David Mullen ASC
Moderator
Can't really answer that, I'd have to also compare color rendition, power consumption, unit weight, ruggedness, etc. before I could make an intelligent answer.
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Ariel Weiss
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Thank you, I'll try to dig some info from kinoflo.
Tim Hole
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I am finding it very hard to break out of the very low budget habits. I am primarily a writer/director on my own projects and shoot other peoples projects. I am so used to operating, I find it so restless not operating on my own films it drives me mad. Although I should be analysing the whole scene as a director I can't break away from wanting to operate. I am also so specific about how I want something lit that it has caused big issues with DP's in the past. I am not talking about telling them what lights to use just how I envisage the shot. I might use a light as an example of the kind of light feel say kino for example but I try to hold back. I am always open to ideas and discuss in detail what I am trying to create mood wise. But some DPs just feel like I am taking their job from them. Then they say they are just over priced gaffers.
I wouldn't say I am a control freak its just that I am so used to being hands on with other peoples films and my own films are playing through in my mind before I shoot and I can see exactly how I want it to be.
It is very difficult. Maybe I am too controlling...its just I know exactly what I am looking for.
...We are talking low budget shooting here as well as corporate stuff. Gigs that I have autonomy over essentially.
Peter Moretti
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David,
Thank you for the generous support you give to filmmakers.
I have a ? that may be rather large in scope. It’s if you could talk about process of going from the script to designing the actual shots. I imagine it’s a collaborative process with the director, but also think that even during the first read you instinctively think in terms of shots.
While many of the setups will be rather customary: master, CU, reversal, insert; some must also be rather involved, e.g. using a crane or an interesting POV.
When I read a script, I realize there are so many ways to shoot something, and I’m sure you must see so much more than I do. So how do you cull your choices and communicate them to the director and rest of the team and ensure they are executed properly on set?
Here’s a very simple example from a scene that’s been cut from script I’m looking at. It’s not dialogue; it’s simply a line of direction/action:
She opens the calfskin suitcase and meticulously unfolds perfectly folded clothes.
Assuming I want to follow this direction, there are so many ways to do it:
* I could start on the suitcase that’s probably very expensive looking (but now I have to be sure props supplies a very nice suitcase that is interesting enough to start a shot on) and pull out (which means dolly tracks).
* I could follow her into the room where the suitcase is (which requires a steadicam or maybe dolly tracks/zooming).
* I could shoot from the POV of inside the suitcase (which means we need a modified suitcase of some sort and a way to operate a camera from inside it).
* I could have CU’s on her hand putting a pretty little key into the lock and the latches unlatching (more stuff for props, does the actress have nice nails or do we need to use a hands double?)... it’s really never ending for just one seemingly simple line of stage direction.
While of course I’m curious about how you make the decisions of how to shoot the action, I’m even more interested in how working in a collaborative environment affects those decisions and how those decisions are ultimately communicated to everyone. The shooting scripts I’ve seen are hardly very detailed, IMHO.
Again, the example above has been cut from the script, so I’m not looking for you to make the decisions for me. I’m just wondering what the process is that you go through.
I hope I’ve been clear. If you can shed any light on the progression of envisioning what’s written in the script, to designing the shots, to shooting it, that would be great. Thanks very much!
Thank you for the generous support you give to filmmakers.
I have a ? that may be rather large in scope. It’s if you could talk about process of going from the script to designing the actual shots. I imagine it’s a collaborative process with the director, but also think that even during the first read you instinctively think in terms of shots.
While many of the setups will be rather customary: master, CU, reversal, insert; some must also be rather involved, e.g. using a crane or an interesting POV.
When I read a script, I realize there are so many ways to shoot something, and I’m sure you must see so much more than I do. So how do you cull your choices and communicate them to the director and rest of the team and ensure they are executed properly on set?
Here’s a very simple example from a scene that’s been cut from script I’m looking at. It’s not dialogue; it’s simply a line of direction/action:
She opens the calfskin suitcase and meticulously unfolds perfectly folded clothes.
Assuming I want to follow this direction, there are so many ways to do it:
* I could start on the suitcase that’s probably very expensive looking (but now I have to be sure props supplies a very nice suitcase that is interesting enough to start a shot on) and pull out (which means dolly tracks).
* I could follow her into the room where the suitcase is (which requires a steadicam or maybe dolly tracks/zooming).
* I could shoot from the POV of inside the suitcase (which means we need a modified suitcase of some sort and a way to operate a camera from inside it).
* I could have CU’s on her hand putting a pretty little key into the lock and the latches unlatching (more stuff for props, does the actress have nice nails or do we need to use a hands double?)... it’s really never ending for just one seemingly simple line of stage direction.
While of course I’m curious about how you make the decisions of how to shoot the action, I’m even more interested in how working in a collaborative environment affects those decisions and how those decisions are ultimately communicated to everyone. The shooting scripts I’ve seen are hardly very detailed, IMHO.
Again, the example above has been cut from the script, so I’m not looking for you to make the decisions for me. I’m just wondering what the process is that you go through.
I hope I’ve been clear. If you can shed any light on the progression of envisioning what’s written in the script, to designing the shots, to shooting it, that would be great. Thanks very much!
David Mullen ASC
Moderator
As you said, there are a number of ways to shoot a scene, so it's a process of elimination, and why you pick one good idea over another will be due to a number of factors, story most of all but obviously time and budget constraints may be a factor (i.e. if your good idea for one line in a script involves a dozen set-ups and dolly moves on an already heavy shooting day, it may have to be altered...)
It helps to have some ground rules for how the overall movie will be told visually. That might be something like "this story is mainly told from the POV of the main character, we have to feel trapped inside her head" or "this story should have a somewhat detached and objective feeling, like we are observing these characters like anthropologists or documentarians." Or maybe it's more technical, like "most of this movie will be shot on a 35mm lens in medium shot with only a few key exceptions" (obviously this idea is backed up with some intellectual reasoning.)
There may be other things that this shot or shots has to sell, like time of day.
