Anzer Sizov

Hi Daniel, I've just watched the trailer. I see what you mean. According to IMDB (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034303/technical?ref_=ttfc_sa_5) it was Kodak 500T. It really works fine. I guess it is all about the coherence between the meaning/atmosphere/feel you want to convey and the colors/tones/hues you end up applying. An innocent pair of slightly off-colored eyes and so much to think of.

Hi Mark, Again, it took a while to respond. My apologies. Thank you for your thought, much appreciated. You've made me think that grading may easily be done in a sort of 'lazy' manner, when a certain preset is applied. For instance, the "trusty" one that usually makes most of the material look both acceptable in terms of QC and "beautiful" according to the TV-people, who commission the production.

Daniel, Thank you for your thoughts on post-work. I guess, one might end-up highly depending on the colorist (especially the one who's been working closely with that platform or this TV-channel). The guy might be following certain patterns that will tick the necessary boxes with the client - which may not be what a cinematographer has in mind. Understanding the importance and versatile possibilities of post-work, I still try to do as much as possible on-set. Looking in those fremen eyes again, I guess I should try harder. Thank you! I'm sorry it took me this long to reply to your posts.

Hello Daniel, Thank you for such a tremendous effort. I'd go with Phil - the final grade seems to be the most appropriate for that particular scene. The guy warns her that her business (a hospital she runs) might be in serious danger because someone powerful wants that land. I've seen the first cut and noticed a very interesting mechanism. If the story is properly structured, performances are solid and the whole thing is generally engaging and believable - you get involved, you root for somebody and do not notice "the kitchen". Only when the story is weak in its core you notice the shortcomings. The grade might be perfect per-se but I guess it will never save the writing.

Hello Phil, Thank you for your thoughts. I've never expected that this minor issue would provoke such a profound thinking. Appreciate that! I like the way you dig deeper into the drama and art itself, where there are no rights or wrongs, and I much appreciate the idea of consistency which defines a choice. I'll keep it in my bag. Sorry it took me quite a while to reply.

Hello Daniel, Thank you for the work you've decided to put into those images. Much appreciated! It's so true - everything looks different on any display. Your grades on my display, for instance, have a warm, slightly pink tint, creating a different mood. However, the whites are perfect - so it feels natural. The director likes the blueish-green tint created by the glass of the windows of the car, though. So I'll try to work on saturation, while keeping the original tint. I don't remember if the actress were wearing contact lenses. Could those be the reason?.. I remember we used additional LED-light coming in through the windshield. I think now, looking at your grades, I should have paid closer attention to that light source. Anyway, thank you again for sharing your thoughts! A.

David, Thank you! I'm going to see the guy today. Hopefully it is saturation. I've come across an article which describes a dozen deseases resulting in this eye condition.

David, I wish I could boast of having worked with those folks. These actors are common Russian people with a little too much make-up on which I miserably failed to negotiate down. Is the answer really this obvious?..

Friends, I have just received several pieces of graded footage. The whites of the eye went visibly blue. What could be the reasons behind that? Every opinion would be of high value for me. Thanks! A.

Hi Stephen, Thank you for a valuable comment. The chance to use those LED panels is getting even thinner now, I guess.. Anyway, I am looking forward to running a little test. Hopefully, those LED panels are going to surprise all of us. A.

Phil, I think all these are working solutions. However, for this one I'll stick to the floodlights. They seem so simple to handle. I've found some green ones and some blue ones. Quite inexpensive, too. The only thing that I can't see before I do it - how many of them I might need to properly cover a certain area. Hopefully, with RED sensors I won't have to use tonnes of these. I guess it's a good idea to just get a couple of those lights first and see how they work. If it doesn't work for some reason I'll keep the lights as practicals/back-lights, anyway. Thank you for your help. Much appreciated. A.

Green lights designed for architectural special effects... I love it. It seems to be another good option that would never occur to me. I'll see into that. I'll pay attention to whether these lights flicker or not when we run a little test. Thank you, Phil! A very valuable piece of information. A.

