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Joseph White

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Everything posted by Joseph White

  1. i shot some 7217 with cooke s4's on super 16mm - only used the 25mm and the 75mm really - and it looked damn close to 35mm. it was for tape, so there was no blowup, but you had to get real close to the screen to really tell the difference between it and 35mm. and that was on a 200t stock too so i didn't even need massive lights. more than anything just be really super careful about your exposures and your ratios and it'll look grand.
  2. although i'm not necessarily a huge fan of it, for the basics and more to-the-point nuts and bolts stuff about color, tone, and composition, i'd reccomend Bruce Block's "The Visual Story". He's a professor at USC where i went for grad school and a really smart guy. Its a good book to get yourself exposed to a lot of the "rules" in terms of color and other visual elements, but remember its just a guide. Lots of good things contained therein, though. Hope it helps.
  3. thanks for all the tips guys - i think you've all succeeded in quelling my fears about this faster stock. the alicia keys note was awesome - as thats a hot looking video (definitely more high end than we're going for) but yeah this video is all interior on a stage - theatrical lighting style. will definitely rate at 640 - and yeah since its finishing on tape, i think i'll be able to find some good looks. thanks so much!
  4. so im shooting a low budget video for the band "fishbone" this coming weekend and we barely have the budget for 35mm but we're going for it (thanks Hollywood Camera!). we got an insane deal on stock from Dr. Rawstock on some 5289 - the only vision stock i've never shot on. so i know its fast and production is a little worried about the grainy-ness factor. now they are fine with a little grain, and yeah it is 35mm so i'm not super worried, but basically since its been discontinued (hence the great rate) i don't know anyone who has shot it and NOT like pushed the heck out of it to get a more grainy look. so i'm thinking of rating it at 640 asa because i want a little more density and i want some really rich blacks (will pull it down in telecine). what i'm looking for is advice on this stock and getting the most out of it in terms of using it normally. we're shooting everything on a stage and have a lot of control, so anyone who has any thoughts on this stock - please help a guy out!
  5. yeah 7279 and 7274 have been discontinued, and i've pushed 7218 one stop and rated at 800asa as mr. mullen suggests and it looks FANTASTIC. i really think the stock was almost designed for pushing. ive pushed 5229 and 5284 (both of kodaks 500t "expression" stocks, the 84 having since been discontinued) and what you get is basically the look of 5279 - a little more contrasty, a little more saturation, but basically an 800 speed version of '79. with 16mm, i'd say 7218 is THE way to go - and sit with your colorist. where are you transferring?
  6. hey there - the 2 camera houses ive had the best luck with in new york are CSC (camera service center) and Panavision new york. both houses would rent you an Arriflex 435 which is what i'd reccomend for time lapse as you can dial in really specific frame rates and its a rock solid camera. csc also has the new Arriflex 235 (Panavision might too, not sure) which is an even smaller version of the 435. anyhow, either house will serve you really well. i like Abel Cine Tech but they generally only rent Aaton cameras and i wouldn't necessarily reccomend using the Aaton 35-III for time lapse work, but depending on how you are posting, i guess it could work. best of luck shooting in my home city!
  7. i think special processing can be an interesting device when imagining a dream sequence, but a cheaper and often much more interesting approach can be to try and emply a really drastically different lighting style than anything else in the film. maybe try using really big soft sources through windows and blowing them out or changing your key/fill ratios, or going a little crazy with backlight. all fun tools that are usually pretty quick to audition and see if the director is enjoying it or not. some cool looks can be achieved shooting negative and pushing a stop or two since they want things to be colorful and contrasty. the murkiness can be achieved easily by using a variety of diffusion filters such as white pro mists, warm pro mists, black pro mists etc, but smoke/fog is always an interesting tool if you are in a location that is condusive to it (ie no smoke detectors, tons of ventilation, etc). pushing is also usually much cheaper than cross processing or skip bleach etc, and can give you some interesting results - especially with 16mm seeing as how its a smaller negative and can tend to fall apart - but beautifully. in terms of shooting reversal, i like cross processing 52/7285 quite a bit. you really need to be dead on with your exposure, and really watch your ratios because its a very unforgiving curve - but it can look great on telecine as well. best of luck!