Besides the choices you listed for a woman unfolding clothes from a suitcase, you could:
* see her through a window pane, the camera outside looking in (though the expensiveness of the suitcase and the neatness of the folding will be less obvious)
* pull back from the suitcase, as you said, but craning straight up rather than dollying out, for an overhead view
* play the whole thing in a close shot of her hands, only tilting up to reveal her face near the end
The trouble with the "suitcase's POV" idea, again, is just that the expensiveness of the suitcase and the neatness of the folded clothes would be hard to see.
You generally start with the screenwriter's intent, asking yourself why he took the time to describe something like this, is the expensiveness of the suitcase important, has the audience already seen this suitcase before in an earlier scene, what is the significance of the folded clothes and her unfolding them, how far ahead is the audience already, did they already see her take this suitcase in the previous scene from a husband who returned home, do they already know the contents of the suitcase, if important? Perhaps this scene in the bedroom doesn't have to establish the expensiveness of the suitcase or the neatness of the folding in close detail, so you can use the wide shot seen through the window, etc.?
When I work with a director, my job is partly to be an idea machine, to throw a series of good ideas and options at him or her and see what sticks, what they respond to, get excited about. But then it's also my job to question my own ideas, and his, from both a story angle and from a production/logistic angle. The farther along you are in shooting, the easier the communication gets because the visual groundwork for the show is more clear to both of you, so no longer is it an "anything goes" sort of situation, you quickly narrow your options because the language of the movie is known to you.
There is also the issue of what the actor is bringing to the scene and whether you need to shoot a close-up of her face or not, etc.
And there is also the issue of pacing, generally the old rule is "Always start a scene as late as possible and get out of it as early as possible" -- because if you don't, the editor probably will, so it's better if the footage was already staged and shot with this dictum in mind. So maybe only the beginning of the scene is important, the opening of the suitcase and beginning to take out the folded clothes. But maybe you have a slightly different idea based on what the actress is doing... perhaps she started unfolding the clothes, couldn't continue because she was emotionally overwhelmed, and she sat down on the bed, the work unfinished. So maybe that's the scene now -- the camera starts on the opened suitcase and the partially unfolded clothes, pulling back to reveal her sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out into space, her eyes red, etc.
So it's hard to do this exercise without the context of the surrounding scenes.
Which brings up another issue, which is how you go into this scene and how you get out of it will depend on the two scenes bookending this scene. For one thing, perhaps you don't want two scenes in a row to be shot in the same manner, both with a pullback as an opening for example. Or maybe you do, I don't know. Maybe if the last scene ended wide, you want to start this scene tight.
Or maybe you want the audience to think they are still in the previous scene so that a camera move or actor move reveals the new location during the scene.
Two of my favorite transitions are in "Lawrence of Arabia" -- one is sort of a trick, the scene where Omar Shariff is on his camel when he meets Peter O'Toole at the well for the first time ends with his close-up against the blue sky as he says something like "God be with you!" and rides off -- then after holding on the blank blue sky for a moment, the camera tilts down to reveal a wide shot of Lawrence crossing a huge landscape on his own. I don't know if Shariff's close-up was shot on this next location, faked for the first, to create this transition, or if there is a hidden dissolve between blue skies in both locations, but it is seamless. Now what it means thematically, I don't know, other that it allows the two scenes to flow into each other smoothly.
The other is simpler -- after the intermission, we meet the reporter character in a busy street, he hands his business card to an old man who tells him that he knows Prince Faisal. He says "can you read?" and hands him the card, we cut to an insert of the card in the man's hands... as he flips the card over to see the other side of the card, the movie match cuts to Alex Guinness finishing the movement of the card, so it almost seems like the insert was of his hands, not the old man's hands in the street. Again, it's a little jump forward that makes one scene flow into the next.
I stole that idea for an indie movie I shot, suggesting it to the director. A character finds a Christmas card thrown away in a dumpster. We see in a wider shot, the character reaching into the dumpster and pulling out a Christmas card. We cut to a close-up of the character reading the envelope. We then cut to an insert of the return address on the envelope... but then the envelope is lowered out of frame and reveals a wide shot of the house that the address referred to, and the character walks into the shot, having arrived at that address. This was a bit of a tricky transition mainly because the dumpster scene was at night and the house exterior was the next day, so the insert of the card was shot in the daytime but had to cut with the close-up of the character at night.
Recently I've been shooting for television, where pacing is critical because the episode has to hit a certain length that it can't run over. So if a script is a bit long, you know that you are going to have to make sure that each scene moves quickly, doesn't drag, doesn't waste time... but you don't necessarily just want things to be done faster if that's the wrong tempo for the scenes, so you have to be efficient with your storytelling. So dolly shots that take a long time to "reveal" the scene as an opener have to go unless they immediately start to cover scripted dialogue, etc. In other words, if you want to begin the scene with a camera moving down a hallway, revealing the main character in the bedroom talking to her mother on the phone, you better hear some of the scripted dialogue during the dolly move or else the editor will cut out the move to get to the meat of the scene.
The other thing I've learned from some of the seasoned TV directors is the notion of "lifts" -- if the scene runs too long, what part is likely to be lifted out, removed, and how can the scene be covered to make that easier to do. To do that requires knowing what's important and less important about the scene.
It helps to have some ground rules for how the overall movie will be told visually. That might be something like "this story is mainly told from the POV of the main character, we have to feel trapped inside her head" or "this story should have a somewhat detached and objective feeling, like we are observing these characters like anthropologists or documentarians." Or maybe it's more technical, like "most of this movie will be shot on a 35mm lens in medium shot with only a few key exceptions" (obviously this idea is backed up with some intellectual reasoning.)
There may be other things that this shot or shots has to sell, like time of day.
Besides the choices you listed for a woman unfolding clothes from a suitcase, you could:
* see her through a window pane, the camera outside looking in (though the expensiveness of the suitcase and the neatness of the folding will be less obvious)
* pull back from the suitcase, as you said, but craning straight up rather than dollying out, for an overhead view
* play the whole thing in a close shot of her hands, only tilting up to reveal her face near the end
The trouble with the "suitcase's POV" idea, again, is just that the expensiveness of the suitcase and the neatness of the folded clothes would be hard to see.
