Joseph White

Just saw this last night and reccomend it highly to fans of Asian horror/thriller films. Directed in three parts (by Fruit Chan, Chanwook Park, and Takashi Miike, respectively) there's some wonderful filmmaking on display here. Cinematographically Chan and Miike's films are just astounding - Chan's segment shot by mr. polemic himself Christopher Doyle and Miike's by Koichi Kawakami. Both are gorgeous in their own right, all films represent three differtnt countries in Asia and very different perspectives and sensibilities concerning greed, vanity, violence, and memory. Truly gorgeous work by Doyle as usual, and Kawakami's contrasts of cold and hot hues are just simply beautiful. Both films are compositionally fascinating as well. I heartily reccomend it, although it's not for the faint of heart and those with weak stomachs. Anyone familiar with the careers of any of these filmmakers will expect what I'm talking about, but yeah there's some very unsettling stuff on display here. Anyone else see it? Thoughts?

i don't think there's necessarily a "problem" with Cooke S4 optics, but one of their inherent qualities is a slightly "softer" image, why a lot of DP's who are used to perhaps Primos or Zeiss lenses with a little diffusion like them. I've had some nice results with them on music videos - the 75mm is a very flattering lens for close-ups of women especially in my opinion, but I'm also a bit of a sharpness fanatic so I'm finding myself really enjoying Zeiss Super Speeds quite a bit lately even though they're older lenses. They fall off really nicely, too. I think this is Kaminski's first S4 show if I'm not mistaken. Plus with the amount of Dior and other diffusion he often uses it'll be interesting to see what he puts on the lens in addition to the already "creamy" quality of the S4's.

yeah a lot of this really depends on what stock you are shooting. a lot of medium-speed daylight stocks handle mixed color tempeerature lighting really well - especially the 5205 vision2 250D. gelling windows can also get tricky if you are going to see the windows in the shot - depending on how windy of a day you're getting, this can become a serious pain in the ass. also depends on how high up the window is if you aren't shooting on a ground floor as re-touching the gels can get tricky (see above pain in the ass haha). also depends on what time of day you are shooting - if you can shoot later on in the day when there's generally warmer light coming in (also depending on which direction your windows are facing) you might be able to get away with not gelling or correcting the camera if you're shooting tungsten stock. daylight 4x4 kinos with some opal or 251 are good inside depending on the size of your space. also depends on the skin-tones of the actors as some people look better with slightly cooler light hitting their faces softly, and some respond better to warmer light. a 2k mighty with a chimera will be fine with your power and is a lovely large soft source for an interior. its also an easy light to change types of diffusion on as you can just tear away or add layers to eye. you can also add stages of blue to it if you aren't correcting the windows or the camera. a little half-blue on the mighty might play nice with late afternoon sunlight. hope this helps. happy shooting!

wouldn't be surprised as they had Ilford spool still film that they loved onto 35mm motion picture cores. He Godard also had a love for double-x. a lot of Contempt was shot with mostly available light or just light punched into ceilings - which is remarkable seeing as how it was shot in cinemascope. godard also always had ceilings nailed onto his sets to prevent any temptation to light from above (a technique recently adopted by michel gondry to drive ellen kuras, asc crazy haha) - like in the apartment from A Woman is A Woman. there was also an article devoted to him in an old american cinematographer i have. if you really wanted it i could probably scan it. but yeah he's definitely one of my heroes.

some of this is definitely addressed in my post about the campfire lighting situation, but honestly it could be a stock issue. 7218 isn't the most contrasty stock out there - even though people say its the best 500t 16mm stock out there, if youre looking for really deep, rich blacks this probably isn't the right stock for you - i'd try and get your hands on some 7279 or hell 7274 for night work - people used to do night exteriors with 200asa stocks - heck i usually do today - and even slower so don't think that you necessarily need a high-speed stock to do night work. 79 and 74 have generally higher contrast and richer blacks, which it sounds like you;d want. plus the vision series stocks gave definitely more satruated colors than vision2 - don't get me wrong, i love vision2 and shoot it primarily, but if a director wants a darker, richer black and bolder colors, i'm going ot reach for 5279 as opposed to 5218. plus if you're shooting 16mm chances are you have faster lenses, and while i wouldn't advise shooting t1.3 16mm lenses, you can definitely get away with a t2.0 - and trust me, i'd always sacrifice a little grain if i can get my ratios just how i want them the and light to where i want it. i think largely people won't remember the grain as much as they'll remember how your lighting made them feel and how you used color to tell a story. 16mm is 16mm, there wil typically be grain (to second mr. mullen's sentiments on printing 16mm - avoid if you can unless you can get your hands on a good DI or at least an optical blowup to 35mm) but you can always explore printing on Kodak Vision Premiere which has really really excellent rich blacks and vibrant color - and as long as you arent doing tons of release prints the difference in price isn't that enormous. hope this helps!

