From American Cinematographer, Psycho Killer by Andrew O. Thompson (June 1999)
"Today, it’s a luxury for cinematographers to see projected dailies. I really respect Spike’s dedication to projected dailies. He knows it’s important for the director of photography, assistant cameraman and production designer to see what’s really happening on film. Film-to-tape dailies can be inconsistent and inaccurate. The person operating the film-to-tape machine could make a change that affects the way you light the film: if the blacks become a little bit crushed, you might think that you don’t have enough exposure in the shadow areas and you might start adding more fill, even if there is a grey scale or Macbeth chart at the head of the roll. That’s especially true with reversal—it could be rendered very differently on video than on a print stock."
- Ellen Kuras, ASC
I read, discuss, and discover new things about cinematography everyday. Most of it, I consider incredibly interesting. Everyday I will share one of those things, maybe more if I have time.
Showing posts with label dailies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dailies. Show all posts
30.5.09
Willard Carroll: Film Dailies
From American Cinematographer, A Poignant Pas de Deux by Bob Fisher (December 1998)
"We looked at film every day, because I believe you need to see shots on a big screen to judge whether or not they work. There are a lot of long takes in the picture, so we probably spent 60 to 90 minutes a day looking at dailies. It made all the difference in the world."
- Willard Carroll, Director of Playing by Heart
"We looked at film every day, because I believe you need to see shots on a big screen to judge whether or not they work. There are a lot of long takes in the picture, so we probably spent 60 to 90 minutes a day looking at dailies. It made all the difference in the world."
- Willard Carroll, Director of Playing by Heart
25.5.09
Robert Primes: Cinematographers' Contribution
From American Cinematographer, Penny-Wise, Image-Foolish? by Richard Crudo, ASC
"It's a shame that no one has yet found a device to measure the impact that beautifully realized images have on an audience, and by beautifully realized I mean photography appropriate to the story, not pictures of sunsets. We presume they're affected by the acting because they become fans of the performers. We presume they're affected by the music because they buy the soundtrack. If an audience simply likes the movie, most of the time they give all of the credit to the director. Though what we do isn't measured, anything that takes away from our ability to create mood and beauty through the cinematography hurts the entire package. The certitude of print dailies give you leads to vital, exciting work that pushes the envelope and supports everything else that's going on in the picture."
- Robert Primes, ASC
"It's a shame that no one has yet found a device to measure the impact that beautifully realized images have on an audience, and by beautifully realized I mean photography appropriate to the story, not pictures of sunsets. We presume they're affected by the acting because they become fans of the performers. We presume they're affected by the music because they buy the soundtrack. If an audience simply likes the movie, most of the time they give all of the credit to the director. Though what we do isn't measured, anything that takes away from our ability to create mood and beauty through the cinematography hurts the entire package. The certitude of print dailies give you leads to vital, exciting work that pushes the envelope and supports everything else that's going on in the picture."
- Robert Primes, ASC
14.5.09
Emmanuel Lubezki: The CCE Process
From American Cinematographer, Galloping Ghost, by Stephen Pizzello (December 1999)
The cinematographer opted to record the entire movie on one film stock: Kodak's Vision 200T 5274. He explains that this decision was based on the filmmakers' desire to enhance the look of the picture with Deluxe Laboratory's Color Contrast Enhancement (CCE) process.
"With the CCE process, you add a lot of grain, and I though the Vision 500T [5279] was just too grainy. I love the texture of grain, though, and I think the grain [that CCE added] works well, because the images have the quality of an old illustration. I don't like it when the grain starts to become obtrusive, and the audience begins to feel it. If someone who doesn't know much about photography mentions grain, it means they're perceiving it too much."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
Developed by Deluxe's vice president of technical services, Beverly Wood, and executive vice president of engineering Colin Mossman, CCE is one of three silver retention processes offered by the lab. According to Wood,
"CCE is a proprietary process that produces a much higher contrast and adds more grain. When you have more silver [in the print,] you get a grainier look and blacker blacks. However, your black [values] can also plug up more. The matter of getting the color, the balance and the contrast right comes from the standpoint of density. CCE is different that the ACE process, which is adjustable; with CCE, the distinguishing factor in the answer-print process is that you can't really adjust the blacks or the amount of desaturation. Our job at Deluxe is to get the look that Tim and Chivo want at the answer-print stage, and then maintain that same look when we make the dupe."