You generally start with the screenwriter's intent, asking yourself why he took the time to describe something like this, is the expensiveness of the suitcase important, has the audience already seen this suitcase before in an earlier scene, what is the significance of the folded clothes and her unfolding them, how far ahead is the audience already, did they already see her take this suitcase in the previous scene from a husband who returned home, do they already know the contents of the suitcase, if important? Perhaps this scene in the bedroom doesn't have to establish the expensiveness of the suitcase or the neatness of the folding in close detail, so you can use the wide shot seen through the window, etc.?
When I work with a director, my job is partly to be an idea machine, to throw a series of good ideas and options at him or her and see what sticks, what they respond to, get excited about. But then it's also my job to question my own ideas, and his, from both a story angle and from a production/logistic angle. The farther along you are in shooting, the easier the communication gets because the visual groundwork for the show is more clear to both of you, so no longer is it an "anything goes" sort of situation, you quickly narrow your options because the language of the movie is known to you.
There is also the issue of what the actor is bringing to the scene and whether you need to shoot a close-up of her face or not, etc.
And there is also the issue of pacing, generally the old rule is "Always start a scene as late as possible and get out of it as early as possible" -- because if you don't, the editor probably will, so it's better if the footage was already staged and shot with this dictum in mind. So maybe only the beginning of the scene is important, the opening of the suitcase and beginning to take out the folded clothes. But maybe you have a slightly different idea based on what the actress is doing... perhaps she started unfolding the clothes, couldn't continue because she was emotionally overwhelmed, and she sat down on the bed, the work unfinished. So maybe that's the scene now -- the camera starts on the opened suitcase and the partially unfolded clothes, pulling back to reveal her sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out into space, her eyes red, etc.
So it's hard to do this exercise without the context of the surrounding scenes.
Which brings up another issue, which is how you go into this scene and how you get out of it will depend on the two scenes bookending this scene. For one thing, perhaps you don't want two scenes in a row to be shot in the same manner, both with a pullback as an opening for example. Or maybe you do, I don't know. Maybe if the last scene ended wide, you want to start this scene tight.
Or maybe you want the audience to think they are still in the previous scene so that a camera move or actor move reveals the new location during the scene.
Two of my favorite transitions are in "Lawrence of Arabia" -- one is sort of a trick, the scene where Omar Shariff is on his camel when he meets Peter O'Toole at the well for the first time ends with his close-up against the blue sky as he says something like "God be with you!" and rides off -- then after holding on the blank blue sky for a moment, the camera tilts down to reveal a wide shot of Lawrence crossing a huge landscape on his own. I don't know if Shariff's close-up was shot on this next location, faked for the first, to create this transition, or if there is a hidden dissolve between blue skies in both locations, but it is seamless. Now what it means thematically, I don't know, other that it allows the two scenes to flow into each other smoothly.
The other is simpler -- after the intermission, we meet the reporter character in a busy street, he hands his business card to an old man who tells him that he knows Prince Faisal. He says "can you read?" and hands him the card, we cut to an insert of the card in the man's hands... as he flips the card over to see the other side of the card, the movie match cuts to Alex Guinness finishing the movement of the card, so it almost seems like the insert was of his hands, not the old man's hands in the street. Again, it's a little jump forward that makes one scene flow into the next.
I stole that idea for an indie movie I shot, suggesting it to the director. A character finds a Christmas card thrown away in a dumpster. We see in a wider shot, the character reaching into the dumpster and pulling out a Christmas card. We cut to a close-up of the character reading the envelope. We then cut to an insert of the return address on the envelope... but then the envelope is lowered out of frame and reveals a wide shot of the house that the address referred to, and the character walks into the shot, having arrived at that address. This was a bit of a tricky transition mainly because the dumpster scene was at night and the house exterior was the next day, so the insert of the card was shot in the daytime but had to cut with the close-up of the character at night.
Recently I've been shooting for television, where pacing is critical because the episode has to hit a certain length that it can't run over. So if a script is a bit long, you know that you are going to have to make sure that each scene moves quickly, doesn't drag, doesn't waste time... but you don't necessarily just want things to be done faster if that's the wrong tempo for the scenes, so you have to be efficient with your storytelling. So dolly shots that take a long time to "reveal" the scene as an opener have to go unless they immediately start to cover scripted dialogue, etc. In other words, if you want to begin the scene with a camera moving down a hallway, revealing the main character in the bedroom talking to her mother on the phone, you better hear some of the scripted dialogue during the dolly move or else the editor will cut out the move to get to the meat of the scene.
The other thing I've learned from some of the seasoned TV directors is the notion of "lifts" -- if the scene runs too long, what part is likely to be lifted out, removed, and how can the scene be covered to make that easier to do. To do that requires knowing what's important and less important about the scene.
David Mullen ASC
Moderator
Director Alexander Mackrendrick once said that narrative is driven by a simple premise, which is "what happens next?" Our brains are wired to ask this question and then receive the answer. So one of his principles of screenwriting, directing, and then editing was "Always end a scene on unfinished business" or to put it another way, "End a scene on a question, not an answer." Let the next scene answer the question, etc.
So one of things I do when I look at a scene is suggest to the director that it may be better to cut the final line of dialogue if it ties up the scene too neatly, for example, if the wife asks her husband "are you going to see her again today?" you don't necessarily have to see his reply (unless for dramatic reasons), the first shot of the next scene might answer that question for the audience.
I remember early on in my career I was shooting a bunch of bad thrillers in the 90's that seem to still play on Lifetime and USA Network... once the producer let me sit in on a story session with the screenwriter because there were some scheduling and logistical problems because the movie had to be shot in 18 days. In the scene, an evil babysitter is taking care of a young boy, but she wants to rifle through his father's home office, so she drugs the kid. The script had these scenes: (1) she makes the kid dinner (2) she offers the kid a desert (2) after desert, the kid says "I feel sleepy..." (3) she picks up the sleeping kid (4) she carries the kid up the stairs (5) she puts the kid in bed, (6) she enters the father's home office.
Well, sitting in the background, I just got fed up (six scenes!) and said "why don't you cut from the kid saying 'I feel sleepy' to her tucking the knocked-out kid in bed? Why do we need the dinner scene, why do we need to see her pick up the sleeping kid, why do we need to see her carry him to his bedroom?" It was totally inefficient storytelling, just get to the point as quickly as possible. (I don't necessarily blame the young screenwriter, the producer was infamous for demanding that everything be spelled out in scenes.)
