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[Magneticat]

Hello James and Roger –

my original post was just an offer to help you recover the old forums, if you still have backups or data stored somewhere (or attempt a recovery even if the situation is more desperate than that). While I studied history of cinema and directing (20 years ago!) circumstances brought me elsewhere, so I worked specifically on internet forums and as a programmer for the past 20 years. This is my line of work, and I do not want any compensation for my services – regaining access to the old content is reward enough and it is my way to give back to the community. I can share my Linkedin, if needed.

Anyhow, even if you do not want or need external help, for the time being, just make sure you store backups from before the hack. Many hosting services keep old backups for a limited period of time – so unless you have made your own copies locally, old backups containing a copy of the old database might be cycled out and removed permanently. I can work also with data recovery (so, deleted databases with no backups, etc.) – provided the host allows the access to do so – but it might be difficult to retrieve data from a few months ago.

No criticism was implied in my original post, I know very well how busy you both must be, and I value the podcast just as much as I value the forum. Invaluable resources.

Ciao

[simon m]

Yes, thank you James and Roger! This site and podcasts have been an absolute wealth of information and insight for so, so many of us since the first forum until this one. All thanks to your generosity and efforts. Personally, anything of value that I know about cinematography, I can trace back to you both and this site, so thank you, thank you, thank you.

James, I understand rebuilding this forum and retrieving the old  postings is a daunting task, and not your chosen profession. The OP of this thread ‘Magneticat’ is offering their expertise and time to assist you. Is that a possibility? Like everyone, I just hope all those wonderful conversations aren’t lost.

Thanks again, and all the best to you both.

[simoncarlkoeber]

Reading this thread makes me very sad.

I want to thank you, James especially and Roger, for your unbelievable work. Everyone who ever worked on podcasts or a forum knows how much work it is.
As a fan of both the podcast and the forum (and someone who for most of the time was just a quiet listener and reader) I deeply admire the 10 years of work you put into giving other people an insight into your wonderful work and into education. For me, you both (!) are a huge inspiration and a big reason I am now on the best way to start a career in cinematography. As I can only speak for myself, but you both not only helped me on understanding the art but on how to find a voice and how to work in a team. That someone can do great artistic work AND be a descent and wonderful human being.

I hope that some of those comments do not keep you from this forum or from making your podcast. I am sure there is a great amount of people who silent readers and listeners like me who deeply appreciate your work.

And I just wish you that you will find a way to recover the old forums so that 10 years of your work aren’t gone. Maybe people who offered their help can do sth for you? As for the others, the old forum was a great source of knowledge who I came often to to learn.
But I will also not stop to ask questions, some of which pbb already have been in the old forum. 😉 Like this maybe we can build a new knowledge base together.

Hope you are doing well, wish you all the best!
Simon

[Stip]

I’m not sure what made anyone believe that James and Roger lost interest in the site. They literally run it for us, not for them. Not a single ad. They answer every question.

This site to me has and always will be one of the very few, precious bastions in a shallow but screaming online world. Even after years I’m still in disbelief that these two industry giants engage with me at eye level, so…

Thank you James and Roger!

[Roger Deakins]

Thanks to everyone who makes this site useful. And I for one would like to express a special thanks to James for both the site and the podcast. It obviously does not register with some people just how much work my wife puts into each.

Instead of criticizing James and myself for, supposedly, losing interest in the site perhaps you could save it for the person who hacked us. They are, after all, the reason the old posts no longer exist.  If we had the technology and, quite frankly, the time to retrieve them we surely would.

 

[James]

Thanks David for your comments. It’s disappointing to me that people can outright say that we have lost interest and seek the vanity of a podcast. The truth is that I was using a specific software for the previous forum, it failed and I am trying to figure out the way to retrieve the information. It’s not easy. Computer programming is not my day job but I do my best.

It’s surprising that some people can make statements about our intentions or outlook without any basis. Incredible.

[Roger Deakins]

Whether film or digital the resulting look depends on the eye behind the work. That is why the ‘film digital’ discussion seems so off the mark to me. If a film  is well shot I can’t tell the difference though some, both small and big budget films, look fake to me and that is not a problem with the technology.

[Davinki]

Roger Deakins wrote:

In the past I have certainly pushed film to get more grain. I disagree that it is the imperfections that are missing in today’s work. To me there is a lack of risk taking and of pushing the possibilities of film (by which I mean film as opposed to film or digital capture).

Ironic considering with modern technology, you’d think there would be a drive to push limits more often. Also, would you agree that 35mm film stocks don’t really have that layer of unobtainium and aren’t that different from digital cameras once post production comes into question?

[dmullenasc]

1. Be grateful for whatever Roger and James can give you in terms of their time and experience.

2. The podcasts are an entirely different thing than this forum, they are wonderful interviews with filmmakers talking about their careers, their lives, and their art.  No reason to compare the podcast to the forum.

3. The value of some things are not in their utility, not in what practical use they are for you. Some things just enrich you as a person, as an artist.

[rama lingam]

I forgot to tell one thing. Forum is very better than podcasts. I think every forum member will accept this. This website’s also not in perfect structure. Podcasts is not much use until they rectify website’s

[Roger Deakins]

During prep I went to the rental house to see every LED fixture that was available. I don’t like carrying a large number of different fixtures and I was looking for a range of soft panel lamps, a Fresnel type of LED that would be an equivalent to a conventional 1K Fresnel or a Tweenie, and a range of tubes such as the Astera. The Arri SkyPanel is a great lamp but you can’t always get what you want as they are often in short supply. They are also relatively expensive and there are a range of options if you do not need their wide range of color control. Once finding what was available and within our budget I shot camera tests to check color and for any abnormality in their dimming etc.. A color meter is handy but the odd variations in color don’t always show up on a dial.

