John E Clark

From a 'definitional' point of view a 'director' of anything implies a 'crew'... in the case of film crews, and photography then a 'Director of Photography' is someone who directs the filming activity. It may be that the DoP is also a 'camera operator', 'gaffer', on a minimal... or one man band... crew... at which point I'd probably use the term 'cinematographer', and credit of 'cinematography by ...'. The DoP communicates with the film director, to effect the filming goals that the director has. That said... I do have a problem with the current self-inflated used of the term 'Director of Photography' often used in 'craigslist' ads... or other nolo budget film making circles. Usally I self designate eithe 'photographer' or 'cinematographer', because I often have been the sole person doing the filming... no crew... no 'director'... However recently for a project from one of the groups I'm a member of I did 'direct' the placement of 'lights', camera placement, and the 'operator' operated the camera, so that's about as 'close' to Director of Photography I've come... As far as I can tell no matter the 'reality show style', for a commercial production crew there is a 'director of photography', and a crew to support the filming process. Whether the DoP 'operates' a camera, is more dealing with union rules at least in the US and in Hollywood in particular.

Ran out of edit time... I was going to add, that these days I use the IRE display in Premiere to act as my 'digital densitometer', and so I 'center' my middle 18% grey, on an IRE reading of 50% (some people say 45%...) And so, the White Bill Board would be about 85-90%, and the Dark Shadows would be 20-30%, again for what is reasonable for the output display, typically computer or consumer TV display...

I have used the Zone System for my way of thinking about the overall process of evaluating a scene to final display. Since I began with B&W, stills, I used the system pretty much as it is well documented. However, there are modifications for the type of medium one is using. The negative has the ability to record a density range, aka dynamic range greater than the output, aka the print, for most situations. Print paper range was about 7 stops. In the case of B&W stills I could, and did process the film negative by hand, printed the print by hand, and so I could perform various 'adjustments' at each stage of the process. Ultimately... I could burn and dodge areas of the print to bring in detail, should the negative range exceed the print range. The point of the Zone System is to 'know' what to expect from the process. In the case of motion picture film, while some of the principles are the same, the amount of control one has over the internal process is less than for stills (for example hand dodging at the end to correct for excessive contrast range or under exposure in shadow areas...). One's metering of the scene follows that process of expectation. I use a spot meter for this sort of situation, as I definitely could not use an incident meter as the light sources illuminating the bill board were on the bill board, and while I could meter the light falling from the street lights... it is just not really the appropriate tool for the job. So, in the case of my billboard at night, I would meter the bill board and 'place' that value at 'near white. Since I was using a digital camera, and know that in the case of DSLRs I have no 'correction' if I saturate the sensor, so, I need to 'protect' the high values. In that case the 'dark areas' fell where they did... and so, I may be required to 'boost' the shadows with some form of 'curves' in Photoshop (or in the case of digital Film use 'curves' in Premiere.). For Film film the rule of thumb was to expose for the shadow, develop for the highlight. So, I would meter the shadow, set my exposure for the values I wanted the shadows to be, and then meter the bill board, and 'know' that given where the shadows were, I would have to 'cut' development by 1 or 2 stops to keep the high values with in the range of the ultimate print values. (Tended not to use a 'softer' paper to print a wider contrast range, as the 'softer' paper never seem to give me a 'rich' black as when I printed on 'normal' paper.) These days, even shooting Film film, one usually scans to Digital Intermediary, and so, one can have far more control over the intermediate processes than before. So, one can not only change the contrast range to match the output, but with 'power windows' or selective application of curves to regions of the image, one can essentially do 'burn' and 'dodge' operations on the negative. (There may have been motion picture total film processes that could do this in the olden days, but I would think they were expensive for anything but 'preflashing' the negative stock which was used to 'boost' shadows a bit for low light situations.). So to sum up... for Film I would meter shadows, set exposure, develop/print for highlights... and needless to say, there may be compromises that require more work in the process... For Digital Film, until I use cameras that have near Film film 'dynamic range', I would expose for the highlights, and adjust curves for shadows, all with an eye for 'least grain/noise' given the situation... and some situations just aren't going to work... As for specific meter readings... for the bill board... Sign Board == near pure White Zone 7-8, that is 2-3 stops more open than the meter reading. Deep shadows near Zone 2-3, that is 2-3 stops under the meter reading.

