SeeingEyeBlog

Tonight I went to a presentation for the new Vision3 250D 5207 film stock, at Kodak’s Hollywood headquarters. My favorite part was the fact that the grain structure is much smaller than in previous film stocks. I think they said there was a 20% reduction, maybe more. Basically in non-technical terms, one of the things this means is that you can enlarge the film much more before you notice any grain. This is good news for 16mm productions, where the grain is already magnified more than on 35mm, on the same screen size.

But I was more impressed with the knowledge that I can now push-process the film much more, basically enlarging the grain itself before noticing any difference in the signal-to-noise in the shadows. This is true for theatrical-bound pictures, but is even more helpful for an HD finish, where the maximum likely screen size is smaller than a theatrical release (and therefore less magnification). Another reason to shoot on film, especially if you don’t have the time to light the crap out of it. One cameraman (didn’t catch his name) mentioned he had shot a couple rolls of the new stock, pushed it 2 stops, and it still held up without any noticeable grain. I think he was looking at his dailies on HD.

I love low light situations so much that I am building an on-set oil lamp to use as a key light (don’t tell the fire marshall). Maybe a few iPhones thru some thick paper as fill. See my posts on my recent feature Broken Windows for details on my low-light fetish. I’m just so excited, because Broken Windows was 16mm Vision2 7218, processed normal, and it looked great (telecine to D5). A little soft focus-wise, but the lighting was just where I wanted it to be. Vision3 has even smaller grain size, so the same shot captured on 35mm 5219 in anamorphic would give me tons of room to push. In fact, it seems to me that it totally remove the stigma that anamorphic lenses are too slow to be shot under low lighting conditions. If you’re not afraid of pushing 2 stops, a 2.8 becomes what was once 1.4. Plus, most Hawk anamorphics open to a T2.2 (Sorry Panavision, I love you more). For the right project, it would be a perfect combination.

The 250D will let me push into the evening, after magic hour and well into blue dusk hour. Now I just need a set of Arri Master Primes with my name on them. T1.3 is your friend.

Gordon Willis is a cinematographer who has been dubbed ‘the prince of darkness’ because of his tendancy to shoot scenes so dark that you have to strain to see details. He shot the Godfather movies, among many others. I don’t know his work nearly as well as I should, especially after having shot several scenes for Broken Windows in near utter darkness.

I think I’ll make it a point to netflix all his movies and study his signature lighting. I have about a month before my next picture begins. I was amazed at how much detail Kodak 5218 will give with just one candle illuminating the scene, at a T1.4 and 200 degree shutter. Forget about push processing, there’s no point anymore. I think there might be a renaissance of low light cinematography now that film stock technology is able to capture literally more than our eye can see.

We are done with our first week of principal photography on Broken Windows, and so far, it is the smoothest shoot I’ve ever experienced. The director and I are on the same page and all the necessary support is falling into place on the production end.

The dailies we are getting back have been really exceptional. We shot a scene on day 1 which I was a little nervous about. In the story, all the lights go out in the house during a party, and two people go into the bathroom in search of candles, where they have an argument in the dark. The problem anytime “the lights go out” in a movie, is the question of how to light the scene without making it look like the lights are on. The answer for this scene was the lighter that one of the characters was holding, as well as the candle they eventually find. On top of that, we got lucky with our bathroom as it had two doors. I was shooting through one door towards the other door which leads to the outside. Outside we had a lighting gag of pool reflections playing on the translucent blinds, and I was able to silhouette the actors against it. I opened the shutter to 200 degrees and shot wide open at a T1.4, which on 7218 Vision2 stock gave me about a -1.5 to -2 stop key on the actors when the lighter and candle were on. We told the actors the lighting was up to them, and they did a great job with the scene.

I was very confident about the scene, having gone through all the exposure calculations beforehand (and it is great having a director who isn’t afraid of the dark). But I was a little disconcerted when I realized that both executive producers were watching the monitor for the scene. I started to doubt myself a bit, but still remained confident that it was the right choice. But being day 1, and I hadn’t proven myself, etc, I was very nervous by the time I saw dailies two days later.

Needless to say I was very impressed with the film’s performance under those circumstances. The D5 HD transfer (of the super16 neg) didn’t have hardly any grain, and I even had detail in the flame area of the candle. I think this scene is an example of why film is still superior to HD as an aquisition format. Shooting this scene in HD there would be clipping in the candle flame, and I would have had so much noise in the shadows we would have had to crush out, and by doing so, lose our precious shadow detail (if any).