Hi, everybody. A production I am working with has a coupe of dozens of outdoor light panels (all identical). They pretty much look like this one: Those are 6500K LED light panels with light output of 8500 lm. Obviously, they are easy to operate, powerful, robust, cheap and even weatherproof. So, the producer asks me if we could also light our green screen with those and this question has puzzled me. Has anyone ever tried anything like that? Does it make any sense at all? With green/blue filter? Flicker issues? Any thoughts or experiences shared would be highly appreciated. The camera I'm going to use is Red Monstro. Thank you. Anz

Well, I hope both of these devices do exactly what the tech. spec. says they do. I have not yet tried it myself, but this separate multi-recording feature might be a very convenient tool. Thank you for your support, Satsuki!

Hello Satsuki, I think the option you offer is a very good one, thank you. I was just wondering if there is any way to record some light-weight proxies in ProRes, too - something that escapes my mind. So that no additional transcoding would be needed. I've come across Shogun 7, which could be an option with its multiple input recording. Anyway, thank you for your contribution, Satsuki. Anzer

Hello everybody, I am trying to wrap my mind around the idea of recording the material (in ProRes HQ) and proxies (also ProRes) simultaneously. Does it make any sense? The shoot itself is a series of lectures and promises a lot of data. Most likely I'll be using 2+ Canon C200 cameras. So far I've been thinking about the following: CAM - SDI - EXT.REC (SSD, ProResHQ) - SDI - DIR. MONITOR [no proxies] CAM - SDI - EXT.REC (SSD, ProResHQ) - AJA Ki Pro Mini [proxies] - SDI - DIR.MONITOR CAM - SDI - Atomos shogun 7 [no proxies] CAM - SDI - ODYSSEY 7Q (material and proxies on separate SSDs) - SDI - DIR.MONITOR Any experiences or suggestions shared would be much appreciated. Most likely there is a simple and direct solution which might never occur to me otherwise. Thank you, Anz

Hello, Phil! Thank you for your notes on flicker and high frame rates. I hope I'll be able to run a few tests.

Bruce, 90 fps seems to be the maximum available in this mode, i.e. Open Gate ARRIRAW on Arri Alexa SXT... Going to double check, though!

Dear friends, what should I expect when shooting slow-motion with rather unusual fps for a standard 25 fps project? Say, 90 fps? My strategy is to try to avoid any 50/60 Hz related equipment and then accurately slow down the footage in post to maintain the correct shutter speed of 180 degrees. Does it make any sense? Any advice would be much appreciated!

This is wonderful. I can now think of an adequte phrase that exists in Russian but being a non-native speaker I could never come up with something so graceful. "Split the difference". Love that. Thank you.

Brian, That is exactly what I wanted. Thank you. Could you think of any words related to dolly-work. For instance, what do you call type of shot when the object in in the center of a circle and you're on dolly circling around? Is it an ark-shot?.. Sometimes English-speaking directors use words such as "punch in". Are there any others of the same kind?

Thank you everyone. I realise I might have not made myself clear. Phil, I'm with you on that. David, thank you for your post. Things I'd like to know are the words like "open up, stop down, lock down" etc. Do you "knock off" the light if it's too much of it or do you "bring down"? Another good example: What do you call a situation when the Sun constantly pops out of the clouds and then hides so that it's impossible to predict if you're going to have a take. We have one word for such situation.

Friends, I'm working in Russia so obviously we speak Russian on-set. And a lot of things we say concerning camera dpt. work-flow are esily understood by anyone who works in the industry here. But all the words are mostly slang. The phrases are boiled down to the very essence so that you don't have to waste any time explaning things. What do you guys actually say on-set when it comes down to working practices such as adjusting f-stop, discussing camera movements, choosing filters etc. Throw anything that pops up in your mind, every bit would be much appreciated. e.g.: do you "open up a knotch, a third etc", do you "lock down the head" or "lock-off" etc. I need these words to work with english-speaking cinematographers. I know I could manage, but I bet there are standard, sharp words for everything. Thanks from Moscow, Russia Anzer