  8. ive used the xl-2 a couple of times and was really unhappy with the results. and for day work, its gonna be murder to keep your ratios in a good place and not lose tons of information. it definitely sounds like a film show - just ask production to rent an old arri sr-1 or sr-2 or maybe an older aaton ltr or something and shoot an older stock or something. if you are definitely going video, i'd opt for the panasonic dvx100a with the anamorphic converter lens - especially if they are planning a film-out. its not as "new" as the xl-2, but its a really user-friendly camera and i've always been very pleased with the images considering how inexpensive it is. good luck with the project, though - road movies can be a lot of fun if you are out with the right people!
  9. actually 7205 is vision2 250D, its 7217 thats vision2 tooT. i've had great results with the 05, great latitude - will definitely save you on those murky days. you'll have to drop in a good amount of nd during the day depending on what your desired stop is, but i shot 5205 up in mammoth mountain, california in bright sunlight with snow everywhere and it held everything (even with really contrasty clairmont anamorphics). i think its a vast improvement over the 72/5246 - which was a nice stock to begin with. if you want a super fine grain nice daylight stock, i'd say shoot 7212 and 85 it. you'll need more light obviously as you'll be rating at 64 asa, but on the days you can get away with it, it looks fantastic. shot 5212 pulled one stop on a bunch of day exteriors with hawk anamorphic primes and it just looked gorgeous. anyhow, happy shooting!
  10. lately a lot of mixed stuff. in terms of film music, i firmly believe alexandre desplat is fast on his way to a path of genius. his scores for "birth" and "hostage" are phenomenal. in terms of other stuff, lately mostly (but not limited to): bloc party, minus the bear, american analog set, the strokes, interpol, belle and sebastian, the rapture, the faint, velvet underground, talking heads, television, ida, it dies today, kaki king, unearth, sigur ros, low, the postal service, dntel, converge, and midnight movies. but am always on the lookout for new stuff. lately a lot of mixed stuff. in terms of film music, i firmly believe alexandre desplat is fast on his way to a path of genius. his scores for "birth" and "hostage" are phenomenal. in terms of other stuff, lately mostly (but not limited to): bloc party, minus the bear, american analog set, the strokes, interpol, belle and sebastian, the rapture, the faint, velvet underground, talking heads, television, ida, it dies today, kaki king, unearth, sigur ros, low, the postal service, dntel, converge, and midnight movies. but am always on the lookout for new stuff. lately a lot of mixed stuff. in terms of film music, i firmly believe alexandre desplat is fast on his way to a path of genius. his scores for "birth" and "hostage" are phenomenal. in terms of other stuff, lately mostly (but not limited to): bloc party, minus the bear, american analog set, the strokes, interpol, belle and sebastian, the rapture, the faint, velvet underground, talking heads, television, ida, it dies today, kaki king, unearth, sigur ros, low, the postal service, dntel, converge, and midnight movies. but am always on the lookout for new stuff.
  11. yeah have to agree - with the multiple cameras and overhead setup, they won't be waiting on you. 9 pages a day is hefty, but i mean if its a talky show this will go by pretty swiftly. 9 pages of "gilmore girls" is really different from 9 pages of "CSI", you know? good luck though! glad you have cool producers to work with - always a good thing.
  12. oops - although i stand by what i said re: diffusion, the real reason to watch your level of diff is that, well, if you soften it too much youobviously won't get that bright feel you seem to be looking for. kinda goes without saying, but i'm sayin' it anyways :) all the best...
  13. yeah fuji 250t is great - looks nice pushed a stop on 35mm (starts to fall apart a bit on 16mm i've found with this particular stock) too. 3-perf is great if you're definitely doing a DI. you shoot 25% less film which is always nice. the cameras can sometimes run a bit more for this setup, but its worth it for a proper movie. i'd say super 35mm 3 perf is the way to go - can shoot whatever aspect ratio you want since you're DI - so heck go 2.35:1 ! (or, you know, whatever suits the story...) happy shooting! let us know how it goes!
