BSC Film and Digital Image Evaluation 2009 July 11, 2009
Posted by joost in : cinematography, film, london , comments closedLast Wednesday I attended the British Society of Cinematographers Film and Digital Image Evaluation 2009. It is the second time this event took place, the first time was in 2007. Back then it started in an attempt to create an overview of the new professional HD cameras and to compare their images to those made by film cameras. This field is changing rapidly so a new comparison was definitely in order.
At the start of this year they made a special set at Pinewood to shoot day and night interiors, lit in such a way that it really pushed the capabilities of the cameras. Then they put every camera on a motion controlled rig and shot the scene. For the day exterior they built this insane rig where all the 19 cameras were shooting the same scene, to make sure that the conditions were exactly the same.
BSC camera rig (front)
BSC camera rig (back)
On the top row are four ARRIFLEX 435 and four 416 cameras, each loaded with a different film stock (Kodak 200T, Kodak 500T, Fuji 250T, Fuji 500T for the 35mm and 16mm cameras).
The digital cameras in the test range from expensive high-end digital film cameras to low-budget digital cameras: Panavision Genesis, ARRI D-21, Red One, Sony CineAlta F35, Silicon Imaging 2k (SI-2K), Sony HDW-F900R, Thomson Viper, Panasonic 3700, Sony EX3, Panasonic HVX 201 and the Canon EOS 5D stills Camera.
Purpose of the evaluation was not so much to reach a conclusion of “this is the best camera”, but more to show the capabilities of each camera under the same circumstances, and to show how the resulting images differ. Some cameras have difficulties showing details in shadowy underexposed parts of a frame, others display human skintone differently, etc.
It’s kind of like comparing cars: they can all drive, but you have to find the camera that suits you, that performs well in the circumstances you plan to use it, and last but not least falls within your budget.
The BSC spent several months digitizing and exporting all the footage in such a way that they could objectively compare the results (in .DPX format, and then calibrating the material using greyscales and Macbeth charts).
The event consisted of showing all the test footage from all the cameras. Each scene (day int, night int, day ext) was shown 19 times, one time for each different camera, after which footage was compared using a split screen. Each segment was followed by a Q&A and debate with the people in the crowd – plenty of BSC members of course but also producers, editors, colorists, make-up, costume, …
When we broke for lunch, my eyes felt strained from the intense staring at the screen! You try to pay attention to minute differences between the images, looking at the colour of the costumes, set, skintone, how the camera deals with extreme highlights or darkness, how crisp or noisy the image is, and how much it resembles what your human eye thinks it sees in real life.
During the second half of the day the audience became more vocal in voicing their opinions. Quotes like “you have to choose the right tool for the job” are not really that interesting to me, I mean, you are doing such a comparison for a reason, so let’s talk about the striking differences or about first-hand experiences proving something else than now shown on screen. The footage shot by the SI-2K camera for instance looked quite flat and over-saturated to a lot of people in the crowd, but this is the same camera that was used to shoot parts of Slumdog Millionaire and that footage looks incredible! The debate that ensued was quite insightful, and it made me realize that I should consider myself lucky that I have such a techy background – you could clearly see an older generation of cinematographers struggle with all the technical (digital) facets.
Some expressed their worry over, when shooting with digital cameras, not having control over the steps that take place after digital capture – but at the same time they are still held accountable for what the material looks like.
The day ended with a tribute to Jack Cardiff – a legendary cinematographer who was in the business for over 70 years (!) and who died last April. It’s symbolic for the nature (and class) of the BSC; they really are a tightlyknit group of people who are passionate and very serious about their work, and they respect and honour the work of their peers.
An event like this evaluation helps to create some clarity and also to cause debate at the same time regarding the wide variety of cameras available nowadays and that can only be a good thing.
Update: behind the scenes video.
Rule 2 finished March 13, 2008
Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, directing, editing, film, sound , comments closedIn March 2007 our Diploma year had to come up with the first ideas for screenplays we would like to develop the rest of that year. George wrote an outline called “The Inquiry” and it was one of the scripts that I liked most. After many workshops and drafts it was nominated to be one of the 10 minute films.
I pitched to direct this script early October. We shot it in November, edited the majority of the film in December, made many minor changes in January and screened it on February 1st at the LFA. What I showed was a locked picture with mainly work on sound still to do.
