Jason Debus

I wouldn't recommend this film at all. The best part of the film is shown in the trailer here.

There's an old discussion on those here: http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...showtopic=10712

I wasn't aware of who Bauby was when I saw the film and am under the impression he was mainly a European celebrity. Also there were some people in another thread voicing their displeasure with ASC magazine and their handling of spoilers. The forum makes it easy to black out spoiler text so I thought it would be better for those that hadn't seen the film and wasn't familiar with Bauby's story. This was my favorite film of 2007, I hope it gets some attention at the oscars. Even though There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men had some fantastic cinematography, I think what Kaminski has done here is a step above because he's essentially an actor with the camera in those POV shots.

Hi Joe, Here's the K3 screen captures: I understand what you mean about getting shallow depth of field. 16mm faces similar challenges as DV in that regard. Out of the screen caps above #7 shows what a K3 can do in that regard, zoomed in and I think the f-stop was around 5.6.

Hi Briggs, I've been happy with the results from my K3 projects at school. We viewed each others projects in class, probably around forty total (shot with 7285 or 7265/66 and projected). The projects that stood out had one thing in common: they were photographed well from an artistic and technical point of view. Lighting, composition, and subject matter made the difference (as well as getting a good exposure and focus of course). Since they were all shot with K3's I don't think the camera or the lens is to blame for the bad films! The fact that we were shooting reversal probably helped keep the images from looking washed out since reversal is inherently contrasty. The stock lens is OK, my main gripe with it is the minimum focus distance (2 meters). On my second project I used an adapter so I could focus closer, but it was so powerful that the subject had to be one foot away for decent focus. I was able to get the shots off but I had no way to focus on subjects in between 1 foot and 2 meters. Even though you get better depth of field in 16mm than 35mm, it is still critical that you nail focus or your images will be soft. Just my point of view, but I think you would be better off investing in a few adapters to cover focusing closer than 2 meters and some 77mm filters (pola's, NDs, etc.) rather than a still photography lens. When I get home tonight I'll post some screen caps.

Hi Cesar, I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on a Smell-O-Vision revival (or moving seats for that matter). I think of 3D movies more like a cross between a film and a theme park ride. It will take a large number of non-gimmicky, high quality 3d films to change the current paradigm, it's not just a matter of perfecting the technology. Just look at movies like Beowulf and Polar Express. I lived through the 3d revival in the 80s and it wasn't that different from the current batch of REAL D movies image-wise. The subject matter and stories have got to get better too, check out this list from the 80s: Amityville 3-D Comin' at Ya! Treasure of the Four Crowns Friday the 13th Part 3 Jaws 3-D Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn Parasite Silent Madness Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone Starchaser: The Legend of Orin

After reading the latest ASC I discovered that the pneumonia sequences were actually done in camera! Here's an excerpt from the ASC article (swipe spoiler text because there's a major spoiler from the movie): The article details the variety of other techniques he used in addition to the hand-crank; an Arri Shift & Tilt lens system which has it's own set of lenses 16mm to 135mm (Kaminski used 35mm and wider), a 40mm Lensbaby 2.0 (an elastic lens which he used for the whole opening of the movie), manipulating the shutter angle to streak and smear the image, as well as changing the camera speed on the fly. Suprisingly nothing was digitally manipulated execpt simulating POV eye 'blinks' in a few cases mixed in with organic in camera blinks. Latex was used for the scene where he has one of his eyes sewn shut. Zeiss Superspeed lenses were used for the more conventional shots.

The article is being discussed here: NY Times article on digital storage

Thanks for the replies. I ended up doing a mini-DV transfer at Yale Film Labs in Burbank where I got the film developed. They have a Rank Cintel with Da Vinci color corrector and a supervised transfer was no extra cost. I was pleased with the results but would have liked a 2K scan with DPX files. I never did find somewhere that would do a 2K scan for students with a small amount of film like this. I'm sure there's got to be some lab in LA that would do it but I haven't found it yet, so if anyone knows of one let me know. It would feel wierd to send it off to a place like Bonolabs when there's so many labs here.

I'm going to be doing my first 16mm telecine and I'd like some advice on what exactly I need to ask for. It's only about 200 feet of 7285. I know there are many 16mm to Mini-DV options out there, but I would like a couple of things in addition to the 16mm to Mini-DV that not all labs can handle: 1. Hi res stills of all of the frames, 2K if possible. Should I skip the Mini-DV and just ask for DPX files? I use Adobe Premiere Pro for editing which I'm pretty sure can handle still sequences. I'm thinking this would be a direct to hard-drive option? 2. Backup - Should I ask for a tape based intermediate so I can have a backup? Also if anyone has any suggestions on post houses around LA that are student friendly. I'm planning on calling Entertainment Post & Able Cine Tech, but I'm still not sure what I need to be asking for. Thanks for any advice!

