Adam Frisch FSF

I think Nikon are a pain, mostly because their barrels turn the wrong way and there's no way to integrate them into film production. They also sport the shortest flange focal distance of any lenses, so I actually doubt you can stick them on the Konvas 1M even if you wanted to. Besides, the barrel turns like an inch between infinity and close focus, which makes them virtually impossible to pull focus on. Generally, still lenses have always been a bit soft, even on 16mm. I used my friends Nikons on his Aaton and they never felt snappy compared to the Zeiss's. I think you should reconsider the lenses you've already got. I have a set myself still and I found them rather pleasing. But then again, I'm into old flare-prone and soft lenses..

All I can hear is how many productions abandon LA each year due to cost. Despite probably being more expensive to shoot in than LA, London has done very well the last couple of years with Shepperton, Leavesden, Pinewood, Elstree being very busy. So much so that the defunct Ealing studios have now been resurrected and put back to work. Prague's been busy for years. So has Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Other former eastern bloc countries are seeing more and more action like Romania and Bulgaria and I hear Mission Impossible 3 is setting up in Berlins legendary Babelsbergs studios. Now this is mostly true for features, but I suspect the commercial scene isn't far behind. So I think it's easy to believe the grass is greener on the other side, but I'm not sure it is. I do know some big famous DP's who are very busy in the states, but that's because they're hot of some award winning commercial or something. It's a fickle business at the best of times. I moved to London from Sweden about a year ago, and work is finally picking up a bit. But it's been a tough couple of months financially. Especially in a town this insanely expensive. And another thing is that when you're new, you have to start at the bottom again with freebies and such, just to get a foot in the door and get to know people. You can only do that so many times, so I would be very reluctant to pack up and try my luck elswhere again unless I'm wanted or asked for there. I've dreamt of working in Hollywood since I was a kid, but now, I'm wise enough to know I'll wait until I'm invited.

I'm guessing they didn't want a coaxial mag in 35mm since the mag becomes very wide (like the 535). It also isn't very well balanced for handheld, somethig that's always been an Aaton hallmark. By designing the Aaton 35 with a displacing in-line mag, the sit very nicely on the shoulder. The film loads are in actaulity taking "eachothers" place as you film so the mags can be made very small. Actually, the displacing mag design of the Aaton 35 was ahead of its time. Today the ArriCam LT has the same design and I believe the handheld mags for the Moviecam did it too.

Yes, you can. The FF on them is 61mm. They're pretty straightforward to service actually if you're in touch with some optical guys - no great mysteries. I believe the spherical assembly is a straight rip on the Zeiss lenses of the time. The OCT-19 mount is a BNCR type mount. I've never compared them exactly, so maybe they're identical? The russians liked to "borrow" (as in, like, steal) western designs.

Slow Motion Inc does work on them, although when I asked for a quote on some things I almost choked. I think it's fair to say that they're more interested in getting people to buy their new Elite series anamorphics than to fiddle about with ancient anamorphic lenses... In the end it was much cheaper to send them to Russia to get them fixed (the last lens element on my 35mm was chipped at the edge). I finally sold the whole lot some years ago with the camera since I have rental access to the newer round Lomo's in PL at very low prices. In the end, the prospect - and cost - of converting them to PL (which is a must if you want to use them professionally) was simply not feasible (they're very tricky to rebuild - you have to rebuild the whole housing). I do miss them sometimes - it would be nice to able to whip out a set of old anamorphics on the occasional music video from time to time, but hey, that's life. My philosophy these days is to own a lightmeter only.

Check the archives - this has been talked about extensively before. But mainly, you can say that the square fronts produce fairly good images as long as you don't rack focus much, since they breathe A LOT. They were basically made between 1970 and 1980 (the serial number tells you what year), so they're pretty low contrast, in a kind of nice way. Not bad considering their price, I think.

Depends on how nutty an actor you've got, Michael B) I've used the 1200w and they work nicely, even on sunny days if you don't mind spotting them a bit. I've also used a smaller 575W PAR fully spotted on the actor on a very sunny day, and it worked fine (and the mad guy drove the car AND acted). But only because he had dark sunglasses and we were going for that 70's "Vanishing Point"-look. I kinda like the bright little dot of a reflection in sunglasses - some don't. To me it just looks more Sam Peckinpah :D

I absolutely agree, Leon. What a pity - his images were great. I've admired them for years, but never had the money to buy one of his books. Now I'm going to make it my first priority.

