Jay Young

A young DP is holding a 40 pound camera on an easy rig. The gaffer is dancing around some random LED panel as the DP directs and looks at an onboard monitor, frantically scrolling through available ISO options. 6400 seems good. The third electrics stand by other lamps waiting for a radio call from the gaffer. Finally, all is set and the gaffer walks away. The DP might ask a random crew member to move or adjust a lamp, and would certainly never tell the gaffer the goal, or larger picture. And so it goes, for weeks. Every setup, the DP runs around and makes up the lighting plan on the spot, the gaffer trying desperately to keep up, run power, move staging, delegate work to the crew, collaborate with the grip department, and navigate the diplomatic minefield of production. It seems that, due to the increasing youtube popular culture and education stream, that many young persons (30 and under) have a quite difficult time utilizing crew, or collaborating with department heads. The reasons stem from a notion that one must do all the work personally, and reliance on anyone for any other skill is never a guarantee. Yet, when faced with that very problem, most of these "DP's", who are in the position by chance, fall back into micromanaging every placement of lamp, stinger, staging, and crew, while making up framing on the spot. Of course, no one prefers to work this way, it happens as circumstance. One could choose not to take a job such as this. However, it is a valuable resource for new crew members wishing to learn to be a grip, or spark, or AD. What are some options for the new crew members in key positions to deal with a DP who perhaps is in over their head, or feels most comfortable dictating the placement of every single item on set. What are some ways one might guide a young DP in their first feature to better utilize department keys? Does anyone prefer the crew to simply execute a lighting plan? Does anyone prefer crew to collaborate with? Does anyone prefer an unplanned day, simply making it up as they go? At what point (production size, budget level) does the ability to micromanage become unfeasible? Tier 1? More than 30 crew members? Thanks for all your discussion on this. Trying to help my good friends through some rough waters.

Do the visuals of underexposure and low contrast go together? For example, DARK is quite low contrast (and personally flat, and boring), but I don't feel its underexposed. Underexposure doesn't seem all that overused in the shows I watch regularly.

It could be that because the film was made deliberate to recreate a style and era, that you don’t appreciate what it is. Modern audiences are used to a certain visual language. period pieces done in a modern style are different to a contemporary piece done in a period style.

I just spoke with Panavision about renting 2-perf cameras, and I quote: "I could give you the 'friends don't let friends shoot 2-perf talk', but you will have every bit of dirt, dust, emulsion, and hair in every frame, its not worth it". That's one persons opinion, but it hurts a little when someone like that doesn't want to support the decisions of the film maker. I feel 2-perf is a perfectly valid choice.

I'm doing a short on 35 next month. I feel its worth it. I could shoot it on an Alexa, but I want a different look and feel. I do not subscribe to the opinion that they look "the same". I also agree with the other comments - Actors have no direction, and Directors have no specific thoughts. Last year, I worked on a film in which the Director had shot 197 minutes of edited footage, in the first 10 days, for a 90 minute film. I feel there is a way to get back to the discipline of filmmaking, but coming from a background of digital - cost is negligible - DSLR beginnings, there are a fair few actors and directors who need a check in the reality of work ethic. It could also be argued that there are producers who need to not be taken in by marketing. Shooting in 8K or beyond is interesting, but pointless. Low budget films from $1-5m still have producers who purchase ready made external hard disks for storage, backup, and live editing, at the lowest cost possible. It happens daily. While we, in the field, argue for the minimum redundancy. I realise that an arguement can also be made that there is no backup of a film negative, which, once lost in shipping or destroyed by the lab, must be recreated. However, I feel it is a far more safe option, than risking the lowest paid (or un-paid) camera team tranee or digital utility person to make sure the camera data is safe. Its sad that film processing is rather expensive in Europe. To compare, the best average prices I could find in the US for stock + processing + scan one hour of footage (2000 feet of 16mm) comes to between 1500 - 1800 euros. Its on the high end for sure.

The Alexa is great, film is great. They can look similar, they can look different. When I can’t afford film, I choose Alexa. I think the medium choice is different enough to warrant discussion. I think what Steve does is interesting, if you’re Steve. I don’t really want to make digital look like film. Choose the medium that works for you.

I just did the same type of test, and the results were about half of the manufactures published numbers. I agree that the photometric apps are optimistic. I would love to be able to rely on that data, but at this point, I can't.

What I find is that inexperienced DP's, and often producers, feel the need to rent expensive LED fixtures. This may be useful in large scale applications where adjusting the lamps would be more costly because of rigging, or specific computer control is required. Mostly, on low budget featuers for television, this is not the case. On low budget features that I Gaff, I take a full tungsten cart, which the rental house is usually happy to give away, or near about. Most often I see the Skypannel or Litemat used in ways that a Leko, Dedo, or other similar source could be used, with a bounce, to produce the same effect and be much more controlled. Most of the time, the Skypannel is requested with full large softbox, dimmed to 1% on Tungsten setting. Then the crew is asked to dance it around. There are existing tungsten fixtures which can do this job faster, cheaper, and better. While I can't say that an investment in tungsten lamps is "worth it" in a business sense for profit return, I feel there is a great need for many young filmmakers to learn which tools can save them money and time. Something to be said about reinventing the wheel. You can invest in gear as you wish, but teaching people there is a better way, when blinded by shiny magic technology; that's difficult.