It was great to screen it, for the first time to my three actors and to a larger LFA audience. Compliments left and right, a nice reward for a couple of months of long days and hard work.
For me the film wasn’t finished yet though. I spent several days in February working on the “atmos tracks”, the background soundtrack that makes the setting of a scene feel more real. In my case that meant things like adding sounds of tanks driving by or sounds of a radiator humming.
With the locked picture and all the soundtracks I went to the studio of Nick Ryan, a sound designer who teaches at the LFA and offered to help me with some sound effects and making the final dub. We spent almost two days leveling, tweaking and fiddling about. I had a great time, endlessly playing fragments, adjusting, trying out effects, playing again, quite an anal process – heaven for a techie and a perfectionist like me.
The end result of this process is a final dub with all the dialogue at the appropriate level, combined with sound effects and atmos tracks that add detail and texture to the film.
The last step in the process of making a film is the final color grade. Together with my Director of Photography Claudio and the locked picture and sound we went to Molinare, a post-production facility in SoHo (where all the major film labs and post-production houses are located). In a futuristic looking studio you go through the film shot by shot, and apply color correction. Explaining this in detail is too complicated for this post, I summarized it in the past to other people as “it’s like Photoshopping a moving picture”. See wikipedia for more info and Da Vinci systems for the gadgets and cool pictures.
In about an hour we went over the whole film, talked about what mood we want(ed) to achieve and what shots or scenes in particular needed attention, and we saw the colorist do his magic. Fascinating to see him control all the buttons and dials and apply his knowledge to show us how far you could push and change an image. Restraint is a very good quality to have in a session like this because one gets easily seduced by the endless possibilities.
Because Claudio and I had prepared the grading session in advance we knew what we were going for, so the grading went smoothly. We left the building after two hours, proud owners of the finished film on mini DVCAM and DigiBeta!
So, a year after its initial conception and almost half a year after I started working on it, “Rule 2″ is finished! Yay!
Of course, this is not the end, it is the beginning of a new exciting phase – trying to get the film out there where it belongs, on the big screen.
The next few weeks I will be working on making a DVD version of the film including subtitles and promotional material. This will be used to submit Rule 2 to film festivals all over the world.
The first screening of “Rule 2″ outside the LFA has already been organized. The film has been selected to screen at the BSC New Cinematographers Night in the Pinewood Studios at the 29th of April! The BSC is the British Society of Cinematographers, an established and wellrespected institution in the film industry. Quite an honor to be selected for this evening I think, with an audience consisting of experienced and acclaimed cinematographers. And the cinema at Pinewood is magnificent, the first time my film will be shown on a proper big screen with excellent sound. Or as one of my cinematoraphy tutors pointed out: “All your faults will be magnified by a thousand times when you screen your film here.” 
A day in the life of a focus puller May 15, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography , comments closedA focus puller is also known as the camera assistant. Which means that you start the day with carrying lots of heavy boxes and equipment up four flights of stairs…
Early in the morning, after the director has talked about the scene and has rehearsed it with the actors, a technical rehearsal takes place. This gives the crew an idea of what the scene will look like and what actions will take place. After that, everybody begins with preparing the set.
As a focus puller, I assist the camera operator by setting up the tripod and camera, moving it to the right place, changing lenses, and of course: pulling focus. What would a film be without crystal clear objects or actors that are in focus? In static shots or shots on a wide lens (i.e. not a close up) it’s not that difficult to make sure that everything stays in focus. Just measure the distance, adjust the focal distance on the lense and you’re good to go.
However, on tighter shots and/or on shots where there’s movement further away and closer to the camera, the focus changes. As a focus puller you measure all the relevant distances (in most cases key positions of an actor in the shot), mark those on the focus ring that is attached to the camera, and then pull focus on specific moments. Sometimes a particular line in the script is the cue for changing the focus, sometimes it’s a mark on the floor. In this case putting markers on the floor (or other objects) is also a responsibility of the focus puller.
Standard outfit for the focus puller: a small bag filled with tools and the Kelly Calculator. Really retro and old fashioned, but quite an ingenious piece of work!
