Adam Frisch FSF

Doored in lights cutting and shadowing on a frame is one of my pet peeves. Drives me crazy. Doors serve no purpose once you start diffusing away from the source. And related to that: another thing that drives me crazy is frames that are too close to the source - if there's a hotspot, we're no using the diffusion we agreed on to its full potential. If you wanted a harder source, then use less diffusion, don't go heavy and create a hot spot. :angry:

Satsuki - the test says Cooke i5. I don't know what lens that is. It also says it's a 16mm focal length and there is no such focal length in the S5 series. In fact, there is no such focal length in the entire Cooke product range except for in the S4 series. So it's a bit of a mystery what they're testing there. Maybe it's an older discontinued S2 or S3 lens or something and they just labeled it wrong on the video.

The Cooke S5's have been out for many years now, but for some reason never really took off. One of the contributing factors was that the powerhouse camera rental place Otto Nemenz in Hollywood never bought a huge inventory (as thy were knee deep in the encouragement and development of the Leica film primes). This kind of "hurt" the S5i's and they really never got the widespread use and recognition the S4's did. They never became that lens that everybody wanted to rent (like the Leica's, MP's and S4's did when they were introduced). So, many cinematographers never developed a relationship with the S5's. I was the same, used them sparingly myself, maybe once or twice when they were new, but that was about it. My reconnection was on a job abroad with limited lens availability just last year, there were no other "good" fast lenses to rent and I thought I'd try the S5's again. And although I do find the series lacking in focal lengths (today, it's imperative to have something in the 20-22mm and 27-29mm range, in my opinion) and that they are way too big (Master Prime big, which is a huge problem in this day and age when everything is handheld), they do really produce excellent images. On a job I'm doing in Toronto now, I combined them with some very mild GlimmerGlass 1 diffusion and am really happy with how they look. They have that organic feel of Cooke S4's we've all come to love, but are faster and have that sense of falloff that I never feel with the Leica Summiluxes, despite them both being the same aperture. So I encourage DP's to maybe "reconnect" with them and try them on a little job again. You might find that they're easy to love. They've become my go-to set of fast lenses these days.

The commercial rate is anywhere from union scale (which I think is in the $800/day range) to about $4500/day for a well established, known, experienced commercial DP at the top end. The highest end commercial DP's with lots of feature experience, like Chivo, Deakins and guys like that can command a little premium. Maybe to around what David says, but that's about it. I once heard Kaminsky got $10K/day for a Nike ad, but that would almost be a unique situation and very rare.

A good DP friend of mine who's shooting a big Netflix show here in Vancouver called Altered Carbon, is using the Alexa 65 but shooting it with normal lenses that cover 5K only. They did extensive tests wanting the shallowest DoF and came to the conclusion that shooting faster lenses that only cover 5K sensor size on the Alexa 65, was shallower than using the slower medium format lenses covering the full sensor. This was interesting to hear. I'm assuming Greg, that you guys are after something similar for the upcoming shoot?

A partially unused clip from DKT: https://www.instagram.com/p/BS6zuiGAx5t/ Explanation on my Insta feed: "One of the things I enjoy the most as a DP is "developing masters", or slightly clever or intricate blockings that tell a story in camera or with minimal cuts. Me and the director were on the same page throughout the film with this approach, but as we fell more and more behind, many of those flourishes had to abandoned for more traditional coverage. It just adds a little bit of craft to filmmaking when you see those subtle solutions. Unfortunately they're always the first things to go when the editor or director needs to tighten up the pace in editing. Here's a very simple example from DTK where Katee S comes in and sees her daughter (or what she thinks is her daughter) in the reflection and chases her up the stairs. We shot the whole scene in the mirror, making sure you saw the beveled edges of it so that the geography was clear. But of course it got truncated in the edit and cut halfway through, so here's an opportunity to see it play out as it was intended."

The Standards are some of my favorite lenses. They set is spaced really well (especially with the rarer 28mm), they have a nice organic feel to them without being too vintage-y. And they're also really small and light, which is good these days when all directors are obsessed with handheld.

