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Managed to reduce file size of one of the stills.

Night-Int. Apartment set on stage. 21mm Primo Lens f.2.8 / Panavision Genesis Camera.

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Hi Paul great work, i really like the Night, Int. Apartment. Did you use, some kind of nets, or Pro mist ???. Another question off topic, Are there any reason why the Art deparment use dark colors (furnitures and walls) in the apartment...?,

 

Thanks

 

 

Xavier Plaza

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I use a light black bridal veil net (tule fabric) behind the lens except on night exteriors or in situations where there are very specular highlights due to the star pattern created by the net in the highlights. I use the net (or not) in combination with either a Tiffen 1/2 or 1 Black FX filter. On occaision I will add a 1 or 2 glimmer glass to that and on close-ups of the actresses in the show I will add a 1 or a 2 Schneider Classic Black Soft Filter. I might go with a lighter grade glimmer or black fx when I add the classic black soft. A lot depends on how contrasty the lighting is, or if there are hot windows, or how tight the close-up is in my detirmination of filtration. The Genesis is it's own animal and responds differently to filtration then a film camera or the F900.

The sets are purposely designed on the dark side so the show looks less like a comedy, even though it is one. I personally prefer darker stuff, it's easier to add a highlight or pump the light up a bit then spend a lot of time doing grip working taking the light off of light colored walls and furniture.

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I use a light black bridal veil net (tule fabric) behind the lens except on night exteriors or in situations where there are very specular highlights due to the star pattern created by the net in the highlights. I use the net (or not) in combination with either a Tiffen 1/2 or 1 Black FX filter. On occaision I will add a 1 or 2 glimmer glass to that and on close-ups of the actresses in the show I will add a 1 or a 2 Schneider Classic Black Soft Filter. I might go with a lighter grade glimmer or black fx when I add the classic black soft. A lot depends on how contrasty the lighting is, or if there are hot windows, or how tight the close-up is in my detirmination of filtration. The Genesis is it's own animal and responds differently to filtration then a film camera or the F900.

The sets are purposely designed on the dark side so the show looks less like a comedy, even though it is one. I personally prefer darker stuff, it's easier to add a highlight or pump the light up a bit then spend a lot of time doing grip working taking the light off of light colored walls and furniture.

 

 

Thank you very much to respond my answer and good luck on your show

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Completion of episode #5. Location work at hotel this last Friday staging a wedding scene (most of which shot on stage). Kept the A camera on Steadicam rig for the entire day, when necessary used B camera on dolly. Not too many A and B camera set-ups due to lighting restrictions. 7:30 am call, tail-lights at 10:00pm, no extension possible. We were due to finish shooting at 8:30 which would have given all departments ample time to wrap out except there were two unforeseen (one not so unforeseen) occurrences which delayed wrap by about a half hour, and to the credit of the entire crew, did not impact the company moving out of the location at the necessary time.

The first occurrence, unforeseen, was the shutting down of three of the HMI?s we were using to recreate daylight through the windows at the location. A 4Kpar, 6K par and 18 K fresnel all went out at nearly the same time just as we were about to shoot our last shot. The electrical department hustled and replaced the lights, ballasts and head-feeders in record time. I would say there was no more than 10 minutes downtime. There was no real explanation for this other than HMI?s can be finicky and when one lamp suddenly shuts down and loads are not balanced coming out of the genny??

The second occurrence that delayed production, and which was known by locations, but how it would impact us was not known, was that this past Friday night was Yom Kippur, one of the most important days in the Jewish Calender and the hotel had rented out one of the ballrooms on the floor we were shooting to a Jewish Congregation for their evening Yom Kippur services. Jewish law and tradition dictates that Jewish Holidays begin at sundown and services must commence prior to that. The room where the service was taking place was directly in the background of our shot. We could have turned around and shot the sequence in the other direction but since we were lighting the interior as if it were night for day so we could control the light, (the aforementioned HMI?s through 1000H tracing paper placed on the windows which were for the most part off to one side) it would have meant dragging all the HMI?s down to the other side of the hotel exterior, in hindsight something we probably should have done but everyone from the director to the AD and UPM and myself thought that shooting the sequence taking advantage of the already lit background was the way to go. So as the sun was going down participants in the Yom Kippur service were held from going to the ballroom while we attempted to grind out a take, then let a few people through. The people were very cordial but as it was getting closer to sunset everyone realized that one cannot slow the turning of the earth on it?s axis to get another take, so we had to stand down for 10 minutes or so to ensure that everyone going to the service could get to the room in time.

