Paul Cameron

Mike Williamson · September 20, 2004

(a repost I'll try to recreate as best I can)

I've recently been watching and loving Paul Cameron's (and Tony Scott's) work on "Man on Fire", I like the elegance and surprising coherence of the film given that stylistically it incorporated a sort of everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach. I've read the ICG article on how it was shot, but I'm wondering if there's any other articles out there on Cameron's commercial/music video work? I've been watching some of his shorter work over at watchreels.com, lots of great flashy stuff, I particularly like his Buick "Car of the Future" ad.

Somebody mentioned in previous post on "Top Gun" (I think) that Cameron is one of a number of DP's following in the path of Jeffrey Kimball, ASC, which I thought was interesting. It's easy to forget that the newer, flashier trends have their predecessors as well, and don't drop out of thin air. Any thoughts on Cameron's lighting style?

September 20, 2004

Mine were the Kimball comments. It's funny but yeah, to me Paul Cameron's work in action movies is definitely from the Bruckheimer stable which we discussed evolved from the British commercials directors of the 70s (see Tony and Ridley Scott's work with Kimball on their earlier commercials- Ridley's work with Frank Tidy on The Duellists) which is of course derivitive of Storaro and Watkin who cite new-wave, who cite, etc.

Mike Williamson · September 21, 2004

I think one of the things I responded to in "Man on Fire", and "Collateral" for that matter, was the multicamera style with the absence of the more obviously lit parts that Cameron had in "Gone in 60 Seconds" or "Swordfish". Those films are fun and shiny, but the absence of the omnipresent kickers felt a little more natural to me. These are probably some of the same things you're referring to in terms of being Fincher-esque. I'm a big fan of Fincher and Khondji, I guess it hasn't worn out its welcome for me yet. Hopefully the best is yet to come!

DavidSloan · September 22, 2004

Damn Fstop...you know your poop!

While we're on the subject, what is that green tint that these guys achieve? Is that done in the lab, filters, gel, etc...?

Thanks, Fstop!

F Bulgarelli · September 22, 2004

Have you guys seen Paul Cameron's commercial reel on reelsondemand.

Excellent!

Eric Steelberg ASC · September 22, 2004

His stuff on watchreels is good. He definitely has a look. An AC I frequently use has worked with him a bunch and says he follows a pretty consistent approach to his 'looks.'

Now what the heck is a 5 year old reel of mine doing on watchreels?! I didn't even know that was there!

DavidSloan · September 22, 2004

No poop! lol I gotta go rent that.

In that film: Thirteen, there is that scene where the girl goes into a store in Hollywood, and they didn't correct the Flo's in there, but that looked WAY to green.

Somehow Fincher, and Chris Doyle and some of these other dudes know how to NOT correct it just enough...or something.

I still haven't figured it out.

Wendell_Greene · September 22, 2004

He definitely has a look. An AC I frequently use has worked with him a bunch and says he follows a pretty consistent approach to his 'looks.'

He's really into using various strengths and combinations of Rosco Cal color gels in tandem with the kodak preview system to fine tune his lighting on set.

Mike Williamson · September 23, 2004

As far as making lab corrections to footage shot under fluorescent lights, I recall reading an interview with a famous cinematographer (maybe in "Masters of Light"?) where he said that fully correcting out the green would make the blacks very milky. Does this advice ring a bell for anyone? Sorry I'm not remembering this more fully.

Eric, I missed your reel on watchreels.com, is it still up? I'd love to check it out if you can direct me to it.

Wendell_Greene · September 24, 2004

As far as making lab corrections to footage shot under fluorescent lights, I recall reading an interview with a famous cinematographer (maybe in "Masters of Light"?) where he said that fully correcting out the green would make the blacks very milky. Does this advice ring a bell for anyone?

You're referring to Allan Daviau, ASC. His caution [from the book "Film Lighting"] was that he felt that when you shoot under fluorescents and have the lab do the full fluorescent correction your blacks become extremely contrasty, way too much for his liking. He likes to use a Tiffen LC 3 [low contrast] filter to offset this

Mike Williamson · September 24, 2004

Yes, that's the quote I was looking for and couldn't find. Thank you very much, Wendell, for the correction, especially as I had it wrong. I introduced myself on the board recently in a separate post, but again, it's pleasure to be here with so many generous people with all kinds of great knowledge floating around.

Michael Nash · November 8, 2004

No poop! lol I gotta go rent that.

In that film: Thirteen, there is that scene where the girl goes into a store in Hollywood, and they didn't correct the Flo's in there, but that looked WAY to green.

Somehow Fincher, and Chris Doyle and some of these other dudes know how to NOT correct it just enough...or something.

I still haven't figured it out.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Coming into this thread way late, as I just saw Man On Fire last night.

Thirteen went through a digital intermediate (as does a lot of Cameron's stuff also), so the color can be -- and is -- tweaked every which way.

I missed the ICG article on Man On Fire . Did that film go through a DI? Some of the colors were skewed way beyond what you can achieve with gels alone, like greenish tinted shadows and amber-orange highlights, even on wide exterior shots.

Mike Williamson · November 10, 2004

The ICG article appeared in the April 2004 issue. The article doesn't specifically say that the film itself went through a DI, however, it does talk about the stock testing that Cameron did and the DI process that they put the test footage through (no specs on the DI however). So, the answer is an emphatic "probably".