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[Roger Deakins]

I agree that that most contemporary big budget movies are quite boring. I would not challenge that statement at all. But its not the equipment or the size of the crew that makes them boring. Nor is the supposed ‘democratization of film’ leading to more interesting films now than there were in the 1960s and 70s. While it is true that in some European countries government subsidies allow for a little more creative freedom it would be wrong to say that there is not an equivalent independent film community in the US. But there are interesting films being made in all extremes of production, ‘The Quiet Girl’, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ or ‘The Batman’, but, sadly, these are few and far between.

[Tyler F]

David,

Thank you for such a considered answer!!

Since I’ve shot entirely digital in my career, my familiarity with printer lights is only up to the last few weeks, so it all feels rather “sorcery”. Your example including Richard Kline makes sense to me though as I assume it would’ve otherwise been left up to a lab technician to decide what was ‘normal’?

Also thank you for the tip about doing tests and shooting a grey card at the top of the roll –that helps me understand this more.

[dmullenasc]

It’s tricky to talk about how to know exactly how your negative is exposed except in obvious cases of heavy over or underexposure. Even when talking about printer lights, keep in mind that the printers were calibrated at each lab slightly differently, printing at 25-25-25 (middle of the 1-50 scale for each color) didn’t yield the same results at every lab with the same piece of negative — though the lab could tell you want something shot “normally” based on LAD values should print at. More or less.

This is why testing in prep was so important, what mattered is that you found a set of printer lights you felt was best for the image you wanted.  After that was determined, day by day you could find out if your footage was printing close to what you wanted, knowing that underexposed footage would end up using lower numbers, etc. Or you could do what cinematographers like Richard Kline did, actually tell the labs to use a set of numbers — then you’d find out yourself if your footage was too dark or too bright rather than have to corrected for you. Of course he did that in the days when there was only one Kodak stock to shoot. With the varieties of stocks later, and daily variations in lab chemistry, etc., I was more likely to ask that the roll be timed for a grey card shot at the head.

If you’re shooting film, then having a neutral gray card (and face) — shot in boring, flat “white” light so that there is no creative interpretation involved in deciding what “neutral” and “normal” is — is the best way of knowing if the footage that follows the card was under or overexposed a bit more than intended.

[Mike]

Frank,

I assume English is not your first language as you have misunderstood what I was saying.  Perhaps you could let us know where you are located so that members will have a better understanding why you have adopted a particularly harsh tone and intent in up setting forum members.  But as you say, you will not be reading this anyway.

[Max A.]

Hello Quijotesco and Mr. Deakins, first of all, thank you very much for your reply!
What I understood from your pieces of advice about my question is to be obviously prepared with a good prep. but also be prepared and maybe training (maybe the most difficult step during a stressful day) for drastic changes without losing the “focus” of the story. I think that this is something that can be improved with experience or of course with an innate talent.

To Quijotesco, I’m European (Italian), and I too like mid-range movies, personally, I love so much Asiatic cinema (Kore’eda, Edward Yang for instance) even if there are tons of European movies that I still have to watch (a few days ago I saw “La terra trema” 1948 movie from Luchino Visconti and it was really fantastic).
I have to watch ‘The Rider’ cause I like both the director and the cinematographer, I really love his “minimalistic” style and non-invasive.

I think that a good/strong story and a great narrative image making, it’s more valuable that a big-budget “soul-less” movie (even if it’s freaking complex to realize). Maybe this could sound a bit too “poetic” in the industry, (and I don’t hide that in the last months, I thought to change my way.. but this is another topic) but I think that even new generation audiences want to be absorbed into the stories through images.
In the “past” maybe big budgets were however used with the idea to make a “film” and maybe “nowadays” the same big budgets are used to make “products” or even to realize a director’s virtuosic. But I’m nobody to say this.
This is a bit “complex” topic and maybe I can’t be clear as my English is not really good, but it is really interesting too. As a great chatting with you all, around a coffee/Tea.

Another good thing is that with this topic I discovered other movies to see from you Mr. Deakins and from you Quijotesco.☺
Thank you very much again Mr. Deakins and Quijotesco for your reply.

I wish you a peaceful day.
Max.

[rama lingam]

Just now i checked one link worked and other don’t work. I don’t know why?

[rama lingam]

I checked those web archives. Its not working. It’s just opened the link then i can’t get forum questions link. You can try and get experienced well. It doesn’t work. I can even get screen shot.

[quijotesco24]

When I mentioned “The Rider” I didn’t do it because the equipment but the crew.
It was shot with a minimal crew. This is one of the reason I think it looks how it looks. It’s magic.