There were a few late comers which delayed us a bit more, and the occasional restless child who would walk out the doors into our shot before one of the AD?s could step in.

All in all we did not interrupt anyone?s holiday and we wrapped in the allotted time and before the rains came on Friday night.

A still from location:

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We have completed 8 episodes of ?Samantha Who??, start #9 on Monday. The Genesis is proving to be quite a workhorse on the show although it is not without it?s quirks. We had the deck on the A camera snap a tape the week before last. Fotokem had no problem extracting the tape from the cassette so no material was lost. There were some dropped frames from some off-speed material (48fps) which still remains a mystery, Panavision reps chalk it up to a bad deck, which we obviously replaced. Interestingly enough, it was the same deck that broke the tape later that same day. I must credit everyone at Panavision with their quick responses to any of our issues.

We are in talks to try to utilize Panavision?s new digital recorder on the show. I believe our line producer will be meeting with Panavison reps this coming week.

My ?A? camera/Steadicam operator bailed on me this past Friday. After a long and grueling week topped off with an all-night location shoot Thursday night/Friday morning in San Dimas I get a phone call 5 minutes before call time (3pm) from the operator on Friday telling me that this will be his last day as he is moving on to replace an operator on a feature where he will get more money and a better career opportunity. I have nothing against people going after the financial incentive and the feature credits but to leave me hanging at the last minute without even a suggestion for a replacement operator tweaked me to no end. Apparently the negotiations between the operator?s agent and the company had been going on for a few days therefore I could have been given some warning so I wouldn?t have had to scramble in order to find a qualified operator on such short notice.

A few details on the night shoot in San Dimas: 3 Genisis cameras, 2 4:1 zoom lenses, 1 LW zoom lens, 50?Technocrane, BeeBee Night Light, 3 cars dunked in the lake, about 4 pages of dialogue and a 2nd unit for run-bys, all accomplished in 12 hours. Kudos to the entire crew.

Some recent stills from dailies:

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The stills look great Paul, and the ongoing journals about your day to day adventures are good reading. Thanks for sharing. My DVR is programmed and I'll be watching.

By the way, nice work on "My Boys" as well. Funny show.

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Wrapped episode 11, on hiatus for one week, then return for two more episodes (barring WGA strike).I thought I would mention lighting, specifically lighting our ?#1 on the call sheet?. She is, in my opinion, a beautiful young woman in her late 30?s. However, like all human beings she has certain aspects of her facial features that show that she is no longer a teenager. Having no degree in cosmetic surgery, I still have to do what I can to keep our star (and, by the way, the singular reason that the show is in the top 10 and considered to be the number one new comedy of the current TV season) looking her best.

I employ a led ring light manufactured by LITEPANELS on the cameras at all times, both indoors and out, except on the rare occasion where I must use one of the zooms which are too large for the ringlite. It really helps to fill the eyes and smooth out faces in addition to providing a very sharp ?ping? in actor?s pupils. The ?ping? is there even when the ringlite is dimmed so the eyes show even in low-key lighting.

I generally try to light the women on the show from directly over the camera with either a small chimera through a frame of bleached muslin or in certain situations we use 4x4 kino-flos with diva-light shower caps. Usually the lights are just high enough to achieve some modeling of the face. By keeping the lights over the camera any ?weariness? under the eyes is mitigated. The muslin and diva shower caps reduce the highlights in raised areas on the face, i.e. cheekbones, forehead, nose, etc. where other types of diffusion reflect in those areas and create excess shine. I use a fair amount of filtration, starting with a net behind the lens which we use at all times except for night exteriors and sets where there are light sources such as twinkle lights where one can see the net pattern.

I usually use a ¼ or ½ BFX filter at all times and then add either a Classic Black Soft filter (in grades of either 1/2, 1 or 2, depending on the focal length of the lens, the lighting, and how tired #1 looks at that given time of the shoot day) and / or a Glimmer Glass filter in grades of either 1/2 or 1.

Stills from dailies:

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Nice work -- how are you pulling these stills, by the way?

 

The use of diffusion can be such a political issue. Stars, of course (especially ones who are no longer in their twenties) generally want or demand it, but some network execs or producers want a lot of sharpness, especially for their HDTV broadcast.