yeah amount of grain is also a relative thing according to one's taste. if not properly lit, 7218 pushed a stop and rated at 800 asa will give you a lot of grain if you are still underexposing past the boundaries of the push. also depends on your ratios and who your colorist is - some are better at crushing blacks and whatnot than others - because if its a finish-on-video type thing are you sure you're seeing actual film grain or noise from underexposure in your telecine? ive had to deal with both for sure :) plus i'll take a little grain and get more natural light than no grain and something that looks source-y (unless thats what the director wants). hell i'll push two stops if at that asa i can get the light just right!

hey gino, overall i agree with the previous poster - keep the fonts together, and put up a working link as ive tried to play the video on 2 computers and it works on neither. bad links to content (or only having it available in one format and one size for that matter) can make things look shabby... i have friends who are awesome at this sort of thing - write me a note and i'll put you in touch with them,. i think the trick is to really offer something that isn;t out there - generally if you haven't shot much stuff and don't have anything in the works (if you do there isn't much there saying so except for a vague description of something...) a website might be a little premature, unless its purpose is to begin offering services, then you need to really outline what Motus pictures can do for you, the client, and so on. there's also a spelling error (on your "about us" page) that you should try to fix. put your best foot forward and all that good stuff. definitely keep plugging though!

if you want really vibrant colors and fine grain, i'd say shoot 7245 while you still can (exr 50D). its slow, but if you are on faster primes you'll be good. truly one of the last actually saturated and contrasty stocks out there with terrific fine grain. the 7201 (Vision2 50D) is making the rounds as well, but its definitely less saturated as its designed to intercut with the Vision2 family of films. in general, stay on the slower side of the stocks - 250D in 16mm will probably give you more grain than you'd like. also check out the fuji 64D - less saturated than the 7245 but still has nice skin tones and is very fine grained. hope this helps - happy shooting!

i'd say push your stock one stop, rate at 800 asa, and use your units to light the backgrouns with a slightly cooler cast to them try punching your tungsten with 1/4 CTB and maybe some light diffusion like 251 or something and focus the units on the surrounding trees - it'll give the sense that they're sitting at night, but it'll give you a little context. i'd light the trees to something like 2 stops under or so (which will honestly be probably the most you'll get with your units plus the gels) or you can just let stuff go dark and perhaps work a higher-angle cooler backlight on your actors to act as a nice contrast to the warm keylight. with 7218 (especially if you push a stop) if your actors are close enough the fire you'll get enough footcandles to expose. on closeups just bring in your backlight or devote more tungsten units to the visible area behind them, giving them a cooler surroundings - and this is when to work your firelight gag. there are tons of interesting ways to construct cool fire gags - the Medusa light s a cool handmade device you can employ with some bulbs, some dip, some dimmers, and a cstand - see the American Cinematorgapher back-issue on "Van Helsing" for a detailed description. or just some dimmers or a flicker box can alwas give you something. in general try to get the flicker light from being flat - go sidey with it or maybe just a rim - as the more of the face you see flickering, the more you'll generally experience the weakness of the gag. maybe have a china ball with a small flood on a squeezer too to give you a nice eyelight as well. best of luck though - long live night exteriors!

