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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Star Trek 2

From the American Cinematographer article on Star Trek:

"Much of the lighting built into the interior was designed to cause lens flares... "The Enterprise has lights set in the frame that basically point down the lens of the camera in every direction," says Mindel. "Whenever you look, you get a flare. It goes against everything one learns as a camera technician, which is to shield the lens from any extraneous light and stop it from flaring. We'll either get slaughtered by our peers or be really admired for it!" ... If the built-in lighting wasn't providing the desired flare, the crew aimed Xenon flashlights at the lenses as the cameras rolled. "Our A and B camera operators... would tell us if we needed to go a little farther in or out of the frame, or up or down, to get the ultimate flare... it was funny to watch, Dan and I were running around, ducking, jumping, and hiding behind things so we wouldn't be seen by the cameras. The flashlights were so bright that there are probably several instances where Dan's actually in the movie, but you can't really tell!"

Doesn't sound like the net result was that a lens flare only occurred in 2% of the footage despite all that effort and they had to add them to 98% of the footage.
 
I've shot four movies on Panavision anamorphics, it's not that hard to get a lens to flare... here are two frames from "Akeelah and the Bee":

akeelah6.jpg


akeelah7.jpg
 
Zombie thread getting new life?

But yeah, as people have mentioned - flares were mostly practical in the first movie. Second movie is being shot on film/anamorphic again - with much of it on IMAX a la Dark Knight Rises and Ghost Protocol. It is slated to be post-converted to 3D, but was a studio decision, and not JJ's idea (hence not being shot digitally in 3D). There's a couple of articles floating around...I'll have to try and find them.

I was really hoping for my two loves (Star Trek and RED) to come together on the big screen - but not this time, I guess.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
From the American Cinematographer article on Star Trek:

"Much of the lighting built into the interior was designed to cause lens flares... "The Enterprise has lights set in the frame that basically point down the lens of the camera in every direction," says Mindel. "Whenever you look, you get a flare. It goes against everything one learns as a camera technician, which is to shield the lens from any extraneous light and stop it from flaring. We'll either get slaughtered by our peers or be really admired for it!" ... If the built-in lighting wasn't providing the desired flare, the crew aimed Xenon flashlights at the lenses as the cameras rolled. "Our A and B camera operators... would tell us if we needed to go a little farther in or out of the frame, or up or down, to get the ultimate flare... it was funny to watch, Dan and I were running around, ducking, jumping, and hiding behind things so we wouldn't be seen by the cameras. The flashlights were so bright that there are probably several instances where Dan's actually in the movie, but you can't really tell!"

Doesn't sound like the net result was that a lens flare only occurred in 2% of the footage despite all that effort and they had to add them to 98% of the footage.
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I stand corrected. :) Thanks David.
yet all the effects shots which was most of the movie, they were added in afterwards. Except for possibally the Enterprises bridge set to which the article talks about.
I watched it again on blue ray as little as a week ago. You'll be amazed how many flares there are even without any point source of light.
One of my favorite films by the way.
 
Mark Toia said:
Yep... Exactly. And anything with CG added into a scene, flares were avoided and but put in later.
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Geez, Mark, were you involved in the picture that you're talking about that you make these kind of statements? Or are you guessing, based on your own projects and the degree of difficulty involved in doing these kind of VFX?

Shots that are "all CG" have had "distressing" elements added to them for years in order to make them seem a bit more realistic, and have imperfections that are endemic to live production. That's not news. One of the main sets in the Star Trek movie was the bridge set, which had windows that were composited later and screens that were either composited or replaced. All of those shots were likely done with the same flare treatment done for the rest of the bridge material, and although this makes the compositing quite a bit more difficult, it also allows for more naturalistic photography. I haven't talked to anyone directly involved, but my guess is that some of these shots were done twice, once for a flare reference and once clean, but as we both know, shots done for reference often have a way of becoming final plates if the performance works. So my feeling is that while some shots might have been intentionally shot without practical flares, it was hardly all of them and in fact might have been very few of them if they were on practical sets (i.e., not "full greenscreen" shots).

I believe the new picture has already wrapped principle photography (much of it was shot down the street from me, at the Hughes Hangar in Playa Vista, CA.), so if I run into someone who was involved, I'll ask some questions.
 
Gary Stone said:
They shoot Fringe on Alexa. You can't shoot anamorphic on RED and get the flares?
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Fringe is a television show shot in Vancouver. Star Trek is a huge tentpole feature shot primarily in Los Angeles. They both may be Bad Robot productions, but they have vastly different creative needs, budgets, deliverable products, and personnel. JJ Abrams and Dan Mindel like many of the qualities of film for the story they're telling in the Star Trek movie. The only likely way they would have chosen to shoot in on a digital format would be if they had agreed to shoot stereoscopic, which they rejected (it's a studio decision to do a 3D conversion, not something JJ necessarily wants). And the decision wasn't based on any one thing, like anamorphic flares. It was based on a lot of things, but primarily on the look and feel they wanted for the story. Which is as it should be.
 
M Most said:
I haven't talked to anyone directly involved, but my guess is that some of these shots were done twice, once for a flare reference and once clean, but as we both know, shots done for reference often have a way of becoming final plates if the performance works.
Click to expand...