Personal digital short: Self-portrait April 30, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, directing, editing, reflection, screenwriting , comments closedFifteen personal shorts, shot on digital video. Fifteen different stories that one way or the other tell you something about its maker. Here is mine.
Filming my digital short April 3, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, directing , comments closedThe first term has one assignment that is really free and creative. It’s called “the digital short project”. Basically, you come up with an idea, a screenplay, an image, a song or anything else that sparks your interest. It’s up to you to decide how much preparation you want or need. Some people just grab a digital videocamera and start shooting, others create storyboards, cast actors and shoot on multiple locations in several days. The only real constraint is the length (maximum edited length: 10 minutes) and the budget – you’re not supposed to spend any money really.
Before I left The Netherlands I had a conversation with a good friend. She suggested that it would be cool to do another selfportrait, like the one I did one year ago at CREA. As a human being I have evolved and (hopefully) as a filmmaker as well. A selfportrait, edition 2007, would be interesting because to a certain extent I find myself at the crossroads.
When this digital short project at the LFA came up, I immediately had to think of this conversation and I decided to combine the two.
Key question for developing this film: who am I, at this moment in time? I wrote down some keywords and tried to come up with an interesting visual way of telling that story. Next up: finding a suitable location to shoot my film. Tough, because I had a very specific location and setting in mind (a particular part of a children’s playground). I spent quite a few hours googling, asking around and inspecting promising locations. The day before I planned to shoot my short, I still had not found the right spot. Of course I had some options but I wasn’t satisfied with them. Luckily I found a great location last Friday! The funny thing is, it is somewhat different from what I initially had in mind, but this location is so much better. It gave me more options (angles, types of shots) and more importantly, I could add some extra depth to the theme(s) that I want to convey in my selfportrait.
I know this all sounds a bit cryptic, but I just don’t want to spoil the surprise and the first viewing pleasure!
My roommate Simon and I shot my film Saturday afternoon, and I’m quite happy with how the shoot went. Tonight I reviewed the material and it looks promising.
The weeks after Easter we’ll be learning how to edit (properly 
), using the footage that everyone shot for their own digital project. This means my short will be finished the end of April or the beginning of May. I’ll put it online when it’s done!
Here’s a small teaser (still image from the film) to satisfy your curiosity:
Movie magic March 23, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, reflection , comments closedA magical moment on Thursday: we shot our first feet of super16 film! It’s hard to explain why this is so special (to me) but I’ll give it a try.
It has to do with movie magic. By “magic” I am not only referring to the impact that a film can have when viewing it, but also to the ritual of dimming the lights, hearing the projector and then seeing a beam of moving images.
Film – celluloid – has a history, quality and specific properties that go beyond the mere light sensitive particles that form the film stock. The process of filming, exposing, developing, printing and grading is complicated, time consuming and expensive. That is exactly why every step of the process is made with the greatest care possible. This knowledge filters down back to the very moment that the first assistant shouts “roll camera!” and “action!”.
Lighting a set and setting up the first shot like we did today took us an hour and a half. Some actor and camera rehearsals preceded the moment of actual filming. Before that, the type of shots have been decided by the director. And before that, the production office have had their say on the constraints and amount of (financial, logistical, artistic) freedom. This goes on and on, all the way until the first words were conceived by the screenwriter.
So by the time that the first couple of feet of film pass the gate of the camera there is the realization: we are filming, we are capturing this meticulously prepared piece of work in 25 frames per second.
In all honesty I have to admit that we only filmed one scene (seven shots) of a silent film today, purely for practice purposes. But I’ll tell you, the feeling when that camera was rolling for the first time – and me being the one directing that first shot and shouting “action!” – was magical!
Nun’s knickers March 22, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, screenwriting, sound , comments closedLast week we had to submit one or two proposals for a screenplay that will possibly be turned into a film later this year. The next weeks we’ll have weekly sessions where we will discuss our rewritten draft versions. Other students and tutors give feedback on each script and come up with new or alternative ideas for your screenplay. In reality it has just as much to do with the resulting screenplays as with exercises in creative writing, giving and receiving feedback and methodically getting to the core of your idea, characters and story.