- Beverly Wood
"From the beginning, Tim said, 'If the studio would let me, I'd shoot this movie in black-and-white.' But then we talked about it and he said, 'You know, maybe not-- maybe it's better just to do it in color and keep everything very monochromatic, but still keep all of these shades of grey, dark blue, very dark brown and green. He asked me if there was anything I could do in the photography to get that look, so we began talking with Beverly about different processes that would enhance the film's contrast and desaturate the colors. We did a bunch of tests, like flashing and not flashing the film, and we decided to go with CCE, which was the process that would add the most contrast and desaturate the colors the most. Tim was always there when we did the process tests. It was a lot of fun to have him there, and we like the same things, so we went with the CCE process.
Once we decided on the look, we had a meeting with all of teh departments, because CCE really affects the contrast and blacks in the images. Ian Robinson was our contact at Deluxe London, and we consulted very closely with him. The costume designer, Colleen Atwood, was doing a lot of stuff in black, but after the tests she began adding bits of silver and other enhancements to the texture of the clothes so we wouldn't lose the details completely. With Rick Heinrichs, we would paint 8' by 4's with the colors he was planning to use for each set, and then shoot them, project the footage, discuss it and revise the colors. The color red was particularly affected by the process-- it became really dark, sometimes so dark that it was almost black. We had to be really careful in the way we lit things. If you went into one of our sets while we were shooting, you'd have though we were doing a soap opera, because everything looked really overlit. When we saw the dailies, though, everyone would say, 'Wow, this is really dark and moody.' You always have the factor in the effect that the process will have on the images. The first week of the show was miserable for me, and many many times I wanted to kill myself for deciding to work with the CCE process, but when you see the movie from start to finish, it looks really good.
... The thing that's really difficult about the process, which almost made me chicken out, is what it does to the actors' skin tones. Because there's so much contrast and the gamma curve is so steep, the skin tones can look blemished if you're not careful. I don't like to use much diffusion, and I usually don't mind when you can see some imperfections in the actors' faces-- as long as those imperfections don't take you out of the movie. On this picture, though, I wish I had used just a little more diffusion."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
The cinematographer opted to record the entire movie on one film stock: Kodak's Vision 200T 5274. He explains that this decision was based on the filmmakers' desire to enhance the look of the picture with Deluxe Laboratory's Color Contrast Enhancement (CCE) process.
"With the CCE process, you add a lot of grain, and I though the Vision 500T [5279] was just too grainy. I love the texture of grain, though, and I think the grain [that CCE added] works well, because the images have the quality of an old illustration. I don't like it when the grain starts to become obtrusive, and the audience begins to feel it. If someone who doesn't know much about photography mentions grain, it means they're perceiving it too much."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
Developed by Deluxe's vice president of technical services, Beverly Wood, and executive vice president of engineering Colin Mossman, CCE is one of three silver retention processes offered by the lab. According to Wood,
"CCE is a proprietary process that produces a much higher contrast and adds more grain. When you have more silver [in the print,] you get a grainier look and blacker blacks. However, your black [values] can also plug up more. The matter of getting the color, the balance and the contrast right comes from the standpoint of density. CCE is different that the ACE process, which is adjustable; with CCE, the distinguishing factor in the answer-print process is that you can't really adjust the blacks or the amount of desaturation. Our job at Deluxe is to get the look that Tim and Chivo want at the answer-print stage, and then maintain that same look when we make the dupe."
- Beverly Wood
"From the beginning, Tim said, 'If the studio would let me, I'd shoot this movie in black-and-white.' But then we talked about it and he said, 'You know, maybe not-- maybe it's better just to do it in color and keep everything very monochromatic, but still keep all of these shades of grey, dark blue, very dark brown and green. He asked me if there was anything I could do in the photography to get that look, so we began talking with Beverly about different processes that would enhance the film's contrast and desaturate the colors. We did a bunch of tests, like flashing and not flashing the film, and we decided to go with CCE, which was the process that would add the most contrast and desaturate the colors the most. Tim was always there when we did the process tests. It was a lot of fun to have him there, and we like the same things, so we went with the CCE process.
Once we decided on the look, we had a meeting with all of teh departments, because CCE really affects the contrast and blacks in the images. Ian Robinson was our contact at Deluxe London, and we consulted very closely with him. The costume designer, Colleen Atwood, was doing a lot of stuff in black, but after the tests she began adding bits of silver and other enhancements to the texture of the clothes so we wouldn't lose the details completely. With Rick Heinrichs, we would paint 8' by 4's with the colors he was planning to use for each set, and then shoot them, project the footage, discuss it and revise the colors. The color red was particularly affected by the process-- it became really dark, sometimes so dark that it was almost black. We had to be really careful in the way we lit things. If you went into one of our sets while we were shooting, you'd have though we were doing a soap opera, because everything looked really overlit. When we saw the dailies, though, everyone would say, 'Wow, this is really dark and moody.' You always have the factor in the effect that the process will have on the images. The first week of the show was miserable for me, and many many times I wanted to kill myself for deciding to work with the CCE process, but when you see the movie from start to finish, it looks really good.