It's funny that you mention that. In an interview for the new movie, it was mentioned that they're doing something similar for the 3D conversion - they do a clean pass of each setup (with no actors) before moving on. Is that kind of thing common practice for converted pictures?
 
Kevin Marshall said:
It's funny that you mention that. In an interview for the new movie, it was mentioned that they're doing something similar for the 3D conversion - they do a clean pass of each setup (with no actors) before moving on. Is that kind of thing common practice for converted pictures?
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Not necessarily common, but a good practice. 3D conversion always involves paint back of areas of the frame that are occluded on one eye but visible in the other. Getting a clean plate makes it a bit simpler to find a source for those paint backs, much like in other types of visual effects shots (and I and others consider 3D conversion to be very much a visual effect technique).
 
Kevin Marshall said:
It's funny that you mention that. In an interview for the new movie, it was mentioned that they're doing something similar for the 3D conversion - they do a clean pass of each setup (with no actors) before moving on. Is that kind of thing common practice for converted pictures?
Click to expand...

Yes it's common now. I worked as a senior compositor for IMAX doing 3d conversions and even still frames on set would have been a huge time saver. Shooting clean plates is a must.
 
M Most said:
Geez, Mark, were you involved in the picture that you're talking about that you make these kind of statements? Or are you guessing, based on your own projects and the degree of difficulty involved in doing these kind of VFX?
Click to expand...

One of the compositors that worked on star trek (doing a lot of the flare treatments) had also done a huge job for me. He told me a lot about the flare treatment they did to compliment the bridge set shots. In short. no.. I was not involved, Just passing convo from a key compositor on the job.
Regardless of all that. I wonder if they are shooting 3d for the next star trek? if so, do flares become like a NIGHTMARE for 3d line up guys. I was reading a article just a little while ago.. it may have been cineflex, ill see if I can find it, but they did say they had unwanted lens flares that were so hard to line up and to comp to plates that they had to re-shoot the scene again paying careful attention to not have flares at all. I'm going to get into those mag's again and find the article, it was very interesting reading in regarding 3d stereo and lens flares.
 
JJ is shooting the next Star Trek the same way again but I'm pretty sure he will be considerate of the 3d conversion process and limit his in camera flares. When I worked on the conversions for the three Harry Potter films, the magic wand glows were the most difficult (and therefore expensive) shots to convert.
 
Mark Toia said:
I wonder if they are shooting 3d for the next star trek? if so, do flares become like a NIGHTMARE for 3d line up guys. I was reading a article just a little while ago.. it may have been cineflex, ill see if I can find it, but they did say they had unwanted lens flares that were so hard to line up and to comp to plates that they had to re-shoot the scene again paying careful attention to not have flares at all. I'm going to get into those mag's again and find the article, it was very interesting reading in regarding 3d stereo and lens flares.
Click to expand...

I believe principal photography is wrapped. The picture was shot on film, in 2D, in anamorphic format.

Flares are a serious problem if you're using a mutlicamera rig. They are not nearly as much of a problem if you're shooting 2D and doing a conversion because the same flare will be used as the source for both eyes, so they already match. In fact, there are a number of 3D production issues that are instantly solved by going the conversion route, such as mismatched lenses, color matching issues, and geometry disparities. I'm not saying that conversion produces a superior product, or that doing it effectively doesn't involve an awful lot of tedious work, but it is absolutely true that a number of stereoscopic production issues are by definition eliminated.
 
Agreed. I worked on SAW3D which was shot with two cameras and the miss match in highlights, colour, and alignment made it more difficult than doing a conversion from 2D. In fact, there were a few shots in Avatar that had to be converted from 2D for the same reason. Of course with better technology, and 3D understanding, these errors are becoming less frequent.

M Most said:
I believe principal photography is wrapped. The picture was shot on film, in 2D, in anamorphic format.

Flares are a serious problem if you're using a mutlicamera rig. They are not nearly as much of a problem if you're shooting 2D and doing a conversion because the same flare will be used as the source for both eyes, so they already match. In fact, there are a number of 3D production issues that are instantly solved by going the conversion route, such as mismatched lenses, color matching issues, and geometry disparities. I'm not saying that conversion produces a superior product, or that doing it effectively doesn't involve an awful lot of tedious work, but it is absolutely true that a number of stereoscopic production issues are by definition eliminated.
Click to expand...
 
Speaking of flares, I'd rather just shoot without it (clean on spherical or filters on ana) and then add lens flares in post. There's a few free and commercial plugins to replicate that flare effect pretty much spot on. Also not a big fan of conversions, to be perfectly honest. I always watch converted films in 2D anyway.
 
Fair enough but to do it properly requires very skilled artists, and no one wants to pay for that anymore. Studios still make money on cheap crappy conversions which is given conversions a really bad name.

Vadim Bobkovsky said:
Speaking of flares, I'd rather just shoot without it (clean on spherical or filters on ana) and then add lens flares in post. There's a few free and commercial plugins to replicate that flare effect pretty much spot on. Also not a big fan of conversions, to be perfectly honest. I always watch converted films in 2D anyway.
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