The thing is that if we didn't cut to the chase in the writing end of things, the editor would have later, so why waste everyone's time shooting stuff that would be cut out?
So one of things I do when I look at a scene is suggest to the director that it may be better to cut the final line of dialogue if it ties up the scene too neatly, for example, if the wife asks her husband "are you going to see her again today?" you don't necessarily have to see his reply (unless for dramatic reasons), the first shot of the next scene might answer that question for the audience.
I remember early on in my career I was shooting a bunch of bad thrillers in the 90's that seem to still play on Lifetime and USA Network... once the producer let me sit in on a story session with the screenwriter because there were some scheduling and logistical problems because the movie had to be shot in 18 days. In the scene, an evil babysitter is taking care of a young boy, but she wants to rifle through his father's home office, so she drugs the kid. The script had these scenes: (1) she makes the kid dinner (2) she offers the kid a desert (2) after desert, the kid says "I feel sleepy..." (3) she picks up the sleeping kid (4) she carries the kid up the stairs (5) she puts the kid in bed, (6) she enters the father's home office.
Well, sitting in the background, I just got fed up (six scenes!) and said "why don't you cut from the kid saying 'I feel sleepy' to her tucking the knocked-out kid in bed? Why do we need the dinner scene, why do we need to see her pick up the sleeping kid, why do we need to see her carry him to his bedroom?" It was totally inefficient storytelling, just get to the point as quickly as possible. (I don't necessarily blame the young screenwriter, the producer was infamous for demanding that everything be spelled out in scenes.)
The thing is that if we didn't cut to the chase in the writing end of things, the editor would have later, so why waste everyone's time shooting stuff that would be cut out?
Peter Moretti
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David,
Thank you so much for the response! I believe one of the reasons why Christopher Nolan's films work so well is that they are written to keep the audience asking "what happens next?" which hearkens to your anecdote of Alexander Mackrendrick.
Now, may I ask, once these decisions are locked down, how do you keep track of them? They can't all be incorporated in the shooting script, AFAICT. Do you just carry a set of personal notes for each take of each scene or is there a more established way of keeping track of all this? (Or maybe you know the material so well that it's all in your head?)
BTW, I especially like the idea of having some overarching philosophy for the composition.
Thanks again.
Thank you so much for the response! I believe one of the reasons why Christopher Nolan's films work so well is that they are written to keep the audience asking "what happens next?" which hearkens to your anecdote of Alexander Mackrendrick.
Now, may I ask, once these decisions are locked down, how do you keep track of them? They can't all be incorporated in the shooting script, AFAICT. Do you just carry a set of personal notes for each take of each scene or is there a more established way of keeping track of all this? (Or maybe you know the material so well that it's all in your head?)
BTW, I especially like the idea of having some overarching philosophy for the composition.
Thanks again.
David Mullen ASC
Moderator
You take notes hopefully, and if possible, generate a shot list in prep. But generally it's a good idea to come up with a very simple visual game plan that is easy to remember as a rough guide when stuck for a way to shoot a scene, like "this section of the movie is all in her head" or "we are in the blue and wide-angle section of the movie". You don't have to follow that to the letter, it's just merely there in your head as a starting point.
Since movies are shot out of order, I do like to sit down before call time with a cup of coffee and go through the call sheet and jot down some rough reminders of the approach to the day's work. Particular on a TV show like "United States of Tara" where we may be on stage for a week, and one day may list three scenes in the kitchen, two scenes in the living room, and these scenes might cover two scripted episodes (what is called "cross boarding" when you schedule two shows to be shot simultaneously usually because the guest director is doing two shows in a row.) So I have to review the upcoming scenes just to keep track of where they fit visually into the scheme of things, particular in regards to time of day, whether this kitchen scene is late afternoon, midday, dusk, etc. but the next one is a different time of day, because the trap being on a stage is to get lazy and light a set once for multiple scenes.
Peter Moretti
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Thanks much David.
vincent pascoe
Well-known member
David Please help Critique my reel ...
http://www.vimeo.com/2976250
all feedback welcome... trying something different
Vincent Pascoe
http://www.vimeo.com/2976250
all feedback welcome... trying something different
Vincent Pascoe
nageswara rao s
Active member
i wish you a very happy and prosperous new year to Mr David Mullen for all of your support and patience in giving answers to new learners of film makers, and also all other film makers who are interacting in these sites too. Mr David sir, did you use canon 5D mark II or 7 D personally any time and what is your idea and experience about those for any body's indies productions for some of scenes.
thank you
thank you
David Mullen ASC
Moderator
No, I've only used a 550D (T2i) for a few shots for a TV pilot. The issues with DSLR footage is well-publicized though.
Two directors I've worked with in the past went off and did very small movies on their own, no crew, one using a 7D and the other using a 5D. Interestingly, both opted to finish their movies as b&w.
Sam Eilertsen
Well-known member
Hi David,
Happy new year! Hope its a good one.
I shot a film project earlier this month on an Aaton XTR with Vision 3 500T. My professor told me that I should overexpose the film by a half-stop over what the meter said, but was rather foggy as to why, something about getting more latitude in processing. I wasn't having the lab pull-process or anything like that. I know with some cameras you are supposed to open the lens wider because some of the light is reflected into the viewfinder, but I think the Aaton has a mirrored shutter so this isn't the case. Both lenses I had were rated in T-stops so that wasn't the reason either.
Anyway, the footage looked normal when it came back, but why the extra half stop? Is this a standard practice?
Also, does 16mm film have the same latitude as 35mm film of the same stock? Are the only differences in resolution and grain level?
Thanks!
Happy new year! Hope its a good one.
I shot a film project earlier this month on an Aaton XTR with Vision 3 500T. My professor told me that I should overexpose the film by a half-stop over what the meter said, but was rather foggy as to why, something about getting more latitude in processing. I wasn't having the lab pull-process or anything like that. I know with some cameras you are supposed to open the lens wider because some of the light is reflected into the viewfinder, but I think the Aaton has a mirrored shutter so this isn't the case. Both lenses I had were rated in T-stops so that wasn't the reason either.
