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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.
I never really understood why, but I love that movie. Excited to have another Q&A, I remember the last one was great.
I’m not entirely sure but maybe some of Roger Deakins’ films have one or two decent shots in it 😉
Other than that, ‘Come and See’ comes to mind, mostly (all?) natural light but rarely do films create such power with faces.
I’d say replacing the green with the BG image without affecting the transparent curtain itself will be difficult. If you have someone in post who is 100% confident that it can be done it might be worth a try, otherwise it might end up costing more to fix it in post.
Roger’s reply should seal the deal but I want to add that it will also most likely lead to issues in other colors. It would work well with a shot like the second reference picture. But once mixed lighting and skin tones ect come in, things will get messy. Power windows, parallel nodes ect will get thrown at it in timing in order to fix things.
You already have a clear idea of the colors, no need to work around it and end up with a fake feeling version of the references you posted.
But weren’t those still s35 sensors? The past few years there emerged lots of full frame / 135 sensor cameras (and more fast lens options too). I definitely noticed a trend in very shallow DoF, especially in TV shows, where you’d sometimes even see wide shots with fore-/background separation.
No single technique is better or worse than another, it all depends on whether it is wielded by an artist or not — and Greig Fraser is an artist, he’s proven that on many productions.
Fraser is an artist but I don’t have to admire all of his work, and this one is too computational for me. The new tool of gaming engines being used to create worlds around the stage bares the danger of feeling like a computer game and it happened to me in The Batman too often, although I wasn’t aware of how it was shot when watching.
I also had the feeling the visuals tried to deflect me from an ultimately shallow story and endless plot holes 🙂
