harryprayiv

I am wondering when depth of field considerations won't be an issue even at F/0.7. Didn't Panavision invent Panatape so that you can effectively measure a distance continuously and have a lense motor act upon it? If not, I will get right on it...this seems like a no-brainer for such a high-tech industry.

I've always heard that Kino's need to be specially modified to operate underwater. Anyone know?

Hi guys. Here I am, a year later and I am close to figuring it out! I am going to use the Thing -M animation motor and make my own control unit with a PIC chip and some C programmed by me. The minimum shutter time is .12 of a second...I think this is ideal for night shooting...also, I may give it the option of repetitive, programmable shutters (back and forth, back and forth on one frame in the dark until something exposes!) Here's somethingh I wrote about the brain.... ? Thing-I? replacement controller for the Thing-M Animation Motor Description: I reverse engineered the output of the Thing-M?s control unit for the purposes of making my own output unit that can also send the motor the proper signal. The control unit will be sensitive to changes in ambient light intensity through a Sekonic L558C-ish lumisphere. The annoying thing is, the L558 doesn't have a data output port, so I have to invest in a VERY expensive photo cell and lumisphere. The brain will use the photo cell's resistance information to calculate a shutter speed for each repetition of the exposure. In this way, it can create time-lapse images with zero-flicker and perfectly uniform negative density...even well into the night, allowing the exposure of stars if necessary. - runs on a pic chip - has a 555 timer circuit - lets you input the t-stop and film ASA that you are using with a telephone-keypad - receives light intensity information from an external photo cell or light meter (if equipped with an output signal) - computes the appropriate exposure time of the shutter - included a capping shutter mechanism to minimize shutter light leak in long delays - allows one to set the desired frame rate and manually override the shutter speed if necessary - runs on a DC battery for days - control the Thing-M's motor, the 4023-820 with identical torque to the original thing-m brain - no changes in depth of field - completely programmable

Imagine pulling focus on 140mm film at T2.8?!?!?! :blink:

I will add those. Thanks David.

Storaro Honored at the Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA Seeing as how I am definitely going to this event on April 7 and there is going to be a discussion panel (filled with GREAT DP's) on the last day of the festival. , I was wondering if there were any questions that people might want to ask Storaro himself. Post your questions here and I will minidisc the Q&A and transcribe it for all of you here. This is going to be great.

I disagree. I think the Aviator and Collateral paled in comparison to A Very Long Engagement visually. I mean, Richardson's whole blown out blue backlight thing is played out IMO. It's a shame that films from the US are usually given 200% more chance than films that are equal if not better from foreign lands. A very Long Engagement was one of the best looking films I have seen....ever...and the Aviator was interesting, but not the deserved winner at the Oscars.

Hype Williams rap videos when bling-blingin guys are wearing sunglasses!

How true. How true. I worked at Loew's and quit recently on the spot when they told me to go work in the concession stand. I said, "I am not here to work in a fast food restaurant, I am here to work at a movie theater." What you say is very true..in fact, they admit that in their orientation videos, which are horrible and filled with zooms.

Don't confuse range with latitude. 11 stops of visible exposure means that the filmstock can record that range of brightnesses: in other words, if the shadows in the corner under the table read on a spotmeter at 11 stops lower than the sunlit white wall opposite, then you will still see detail in both, at the same exposure setting. Latitude of 5 or 6 stops means that, for a given scene (that bit is important) you can vary the exposure up or down by 6 stops in total and still recod detail in the whole tonal range you are interested in. Any film stock has more latitude in a flat scene than in a high contrast one. But obviously you have more latitude in any scene if you use the Vision 2 stocks (with about a stop more range than the earlier stocks). Thanks for that info. I better go over sensitometry in a practical setting more before I try and hang with the big guys.

Do you know what stock they use for the positive prints? or is it up to me? I'd like to see how my negs would look transferred to positive print film instead of having them transferred to still slide film.

excellent! Thanks again!

David, this is all very interesting. Are there any books you can recommend that talk about the things you are referring to (historical changes in lighting in cinema)?

As the saying goes. You get from something what you put into it. Hard work and study will be rewarded with an all-encompassing knowledge of your medium.