Well, I for one thing it’s graded too dark.

Overexposing film is a good tool for general use if you want more density, usually never a bad practice. as for the lens, I’ve owned a few, and they were notorious for poor quality after all these years. They are pretty easy to disassemble and adjust.

Hard lighting an interview. I am not as photo-ready as talent! Lit with 650s and 1k zip. No time for hair light. Photographed with the Blackmagic 4k pocket, and an old Nikon. The BTS photographer for this interview wanted me to light it which I did while also lighting the feature... which was very stressful. However, he wanted something different, so we went a little old-school. Final tweaks were with actual talent of course, and we took the wall down quite a bit in the end. The camera is too sensitive. Really wish we were shooting on a real 250 asa or slower, then we could play with tonality. The video is three RAW clips, followed by two different LUTs and a hand colored option.

I want a Tungsten quartz halogen fresnel I can aim in any direction or orientation. i want an led that has the near infrared low wavelength spectrum covered.

I've used those miniature lekos before, they are great. Anyhow, I'm still going to build a small beam projector. I'll let you know how it goes.

A spot par can is probably the likely choice I guess. I just wanted something Physically smaller than a Leko. I’m going to keep working on my end, thanks for the suggestions.

I’d love to build or have built some small beam projectors. anyone have any experience? I’m having trouble finding sources for reflectors. I would really like something less than 1000 watts, preferably like in a small pepper or tweeties housing. thoughts?

Well, to get back on track, I would like to shoot a 70mm picture. Ultra Panavision would be great if the subject matter warranted, but a good Musical would be great too!

Having shot with both cameras, ACES will be your friend.

I’m working a digital show now, they have gone over, every day, rewritten the script multiple times, and can’t decide which version of dialogue to use. So far, B-Cam alone has shot 88 mags, which is about 44 hours of footage, based on data rates of 6k X-OCN on the Venice with 512Gb cards. They have pushed so much our last day call sheet had 16 pages for the day scheduled. just because of indecision, poor planning, and the inability to clearly communicate, they have more than 100 hours of footage to go through. This is an estimate of course, I have no idea what C-cam /D-cam shot. Of course if they shot on film, it would cost them a lot more. Hard costs, that producers apparently hate to pay. And those costs could be justified instead of paying overtime on the back end. I know they have spent far more money in schedule changes and overtime than film would have ever cost. people have see in this thread that it’s a good thing content is being created. I disagree. This content will make money for the producers, I hope, but the content is not good to me personally. It’s not something I would watch. And, now that there is a choice of medium, the only conversation a lot of people have is cost. I feel the conversation of medium choice should be artistic also.

No doubt! I had the lab do a clip test, and while there was a significant blue shift, it really didn’t seem all that severe. Still working with the footage. I believe a DPX log scan will produce the best result here, instead of trying to deal with ProRes in this situation. Happy shooting! As for the 85 filter, I will likely forgo. There are plenty of others who do not use the filter and correct the blue shift at the lab. Not saying either is correct, just personal observations.

Uncorrected still frames from the underexposed shots. T16 on the lens, ND.9

https://vimeo.com/364382616 Prepping for a period piece which will be shot outside, in daylight. Fuji 8553 35mm test shoot here. I sent clip tests to the lab which reported two different shifts in the two different batches. The first half of the video shows the first batch which is noticeably better than the second batch in the second half of the video. There is a high blue shift, but no more so than I can judge Tungsten film shot in daylight. I have corrected the blue shift, and have found that this particular film should probably be rate about 160 or 125. The ND filter did not help the image, and I will likely refrain from using it during the shoot. Either I did my math wrong, or the stock really needs more light. Some test shots out doors, in full sun, clear day were rather underexposed at T16 with ND.9. This is proven again by the shot of the flowers which was shot at T5.6 with ND.9 filter, and the shot of my face which was T16 with ND.9. Thoughts?

I just wish they would stop pushing resolution and bring back global shutter. The original URSA was an excellent camera. The 10" built in screen was less excellent, but the image was nice.

I don't want to be overly harsh, but its difficult to find many positives in this film. For a huge special effects film, the explosions, fire and gunshots were probably the best I have seen. They certainly spent money here. Some of the suspense was created in very nice editing, and some of the best visuals in the film were created with plain old natural sunlight. The opening doesn't help the digital sensor at all, lots of scenes are shot on a long lens for no reason I can discern, and the overall look is simply chaos. There are multiple buzzed focus shots from shooting wide open, and most of the film feels like it was shot on a 100mm lens. With 30 producers on tap, I can't believe someone didn't say something during screening. However, I'm sure I have no idea what makes a profitable film these days, because this film grossed between 50-70 million in the past three days, on a 40 million budget. Has anyone else seen it? Care to guide my eyes to the goodness? I can't see it.

Doug Slocome

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