For me 'naturalism' is simplely (although may require complex lighting...) matching ordinary expectation of what someone walking/viewing the scene if it were 'real'. Hence, most of the '3 point' lighting would be 'gon'e except in a very limited situation... I also, tend to think of 'naturalism' to be much, much softer than stylized lit scenes... even if the stylized is 'soft'... I'm thinking here of the 'night' scene were there is a light to the back of the talent, giving definition to the face, with a soft frontal light. The problem of course is in order to have something other than 'murky' shots, some lighting needs to be done that is not 'natural'. With the high ISO and low attendant noise cameras, one can use very low wattage lights, and with that perhaps more 'soft/natural' lighting. Perhaps some people don't like this style, but I'm pretty ok, since most of my Film film stills is pretty much available light... or living with whatever lighting the event situation provided...

I looked into this a little bit when I was investigating how ISO/ASA/DIN was defined... and found some early methods of estimating 'proper' exposure. One method used a device called the "Watkins Bee Meter", and the company made a 'speed card' for a number of then existent films. One site has the Speed Card for 1931, and several 'cine' films are listed. The names are listed as: Kodak Eastman Cine Neg Gavaert Cine... Pathe Cine... All have estimated 'Bee' speeds of 250. From the article the conversion to approximate ASA would be ASA = BEE-SPEED/20... or for these films 12.5... and could easily be 10-15... In any case far slower than most moderns can imagine... From the 30's on Weston meters were used, and had an exposure scale that appears to be about 1/3 stop lower than the equivalent ASA value, and from a 1949 speed table, a listing for 16mm Super X, gives a Weston number of 32, add + 1/3 stop, gives 40 (or so...). However.... the ASA ratings were doubled in 1960, so, this would suggest Super X would be rated at 80 ASA. The reason for the 'lower' ASA initial ratings was for a 'underexposure' safety. By 1960, this 'safety' seemed to be obsolete as better meters were used to get more accurate exposure settings... As far as 'looking at the negative' and estimating 'sufficient development'... that would only work for orthohromatic film and using a red filter low power light. Panchromatic film would be sensitive and thereby potentially flashed with such a technique.

I was taking some grab shots with my Blackmagic pocket camera, just to see what ISO 1600 would do in a 'night street scene' with nothing but street lighting... Anyway, as I was shooting, I tested 360 deg shutter, to get another stop's worth of light, it occurred to me that the taillight 'tracks' would be longer... but then it also occurred to me that in a 'real' Hollywood shoot perhaps the traffic would be slowed (given the production has total control over the street traffic...), to conform to various transit speed limits to limit 'judder' and the like. I do know that there's the recommendation for driving at slower speeds when shooting from the car interior 'outward'. But is there the same consideration for exterior shots where cars are driving past a camera on the side of the road?

'Adding height' essentially increases the lever arm relative to the connecting point on the base, which in the 'balanced' condition the resulting torque is zero. However, any slight tilt, will allow that lever arm to have a non-zero torque, and if the platform does not have sufficient counter force then the force will result in the toppling. From the look of the video, the tracks are not really 'wide' enough to support the man+camera when the arm has this mass at 90 deg from the track (and attendant wheels) and only because the arm is not fully extended, disaster didn't happen at this poin, and definitely does not have support to counter the tork in the forward direction along the track when the man+camera reach the forward position. In addition to the just the 'static' situation, there is a dynamic situation where the momentum of the movement carries the load beyond where the operator 'wanted' to stop, also inducing a torque force... I don't know about movie dollies and tracking, but in more industrial settings, a cart like this would have a set of weels under the track to assist in the countering of forward tilting, and a placement of the post with in a longer bed, either central, or one end or the other, with turns to the 'short end' elimiated with some sort of stop, for such conditions.

While not 'film'... nor 'moving picture', I would meter this essentially the same... shot for the 'white' billboard to be 'white'... and accepted the dark areas where they fell from there... In this case, I just was sort of taking a 'casual' night exterior, and could only really 'meter' for 'can I get anything?'... BMPCC f/2.8 ISO 1600 180 deg. 24 fps. Since the shot had a low 'somewhat white brick wall' I put that as 'high' as I could. Since this is a 'log' representation, I probably could adjust to get a better 'white wall' look. But basically, it was metered with a spot meter looking at specific elements and placing them, as best as possible, given the limitations of my medium.

Don't know how these things are 'supposed' to work, but definitely not enough counter balance and/or support to counter the torque exerted by the guy+camera. While a remote head would have eliminated the operator's potential injuries... the same principles apply and the camera could have toppled into actors at the final position, if there were any, if sufficient consideration for the change in effective 'lever arm' along the path of movement... Personally I hated engineering statics and dynamics... but apparently it does come in useful at times... even if only dimly remembered...