Yes, I think it would. I just happen to know, since I asked once, that not many facilities have invested in the super-8 gate for the Spirit, since it's quite expensive.

Just recently Spirit introduced their new 4K machine, but they're so new not many have them yet. So most Spirits can run 2K only. If I recall correctly they run HD at real time, but true 2K is at 6fps. The Shadow is basically a Spirit without the 2K output. It's a simpler SD machine, as far as I remember. Both the Spirits and the Shadow win hands down on 16mm due to their CCD Line sensor. They're much better on 16mm than any CRT based machine. But on 35mm it's a tossup - both are equally good. I just watched some 16mm footage on the new Nortlight scanner and it looked very crisp. What that machine does is transfer everything at 2K (or any resolution) to hard disc, and then you color correct from the hard drive. Added benefit is that the resolution is scalable and you minimize the time the neg is run backs and forth in a telecine. Besides the software in wich you color correct can do so much more than just correct - it's more like a mini-Inferno with loads of possibilities. I think this will be the future.

I ALWAYS shoot it. And have for the last 8 years. In fact, in most countries the camera lives in S35 centering all the time at the rental houses. There's zero reason to ever shoot in N35 for anything unless you're doing an optical contact print. Only trouble I've ever had was just recently where I couldn't get the 16x9 S35 groundglass to the 435 in Switzerland, so I had to go with a Full silent one and tape the monitors up.

Don't distrust the competence of Cooke - I kind of got the feeling that you felt that only Zeiss and Leitz are the ones who make lenses to a high standard. Cooke has a 100 year tradition of making fine lenses. And since they were bought by ZGC in America and reinvested in new production facilities and new machinery, they've taken the film world by storm. The S4's are universally considered to be one of the best lens series made. As a little sidenote - I was on a shoot many years ago when I was an AC and the DP shot with his personal set of old Cooke Speed Panchro's. I had the opportunity to watch the dailies on the big screen and they were absolutely fabulous. This from lenses from the 60's that still had mouse ears on them... So there's a definitive limit to how much sharpness and state of the art-ness one needs... As for anamorphic, I absolutely LOVE the inperfections they create. In fact, that's the whole reason to use them for me. But if you dislike all that, and many do, then s35 is a better choice.

The most beautiful lenses I've shot with were some 40 year old Schneiders we tested some years ago - they weren't sharp or contrasty, but that's exactly what I liked about them. I just shot with the S4's and was very happy with them. But to be honest, I can't say I see any difference between them and the Ultra Primes on a big HD monitor. Or the older High Speeds, for that matter. Perhaps a tad bit softer, but I'm not sure that's actually what I'm seeing as so much as everyone telling me Cooke's are a bit softer? I honestly don't know. What I did like with the S4's was the nice range they had - the 27mm and the 32mm are very useful and remind me of the older Zeiss SuperSpeed range which is a very nice set. All in all, my conclusion is that until I'm shooting something for the big screen or something that calls for something specialized, lenses are actually not that important. There's a lot of this anal retentiveness in film about the gear, and it really isn't that important. My job is to accomodate and facilitate the production without compromising the look: in Switzerland where I used the S4's, the rental company had just gotten them - so I tried them - but if they wouldn't have had them, I'm not that kind of DP that will throw a tantrum and have them flown in from London at huge expense. I'd be happy with any glass.

I like to shot fairly wide open and I hate having millions of filters in front of the lens since they always induce problems (in fact, I'm not to fond of matteboxes altogether). That means using the slowest filmstock possible for any given situation. Frankly, I can't rememeber the last time I used 500ASA speed film because I had to for exposure. It's always too much, it seems. So shooting exteriors, or even interiors, in natural light doesn't seem like such a massive stretch to me. I did a music video about 6 months ago which was entirely in an interior hotel room and I used only natural light (except for the shots where she's wearing a red dress, where I used one Kinoflo 4x4). We shot on Fuji 250D and as I recalled, we averaged about T2.8-2 on her on a very overcast day. You can check out the stills under the artist September on my site here if you wish: Adam's site

