John E Clark

I don't mind the 'instant' sanity check. Never did like hiking to some nowhere place, taking shots, then in the darkroom realize that I had a light leak... or whatever... the only 'magic' was when a still print came up from white paper... obvioulsy I was processing B&W by hand... But that's it. For me the 'image' is the paramount element. Since I tended to use higher f-stops, and if diffraction wasn't a problem... I would have used f/64... well... for nonmoving objects... So, in that regard Gregg Toland is a 'model' to follow. The higher ISO values available to digital with lower noise, allow me to use a higher f-stop is a major benefit. 'grain' to me is noise, whether 'randomized' by orientation of silver halide crystal glumps or electronic noise, and I tend to prefer its minimization. There are a few effects were such 'noise' is useful, but as an aesthetic attribute... not for me. One of the more significant attributes of digital is the tendency to 'shoot more'. But that is a discipline thing, and can be 'corrected' by setting one's goal for takes to be no more than needed to get the performance, (and not take 50+ like Monroe required for some shots in "Some Like It Hot"(1959)... all Film film...), as well as planning shots with minimal coverage before hand... legend has it that Hitchcock was very minimal on his shots and takes, and the 'editor' was pretty much left with just trimming and assembling. Again another role model...

Film film grain is as much 'noise' as digital noise, just apparently for some number of people it has been elevated to a 'aethetic' attribute. If 'film grain' had been seen as an integral part of Film film, then Kodak and other companies could have stopped development of film around 1925-30 for B&W materials, and the industry left with ASA/ISO 25 materials... Ok, perhaps around 1950 for color film. The Film film production companies did not 'stop', as most 'professionals' were asking for finer grain at higher ISO values, if it had to be part of Film at all.

The 'line' method is the one I use as well. That way, I have whole sequences of the dialog from X perspective, and can inter cut other shots depending on how things actually turnout... for example, say a actor flubs a other wise 'good' take with one word... one way is to do 50 takes until all lines are delivered correctly, or alternatively, cut to other POV's and cut in a 'better' version of the offending dialog chunk. In other words a 'line' means 'move camera', and so, one would not want to move the camera from position 1, to 2, unless one is completely done with position 1... I also use the convention 1 + A, B, C, etc. to mean Scene 1 Shot A, Shot B, Shot C, etc. I don't bother with the 'roll'... as I shoot shorts, and most of my short films have fit on to one SD type memory device. I suppose I could serialize the SD cards, and indicate that on the slate. As a note, I treat SD cards like 'film' in that I never reuse/erase the original data.

I usually don't pixel peep while watching a presentation in a theater. These days I wait for the bluray, and even then unless I'm looking for some specific reason, camera work, editing, etc. I don't pixel peep much. My general thought is all image capture methods have limitations, and perhaps the 'bloom/streaking' of the sensors, whatever the technology, is 'just the way it is', and that would give rise to recommended use limits. I've not seen a recent copy of the American Cinematographer Manual, to see if it has been updated with digital capture recommendations.

For the US one has... From a January 2014 article: --- End of film: Paramount first studio to stop distributing film prints January 17, 2014|By Richard Verrier In a historic step for Hollywood, Paramount Pictures has become the first major studio to stop releasing movies on film in the United States. Paramount recently notified theater owners that the Will Ferrell comedy “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues,” which opened in December, would be the last movie that would it would release on 35-millimeter film. The studio’s Oscar-nominated film “The Wolf of Wall Street” from director Martin Scorsese is the first major studio film that was released all digitally, according to theater industry executives who were briefed on the plans but not authorized to speak about them. ---- I had thought that places like India would continue to distribute film. But actually India has had a faster conversion to digital than the US. One reason is that the companies suppling the 'digital' systems, are making deals with the theater owners to have advertizing play before the films run, and they amortize the cost of installing the digital equipment with the advertizing sales. But as for 'who gets Film prints'... they would be made relative to how many theaters in a market still require film, which these days, is a shrinking number world wide. There are articles on how some theaters which can't afford the switch to digital are closing down.

Here's an old American Cinematographer article on "Blade Runner"(1982) https://www.theasc.com/magazine/mar99/blade/pg1.htm Didn't have time to check to see if there's a discussion on the specific wall shimmer effect or not. I've read elsewhere that it involved floating reflective/gelled objects in water. Some things are more doable with larger budgets...