I am quite happy with the proposal I wrote and with the enthusiastic reactions from the others. Yesterday I submitted the second draft of my proposal, tentatively called “The Number Cruncher”. A few weeks from now, the students can vote on the screenplay they’d like to film, an external screenwriter will give his or her opinion as well, but the LFA department heads have the final say. We’ll see how things will develop.
On Tuesday and Wednesday we received instructions on how to handle the film and audio gear that we will be using the rest of the year. This is every boy’s wet dream if your into technical stuff
For the afficionados amongst you, we’re talking about an Arriflex SRIII Super16mm film camera, filming in 1:66, printing in 1:85 (cinematic widescreen format). Catalogue value is 20,000 pounds, add several (tens of) thousands of pounds for the lenses and other accessories… Audio will be mixed on a SQN Series IIIa mixer and recorded on DAT or a Flash recorder, using a wide variety of microphones. There is a bunch of lighting equipment as well, ranging from 300 to 2000 Watt and accompanied by all kinds of rigs.
Because this equipment is so expensive and heavily used by students of the LFA, there is a lot of paper work involved whenever one wants to use it. Every item in every box has to be verified and checked on a book out form, and the same when booking in at the end of the day (or at the end of a shoot). On our instruction days the paperwork and moving all the gear cost about an hour! When doing a shoot, they reserve half a day to an entire day for the booking out procedure. And apparently, this is the first example of lots of paper work to follow. I will write about this non romantic side of film making when it comes up.
Of course we got to practice after receiving the instructions: aligning the tripod, assembling the camera, loading film stock in the magasin (first in clear day light, then in a small tent without being able to see what you’re doing. Crrrazy!), setting up a lit set, tweaking the audio mixer, doing fake street interviews with different mics, …
One of the many things I learned during these days: camera people have a funny sense of humour. There’s a piece of cloth between the lense and the matte on a camera. This looks very much like something that you would use to tie your hair with. But here they call it “the nun’s knickers”. In a similar fashion, they have something called “the teddybear’s arsehole”… I’ll leave that one up to your imagination
Collective daydreaming March 15, 2007
Posted by joost in : LFA, cinematography, directing, sound , comments closedLots of introductionary classes this week. The image of listening to monotonous lectures while sitting on wooden benches comes to mind. But hey, this is a film school, you don’t seriously think that picture is correct?! How about this: imagine “The Theatre”, a small cinematic screening room within the LFA. Three rows, each consisting of seven luxurious black fluff cinema chairs with cup holder Add a big screen, beamer, vhs and dvd player, acoustic tiles and walls, air-conditioning, … did I forget anything? Oh wait, that’s right, yours truly sitting in one of these chairs enjoying courses on screenwriting, sound recording, cinematography and directing! “It’s a dirty job but someone has got to do it…”
Some of the courses were a bit dry this week, with recaps of things like how the human ear works and how colors can be perceived. Not everything was theory though, we got to do some boom operating and sound mixing on Tuesday. One person had to walk around while talking, another had to record this voice by following him with the boom (the microphone on a pole) – and without putting the boom into the (virtual) camera frame. The third person did the audio recording and mixing (watching and correcting the audio level). Of course nobody dreams of being a boom operator, but doing it yourself is really useful. Humbling fact: it takes about five years of practice to become a good boom operator…
The cinematography course on Wednesday was great. Our tutor is one the world’s best steadicam operators and has worked as a cinematographer with some big names like Luc Besson and Stanley Kubrick. Every now and then he casually tells a story of things he experienced and lessons he has learned in the many years he has been filming. Truly awesome! Meanwhile he taught us the basics of lighting a set. In case you did not know, cameras and lenses are an important part of cinematography, but lighting is the key element.
Thursday dealt with directing, or “collective daydreaming” as our tutor put it. After some theory and analyses, we spent several hours trying to come up with and executing different ways of filming a particular scene we saw earlier that day. Even though a lot of shots and camera angles seem obvious or at times even necessary, we experimented with ways of telling the story and accentuating particular elements. Very very cool!
In the evenings of this week we had to come up with premises and proposals for the 5 and 10-minute shorts that we will be making later this year. I submitted two proposals. Every idea and proposal will be discussed next week so we’ll see how that goes.
A special event today, the Polish documentary filmer Marcel Lozinski will give us a masterclass. We watched several of his films as preparation, but I have no idea what will happen during this masterclass.