I bet such a chart would be more expensive than my means allow, huh? (MY means being under 70 dollars maximum). If not, where do you think I could get such a thing? Anyway, I think I will just eventually end up going with David and your suggestion of shooting one exposure right on, one 3 stops under, and one 3 stops over. Do you think this technique would cover the latitude of the newer Vision 2 stocks? Because I hear that the 7217 (Vision 2 200T) has 11 stops of visible exposure? I ask because the gaffer on the recent feature I worked on where we used it said that there was really more like 5 or 6 stops of latitude...he said that he prefers the 7279 to the 7217 even though the grain is vastly improved in the Vision 2.

I wasn't attacking you Harry, and I'm sorry if I sounded that way. I just get very excited when someone mentions perception and color, and I'll usually just go on and on and on. I was just trying to help you out. It's cool. Now that I read back, I think I was over-reacting anyway. Thanks though.

Thanks for the prompt reply, John. That helps a lot. Is there anything that would allow me to squeeze the entire latitude of a film stock into one frame so that I could compare many stocks side by side?

I am glad to see this discussion going back into a friendly, constructive direction. After I got sort of frustrated about this topic last night, I watched some TV and found exactly what you are referring to, David. A lot of the more interesting commercials on TV showed me the value of desaturation more than had been going on in my mind, in fact, I've been looking at things with new eyes all day and have found that very few things in the natural world are really as saturated as I would like to idealize them as. I have an odd sort of cinematic memory that records things in color with sound...sometimes the movies in my head do get very very saturated with color compared to the original. So, yes, there is definitely a place in my work for every shade of color. It's also interesting that you note the budgetary limitations of control of a set's color. Thanks for shedding some light on a world (the larger, but not MEGA budget shoots going on around the world) I am still very new to, Mr. Mullen. Sam, Saul is a good friend of mine and a valuable source of advice/support. His mentor/friend, Stan Brackage (sp?) died recently and he seems totally crushed by it. It's really sad to see such a talented man die. In film class last year, he often mentioned Brackage and I've learned to love a lot of the things that I wouldn't have learned at any other films school. I feel kind of embarrassed that I haven't been exposed to as much of Saul's work as I should be, but it's kind of weird because he rarely shows his own work. From his critiques though, I can tell that Saul thinks about things in a way that Hollywood couldn't even begin to scratch the surface of (mostly because of the impetus behind making work as a film maker focusing on non-traditional/non-narrative art) and I value his critiques more than just about anyone's on my work. It's good to hear that Saul has gotten some recognition outside of the Boston community. I'll let him know that someone mentioned him on here. It'll put a smile on his face for sure.

I don't really understand how this turned into an attack Harry thread. Let's get back to talking about other stuff. I eventually was driven to agree with David about the story dictating the look, so let's all just climb off my back and talk about something a little more productive than trying to prove someone wrong who has already admitted that he was wrong in the first place. As far as taking a painting class goes, I have taken many. I go to Massachusetts College of Art and know plenty about the use of colors in art...I also worked at the Museum of Fine Arts for three years and got to look at paintings by the likes of Van Gogh and Renoir more than most people have gazed at their own wive's eyes. I am not coming from a background of sheer ignorance, I merely said that I enjoy the use extreme color saturation in film when necessary...so sue me....please sue me.

I agree completeley. But, I think framing is one of the other most important aspects of cinematography.....you can frame out offending colors too!

Would you care to clarify? Thanks I have a right to sound like I conflict with myself. When you think about it though, I would be conscious enough about not making things look too controlled for my films (no matter how controlled they really are visually) to ever really make it apparent to a viewer that I was the control freak that say, Jean Pierre Jeunet is known to be! Phew...saved myself from looking like a hypocrite...or did I? ha ha

It's the beginning of a semester for me and I'm preparing to start learning the characteristics of the different kinds of film that are available to me. Even though I am going to be using various 16/S16mm cameras for a long, long time over the next few years while I get off the ground as a cinematographer, I have decided to test various kinds of film against eachother with rolls I recieve from RGBcolorlab in Hollywood, CA with a still 35mm SLR camera set to 1/50 sec or (as I hear) at 1/60 (because 1/50 isn't an option on most SLR cameras). I am looking for advice on what kinds of charts I should get that will allow me to learn each stock's exposure latitude (my main area of interest in these tests) color reproduction characteristics resolution (although not entirely important since I realize that the slower films are higher res...but it might help me to get an idea of WHAT low speed films handle details the best) My shooting plan is as follows I intend to light the card to something near a 5.6/8 split since I hear that this is the "sweet spot" of most lenses (and since it looks like the point where the aperture is at its most circular, to me, I think it would be the way to go as far as shooting...) .....correct me if my deductions are wrong there. I intend to use various densities of ND over the camera lens to match all of the kinds of films instead of changing the aperture, which I have deduced could have an inverse effect on the consistency of my tests. Now, my main question has to do with the test card I should use....I have found this chart on B&H and it seems to be reasonably cheap and good. I don't really understand if the seperate steps in this particular (and other) grey scales have anything to do with seperate stops or are they closer together in steps than I imagine? Maybe each shift between one grey and the next is closer than a stop? I don't know...but I'd sure like to find out before I waste my money doing these tests only find out that the latitude of the films I am working with goes waaaay beyond my chart's scale...I have a hunch that is does, but we'll see. I hope John steps in to answer my question on this one. If anyone has any suggestions and comments on my ways of thinking about any of this, please speak up because as you know, there is VERY little information on the web about this specific topic and I am at a loss for the accuracy of some of my deductions.