Depending now hat kind of films you want to make, but if you want to go down the commercial route and make movies that have decent budgets and appeal to a broader base, then you need to understand the mechanism that makes those movies fundable. Just like writing a hit song, a script or a story needs a hook. Something you can hang your hat on, something you can summarize in "25 words or less", to quote The Player. Like it or not, but that's how ideas get money and how ideas get made into film. Sure, we might all enjoy the movie that doesn't have any of this, but they also get progressively harder to fund as you move away from that. I would recommend to read High Concept: The Don Simpson story. There might be nothing there you like or want to emulate, in fact it might repulse you, but understand that the same principles are still in play today: High concept or a "hooky" idea or premise, is how films get made. Great example is the short Bag Man I mentioned previously that got my friends their first film. The premise is simple: what if a poor inner city kid finds a bag full of weapons from the future under his bed? And he wasn't supposed to and now someone is coming back from the future to get it back? That triggers the imagination. It's high concept. And it gets the money men excited.

A director's biggest skill is to know what to cut/drop. It always comes down to that and that's where experience kicks in. I'm saying this because I love directors who know what they want. Makes my much job much easier and faster, as we don't have to fish for stuff or find a compromise, but can work from a known base. But, if that manifests itself - which it often does with new directors - in an inability to compromise and know what is not needed, then it can be a disaster. This is a very common thing: AD: "We have 20 setups to do, and we've got 5hrs left of the day. What can we prioritize?" Director: "I need all the shots to make it work. I can't drop anything". AD: "Ok, but that's impossible to do in 5hrs. That's a setup every 15 minutes, not going to happen. Something's gotta give". Director: "Do whatever you need to do, push harder, but we need every shot as boarded". This happens all the time. And it never ends well.

I would say 99% not, but then there's always the 1% that does catch someone's attention... I'll give you a recent example. Twin, a commercial directing duo (who are actual twins) that I've worked with quite a bit shot a short a few years back called Bag Man. It caught the attention of some producers (it has a really commercial appeal) and end of last year they got to shoot it as an expanded feature film called Kin, with a $18 million budget... So, stuff like that happens. Eric Red and his short was another example - his short was a base for the cult classic The Hitcher. Some producer saw it and decide to give him the money for the feature. Is it common? No. All the shorts I've shot have never amounted to anything much. They might win a little short film price at some festival here or there, or get a cinematography mention, but to actually garner any other work - no. Which is why I personally think the effort, time and money that goes into them would probably be better spent in a longer format. I shot three shorts over the last years and I kind of need a break from them again. They take so much energy and rarely get much attention.

We did tests on it almost 20 years ago. B/W sound stock negative. It has no rem-jet backing, it was very contrasty, and the effective ISO was around 25! But it worked.

I don't keep up with all the latest development in LED's lighting, but I welcome it and some of my gaffers are all over the new stuff, others less so. I love to try the stuff, but I'll also revert back to real old school stuff. A good mix. The longer I do this, the more I also realize that you can do 95% of your lighting with really simple units. Famously, Eduardo Serra ASC, AFC, basically just brought a truckload of open face Blonde's with him on his features, and they look great. He used them for everything. I find Parcan's extreme versatile and useful and I love old Zip soft lights. I also love covered wagons, but not all gaffers carry them or want to build them. But they're the greatest lights for soft uplights. On the newer end I've come to rely on all the bi-color battery LED panels heavily. Sometimes you just need a very quick light somewhere and not have to run cables and gel etc. Another new light I'm absolutely in love with is the bi-color Quasar tubes. Basically a single LED tube the size of a Kino you can run on battery or line. Super quick and super easy to hide as an uplight for a background or even tape straight on a wall - another lifesaver.

There is no right or wrong way. I know a very successful DP that uses really nebulous and artistic language - he might ask for a soft cosmic feel or reference a feeling, rather than a specific light or how to achieve it. We use the same gaffer and he's one of the best in LA, so he can interpret that and translate it into lighting. I'm more hands on when it comes to sources, but also realize that there are always different ways to achieve the same look. I tend to just dissuade from sources I know are not time efficient. Kino's are a recent addition to that list - they're no longer time efficient units to use in my opinion. Sometimes you need a very specific source to achieve something, like a Source 4, X-light or a Xenon or something, but that happens less frequently. But certainly experience here helps.