Exactly what David says. Kinoflos, or any type of flourescent light will greatly reduce the wattage. HMI's are also very efficient - about 4 times more efficient than tungsten (tungsten turns 95% of their power into heat). For instance, a 575w HMI has the same light output as a 2-2,5kW tungsten fresnel. Arri makes a nice small series with the 200W pocket PAR's or their newer 400W unit. Joker Bug is another nice little 200w or 400w HMI unit that you can stick almost anywhere Especially their pancakes which create a nice little toplight without having to rig stuff in the ceiling. HMI's are howvere more expensive to rent. But if you divide the actual foot candles coming out of them by the daily rental price, you'll find that there isn't THAT much of a difference between Tungsten and HMI's. Plus big Tungsten units almost always require a genny, something you could perhaps do without with if you use Kinos and HMI's on a small shoot.

Very interesting flares comparison between the Primo and C-series anamorphic lenses on gaffer-cum-DP Claudio Miranda's site (that guy is goooood). The first one is the 75mm. 75mm Here's the 50mm comparison. 50mm What however is almost frightening to see is just HOW much the 75mm bends vertical lines on the sides. That's some serious barreling, and frankly, not very impressive for such a reasonably "normal" focal lenght lens. Is it just my eyes, or doesn't the Primo bend a lot more than the older C-series? You decide.

This is definitively the future. Problem is that most people are not colorists, so it'll look like s***. But in the hands of a colorist, this is just as good, I'm sure. In essence, that's exactly what's buried in those mega expensive Da Vinci systems - a processor and a software able to frame store. I've done easier color correction in Final Cut Pro and it works quite nicely. It does look like crap only because I'm worthless at it. But it is doable....

Sounds interesting and useful. And expensive..

I've never had a problem, even with big zooms on like the Angeniuex 25-250. I do however prefer very low drag settings on my fluid head - on the Sachtler I normally stay around the 1 or 2 mark depending on the cameras weight, so maybe that accounts for it. I can imagine that on a very high setting, the ball might slip with a very heavy camera. Inexplicably, there is a levelling system for the Mitchell mounts, but they simply don't use them for some reason.

There's another scene shot in the basement where the AC does it in the background, that's the one I picked up on since it was shot in normal speed.

I've just finished watching the Panic Room Special edition DVD. As you know I haven't shot Panavision yet (although I might be about too very soon), so I was somewhat surprised to see the method the AC's on that film did to determine if the gate was clear: They simply pulled out the whole gate from the camera and looked at it. This makes very little sense to me, since that movement most certainly would eliminate any trace of any hair or dust that might have been or not been there in the first place, no? Not to mention the eventual minute flange focal shift such a removal might induce. I've seen one guy do this on a 435 years back, but I was a rookie back then and was to scared to ask. Greg, anyone, please explain?

I have this secret desire to one day own a mint BL-4s, but they're still way to expensive for my taste. I'll wait until HD has eroded that market a bit more. Other than that, the Compact is probably the best choice as everyone says, although I am an Arri-man myself.

I've just completed a shoot in Britain. I'd ordered a Sacthler 9+9 or O'Connor 2060 fluid head with a 150mm bowl, but for some reason those are not very used in Britain. What I got whas the s.c. "Moy" head. Which simply is a brit version of the Mitchell head. Excuse me, but I have never in my life encountered a more insane system to level the camera. If this is how it's done in America and the UK, then there's absolutely no wonder it takes 145 days to shoot a feature in these countries. Let me explain: to level the camera, my assistants had to raise each of the legs sequentially on the tripod to the correct level. Besides being very heavy, inaccurate and cumbersome it also completely screws up the initial composition. "Now the camera's too high" I heard myself saying as the assistants had to redo it all over again by starting lower, eventually, just maybe, hitting the composition I set out to get. I kid you not, at least 30 minutes was wasted on this insane exercise each day. Everybody else in this world manages to shoot with big, heavy 535's on 150mm instant levelling bowls with zero problem, but somehow they're deemed "unusable" or "flimsy" in the english speaking nations. What IS up with all that?

That's what I feel too, 4x3 is - swamped in a widescreen world - a very viable creative choice again. I've never come across an aspect ratio hated by so many. Weird.

This is great news! It's such a hassle having to go over tape when you're in the computer at some point anyway.