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That’s a lot!
As you mention these shreds of thoughts are out of context but they do form an interesting overview on how a world class cinematographer approaches situations from small to big and film work in general.
I see few scenes covered in a wide shot when I watch a series but, maybe, that is just because directors and cinematographers have a ‘go to’ setting for TV.
I can’t help but think it has to do with courage, too. You once told about a dialogue scene (between Brolin and del Toro I believe) out on a road in ‘Sicario’. After shooting the wide shot, Denis loved it and said to you: “let’s not shoot close shots because then I will use them in the edit”.
I believe that even though with tools like “Sora” it will still take time until consistency and precision are good enough for longer formats.
Once they are, I think that:
1. If everyone can make a movie from home, stories will become even more important than today. A good thing.
2. Live-action content will never go away. The more artificial content we’re thrown at, the bigger our longing for ‘real’ will become.
I was hoping someone else would attempt to comment on this post!
I for one am pretty glad that you commented 🙂
I wouldn’t know what to improve in lighting, you seemed to use the sun at different times of day very well. It’s very natural, which I think is mandatory for this topic. Overall I personally pay more attention to mood, and this one has a fantastic mood. Also great pace and timing, deep colors and a natural sound mix. Great job!
For Alexa’s I agree but especially mid and low end cinema cameras do not have such great latitude and dynamic range, or choice of (lossless) codecs.
Edamame,
I haven’t shot to codecs in years. I think it’s very different than shooting raw and also camera dependent. It might work for low key scenes I guess? In general, using ISO when shooting raw works counter intuitive as opposed to shooting codecs because the former has no internal processing and sensitivity stays the same (sensor’s sensitivity) and the latter has internal processing and dialed in ISO values change the sensitivity.
One example, on a sunny day in the desert you may raise ISO when shooting raw to protect the highlights from clipping while raising ISO when recording to a codec would accelerate clipping.
Max,
I am bad at explaining. First, what I described is only valid when shooting raw, not when shooting compresses codecs like Prores!
Let’s say your camera shoots raw and has a base ISO of 800. And let’s say the camera has 10 stops of dynamic range. And that at the base ISO 800, dynamic range is evenly distributed at 5 stops below and 5 stops above middle grey.
If you now lower the ISO to 400, the image on your monitor gets darker, right? That’s all that happens when shooting raw and changing ISO – the preview image gets brighter or darker (except the camera has dual ISO). Changing ISO from 800 to 400 darkens the monitor image by 1 stop.
If you now expose and light according to that monitor image, you let 1 stop more of light hit your sensor compared to ISO 800. You now have 6 stops of dynamic range below and 4 stops above middle grey, so more in the shadows.
Again, this only works when shooting raw. By changing ISO, basically all you do is change the preview image and thus your behavior in lighting and exposure.
Maybe an easier example: You light a low key scene at ISO 400 and T2. Now you change ISO to 800. The image gets 1 stop too bright. To compensate, you close down the aperture to T2.8. Now exposure looks the same as at ISO 400 T2, but 1 stop less of light hits the sensor and the shadows get noisier.
Sometimes Visual Effects want a very clean image and then it makes sense to try and get a low key scene as clean as possible.
When I shoot raw, I like to dial down the base ISO one stop (2 for extreme low light) when shooting a low key scene.
The only thing this actually does is it makes the preview on the monitor or EVF one stop darker. So I still create the look ‘in camera’ but I get cleaner shadows (because one stop of the dynamic range is moved from above to below middle grey).
Some cameras (Alexa) look great underexposed and don’t necessarily need that.
It’s an 8 page script, that all takes place outside a community hall during dusk. It’s a single conversation, all in real time.
That’s tough luck for a student film! I am not sure writer/director are aware how much work and planning it will take just to create consistent dusk.
I suspect there is a good reason why the story needs to happen at dusk (because if if not it might be a lot easier for everybody to rewrite it).
You can try to fake dusk or you might even try to rehearse all day long, find efficient ways to capture it and then shoot at actual dusk and pray everything works out. In theory you could shoot at dawn and dusk, giving you more overall time. As consistency in light is still not guaranteed, you might want to shoot a different location every time if possible (do they move around or maybe just sit and talk?).
Someone with more experience may have better advice though.
In my opinion it can only increase or decrease light that’s already there and only works when used very subtly and if the scene/camera movement allows for it. Personally I’d rather not use it ever.