Yahoo has some HD clips from the film up here: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809772353/trailer 'Waking Up' has the most extreme examples of out of focus shots that I was talking about earlier. This particular clip looks like it uses a slant focus lens. I'm not sure why Yahoo doesn't have the HD trailer linked, these are the direct links (right click save as, rename to .mov file): Trailer 480p (45.8MB) 720p (113MB) 1080p (167MB) 'Prayers' clip 720p (49.6MB) 1080p (71.8MB)

I was fortunate enough to attend a preview of Diving Bell and the Butterfly at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica on Nov. 10th. I haven't read the book but I'm curious how it plays because the film was quite cinematic. For those who aren't familiar with the story here's a snip from imdb: Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind. Janusz Kaminski has done some fine work here and it is quite different than his work with Spielberg. I would say more than a third of the film are POV shots. The lens shows his distorted peripheral vision and there's some great post work when he gets pneumonia twords the end. When Bauby is learning to communicate by blinking his eye we see his blinks on the screen. There's a horrific POV shot of him getting his eyelids sown shut on one eye. Also some great dutch angles which are entirely motivated because Bauby is paralyzed and and can't hold his head up while in a wheelchair. Even after a week of viewing this film it's staying in my mind. I think it's because of the iconic imagry; a closeup of his bloodshot eye, the back of a woman's hair blowing in the wind, the night shots of Bauby before the accident (set to the tune of Don't Kiss Me Goodbye by Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle), Bauby submerged in an old style diving suit, photos of his life before the accident, the myriad of blurry POV shots showing Bauby's condition and the various nurses and doctors helping him. I'm wondering how the blurry POV shots were accomplished. Certain shots remind me of Slawomir Idziak's work with Kieslowski in Blue (like when Juliette Binoche is bed-ridden after an car accident.) Some of it looks like slant focus but I suspect it's more involved than that. It also changes over the course of the film. I thought it would be a depressing movie going in but it surprised me with lots of humor. It leaves you feeling lucky and forunate and not so much pity for Bauby as he made the best of his situation. Julian Schnabel probably deserves the kudos that he received at Cannes for his directing because this really could have been more depressing rather than uplifting. Max Von Sydow has a small part in the film playing Bauby's father. He gave a nice Q&A after the screening. He talked about working with Bergman and his various roles over the years. He said Diving Bell was the first film where he phoned in a scene (they called him on the telephone when the woman at the other end was filming her part). The only part I can really remember well is him telling us how forturnate he was to have lived in that time & place where he had the opportunity to work with Bergman.

Check out Polanski's Ninth Gate (Khondji), they get lucky with a rainbow while driving in the countryside.

Thanks for the replies Nathan & Max. David's Shadowboxer threads were quite informative, he also mentioned 'Heat' and 'In the Cut' as using the same lens (EDIT: After re-reading it appears that 'In the Cut' used slant focus but was not anamorphic, David and the director liked the fuzzy focus look and used it as inspiration). Here's some screen caps that David posted in the Shadowboxer DVD thread where he used the Panavision 90mm:

Hi, I'm looking for examples of anamorphic slant focus shots. Also if anyone knows of any other anamorphic slant focus lenses besides the Panavision 90mm T4.3. Thanks!

Not to sound negative but Richard is right. If you're asking this question after completing film school then they didn't do a very good job. Part of what they do is helping you get a position in the industry, so you should at least have some sort of internship set up. There are quite a few students at my school that are working full time in the industry and going to school at the same time.

That review was not written by Roger Ebert.

BankGothic Md BT font is very close but not exact.

I can't find a decent version either (all Lo-res / 15fps). The best version I've seen is on the Philips site: click here, then click 'The Film', then click 'Fullscreen' which will give you a higher res version (but not fullscreen). Here's a .mov download: There's Only One Sun (384x288, 15 fps, 53MB)

I saw this last night (my girlfriend likes the girls-kicking-ass movies). The smooth skin looked like heavy makeup to me. In some shots it had a look similar to Jude Law in AI, reflecting the ambient light giving it a plastic like sheen. Just speculation, but it's possible that her face got scorched in the desert and they had to do something so that her face would match the other shots. In one shot you could see the makeup line on her neck and her natural skin looked sunburnt.

Are there any additional costs or issues for shooting anamorphic (from a post production standpoint) following an optical-post path?

Now anyone can be Michael Bay!! That was a pretty funny video, especially when they finally showed the rig. Looks like that thing could be dangerous for the actors though.

I don't know if it's the crappy apple encoding or what but it really looks like it was shot on video. 'Squid and the Whale' was 16mm, perhaps the director used it again here. But it doesn't look like 35mm to me.

Doesn't HDR rely on bracketed exposures? Not sure how you would do this with a video camera, seems like the best that could be done is some timelapse with a stills camera.

I think the closest you can get is a guesstimate using the bargraph in the viewfinder. This chart by Chris Hurd might help which has 35mm equivalent focal lengths of the different canon lenses: Guide to Canon XL2 Lens Options I really wish canon put markings on the zoom & focus rings and nixed the infinite rotation, my main complaint in an otherwise great camera.