks for pointing it out. A lot of the house locations where I've worked have 20a circuits, but I'm sure there's lots that still have 15a circuits. Always good to check before plugging anything in. 

All good!

(in the US) Practically speaking, it's a good idea to assume an older house have 15a circuits, so an M18 will be too much. Always check the breaker box to see what the amperage for the circuit is. (in the US)

I'll toss in one too: opal!

9 hours ago, Andreas Haglund said:

ARRI Alexa, Sony F35 PL, Sony F65, Red Epic-X, Red Scarlet, Red One, Canon 7D and the Phantom HD Gold.”

These are pretty old cameras and Alan Gordon only considering the S35 versions of the Alexa, but the LF/65 won't work with the optical. Plus not every digital sensor is the exact size while a phone app can actually take that into account. I highly recommend going the route of an app. ?

You might be better off with a viewfinder app for your smartphone. Artemis is pretty popular for iOS users!

Personally, I really liked this one: https://www.artistsviewfinder.com/

As the sun gets closer to the horizon, the atmosphere begins to warm it up. You'll notice warmer hard light. Immediately after it sets, the sky is now providing all of the light (known as magic hour, which ironically is usually only 20 minutes or so). Most, if not all of those shots are during magic hour.

There's really not much grading being done on these shots outside of adding more cold or warm tones.

Judging by how soft the light is, but without actually seeing the sun clearly in one of the shots, I'd say those were filmed on a day when the sun was setting behind a thin layer of clouds effectively acting as diffusion. However, you can replicate that with magic hour and either warming up the image with white balance, in the grade, or both. ?

22 hours ago, Kenny Williams said:

Yeah a similar thing ended up happening. It's a very very small crew and it was actually our covid officer who was pushing and fighting for me to take my lunch because the crew had lunch on set hours prior when I returned from all my runs, and he told me that they'll take advantage of people who don't know because of inexperience. 

PA life is hard. More often than not PA's are given a working lunch and barely have time to rest, at least in the US. My wife was working towards joining the DGA as a PA on a number of large budget projects for years. The producers would sometimes allow one meal penalty a day, but the general culture for PA's on those large budgets was that you were working from call to wrap and were required to take an hour off on your timecard regardless if you had an hour break or not. She would seldom get a full meal because PA's always ate last and almost all the food would be gone. The reality of the PA culture is that PA's are viewed as easily replaceable on big budgets and if any PA objected to the aforementioned problems, they simply wouldn't be called back. In the US, the whole show is union except for the PA's who have no representation. It's a hard, thankless, and, at times, demeaning job.

Sounds like a job for the Kino Wheels!

https://www.kinowheels.com/

47 minutes ago, charles pappas said:

I would like to later view the links, but this viewing distance/screen size business is very suspect to me. I get that the farther away one is the smaller the screen seems to be, and that on a 60 foot diagonal screen at a viewing distance of a couple of miles the artist might as well project a single pixel because it would be equivalent to one-trillion pixels, but still this is suspect to me. I will view the links later.

Why would it be suspect? It's the original, and still to this day, business model of IMAX: screens so large that they extend beyond your peripherals. Because those screens are so massive, they needed a format to ensure the proper resolution and thus IMAX cameras were created.

Distance from the screen and the size of the screen are major factors that need to be taken into consideration when selecting your capture format. It's why TV shows don't shoot on 70mm; what's the point?! ?

Ah, allow me to clarify. What I meant is the viewer's distance from the screen and that screen's size. That distance determines how much resolution you need for displaying the image. There's no magic number, but at a certain screen size, it's visually imperceptible to see the difference between a film shot 480p and 16k.

Yedlin covers this in those links I shared above. ? It's a good 2 hour watch, but well worth it!

I'll also point out that the resolving power of the final output display (ie theatre screen, TV, phone, etc) and the distance from that screen is an inherent relationship you can't discount. If most indies will only be viewed on a TV screen, then why shoot in IMAX?

This chart below shows the relationship between resolution benefit and distance to screen:

https://www.rgb.com/display-size-resolution-and-ideal-viewing-distance

Steve Yedlin, ASC talks about the myth of a different optical look from format to format: http://www.yedlin.net/NerdyFilmTechStuff/MatchLensBlur.html

He also talks about how, given post production technology today, any camera can match any camera: https://www.yedlin.net/DisplayPrepDemo/index.html

Here's another from Yedlin on resolution: https://www.yedlin.net/ResDemo/index.html

3 minutes ago, Uli Meyer said:

t's $34k for stock, processing and scan. That is still a fair chunk on a low budget but makes it more feasible. Camera package isn't an extra since you would have to pay for one either way.

Ah, I believe I misunderstood the numbers. I'll just see myself out:

2 minutes ago, Uli Meyer said:

It's not an additional $65k. Tyler included the camera package.

Gotcha. If it's just $65k for camera, though, then that's still a lot.

4 hours ago, Justin Oakley said:

Using these lights, how would you set up a bedroom night scene? Like sleepy time night scene—no practical lamps or anything. Shoot one light through a window with 1/2 CTB? Bounce some light of a corner of the ceiling? Should I mess with the temp in camera? I just want to do it right and not be all lazy and ‘blue’ everything all to hell with day for night.

You're already on the right track! I'd recommend testing out looks in your bedroom. ?

11 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

So if you have a 1 million dollar budget, what's $65k?

I've shot a $500k feature and money was tight. The larger a budget grows, the more gets spent on ATL, locations, and crew before rentals, in my experience.

If it's a million dollar movie shooting in 20 days, $65k could be your entire camera, grip, and electric package.