Anyway, the footage looked normal when it came back, but why the extra half stop? Is this a standard practice?
Also, does 16mm film have the same latitude as 35mm film of the same stock? Are the only differences in resolution and grain level?
Thanks!
David Mullen ASC
Moderator
Many people slightly overexpose color negative and then print it down to normal (or darken it down to normal brightness in a video transfer) -- the development is normal so that the developed negative, if overexposed, ends up denser (darker) than normal, which means more information is recorded. You can get away with this because of the tremendous overexposure latitude in the highlights, so minor overexposure does not entail any significant loss of detail at the high end.
If you overexpose by one-stop and then pull-process by one-stop, for example, your negative ends up with a normal density.
The larger grains in a negative receive light the fastest and become "developable" the soonest, the smaller grains are less sensitive and some never have time to get exposed and become "developable", so get washed away later in the bleach, fixer and wash steps. So overexposing negative makes the smaller, less sensitive, grains developable, so that they fill in the gaps between the larger grains, giving the image a tighter grain structure that makes it look less grainy.
If you did the opposite, underexpose, then you end up with mostly just the big grains in the image after processing causes the smaller unexposed grains to get washed away, and these big grains become easier to see dancing around the moving image.
So slightly overexposing helps give you a less grainy look, which is even more important with smaller negative formats like Super-16.
In printing, it also gives you richer blacks in the print, which makes the contrast seem a bit snappier as well as the colors. This is less of an issue with digital color-correction where black level and color saturation can be set electronically, though a denser negative with more shadow information recorded does give you more flexibility to slightly crush the blacks while still giving you some wiggle room for manipulating shadow detail.
In a print, the black levels are somewhat controlled by the printer lights used, and those are determined by how dense the negative is -- denser negatives (more exposed) need more light, higher printer light numbers, to create a print image of normal brightness.
Let's say you took an unexposed roll of negative to the lab and developed it normally -- you'd end up with a nearly clear piece of negative, as if you shot with the lens cap on, as dark an image as you can get.
Take this blank negative and print it in the 10's, 20's 30's, and 40's (the printer light scale goes from 1 to 50, with 25 being the middle.) Generally a normally exposed negative prints in the high 20's (though individually the RGB lights will be uneven.) You'll find that the blank negative printed at the higher numbers like will have deeper blacks in the print. This means that if your image prints in the low 40's, for example, it will have richer blacks than if it printed in the low 20's. If it prints in the low teens, the blacks will be milkier.
However, an image that prints in the 40's is a couple of stops overexposed and thus you start to run into brighter highlights getting too burned-out, plus once you hit 50 for one of the three colors, you can't print that color any darker, so it can be hard to color balance the image after that unless they "retrim" the printer to make the middle of the scale lower than 25.
Generally a stop of overexposure is about 6 to 8 points on the printer light scale, so a 1/3-stop overexposure is only a 2 to 3 point adjustment in the printer, hardly radical -- if your normally exposed image was printing around the high 20's, now it might be printing in the low 30's.
So besides the tighter grain, richer blacks and color (in a print), the other reason for slight overexposure is just protection against slight underexposure -- in other words, if you exposed the film in general a 1/2-stop over, then the occasional shots where you accidentally underexposed by a 1/2-stop would just bring the negative down to normal density. So rating a stock a bit slower is just protection from occasionally underexposing a shot. And generally a shot that is slightly overexposed and printed down looks better than a shot that is slightly underexposed and printed up.
Latitude and Dynamic Range are two separate things - the same film stock has the same dynamic range recorded whether cut into 16mm strips or IMAX strips, but the latitude (ability to correct an image back to normal) is smaller for smaller formats because you'll see grain problems more quickly on smaller formats which are grainier already than larger formats. So lower resolution and higher grain does create more limitations -- less latitude -- than higher resolution and lower grain. But in terms of dynamic range, the detail recorded from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights, the same stock type behaves the same way more or less regardless of the negative size, though I suppose one could argue that the tiniest details at the farthest ends of the exposure range might be more visible in a bigger format with more resolution.
If you overexpose by one-stop and then pull-process by one-stop, for example, your negative ends up with a normal density.
The larger grains in a negative receive light the fastest and become "developable" the soonest, the smaller grains are less sensitive and some never have time to get exposed and become "developable", so get washed away later in the bleach, fixer and wash steps. So overexposing negative makes the smaller, less sensitive, grains developable, so that they fill in the gaps between the larger grains, giving the image a tighter grain structure that makes it look less grainy.
If you did the opposite, underexpose, then you end up with mostly just the big grains in the image after processing causes the smaller unexposed grains to get washed away, and these big grains become easier to see dancing around the moving image.
So slightly overexposing helps give you a less grainy look, which is even more important with smaller negative formats like Super-16.
In printing, it also gives you richer blacks in the print, which makes the contrast seem a bit snappier as well as the colors. This is less of an issue with digital color-correction where black level and color saturation can be set electronically, though a denser negative with more shadow information recorded does give you more flexibility to slightly crush the blacks while still giving you some wiggle room for manipulating shadow detail.
In a print, the black levels are somewhat controlled by the printer lights used, and those are determined by how dense the negative is -- denser negatives (more exposed) need more light, higher printer light numbers, to create a print image of normal brightness.
Let's say you took an unexposed roll of negative to the lab and developed it normally -- you'd end up with a nearly clear piece of negative, as if you shot with the lens cap on, as dark an image as you can get.
Take this blank negative and print it in the 10's, 20's 30's, and 40's (the printer light scale goes from 1 to 50, with 25 being the middle.) Generally a normally exposed negative prints in the high 20's (though individually the RGB lights will be uneven.) You'll find that the blank negative printed at the higher numbers like will have deeper blacks in the print. This means that if your image prints in the low 40's, for example, it will have richer blacks than if it printed in the low 20's. If it prints in the low teens, the blacks will be milkier.
However, an image that prints in the 40's is a couple of stops overexposed and thus you start to run into brighter highlights getting too burned-out, plus once you hit 50 for one of the three colors, you can't print that color any darker, so it can be hard to color balance the image after that unless they "retrim" the printer to make the middle of the scale lower than 25.
