Ignacio Aguilar

Very sad news. :( At least his work will inspire us forever.

John, I hope you'll recover soon.

Hey, I would also embrace new technologies. As a viewer, for instance, I love Michael Mann's use of digital acquisition to shoot feature films. I agree with you about these artists and their use of new formats & tools and, as I said, I'm sure Vilmos has done a great job on this film. The 4K D.I. has allowed him to finish the film in different ways than the traditional photochemical timing and that counteracts for him any possible drop in quality from the blow-up. It's completely legitimate for him to choose any film or digital format and that's why I'm not critizing it, I'm just talking about my initial surprise because he has been a long-time supporter of the anamorphic format. I love anamorphic, that's true, and that's legitimate too, isn't it?. But nowadays it's not easy to watch an anamorphic film at the theater (as it's not easy to watch a true black and white film) because Super-35, D.I.s and 5218 are the common rule, and since Vilmos has been using the format for every 2.35 film prior to Black Dahlia, I thought that this film had some chances of having being shot anamorphic. So please, don't take my comment as a criticism, because that wasn't my goal. I just wanted to point out my surprise and what I wished for this film. Nothing else ;)

At first sight I'm dissapointed by the fact of Vilmos shooting it in 3-Perf Super-35 (though finished with a 4K D.I.). I've read his reasoning on the current AC article (the production owned some Arricams and he stick mostly to zoom lenses), but I'm surprised because over the years Zsigmond has claimed lots of times that he believes in the supremacy of anamorphic against Super-35 due to the fact that it uses about a 35-40% bigger negative area. Anyway, I haven't seen it yet and I'm sure it will look great. It's just that I would have loved to watch one more anamorphic pic at the theater (I've only seen two over during the current year!). With Digital Intermediates, the Super-35 format has definitely took over.

I haven't seen a direct quote from anybody involved in the production regarding which scenes/specific shots used the 65mm format and I believe that I've read every technical article on this film. I may be wrong, but I think Lubezki just talked about "enhanced" moments between Smith and Pocahontas on the AC article, or something like that. Nothing about the ships or other sequences. Anyway, I saw the film twice at the theater and I couldn't discern any large-format shot. It was very, very sharp, but nothing looked like real 65mm footage.

Congratulations! Your footage looks great.

I don't care if it was Hollywood who lost interest on Storaro or if it was Storaro who lost interest in shooting films, but his absence or really slow shooting pace is a tragedy for movies. Why great cinematographers like Storaro, Roizman or Willis retired (or almost retired) so early? Anyway, I don't agree with Storaro about re-framing his old 35mm anamorphic films to 2.00:1. Take a look at this Frame Comparison between the Trailer vs. Theatrical Version Vs. Redux Version (the text is in Spanish, but the images speak from themselves) that I did a few years ago and you'll see that "Apocalypse Now" not only loses some image at each side of the frame, but also some shots have been pan & scanned as the 2.00:1 "Univisium Frame" is not completely centered on the 2.39:1 original aspect ratio.

I've just seen it in 35mm. I wasn't expecting too much from the film itself, but I never thought that I would dislike it so much. Most of the film played like some kind of fast-cut remake of the first film lacking the epic tone of the Krypton scenes and any character development or real drama, which were IMO some of the strenghs Donner brought to his film. You can't even make a comparison between the (poor) production design of the new version and John Barry's sets for the 1978 film (Krypton again, Luthor's house, the Daily Planet, etc). The Singer film doesn't show every dollar sunk in its production. But this is a cinematography forum: the Genesis (as it has been used in "Superman Returns") looks to my eye a bit like Kodak 5229 (500 ASA) looks when gone through a 2K DI in Super-35: low-con, pastel and and soft, without a real punch. Some scenes were better than others (things improved dramatically when Sigel used a more contrasty lighting), but the overall film looks bland in my opinion and the lack of grain from the digital capture plus its softness doesn't help either in achieving texture. Some scenes looked very cinema-like while others had a strong digital look (especially when CGIs were involved), so I suspect that this look was completely conscious and intended by the filmakers and it would have looked more or less the same if it had been filmed in Super 35 and finished with a DI. That way it may had had better skintones (some close-ups were particularly bad in that regard), but it wouldn't have look radically different. Though I wasn't expecting either that Sigel would surpass what Geoffrey Unsworth did in the 1978 film I don't think that I should blame the Genesis camera; it has more to do with modern tendencies of shooting complete sequences in front of greenscreens (take a look at the very fake missile-launch scene on the boat) than shooting formats. And that applies also to Peter Jackson's "King Kong" (among others), which suffered the same problem though it was shot on film. That way, why bother shooting 65mm or 35mm anamorphic if the images will end up outputted at 2K?