If the Genesis camera was used, then the 'ghosting' could be due to an artifact of the CCD sensor. Depending on the conditions, CCDs imagers would have sort of a vertical 'flare' due to how the sensors were constructed, and how the 'data' was read out. Here's a thread from Paul Mailbaum ASC, who apparently was the DoP for the series, but apparently not for the Pilot. The thread indicates a Genesis camera was used. http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=31242

Film scanning has several 'benefits' that haven't been 'cheaply' available to original image capture digital devices. A film scanner may take several seconds to 'scan' the film frame, may digitize with less noise to higher bit depths, etc. Obviously at shooting rates of even the standard 24 fps, the time to 'scan' the frame is limited, which means 'fast' conversions, which in general means 'more noise', or fancier methods to avoid such noise. Other items such as subsampling 'color' rather than full 2k worth of R, G, and B, in some cases giving 2K for G, but R,B getting 1/2 or 1/4 that resolution, leads to certain results in less sharpness if there is sufficient change at a 'color edge'. One 'early' method of dealing with this is to have separate R, G, B sensors, each with 'full resolution', but that is an expensive way to go, and for the NTSC/PAL cameras, usually resolution was limited to 720x486(576 for PAL), and not to mention non-square pixels, which had a 'softening' effect when viewed on 'square' pixel devices... But this method also required a beam splitter which in addition to the 3 sensors would add to the 'cost' of the device. In terms of output and sharpening... sharpening does not 'add' any information to the image. What 'sharpening' does is essentially increase the contrast at 'edges' in an image. How much sharpening is dependent on the resolution of the material, and the intended display device, and usual 'viewing' distance, such that the human eye will 'integrate' to result in the perception of a 'continuous' image. Much of this 'magic' has been buried in the 'production process', but with the increase of distributions which may not have the funds to pay for such services, some material shows up which does not have the sharpening 'tuned' for the ultimate display. Or, someone has take material tuned for one distribution type, and simply 'subsampled' to create output for another medium.

Analog video had some severe limitations. With digital means, and higher resolutions, greater dynamic range, electronic capture, if that is what you are referring to as 'video', was released from some amount of those limitations. Even now, 'video' must conform to Rec. 709 or even Rec. 601 so that media will 'play' on as many TV sets as possible. With Rec. 709, 'video' productions can take advantage of higher resolutions, different frame rates, and 'better' color space. I would also suggest to you that 'film look' has changed over the years even with Film film. Relative to the 50's some of the 'new wave' Hollywood of the 70's looks like 'crap', heavy grain, uncontrolled lighting due to shooting on location with then 'minimal' light support, etc. But that 'look' was part of the era of 'gritty realism'. The 'Bleach Bypass' process that has had some 'vogue' in the past 30 years would have never made it to see the light of the projection room during the 'golden' years of Hollywood. 'Color film' was touted to be 'so real you would think you were there'... not crapped up with weird colors, heavy grain, etc. Here's a 50's rendition of 'bar scene' with Judy Garland, "A Star Is Born"(1954) Here's her daughter in "Cabaret"(1972)

A most recent shoot, was on the beach at about 8 am. Talent backlit by the sun, and exposure such that the face was not 'under', so the background was pretty bright. No dialog however... I'm personally of the minimalist school of dialog. So, I'd cut the dialog to 1 or 1/2 page... unless of course one has no choice... but in one recent case, the directrix admitted that perhaps the dialog was a bit wordy, having seen her 3 pages on screen... In So. Cal, I'd avoid 10 am to 3 or 4 pm like the plague unles no other option. I'd then think about some form of screen covering if possible. One gets quickly in to various supports and having to set that up... The problem with bright sun along with constrast is talent squinting, which unless the script calls for it, usually doesn't 'look' good, despite that's what everyone does under those conditions.

This sort of process has already been acomplished pretty much for 'commerical/wedding' still photography. Up to 2004, the Wife and I had 3 local labs to chose from for processing from negs to prints. We had given up our inhouse darkroom by 1995, but still there was a lab which processed and printed actual real live B&W negs which we used. Even then, we had pretty much transitioned form pure film to 99% digital, and for her last few weddings which were outside the US, it was exclusively digital coverage. Due to her health issues, we discontinuned the wedding biz. We had not realized how much things had changed until about 3 years ago, when an old customer emailed that they were finally ready to get their album... I mean something 15 year had passed, they had never selected the images for the album back when... any way we looked around for how to print from these negatives... none of the processing places were still open. The only thing we could offer was a package deal where we would have all then negs bulk scanned, and reprinted in at a company somehwere in the Mid-West US (the Wife got various types of sponsorships for her conference seminars from a couple...) I think people are going to have to come to terms about the economics of Film film, and for most people Digital film will be the only viable option. To be sure, someone with a 'large budget' and a history of performance may be able to call the shots on one or the other, but I suspect that is a rapidly dwindling number. On the other hand, Art Gratia Artis... perhaps there will be specialty houses that can afford to buy in bulk, and for a princely sum, people can make small project Film film 'art works'. I can make still 'wet' plates for my 4x5 camera... just as was done in the late 19th Century, or use non-silver based image capture, and make 'sun contact prints'... again just as was done in the early stages of photography... for art... and naturally with the proviso, that I can only make 4x5 images... But I suspect for 'moving pictures' and the speed at which processing houses are disappearing, even 'for art sake' may not be an option. (There's also a group of artists who go out and find old expired film and shoot and process it for those 'degraded' characteristics...)

Is the ceiling the same 'white' or close, to the 'white' of your background... I would suggest pointing your 'background' illuminating lights up at the ceiling, and have the ceiling bounce even out the light across the area in back of the talent. The problem is your area has a wall of windows, and so one can not 'easily' place lights on both side of the backround, pointed up, so you may have to place lights forward of the talent, outside the view of the camera, but using the ceiling for bounce. You'd have to experiment with placement along with flags to cut any light that may 'leak' to the camera POV, or on the talent that would add shadows, to see if you can get the even shadowless light you need to have the 'infinite white'.

'Organic' and 'magic' are completely undefined terms, outside of some subjective evaluation, that is, a mostly idiosyncratic definition of 'I know it when I see it'. Since 99.99% of all viewers will be seeing material via some digital process, once a Film film frame is digitized, it 'loses' its 'organic' or 'magical' quality. Is that what you are saying? The only way to maintain this 'organic' and 'magic' attribute is to use Film film capture, Film film Internegs and Interpositives, and then only project via Film film prints? Further, even with say, "Walter Mitty"(2013), one has combinations of 'digital' in the form of CGI based FX... so some of the image frames are a mix of 'live organic action', and 'computer souless computation' all mixed in via inorganic DSP processes.

While that may be true, it is also true in this current economic system, if there is no market, then 'all choices' may not be available, or only available at a price that some large number of filmmakers may not be able to afford. For example, until about 1995 I would set up a B&W darkroom in my house to produce the Wife's and my prints. I would not do that now. I have a garage full of enlargers and related equipment... I took some old bottles of chemicals that had been over looked for years to the official EPA approved disposal service... (but there still may be some bottles remaining...). If past customers call for reprints from their weddings, now some cases 20-30 years back, for some reason (often upon the death of one of the participants these days...) We tell them that the cost will include a scanning charge for the negs, may require some Photoshop adjustments, and the files are sent of to a service in the mid west somewhere for printing. (From about 2003 all of ours wedding coverage was digital... in fact this has resulted in a tussle between the Daughter and the Wife, since the Daughter wants some Real Film taken at her wedding, and the Wife is now disinterested in sending the Hassleblad to service, as it has not been used in over 10 years...) The point being, things change, and while one is 'free' to choose any method, some may not be available, and Digital methods should advance to become more cost effective further down the chain of user levels.

