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Schneider Hollywood Black Magic Filter (1/2 vs. 1 vs. 2?)

Jason Honeycutt

Jason Honeycutt

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Hello everyone. I know for sure I want to buy a Hollywood Black Magic filter due to my DP friends raving about them... however, these same friends wildly disagree about their strength. One says he can hardly see a difference between a 1/8 and a 2, and the other says to just get a 1/2 then stack because he thinks a 1 is overkill for most shots. I just demoed one, but it was with a C300 (hate that camera) which was the only camera at the store with a monitor and it was just 'store lighting' and I didn't see that much of a difference between a 1/2 and a 1, but it was so hard to tell. So right now, I'm thinking "1" but I'm super leery of a 2.

I found this example with the Red One using a variety of Schneider filters but the Class Soft 2 at :53 doesn't seem like a hazy mess, like I'd assume;

https://vimeo.com/8355345

I've scoured the internet for examples of footage with the HMB, though, especially on a RED Epic or Scarlet but I'm having no luck. Do you guys have any examples or know of any footage with the HMB... ? My friend DPs the new Andy Samberg comedy but he uses just the 1/2 on an Alexa. The look I really want is the "House of Cards" look, which is obviously similar to the "Social Network" look, with wide open glass... but I've always wondered the combo of filters they use to obtain that look. I've always assumed it was a black mist and a Classic Soft. So, basically, as cliche' as it is to say, I want to take a ton of edge off and I have only two stages in my OBox so I thought this would be a great filter since it's a built-in combo, freeing up my other stage for something else.

Any thoughts? (Thanks so much in advance.)
 
I don't think "House of Cards" is filtered (nor was "The Social Network" or any other Fincher movies), most of that look is just very soft lighting.

Personally, I mainly use the #1/4 Holywood Black Magic, that's heavy enough to actually soften faces subtly without being too obvious. I'll go up to a #1/2 Black Magic for close-ups of older actresses, above that I'd jump to my homemade black net. I carry a #1/8 Black Magic and a #1/8 Black Frost (since every step of the Hollywood Black Magic has a 1/8 Black Frost as a base, plus whatever strength of HD Classic Soft, a straight 1/8 Black Frost is the lightest possible step) for wider shots so that I'm not jumping from a clean shot to a filtered close-up.

But that's just my tastes, I've talked to some DP's who seem to get away with combining a #1 Hollywood Black Magic with a black net, which seems extreme to me.

It's not an exact science, making diffusion filters... I think the #1/8 and #1/4 Hollywood Black Magic seem closer together than the jump between the #1/4 and #1/2.
 
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+1 on David's notes. I only own the #1/4 HBM, would rent the #1/2 and the #1 for certain assignments.

I shoot RED 95% of the time, use a Lanczos downscaling filter, and get a smooth enough image that I rarely even put the #1/4 HBM on.

Cheers - #19
 
Adrian Correia said:
here is a film I shot with hollywood black magic filters - also they're used pretty extensively on Game of Thrones

http://adriancorreia.com/work/dead-souls/
Click to expand...

Nice shots in there. Did you ever get up to a 1 or a 2, if so, do you remember which shots...? I can definitely see the filter on some shots, smooths them out nicely without being hazy. It obviously costs more but I'm thinking about what David said, getting a 1/2 then stacking but that 1 I saw today really didn't look that much more intense, I didn't think, but that wasn't an 50mm or 85mm close-up, it was just a 28mm wide shot with store lighting, no subject really (other than me ducking my head in).
 
First off, thank you David for all of the information you provide on reduser and cinematography.com. This past year, I have been learning as much as I can about lighting/ cinematography and I've learned a ton from everything you've shared on these forums. I am about to purchase a few sets of filters and wondering if I'm going in the right direction. I would like a well rounded filter kit on set to achieve certain looks for closeups to wide angle shots when needed. Right now, I'm looking at the Hollywood black magics (1/8, 1/4) for skin tones, digicons (1/8, 1/4) to flatten highlights, Ultracons (1/8, 1/4) to lift the blacks and Smoque filters (1,2) to add the misty/halo effects around bright areas. I shoot mostly on the L series and zeiss primes.
 
I don't think "House of cards" is filtered either. It seems Fincher likes to extract 3-4k from the image. I read that he prefered the Red One MX to the Epic on Dragon Tattoo. Probably because of the noise, the compression and the softer look i guess. That's what he recreates by cropping heavily and using 6:1 compression.

http://library.creativecow.net/arti...o/assets/GDT_2.40_framing_chart_4352x2176.jpg
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?112788-House-of-cards (Epic screens at the bottom)
Fincher about the red one: "I like the Red One MX a lot — in fact, I wish we hadn’t switched to the Epic at the end of our shoot. There’s nothing wrong with the Epic, but I sort of like the graininess of the MX [image]. It’s an aesthetic choice, not a technical one.”
 
Paul Russell said:
I shot this little promo recently with a HBM 1 running through various Contax primes, mostly the 60mm macro and 85mm f1.4
Looking back at it now I think I probably should have used a 1/2

Click to expand...

It's pretty cute though! Filtering is tricky - depends on light, lenses, even the skin tone of the actors. There can't be a one-size-fits-all solution.
 
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