AJ Young

True. @Jon Diez Dominguez, test test test test!

Wild idea, but also metallic spray paints like silver, chrome, gold, etc.

Without genlock, you're stepping into some risky territory with an LED wall, refresh rate aside. For your LED volume, are you using nDisplay and Unreal?

Uhh, @Joseph Tese, that's freakin' awesome. Nicely done!

Well, traditionally rear projection for poor man's process used normal screen material (ie white), but I feel that the black levels are too lifted when doing that because of the white material. In your case, you're not looking for details, just bokeh dots, so I figured a black cloth would keep the black levels low while a strong enough projector could still illuminate just the dots. (Of course, it'll need to be on the highest setting haha) Any type of black cloth would work, duvetyne being standard.

I'd imagine you'd need to have at minimum Opal behind all of the holes and gels for a frosted look. Bad pitch, but what about using a projector onto a black sheet with dots made in photoshop/after effects?

Source, Variety: https://variety.com/2020/film/news/universal-amc-theatres-historic-deal-windows-1234718737/ Key quote:

Me during my years as a one person booth projectionist at a 16 screen plex:

As a former film and projection manager of a 16 screen movie theatre for six years: Before we went digital, we barely had the room for the 35 prints that came in. Empty space is valuable for a theatre; ours was specifically designed for mass volumes of concession, restroom, and office items all of which were still overflowing into our projection booth because we simply needed more room for those inventories. Film cans had a specific area, and that wasn't enough, while most platters were filled up quickly with the movies we were showing. (IE four prints of Dark Knight plus multiples of over movies playing). Outside of licensing reasons, we could never properly store prints for the long run because that space would already be taken up by the inventories above and we had no way to properly control our climate for long term storage of film. It was nearly impractical for theatres to do this on 35mm, let alone 70mm. The IMAX theatre my company owned did not receive any per-assembled prints. I can't speak to 70mm, per say, but IMAX doesn't ship pre-made prints for new releases. (Though, if I remember, we did ship the assembled prints back) Before the digital change over, theatres were almost exclusively 35. Converting those heads to 70mm is costly, let alone the entire system needed for 70mm. These companies already shelled out millions for the digital conversion, it's unlikely they'd do the same for niche 70mm screenings (especially given COVID). and Completely agree that those special screenings are one of a kind (I saw 2001 at the Cinerama and Casablanca at Music Box), but those kinds of screenings don't scale up economically to convert theatres back to film or even offer one auditorium to show on film. Space is valuable and, again given COVID, theatres will be severely tightening up their belts now...more than they already were for the past ten years. Decent projectionists were hard to come by when I was a projectionist and they're even harder now. I've got a jar full of about 5 years of lab splices I've removed from prints (I think it's almost a thousand frames?) and I remember receiving the occasional reel with massive discoloration from the lab and had to reluctantly show the bad quality reel while we waited for Technicolor/Deluxe to ship the replacement reel. To add insult to injury, we would get prints other theatres had and those films were in horrendous shape; scratches, missing seconds, etc. We had a print delivered for Zemeckis's A Christmas Carol that had almost 100 feet of destroyed sprockets on the second reel that I had to simply splice out. That shaved off a few seconds from the movie and was a noticeable jump cut. Phoned Technicolor and they sent a replacement reel in a week. That's a week of awful presentation. I never had those issues when we converted to digital. --- Unrelated to movie theatres: Don't talk like that! One of the features I shot was on the FS7, it looked great, and made money which made the producer very happy. You're a cinematographer (or Directory of Photography, idk Storraro doesn't like this title but whatever floats your boat!) A camera is a camera...a knife a knife...a brush a brush...

Fair, but digital cameras from the major brands capture light differently from each other if we really want to start diving into the mechanics. ?

Just to add my two cents here: Most productions shoot on film, scan it into a computer, color it on a computer, and finish with a DCP. If a filmmaker truly wants to get a image that only film can produce, then they need to stick with the film pipeline. Shoot on film, color on film, print on film. (A la Dunkirk) And even then, in Dunkirk's case, the home viewing format is still a digital version of the film print. Quote (from the AC article): We're kidding ourselves if we truly believe that we can tell the difference between a digitally captured image and a film captured image when both are brought into the computer and color graded. It's like trying to determine which brand of knife, oven, and pans the chef used. Does the food taste good? Great, then does it matter?