 

On "Big Love", we started out only using older Cooke zooms wide-open as our only form of lens diffusion, but frankly, it wasn't enough. We also used the softer 5229 emulsion (Expression 500T). On the last set-up of my first episode (Ep. #2), after an operator shooting a tight shot was concerned about a particular spot on a face, I snuck in the lightest diffusion filter I've ever run across, which is the Tiffen Black Diffusion-FX #1/2.

 

By the next episode, I was using it regularly on close-ups, and it was so subtle that no one really noticed (the post supervisor, who was always concerned about sharpness and focus, often watched the HD transfer himself and reported back to me.)

 

Then on Ep. #5, there was a scene in an old Catholic Church which was meant to look eerie, and inspired a little by "Vertigo" (since the scene had a blonde in it, and a lot of POV shots), I used the #1 Smoque filter, which again, was pretty subtle. I suppose real smoke might have been even better, but we've never smoked a scene in the series and there is always the concern that it would mismatch.

 

Then in Ep. #6, which had a romantic date in it, I used the #1 GlimmerGlass for those scenes, again the lightest grade and pretty subtle.

 

Bill Wages came in on Ep. #7 and started using his black net on a filter frame, a light tule. It was a little heavier than the #1/2 Black Diffusion-FX, but otherwise, really mild, subtle. This was the point where we started having discussions with the post supervisor as to whether we had gone too far in diffusing the picture, though it was a pretty conservative amount of diffusion (and looked good on the actresses). We decided to not use the nets on wider shots.

 

I started alternating between my favorite filter at the time, the #1 GlimmerGlass, and Bill's black net.

 

What we discovered in post later was that once all the contrast was dialed back into the image (they like a somewhat bright but contrasty look in general) that the #1 GlimmerGlass, since it is sort of a "mist"-type filter, was now even more subtle in terms of softening because half the effect was lost once the contrast was increased.

 

While I loved the look of Bill Wages' black net, I was hearing concerns about the sharpness of the image -- again, it's one of those personal taste issues, just how much sharpness is the right level of sharpness. And there was the issue of whether it was better to shoot sharp and just fix any cosmetic issues in post using digital touch-up tricks, like in a Flame suite or something similar -- or do it in-camera. Now of course, with digital touch-ups, you can do wonders but it is expensive and time-consuming, so I felt that for low-level fixes, general flattering, the lens diffusion approach was a good idea and let them just digitally touch-up any obvious problems that occasionally happened. But the post supervisor and colorist were more in the camp of "shoot clean and fix in post if necessary".

 

Now I'm wondering if the new Schneider Classic Black (a combination of Black Frost and Classic Soft) may be a good halfway look between a GlimmerGlass and a black net.

 

Anyway, I'd never get away with the level of filtering you seem to be, although as you said, the Genesis responds differently than a softer emulsion like Expression 500T.

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For those of you with an interest in network episodic television production in the U.S. I will begin to post a journal of sorts describing the pre-production and production of a new series on the ABC Network tentatively titled "Samantha Who?" (aka "Samantha Be Good", aka "Sam I Am").

 

Thanks for sharing. My question is how did you convince production and the studio to go along with posting a journal and images of the show? I've often thought of doing something similar to this but it seems like everyone requires some form of confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement.

 

Thanks again!

 

Robert Starling, SOC

Las Vegas

Steadicam Owner Operator

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.............The only time I added a Utility to the camera crew was on a recent pilot where the producers insisted on two separate Video Villages, one for the Director, script, etc. and another for Studio and Network types..........

I just read this - the two video villages reminds me of the Simpsons Y2K episode where Homer doesn't bother to update his computer at Mr. Burn's nuke plant and as a result the world is destroyed. Lisa leaves earth on a spaceship filled with all the smart people (Stephen Hawking, etc.). Bart and Homer discover another spaceship which is peopled with the likes of Rosie O'Donnell and other losers - and is programmed to plunge into the sun.

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If I were shooting film I would not be using the net behind the lens and I am sure the level of diffusion would be different.

One advantage to shooting HD with the Genesis is that I can clearly see on the 20"CRT/HD monitor the effect the diffusion is having on the image. We also have a NTSC monitor integrated into the engineering cart so I can tell what effect all the schmutz on the lens is going to create downstream.