I interpreted your post in several ways. One way is with Digital Film there is a democratizing principle in operation. What that means is, due to the now low cost of entry, there are a large number of people taking up 'cinematography', who, often, do not bother learning any 'principles' of photography, shoot some thing or another, and say, find 'fame' on Youtube or the like for their material. And that's how I responded initially. I don't look to these sorts of people to 'advance the state of the art of Digital'. Personally, ever since the early 80's I have felt that 'Film film is dead', but it took about 30 years for prices and performace of digital image capture devices to achieve 'acceptable' results. I think at this point, no one should feel 'embarrassed' or 'inclined to excuse using Digital Film', for example, 'due to budgetary considerations', when they use Digital means for capture. Nor do I think someone needs to even make a 'nod' to Film film's 'superiority'. For the top end Digital cameras, in some way they all exceed some parameter of Film film, except obviously for those who will not accept anything but Film film. As far as I can tell, most of the top end Digital Cameras seem to be weighing in at about ISO 800... about 2/3 stop 'faster' than the popular Kodak Vision films, and allows image capture to be done in conditions that would be more difficult for Film film. Would development on Film film produced a 'fine grain', 'good image quality', at 800 or 1000... given the number of years between quantum leaps of ISO values... probably not for some time... (For example, when I tuned into photography, in 1970, Tri-X, was rated 320/400, depending, T-MAX, which had high ISO like 3200... came out mid-80's some 18 years after I started using Tri-X, and in fact never really replaced Tri-X, as over ISO 400 the results due to grain were not considered 'pleasing', unless one was going for that surveillance film look... And that was for B&W... For color the ISO for 'quality' image sort of topped out at 400 for years. Kodak had a ISO 1000 film... but again, due to grain, if one was going for that 'pointilism' look, fine, otherwise not typically used for 'critical/commercial' applications. I'm speaking herea bout still films. Moving picture films tended to be more conservative about ISO values, with B&W toping out at about ISO 200 for Double-X or 400 for Tri-X, and Color film now at about 500. What Digital improvements could be to move Digital beyond Film... well, better capture resolutions, such as 4:4:4 directly from the sensor, removing the subsampling effects of lower resolution in Red and Blue. Deeper intensity resolution, tending towards 16 bits, rather than 8, 10, 12. And smaller 'capture' packages even at the high data rate required for such high sampling. The other aspect that is not mentioned much is the projection systems. Film film was directed to theatrical release, however, I think Digital film needs to expand the universe of presentation to actively include much smaller devices, which have become ubiquitous. Small display devices that have better color representation than Rec. 709, etc. at 'popular prices'. I personally would like display manufacturers to support DCI package 'directly', rather than go by way of Rec. 709 to BD devices... So, yes I think there is an 'obligation' on the part of people working in the moving picture business to advance Digital Film, but not necessarily look over their shoulder to Film film, at this point.

This is why I bought the Sekonic L-308DC, because it has a readout in footcandles/lux. Most 'moving pictures' lighting, at least the ARRIs and equivalent, have their lights spec'd for footcandles/lux at distances. There is no convenient easy way to convert that sort of output in to the Watt-seconds that strobes are spec'd at. As a note here many 'non' pro light suppliers only spec Watts or some times Lumens, in either case are pretty useless for getting good approximations of the amount of light delivered on the subject... For the ARRIlite, ARRI has an iPhone app that will allow you to select the lamp, and it will give you the photometric data to allow you to know better what the exposure will be at various distances. App info: https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/photometrics/id733009338?mt=8 There is a rule of thumb: for ISO 100, one needs 100 fc @ f/2.8 @ 1/48 (180 deg) shutter. So, from the calculator for an ARRIlite Plus 2000, 100 fc is given if the lamp is approx. 16 feet from the subject. Which for your desired F/8 setting, means that is 'under'. The difficulty here is if you want no shadows, full length, you need to have the background lit such that the there is no falloff and so, one can not arbitrarily move the main light on the talent to get a 'better' exposure. The Briese light is a strobe is it not?

I haven't seen the clip as yet, but 2 ideas do occur. 1) If the shot is a 'nigh/dark' scene, then perhaps setting the shutter to 270 deg, or as 'long as possible', to get a bit more exposure, could give rise to more motion blur. 2) This also could be a 'creative' decision as well... regardless of the exposure consideration.

I have a couple of thoughts on this... well more that a couple... but for the moment I'll express 2 thoughts... 1) I'd like for people to stop calling themselves Director of Photography, when all they have is a digital camera in their hands. 2) I'd like for people to stop 'thinking' that somehow if they shot on film, it would come out 'beautifully' and look like films that were DoP'd by people who had worked years in the craft. Ok... 3 thoughts... 3) I'd like for people to discontinue 'raving' about getting a 'filmic' look out of a DSLR or lower end digital camera, by use of 'creamy/soft/crappy' lenses. (There's a reason why cine lenses cost big bux... and part of that is designed to avoid 'creamy/soft/crappy'... but I digress...). Uh... how about 4 thoughts... 4) Digital is here to stay, so I'd like to see more people focused on getting as much out of their camera, at the entry level, whatever the 'price', and use 'art' principles in such areas as lighting, framing, and post-processing for 'look'. Not so much with an eye for 'making it look like film', but with the goal of 'what works for the story'... (if 'creamy/soft/crappy' works for the story, by all means... just watched "Hello Dolly"(1969) and was really irritated by the switching between 'soft' close ups on Streisand to fairly 'sharp' for the master shots... but I digress...).