You can check “Rien à Foutre” a recent belgian film too to watch an European version of that. A movie set with again minimal crew where in this case they even use a small cheap “amateur” camera to shot it. And it wasn’t because there wasn’t budget. As there was budget to rent big commercial Airbus planes. But the image, the shots are powerful and as quality as any big name movie coming from a studio. My guess is they decide to shoot it like this because the outcome would be less rigid and more in line what creators had in mind. And again, it shows when you watch it.

Technology has allowed this ways of shooting. It has democratize film making.
Once you don’t need big money to shoot you are freer to find your own ways to shoot.
But we would all agree that this was already done many decades ago already with Bresson and the like but nowadays it’s even easier than what he had.
Also mentioning how all European movies are financed vs how they are in US would also explain in part this freedom. But that is another story.

All the movies you mentioned are Amazing films that define cinema as it is. But time has flown since then and nowadays MOST big studio films are not that much exciting anymore. Again, that’s my personal opinion. And if I try to find a reason why is that I go back to my point, the way you plan and shoot a movie it’s really important and define the outcome. I would love to watch next Star Wars film to be shot with a crew of 5/6 people. I bet the outcome will be quite different.

All of this was to answer OP question on how to plan and shoot a film. And my answer again is it all depends. But I mentioned all of this to make clear there are not one way to shoot a film, there are thousands. And also to have small crew don’t mean you can’t shoot a movie and make it look elegant and fancy enough.
We all look up to how masters do their job but that’s just one way of doing things, there are many more. Even more exciting. At least to me.

 

 

 

[Frank]

Complaining that your posts have been deleted and then proceeding to pontificate about “living in a democratic world” in which you “enjoy freedom of speech” is quite clear. Again, you enjoy neither of these privileges on a privately owned website — any of your posts can be deleted at any time and for any reason. Because things like tone don’t necessarily come across in text you can of course claim you meant anything, even that your comments were ‘ironic’ or whatever, but I would suggest that if your interest in a forum about cinematography and filmmaking leads you down this route you should reassess why you’re participating in the first place. It’s for this reason that I have no interest in continuing this discussion with you. For those with an interest in viewing the old forums I hope the links to the web archives were helpful.

[Tyler F]

Roger, i’m more recently shooting 16mm on a Bolex and mostly gauge off my meter where a general exposure would land — printer lights are done once the film has (or is) been scanned correct? Then you can tell if you’ve been under or over in the shooting process?

Your DI on the day sort of has your back while shooting, monitoring scopes or waveform, but I imagine in your head you still expose just as you would’ve when shooting film.

I hope i’m not complicating the topic, i’m just curious to your method

[Tyler F]

Ah yes and I have played with such tools in resolve. It actually makes it much easier to grade as it’s a point based system (+\-1) within each RGB channel as opposed to moving a wheel around.. i’m no colorist so I can’t say that I full understand resolve in all it’s complexities.

[giodashorts]

The closest equivalent in digital color grading to printer lights is the use of the “offset” wheel, which adjust the offset of the individual RGB channels in a linear fashion in log gamma. This method, coupled with the enabling of “Printer Light Hotkeys” (in Davinci Resolve)—which allows for more precise adjustment of the offset wheel—adjusts the balance of the image in a simple but precise fashion. I would say that, although not printer lights in the photochemical sense, the offset wheel is still often used by colorists to this day.

[Roger Deakins]

I think too much detail in the sky would have been distracting as well as inappropriate for the look of ‘1917’. Besides, I do not do much timing on a shot and I don’t specifically target a sky to add detail or enhance a cloud formation as I feel that will almost always look like what it is. As with many still photographs, there is all too much ‘enhancement’ of an image which might start off looking real only to become artificial. The skies in ‘Sicario’ are often quite dramatic and that is because they were quite dramatic. Nothing is ‘painted’ or created in post.

[Tyler F]

<p style=”text-align: left;”>Hey there James & Roger</p>
<p style=”text-align: right;”>I’ve been listening on and came across one of the early podcasts with Bev Wood. Many times throughout the episode you mention printer lights and how todays cinematographers may make mistakes in there digital ‘negative’ because we’ve moved away from this.</p>
 

But I have to ask, do you still work or think in that way while shooting or in post now that we can physically see what’s happening in our image? Is there anything that you see as positive/negative now that we’ve moved away from printer lights?

[James Parsons]

I’m sure this topic is long past finished, but I’m reminded that Woody Allen (when working with Gordon Willis or otherwise) famously wanted to only shoot exteriors on flat grey days with no strong shadows and no details in the skies. He just found that the most flattering and beautiful way to see New York (or London or wherever).