American Cinematographer

[Zachary Marsh]

Some hightlights for people who don't have the article. The article is Sum of All Fears, in April 2009 American Cinematographer magazine.

In regards to 35mm film the Duggan (the DP) said: "We didn't think purely in comparative terms; we simply like the look the Red gave. The color rendition is very good...I knew I could expose more for the highlights when necessary because it's very easy to pull the shadows up with the Redcode files."

Another Duggan quote: "I often went much darker than the suggested 320 ISO, and having the ability to immediately view the files game me the confidence to push the camera to its limits with-out introducing noise."

Part of the article: "Duggan says his basic approach to lightning didn't change with the One. "I've always lit by eye and then taken meter readings, and that didn't change, except that I was also using the camera's built-in his-togram.""

They did complain about the dailies as they had to view them as 1k files. And a couple other little technical things that they just hadn't adjusted to yet and had to learn about.

It was graded at 2k.

Just something for people to gnaw on. It's particularly amusing because American Cinematographer is FULL of articles and quotes from people who hate digital and say film is the only way they will ever shoot.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Only...

Only...

American Cinematographer is FULL of articles and quotes from people who hate digital and say film is the only way they will ever shoot.

How much longer do they think ECN will be made?

My Brother seems to finally coming over to realize that like it or not the number of days film will be made are counting down. It was understandable when "video" vs. film was the issue, but "video" is dead, video-tape is dead, digital is the ONLY way future moving images will be captured. Better to get on the boat before you get left in the dust...

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I think ferry service will be running for a good while longer. There's always the late boat. I assume film will go the same way it went with stills. The processing will dissapear before the film does.

I wonder how long it'll be before running a large scale development operation will no longer be cost effective.

 

[michael zaletel]

Does American Cinematographer publish any of their articles (or excerpts) online or at least allow archival search to facilitate ordering back issues containing key words?

-michael zaletel
(shooter)

 

[Mark Toia]

I dropped my subscription of AC... soooo anti RED.
P2', HDCAM's even PRO 8mm get better coverage, so so political.
I suppose at the end of the day RED does not advertise, so I suppose AC don't need to run any stories about the camera.

They keep saying that there is no films shot with RED, so they don't write up about it, Ive shot so many big budget AD's on RED now that I have forgotton how many, most of them have bigger budgets than most movies.

ok ok, 'll get off my high horse.

AC is still a good classic old mag, but it is getting a bit long in the tooth in it's writing, articles and ideas.
Maybe it's time for someone to put together a more contemporary FILM/DIGITAL version with more modern views.
If anyone knows of a magazine like this please forward on to me the name.

thanks all.

 

[Guidofilippi]

I dropped my subscription of AC... soooo anti RED.
P2', HDCAM's even PRO 8mm get better coverage, so so political.
I suppose at the end of the day RED does not advertise, so I suppose AC don't need to run any stories about the camera.

They keep saying that there is no films shot with RED, so they don't write up about it, Ive shot so many big budget AD's on RED now that I have forgotton how many, most of them have bigger budgets than most movies.

ok ok, 'll get off my high horse.

AC is still a good classic old mag, but it is getting a bit long in the tooth in it's writing, articles and ideas.
Maybe it's time for someone to put together a more contemporary FILM/DIGITAL version with more modern views.
If anyone knows of a magazine like this please forward on to me the name.

thanks all.

I agree with you. I´ll keep my subscription because there´s no real replacement... but I think it´s basically a matter of sponsorship, not "only" some old-fashioned tradition and/or that they dislike digital stuff. Arri, Sony, Panasonic... lots of coverage of D21´s work... Dalsa and Viper have appeared for years... all of them advertise(d) a lot in the magazine.
Guido

 

[Harry Lipnick]

AC is a magazine about craft, not about cameras. Read it for technique and ideas from brilliant cinematographers. If all you're looking for is a camera review, you're looking in the wrong place.
Peace,

-Harry

 

[Zack Birlew]

Well, I wish they would post up online archives for their older issues versus trying to get people to pay $75+ for one back issue with usually only one good major article (ie. the old issue with an article on Ridley Scott's "Legend" and, of course, the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" issues)

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I didn't even realize AC covered cameras. Maybe I just ignored everything camera related.

How can they have an anti-red bias?

 

[Guidofilippi]

The magazine hasn´t published, until march at least, coverage of any production shooting with a Red... believe it or not. Not a word on it.
Guido

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

The magazine hasn´t published, until march at least, coverage of any production shooting with a Red... believe it or not. Not a word on it.
Guido

not true.. ill have to pull up some issues and look through. but i remember reading some stuff a few issues ago on red.. dec, jan maybe

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Just what productions would they have covered?

The very first films shot on RED are just now being released. AC usually runs a story simultaneously with the theatrical release.

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The magazine hasn´t published, until march at least, coverage of any production shooting with a Red... believe it or not. Not a word on it.
Guido

That's not true. An article on "Sanctuary" comes to mind just from memory (I'm out of town so I can't dig through my issues). The Red One was used for parts of "Coraline" and that was mentioned in the magazine too.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Well, I wish they would post up online archives for their older issues versus trying to get people to pay $75+ for one back issue with usually only one good major article (ie. the old issue with an article on Ridley Scott's "Legend" and, of course, the "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" issues)

Ohhh... yes... :iagree:

 

[Tom Lowe]

I noticed that Roberto Schaefer seemed to be making a reference to Epic in the issue with Dexter on the cover. He was talking about DPs maintaining control over the DI process, and he was lamenting the fact that once a DP shoots a picture on a large digital format like 6K, for example, the editors might do some serious cropping (or "finding the frame") from the RAW shots, and that it will be even harder to keep control over the photography. His main point is that producers should be paying DPs for the large amount of time they are currently spending on DIs now. That absolutely makes sense to me. It's unfair to think that the DP will "donate" his or her time, especially as post becomes more and more important. When a DP shoots RAW, it's more vital than ever to include the DP in the post and DI.

