Any errors in this article are strictly mine. If you have a better way of explaining all this, please give it a shot in comments.

Disclosure: I have worked as a paid consultant to DSC Labs, whose charts I will be demoing at NAB.

Thanks to Adam Wilt for including me in his playtime, and for the still images he contributed for this article.

Art Adams is a DP who likes to play with fire in the deep end. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

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LED Light Tests: Flesh Tone and Color Comparison Shootout

Color comparison tests are hard. Color science is witchcraft, and objective color is exceedingly difficult to quantify. Comparison is really the only way to judge color, so we tested ten LED lights against two tungsten Tweenies and a 3200K 2’x4 Kino Flo. The results are… interesting.

While shooting this test we had a break while waiting for one remaining light to show up. Fellow PVCer Adam Wilt had suggested shooting a flesh tone test as there’s no other material that acts quite the same way skin tone does: not only is it a unique substance whose spectral response can’t be emulated perfectly by a piece of colored cardboard but it also has layers that scatter light in unique ways. We turned the camera around and created a simple setup in a corner of the studio and, using production manager Emily Pierceall as a model, we quickly shot tests with every light we had available.

We shot this on an Alexa in Rec 709 mode (to ProRes4444) and the camera’s white balance had been set for the previous test using the same two tungsten Tweenies. The white balance did come up a little on the cool side so I pulled the clips into Apple Color and graded the tungsten clip to be neutral. I then copied and pasted that correction onto all the other clips.

The neutral tungsten reference.

The setup used only one light at a time, as we only had a half pair of several fixture models and I wanted to keep the setup fast and simple:

I have a chat with production manager Emily Pierceall, who was kind enough to sit in for the test as she was by far the prettiest member of the crew.

As you can see we improvised a bit, given the sparse materials at hand. I wanted to create a setup that looked nice but only required one light. One piece of scrap foam core became a fill source, another became a hair light, and a piece of shiny Rosco bounce material became a scratch. The hair light bounce is barely noticeable but it would have been more noticeable if it wasn’t there: most rooms have white ceilings, and while ceilings aren’t an obvious light source unless they are specifically lit they do provide some “presence” that’s noticeable in its absence. Without some kind of white material overhead hair becomes dark and upward-facing surfaces lose their lustre. It’s not obvious what’s missing but it’s clear that something is wrong.

In this case it wasn’t necessary to add this “presence” as this was simply a test, but I’m picky about such things. (You can see some of the “presence” I’m talking about in the photo above. Look at the hair on the top of Emily’s head.)

By using only one light for the setup I was assured that there would be only one color of light in the set. Foam core and the shiny bounce have some effect on color but as these are materials used on sets every day I felt that any slight color shifts they caused were acceptable.

Whereas in the previous test I kept the same T-stop and changed exposure using the camera’s electronic shutter, I wasn’t as concerned about optical anomalies here. The other test had to be done that way as the results were to be put into a color-critical matrix for comparison, but in this case we were just looking for overall color shifts and I wasn’t as concerned about vignetting or constant depth of field. As a result the chart will change sharpness from shot to shot depending on the T-stop. (The camera was an Arri Alexa with an 85mm Arri/Zeiss Ultra Prime. We recorded Rec 709 to ProRes4444.)

Having said all that, let’s move on to the actual test images. I’ve paired each light with a tungsten reference as comparison is the only accurate way to see subtle differences in color. I present these images without comment so you can make up your own mind as to what you like and what you don’t. Turn the page to start…

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BEHIND THE SCENES: Smoke in the Woods with the Canon 5D

When production companies ask me to shoot spots on the Canon 5D MkII I don’t flinch anymore. Sure, it’s not the most user friendly camera in the world, but I can’t complain about the images I can make with it. And no one else does, either.

In this case, half the battle was putting the camera in the right place at the right time—and quickly. It was the perfect camera for a small, fast-moving project.

NOTE: PVC is having some server issues that we hope will be fixed shortly. If this page doesn’t load completely and you see a lot of broken links, please do try again later. I’ve swapped out the PVC video feed with the Youtube feed until this issue is resolved as our video server is also affected. Sorry about this. (April 11, 2012)

I’m always excited to work with my friends at Teak Digital. Director Greg Rowan is one of the most pleasant kinds of directors: he has a vision of what he wants but he’s confident enough to let me run with it if I see a shot that might fit. Most of us got into this business to create, and it’s nice to work with people who encourage us to be creative in our jobs. Collaboration makes us all look better

Here’s the spot:

We shot this spot at Roberts Regional Recreation Area, a park in the hills above Oakland, CA. During the scout we shot a number of stills and I was immediately captivated by the quality of light. The forest itself was fairly dark, and while the low winter sun occasionally punched through the leaves and branches and lit the ground the more interesting shots looked directly into the sun itself.

Long ago I noticed that sunlight through layers of branches creates some of the more fascinating shadows I’ve seen in nature: the lower leaves interweave and become little apertures, projecting an image onto the ground of the sun coming through leaves higher up. This creates a combination of hard and soft overlapping shadows that’s very complex and interesting.

The shadows weren’t sharp enough or vertical enough to see that effect here, but what can be equally fascinating is looking back at the sun through the leaves and seeing how that effect is created. As the camera moves in relation to the trees the leaf “apertures” open and close, causing the sun to flare and diminish in a seemingly random pattern. The multiple layers of branches interact with each other and create something much more interesting than one layer alone ever could.

This is why I almost never use one “cookie” at a time: I stack them, with a fair distance between them. The shapes are much more random and full of both soft and hard edges.

We see a little sun flicker in the opening shot:

I love that shot, and it was really simple to create. You may have noticed a bit of smoke in the air; we added that with an industrial-strength fogger placed about 150’ upwind. The forest is beautiful on its own but a bit of atmosphere creates spectacular shafts of light that add a tremendous sense of depth to the shot.

It was a real pain to lay 50’ of dolly track and shoot that shot on the longest lens possible… so instead we used a 5’ camera slider. No camera move in this piece was longer than 5’, and most were a lot less. This is one of many “grab” shots that I captured on a whim just because I thought it would look good.

This was a grab shot at the end of the day, just after the sun disappeared over the distant hills. I forget which lens this was but I want to say it was the wide end of a very wide Canon zoom, probably 16mm. Whenever possible I like to “work” a camera position and grab as many shots as I can to give the director and editor lots of little “moments” in post. I’d just finished shooting another grab shot sliding past some bushes when I realized I could point the camera straight up and get another one without physically moving the slider to a different position.

We worked this particular valley for a while. We had the actor walk left to right, right to left, to and from camera, and switched up the lenses for a lot of variety. The tripod head we used wasn’t the greatest (also owned by the production company—we used all their camera gear to make non-profit money go farther),  and long lens slider shots can be hard to operate. Also, focus is almost impossible to pull on Canon glass. I picked a sweet spot for the action, locked off the camera on the head, and timed my slides so that the actor landed in focus at the sweet spot of the move.

Everyone has to compromise on equipment on occasion. The trick is figuring out what can be done with what you have and stick to that. If I’d tried to operate the head and follow focus during one of these shots we’d have walked away with a lot of useless footage. Instead I locked off the head and the focus and concentrated on taking advantage of the one real piece of camera equipment we had: the slider.

Look familiar? That’s because this shot is pointing the same direction as the shot above, just on a longer lens and with the actor walking away from camera instead of across the frame. The background for this shot is nearly in the middle of the background of the previous shot. Cheats like this are extremely common and save a lot of time. This is an example of milking a single setup for maybe ten shots, two of which were used. If nothing has to change but the action it’s very quick to get variations on a theme.

This is also an example of the strategy I outlined above: lock off the head, focus on a sweet spot, and concentrate on getting the camera to the right place at the right time at the right speed.

Remember the shot looking straight up into the canopy? This is the shot I grabbed immediately before that one, using the same slider position. This is at the end of the day and the sun has set. The light you see is a 1200w HMI PAR aimed at the lens from about 30’ away.

This is one of those shots that you just have to “feel.” I had a TV Logic on-board monitor that I was able to glance at occasionally but for the most part I held the camera at ground level and, without looking continuously at the monitor, walked along with the actor. I’ve developed a knack for framing wide shots without having to look through the viewfinder, and that comes in handy for awesome shots like this one. That’s one thing I like about the size of the Canon 5D: it’s easy to hold the camera a few inches above the ground, roll, tell the actor to walk, and see what happens.

This is the same setup as the previous shot, but with the camera looking up instead of low across the ground. The most interesting thing in a dark forest is the sun moving through the leaves, so I tried to include it in as many shots as I could.

I think the light in his eye is a very distant 1200w HMI PAR, and I believe I had a bounce card somewhere off to the left. This shot is a bit grittier than I normally shoot—more often than not I like to make people look good—but the mood was perfect for this piece. It feels very raw and real but beautiful at the same time.

Focus is a pain on the Canon 5D: Canon still lenses don’t allow for decent focus pulling and it’s almost impossible to judge focus on objects in motion as the monitor output drops to SD quality while the camera is rolling. My solution: just go with it. It’s interesting to have the actor start in focus and walk out. Leaving the background out of focus when there’s obviously something interesting there draws the audience a little deeper into the story. Sometimes the best frames both show and hide things at the same time: you know something’s there but you can’t quite make it out, and that engages your imagination.

Yes, we built a courtroom in the forest. It was a pain to get it level, and we didn’t have the budget to build a raised platform above the forest floor, so we did the best we could. I looked at leveling the camera to the set but the trees looked like they were about to fall over and crush it, so I leveled the camera to the trees instead.

This shot faces due south. I wanted the sun in the shot for as long as possible to backlight our smoke. By this time the wind had picked up and we had a hard time getting the smoke to hang. For this shot we just smoked the hell out of the background and waited for it to settle to the point where it didn’t look like a forest fire.

What I really liked about this setup is that I got to light an exterior, something I hadn’t done in a while. (Budgets being what they are I’ve used a lot of bounces and reflectors over the last couple of years. But you can’t use a bounce where there’s no sunlight, so…)

That’s a 4K PAR on the right, through 6’x6’ full grid, and a 1200w PAR on the left, through 4’x4’ Lee 250. Both lights are gelled with 1/4 CTO.

At this point in the story the look had to change a bit from natural and gritty to warm and friendly. The 4K punched enough fill into the set to eliminate the “top-lit by blue sky” look. It also allowed me to stop down a bit so the background didn’t blow out quite as much.

Sometimes a big soft source at a distance doesn’t create a lot of modeling so I added the 1200w PAR as sidelight to try to create a little more interest.

Reverse view, looking back towards the camera.

The 4K creates the soft overall wrap from the right while the 1200w PAR adds a little more heat to the camera right side of the actor’s face. The two lights blend nicely even though one is big and soft and the other is little and hard. I frequently keep most or all of my lighting to one side of the set: I can have different lights doing different things and they blend together into a very natural unlit look.

I framed this shot so I didn’t have to tilt, as the head I was using was not the greatest. Even with a decent head, though, I would have gone for a composition like this. In film school we’re taught that headroom is always “this much” below the top of the frame, and some people never unlearn that lesson. Head room is whatever works for the shot, and some of the most interesting compositions use a lot of it. Painters composed this way for centuries: most landscapes show the center of interest at the bottom of the frame and fill the top with structures or sky and clouds, as that’s roughly the way we see things anyway. When we’re standing at ground level looking at something else on the ground there’s typically an awful lot overhead to look at, particularly if we’re outside.

Rules are meant to be broken. Understand them, use them when appropriate, and then toss them as soon as an opportunity presents itself.

This is the final shot of the spot, although we did this around noon, in the middle of our shoot day, to make sure the sun was opposite the camera to maximize our shafts of light. The foreground is lit by spill from the 4K PAR, but the left side of the bar went a little dark as it wasn’t getting enough light from the 4K. We added a 1’x1’ tungsten LitePanel to bring it up a bit.

Why a tungsten LitePanel for a day exterior? Partly because that was what we had handy; partly because lighting warm wood with warm light allowed us to make the left side of the bar look brighter with less light. If we’d used a daylight unit we’d have required more light because half of it, the cool half, would have been absorbed by the warm wood. Using warm light made the wood appear brighter with less light, as much more of the warm light is reflected by the warm wood surface.

The “dolly” is simply a pull back on the 5’ slider to the point where it almost entered the frame.

This is probably a good time to mention there’s no color correction on this spot other than a vignette on the wide courtroom shot. This is pretty much the way I shot it. As always, I used Light Illusion’s excellent custom gamma curves.

This spot is currently on Youtube, and I believe Earth Justice is fundraising to put the spot on the air. If you’d like to contribute you can do so by going here.

Art Adams is a DP who loves to smoke (sets). His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

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LED Light Tests: PRG Sponsors an LED Light Shootout

“LED Light Shootout” sounds so dramatic, as if a collection of motley illuminants met in a dusty western town to settle their differences with bullets instead of marketing. It’s actually tedious, mind numbing work… and a real eyeopener.

Before I go into detail as to how we pulled this off, you should probably look at the test results. Click on this link and then click on “How does it look? Compare TruColor on camera” at the bottom left of the page. This is what you should expect to see:

Once you land on this page click on “How does it look? Compare TruColor on camera” at the bottom left.

A few years back I consulted with Element Labs on the creation of the first broad spectrum LED light for the motion picture industry, the Kelvin Tile. That experience led to this one: an LED light comparison test that lets the chips fall where they may.

Rich Pierceall was director of marketing at Element Labs when I helped him and his team design and market the Kelvin Tile. Now he’s director of Digital Lighting Sales at PRG, and PRG has a new light to show off: the TruColor Foton.

When Rich approached me he was very honest: sure, PRG wanted to show that the Foton is a great LED light source, but he also wanted an honest evaluation of how it stacked up against the competition. That worked for me as I test to learn objectively, not to market. (I can market, and I’ve consulted on marketing before, but I keep those two areas strictly separate and make it clear when I’m doing one or the other.) Rich said that he had a lot of confidence in the Foton and that he specifically wanted me to conduct an objective test in which every light would succeed, or fail, on its color alone.

That was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Technical tests like this are extremely hard to do. There are so many things to test that it’s easy to get bogged down in the details and find yourself stuck for days trying to quantify every last little variable. Comparison tests are even more stressful as they must, Must, MUST be accurate and balanced. Defining how that will happen is the most important part of the process.

Grip/PA Matt Mayotte assists PRG’s Rich Pierceall with light assembly.

There were a lot of parameters to control in this test. The first was defining a standard tungsten light source against which to compare all the others. In this case we used two Mole Inkies, without scrims, as our reference. We didn’t necessarily want a 3200K reference—while that’s technically correct it’s not real world correct, as most tungsten instruments average 3000K—so I chose two lights that are known quantities, in common use, and of average age: not brand new, but not 30 years old.

Shooting the reference plate with “Princess Alexa.”

We chose to shoot the test on Arri’s Alexa. Not only is it the best camera out there (my opinion) but it’s a commonly used camera that is known for beautiful and accurate color. It’s also a single sensor camera, and experience has shown me that single sensor cameras tend to be less forgiving of color issues than prism-based cameras. Prism cameras use dichroic filters that can be very finely tuned to pass only very specific ranges of colored light, while single sensor cameras must use dyes that adhere to each individual photo site and are much less specific in the wavelengths of light they pass. A light source with a non-contiguous spectrum will more easily cause an odd color shift in a single sensor camera than a prism camera due to the single sensor camera’s more complicated color science.

PRG opted to use a MacBeth chart, as film professionals tend to be more familiar with those than the DSC Labs Chroma Du Monde series. The Chroma Du Monde is vastly better suited for Rec 709 digital image testing but as the test results were going to be displayed in a visual matrix, and not on vectorscopes and waveform monitors, the MacBeth chart seemed like a reasonable choice.

Framing the MacBeth chart.

We controlled for color in two ways: we white balanced the camera on the gray chips on the MacBeth chart (many cameras prefer to see a shade of gray for white balancing instead of white) and then our art director did an additional white balance in post, pinning the tungsten-lit MacBeth chart’s white and black values to their designated values. (Each patch on the MacBeth chart has a corresponding 8-bit RGB value.) He then applied that exact offset to every other image. The Alexa’s white balance turned out to be a touch cool (it came up at 2900K CC-1, which is technically correct but according to the RGB numbers was a little cool) so matching the MacBeth chart’s white and black chips to its known RGB values made the tungsten reference perfectly neutral. I also figured that erring on the cool side would help as I didn’t want us to be accused of neutralizing the tungsten-lit MacBeth reference using a color offset that was cool or green, as those are the directions that a lot of poorly-performing LED lights tend to skew. Adding a little red to create the neutral reference seemed like a better option.

I hate taking notes. It’s much easier to put all the relevant data in the frame and shoot it, but in this case there was just too much. We’d had have to shoot multiple passes of Post-Its for each light.

I shot this in Rec 709 “WYSIWYG” mode as the budget did not include a professional grade, and getting the image as close as possible in camera meant we could capture TIFF images as well as Quicktimes. TIFFs can be more easily manipulated in Photostop so those became the primary capture medium, with ProRes4444 Quicktimes as backup.

I set the ISO at 200 to remove any hint of noise from the tests. We didn’t need exceptional highlight latitude as printing technology doesn’t allow for the creation of a white that is brighter than 2 to 2.5 stops above 18% gray. (Glossy charts manage a higher contrast range but the MacBeth chart has a matte finish and is fairly low contrast by modern standards.)

I decided to mount the MacBeth chart against a piece of white foam core. There are a couple of reasons for this, but white balance wasn’t one of them: foam core is not a known white reference so I didn’t use it as a color reference at all. Instead it became a flat field reference: by photographing the chart surrounded by white borders we could easily assess whether the chart was evenly illuminated from top to bottom and left to right. As long as the foam core waveform levels at the sides, top and bottom of the chart were equal we were assured the flattest field of light possible.

Production manager Emily Pierceall managed to get all of these lights in one place.

Flat fields of light require some cooperation from the light sources themselves, and they didn’t always come through. Some of the lights had very strange beam shapes and angles, and we had to adjust for that as we were focusing on color only and not the beam angle. If a color on the MacBeth chart was not present in the sprectrum of the light being tested that patch would go dark, but that looks very much like what happens if the beam of the light isn’t perfect and a chip isn’t lit properly. We had to negate that effect if the test had any chance of being valid.

The solution was to provide the art director with a flat field reference. Gaffer Luke Seerveld mounted the MacBeth chart on a spud, and then poked a spud receiver through the middle of the foam core. After rolling footage on the MacBeth chart for a given instrument we then pulled the chart and shot the foam core alone. The art director could then examine brightness values on the foam core and add an offset matte in Photoshop to make the field perfectly even. Not only did this compensate for variations in beam angle but it also controlled for lens vignetting. (We used a 50mm Arri/Zeiss Ultra Prime.)

I still have flashbacks about this…

I could have added diffusion to the lights to soften and spread their beams but I ruled that out early on. When light passes through a diffusion material, whether it is plastic, paper or even particulate matter in the air, the longer wavelengths punch through nicely but the shorter wavelengths scatter. This results in warmer light as red punches right through the diffusion while some green and a lot of blue are lost. (This effect, by the way, is what gives us beautiful red sunsets when the air is polluted with exhaust, ash or dust.) And diffusion materials themselves are rarely perfectly neutral in color.

Avoiding diffusion meant that we were measuring what the light was doing, not measuring the effect of diffusion on the light.

The actual color patches in the final matrix are not the actual images captured in camera. The MacBeth chart patches were sampled in Photoshop and laid into a virtual matrix in order to make the presentation pretty and consistent. If we’d tried to align those charts perfectly during the shoot we’d still be there, and there’d be less opportunity to correct for beam angle variations.

Last but definitely not least, I shot every single MacBeth chart at the same T-stop: T4. Changing the T-stop affects the lens optically in a number of ways, and that could negate the reliability of the test.

I adjust exposure using the Alexa’s shutter as DIT Jay Farrington watches the waveform and guides me.

“We did that right, didn’t we? DIDN’T WE?” Jay and I obsess over exposure.

Aiming for a flat field. A flat, straight line across the waveform showed that the white foam core was lit evenly left to right. A thick line showed we were uneven top to bottom, as opposed to a thin line which indicates evenness.

Rich used a spectrometer to gather spectral data while my team worked to capture the chart on the Alexa. We also recorded color meter values for each light using both a Minolta Color Meter 2 and Sekonic C-500. They almost never agreed with each other so I’m not sure that collecting their data had any value other than providing a few moments of laughter.

Rich Pierceall lines up the spectrometer.

What the spectrometer saw.

At one point Rich had to run away to pick up a light that hadn’t arrived in time so we changed setups to sneak in a flesh tone reference test. Adam Wilt, who graciously provided behind-the-scenes photos for this article, was very vocal about the need to shoot actual human skin as a cardboard chart doesn’t exhibit the same characteristics, such as subsurface scatter, that human skin does. That round of tests will be the subject of an article I plan to post on Monday, April 9th.

Having done some rudimentary color science work on the Kelvin Tile I can safely say that color itself is a form of witchcraft, and getting it right in an LED lamp is extraordinarily difficult. It can really only be judged in reference to something else as our brains quickly neutralize color shifts. Also, while any of these lights might be adequate on its own the game changes completely when a wonky light source is mixed with anothers. That’s when the color differences really stand out, if not by eye then on camera.

LED lights are very handy to have on a set, but they are also a new variable that may not work in all circumstances. The last place you want to judge an LED light’s quality is in dailies, so when in doubt—test.

Crew:

Production Company: PRG LA

Producer/Account Exec. for PRG: Rich Pierceall

Production Manager: Emily Pierceall

Art Director: Bob Ross

DP: Art Adams

DIT: Jay Farrington

Gaffer: Luke Seerveld

Grip/PA: Matt Mayotte*

Behind-the-Scenes photos and additional consultant: Adam Wilt

Arri Alexa: Chater Camera

Lighting/Grip: Seerveld Lighting

Stage: Purebred Studios

All photos used are ©2012 Adam Wilt and used by permission… and with many thanks.

Art Adams is a DP who is fairly bright but still has some gaps in his spectral response. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

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CANON C300: Trimming White Balance, Plus a Look at Daylight vs. Tungsten Color

I’ve shot a lot of web and broadcast spots on the Canon 5D and while it makes pretty pictures the controls are very limited. It’s also not a camera that can be used quickly. At the moment the Canon C300 is a bit of a mystery to me: before my recent tests I didn’t know whether it’s a 5D with more controls and a cinematographer-friendly form factor or if it’s something more. My initial conclusion: it’s more. A lot more. In my next few articles I’m going to take a peek inside the machinery and see what I can find. With the help of charts from DSC Labs I hope to shed some light on the inner workings of the C300 and try to figure out what its niche is.

Thanks to my friends at Chater Camera I had two days of hands-on testing with the C300. Some of that time was completely wasted as the first thing I do when I try out a new camera is work out what it does that other cameras don’t do. Once I know what the new features are I can try to figure out how they work. Most of my time was spent with the camera aimed at a DSC Labs 20-stop Xyla dynamic range chart and a Chroma Du Monde as I sought to learn what all the different gamma and color matrix settings did. On my way out the door I had a chat with another DP who has shot several projects with the camera (I have not—yet) and he said something very interesting:

“I like the color in daylight much more than I do in tungsten light.”

I can’t walk away from a comment like that. While most cameras don’t show different color responses between daylight and tungsten light, some—like the RED ONE—most definitely do.

This was a fairly easy test to pull together. First I set the camera to Cinema1 color matrix and Cinema1 gamma, as I think those will be my go-to settings for this camera and I didn’t have time to test all of the possible combinations. I aimed the camera at a Chroma Du Monde chart, lit the chart evenly with tungsten light, and white balanced. I rolled some footage, put an 80A tungsten-to-daylight filter in front of the lens, white balanced and rolled again.

I don’t know if this camera is representative of the entire line of C300’s so what I found may not be true for every single camera. In this case both white balances were tinged green:

Tungsten white balance. Chart is lit with two Arri 650w fresnels. Camera white balance said 3200K.

Daylight white balance using the same setup but with an 80A tungsten-to-daylight filter in front of the lens. Camera white balance said 7700K.

This isn’t unusual at all. A lot of cameras do this. Even the Arri Alexa white balances cyan, which is why I use it primarly on preset—and even then I have to pull some green out of the image to suit my taste. (For daylight I use 5600K CC-3 preset, and under tungsten light I use 3200K CC-2.) The Sony F3 is notorious for white balancing with a cold green cast, and I regularly warm it up by white balancing through 1/4 CTB and 1/8 plus green gel. The Sony EX1 and EX3 are similar, although not quite as bad.

Fortunately the Canon C300 falls more into the Alexa camp than the F3 camp in this regard: the Alexa offers not only control on the blue/orange color axis (color temperature) but green/magenta (CC) as well. The Sony F3 does not, and I find that endlessly frustrating. I’d rather set my own warm/cool and green/magenta offsets and use preset all the time rather than have to white balance through gels for nearly every new lighting setup. I could use a paintbox with the F3 but that requires having a waveform/vectorscope and a really good engineering monitor, and as the F3 is the low budget alternative it’s unlikely that production will spend money on those kinds of things on F3 shoots. (I have not shot S-Log on the F3 for the same reason: if production can afford color correction then we’re usually shooting with a RED ONE or an Alexa. I understand that S-Log footage from the F3 looks exceptional.)

[NOTE: A reader informs me that Sony has added a green/magenta offset control in a recent software release for the F3. Yay!]

Fortunately, under the Custom Picture menu, I found an option to adjust white balance by raising or lowering the red, green and blue gains. This is exactly what I wish the F3 had. While watching a vectorscope I made some subtle adjustments and discovered that the settings

Red = 0

Green = -5

Blue = -1

corrected the green tint under tungsten light:

It also did a good job under daylight:

The daylight white balance is a little bit warmer using this tweak, but I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. The red channel is boosted by less than 5 units:

We’re zoomed in on the white/black chips at the center of the Chroma Du Monde. The top is tungsten white balanced, the bottom is daylight. The bottom half is slightly warmer/redder. This is with my gain offset applied.

Even without trimming the white balance gains I can see a very slight shift toward red on the bottom of the image, which is balanced for daylight. The shift doesn’t seem to be caused by my gain settings; it was already there.

What is more interesting is what I found when I compared the two charts:

Outer ring is tungsten, inner ring is daylight.

What to look at.

The outer chart is lit by tungsten; inner chart is lit by tungsten and filtered at the lens with an 80A tungsten-to-daylight filter. (White balance came up at 7700, which is a bit odd, but camera color temperature numbers are often skewed. Interestingly, the tungsten white balance came right up at 3200K even though most tungsten lamps emit light that’s around 3000K.)

These color differences, which are generally hidden better by other cameras, are easy to understand:

Tungsten light has a lot of red in it, so it makes sense that the tungsten-lit chart would have a rich red chip. It also has very little blue in it, which explains why the blue chip is a bit dull.

Daylight is exactly the opposite. It has a lot of blue but not a lot of red, so the situation is exactly reversed: the blue chip should be more saturated and the red chip is less saturated. This is exactly what we see here.

What’s odd is that green is less saturated under tungsten light and more saturated under daylight. Green is the “standard” color in light: the Rec 709 broadcast standard derives most of its luminance information from the green channel because that’s what our eyes do. White balancing a camera adjusts the red and blue color channels so that their gains match the green channel, as there’s a healthy amount of green in both daylight and tungsten light. Why green should be a little undersaturated is a bit of a mystery because it should be the one consistent color between both tungsten and daylight.

I took the white balanced clips into Apple Color so I could zoom in on individual Chroma Du Monde color patches to see what’s going on. Turn the page to see what I found…

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Production •Tips •Training •

CAMERAS: Now It’s Rocket Science

Not so long ago the toughest choice we had to make was which film stock to use. It was possible to learn one or two stocks really, really well and use them predictably over the course of many years. Now a game-changing camera comes out every year, introducing us to new strengths and weakness. Not so long ago cinematography wasn’t rocket science. Now… it is.

To illustrate this point I’m going to do a bit of a brain dump of details pertaining to the cameras that I use fairly regularly. This isn’t a scientific article so much as it’s an experiential article: I’ve learned the strengths and weaknesses of these cameras and I know when they are a great choice for a production and when they aren’t. Here’s a taste of what I think about when ramping up for a production:

Arri Alexa

Acceptable noise at ISO 800, especially for unlit night exteriors.

Much cleaner noise profile at ISO 400. Visual effects houses love this.

At ISO 800 I have roughly 7 stops over middle gray and 7 stops under. At ISO 400 I have 6 and 8, respectively.

For some reason flesh tone looks great at darker exposures. Whereas I might expose flesh tone at 60-65% on some other cameras skin tone on the Alexa looks great at 52-55%.

If I record LogC but monitor Rec 709 I’ll almost always have more information to work with in post than I can see. Note: it is STILL possible to clip highlights with the Alexa, but I have to work a lot harder. Sometimes bright highlights will look clipped even though they aren’t as the curve necessary to force those extra stops into the Rec 709 broadcast spec is so aggressive that highlights are severely compressed.

The white balance function is a little funky: white balances tend to come up a bit blue-green. I’ve had much better luck using presets, although preset comes up looking a bit green as well. I’ll pull out some green out based on what I see on the monitor. This usually ends up being 5600K CC-3 for daylight and 3200K CC-2 for tungsten.

I can often get an Alexa on a job in place of a RED ONE or Epic if I shoot in Rec 709 mode, as the cost savings in transcoding and color grading make the Alexa, with its ProRes workflow, much more attractive and I can work a lot faster by not worrying much about highlights clipping.

IR filters: Tiffen IRNDs, Schneider Platinum IRNDs.

RED ONE/RED ONE MX

(I have no experience yet with Epic)

I don’t like noise, so I rate the RED ONE at ISO 160 and the RED ONE MX at ISO 400 or 500. This eliminates a stop of overexposure latitude but I can live with that in most circumstances. At ISO 800 I can expect 4.5 stops over middle gray and probably 6.5 under. Tests with the Epic have shown at least two more stops of underexposure latitude.

This camera likes daylight. There’s a leak in the blue dyes on the sensor such that they pass some green light as well. Under daylight this isn’t an issue as the blue light in daylight overpowers the green, but under tungsten light the blue channel is starved and the green light starts making a difference. This results in blue being added to every color that contains green and makes them look dull. This was largely overcome through color science improvements starting with Build 30 but the camera still suffers some under tungsten light. Skin tones tend to be a bit pasty, possibly due to the red channel being overexposed.

Green screen likes to be shot in the bluest light possible for best separation between the green channel and the blue channel. Even the addition of an 80D filter brings the color a long way toward normal.

The bluer the light the better the color. I always use at least an 80D filter under tungsten light. It makes a huge difference.

IR filters: Schneider Tru-Cut 750, Tiffen Hot Mirror, Tiffen IR/Hot Mirror, Tiffen Hot Mirror 80D and 80C. IR contamination looks blueish red under daylight and reddish blue under tungsten, and usually requires ND .90 or more to see.

Blue filters: Tiffen 80A, 80B, 80C, Schneider 1/8 CTB, 1/4 CTB, 1/2 CTB

Phantom HD Gold/Phantom Flex

Noisy, noisy, noisy cameras. When possible, overfill and crush the blacks in post.

Native ISOs appear to be 160 and 320, respectively. The Phantom HD Gold should be shot as close to 160 as possible, ie. ISO 250. The Flex can be safely rated at ISO 800 and has no more noise than the HD Gold does at 250—but also has no less.

Recording the HD-SDI output to a KiPro in ProRes can save a lot of money as dealing with the raw files is quite expensive. Dynamic range and color control is VERY limited in this mode, so be careful.

Sony F3

Not my favorite camera. It’s basically an EX1/EX3 with a bigger sensor. I love the shallow depth of field but I hate that it white balances so poorly and that bright highlights look very crushed and electronic and not soft and “film like.”

White balance preset is unusable. White balancing normally results in a green image. I typically white balance through 1/4 CTB and 1/8 Plus Green gel to add some warmth (CTB) and then swing the warmth from yellow (which is often green in disguise) to magenta, adding a little red to the warmth.

Whenever I white balance I do both “A” and “B” settings in case the switch gets bumped. I then put the switch at “B” so if it does get bumped it will go to “A” instead of preset.

I would love to see a software update that adds a green/magenta white balance offset so that I can pull the green out by the numbers instead of white balancing through gels, which takes time.

My favorite color matrix is F35-like. I don’t like really saturated colors so I sometimes mute them by taking the matrix level to -5 or -10. (Less sophisticated eyes tend to like very bright, saturated and simple colors. More sophisticated eyes like colors that are subtler, less saturated and more complex.)

My go-to gamma is Cine4. It seems to do the nicest job of holding highlights.

The sweet spot for gamma level is 0. Going to negative numbers deepens the shadows but crushes highlights. Going to positive numbers just pulls white clip down below 109%. You’ll still clip highlights but they’ll cap out at a lower IRE value.

I usually run detail at -5 to -10 overall.

The camera records to 8-bit long-GOP XDcam, so not good for green screen when recording internally. (See Sony EX1/EX3, below.)

Single sensor cameras tend to see the green in fluorescent lights a lot more strongly than prism cameras do. I shot two weeks in a hospital with an F3 and we had to gel our tungsten lights with 1/2 Plus Green and white balance to match the background fixtures. Single sensor cameras see the world very differently from prism cameras, and comparing the F3 to EX1 and EX3 cameras is a great demonstration of this.

IR filters: Tiffen IRNDs, Schneider Platinum IRNDs.

Panasonic AF-100

Possibly my least favorite camera. This is Panasonic’s first try at a single sensor camera so I’ll cut them a little slack, but they did not get this one right. It’s very, very contrasty and the highlight handling is horrible. Bright saturated clipped colors just turn a flat, bright color, often with a little 8-bit color halo around the outside of the highlight.

Other Panasonic cameras offer great flesh tone rendition in CineLike V gamma, but not in this camera. Something changed. I think I used CineLike D gamma and Norm B color matrix to get a look that I liked, and then dialed the saturation down some to make blown-out highlights look less like neon tubes in the background.

This camera is 8-bit through and through. Not only does it record 8-bit AVC, the DSP is 8-bit and the SDI output is 8-bit. Banding is rampant. The last thing you want to shoot with this camera is a very subtle transition from one shade to another. Flatly lit walls will show a lot of crazy banding artifacts. (Not so good for green screen, I suspect.)

Under very, very, very controlled lighting this camera can look great. Sadly I can say that about ANY camera. The cameras I want to work with are the ones that look great all the time, as I can never predict what I’ll run into in the field.

Sony EX1/EX3

Good, solid workhorse doc cameras. The extra depth of field makes them great for running-and-gunning.

I tend to use STD color matrix and Cine 4 gamma, both at level 0.

White balancing isn’t as temperamental as the F3.

The internal 8-bit long-GOP XDCAM files are AWFUL for green screen. Edges are sharp, jagged blocks instead of smooth. (This is only visible when keying green screen.) Having said that…

This camera is GREAT for green screen if you record the HD-SDI output, which is 10-bit, with a KiPro. If you do that and record in ProRes422HQ and you’ve got yourself a very economical and very good green screen camera. The deep depth of field keeps everything sharp, which is good for compositing.

It’s great for white limbo as well as depth of field doesn’t matter: a sharp white background looks much the same as a soft white background.

I run detail at -5 to -10 overall.

IMPORTANT: The only kind of polarizer that can be used with this camera is a circular polarizer. The bandwidth cuts on the red, green and blue dichroic filters in the prism block are apparently so narrow that they introduce a polarizing effect, so stacking another polarizer on top of that creates some really odd color shifts. A circular polarizer polarizes light on its front surface and then depolarizes it on its back surface. The polarized “look” of the filter is maintained, but the light going through the prism blocked is not polarized.

IR filters: Tiffen IRNDs, Schneider Platinum IRNDs.

Panasonic Varicams

I haven’t used one of these in a long time, but they are good cameras—great for run-and-gun doc work as none of the high-end single sensor cameras are light enough for handheld work, especially with a 35mm zoom. They require two hands just to control the weight of the camera while the camcorder form factor can be supported with one hand, leaving the other hand free to focus, zoom and control the aperture. 2/3” is still a great format for doc work.

Panasonic excels at rendering beautiful flesh tones. If you need people to look good without much worry then Alexa and Varicam are the tools to use. The Varicam’s dynamic range is nowhere near that of an Alexa, though.

VideoRec gamma is awful. Never, ever, ever use it. Always use FilmRec. It may disable the knee control but knee is awful anyway: it has a habit of making highlights look green and metallic. Instead use the percentage control—I can’t remember what it’s called exactly, it’s in the gamma menu—and adjust the FilmRec curve that way. 200% is just like video: it’s very contrasty and is great for interiors and green screen where you need some extra contrast. 300% is nice for interviews. 400% is great for contrasty exteriors. 500% and 600% are really extreme, so be careful.

There’s a tool in there called DLC (dynamic level control) that uses local contrast to make the image pop. Use this sparingly. It draws dark outlines around bright objects, and while this is great for static shots it doesn’t work so well for moving shots. (The AF-100 has this as well.)

The 2700 and 3700 are natively 720p and 1080p, respectively. The 3000 just uprez’s a 720p image, and I hate doing that in camera. It can be done much better in post, if it needs to happen at all.

The 2700 is very light sensitive, more so than the 3700.

Varicams tend to be a little bit noisy, as do most Panasonic cameras, but none of the recent cameras are as noisy as the original Varicam 27F.

Panasonic HDX-900

I used this camera a couple of weeks ago for the first time in years and it was a bit of a shock. It’s a decent camera, kind of a Varicam Jr., but it is a bit limited in its dynamic range.

The one mistake I see more than any other is that people frequently set the gamma curve to “HD”. Maybe it’s a preset that the camera defaults to. It’s a horrible, horrible curve that offers very little overexposure latitude and makes flesh tones appear clipped without much effort. The Filmlike gammas are vastly better: FilmLike1 is a good start, with FilmLike 2 and FilmLike 3 helpful for environments with extreme highlight contrast.

This camera is natively 720p so it’s probably not a good idea to run it at 1080p as you’re just uprez’ing in-camera.

Panasonic HVX-200, HPX-170 and HPX-500

These three cameras are nice little tools that make fairly nice pictures. They’re legacy cameras but they aren’t bad to use. I have several clients who own one or the other.

The trick with these is that they use standard definition chips and uprez the image to HD resolution. Under most circumstances you’ll never notice edge artifacts but you most certainly will if you shoot green screen with any of them. The edges will be noticeably jagged. It’s not pretty. Recording the HD-SDI output doesn’t make any difference.

CineLike V gamma looks very nice on the 200 and the 170.

Canon 5D/7D

These cameras look a lot better than they should, but I’m looking forward to my first shoot with the C-300.

The 5D and 7D are notorious for moire artifacts, probably due to the optical low pass filter being optimized for super high resolution stills and not comparatively low resolution HD video. Canon also seems to be skipping lines or photosites in order to get a 1920x1080 image out of a massively high resolution chip.

The 5D sensor size is bigger than 35mm film, so the depth of field is actually less than 35mm film. The sensor has large photosites, though, which makes for extreme low light sensitivity and reduced noise. It’s a very quiet camera.

The 7D, on the other hand, has a Super 35-sized sensor with smaller photosites packed more tightly, which makes it lower in ISO and noisier.

The Canon 5D can’t record HD and output it at the same time. While rolling the HDMI output drops to standard def. This is bad for focusing.

The 7D has two image processors, where the 5D has only one, so it can output full HD while rolling. It does have a tendency to overheat, however, so if you decide to shoot long interviews with it bring a backup body as I’ve heard of it shutting down after 45 minutes of straight recording and staying off for up to 90 minutes to cool down.

I think you’re supposed to use the camera in ISO steps of 200. I was told long ago that steps of 200 were made in the preamp, and the steps in between were made in the DSP. As I understand this, gain in the preamp is analog and makes full use of the signal coming off the sensor whereas gain in the DSP just boosts or lowers the ISO digitally. In theory, for example, ISO 200 is the cleanest ISO there is that offers a good compromise between speed and noise. ISO 160 takes that signal and pushes it down digitally, resulting in a quieter signal but 1/3 less stop of overexposure latitude. ISO 250 goes the other way, adding 1/3 stop of noise. The same relationship supposedly exists between ISO 400, 320 and 500.

I’ve never tested this but apparently others have. I tend to like round numbers so I rate it at ISO 400 or 800, depending on my needs.

It’s easy to bump the aperture or shutter controls while shooting, so check them often.

You can’t see focus in motion on the rear LCD screen. Best to use an external monitor and an HDMI-to-SDI converter box.

The weakest part of the camera is the HDMI output connector. It gets loose over time, and if the connector is bumped you can loose the signal. The problem is that the most common HDMI-to-SDI converter box (by Blackmagic) takes a couple of seconds to sync up once it detects a signal. If you bump the connector and the image goes away you have to jiggle the connector and then wait to see if the picture comes back. If it doesn’t, jiggle it some more. Eventually it should come back, but there’s a two second delay after every attempt. (This is very frustrating.)

The USB connector can be damaged as well. This makes it impossible to load in custom gamma curves, such as the exceptional ones distributed by Light Illusion.

Art Adams is both a director of photography and a consummate geek. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •HDSLR •ProPhoto Coalition •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •Visual Effects •

Lights, Camera, Kids: Shooting a Childish Spot for T-Mobile on the Canon 5D

A web spot may be seen by more people than a broadcast spot, so making it pretty is more important than ever. In this case, simple but elegant lighting and custom gamma curves made this spot shine. (And when shooting kids, “simple” becomes very important.)

The idea is this: dad shoots baby video on his phone and sends it to grandma, but the video takes so long to get there that by the time grandma sees it the baby is now a toddler. Watch:

Shooting kids and animals is always exciting. The most perfectly behaved child or animal can melt down into tantrums or stubbornness at a moment’s notice. In this case the agency wanted to try two different setups: one with the baby and toddler in a high chair, and another where they sat on the floor surrounded by toys.

The trick was to shoot the baby long enough to get some action that the toddler could then repeat. That wasn’t easy.

I lit this through a sliding glass door, behind and to the left of the camera (a Canon 5D rated at ISO 200). There wasn’t enough room to put the light (a 1200w PAR) in the room and give the kids some room to play so we kept it outside and put two 4’x4’ frames of Lee 216 diffusion in the doorway. The glass door added a little green to the light but this was easily corrected by white balancing. (Most commercial glass has some extra green in it, particularly car windshields.) The “sunlight” was an Arri M18 PAR, an instrument that I now LOVE. Not only is it a very punchy HMI that gets the most out of a standard U.S. 20 amp circuit, but the reflector design eliminates the oval “headlight” look and replaces it with a soft but round beam.

Most PARs are good for raw power, but the quality of the beam isn’t the prettiest unless the light is placed far away or pounded through a lot of diffusion. This light, though, created very convincing sunlight, on the floor and cabinets behind the baby, from a short distance away and without diffusion. (We blocked out the actual sun and added our own to make sure the light didn’t change over the course of the day. The background windows faced west, and we spent hours shooting the high chair and floor shots.)

My gaffer, Alan Steinheimer, had originally suggested using a 4K fresnel instead, but I worried it wasn’t going to be strong enough to create the contrast that I wanted. Alan’s rule of PARs vs. fresnels states:

“When comparing a fresnel to a PAR of the same wattage, the fresnel will put out 30% of the light that the PAR will.”

This means that HMI fresnels will create very sharp shadows, but at the cost of using a much higher wattage lamp. I opted instead to try the Arri M18, and I wasn’t sorry at all. The shadows are a little soft, but sunlight often is. Razor sharp sunlight has a very specific mood and feel to it, and sunlight with soft edges feels a bit less harsh and more friendly. This may come from my English/Irish/Scottish roots (I do tend to prefer overcast or partly cloudy days to bright sun) or it may be a matter of taste. Razor sharp sun shadows didn’t seem right for a spot with a baby in it so we went with a soft sun look instead.

The Arri M18. Note the round textured reflector that creates a soft round beam instead of the harsh oval beam seen in conventional PARs. This is the first HMI PAR I’ve seen that doesn’t use, or need, interchangeable lenses.

The M18 was aimed through a side window which had the same green tint that the sliding door did, so white balancing to one lamp corrected both. If one had not gone through a glass window we would have had to add green to it to match the other.

The shadows are entirely created by practical window blinds.

At the time the floor highlights looked as if it they were chroma clipped on the monitor, but I knew from experience that it was going to be okay. Our on-set monitor was a 17” Panasonic and those tend to crush highlights, plus there’s something in the 5D HDMI output signal that exaggerates chroma and luma values. Highlights that look clipped during the shoot often turn out perfectly fine in post.

I wanted some modeling on the baby but the spot didn’t call for high contrast, so we added a 4’x4’ bead board passive (not lit with a specific light) bounce off frame right.

The one window in the shot is gelled with diffusion, probably Lee 250.

As usual I used Steve Shaw’s Light Illusion gamma curves for the 5D and 7D. I much prefer these curves to any of the looks I get out of the 5D’s built-in curves. Those work in a pinch, but Steve’s curves really make the camera look its best. The camera is owned by the production company, Teak Digital, and there was simply no reason not to use it for such a simple spot.

Mom and dad prep their child for action. They had twins, so if one dissolved into a weeping pile of emotion their replacement could be brought in immediately. (This is particularly handy for stunts.) (Just kidding.)

After we shot the baby and the toddler in the high chair (and on the floor, but that wasn’t used) we turned toward Dad. We cheated him a bit as a reverse angle from the baby’s perspective would have had the camera looking out a sliding glass door. This angle is shot with the camera placed near the high chair’s position looking out the right frame of the first shot.

I like bouncing light off of surfaces that color or change the light in some way so that the audience can feel the subject’s relationship to the set. In this case we built a book light, where a light is aimed into a bounce card and bounced through a piece of diffusion to further soften in, against some cabinets just to the left of dad. To carry light around the front of his face I asked for a tungsten PAR bounce from below. Ideally we would have just aimed a light at the wood floor but I didn’t want to take the chance of the floor buckling or burning from the heat. Instead we arranged some quarter apple boxes on the floor and bounced the tungsten PAR off of that.

As we were balanced for daylight the tungsten PAR appeared warm to begin with. Bouncing it off a wood surface added something more to it both in color and softness. You can see the light hitting the bottom of dad’s arm, his shirt and part of his face. It really does feel as if warm sunlight is striking the floor and lighting him from below.

The background was lit with more tungsten PARs aimed into a bounce card raised on apple boxes. It was a little too intense initially, so Alan rigged a flag that was smaller than the bounce source directly over it. This let the light out around the edges but also darkened part of the ceiling for contrast. It was a brilliant trick and one I’ve filed away for the future.