correction...the url is http://www.rgbcolorlab.com

Very good points. I guess I would have to base some of my decisions on what I have observed in the real world if that was my intent. At this point, I just can't wait until I get the chance to actually control everything!

David, I am not trying to be argumenative (sp?), I actually think that we totally agree for the most part. It's kind of sad that you associate loud colors with advertisements...I happen to associate most vibrant colors with vegetation/flowers on sunny days and they always make me feel really good inside....maybe that's just me. Anyway, I can definitely see the value in desaturation just as I can see the value in saturation. I was merely saying that bleach bypass has become a fad in some film circles because so many people are starting to use it. It doesn't matter to me that most films don't use it...most films don't use contrasty lighting neither....comedies especially yield more towards the traditional Hollywood beauty before realism approach. I am just saying that every time I see it, the images give me a similar feel due to the heavy handedness with which the color is eliminated. All I am saying is that I'm annoyed by films that emulate eachother to the point of looking like their footage is interchangable...most of the epics from the past few years have had this annoyingly plastic and fake looking DI/color correction work that just takes a lot of the feeling out of the picture for me. Maybe it's the fact that certain films (Lord of the Rings comes to mind) have this philosophy that EVERYTHING in every frame must work perfectly with the story or it will be corrected/cg'ed out. I guess I am just reacting to my opinion that color grading has gotten to the point where images can be ruthlessly controlled by squeezing unwanted colors out of the frame to the point of making everything feel fake/desolate of even slight hints of colors not in the DP's "pallette" even when this is not the obvious intent of the particular scene in question. I guess I am just saying that they can try and retain at least a LITTLE bit of their unwanted hues in their films to make them still feel like humans are acting in them. BAH nevermind ...I can't explain what I am saying with all of this, but please indulge me further as I elaborate on why I stated any of this. Also, what I was previously talking about was that I just happen to like the way that real life situations can bring colors together and I like the fact that my hand doesn't always have to be IN everything to make it beautiful or artistic. One of the things that annoys me about big budget cinema is the control over everything the DP and Directors have and how it is very apparent to me as a viewer as something that is artificial in that way...nothing is as singularly motivated as how Hollywood tries to make it. This is mostly true in films that are intended to be artful, but it makes its way into a lot of the traditional methods of filmmaking that I wouldn't want to strictly adhere to (at least when I am pushing myself to create something that is REALISTICALY believable to not only my audience, but me as a viewer...I am not referring to fiction/fantasy/things that are obviously dream states or recreations thereof) In my opinion, sometimes what makes an artist is the ability to be captivated by something that others would pass by without thinking twice about and be able to recreate that for a viewer so that they see it my way. Other than that, if I were to create a look from the ground up (production design and all) I would choose my pallette based on what my story was to be. If it were to be about real life, I would be completely unspecific about colors for that extra added realism. If I didn't like a specific color object, I would throw it out, but that would be it in that circumstance. However, If I were telling a story like Northfork (which you did a GREAT job on...I saw it last night) I would work towards a similarly controlled production design because of it's ability to convey the mood of the piece....which was done VERY well with cinematography. I hope none of this seemes condescending or rude (binary forms of communication have a way of making me sound like a jerk)...I am just trying to clear up what I think and even come to terms with what my philosophy actually is perhaps even for myself. It's weird how I don't really know my opinion unless I truly decide to write about it. By the way, it wasn't caution tape, it is a rubber caution strip next to the tracks that is part of the ground to warn people not to step too close to the trains coming by. I could have also used examples like a flower garden on a sunny day, but I strayed from that because its such a rare vision in Boston (where I reside).