Here are my thoughts:

• Don't pick up smoking and try to quit if you already smoke
• Engage your core when lifting anything
• Always lift with your legs
• Wear gloves
• Drink a lot of water
• Wear sunscreen
• Know your limits. Tell your boss when you think you're too tired and you can hurt someone. Ask for help if you need it when lifting things
• If you feel sleepy, DO NOT DRIVE.
• Stretch when you can
• Eat right. Sets notoriously have bad food, but they also have the option for healthy food. It may sound so delicious to pile on the tasty yet unhealthy food at lunch, but trust me the salad with meat is your best friend. You won't feel tired AND you're treating your body right.
• Consume less alcohol.
• Only drink coffee when you need it - this is a mental health decision. Most psychiatrists will tell you that drinking too much coffee and contribute to anxiety
• Wear comfy shoes like sneakers or hiking boots; shoes that were designed for long walking.
• You can get a great workout on set naturally, especially when doing G/E, but continue to exercise on your downtime. I can't remember where I saw it on Roger Deakins's forum, but he mentions that on his off time he would run five miles a day.

Okay, I've rambled enough. ?

10 hours ago, Stuart Brereton said:

Even in the highest gear, I think you would struggle to pan a geared head that fast. An Arrihead takes 9.5 turns of the wheel in 3rd gear to pan 180°. That’s a lot do in just over a second.

I stand corrected! ?

A fluid head set to the stiffest settings helps with fast whip pans. Of course, the heavier the camera + head, the stronger the legs need to be; otherwise, the tripod would move!

A geared head can help a lot with this because you can control the "sensitivity" of the gears.

The key with a stiff fluid head is the ability to stop the camera almost instantly. The stiffer it is, the faster it'll stop...of course, you'll have to push harder and really nail the landing.

(Also, Ari Robbins, SOC [the operator in the video] is a legend)

I don't think we should conflate an audience's enjoyment to a film with the cinematographer's style. Most audiences like a film because it's a story that they can connect with or want to see, not a style of cinematography. Cinematography style comes and goes with fads, technology, and budgets. The stories are what get audiences in the door (and coming back).

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel proves that a show can use long, on shot sequences stuffed tightly with fast dialogue. Audiences love the show. (Kudos to M. David Mullen, ASC for brilliant work on the show!)

Most importantly, though, is the context of when a film is released. Easy Rider is a counterculture film that came out in the 60's; it's a low budget film for sure, but it was hugely successful because of when it came out (middle of counterculture in the USA). Fast forward to the 90's with Clerks and everything starts to sound familiar.

Cinematography is only one piece of the puzzle for a film. Amazing cinematography can't save uneven editing, brilliant production design can't recover weak acting, and no amount of editing can fix a bad story. Most importantly, a film resonates with audiences within the context of its release.

1 hour ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

Okay, the chart makes a lot of sense, as you are neutralising primaries and secondaries very specifically (I assume that a WB card can't do all that?). And of course charts let you set black and white points.

But I'm not sure if a piece of paper is wise as paper stocks usually have some kind of cast to them, although I've only tested this with light going through them, not light bouncing off them.

It's personal preference, but we both agree that a color chart is the more exact way. ?

Did you just graduate? If so, congrats!

There's a lot of strong work here. The song you chose is excellent and the overall length is perfect. (The sweet spot is 60 secs to 90 secs)

I'd cut all dialogue and do just the music. Believe it or not, dialogue during a DP reel turns away producers/directors.

Here are some major cut ideas:

0:00 - The slate bit is a nice flair. I'd cut right when the sticks slap

~0:02 - Immediately after the sticks slap, you should cut to your strongest shot.

In general, a reel is a losing battle for the viewer's attention. Most producers/directors are viewing hundreds of reels at a time and are essentially giving you 7 seconds to convince them to either watch another 7 seconds or convince them to interview you. With that in mind, you need to front load your reel with the best shots first, regardless of some sort of chronological order. You've only got 7 seconds and even that is generous.

Here are what I think your strongest shots are (it's my opinion, take what you will):

• 0:06 - silhouette of lighting incense
• 0:08 - zoom in on guy with binoculars from exterior
• 0:23 - no dialogue version of this shot. great for music video directors
• 1:01 - push in on man in beanie
• 1:15 - woman opening door
• 1:17 - cut on action of this shot to connect 1:15

---

Here are other notes:

• Even if you remove the audio, people talking still looks weird on a reel. I recommend choosing parts of a shot where the character(s) aren't talking. It's an off-putting psychological effect for most viewers
• Don't put any sort of a year on a reel because it instantly out dates you. You want them to think this is recent work, even if one of your best shots is a decade old
• Do you have a website? I'd also put that on the reel with your email/phone
• Like the s8/s16 scans where you see the sprockets, the VHS footage is interesting, but only for a specific crowd (ie music videos). If you are going to have VHS footage, make it look really interesting. Maybe shoot a BS sunset shot? As is, the shot you've chosen doesn't reflect how strong your work is.
• Some shots are good but too dark (ie 0:26 of the John Wick looking dude). If you have the OG files, I'd working on them. ?

Strong work, keep it up!

11 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

Just curious: do you consider a white balance card as useful as a grey card? Would you say they're different enough to warrant having both?

I'd say it's justified to have both, but a color chart (like the datacolor SpyderCheckr) is better for correcting any white balance issues in post.

Honestly, a white balance card could just be a white piece of paper. Not that one is better than the other, I prefer to use a grey card for white balance because it's a neutral color at proper exposure rather than the top end of the exposure (white). If RGB values are correct at proper exposure, then I believe it's a more accurate white balance. BUT, we're splitting hairs. A white piece of paper for white balance is just as good as a grey card...and it's cheaper haha

Of course, in the narrative world, I seldom use auto-white balance on the camera. ?