Dad gets touched up before shooting. To the right you can see the bounce/flag combo that gaffer Alan Steinheimer rigged to add some soft contrast to the ceiling. It feels very real, just as if sunlight was striking the floor and bouncing up. (The window in the background faces north and was gelled with Lee 250, not to control brightness but to prevent us seeing the blown-out hill behind the house.) The tungsten + apple box bounce is at the lower left of frame, just below the camera lens.

This is a green screen shot. We put a 4’x4’ frame of green screen material in front of the high chair and shot dad’s hand holding the camera. I don’t remember what we did to light this… If I had to guess I’d say I just stopped down and used the window source that was lighting the baby as a key.

This shot is a bit different. I moved dad directly in front of the sliding glass door/soft key as I wanted a much smaller f-stop for this shot. Macro shots require a deep stop if you’re going to retain any depth of field at all, so by moving dad directly in front of the diffusion I was able to stop down to T8 or T11 easily. The screen of the phone is actually Ultimatte green masking tape, and I wanted to make sure that the edges of the tape/screen were as sharp as possible to help the compositor later on.

We shot this in the living room, adjacent to the kitchen. It was afternoon when we shot this, and as we wanted to give the appearance that grandma was somewhere else entirely we blacked out the room and created a sunset effect.

Grandma is lit by a daylight-balanced Kino Flo Image 80 put through diffusion, probably Le e 216. As there’s a reflective cabinet behind her the fill light had to be placed below the level of the couch and the camera, so key grip Ernie Kunze laid a 4’x4’ bead board bounce against an apple box, just below frame, and Alan lit it with an 800w Joker HMI PAR rigged from above. (The 800w was overkill, but as we’d used it for dad’s book light in the next room this saved the production company the money necessary to buy another, smaller light. We dropped some doubles in it and kept the lighting budget down a bit.) I prefer bead board to foam core as a bounce because foam core has a little bit of a shine to it, which translates into a specular hot spot; bead board isn’t reflective at all so the bounce is perfectly even and free of specularity.

The background was created by a Source 4 leko. Lekos are theatrical lights that can cast very sharp shadows, and I like to use them to create “messy light.” I almost never use them to create sharp edges; instead I prefer to start sharp and then fuzz them out to the point where the pattern feels like something that would happen in reality. Sometimes I’ll aim a Source 4 with a pattern through another pattern, like a cucoloris, and the overlaying of patterns creates very realistic and random effects with a mixture of hard and soft shadows. I also like to use Source 4’s with zoom lenses, instead of fixed lenses, because throwing the zoom lens out of focus in one direction creates red/cyan fringing around the pattern that feels like sunlight diffracting through glass.

Director Greg Rowan (right) coaches Grandma through her action. The bead board fill is at the bottom of from, while the PAR that illuminates it is rigged overhead. Shooting through a beam of a light can be problematic if you’re shooting in a dusty environment as you’ll see a miniature snowstorm between you and the subject. This house was very clean and neat, so no problem there. The Source 4 is to the left rear, and you can see that I’ve picked a fairly repetitive pattern and fuzzed it out slightly. We saw some of the pattern on the lamp shade and right wall in the wide shot, but only the close shot was used in the edit.

By the time mom gets the message baby has grown considerably. Once again I lit this up to increase depth of field on grandma’s hands. I think we just pulled the diffusion from in front of the Image 80 and added a bounce card just outside the left of frame. This entire spot, except for grandma’s closeup, was shot on a stock Canon 24-70 lens. Camera assistants hate pulling focus on lenses like this because the focus rings aren’t physically attached to anything mechanical: they control electronic servos instead*, which means that if you turn the focus ring past infinity or close focus the ring keeps going and your focus marks become useless. The advantage, though, is that since the elements are “floating” and controlled by electronics they can be pushed around in ways other lenses can’t. In this case the macro mode gave us plenty of room for the several macro shots required in this spot.

*I’ve been corrected by a reader who informs me that this lens employs a clutch that disengages the manual focus ring in autofocus mode and engages it in manual focus mode until the ring is turned past infinity or close focus, at which point the clutch disengages. Thanks, Stephen S.!

This shot shows off director Rowan’s prowess at directing child actors. Once we’d rolled enough footage of the baby doing random things, playback operator Andy Neddermeyer replayed the clips and Greg picked out a sequence that looked both childish and repeatable. Then, when the toddler was placed in the chair, Greg talked him through performance cues so the boy did the same things that the baby did, and in the right order. (I have to add here that all the kids we used in this spot were fantastic.)

I’m not sure where this ad is running, but it’s out there right now and it looks great. And it was a great experience overall: Teak production staff are very mellow and professional, as was my crew and the director, which made it a very pleasant shoot under what could have been trying conditions.

Miscellaneous Notes:

I shot with a 1/60th shutter as I tend to be very paranoid about HMI flicker when using cameras with rolling shutters. Read here to see why.

I didn’t shoot the T-Mobile woman at the end of the spot.

Art Adams is a DP who manifests a childish air on set, the degree of which varies depending on who you talk to. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •NAB2012 •Post Production •Production •Training •Vendor Channels •Sony •

GEEK OUT: The Non-Technical Technical Guide to Sony OLED Monitors

The first time I laid eyes on a professional Sony OLED monitor I knew my professional life had changed. In a few years I’m sure we’ll take this technology for granted, but right now it looks AMAZING compared to any other monitoring system I use on a regular basis. For a slightly-technical-but-mostly-educational look at why, read on…

Until recently I knew nothing about LCD and OLED monitor technology, and being somewhat curious about such things I sat down with Sony product manager Gary Mandle to see if I could understand this seismic shift in digital monitoring.

This is how an OLED monitor works. Any questions?

First, though, a little history. If you already know the fundamentals of how CRT and LCD displays function you can skip to page 2. If not, it’s a good idea to read this page first so you can appreciate how different OLED displays are from anything that has come before.

The first successful broadcast television receivers were monochrome. They contained a vacuum-sealed glass tube through which an electron beam was fired at rows of phosphor dots placed on the inside front surface of the tube. Electron beams hitting the phosphors caused them to glow, and the brightness of the glow depended on the strength of the beam. Powerful magnets guided the beam on its path from the top left of the tube surface to the lower right, and this path was retraced 60 times per second. (For more detailed information on this technology check out the Wikipedia page on CRT tubes.)

Early phosphors didn’t glow for very long. Scanning the beam across the surface of the tube progressively, where every phosphor dot was hit in sequence, proved ineffective as the phosphors at the top of the screen dimmed noticeably before the beam had finished painting the full surface of the tube. This caused a massive roll bar where dimming phosphors chased newly lit ones. The solution—one that has haunted us to this day—was to illuminate the phosphor dots in alternating lines: the first pass of the beam illuminated rows 1, 3, 5, etc. and the second pass lit rows 2, 4 , 6, etc. Viewers didn’t notice that the interleaved odd lines dimmed as the even lines were lit, and the fact that the screen displayed 60 half resolution images per second instead of 30 full resolution images eliminated excess flicker. (50hz PAL TV sets appear to flicker to those of us who grow up in NTSC countries. Movie theaters reduce flicker by projecting each image twice as our brains see a lot of flicker at 24fps but not so much at 48fps.)

The same technology carried over into color television sets. Monochrome phosphor dots were replaced by a cluster of red, green and blue phosphor dots that fooled the brain into seeing a single color that was, in fact, a mixture of all three. For example, if the red dot was dim but the blue and green dots were lit the brain registered the combination as cyan. If the viewer got close enough to the screen they could see the individual phosphor dots, but at any distance beyond about 2’ they blurred into a single color. (The earliest tubes used a triangular cluster of RGB phosphor dots. Sony Triniton sets employed three closely-set vertical phosphor stripes.)

This system had some downsides. Early red phosphors weren’t bright enough to match the intensity of the blue and green phosphors so a small amount of green phosphor was mixed into the red to give it a bit more kick. Also, the response of the red phosphor was slower than the others so the addition of some green phosphor made it respond a bit faster. This phosphor mix resulted in reds having a slight orange cast. Most viewers didn’t notice.

Interlaced scanning reduced resolution considerably. Interlaced cameras capture images in two passes—odd rows first, then even rows—with a short but definite period of time between the two passes. Any object that moved significantly through the frame between those passes became blurred as the object appeared to be in one screen position for the odd field and another position for the even field. Even worse, noise in the system reduced resolution further as the odd field captured one pattern of noise and the even field captured another. When two fields with different noise patterns are combined the noise is amplified, reducing the resolution of the image.

Last but not least, black was created simply by turning the electron beams off. This meant that the blackest part of the image was no darker than the blank screen, which was not truly black. An unpowered TV tube surface appeared as dark gray, and while illuminating the phosphors around a dark area made that area appear darker by comparison there was no way to create a true, rich, deep black–especially ambient room light struck the front surface of the monitor and made it brighter. Instead of dark, rich blacks we had to settle for dark gray.

This most impacted color in shadows. As the picture tube’s native shade was dark gray, any color that approached “black” was contaminated by that gray. For example:

Bright colors overpower the gray base of the tube surface, but darker colors are impacted severely and are desaturated. We’ll see how OLED technology solves this problem shortly.

LCD displays tossed out the electron-beam-and-phosphor model and relied instead on some obscure properties of liquid crystal, which made it much more energy efficient but not as pretty as CRTs. The secret of LCD displays is that the liquid crystal is not responsible for creating the colors we see on our LCD television sets but is simply a light valve that allows light to pass through colored filters on the screen.

From back to front, here is a simplified description of how an LCD monitor is assembled:

(1) A light source (either a fluorescent tube, white phosphor LED or a set of red, green and blue LEDs) is placed at the rear of the display. This generates all the light that will pass through the display.

(2) In front of this backlight is a polarizing filter that polarizes the light.

(3) In front of that are two layers, one of circuitry (TFT) and another of liquid crystal. The circuitry layer divides the liquid crystal into a grid.

(4) In front of each grid “cell” is a filter that is red, green or blue. These replace the phosphor dots in a CRT monitor.

(5) In front of the RGB filter layer is another polarizing filter, but this filter is installed at a right angle to the first filter. Light can only pass through this polarizer if it is twisted into alignment by liquid crystal.

Liquid crystal acts as a “light valve” by twisting light between two oppositely-polarized filters.

Polarizing filters only pass light that is polarized in a specific direction. If two polarizers are stacked and one is rotated 90 degrees from the other, they’ll cancel each other out and pass very little light. That’s the key principal behind LCD displays: left on their own, the two polarizers prevent light from reaching the surface of the display. Unless something else happens, the display remains black–or as black as an LCD screen can get, which, as we will see on page 2, isn’t very.

Applying an electrical charge to a cell of liquid crystal grid causes that bit of crystal to “twist” the light that passes through it, polarizing it into alignment with the front polarizing filter. If a small charge is applied then the light is twisted only a little bit in the same direction as the front polarizing filter, so only a little light gets through. A full charge twists it completely, allowing all of the light to pass through. Liquid crystal is simply a light valve.

The construction of a typical LCD monitor. “TFT substrate” refers to the grid array that is employed to cause elements of the liquid crystal layer to “twist” light.

If that grid element is behind a red filter then the light that is passed through the front of the display appears as a red point. Repeat for every cluster of red, green and blue pixels on the screen.

While LCDs have proven very energy efficient there are few that are pleasing to the eye and fewer yet that can be used for critical image evaluation. The first problem is that the two polarizers never quite cancel each other out completely, so some light always passes through to the surface of the screen. This creates the same issue that we saw with CRTs, where no part of the screen is truly black, which reduces overall contrast as well as color saturation in shadow areas. LCD screens are slightly worse in this regard than CRTs.

Each kind of backlight has its own issues. Flourescent tubes and white phosphor LEDs generally have a broad-enough spectrum for reasonable color accuracy but not enough color energy in any one portion of the spectrum to reproduce strongly-saturated colors. RGB LED backlights tend to be very “peaky” as strongly-saturated dye LEDs emit very saturated light on very narrow wavelengths, as opposed to phosphor LEDs which tend to emit a broader spectrum of less pure light

The interplay between these light sources, the dye filters over the pixels, and the two polarizers can cause some very interesting color issues. There’s a popular line of “broadcast quality” LCD monitors that are, for example, not always the same color and rarely the proper color. I had the treat of viewing a white phosphor LCD panel next to a fluorescent-lit LCD panel on a recent shoot, and while the white phosphor LCD image looked pretty good the other monitor looked yellow-green by comparison. I don’t know if this is the interaction of the fluorescent backlight with the dye filters or the two polarizers interacting with each other, but either way it means that I don’t know what’s being recorded. This can be a negative drag on long-term employment prospects. (I’ve gotten into the habit of looking at all the monitors on the set–from the on-camera focus monitor to the director’s monitor, client’s monitor and playback operator’s monitor–and mentally averaging the results in order to understand what’s REALLY being recorded.)

LCD displays don’t “reset” the way CRTs do. A CRT phosphor will dim quickly if not re-illuminated, but LCD cells don’t reset automatically: they stay the same until they are overwritten. Once the liquid crystal behind a blue filter is partially depolarized, perhaps to display the color purple, the amount of light passing through that blue filter won’t change until the next frame, where different instructions may be issued. This can produce a “smear” effect. (The Sony BVM L231 monitor had a mode called “black frame insertion” where a black frame was inserted between each frame, shortening the amount of time that each video frame remained on screen. This increased the appearance of sharpness but also increased black levels.)

Last but not least, highlights have a habit of glowing. There are many additional layers in between the filters and your eye (I’ve not touched on all of them here) that scatter light as it passes through the display. Bright areas can bleed into dark areas, resulting in a halo that reduces the apparent sharpness of bright objects.

That’s enough history. Now for the good stuff…

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •

LIGHTING STRATEGIES: Rough Guide to Illuminating a Bounce Card

Is bounce light really just about aiming a light at a white card and walking away? No. There are a couple of tricks to getting the most out of your bounce source, and I can show them to you fairly quickly using a 4’x4’ bounce card as an example.

First thing to consider: material.

Foam core is slightly shiny and may cast a very subtle hard shadow in addition to a nice soft one. Sometimes this is okay, sometimes it’s not. Just know that this can happen and pay attention to when it works and when it doesn’t.

Gryfflon is slightly shiny but overall a good soft bounce material.

Bead board is a styrofoam-based material with a very matte finish. There is no specular kick of the type seen when using foam core or gryfflon.

Show card is dull and very matte while also being flexible. It’s good for tacking to walls or shoving into corners.

There are many other materials to experiment with but this will get us started.

We use “active” (a bounce card lit by a dedicated light, as opposed to “passive,” which picks up light that’s already in the scene) bounces when we want to turn a surface into a light source in order to create very soft, wrap-around light. The size of the source makes a difference. For this reason we almost always want to fill our bounce card completely with light. Spotting a light into the center of a 4’x4’ bounce card gives us a 1’x1’ source, which has a very different feel from a 4’x4’ source.

We’ll also get more punch out of the bounce if we fill it completely. A light spotted into the center of a bounce actually results in less light reaching the set than a light that has been flooded out to fill the card.

I suggest doing this:

This offers maximum output from your bounce card. (This technique also works with diffusion frames.) It’s possible to flood so far out that light spills off the edges of the card but at that point you’re starting to waste light. A little light can spill off but you want most of the light to fill the card side to side.

It’s common to place the light below the bounce card, looking up into it, but there’s a gotcha to avoid:

Avoid placing the light so that the bottom, or the side closest to the light, is significantly brighter than the rest of the card. If the bottom half of the 4’x4’ card dominates in brightness then you’ve converted your 4’x4’ source into a bright 2’x4’ source next to a dimmer 2’x4’ source. If this is the look you’re going for, great—otherwise try to light the card as evenly as possible.

Here are three ways to light a bounce card. Some are better than others:

The top method shows the subject the full face of the card but the uneven illumination compromises the size of the source.

The middle method lights the card more evenly but slightly reduces the height of the source from the subject’s perspective, which is usually not a problem.

The bottom method lights the card perfectly but if the subject lands in just the right spot the lamp will cast its own shadow.

Bounce sources are wonderful things and I use them all the time—but I always want maximum light output and the largest source possible that the bounce material will give me. Otherwise, why do it?

Art Adams is a DP who likes direct directors and indirect lighting. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProPhoto Coalition •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •

LIGHTING STRATEGIES: Exploiting a Single Light Source

There are few things more elegant than lighting a shot with a single light source. It doesn’t always work, but when it does—it’s magical.

The most natural and common source of interior lighting is window light. A number of famous European painters fashioned their studios so that the room was lit by a single window facing north as they’d be guaranteed only indirect soft light from clouds or sky all day long.

This look is fairly easy to replicate. This still, taken of an acquaintance who is an avid biker, is lit by a single strobe through a 6’x6’ piece of grid cloth fabric outside the right edge of frame. I don’t remember exactly how far away it was but probably between 6’ and 8’.

I chose grid cloth because it is a dense material that allows very little of the light’s beam through. That means that the glowing diffusion material becomes the light source instead of the light itself, which emulates the feel of indirect light coming through a window. Imagine looking out a 6’x6’ window at a cloudy sky: the light coming through that window is similar to what I created with grid cloth. The biggest difference is that the clouds are a lot farther away, so light from the 6’x6’ grid source will drop off a lot more quickly as it is much closer. (For more about that see The Inverse Square Law.)

Faces look great when lit with diffuse light, but the bike looks quite nice as well. It helps that the light source is coming from the side and the bike contains a number of vertical cylinders whose roundness is revealed by soft sidelight. Part of that is due to the right side of the cylinders receiving all of the light from the source while the surface curving away from the light receives less and less light, but there’s also a reflection component: shiny vertical objects lit from the side reflect the light source in their surface. Not only do we get the soft rolloff from the large source but we also get a shiny sparkly highlight, which adds contrast and interest. This highlight can be best seen on the post under the bike seat.

Note also the beautiful highlight on the black brake handles.

This gentle roll-off of the light gives shape to an otherwise two dimensional image. We can sense the roundness of his face and arms even though we’re looking at this on a flat monitor. That’s one reason students are often told that frontal light is death: it doesn’t create this added dimensionality as all of the shadows fall away from the camera where they can’t be seen. Still, there are ways to light flatly and still create a sense of depth. (I don’t have an example handy now so I’ll have to dig through my archives for another article.)

I find that a lot of students are confused as to when a backlight is useful and when it isn’t. Ultimately it’s a matter of taste: you can backlight anything you want at any time if that’s a look you like. Whether you NEED to backlight, though, is a different question. Backlighting came about in the old black-and-white film days, when it was common for a person with brown hair to blend into a red background wall. In black and white the object colors don’t make a difference, and brown hair and a red wall that stand apart in color may end up being exactly the same tone when the color is removed. Adding a backlight creates a highlight in the hair so that it becomes a bright object against a dark background instead of a dark object against a dark background.

In the still above there’s enough color and brightness separation that we don’t need a backlight. On the key side the face is slightly brighter and less yellow than the background, and the fill side is much darker than the background, so we can clearly see the shape of the subject against the background. If we can differentiate between the subject and the background then we can say that they are “separated,” and backlighting becomes optional instead of necessary.

In this case the background helped a lot. It’s a muslin backdrop with painted brown texture overall and a reddish gold patch in the center. As this background creates a highlight behind the subject and drops off in a natural vignette there’s no need for me to focus attention toward the subject with additional lighting. This entire shot was lit with one light source.

This doesn’t always work. The background has a huge role to play in an image like this, as it does in every image: it’s easy to light a person when you know where they will be, but the background is often much bigger and frequently not terribly interesting. If you’re shooting a moving image shot you may only have to light people in two or three positions but the background that you’ll have to light is much, much bigger. If one person walks 10’ past the camera and the camera pans with them, you not only have to light the actor for a 10’ move but you’ll also have to light 180 degrees or more of background.

The first things I look at when I walk onto a set are where the light sources are and what the walls look like. A wall that’s darker than flesh tone and/or a different color will make my life a lot easier as I can light softly and not worry about spill light on the background. If the walls are light or flesh colored my job becomes a lot more difficult as I have to work harder to make the person the brightest thing in the shot and keep light off the background. (Our eyes tend to look at the brightest objects in a shot first.)

A richly-colored and textured background makes lighting easier. Light spilled on the background brings out textures, and as the eye loves texture we can worry less about shaping the light so that it only falls in one spot. If the background is a different color and tone from the foreground subjects then we have instant separation… unless we’re shooting in black and white.

One last trick: when I place a soft source like this I’ll walk around to the point where, if I was a light, I’d be casting a shadow in the direction that I feel is appropriate for the shot. In this case I concentrated on the placement and quality of the nose shadow, so I walked around until I saw the subject’s nose block the area upon which I wanted the shadow to fall, while also seeing the subject’s far eye, and then put the left edge of the soft source in that position.

This was shot with a Nikon D7000 camera, in Nikon RAW and polished in Adobe Lightroom. The lens was most likely the long end of a 24-70mm zoom, with a shutter speed of 1/250 and an f-stop around 5.6.

Art Adams is a DP who shoots stills for fun when he’s not shooting moving images for profit. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Tips •Training •

BOOK REVIEW: “How to Shoot Movies Without Shooting Yourself in the Foot”

This book is not for everyone. If you don’t eat, breathe and live cinematography… maybe you should read something else. Seriously. This book may not be for you. (But if it is… you’d better not miss it.)

A review of this book on Amazon.com says:

“If you’re going into a career in the film industry, and will be working with cameras with the intention of working your way up to be a DP, this is the book for you. If you’re doing limited-budget work, and wearing multiple hats (writer/director/cameraman, etc), this book won’t serve you well. It’s intended to those with big bucks, and most of the tips/suggestions/advice in the book primarily apply to those working on films with a budget of a million bucks or more… That said, plenty of the tips do apply to anyone working the camera for a production of any size, but there are far better resources available if you’re doing what you do on a shoestring.”

With all due respect to the author of this review, this is one of the dumbest things I’ve read in a long, long time.

I’m often laughed at by young filmmakers when I promote Hollywood methodologies for filmmaking. “We’re indie filmmakers,” they say. “We don’t go for that Hollywood crap. We’re going to do it our own way and be highly original and creative!”

I laugh right back at them. I know they’re doomed. They’re going to spend more time reinventing the wheel than actually using it to get anywhere. The production methodology invented in Hollywood over the last 100 years has made it one of the most efficient industries on the planet. It has to be: depending on the project you’ll have anywhere from 10 to 100 people who have to come together 20, 30 or 40 times a day to make one shot happen, and they have to do that for anywhere from one day to six months at a time. It’s controlled chaos, and it’s a miracle that films get made at all.

But the only reason they get made is because of this Hollywood methodology.

Film students and aspiring indie filmmakers are frequently confused into thinking that the Hollywood method of filmmaking is solely responsible for making the dreck that appears on so many theater screens every year. WRONG. The Hollywood methodology is only about making the movie itself and has nothing to do with content. Content is separate. The methodology allows you to get the process out of the way so you can spend all your time creating.

I describe it like this:

Imagine buying a professional filmmaking machine that follows the Hollywood methodology. The pieces come separately, and as you pick the specific pieces you want to work with they know how to assemble themselves into a working machine. You can now spend all of your time creating cinematic history and zero time making the machine work.

A film that’s not made under this method—which is most student films—are made by the amateur filmmaking machine. The parts for this machine don’t know how to work together. They don’t know how they fit in with other pieces, they don’t know what to do when, and they spend all their time trying to make themselves into a functioning machine. This takes all their time and resources away from making a really cool movie.

One machine works because all the pieces know what to do and they can get on with creating whatever it is they want to create. The other machine can’t function well enough to make anything, let alone anything that has a chance of being good.

Which machine would you prefer to be a part of? If you want to be part of the professional machine, buy this book.

There’s a lot of money riding on productions, and it’s very easy to waste a lot of money on failed production mechanisms. That’s why it’s very important to learn one process, the process that everyone knows, so you can stop worrying about process and simply start creating. For example, everyone in Hollywood knows that ten minutes after call the head of each department—the keys—are on set watching a blocking rehearsal with the actors. Once the blocking rehearsal is done (and this is just for blocking—no emotional stage directions given here, just figuring out where the actors will be and what the shots are) the actors and director go away and the set is lit and the camera placed. After that the actors and director come back, the scene is rehearsed for real, final tweaks are made, and the shots occur. IMMEDIATELY after that the crew and cast immediately move on to blocking for the next shot in the scene. Repeat until wrap.

This is one of the many, many, many seemingly little things that make movies possible. Not just Hollywood movies, but movies of any size. The smaller the budget the more important it is for everyone to know these filmmaking methodologies and to adhere to them. Otherwise you’re just going to waste a lot of money.

This reviewer is correct: if you want to wear a lot of hats then this book isn’t for you. This book is for those who know that the key positions on a film set are such complex jobs that it is possible to become a master at one of them and still be surprised on a daily basis. One can work ten, twenty, thirty years as a director, DP, production designer, editor, sound person, gaffer, key grip, etc. and still not see or experience everything there is to experience on a film set. Every day is a learning experience, no matter how many days you’ve spent on set before.

If you want to wear a lot of hats, well, good luck to you. There are a lot of people who are able to do this, although they usually fall into a certain number of categories: director/editors, director/writers, line producer/ADs, and a couple of others. Most people, though, learn at some point that filmmaking is a collaborative process, that each job on a film is endlessly complex, and that a film is actually stronger for having a lot of really experienced people doing each of their individual jobs. The auteur theory, where the director is responsible for everything, is complete bullshit. Watch any successful director’s movies and you’ll see a repeating list of DPs, production designers, editors, ADs, camera operators, makeup people, etc. One person may guide it all, but one person almost never does it all. Or, if they do, they rarely do it well.

If you are serious about getting into the camera department and working toward being a DP, this is the book for you. It has about as much information in it as you can get about being a working DP without taking a course from the author (who, by the way, teaches at California State University, Long Beach). All the things that you didn’t know that you need to know are in this book, and you need to know them all before you can even think of crafting the look of a feature film. Such things include:

-Do’s and don’ts when working with directors

-How to interview for a job; or, more importantly, how NOT to interview for a job

-Set politics: what to say, and what not to say, to members of other departments; who to talk to about what; how not to inadvertently “call someone out” on set and turn them and their department against you

-Everything you can do to prepare for a project as a DP

-How to read a script as a DP

-Technical issues you need to know about related to film and digital

-Camera department crew structure: who does what, and when

-The realities of being a second camera assistant, first camera assistant, operator and DP

-How to construct a dolly move that tells a story without tying yourself into a pretzel

-How small mistakes can very quickly turn into large mistakes, and how to avoid the small mistakes

-Mastering the 180 degree line

-The fundamental tools of lighting

-The fundamental reasons we light things

...and on, and on, and on.

The author, Jack Anderson, was one of my early mentors. I first met him when he shot a short film for a fellow student at Loyola Marymount University in the mid-80s. He was in the process of transitioning professionally from camera assistant to operator while building his DP reel. I worked with him on several features following film school, most of them very low budget, and I received a tremendous education by constantly making mistakes and having Jack correct me.

Jack was, by that time, the walking definition of the grizzled union cameraman with a heart. He’d seen it all—and in Hollywood that’s saying quite a lot—and whenever I’d screw up he’d calmly take me aside, very respectfully point out how incredibly, insanely stupid I’d been, illustrate how what I’d done could have had disastrous consequences for every department on the show, and explain that on some projects I’d be carrying my pink slip to my car rather than having a furtive conversation with him on the corner of the set. He had a knack for very respectfully and constructively ripping one’s ego apart and then putting it back together in a way that said “I still have hope for you, don’t do it again.” And most of the time I didn’t.

That tone, that spirit of “There are a million pitfalls awaiting you and I want to spare you as many as possible while helping you fulfill your dreams,” is present on every page in this book. He even comes out and says it: “I want you to learn from my mistakes so that you can go and make your own more interesting and unique mistakes.”

The couple of years I spent periodically working with Jack and his crews were amazingly formative times for me. I went from “know-nothing 20-something film student” to a surprisingly effective crew member in a relatively short period of time. I never became the kind of assistant that Jack had been as I only did it for about five years before my back told me that it was time to move on to more creative pursuits (I weighed 120 lbs. and did some bad things to my body by carrying lots of heavy equipment around), but the kind of DP I’ve become is largely attributable to the foundation he, and a few others, helped me build early on.

So if you do want to be a jack of all trades/master of none and work only on very small, non-professional and intimate movie projects with your friends, DO NOT BUY AND READ THIS BOOK. Stay away. Don’t even think of wandering near it in a bookstore. In fact, avoid any bookstores where this book might be present. Maybe you should avoid the Internet, through which this book is for sale. It is not for you.

On the other hand, if you live and breath cinematography and recognize that its pursuit and practice is something to which you could easily devote the rest of your life, you need to start here. Nowhere is there a more practical and down-to-earth guide for those who want to break into the camera department and learn the craft of cinematography. Short of actually working on a production with a seasoned DP from start to finish, this is a great education as to what it’s REALLY like to be a cinematographer.

It’s all the stuff they should have taught you in film school but didn’t. The creative part is easy. It’s all the other stuff around it that’s hard. This book is about dealing with all that other stuff, and it’s one of the most valuable books an emerging cinematographer can read.

Paperback: Shooting Movies Without Shooting Yourself in the Foot: Becoming a Cinematographer

eBook: Shooting Movies Without Shooting Yourself in the Foot: Becoming a Cinematographer

Art Adams is a DP who tries to learn from the mistakes of others when he’s not learning from his own. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •

LIGHTING STRATEGIES: Placing the Fill Light for Faces

In this article I wrote about classical key light placement and classical portraiture to illustrate how artists and cinematographers have traditionally gone about lighting faces. Fill light is often derided as the light that simply opens up the shadows, but it can do much more than that. It can have a shape and beauty all its own, and it can save you when your key light placement is not optimal.

The fill light can be the most important light that you place on a set, and there are a lot of choices to be made when selecting a strategy. Fill lights can be hard, soft, very soft, or soft to the point of being invisible. They can be placed on the opposite of the camera from the key or on the same side, above or below the lens, behind the camera or in front of it. Conrad Hall, ASC spoke on occasion about creating “room tone,” or defining the ambience of a location with one carefully placed bounced or diffused source. This article won’t go to that kind of detail but I do want to show you the power that the fill light has over a human face.

Just for fun I thought I’d put our virtual stand-in right up against a wall, which is one of the worst scenarios for lighting. My experience is that poorly placed fill shadows will give away that a scene is “lit” long before anything else will. When I’m stuck lighting people against walls or shooting in rooms with white walls I pay a lot of attention to the quality and number of shadows as they tend to become very prominent.

Here’s the classic “key + fill” scenario:

The key has been slightly softened, probably by the equivalent of a 2’x3’ frame of Lee 250 in front of a light that’s about 6’ away from the subject. The fill shadow has about the same hardness to it. This is the “45-degree-off-lens-axis-and-tilted-45-degrees-down” formula that every film school teaches. This probably stems from the good old days of big studio features where all the lights were hung from an overhead grid. From this angle the key works well on many faces (with a little tweaking: perhaps more frontal for women and more from the side for men) and the fill does a fair job of filling in the shadows.

There are some drawbacks to this strategy. There are a lot of situations where the additional fill shadow says “lit” to me. In nature it’s rare to have a hard fill shadow that’s opposite the main light shadow, and unless the fill is at least a little bit hidden by increasing the size of the source and softening the shadow it can be a bit of a lighting giveaway. Still, there’s an awful lot of projects that are lit with some variation of this lighting setup. I see it a lot in episodic television: when I look into an actor’s eyes I can see two sources, one on either side of the camera. It can look quite good if done correctly.

For me “correctly” means the fill source is very large and very soft, so that the shadows it casts on walls and furniture have indistinct edges and are very delicate, and not distracting. There are limited times when a fill source can be hard; the most obvious is if I’m filling someone that is quite far away from the camera and the hard shadow isn’t obvious due to diminished perspective or soft focus.

The key drawback of this key+fill setup is that there are only two tones on the face: the brighter tone on the key side and the darker tone on the fill side. A soft key creates greater tonal distribution across the face but a fill light placed at this angle will only contribute one tone on the shadow side.

Some faces have jawlines that cause both the key and the fill lights to merge into one dark shadow beneath the chin. This can also be a bit of a lighting giveaway. One distinct shadow is generally more pleasing. There are exceptions to this, though, and we’ll get to one of those later on.

Occasionally this lighting setup will leave dark spots in the crevices around an actor’s eyes, particularly where the corner of the eye meets the bridge of the nose. This is particularly obvious on the key side, because the brightness of the key makes adjacent shadows look darker than they should.

For the next setup we’re going to bring the fill light in line with the lens height, but still 45 degrees opposite the key:

This setup works a bit better for digging into eye sockets and eliminating double shadows under chins. The fill light is still offset 45 degrees from the lens axis so it’s not getting into all the corners that it could. For example, in this image it is illuminating the corner where the camera right eye meets the bridge of the nose but this is the exception to the rule. Fill lights that are offset from the camera will often not reach into this crevice, and the result is that the darkest part of the face—where neither the key nor fill light reach—is juxtaposed against the brightest part of the face—the key side—which makes it appear darker.

Not good.

This next image shows what happens if we soften the fill light considerably:

The previous image showed what would happen if we used a light through a 2’x3’ frame of Lee 250 6’ from the subject. This shows what happens if we make that source a 6’x6’ frame of grid cloth, which is much denser than Lee 250. By making the source bigger, and by eliminating the beam of the light and making the dense diffusion do all the work (the glowing diffusion becomes the sole light source), we can make the shadow very soft indeed.

Let’s move the light lower:

This shows the fill light still offset 45-degrees from the camera but placed low and tilted up at 45 degrees instead of high and tilted down. I don’t see this very much anymore. This technique is seen most often in black-and-white movies made in the 1940s, back in the days when stars had to look good at any cost and shadows be damned. I wondered for far too long why this position was so popular at that time and eventually realized it was simply opposite in angle to the key light. One was high and pointing down, the other was low and pointing up from the opposite side of the camera.

In old movies this fill shadow is very hard, much harder than I show here, although it is faint because it is not the only fill light. In those movies the set has an overall fill light, and this additional light is meant only for the actor. It’s left as a hard source because it doubles as an eye light, and eye lights pop more if they are hard points of light, or specular highlights.

A specular highlight emits all the light energy from one point, the filament, so that one point is very bright. A soft source may emit the same amount of energy but over a wider area, so while the light coming from the soft source may be the same in total every part of the diffusion or bounce card is radiating less light. A big source means a bigger highlight in the eye, but one that’s dimmer overall because the light energy is so spread out over the source’s surface.

Here’s what happens if we diffuse the fill light further:

As a regular fill position I think this is too obvious for modern use because, while the fill is very soft, any hand gestures near the face will cause an obvious shadow from both the key and the fill as well as a wall shadow that’s 180 degrees off from the key. Shadows that fall directly opposite each other often look fake.

In film school we’re taught that lighting from under the lens denotes horror, but that’s if the light is hard and looking almost straight up at a face. Light from below the lens can be quite beautiful.

For example:

Here the fill light is directly below the lens. I show an example of this technique in this article. Very soft fill light from below the lens can be gorgeous. When I was a camera assistant I worked with a DP who both keyed and filled with bounce light off 4’x8’ sheets of foam core placed under the lens. The light had a very soft, natural feel, as if sunlight through a window reflected off the floor onto the actor’s face.

There’s a great example of soft light from below in the film Driving Miss Daisy. There are several sequences where the camera just wanders through Miss Daisy’s house, and all the rooms on one side of the hallway are lit with soft, warm, upward shadows while the other side was lit with soft blue sidelight. I realized that the motivation for the lighting was warm sun striking the floor through windows on the south side of the house and blue skylight coming through windows on the north side of the house.

Let’s talk more about high-angle lights on the next page…

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LIGHTING STRATEGIES: What Makes Soft Lights Cast Soft Shadows?

It’s one thing to understand that soft sources make soft shadows. It’s another thing to understand why. Fortunately a friend from the insect world can help us if we will look at soft light through his eyes.

Let’s look at an example environment that I built in Poser 9:

That small dot at the right of the “backdrop” is the light source for the scene. It’s very small, so it casts a very hard shadow.

Let’s pretend that we’re an ant crawling along the backdrop to one side of the shadow. From our perspective we see this:

Then we walk a little farther, look up, and see this:

Then we walk a little farther, look up, and see this:

Suddenly we’re in shadow. We can back up one step and see the light source:

And then step forward again and not see the light source:

That’s what makes a shadow hard: a small light source is easily blocked by an object between you and it.

Let’s increase the size of the source:

Then let’s back the ant up and then take another walk toward the shadow:

From this perspective there is no point where the source is there for one step and gone the next. There is a transition period where the source gradually becomes hidden and the shadow becomes darker and darker until the light source is completely blocked. That’s how a shadow becomes soft: a big source is gradually eclipsed by an object, but there’s no point where the light is abruptly hidden by the object.

Soft light is dependent on how big the source is in relation to the object it is lighting. If I backed that large source 200’ away from the column it would cast a shadow as sharp as the small light source, because from the ant’s perspective a big source a long distance away now appears to be a very tiny source. (We have a daily example of that: the sun.)

There’s more to know about soft light but that’s the gist of how soft shadows come about. We’ll play with soft light more in the new year. Happy Holidays!

Art Adams is a DP who casts a large shadow, albeit a soft one. His website is at http://www.artadamsdp.com.

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For You, a Panel Discussion

A rabble of PVC writers (yes, that’s the collective term) spoke at this year’s Entertainment Technology Expo in Burbank. If you want to see some of the people behind the ProVideo Coalition content curtain, including myself, this is a “must see.”

Pop some popcorn, grab a drink, and sit comfortably before clicking here.

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LIGHTING STRATEGIES: Soft Light vs. Hard Light

In a previous article I described how to place a hard key light. In this article I’ll look at why soft sources are a bit more realistic in color cinematography, require less precise placement, and can help define the volume of a space.

In my last article we talked about how to light faces: where shadows should fall for “classical” modeling and what to look for when struggling to create a classical portrait of someone who has a non-classical facial structure.

In this article we’re going to talk about soft light, the most forgiving light we’ll ever use on a face. This doesn’t mean that we should always use it—the story and emotion driving the project you’re shooting should guide you in your lighting strategy—but soft light is most forgiving of facial oddities. It’s also a style that we easily accept because, in the real world, any setting that is not lit by direct sun is usually lit by some sort of bounced or diffused light.

Hard light works wonderfully in black-and-white filmmaking because the medium is already a bit abstract: hard shadows play better when the image is one step removed from reality, and the lack of color certainly creates a different world for the viewer. Hard shadows also reveal textures well, and our eyes love texture. Soft light, though, generally plays better in color because it’s closer to how we see the world. Hard light can look fake in color photography because multiple hard sources can make a space feel “lit”: the quality of the light is not what we’d expect in that environment, and that pulls us out of the story. There are exceptions to this (the first three Raiders of the Lost Ark films are great examples) but it takes a lot of practice and a good eye to get away with hard light in color cinematography.

But enough about theory. Let’s look at some virtual faces, created in Poser 9:

In my last article I presented this image as an example of classical Rembrandt modeling with hard light. The trick with hard light, though, is that it is quite face dependent. What works on one face may not work on another:

This example isn’t as bad as it could be because Poser doesn’t supply me with challenging facial models. As you can see, though, her face looks very different from his. His lighting makes him look ruggedly handsome whereas hers is acceptable, but maybe not optimal.

This is what happens when I diffuse the key light significantly. This look is reminiscent of what might happen if I placed a frame of Lee 129 (a very dense diffusion material) two to three feet to the side of his face, between him and the lamp. The camera right side gets all the light, but the camera left side gets only a little bit of the light. If you look in his eyes you can see the soft key strongly in his camera right eye but very weakly in the left one. You can also see the fill light I placed near the virtual camera as a pinpoint in both eyes.

Let’s see what happens to his female counterpart under the same lighting:

Wow, that’s beautiful.

There are three key differences that I see between hard light and soft light:

(1) Hard light creates hard shadows that enhance defects and create very dramatic modeling on a face, whereas soft light’s broader gradations conceal facial blemishes and don’t have to be placed as precisely because they aren’t as distinct.

(2) Hard light usually creates two tones on a face: a bright side and a dark side. Soft light creates an almost infinite number of tones in the transition between the key side and the fill side, and our eyes like tonal complexity.

(3) Soft light comes from a source that’s large in relation to the subject. As healthy skin has a little bit of shine to it the source will reflect in the skin, adding a very soft but beautiful highlight. Hard lights will not do this unless the face is very, very shiny, and even then the highlight will be a small one.

Putting diffusion material between the light and the subject doesn’t automatically soften it. The size of the diffusion and how close or far it is from the subject make all the difference. When you diffuse or bounce light the lamp itself is no longer lighting the subject; rather, it is lighting the diffusion or bounce card, which is glowing and lighting the subject with the light that it is emanating. The lamp makes the diffusion or bounce surface bright, and that radiating brightness lights the subject.

The softness of a light on a subject depends on how big that light source is in relation to the subject. For example, a 4’x4’ frame of Lee 129 diffusion placed 3’-4’ from a person’s face will create very soft shadows, whereas the same frame placed 30’ away will cast very hard shadows. From the subject’s perspective the close frame will appear to be a huge source, while the far one will be very small.

The example above shows what happens when the diffusion is placed to the side of a face. Let’s see what happens when we bring it to the front of the face, closer to camera but still to one side:

This, too, is a very interesting look. The shadow on the camera right side of his face near his ear is interesting but won’t happen in real life; it’s a side effect of how Poser renders light and has no bearing on reality. The rest, though, is very realistic. Note how the nose shadow is minimized but still gives the nose shape due to the high contrast of its decreased shadow. That shadow isn’t hard and harsh but soft with a lot of gradation over a short distance. The front surfaces of his face reflect the large source and appear to glow: I see this in his forehead, just above his smile lines and on his lips. This effect is exaggerated here by the software but you should see some of this every time you use a soft source close to a person’s face.

She looks great as well. Notice how soft the highlight from the key light is in her eyes. The larger the source the less bright any part of it will be, so it creates a larger but dimmer eyelight. This is why an intentional eye light is usually created using small, dim, specular sources, but that’s a subject for a future article.

Let’s move the light dead on:

This is classic beauty lighting, although on a man it doesn’t feel as glamorous as it does on a woman. The light is coming straight down the axis of the lens. If I were to do this with physical lights I would cut a hole in a 4’x4’ piece of foam core, stick the lens through it, and then light the front of the foam core as evenly as I could with two lights, one from either side. Placing the camera and the rig about 4’ away from the subject will produce this look, where the center of the face gets all the light from the card but the sides of the face receive less light as they curve away from the opposite side of the bounce card.

The look is similar to that of a ring light, although a ring light is smaller and casts sharper shadows for a more dramatic look.

This look can also be accomplished by placing two 4’x4’ Kino Flos horizontally on either side of the lens, exactly at the lens height and as close to the lens as possible. The look isn’t exactly the same but it’s similar.

Here’s what this setup looks like on a woman:

This is an idealized face lit with an idealized light, but you’ve seen this look in a hundred makeup and fashion commercials. The center of the face appears to glow due to the soft reflected highlight of the source while the sides drop off because they only receive light from one side of the source and are blocked from the other.

I’ve found that building a source that’s as wide as the distance to the subject works best at achieving this look. If the subject is 8’ away from the camera I’ll build an 8’ wide by 4’ high source. (For this look the width of the light is more important than the height. More on light shape in a future article.)

Let’s look at soft lighting from below the lens and using soft light to define spaces on the next page…

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Pulse Width Modulation is NOT Your Friend

Here’s the deal: there’s this thing called “pulse width modulation,” and under certain conditions it doesn’t play well with rolling shutter cameras. Most of the time it’s no problem, but we don’t get phone calls from post when there’s no problem. Here’s how to avoid that phone call.

I recently shot a quick project for a major cell phone manufacturer and while lighting “phone in the hand” product shots with a somewhat uncommon LED light I discovered dozens of little roll bars in the image. The roll bars only appeared if the LED light was dimmed. I’ve written about this kind of roll bar issue here, but only when dealing with discharge sources powered by failing ballasts. There was nothing wrong with this light, it worked exactly as it was supposed to.

This rolling effect is the result of shooting a flickering light source with a rolling shutter camera. It’s not something that can be fixed in post. I reproduced the effect later with my Nikon D7000, using the same light and shooting a test chart in my spare bathroom (the only light-tight place in my home during the day).

I enhanced the contrast to make the roll bars more visible.

This particular kind of roll bar is insidious. It generally can’t be seen in a viewfinder, the refresh rate on some LCD monitors isn’t fast enough to emphasize it, but it sure does show up well in an edit suite. The offender is called “pulse width modulation,” and it’s the most common way to dim an LED light. There are a million variations, but the most basic version does what you see in the video above. Here’s the deal:

Normal tungsten lights are dimmed by reducing the voltage running through the filament. LED lights run on electrical current, not voltage, and current is much more difficult to control. The simplest way to dim an LED fixture is to pulse it on and off so fast that the fixture outputs less light over time without your eye, or the camera, noticing the pulses. When the light is on full there’s no pulsing at all, just one long wave of current, but as soon as you touch the dimmer control the fixture changes that steady flow of current into a series of extremely fast pulses.

The simplest example I can give is this:

Full on is constant current: ________________________________________________

The same light dimmed, with pulsed current: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

There are a number of ways to hide this flicker effect, including varying the pulses themselves so that some are longer or shorter than others to make a “cycle within the cycle,” or pulsing the light thousands of times per second so that the length of the pulse doesn’t matter anymore because there are so many of them. Not every LED light is dimmed in this manner, not every variety of pulse width modulation is inherently evil, and not every camera is sensitive to it (although rolling shutter cameras are the most sensitive by far). I am, however, the second person I know to run into this in the field so it must be somewhat common.

There is no obvious solution, such as shooting with a 1/60th of a second (144 degree) shutter, because the LED itself is powered by DC current which doesn’t change direction 120 times per second the way AC does. DC current is generally smooth, clean and mostly free of the oscillations found in AC current. The “pulse” in pulse width modulation has nothing to do with the power feeding the light: it is completely driven by a processor within the light itself. The roll bars don’t come about as a result of a lamp failure, they come about because of the way the lamp is designed.

I haven’t seen this issue arise with global shutter cameras, probably because the entire sensor exposes at once which minimizes exposure changes between frames. Rolling shutter cameras expose different parts of the sensor at different times, so part of the sensor will see a pulse where another part won’t. Global flicker can often be fixed in post, but rolling flicker can’t.

I don’t mean to be alarmist because this doesn’t happen with every LED panel. I’ve only run into one so far and heard of another secondhand, and I’ve used a half dozen others at various times without incident. When I run into something like this, however, I like to know what’s behind it so I can determine what the odds are that I’m going to run into this on my next shoot. The trick is that no manufacturer will tell you what’s going on inside their light specifically: they may tell you that they use pulse width modulation but they most likely won’t tell you how the pulses are structured. A little research on my part has turned up the fact that they aren’t worried about you learning their secret sauce as much as they don’t want their competition to sue them for infringing on a patent. The LED lighting industry is extremely litigious.

The solution seems to be to test new lighting fixtures. I’m not talking about testing individual units, just one sample of a product line. Aim the light at an non-textured surface, such as a white or gray card, and shoot several shots with a rolling shutter camera (RED ONE’s or Canon 5D’s seem to work best) and a variety of different dimmer settings, adjusting the camera exposure to compensate for the dimming. Watch the results on a laptop or edit system and look for tiny roll bars. It helps to scrub through the video player’s timeline very quickly, as that emphasizes movement in the frame.

One person I spoke to suggested that the fastest way to detect flicker is to actually shoot the light fixture with the camera and see if the surface of the light “ripples.” I tried that and discovered that this doesn’t work on lights that incorporate multiple LED’s, like the ones that change color temperature, because some LEDs will flicker a lot and others won’t depending on the color mixture. A warm daylight setting, for example, will see all the cool LEDs at full strength and the orange LEDs dimmed a fair bit.

There are a lot of lights out there that use flavors of pulse width modulation and don’t cause any issues at all, but I know of two lights that do. Knowledge is power, so modulate that power and check your LED fixtures to make sure they play nicely with your chosen camera. I sleep much better at night knowing that I’ve minimized the odds of a panicked phone call from the edit suite at 2am, and I suspect you will too.

Art Adams is a DP with a power trip: a DC power trip. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

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LIGHTING STRATEGIES: Placing a Hard Key Light

The most important thing you will ever learn about lighting is this: LIGHTING IS NOT A FORMULA. Learning about lighting, though, is a process of becoming aware, and in this first of many articles I’m going I’m going to try to increase your awareness of one specific thing per article. The more awareness you have the more easily you’ll be able to adapt your lighting to your circumstances because you’ll see, with your own eyes, what you need to do to make an image that satisfies your inner artist.

I think the best place to start is with classical key light placement. This knowledge is not something you will use verbatim as this is not a style that is in vogue at the moment. The underlying principles, however, should be of daily benefit.

In film school we all learn about the key light, fill light and backlight. We’re typically shown a setup where a key light is placed 45 degrees to one side of the camera and raised high and tilted down toward the subject at a 45 degree angle. The fill light is placed in the same position on the opposite side of the camera. The backlight, or hair light, is opposite the camera, behind the subject.

This is a great way to learn the basics of lighting as long as you can grasp what the lights do and then completely forget everything about this formula. Lighting is not about formulas, it is about seeing. Formulas can be a trap. Learn from them, but don’t rely on them.

There are almost infinite variations of this setup and other setups that deviate completely from this plan. The goal in my upcoming “Lighting Strategies” series is to open your eyes to some lighting techniques and strategies that I had to learn the hard way—because there are very few people who can communicate what they do artistically to another person. There are a lot of DPs who can tell their crew what they want, but if they had to tell another DP how they did it they’d fail miserably. I find that really frustrating, so I’m going to try to fill that void.

One of the hardest things to do is to light a face well with hard light, because hard light brings out details that not every face wants revealed: bumps, pores, imperfectly-formed noses, wrinkles… everything that can go “wrong” with a face shows up really well under hard light.

A hard light is defined as a light source that appears small in relation to the subject and casts a sharp shadow. This can be a small light up close or a big light far away. (I’ll go into soft and hard light in another article.)

I believe that the origin of the “traditional” hard key light placement came from the old studio days of the 1930s when it was most common to light from a lighting grid placed over the set. Film speeds were quite slow and the lights used were quite big, and the easiest way to power them and keep them out of the shot was to hang them. This is probably where the 45-degree downward-facing key light came from, as this angle is one of the more pleasing for hardlit faces.

I’m not going to talk about fill or backlight in this article. I’m going to focus strictly on classical methods of placing hard key lights. We’ll get to other lights, and mixing lights, in future articles.

Before we get into details you should understand the concept of “Rembrandt lighting.”

Rembrandt most often lit his subjects by placing them near a north-facing window that was higher than they were. This did two things:

(1) A north-facing window in Europe almost never receives direct sun. This ensured that the subject was lit with the same quality of soft indirect light all day long.

(2) The height of the window caused the light to cast shadows along the “smile line,” the invisible line that connects the corner of the nose to the corner of the mouth.

This kind of facial modeling is the hallmark of classical portrature, and it was only natural that this technique should find its way into early filmmaking.

On the following pages I’m going to illustrate some concepts using the software package Poser 9. It’s easier for me to putter around on my computer and construct demos than it is to plan out everything that I want to show and then hire a model and try to shoot it all, so I hope you’ll forgive the virtual nature of these illustrations. Also, I’m not going to show you lighting diagrams because I want you to figure out how to place the lights yourself. I’ll give you a tip for observing where others place their lights, but not until the last page.

On to our first example. Turn the page…

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The Simplest, Fastest Interview Lighting Setup—Ever.

For a long time my primary source of employment was shooting corporate marketing communications videos. As these consist primarily of “talking head” interviews, I tried every lighting setup I could think of to make people look their best quickly, as many of these shoots have tight schedules and not much turnaround time between interviews. This setup is the result of years of experimentation.

Here it is:

Yes, it looks simple. Deceptively simple. Believe it or not, it takes a long time to learn to light so simply. There was a time when I used every light on the truck (or the van) on my shoots, but as I’ve matured the number of lights I use has dropped dramatically.

That’s very important, because it’s not enough to be able to do great work as a DP. You have to do it in a very short period of time. Creating the prettiest lighting setup in the world doesn’t help anyone if it takes so long that the director only has five minutes to get what they need. Lighting is important, but it’s not the most important thing.

The seed of this idea formed during my search to make talking head interviews interesting for me to shoot. The bar for corporate marketing videos is often quite low, so I found myself able to experiment with lighting setups without getting in trouble for it. If I couldn’t find a fast, pretty way to light something to my satisfaction most of my corporate clients were still very happy with what I came up with, so I took those opportunities to examine what worked and what didn’t when lighting a human face under unpredictable circumstances. (Anyone who shoots these kinds of corporate projects knows there’s usually no scout and no technical pre-production at all: you show up, see the locations for the first time, and make the most of the hand you’re dealt.)

I started in the film industry before Chimeras became a household name, back when the grip crew would build soft boxes out of foam core and 1000H tracing paper at the beginning of every day and then trash them at wrap because tracing paper didn’t travel well. When I started shooting video between film operating gigs, on broadcast shows like “The New Candid Camera Show” and “Inside Edition,” the lighting kit consisted of a Lowell Tota kit and some umbrellas. The entire camera and lighting package fit on a small folding luggage cart.

The advent of the collapsible light bank for hot lights changed quite a lot, and suddenly every EFP location lighting kit had a small video Chimera in it. I played with these for a while but found them very frustrating: their size, at 24” by 32”, resulted in a soft-ish light that still had a lot of directionality to it, and while I try never to flat light a face I also found that the small video bank cast a shadow that was just a little too sharp. The harder a light is the more precisely it has to be placed for each face that appears before it, and I found that small Chimeras weren’t big enough to softly wrap around noses while simultaneously filling deep eye sockets.

Some people have narrow faces, so the light has to be moved near the camera to reach into both eyes; some faces are flat or round and require side light to appear three dimensional. Sometimes the light has to be placed quite low to reach into deep eye sockets, which causes the nose shadow to fall horizontally against the fill-side cheek. Classical portraiture calls for the nose shadow to fall along the “smile line,” which connects the corner of the nose to the corner of the mouth. This isn’t a hard and fast rule for dramatic productions, but for a dry corporate marketing video or documentary interview where the audience is staring at a person’s face for a long period of time, placing the nose shadow along the smile line helps a lot.

Producers would occasionally express annoyance at my futzing with this small Chimera as we had very little time between interviews and they wanted to roll as soon as the subject sat down. Other camera people placed that small Chimera once and then never moved it, but I didn’t like the results. I set out to find the perfect, fast way to light anyone’s face so that results would be excellent at least 90% of the time.

I experimented with bigger sources, and while the medium Chimera light bank, at 36"x48”, offered much better results, it wasn’t as portable as the small video bank was, and producers balked at renting it as the small Chimera “works just fine for everyone else.” I had to find a fast way to create a big beautiful source using materials that were extremely portable and cheap.

Turn the page for a detailed explanation…

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The Future of Technology is You

Technology is always advancing, and we’re at the point in this industry where we’ll always have new toys on the near horizon. My question is: how much do these toys matter when it’s the people who use them who provide all the creativity?

On Wednesday I’ll be speaking at Creatasphere’s Entertainment Technology Expo at the Burbank Marriott as part of a ProVideo Coalition panel on the future of technology. Honestly, I’m not so concerned about our technological future: things will always get better, faster and easier over time. My concern is how we, as humans, will relate to technology. The last few years have seen a shift in focus from the people to the tools, and that’s a dangerous path to follow.

More often than not the camera is booked on a job before I am. This puzzles me, because if the camera shows up for work and I don’t nothing is going to happen. If I show up, however, any number of cameras can also show up and everything will be fine. The camera only records pictures, but cinematographers make them. That is a key difference that is not spoken of enough.

Production has always exercised a certain amount of control over how cinematographers shoot things. In days past the DP had a certain amount of say over which film stocks he or she chose, and unless the project at hand was a low budget feature and the producers got a better deal from Fuji than from Kodak, what the DP wanted the DP got. Some studios dictated film stocks (In underrstand that Disney’s contracts stipulate Kodak stocks, and in some cases specific Kodak stocks) but generally it was unthinkable to tell a DP exactly which stocks they would use for what. Cinematography is a complicated craft and most producers were smart enough to hire a DP and give them a certain amount of freedom to do their jobs.

There’d always be budget battles, as there are today. Here’s the lighting budget, make it work; here’s the camera budget, make it work; etc. I was once told by the DP of the TV series “Knots Landing” that production gave him a Cooke 5-1 zoom for the series plus a 35mm prime in case the zoom broke, and that was it. The crucial bit was that there was a DP in place who could make the tools work for the project. Becoming one of those trusted DPs was a long and tricky process.

A few years ago a revolutionary camera came along that put high resolution imagery into the hands of people who traditionally couldn’t afford it. This camera forced a number of staid camera companies to sit up, pay attention and rethink their product lines, and that has definitely been a good thing. The camera’s marketing, however, was so brilliantly done that the creative focus shifted from the cinematographer to the camera. The choice of cinematographer was still important, but the camera was equally if not more important.

The camera became the tool that would put filmmakers on the map. They lost sight that talented filmmakers nearly always succeed, and it’s not because they used a certain camera. It’s because they honed and developed their talent. This company has sold thousands of cameras, and yet we don’t have thousands of additional blockbuster movies every year.

Subsequent cameras have changed the landscape further by offering fairly good imagery for lower cost, which produced a cascading effect: first the focus shifted from the cinematographer to the camera, and then if shifted from the camera to the cost of the camera. The result is that the camera is often chosen independently of the cinematographer, with occasionally hilarious or disastrous results.

A while back a Southern California-based production company contacted me about shooting a national spot. “We’re thinking of shooting on either an Arri Alexa, a RED ONE, a Sony F3 or a Canon 5D,” said the person on the phone. “You know those are very different cameras,” I said. “They offer very different strengths and weaknesses. Can you tell me a bit more about what you’re trying to achieve so I can help you with the choice?”

“Oh, we’re probably going with the RED,” said the person on the phone. “The director hasn’t decided yet so he’s keeping his options open.”

My unspoken question: why was the director making this decision? I’ve been working in the camera department for 24 years, and shooting for 19. I know more about these cameras and their characteristics than is healthy, and if the director had a short conversation with me I could offer him or her some solid insights as to what camera was best for their project and budget. Instead they were going to make the decision on their based on criteria that probably had very little to do with whether it was the best camera for the job. It might have been, but whereas I would know that for certain they’d only be guessing, at best.

In the end they told me they loved my website but I lost the job because they could get a better deal on gear elsewhere. I guess that’s understandable in some weird way, because I’m not in the business of getting people discounts on gear; I’m in business to provide them the quality of work shown on my website, reliably and consistently. Those images can be made with all sorts of gear, but they can’t be made without me.

Having spent some time in the LA system I can state truthfully that, while there are an amazing number of crew people there, it’s very hard to find the ones that are exceptional at their jobs. Everyone says they are, but not everyone is. For this reason many producers seem more comfortable making as many decisions on their own about as many things as possible, and will often repeat a strategy or technique endlessly once it works for them successfully. More and more decisions are removed from the DP’s domain because gear always acts the same, and humans are the wild card. Gear is trustworthy, but—until tried and tested—people are not.

I sympathize with this quandary. I also like to point out that you can put as much equipment as you want on a sound stage but until the people show it’s not going to do much. The camera will not automatically choose the best compositions for the story, the lights won’t magically fall into place, the grip gear will not rise and cast all the necessary shadows. People with a minimum of gear can do great things, but gear without a minimum of people can do nothing.

As cinematographers we should be selling ourselves on our unique vision and abilities, but instead we often find ourselves selling gear. “Yes, I can use that camera,” “Yes, I own that piece of gear,” “Yes, I can give you a better deal than a rental house,” etc. The problem with this approach is that it works as long as there’s no one cheaper around… and there’s always someone cheaper. Somehow the focus must be shifted from the technology back to the people who use the technology, because that’s where all the creativity is.

My suggestion to producers and directors in this regard is to use the same approach that I use with my own crew:

(1) Hire good people who can do their jobs better than you can do their jobs

(2) Tell them what you want

(3) Tell them the parameters (time, budget, etc.)

(4) Let them use their creativity and years of experience to solve the problem in their own way

(5) Repeat

There are numerous situations where I’ve been called to shoot a project, discovered the camera has already been booked, and then tried to back the producer out of that decision—not because of some sort of power play, but because there’s a better way to do it that may save some money. Don’t book a RED ONE for a green screen or white limbo shoot if you need to save money and you don’t need 4K resolution; instead get a Sony EX3 and a KiPro deck instead and no one but your budget will be the wiser. Don’t book a Canon 5D to shoot screen shots because there’s no worse camera to do that with because of its moire issues. If you don’t have the time to gel windows then spend the money on an Arri Alexa and skip the gel, along with the time spent waiting for the gels to be perfected. These are the technical decisions that I can make to save a production time and money.

And those are the least important decisions I will make, because the most important decisions are not technical but creative. Cinematographers make the images, not cameras.

I’m excited about new technology, and I strive to always be on the cutting edge. I want to learn about technologies at a deep level, not so I can build a camera but so I can understand how it will respond in various situations and be able to pick the best tool for the job. But it’s not about the camera, it’s about the people in front of and behind the camera. Technical details are easy. It’s the creating that’s hard, and no two people do it the same way. That’s what makes this business so exciting, and it’s how great projects are realized.

I’ve never heard of a painter pining for a new brush that will enable them able to paint like Van Gogh. If you want a Van Gogh painting then you need to get Van Gogh. The brushes are incidental.

Cameras are brushes. They are tools. It’s the craftsmen who use the tools who make a difference. I’m all for getting excited about new tools, but lets not forget where the real creativity comes from. And let’s be sure to remind those who hire us that we are there for them, as unique individuals, in a way that will benefit them greatly if they allow us to participate both technically and creatively. Choose the artist first, and together you can choose the best brushes for the job.

The PVC Panel will held on Wednesday, November 2nd, from 1:30-2:45 in the Main Theater. See here for admission.

Art Adams is a DP who makes pretty pictures regardless of the technology. His web site is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •

Fill Light: The Underdog of Lighting

The day I stop learning about lighting will be the day my EKG goes flatline. There’s an extraordinary amount to learn and absorb, and I doubt I’ll ever learn all of it. That’s okay, because it means I’ll never run out of new things to learn. My most recent fixation is on the one light many think about the least: the fill light.

I’ve gone through periods of my career where I focus on different lights and how to use them. I started by looking at key lights: how to place them, what works on different kinds of faces and what doesn’t, how big they should be in relation to the actors, etc. Then I spent a lot of time on backlighting and edge lighting: where are the best spots to place backlights, should I use both a back light and an edge light or use one light to do both jobs, when can a back light become a key light on the next setup, etc.

It took me a bit longer to concentrate on fill light, as early on in my career I was focused more on shaping the bright areas of the frame than I was on filling in the shadows. It’s only been in the last ten years or so that I really came to learn the power of the fill light.

About that time I participated in an online conversation on the Cinematography Mailing List that resulted in an offline exchange with a famous director of photography. “The fill light is, of course, the most important light and yet it is also the most difficult to place,” he said, and I, of course, agreed completely while at the same time having no clue as to what he meant. I should have simply asked him, but for some strange reason I didn’t, preferring to imply that I knew exactly what he spoke about. (Strange. Ah, youth.)

The good news is that I started paying a lot more attention to fill light, and I am now of the opinion that it is possibly the most important light on the set.

I’m now going to do my best to tell you why.

First, a short story: I was day-playing as an operator on a well-known (but not not terribly good) TV series with a very talented director of photography. I noticed that he always filled from the key side. That technique had been somewhat on my radar but I hadn’t practiced it religiously and had not yet discovered what a fabulous technique it is. He would set a key light for the scene (raking sunlight, a large soft source from the side, a bare light bulb—whatever) and then place the fill light near the lens on the same side as the key light. Often it consisted of a small light through a frame of Lee Opal or 250, with the bottom corner of the gel frame at the top right corner of the matte box. (This kept the light close to the lens axis, for reasons I’ll go into shortly, while allowing the camera assistant to see underneath it.) Regardless of how harsh the key light was he never moved or diffused it; he simply filled from the same side, near the lens axis. The results were consistently beautiful and natural.

First I’m going to run through a number of different techniques and show diagrams for each. At the end of the article I’ll show you some examples from my own work. I don’t have good, recent examples of every technique because, honestly, I don’t use every technique I’m going to explain; but I’ll show you the examples I have (or that I’m willing to show) and encourage you to take the knowledge you glean from my diagrams and experiment on your own.

You’ll learn more by doing that anyway. I’m firmly of the belief that learning is primarily the act of becoming aware of something and looking at it in a new way. I hope the knowledge that I impart will allow you to become more aware and observant of this element of lighting so that you can improve your use of it.

Turn the page and let the diagrams begin…

Filed under: Cameras •compression •Distribution •GentryMedia Sister Sites •HDSLR •ProPhoto Coalition •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Production •Software •Tips •

Blue Nile Shines Thanks to the Canon 5D and Apple Color

One of the best things about this business is that greatness lurks around every corner. If you are resourceful and creative you’ll find it well enough.

I’ve shot several viral projects for production company Seedwell and I was honored to be invited to shoot their first broadcast spot. The hitch: there wasn’t much money to do it with. That’s not unusual. Clients generally won’t trust you with a lot of their money until you have a proven track record, and that doesn’t come about until you’ve shot successful spots for them. It’s a classic Catch-22 situation.

Naturally we jumped at the chance to wow them. How could we not? While I don’t regularly pursue low budget work I do invest in creative relationships that show promise, and the Seedwell team are not only extremely creative but they are extremely nice people as well. It’s also an awful lot of fun to make something really awesome out of relatively little. I love shooting big budget spots on Arri’s Alexa and RED’s RED ONE, but once in a while it’s fun to do the same quality of work with a lot less. No matter the budget there’s never quite enough time or money to do it “right,” so it’s good practice to consistently over deliver regardless of the project.

Besides, not having the right tools or the proper crew can be very freeing: you can only do what you can do, so rather than fret about lost opportunities I prefer to focus on creative possibilities. I firmly believe that it’s the people behind a project who make the difference, not the tools. The tools help, and sometimes the right tools are necessary to achieve specific shots, but in general creativity is not determined by the gear on hand. It’s who uses it that counts.

Blue Nile Jewelry came to Seedwell because they wanted to update this commercial, originally broadcast in 1999.

Here’s what we did using a Canon 5D, a stock zoom lens, a two person grip/electric crew and a Kessler slider:

Turn the page to see how we pulled this off…

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •

You’ve read my writing, now hear my talking

Izzy Hyman, of the website Izzy Video, interviewed me yesterday for his “Meet the Shooter” series.

We spoke for about an hour about my career and related issues. You can listen to the interview here.

This must be the season for interviews; I gave one to Canon recently that is still in post. I’ll let you know when it appears on their website.

That’s it for me this week. I’m off on vacation, but I’ll be back with more cinematic geekiness next week.

Art Adams is a DP who takes infrequent vacations. His website is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •Web Video •

Anatomy of a Spot: T-Mobile

Over time I’ve come to respect the Canon 5D. It’s not the most user friendly of cameras, and it has some fairly serious faults, but if you can avoid the pitfalls it can make very pretty images.

Film industry lesson #1: You never know where future jobs will come from. I had no idea that shooting this project would introduce me to the great people at Teak Digital. They cut the project for producer Sean Cope, and they liked what they saw and hired me to shoot this web spot for T-Mobile.

This was my first job for Teak Digital and director Greg Rowan. Working with Greg is a treat: he’s an easy-going director who knows exactly what he wants but isn’t afraid to collaborate if it makes the project better. As a result of that collaboration we took what could have been a fairly straightforward project and gave it a little something extra.

Here’s the final version:

For those of you who don’t speak Spanish (I don’t): the idea is that everyone the texting guy is communicating with is actually in the elevator with him, and the businessman has to fight his way through the invisible crowd.

This was shot on a Canon 5D with a very wide lens. I don’t remember the exact zoom we used as it was owned by someone at the production company, but the wide end was something crazy like 11mm or 12mm. I do remember that we shot this wide open on the lens, which was T4, and I rated the camera at EI 800. I used one of Steve Shaw’s Light Illusion gamma curves, probably #1. (Light Illusion curve #1 is great for low contrast situations as it adds a bit more “crunch” to the look. Curve #2 is better for high contrast situations as it flattens things out a bit. I haven’t found a use for curve #3. You can get all three, plus a new flatter log curve, for a very reasonable price at the Light Illusion website.)

The lighting scheme was startlingly simple. The elevator lobby was lit by tungsten units bounced off the ceiling. The elevator was lit by a single Kino Flo tube, with a second smaller unit used inside when shooting out of the elevator.. And we used the tungsten practicals in the elevator’s ceiling to accent a number of shots. This simplicity allowed us to move quickly and grab shots spontaneously without moving a lot of gear around.

We were able to turn off the overhead fluorescent fixtures in the center of the lobby but there were fluorescent cans along the walls that we couldn’t kill. Rather than waste time removing the bulbs or covering them with black wrap we drowned them out by punching a couple of 1k Mickey Moles into the ceiling to recreate the overhead fluorescent look, and then we gelled the three can lights that impacted the acting area directly with 1/2 minus green. (I define “impacted” as “The actor will walk under them and turn green if we don’t do something.”)

A BRIEF ASIDE

In the old days we had to gel or replace fluroescent tubes because they cast light that appeared bright green on film, and for a long time we never had to do this with prism HD cameras because they didn’t see the fluorescent green spike. I suspect this is because the green filter used on the prism block was dichroic and could be carefully tuned to pass very specific wavelengths of light that didn’t include the fluorescent green spike wavelengths.

Single sensor cameras are completely different. They can’t use dichroic filters as the photosites are too small to cover individually using that technology. Instead materials and dyes are chosen not just because they pass the frequencies of light desired but because they stick to the sensor. They don’t seem as precisely tuned as prism block filters.

The green dyes on most (if not all) single-sensor cameras DO pass the fluorescent green spike, and as a result we have to filter fluorescent tubes again.

For example, when shooting with a Panasonic Varicam it’s possible to mix tungsten lights with warm white fluorescents and get away with it. The fluorescents appear a little green but not objectionably so. Not so with the RED ONE, the Arri Alexa, the Sony F3 and the Canon 5D: they see the green spike, and in mixed lighting situations that requires either swapping in color correct fluorescent tubes, using minus green gel on the existing tubes, or—and this is the more economical method—gelling the tungsten lights with 1/2 plus green to match the fluorescents and then white balancing to “remove” the green. This will make any non-gelled or non-fluorescent light sources in the scene turn bright magenta, but this trick is a life saver in an all-fluorescent environment.

As there were only three can lights directly over the acting area we gelled those and left the rest alone. As long as the actor looked normal the background could do what it wanted. Green flesh tone would have looked really odd, but the slightly green back wall of an elevator lobby is not objectionable to an audience.

You can see the reflections of two of the gelled cans in the marble surface above the elevators. There’s an additional can directly over the actor. Note that the light passing through the gels looks neutral but the actual gelled lights look magenta. This is a very odd and interesting side effect of gelling fluorescents, and I can’t explain why that happens.

People look great lit from over the lens axis with a horizontal light source that’s about as wide as the distance between between the actor and the light. In this case a 4’ wide Kino Flo set 4’ from the actor creates a look that borders on fashion advertising. Here’s the lighting setup:

Pretty sophisticated, eh? The top barn door takes a little light off the top of the back wall to give it some shape, but otherwise it’s just a big soft horizontal source. A source that’s wide but not tall can be easily cut in the vertical dimension because the light source isn’t very big on the vertical axis, and small sources cast sharper shadows. It would be a lot harder to cut this off the side walls of the elevator because we’d be dealing with a 4’ wide source instead of a 2” tall source, and soft sources require a lot more space to control.

In this case the narrowness of the light source in the vertical dimension casts a very nice chin shadow, which is important when lighting, say, women for glamor: the horizontal soft light smooths their skin and wraps around their face, while the vertical hard light casts a shadow that hides what a friend of mine calls “The Gobbler,” which is the small sack of flesh that dangles under the chin of older people.

One of the many cool things about Kino Flos is that they are both hard lights and soft lights at the same time, and we can use that quality to our advantage.

A NOTE ABOUT IMITATING NATURAL LIGHT SOURCES

The audience doesn’t care or notice if the direction of a light is cheated a bit as long as it’s still coming from the same general direction as the light source they believe is lighting the shot. In this case putting the light directly overhead, where a practical light would normally be placed in an elevator, would create dark eye sockets and generally unflattering lighting unless it was a very large source covering the entire ceiling. Using a smaller source gives us more control, and cheating it toward the front of the elevator so that it wraps around the actor’s face is both aesthetically pleasing and completely believable.

We ran all the cables down the interior left side of the elevator as I knew from the storyboards that we’d never see that direction. That kind of planning saves a lot of time as we only had to dress the cables once.

I’ll continue in the order that the shots appear, not in the order that they were lit:

This was the only turnaround shot where we saw out of the elevator. We cheated the texting guy forward to get his head into frame. There’s a little bit of green in the background from the non-gelled fluorescents, but I let them go because they were background elements and they weren’t really worth wasting time on. The rest of the lighting is exactly the same as the previous shot except for a couple of things: there’s a 2’x2 tube Kino Flo inside the elevator, on the right side of cell phone guy, covered with diffusion, to light the businessman’s face; a 4’x4 tube Kino Flo suspended above the exterior door of the elevator; and a large white bounce card just outside the left edge of the frame.

This exterior 4’x4 tube Kino Flo, covered with Lee 216 gel, was meant to be a flattering and soft overhead glow from the ceiling lights outside the elevator. You don’t see its effect in the final project as the editor cut to the shot after the actor passed underneath it. I suspected this would happen but it’s always best to give the editor options. Adding this light meant the editor would have a nice looking shot to cut to if they opted to use this shot to reveal the businessman at the beginning of the spot.

Also visible is part of the 2’x2 tube Kino Flo inside the elevator, as well as the effect of one of the Mickey Moles aimed into the lobby ceiling for general illumination. I later rotated the interior 2’ Kino Flo 90 degrees as I preferred to wrap the light around the businessman’s face vertically, softening his chin shadow and making the light less obvious. Usually I orient Kino Flos horizontally as I like soft nose shadows more than soft chin shadows, but in this case the nose shadow wasn’t much of an issue and a hard chin shadow made the shot look “lit.”

Two of the three gelled fluorescent can lights are visible above the elevator.

This shot was initially inspired by surveillance camera imagery, but in the end we just liked the extra headroom. Headroom is a contentious issue as everyone is taught in film school that it should fall at a particular place in the frame and rarely be varied. This is complete bull. Headroom is a stylistic choice, and if you walk through nearly any classical art gallery you’ll see most of the paintings are bottom-weighted—action is arranged along the bottom of the painting—while the top of the painting, which looms over you, contains additional compositional elements that help set tone or mood. Still photographers aren’t tied to traditional headroom at all, preferring instead to use the entire frame to tell a story, and while that doesn’t always work well for narrative projects it certainly works well for spots, which are meant to be visually intriguing.

In this case the back corner of the elevator creates a dividing line that separates the two characters nicely. The top cut on the Kino Flo mounted over the elevator door creates a nice angled shadow that leads the eye across the frame, through the businessman to the texter. The high angle is also meant to imply that we’re looking over the top of a small crowd of people.

I’m a big fan of what I call “volumetric lighting.” In film school I remember a lot of us were bent on figuring out how to light locations and stages evenly, which in reality is almost never desirable. Our brains enjoy texture and contrast, and a certain amount of that comes from how the set is lit. Soft lighting can be particularly effective at creating a sense of space because we get a strong sense of where a light is based on what happens when people pass near it. In this frame the businessman’s face is a bit hot (I refuse to say “overexposed” because that implies a technical mistake, which this is not) which tells me that he is near a light source. As he moves away from the light we see this:

I don’t think there’s a more claustrophobic method of lighting a small space than to show how quickly and dramatically exposure drops off as people move away from a diffuse light source. I like this shot for a number of reasons: the businessman is now darker than the texter, which focuses the eye on the texter as he’s the dominant character, and the businessman is now a very stiff vertical placed directly in front of the corner of the elevator, another stiff vertical. He comes across as very rigid and uncomfortable in comparison with the texter, and that suits the story nicely.

One of the strengths of the Canon 5D and 7D is that they clip very beautifully. Highlights don’t look electronic or “zingy.” There are a lot of cameras that don’t take kindly to overly bright flesh tones.

In the image above you can see the effect of the ceiling lights, which we left on for some shots and off for others. Here’s what they looked like:

They created a nice glow that added some production value.

This shot is simply a lower angle version of the previous shot. The lighting for this was the same as the high “surveillance camera” shot. We can see a little bit of reflection from the single tube Kino Flo reflected in the back wall but that doesn’t bother me. I think it makes the lighting a bit more “real” as we get a sense of where the light source is, and that serves as an unconscious clue as to the size and depth of the space.

There are a couple of tricks to lighting elevators, but making sure there’s power inside is key. There’s usually an outlet behind the service panel below the controls and that’s how we powered the interior lights. Powering the lights from the inside means the doors can’t close all the way, and if the elevator takes off unexpectedly for another floor you won’t damage any gear or hurt anyone when a cable running through the doors opts to stay behind.

The trick to most product shots is soft back light. I’m oversimplifying a bit, but that’s the basic approach for nearly anything that’s black or shiny: reflect a nice soft source in the surface and let the shadows fall toward the camera for depth. In this case we re-purposed the 2’ Kino Flo in the elevator that lit the businessman for the turnaround shot and used it to light the product, with a bounce card of some sort low and to the left to fill in the shadows and add a little edge to the texter’s left hand.

That’s about it. The color grade is very nice, and I think we did a great job shooting in a confined space with very few lights. I’m quite happy with the results.

Project: T-Mobile “Friends” (web spot)

Production Company: Teak Digital

Exec. Producer: Greg Martinez

Producer: Emily Van Nierop

Director: Greg Rowan

DP: Art Adams

Gaffer: Gordon McIver

Camera: Canon 5D loaded with Light Illusion gamma curves

Art Adams is a DP who thinks small when the occasion demands it. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Post Production •Production •Tips •Training •

DSC Labs Hawk Chart: The Simplest Color Chart That You Can’t Live Without

It wasn’t until I worked at the DSC Labs booth at NAB that I discovered The Hawk… and it blew me away. It’s a very simple chart, but it offers a colorist (professional or amateur) the most critical information necessary to accurately neutralize your raw, log, or even WYSIWYG images.

At NAB I was approached by a DP who was looking for a chart for her latest episodic series. “I’m shooting on one coast and color grading is happening on another,” she said. “Which chart do I need in order to bring a still into Lightroom, color balance it, and then add a look on top of it as a reference for the colorist?”

Initially she’d thought the Chroma Du Monde was the answer, but I’ve worked on episodic television shows and they move FAST. The Chroma Du Monde is a very powerful chart but it’s not ideally suited to an episodic schedule, where time constraints rarely allow more than rolling a few frames on a chart placed in whatever light is available. The Chroma Du Monde should be evenly lit for best results.

The Hawk, however, is designed to provide the most useful grading information in the smallest package possible:

To break it down:

The white patches provide a perfectly neutral white balance reference.

The black patches provide a perfectly neutral black balance reference.

The gray area around the patches provides a perfectly neutral gray (gamma) reference.

And the brown patches provide an accurate reference for… wait for it… flesh tone.

That’s really all you need to quickly neutralize a shot in color correction: a white reference, a black reference, a gray reference, and skin tone.

Here’s a still that I shot in my living room on my Nikon D7000. I deliberately balanced the camera for 3200K even though the room was lit by ambient window light.

In Final Cut Pro I zoomed in until all I could see was the chart:

Here’s what the waveform looked like before tweaking:

You can see that there’s a LOT of blue in the image and not a ton of red. We’ll need to fix that. After firing up the basic Final Cut Pro color corrector and using the white, black and gray color pickers (in that order) I ended up with a chart that looked like this:

...and a waveform that looked like this:

...and a scene that looked like this:

And that’s exactly what the environment looks like to my eye.

There are lots of charts that offer white, black and gray references, but it’s the flesh tone patches that really set this chart apart. A look at a vectorscope shows why:

It’s easy to balance white, black and gray using only a waveform monitor, but that doesn’t tell us much about the accuracy of flesh tone—which is a range of hues that every human being recognizes at a very, very deep and unconscious level. The waveform monitor can tell us the brightness levels detected by each color channel and whether white, black and gray are neutral, but it’s impossible to detect how accurately flesh tones are being reproduced.

The YIQ color space is the color space used by NTSC television. “Y” is the luminance channel, while “I” encodes hues on the orange/blue axis and “Q” encodes hues on the green/magenta axis. Quite a long time ago it was discovered that the eye is much more sensitive to changes on the orange/blue (warm/cool) axis than they are to green/magenta, so “I” is given more bandwidth than “Q” is.

The question you’re probably asking yourself is: why do I care?

On the vectorscope there exists a line, known as the I+ vector, that is the legacy of the YIQ color space. Here’s the trick: every skin tone known to humankind will fall on or near this line. The circled area on the vectorscope above shows you where The Hawk’s flesh tone patches fall, and they are well within acceptable skin tone range. If that patch skews any farther counterclockwise from the I+ line then skin will look too yellow; any further clockwise and it will look too red.

Here are a couple of interesting tidbits that might be worth knowing:

Colorists generally balance white first, then black, and then gray if necessary. When I used the white color picker in Final Cut’s three way color corrector the results were initially very poor. The white picker brought all the peaks in line with the lowest peak—red—and they all landed around 60 units. Then when I used the gray picker the whites became contaminated.

What I realized is that placing white at 60 units, even just temporarily, puts it too close to the range affected by the gray picker, such that gray balancing has an unwanted affect on the white balance. I discovered that if I used the white picker once and aligned the peaks at 60 units, then increased the gain to boost those peaks higher to between 80 and 90 units, and then used the white picker again, the white peaks aligned high enough on the waveform that they were unaffected when I used the gray picker.

This trick also works in Adobe Lightroom.

Here’s what I’ve learned intuitively about white balancing:

Think of color temperature (measured in Kelvin) as a seesaw overlaid on an RGB parade waveform display. The center post is the green channel. Unbalanced tungsten light sees the seesaw tipping up on red and down on blue; unbalanced daylight shows the opposite. Any time you’re manipulating color temperature you’re changing the balance of red to blue in the signal. Green is unaffected.

If the camera you’re using has a “CC” control (the Arri Alexa is a good example) then you have the ability to raise or lower the green post on which the seesaw sits: CC controls whether the picture skews green or magenta, so raising the post makes the picture green and dropping it makes the picture magenta.

This should sound familiar from the YIQ color space description above. White balance works in the orange/blue realm, while CC works in the green/magenta realm.

A lot of people have asked why DSC Labs charts generally have a glossy finish. I posed this question to David Corley, one of the owners of DSC Labs, and he had this to say:

Given otherwise similar characteristics, ridiculous as it sounds, matte white is more reflective than the glossy.  The reason is a little tricky to explain (akin to describing a spiral staircase without using your hands) but let me give it a try:


If you look at a matte chart through a microscope the surface is like a mountain range with millions of tiny peaks and valleys.  Consequently light falling on the rough surface bounces from one peak to another and eventually forward towards the camera.  Compare this to a glossy white surface where light falling on the surface either goes in and is reflected forwards or, like shining a light on a mirror, some of it bounces off at the reciprocal angle (light falling on it at 45° will be reflected at 45° for a differential of 90°).


Typical bright white matte paper reflects 90% of the light striking it compared to barium sulfate (BaSO4), the reflective reference standard.  On the other hand, glossy CamAlign and ChromaDuMonde white reflect 85% towards the camera, 5% being bounced off harmlessly at the reciprocal angle.


So with the matte surface the 5% being bounced around is eventually reflected forward as flare - five parts in 100.  Now compare this with matte black where 5% is still bouncing around and coming forward as flare, but the black chip is supposed to reflect only about 1%.  This is why we can’t achieve a true black with a matte surface.


The question everyone asks is, “How did you come to develop glossy CamAlign and ChromaDuMonde front-lit charts in the first place?”


Indirectly we have to credit Sputnik, President Kennedy and the Space Race.  A client in the space industry was using Ambi/Combi rear-lit systems to align cameras, and they were looking for a smaller lighter test pattern to send into space.  They loved Ambi/Combi, but asked why we couldn’t make a precision high dynamic range front lit chart.

Thirty years ago, a Lambertian Surface was the goal in test charts.  Lambert said that light falling on a flat surface should be scattered in such a way that the surface appears to have the same brightness regardless of the angle at which it was viewed.


This was a worthy goal, if (and it’s a big “if”) it was possible to achieve and maintain its Lambertian properties, which are easily destroyed even by gently wiping with soft cloth.


Let’s assume we do produce a Lambertian grayscale, we immediately find that the maximum dynamic range we can make is about 64:1 (six f-stops).  So we stick on a piece of black velvet and pick up another f-stop.  In the early days of B/W television, a dynamic range of 128:1 would have looked pretty good.  Today however, with camera systems boasting a range of 60,000:1 or more it’s a different ballgame. Glossy surfaces allow us to create front lit charts with the highest contrast that is printable. Back lit charts allow for a much higher contrast range but require placement in front of an evenly lit, broad spectrum and neutral white light source, which is not always possible.


Another serious drawback of matte charts is that the reflection level tends to change with the angle and type of light source, flood or spot, and sets aren’t all lit with two spots at exactly 45°. “Aha!” you say, but how about the reflection from glossy charts?  The glossy chart’s dynamic range is so much higher than a matte chart that the glossy surface produces more consistent results even with some reflection.  If the reflection is huge, then simply drop a black flag below the camera lens and tilt the chart slightly so that the black flag reflects in the surface of the chart.

The back of The Hawk has three additional features: a framing guide, a perfectly neutral “CamWhite” for a neutral white balance, and a “CamWarm” white balance patch that, when used as a white balance reference, warms the image by fooling the camera into adding orange and magenta by removing blue and green.

The Hawk is the perfect chart for productions that move very, very quickly. It has all the information necessary to reproduce an accurate and neutral image, whether this is done in a grading suite, desktop color corrector or photo editing software such as Adobe Lightroom. And it’s such a simple tool that it’s hard to use improperly. It can be found here and here.

Click here for a slightly longer explanation of the YIQ color space.

Disclosure: I have worked as a paid consultant for DSC Labs.

Art Adams is a DP who likes to use tools that help him work fast. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •Visual Effects •

Arri Alexa and Rosco LitePads Come Through for OnLive’s First National Spot

Originally slated to be a web-only spot, the first shoot day went so well that when the client saw the results they ordered a second shoot day, added an actor and made a $1m+ national ad buy.

I’ve been holding off writing this article as I’d hoped to see a :60 version of the spot that contained all of the really cool shots that we created over those two days (or nights, as they were night shoots), but the client was thrilled with the :30 and the :15 versions so the :60 was never commissioned.

As of November, 2010—when this spot was produced—this was my second shoot with Arri’s Alexa, and the first time I’d used it in Rec 709, or WYSIWYG, mode. Due to the short turnaround time and the visual effects components we opted to craft the image in camera, rather than shoot in LogC and grade the footage later, in order to get the footage into post as quickly as possible.

Before I launch into an explanation of the tools and tricks used in crafting this spot I should probably show it to you. Here it is:

Turn the page for some inside insights…

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •NAB 2011 •Tips •Training •

The Secrets of the Chroma Du Monde, Explained Live (on tape) at NAB!

I spent a lot of time in the DSC Labs booth at NAB, giving Chroma Du Monde demonstrations and teaching basic waveform/vectorscope tricks. PVC’s Scott Gentry stopped by and asked me to say a few words on video, and this is the result. Enjoy!

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Production •Tips •Training •

A Mix of Film and HD Doesn’t Scare Arri’s Alexa

The client wanted contrasty toplight against seamless white, and then they wanted to intercut that with stock footage shot on film. Thanks to Arri’s Alexa, what the client wants—the client gets. In spades.

I’ve done a number of different styles of lighting against white limbo backgrounds: flat frontal, rear 3/4, big soft source from the side… but when creative director Justin Curtis of agency GYRO:HSR told me he wanted contrasty lighting from above, I was intrigued. Many assume that because the background is white limbo the foreground lighting has to be big and bright, so it was refreshing to hear someone say that they wanted dark noir toplight.

Watch the video first, and then I’ll talk about how we did this.

Just for the record, I think this is brilliantly cut, and I love the sound design. It’s very clean and tastefully done.

A significant portion of this piece is stock footage shot on film, so it was great luck that we were able to land an Arri Alexa for this shoot. I’m both happy and sad to say that the Alexa is the film killer: sad because—well, it’s the film killer; but happy that we have a camera like this to take its place. Because the Alexa is such a filmic-looking camera I don’t feel a shift in visual styles between the Alexa footage and the intercut stock footage.

The project had to be finished in a week—the ProRes4444 footage went straight from the stage to an editing room at Teak Digital where worked started on it that night—and while there was talk of a color grade we opted to shoot in Rec 709 and get as close to the look in-camera as possible.

We nailed it. There was zero post color correction.

When I was first told about the dolly shot, which was to be one continuous shot from full body to tight closeup, I immediately broke out PCam and did some calculations. The calculations told me I had to do a 20’ dolly move on 24’ of track to make this shot work. (The extra 4’ gave the dolly a place to sit at the start of the move.) That influenced our choice of stages. We ended up at Bayshore Studios in San Francisco.

I knew that I wanted to be slightly wide for the closeup; I wasn’t going for beauty but for drama, so it felt right to make the talent’s face a little rounder in the closeup. Years ago, while working as second camera assistant on Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, I overhead DP Jim Carter say that the 35mm focal length lens was quite possibly the perfect lens. Later I heard a story from another DP, Robert Gagnier, who told me that when he’d shot a soap-type episodic series in the early 80s the production company allowed him two lenses for the entire shoot: a 10-1 zoom, and a 35mm prime in case the zoom broke. It seemed that a lot of people liked the 35mm focal length, and over time I’ve learned that it really is a great all-around lens: just wide enough to be interesting, not so wide as to be unpleasant on closeups.

We booked a set of Ultra Primes with the Alexa, and as I suspected we’d only need one lens for the entire project I opted to drop a long lens in favor of a shorter one. The normal set consists of 16mm, 24mm, 32mm, 50mm, 85mm and 100mm, and I opted to drop the 100mm in favor of a 40mm. While 35mm felt like the right lens for the closeup, the 32mm in this set felt a little too wide—and, sure enough, when I looked at the shot on the day the talent’s face bulged a little too much. We put up the 40mm lens and the closeup was perfect.

Once the logistics of the move had been figured out we worked on the lighting. White limbo is one of the hardest things to light well because it’s very difficult to light a large surface evenly. Most often we use an array of 2k space lights for a small job like this, but a cluster of space lights will still cast a number of shadows, particularly around the talent’s feet. Gaffer Charles Griswald suggested we suspend a 20’x20’ frame of light grid cloth under the space lights, which worked perfectly. I embellished upon his suggestion by pointing out that there was no longer any need to hang the silk baskets on the space lights, so we rigged the light grid cloth underneath a series of naked 2k space lights and took advantage of the extra punch. There was some spill light that caused shadows around the edges of the frame but as long as the spill didn’t occur behind the talent we didn’t worry about it. That kind of thing is easy to fix as long as it doesn’t happen behind the talent. If the talent crosses in front of it, though, the fix will require rotoscoping instead of just slapping some flat white over the shadows. That costs more time and more money, which is not a good thing. That wasn’t a worry here as the shadows occurred at the very edges of the frame, and only on the wide shot.

It’s always important to know the parameters of what you need to accomplish. If the project had to be delivered the next day, without any post cleanup, then we would have lit the stage evenly from side to side. As that wasn’t the case we made the background perfectly even behind the talent, knowing that the edges of the white could be easily cleaned up in post. I did check with post first just to make sure they were good with that kind of cleanup, as I didn’t want to make those kinds of decisions for someone else as they’re the ones who have to deal with my choices later. It’s always good to think about the next person down the production chain.

The Alexa did wonderful things with the bright, soft reflections of the overhead light in the talent’s forehead. I could have created roughly this same look with another camera but I would have had to add more fill light and a one-stop polarizer to keep those reflections from blowing out. The Alexa just handled them, the way a film stock would.

With the background lit, we focused on lighting the talent. During pre-production I’d suggested to Charles that I wanted the feel of a large china ball overhead. A 2k space light seemed like it was on the right track but just a little too small for what I had in mind. “What about a 6k space light?” Charles asked, and as soon as I heard he had one laying around I pounced on the idea. I wanted that light to be as soft as possible, without any specularity at all, so before we suspended the 6k space light over the talent I asked Charles to wrap it in 8’x8’ grid cloth. Thus the “Jellyfish” light was born:

It gave off a very beautiful quality of light. As a small crowd gathered around to see what we’d done I realized I’d never seen a grip/electric crew look so stunning. That bode well for the talent.

Turn the page for more hot space light action…

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •

Where I’ll Be at NAB

I’m constantly amazed at how many readers I have, and if you’d like to amaze me more by stopping by and saying hi I’ll be in the DSC Labs booth (C10215, near Band Pro, Tiffen and Abel Cine) on Monday and Tuesday, with shorter appearances Wednesday and Thursday as I’ll be wandering around a bit more. I’m also on a DP Track panel with Geoff Boyle, FBKS, Roberto Schafer, ASC and Michael Bravin on Sunday in room 258, which I’m told is to the rear of the north hall, second floor.

And for those of you who are on the Cinematography Mailing List, I’ll be at the CML Party Tuesday night—although I’ll probably stop by the latest camera assessment screening first.

See you at NAB!

Filed under: GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Post Production •Production •Tips •Training •

The Secret Art of Slating: 25 Tips to Help You Slate Like a Pro

Slate training was my introduction to one of the most important tenets of filmmaking: always think of the next person down the production line. In the case of slating, this means taking care of the poor assistant editor who has to sync and track dailies based on your notes and your slating technique.

Just the way we are under the gun while shooting, assistant editors and editors are similarly rushed in creating rough cuts. The clearer you can be in identifying takes the easier their life will be—and that translates into fewer snide comments about your work when the producer visits the editing room.

Slating is traditionally the job of the second camera assistant, a position I don’t see much anymore except on the bigger budgeted shoots. More often than not I end up with a camera crew that consists of a first camera assistant and a DIT, and the DIT is never consistently on set as their duties dictate hovering over a laptop most of the day. This typically means that the first assistant has to slate shots themselves, although if you want to make a friend and you’re available to help you can jump in and take that burden off their hands. Just don’t think for a moment that slating is simple. There are a number of rules to follow that will make everyone’s lives easier.

1. Make the slate BIG in the frame. You won’t make any friends by holding the slate ten feet away from the camera on a wide shot. The rule of thumb is to place the slate one foot from the lens for every 10mm of focal length. For example, if the camera is sporting a 25mm lens, hold the slate 2’6” from the lens. (I’d move it a little farther back for safety, so call it 3’.)

2. WRITE LEGIBLY AND LARGE. Someone will have to read your handwriting from a thumbnail image, possibly on a laptop. It looks like this:

Keep this image in mind while slating.

3. Make sure the slate is in the frame as the camera rolls. The thumbnail in the editing software is generated from the first frame, so if the slate is in the frame when the camera starts the thumbnail will contain all the relevant shot info—which makes finding circle takes easy.

This used to be a cool trick but is now standard practice. If you don’t do this you will get a phone call from the editing room. You never want to get to get a call from the editing room.

4. Editors sync sound by finding the first visible frame where the clapper stops moving and lining that up with the first audio frame that contains the sound of the clapper hitting the slate. The easiest way to discern when the clapper stops is to watch for the first frame where it doesn’t show any motion blur. This means that THE SLATE MUST NOT MOVE WHILE THE CLAPPER IS IN MOTION. If both the slate and the clapper show motion blur it becomes very hard to figure out when the clapper stops moving.

Do not let the clapper bounce. Once it hits the slate it must remain in contact with the slate until the slate has left the frame.

5. Proper slating technique dictates holding the slate with one hand and closing the clapper with the other. This keeps the slate still while the clapper is in motion. Over time you’ll become good enough to do a one-handed slate, but that takes practice.

6. Hit the clapper louder for wider shots and softer for closeups. You don’t want to startle an actor by banging the slate loudly in front of their face. The mic is usually closer for closeups so all you need to do is tap it.

7. Finding the proper slate position for closeups can be tricky. One technique is to imagine a string running from the lens to the actor’s eye, and then hang the open part of the slate on that string.

8. When using a long lens I’d occasionally hold the directly slate in front of the matte box to get it square to the lens and then move it quickly straight out to the proper distance. This can help with proper placement. (You don’t want the operator to have to re-frame for the slate as that means they aren’t framed up on the shot. If the director calls action quickly they’ll miss the shot… and take out their embarrassment on you.)

9. The slate goes into frame when the AD calls “Roll sound!” or “Rolling!” If sound rolls and you put the slate in, and there’s a delay of some sort before the camera rolls, you can turn the slate horizontally (bottom edge to the lens) to keep it in its proper position while allowing the operator to see the frame.

10. The first camera assistant will give you a cue as to when the camera is up to speed, unless the camera gives off some sort of audible cue that it is rolling.

If the AD calls “Roll sound, roll camera, slate it!” then they are a rookie. Professional ADs will only say “Roll sound!” or “Rolling!” and expect the rest to follow.

11. Just before you hit the slate, call out “Mark!” or “Marker!” This tells whoever is syncing dailies that the next loud noise they hear is the slate closing. “Mark” is nice and succinct, but if someone on the crew is named Mark it’s better to call “Marker.” (I was second camera assistant on a feature where the gaffer’s name was Mark, and if he was pre-lighting the next set he’d always come back when we rolled because he heard someone calling his name. He asked me to call “Marker.”)

12. Typically the sound mixer will pre-slate the audio, so you only need to call out “Mark!” and not the scene and take. This varies, though, and some sound people may ask you call out the scene and take before calling “Mark” and hitting the slate.

If you screw up when hitting the slate (it happens) call out “Second Sticks!” and hit the slate again. That helps whoever is syncing dailies to line the audio up to the right mark.

13. The slate only needs to be visible for about a second after hitting it. The editor can stop the footage to read it, so it doesn’t have to sit for a long time. Hit it, count to one, and pull it out.

14. Update the take number IMMEDIATELY, during the shot. You’ll quickly master the art of taking the cap off your pen quietly. If the take is blown and the director wants to go again immediately, the last thing they want to wait on is you updating the slate.

15. You’ll get scene and take info from the script supervisor, but you should know how the system works (at least in the U.S.):

The first shot of a scene is just the scene number, so if you’re on scene 17 you’ll start at “scene 17 take 1.” Most of the time this is the master, but not always. Every time the setup changes or there’s a change in the action (an actor picking up a line, for example) you add a letter: 17A, 17B, etc. (Certain letters, like O and I, are skipped because they look too much like numbers.) If you run out of letters you’ll then proceed to 17AA, 17AB, etc. (Yes, it happens.) When in doubt, check with the script supervisor. They’ll usually call out the slate info as it changes.

Some will tell you to mark the slate “take 2 p/u” if an actor flubbed a line and the director decides just to pick up that line. I think that’s sloppy, because “p/u” is hard to read. Besides, what happens if the actor flubs the pickup line? Do you call the next take “p/u p/u”? The proper way is to go to the next letter, but ultimately that’s the script supervisor’s call.

Here’s an important bit of trivia: the script supervisor is part of the editorial department, so what they say to put on the slate is what you put on the slate. They are giving you information directly on behalf of the editor. Don’t argue with them. If they make a mistake, it’s their fault—not yours.

(Early in my career I worked on a TV series where the script supervisor left and was replaced by another who had her own “system.” It was completely different from anything the crew had ever seen, and I remember the sound mixer pre-slating the takes by adding “and that’s the stupidest f***ing scene number I’ve ever heard.” The next day she got a phone call on set, turned a bit pale, and reverted to the commonly used system. Filmmaking is hard enough as it is without making up your own systems and expecting everyone down the line to follow them. Sticking to the standards means spending less time on the process and more time on creating.)

Commercials tend to work a bit differently. If you’re shooting several commercials over the course of a day or days then the slate will typically start with “101” for the first commercial, “201” for the second, etc. Letters are rarely used; instead the numbers are incremented for each new set up. Sometimes the numbers will track a shot in the boards.

You’re not done yet… turn the page for more hot tips.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •Apps4Phones •ProVideo Coalition •Lighting •Mobile Devices •Pre-Production •Production •Software •Tips •

iPhone Apps: The Short List for the Average Cinematographer

It seems everyone and their sister’s friend’s cousin has made a list of indispensable cinematography iPhone apps. Now it’s my turn. Let’s see how original I am.

One week ago today I received my new Verizon iPhone, and life hasn’t felt quite the same since. I feel as if I’m a little behind as everyone else in the industry has been using iPhones for years, while I’ve only been able to run a few cinematography-related apps on my iPod Touch. The wait was worth it: I’ve been very happy with my Verizon coverage and customer service, and while it costs a bit more than AT&T’s service I have one major advantage over AT&T iPhone users:

I can reliably make, and receive, phone calls.

Remember those? It’s where people actually talk to each other with their voices. (I know, I know, “Get back in the cave with the dinosaurs.”)

About a year and a half ago I took my first tentative step toward a truly smart phone by buying a Blackberry Storm 2. It was nice to have a big screen with which to read email, keep a calendar and browse the web, but I didn’t know what I was missing until very recently. After a week with an iPhone I realized I was previously living with the equivalent of a phone running MD-DOS.

The Blackberry is a fine business tool… I suppose. It’s very easy to read and respond to email on the Storm 2, and the Viigo RSS reader app is quite good. But it’s only been very recently that one could reliably sync a Blackberry with a Mac, which is a bit of a problem as most of the film industry seems Mac-based. (I certainly am; I used to build my own computers and shun Macs as being too expensive, but at some point I decided I wanted to spend more time working with my computers than working on them. Macs, for the most part, just work.) There are a couple of applications that will sync Blackberries with Macs but they’ve been problematic for me, to the point where I avoided syncing for months at a time. Not good.

I’d already decided not to buy a Blackberry ever again when the Verizon iPhone was announced. Key to my decision was when a recent Blackberry OS upgrade caused more problems than it solved, and resulted in my spending two hours on the phone with Verizon tech support downgrading my operating system to something that worked. That, combined with the limited number of apps and unlimited number of bugs and oddities, convinced me that I couldn’t make the leap to a new device soon enough. Apple products just work, so the iPhone seemed the obvious device to acquire.)

The tech tabloids suggest holding out for the iPhone 5, but I was so annoyed at my Blackberry that I wanted something that worked properly as soon as possible. I don’t regret my decision.

Apple used to be in the business of selling computers, but these days they really sell on life appliances. The iPhone is a handy tool not just for business but for life. I’ve only had it for a week and I don’t know how I did without it. The quality of audio, both coming and going, is vastly better than the Storm 2, and the number of available apps is dazzling. And it syncs with my Mac flawlessly.

As everyone else in the world has published a list of necessary cinematography iPhone apps I saw no reason to cut myself out of the action. If you’re a cinematographer, or a student of cinematography, there are certain iPhone tools that you shouldn’t be without.

PCam

Category: Camera/lens calculations

Price: $29.99

iPhone and iPod Touch

This is the app that started it all. First available on the Palm platform (the “original” iPhone) this app offers a variety of calculators that I use nearly every work day. Functions include calculators for depth of field, field of view, focal length match between formats, exposure, running time, discharge lamp flicker free speeds, color correction (filtration), diopters, macro photography, time lapse, underwater distance, conversions, and a few more.

This is the one tool no DP or camera assistant should be without.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Overtime calculator.

Camera Angles

Category: Scouting/prep

Price: $.99

iPhone

Use this app to calculate the height of large objects. Stand in one spot and aim the iPhone’s camera at the top of an object; move to a second spot and aim the camera again. The app uses iPhone angle and GPS data to calculate the height of the object. It’s handy for location scouts where your key grip and gaffer aren’t along and you have to describe in detail the absurdity of the location where you need them to place something.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Low-voltage electrical shock delivered to user when resulting heights are above 20’.

MatchLens

Category: Camera/lens calculations

Price: $.99

iPhone and iPod

I work with several directors who send me location pictures shot using their DSLRs. It’s easy to calculate the equivalent focal length to match the viewing angle for whatever camera and format we’re using.

It’s a little redundant as Pcam does this, but sometimes it’s nice to have one app that does one thing really well.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: A pop-up window that says “This angle of view only available on the Alexa.” Appears after every calculation.

href=” http://www.apptism.com/apps/isee4k” title=“ISee4k website”>ISee4k

Category: Camera/lens calculations

Price: unknown

iPhone and iPod Touch

This RED-specific app is, once again, a little redundant in some areas as it calculates depth of field and viewing angle but also has some additional functions such as some 4K workflow calculators and a reference as to how fast the camera will go at what speed and resolution. It’s a bit outdated, and it doesn’t seem to be available in the Apple store at the moment, but it’s free so if you can get a copy it’s handy to have around. (I grabbed a copy years ago for my iPod Touch.)

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Availability.

Clinometer

Category: Camera

Price: $.99

iPhone and iPod Touch

I shoot a fair amount of visual effects projects where a digital artist has to adds things to my shot that weren’t there when we shot it. The more information they have about how my camera was set up in the real world, the easier it is for them to match the perspective of my shot and size their elements accordingly. (It’s always smart to think about how people will use your footage down the line, both to allow them to work more efficiently but also to avoid comments along the lines of “What was your DP thinking???” when you’re not around to defend yourself.)

The key measurements are typically lens height, focal length, sensor size, focus distance, f-stop and camera angle. Clinometer is a very handy tool for measuring the tilt of your camera.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Function that detects whether a production company is on the level.

Helios

Category: Scouting

Price: $29.99

iPhone and iPod Touch

You can’t adequately scout an exterior location without knowing EXACTLY where the sun will be. The sun can save you and it can bury you, and it’s a good idea to know its mood before you arrive on the shoot day.

Helios, in conjunction with a Suunto compass and clinometer, will show you EXACTLY where the sun will be at a future time and date, down to the minute. Don’t leave home without it.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Sun placement on demand.

Sun Seeker

Category: Scouting

Price: $2.99

iPhone

This is a handy app to have on set, when—in the heat of the moment—it’s too much to pull out Helios, set it for the appropriate location and time, and take some measurements with a clinometer. This app overlays the path of the sun over a live image from your iPhone’s camera. It’s a quick way to get an idea of where the sun is going. It’s not as precise as Helios, but 90% of the time it’s close enough to show you, for example, how much time you have to shoot before the sun goes behind a building or a tree.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Craft service seeker.

Pocket LD

Category: Lighting

Price: $19.99

iPhone and iPod Touch

This app contains photometrics for a number of the most common lights in the film industry. Last year I had a high speed shoot where I had to light a 20’x20’ set to 1000fc, and Pocket LD was instrumental in showing me exactly how much illumination I could expect to receive from specific lights at specific distances. My gaffer and I were able to very quickly and reliably determine the exact units needed to make the shoot work.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: A little voice that says “Great choice! That’s exactly what I would have done!”

Beam Calc

Category: Lighting

Price: $14.99

iPhone and iPod Touch

This is a calculator that’s aimed primarily at lighting designers who are lighting venues for live performances, but it’s a nice tool for figuring light coverage in situations where you’re lighting a large performance area with hard lights.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Time machine to allow for the hanging and blending of dozens of lights.

iSwatch

Category: Lighting

Price: $9.99

iPhone and iPod Touch

This is a great companion app to Pocket LD. ISwatch contains transmission and spectral data from four major gel manufacturers—GAM, Lee, Rosco and Apollo (who I’ve never heard of)—and is very helpful when trying to determine, for example, how much light you’ll lose if you use Lee 216 vs., say, Lee 129, and how much your spectrum will shift.

Every time light is bounced or diffused the shorter wavelengths—blue—are absorbed or scattered somewhat, warming the light. In this case it’s interesting to see that, according to iSwatch, Lee 129 is actually more neutral in color than 216. Lee 129 is much more dense than Lee 216 so you’d think it would be the opposite.

We can only see accurate color reflected from an object if it is lit with light that contains the object’s color, so it is occasionally helpful to pick gels that do roughly the same thing but in slightly different ways. For example, it might be helpful to see the different ways that Lee CTO and CTS affect light, even though both are intended to convert daylight to tungsten.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Nitrate-base gel sale on July 4th.

Color Wheel

Category: Lighting/production design

Price: $.99

iPhone and iPod Touch

This handy little tool can quickly show you how to build a color scheme using commonly understood color combination schemes such as analogous, complementary, split complementary, etc.

It’s nice to have a color tool around as it helps in talking to directors and production designers about lighting schemes and backgrounds.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Locks out ability to create a monochrome cyan color scheme when prepping for a commercial.

AJA Datacalc

Category: Prep/post

Price: Free

iPhone and iPod Touch

Nifty calculator that answers the eternal question “How big of a hard drive do I need to bring?”

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Option to make the program tell you what you want to hear, not what is actually true.

Mill Colour

Category: Post

Price: Free

iPhone

Courtesy of post house The Mill in London, this app allows you to apply basic color correction to a still image and mail it off as a color reference. I’m not sure how useful it really is as I haven’t tested it for accuracy, but it’s free and I’d love to give it a try in a pinch.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Embedding a look into the subconscious mind of whoever must approve it, using hypnosis and a small microchip.

Movie Slate

Category: Production

Price: $19.99

iPhone and iPod Touch

This is a surprisingly useful app, great for those times when you’re shooting digitally and no one thought to bring a slate. I use this a lot on Canon 5D/7D shoots where audio is recorded double-system and we’re shooting doc style without a camera assistant.

It’s become so common on sets that my crew was shocked on a recent shoot when the sound person produced an actual slate.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Amplifier to startle uncooperative talent when slating closeups.

Artemis Director’s Finder

Category: Production

Price: $29.99

iPhone

This is essentially a digital director’s finder. First, set up a “set” of lenses in advance by brand and focal length, and then pick a camera/format. The app displays grid lines over the iPhone camera’s image showing the angle of view of each lens. It’s easy to toggle through them and quickly find the frame that a director wants. You can capture that framing in an image and email it.

Zooming in on longer lenses means that the iPhone’s camera image is digitally zoomed, so the emailed image quality isn’t always that great, but as an onset tool it’s pretty handy.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Ability to frame for murder as well as for shots. “He did it! Artemis says so!”

Panascout

Category: Impressing the client

Price: $9.99

iPhone

This is an impressive tool because it has the Panavision name on it, and that’s about it. You can shoot pictures in any of a number of different aspect ratios and capture additional information such as GPS location and compass direction, and then email it all to someone who is impressed by the Panavision logo. The one useful thing it doesn’t do is show different frame sizes the way Artemis does. Until that functionality is added, stick with Artemis unless you simply want to impress clients.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Actual usefulness as a framing device.

TechScout Touch

Category: Lighting/prep

Price: Free

iPhone and iPod Touch

If there’s a faster way to make up a lighting order I don’t know what it is. This app presents you with a list of lighting instruments and you simply select which ones, and how many, you want for your shoot. Once you’ve finished with the selection process you can email the list from your phone to your rental house or gaffer. (I send it to my gaffer as a reference. They know how to do their job better than I do, and with my list in hand they can round it out when talking to the rental house.)

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Ability to include a gift card as thanks to your gaffer for his or her tolerance and patience.

Dropbox

Category: Production

Price: Free

iPhone and iPod Touch

Dropbox is a great way to carry around PDF shot lists, boards, call sheets and style references. Drag documents, pictures or even software into a folder on your desktop and watch it sync those files with your iPhone, iPod Touch or another computer. It’s a free service up to 10 gigs of storage; beyond that you’ll pay a hefty $9.99 a month for more space.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: A separate program for the victims of insurance salesmen entitled “DropAnvil.”

MyStarbucks

Category: Set safety

Price: Free

iPhone and iPod Touch

This app needs no explanation.

MOST REQUESTED MISSING FEATURE: Portable intravenous caffeine drip.

That’s about it for now. If I’ve left something out please mention it in comments and I’ll do a revised list in the near future.

Art Adams is both a DP and a geek, and is proud of his prowess in both areas. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProVideo Coalition •Production •Tips •Training •

Panasonic AF-100: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Panasonic AF-100 is getting a lot of buzz as a possible HDSLR killer. We used it in the real world in place of an HDSLR, and now we know. And soon, so will you. Read on…

The two cameras that get the most buzz at the moment are the Panasonic AF-100 and the Sony F3. In particular, the AF-100 seems to be Panasonic’s response to the HDSLR craze, and for that reason it has been widely anticipated: the industry wants 35mm depth of field for the price of an HDSLR but in the form factor of a traditional video camera. HDSLRs have been great tools for the price, but as they aren’t designed to be video cameras they fall short in a number of areas.

There’s a lot of money riding on the projects that we shoot, and traditional video cameras acknowledge that fact. They offer us tools with which to judge focus and exposure, and they allow us to tweak the camera so that it responds optimally to the shooting environment and reflects the look we want our footage to have. HDSLRs have, over time, come to offer some of those options, but they don’t do any of them particularly quickly or well. The industry has been eagerly awaiting cameras that offer the HDSLR look but with video camera speed and functionality.

The AF-100 does all that. It’s basically an HVX-200 with a larger sensor, which is both good and bad.

Recently director Ian McCamey landed a spot about which I can say nothing as it’s not finished yet. (I hope to show the completed piece in a week or so when it’s been cut and approved.) The budget was not a healthy one, and initially there was talk of shooting with a 5D or 7D. While I can make very pretty pictures with those cameras they do slow me down a bit, and the location we shot at offered limited prospect in daylight. Speed was of the essence, and we managed to get a brand new AF-100, from Shooting Star Video, on the job, along with a brand new Arri Alura 18-80 T2.6 zoom.

PVC’s Adam Wilt gets focus marks as director Ian McCamey hits his stride.

The AF-100 can be configured with a number of different lens mounts. Jeff Regan (owner of Shooting Star Video) opted for a PL mount in order to show off his new Arri Alura zoom, a “low cost” lens for 35mm sensor cameras. (He also offers the camera with Nikon mount and primes.) Although I’ve heard reports of pin cushioning from one person, I haven’t checked the lens on a chart to confirm or deny whether that issue exists and I didn’t notice anything during filming. It handles very smoothly and has a nice solid feel to it, and we had zero issues with back focus. (The Alura, like most film-style lenses, does not have a user operated back focus control.)

While the AF-100 can be configured for use with still lenses, those lenses aren’t very camera assistant friendly. The focus markings aren’t accurate and the distance markings are too close, so if the assistant wanted to quickly throw focus to 8’9” they couldn’t find the proper spot on the lens, and even if they could find it the focus wouldn’t fall at 8’9”. The Alura is a proper film-style lens with a big lens barrel and large, nicely spaced and accurate markings that’s great for action and drama, where we’re constantly following people and objects around. Still lenses are great for interviews and doc-style projects where the operator has to find their own focus, but that wasn’t the kind of project we were shooting.

While I can’t show you moving images from the spot until it’s finished (except for one short clip) and I can’t tell you what the concept is, I can show you stills from the shoot and give you a rough idea of the story. I hope to be able to publish the final spot within the next couple of weeks.

Let’s take a look at some images, both in front of and behind the camera, on the next page…

Behind the scenes photos are provided courtesy of gaffer Luke Seerveld.

Filed under: Business •Production •Tips •Training •

Career Advice for the Young DP

This is my response to a question posted to the Cinematography Mailing List by a young film student who is chafing at the bit to be a director of photography as soon as possible.

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(To read this thread go to Cinematography.net and sign up for the CML-Chat list. If you’re a film student I’d recommend signing up for any list that interests you, and even some that don’t, particularly CML-Students—where you can ask questions without fear of being trolled for posting beginner questions to the wrong list.)

What everyone else has said so far is true [to the series of responses posted prior to mine]. I’d add:

(1) It is more important to be liked than to be competent. If people like you, you’ll have the chance to be competent. If people don’t like you, you won’t get those chances as easily.

There’s a very big ASC DP who, when they started out, did work that made me cringe. Over time they got better and better, did bigger movies, and really polished their craft. I once asked someone what it was about this person that allowed them to essentially learn on the job. “They are the nicest person you will ever meet” is what I was told. I later met them, and they are.

(2) You must exude confidence. Not arrogance; that’s different. Over time you’ll acquire what I’ve heard people call “set presence.” This will come with experience, when you’ve been thrown into a lot of crazy hopeless situations and learned to dig yourself out.

(3) Be nice to everyone. You never know when today’s PA will be tomorrow’s producer. I just got hired onto a job by a guy who used to be in business development for a production company I still work for. He’s moved on, and when he needed a DP he remembered me from the shoots I did for his old company where he came along to shoot stills. Apparently he liked my work and I was nice to him as well.

(4) Find good crew who can support you. Gaffers, camera assistants and key grips generally work more often than DP’s do and see a wide variety of situations sooner in their careers. Surround yourself with good people, tell them what you need and let them tell you how they would do it. There are times when you’ll know better than they how achieve a specific effect, but that won’t happen immediately.

I don’t want to tell my gaffer exactly how to hang what light where; I want to tell them that I need a certain amount of light from a certain angle that’s a certain color and quality and let them figure out how to get the light there and which one to use. Sometimes I’ll make suggestions because I want something very specific but otherwise I’ll let them do their job, because they do nothing but electrical work and they’ve done more than I have. (And then I watch what they do and learn.)

This is a great way to keep a crew engaged. We all get into this business to be creative, so the more creativity you allow your crew the happier they will be.

The corollary to that is that you must have a crew that listens to you and doesn’t have their own agenda. A gaffer who thinks they can do your job better than you can is no good to you. You must have crew that follow your lead, and you must have the confidence to allow them to contribute as long as they are moving the project in the right direction.

It takes a lot of confidence to allow your crew to take your ideas and make them better, but that’s the way the film business works. (Or should work.) You’re doing that for a director, so you might as well let your crew help you as well.

Another way to think of it is this: I don’t have to have EVERY lighting idea, but I do have to decide which ones are appropriate. And those are the only ones that reach the director’s ears.

(5) Thank your crew often and sincerely. This goes a long way.

(6) Don’t take everything personally. There are some directors and producers that you’ll work with who are wonderfully collaborative and you’re all on the same level; there are others who will drive you insane and after the job you’ll walk away thinking that you’re completely incompetent and maybe accounting is a better career choice. It happens to everyone; just keep going.

(7) Be helpful, but not too helpful. There are times when you can see the train wreck coming but the powers that be get tired of hearing about it. Sometimes you can’t save people from themselves, and trying to do so will simply make things worse. If I see a problem coming I’ll tell people once, but I’ll be very clear that one time about what I see as a problem. If they choose to do something about it, great; if not, then when the time comes I’ll try to save them.

For example, I used to tell one director that the ten page shoot days he always planned were optimistic with the crew and budget that we had, and he hated hearing that. He also hated tearing pages out of the script but he had to do that nearly every time we shot because he didn’t have the money to go along with his ambitions. Over time he resented my telling him in preproduction that we were going to have a bunch of overtime, so I just stopped. We still had a bunch of overtime but he was somewhat happier not being reminded of his mistakes.

I really only get frustrated by incompetence on freebie shoots where I’m trying to build my reel, when it wastes my time. On paid jobs I make the same money no matter how organized or disorganized the project is, so no use getting bent out of shape.

The exception to this is safety. I get assertive very quickly as the odds increase that someone will get hurt.

(8) Don’t give your talent away unless doing so helps you directly. I get asked to shoot a lot of freebie short films and low budget features, and I turn nearly all of them down. I don’t need that kind of practice anymore and almost every single script is awful anyway. I do shoot a lot of spec spots with a couple of talented directors and we all get something out of the experience, so it’s completely worthwhile. If you’re going to shoot for free—and at the beginning of your career you’ll do a fair amount of that—then make sure you’re going to get something tangible out of the experience. Usually this means footage for your reel. Learn to assess when you’re going to be working with a team that can deliver. If the producer and director can’t pull off their end of things then no one will win.

(9) Don’t fall into the film school trap of thinking that the ideal shoot consists of you and your friends making films as a “family”. I hear this so often it now makes me physically ill. I don’t want to be part of a filmmaking family; I want to go to work with professionals who are all good enough at their jobs that they can do them and be pleasant at the same time. You’re not on set to party or hang out with friends; you’re there to work. You’ll become friends with some of your crew, and hopefully you’ll get along with all of them. Filmmaking can be stressful, and those who can’t handle the stress usually get weeded out. The rest are usually quite nice to work with.

Over time you’ll have your favorites and you’ll ask for them by name. They may or may not be friends, but when you see their names on the call sheet you’ll get a warm fuzzy feeling because you know they’ve got your back and you’ll all do good work.

(10) Loyalty goes a long way.

(11) You’re not too young to be pursuing your goals, but you’re also not experienced enough. That’s the difference. And the only way you can get experience is to gather it over time.

One young crew member recently asked me how I learned to do what I do, and I told him I’d been doing it 20+ years. “That’s it? You’ve just been doing it a long time?” he asked. “Yup.” He HATED that. But it’s true. That doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to do good work for another two decades, just that you will most likely be doing very good work after two decades of working in the film biz. I’ve done good work in one way or another for a long time, but the more I do it the better I get. It’ll work that way for you too.

Your results may vary, but experience is the key. Age usually comes into play because it takes a while to accumulate experience.

Don’t take jobs you know you can’t do. Do take jobs that stretch you. Learn to know the difference. There’s nothing wrong with shooting something you’ve never shot before as long as you can figure it out. (CML is a great resource for that.)

(12) Don’t be afraid to work your way up. Those who start as DP’s don’t get to learn by watching others work… and make mistakes. The best mistakes to learn from are the mistakes others make. (You’ll make plenty of your own, though. We all do.) At the same time, don’t rely on others to move you up. That can take a long time.

(13) Post to CML-Students regularly.

Art Adams is a DP who, as a youngster in the film industry, wanted to do too much too quickly… and generally succeeded. His website is at www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

Phantom Adventures: 1000fps on a Budget

A while back I wrote this article about some high speed tests I did in preparation for an upcoming regional spot. The results convinced the client, Rambus, that the extra expense of shooting their upcoming spots at 1000fps was well worth it.

Rambus creates technology, literally, and their inventions live in a number of everyday items that we take for granted: digital projectors, laptop and desktop computers, and video game consoles. The goal of these spots was to show how these products are used in daily life. And since daily life isn’t always that interesting, director Jono Schaferkotter, of production company Compass Rose Media, opted to show reality from a different perspective to make the mundane more exciting.

While I’d tested the Phantom HD Gold I’d not done any actual work with it, so I called some friends and colleagues and asked their advice. I’d heard, for example, that shooting faster than a few hundred frames per second could be problematic when using small lights (anything less than a 5k) on AC power because the smaller filaments dim between cycles and cause flicker. I wanted to use Maxibrutes—inexpensive units that consist of an array of nine or twelve tungsten par lights—because they put out a tremendous amount of light for the price, but as the individual lamps were small (1k-1.2k) I had to figure out how to power them with DC current.

First I did some calculations. Starting with the formula T2.8 = 100fc @ ISO 100 (with a 180 degree shutter) and working with an ISO of 250 as recommended by the rental house (Chater Camera), I found I needed nearly 2000fc of light just to shoot at T2…and that was if I left the shutter completely off! I’d never lit anything so brightly so I quickly looked up the photometrics of a Maxibrute with MFL (medium flood) lamps and discovered that by using a couple of Maxis through diffusion I could guarantee reaching that level of illumination

It’s not easy to watch a monitor surrounded by 2000fc of light!

Next I had to figure out how to power them with DC current. DC current doesn’t alternate, so the lamp filaments don’t dim between cycles as there are no cycles. The lights just stay on. The disadvantage of DC current is that it doesn’t travel very far, so line loss can be a problem over long runs. That’s why our electrical grid uses AC power instead of DC.

It turns out that most generators offer a rectified DC option, so the next question was whether rectified DC was good enough. Some people I spoke to said not to trust rectified DC at 1000fps so I discussed the situation with a local DIT who’d just worked on a Phantom shoot with Maxibrutes and a rectified DC genny. He said they’d had no problems at all, so we made sure to order the same generator.

Another budgetary issue raised its head when we discussed post options. The Phantom records to a very expensive Flash memory mag, and it’s normal to shoot during the morning with one mag and then dump it to a hard drive in the afternoon while using the second mag. (While the Phantom records 16gb of data at a time, it takes about a gigabyte a minute to transfer to a hard drive for post processing.) In post the raw data has to be deBayered and color graded, and our budget didn’t really allow for that. So we opted to use an alternate method: we recorded the HD-SDI monitor output to a Ki Pro deck in ProRes 422HQ. This method doesn’t offer the same kind of latitude that raw does, and the paint controls are simply what’s available in the monitor output menu (which isn’t much!), but under controlled circumstances this procedure works quite well.

So, knowing that I could use my favorite brute lights and work at 1000fps with enough control to expose the image within the limited Rec 709 monitor output range, I proceeded to lay out a cunning plan. And it worked. I suspect you want proof, so here it is:

The first spot is a conceptual piece that the production company, Compass Rose Media, submitted to a design festival. The second piece is what actually ran on the air and is a compilation of three different spots. We originally shot four spots of three to four shots each, and Rambus opted to combine them all into one. Some of this footage has never been seen before publicly.

Turn the page to read how we pulled off this off in two days on a small stage…

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

Alexa ISO Settings: The Least You Need to Know

My previous Arri Alexa article showed you how the camera’s dynamic range responds to different ISO settings. In this shorter article I’ll show you why that’s useful and practical information.

All the world loves graphic examples, so let’s start off with one:

This graph shows how tones are allocated at four different ISO settings on the Alexa in LogC mode. The top of each column shows how many stops above 18% (“middle”) gray that maximum white (“clipping”) occurs, and the bottom of the scale shows where the signal dissolves into black (at the noise floor).

Arri says that ISO 800 is the “sweet spot” where there are an equal number of stops above and below 18% gray. That’s great to know, but that’s not always the most important factor when choosing an ISO setting. There are other considerations, such how much noise we can tolerate or how much highlight information we need to retain.

Looking at the above graph, there are a couple of thoughts that occur to me:

Highlight retention shrinks with noise reduction. The ISO’s that offer the least noise also have the fewest number of stops between 18% gray and maximum white. This means that ISO 200 might be a good choice for a low-key moody night interior where we need to see into the shadows, because there’ll be more stops of underexposure latitude available than at higher ISOs. There should be few, if any, bright highlights in the shot that need to retain detail, because there will be fewer stops of latitude between 18% gray and maximum white.

This setting might also be a good choice for green screen, where a low noise level is beneficial and highlights can be meticulously controlled. It’s probably not so good for harsh noonday exterior shots in the desert, where it may be advantageous to record a greater range of light tones than dark tones.

As highlight retention increases, noise increases. Ironically, ISO 800 should be a great choice when shooting day exteriors as we can comfortably retain highlights at up to seven stops above 18% gray—which is more highlight retention detail than any other camera on the market that I’m aware of. This can be especially important when shooting car spots, where highlight kicks tend to be a feature and not a mistake, and when shooting from interiors into day-lit exteriors.

ISO 400 might be a good compromise between retaining highlight detail and crushing noise, as we lose only one stop of highlight latitude while pushing the noise one stop farther down the scale from 18% gray toward black.

You may have noticed another effect that’s worth looking at in more detail: although the number of stops between 18% gray and maximum white vary depending on the ISO, the end points (white and gray) are always the same. The catch is that the distance between them varies. While a difference of one stop of brightness at ISO 1600 only covers 1/8th of the difference between 18% gray and white, that same stop is 1/5th of that distance at ISO 200. The same is true of shadow detail at various ISOs.

We can easily say that ISO 200 opens up shadows and compresses highlights because the camera allocates more stops below 18% gray than above, giving darker tones both more overall latitude and a longer tonal scale. Conversely, ISO 1600 compresses shadows and opens up highlights because more stops are allocated above 18% gray than below, allowing the highlights more room to breath.

So if you habitually expose flesh tones at one stop brighter than your spot meter reads (Zone 6), for example, LogC will record a brighter value at ISO 200 than it will at ISO 1600. And if you want a background to drop into blackness, you only need to underexpose it by five stops (reflected) at ISO 1600 whereas you’ll need to push it down three or four stops further at ISO 200.

Does this matter in the practical world? To some extent, yes: while you can place those values where you want them in a color grade, there may be more or less contrast separating those tones from others depending on the ISO you choose. For example, light skin tones might separate nicely from a bright background at ISO 800, where a change of one stop of brightness results in 1/7th the distance from middle gray to maximum white, whereas there will be less contrast between those two tones at ISO 200, where each stop results in steps that encompass 1/5th the distance from middle gray to maximum white.

Because geeks like graphic examples, and I am clearly a geek, here’s another graphic example:

What I did was take the images of the DSC Labs 102db 17-stop latitude chart from my previous article and cut them up so that 18% gray is lined up at four different ISOs. The chip with the tape running down the center reflects 18% gray at ISO 800 and moves around depending on how the camera ISO changes, so I added a dotted line that runs vertically through the chart to indicate the 18% gray (45%) chip at each ISO.

I had to manipulate the charts a little in Photoshop as maximum white values in LogC vary depending on the ISO: highlights can reach 100% at ISO 1600 but max out at 85% or so at ISO 200. This maximum value for white ultimately doesn’t matter because LogC is meant only for storage and not for critical viewing: the first things that happen in a color grade are setting a black level and a white level, so white will simply be placed wherever the DP and/or colorist want it to be. That’s what I did here: using the Photoshop “Levels” tool I picked a maximum black, just below the darkest chip at the right side of the chart, as well as a maximum white, at the top left of the brightest chip.

Because of this manipulation this chart is not meant to be a true dynamic range guide. (For that, see this article.) Instead this chart is good for pointing out things like this:

Maximum white at ISO 200 occurs at 18% gray plus five stops. The chip that is white at ISO 200 is varying shades of gray at ISO 400, 800 and 1600.

18% gray minus five stops at ISO 1600 is near black, but looking down the chart we can see additional tonal detail in the dark tones as the ISO decreases to 800, 400 and 200.

A commenter to a previous article praised Alexa because he thought he could throw away his ND filters when shooting outside. That’s not the case, as these graphs indicate: when shooting HD nothing comes for free, and there are gains and penalties involved whenever you change the ISO setting on a camera that allows you to do so. While it may make intuitive sense to shoot day exteriors at ISO 200, you may be much better off shooting them at ISO 800 to retain highlight detail.The same could be true of a moody night interior, where ISO 200 will open up more shadow detail with less noise than ISO 800 will.

Keep in mind that this article addresses LogC only. Rec 709 will look much more normal at different ISOs because the stops at the top and bottom of the range are severely rounded off by Arri’s aggressive Rec 709 S-shaped gamma curve. Still, there will be differences in how much detail shadows and highlights hold at different ISOs in Rec 709 so it’s wise to use what I’ve outlined above as a predictor and observe what actually happens to extremes of exposure at different ISO settings in the field.

Oh—and just because another HD camera doesn’t have ISO settings doesn’t mean it’s not affected exactly the same way: -3db gain will offer less noise while compromising the camera’s ability to hold detail in extreme highlights, while +3db gain will result in more noise but also more highlight detail retention. Don’t take my word for it; try it out!

I will be working on an article shortly that shows that this strategy also works on the RED ONE MX. Stay tuned!

For more information about the Arri Alexa, please go to Arri Digital.

Art Adams is a DP whose brightness changes depending on his exposure to new technology. His website is www.artadamsdp.com.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

Arri Alexa’s Dynamic Range: It’s All in How You Use It

Knowing that the Arri Alexa has 15 or so stops of dynamic range is nice, but it’s hardly useful information unless you know how those stops are arranged at different ISO settings. Fortunately I’ve done the hard work for you.

Or rather I should say that Adam Wilt and I did the hard work, as we both traveled to Chater Camera in Berkeley recently with a DSC Labs DX-1 17-stop dynamic range chart intent on discovering Alexa’s hidden secrets. (The biggest secret was “Why is this Alexa just sitting here?” as we’d managed to luck upon the only day during a multiweek period when it was actually available for testing.)

Dynamic range charts are a lot of fun if you want to play games like “My camera’s dynamic range is bigger than yours!” but they don’t tell us how to exploit dynamic range in our work. My goal in these tests is to find how that dynamic range is distributed, which is much more useful to me as a cinematographer.

The only solid exposure reference that an HD camera offers is the point where the sensor clips, and the DSC 17-stop chart is designed with that in mind: by exposing the chart such that the first chip just hits white clip we can count how many chips are visible until they blend into the black background. As each chip is one stop, counting the visible chips to the right of white (don’t count the first one for this test) gives us a number for the camera’s full dynamic range in lens stops.

When using a camera “film style” we don’t set the exposure based on clipping, but with an eye to exposing the image properly as a whole. My preference is to use the Zone System and expose certain objects in the scene so that they reproduce with a specific tonality. That can only be done by knowing how a camera or film stock responds to different reflective values of light and using that knowledge in concert with a spot meter. The Zone System hinges around 18% gray, and as there isn’t a high dynamic range chart in existence that is set up to measure exposure in relationship to that middle tone, I set out to make one.

I set the Alexa to record ProRes 4444 to SxS cards in “legal” mode. I set the Alexa’s ISO at Arri’s recommended “sweet spot” of 800 and, while watching a waveform monitor, I set the exposure on the DSC Chart so that the first chip just flattened out into clipping. Then I looked at the waveform monitor and determined which step fell closest to 18% gray (generally 42% to 45% on a waveform), and marked that chip by putting a thin strip of black tape vertically through it. The tape creates a “notch” in the waveform trace and allows us to watch what happens to that middle gray reference as we change the camera’s ISO settings.

Adam and I only tested four ISO settings—1600, 800, 400 and 200—because the chart is calibrated in one stop increments. (We tried a Stouffer wedge chart with 1/3 stop increments on a prior occasion and beyond a certain point the steps became too fine to count in the shadows.) We shot the chart at each ISO setting in both LogC and Rec 709 mode, and then did an exposure test simply to measure overall dynamic range. This resulted in two sets of results: one that showed how many total stops were visible below white clip on the chart, and another that showed how those stops were distributed above and below 18% gray on the waveform monitor. The first tells us how much range the camera has overall at a specific ISO, and the other tells us how much exposure latitude we have before we hit white clip or the noise floor (black).

Turn the page to get started…

Filed under: Cameras •GentryMedia Sister Sites •ProPhoto Coalition •Production •

Canon 5D: How much dynamic range does it have, really?

The Canon 5D does a remarkable job of making HD images, considering that it was originally never intended to do so. So how much dynamic range can it really capture? Thanks to the DSC 102db (17-stop) latitude chart, we now have an objective answer.

If you’ve read this article then you have a pretty good idea of how the DSC 102db chart works. The quick explanation is that this chart contains 18 steps, printed one stop apart, and by exposing the first chip so that it just hits the camera’s clip we can then count the following steps and see how many stops the sensor can see. (The reason the chart is backlit is because current print technologies only allow for about five stops worth of latitude when using ink on on a shiny white surface. Backlit charts allow for much greater dynamic range.)

Here’s the chart shot with a Canon 5D using the flattest contrast settings possible:

I’ve marked out the steps as I saw them, although I should point out that when I brought this image into Photoshop and turned off color profiling I saw a very faint 11th step just to the right of step 10. That doesn’t show up on the waveform, though:

If you look very closely you can see that eleventh step as a bump in the noise below step ten. I don’t count that as usable, as any crushing of the blacks will wipe it out, but it’s there.

The one drawback of this test is that it tells us how much overall dynamic range a camera has, but doesn’t tell us how to use it. I’m working with DSC to see if we can develop a chart that does that. For now, though, know that the 5D will yield roughly ten stops of dynamic range

This test was shot with a Canon 5D set at ISO 400, f2.8 at 1/30th of a second exposure, set at the flattest possible contrast setting.

I’ll have more of these tests to show in the near future. It’s hard to get my hands on an Alexa at the moment, but a cursory glance at it shows that it does offer at least 13 stops and perhaps a nudge more. I hope to be able to prove that shortly.

Art Adams is a DP who has both a bright side and a dark side, and they are not very far apart. His website is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Post Production •Production •Tips •Training •

My Love Affair with Alexa

My dream HD camera records footage with log-encoded gamma to ProRes for a fast, easy and accessible post workflow and cost-effective color grading. It has the simplest control interface ever. It sees in the dark. And it’s built by a company whose gear I learned to trust early in my career when I started out as a camera assistant. The company is ARRI, and the camera is Alexa.

I was fortunate enough to have the chance to shoot with an Alexa prototype to produce demo footage for a recent meeting of the Northern California chapter of the Digital Cinema Society. Chapter president Simon Sommerfeld invited ARRI‘s Michael Bravin to present Alexa at the meeting, and Michael suggested shooting some scenics around San Francisco as a way of showing local folks how well the Alexa does under low light conditions. It fell to me to produce and shoot this content, and as I’m always looking for an opportunity to advance my reel I contacted director Ian McCamey, with whom I’ve shot numerous projects including Pink Martini, California State Fair and WEAVE, and asked him if he had any ideas as to how we could do more than just shoot pretty pictures.

As it turned out, he had a cunning plan. You’ll see more of that later after some additional editing and the creation of some visual effects. The important bit, though, was to be able to shoot on the night of Monday, August 3rd, and show an edited and graded montage Tuesday, August 4th, at the DCS meeting. Thanks to Alexa’s ProRes workflow we were able to do exactly that—and quite easily.

Joining Michael Bravin was Lucas Wilson of Assimilate, who gave probably the best Scratch demo possible: while Michael gave his Alexa introductory speech during the first half of the meeting, Lucas asked colorist Shane Mario Ruggieri to grade our LogC-encoded footage. By the dinner break we’d completely graded two minutes of LogC footage. Ian had cut the presentation on his laptop, which required him to downsample our recorded ProRes4444 to ProRes422 in order to play back the timeline at full speed. From Ian’s EDL Lucas linked back to the original LogC footage for the grade, Shane Mario worked his magic, and the graded footage was quickly married to the soundtrack for projected playback. We watched the finished and graded montage during the second half of the meeting.

Here it is:

But this story isn’t really about the meeting, but rather about the adventure leading up to the meeting. I gathered an intrepid band of regular DCS contributors, along with some of my regular crew, and we had some playtime with the camera along a scenic stretch of the San Francisco Bay. And along the way we learned quite a lot about the marvel that is Alexa. Turn the page for more…

All behind-the-scenes photographs are ©2010 by Adam Wilt. They are used by permission.

Filed under: Cameras •Tips •Training •

Next Stop: The Last Stop! RED MX Latitude Tests

When DSC Labs offered to send me a 102db (translation: 18-stop) exposure latitude chart, I just couldn’t bring myself to say no. And, naturally, the first camera I wanted to test was the RED ONE MX. How much better is the new sensor? Let’s take a look…

The Ambi-2 102db test chart, by DSC Labs, is a backlit chart. Due to the limitations of print technology it’s currently impossible to create a printed test chart with a range of more than five or six stops, and today’s cameras regularly offer ten or more stops of latitude. A backlit chart, where light is passed through a series of progressively denser strips printed on a piece of clear plastic, is the only way to create a chart that meets or exceeds the latitude of today’s cameras.

The Ambi-2, with a full-color rear-lit chart. This is not the chart I’ve been using, but shows the overall setup. My configuration does not have the light source mounted on the stand, as this one does, as DSC sent a prototype LED light that clips on the back.

This is the rear-lit gray scale used for these tests. When backlit there are 18 steps, so with the first (far left) step exposed such that it just barely clips, the next 17 steps show the actual dynamic range of the camera. While it is an 18-step chart it is intended to show a maximum of 17 stops of latitude. The image above is a representation as there isn’t a camera today that can resolve the entire scale.

I performed these tests with the aid of Adam Wilt, in his office at Meets the Eye Studios in San Carlos, CA. This space was perfect but for one thing: it wasn’t light-tight. Backlit charts only work properly if there is NO spill light on the front of it, as that may have the effect of “flashing” the shadows and showing more latitude than the camera can see under normal conditions.

So Adam made a tunnel out of black showcard:

I bought some black plastic ground cover cloth at Home Depot, and a few yards later we had both the front and the back sealed against outside light. The only light source used was inside the back of the Ambi-2 itself and was an LED source that looked a lot like a Rosco LightPad, although I don’t know who makes it. It was designed to be a perfectly even light source, as unevenness could result in misleading test results, and its only drawback is its spectrum: it’s a very blue-green light. I hope to repeat this test at some point in the future using a full-spectrum tungsten light, both raw and through full CTB for daylight testing.

Adam is an extremely thorough tester, which is nice as we double-check each other to make sure we don’t inadvertently get into trouble. In this case Adam solved two very tricky problems that I hadn’t thought of before the test.

The first problem was eliminating the effect of lens vignetting. While we started off using a RED zoom we switched over to a Zeiss Ultra Prime to eliminate the effects of vignetting. RED zooms tend not to vignette if one stops down far enough (about T5.6) but the chart wasn’t bright enough to allow for that stop. A 65mm Ultra Prime showed no vignetting and allowed us to clip the clear wedge at around T2.8. (Adam determined that there was no vignetting by panning the camera left and right and watching a waveform monitor to make sure the edges didn’t dip.)

The second problem was finding a way to expose the clear wedge at 100% exactly, considering that the RED’s monitoring output is only meant as a “video tap.” Adam’s solution was to start with the aperture wide open, and then close it down as the camera rolled. In Apple Color it was quite easy to scrub through the frames and find the one with the right exposure for the tests I wanted to perform.

On to the next page, where we can see some test results…

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •

IR Cheat Sheet, Updated to Version 2

At long last, an update to my fabled IR Filter Cheat Sheet. Not every camera responds the same way to IR; make sure you have the right filter for the right job.

Here it is, version 2 of the Art Adams IR Filter Cheat Sheet:

Click here to download a PDF.

There are two crucial additions here:

The newly-released Arri Alexa responds to far red in a similar fashion to the Sony F35 and the Sony EX1 and EX3 cameras.

Tiffen has released a Hot Mirror IR ND filter that combines the T1 far red filter with a Hot Mirror. This combination does a great job on the RED ONE (both M and MX) and is just a little bit of overkill compared to the other hot mirror filters on the market, because the other hot mirror filters don’t have the additional T1 far red dye.

These filters, in theory, should work equally well on both the RED ONE and the far red sensitive cameras (Alexa/F35/EX) even though they have different requirements: hot mirrors don’t do any good on the Alexa/F35/EX cameras, and the T1 and IR ND filters without hot mirrors do nothing for the RED ONE on their own. It shouldn’t hurt to use these combination filters on either camera—just be aware that although they combine hot mirror and T1 dye technologies, only one technology works on any given camera.

The IR ND filters are designed so that the green dye that removes far red is proportionate to the amount of ND. That means you can’t use them with regular ND filters as the amount of far red passed will overwhelm the level of dye in the IR ND. For example, an IR ND .90 blocks ND .90 worth of far red, so if you add a regular ND .60 filter you’re going to see far red contamination: ND .90 plus ND .60 equals ND 1.5 worth of far red, but an IR ND .90 only blocks ND .90 worth of far red.

The Tiffen T1 filter on its own, which is basically an IR ND without any ND, will reduce far red through quite a number of regular ND filters, even though that is not its intended purpose. On the Arri Alexa, for example, the T1 worked quite well even when combined with a regular ND 1.2 filter.

When in doubt, TEST.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

Arri Alexa and Far Red: A Problem That’s Already Been Solved

Last night I had the chance to—finally!—touch an Arri Alexa at Chater Camera’s Alexa preview party. And, being a curious sort of fellow, I decided to run some impromptu tests. IR tests are the easiest to do so I quickly did some—and in the process learned some interesting things about Alexa.

I handhold an Arri Alexa prototype at Chater Camera’s “Welcome to Alexa” event last Monday evening. John Chater puts the camera on my shoulder so I can enjoy the feel of a perfectly balanced camera.

Michael Bravin of Arri brought us an Arri Alexa prototype with a working ProRes recording module, so I happily shot my tests to ProRes422(HQ) and carted them away. I have to say that I have never had an easier time getting footage into Final Cut Pro.

I’ve received some complaints lately that some of my articles are too hard to follow. Several people have requested “executive summaries.” Okay, here it comes: the IR filter that you’ll need when using Alexa is:

The Tiffen T1.

The Arri Alexa seems to respond to non-visible red light in much the same way that the Sony F35 does, and probably for much the same reason: the color red has been, for a long time, the bastard stepchild of television. In the NTSC days we used to issue wardrobe instructions that stated “No white, black or red!” White and black were difficult tones to reproduce accurately, since exposing for flesh tones usually made white too bright and black too dark; and bright red was known to smear disturbingly when broadcast. The red phosphor used in early televisions wasn’t bright enough to compete with the blue and green phosphors, so some green was added to the red phosphor to “pump it up.” This resulted in—you guessed it—orange-ish reds.

Real red was almost never seen on television. And when it was seen, it was feared. The color red, in the old days, never got no love.

The first time I fired up a Sony F35 I was standing next to video engineer Jim Rolin. The camera was aimed down at a Persian carpet and Jim exclaimed, “I’ve never seen so many hues of red from a video camera before!” Sony built the F35 for digital cinema, which didn’t have the color gamut restrictions imposed by earlier analog broadcasting standards, and all the colors were rich and beautiful without being oversaturated—especially red.

Arri has done much the same thing here: they’ve pulled out all the color stops. But when you do that with red there are certain… side effects.

Filter tests with an Arri Alexa prototype at Chater Camera. To the right is my (as yet un-patented) IR/far red test chart.

Far red is not infrared. Infrared is heat, and every silicon sensor ever made is primarily sensitive to heat. It’s just a fact of life: given its druthers, silicon sensors would rather function as IR imagers because heat is what they see best. Humans, on the other hand, don’t see heat at all, so we cut off the portion of the spectrum silicon loves most (above a wavelength of about 750nm) and keep the rest. From the perspective of a piece of silicon it’s a bit like keeping the gravy but throwing out the roast beef, because we can taste the gravy but not the beef.

Far red is a color that is on the very edge of the visible spectrum. It’s just above red and it’s a color that humans don’t see easily, if at all. Most modern cameras, such as the F35 and likely the Arri Alexa, have an IR cut filter that chops off the spectrum starting at around 700nm, where the visible spectrum (and the ITU-709 broadcast standard) ends, and that eliminates infrared contamination that starts at around 750-800nm. But there’s a little sliver of far red, just below that range, that, if amplified, shows up in certain types of synthetic fabrics and clothing dyes.

What’s the best way to amplify a color like far red? Put a filter in front of the lens that blocks visible light, requiring the stop on the lens to be opened. Opening the stop brings the level of visible light back to normal but boosts far red, because far red was never cut to begin with.

That filter is called a neutral density filter. You may have heard of it. Other than a polarizer there is probably no type of filter that is more used in front of lenses.

ND filters block visible light only. They have no effect on non-visible light. The stronger the ND filter, the more visible light is blocked and the more the lens stop is opened to compensate—which lets in more far red.

Let’s look at some actual pictures on the next page…

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •

RED MX IR Tests: The New Sensor is Similar to the Old Sensor

RED says that their new sensor is more resistant to IR contamination than their original sensor. This test shows that, while there may be an improvement, IR is still an issue. Fortunately all the usual IR filter solutions work just fine.

As every filter manufacturer profiled here has, at one time or another, given me filters to test and then let me keep them, I’m not going to tell you which filters I think work the best. I’m going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

First, some notes about the test:

(1) The daylight and tungsten tests were shot under tungsten lighting to ensure a full spectrum hot source. The tungsten source (a small Chimera containing a Tota-lite) was covered with full CTB for the daylight tests.

(2) The camera was set at EI 800 but with Flut set at +1 to reduce the EI to 400, which is probably where I’m going to rate the MX when I shoot with it. The effective EI was 400.

(3) I white balanced every clip using the color picker in Red-Cine X and selected the top left label on the chart.

(4) As Red-Cine X didn’t always do a consistent job of white balancing I exported the clips to ProRes4444, brought them into Final Cut Pro and white balanced again using the color picker on FCP’s three-way color corrector.

(5) I then output the results to a Quicktime file encoded using the Animation codec, to avoid H.264 gamma problems, and then converted that file into the MP4 that you’ll be viewing using Adobe Media Encoder.

The filters tested were:

Daylight (tungsten plus CTB):

(1) No filter

(2) ND .30

(3) ND .60

(4) ND .90

(5) ND .90 plus Tiffen Hot Mirror

(6) ND .90 plus Tiffen IR Hot Mirror (combination of Tiffen Hot Mirror and Tiffen T1)

(7) ND .90 plus Schneider 750

(8) ND .90 plus Formatt Hot Mirror

(9) ND .90 plus Schneider 680 (not on the market, and vignettes horribly, but cuts IR better than anything else and is a great control)

Tungsten:

(1) No filter

(2) ND .30

(3) ND .60

(4) ND .90

(5) ND .90 plus Tiffen Hot Mirror

(6) ND .90 plus Tiffen IR Hot Mirror

(7) ND .90 plus Schneider 750

(8) ND .90 plus Formatt HM

(9) ND .90 plus Schneider 680

(10) ND .90 plus Tiffen 80D Hot Mirror

(11) ND .90 plus Tiffen 80C Hot Mirror

I’ve put the video in its own space in order to show it at the largest resolution PVC allows, which is with a width of 900 pixels. At smaller sizes color contamination from the PVC color scheme can skew the results. Note that IR pollutes both the red and blue color channels: red wins under daylight, but blue edges slightly ahead of red under tungsten light.

With all that said, click the link to view the test results and make up your own mind.

NOTE: It has been pointed out to me that the “+1” on the slate seems to indicate a Flut level of +1, which would indicate ISO 1600. Rather I used it to indicate that I was overexposing one stop from ISO 800, and not as an indication of Flut setting.

Thanks to Adam Wilt for his assistance and the use of his RED ONE MX for this test.

Art Adams is a director of photography who rarely sees (infra) red. His website is at http://www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Post Production •Production •Tips •Training •

Step into the Matrix: What I Learned from Examining RED’s Build 30 Color Science

Comparing the RED ONE “M” and the RED ONE “MX” in Adam Wilt’s office.

The RED ONE MX is finally here, and it looks great—better than it should, considering that RED says that it hasn’t changed the colorimetry of its sensors, only its sensitivity and noise levels. How could software alone make such a huge difference? I found out… the hard way.

A while back I wrote about an apparent flaw in the original RED ONE’s colorimetry that added blue to any color containing green under tungsten light, making the RED ONE truly a daylight-balanced camera if one desired bright accurate colors. As of Build 30, though, the RED ONE’s color quality improved dramatically, and the blue/green contamination problem seemingly disappeared. Colors photographed under tungsten light now appear slightly richer than those photographed under daylight, and the overall color is much more pleasing and accurate under any color temperature.

RED says the color filters on its MX sensor are the same as on its M sensor, although some say that the dramatic improvement in color science implies that this is not the case. Did RED change its sensor more than they’ve led us to believe, or did they effect these spectacular changes in software only? I had to find out for myself, and with Adam Wilt’s help I was able to photograph the same test chart, at roughly the same time, under both tungsten and daylight light sources with RED ONE M and MX cameras.

The results are a bit… surprising.

Turn the page for the prologue to our technical journey…

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •Visual Effects •

Lighting Against The Wind: The Making of a Mime Music Video

In the last two years I’ve often described myself as a “reel-building whore.” If I’m asked to do a low-budget and “reel worthy” freebie by a trusted director/collaborator I jump at the challenge. When director Ian McCamey asked me to shoot a freebie music video with three interactive mimes who were all played by the same actress, I couldn’t say no.

About six weeks ago the band Pink Martini announced a contest: anyone who wished could make a music video for one of the songs on the band’s newest album, and the winner would become the official promotional video for the album.  The winner would also be flown to Nice, France for a live concert, which is nice and all, but we just wanted to stretch ourselves and show the world what we could pull for virtually nothing.

Enter Nanishka Camberos, actress extraordinaire. Nanishka is one of Ian’s favorite actress friends, and with good reason: she’s very talented and very humble, which is a wonderful combination. She had to learn two different choreographed routines that were perfectly timed so that the points of interaction aligned perfectly. (One visual effects moment required her to hand sunglasses to herself!)

After several weeks of choreography we secured The Producer’s Loft for a single day of production, and our small but dedicated crew descended on the stage and worked feverishly to make the project a reality. Here’s the semi-final result:

The Producer’s Loft was perfect for this project as it has a moderately-sized lighting/grip package that works for most everything you’d shoot on a small stage.

There’s still some visual effects cleanup to be done but 95% of the video is complete. Turn the page to read how we pulled this off on a limited budget and with very few resources…

Filed under:

A Cine Gear Find: TechScout Touch

It was in the LightGear booth at Cine Gear that I first saw TechScout Touch. “You can create your lighting order using this one iPhone app,” said the sales rep, “and send the order straight to the rental house.”

“That’s great,” I said, “but I don’t live in LA, and the odds are pretty slim that I’m going to use your rental house for a Northern California job.”

“No, you don’t get it,” she said. “This app simply creates an email containing an equipment list. You can send it to any rental house you want, or your gaffer… whoever!”

That’s when she had my undivided attention.

Litegear makes a number of very interesting specialized lighting products, the most fun of which is LiteRibbon. This is a string of LEDs laid on a strip of double-stick tape and controlled by an optional hand-held flicker-free dimmer box. It’s a very versatile product: Litegear employees made a custom soft light out of a pizza box by cutting a hole in the cover, taping diffusion across the hole, and covering the bottom of the box with LiteRibbon LEDs. Another lighting gag utlized LiteRibbon LEDs attached to the back of a piece of stiff milky plastic, with the LEDs facing the back surface, resulting in a very thin, soft and lightweight light source.

But it was the iPhone app that got my attention. I don’t have an iPhone, as I can’t be bothered to switch my service to AT&T, but I do have an iPod Touch that is loaded with cinematography programs that I use regularly on scouts and while shooting: PCam, PocketLD, MatchLens and Helios, among others. But I hadn’t found any portable apps that match the functionality of On-Set Office until I stumbled upon the Litegear booth and was shown TechScout Touch almost as an afterthought.

The program is wonderfully simple. Find the instrument you want to order and then touch “+” until you’ve ordered the number of units necessary. Then choose who should receive the list and the application sends them an email.

That’s it. Easy to use, fast and efficient–what we look for in all of our tools. My only criticism is that this app lacks photometric information: a combination of TechScout Touch and PocketLD would be the perfect lighting app for a DP.

TechScout Touch functions on both iPhones and iPod Touches. The price: free. What are you waiting for?

Art Adams is a DP who likes issuing orders by email. His website is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •

GearNex: The Next Generation of Gear Head

GearNex co-owner Bret Allen, S.O.C. shows off the latest generation of his award-winning gear head at Cine Gear 2010.

Sacramento start-up GearNex surprised the industry last year by bringing a small, affordable and very functional gear head to market. It was mostly worth the asking price at the time. Now the price has gone up–and it’s a better deal than ever.

I stumbled across GearNex’s newest gear head at the Filmtools booth during my second day at CineGear. The head looked the same as I remembered when I used it on my Rambus job last December, but as soon as I took the wheels for a spin my jaw dropped and I turned on GearNex’s Bret Allen, S.O.C. with a look of rage not seen since Medusa accidentally stumbled into the House of Mirrors at a fair in ancient Greece:

“YOU’VE BEEN HOLDING OUT ON ME!”

And indeed he had. The head I’d used six months ago was good, but not yet perfect: the gears bound a little when the head was tilted severely up or down, and the gear ratios were a bit off: one speed was fine, the other way too slow. It was a great tool for the price (around US$5,000) because the next option was an Arrihead at $60,000, but it was definitely a first generation tool. I’d used it and really enjoyed it, but I did have some feedback as to how it could be better.

And GearNex listened.

The gears are now twice as fast as the first generation and they feel just right. In addition, there’s a new “slip” mode that will help operators with fast pans: Panaheads and Arriheads allow the operator to grab the rear wheel and push the head quickly left or right, and the pan wheel spins into high gear until the pan ends–often when the operator grabs the pan wheel and brings it to a smooth stop. The GearNex head allows the operator to loosen a friction lock and spin the head in a similar way but without spinning the pan wheel. Simply push the tilt wheel in the direction you want to go, and when the move stops the pan wheel is ready for action.

The Arrihead’s tilt wheel is hinged so it can be pushed off to the right of where it usually sits, creating extra space for the operator when working in tight quarters. GearNex offers a 3” extension ($750) that shifts the tilt wheel left or right, for tight spaces, or straight down if your camera’s length causes it to dip dangerously low when tilting full up.

GearNex also offers a new tilt plate that attaches not only to their head but to ANY standard head or cheese plate:

But nothing I’ve mentioned so far is as important as what I’m going to tell you now:

This thing is SMOOTH.

The gearing has been completely reworked using custom manufacturing, and the gears themselves are polished with a special coating that allows them to move smoothly and effortlessly. The first generation felt like a cheap version of an Arrihead or Panahead, which it was; this version feels exactly like an Arrihead or Panahead. It’s perfect. If you tried the old GearNex head and thought it was pretty good, try the new head and prepare to be amazed.

The new version, with the faster and smoother gearing, is $7,500. It’s worth it, much more so than when the head was $5,000. If you were on the fence before, get off the fence and place your order. GearNex offers current owners the opportunity to upgrade to the new gearing for $1,500.

Videography Magazine awarded GearNex its Best of Show Award at this year’s NAB, and if you can tolerate a minute of really annoying ads then watch Bret Allen demo his product for FreshDV below:

freshdv_nab10_gearnex

And here’s a video review by camera operator Robert Reed Altman:

And you can read about my experiences with the first generation head here and here.

Art Adams is a DP/operator who likes to spin his wheels. His website is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Editing •Lighting •Post Production •Production •Training •Visual Effects •

VFX Tell the Story in California State Fair Spots

A bit of prior planning, some clever visual effects and a new RED software build help a talented production team get maximum bang for minimum bucks.

Not long ago I wrote about some PSAs that I shot for an organization called WEAVE. Directed by Ian McCamey, and made possible on a low budget through generous contributions of equipment and stage space by Adam Wilt and his employer Meets the Eye, these :30 PSAs won several regional Addy Awards and prompted the agency to ask Ian to direct several spots for the California State Fair. The budget was low for what they wanted to do but it wasn’t impossible, and it was another chance to strut my stuff with a budding and very talented director.

Ian and I first met through his former boss, Stu Maschwitz, while Ian was a visual effects editor at The Orphanage. I’d mentioned on the Cinematography Mailing List that I was looking for directors to work with on creative spec spots and Stu responded and introduced me to Ian. That introduction led to spec spots for Porsche, Lego and Facebook, with an upcoming spot for Abilify as well as a spec music video for Pink Martini (currently in post). With the dissolution of The Orphanage Ian is now directing full time.

Ian has wonderful sensibilities and a very down-to-earth working style, so it’s very easy for me to bounce ideas off of him and enhance his ideas with mine.

Before I go on I should probably show you the spots:

The :15 versions of these spots have been running in Sacramento theaters in front of Iron Man 2 for a couple of weeks. The: 30 versions will air starting in late June. Turn the page for a behind-the-scenes and inside-the-brains look at how we pulled off this shoot in one day…

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Tips •Training •

Everyone Looks Sexy at 1000fps

One of my favorite clients recently pitched a project that requires shooting high-speed footage at 1000fps. To help them sell the concept I shot some tests comparing the RED ONE at 120 and 100fps to the Phantom HD Gold at 1000fps.

Chater Camera kindly let me aim both cameras out their shop’s roll-up door and roll some footage. Here’s Jay Farrington, DIT extraordinaire and co-owner of Chater Camera, waving a piece of bubble wrap out front of his facility. This was shot on a RED ONE in 4K HD at 24fps:

I think you’ll agree with me that Jay is poetry in motion.

The RED ONE will do 100fps in 2K 16:9 mode, so let’s see what that looks like:

Not bad. But 120fps is where things get a bit more interesting, so here’s the RED ONE in 2K 2:1 mode at 120fps:

The RED will do 120fps only in 2k 2:1 mode. The slight letterbox shows the reduced image area from 2K 16:9 mode.

Notice how each shot gets tighter. I’m using the same lens for each of these but the portion of the sensor used decreases as the RED’s frame rate moves beyondcertain limits. The frame rate is determined by a number of factors, including how fast data can be read off the sensor and throughput, and the RED seems to solve those problems by reducing the active area of the sensor and storing 2K data instead of 4K. The RED’s 2K modes are slightly softer than 1920x1080 footage from other cameras, but with a bit of post sharpening 2K can look pretty nice.

The annoying bit is that the depth of field appears too deep when looking through the center of a lens, because the focal length of the lens remains the same but the angle of view tightens. The result is the kind of depth of field you’d see when shooting 16mm film or with a 2/3” video camera. Worse yet, you have to use a really wide lens for wide shots because an 18mm lens will give you the angle of view of a 35mm lens when rolling in 2K mode—but the depth of field will be the same as an 18mm lens!

The Phantom doesn’t have this problem because it uses the full sensor frame when rolling at 1000fps. Beyond that it has to use less of the frame for the same reasons that the RED does.

Here’s the Phantom HD Gold at 1000fps:

Note that I saved the most graceful speed for myself. There’s a reason for that: at 1000fps the most interesting motions are the most spastic, which works well for me.

The reason you see the data overlaid on the image is that we recorded the Phantom’s HD-SDI output to ProRes using a KiPro data recorder. This is a popular way to use the Phantom as it saves time and money in post. The camera normally records data to a Digimag, which has an astounding number of connectors on its underside to facilitate the rapid transfer of image data. It’s easy to play back clips from the camera, but not so easy to get the raw data off the Digimag: the rule of thumb is that a gigabyte of raw Phantom data takes a minute to transfer over gigabit Ethernet, so downloading a 256gb Digimag will take close to three hours. Then it has to be debayered (Glue Tools is a popular app for this) and color corrected.

It’s common to trim the clips in the camera so you’re keeping only the best part of each take, or simply delete bad takes, in order to minimize raw data download time.

Or you can get the look as close as possible in the camera, record the playback output—without the data overlaid—and walk away with a ProRes file ready for editing. That’s what we’re going to do on this shoot. We left the telemetry on for this test because we wanted to impress the client a bit, and I thought it would be useful to show you what kind of information the camera outputs. You can see the current camera state is displayed in the top left corner (“PLAY” for playback); the mag ID is in the top center, and the frame number is on the top right. The lower left shows the camera mode, which indicates that we’ve defined a 2k “stage” upon which we’re capturing a 1920x1080 frame; next over is the frame rate; the shutter angle is 180 degrees; the lower middle shows the timeline with the trigger point; I have no idea what “72s/72s” is; and “4351” is the total number of frames captured.

Although we originally captured 4,351 frames I’m only showing you about 1000 frames in this clip. That’s about one second of real time. The full clip captured four seconds of real time and plays back in a little over three minutes.

This camera has a 16gb buffer that is always capturing data: the camera is always “rolling.” Because of this you can set the trigger point—the point where you tell the camera to actually record the image, either by hitting a button on the camera or on the attached laptop controller—anywhere on that 16gb buffer timeline that you want. That long horizontal line on the bottom of the frame represents the Phantom’s buffer, and the little arrow underneath it indicates where the trigger point is set on that timeline.

At 1000fps the Phantom’s 16gb buffer can record four seconds of real time action, and you can trigger the recording at the beginning of that four second window, at the end (capturing the previous four seconds of data running through the buffer), or anywhere in the middle. If you are shooting a water droplet falling onto a surface, for example, you might set the trigger point 2/3 of the way through the shot: your reaction time might be a bit slow, so if you trigger the recording just after the water droplet impact then you’ll record 2/3 of your shot before the trigger push and 1/3 after. With any luck, assuming your reaction time is a little slow, you’ll capture half the shot before and half after the droplet impact.

During playback the trigger indicator moves along the timeline to show the clip’s current playback position.

For the project I’m about to shoot we need to capture three ten-second segments per spot—and ten seconds of playback time equals about 1/4 second of real time capture. So every action we shoot is going to have to occur over the course of 1/4 second.

Yikes!

Like most electronic cameras, I have the option of turning the Phantom’s shutter almost completely off (359 degrees, where off is 360). This buys me another stop of light, which is very helpful: at 1000fps, with the Phantom rated at EI 250 (which is roughly where the “sweet spot” of exposure is) and with no shutter engaged, I’ll need 833fc of light for a stop of T2! I normally light to somewhere between 20fc and 50fc for normal shoots, and I’m going to need about four plus stops more light for this job, with every additional stop doubling the amount of light. With a 180 degree shutter I’d need 1600fc of light! For high speed tabletop work that’s no big deal as you’re only lighting a set about 1’ square, but I’m lighting 16’x16’ and 20’x20’ sets containing people.

I’m not worried about blurry edges as and exposure time of 1/1000th sec. is pretty darned fast.

To determine how much light I need for “optimal” exposure at a given F-stop, I extrapolated using this basic formula:

EI 100 at 24fps and 180 degree shutter = 100fc at T2.8

For example, at EI 200 you’d need 50fc at T2.8; at EI 100 and 48fps you’d need 200fc for a T2.8.

If these kinds of calculations make your brain hurt, or if you just want to check your math, go get David Eubank’s excellent PCam application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I bought my iPod Touch specifically to run programs like this.

Fortunately I won’t need 833fc of light overall: in a day exterior I can use bright spotted lights to create streaks of “sunlight” that are a stop or so brighter at 1600fc, and fill with 400fc or less. For night shots I can use even less fill. Fill light is going to be my biggest issue because I like my fill sources large, soft and mostly invisible. I’ll need to bounce or diffuse big lights to make that happen. Streaks of “sunlight” are easier as it’s not too difficult to spot in a 10k and aim it properly.

I’ll be using maxi brutes for most of the lighting, along with some 10k’s and 5k’s and some “firestarter” VNSP (for “very narrow spot”) tungsten PARs. (Walk closely across the beam of a “firestarter” and you’ll quickly discover how they got that name.) The PARs and the maxi brutes are great brute force lights but they have small filaments, and small filaments tend to dim a little bit as AC current switches direction. As a rule, anything less than a 5k tungsten bulb will appear to flicker at 1000fps when powered by alternating current, but maxi brutes and firestarters are cheap and efficient ways to light broad areas quickly so we’re renting a DC generator to avoid the flicker problem. DC power doesn’t alternate direction, so the dimming problem is eliminated. There’s still a little “ripple” in the voltage as we’re using a rectified DC generator that converts AC to DC, instead of a generator that creates pure DC current, so my gaffer checked with a DP who used this generator recently in the same way we are and he reported that he had no problems with flicker. (HMIs are right out as even flicker-free ballasts will cause the light to flicker unpleasantly at 1000fps. The max speed for HMI use is 120fps.)

I did a lot of homework to make sure I can do what I need to do with the lighting instruments I have available. Following Cinematography Mailing List owner

DP Geoff Boyle’s advice to “do the math” when lighting large areas, or lighting very small areas very brightly, I went to Mole-Richardson’s website and looked up some specs. For example, here’s some valuable information as to how much light their Baby 10k puts out:

The stage we’re shooting on isn’t that big, so knowing that I can get 3200fc out of that light at 20’ gives me a lot of confidence that it will give me the hot “sunlight” streaks that I want. I’ll be happy with 1600fc, as that gives me an extra stop of illumination and sunlight always looks better when it’s a little overexposed.

The 12-light maxi brutes that we’re going to use are similar to this Mole light:

Medium flood bulbs that give us 4400fc at 20’ will translate into a nice soft bright bounce source.

This shoot promises to be awesome, and I can’t wait to show off the footage. Hopefully I’ll be able to do so in a few weeks. Stay tuned!

Art Adams is a DP who works quickly no matter what the frame rate. His website is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Production •Visual Effects •

The Tiger Lillies Finally Set Sail

Back in November 2009 I spent three days with director Mark Holthusen, producer Jason Santos, camera assistant Adam Wilt and a cast of dozens on the Meets the Eye stage in San Carlos, CA. There we set sail with the Tiger Lillies for their interpretation of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” and then we waited months for Mark to work his pictorial magic. He didn’t let us down. Here it is:

If you prefer, you can watch it in Flash on BoingBoing.net, where it was featured today.

Read the behind-the-scenes article here.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

Random Tips from a Professional Camera Operator

Teaching the craft of camera operating is extremely difficult to do well, so I’m going to do it half-assed and give you some random tips that may help you along in your career.

My childhood dream was to be a camera operator. I wanted to be the person looking through the camera and framing a shot. While I would have enjoyed having a long career as an operator, I entered the business at a time when operators were a dying breed, and the only people guaranteed careers as operators were Steadicam operators. I wasn’t particularly interested in doing that, so I moved towards being a director of photography faster than I had expected. Most of the shoots I do don’t require, or won’t hire, an operator, so in a way I’m still a career operator. I just get to light the shots as well as operate them.

No one taught me how to be an operator. At a young age I found myself drawn to strong compositions in certain TV shows and movies, and I sought to emulate those compositions with my Regular 8mm film camera. Over time I learned, through trial and error and the occasional tip from those more experienced than I, how to move the camera predictably and repeatedly.

There’s a lot more to being an operator than skill in moving the camera. It’s a very political job as well. I’ll address some of both aspects in this article.

LEARN THE GEARED HEAD

I really enjoy working with geared heads, although I rarely get to use them anymore. Most of my projects can’t afford to rent one for me. Hopefully this will change with the advent of the Gearnex geared head, which I’ve now used on several shoots.

The geared head offers an incredible amount of control over camera moves, especially dolly moves. For some reason it’s very easy to match pan and tilt speeds to a dolly move by spinning wheels rather than moving a pan handle around. The wheels also offer a wide range of possibilities from very subtle adjustments to aggressive camera moves that stop on a dime.

There are a couple of ways to learn the wheels:

(1) Buy, rent or borrow a geared head and strap a laser pointer to it: learn to write your name in light on a wall.

Although this is the most commonly recommend way of learning the wheels, I’m skeptical of this method as it teaches you to write your name in light on a wall—which is something you’ll never do. In my career—approaching 23 years in the film industry—I’ve only once had to follow text with a geared head, while operating second camera on a feature called “No Way Back.” A gang member spray painted words onto the side of a tunnel, and I had to follow his writing in third gear, with no rehearsal, on an 85mm lens. I nailed it, and I’d never done anything like that before.

So, having said that, I’d recommend skipping this technique and moving on to the next two tricks, which I think will help you considerably more:

(2) Buy, rent or borrow a geared head and strap camera to it: follow people around.

Learning to read, and react to, body language is a huge part of operating a camera. You’ll get a lot farther faster if you learn to follow people around and interpret body movement and language through the wheels than you will simply learning the craft of moving the wheels, which is what the laser pointer technique teaches.

(3) In the absence of a geared head, train your brain to do the right thing.

Around the time that I wanted to learn the geared head I read an interesting scientific study. Two high school basketball teams were told to practice plays in different ways: one physically executed the plays for one hour every day for a week, and the other team thought about executing the plays for one hour every day for a week. In the end both teams improved, and they improved about the same amount. Apparently thinking about executing physical moves can have some practical benefit to actually learning those moves.

At the time I was sporadically practicing my geared head moves while working on a TV series. I was a camera assistant, and at lunch I followed the art department around as they redressed the set. I couldn’t do this consistently, though, and reading about this study gave me an idea.

Whenever I watched TV I moved my hands as if I was operating a geared head and executing the move I saw on TV. As the camera moved on the TV, I moved my hands to follow:

Right hand: clockwise (top of wheel rotates to the right) to tilt up, counterclockwise (top of wheel rotates to the left) to tilt down.

Left hand: counterclockwise (top of wheel rotates away) to pan right, clockwise (top of wheel rotates toward me) to pan left.

After a few weeks of TV practice I did a LOT better the next time I got my hands on a geared head.

WHEN IN DOUBT, KEEP MOVING

There are times when responsiveness is the key to getting a shot, usually in a situation where you’re shooting either very emotional or action-packed material. Keeping your hands moving a little bit on the wheels, in the case of a geared head, or keeping your hand in motion on the pan handle, in the case of a fluid head, can speed up your responsiveness. I learned this trick originally from a sound mixer, who always wiggled his hands on the mixer knobs during takes. I asked him why, and he told me that it is much easier to move your hands quickly in response to a loud noise if they are already moving. If your hands are standing still it can take longer to react. He never wiggled his hands on the knobs enough to affect sound levels, but if he had to turn them quickly his hands were already in motion.

Later I saw camera operators on features and sitcoms doing the same thing: keeping their hands moving on the wheels just a little bit, so their hands were already in motion if they needed to make an adjustment. I’ve discovered the same trick works with fluid heads: by moving my hand around a little bit on the pan handle without moving the camera, my response times increase dramatically.

HALF OF OPERATING IS KNOWING WHEN NOT TO MOVE THE CAMERA

Just because you can move the camera doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes the strongest frames are the ones that move the least and allow action to play within their borders.

A lot of this is about body language. I’ve noticed that most people tend to move around a central point: if they’re sitting at a desk, for example, they’ll sit in one position for a while, then lean in across the desk, then lean back, and return to the original position. If they do this fast enough, and you have a wide enough frame, you don’t really have to move the camera. You can let them “play the frame,” although you have to be limber and watch for the unexpected.

“Micro operating” is the habit some operators have of reacting to every small movement, even an eye twitch or slight head turn. This style is appropriate for certain things, and whether you employ this style or the “less is more” style has a lot to do with who you’re working for.

The bottom line, though, is that just because you’re an operator doesn’t mean that you need to move the camera to prove your worth. I once heard a producer complaining to a DP that the grip and electric departments stood around during takes, and he hated that he was paying them to stand around. The DP corrected him: “You’re not paying them to stand around; you’re paying them to do exactly the right thing at the right time.” The same is true of an operator: there’s no shame in not moving the camera as long as your moves are proper when you make them.

My personal style is to find static frames that play for long periods of time, and then when I do move the camera I simply move from one composition to another. This isn’t appropriate for everything and I have to adjust when necessary, but left to my own devices this is the kind of style that I prefer. I call it the “David Lean” approach: the compositions in his films are like paintings, and the camera rarely simply follows someone. When the camera moves it is typically making a transition from one “painting” to another.

BODY LANGUAGE IS OUR FRIEND

Human beings often physically telegraph what they are about to do, and over time one can get a feel for an actor’s movements and predict what they may do next, and where.

This works well with sudden movements. I’ve become very good at being able to tell how far an actor will jump, for example, by having an innate sense of how far they can move in one step for someone their height. If an actor is moving suddenly in one direction or another it can be easier to move the camera to where I feel their end point will be rather than try to follow them. For someone like myself, whose reflexes are okay but not great, I can make up for my lack of reflex speed with my excellent sense of timing. Instead of following fast action I often focus on properly timing the start of my move and then moving the camera a set distance at a set speed, based on rehearsals or gut feeling. This works very well, although it takes a certain amount of faith at times.

Most operators will tell you that the hardest shot to execute is someone standing up from a sitting position. This is absolutely true. Practice, practice, practice.

FEEDBACK

I find that I operate a fluid head better when one hand operates the head and the other is placed around the base of the head, where I can sense panning movement, or on the tripod or dolly. Having that point of reference, either in feeling the head rotate or having a solid surface against which I can judge movement, aids me considerably, particularly on dolly moves where one can become “lost in the move” and not quite know visually what affect your movements are having on the camera because everything is moving.

WEIGHT DISTRIBUTION

One key advantage of a geared head is that it divorces your mass from the camera’s movement. In the event of the dolly coming to a sudden stop, your body may want to continue down the track. As long as the gear head wheels don’t turn, though, the camera won’t follow your body. This can be more difficult with a fluid head, but it’s definitely possible if you can distribute and brace your weight through three points of contact with the dolly. If you’re sitting, plant your feet firmly, or find a comfortable sitting position, and then put your upper body weight onto your left hand, which should be placed somewhere near the camera (around the base of the fluid head, or the boom arm itself). The idea is that your weight is firmly planted between your legs and that hand resting on the dolly, leaving your panning hand free to operate the camera.

This works in a standing position as well, where your weight is spread out between your legs and your left arm. The right arm, controlling the camera, can do what it wants.

Over time you’ll learn to completely divorce your panning arm from the movements of your body. I’ve gotten to the point where I can operate a 180-degree or greater move on a fluid head while climbing over a dolly. My body does one thing while my panning arm does another.

COMPOSITIONS DON’T HAVE TO BE BALANCED

In a 1980’s movie entitled “The Hit,” two characters have a conversation at the base of a lighthouse. The camera is on the ground looking up and the bulk of the lighthouse dominates the dead center of the frame. One character is leaning against a car in the foreground on frame left, and the right side of the frame is empty.

Over the course of this shot the character in frame has a conversation with a character who is not in the frame. The off-balance framing creates a lot of tension until the very end of the scene, where the other character steps into the empty part of the frame and balances the composition.

This little scene showed me that compositions take place not just in space but in time as well. Keeping a frame unbalanced for a period of time can build dramatic tension, and later completing the composition can release it. I’m constantly looking for opportunities to do this.

There’s another style of composition that frames for an object, such as a building or architectural feature, that focuses attention by introducing something else that just doesn’t seem to belong. Imagine a distant shot of the Taj Mahal, symmetrically framed down the center of the reflecting pool, and then introduce a single person into the environment anywhere in the frame. No matter how small that person is, as long as they are visible we will be drawn to look at them because they are the one thing that’s out of place in an otherwise perfectly balanced composition.

ADJUST THE CAMERA, NOT THE ACTOR

Sometimes actors miss their marks consistently, and it’s almost always easier to move the camera to restore the composition than it is to try to move the actor’s mark. Let them miss their mark consistently rather than giving them a new mark to miss. At least they’ll end up in the same place every time, and you have more control over the camera that you do over them.

If you do need to move an actor in order to get a better shot, and there’s more than one actor in the shot, don’t move the star if you can help it. I learned that lesson the hard way once. Move the lesser actor.

WALK THE SET

Half of the operator’s job is to make sure the right things are composed properly in the frame at the right time. The other half of the operator’s job is to keep everything else out. With experience this becomes easier and easier: I can walk into a room and immediately notice the glass-covered pictures on the wall that are miniature mirrors that I have to keep myself out of; the shiny surfaces in which the boom and boom operator will be reflected; and several vertical objects such as floor lamp stands that will make certain angles detrimental for closeups unless the actor is supposed to have a light growing out of them.

Other things are sneakier, and it’s always a good idea to walk the set and look for things that you may not immediately pick up by looking through the camera, such as cables and C-stand legs. It can also be helpful to look at the set with your eyes, free of the viewfinder, and see what you may have missed detecting. I remember shooting a shot that started on a glass table, and the reflection in the table surface was so strong that I didn’t notice the furniture pad laying underneath it until someone else, using only their eyes, pointed it out to me.

There was an old TV series called “Beauty and the Beast” whose art department always tried to hide a small red toy lobster on the set.

LOOK AROUND THE VIEWFINDER

You have two eyes for a reason. You may think the reason is to judge distance, but that’s your assistant’s job. One eye is buried in the viewfinder, but the other eye should be scanning whatever you can see of the set. This is helpful in anticipating moves that happen when an actor enters frame; it’s also helpful in determining whether the dolly is starting or stopping a subtle move.

Film cameras required having an eye on the eyepiece at all times to prevent light from passing through the eyepiece and fogging the film. In HD that’s not a problem, so if you need to occasionally look up from the viewfinder to look around the set, feel free. Just make sure the camera doesn’t move while you’re doing so.

FOCUS IS YOUR PROBLEM TOO

A good assistant will have a sense when a shot is or isn’t in focus, but the operator is the one who is supposed to KNOW. (In the film world, if shots are consistently out of focus, it’s 50/50 whether the operator or the assistant is replaced.) This isn’t always possible, so a low-level running dialog with your assistant is often a good thing. In the past I’ve tried to grab the focus knob to dial in focus on a soft shot, but camera assistants don’t relinquish that knob easily and misunderstand what you’re trying to do. Instead a whispered “You’re on her ear!” is all that is needed for an assistant to fix a buzzed shot.

Don’t let assistants pull focus off the on-board monitor if at all possible. It’s impossible to accurately follow action in space when looking at a 2D surface. Monitors are good for checking focus on a stopped object, and compensating if necessary, and for figuring out where focus should be at any given time. Following focus has to be done the old-fashioned way: watching where the camera is in relation to the actors and turning the focus barrel to match.

If an assistant tries to follow action using the on-board monitor I’ll usually just grab the focus knob and do it myself. I started out in film but I’ve shot a lot of one-man video, and I’m usually better at that than they are.

LEARN WHEN THE RULES DON’T APPLY

A while back I did a shoot where the producer’s friend, an older cameraman who had gotten out of the business, came along to hang out, feel the vibe of the set, and see if he wanted to get back into the business.

He sat at the monitor by the director and spent the entire time critiquing my compositions. I’d have a gorgeous composition arranged, with a brooding sky overhead and an actor walking solemnly across the very bottom of the frame, and I’d see this cameraman lean over and whisper in the director’s ear. “Less headroom,” the director would yell, and I had to reframe so that there was a “normal” amount of headroom over the actor’s head.

This cameraman had a very traditional sense of composition, whereas I’ve been pushing the boundaries for a while now. My career goal is to shoot spots full time, and well-shot commercials are typically on the compositional forefront. I found myself hobbled by his sensibilities, although why the director was listening to the director’s buddy over his hired director of photography was another question entirely.

The rules are made to be broken. Learn them, and then start looking for ways to break them. And then find people to work with who trust your instincts.

OVER-THE-SHOULDER SHOTS

Matching over-the-shoulder shots are a staple of this business, and it takes a while to learn how to do them well. I find that an easy and interesting way to frame such a shot is to include not only the side of the foreground actor’s head and neck but a piece of their shoulder as well. The other actor is then framed by the “V” formed by the foreground actor’s body, and eye lines tend to match perfectly.

If the camera is on a dolly, turn the wheels and leave them unlocked so that you can push it left or right if needed. If an actor lands in the wrong spot you can then nudge the dolly one way or the other to save the shot. Camera sliders are built for exactly this purpose.

USE THE CROSSHAIRS AND FRAME MARKERS FOR REFERENCE

I use frame markings all the time for one thing or another. They’re great to use as reference marks for shots of people and things entering the frame. During the rehearsal it’s simple to find the opening frame, see where the crosshair is, and remember that spot. I can then place the camera precisely without having to see the actor start in frame.

Sometimes when I’m following someone, and I have a strong end frame, at some point I’ll stop watching the actor’s movement and focus on putting the crosshair or the corner markers on a landmark that brings me to the end frame. If the actor lands on their mark then I’ve got my good solid end frame, although I have to be ready in case they go somewhere else.

FIND THE PAYOFF OF THE SHOT

I always set dolly tracks in reverse. I find my end frame first and then find a beginning frame that works well enough. In my mind the end of a shot is where the payoff is, and if I can finesse that final mark to perfection then I can almost always find a good opening frame easily.

DON’T PUT YOURSELF AT RISK

Camera operator is one of the most dangerous positions on any set. You’re the only one who can’t easily see spacial relationships, and while that car coming straight at you may look cool it may also hit you.

I heard a story about a famous Shotmaker crash in Arizona, where the driver used bad judgment in driving fast down a mountain road and couldn’t make a turn. Several people were killed when the Shotmaker rolled, including the camera operators, and the AD was paralyzed from the waist down. I spoke to the AD years after that happened, and he said that the last thing he remembered, before waking up in the hospital, was the Shotmaker turning onto its side—and the two camera operators, who had no idea what was going on, tilting their cameras to compensate for the roll, still following the picture car behind them.

The camera operator is the only person on the set who can’t judge distance. Make sure someone who can judge distance is ready to pull you to safety, and make sure you know which direction you’re doing to go if they do pull you so that you can help them out by leaning or kicking in the right direction.

Whenever you put yourself into a dangerous situation you must have confidence that those around you will be looking out for your safety and aren’t putting you at risk unnecessarily. This is especially true of stunt people: they have a very high tolerance for adrenaline, and have no problem putting themselves into dangerous situations. That’s fine for them because that’s their job and they love it, but that’s probably not what you signed up for, so if they tell you that you’re safe five feet away from a stunt, double that and make it ten feet. They’re paid to risk their lives; you’re not.

It usually falls to the grip crew to ensure that the operator is safe, and if you don’t feel that they are looking out for you then don’t put yourself in a dangerous position. A good grip crew will be overcautious, and you should be extraordinarily grateful for that. For example, it’s typical for a grip to hold onto your belt, or wrap you in a safety harness and hold onto it, when shooting car stunts so that they can pull you out of the way in case the driver loses control of the car. I’ve been pulled away from a camera several times because the grip thought that we were going to be run over, and although the car never came quite that close and the grip apologized profusely in both cases for ruining the shot, I thanked them profusely and told them to do exactly same thing the next time. Don’t worry about ruining the shot; worry about the shot ruining your life.

I’ve seen unmanned cameras hit by cars. In one case I saw an unmanned camera hit by a fence that was hit by a car. I’ve had mentors who have seen close friends and colleagues killed on sets. Be careful. Ask questions. Express concerns.

Explosions are another tricky thing. Car explosions are very dangerous, as the trunk lid has a tendency to sail into the air if it’s not tied down. I learned that one night while shooting a car explosion: the car blew up and then smoked for about ten seconds, and we were just about to cut when a dark object passed vertically through my frame and hit the ground with a crash. The twisted metal remnants of the trunk lid landed three feet in front of my camera. The DP’s only comment: “I’m glad that didn’t hit anyone.” Make sure you work with people who are a little more concerned with your safety.

If someone is shooting blanks in the direction of the camera, make sure you and your assistant are well protected. Sometimes covering yourself in duvetine is enough, other times you’ll want some clear plexiglass material, like Lexan, to hide behind. Blanks may not shoot bullets but they do shoot wadding, and that can hurt considerably. People have been killed by blanks fired at close range.

If someone shows up on set with a real gun loaded with real ammunition, leave. Life is too short.

When an actor is handed a gun by an armorer, feel free to ask to check it yourself. If there are no shots fired in the scene then it should be unloaded. If there are shots to be fired then the gun should be loaded just before the take and the actor should not be screwing around with it. Fake guns should be treated as loaded guns at all times. If you think that’s a dumb idea then you should read about what happened to Brandon Lee.

Your life is not worth a shot. If someone wants to put you in a position where you feel you’re in unnecessary danger, always be ready to walk away. It may feel like you’ll never work again, but you will—and you’ll definitely never work again if you’re seriously injured or killed.

A LITTLE BIT OF TRIVIA

Curved track is the most ordered and least used piece of grip equipment. It’s also a huge pain. I’ve managed to create some dazzling moves that look like they’re done on curved track but are done entirely with straight track. Unless you need the camera to revolve in a perfect circle… don’t use curved track. Just don’t.

CHECK YOUR SPACE BEFORE A MOVE

There are few things that are more awkward than executing a move only to discover your pan handle or a geared head wheel hits an obstacle and ruins the shot. Rehearse the move and make sure that your body, the camera, and the pan handle or wheels won’t run out of space or jam themselves into your body during the take. Sometimes I’ll remove the pan handle in tight quarters and execute a shot just by holding onto the back of the camera.

I left out a couple of very basic tips, but fortunately DP and regular reader Graham Futerfas mentioned them in comments. I’m adding this section to present my take on his suggestions.

LEARN TO BALANCE YOUR HEAD

No, I’m not talking about neck exercises. Fluid heads offer two types of control: pan and tilt tension and counterbalance. Pan and tilt tension defines how much effort it takes to move the camera, and different shots may require different settings. For example, a tight closeup might require a little less tension, especially if the actor is moving around a lot, while a shot from a car-mounted camera might require higher tension to make the camera harder to move in the event that the camera car hits a bump. In my experience, pan and tilt tension should be set to the same setting as different settings might result in a “stair step” move: instead of smooth diagonal move up and to the right, the camera instead moves a little bit right, a little bit up, a little bit right, a little bit up… try it and you’ll quickly see what I mean.

Counterbalance is a crucial adjustment and varies depending on the weight distribution of the camera. The idea is to adjust the counterbalance, in conjunction with the pan and tilt tension, so that you can frame a shot with nearly any amount of tilt, let go of the camera, and the camera won’t move. You don’t ever want to have to fight the camera to maintain a shot: your only energy expenditure should come when actually moving the camera. This isn’t always possible with extreme angles, but for nearly everything else this is a great rule to follow. The longer you have to strain to hold a shot the more likely you won’t be able to hold the camera still. Counterbalance makes such strain largely unnecessary.

MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE AT THE END OF A TOUGH MOVE

It’s not unusual to find ourselves wrapped around a tripod or climbing around a dolly to execute a tough move. The trick is to find a body position that works for the end of the move and then wind yourself into the move for the opening shot. It’s much easier to hold an uncomfortable position at the beginning of a move than it is at the end. Make yourself into a pretzel at the beginning of the move and then unwind and relax into the final frame.

I occasionally find myself in some interesting situations where I have to start a move looking through the viewfinder sideways, or I put the viewfinder straight up so that I can hover over the camera and move it below my body for a 180-degree or greater move. As long as I position myself for the end of the shot things always work out well.

Occasionally I have to do a move that ends in an extreme tilt up or down for which it is impossible to balance the camera for the entire move. When that happens I adjust the camera balance to be neutral for the end of the move, so that I’m only fighting the camera at the beginning. Once again, it’s easier to struggle a bit at the beginning of a move than it is to struggle at the end. As long as you’re able to relax into a shot you’ll be much better off.

Art Adams is a director of photography and camera operator, and a long-time active member of the Society of Camera Operators (SOC). His website is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •

Two New Sharp-Looking Charts from DSC Labs

The first time I used a DSC Chart for color analysis I was completely blown away by the thought and cleverness that went into designing the Chroma Du Monde. Now they’ve done it again, but this time for focus.

As back focus must be set using a lens of short focal length, it can be difficult to find a focus target of appropriate contrast and detail in so wide a shot. The Siemans star has been the back focus aid of choice for decades.

According to Wikipedia, the Siemans star was originally developed to measure the resolution of imaging systems. The points of the star touch only in the center, but most systems fall short of the resolution necessary to see that point so the loss of resolution causes the lines appear to blur together into a circle around the center. The Siemens star is very good at revealing the focus setting at which it is sharpest: just adjust back focus until that blurred circle at the center appears to be the smallest it can be.

As I am occasionally an idiot I neglected to shoot a Siemens star while testing the DSC charts in this article. I’ve acquired a Siemens star graphic from Wikipedia in order to illustrate my points.

Here is a sharp Siemens star:

Notice how the Siemens star appears to have a soft round circle in the center. That shows the limiting resolution of the process I’ve put this image through in order to post it on this page. This is what you’d see when back focusing, although typically that circle would be a bit bigger when viewed through a typical HD camera. The nice thing about a Siemens star is that no matter how big it is in the frame, the goal is always to make that soft center circle as small as possible.

The problem then becomes seeing that point clearly. Sometimes the limiting resolution of a viewfinder can make it difficult to see when that soft circle is smallest in the absence of a large, sharp monitor.

One of my mentors once told me “There are no small mistakes in the camera department,” so I’m always looking for new and improved tools that replace worry with efficiency and certainty. When DSC Labs brought their two newest focus charts to my attention I became very excited indeed.

The first one is called “Fiddleheads.”

The Fiddlehead chart consists of two sets of spiraling lines whose size and spacing have been painstakingly determined to be optimum for the purpose of setting focus. During my tests I found that the spirals gave me plenty of feedback as to when I’d approached or passed the point of focus, and when the chart was fully in focus the center of the spirals “snapped” into crispness. I have a theory as to why this chart works so well, and while it deals with concepts that have made heads explode in the past I’ll try to simplify as best I can. (Believe me, that’s the only way I can grasp these concepts myself.)

Every camera’s resolution is measured in terms of horizontal and vertical resolution. Here’s how I visualize those working:

Let’s pretend that horizontal resolution is a ray that “sweeps” through the image horizontally and reports every obstacle it encounters as an element of a picture. From the drawing above we can see that horizontal resolution is going to detect vertical lines most strongly, as vertical lines are perpendicular to the way horizontal resolution “sweeps” across the frame and create the greatest impression.

Vertical resolution works the same way: it is strongest at detecting horizontal lines, because it hits them head on.

(This, by the way, is how vertical and horizontal detail circuits act. Detail circuits enhance resolution by drawing a thin black line along areas of high contrast, and vertical and horizontal detail can be individually adjusted. For example, vertical detail can be increased to emphasize eyes in a wide shot as eyes are primarily horizontal objects.)

The Siemens star works well because it’s quite simple to see the point at which a system’s resolution disappears. The Fiddlehead chart does exactly the opposite. It presents a nice solid high-contrast line against which horizontal and vertical resolution can happily smack their little heads as they sweep across the image. And, instead of trying to set focus based on a chart that shows where resolution disappears, the Fiddlehead chart helps us set focus by showing us the last point at which focus holds. That’s not a subtle difference.

Here’s what the Fiddlehead chart looks like when it snaps into focus:

The DSC Labs Fiddlehead chart as viewed by a RED ONE camera in 4k mode 16:9 and scaled down for web use.

This is a blown-up frame from the movie above.

The Fiddlehead chart doesn’t leave much room for error, which is the point.

This can be important as some cameras “cheat” resolution either by using sensors with lower horizontal resolution or by recording images with decreased horizontal resolution. I don’t have any real examples to show you so I’ve recreated some in Photoshop by adding horizontal blur to still images.

Here’s the pattern you’ll see with low horizontal resolution on a Siemens star:

Notice how what was a circle in the center of the star is now an oval.

Here’s the Fiddlehead chart under the same conditions:

Even if horizontal resolution is cheated in the system it’s still easy to see where vertical resolution is sharpest.

What’s interesting is that I had no difficulty focusing a RED ONE on a Fiddlehead chart on either a high quality large screen display or a small 7” low quality on-camera monitor. Michael Wiegand, Sales Manager at DSC Labs, recently tested the Fiddlehead chart on a number of diverse cameras and said that he found he had an easier time finding focus on a small, low quality on-camera monitor or viewfinder than he did on a large engineering quality monitor. I chalk this up to the fact that smaller monitors typically employ more sharpening to create a crisp image than larger monitors, and the enhanced sharpening causes the Fiddlehead spiral to snap into focus in a more obvious manner.

DSC also sent me their new CineZone chart:

This chart can be used not only as a focusing aid but as a resolution chart. Once again, notice that the lines are not wedges that present flat sides at finite angles, like the Siemens star, but are curving lines that present a solid contiguous target to both horizontal and vertical resolution “sweeps” at every angle possible. That’s a key difference: the Siemens star offers resolution targets at set angles, whereas the CineZone chart offers line targets at EVERY angle that fill in the gaps left by the Siemens star.

Here’s the CineZone chart snapping in and out of focus:

The CineZone chart as seen by a RED ONE camera in 4k 16:9 mode and scaled down for the web.

As well as being handy as a focusing aid this chart can also be used as a handy resolution chart. The chart reads in “LPPH,” or “Lines Per Picture Height.” This means that when the chart is framed such that the very top and bottom of the chart touch the top and bottom of the frame, the circle marked “8” indicates 800 lines of resolution from top to bottom of the picture. If you can see the individual lines then your camera is seeing full HD resolution, as 800 lines is the most that a typical 1920x1080 camera system can see according to my friend and video guru Adam Wilt. (This is plenty of resolution for use with the RED ONE, as the RED’s viewing output is 720p.)

The CineZone chart incorporates a number of different resolution tools including trumpets (the long vertical graphics on either side of the chart), miniature Siemens stars across the bottom, and replicas of the central chart in the upper left and right corners to reveal whether the lens used remains sharp in the corners.

The CineZone chart has one more cool feature on the back:

Voila: an instant framing chart that can be written on with dry erase markers. The chart’s white background is intended to be a perfect white balance reference, so as long as you write on it with black ink you can shoot both framing info, shot/scene info and a white balance reference at the same time.

I’ve long advocated the use of a “DP Slate” that contains grading information intended for a colorist, and this chart appears to be perfect for that task: simply write your timing instructions on it and roll on it for a second or two. As long as all the clips reach the colorist it’s quite hard to miss a timing note, especially if the slate is in frame as the camera rolls. That guarantees that the slate will also be the clip’s thumbnail. (This is generally good practice for digital shoots, as the editor’s clip bin will be filled with easy-to-read thumbnail slates. Just make sure the slate fills the frame. The rule of thumb is to hold the slate 1’ from the lens for every 10mm of focal length.)

DSC Labs is allowing me to keep the charts, and I’ll report back over time how well they are working out on my shoots.

And if you were wondering where the “fiddlehead” name came from, a picture is worth a thousand words:

The charts are named after these ferns that grow behind David and Susan Corley’s home in Ontario. (David and Susan are the owners and founders of DSC Labs. I suspect you can figure out where the name of their company comes from.)

Thanks to Adam Wilt and Meets the Eye Studios for their generous help in photographing these charts with a RED ONE.

Art Adams is a DP who is frequently accused of being sharp, although whether that describes his intellect or sarcastic humor depends largely on the situation. His website is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •

The Making of an Epic Media Project

Rambus is a company of big ideas, and they wanted their 20th anniversary celebration to include a theatrical production that accurately reflected who they are and where they came from. The resulting short film—shown in an Omnimax dome at the San Jose Tech Museum—moved Rambus founders and employees to tears.

That’s a high compliment indeed for Santa Cruz-based production company Compass Rose Media, whose creative director’s vision left no room for dry eyes. “Think epic,” he said when we had our first conversation about the project. “It’s an epic corporate video, but on a budget.” “No problem” was my response. Stretching the visual dollar is a craft I’ve more than perfected over the years.

I’ve worked with Jono Schaferkotter on other Compass Rose projects, as well as on some spec spots and music videos. Jono has a great sense of style, and very early on he decided that the RED ONE was the only way to go. As the final deliverable was only 1.9k we could have shot on any number of cameras, but his feeling was that the 35mm feel of the RED, coupled with its high resolution (an effective 3.2k for a 1920x1080 finish), was the right look for a project whose stated goal was to be a modern corporate “epic.”

I completely agreed, given that oversampling always gives the impression of increased resolution—especially when the final project will be projected on a massive screen. Originally there was talk of releasing the project in Imax format but that proved to be cost prohibitive—the output to film alone ran $2 per foot!—so the final piece was projected 60’ across onto an Omnimax screen at 1920x1080 resolution.

Our camera package consisted of a RED ONE and a set of Zeiss Super Speeds from Chater Camera. Bret Allen of Gearnex loaned me a prototype Gearnex gear head,

Part of our epic “look” involved setting the camera to 4K HD mode and recording in variable speed mode at 30fps for a 23.98fps finish. 4K HD mode’s resolution is a multiple of 1920x1080 (3840x2160) and, in theory, yields sharper images with less processing time when shooting for 1080i delivery. Shooting off-speed at 30fps slowed everything down just enough to give movement a little more mass and drama.

I normally rate the RED at EI 160 to crush the shadow noise into the blacks. That was especially important for this project given the projection parameters. The RED ONE is the only camera I’ve worked with whose EI I can comfortably change to suit the look of the project, thanks to the fact that most of the image processing happens in post instead of in the camera’s digital signal processor (DSP) before recording.

The shoot took place over five days, with each day split between two locations. Not all locations made it into the final piece, so I’ll just cover the sequences that did.

First, let’s take a look at the finished project:

And now, the bonus behind-the-scenes featurette:

Most of the behind-the-scenes footage was shot with a Flip camera.

Compass Rose has graciously given me quite a lot of behind-the-scenes footage and stills. Let’s go through the production scene by scene, starting on the next page…

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Post Production •Production •Tips •

Low-Budget PSA’s, Shot on RED, Prove that Budget is Not a Barrier to Excellence

“Dad has a barn and mom can sew—let’s put on a show!” Production budgets aren’t what they used to be, but that doesn’t excuse sloppiness. There’s almost always a way to do good work as long as your creativity extends beyond lighting and framing into the realm of “making do.”

Director Ian McCamey, with whom I did my Porsche, http://www.artadams.net”>Lego and Facebook spots, called me back in October and asked if I was game for a couple of low budget PSA’s. They were to be produced by a local post facility, Rough House, that had a relationship with the ad agency. Years ago Ian had interned at Rough House, and after losing his job as a VFX editor when The Orphanage shut down early last year, he got back in touch with them and let them know he was building a directing reel. This is an example of a long-term relationship paying off.

These spots are currently on the air in the Sacramento area, although there’s some talk that they may go national on ESPN.

Ian wasn’t terribly optimistic, though, when he called to gauge my interest. “We have a budget of $7,000,” he said, “and a lot of actors. How do we make that work?”

With a little help from our friends, as it turned out. I contacted my friend Adam Wilt at Meets the Eye Studios in San Carlos, and asked if he and his employer, Meets the Eye Studios, were willing to help us out with equipment and space. Luckily enough, they were—and we became their last official clients of 2009.

Let’s take a look at the spots as they are airing now:

(They’re also on Youtube.)

Adam’s primary concern was that his company’s sound stages weren’t ready for prime time. In fact, they were about to be demolished and rebuilt. Fortunately we had only a couple of shots that were large enough to require shooting in the sound stage area. The rest we shot either in front of the facility or in various rooms scattered throughout the building.

We shot with a RED ONE and either an 18-85mm RED zoom lens (for “Perp,” the first spot) and a set of Zeiss Ultra Primes for the second spot (also known as “Lineup”). Turn the page for shot-by-shot behind-the-scenes action…

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Pre-Production •Tips •Training •

A Tale of Forbidden Love, Shot on RED

A short schedule, minimal crew, no budget, a RED with an untried software build, and a trained dog in nearly every shot. What could go wrong?

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I’ve gotten some complaints from people who have found this short film offensive. I get that it’s not everyone’s sense of humor, but I’m proud of my work on it and I’m not ashamed to show it off.

Just for the record, this film took Grand Prize at the 2009 Goodby, Silverstein & Partners Annual Film Festival.

Once in a while a project comes along that makes me say “How could I NOT do this?” This short film was such a project. The director and producer found me on the Internet and asked me to meet them for coffee and a chat. We got on very well and six weeks later (August of 2009) we started a two day shoot with a borrowed RED, a bunch of free lights, and a dedicated cast of very talented actors.

This was a study in lighting quickly and moving fast, two things that happen regularly on low-budget projects and anything containing animals. By embracing what’s available, and framing pretty shots, the lack of equipment and crew can be largely overcome. Simply placing the camera in the right place, with the right lens, is probably the most powerful tool we have as cinematographers: the frame is the conduit through which the story is told, so finding the right perspective is extremely important. It’s also the easiest thing to do.

Lighting is extraordinarily important as well, but as lighting tools can be limited on low-budget productions it’s important to prioritize. The best of both worlds is finding a lighting setup that works for the entire space, or most of the space, and then focusing on finding good shots that work within that lighting setup. If most of your lighting is set up in advance, and coverage merely requires moving the camera around, you’re going to be very popular with the director, producer and cast.

We shot this on a privately-owned RED ONE camera. This was the first time I’d used Build 20 to shoot a project, and I very much liked the new color science, even though I shot this entire project using daylight-balanced lights. The color was prettier and more accurate, and the noise—when it cropped up—was no longer tinged with blue speckles. I did learn that, up until now, I’d led a charmed RED life as I’d never had any significant problems with the camera. On this one project, though, we had times when the white balance would change for no apparent reason and the camera would shut off when moved, requiring a lengthy reboot. We didn’t lose any footage or any appreciable amount of time but it was definitely a different experience.

WARNING: The second half of the film contains graphic images that some may consider offensive. If you are easily offended and/or don’t have a sense of humor, please don’t watch the end credits.

I’ll start at the beginning of the film and work my way through, although this is not the order in which the film was shot. Watch the film and then turn the page…

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Production •Tips •

Anatomy of a Spot: Commonwealth Club

In this economy one has to stretch every production dollar as far as it can go. This doesn’t mean compromising on quality, though: keeping things simple can yield huge dividends. This includes knowing when it’s okay to shoot with available light, and when natural light needs a little help.

I got this job via my web site, which is always a nice boost to the ego (and a financial justification for its existence). I’d never worked with director Mark Holthusen or producer Jason Santos, but apparently the combination of my portfolio and the helpful notes I gave them about their boards paid off in the end. I have a habit of giving out a fair bit of advice when going over boards for the first time, and most of the time my comments impress the clients enough to get me the job. I don’t play my entire hand before landing the project, but I do try to be helpful and show that I know what I’m doing.

In this case that strategy paid off wonderfully, resulting in a second shoot with Mark and Jason: a music video for the macabre band The Tiger Lillies. This spot for the Commonwealth Club, our first project working together, was an exercise in budget-stretching, and by shooting with the RED and working simply with available light whenever possible we pulled it off.

The RED can be a huge pain to work with, but it also offers the opportunity to get away from the traditional three-chip depth-of-field-forever Rec 709 “baked-in” look that I’ve been battling since I started shooting HD. RED can add a lot of production value to an otherwise inexpensive project—as long as you have a great camera assistant and a very talented colorist on your side.

Here’s the 60 second version of the finished spot, soon to be running on cable TV and in movie theaters in California:

I’m only going to touch on the shots that required some lighting and grip work to pull off. The rest were shot with available light, always keeping the subject backlit if possible.

Here’s the first setup:

There’s a 1200w PAR out the window on the right side. It’s fairly high up so it can reach over the gentleman and light the woman as well. There’s a 4x4 frame of Opal diffusion in front of it, and although Opal is fairly thin it was just enough diffusion to smooth the light and blend it with the window ambience for a very soft feel.

A Kino Flo Image 80 was used as fill, and we only had one or two of the bulbs turned on. I chose the Image 80, which is an eight-tube flourescent fixture, as I was expecting the sun to come out at some point and I wanted to balance the fill quickly if it did. (The sun came out eventually, but not until we were done shooting this wide shot.)

You’ll note that I put the Image 80 on the same side of the camera as the key light. This “continues the wrap” of the key light around the subject and is a very pretty method of filling a scene. If I put the key on the other side I’d risk a fill shadow falling opposite the key, which is a great way to give away your lighting—and I hate my shots to look lit.

Plus I would have had only two tones on the faces: a bright side and a dark side. Filling from the key side creates at least three tones: key plus fill on the camera right side of the faces, fill on the front of the faces. and shadow on the camera left side. This creates the illusion that the key is one big light source, instead of two smaller ones.

Also, multiple shadows that fall the same direction are often a lot less distracting than multiple shadows that fall in opposite directions.

A note about my exposure methods: although I lived and died by my meter on the Tiger Lillies music video, on this project I strictly exposed to the right by opening up the aperture as far as I could without clipping a channel. This boosts the crucial picture information as far above the RED’s noise floor as possible, allowing for maximum color correction latitude in post.This is a very fast way to work with the RED.

My experience, though, is that while exposures to the right remain somewhat consistent within a scene, they vary wildly between scenes, which adds a bit more time to the color correction process, so I’m making a concerted effort to rely more on my meter than on the RED’s zebras and traffic lights for future projects. Consistency in exposure across the entire project means less money spent in post, which matters a lot in this economy.

This shot is a post zoom-in:

I think this reframing would have worked better without the addition of the visual effect rotoscoping. The yellow “the know” was added in post, and the edges don’t look quite right to me. This seems to be a trend when working with composited edges on post-enlarged RED material.

Many people rave about the RED because they feel they can change the frame in post with impunity, but if there are any visual effects involved there’s usually a price.

This closeup was done in-camera:

Here you can see some of the effect of the “fill from the key side” technique. The camera right side of the face is mostly one tone, while the camera left cheek is another, and the camera left side of the face and the nose are a third. There’s a little bit of a reflection from the white wall on the gentleman’s head, but it’s not displeasing. The shadow on the wall was created in post using a Power Window. (This was colored by Chris Martin on a Da Vinci at Spy Post, San Francisco. He did a great job of making this white wall look interesting.)

Here’s a side angle of our lead actor:

I’m still keeping the fill on the “key” side of the actor even through the key is now mostly a backlight. It might be technically correct to key from the camera left side, as that’s where bounced light would actually come from in a situation like this, but I don’t find that to be aesthetically pleasing in every case: sometimes the shadow in the eye opposite the bounce source falls directly next to the highlight from the backlight/key, in which case the darkest part of the face is adjacent to the brightest part of the face. The high contrast can be cosmetically unpleasant.

The fill from the key side doesn’t really show here because of the ambient bounce light off the light. We did add some negative fill by taping black duvetine to the wall, but “proper” negative fill placement for this shot would have put the duvetine inside the frame, so we compromised.

Here’s the closeup of the woman:

All we needed for this shot was a blade to cut light from the PAR off the background. The blade is directly over her head.

Soft light from the direction of the camera can be quite beautiful, although I’ve had a lot of conversations with directors (although not with Mark) about what “flat” means. Flat, to me, says that there’s only one layer to the image, whereas this image isn’t flat at all: there’s a clear contrast difference between the foreground layer and the background layer. There are many ways to do “flat” lighting that is beautiful and still offers a feeling of three-dimensionality, so keep in mind that light from the direction of the camera does not automatically translate into “flat.”

After a cuppa joe our intrepid hero leaves the cafe and goes for a walk, where he stumbles across more and more people who are “in the know.” This closeup employs what I call “Dean Cundey” lighting:

When I was much younger I was a big fan of Dean Cundey’s cinematography, and in the mid-90s I had a chance to watch him work while shooting behind-the-scenes on the film “Flubber.” He tends to use a lot of cross backlight, while filling from a source below the lens of the camera, and it’s a very distinctive look. It did a little of that here, using a shiny board through diffusion to add a little interest to the front of this actors face and filling with a 4x8 bead board bounce below the lens. (Bead board is wonderful bounce material as it is perfectly matte, and doesn’t exhibit a specular hot spot the way shiny foam core does.)

During this sequence we had to stop and reset back focus. My camera assistant, Bruce McGregor, discovered that our Zeiss Super Speeds were no longer focusing where their focus marks said they should, and it appeared that the RED’s back focus drifted as the camera’s temperature increased. (This was a rare hot and sunny day in San Francisco.) The RED’s difficult back focus ring forced us to stop shooting for ten minutes in order to reset it.

In the following shot I’m filling from the key side once again:

It’s hard to see, but I’m filling over the top of the camera and from the left side of the lens using a shiny board through a 4x4 frame of 216. The sunlight here is a little harsh, as we were shooting under noonday sun, but filling from the key side wraps the key around in a very pleasing way. Filling from the right side would have resulted in a less natural, more lit feel.

We might have bounced some light into the crowd with a 4x8 bead board; I don’t remember for sure.

This shot, outside the Old San Francisco Mint in downtown San Francisco, was a tough one:

The crowd was created by moving a ten person group into different positions and stacking them together in post. This shot faces west and the sun backlit the clouds fairly severely. I used a ND .90 grad to bring down the sky a bit, but the sun won.

I shot some “cloud elements” later, after we finished shooting the crowd, by closing the camera’s shutter and capturing better exposed clouds. Had the budget allowed, the editor could have dropped the properly exposed clouds into the sky and replaced the blown-out clouds. I closed the shutter down instead of closing the aperture because a T-stop change would have changed both the depth-of-field and contrast characteristics of the lens, resulting in an element that may not have matched the wide shot.

This shot is a post resize of the previous shot:

It almost works. The diagonal slant of the building gives away that it’s a zoom-in to a wider shot using a wide lens.

At about this time we had to stop, once again, for ten minutes, to reset back focus. We’d been in the shade for about a half hour and as the camera cooled the back focus drifted again.

Everything else in this spot was shot under completely natural light, except for this one:

I decided I wanted to put some sparkle in the shoes, and since we were in shade it was easy to break out a 1200w PAR and a frame of diffusion and give them a little highlight:

It was easy to reflect a bright diffuse source in the tops of the shoes.

This spot should appear on cable and in movie theaters throughout California in the next few weeks.

Thanks are due to director Mark Holthusen, producer Jason Santos, camera assistant Bruce MacGregor and gaffer Gordon McIver.

Art Adams is a DP who prefers working “au naturale.” His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •Visual Effects •

World’s Only “Death Oompah” Band Gets Virtual Reality Music Video

[TB]

An accordion-playing lead singer; a drummer who occasionally uses a doll instead of drumsticks; and a song based on the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Just another day on set with one of the most macabre bands in existence: the Tiger Lillies.

The email’s subject line read “A Beg, Borrow or Steal Production.” One look at the sender’s email address guaranteed that the only suitable response was “Sign me up.”

I’d worked with director Mark Holthusen once before, on a spot for San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club. Shot on RED in one day, the piece required numerous visual effects including crowd replication and rotoscoping messages onto walls and buildings. One look at Mark’s web site reveals that effects like these are no big deal: he regularly creates fantastical still images in Adobe Photoshop that are up to 400 layers deep. “After Effects is Photoshop with a timeline,” he told me. “It took me a day to learn it.”

His foray into spots and music videos is a natural extension of his print work, and fortunately for me he has no interest in being a DP. My challenge is a unique one: I have to figure out how to give him the elements he needs for his compositions while staying on time and budget. That’s especially important for the Tiger Lillies video as there is a finite amount of time to shoot and almost no budget.

As Mark’s connections are primarily in the stills world, I called on a few of my friends and coworkers to help out. My regular gaffer, Alan Steinheimer, was available for only one day of the shoot, but he gave us a deal on his 4-ton truck and sent gaffer Ernie Kunze to fill in for him. Adam Wilt’s employer, Meets the Eye Productions, is in the process of building two sound stages, and as neither of them were finished he offered us a deal on one of them with the proviso that we give him feedback to help him improve it. He also offered us one of his company’s RED camera packages, with himself as camera assistant.

Lining up on a shot of lead singer Martyn Jacques. Left to right: Martin, camera assistant Adam Wilt, me, key grip Kyle Rudolph, and director Mark Holthusen. TB

The music video won’t be finished until sometime in February of next year, but read on for a sneak peak behind the scenes of a very compelling and bizarre work of art. Please keep in mind that all composites are very, very rough and have been assembled simply for the purpose of editing a rough cut before serious compositing begins.

We create a virtual world on the next page…

Filed under: Production •Tips •Training •

So You Want to Work with Cameras

I get a lot of e-mail from film and video students asking how they can break into the film or television industries. I can’t afford the luxury of answering everyone’s questions individually so I decided to put my advice in writing. I hope it’s helpful.

This article originally appeared on my web site, and was reprinted in Film/Tape World and CineSource. It hasn’t been updated for the current digital era, but you’ll get the idea. Please forgive the archaic celluloid references.

If you are an aspiring cinematographer, the best path to success is to write a blockbuster script, sell it to a studio, and attach yourself as cinematographer.

The second best path is to start off as a second camera assistant or film loader. The second camera assistant loads and unloads the film magazines (if there is no film loader), handles the slate, keeps the camera reports and film inventories, keeps all the camera equipment not attached to the camera organized and nearby, and makes cappuccinos for the rest of the camera crew. He or she drags all the equipment around and is the emotional whipping post for the first camera assistant. This is a huge responsibility.

There’s a lot of gear and film to drag around and keep track of, and on top of that you have to learn to steam a mean mocha. You’re usually first to arrive on set and the last to leave. It’s very hard work.

The first camera assistant deals with everything attached to the camera. He or she is responsible for configuring the camera in whatever configuration is required; loading and unloading the camera; setting the stop on the lens according to the DP’s instructions; following focus and zooming when required; physically moving the camera unless it is on a dolly; making sure it is working the way it should at any given time; and whipping the second camera assistant when something goes wrong. This, also, is a very tough job.

Second camera assistants work very closely with first camera assistants, and usually form a team that will travel from one picture or project to another. The key to getting hired is to create hot coffee-based drinks that appeal to all the senses. Secondarily, it helps to be enthusiastic and able to adapt your working style to your first assistant’s style. He or she will get you hired, so make their job as easy as possible by taking care of everything that’s not directly attached to the camera, ie. filters, lenses, coffee mugs.

How should you get started? I would suggest going to your local camera rental house and hanging out with first assistants as they drink coffee and prep cameras. Camera assistants typically get a prep day to go through all the camera gear with a fine-toothed comb. They have to perform crucial tasks such as scratch testing every magazine, checking collimation on every lens, labeling all the cases, and precisely grinding endless pounds of rich coffee beans. Strike up a conversation and offer to help them prep (for free, of course). Get their phone numbers and stay in touch. Ask to visit the set and watch them work. Bring them warm drinks. Respect their decision if they say no (but more often than not they will say “yes.”) Be assertive but not pushy. When you’re starting out and you have no skills to offer, your strongest suit will be your personality, demeanor, and frothing skills. Try to come across as pleasant, low key and confident, whether you are or not. You’ll be in good shape.

Expect to work for free on some very grueling low budget projects while learning your trade. You’ll make mistakes (like grinding beans too finely) and you’ll want to make them on projects where they can’t afford to hire someone who knows what they’re doing. You’ll also work for people who otherwise wouldn’t give you the time of day. A first camera assistant who does big features may end up helping a DP friend shoot a student project for a day or two in return for a good cup o’ joe. His regular second assistant may not be willing to steam milk for free so he has to take whoever the production provides. If that’s you, and you do a good job, you’ve just made an invaluable contact.

Remember, people won’t hire people they don’t know. They have to feel confident in your abilities as a camera assistant, a barista, and as a human being. They have to know that you’ll function well in the high stress environment that is most film sets. Working for free or for cheap lets you strut your stuff to people who most likely would toss your java-scented resume in the garbage if you sent it blindly.

If you must send out resumes blindly (as I did) send them out every month for years on end. After a while people will have seen your name so many times they’ll feel they know you. They’ll see your career advance by observing the growing length of your credit list. And they’ll start referring you to their friends. “Try this person- they bug me a lot. Their resume smells shade-grown.” This method is less reliable but it does work.

For those of you who want to go into videography, I have little to tell you. There doesn’t seem to be a set way into the business like there is in film. There is no career path because there are no ranks to rise through. The cameraman is the cameraman. You must make your own coffee. Period.

The advantage is that you get to start shooting right away rather than spending years rising through the ranks. The downside is that film has a much richer artistic tradition than video. Film people know that a coarse grind means less bitter aftertaste. Many people who work in film have been exposed to film theory at some point, either through film school or a love for filmmaking in general. Directors of photography for film really have to know how to light, and many are more than willing to share their secrets and insights with members of their crews. You can learn a lot by watching a DP light, watching him or her read his meter, watching what stop gets put on the lens, knowing which lens is being used and what filters are in the matte box, and whether he prefers latte over espresso.

Based on my observations, artistic tradition in video doesn’t exist. There is no system of mentorship, there are no stellar role models, the only coffee makers are the drip kind. Everyone is more or less self-taught. If you work at a TV station you can’t expect to learn how to light from a news photographer because nobody ever showed them how to do it. This, I think, is a much harder path to follow. Working on a film set allows you to see how other people do it. In video it’s usually you, the sound person, and the nearest Starbucks. That’s it.

If that’s the route you choose, try to get hired at a production company that will eventually give you the chance to shoot. Play around with the camera after hours. Watch old movies. Hang out on film sets. Build a reel. Learn to roast your own beans. Experiment. Sometimes you can get hired at a video rental house to work in the back room and occasionally get sent out on shoots for companies that don’t have a regular DP and don’t want to pay full price for one.

Your reel and your resume represent you. Do a good job on both.

As a rookie camera assistant, include the following on your resume:

1. Name, address and phone number, in big easy-to-read letters

2. Your job title, right up front. PICK ONE.

3. One page containing, in columns, the title of each project, the production company, the name of the DP, and the names of everyone on the camera crew higher than you, broken down by project type (features, commercials, etc.)

4. Preferred coffee blend, grind, brewing time and average froth height.

Your name and job title, etc., need to be big and bold. People don’t want to spend a lot of time deciphering resumes. Tell them right up front what you are and where to reach you. Keep the resume down to one single-sided sheet so it’s fast and easy to read. Don’t use fancy fonts or italics.

The coffee thing was a joke. You can put it on there if you want, and if nothing else you will certainly be remembered. That’s not a bad thing at all. Camera assistants see a lot of resumes. You need to stick in their memories somehow. Just be careful: humor doesn’t always work. (If it does work, well, those are the people you really want to work with.

Pick one job title and stick with it. “Jane Doe, Second Camera Assistant” has a chance of getting hired. “John Smith, Second Camera Assistant, Grip, Boom Operator and Production Assistant” doesn’t stand a chance. Second camera assistant is a position of great responsibility, and someone who also has to work as a production assistant to make ends meet obviously isn’t very experienced. And someone who does many jobs does none of them well, or at least that’s the general feeling in the industry. If you bill yourself as a second camera assistant, and that alone, you will be taken much more seriously. The ability to brew killer espresso will be assumed.

People won’t hire people they don’t know, and the next best thing to knowing you is recognizing that you’ve worked with someone they know. Everyone knows everyone else, so the more camera crew names you put on your resume the more likely someone will see you’ve worked with someone they respect. Inevitably they’ll see you’ve made coffee for someone whose tastes they share and when the time is right they’ll ask to taste your custom roast.

Don’t bother listing directors, producers, etc. Camera people hire camera people. They don’t care who the director was, they only want to see that you worked successfully with their friend, the most demanding and caffeinated first camera assistant in town.

Don’t list student projects if you can avoid it. If there’s a chance a student project will be seen on TV, re-label it a “TV special” or “TV movie.” Nobody wants someone whose experience is only on student projects. You don’t learn how to do the job while working on a student project. You don’t learn how many scoops of Medaglia D’oro go into a grandé americano while working in academia. You have to work under a seasoned first camera assistant on “real” projects in order to be “broken in.” There’s a tremendous amount of on-the-job instruction that you get in the real world, where a lot of money is on the line, that you won’t get on a student film—where speed and efficiency are NOT the bottom line. Everything changes when you’re getting a paycheck and handling someone else’s raw stock that’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everything changes when every extra second you spend hunting down a fresh film magazine costs someone dozens of dollars. If the first assistant likes almond in his cappuccino but the DP likes his straight, you’d better not make a mistake. (I made that mistake once. The DP spit it across the set. True story.)

Don’t include your education on your resume. No one cares if you went to film school. What counts is your experience. Film school is definitely a help, but listing it on your resume won’t get you hired. Barista school is the only exception.

Listing every piece of equipment you’ve ever worked with won’t help either, unless it is very specialized equipment. If you’ve worked as a camera assistant for a Steadicam operator, or on an aerial shoot with a Tyler mount, for example, put that on your resume. Don’t put down stuff like “Experienced with Panavision and Arriflex cameras.” Let them assume you know the common types of equipment. Doing anything else makes you look like an amateur. “Experienced with Panavision cameras” stands out, because all the pros are experienced with Panavision cameras. “Experienced with VistaVision cameras” makes a difference. “Familiar with many domestic drip filters” is pointless, whereas “expert at shaving Belgian chocolate for double mochas” is invaluable. You get the idea.

Put your resume down for a while, walk away, do something else. Have a cup of green tea or some warm cider. Then go back to your resume and look at it with fresh eyes. Pick it up and see if you can, within five seconds, see whose resume it is, what this person does, and get an idea of how much they’ve done and with who. Make sure your resume is clean, precise and very readable.

Go to a production company and ask if you can page through their stacks of resumes. Notice how many are confusing or difficult to read, or how they don’t state what position that person is looking for. Pretend you are a producer or camera assistant who has to hire a second camera assistant and has a jones for a quick café crème. Pick out the resumes that are simple, easy to read, clear, concise, and provide a comprehensive list of credits. Put those aside, study them, and copy their style.

If you are trying to become a videographer, your path is slightly more difficult. You’ll need to compile a reel of your best work. It should be no more than three minutes in length. Put only your best work on it: like your morning espresso, YOU ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR WEAKEST SHOT, because THAT’S the shot they’ll remember. Don’t make it longer than three minutes . There are a lot of tapes out there and only so much time to watch them. Make yours short and very, very sweet. A hyper-caffeinated producer is only going to watch for so long before moving on to the next one.

If you have short one or two minute projects that you can use in their entirety, put them on as long as they are really, really good. Don’t use them if the photography is stunning but the acting is horrible, or if the sound is muffled, or if the music was played by a child of ten on a xylophone. Producers and directors often can’t focus solely on the photography and can be influenced by the piece as a whole. All they may remember is how bad the acting was. Your photography will be lost. Your reel won’t mean a hill of Columbian beans.

If you can’t use whole sequences then take the best shots from a number of projects and cut a montage to music. Pick music that has energy but isn’t going to alienate a lot of people: stay away from rap or heavy metal or experimental music. Try to keep similar types of shots grouped together: people in one spot, cars in another, steamed milk somewhere else, etc.

Put your name and title in big letters at the head and tail of the reel. Don’t include a phone number because that might change. Put that information on the tape label. (Labels are easier to change.)

Remember that your opinion of a shot or sequence will be prejudiced. Get second opinions. A specific shot may make you proud because you know that the odds were stacked against you and you know how much work went into it… but unless all that effort shows very clearly on the screen and is totally obvious to the uninformed viewer, DON’T USE IT. It won’t do you any good. No one cares that you roasted each bean individually with a match and a piece of dry straw. The bottom line is that it has to taste wonderful.

But… in the end, what you use is up to you. Opinions are good, but it’s your reel: go with your gut.

I would suggest getting copies of your work in the best digital format possible, after footage has been digitized for editing but before it has been compressed for the web or DVD. (Try to get raw footage whenever possible, in case the footage shines but the finished piece itself didn’t turn out terribly well. You can always recut it and color correct it to make it look better.) Get the best quality digital files you can: uncompressed is best, but ProRes will do in a pinch. Mail the editor a portable Firewire hard drive with a SASE and a Starbucks gift card. Buy a DVD authoring program, build your reel, burn dozens of copies and give them out like candy to anyone who might hire you. Don’t expect to get them back. You want them to sit on shelves and catch someone’s eye at just the right time.

Rub them with coffee bean oil for that fresh “ready to go!” smell.

(Note: it’s rare to send out DVDs anymore. Get a domain name and a web site. Make yourself easy to find.)

That’s about it for my suggestions. I hope they help.

Art Adams is a DP whose coffee is never bitter, only sweet. His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: CS4 •Tips •Training •Web Video •

ADHD Guide to Flash Video for the Web

I hate reading manuals. They don’t tell me what I want to know in the order I want to know it. I’d rather figure things out on my own, or if that learning curve is too steep, have someone show me in the basic concepts. I can usually figure out the rest later. For example, when I first sat down to learn DVD Studio Pro, the manual drove me insane. An editor explained the basic concepts to me in five minutes or less, after which building a DVD became intuitive and easy.

I sought out the same information for encoding and using Flash for the web, and Adobe was kind enough to school me in the basics. Now I get it. I know exactly what I need to do, no more and no less, to create Flash video for the web. Let me share with you what I learned:

This article assumes that you are using Adobe Media Encoder and Adobe Flash Pro. They are part of several Adobe software suite options, such as Adobe Web Premium.

First, let’s encode some video. If you’re familiar with media coding at all, the controls will look familiar:

The big box with the white and gold text is the file input window. I have one video file ready for processing, a 60 fps Quicktime encoded using the Animation codec. The format is FLV/F4V; preset is “custom”; and the file output is to a folder on my desktop. The fourth button down on the right is “settings”, and clicking that brings up this window:

The F4V file is what finally made Flash relevant to my world. This is Adobe’s implementation of the H.264 codec, employed by Apple since Quicktime 7 arrived, and as far as I’m concerned it is the best codec, by far, for high-quality small filesize web video encoding. Prior to using Adobe Media Encoder I played with On2 Pro’s VP6 encoder, and the encoding quality never came close to what I could accomplish so easily encoding H.264 with either Apple’s Compressor or Quicktime Pro. And, frankly, I refused to consider Flash as a viable alternative for web video encoding until H.264 Flash arrived.

This encoder has all the usual settings. I’m reducing a 1280x720 video clip to 720x404 (16x9, square pixel) using the MainConcept H.264 codec and VBR 2 pass encoding. VBR stands for “variable bit rate,” meaning that the data stream expands or contracts depending on how much information changes in the image. A locked-off shot without much movement requires considerably less throughput than a handheld whip pan, for example. “2 pass” indicates that the encoder is going to look over the file first before encoding it, in order to best determine how to compress it.

The bottom setting, “level,” is new to me. I looked it up and discovered that Adobe Media Encoder offers some settings that I’ve never seen in Quicktime: apparently it’s possible to specify an H.264 “level” that tells Media Encoder how much firepower to use when encoding files. The higher the level, the higher resolution the intended playback device. Here I’ve gone with the default of 4.1, but apparently 3.1 would be fine for the frame rate and resolution that I’ve chosen. (For more about H.264 levels, see here.)

I’ve found that a target bitrate of 1.2 megs (1200kbps) works well for H.264 web encoding at SD sizes.

Once we’ve done our encoding, off we go to Adobe Flash Pro to build our Flash project:

The left column shows previous Flash projects. We’re going to focus on the middle column, “Create New”. Click on the top option, “Flash File (Action Script 3.0)”. You should see the following screen:

The white box is the empty “stage” where I’ll will build a Flash project. The “stage” defines the area in which my Flash movie will play. (All Flash projects are best thought of as moving picture files, as everything they contain will eventually be displayed as a moving picture.)

The column on the right is the Inspector, which will display pertinent information about whatever component of the Flash project is selected. At the bottom there are tabs for “timeline,” “motion editor,” and “output.” As we’re only focused on delivering a Flash video to the web we’re not going to worry about those right now.

next page: importing the video and “skinning” it

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •

Rough Guide to Flicker-Free HD Shooting

The most common HD frame rate is a 50-year-old byproduct of the invention of color TV. And it’s not a flicker-free safe speed.

Watch the video clip below to see why you should care…

This clip was shot on a RED ONE in order to illustrate the difference between flicker on a global shutter camera vs. a rolling shutter camera. Heres what to look for in the video clip:

-Flicker at 24p appears in certain parts of the frame and remains stationary.

-Flicker at 23.98 rolls upward through the frame as the period the shutter is closed is slightly longer than it is open. (More on that below.)

-The flicker “roll bars” get wider as the exposure time lengthens.

-The only truly safe shutter speeds divide evenly into 60; in this case they are 1/60th and 1/30th.

-Flicker reveals itself in a histogram as horizontal expansion and contraction.

After being bitten recently by flickering HMIs fed by old magnetic ballasts, I set out to learn why flicker happens and how to definitively get rid of it. One Tuesday afternoon I met Adam Wilt in his office at Meets The Eye Productions, and we searched the building for a truly awful fluorescent light. His desk lamp proved most offensive, with a visibly unstable magnetic ballast, so we shot the above tests to see when flicker happened… and when it didn’t.

First, though, a word about NTSC and how it created the massive flickering headache we now enjoy:

While our power mains operate at a line frequency of 60hz, our television signals don’t. One of the issues in the development of NTSC color television was preventing the color subcarrier from interfering with the audio signal. The solution required changing the video frequency to 59.94hz from 60hz. (Click here for the long version, complete with math.)

Our most common HD frame rate, 23.98p, has its roots in that decision. Early cameras, such as the Sony F900, offered a diverse series of frame rates, several of which (24p and 30p) proved nearly useless. The 24p option was intended only for film output, but as most film projects live on via broadcast television and DVD, both of which operate at 59.94hz in the U.S., it is often easier to simply shoot 23.98p and increase the frame rate slightly for film output. This is not always the case, as a number of film-destined productions have opted for true 24p, but 23.98p is the more common choice. 30p has proven popular for projects destined only for presentation on the web. Those six extra frames make life easier for graphic designers and animators, who can more easily avoid annoying strobe effects by using a faster frame rate.

Some cameras hide 23.98p behind a 24p setting, apparently to avoid confusion. For example, the Panasonic Varicam 27F/27H cameras don’t offer a 23.98p option, only 24p; but as the camera’s system clock normally operates at 59.94hz, 24p is actually 23.98p. In order to attain true 24p the system clock must be changed in the menus to 60hz.

Cameras currently on offer in the U.S. offer, at minimum, the same three standard frame rates: 23.98p, 29.97p, and 59.94i. None of these are flicker-free safe speeds.

Here’s a graph of a sine wave:

This represents three cycles, or hertz, of alternating current, with each cycle containing one positive (above the line) and one negative (below the line) peak. To an HMI or other gas discharge lamp, this represents six pulses of light. Gas discharge lamps emit light pulses every time the sine wave peaks—even when the peak is negative (below the center line). All such lights incorporate a ballast, and one of the ballast’s functions is to rectify the AC power and convert it into constant voltage DC power.

For those of us who know enough about electricity to plug in a lamp but not so much that we can avoid the occasional painful shock, the upshot of rectification is that the negative portions of the sine wave are converted to positive values:

Every one of these peaks indicates a full-strength light pulse, with the left side of the peak being the ignition part of the cycle (where the electrical charge builds and stimulates the gasses in the lamp to full brightness) and the quench part of the cycle (where the power dissipates and the gas’s luminosity fades). In theory every peak is the same, as is the trough (the valley between the peaks), but Adam tells me that is occasionally not the case with fluorescent lights (and may not be with HMIs) using magnetic ballasts:

Not only can one peak in the cycle be dimmer than the other, but the troughs between peaks can vary as well. The gasses in the lamp don’t completely extinguish between pulses, which means that not only can the peaks vary in brightness but the troughs can vary in darkness.

Most film cameras incorporate an optional 144-degree shutter for use with discharge light sources. Before the advent of square wave and flicker free ballasts the 144-degree shutter offered the safest way to avoid flicker.  The standard speed for film cameras is 24fps: 120 pulses divided by 24 fps yields 5 pulses, of which 2.5 are seen with a 180-degree shutter. In theory that frame rate should be perfectly flicker free, as every frame receives the same number of light pulses… but it isn’t. Depending on when the camera starts rolling that extra half cycle can appear anywhere in the sine wave, meaning that this extra half cycle could extend from peak to peak, trough to trough, or somewhere in between, resulting in differing exposures from shot to shot. Worse, if the speed of the camera and the frequency of the power grid are out of sync at all, flicker would appear very quickly as some of the frames see slightly more or slightly less than a half cycle.

And if the light is poorly rectified, resulting in unequal peaks and troughs, flicker is evident immediately: while one frame might see a normal peak, a reduced peak, and half of another normal peak, the next frame might see a reduced peak, a normal peak, and half of another reduced peak.

Setting the shutter at 144 degrees means that every frame sees exactly two light pulses, period. No matter where the sine wave is when the camera comes up to speed, every frame will receive the same amount of light as long as the camera runs at a true 24 fps and the power grid or generator maintains the power frequency at 60hz. Regardless of how well the negative peak is rectified, each frame will always see a total of one normal peak and one rectified peak.

If the camera speed or mains frequency drifts slightly, the odds are much better that the lack of sync between camera and power frequency will remain hidden at 1/60th of a second, whereas it will show up very quickly at 1/48th as the extra half cycle will appear at a different place in the power cycle with each exposed frame.

Now we enter the realm of modern HD cameras. In the U.S. and other NTSC/60hz countries, we live in a world where 23.98p is the magic number for broadcast and DVD media. Applying a 2/3 pulldown results in proper 59.94i broadcast-ready media, and more media is broadcast or distributed on DVD than ever appears projected on film.

But 23.98p is not a safe frequency for use with gas discharge lamps, especially with a 180-degree shutter. A 1/48th open shutter at 24p is followed by a 1/48th closed shutter, while a 1/48th open shutter at 23.98p is followed by a 1/47.96th closed shutter! While both exposures are technically the same,

The 24p exposure always sees the same number of both rectified and non-rectified peaks and troughs, at the same time in every frame, with the extra half cycle appearing at the same part of the cycle every time; whereas the 23.98p exposure drifts in time across different combinations of rectified and non-rectified peaks and troughs, with the half cycle appearing at a different time of the cycle in every frame.

This shows the difference in shutter speeds between 24p and 23.98p, with a 1/48th shutter dictating how long the shutter is open:

Shooting at 23.98 with a 180-degree shutter should work well with flicker-free or square-wave ballasts, which are specifically designed not to cause flicker, but if there’s even one magnetic ballast in use, or any discharge sources in the shot with aging or bad ballasts (such as practical fluorescents in a ceiling), all bets are off.

There’s a significant difference between how flicker manifests itself in global shutter cameras versus rolling shutter cameras. Global shutters tend to display flicker as an overall brightening and darkening of the affected area, while rolling shutters tend to see flicker in horizontal bars that remain stationary at 24p but that roll slowly up the frame at 23.98p. The vertical width of the horizontal strips is affected by the shutter speed: longer shutter speeds tend to make these bars wider and fainter, making them hard to spot on location or in a viewfinder.

This kind of flicker can appear as a slow “rolling” motion on a waveform monitor. Below is a clip from a short film I recently shot on a RED ONE camera. During this shot an HMI started to flicker visibly, and we took it out of commission immediately after this take. Bars can be seen rolling up the image, although we were fortunate in that they were faint enough that they weren’t terribly distracting on playback. But it’s easy to see the bars on a waveform monitor:

Scrub through the shot if the bars aren’t visible. They’ll reveal themselves quickly.

Global shutter flicker generally shows up as an overall brightening and darkening of the affected image area. Rolling shutter flicker causes roll bars that show themselves as a vertically expanding and contracting waveform.: highlights move upward as mid-tones descend, and then the highlights retreat as the mid-tones move back up.

This was the circled take, and it appears in the final project. It screened in a local film festival and nobody noticed the roll bars. We got lucky.

While shooting tests with Adam I noticed that the RED ONE’s RGB histogram is an excellent flicker detector. If flicker is significant enough in the frame, the right edge of the histogram will expand and contract in response. Certain fluorescent light fixtures change color over the course of a power cycle, with the ignition portion of the cycle appearing green and the quench portion appearing magenta, causing the RGB values to further fluctuate in relation to each other.  The Final Cut Pro histogram in the first video clip shows luminance only, but the flicker is still detectable if one pays less attention to how high the histogram’s peaks are and more to whether its width expands and contracts.

With Adam’s help, I learned three very interesting things from this test:

(1) When using a rolling shutter camera set to a true 24p frame rate, any flicker appearing in the frame will most often appear in the same portions of the frame; whereas at 23.98p the flicker will drift vertically through the frame, giving the appearance of roll bars. This is because the frequency of the camera and the frequency of the power mains are not in sync, resulting in the rolling shutter seeing peaks and troughs in different portions of each frame.

(2) The only truly safe flicker-free shutter speeds for 23.98p shooting are fractions whose denominator divides evenly into 60hz: 1/60, 1/30, 1/20, 1/15, etc. This guarantees the same number of cycles will be seen in every frame, negating the need for the camera and power frequencies to be perfectly in sync.

(3) Setting the shutter to 1/120th or faster reveals any problem light sources very, very quickly. Once identified, it’s simple to observe how those sources react to other shutter speeds.

And on my own I formulated Art’s Law of Flicker-Free Shooting Bliss:

When shooting 23.98p with an HD camera, ALWAYS use an absolute shutter speed, not a relative shutter speed.

An absolute shutter speed states exactly what the exposure time is: 1/48th, 1/60th, etc. A relative shutter speed is usually denoted in degrees, because that’s how film cameras work: at 24fps, a 180-degree shutter results in a 1/48th of a second exposure; but at 23.98p, a 180-degree shutter results in a 1/47.96 exposure, which is NOT an HMI safe speed.

In “normal” mode (not “relative” mode) the RED ONE’s shutter is always absolute. In other cameras with rolling shutters, such as the Sony EX1/EX3, it’s relatively safe to assume that if the shutter speed is expressed as a fraction then the shutter speed is absolute.

I love my film roots, but it’s time to discard the notion of degrees to describe shutter speed and switch exclusively to fractions of a second. For peace of mind I need to know, at a glance, exactly what shutter speed I’m using. Degrees don’t do that. Fractions do.

Thanks to Adam Wilt and RED’s Stuart English for their technical assistance in the writing of this article.

Art Adams is a DP who once joked on set about “My Friend Flicker.” His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Tips •Training •

What You Need to Know about Green, Blue and RED

In a recent article I surmised that RED was mixing green into the blue channel to eliminate blue noise under tungsten light. I had a theory but no proof of what was going on. Now I have proof.

My tests showed that RED saw blue-tinged greens under tungsten light and not under daylight, and by artificially mixing channels in Final Cut Pro I was able to reproduce that effect, matching a daylight-lit test chart to a tungsten-lit test chart by mixing the green and blue channels. (Channel mixing is a known technique for eliminating channel noise, where information from a well-exposed color channel is mixed into a noisy color channel to boost exposure.) Build 20 saw the blue channel’s noise disappear, and RED claimed not to be using traditional noise-reducing algorithms, so it seemed natural to assume that this might be what RED was doing.

As my tests showed that my hypothesis was possible but not guaranteed, I decided to try another test and force the issue. As far as I know, the only way RED could be aware of the overall color of light in a scene is by examining white balance meta data. I decided to shoot footage where the white balance and the color of light completely mismatched. For example, if the RED was channel mixing under tungsten light, then setting the white balance to 3200k but shooting under 5600k light should show the RED trying to eliminate blue noise under daylight, where there is no blue noise. It would be trying to clean up something that wasn’t there.

My plan was to discover whether RED was doing some in-camera channel mixing and image baking, making the term “raw data” meaningless. Read on to see what I discovered…

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Training •

RED Color Comparison

Any camera looks good in a vacuum. Come see how the RED looks against itself and in comparison to a Sony EX3.

Recently I shot some DSC chart footage using a RED with Build 20. The goal was to look for color crossover issues under daylight and tungsten light. The DSC chart that was available had flesh tone patches on it, so I covered them up in order to see the red, green and blue channels more easily on a parade waveform.

Next time I’ll leave them uncovered. I found a very fast and easy way to look at what’s going on with the RED under daylight and tungsten: layer the charts in Final Cut Pro and export a still.

I shot the DSC chart under tungsten light, using zebras to set an exposure for white, and then I added an 80A filter, white balanced for daylight and repeated the process. And since I’d been doing far red filter tests with an EX3, I shot the chart with the EX3 as well and tossed it into the mix.

The results are interesting. I’m not going to bias anyone with my opinions… yet. I’m curious to see what others see. Post your thoughts in comments.

Tech stuff:

RED Build 20, Rec 709 (for saturation), white-balanced via RedAlert and output to ProRes HQ. Gains adjusted overall in Final Cut Pro to match tungsten vs. daylight exposures with no further color correction.

Sony EX3, CineGamma1 (as it most resembled Rec 709 on the monitor and waveform during shooting). Gain levels adjusted overall in Final Cut Pro to match RED footage on ProResHQ timeline.

You can download a 1920x1080 TIFF here.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •

Tiffen Goes Into Production on T1 Far Red Filter

As you may have noticed from previous articles, I’ve done a lot of research on which cameras allow infrared or far red to contaminate dark fabrics and change their color. There hasn’t been a satisfactory solution for the Sony EX1, EX3 and F35 cameras—until now.

Silicon is sensitive to infrared energy above all else, so camera manufacturers work hard to prevent their sensors from seeing anything but the visible spectrum. These three cameras don’t have a classic infrared contamination problem where they mistake heat energy, beyond the visible wavelengths of light, for actual visible light.

Sony installs very effective hot mirrors in their cameras to prevent any IR from reaching the sensor(s), but as these cameras see what Sony calls “broad spectrum color” they tend to be very sensitive to red. This isn’t a bug, it’s a feature!

This sensitivity to red can cause problems with dark fabrics that reflect not only infrared (which is cut very effectively in these cameras) but far red, which is red on the edge of the visible spectrum. Humans may have a little trouble seeing this hue of red but these cameras don’t, and sometimes it can be a bit much. The color red has, until recently, been the bastard stepchild of colorimetry because it’s very hard to reproduce properly—and thanks to Sony’s new broad spectrum color you’ll see beautiful hues of red you’ve never seen before. But there’s always a price to pay.

A while back I tested a prototype filter for Tiffen that worked brilliantly. It cut through far red like a knife. Previously the only filter that worked on any of these cameras was the Schneider Tru-Cut 680, which worked exceptionally well except for vignetting on wide lenses: the dichroic hot mirror was so thick that when viewed at an angle the filter turned cyan, so wide lenses yielded an image that was cyan around the edges. Tiffen’s filter, originally known as T1 for “Test 1,” used dyes alone to absorb far red, completely avoiding the risk of vignetting. Their reasoning was this: if the camera’s hot mirror works fine, and since we’re cutting visible light instead of heat energy, it’s clear that we can use a dye, which doesn’t vignette, over a hot mirror, which will. (The more a hot mirror cuts, the heavier the dichroic coating has to be. When cutting non-visible infrared the dichroic layer can be fairly light, but cutting visible far red requires a very heavy dichroic coating, which causes off-axis vignetting on wide lenses.)

While the T1 prototype worked marvelously, Tiffen wasn’t satisfied. The dyes used in the prototype weren’t stable and would fade over time. After trying a number of different formulas, all of which I’ve tested at one point or another, they settled on the current version which works exactly the way the original T1 did but without the original’s color instability. Having perfected it, Tiffen is now ready to release this filter into the wild.

If you want to see how it does, travel with me to page two and cast your gaze upon my homemade far red/infrared test chart…

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

The Vertical Bar Graph Raw Exposure Meter

The vertical bar graph raw exposure meter is the least explained meter in the latest RED manual. It’s also one of the most valuable exposure tools the RED ONE offers.

As English is my second language (and I haven’t discovered my primary language yet) I shorten “vertical bar graph raw exposure meter” to “barber pole.” It sits immediately next to the traffic light display in the viewfinder and on-board LCD:

The circled meter is the traffic light. The barber pole sits immediately to its left. In the latest RED ONE manual (20.1.3) this is the closest I could find to a depiction of how it works. (I swear I found a little bit of an explanation in a previous manual, but I can’t find a single thing about it in this one.)

The RGB histogram is a great tool for judging exposure, as is the traffic light, but both are inextricably affected by the shooting gamma. For example, if I’ve chosen to shoot in RedSpace and I see a one of the traffic lights illuminate (indicating 1% or more of that color’s photosites are clipped), or a color channel clips on the RGB histogram, I can toggle into RAW mode and make both of those clips go away. Since RAW shows me what’s really going on, I can toggle back into RedSpace and rest assured that I’m not losing any important data.

It’s the same for false color mode, which may show me that I’m clipping highlights in RedSpace but then changes completely when viewed in RAW. I’d rather know what’s going on WITHOUT toggling into RAW, and the barber pole is that tool.

This chart, from page 44 of the RED ONE 20.1.3 user manual, shows the legend for false color mode. The barber pole works very similarly, with three important differences:

(1) There is no pink band representing flesh tone.

(2) There is no straw band indicating “two stops over reference” (presumably 18% gray).

(3) The barber pole always always always displays information about RAW data. It is not affected by your gamma choices.

When 2% of the photosites on the sensor reach a value that RED considers to be the equivalent of 18% gray, the green band appears.

When 2% of the photosites on the sensor reach a value that is 2/3 stop below saturation (“clipping”), regardless of color channel, the yellow band appears.

When 2% of the photosites on the sensor reach a value that is 1/3 stop below saturation (“clipping”), regardless of color channel, the orange band appears.

When 2% of the photosites on the sensor reach a value that is fully saturated (“clipping”), regardless of color channel, the red band appears.

For those of us who expose to the right, the optimal exposure illuminates the orange band without activating the red band.

The barber pole gives just enough information without giving too much: between 18% gray (green) and clipping (red) there’s really not much you can judge from a small striped meter, so it doesn’t bother you with intermediate steps like flesh tone (pink). As long as your exposure falls between 18% gray and 2/3 stop below clipping it just leaves you alone. I like that. It only grabs your attention when you’re getting close to losing highlight detail, which is all we really care about in a raw “color grade it later” world.

So if you expose the RED as I do—boosting the exposure as high as possible for maximum latitude and minimum noise in post—keep an eye on the barber pole. It’s the one tool I’ve found that is consistent with what is really going on under the RED ONE’s hood.

Art Adams is a DP who describes himself as “bright.” His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Post Production •Production •Tips •Training •

RED’s Blue Noise: Where It Went, and Other Color Anomalies You Should Know About

RED software build 20 boasts new colorimetry that eliminates blue shadow noise under tungsten light. When asked how they did it, RED only said “We aren’t using noise reduction algorithms.” I love a challenge, and I think I figured out how they did it.

The RED makes great images but it’s very noisy, particularly under tungsten light. Its native white balance is 5000k, and under 3000k illumination (which contains a lot more red and a lot less blue than daylight) the blue filters on the sensor don’t pass enough light to give the blue channel a healthy exposure. That the blue channel is underexposed is nothing special; this is a problem with every camera. It’s just a bit more severe with the RED.

The RED reacts to shadows in a similar fashion to older film stocks: if the emulsion was underexposed and didn’t have enough to do, it did whatever it wanted. Under tungsten light, previous RED software builds exhibited a lot of blue noise because the blue channel was underexposed and had nothing to do except introduce random bits of blue into the image. When the blue channel was boosted during color grading these blue speckles proved very distracting.

With Build 20 this went away, and RED won’t say how they did it—other than to say it’s not traditional noise reduction. I love a challenge, so I set about thinking of ways they might solve this problem without using traditional noise reduction algorithms.

I immediately thought about highlight recovery. The concept is simple: if a single color channel is overexposed and clipped, highlight detail from an unclipped color channel is fed into the clipped channel. This creates the illusion that none of the color channels are clipped.

I wondered if the same thing were possible with underexposure. If a channel was noisy, would it work to feed information into it from a better exposed channel and give it something to do so the noise went away? This seemed like a viable theory, and when I tested it out I got some very interesting results. Turn the page for more…

Filed under: Cameras •Production •

CameraMania!

Banking, real estate and the stock market: all three are prone to “irrational exuberance.” As it turns out, the production community is not immune either, witnessed by the hordes rushing to buy (or wishing they already owned) a RED camera or a Canon 5D mkII. Mind you, both are excellent tools - but neither is a cure for everything.

The Tulip Mania of the early 1600’s saw the contract price of a single tulip bulb exceed ten times the annual income of a skilled craftsman, and is widely considered to be the first speculative bubble. The late 1990’s saw the astronomical rise of Internet stocks, heralded by the CEO of Amazon.com as a paradigm shift wherein the purpose of a company was no longer to make a profit. After that horrific crash we set ourselves up for an even bigger catastrophe: the real estate bubble.

In each case average human beings jumped on the bandwagon of fast and sure riches, only to find the brakes didn’t work as the wagon went off a cliff. As mentioned above, the media production industry is seemingly no different, as witnessed by REDmania in 2007 and 2008 and now Canon 5D Mark II mania in 2009.

Each camera has its strengths and weaknesses, and neither is the greatest camera ever. And yet RED has created for itself a product image that has seen 4,000 RED ONE’s fly off the shelves. The Canon 5D has sold approximately 40,000 units with a further 17,000 on backorder.

It’s important to recognize that the biggest advantage of either of these cameras is its price, and as both cameras are reasonably affordable compared to their higher-end brethren it is quite alluring to think that they are equally as good.

In some ways they are, and in some ways they aren’t. Read on…

Filed under: Cameras •Tips •Training •

RED Build 20 Torture Tests

I’ve learned more about how cameras work by learning what the RED doesn’t do. But, with every software build, it does more. Build 20 looks to be the best yet… but it’s not perfect.

I shot these tests with Adam Wilt, at the Meets the Eye studios in San Carlos, CA. We shot two batches of over- and underexposure tests on one of their RED ONE cameras, first loaded with build 17 and then upgraded to build 20. I originally had planned to do a comparison of the two builds, but the scope of that article proved greater than my current workload will allow. Here I will focus strictly on build 20.

Here’s the layout:

Yes, that’s me in my best “This is only for my drivers license, right?” pose. (I’m wearing a Sim Video shirt that I picked up at CineGear. I’m not endorsing them, even though they are an excellent company; it simply happened that I wore that shirt that day, and Adam insisted we have some flesh tone in the shot that wasn’t him. I hadn’t planned on being a model.)

The exposure that I read off the Kodak 18% gray card, with my Minolta Spotmeter F set at EI 320, determined our base exposure. The gray on the DSC Labs Chroma Du Monde chart is .5 stops brighter. The white chip on the chart is at 2 stops over the gray card exposure, and the black chip is approximately 5.2 stops under. (The card with black fabric squares is my new IR test chart, which did not play a role in this test.)

At the top left of the frame is an overlay of the waveform readout for that frame. I also zoomed in, using the Motion tab in Final Cut Pro, to frame only the DSC chart. When you see those zoomed-in frames please ignore the resolution trumpets as they are not accurate.

I didn’t include every exposure step as this article would not be finished until sometime just after Christmas. The frames that are shown are the ones that are pertinent to this exposure test. If you wish to see the entire build 20 test, please look for links to the Quicktime movies on the last page.

We shot tests under both tungsten light and daylight. The tungsten sources were two Lowell Totas, while the daylight sources were Kino Flo Image 80’s. The camera was set for RedSpace gamma, and I processed the clips in the latest version of RedCine that incorporates RED’s new build 20 color science. I used the Rec 709 color space in RedCine as RED has modified it considerably from previous builds, and also because the brightly saturated colors of Rec 709 are more likely to turn up any obvious problems or color shifts. The export gamma was RedSpace, which put black at around 10 IRE and white at about 80 IRE. (The RED never puts blacks at 0 IRE, requiring that they be pulled down during color correction.)

Personally I prefer the Camera RGB color space, but Rec 709 has always been RED’s weak spot and, as build 20 claims to make their Rec 709 implementation considerably better, it seemed appropriate to focus on it.

I white balanced once on the baseline exposure for each test and then applied that correction to all subsequent frames. We shot the tests in half stop increments with the goal of adjusting the EI in RedCine to bring the exposure back to normal.  (For example, underexposing one stop on set would result in rating that clip at EI 640 in RedCine.) When I brought the footage into RedCine, however, I discovered that the EI ratings are in third stop increments. The half stop increments are pinned to the adjacent third-stop ISO rating that was the best eyeball match to the previous clip.

There are four tests: tungsten overexposure, tungsten underexposure, daylight overexposure and daylight underexposure. If you don’t like engineering details then skip to the last page for my exposure recommendations. Otherwise, turn the page for a look under build 20’s hood…

Filed under: Cameras •Post Production •Production •Tips •

Busy Person’s Guide to Color Correcting the Canon 5D

The 5D is fast and portable, but it’s not a professional camera—so know going in that you’re going to have to color correct whatever you shoot.

That’s not a bad thing in itself. All footage should go through some sort of post processing. It’s much easier to finesse a look in post than it is on set, surrounded by crew who show all the enthusiasm of watching you and your DIT play a month-long game of checkers. Expensive checkers, too, if you count their spectating time. (You can be sure the producer is!)

Some cameras need to be painted on-set, and that’s fine as we go into a shoot knowing that. But when you shoot with the 5D you’re not using it because its footage will match the quality of a Sony F35, an Arri D21 or Panasonic Varicam 3700. You’re using it because:

(1) It’s cheap;

(2) It’s small;

(3) The picture quality is half-decent, with 35mm depth of field;

(4) It’s inexpensive; and

(5) It’s cheap.

I’m a big fan of color correcting high-end raw camera footage, but I’m even more fanatical about color correcting footage from small cameras. If there’s a cost-effective way to take your footage to the next level, why not do it?

This spot is a spec spot, which means no one is getting paid for anything, especially color correction. Since I’ve fooled around with low-end color correction tools for a while I volunteered to tweak my own footage. I’m nowhere near as good as a professional colorist would be, but I’m a lot cheaper.

In this case the client wanted big, bright colors that would appeal to children and reflect the colors in their logo, so instead of desaturating colors (as is the trend) I found myself saturating them. That reinforced a discovery I made a long time ago: desaturation solves a lot of problems, whereas saturation often causes them.

I’ve broken out each shot by color correction steps, and I’m going to go through each one and tell you what was going through my mind when I did what I did. All the steps but the final one were done in Magic Bullet Looks, adding and tweaking one module after another. (The module names are noted on the stills themselves, and they are cumulative.) The final touch to each image was the addition of a digital filter from Tiffen’s DFX 2 digital filter suite.

This image, helpfully stolen from the Magic Bullet web site, shows the modularity of the Looks system. The squares along the bottom row are effect modules, and they build on each other from left to right. The square with the red circle inside it, for example, is the Edge Softening module, used to blur portions of an image to direct attention elsewhere. (I once saw a magician use this live on stage.)  The yellow square with streaks through it is the Grad module, and the module immediately to the right of it deals with Saturation. The other modules are classified.

Why use these two tools instead of a pro solution like Color? Other than Color being a bit buggy, it also takes me away from my timeline, making me work in another application that then renders the results back to a new timeline. I prefer to work on the timeline itself, viewing and reviewing clips and making minor adjustments in multiple passes. It’s not the way a professional colorist would do it, which is good as I’m not a professional colorist. It works fine for spec projects and experiments.

Also, Color has a steepish learning curve, so while I’m learning it I’m still able to make some progress by using these simpler, faster tools. There is next to no learning curve when using Magic Bullet Looks and Tiffen DFX 2. It was harder entering the product serial number during installation than doing anything else.

Turn the page for the first shot…

Filed under: Cameras •Tips •Training •

Abel Cine offers New Mattebox System for Canon 5D Mark II

On a recent shoot with the Canon 5D Mark II I lamented the lack of properly-sized donuts. Now, thanks to Abel Cine, I lament no more.

Just today Abel Cine posted on its web site a kit that allows use of an Arri MMB-1 mattebox system with odd-sized still format lenses.

The primary purpose of a mattebox is to hold filters, but filters not only pass light—being shiny glass, they reflect it. Any light that seeps in from the lens side of the mattebox will create reflections that have to be eliminated or they’ll completely ruin the shot.

In this picture the “donut” is the round gasket-looking thing at the rear of the matte box that consists of a rubbery bellows with a hard plastic ring inset. That ring is removable and comes in different sizes that fit perfectly around whatever lens they are made for. A tight seal between the lens and the ring/bellows system prevents any light from sneaking in the back of the mattebox and ruining a shot.

A mattebox system like this would have shaved a half hour and 30’ of 2” black paper tape off of my last Canon 5D shoot.

Check it out.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •

My First Shoot with the Canon 5D

The Canon 5D is a cinematic nightmare. In movie mode it’s hard to see focus, difficult to set exposure, and it doesn’t show you exactly what you’re getting. It records to heavily compressed 8-bit H.264, and the only frame rate available is 30fps. Not 29.97—exactly 30p. It’s a complete pain to use.

And I love it.

I love it not as a cure-all camera that everyone should buy, but as a niche camera that does a few things very, very well—especially for the price. Everything this camera does (except for shooting stills) can be done better by other, more expensive HD cameras. For $2,600, though, it can’t be beat.

The Canon 5D Mark II started life as a cost-cutting measure for Associated Press and Reuters. They asked for a still camera that also shot HD to avoid having to pay both a still photographer and a videographer to cover the same events. They wanted 30p, for web streaming, and full auto mode, so as not to scare still photographers who had never shot moving images before. Canon had no idea that this camera would appeal so strongly to professional filmmakers.

It does, tremendously. And you can see why by watching the finished spot at the top of this page. But it wasn’t easy. Read on…

Filed under: Training •

NorCal Digital Cinema Society Meeting Tonight, 6pm

We’ll take a close look at the Canon 5D, see a lot of footage, hear from Canon rep Tim Smith, and see a demo of the Panasonic GH-1 presented by Ilya Friedman of Hot Rod Cameras.

RSVP here: http://dcsjulymeeting.eventbrite.com/

Please note that Castro St. in Mountain View will be closed for an event, so avoid it if you can. The area will be crowded so please leave ample time for parking. Pizza at 6pm, meeting starts at 6:30pm.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •

Facebook Mobile spot, Shot on RED

“Hey Art,” said director Ian McCamey, “I want to shoot a Facebook spec spot. I’ve got no money. Are you in?” “Of course I am,” said I. “Let’s do it.” And we did.

We scouted Alamo Square Park in San Francisco and found that it had every type of location we wanted or needed. Then we had to figure out how to steal it, as we had absolutely no money to spend on anything other than water for the crew.

Crew? What crew? It was Ian, myself, and Ted Allen, a film student I’ve been mentoring for a little over a year. A couple of other people stopped by to help periodically, but mostly it was just the three of us.

We decided to shoot on the RED ONE camera as we figured that would allow us to get away without using much, if any, additional lighting. The RED doesn’t have the most latitude in the world (it captures about nine usable stops from white to black) but it captures mid-tones in a way that feels very “filmic.” It often feels like it has more latitude than it really does because the mid-tones can be stretched a fair bit to give the impression that there’s more range there than there really is.

We wanted to be as fast and flexible as we could, so we picked out an old Angenieux HR 10-1 zoom: not the sharpest zoom in the world but it was small, very compact and gave us a great range of focal lengths from 25mm to 250mm.

Ian and I spent an hour or two the week before at the park, shooting stills and discussing angles, and we had just about everything nailed down before we started shooting. When we returned for the shoot, on a blustery day in early June, we knew exactly where everything was to happen. We had a limited window of time to get everything (from about 2pm to 7pm) so we resolved to work very efficiently.

It was fortunate that we didn’t plan on doing much lighting as the wind was so strong we had a hard time keeping the camera cart from blowing away. We used some fill in only one shot, of the woman sitting on the tree log uploading a photo, to pop her face enough that a gamma boost in post would bring her shadow exposure in line with the fully daylit background. A 3’x4’ piece of foam core covered in Reflectix was all that was needed, placed in a small pool of sunlight just out of the left of frame.

The shaky-cam approach was part of the gag: only a few years ago many VFX shots were locked off as tracking was time consuming, processor-intensive and expensive. These days it’s relatively simple to do that kind of work in After Effects, which is what Ian used to cut this piece. The combination of perfect tracking and the moving camera helped sell the illusion that the graphics were really there.

The hard part for me was framing for objects that weren’t there while preserving a documentary feel. While my intern Ted followed focus on most of the shots, there was one where I had Ian work the zoom manually while watching the assistant’s monitor, while I pulled focus by eye. I then framed the shot in response to his zoom moves as he reacted to the actors. It’s not very often that I get to tell a director, “Here, you work this and I’ll work this, and let’s see what happens!” It worked quite well and was great fun.

We were extremely fortunate that we were not bothered by police and other authorities stopping and asking us for our permit. Police cars passed us every ten to fifteen minutes, and when we spotted them we tried to act nonchalant and innocent. We went out of our way to keep the crew down to a small footprint, and I guess we were small enough that no one cared what we were doing… other than the two guys in the beat-up Datsun hatchback who parked in the background of one of our shots and wouldn’t stop waving and flashing their headlights. They eventually moved when we sent our largest and most imposing actor over for a chat.

I would be negligent if I didn’t mentioned that I used a set of Formatt Hot Mirror ND’s, in conjunction with a Schneider Optics polarizer, for this project. I bounced between an HM ND .60 and .90, depending on the quality of light. The fog crept in later in the afternoon and softened the contrast a bit, and in retrospect I like how the RED handled the higher contrast shots with full sun more than the softer, flatter shots.

I rated the camera at ISO 320 but never used a meter to calculate exposure. I went by a combination of the histogram, zebras, stop lights, and what I call the “barber pole” but is actually a “vertical bar graph raw sensor meter.” It tells you how “full” your bit buck is, and it only ever pays attention to raw—not gamma corrected—data. My modus operandi was always to expose as hot as I could: doing that meant Ian would have more options to adjust gamma upwards if he wanted to open up a shadow in post. (He did the color grade himself in After Effects, working directly with the native R3D files.)

The nice thing about using the RED for this kind of shooting is that you can’t futz. The outputs are so poor you can really only use them as a kind of video tap—but in a way that’s very freeing. You know that the image is always going to look better when you look at it on a real monitor later, so you just get on with shooting. At the beginning of the day I set the RED’s white balance to 5600 and locked it, and for the rest of the shoot we only touched the focus and aperture rings and the roll button. I did toggle into RAW mode once in a while to check a highlight for clipping, but other than that we just framed a shot, rehearsed, and rolled. When the controls are that simple it’s easy to shoot fast.

I wouldn’t do every shoot this way as sometimes you really have to know what you’re getting. On more critical shoots it’s helpful to pull the drive off the camera and take an occasional look in RedCine or RedAlert, just for peace of mind and due diligence. But once you know how the camera is reacting in a certain situation there’s no reason to stop and mess around with color or contrast.

Ian makes a cameo, by the way. In the second shot he’s the guy on frame left, wearing a hat, half-sitting on the bench and having a Hitchcock moment.

Thanks to my good friends at Chater Camera for providing a simple, inexpensive and incredibly efficient camera package for this shoot.

Art Adams is a DP who uses Facebook Mobile a bit more often than perhaps he should. His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

Black Glimmerglass and Hollywood Black Magic Filter Tests

World-class camera assistant Mako Koiwai recently shot a camera test with two new sets of diffusion filters: Black Glimmerglass from Tiffen and Hollywood Black Magic from Schneider Optics. He compared them to diffusion filter sets that he has in his own collection, which includes Tiffen Soft Effects and Schneider Classic Soft filters.

He’s posted the results here, in full-res glory, although you can preview his work below.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

Diffusion Confusion

Digital filters are awesome for post image manipulation if you have enough bits to throw away. Glass filters, though, work at the highest resolution possible, in the camera head itself, and you’ll never have a better image to tweak than that.

A year ago I had the pleasure to interview Ira Tiffen, formerly of Tiffen, Inc., and Bob Zupka, currently of Schneider Optics, for a magazine article. Here, with a few tweaks and updates, is that article.

THE BASICS


The class of filter most often spoken of, and yet the least understood, is that of diffusion. Twenty years ago, Ira Tiffen sought to formulate a methodology of classifying diffusion filters to make it easier for cinematographers to understand what a particular diffusion filter was doing, and to make it possible to guesstimate what another filter would do based on knowledge of a particular filter’s effects. He proposed numbering the three components that a diffusion filter affected, on a scale from zero to ten, and using those numbers as part of the filter name. The three components were contrast, resolution and flare.

Filters that reduce resolution are said to affect “high frequency detail.” To those of us who got A’s in English and D’s in Physics, that means areas of the image that contain fine detail are affected more than areas that contain coarse detail. Wrinkles are a fine detail, lips and eyes are a coarse detail. How much fine detail is removed depends on the strength of the filter used.

Flare can also be thought of as halation, or “halos.” Flare causes highlights to scatter, and the quality of that scatter determines a lot about how the filter is used. For example, a Tiffen Pro-Mist may only scatter highlights a short distance across the filter so the highlight appears to glow. A Schneider Fog filter would create highlights that spread a great distance, effectively distributing the halation across the entire image and creating an overall “fog” effect.

Contrast filters affect—wait for it!—contrast. These work off flare as well, but instead of creating halation in the scene they scatter the light into the shadows, revealing details in the darkest tones that might not otherwise be visible.

Tiffen’s system would have designated each filter with a three digit sequence that told how much of each effect was present in the filter. If, for example, a 1/2 White Pro-Mist had a score of 2 for reducing high frequency detail, 3 for contrast, and 5 for halation, it would be relatively simple to find a filter that provided roughly the same effect but without the halation (a Soft F/X filter, for example). While the system itself never caught on, the thought behind it did.

On page 2: the three aspects of diffusion…

Filed under: Cameras •Pre-Production •Tips •

Using the ND .90 Filter as a Preproduction Tool

During my last round of far red filter testing with the Sony F35/EX1/EX3, director of photography and testing cohort Lenny Levy discovered that far red contamination could be seen by eye under tungsten light simply by viewing fabrics through an ND .90 filter.

This doesn’t work with near infrared, which is what the RED is sensitive too, but as the Sony cameras are oversensitive to red at the edge of the visible spectrum it makes sense that under certain circumstances we should be able to see this without looking through a camera.

I tested this out recently when I set out to create a standardized fabric chart to use when testing hot mirror and far red filters. I went into a fabric store with a flashlight and a Formatt ND .90 filter and I looked at black fabrics of all types. Here are a couple of examples, captured (badly) on a point-and-shoot camera.

This is 100% polyester.



This is 100% polyester viewed through an ND .90 filter. This is how it looked by eye. The magenta cast was very obvious, and is not simply an overall color shift caused by the ND filter.



This is 100% polyester felt made from recycled sources.



This is the same felt through the ND .90. By eye this looked perfectly neutral, but my digital camera picked up some far red/IR and made this picture turn a little magenta.

Note that what you are seeing is NOT overall filter color. ND dyes are rarely neutral and often shift a bit red or magenta, but the Formatts are fairly neutral filters and it was very obvious when a fabric did or did not reflect far red.

In the end I ended up with polyester, rayon, nylon and cotton fabrics that showed clear far red contamination by eye, and two fabrics (one polyester and one cotton) that show no visible contamination. I’m not sure why I’m getting contamination from cotton, which is a natural fiber, but the implication is that the fabric dye is the culprit. This may cause problems with Sony’s claim that natural fibers are free of far red contamination because a “100% cotton” label doesn’t seem to guarantee clean blacks.

I’m sure the employees at this fabric store wondered what in the hell I was doing, but both the flashlight and the filter were necessary: the filter blocked visible light while passing far red above 680nm, which showed which fabrics reflected far red; and the tungsten flashlight was necessary to provide full spectrum light so that far red was present to be reflected. Under the warm flourescent lighting of the store, far red didn’t show up at all through the filter. It appeared immediately, if it was going to appear at all, the instant I lit a fabric with the flashlight and viewed it through the ND filter.

This may be a good way to find problem fabrics during preproduction without having to rent a camera—at least as long as the camera is one of the three Sony cameras mentioned above that are sensitive to far red. Infrared is a completely different matter, so results will differ on the RED.

Stay tuned. I’ll be testing some new Tiffen far red filters tomorrow. The exciting bit is that they are neutral in color, not green. I’ll be interested to see how well my new fabric color chart works out.

I’ll also be testing cyan Kodak Color Correction filters on the RED to see if they reign in the red in tungsten light without the exposure loss of a blue filter, which cuts both red and green light.

Art Adams is a DP who photographs only the finest fabrics. His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •

Far red on the EX1/EX3/F35: “It’s a feature, not a bug!”

I asked Juan Martinez, of Sony at Park Ridge, New Jersey, what was up with far red contamination and the Sony EX cameras. Here’s what he had to say:

“Yes, the prism on the Ex has broad spectrum dichroic filters.  As you suspect, the Ex IR cut is 700nm, but it’s not steep, to preserve far red response. This issue occurs mainly with black polyester fabrics which reflect most of the IR while absorbing the visible, never with natural fibers or substances.”

Here’s my take:

The color red has always been the bastard stepchild of the video world. The rule of thumb for wardrobe and NTSC was “No white, no black, no fine patterns, and no bright reds!” White and black were contrast issues (we could hold one or the other but not both), and fine patterns had to do with moire and interlaced video. Red had the least bandwidth of any of the broadcast channels and strong saturated reds had a tendency to smear.

The first time I tested a Sony F35, at Videofax in San Francisco, video engineer Jim Rolin gasped as we aimed the camera at a Persian carpet. “I’ve never seen so many hues of red before!” With the advent of digital television and digital cinema, there’s no need to cripple equipment such that it works best in the limited world of NTSC video. Today’s cameras need to capture color in a way that their predecessors never did, because HD broadcast and digital cinema have much wider color gamuts.

Sony’s on-sensor hot mirror on the EX and F35 cameras starts cutting at 700nm, right at the edge of the visible red spectrum, so the issue isn’t really poor filtering on Sony’s part. Sony is trying to keep as much of that red spectrum in the image as possible in order to open up the possibilities for more subtle hues and shades of red. The problem is that synthetic fabrics tend to reflect a lot of far red/near infrared, and you can’t cut that part of the spectrum without crippling some of the enhanced red response of the camera.

The good news is that we have the option of enhanced reds if we want them, and if we don’t we’ll shortly have a filter that gives us that choice.

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. It has its drawbacks at times, but I’d rather have the option than not!

Art Adams is a DP who lives on the edge of the visible spectrum. His web site is at www.artadams.net.

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Look for me at CineGear

I’ll be at CineGear this Friday and Saturday, spending part of my time at the Digital Cinema Society booth and co-hosting a seminar on new lens technologies on Saturday. Stop on by the booth and say hi and/or check out the seminar on Stage 16 at 2:15 on Saturday. See you there!

Filed under: Cameras •Pre-Production •Production •

The Last Far Red Filter You’ll Ever Need?

The Sony EX1/EX3/F35 cameras have a little issue where they are over-sensitive to far red. This new prototype filter from Tiffen cleans up far red, and then some.

Before we get into the exciting world of test charts, let’s take a look at what far red contamination means to you. Here’s Anthony, prep tech at Videofax, modeling the finest in synthetic black fabric wear:

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “But Art—that’s not black at all! That’s some sort of maroon, and it went out of style in the 1980s!” And you’d be wrong on both counts. The jacket Anthony is holding is really black, and that maroon color went out of style in 1975. Here’s what it should look like:

The bottom image, shot through Tiffen’s prototype no-ND far red filter, shows that Anthony’s fashion sense isn’t stunted at all. With so much black he could easily be mistaken for either an artist or a DP.

Let’s move on to what this really means. And thanks to DP Lenny Levy for shooting the images above during our testing session last Thursday.

If you were thinking something along the lines of “More test charts, please!!!” then proceed to page 2…

Filed under: Cameras •Post Production •Production •Visual Effects •

Porsche Spot VFX Breakdown

Shot by shot, this breakdown shows all the steps required to pull off a single shot for “Porsche: Magnet,” a spec spot I shot several months ago for director Ian McCamey.

(For more about this spot, please see this article as well as this one.)

I saw this breakdown about a week ago at a screening at Rough House, a post company in San Francisco, where Ian was putting on a visual effects demo. A former editor for visual effects powerhouse The Orphanage (which fell victim to the recession earlier this year), Ian is striking out on his own as a director and eagerly demo’d his work to a packed house of multimedia professionals. As soon as I saw it I asked for a copy to post on PVC.

I think it’s really cool to see how all the elements are shot separately in order to maximize control. The challenge for me was to find a way to light this set once, and only once, because every shot had to fit seamlessly together into the whole—and any change in the lighting would make the compositing process more difficult as the shots wouldn’t match perfectly. As it was, we lost a building light on Patricio’s plate due to a light sensor being tripped, and while the light came back on it wasn’t quite full on before we had to continue shooting. The color cast of the discharge light source coming up to speed changed the color of the car hood, as white reflects even the most subtle change in color, and Ian did a masterful job of matching Patricio’s plate to the others.

This process isn’t foolproof, though. I had one visual effects shot not long ago where we put one person in two different places in the frame at the same time, and the difference in ambient fill in one half of the frame subtly changed when the person was pulled from the first plate to appear in the other half of the frame in the second plate. Fortunately it’s a very subtle difference that no one (but me!) ever notices.

The tough part about this spot was accepting the amount of noise that resulted from shooting on a great camera (the Sony F35) with almost literally no light. Due to lack of equipment, I had to choose between a proper exposure, no noise and an awful look, or a beautiful look that was underexposed and noisy but that we could clean up somewhat later. I decided it was more important for the lighting to be pretty, so I lit 40’ of sidewalk with one bounced 800w PAR, two 4’x4 Kino Flos, an open-faced Arri tungsten 1k and a Walmart LED light inside the car. The image I saw on the monitor was brighter than what I could see by eye, and my meter read “E” when aimed at the fill light.

I’m consistently impressed with Ian’s use of music in his editing, and I think you’ll be impressed as well when you watch this video clip. We just shot a spec spot for Facebook completely MOS, and I’m excited to see what he makes of the soundtrack.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this very interesting look into the mind of visual effects director/editor.

Art Adams is a DP who tries to improve upon reality whenever he can. His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •

Why Does Blue Hurt So Much?

I never thought I’d worry about when to use an 80A filter. Designed to allow daylight film use under tungsten light, it eats up an incredible amount of light. Why would I ever do such a thing?

I wouldn’t… in film. Digital, however… if you shoot with a RED under tungsten light, the 80-series is a filter family you need to know intimately.

I’ve written before about how all silicon sensors are natively balanced for daylight. This means that some cameras (such as the RED) do better when used with a blue filter under tungsten light. While that filter doesn’t have to be as heavy as an 80A, it does help to know why the blue filters cut out so much light compared to the orange filters.

Here’s what happens with an 85:

Filters can only absorb color, they can’t add it. In the case of the 85 filter, the goal is to warm up daylight so that it looks correct on a tungsten-balanced film stock. In order to do that blue must be absorbed, which is why the filter is reddish-orange. Filters pass their color and block others, so in the case of the 85 warm wavelengths pass through easily, while most of the blue is absorbed. Not all the blue is absorbed, though, otherwise this filter would be bright, bright orange—and so would your image.

(Note: technically the 85 only corrects from daylight to 3400k, while the 85B corrects all the way to 3200k.)

Here’s how the 80A works:

Remember that we’re starting off with tungsten light, which has very little blue in it, so all the filter can do is pass all the blue it can (not very much) and then knock the other colors down to create a balanced 5600k daylight color temperature.

The 80A is removing two stops worth of red, orange and green spectrum in order to match the tiny amount of blue in tungsten light—and once they’re balanced through the filter you’re bringing them all up to a proper exposure by opening the T-stop. The blue value never changes, because the blue 80A filter passes blue light unhindered.

This is something I’ve illustrated in this article.