And not to mention expensive just to get a grade point spanking... Currently USC is at about $23k per semester for undergrads, that's about $46K per year. That does not include living/commute expenses in the 'beautiful' LA area... Brooks Institute, which is more noted for commercial still photography is about $10k per semester. San Diego State, which has something of a 'Film and Television' department, $3.5K per semester. I chose not to do that program because at the time it was much more heavily oriented to Television. But the Art department was abysmal in that the department still to this day does not really recognize 'photography' as worth medium. But I digress... UCSD also has something called a 'Film' program, which consists of mostly 'theoretical' ruminations, and very little in the way of practical production. I'm noting these latter two cases as what most people will find 'in their area', which are more accessible than USC or the like. I should also note that the two junior colleges closest to me have a few 'film' classes. One is again more heavily oriented to Television. The other... uh... well... the teachers are enthusiastic... but the students... abysmal... but I digress again...

For the purely pedagogical exercise, you take a scene/shot you 'like' and attempt to recreate that lighting, placement of talent, etc. that was in the original. Some people claim one should not do this sort of thing... but that is how most people learn. The problem is when one attempts to match 'very closely' someone elses style, it is often for material that is not appropriate. In the case of "Susperia", this film was based on the 19th century writings of Thomas de Quincey, and are psychological 'phantasies' in the extreme. So, the lighting, framing, etc. should reflect that 'phantasm' aspect. Such camera work would not 'work' for a rom-com... well... perhaps a 'goth' romcom... but I digress... Further... while Dario Argento is the director, often for camera work, one does better by looking at the cinematography credits. In the case of "Susperia"(1977), the cinematographer is listed as Luciano Tovoli, who shot, among other films, Julie Tabor's "Titus"(1999) which also has very stylized cinematography.

In the era Rolleiflex was a more likely candidate for a photojournalist to be using. Hasselblad's 'star' accended, especially in the US, as NASA began to use that camera for space photo activities. Some photojounalism was still done with 4x5 Speed Graphics, but most people had moved to medium format roll film. Here's a image of St. Kubrick of the Eternal Cinema in his youth:

Photographs and color movie film have fading or desaturation, color shifts due to differential color fading, and color casts, due to the other reasons as well as the base material 'aging'. So in order to 'reproduce' these effects you have to use all three 'effects'. Different materials aged in different ways. But for me many 'old color photos' typically eventually resulted in a heavy 'redish' cast. But then some seemed to have a cyan cast... and yet others 'yellow'. For black and white the white base would yellow along with the shadow/dark areas becoming lighter. If the print was toned with sepia, then one could also see a more 'redish' cast as the image aged. While there was quite a bit of B&W from the 50-70's... most people were transitioning to 'color'... because it was so much more 'real'... well... until the photos sat in the cupbord or cardboard boxes for a few years... (There are also effects due to poor processing, such as B&W showing fixer stains, or the like...).

I don't have access to an ARRI anything... but when I was researching how to calibrate one's effective ISO values for any 'digital' camera, I did run across some articles on ARRI Alexa and what principles were involved in determining exposures that allowed for the full dynamic range of the camera to be recorded/available. Here's an article: http://provideocoalition.com/aadams/story/alexa_dynamic_range_its_all_in_how_you_use_it/P2 This method requires that you have the ability to display the a IRE waveform, and the step test target. It seems that a 18% grey card reading shoud be, from the article according to ARRI, around 38% IRE for LogC recording. The author of the article seems to want to place the 18% grey card at 45-50% IRE... So, one would have to test to calibrate meter reading with its ISO settings, camera ISO setting, to IRE output based on the 18% grey card. (I declined getting to 'is the 18% grey card really 18%...).

For some small product shots I've used velvet, and I think it is a 'deeper' black than what could be gotten with muslin, as the muslin has the thread structure, and could have some residual 'glint' from the lights. For people, I have used black bedsheet material, due to its cheapness, and placed the background 'distant' from the subjects, so as to create the empty black background. The problem there is to get the distance one needs more material... as well as a studio that has the depth...

Editability timed out before I could find a succinct defintion of 'New Media'... From the SAG-AFTRA materials. "New Media" means: --- ... the Original or Derivative Program is produced for initial exhibition via the Internet, mobile devices, or any other platform known or which hereafter may be adopted, except as provided below (collectively defined as “New Media"). ---