Yes, and: Craigslist Facebook Groups (that are focused on hiring people) Staff Me Up Your alumni association Leg work with IMDb Pro Film Independent ASC Events Literally walking up to a set and asking for a job (still works, though rarely)

Fortunately, a good chunk of my friends in film school were living in LA when I moved out and they were able to get me on one of their jobs as an AC/Juicer/Grip. Those crew jobs allowed me to cover my living expenses while I shot micro to no budget shorts and features in town. Eventually those micro to no budget projects become just low budget projects and then ok budgets, etc etc etc. While in LA, I did a wedding gig every now and then too, so it's not unusual. (A gig's a gig) [I'm also still shooting low budget films, the struggle is still real] The thing to keep in mind about moving to a larger market is managing your overhead. A lot of film students move to LA/NYC and get on set crewing. It's a good idea because you meet a lot of people quickly expanding your network. However, more jobs like that will pile on quickly and the pay will increase substantially. Some people just save the extra income for rainy days and still live like they're new in town, but most get used to the higher revenue. There's nothing wrong with that at all; your car dies, your apartment/neighborhood isn't safe, or your student loans are mounting. The issue, though, is that once you get a new car, new apartment, and start tackling your student loans, then your income becomes dependent on those higher paying crew gigs while the DP gigs are still coming in at very low rates. There are those who move to LA/NYC with work lined up or momentum, but it's never apples to apples. Eventually, you'll have to work on expanding your network and eventually there will be many many slow times and you'll have to be honest with yourself on the living expenses you can manage vs the living expenses you want.

I've had this conversation with a few mentors of mine when I was in college. I was in Chicago and didn't know if I should stay or move to LA/NYC. I brought up tax incentive states like Georgia or Louisiana and it was virtually agreed that those states are great for work as crew, but department heads like a DP or PD almost always come from LA/NYC for productions big and small. I would imagine there's an indie scene in Georgia that chooses department heads who live locally, but it may be difficult to crack into that network given how many people do move to Georgia for the productions that are shooting there. Luckily, there's a lot of work happening there, so it may be a similar experience to starting out in LA in terms of crewing for projects while trying to meet new filmmakers local to the area. Timing wise, I'm not sure when you should move given how COVID is surging through Georgia and California. That's a personal choice and you don't have to explain it. ? --- Anecdotally, I moved to LA almost immediately after college and since have shot indie features at the budget levels you mentioned in states like Oregon, Illinois, Missouri, and New Mexico. All of those filmmakers were living local to those states and my network in LA connected me with them to shoot their productions. It's a tough choice to make, but I hope my anecdotal experience helps!

Anyone can do what Yedlin did on their own, even in a punk rock way. The only difference is that Yedlin really dived deep into the code and developed his own personal plugin to do so. Here's a DIY Yedlin method at high level (in regard to the concept for and diving deeper: Shoot color charts on various formats with the same lens, lighting, exposure, etc; the only thing that should change is the format. Adjust each format to match either one format, proper values on the charts, or to an incredibly specific look Export LUTs for each format A deeper step between 1 & 2: Bring all of those formats into a wide color gamut and wide gamma (hey, this sounds like ACES!) An even deeper step: Determine mathematically each format's color gamut (R,G,B, White Point) Convert those color gamuts to a custom color gamut that reaches the desired range (https://cameramanben.github.io/LUTCalc/LUTCalc/index.html) An even deeper step: Create your own debayering algorithm for the RAW sensor data And so on and so on and so on... What Yedlin does is that he keeps diving deeper and deeper into the levels of abstraction to more finely control what's happening under the hood. The above steps are my best guesses of what each level of abstraction is, obviously he'll know more (and so will a lot more colorists). Film, digital, it doesn't matter. If you follow the method above, or whatever method to match cameras, you can ultimately fool the audience to think a digital camera is film and vice versa.

I think it's worth it. When I can, I'll try to test it out more thoroughly with one of the rental houses in town and share my results. Thank you for the compliment, though! I heard that too! I'd love to learn more about what they did

When I tested the underexposure for Watchman's, I did various cocktails of underexposure with ProRes; some like 800ISO 3 under or 6400ISO and eventually the one I landed on was 1600ISO 2 under. The main reason why was the ability to control how the exposure was corrected in post rather than relying on the camera to correct the exposure when deviating from 800ISO. (Other reasons include how the noise level behaved when underexposing and recovering at various ISO's) Ashburn was a few years later and for that project I learned from the trial/errors of Watchman's color grade and decided that 800ISO 2 under would work for this short film. Ultimately, it was because I wanted to control how to recover the image and the redistribution of the dynamic range. From what I could tell from the earlier tests, the redistribution of the dynamic isn't exactly 1:1 when changing the ISO of the camera. During testing, I developed a REC709 LUT that corrects the underexposure for on set viewing and used it for Watchman's. I did the same for Ashburn, that LUT specific to that specific underexposure. Am I crazy, though? Or am I just adding a lot of extra work that changing the ISO already does? haha