Ronald Neame, BSC Jack Cardiff, BSC Andrew Davis George Stevens Peter MacDonald Ernest Day, BSC ...

Four anamorphic B/W films: Manhattan - Gordon Willis, ASC The Elephant Man - Freddie Francis, BSC One, Two, Three - Daniel L. Fapp, ASC Jules Et Jim - Raoul Coutard, AFC

Thanks! ;) English is not my strongest point!

Don't forget either John Alcott BSC, who of course did amazing soft-light & source motivated jobs for Kubrick and also continued that philosophy for such films as "Greystoke" or "Under Fire". I've just seen for the first time a film he did in Spain in 1977 called MARCH OR DIE at the same locations used by films like ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, CONAN: THE BARBARIAN or THE WIND AND THE LION (they even shared the Production Designer, two time Oscar winner Gil Parrondo) and its style is completely modern with extensive use of very soft side lights on the actors, onscreen real candles for night interiors and smoked interiors and light from outside the windows for daytime scenes. And of course, wide-open (Zeiss Super Speeds?) lenses most of the time and push-processing ir order to work at lower light levels. Just compare what Billy Williams BSC did for John Milius in THE WIND AND THE LION two years before (much deeper stops for interiors, much more fill light for exteriors) and you'll see an evolved style, much more reminiscent of David Watkin's naturalistic approach than Freddie Young's hard lights classic style. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a lot these works (Young's being one of my faves), but what you can feel watching MARCH OR DIE vs. THE WIND AND THE LION is more or less the same as comparing ALIEN to Richard Kline's STAR TREK. Alcott and Watkin's trademark style may be more dry and crude than Spinotti's (which I feel more emotional and stylized in it's semi-documentary urban look for Michael Mann), but it's timeless to me and incredibly exciting to watch anytime.

Hi, I'm in prep to shoot a 2 minute short with this camera in two weeks. I've already done some tests, but I don't own the camera and I won't be able to use it again until the actual shooting. A monitor won't be possible either during the shooting since we'll be at an abandoned town without a generator, so I'll use my lightmeter instead to judge exposure. I've found that at 0db gain this camera has and ASA rating somewhere between 125-160 (I'll rate it at 160 to avoid overexposures). But I haven't checked the built-in ND filters and I don't know how I should rate the camera with ND1 and ND2. I'm after a shallow focus look and I want to use the end of the zoom at F/2.8 in direct sunlight to shoot some fake interviews. Thanks in advance!