yeah commercials seem to be the one venue where saving money is rarely an actual concern. i've only shot a couple, but commercial dp friends of mine have their g/e crew pretty much empty the trucks when the clients roll in so that everyone feels like their money is being spent well. the best story i ever heard about client-involvement came from a friend in NYC shooting a sneaker commercial in 35mm anamorphic and the clients decided "ehhhhhh its too wide. can we change it?" and that they had to get into panavision on a sunday afternoon and swap out their glass/gg/etc upon their insistence. they ended up with a super 35mm package and basically told the dp that he had to frame for 1.33:1, 1.85:1, and 2.35:1 just to be safe. they ended up finishing in 2.35:1 after all. this is how much fear and discomfort runs that side. and in terms of "video crews" most video crews that i know of here in LA are more ENG-style than anything - most crews i know that occasionally work in HD on commercial, music video, or feature production are the same people that shoot 35mm and super 16mm. and they all say working with 35mm is generally quicker and easier - not necessarily preferable - but less cabling, monitor calibration, dit-presence, etc. cant wait to see the hi-res stuff - i like the thought process that went into designing this camera.

i have a sekonic 558 cine and it works great - for all film formats actually :) although admitedly i haven't rocked any 65mm with it...yet.....

yeah, the entire trilogy that van sant and savides did together is phenomenal - Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days. savides' use of contrasty lenses, low-con stock, and very realistic lighting made for some stunning, moving photography. also see "birth" if you haven't, shot by savides and directed by jonathan glazer. really gorgeous stuff as well, although in a different vein.

i would say take your xl-2 and adapter to clairmont (or wherever you're getting anamorphic glass from - although if you're in LA i can't imagine going anywhere else besides panavision) and ask them to put up some hawks or, possibly better yet, clairmont anamorphics as they are considerably smaller and somewhat less expensive (although comparable in terms of speed). plus you don't need to worry that much about more light as hawks and clairmonts are pretty fast - you can shoot most hawks at a 2.8 and the clairmonts at like a 2.8/4 or even a 2.8. bring a monitor and play around - or use one of theirs. i'd also suggest bringing a laptop and maybe importing a little footage into whatever editing program you're using and seeing how it holds up. anyhow, most rental houses are cool with you testing some gear on their floor as long as you have some sort of relationship with them or if you are planning to rent from them. best of luck

yeah this stock is about a year and a half old and has been in my fridge ever since purchasing directly from kodak. anyone interested in it just write me an email - you can do so by lcickin on my profile.

i don't think just adding ND to the camera is a good idea - if you are trying to make it look less like bright daylight outside, gelling the windows is a good idea as it will change the ratio within shot of amount of light you are putting in the room versus how much light is bouncing around outside. plus with your white walls, the less light coming in and bouncing everywhere inside the better. i shot a lot of 7231 back in my film school days and love it - although its incredibly unforgiving in terms of latitude, so make sure you get your ratios right. i'd gel the window so that outside is just about 2 stops under or so, and use negative fill outside to cut the shape and direction of sunlight (depending on the location, obviously) so that it doesn't appear to be incredibky bright outside - even on a farm in wisconsin with a full moon it aint THAT bright. also be mindful of what time of day you're shooting - if sun is coming in through the window, try using ND gel and some diffusion so that the light coming in is softer, like moonlight. if hard light is coming in from outside a window, i always assume its a street lamp or lit sign or something. be mindful of reflected tonal qualities from the skin thats being lit - just because its not color, doesn't mean that different qualities and colors of light won't effect tone, which is crucial in b&w. also - with an 80 asa stock how are you planning on keying your actor at an f8? especially with moonlight? also, just because your lens might only open up to a 1.3 or what have you, your film stock has the latitude - a lot of times - especially with 5218 or the like - "E" on my meter doesn't mean i'm not going to see it - especially on Superspeeds. happy shooting!

i have a 400' roll factory sealed of 7289 in my fridge if youre interested. i shot a music video with 5289 not too long ago and it was fine. definitely wise to overexpose a bit - i rated at 640asa - and found it very similar to 5279 with just slightly more grain apparent, but again this was a music video so it was intended for videotape only. the advanages are it's speed and Vision style contrast tone and color. the disadvantages are grain, more apparent in 16mm obviously than 35mm, but its there no matter what. but yeah, drop me a message if you're interested in the 7289 roll.

hey there, 24 is shot on 35mm, originally by Rodney Charters, CSC, on 5284 initially but i'm sure they've switched over to something else since that stock's demise. Here's a link to the American Cinematographer article on the extremely well photographed show: http://www.theasc.com/magazine/feb04/cover/index.html best of luck