 

[Justin Anderson]

"Part of the article: "Duggan says his basic approach to lightning didn't change with the One. "I've always lit by eye and then taken meter readings, and that didn't change, except that I was also using the camera's built-in histogram."

Great to hear. :beer:

 

[Noah Kadner]

The magazine hasn´t published, until march at least, coverage of any production shooting with a Red... believe it or not. Not a word on it.
Guido

That is completely untrue. I wrote the first story about RED for American Cinematographer back in the April 2007 issue, just in time for NAB and way before the camera was even shipping. Since then the magazine has covered numerous RED projects and workflows as they've come together. If you read the magazine on a regular basis you'd already know that, so why make a big deal about something you don't even pay attention to?

It just so happens that there haven't been that many major features shot entirely on the RED, until now. And you now see Knowing covered in the magazine because it's newsworthy. That story might go online next month as the web version of the magazine trails the print by that much. If you want to read about it now, please go to the newsstand and support the good folks (like me) who work hard putting these stories together for you.

It's not a RED magazine, nor an ARRI magazine, nor a Panavision magazine nor a Kodak magazine. It's called American Cinematographer because it's about the artists not the tech. :beer:

Noah

 

[Guidofilippi]

That is completely untrue. I wrote the first story about RED for American Cinematographer back in the April 2007 issue, just in time for NAB and way before the camera was even shipping. Since then the magazine has covered numerous RED projects and workflows as they've come together. If you read the magazine on a regular basis you'd already know that, so why make a big deal about something you don't even pay attention to?

It just so happens that there haven't been that many major features shot entirely on the RED, until now. And you now see Knowing covered in the magazine because it's newsworthy. That story might go online next month as the web version of the magazine trails the print by that much. If you want to read about it now, please go to the newsstand and support the good folks (like me) who work hard putting these stories together for you.

It's not a RED magazine, nor an ARRI magazine, nor a Panavision magazine nor a Kodak magazine. It's called American Cinematographer because it's about the artists not the tech. :beer:

Noah

Well... easy, easy, Noah... I just wrote a short reply and didn´t elaborate... Ok, I was slightly ironical in case you didn´t notice. And I´ve regularly received the magazine at home for the last 19 years, and will keep on receiving it, and i pay attention to it. And I´m not a "fan kid", not even a kid... By the way, I simplý can´t go to the newsstand and buy it ´cause I live in Argentina and it´s not sold round the corner. Yes, remember... there´s a world outside the US... only 95% of the human population...
I went through the April 07 issue and found your article. I vaguely remember having read it... when the Red was something almost unheard of. Anyway, I guess the section "New Products and Services" is a paid section where manufacturers present... well... there new products and services, isn´t it? Probably the first and only time that Red paid printed advertising. And your article has just celebrated it´s second birthday.
After that, I think I read about the Red only 3 times, and just "passing by" mentions. One I recall was last year, a short article by a respected senior ASC DP (I don´t remember who) who was not fond of digital production and backed traditional film. And the last one, mentioned by David Mullen, is the coverage of "Coraline", the main article of the February issue, extensive and very technical, but basically centered on DSLR camerawork and mentions the Red only once in the last page. It has several photos, none of the Red.
Objectively, I find a great assimetry between the fuzz Red has created in the international film community and its coverage in the AC Magazine. I think this is undeniable. And I don´t only mean feature coverage, as the magazine has sections that cover ads, short features, clips, TV productions, "Production Slate" for unreleased productions, foreign productions... At first I thought it was related to some sort of conservatism that one may expect to find in an institution like the ASC, although I confess it has surprised me. But as months went by I started to suspect (and I still do) possible pressure on the part of worried big advertisers/sponsors... you name them. Proof of this? None, of course. But...

 

[David Mullen ASC]

The opposite is true -- I've had the editor of the magazine personally tell me that they were looking for more RED productions to cover. Noah writes for the magazine occasionally and can confirm that. But they are primarily a magazine about major feature film production, hence the light coverage on RED features until "Knowing". They talked about doing some sort of article on "Manure" but since it has no distributor at this point, that's sort of on hold for now.

Believe me, when more major studios movies are shot on RED, you'll see more articles about them in "American Cinematographer". They don't base what they will write about on who buys advertising, they base it on what they think the most number of professional cinematographers are going to want to read about, and what most major cinematographers are shooting, assuming they can organize the article far enough in advance due to something like a 3-month or more timeline from planning to publishing an issue.

People who buy ad space in a magazine are mainly concerned about the size of the readership, that's why they are spending the money to buy ad space -- so it is in the best interest of the magazine to publish articles that people want to read, at least, people who are their targeted audience. Basing articles simply on who buys ad space would be detrimental in the long run to the very people who are spending the money on ad space. You see smaller magazines like that all the time, essentially industry promotional ads dressed up as an article, but "American Cinematographer" is not that way.

This magazine was my film school basically -- when I got to college, I read every issue going back to 1925 or so, and I re-read the 1970's thru 1980's issues several times over.

For a person who wants to read more articles on RED productions, probably no magazine is going to satisfy, and for the person who wants to read more about movies shot on film, they are going to be disappointed when magazine space is devoted to digital productions. There is no way to please everyone.

 

[Guidofilippi]

Good to have first-hand feedback... thank you David.
Guido