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We are starting our 11th and, due to the pending WGA strike, quite possibly our last episode of the season on Monday next.

The writers are continuing to polish the script until the last minute and if a strike is indeed called for Monday, it will be the last that we see of them for a while.

On episodic TV almost all the writers are also producers. There are always one or two on the set at all times to facilitate last minute changes in dialogue and/or staging. The actors and the directors depend upon their input to adjust and fix the above because often after a scene is rehearsed a flaw in the logic of the dialogue is revealed or an actor feels that his or her character wouldn?t do what is written on the page because of the subtext of the scene.

The potential work stoppage is a blow to both cast and crew because ?Samantha Who?? has turned out to be the breakaway comedy hit of the current TV season and we just learned this past week that the show had been picked up for another 9 episodes.

Here?s hoping for a speedy resolution to the current labor situation.

Halloween on the set:

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“Samantha Who?” has shut down production indefinitely due to the writers’ strike. We finished our 11th episode this last Friday. Everyone is hopefull that the labor dispute will be settled quickly so we can get back to work, the producers and the studio included. All the sets are to remain standing, most set dressing will remain in the sets, the grip and electrical equipment remains on stage and all the camera equipment is being kept in a lock-up on one of the stages, thank you Panavision. I will be able to go to the weekly tape to tape grading sessions during the “forced hiatus”, a process I always enjoy. The show, which is about 21 minutes in length, gets a healthy 4 to 5 hours of color timing. Generally it involves adding contrast and matching flesh tones scene to scene and shot to shot and utilizing the da vinci’s (as many as) 5 separate power windows to do “electronic gripwork”.

Stills from dailies

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this last still is from a scene that took place in a darkened closet. Always a cunundrum......how dark is dark, it should look like the lights are out but we still need to see their faces. I invited two of the producers to the 20"CRT monitor to weigh in on the "darkness" for this scene and as I expected they asked for me to brighten it up a bit which is the result in this still

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Something I've been wondering about using a camera like the Genesis for a TV show. It records 10-bit 4:4:4 RGB "Panalog" -- but I also assume it can record 10-bit 4:2:2 YCbCr, which would be fine for TV.

 

But do you record in "Panalog" for TV work, or do you record in Rec 709 "Linear" (actually, not Linear but gamma encoded, but then Log is also somewhat misleading too)? Is there any advantage to recording in Log mode for work intended for TV broadcast?

 

The show looks great, by the way.

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To further answer David's question, a response from the Digital Imaging Technician on "Samantha Who?":

"The 4:4:4 we acquire on set is sampled at 4:2:2 by just about every house and our on set monitoring.

The reason to record at 4:4:4 is the same as shooting 35 over 16mm. The 4:2:2 sample rate takes advantage of the deeper information envelope.

Recording in the Panalog (or other log format) allows greater control of the gamma curve and knee.

Like shooting film and transfering to tape the REC 709 should be sampling these downstream values.

A rough analogy would be photographing a vista with a video camera directly or shooting the same vista off a post card originated on film taking advantage of the greater dynamic range and color space.

The bottom line is that it looks better."

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That all sounds logical of course, but I'm wondering how much testing has been done to prove it makes much of a difference for 4:2:2 Rec 709 broadcast.

 

It seems that the main advantage is that the colorist gets to decide what information to throw away for making the broadcast version, but otherwise, I'm not sure if recording 4:4:4 and then immediately converting it to 4:2:2 is much better than shooting in 4:2:2 -- you either throw away half the red and blue resolution in camera or in post, and it's not like HDCAM SR is such a compressed recording format that there are good reasons to doing it pre-compression. I'm just not sure if it's really like 35mm vs. 16mm. I can see that 4:4:4 would help in color-correcting but I'm not sure if these shows are color-correcting in 4:4:4 or not. Does 4:4:4 LOG recording allow for greater dynamic range to be visible in the final 4:2:2 Rec 709 broadcast master?

 

Are these shows recording in SQ (440 Mbps) or HQ (880 Mbps) mode? How many post houses can handle HQ recordings?

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Paul, just wanted to chime in, like everyone else, to let you know everything is looking incredible so far. Let's hope the WGA get some lead way on their strike, so you and your crew can continue shooting. I'm really interested in like David said, how shooting 4:4:4 is effecting the process, prior and/or post of color correction, as opposed to shooting 4:2:2 for a broadcast master.

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