  14. yeah day exteriors can be tough - a couple thoughts on what you wrote: first off, you're already shooting 7245 so you don't need to worry about grain - and i wouldn't necessarily overexpose it as you'll lose a little saturation that way and you've stated a desire for bold colors. i'd say rate it normally - for 16mm its a very fine grained and lush stock. there's nothing wrong with the fuji 64d, i just happen to prefer the 50D. secondly, if you want it to look bright, i'd be careful about how much diffusion i used as if you calm down your foreground too much your background and highlights will almost surely go nuclear. i always like having the sun to the actors' backs and shoot later on in the day (towards magic "hour") so you get warmer natural sunlight. it depends on how much coverage you are planning on using or how many cameras, but for warm and bright i think you can't go wrong with having your actors backlit by sun and rating normally. best of luck!
  15. yeah this is seriously exciting - its been great to see doyle spread his wings with other directors, and while wkw's collaboration with harris savides on the bmw film was great, i think this is a partnership to bank on. i was really excited to see khondji work with woody allen last year but was a little disappointed with the results. wkw is one of my favorite directors (as is allen) so hopefully this one will be a smash. not to mention how interesting it'll be to see wkw's first english language film - not to say that "oh thank god, no more subtitles or anything", but he's always been one to have an interesting take on language and dialogue (or the significant lack thereof) so this could be quite a fun experiment.
  16. this is truly a gorgeous film certainly worthy of emulation. i'd say try shooting kodak's 16mm black and white reversal 7265 - if you're doing interiors you'll need a bunch of light, but i mean when dreyer's film was made they were working with slower emulsions and thus i always think its interesting to try and recreate not just the look but to some degree the conditions of the shoot you are trying to match. i've used 7265 on a music video and was really impressed with the stock's sharpness particularly at the normal to telephoto lens range (was shooting on an arri-s w/ an old angenieux coke bottle). every time i see a period costume drama with lots of kinos everywhere i kinda call bs... in terms of the focus drifting in the corners, i'd say try playing around with a clear filter and some vaseline applied in the corners you're trying to soften. there's also diopters, but i'm not sure whats available for a bolex. i'm sure some of our esteemed members will have much to say on these topics. but kudos on trying to bring back this look - Rudolph Mate was an absolute genius and photographed many luminous, dark, lush masterpieces - Joan and Vampyr being my personal favorites. good luck!
  17. excellent point mike - i know from a number of people that Yale labs in LA has a strong reputation for either not processing or ruining even (they've never done this to me personally, i've used them for some normal-processed reversal, but they have a pretty well-founded bad reputation at my alma mater USC for some pretty destructive behavior) footage that they deem inappropriate or evil or wrong or bad or what have you (insert sensible argument here for how many violent scenes of death they've gladly processed, mind you). for all 35mm neg stuff i think you can't go wrong with deluxe labs in hollywood, and since they don't do 16mm, i go to fotokem in burbank for all half-sized needs. and i think the single source softlight is a great approach for love scenes - with a little foamcore for bounce or even a tiny china ball on a squeezer for fill if necessary but it usually isn't. i think what might make this approach seem a little overdone might be the warm approach - so many people so often associate soft lighting with throwing on the old cto or straw or what have you - but i think cooling things down can give this approach an interesting feel. just make sure you are in good close communication with your trusty makeup artist so they can do some work on whatever skin tones you are working with to accomidate your cooler lighting, but i shot a scene like this and was very pleased with the results.
  18. yeah this video is absolutely fantastic. lush and gorgeous. great concept and stunning photography. just shows us californians how amazing day exteriors can be when you're not in LA sun haha. but yeah if anyone has any insight into how this was shot (lenses, stocks, special processing) i'd love to hear it. also really impressed by the new carpark north video also on boards' website - great imagery and speed effects. http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/musicvideos/1833/
  19. yeah this definitely sounds odd and something that might be a result of the telecine not being set up properly. i've shot really dark cars and trains on dark old track on the reala 500d and have never had that problem so i'm guessing it isn't a fuji problem per se. i wasn't using s4's as mr. mullen suggests as a potential problem (all were shot with zeiss glass), but i didn't find anything in the magenta range in the highlights - and these were shot on very sunny days. and seeing as how you overxposed in shooting, i'd imagine it wouldn't naturally go in that direction. how hot were the highlights in the chrome? even if they were nuclear i can't imagine that they'd go into that color range. interesting problem though and definitely food for thought. hope it works out for you!