Thanks. I tend to shoot wide open. That's a big soft/front light box we suspended above him. The lights in the background were just from the location in Detroit.

I did it a lot on the feature Don't Knock Twice, actually. Did it on many of the night interior scenes in the big mansion - especially the darker ones where there was only moonlight coming in. But don't have any good stills or examples to show at the moment. I'm trying to get some clips from he distributor I can show, but so far no luck. You know how that goes... If I can give any tip, it is: always carry a Source 4/Leko light in the package. Sometimes you might ned to cut a very sharp or specific patterned light and place it in a far corner of ceiling or something, just out of frame line, to give a little light or backlight. Very, very useful. And also works very well for "room tone" without spilling everywhere. They have saved my ass more than any other light throughout the years. A good example of when it saved my ass was on the Eminem video for Rap God. Em was going to levitate towards the ceiling in the most climactic rap scene. Director want to shoot it from below, so even though the ceiling was pretty high, by looking up, there was no place to hide a big toplight or "god-light" shining down on Em. Nor was it possible to hang anything there. What to you do? Well, we ended up double sided-taping a bounce card up into ceiling, skirted it with some black cloth we taped and shined two Leko's into the bounce card from ground just off frame. Voila, godlight/toplight created. You can see it from 4:28 in the video. You even see the skirt around the bounce card in some of the shots. https://youtu.be/XbGs_qK2PQA?t=4m28s

Think this was shot with Panavision E-series if I recall correctly. Nice lenses. I had rented from them quite a bit that year so got the package for free.

What you refer to is what I call "room tone". It's basically just a bounce in the ceiling that just gives a very low ambience that's 2-3 stops under, barely perceptible, just to keep the blacks from completely inking up. I often color this light with whatever light I want to be in the blacks, so that I'm helping along the grade, so to speak. It's almost like flashing the film or using a VariCon in the old days. For moonlight, a good way to do it not too hard is to place a 4x8in bounce above the window on the outside and bounce your lights into that. That way you get a directional but soft moonlight coming in from window which also fills in the wind sills. If you want to go bolder, then cluster the lights together and go direct. I would still put them through some very thin diffusion make the multiple units look like one. You don't want multiple shadows.

Nice. I get some clear Basil Poledouris infusions from this - and that's never a bad thing! :)

After looking at some stills it looks like for the over's that I used a Celeb light as main. The three quarter backs was probably vertical Kino Flo's hidden just outside of frame and outside of window, as in close up of old man. For the wide, seems like a 800 Joker or maybe a 1.2K HMI is going through a 4x4 frame.

Have a little peek at the trailer for the short The Apology I shot a year or so back. Also all set in a diner. Not saying you should do this, but perhaps some inspiration or guidance on what not to do... :) I strung double daylight tubes onto the ledge outside the windows for the big wide and used that as main source. With the rain it works really well. It's sourcy, but there were actually some lights there already, so I just took my cue from the location. For the over the shoulders I augmented a little with lower softer sources (I can't for the life of me remember what I used, but probably a Kino or LED panel through a 4x4 frame). I seem to recall I had a very soft three quarter back as well. And outside the "bad guy's" window behind him I just strung multi colored christmas lights between two stands and let the anamorphic lens take care of the rest.

So, the new Hasselblad H6D-100C has the capability to shoot RAW 4K full frame from its 53.4 x 40.0mm sensor, which is quite impressive. Not many tests around the web yet, but from what I've heard the quality is very good, although it does have a more pronounced rolling shutter than a film camera. Also, although chip is closer to 4x3, it can only record video in 16X9, so chops a bit off at the top and bottom. But saw an interview with the CEO of Hasselblad and it seems they're wanting to explore the film side more and he hinted that it will probably be able to record the full height of the sensor soon (making it theoretically possible to use Ultra Panavision 70mm lenses on it). Maybe even a very long anamorphic 35mm lens would potentially cover the full sensor. None of the lenses are well adapted for filming of course, but you could get older Hassy glass that it would be possible to pull focus on. Be very interesting to see some more tests on it. ​Interestingly, the smaller mirrorless X1D model also shoots video on the full 6x6 sensor, but unfortunately is limited to HD only.