Generally a stop of overexposure is about 6 to 8 points on the printer light scale, so a 1/3-stop overexposure is only a 2 to 3 point adjustment in the printer, hardly radical -- if your normally exposed image was printing around the high 20's, now it might be printing in the low 30's.
So besides the tighter grain, richer blacks and color (in a print), the other reason for slight overexposure is just protection against slight underexposure -- in other words, if you exposed the film in general a 1/2-stop over, then the occasional shots where you accidentally underexposed by a 1/2-stop would just bring the negative down to normal density. So rating a stock a bit slower is just protection from occasionally underexposing a shot. And generally a shot that is slightly overexposed and printed down looks better than a shot that is slightly underexposed and printed up.
Latitude and Dynamic Range are two separate things - the same film stock has the same dynamic range recorded whether cut into 16mm strips or IMAX strips, but the latitude (ability to correct an image back to normal) is smaller for smaller formats because you'll see grain problems more quickly on smaller formats which are grainier already than larger formats. So lower resolution and higher grain does create more limitations -- less latitude -- than higher resolution and lower grain. But in terms of dynamic range, the detail recorded from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights, the same stock type behaves the same way more or less regardless of the negative size, though I suppose one could argue that the tiniest details at the farthest ends of the exposure range might be more visible in a bigger format with more resolution.
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therussian
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Dear David Mullen,
First of all I am really glad for your generous help here and on other forums. It's really great to get insight from a true industry pro! This is my first post on a forum like this, but it seems that you can give unbiased recommendations, so I give it a try...
I am a european writer/director and planning to shoot my first feature in 2011. I am in a big dilemma of film vs. digital... The planned budget will be around 300 000 USD. At first I was keen on shooting on digital camera, because as a young filmmaker coming from the "video generation" it fits me better. However by now as I've already spent many time researching the subject, I became a film advocate. I love the look of a film stock, the grain, the textures, the emotionality it delivers, I really appreciate its archival quality and possibilities, the future proofness of the technic..., I love that it's a "living thing", not some electronic signal, I love the fact that if i hold it into light I can see through the frames I shot and I really love its "humanity" if you know what I mean. And I more and more dislike digital...
The main proportion of the film will take place in a dark city. Basically a city at night, an abandoned city. But there would be highly orange sunlit scenes as well. I would like to shoot it in around 15 days. As a small budget production, and a larger budget story idea..., I definetely want to use some CG, digital mattes, road or city extension, and a CG creature. If everything goes well, then my DP will be a very talented pro with 30 years+ experience....
As much as I'd like to shoot 35mm, I know the production would be doomed with it because of the small budget. So I am thinking in Super 16, and 1.85 aspect ratio. However in todays huge digital, and RED hype I am a little afraid of this small format. On the other side I see movies like The Hurt Locker (nominated for Best Cinematography Oscar, and many others...), The Wrestler, and right now the Black Swan which is surely get an Oscar nomination for cinematography. And as I know the advances in film technology, in stocks, cameras (like Arri 416), lenses (like Arri Ultra 16 package), Digital Intermediates, and technologies like Arri Relativity makes it possible Super 16 to look damn good.
I don't want to imitate film with a digital camera. If I want a film look I'd like to shoot film and scan at 2K...
Will my film be "discriminated" because it was shot on Super 16, and not some fancy digital camera? Will it be turned down by cinemas or distributors? As I see it audiences really don't care, but on the pro side... I don't know.. Isn't it risky to shoot S16? I plan to shoot this film in english language to broaden its potential audiences , go to international markets like USA etc... and it would be a shame if my film would be rejected because of its technology...
My other concern is the visual effects... There are people who say that S16 is small for CG effects... But on the other side I again see Black Swan and its 300 CG effects done on S16 by Look Effects. (you can watch a 4 minute clip of these effects on their site http://lookeffects.com/works.html ). So basically it can be done, but there are so much resistance from film community.... But anyway, how better is a noisy HD footage for CG work, than a "as less grainy as possible" Super 16 footage? Or should I make a little compromise here and shoot the effect shots on a bigger format? Like 35mm or digital? Would it be fit seamlessly into the S16 footage? Which camera would you recommend? RED?
I know that after all a film is a story, and the story matters... Audience cares for that, not for the technic as far as it looks good. But you know, in 2011 I want to shoot a very visual hollywood movie on budget. And it can be done as Garreth Edwards Sony EX3 production Monsters showed. But this type of filmmaking is usually done in a "stylish" HD, or RED technology, and I am going into the opposite direction with an old school technic, and amateur-independent film format, the 16mm.... Do you understand my concerns? I try to embrace and convince myself for S16, but I also want to make a logical decision, because after all filmmaking is business, and I wouldn"t like to see my ship to sink....
If Black Swan, or Hurt Locker could use it, why couldn't I?? Please tell me how much trouble I will get into with my movie if I go the S16 (DI, Arri Relativity, 2K, a real pro DP, the best in my country, 1.85 frame and a really really good colorist)??? Or I should simple just forget it and go with the flow and make it on RED...
(PLUS: on the other hand I see many high profile big budget hollywood productions to go with a really grainy image, a gritty look, which sometimes even grainier than S16.... Just to mention a guy called Kaminski and his films with Spielberg.... AI, War of the Worlds, Saving private Ryan, or take the example of Zack Snyder's 300.... You see, I really try to convince myself
But please be frank and honest and tell me the truth.... )
Thank you for your answer!
First of all I am really glad for your generous help here and on other forums. It's really great to get insight from a true industry pro! This is my first post on a forum like this, but it seems that you can give unbiased recommendations, so I give it a try...
I am a european writer/director and planning to shoot my first feature in 2011. I am in a big dilemma of film vs. digital... The planned budget will be around 300 000 USD. At first I was keen on shooting on digital camera, because as a young filmmaker coming from the "video generation" it fits me better. However by now as I've already spent many time researching the subject, I became a film advocate. I love the look of a film stock, the grain, the textures, the emotionality it delivers, I really appreciate its archival quality and possibilities, the future proofness of the technic..., I love that it's a "living thing", not some electronic signal, I love the fact that if i hold it into light I can see through the frames I shot and I really love its "humanity" if you know what I mean. And I more and more dislike digital...