  20. i think its a balance somewhere between keeping the crew to a minimum and not getting everybody freaked out about it. i've shot a bunch of nude scenes before, both professionally and back in film school (where nudity always seemed to be bouncing off the walls) and i think you have to treat it as a sensitive scene, but more than anything feel out how people are feeling about it and go from there. there's no ONE way to do it. i shot one scene not too long ago where there was a fully nude man and woman, and they were both just kinda quiet and distant until the director came in with a bottle of jack daniels, the three of them did a shot each, then we just shot it. worked out just fine. everyone was loose and seemed to actually get into the experience, and thus the scene worked. another one i shot involved two women and they were both really cool with it until everyone started freaking out and an AD yelled at my gaffer to stop getting so close to take readings and the room needed to be cleared and blah blah blah. people made the situation so much worse by getting uptight about it that the scene really suffered. i think the bottom line is that, if people seem really uncomfortable with the scene, they probably shouldn't be doing it, and the problem has nothing to do with the crew and i'm sure started way before you all even got there. a lot of younger actors especially will agree to do nude/sex scenes to get a part and then get really uncomfortable with it and don't want to do it and then it becomes really awkward for everyone. just be a decent person, don't be afraid to really study their bodies as it's your job to make them look good.
  21. saw 2046 a little while back - really loved it, as i've loved pretty much all wkw offerings. interesting to see his first anamorphic feature - great article in the new AC about it - and how difficult it was to get a hold of panavision anamorphic lenses in asia as they were a low budget show and they shot over the course of several years with multiple dop's. haha can't imagine being their rep at panavision and getting a request for a full set of c's or e's for "i don't, know, a few months, couple of years, whatever, cool?" they did in fact shoot fuji 250t - a fave of doyle and all involved. the DI really shines in the future sequences, and the fx, though not skywalker-esque, are gorgeous and very apporpriate, i think. still not my favorite - happy together and chungking express still stand out to me more than anything, great movies and i saw them at some great times in my life with wonderful people.
  22. "I was going to shoot a MV on anamorphic lenses but without using an anamorphic attachment on the camera viewfinder but rather using an electronic desqueezer switchbox for the Video assist - so plug the video assist (and a good one like the XC555P) straight into a big screen with cranked up grain with the desqueezer black box and use that to pull focus and frame. Apparently these are available easily - I haven't seen one yet though" couldn't agree more with this approach - i shot a longform short on Clairmont Anamorphics (old converted cooke's, i believe) and an arri BL4-s which had no anamorphic viewfinder without getting a Moviecam extension eyepiece with an anamorphic converter (big pain and not cheap/not something clairmont was stoked about). We just ran the tap into a sony combo 8" monitor with a "normal/anamorphic" switch on the back and i would operate unsqueezed and found it to be fine - i;d just make sure i watched playback afterwards if i was concerned about composition. a lot of operators i know actually prefer to watch the image unsqueezed in the eyepiece solely to eliminate "ping pong eyes" where your eyes are constantly bouncing all over the 2.35:1 frame. regardless, i'd say go for it - get a good old 2C and either rent PL mount anamorphics from a house like clairmont (who will gladly rent you the GG too) or hollywood camera (who will be happy to subrent the GG from clairmont), or get some great russian glass. long live scope!
  23. I'd heartily reccomend John Alton's "Painting With Light" - a bunch of it is technically outdated, but so many of the principles ring so true - and it's written with great gusto and humor. Check it out!
  24. Hey all, new to this board/site - thought I'd chime in: Couldn't agree more with what everyone is suggesting. I'd also reccomend studying art in general, not just limiting yourself to filmmaking and still photography. I went to film school for both my Bachelor's and Master's degrees, and found that the one thing lacking in my general education was an understanding of the original masters of light - painters and sculptors. Painters had the ultimate control of lighting in their work, and sculptors were always conscious of their work's placement within an area's existing light and often adjusted their works accordingly. A study of art history, even at an admirer's level, helped me not only understand the many ways of crafting light and composition, but more important what I liked and didn't like. The more art and literature I exposed myself too, the more I developed my own tastes and that has played a huge role in my fledgling career as a cinematographer. best of luck!
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