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In classrooms there are a lot of camera rules you get told to follow:
- shutter speed must be double your frame rate
- f/2.8 is the aperture you should always start at
- etc…etc….etc…..
People talk quite a bit about when they break these rules for a specific circumstance or scene. I wanted to ask about breaking these camera rules consistently in every scene or scene type across a film.
Because getting a consistent “feel” in a film, where you don’t consciously think about the cinematography, is something I think these well-meaning rules are trying to push you toward.
Can anyone think of examples where they broke these “rules”, but kept on breaking them for the entire film, not just for one scene? Hearing about how you made some of those decisions in prep and the process you went through to test and implement them during filming would be very interesting. Also, has anyone had to throw away a great rule breaking shot because it ruined the consistency of the film? If you can think of any examples, I’d love to hear them.
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I’ve heard people talk about f/1.4 lenses as if their maximum aperture were a measure of last resort, but of course there have been several films that were shot that wide as a rule. After the Zeiss Super Speeds came out they became Stanley Kubrick’s predominant lenses, with much of The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut shot wide open on them. I believe all of Let the Right One In was shot wide open on the Super Speeds by Hoyte van Hoytema. All of The Social Network was shot wide open with the Master Primes, and I think David Fincher has held to that ever since with the Leica Summilux-C’s.
I can’t think of any feature films that went with a non-standard shutter angle for the entire running time, but when Michael Mann went digital he frequently would turn the shutter off, and you can see how that effects cadence of motion in several scenes in Collateral, Miami Vice, Public Enemies, and Blackhat. Janusz Kaminski used 1/96 and even 1/192 shutter speeds throughout the action scenes in Saving Private Ryan.
I don’t think Kubrick actually shot wide-open on the Zeiss Super Speeds all the time on those movies, partly because he mixed lenses in scenes, sometimes Cooke zooms were used, plus the Zeiss VariPrimes were also used on “Eyes Wide Shut”. So the sets weren’t always lit to only f/1.4.
I don’t think there is a “rule” about always shooting at f/2.8, it’s just a practical stop to light to — it’s sort of “aspirational”; sometimes you hear that lighting to f/4 for an anamorphic movie was a good idea. But I’ve also heard older cinematographers from the 1960s and 1970s saying that they always tried to light to an f/4 in case the director wanted to use a zoom lens. Anyway, f/2.8 is a pleasant stop to shoot at, gives the focus-puller a chance, the lenses behave well, etc. — but I don’t think of it as a rule.
Technical and visual consistency is a common goal unless the story has a design that allows for shifts in look, like flashbacks for example, or a story that cuts between two different worlds. But then within those unique sections, there tends to be consistency. But even that’s not really a rule — there may be a story that would benefit from visual inconsistency, even deliberate sloppiness, to create a rough feeling that matches the emotions of the scene or character. There is a lot of roughness in some of the Wong Kar-wei movies shot by Christopher Doyle, like “Fallen Angels” or “Happy Together” that create a certain chaotic feeling that matches what the characters are going through.
Thanks everyone, so interesting!
I was just looking at these scenes of two people talking (re f-stop) in Kane & Social Network. You get such a different emotional response in each, which ultimately helps drive both films. Cool!
I don’t think Kubrick actually shot wide-open on the Zeiss Super Speeds all the time on those movies, partly because he mixed lenses in scenes, sometimes Cooke zooms were used, plus the Zeiss VariPrimes were also used on “Eyes Wide Shut”. So the sets weren’t always lit to only f/1.4.
What would you guess the f-number of a lot of those interiors in Eyes Wide Shut was? I’ve heard conflicting things over the years about how they developed the stock. In the ASC article back in ’99 Larry Smith was quoted, “We decided that if we pushed everything two stops, it would really have the effect of an extra stop and a quarter or a stop and a half.” People have asserted that they printed down but that’s never mentioned in the article. I got the impression Smith was saying that even force developing two stops and then keeping the negative that thin, they found that it was really more like 1125-1250 ASA rather than 2000 ASA.
Even at 1125 ASA, that would be something like 2 footcandles at f/1.4 for 18% grey, and then 10 footcandles for the T3 Cooke zoom? Which seems about right for the light levels in many scenes. Smith is quoted in the same article, “We decided to shoot nearly all of the picture at a stop of T1.3, and since we were pushing everything, we were able to create a wonderful warm glow.”
I can’t tell when they used the VariPrimes but I vaguely remember another interview with Larry Smith where he said that most of the movie is steadicam, and it wouldn’t have made sense to use them for those setups.
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