Lords of Dogtown was shot mostly on 5279 and 5274 - as the studio wouldn't let them shoot the majority of the picture on super 16mm (what Hardwicke and Davis originally wanted to do) for archival reasons. For some skating sequences they used super 16mm as well as super 8mm. a lot of the more hyper aspects of the look came from the DI though. there's a pretty good article about it in a back issue of ICG - you can read it online at www.cameraguild.com and click on Magazine and you'll find it there.

i've had a lot of luck with pushing actually - i shoot mostly music videos and find that i'm rarely rating anything normally these days. pushing one stop, especially on finer grained faster stocks like 5218 or Eterna or medium speed stocks like 5217 or 5274 can allow you to rate at either 800 asa or 1000 asa depending on your personal preference (whether or not you want to overexpose slightly and crush your blacks in telecine or just essentially rate normally). i've also found that pushing increases contrast as opposed to reducing it, and that pulling can reduce granularity slightly and soften contrast and saturation. as i don't typically mind grain (unless its inapropriate for the piece) this approach allows me to light with smaller units (usually faster) and, in my opinion, more naturalistically. especilly with the trend in new emulsions having more and more latitude, i think pushing is a great option for people looking for a slightly more contrasty look.

John, does this mean that Kodak will soon be dumping exr 5245? i certainly hope not.... 5201 looks really nice, but for situations where you don't want a lot of latitude and where more saturated colors are apropriate the 5245 is always nice. -Joe

where are you located? if you're in los angeles, i'd say definitely go somewhere like Birns and Sawyer and either play with the cameras in the store (they have some sort of setup i think) or spend the money and rent the hdv camera for a weekend - definitely shoot something with it before making the investment. the differences between these pro-sumer cameras from my experience is more a matter of personal taste than anything, so i'd say just try and shoot as much as you can with both, compare the results, and make your decision.

i think its an example of marketing genius and public folly in a lot of ways. the fact that they're selling music videos for $2 a pop is hilarious - music videos, while artistic at times and often very interesting and innovative, are produced largely as commercials for musicians/record labels. the fact that we are buying them to me is equivalent to people spending tons of money to advertise a company's clothing by buying their clothes with HUGE logos on them. the screen on the new ipod is nice - and i think works in the 4x3 realm as discussed, but yeah try watching any 2.35:1 music videos even and its rough on the eyes. i'm still waiting for apple to develop a small chip they nail into your head that carries your entire record collection, movie collection, etc so that everyone is walking around like madmen, constantly entertained. that being said, i love my ipod photo - and the cool thing about the ipod with video is that for us dps- in a random pinch - you can show someone your reel super fast at the drop of a hat no matter where you are! not exactly hi-res, but it beats being caught emptyhanded the next time you run into Jerry Bruckheimer at Jamba Juice.

hope youre not studying kodak vision 320T to shoot it - because its gone the way of the buffalo, sadly - harris savides, asc got some amazing results with it really pushing it to the limit - but yeah its gone, daddy, gone.

i'd have to say that the LA film school seems like an ok place for people who live here, but i wouldn't necessarily reccomend travelling the distance and justifying the expense in going to it from where you are. i also have my doubts on how worthwhile their cinematography program is seeing as how its such a short program i'd imagine its more of a general immersion program and the experience you'd get directly related to cinematography would probably be equal to getting your hands on some strong books (which you can find on this site), maybe getting a camera internship, and putting that money you would have spent on school on even a cheaper dv camera and just learning what you like. i went to film school for my Bachelor's and Masters degrees and still say that i've learned as much as I did in the last couple years since graduating as a working dp, if not more, than i did in school. the best thing i got out of film school(s) was the friends and contacts i made, and those are things you can definitely get with internships and llwer-rung on-set jobs. Best of luck, though! Having a backgrounf in photography always helps when entering the world of motion pictures.

i'd say shoot 5218, push it one stop, and get yourself a set of nice fast lenses - like zeiss super speeds or master primes if they're avilable where you are. i'd also suggest, if you have the film and the time, that you bracket exposures (shoot at a couple different f-stops) just to give yourself a little wiggle room in post. if the stars are nice and bright - especially somewhere like the desert where there isn't a lot of light pollution, you should definitely see them. best of luck!