I love using my Gold Fold. It's fantastic. Here's a few overlooked items I think a DP should have: Robo-Cup: https://www.therobocup.com/ Strong Laser Pointer (obviously, be careful with it) Grey Card Compass

To be honest, ProRes 4444 XQ is a pretty powerful codec. On narrative projects, I like to severely underexpose the image and then recover it in post for a desired effect (inspired by Jody Lee Lipes and Harry Savides, ASC). One would think that, with such an under exposure digitally, RAW would be essential. But, ProRes 4444 XQ was more than capable. On the feature film The Watchman's Canoe, I underexposed it by 3 stops and pulled it back up in post. Nearly the entire movie was shot in ProRes4x4XQ with the exception of a few shots that I did in RAW purely because those specific shots needed white balance nuance in the grade (and to be frank, I probably didn't need to do that either). Here are samples: http://www.ajyoungdp.com/articles/narrative/TWC/. Here is a blog post I wrote about the process: http://www.ajyoungdp.com/articles/blog/TWC_underexposure/. On the short film Ashburn, I underexposed it by 2 stops and pulled it back up. Most shots were done in ProRes4x4XQ, with 25% in ProRes4x4 because we were overloading our data manage with too many cards too quickly. Samples: http://www.ajyoungdp.com/articles/narrative/ashburn/. Needless to say, RAW wouldn't have improved the images much at all. After really pushing the codec to its limit, ProRes (at least the higher end 4444 XQ) is more than capable of nearly any color grade.

Ohhhh, I forgot about the internal ND's. Now it makes sense.

I wholeheartedly agree. At some point, it's the chef not the knife that determines the quality. I don't understand. The 4:3 plus is a PL camera, so if the OCT18 won't fit on the PL of a Mini, how will it fit on the 4:3?

This is definitely a complicated stunt. I'd refer to your stunt coordinator for the best way to do this. Good luck and share what you did!

Here's my experience: Camera prep is the most important thing you can do. Everything needs to be wireless: iris, focus, zoom, video, run/stop, playback, etc. If you're missing on piece (ie a certain cable), then you'll struggle to keep those wireless features up and kill your time. So, make sure you've done a thorough camera prep. Lens wise, zooms work best when chasing a car, in my experience. Seldom are onboard batteries attached to the camera; the arm-rigs for cars I've worked with have built in Lemo/XLR/D-Tap connections that power the camera and AKS. The camera is then powered via block batteries in the vehicle or by the vehicle itself (depending on the specific company you're working with). Additionally, those same Lemo connections on the arm rig also control a FIZ + run/stop. A clamp on mattebox will fall off. Get a rod based one. The jib op, cam op, and driver have to be in unison with each other. Otherwise you'll have tons of trouble. The best trio have worked together frequently. Shoot at a deep stop. The picture car moves fast and a shallow depth of field will make everything look soft Good luck and be safe!

I see, that's definitely a bigger boat. (?) This is above my experience level now, but here's an idea: Dock the two boats and then mount an small boat engine or two to a dock "ahead" of the two boats. Run those engines to create a wake and hopefully enough water flows between the two boats that it can imply they are moving. This may be more believable at night. I'm basically approaching this stunt with a poor man's process perspective. The boats never move, you'd just move the water with a mounted boat engine.

The camera will chew through the 98wh quickly. Usually the 4:3 plus is powered via a block battery or shark-finned AB/V-mount. It won't fit in carry-on, you'll have to check it. It will most likely be over-weight It's heavy. If you want to go down this route, make sure to get a VCT Plate for easy attach/detach from the tripod. Totally possible. Once it's built up, the camera is easy to use. Same menu system as all the other Alexa cameras: simple and straightforward. It's a heavy camera, so it'll need an equally strong tripod and head to hold it up. Your camera rig rises in complexity with the 4:3 plus which may be too complicated to use as a one-person band and ultimately depends on your bandwidth. Personally, I'd recommend against it if you'll be doing one-person band work.