Here's the set for the 'The Rain Begins' sequence in the film "Noah"(2014), which was shot 'night for day (rain...)'. Here's a frame from the film:

Here is an actual snap shot of 70mm print film. The clip of film came from "Lawrence of Arabia", and is under the heading of 'Leader Ladies', that is calibration images for verifying the quality of the print, as well as in some cases aligning the projector. (this one looks to be just print quality...). One can see the 5 sproket holes, and the 'small' interframe 'gap'...

I hope that remains the case for theater projectors... I personally don't upgrade my display frequently, and so I've not had to be confronted with finding a display that adds all these unwanted features... One thing that I have noticed is that the value for 'open gate' illumination of the theater screen for Film film use to be 16 ft-Lamberts, whereas for digital I've been seeing 14 ft-L... I don't know if 2 silly ft-L's makes a big difference, but if a theater reduces it even further I suspect the image may look 'murkier' than may have been intended. The other thing with 3-D is it seems that each projector is projecting at 7 ft-Lambers, for a total of 14 with both 'on'... This of course is for a theater that has been 'tuned up'... but many theaters use to run the projectors lower to make the bulbs last longer...

Did you have an establishing shot of 'moon rise' to 'justify' the low apparent angle of the 'moon'?

Both of these are pretty much grab shots. Here's an example of a recent 'moonlight' only shot, iPhone... but heck gives an idea... Effective values: F/2.2 ISO 2500 1/15 sec. Here's a BMPCC in a much more 'urban' environment, perhaps .5-1 fc for the 'darker street' areas. F/2.0 ISO 1600 24 fps 180 deg. ProRes 'Film' mode. (so 10 bit log representation) Ungraded.

The moon, full and absolutely crystal clear air, directly overhead... yeilds about 0.03 Footcandles( .3 Lux) of illumination... or about 11 2/3 stops from 100 Footcandles, and f/2.8 @ 100 fc @ 24 fsp @ 180 deg. (if there is no real motion, one coudl go with a 360 degree shutter...). Yields (rounding to 11 stops...)... ISO of around 204800, for F/1 lens, then one could reduce the ISO to 25600. Or 12800 with 360 deg. shutter. There's a reason why dayfornight is used. The human eye is capable of 'seeing' light as low as 0.0006 fc or so. Which of course is why humans can naviage at night in general, even on moonless nights... well... some can...

I'd probably believe someone who has seen the film recently, but definitely for memories reaching back to the time of 'when it was showing in theaters'... given the type of substances my peers would ingest before going to a showing... I'd say, don't believe anything that was 'remembered'... I watch it about every 10 years or so, with each 'update' on home viewing technology... and perhaps I should watch it again soon... is there a 'critical' new transfer coming out any time soon? But for my own edification, probably "Paths of Glory"(1957) is more to 'what I could actually do', and find useful in pratical applications. "Lolita"(1962) as well, since they deal with 'real' locaitons, etc. rather than either highly stylized as in the case of "A Clockwork Orange"(1971) or huge sets of "2001: A Space Odyssey"(1968). Having read the original Schnitzler "Traumnovelle"... I thought "Eyes Wide Shut"(1999) was a botch (even if Kubrick lived to give it his final cut...). It should have been a period piece, and I don't know that Cruise and Kidman would be up for 'period' type acting. The 'mores' that Schnitlzer was depicting, and even then in his time the work was sort of 'passe', definitely did not make much sense to the 'modern' viewer... in my opinion...

The Future is already past... --- The Stewardesses is a 1969 softcore, later R-rated, theatrical 3D film produced, directed and written by Allan Silliphant and starring Christina Hart, Monica Gayle, Paula Erickson, and Donna Stanley. Produced on a budget of just over $100,000, the film grossed $25 million in 1970,[2] becoming the most profitable 3-D film ever released. In budget-relative terms, it remains among the most profitable theatrical movies ever made. Originally, self rated "X," the film was largely re-shot and re-edited to receive an MPAA "R" rating to qualify for a wide general release. At the same time, the technology of the projection print was enhanced by means of anamorphic 3D to a larger image. This later version appeared in final form in 1971. ---

Yes, indeed it is a bit longer than 4 feet... however, if we are talking about 'realism' vs. 'film'... and the 'willing suspension of disbelief'... I'm not a fan of 3-D as it is implemented today... it does not really add more information to the scene, other than some limited representation of 'near depth'... On the other hand a holographic moving pictures representation would present more information, and actual 'different' views for viewers seated in different locations of the presentation room.