I'm all for film and I think it tonally is superior to even the best digital stuff. That said, a roll of 400ft from Kodak is $500, add developing etc and it's a costlier format, no doubt. Yes, you do save on DIT costs, have lower rental costs etc, so it's not as big a delta as one would initially think, but it's still at a premium cost. But the biggest obstacle is the change in on-set viewing. The clients and agency when I shoot a commercial are used to seeing a big HD image. Same for feature producers and financiers. Going back to viewing terrible SD video taps is not something that is easily done these days. You can't expect everyone to be as nerdy and committed as us. They're paying for it, they want to see what they're buying. That's where the resistance will come from. Example: on a recent short I shot on my Aaton 35III, we needed to beam SD wirelessly as we were running all over a huge mountain. This proved an almost impossible task to do as there are no SD video transmitters anymore. And uprezzing SD to HD so you can beam it via Teradek, proved to be a huge hassle on set. The very few HD taps that are out there on Arricams etc are costly and prone to malfunction from what I hear from the rental houses. So, why am I mentioning all this? I love film, but it's not ever going to come back and become the main format again. It will be a niche thing (a niche thing I hope can keep on using for a long time!). And that's ultimately where the development will end for film. Even if film use stayed constant at todays levels, I don't think that's nearly enough to sustain any real new development in negatives. Therefore, I don't think film quality will improve much.

Tony Scott obviously a famous user of very long lenses. But for me, I agree a lot with what director Jean-Jaques Annard once said: "Do the close up's with wide lenses and the wide shots with the long lenses". He has a good point - a close up would mimic the field of view of another human being close to them and a human's vision is never a telephoto lens, it's in the 25-35mm field of view region. A close up with a 32mm for instance, will yield a very intimate feeling, as if you're sitting right in front of that person having a conversation. With a more traditional CU lens, let's say a 75mm, you're much more removed from them and it feels more distant. On a wide shot, photographically, a longer lens would tend to "tableau" and make things more 2-dimensional and compressed, which, although not consistent with human vision, does have a long tradition in painting and art of looking that way.

There's the famous shot of the Concorde landing, with the Empire State Building and the sun right behind it, in Bonfire of the Vanities. Allegedly the most expensive second unit shot ever made, as it was only a very small window on the year where the sun aligned perfectly behind the ESB and they had to charter the Concorde to get the shot at the perfect time, which isn't a cheap thing. I have no idea what lens was used, but it's gotta be at least in the 2000nm or more range. It's a great shot.

This is the age old dilemma for all DP's. I know for a fact the shoot of La La Land was very tight, very fast and not much room for quality control. I'm sure Linus would have wanted to finesse, improve and redo a lot of his stuff, but the reality is, there are no second chances or opportunities to make it right in todays tight budget world. And ultimately, the audience doesn't know that nor do they care if you had a tight schedule or a low budget. It either looks good or looks bad (I'm not saying this does - I have not seen it - but I think Linus is a very good DP). I myself was the victim of that on my last feature, Don't Knock Twice. Extremely tight and painful shoot, a horrible post production and grading process I was not a part of at all and the results suffer visually. Doesn't matter how many excuses I make, ultimately nobody cares. So, what I'm trying to say is perhaps two-fold: as a DP it is important to fight for the right tools and time to be able to do the job correctly. As long as my name is on that thing, I have to protect it until the very end. It's like a child that needs rearing, you're the parent and you don't want to send it off to the orphanage to be raised by others. I didn't get to do that on DKT, and it's something I regret and a lesson learned. But also, we need to as professionals see perhaps the "intent" of the cinematography, and understand that film is 95% compromise and you're gonna get shafted on a feature film no matter what. It's a mystery any films get made at all, really. And it's even more mysterious if they also happen to look good. :mellow: