Notes on Cinematography

A-cam pix

2007-02-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

From the ikonoskop website, the pictures were taken back from when I went to Sweden last year with the A-cam. (and yes, this is my camera pictured, not just any generic reflexed a-cam)

Sweden (again)

2007-02-07T02:01:00.000-08:00

Took a train North to a small town called Hudiksvall where I met up with Urban and his wife, L, who is to be my test interview for a possible series on the latest Iraqi exodus.

The train ride from Stockholm was about 5 hours long, going straight North into the snowy landscape, urban architecture giving way to industry and factories, which then gave way to sporadic cabins then finally the forest.

From the train station in the town of Hudiksvall there is a bus (which comes once on Sundays) that winds further North along a country road for an hour until finally it reaches Urban's house.

okay, the images are slightly photoshopped...

Filming in Jordan - Ragadan bus station

2007-01-12T22:02:00.000-08:00

Filming in Jordan - Raghadan bus station

So much had happened during my 5 week stay in Jordan, preparing and shooting the experimental short, "Makhrej", that it would be worthy of a few dozen blog entries. But I don't have enough photos to support all the stories, except for this one

The Raghadan bus station, located just east of downtown Amman, is a smorgasbord of ill-tempered bus drivers, cab drivers, tiny shop stalls and swarms of crowds. Besides Abdally, this is one of the most active bus stations in the city, filled with life and colour.

To decide to film here was not easy - it wasn't about getting permission, but more about being able to negotiate with the crowds and vehicles in order to be able to get the shots in the can. The scene was simple enough: man gives letter to woman, woman reacts.

It had to be done quickly and efficiently, since we were invariably going to draw a crowd, which easily snowballs into a bigger crowd, onlookers curious to know why a crowd has gather. That in turn attracts more people. and on.

The picture of the crowd was really only the tip of the iceberg, soon after the middle photo was taken the crowd easily doubled.

We were lucky with the generosity of the crowd, who played ball by not standing around in front of the scene nor looking into the camera.

Majd, the actress, pulled the scene off well, looking natural sitting in her abaya at a makeshift cigarette stall.

Singapore 2

2006-08-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

Now, one thing that Singapore IS notorious for is the cleanliness of their streets, which they enforce through hefty fines and prison time for multiple offenders, as well as a good dose of 'caning' to the recidivists!

So one thing you'll NOT see a lot of here in Singapore is graffiti. Although after searching far and wide I found two things which can be seen as sub-divisions of graf: Stickers and Stencils.

Second hotel we stayed at was called the 7th Storey hotel, which was quite unique within the singapore landscape because it was a 50+ year old building surrounded by ultra modern, has managed to survive all these years, and has the country's last and only fully functioning manually operated elevator (complete with a projector handle to move up and down). I suppose one of the ways they paid the bilss is that massive billboard you see on the side of the building.

One night I walked around the city late late late, and noticed these little buddha statues tied to a chain link fence. I imagine they're a prayer offering of some kind, but know no details. Anyone?

Last thing: when in Singapore, do remember to try some of the local drinks, especially the"Uncle Djegot Milk Drink". What's so special about Uncle's Milk drink? Well, you will just have to ask the good uncle yourself, but that self-satisfied look on his face kinda says it all, don't it?

Singapore 1

2006-08-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

I will write little to nothing about the Evil Corporation I was working for on the other side of the world, and focus on the country this 'corpo' was exploiting.

Singapore is truly a land of strange wonders - some of the greatest food from the three ethnic groups that reside there (Indian, Chinese, Malay), and a major shopping hub for the rich and devoid.

The first hotel we stayed, paid for by the E.C., was the Grand Hyatt, full amenities, crazy breakfast buffet with imported aged cheese and organic breads, and two (count 'em : 2) televisions in each suite. Oh yeah, the 'shower' was, ummm, these holes in the ceiling of the stall, to better replicate this 'rainfall' experience they were going for. And I was a tad disappointed that they only had 15 treadmills in their modest gym.

I should also say that great food and shopping usually means great architecture, and there was no shortage on this little island. The parkview entrance, for example is sumptious and elegant - the building rises like a fortress over the city.

After the gig was done, we had to say goodbye to the Hyatt and find a suitably budgeted place to hang out before our return flight 4 days later.

The first hotel was in Singapore's semi notorious red light district, the hotel was called Happy Ending over at the Galang 5 district. I say semi-notorious because the red light district in Singapore is where the locals go, not the tourists. It's for the regular Joe who saves whatever of his $100 a week to release stress, get a little bit of 'home', whatever. Not to be confused with the fully notorious red light districts of Bangkok and Amsterdam.

And here (bottom picture, above) is an innocent view out of my red light district hotel room window down onto the street.

Elvis '68 comeback special

2006-07-13T13:21:00.001-07:00

A music video for the über-talented The Dears , forst single off their upcoming album.

The concept was to somewhat emulate the opening number of the famous Elvis 1968 comeback special (there's been a reissue on DVD recently)

And of course, we took liberties :-) Director ( Maxime Giroux ) was not looking for a direct replica, but rather a similar feel.

Shot with the Varicam at 30fps. The red background was lit with 5k skypans, and the red " YOU " sign were a hodgepodge of red household bulbs, ranging from 30 to 60 watts.

Post was done at Ottoblix in Montreal.

Frame grabs are pulled from the compressed quicktime preview, ergo the compressy look

Demolition Derby

2006-06-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

...for a TV show called Crash Addicts. Yes, about demolition derby drivers. Driven. Determined. Deranged.

The timelapse interval in the above short film was 20 seconds.

As for the main video cameras, one of the three different varieties being used is the new Panasonic P2 (HVX 200) camera, connected to a 35mm adaptor with a Nikon mount, and a 28-70mm f/2.8 lens ( and no, this rig is not designed for handheld ). Somehow we make it all work, for something that will hopefully make for a unique viewing experience.

Looks to be quite the visceral show!

2 perf techniscope - negative real estate comparison

2006-06-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

So this is a comparison of film formats according to their respective negative space.

Techniscope or 2-perf is marked in red, the next biggest rectangle after the super 16 frame.

This is not an EXACT comparison when it comes to 2-perf, but close enough for reference.

There are some formats missing on this chart, such as 3-perf super 35mm (in 1.85 or 2.35), but you'd be able to estimate using the full frame S35 as a guide.

It becomes clear, for example, why shooting 2-perf for 1.33 is not really a viable option (might as well shoot 16 and get close to the same negative surface area), and how shooting 2-perf SUPER will yield too much of a 'widescreen' image.

2-perf 35mm

2006-06-20T22:18:00.000-07:00

Otherwise known as techniscope, the format made famous by the Sergio Leone Westerns, and Lucas' American Graffiti.

In Montreal, a certain rental house has a pair of beat-up 2-perf cameras for rent: an Arri IIc, and an Eclair Cameflex.

Each camera has it's own set of, ummm, issues, i.e., one can change speed but not shutter, the other can change shutter but not speed. Neither has a videotap. One has a PL mount, the other an Arri b-mount. Viewing is a bit of a nightmare.

And yet ... the images ! Certainly different than what super 16 would have to offer.

The above frame grabs that came off the telecine session at Notch, and yes, the images are "compressy" compared to what it would look like on a CRT.

If you want to use a MODERN 2 perf camera, you have to ship from Australia, at multivision

Or wait til next year for JPs next camera, the Penelope

More on dSLR as light meter

2006-06-16T14:07:00.000-07:00

A quick post since I'm moving this week.

The first image is with the Nikon D200 as the light rose over Lac St Jean. Nikon lens was 50mm f/1.8 set to 1000 iso 1/50th shutter.

The second image is our crew, 4'x2 kino with daylight bulbs, covered with 216 + ND6.

The last image is a frame grab from the coloring session, camera was the Arri 2C w/ zeiss superspeed 35mm lens f/1.4, Fuji 500T.

By the time we went to camera, the makeup was finished with touch-ups, and the light had come out a little. There was slight use of the defocus board on her skin tone in telecine.

Also, the music video was overall biased towards the blue, so we decided to warm up this shot and take advantage of that pinkish light in the background

digital SLR camera as light meter on film shoots

2006-05-18T11:41:00.000-07:00

This is relatively uncharted territoty, I suppose, but some DPs are using this technique on a fairly regular basis (Don McAlpine, amongst others).

The problem with it, generally, is that a digital SLR is not giving you a "true" ISO, and therefore the images are "acceptable proxies" at best.

So the argument goes.

So everytime I go out on a film shoot, I would shoot a series of stills on a digital SLR (D70s, in this case), and compare the difference in the telecine.

So far, the results have been practically spot-on.

The most interesting examples have been when using Kino-flo lamps for lighting, which regularly read as 'under' on a light meter, yet turn out brighter than the said reading when the image is viewed.

The image above was captured by a D70 with the same settings as the motion picture camera. My light meter was reading the subjects highlights as fairly low (about a stop and a half under) .

working with grads

2006-05-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

Corporate shoot up in Sept Iles, Quebec.

Stats : Varicam, P+S Technik pro 35 adaptor, Zeiss superspeeds.

The images were created in part by using a combination of hard grads, soft grads and NBRAs. The grads were 0.6,0.9,1.2 (in soft and hard) and NBRAs (also known as attenuators) in 1, 2 and 3 stops.

Raw vs. jpeg D70 example

2006-03-26T00:04:00.000-08:00

Top image is the wide shot with D70, captured that wall once as jpeg and once as raw.

Next two images are the crops, top was RAW original, bottom was JPEG

After cropping, the RAW had to get converted to TIFF, then to 8 bit before converting to JPEG in order to upload here.

You can still see the difference, especially the shadow area on the pot.

Latitude tests should be next

More issues with digital time-lapse

2006-03-19T23:43:00.000-08:00

The 3 frame grabs happened over a period of an hour - same settings as previous post.

That sun flare got pretty overwhelming - and some frames got hit worse!

I didn't expect the sun to flare out so much because of clouds in the distance that looked like they were increasing. Also I had underexposed the image pre-sun expecting the latitude to hold. Part of me was holding out thinking the resulting 'hit' of sun woul look cool.

Silly me. Not only as I not exposing film, but I had captured in JPEG rather than in RAW mode (which I imagine would have had more latitude?)

Also, these images were only able to have been corrected to what you see, couldn't go any further because there was essentially no info in there.

Tiimelapse / long exposures with the Nikon D70s

2006-03-17T23:15:00.000-08:00

When using heavy ND filters on the D70s, I get a heavy magenta cast that I can't seem to correct with the WB feature.

I shot this test partially to see how far I can correct while shooting in the highest quality JPEG setting, not the RAW mode.

The reason for me shooting in JPEG rather than RAW is to get the most number of frames as possible on one CF card (in this case, 1gb). With the JPEG mode in this card, I can get about 480 frames (even though the counter erroneously states 290) rather than aoout a third of that. This means about 20 seconds at 24fps.

The question is, how far can I correct in JPEG mode versus RAW? And is JPEG sufficient?

So here are the first parts of my tests : first with JPEG. Keep in mind the corrections were done quickly and with a 12" powerbook - not the greatest way of color correcting.

The 3 pictures above show : uncorrected, corrected A, corrected B.

The images were transferred to my laptop, corrected in photoshop (mainly using the Levels, Color Balance and Saturation tools), and compressed in order to publish here.

Camera stats are : 18mm lens, f/22, 30 second exp., ND3.0, noise reduction off.

I was surprised at how far I could take the image, yet it seemed a little tricky to get rid of that magenta cast and bring it back to a 'normal' look.

2006-01-27T16:10:00.000-08:00

And finally, I'm outta here, on my way to Holland, where I will drop by to the Rotterdam film festival to screen Pablo Aravena's film NEXT, and this quirky short called Usto Justo.

I will try to blog more from the festival depending on time and wifi connection

2006-01-26T21:54:00.000-08:00

That's Goran and David in the frozen tundra of Stockholm.

Dinner consisted of Jerusalem Artichoke soup and a Gnocchi dish. Afterwards Goran and David drove me around a little more, pointing out the famous Swedish Film Institute and some film lab where he had to drop off dailies.

On the way back to the hotel, I learned that Ikea is NOT Swedish for common sense. and the Swedish chef on the muppets doesn't really speak Swedish.

Last evening in Stockholm

2006-01-26T20:49:00.000-08:00

Met Goran and David (from the production company Story) this evening, and we went out to dinner. On the way, we made a pit stop to a post-house where Daniel Jonsater was wroking.

Daniel Jonsater is the cofounder of Ikonoskop and the A-cam, and Goran was eager to show him the reflex A-cam. Like Goran the day before, Daniel stood staring at it in stunned silence before he proceeded to inspect it further, look through the viewfinder, etc.

More from Stockholm

2006-01-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

Top to bottom :

- Combo fork and knife. This to me seems like such an anomaly. How do you combine these two utensils when one is kinda used in conjunction with the other? (i.e., you cut with the knife while holding with the fork)

- Jacob's café, where you can enjoy some coffee and ...er, umm

- Advertisement at a hot dog stand ... don't you think the hot dog company should speak to the bun company ?

More incredible-ness from Stockholm

2006-01-26T04:02:00.000-08:00

What you see above is a typical vending machine rack.

But peer closely at the right, and you will see an honest-to-goodness apple.

Not apple candy, made with real apple taste, not Apple Strudel, not apple chocolate or apple gum.

Simply an apple.

Hard to believe - something good for you, and fresh, in a vending machine.

2006-01-26T03:48:00.000-08:00

There are a few fantastical things about Stockholm very few people know about.

First - one can possess superhero powers when placing his/her hands between the doors of the subway while they are closing.

The trick is to yell "OLYCKSRISK!" at the top of your lungs as they close. This, apparently, is Swedish for "SHAZAM!"

Further evidence of this is in the next photo, which shows how a seemingly normal man can, with the wave of a hand, atomize particles (on the left) and make his enemies sit (right)

I myself tried to conjure this strange magic up, but could not seem to gain the power. Although, I must say, some people did run off in fright, even further proving the veracity of my claim.

Incredible, this land of Sweden.

The a-cam builder

2006-01-25T18:45:00.000-08:00

This is a-cam technician and assembler Goran Falk.

He had built cameras #40 up until #108 and counting

Some would call this a crazed look. I prefer to use the term eccentric. (Seriously, he's a sweet guy)

Behind him are his plans to take over the world... er, the 'exploded' views of the a-cam, as they're known in design lingo.

Snapshots of the A-cam factory

2006-01-25T15:52:00.000-08:00

Here are some random snapshots I took while Goran Falk was disassembling/reassembling my camera.

That one image of the desk with the prehistoric computer is where the electronics are assembled and tested.

Visit to the Ikonoskop headquarters

2006-01-25T01:57:00.000-08:00

Above is a picture of my reflexed A-cam filming time-lapse on the set of The Wilkinsons. Compare this to what is on Ikonoskop's website ( http://www.ikonoskop.com/ )

It is January 25th and I am in Stockholm briefly to visit the Ikonoskop people, makers of the super 16mm A-cam camera.

This morning I was picked up by Ikonoskop's cofounder Goran Olsson, who drove me "the long way" from the hotel to the company.

On the way, he pointed out, among other places, where the Nobel prizes are given out; where the former prime minister was shot; the Ingmar Bergman theater and the National museum, where he claimed there were about SIX Rembrandt paintings!!! A quick search of the National Musem website seemed to mention there were quite a few paintings, sketches and drawings.

When we arrived to Ikonoskop, I met with their technician, who also goes by the name of Goran. Both Gorans, who had never seen the A-cam in reflexed version, stared at the camera in mild shock. I could practically hear the hamster runninng in Goran Olsson's head. :-)

Ikonoskop A-cam questions, Bolex comparison, etc.

2005-06-05T13:52:00.000-07:00

A few things that you won't find on the website ...

The 9mm Kinoptik lens that comes with the camera shows a minimum focus of .25m, or 25 centimeters from the film plane. Although you can twist the focus to less than that. But how much less?

Without a reflex viewfinder, it would be impossible to tell without painstaking tests. If you had ANOTHER camera with a reflex viewfinder, then you would be able to tell.

so that's what I did.

with a Bolex, after verifying that the lens focuses to infinity (so the rear flange is the same), I focused it to the closest, found an image, then measured.

It seems to be about 13cm from the film plane.

Ikonoskop claims 25 rolls before the internal battery dies out. This would be true if shooting at 24fps, and switching the main power OFF between rolls. Not true if you are shooting a) constant high speed, b) time-lapse, c) single frame shooting where the camera is left on for a long time.

In these above cases, the camera seems to last no more than a few hours. If shooting long term time-lapse, use a high capacity external battery, or plug it in.

Du-All camera can reflex the camera http://www.duallcamera.com/

It's a little hard to find, you have to click on Online Store, click on accessories on the side panel, then click on A-cam.

A bit pricey without the viewfinder ($3,500 USD !!), and it takes about a couple of weeks to get done. But I imagine it's well worth it, and the design would be solid. At a total price of around $10K, it would still be the cheapest new super-16 camera you can buy.

A brand new super 16mm bolex, at current conversion rates, would cost about $9,000 USD without a lens. So the price comes out to about the same.

The advantage with the a-cam is you can remove the viewfinder when you want to go total low-mode. It's also an overall lighter camera with a smaller footprint and size.

If anyone out there is an A-cam owner or wants to know more about this little wonder from Ikonoskop, please contact me or the makers at http://www.ikonoskop.com.

Frame grabs

2005-02-23T19:29:00.000-08:00

andrea window CU
Originally uploaded by duraid.

A quick note on these frame grabs: even they they come from a powerful machine like the Spirit, these are 720x480 jpeg files with medium compression.

Suffice to say, they look a lot sharper off the digibeta.

This shot has a 'power window' vignetting the edges of the frame. it was shot with 7218 stock, no color correction filtration, black frost 1/4. We retained most of the 'cool' look in the telecine rather than correct.

Final look of office

2005-02-23T19:20:00.000-08:00

andrea office final
Originally uploaded by duraid.

Here is an image of the office with the final corrections. As you can see, the highlights of the flourescents were brought to a bluish-whitish look, as opposed to the natural green they originally emanated.

It's quite a testament to the versatility of the filmstock as well as the telecine. Not to mention Walt's magnificence at working this image so nicely.

Green Highlights

2005-02-23T19:16:00.000-08:00

andrea office green highlight
Originally uploaded by duraid.

Here, the image is almost fully corrected. The colors were all shifted to lose the green, which created a fairly pleasing look in the background. The floorboards look a lot morelike they did in real life.

all that's left is the green in the highlights, which I thought were uncorrectable. They are seen most prominently on the ceiling light fixtures .

"Normal" look

2005-02-23T19:13:00.000-08:00

andrea office green bg
Originally uploaded by duraid.

Here we have a normal look, with the green of the flourescents really showing through the walls and the wooden floors.

Keep in mind, Walt did a little bit of his recipe to smooth out the skin tones of the singer.

1st look

2005-02-23T19:09:00.000-08:00

andrea office warm
Originally uploaded by duraid.

Walt, our colorist, created a 'warm' look with the negative.

Interesting, but not what we were looking for

The Weekend "Into the Morning" Video

2005-02-23T18:54:00.000-08:00

All right.

So this video was a wee bit hectic, and there was no time to test some of the things we wanted to try, and little time to even think about what we're doing.

The director of this video is Ian Macdonald. More info on him and YYZ pictures (his company) can be found at http://www.yyzpictures.com

The music video is for a band called The Weekend (http://www.rocktheweekend.com), who have their first single from their new album coming out with the release of the movie D.E.B.S.

Their new album is "Beatbox my Hearbeat" and the first single is "Into the Morning" - more info can be found on their website.

There were two main locations : a loft space (Ian's office) and a karaoke bar room.

Techincal geeky info:

Shot on super 16mm film, Kodak 7218, 7246. Normal development.

Cameras: Bolex SBM with PL mount and Optar lenses: 8mm, 16mm, 25mm, 50mm
A-Cam with 9mm lens.

Transfer: Spirit with 2K DaVinci color corrector, Walt Bidjan over at Technicolor Toronto.

The loftspace.

We had a four hour window to be able to shoot here before the ambient daylight would drop too much. We lit with a couple of kinoflo lights and a Chimera.

The skylight coming in was very cool in color temperatureowing to the cloudy day outside. The kinos had daylight balanced bulbs, and the Chimera was puinched through by a Lowell light with 1/2 CTB. Plus, there was a line of overhead regular flourescents, as shown by the pictures below.

All of which made for a very mixed lighting situation.

New Site

2005-02-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

I've moved here because it's easier to manage, also much easier to post pictures from remote locations.