This is an excerpt of an American Film Institute seminar with Ernest Laszlo, ASC, which was conducted by Howard Schwartz, ASC and was published by American Cinematographer in January 1976 (cover THE HINDENBURG). It shows pretty well the hard light vs. soft light issue from the point of view of a classic cameraman like Laszlo. Mr. Laszlo won an Academy Award for best cinematography and was nominated for seven more, the last in 1976 for the sci-fi flick LOGAN?S RUN. (?) QUESTION: I can only think of a couple of films I?ve seen shot by you that have low-key photography. Do you generally use high-key? LAZSLO: No, I?m considered a low-key man. In every way. AUDIENCE: (Laughter) QUESTION: In BOWERY and BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL, there was strinking contrast?. SCHWARTZ: Are you talking about key or contrast? RESPONSE: Contrast. SCHWARTZ: There is a difference. LAZSLO: You can have a 50 foot-candle key or a 25 foot-candle key, but the import thing is to have balance. That?s something that a lot of people don?t understand, balance. Also, I might bring up one other point. I was hoping that somebody would ask me if I like reflected lighting or bounce lights and stuff like that. QUESTION: Do you like bounce lights? AUDIENCE: (Laughter) LASZLO: Thank you for asking. I?ll answer your question with another question. Did Michaelangelo use one big brush? SCHWARTZ: But he didn?t have a production manager. AUDICIENCE: (Laughter) LASZLO: I believe that motion picture photography supposedly is, and should be, selective. So whenever I use light, I like to use lights of different sizes and sorts, but each light has to have a meaning. You don?t just toss in a lot of light and let it go. Because, you know, famous painters didn?t do that. They used little brushes and big brushes and everything in between. So I believe that every single light you see on a set should have a purpose. Thus, as far as I?m concerned, is my answer to bounce light. (?) QUESTION: How do you feel about the look of soft lighting? Not if it?s just done with a large brush, but if the light is a soft light source? And also if there are lights used like ?kickers? or rim lights that give it some depth and clarity, so ot isn?t just a gray. How do you feel about that? LASZLO: Well, I think it?s possible to use fill light that covers everything and give it some ?kickers? and bounce light. But I still don?t believe that that?s the way to light. I just don?t believe it. Like I said, you have to have a purpose. Each lamp you light has to do something for you. QUESTION: When you see something that?s lit soft like that with bounce light, how do you feel? Does it seem unreal to you? LASZLO: Well, it doesn?t seem real to me, truly. It doesn?t. Maybe I?m of the old school, but I just don?t believe in it. QUESTION: I?d like to ask you a a general question about the ?old school?. It?s built up a tradition over about 50 years, and the A.S.C. seems to be supporting this in some ways. I wonder what the A.S.C. has done to preerve this style that is going now out of fashion. LASZLO: you mean about being old-fashioned? RESPONSE: Well, films like AIRPORT and FUNNY LADY seem like a return to that classic period. LASZLO: I think we are returning to it somewhat. I honestly believe that we?re reaching a turning point where people will go more for entertaiment than sensationalism, like dope and violence and sex and all that nonsense. I really believe that. I think it?ll help to bring the lost audience that we had back to the motion picture again. QUESTION: Do you think we?ll be entertainted more by good photography? LASZLO: Well, I would think so. I would hope so. SCHWARTZ: Ernie, I?d like to say something if I might about that. LASZLO: Yes. SCHWARTZ: I think it?s interesting to note what?s happening to felows like Zsigmond and Kovacs and John Alonzo, people like this who started out doing commercials and things of this sort, where they used a lot of flat light. Their first features were pretty much that way. They are coming around, and I think it?s because they, at first, didn?t know this other style of lighting and weren?t that familiar with it. They hadn?t worked in studios where they had all this equipment available to them and were able to light from paralels and scaffolds and things of that sort. Even some of the directors are coming around, so that now they?re not so afraid to use the studios as they used to be; because they were embarrased by the the riches of having a set, and they didn?t know what to do with it. As a result, they always wanted to go on location so that nobody could see that they weren?t sure what they were doing. I think things have turned around, and a lot of these fellows have come around. A good example is PAPER MOON. There was a beautiful job of photography which was probably the first one that wasn?t a soft light job that I?ve seen Laszlo Kovacs do. I think they?re coming around to a more traditional way. LASZLO: Well, also, too. I think they?ve gained experience, which is a very important factor. (?)

Check out any Terrence Malick film, specially "Days of Heaven" and "The New World". Try also Kubrick's "2001".

Neame had an interview in the same AC issue (december 1979) which covered the production of Spielberg's 1941. He hardly blamed anyone at that time and he even praised Lohmann to the point of claiming he would be his first choice for every future film of his (they never worked together again, at least in a feature). I haven't seen METEOR in ages, but as a disaster film enthusiast back in my youth I never felt it was never a very enjoyable film. My problem wasn't the shoddy effects and cheap look for a major film (I believe there's even some red-tinted stock footage of collapsing buildings after the big meteor hits NYC), it was the script, which tried to hard to be serious with boring and ridiculous results. Robert Wise's THE HINDENBURG also tried to be serious and it was boring too, but it never went to that degree of campiness. And from a technical point of view, you still can't beat Whitlock's matte-paintings and Robert Surtees lush, old fashioned photography. David, if you're interested in Neame's bio & filmography you should give a chance to his audiocommentary for the new POSEIDON ADVENTURE dvd. The man is 95 years old, but it's a highly enjoyable and informative chat.

Another film which used different shooting formats was STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE. The main unit was shot in 35mm anamorphic by Richard Kline, while Douglas Trumbull shot his effects in 65mm (as he did for "Close Encounters" and John Dykstra worked in VistaVision (as he did for "Star Wars"). The film had such a short schedule that both men were hired as photographic effects supervisors and worked separately. Trumbull did most of the Enterprise's stuff, while V'ger was handled by Dykstra. I believe the original SUPERMAN shot all the effects plates in 35mm anamorphic. Denys Coop, BSC (who was in charge of the Zoptic front-projection photography) once complained about the system due to the fact that he had to project the images through a zoom lens and re-photograph them again with a synchronized anamorphic zoom lens to make the illusion of man flying straight to the camera, thus degrading the quality of the original plates much more than desirable. Those effects shots have always had a very low contrast and soft look in my opinion.