[simoncarlkoeber]

Hello Mr. Deakins & dear forum members,

hope you all started well into this new year.
In the past time, I started to study more and more about LED fixtures, after before being primarily fixated on “standard” fixtures like HMI, Tungsten etc., because I just know how they work.

And I was wondering: How do you guys test LED fixtures in the pre-production of a project? What characteristics do you find important, what are you looking for? I heard Greig Fraser talking a lot about true color rendition in your podcast. Well, how do you test that? Do you judge it by eye or do you have certain colorimeter tests you do? How do you decided for a fixture?
And what are your experiences concerning output of LED fixtures? What is important to look after in this part?

I am also asking because I know that you, Mr. Deakins, used a lot of LED fixtures especially for indoor scenes in Empire of Light, probably for the first time in this extent. And I was wondering, how you decided for certain fixtures, and against certain other popular choices as the Arri SkyPanel for example. And how you tested them.

I am thinking about actually using LEDs for my next project for the first time.

Thank you a lot, have a nice week!
Simon

[Davinki]

Hi Roger, knowing in your stills you use Leica glass, have you thought about or tested using either cine modded Leica stills leitz m 08 glass or dedicated Leica cine glass like the summilux-c’s for a movie?

[simoncarlkoeber]

I can try to give my two cents here. Not as experienced though as other members here, so let me know if there is something I got wrong. Don’t get hung up too much on the math though.

1.) First important for you to know is that every exposure setting translates into an absolute number of illuminance you need. Quick way to remember is that with 24fps and a shutter of 180° (1/48s), shooting at T2.8 and 100 ASA, you need 100 footcandles of illuminance. You can measure that when u put ur lightmeter into footcandle mode.
The rest is pure math. If you wanna rate ur Alexa at the native 800 ASA, which is 3 stops more, you need 1/8 the amount of light for the same exposure, so 12.5fc, let’s say ≈13 fc. You wanna shoot at T4.0? Okay, so you need double the amount of light, which is 25fc at 800 ASA.

2.) But how do I know which light to use now? Do I need a 2.5K HMI or a 4K? As said above also by the others, don’t get hung up too much into the math. Good gaffers know from their experience what to use.
If you still want to prepare yourself, you can use the tools the manufacturers give you. Arri for example has to Photometrix App, where you can choose your desired fixture and dial in the distance and it gives you the amount of illuminance in fc or lux. Just play around with it. Every manufacturer will give you data of certain illuminance values in certain distances.

3.) How to put that into practice? Well, for a project, most of the time your budget is the limiting factor. So good way is to calculate if the biggest light you can afford still gets the job done, will say gives you enough light at a certain distance.
Your production can afford an M18 HMI maximum? Great, because when you dial in the numbers, you will find out it gives you 13fc at distance of 80ft or 25m. Which is fairly enough.

4.) So far, we are shooting in direct light. But what happens when we bounce or diffuse our light?
Bounce or diffusion always take away light. If you want to keep your exposure, you have to put that into account. It is hard to measure exactly how much it takes away. I didn’t have the money or equipment to test it myself, but I read a few tests, e.g. the one from Matt Porwoll (check out his blog!). I did some math, and if I am right, you get roughly this loss of light when the bounce or diffusion is at around 50% of the distance between light and object:
Diffusion: ≈ -1 stop of light loss
(216: -1 1/3 stop; 251: -2/3 stop; Full Grid: -1 1/3 stop; Half Grid: -1 stop)
Bounce: ≈ -2 stops of light loss (UltraBounce)
Bounce & Diffusion: ≈ -3 stops of light loss
(with Bounce at 1/3 of the distance and Diffusion at another third,
e.g. Light – 6′ – Bounce – 6′ – Diffusion – 6′ – Object)

5.) Talking illuminance, let’s take our light loss into account with our numbers from 1.): So if you want to create a daylight lighting situation just as Mr. Deakins does often, with HMI bounced into UltraBounce and 251 on the windows, you know now you loose 3 stops of light. If you still shoot at T2.8 at 800 ASA, you now don’t need 13fc but 100fc, or 1070lux. 13fc btw equals ca. 140lux, if you use metric system as I do.

So roughly, you can say this is your light loss and this is how you can calculate. Of course this changes when you change the distance between light and bounce or diffusion. But this is why you shouldn’t be too much focused on the math; it’s is never accurate enough. But it gives you a chance to roughly encircle the type of light you need and the amount of illuminance you need. Especially for low budget productions this comes in handy.

Let me all know if I am right here!

[tknvt]

Last year in Russia was published a book “The Birth of Stalker” by Evgeniy Tsymbal  – he was 2AD on “Stalker” and worked on it from pre-production till last day of shooting and wrote a book about this expirience.

Here is excerpt from this book, it’s on russian but i hope it may be read with google translate – https://kinoart.ru/texts/nu-chto-zh-final-u-stalkera-est-fragment-iz-knigi-rozhdenie-stalkera

Maybe it’s possible to invite Evgeniy as a guest to “Team Deakins”, he has an account on Facebook, it could have been a great conversation.