The main proportion of the film will take place in a dark city. Basically a city at night, an abandoned city. But there would be highly orange sunlit scenes as well. I would like to shoot it in around 15 days. As a small budget production, and a larger budget story idea..., I definetely want to use some CG, digital mattes, road or city extension, and a CG creature. If everything goes well, then my DP will be a very talented pro with 30 years+ experience....
As much as I'd like to shoot 35mm, I know the production would be doomed with it because of the small budget. So I am thinking in Super 16, and 1.85 aspect ratio. However in todays huge digital, and RED hype I am a little afraid of this small format. On the other side I see movies like The Hurt Locker (nominated for Best Cinematography Oscar, and many others...), The Wrestler, and right now the Black Swan which is surely get an Oscar nomination for cinematography. And as I know the advances in film technology, in stocks, cameras (like Arri 416), lenses (like Arri Ultra 16 package), Digital Intermediates, and technologies like Arri Relativity makes it possible Super 16 to look damn good.
I don't want to imitate film with a digital camera. If I want a film look I'd like to shoot film and scan at 2K...
Will my film be "discriminated" because it was shot on Super 16, and not some fancy digital camera? Will it be turned down by cinemas or distributors? As I see it audiences really don't care, but on the pro side... I don't know.. Isn't it risky to shoot S16? I plan to shoot this film in english language to broaden its potential audiences , go to international markets like USA etc... and it would be a shame if my film would be rejected because of its technology...
My other concern is the visual effects... There are people who say that S16 is small for CG effects... But on the other side I again see Black Swan and its 300 CG effects done on S16 by Look Effects. (you can watch a 4 minute clip of these effects on their site http://lookeffects.com/works.html ). So basically it can be done, but there are so much resistance from film community.... But anyway, how better is a noisy HD footage for CG work, than a "as less grainy as possible" Super 16 footage? Or should I make a little compromise here and shoot the effect shots on a bigger format? Like 35mm or digital? Would it be fit seamlessly into the S16 footage? Which camera would you recommend? RED?
I know that after all a film is a story, and the story matters... Audience cares for that, not for the technic as far as it looks good. But you know, in 2011 I want to shoot a very visual hollywood movie on budget. And it can be done as Garreth Edwards Sony EX3 production Monsters showed. But this type of filmmaking is usually done in a "stylish" HD, or RED technology, and I am going into the opposite direction with an old school technic, and amateur-independent film format, the 16mm.... Do you understand my concerns? I try to embrace and convince myself for S16, but I also want to make a logical decision, because after all filmmaking is business, and I wouldn"t like to see my ship to sink....
If Black Swan, or Hurt Locker could use it, why couldn't I?? Please tell me how much trouble I will get into with my movie if I go the S16 (DI, Arri Relativity, 2K, a real pro DP, the best in my country, 1.85 frame and a really really good colorist)??? Or I should simple just forget it and go with the flow and make it on RED...
(PLUS: on the other hand I see many high profile big budget hollywood productions to go with a really grainy image, a gritty look, which sometimes even grainier than S16.... Just to mention a guy called Kaminski and his films with Spielberg.... AI, War of the Worlds, Saving private Ryan, or take the example of Zack Snyder's 300.... You see, I really try to convince myself
But please be frank and honest and tell me the truth.... )Thank you for your answer!
Last edited:
David Mullen ASC
Moderator
My first impulse would be to say "shoot digital" because of the following:
(1) $300,000 budget
(2) low-light night exterior work
(3) CGI efx work
If your film was mostly day interiors and exteriors, and night interiors, with almost no CGI efx, then I'd be less hesitant about recommending Super-16.
Sure, you can work around the steadiness, grain, and softness issues of Super-16 for efx work, but it may take more work in post. Or you could shoot those elements digitally and add the grain in post to match the Super-16 footage, but then you are talking about carrying two camera packages around with you, which sort of works against your budget restrictions.
With 500T stock and T/1.4 lenses, you could probably do night work with minimal lighting, but you are still going to be able to shoot in even lower light levels with a digital camera that allows, let's say, shooting at 1600 ASA with a 270 degree shutter.
I don't think the sellability is much of an issue if the Super-16 photography is professionally done and/or a very gritty, rougher look (if that's how you shoot the Super-16) is clearly justified by the story. I mean, it's no more an issue than if you shot something on an HD camcorder, let's say, i.e. you figure that 35mm film and high-end 35mm sensor digital being the benchmark for what distributors prefer, so it's a question of how close you get there with a smaller format.
But it actually takes more experience and knowledge to make a "sub-optimal" format look good -- I mean, almost anyone can make 35mm look pretty good unless they are grossly incompetent. So if your budget is tight and your schedule is short, you want to make sure that you pick a format that will make your life easier, not harder.
Personally, given your parameters -- night work, efx work -- I'd opt to shoot this on the M-X Red One over Super-16. There are ways of adding grain in post if that's important to you, and of course, it's easy to make an image softer with camera filters, older lenses, or post processing.
But if your heart is set on Super-16, it's certainly workable... though a $300,000 budget is probably not going to cover the D.I. work at the end of post. A low-budget D.I. often starts around $100,000 -- you can roughly think of that as 1/3 for scanning/telecine, 1/3 for color-correction, and 1/3 for the film-out. Plus with the visual efx, you are going to have to scan selected shots to digital even before you get to the D.I. stage. And I have no idea how much of your budget will be devoted to visual efx. But shooting digital does give you the freedom to pick and choose during post what shots you want to augment with efx.
It all depends on how you want to slice that $300,000 pie, because a percentage of that will go in the front end to film stock, processing, and telecine (though the camera itself will be cheaper to rent) and an even larger percentage will go in the back end to scanning, conforming, visual efx, digital color-correction, making digital submasters, and a film-out if that's what you need. Though of course, the same costs apply to something shot digitally except for the scanning, but after all the scanning of film to digital, the workflow becomes the same as with digitally-shot material. But let's say the scanning of selects costs you, I don't know, maybe $30,000 out of your post budget. And let's say that shooting in Super-16 also adds about $20,000 to the front end in terms of stock, processing, and telecine transfer -- so that's $50,000 out of your budget to accommodate shooting on film rather than digital.