And the funny thing about "Close Encounters" is how much Spielberg hated 5247. He even made a claim about being tempted to shoot the whole film in 65mm just to keep using 5254, which was already unavailable for 35mm. The first film that I recall using the original 5247 stock is "The Towering Inferno", which was shot during the summer of 1974. The labs weren't ready yet to process huge amounts of the new stock but Bill Abbott, ASC used it to shoot the miniatures and the composites due to its finer grain as opposed to 5254.

Yes, if I recall correctly Fraker first talked about using three or four footcandles on the black areas of the image in an interview about "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" (Richard Brooks, 1977), which he shot using very low light levels on Kodak 5247 (100 ASA). Those days Fraker was also very fond of using filter packs for his films (combining Mitchell A & B Diffusion, Coral, Low-cons or/and Fog Filters) as he was aiming for a softer & diffused look (which IMHO didn't help getting deep blacks).

Yes, it was shot in Super-35 using Cooke S4 lenses. I found it a bit too grainy at times and a bit low in contrast to my tastes (it was shot mostly on 5218 and i read somewhere some of the outdoor night shots used the now discontinued 800 ASA 5289, while the few exterior scenes were done on 5205 (250 D).

"Super Cinerama" was just a release format which involved projecting 70mm prints from single-lens shooting formats (usually from Ultra Panavision 70 or Super Panavision 70, but also Technirama and Todd-AO) over a Cinerama curved screen in a Cinerama theater using one projector lens. The 70mm prints from Ultra Panavision were often optically rectified to correct the distortion at the edges of the frame. "2001", "Grand Prix", "Ice Station Zebra" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told" were among the Super Cinerama releases.

Another rare credit: Caleb Deschanel did the "Insert Photography" for "Apocalypse Now". I believe he shot some Martin Sheen's close-ups faked on Coppola's vineyard while the film was being edited. Stephen H. Burum was the 2nd unit cinematographer for the film. Two years leater (AN was shot during 1976-77) he reunited again with Deschanel (now 1st unit cameraman) as 2nd unit cinematographer for "The Black Stallion". Ron García is the credited director of photography of Coppola's "One from the Heart" I believe due to union rules, cause Vittorio Storaro (who actually shot the film) had to be replaced the previous year for the american scenes of Warren Beatty's "Reds", the last on the schedule. I don't know who finished the film.

Bill Butler replaced Haskell Wexler in both "The Conversation" and "One Flew Over the Cucko's Nest", which were shot one after the other. William A. Fraker had to finish the later as Butler was unavailable due to prior commitments (he also replaced Butler in the film "Lipstick"). It is said Wexler phoned Butler's agent or Butler himself sometime later as soon as he thought he was going to be fired of another project to tell him to be ready! A few days ago I watched "The Conversation" and its photography is pretty consistent throughout. Butler's style also fits Wexler's pretty well in "Cucko's Nest", but you can easily say what was shot by Fraker (some basket stuff outdoors and the sea fishing scene) as his low-con & diffused trademark images really pop up and don't cut together very well with the rest of the footage, probably shot clean for a sharper and more natural look. Butler got the sole credit in "The Conversation"; he and Wexler shared it in "Cucko's Nest" (they also shared an Academy Award nomination) and Fraker recived a credit as additional photographer for his week of work. The three were nominated for the BAFTA.

Take a look at this thread.

The DVD of "Hanover Street" (1979) contains an interesting audiocomentary by Hyams in which he talks about David Watkin's photography -GORGEUS, in my opinion- and how he would have approached those shots if he had been the cinematographer ("too much light", "too much smoke", etc, etc). If it's true that "Outland" was mostly shot by Hyams himself then "Hanover Street" would be the last film on which he used another DP. It's also one of the few anamorphic films shot by Watkin, since he disliked anamorphic lenses. Perhaps the format was a director's choice (he also talks about why he likes 2.35 compositions and describes a conversation with Spielberg asking him why "Jurassic Park" was standard 1.85 instead of 2.35).