Art Adams is a DP who opens up when he feels blue. His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

Tiffen tests new no-ND IR filter for EX1/EX3/F35

The broadband dyes used in the Sony F35, EX1 and EX3 sensors work wonderfully well in most regards. They allow us to capture subtle hues of color that electronic cameras have not been able to capture in the past. Unfortunately this comes at a price: the red dye passes a little too much light at the edge of the visible spectrum, so the cameras see red in some places where our eyes don’t.

I’ve written before about how silicon sensors are most sensitive to infrared (heat) energy. To ensure that the sensor sees the world the way people do, every sensor has a “hot mirror,” or dichroic filter, to reflect and reject the invisible wavelengths of light and leave the visible wavelengths of light free to pass through to the sensor.

Additional IR filtration is necessary because the on-sensor hot mirrors don’t always cut enough IR to keep the image free of IR contamination, especially when using neutral density filters. Neutral density filters reduce the amount of visible light hitting the sensor but don’t block invisible light, which then fools the sensor into seeing light that, to our eyes, isn’t there.

Some cameras, like the RED, have hot mirrors that work well under normal circumstances but fail to cut enough IR when neutral density is added. Because the problem lies in the realm of invisible light it is necessary to use a hot mirror to eliminate it. Dichroic hot mirrors are very good at removing wavelengths of light that we can’t see.

Here’s an illustration of what causes IR contamination in daylight:

Under normal circumstances the small amount of IR that reaches the sensor makes no difference, but when the amount of visible light is cut without cutting IR as well then the camera sees red where there shouldn’t be any.

Dichroic hot mirrors reflect invisible light to prevent it from reaching the sensor:

The problem with Sony F35, EX1 and EX3 cameras is completely different. They have a very good hot mirror in front of the sensor, or chip block, that rejects all light wavelengths above 700nm. The issue instead seems to be with the broadband dyes that Sony uses on the sensors of their newer Cine Alta cameras. In the past, the red, green and blue sensor dyes passed only narrow wavelengths of light, and this limited the ability of cameras to see secondary colors. Up until only a few years ago it was very difficult to obtain accurate yellows, oranges, cyans and purples because the spectrum passed by the sensor dyes didn’t include any of these colors.

At NAB 2007 a friend asked an old-time video engineer, “Why did it take so long for the technology to advance to the point where broadband dyes became possible?” The answer was that the technology has existed for twenty years, but the NTSC spec was so limited that there was no point in trying to capture those colors because they could never be broadcast accurately. With the advent of digital cinema, in which subtlety of color is both possible and desirable, that has completely changed, and Sony has responded admirably.

But nothing comes for free. The good news is that the red channel sees more subtle hues of red than ever before, which on the surface is a good thing. The bad news is that this makes the camera more sensitive to “far red,” which is red light at the edge of visible light. Our eyes don’t see far red but the camera sees it very well indeed. Since the goal is to reproduce only the visible spectrum, and far red is invisible to our eyes, it looks a bit odd when it appears in a picture. And it can appear even when no filtration is being used at all.

It is possible to make a dichroic filter heavy enough to cut red down to around 680nm, which is where the problem seems to start, but the filter is so heavy that it’s impossible to use it with wide-angle lenses. Dichroic coatings look clear when viewed straight on but change color when viewed at an angle. Wide-angle lenses capture light right to the edges of the filter, and the angle of that light is sharp enough to cause a color shift.

Here’s what’s happening:

The green rays show the angles at which light will change color when passed by the filter. Here’s an example of what that looks like:

The filter used here is the Schneider Tru-Cut 680, a filter that (as best I know) has never been publicly released. It’s based on the wildly successful Schneider 486 filter, which was developed for early digital still cameras that were manufactured without a hot mirror. It’s a spectacularly effective filter when it comes to cutting IR and far red—nothing beats it!—but it can’t be used on wide lenses at all. The picture shows what happens if you use this filter on an EX1 zoomed all the way out to 5.8mm.

So we know that the issue with the Sony F35, EX1 and EX3 is not IR but far red, and we also know that dichroic filters that cut low enough to block far red are too heavy to use on wide-angle lenses. What’s the solution? More on page two…

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

Optically White Balance the RED with Schneider CTB Filters

The RED can capture some pretty amazing images in 5600k daylight, but it stumbles a bit when shooting in 3200k tungsten light. The Schneider CTB’s help it get back on its feet.

I’ve written a couple of articles (here and here) about how silicon sensors are least sensitive to blue light, making them naturally daylight balanced: the lack of blue in tungsten light means the blue channel’s gain has to be increased to achieve white balance, resulting in a noisy blue channel. Daylight contains more than enough blue to create a solid noise-free exposure, so no gain has to be added to any channel for a proper white balance. (This assumes you are using your camera’s D5600 mode.)

Most cameras hide this blue channel weakness, but the RED does not. Under tungsten light the blue channel can be starved to the point where all sorts of interesting noise artifacts can pop up, and the red channel is overexposed such that it can clip a stop or more sooner than either of the other channels, limiting the camera’s overall latitude. Schneider Optics has developed a series of filters specifically designed to increase blue channel exposure (and reduce blue channel noise) under tungsten light, and they come in three different strengths depending on how much exposure you can afford to sacrifice. “We designed these filters specifically for low light use,” says Bob Zupka of Schneider Optics. “Just pick the strength you need based on the amount of light you have to work with.” They are intended to closely match the effects of Lee 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 CTB gels.

I tested these filters on a RED camera by filling the frame with a tungsten-lit gray card. This allowed me to create three distinct peaks on the histogram, one for each color channel, for ease of comparison. With the camera set at 5600k, here’s what the 3200k gray card looked like:

Under daylight these three peaks will line up to where they almost completely overlap each other. That’s a “proper” white balance. In this histogram we can see that tungsten light contains more red and less blue than the camera would see in daylight.

The overexposed red channel means that bright neutral-colored objects (white or light gray) will cause the red channel to clip a stop or more before the other channels, limiting the camera’s overexposure latitude under tungsten light. A red-colored object will clip even sooner as color saturation pushes a channel closer to clipping: a channel’s value is affected by both brightness AND saturation.

For example, the red saturation in both of these images is exactly the same:

These are rendered in 8-bit color, and red is set at 128, out of 256 total steps, in both squares. The only difference between these two squares is that the gray one contains equal amounts of green and blue also.

These two squares contain the maximum amount of red allowed in 8-bit color. If we were able to add one more red bit to either square the red channel would be clipped. Note that the red channel alone appears darker than the mixture of red, green and blue in the white square, and yet this red is right on the edge of clipping.

This illustrates an alternate way of looking at exposure: rather than just considering how bright something is, think also about how much color it contains. Too much color can cause a color channel to clip because you’re trying to force more color saturation into a color channel than it can handle. This is why it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the RED’s RGB histogram: it’s not enough to see if overall illumination is clipping—you have to keep an eye on color saturation as well!

Once you clip a channel… well, things get ugly fast. There are highlight recovery tools in Red Alert (DRX) and REDCine (Highlight) that will attempt to pull detail from the unclipped channels into a clipped channel, but there’s a limit as to how much a clipped channel can be repaired.

In the histogram above the blue channel is already underexposed a bit so we can expect to see excess noise in any dark areas that contain blue. In this article I did a test where I shot a person in a dark gray sweatshirt under tungsten light with and without a blue filter. The shot with the blue filter showed less noise in the dark areas of the shirt because the blue channel received a beefier exposure. Note that this is NOT because I added blue by adding a blue filter. Colored filters only remove color, they don’t add it—which is why there’s always an exposure compensation involved. In this case I didn’t add blue; instead I removed red and opened the lens aperture to compensate, which increased the amount of blue light hitting the sensor. This is how it works:

While white balancing most other cameras will result in the camera adjusting the red, green and blue gains to match, the RED white balance is a meta tag only. That means it affects only how the image is displayed, but doesn’t affect the image data at all. The image may appear white balanced but underneath, in the raw data, it is not. And given the “not so great” quality of the RED’s monitoring outputs you may not discover problems until post.

The test results are on page two…

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Whatever Happened to Ira Tiffen?

Ira Tiffen has transitioned from forging glass filters to casting attention-grabbing artwork.

When I last spoke to him, for an article I wrote last year about filtration, he was semi-retired and working on a book that would have been the ultimate filtration reference for the motion picture industry. Yesterday I sent him an email asking how the book was coming along. His response was a case of “good news/bad news.” He’d stopped work on the filter book in order to focus on his newest passion: works of art cast in glass.

From his web site:

I create my graphic elements in the computer. I then output them to high contrast film positives, which are transferred to ‘silk’ screens for printing. Mixing the colors myself from an array of special thermoset epoxy inks, the patterns are printed and baked directly onto the surface of the various glass plates that will make up the finished piece.

Each graphic layer represents what I want to appear at that depth within the volume of glass that I create when I then laminate all of the plates together, keeping the graphics closely in register, using an optically clear epoxy resin. One of the important aspects of this resin is that it’s refractive index, or the relative measure of how it bends light that passes through it, is a very close match to that of the low-iron, ‘water white’ glass that I use. The result is a solid block of laminated plates that appears as if it is, in fact, made of one solid chunk of glass. The only telltale signs are the laminate lines around the perimeter indicating where each plate surface meets the next.

My method of positioning two-dimensional graphic elements within the three-dimensional volume of glass afforded by my assembly technique, allows me to create visual effects that are difficult, if not impossible, to achieve otherwise.

I can alter transparency of the ‘material;’ I can create a gradual fade in or out of solidity; I can visually place elements inside other elements that would, physically, have no way of happening; I can create delicate fragments of structure that would never hold together in full three dimensional solid form; I can generate dynamic moiré and interference pattern effects, that can cause light to pulsate and flow. And more…after many years of thinking toward what I am now actually doing, I know that I am just getting started…

Ira is very generous with his knowledge and is one of the nicest people you’d ever care to meet. I’m thrilled that he’s taking 40 years of accumulated craft knowledge and putting it into works of self-expression. HIs web site will be well worth watching.

Filed under: Cameras •Hardware •Production •

Hands on with the Gearnex Gear Head

Camera operator Bret Allen, SOC leapt into the manufacturing world after a phone conversation with an Arriflex rep. Frustrated by the high prices gear heads commanded on Ebay (used Mitchell or Mini-Worrall heads never sold for less than $10,000), he called Arri and asked the price of a new Arrihead. “About $42,000,” said the rep in a thick German accent. “You should order now as we only make two a year.” A year later he, his business partner Joe Mendoza, and their company Gearnex are bringing a low cost gear head to market that is perfect for small HD cameras like the RED. The pre-order price for the Gearnex gear head is $4,995, 1/8th the price of an Arrihead and about the price of a new O’Connor fluid head. Like RED, they intend to change the world by bringing quality film-style tools to the masses.

Bret and I spoke about this project a year ago when he operated for me on a solar energy project in Sacramento, and I’d not heard anything else until he got in touch a few weeks to say that he was considering showing prototypes at NAB. “Don’t stop to think about it, just do it!” I told him. “Even if it isn’t perfect, NAB is the place for ideas. You’ve got to show it.”

He did, and the response was tremendous. I opted to shoot some spots instead of attend NAB so it wasn’t until yesterday that I finally got the chance to play with Bret’s baby. I was shooting some tests at Chater Camera in Berkeley, and Bret graciously offered to bring a head down from Sacramento for me to look at. The minute I touched it I knew he was the right person with the right idea at the right time.

When a friend who’d attended NAB told me the Gearnex gear head utilized worm gears I have to admit I was skeptical. The only perfect gear head design I’d seen was that used in the Panavision Panahead and Arri’s Arrihead, which utilized rubber belts and rollers. The key to that design is that there’s no slack in the wheels: when you turn a wheel, no matter how slightly, the head reacts. Cable-driven gear heads such as the Worrall and Mini-Worrall can develop play where the wheels have to be turned a bit before they “catch” and the head responds, and I was concerned that worm gears would exhibit similar tendencies. Imagine my surprise when they didn’t.

The Gearnex head is very responsive. It has two gear settings, a high and a low, and they both feel about right. The most often used gears on a Panahead or an Arrihead are second and third gears, with first gear reserved for very subtle moves. Second gear is a good all-around setting, and third works well for fast, sudden moves. The Gearnex gears feel like second and third gear would feel on a bigger head. There is no slack in the wheels and the head is surprisingly smooth. It’s not quite as smooth as an Arrihead, but it’s plenty smooth for a small-to-medium-sized camera at 10-12% of the price. Bret assures me that they are working to make the head even smoother by the time it ships.

Just as important as the gearing is the size and feel of the wheels. The 6” wheels are solid and well-balanced, and the handles turn smoothly and freely. It doesn’t feel like a small, inexpensive toy—it’s the real deal, and at a price that makes it accessible to just about everyone.

Bret Allen, SOC demonstrates the Gearnex Gear Head at Chater Camera.

Gearnex is still six weeks out from having final products ready to ship. Thanks to feedback at NAB the head is being slightly redesigned to accommodate heavier and longer camera configurations. The position of the rear wheel is being lowered, and it will also be fitted with a hinge that will allow it to swing to one side in a fashion similar to the Arrihead. Several additional “secret” features are being implemented: the head seen at NAB is about 70% of what will eventually ship. I’m sworn to secrecy but if they are able to implement even half these new features this product is going to be a very useful and exciting new tool.

Bret tells me that Gearnex is in talks with HotGears about designing a remote control interface, and they are also talking with camera operator Mike Frediani, SOC about creating an “introduction to gear head operating” video tutorial that will ship with every head. They are also talking to vendors about additional items such as a tilt plate and eyepiece leveling systems.

Best of all, RED wants a couple of units for their showroom. It makes sense that the first low-cost 4k digital cinema camera would be paired with the first low-cost gear head. Both buck the trends by bringing serious filmmaking tools into the reach of serious independent filmmakers.

Look for the Gearnex booth at CineGear in June, and stop by for a test drive. It’s an affordable high-quality tool for operators made by an operator, and it won’t disappoint. Get it in snazzy red (as seen above) or in sophisticated artsy black.

Director of photography Art Adams is an active member of the Society of Camera Operators (SOC). His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Post Production •Production •Tips •Visual Effects •

Tiffen DFX 2 Digital Filters

Tweaking footage for your reel is a huge advantage. Here’s how to take your footage to the next level without taking on a second full-time job as a colorist.

I’ve been a fan of Tiffen’s DFX digital filters ever since director/DP Joe Murray showed me that their precursor, Digital Film Tools 55mm and Digital Film Lab, were tools he used when coloring his own professional work. Joe started his career as a colorist, and he has the skill to tweak footage for his reel in the privacy of his own home. Using a combination of After Effects, Apple Color and tools like Tiffen DFX, Joe makes sure that his passion for filmmaking comes through the way he intends it to—every time.

Tiffen partnered with Digital Film Tools and fleshed out the 55mm and Digital Film Lab products with digital versions of Tiffen filters, taking a great effects package and making it even better.

I am not a professional colorist, and I can’t afford to hire one to tweak my reel. Besides, I like to play around and experiment, and while I’m no competition for a professional colorist I’m pretty good when it comes to manipulating my own imagery. The best part of coloring your own footage is that you learn what kinds of shots are problematic, which makes life a lot easier when it comes time for a professional to grade your work. As a camera assistant I was taught to always think about where the footage will go next—in that case it was paramount to make sure that my slates filled the frame and were legible, bright and in focus so the assistant editor could read them!—and this holds true for my work as a DP. If I have some idea what a colorist can, or can’t, do for me, then I’ll be in much better shape on the set when it comes to deciding what I will spend time on and what I won’t. Sometimes it’s a lot cheaper to let something go that you can have a colorist fix later when it’s just them, you and a director in a room instead of an entire crew waiting around for you to set a flag or put a grad in the matte box, and if you can make those calls accurately then you’ll be very popular with your producer.

I love playing with Apple’s Color, but with its steep learning curve and more than a few bugs it’s hard for me to spend the time necessary to learn it really, really well. It’s the most powerful tool out there for the price, but it’s not always the most convenient. I also love Magic Bullet Looks, but while it is a very fast and malleable tool it doesn’t offer the variety of diffusion and softening effects that Tiffen DFX does. So while I prefer Magic Bullet Looks for fast and effective coloring, Tiffen DFX allows me to add diffusion and grads a bit more subtly. That’s where the magic is.

Left: the raw shot. Right: the same image enhanced with a digital grad from Tiffen’s DFX 2 digital filter suite.

Above you’ll see a couple of video clips that I’ve treated with a variety of Tiffen DFX 2 filters. Both clips are from spec projects that were shot on an HVX-200, and while they look pretty nice just the way they are there’s no denying that a little extra tender loving care in post will go a long way. Some of the looks I demonstrate above are pretty severe just to show you what’s possible, but the best touches are frequently the light ones—and while they aren’t obvious manipulations there’s no doubt that they do improve the image beyond what an HVX-200 is capable of. And if you’re shooting with an HVX-200 you probably don’t have the budget to carry a collection of diffusion filters or grads, but for the price of one filter you can (digitally) have them all.

Does digital diffusion have the same effect as on-camera diffusion? No. When you put a glass filter in front of a lens you are manipulating the image at the highest bit depth possible. The image never looks better than it does in the camera’s DSP (digital signal processing unit) where matrix and gamma adjustments are applied to the raw data coming off the sensor. After that the data is squeezed down and output, depending on the camera/recorder combination, in 10-bit color for HD-SDI output or AVC-Intra recording, or 8-bit DVCProHD data or tape. Manipulating 8- or 10-bit compressed footage won’t come close to what you can do in camera by affecting the image at its purest level. But applying diffusion digitally, while not the same as adding it optically, still makes a difference, and Tiffen’s filter profiles seem very true to the originals. The best part is that you can choose to apply the diffusion effect to the overall image or only a specific part.

You can read about the first shot, of the girl on the lounge chair, in this article, and see the end result here. She was lit very simply with available skylight from a large roll-up door that I opened just enough to create the soft-but-contrasty look I was after. The raw images looked pretty good but I’m a stickler for making people look their best and I wanted to find a way to make her flesh tone perfect and silky smooth.

The other shot, the singer in front of the pier, I wrote about in this article. At the time I thought this shot could probably stand on its own if it had to, but in the back of my mind I knew I wanted to to try to do something to make the sky a little more interesting.

The trick to these kinds of effects is that you don’t want to blow out and clip some important detail that you might want to tweak later. It’s also good to realize that you might not be able to push things too far if you are shooting a highly-compressed format like 8-bit DVCProHD, or 10-bit low bit rate XDCAM. This pertains primarily to processes that require a change in gamma, ped or gain—anything that “stretches” out the data that’s already there. The adding of digital diffusion or color grads is less susceptible to banding but still looks better if you don’t have large areas of clipped detail. (Smaller clipped highlights can made a bit prettier by adding the subtle glow of a small amount of white diffusion.)

Let’s go on to page two and talk about Tiffen DFX’s controls…

Filed under: Lighting •Production •Tips •

Rosco Shows New IR Filter (and other goodies) at NAB

Not too long ago, after writing a series of articles on HD cameras and IR contamination, I published my first IR Filter Cheat Sheet for those who wanted to skip the technical details for a short description of what IR filter to use when. Shortly thereafter Rosco contacted me and said they’d like me to test their IR filter, the Rosco Tru-Color IR. Being the curious sort, I readily agreed to take a look. I’ll be testing it tomorrow at Videofax in San Francisco.

Here are some stills that Rosco provided from their tests:

Top: No IR Filter. Bottom: Rosco Tru-Color IR filter. Courtesy of Rosco, Inc.

At the same time Rosco asked if I’d be interested in testing one of their LitePad products. I warned them that I’d participated in the development of the Kelvin Tile and that I knew what to look for in an LED fixture, but they happily sent one along anyway. I’m most impressed at their simple yet highly-effective design:

This is the 3"x6” LitePad that Rosco sent me to test, dimmed to its lowest possible brightness and scanned on my HP desktop scanner. The LEDs are spread around the outside of the pad and radiate light across a grid of thin wires, which spreads and diffuses the light evenly across the LitePad’s surface. When testing luminosity in the Art Adams LED Exploratory Luminance Detection Center (our guest bathroom with the door closed and the lights turned out) I found that this light gave me a healthy 25 footcandles at 18” and 12.5 footcandles at around 3’. That’s a good amount of light for a thin lightweight light source that will most likely be hidden in close proximity to a subject. I’m going to take a closer look at its color tomorrow when I test the Tru-Color IR filter.

And just in case you wondered whether LitePads were at all a versatile family of lighting units:

Hmmm. I think they’ve thought this one through. They sent me a photo of a tabletop setup that I found most intriguing:

The thing to notice here is that all the light sources are LitePads, so we don’t get a good feel from this photo as to how LitePads will mix with other lights. But for simplicity, this tabletop lighting setup wins a prize.

And I could have used this little LitePad on my Porsche shoot a few weeks ago:

Last but not least, be sure to check out RoscoVIEW:

This two part system, consisting of a polarized window gel and an on-camera polarizer, is a clever way of controlling bright outdoor lighting viewed from inside. When two polarizers are combined it’s possible to rotate them in such a way that all nearly all light is blocked, so by rotating a polarizer on the camera lens it’s possible to selectively reduce the amount of light coming through the polarized window gel. The demo shown looks like it would work marvelously for those dreaded talking head interviews where the only nice angle in the room is the one looking out of it. (We’ve all experienced those at one time or another.)

WHERE: Rosco, #C8034

WHAT: LitePads, Tru-Color IR Filter, RoscoVIEW

WHY: Light control tools that add light you want or remove light you don’t

WHEN: NAB

WHO: Rosco

HOW MUCH: Tru-Color IR Filter: $199-$325 based on size, LitePads: $130-$525 based on size, RoscoVIEW: ask

Art Adams is a DP who likes to think he’s bright. His web site is at www.artadams.net.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •

Gear Head for the RED

Last spring, while shooting a piece for solar energy company SunPower on the RED, our jib operator asked me to keep a secret. “How interested would you be in a low cost gear head for the RED? I think I’m going to build one.”

HELLO! SIGN ME UP!

I’m a big fan of gear heads, although in my current niche of shooting spots and corporate short form projects in Northern California I don’t often have the opportunity to use them. When I was a camera assistant, and aspiring operator, I’d practice on the gear head at lunch following the art department around the set as they redressed it. I’d often been told to put a laser pointer on the head and learn to write my name on a wall, but I found that following people—who did unpredictable things—was much more useful.

Around that time I read a study where two basketball teams of equal skill were pitted against each other, and afterward they were told to practice in different ways in preparation for their next game: one team would physically practice, and the other would spend time visualizing plays in their heads. Both teams improved by about the same amount at their next game. So every time I watched TV I moved my hands as if they were operating a gear head, following the TV image. A few weeks of that and my hands knew which way to go, often without conscious thought.

When I was offered a job as an operator on a low budget feature I was ready and able to spin the wheels. I couldn’t do everything on a gear head, as I learned the hard way while trying to operate a long shot with a 200mm lens, but the moves I could do were very, very smooth and precise. (For 35mm film the rule of thumb is to use a gear head with lenses up to 100mm; beyond that, a fluid head is a much better option. That’s why the “A” camera generally has a gear head, for wide shots, and the “B” camera has a fluid head, for close ups.)

When I moved to Northern California in 1993 I fell into the corporate video world, and other than occasional trips to LA to operate on features or second unit I didn’t touch a gear head for years at a time. My last experience was on a corporate job about four years ago: the director loved gadgets, and when he learned that I could operate a gear head he ordered one for our next few projects. It was a lot of fun, working with an Arrihead and a Sony F900, and the director was blown away by the quality of the moves. He said it felt as if the camera was floating.

When operator Bret Allen, SOC pulled me aside last year and told me his plan, I asked him to keep me in mind when the time came for testing a prototype. We’d hoped to get together this week as the first production models came off the line, but our schedules won’t allow me to test his baby before NAB. If you get to it before I do (and if you’re at NAB then you probably will) please post your thoughts below in the comments box.

As far as I know, the GearNex Gear Head is the first of its kind to be designed specifically for use with HD cameras. It’s not heavy-duty enough for a Panaflex with a 10-1 zoom and a 1000’ mag but it’ll do fine with a RED, an F900R, Sony F35 or any other camera in that general size category. And it’s priced to be affordable for both rental houses and owner-operators.

For a GearNex Gear Head test drive at NAB, go to

WHERE: AJA BOOTH, #SL-2513

WHAT: GearNex Gear Head

WHY: Smooth moves for the BIG screen

WHEN: NAB

WHO: Gearnex

HOW MUCH: Pre-order price, $3,995. Normally $5,995.

Tell them you read about it on PVC!

Art Adams is a DP who used to spend a lot of time spinning his wheels. His web site is at www.artadams.net. He is an active member of the Society of Camera Operators (SOC).

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Visual Effects •

Porsche F35 Spec Spot Revealed

About a month ago I shot a spec Porsche spot at night on the Sony F35 at ridiculously low light levels. Here’s the finished piece.

Director: Ian McCamey

DP: Art Adams

Camera and lighting gear: Chater Camera

Visual Effects Supervisor and Porsche owner/operator: Kevin Baillie

Camera Assistant: Rod Williams

DIT: Louis Block

Crew without portfolio: Alan Hereford

Sound editor/mixer: http://www.chrastkasound.com/

As noted in my previous article about this shoot, we knew we’d end up with a noisy image because of the limited resources used to pull this off. My light meter read “E” when I took light readings at 640 ASA and we found we could see the action better by looking at the monitor than by the naked eye. After initially lighting for a proper exposure, but not liking the resulting look, I decided to light for “pretty” first and exposure later. I’m very happy with the results.

The final spot required a fair bit of noise reduction in the shadows but flesh tones held just fine. The little bit of noise that’s left reminds me of film grain.

If we’d shot this spot for an agency we’d have a few more tools available, but I don’t think it would have taken a lot more to beef up the exposure to a noise-free level. The F35 is very, very quiet and very, very fast, and it was an absolute pleasure to use. I couldn’t have pulled this off with any other single-chip camera.

I’ll be posting some additional versions of this spot in the near future. For my web site I might trim it and make it a little shorter, as well as play with some color correction choices, and I’ll post those here as I develop them. I might even hold an informal survey to see which plays better.

Disclaimer: This spot is a spec spot and has nothing official to do with Porsche or the Porsche brand. (I mention this because this spot was on Youtube for a brief time, generating TONS of traffic before Porsche had it pulled. It is posted here as an educational aid.)

I hope you enjoy the spot!

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •

IR Filter Cheat Sheet

Here it is. Below the table you’ll find a link to download a printable PDF. To the best of my knowledge this information is correct, but be sure to read the notes regarding Hot Mirror filters: they can cause color vignetting on wider lenses, some require that a certain side face out, and they can be highly reflective. This table should be very helpful, but just to cover myself:

USE AT YOUR OWN RISK, and WHEN IN DOUBT, TEST.

Updates will occur as new things are learned. Enjoy!

Click here to download a printable PDF.

Filed under: Lighting •Production •Tips •Training •

Mysteries of Color and Light

Between January 2007 and April 2008 I consulted for Element Labs on the development of the Kelvin Tile. During that time I learned a lot about color and spectrum. Someone on the Cinematography Mailing List’s CML-Basics list asked a question about color rendition and broken spectrum lighting, which got me going on a riff that I will post here, with some embellishment.

The Kelvin Tile uses two LED packages, of three colors each, to create a very broad spectrum adjustable color temperature light.

Color is created when spectra of light striking an object are either absorbed or reflected. For example, lighting a green object with full spectrum white light will result in all the wavelengths of light that are not green being absorbed, while green wavelengths are reflected.

The visible color spectrum, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Certain lights, such as sodium vapor streetlights, are missing large parts of the light spectrum, because they work by electrically exciting gas mixtures that only emit light in very narrow frequency ranges. That’s why you’ll see very little color at night in a parking lot lit with sodium vapor lights: the white cars will appear orange, because sodium vapor lights emit mostly yellow-orange light and the white paint on the cars contains that part of the spectrum, but they don’t look white because the light’s spectrum doesn’t contain any of the other colors necessary to create white. (See “additive vs. subtractive” on the last page of this article.) And other colored cars, such as blue or green or red, will appear nearly completely black, because they absorb all of the orange-yellow light and reflect none of their own color back because it’s simply not present in the light. You can’t reflect what isn’t there.

The sodium vapor spectrum, courtesy of Wikipedia. Any color whose spectra fall into the gaps between these colors will not be faithfully rendered. And there are a LOT of gaps.

Fun fact: the City of San Jose, in which I live, uses low pressure sodium vapor street lighting in order to reduce light pollution that would otherwise interfere with the operation of nearby Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton. The narrow spectrum of low pressure sodium vapor lighting can be easily filtered by astronomers as it doesn’t interfere with the spectrum of light that they are observing. I learned this because I shot the video at the bottom of this page as a freebee for Lick Observatory more than ten years ago. All proceeds benefit the operation of the observatory.

LED lights are tricky. There were, when I last studied them, two types: phosphor and dye. Phosphor LEDs emit a fairly broad spectrum of light, while dye LEDs emit very pure, very narrow spectra. Up until the Kelvin Tile was developed most LED lights used only phosphor LEDs, and they weren’t perfect: they emitted a little too much green, which is why most of those lights come with some sort of minus green gel for color correction. Their spectrum isn’t perfect but it’s good enough to convince the eye that it’s white light, although if you looked at two MacBeth charts side by side, one lit with an LED light with phosphor LEDs and the other lit with a tungsten light, you’d notice that some colors on the LED side were dull and lifeless compared to the tungsten side.

A graph of white light created by three dye LEDs, courtesy of Wikipedia. While this light will appear white to the eye, any object whose colors fall between the spikes will not be faithfully rendered.

Read on for more interesting spectral goodies…

Filed under: Business •Web Video •

The Quicktime Conundrum, Part 2: Solved by our Readers

A couple of great suggestions for creating flawless H.264 Quicktime—and Flash!—movies popped up in the comments section of my last article. They deserve their own article.

Reader Brandon Cory suggests that exporting a Quicktime reference movie from Final Cut Pro in the Animation codec and then running that through Compressor’s H.264 encoder should retain the proper gamma settings. I tested this method and, to my total surprise, it works. My initial thought was that reference movies don’t contain the gamma tag, but when I exported a ProRes reference movie the gamma shift still occurred. Apparently using the right codec, one that doesn’t mess with gamma on export, is still a key to successful H.264 encoding.

One of the key benefits of using Compressor is the ability to use its excellent deinterlacing feature (under the Inspector’s “filters” tab). I use “blur” as that seems the most pleasing to my eye.

Reader david@kosmos pointed out something I never dreamed was possible: the easiest way to make an H.264 Flash file from an H.264 Quicktime file is to change the extension from “.mov” to “.f4v”. That’s it. On the Mac I had to go into the H.264-encoded file’s “Get Info” properties and change the “Open with” attribute to Adobe Media Player, but it worked.

This is particularly powerful because many large corporations won’t allow their staff to install Quicktime 7, either because they don’t want employees watching movies on company time or because, on the Windows platform, Quicktime was at one time bundled with iTunes and many corporations forbade the installation of iTunes on company computers. (I don’t know whether the two are still bundled together; I can’t tell from my position in the Mac world. Maybe a Windows user can post in comments whether this is still true..?)

Flash players can be found on virtually every computer in the world, so the ability to display the same H.264-encoded video in either player is a huge advantage.

Thanks a ton for your helpful comments, and if some more Quicktime hints and tricks show up I’ll be sure to make you aware of them. Thanks for reading AND contributing!

Filed under: Business •Web Video •

The Quicktime Conundrum

There’s nothing like waking up in the morning and realizing that your chief marketing tool is probably driving away more clients than it’s attracting.

I both love, and hate, Quicktime. Flash is the universally accepted method of viewing video on the web but it doesn’t seem to be an easy or cost-effective tool for those of us who want to manage our own showreel web sites. I own On2’s FlixPro, and while it seems to be one of the simpler solutions out there it is still horribly difficult to get the same quality out of Flash video that I can easily get out of Quicktime. Newer tools, such as Adobe’s Media Encoder, do a very nice job because of their recent addition of H.264 as an encoding option, but there’s still the issue of constructing or adding a player to the video file after the encoding process. Frankly I just can’t be bothered to learn how to do all that. Encoding video is not my primary career.

Quicktime has always been super easy to use. In the old days I spent $30 on Quicktime Pro and used that to compress my video to manageable sizes. Encoding with Quicktime 6 Pro was easy, and H.263 offered fairly good compression at fairly small file sizes.

And then the H.264 codec showed up. It compressed smaller, prettier and cleaner than anything that came before it. It completely changed the face of video on the web. But… there was one near fatal bug.

This article by PVC’s Chris Meyer explains the problems that a lot of us have suffered through for the last three years. While H.264 is about the best codec out there for compressing web video, and while it is super easy to use when outputting from Final Cut Pro via Compressor, the gamma is ALWAYS boosted, making clips look both milky and desaturated. And that doesn’t bode well for business, as almost nobody wants a physical showreel anymore. They want instant gratification via my web site.

The only reasonable explanation that I’ve heard for this boost in gamma is that Apple assumes that your display is set up for a gamma of 1.8 and is trying to help you out by encoding video with that gamma setting locked in. This website has an interesting explanation about why that is. The digital video and Windows worlds are both locked in to a gamma of 2.2, and that’s currently how the vast majority of computer displays are set up.

The culprit is a tag hidden inside Quicktime that tells Quicktime Player to display H.264 video with a gamma of 1.8. There is no known way to access and change this tag. There are a couple of applications that claim to be able to strip this tag from an existing Quicktime file, but none of them worked for me.

I asked a web-savvy friend if he had a solution and he suggested that I encode my video with a Compressor gamma filter setting of 1.22, with the intent of counteracting the gamma boost by making the video darker. This appeared to work, and I was quite happy for several months, until it was pointed out to me that my video clips looked way too dark when viewed in Firefox. Safari and Omniweb (my current browser of choice) see H.264 encoded video with the boosted gamma, so my Compressor-darkened material looks fine; Firefox somehow bypasses the gamma tag and sees the video clips as they really are: too dark. I’m told this is also the case when H.264 Quicktimes are viewed in Windows, a platform which (I’m told) has a quite a few customers.

The best solution I found was to use X.264, an open source version of H.264, although this solution also had its issues. We’ll cover those on the next page, but first, let’s take a closer look at the problem. The following image is from a spec spot I shot on the RED ONE for Nintendo’s Wii:

Here’s a dark frame that I’ve used as a reference for my encoding tests. This is how this image should look on the web. Watch what happens to the background detail in the next few images.

In the Compressor-exported version the gamma is lifted, desaturating the color and making everything a bit brighter. What’s interesting is that I had to capture this still via screen capture using Apple’s Grab utility, because when I exported the frame as a still from within Quicktime the gamma on the still was correct! Apparently the boosted gamma tag does not follow a still image the way it does a Quicktime movie.

This image was corrected using the gamma filter in Compressor, set at 1.22, darkening the gamma-boosted image to emulate a gamma of 2.2. It looks almost like the original (top) image, and certainly looks a little better than the image with the boosted 1.8 gamma.

Here’s the same darkened image viewed in Firefox. The background is almost completely gone. Crushing the blacks has over-saturated the colors. What looks fine in Safari and Omniweb looks awful in the world’s most popular browser.

This is the X.264 encoded image, viewed in Firefox. It’s a considerable improvement.

So, for several months now, my web site has looked appallingly dark to anyone who viewed it using either Quicktime for Windows or Firefox, a browser that recently overtook Internet Explorer for world market share.

Ack.

Needless to say I spent a lot of time over the last few days frantically trying to find a solution. Chris Meyer’s article held part of the answer and the rest I had to find out for myself. Read on, that you might spare yourself the pain that I experienced…

Filed under: Cameras •Lighting •Production •

Anatomy of a Porsche Spec Spot

When the economy goes south, I go into fifth gear. I recently seized the opportunity to shoot a couple of spec spots with director Ian McCamey, formerly of The Orphanage, and our first project together was a spot for the Porsche Cayman. A Cayman pulls up in front of a club and, like a magnet, drags three people onto it—and one ends up in the passenger seat in the last shot.

Not having production insurance threw a crimp into our plans until we realized that we didn’t need any if we could shoot the spot at a rental house. I threw myself onto the mercy of my longtime friend and DIT Jay Farrington, partner in Chater Camera, and asked if we could shoot our spot in front of his building through the shop’s roll-up door. He readily agreed, provided the weather and his rental schedule cooperated. It took about ten days but the planets finally aligned, and we found ourselves shooting on Ninth St. in Berkeley on a Friday night.

Chater Camera has one of two Sony F35’s in Northern California (Videofax has the other) and they have the only set of Arri/Zeiss Master Primes in the area. It was great fun to be able to play with the newest and greatest toys… and they totally saved our bacon because we wouldn’t have been able to pull this shoot off without them.

I suppose you want details. Then read on…

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

EX1/EX3 IR Filter Shoot-Out

The Sony EX1 and EX3 are great cameras for the price, but they do have some fairly obvious issues with IR/far red when used with neutral density filters in front of the lens. This test taught me far more, though, than just what filters to use to eliminate a color problem on these cameras: I learned never to make assumptions about how a piece of equipment works until I’ve tested all possible options.

I’m not going to recap my testing procedures or the physics behind how the different filters work. You can find those details in my F35 and RED IR articles. I’ve gotten a lot of requests for an EX1/EX3 IR article, and as I’ve previously explained the basics this article is going to focus solely on results.

Here’s what the test setup looked like, without any on-lens filtration:

The setup consists of a DSC Labs Chroma Du Monde chart, the Chroma Du Monde polyester chart bag as an IR/far red reflector, and a slate.

Here’s the same setup with Schneider Optics ND 1.2 filters in front of the lens:

As I’ve explained before, all heavy ND filters show some color shifts because it’s impossible to make a dye that is perfectly neutral. Some ND filters go warm and others cool. In this case the Schneider filters add a reddish hue, which I’ve attempted to correct out in Photoshop. A simple white balance is enough to get rid of this hue in camera, but I chose to do it in post in order to observe the various filters’ color shifts.

In spite of white, black and gray balancing in Photoshop, the black DSC chart bag has turned a bright maroon color with four stops of ND in front of the lens—brighter than I’ve seen on any other camera I’ve tested.

The first time I looked at a black cotton shirt under tungsten light on an EX1 it turned bright maroon even without ND. Between that experience, and seeing how much red I saw with some ND in front of the lens, I figured that the built-in Hot Mirror on these cameras was either very bad or nonexistent. I was wrong, but I wouldn’t figure that out until later. Read on…

Filed under: CS4 •Post Production •Production •Training •

Fake Tilt-Shift Cinematography

Traditionally used to create the illusion of impossibly deep focus, tilt-shift effects are now being used to do the exact opposite—with surprising results.

I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis, and my geeky friends do as well. Somehow, somewhere, someone stumbled across this little gem of a web site. Rather than using tilt-shift lenses to tilt the plane of focus horizontally to create greater depth of field, the lens is tilted so that the plane of focus is at 90 degrees to the plane being photographed. The result is a shallower field of focus than normal, and under certain circumstances our brain will perceive the result as a miniature.

When shooting miniatures we always use an enormous amount of light and stop the lens down as far as possible, usually to T11 or T16, in order to keep the entire miniature in focus. That, among other things, “sells” the illusion that the miniature is life size: in reality we’d perceive a full scale version of the miniature as being completely in focus because we’d have to be quite far away from it to see the entire thing. Apparently this trick works well in reverse: if we take a picture of a large object but reduce the depth of field to a narrow slice the picture appears to be of a miniature, because photographing a miniature without the use of trick photography results in a very narrow depth of field.

I’m shooting a spot next week with director Ian McCamey where we’re going to play this trick in moving images. A small Lego figure will be staring down at various large vistas that appear to be not much bigger than he is. As an example of how we plan to pull this off, here’s a test shot that I took from my balcony last week:

And here’s the same image after a little processing through Adobe After Effects:

Rather than use a tilt-shift lens, which I don’t own and don’t have easy access to, I just created the same illusion by selectively blurring the image. The illusion works, but just barely. It helps to be much farther away so that there’s very little perspective. The tree in the mid-ground almost breaks the illusion, and the chimney, if it was in focus, would certainly break it.

I’ve not seen this done successfully in motion, and I love a challenge. Hopefully I’ll have something to show in a week or two.

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

F35 IR Filter Shoot-Out

Technically the Sony F35 isn’t sensitive to infrared, but it is sensitive to far red. The difference will save you a lot of money on filters.

Before we start, it might be a good idea to take a look at this article to refresh your memory as to where in the spectrum IR/far red filters cut, and why they become important under certain conditions.

The methodology for this test was similar to the RED test: each shot was recorded digitally, although in this case to a Panasonic HPM-110 P2 deck in AVC-Intra fed via the camera’s HD-SDI port. I exported a frame from each shot into Photoshop and color corrected it in the same way I described in the RED Hot Mirror shoot-out article.

In the center is a DSC Chroma Du Monde chart lit with two tungsten Arri 1k open-face lights. Behind the slate is the chart’s polyester case, which is an excellent source of reflected IR/far red.

The F35 is so sensitive that we were able to achieve a stop of T22, using Arri/Zeiss Ultra Primes and no filtration.

For several of the filters we did a flat field test in order to detect off-angle color fringing due to dichroic coatings:

This is what the 16mm Ultra Prime looked like at T8:

This lens shows some vignetting at certain T-stops so keep that in mind when looking at the flat field tests. What we’re looking for are color shifts around the edges of the frame, not brightness shifts.

On to the tests…

Filed under: Cameras •Production •Tips •Training •

RED Hot Mirror Shoot-Out

Not all infrared or Hot Mirror filters are made the same, and not all work the same way on different cameras. In this test we looked at filters from Schneider, Formatt and Tiffen to see how they perform on the RED ONE.

First, let’s review what the issue is with HD cameras and IR:

The visible spectrum runs from approximately 400 nanometers to 700 nanometers in wavelength. Unfortunately, silicon is most sensitive to light energy above the visible spectrum: it’s the perfect infrared imaging material. Without some sort of “Hot Mirror” filter (a filter that reflects heat, or IR) this invisible energy will overwhelm the visible light hitting the sensor and ruin our images. Most cameras are built with a Hot Mirror filter mounted to the front of the sensor, but some Hot Mirrors are better than others.

Under normal conditions there is a certain amount of what is called “far red” (red light beyond the visible spectrum, but not yet IR heat energy) captured by a sensor, but it is easily overwhelmed by the amount of visible light in the image so we don’t normally see it:

Neutral density filters block visible light but not far red or infrared, so adding ND filters reduces the ratio of visible light to far red light hitting the sensor. At some point that ratio becomes low enough that far red becomes visible and is easily seen in reflective synthetic materials and some clothing dyes, which makes those materials appear a muddy maroon or, in some cases, bright blue.

Here’s a test setup shot on a RED with no filtration:

Here’s the same shot as above but with a Schneider ND 1.2 filter:

Believe it or not, the bright blue in the black jacket on the left of frame is IR contamination. In the past I’ve only seen IR turn dark objects maroon, and at first I had no idea what to make of this. A conversation with Adam Wilt confirmed that not only was this IR contamination, but that the blue hue was not uncommon. Apparently the blue filtration on most sensors is very good at isolating blue in the visible light spectrum but not always so good at blocking light in the non-visible part of the spectrum. Under certain conditions such as this test, where we’re using a camera that is nominally daylight balanced in a tungsten environment with ND (not a common scenario), this small weak point in the sensor’s blue filtration becomes apparent.

Until single-chip cameras became fashionable we rarely saw these issues. The prisms in three-chip cameras pass only very specific wavelengths of light and are very good at excluding far red and IR. Single chip cameras, though, are a completely different story, and those I’ve tested so far benefit from additional filtration in situations where the ratio of visible to far red light, or IR energy, becomes too low.

The filters we tested all worked in slightly different ways, and it’s fascinating to see what works well and what doesn’t, and why. What’s more, these filters seem to be camera specific, so what works on one camera may not work on another.

All of the footage used for this test was shot in Redcode 28, 4k 16:9, and saved as 2k DPX files, which were then brought into Adobe Photoshop CS4 and white balanced by using the white, gray and black pickers, in the curves adjustment tool, using the following targets:

The white balancing was necessary as several of these filters imparts a subtle hue to the image, which is then easily removed in post.

Read on…

Filed under: Cameras •Post Production •Production •Tips •Training •

The Not-So-Technical Guide to S-Log and Log Gamma Curves

For a couple of weeks I’ve been researching the mystery of Sony S-Log, and log curves in general, trying to determine what they are, what they do, and whether they are a good thing or not. After interviewing three different people (George Palmer of HDPix, Michael Bravin of BandPro and especially Steve Shaw of Digital Praxis) I finally had a sartori. I get it now. It’s really cool. And it’s surprisingly simple.

USE THE APPROPRIATE AMOUNT OF FORCE

I’ve written before about how advanced gamma curves of any sort are intended to fit up to 12+ stops into the five stop bucket specified in the Rec 709 HD standard. While the other curves built into the F35 and F23 are basically what-you-see-is-what-you-get curves, S-Log is the only one that’s not. At first I had a hard time getting my head around the math of how S-Log is storing bits until Steve Shaw helped me see that it’s all about working with Mother Nature.

An image sensor sees light one way: linearly. It simply counts photons. A 14-bit sensor, with 16,384 steps per channel, will distribute brightness this way:

16,384: totally saturated sensor (maximum white)

8,192-16,383: First stop down from maximum white

4,096-8,191: Second stop down from maximum white

2,048-4,095: Third stop down from maximum white

1,024-2,047: Fourth stop down from maximum white

512-1,023: Fifth stop down from maximum white

256-511: Sixth stop down from maximum white

128-255: Seventh stop down from maximum white

64-127: Eighth stop down from maximum white

32-63: Ninth stop down from maximum white

16-31: Tenth stop down from maximum white

8-15: Eleventh stop down from maximum white

4-7: Twelfth stop down from maximum white

2-6: Thirteenth stop down from maximum white

1-2: Fourteenth stop down from maximum white

As you can see, the first four stops of dynamic range get an enormous number of storage bits—and that’s just about when we hit middle gray. This is the origin of the “expose to the right” school of thought for “raw” cameras: if you expose to the right of the histogram you are cramming as much information as possible into those upper few stops that contain the most steps of brightness. As we get toward the bottom of the dynamic range there are fewer steps to record each change in brightness, and we’re also a lot closer to the noise floor.

The solution to this strange state of affairs continues on page two…

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