At your budget range, a lot of decisions will be based on what sort of deal you can get for the camera, post work, etc.
(1) $300,000 budget
(2) low-light night exterior work
(3) CGI efx work
If your film was mostly day interiors and exteriors, and night interiors, with almost no CGI efx, then I'd be less hesitant about recommending Super-16.
Sure, you can work around the steadiness, grain, and softness issues of Super-16 for efx work, but it may take more work in post. Or you could shoot those elements digitally and add the grain in post to match the Super-16 footage, but then you are talking about carrying two camera packages around with you, which sort of works against your budget restrictions.
With 500T stock and T/1.4 lenses, you could probably do night work with minimal lighting, but you are still going to be able to shoot in even lower light levels with a digital camera that allows, let's say, shooting at 1600 ASA with a 270 degree shutter.
I don't think the sellability is much of an issue if the Super-16 photography is professionally done and/or a very gritty, rougher look (if that's how you shoot the Super-16) is clearly justified by the story. I mean, it's no more an issue than if you shot something on an HD camcorder, let's say, i.e. you figure that 35mm film and high-end 35mm sensor digital being the benchmark for what distributors prefer, so it's a question of how close you get there with a smaller format.
But it actually takes more experience and knowledge to make a "sub-optimal" format look good -- I mean, almost anyone can make 35mm look pretty good unless they are grossly incompetent. So if your budget is tight and your schedule is short, you want to make sure that you pick a format that will make your life easier, not harder.
Personally, given your parameters -- night work, efx work -- I'd opt to shoot this on the M-X Red One over Super-16. There are ways of adding grain in post if that's important to you, and of course, it's easy to make an image softer with camera filters, older lenses, or post processing.
But if your heart is set on Super-16, it's certainly workable... though a $300,000 budget is probably not going to cover the D.I. work at the end of post. A low-budget D.I. often starts around $100,000 -- you can roughly think of that as 1/3 for scanning/telecine, 1/3 for color-correction, and 1/3 for the film-out. Plus with the visual efx, you are going to have to scan selected shots to digital even before you get to the D.I. stage. And I have no idea how much of your budget will be devoted to visual efx. But shooting digital does give you the freedom to pick and choose during post what shots you want to augment with efx.
It all depends on how you want to slice that $300,000 pie, because a percentage of that will go in the front end to film stock, processing, and telecine (though the camera itself will be cheaper to rent) and an even larger percentage will go in the back end to scanning, conforming, visual efx, digital color-correction, making digital submasters, and a film-out if that's what you need. Though of course, the same costs apply to something shot digitally except for the scanning, but after all the scanning of film to digital, the workflow becomes the same as with digitally-shot material. But let's say the scanning of selects costs you, I don't know, maybe $30,000 out of your post budget. And let's say that shooting in Super-16 also adds about $20,000 to the front end in terms of stock, processing, and telecine transfer -- so that's $50,000 out of your budget to accommodate shooting on film rather than digital.
At your budget range, a lot of decisions will be based on what sort of deal you can get for the camera, post work, etc.
Last edited:
Bob Torrance
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I wonder about 2 perf 35mm in this situation?
Certainly, RED MX with the new color science or Arri Alexa (cough, cough) would be something to think about.
Robert Torrance (real names here).
Happy new year.
Certainly, RED MX with the new color science or Arri Alexa (cough, cough) would be something to think about.
Robert Torrance (real names here).
Happy new year.
David Mullen ASC
Moderator
2-perf 35mm is great but it is even more expensive than Super-16, though better-suited for efx work. With film stock, you are really paying for real estate and a 2-perf frame (approx. 22mm x 9.5mm) is larger than a Super-16 frame (about 12.5mm x 7.4mm).
J
Jed
Guest
Bit of an odd question.
I have been looking at all the hdr stuff red is doing lately and im going to get a dslr next week for use with my university shorts. Ive noticed people use polarised filters to cut down on glare when shooting through windows etc, but i have also seen them used outdoors. In the outdoors examples its very obvious the detail of clouds etc that are brought back into the image via the filter. Is this in theory creating more dynamic range or do polarizing filters reduce shadow detail? This could sound really stupid as im not sure if dynamic range is only relative to the camera's sensor or if the lens/filters used can affect the range at all.
I have been looking at all the hdr stuff red is doing lately and im going to get a dslr next week for use with my university shorts. Ive noticed people use polarised filters to cut down on glare when shooting through windows etc, but i have also seen them used outdoors. In the outdoors examples its very obvious the detail of clouds etc that are brought back into the image via the filter. Is this in theory creating more dynamic range or do polarizing filters reduce shadow detail? This could sound really stupid as im not sure if dynamic range is only relative to the camera's sensor or if the lens/filters used can affect the range at all.
paulherrin
Well-known member
i'll step in before david gets to answer 
i suppose that's allowed. he's really kind and generous, i don't think he'll mind...
dynamic range is a technical thing, has to do with sensors and things. a polarized filter on the lens won't change that, but it could reduce the perceived range. Polarized filters do just what they say: filter out light in a polarized manner. Also, Neutral Density (ND) filters basically reduce light, measured in stops that goes through to the sensor, so by the time the sensor picks it up, the sky may be darker than it was.
also if you're planning on color correcting or grading the images, look into shooting styles. the basic premise is you want to set the camera to shoot in a manner that's low contrast, low saturation, etc.
Polarizers, NDs and Graduated ND's are good things to have.
i suppose that's allowed. he's really kind and generous, i don't think he'll mind...dynamic range is a technical thing, has to do with sensors and things. a polarized filter on the lens won't change that, but it could reduce the perceived range. Polarized filters do just what they say: filter out light in a polarized manner. Also, Neutral Density (ND) filters basically reduce light, measured in stops that goes through to the sensor, so by the time the sensor picks it up, the sky may be darker than it was.
also if you're planning on color correcting or grading the images, look into shooting styles. the basic premise is you want to set the camera to shoot in a manner that's low contrast, low saturation, etc.
Polarizers, NDs and Graduated ND's are good things to have.