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If you’re going for a cool look by pulling the 85 filter on tungsten film in daylight, then you aren’t really correcting back to neutral, you may be just correcting part of the blue out.
In terms of using daylight film in tungsten or mixed sources, that’s been done many times. Both “Emma” (1996 version) and “Backdraft” used 250D daylight film for interiors to make candleflames and fire look more orange, mixed with some daylight-balanced light. Robert Richardson used 250D daylight stock for a tungsten-lit night exterior in “Born on the 4th of July” for a warm look. In fact, 3-strip Technicolor was daylight-balanced from 1935 to 1952, and sometimes tungsten lamps were used for orange lighting effects (like firelight, etc.). But in all of these cases, the image was not corrected back from orange to neutral.
I have heard of scenes shot on daylight film in daylight corrected from neutral to cool though — for example, the WW2 flashbacks in the first “X-Men” movie was shot on 50D with a bleach-bypass process and then timed cool.
So unless a warm tone is desired by not correcting in post, I can’t imagine the reason for shooting 250D all under tungsten but correcting it back to neutral unless it was simply a stock emergency on location and no tungsten stock was available.
“a movie that goes through a D.I. that is intended for both digital projection and a DCP” — I meant a movie intended for both digital projection (DCP) and a film-out for print projection.
“Dunkirk” is a separate issue, it’s not a re-release of an old movie — in this case, as with most Nolan films (except “Tenet” for some reason, I think he had to use a D.I. to make the release date) he doesn’t go through a D.I. because he wants to be able to contact print the 15-perf 65mm IMAX footage and show that print in IMAX film theaters. This meant that the 5-perf 65mm footage in “Dunkirk” was optically blown-up to 15-perf 65mm so it could be cut into the IMAX negative. So if you see the 15-perf 70mm print of “Dunkirk” you are seeing it as Nolan intended. Yes, film prints have more contrast to them, giving them rich blacks but less shadow detail, which you can see happening in the film prints of “Oppenheimer”. To talk about color depth in this case is a bit misleading — a film print uses subtractive color (YCM) and a digital projector uses additive color (RGB) so a digital projector can increase saturation without decreasing brightness. But in terms of the color depth, a movie that goes through a D.I. that is intended for both digital projection and a DCP uses a Kodak Vision print emulation LUT in the D.I. session in order to not create colors outside the range that can be shown in a film-out that is printed on Vision print stock.
Now as for old digitally-restored movies, yes, you can wonder what the point of a film-out would be other than the fact that unless the digital theater has laser projection, a film print has better blacks and contrast. But laser projection is taking over so that soon won’t be an issue. If one was a purist, I could see making an effort to see film prints made from film masters, but to insist on seeing a film print of a film-out from a digital file seems a bit pointless. In general I prefer digital projection of film restorations done digitally; however I do like seeing prints of film masters, like new 70mm prints of old 65mm movies that haven’t been digitally restored, or archival 35mm Technicolor dye transfer prints, which I feel have their own unique look — the print itself is part of the experience, especially if the movie was shot in 3-strip Technicolor.
Color-wise, you have to remember that color with a digital projector is additive, not subtractive as with a film print.
The 4K restoration likely did a scan of the negative (often a 6K scan on an Arriscanner immediately downsampled to 4K). A film scan would naturally be in Cineon log gamma, or it would be in ACES, 16-bit linear. Either way, all resolution and dynamic range available would be captured.
Raw refers to an image from a Bayer-filtered camera sensor before conversion to RGB. A film scanner just makes separate passes for RGB.
20 years ago, a new print of an old color movie probably came from a dupe negative made from a color interpositive (or b&w separations) made from the negative.
When I moved to Los Angeles at the age of 22, I used to go to the libraries at UCLA, USC, AFI, and AMPAS and spend hours reading cinematography books and magazines. I read every issue of American Cinematographer going back to 1920, I read every issue of International Photographer (later ICG Magazine) and every issue of the SMPTE Journal going back to the 1950s, I read three decades of British Cinematographer magazine, a decade of Super8 Filmmaker, years of Film & Video Magazine, Lighting Dimensions, and many short-lived magazines. And I read books, lots of books. I even read PhD dissertations on shelves if they were related to cinematography. Of course I don’t remember now a lot of what I read…
I can’t imagine a Civil War history fan only reading a few books on the topic, nor a baseball history fan who has avoided most of the player biographies out there, and yet I run into cinematography students who just want to read one or two books on filmmaking, a subject that they are dedicating their life to. Absorb information wherever you can find it; what matters will stick to you.
I love filmmaking books — I have two tall bookshelves full of them! It’s just knowledge that you can choose to use or not use, but I don’t see any reason to avoid reading books. One of my favorites was written in the early 1970s about British cinematography practices and probably most of the information is outdated and yet it’s a window on a period of filmmaking that I love.
They pushed 500T two-stops but they rated their meter less than 2000 ASA, more like 1600 ASA (or less), partly to keep some minimal extra density but mainly because labs aren’t consistent, you don’t always gain two-stops of density with a two-stop push.
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.
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.
No, it depends on the scene, the space, the camera movement, the look desired, etc. I do use Litegear Litemats a lot.
