Ari Michael Leeds

I have no problem with established looks for consistency. No I am not serving myself. I am saying that Battlestar Galactica 2005 was ugly and served no one. No there are no hard, fast rules to what looks good, what looks bad. It's like porn: You know it when you see it. To put it another way, if I work on a show as director of photography and the director insists that I underexpose all the film two stops and try to correct it back to normal for a "look," he can shoot it himself, I am walking away. There are good ideas, there are bad ideas. There are movies that win awards, and movies that don't. There are deserving genres and fields that push the envelope and further the craft, and there are people who don't know what they are talking about that produce garbage, and they always seem to be the best at explaining their "motivations" and purity. They're into the wrong "art."

"It's better than no vinyl at all." Yes, it is, but that is flawed logic. It is not impossible to master off of a computer, just as it is (sofar, knock on wood) still possible to make a movie without a computer being involved with the imagine (although I don't fault bypassing $60,000 worth of workprints that end up in the rubbish bin at the end, anyway) through scans/tapes/video/digital dailies.

That's 120 megapixels, kids. :-D

I have read about and had described the laser projection, and still don't understand why anyone gives a sh it and it isn't just hype. So WHAT if it's brighter?

Really? You saw it and there was no benefit to an IMAX print?

So, is it worth seeing Force Awakens in IMAX, or is it a waste of film? On the fence.

Listen, I get "serving the story," I really do. But when you're asked to blow highlights as the GENERAL LOOK OF THE SHOW, that's not a show I'd wanna lens. I absolutely get plain photography and nothing showy. Comedies abound that are like this. "The Shield" made film look ugly at times, and there are plenty examples of ugly film photography. But that series wasn't consistently so, and did it for a purpose. You could be emulating the look of "COPS," fine, I get that. But what's the be gained in seeking out the visual "aesthetic" of a reality show for a series' entire run? They can serve the story all they want, and I can get tired of that "service" gouging my eyes out and tune out. After a few dozen episodes that is just what I did. People go for skinny jeans too, but that's not my fad. Just like I don't need JJ Abrams lens flares in every shot. I think for me it's anything that gets overdone, so that it becomes tasteless and unmotivated. How is unmotivated cinematography a service? For the mid '70s it was dioptres.

Yeah, the 21st Century version. The original was nothing to write home about (unless we are talking about the SFX team), but competent, decent, safe TV lighting for the '70s.

TMax 3200 B&W had a true speed of around 1,000, so there should be a comparable limit for color. Makes sense they'd have the extra stop, even if it does get grainy.

Pushing 500 to 1000 you don't get a true one stop of extra speed. Come on guys this is fiml school 101. Great to have 1,000-speed true ISO film! They should make in 35mm too, even if grainy.

Nice work! A small critique of your technique: when you're shooting the cards, and charts, ideally, you need to get as close as possible. A grey card should fill the entire frame. A Gretag chart likewise." With the former, you ideally want to get it big enough to read with a densitometer with a certain sized probe diameter. So the physical size of the film being so small, it's best to fill the frame with a grey card, each step on a grey scale and color patches.

Oh, no, cue the counting of how many blades on the aperture diaphragm, here B)

Battlestar Galactica. UGLY. Why someone would intentionally shoot that way (assuming you buy that story) is beyond me. Were I in that position, I'd tell them to find another DP. Or just hire someone off the street to get that "style."

LOUD CAMERAS, DIALOGUE? Dub dub dub dub dub :sings: B) See all the IMAX scenes shot in the Dark Knight films. Camera is so loud to make sync sound impossible, from what I have read. Haven't had the pleasure, myself, yet.

Well "works best with acetate film" means the film will tear in the event of a jam. [Poly]estar film will break the MECHANISM before the film itself breaks. Seen it happen in a film projector. Not pretty. $100 repair. Fortunately that was a 2-projector changeover. On a film set or a one-projector screen, no more movie until the machine is repaired. . .

I saw something done that indicated (not talking about film prints in theatres and striking 2000 of them, just original photography) that it was about 10% more with small productions. When you get bigger and bigger, the cost of one actor is more than the entire cost of film, processing, printing. I also sought out H8ful Eight in 70mm, although I bought a Star Wars matinee ticket because they threw the projectionists' union out there. Held off on slashing two or three rows of seats though, as I left ;-) I truly wish that I could have been there, as they HAD TO CALL THE PROJECTIONISTS UNION BACK IN TO RUN THIS FILM, for that phone conversation. And profound thanks to Quentin Tarantino and the Producers for insisting upon experience rather than letting the freckle-faced, high school drop-out, teenie-boppers shred the film up after one or two days.

Has this now become the general "ask a filmmaker" thread? Thought it was about "There Will Be Blood," LOL. I said "2 inch" but that would only have applied then to British Empire (Dominion of Canada, India, etc.) (was Cooke around?) and American interests. Pretty sure everyone else was metric already around that time. The Russians may have been using inches as well (they did for ammunition) but I think all the lens companies were continental Europe or North America. Please correct me if I am wrong. Can anyone comment on what the typical focal length was then? Just a general impression of silent from that era is that they tended to be wider than our normal, no such thing as zooms, a big use of vignetters, and they actually did the fade-in fade-out effects in-camera. Pretty much everything was done in-camera in those days.

"Archaic"?!?! How rude! ;-)

All I can say is "Open the pod bay doors please, HAL." B) Sorry, I do not know an answer to your question, Freya.

You may want it back, but it ended 36 years ago. There's what you want and what you can get.

Yeah, you're exactly right, Freya. That's what and why I thought you were saying the Alexa is bad. I'm not gonna lie, I don't like its colors as much. Then again, it's no RED color palette, either.

John I see a similar irony in the choice of format for "Hitchcock."

Got it, so no agreement to leave it at that and move on. Not sure what derailing a thread on "Grainy 35mm" has anything to do with your opinion of my sense of humor Manu. I'd really appreciate if you could move on.

@ Freya I'm paraphrasing, sure. But you're pointing out Alexa yellow and Alexa blue as how digital doesn't handle color as well as film on shots from Kodak 35mm film. . . Granted, Wolf of Wall Street had what I'd describe as a fairly HEAVY DI, not sure about the Hanks movie as I confess I haven't yet had the please of seeing it.

You realize that bodes very poorly for the argument that there is a lot of difference posting 35mm Kodak film movie stills as a reason why the Alexa doesn't cut it.