I think one can call Chinatown's lighting... 'noir but not noir'... there are some homages but even if one accounts for the use of color vs. B&W often the lighting is much more flat than the 40's. But even then one would find scenes in a 40's 'noir' that were 'flat' relative to the classic looks... One can sort of take 'noir' a couple of ways... one is the technical lighting, B&W, sets as mentioned being painted with shadow, etc. Or one can take 'subject matter' as the noir element, which is the "Chinatown" approach for the most part.

I like to look at images to gain some understanding of how to light. So, here is a 'living room' scene from a classic noir film... "Double Indemnity"(1944). Note the 'low' key, with some top light, and a few 'through the blinds' type effects. A more modern 'noir'...

For me certain sized framing, and by extension, sizes of 'negative', tend to be for certain subjects, and how they are presented... So, for me 70mm is the appropriate format for Epics, 'Big Stories', etc. Speaking of Nolan... I would not think 70mm is an appropriate (subjective evaluation...) for a story like "Memento"(2000). Similarly for Aronofsky's early works... "Pi"(1998) and "Requiem for a Dream"(2000) heck, even "Black Swan"(2010) is not a 70mm subject... I think the 'digital' revolution may give rise to a 'New Wave' like era of 'small story films', shot with even more minimal crews than those of the 60's... I would also hope that there's a return of the 'small theater' venues, where a theater doesn't have to seat 500-1000 or have 20 projection rooms running to make a profitable business. On a good day I may accept 3-D presentations, but for the most part having seen several films in both 3-D and 2-D, I have preferred the 2-D, especially in the area of image quality... if one of the charges against digital projection is 'grey' blacks... then 3-D tends to have even muddier blacks than the 2-D version...

Europe tends to have more writer/director combo in 'one person', or a writer director pair who produce a number of films together. In the 30's with the rise of the NSDAP/3rd Reich a number of german director and writers came to the US, and were successful in moving into Hollywood, and many were 'writer/directors'. There have been modern examples as well, Werner Herzog is one such, Tom Twyker a younger example, although for the Hollywood 'films' others have written the script, for his German films he has frequently written the script. In the latter case, he hooked up with cinematographer Frank Griebe and they have worked as a pair. Rainer Fassbinder is a mid-60's example of writer/director. I've mostly studied german film, but the French New Wave was filled with writer/directors as well. In terms of developing skills... writing deals with story, and in the case of film, presenting a script for the visual medium of film. It is really a 'technical' sort of writing, as other than dialog, nothing of the 'script' is ever seen beyond the production crew. For directing, one has to develop a visualization capability such that one's written pages come to life on the screen... and then... one has to learn to manage a potentially volatile hord of 'talent' ranging from technical to highstrung people management.

I presume you are speaking of Film film theaters rather than 'digital everywhere'... I think what will happen is what happened in the olden days were a small set of prints were made and they traveled around. But the venues will be the 'arthouse' type venues, like the "New Beverly" that was recently mentioned in the news, where Tarantino has taken a more active role in maintain the house as a Film film house. These theaters may get up to that 'premium' price of $50-75 a seat... it should come with at least beer and pretzels...

The funiest 3-D experience I've ever had was for a showing of Andy Warhol's "Flesh for Frankenstein"(1973)... in 3-D... where one of the audience was taking snap shots (back in the days before handi-video-cams...) with a flash... I could imagine him wondering why was the screen all 'white'... I've not been impressed with 3-D ever... ok... I do have a fetish for images using lenticular materals... aka 'winkies'... so I will by a 3-D Bluray... to get the Winkie cover art...

I would second Guy Holt's advice to make sure you have ground fault circuit interrupters (GFCI) in any 'power cords' you may use to bring lighting into a 'shower' or other room were water may be a potential issue (Kitchen, pool area... etc.), even if you use 'ordinary' lights. There are extension cord adaptors which can do this if the wall recepticle does not have one. You should also make sure your wall recepticle actually has 'ground' on it, with a plug tester. The Wife use to take still shots of women in wedding dresses underwater in pools. We arranged the bank of strobes to be on one side of the pool, and no one was allowed in that section until the set was broken down, power cording going to the nearest plug, and the plug verify to have ground with a GFCI in line for the power. We did hear of one person doing a similar shoot having their strobe fall into the pool... fortunately no injuries occurred... but AC power and water are a dangerous combination, and even if you have insurance... you do have insurance... there is still the emotional issue of telling someone's relatives their loved one is dead.