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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’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.
In Rober Kolker & Nathan Abrams’ book on the making of Eyes Wide Shut (screen capture attached to this comment) it’s mentioned that Kubrick was looking into digital scanning for the film. Kubrick also went into pre-production on A.I. when he saw what was possible with digital effects in Jurassic Park, and he had extensive conversations with people at Industrial Light & Magic.
Roger, when you were still using an optical process for Super 35 would you expose it any differently versus regular 35, or go through a different post-process like double-printing the dupe or using silver-retention? Did your approach to stocks and exposure change at all when you started using a DI?
Depending on the action of the scene and what’s appropriate for the story, you could consider things like wide-angle focal lengths, compositions with the camera at a very high or very low angle, multiple planes of action, shallow depth of field, dressing the set so that it’s uncluttered and has a vanishing point as far away as possible, etc.
You could also go in the opposite direction and use longer focal lengths with the camera far away from the subject, and do things like crowd the frame to suggest a larger space out of the periphery of the shot.
If it’s viable you could also black out some of the set to suggest a larger space that disappears into shadow, or have a lot of separation of planes with lighting instead of depth of field. Haze & smoke would also add depth.
If renting isn’t an option, the least expensive camera I’m familiar with that can shoot UHD 4K in 120 fps is the Sony FX30.
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.
In my original post I intentionally avoided singling out any individual person so as not to be invidious. Needless to say I was referring to multiple forum users who have posted in this topic. I’m not sure how me saying “You are on a private website that the Deakins’ can administrate however they wish” could refer to any posts Vanniyan made, and in fact it’s in direct reply to bizarre statements made by others like “Thank God we live in a democratic world where we enjoy freedom of speech.”
I particularly resent the accusation that I’m somehow being insensitive toward somebody because they don’t have native fluency in English. Bad manners like being presumptuous (“You are too busy making the podcast and ‘Byways'”) or badgering someone for something, repeatedly asking the same questions and making the same requests when you don’t receive a reply as soon as you would like, are not a matter of a language barrier.
The repeated disrespect for working professionals offering their knowledge for free during their own leisure time is immensely disappointing to me. I can’t think of something that would be less incentivizing to getting what you want than expressing ingratitude and entitlement. Furthermore, you are on a private website that the Deakins’ pay for themselves and which they can administrate however they wish.
If you want to read old posts the links I gave previously in this thread will allow you to access many of them. I see now that the 2015 web capture has many broken webpages, so here is the most recent version I could find that seems to be in working order https://web.archive.org/web/20150813085239/http://www.deakinsonline.com/forum2/index.php
The way Lumet worked has always interested me because apparently he would do blocking in pre-production without using the actual location, putting marks down to indicate the space and set dressing, and then have the actors recreate that on the day, like a stage play. You’d think a lot of film actors would find these working methods frustrating but he had a reputation as ‘an actor’s director’.
Did the way you worked on ‘The Hurricane’ split the difference at all, was it any worse than blocking on the day?
You mentioned before that your preference was for blocking rehearsal on the day. I’m curious, do you ‘feel’ the restrictions of extensive pre-visualization when you do it? Do you notice that the actors do? I remember you once talked about how the Coen brothers were willing adapt their boards to what was going on the day of the shoot whereas on ‘The Village’ you stuck pretty assiduously to what was already boarded.
Mr. Deakins, have you ever worked with a director who went the Sidney Lumet route and did extensive blocking rehearsal with the cast in pre-production and then committed to that blocking for the shoot?
Mr. Deakins, could you talk a bit more on why you and Denis Villeneuve chose to board much of Blade Runner 2049 but only select scenes for Sicario?
Additionally, this is the most recent web capture for the pre-September 2013 version of the forum, before it was hacked and many posts got deleted https://web.archive.org/web/20130804072010/http://www.deakinsonline.com/forum2/