... The thing that's really difficult about the process, which almost made me chicken out, is what it does to the actors' skin tones. Because there's so much contrast and the gamma curve is so steep, the skin tones can look blemished if you're not careful. I don't like to use much diffusion, and I usually don't mind when you can see some imperfections in the actors' faces-- as long as those imperfections don't take you out of the movie. On this picture, though, I wish I had used just a little more diffusion."
- Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC
Caleb Deschanel: Film Dailies
From American Cinematographer, An Authentic Fairy Tale by Bob Fisher (December 1999)
...The downside was that Deschanel didn't get to see film dailies until he was four to five weeks deep into production (due to a delay in the completion of a screening room on location).
"I wouldn't recommend that approach. It is important to see film dailies projected on a good screen. I knew we were in focus-- the lab and editor could tell me that much. But there are subtle details on the film that I wanted to see and could not."
- Caleb Deschanel, ASC
...The downside was that Deschanel didn't get to see film dailies until he was four to five weeks deep into production (due to a delay in the completion of a screening room on location).
"I wouldn't recommend that approach. It is important to see film dailies projected on a good screen. I knew we were in focus-- the lab and editor could tell me that much. But there are subtle details on the film that I wanted to see and could not."
- Caleb Deschanel, ASC
Edward Lachman: Importance of Dailies
From American Cinematographer, Mad-Dog Englishman by David E. Williams (November 1999)
"Unfortunately, on both The Limey and my previous picture, The Virgin Suicides, which was directed by Sofia Coppola, we only printed selected takes or rolls in order to save money. I can't stress enough that I feel it's a false 'savings.' Some people think it's a luxury or reward for a cameraman to see dailies on film-- and maybe there is a secondary sense of pleasure about it-- but if you're having any technical problems, you're not going to see it in video dailies. I have yet to be on a film where a lens didn't perform improperly at some point, or a light didn't have an inadvertent change in color temperature that affected a shot. On The Limey, we caught a lens that went out on us. The act of moving around day in and day out can damage or affect the cameras and lenses, and those nuances can't be seen on video dailies-- the sharpness, contrast, or even steadiness of the image. If you're spending $2 million-- or even $50 million-- on a picture, you can't find yourself in postproduction with shots that are ruined by technical problems. It's much more expensive to go back and reshoot rather than have projected dailies and make sure that any problems are corrected during principal photography. It's a ludicrous attempt to save money, and I've talked to a number of cameramen who have had major photographic problems on their films but only found out about them after the fact. All cinematographers-- and producers and directors-- should address this issue. Everyone's concerned about the need for film preservation, but let's get things on film correctly first, and then preserve it."
- Edward Lachman, ASC
"Unfortunately, on both The Limey and my previous picture, The Virgin Suicides, which was directed by Sofia Coppola, we only printed selected takes or rolls in order to save money. I can't stress enough that I feel it's a false 'savings.' Some people think it's a luxury or reward for a cameraman to see dailies on film-- and maybe there is a secondary sense of pleasure about it-- but if you're having any technical problems, you're not going to see it in video dailies. I have yet to be on a film where a lens didn't perform improperly at some point, or a light didn't have an inadvertent change in color temperature that affected a shot. On The Limey, we caught a lens that went out on us. The act of moving around day in and day out can damage or affect the cameras and lenses, and those nuances can't be seen on video dailies-- the sharpness, contrast, or even steadiness of the image. If you're spending $2 million-- or even $50 million-- on a picture, you can't find yourself in postproduction with shots that are ruined by technical problems. It's much more expensive to go back and reshoot rather than have projected dailies and make sure that any problems are corrected during principal photography. It's a ludicrous attempt to save money, and I've talked to a number of cameramen who have had major photographic problems on their films but only found out about them after the fact. All cinematographers-- and producers and directors-- should address this issue. Everyone's concerned about the need for film preservation, but let's get things on film correctly first, and then preserve it."
- Edward Lachman, ASC
13.5.09
Seamus McGarvey: On Dailies
From American Cinematographer, A Fractured Family by Duncan Petrie (November 1999)
"What was wonderful about the production, in spite of current trends and our lower budget, was that we were able to have film dailies every night. This became an amazing point of bonding and cohesion during the shoot, particularly given the isolating and lonely spot we were in. After a hard day's work in the freezing wind, sitting and watching the previous day's rushes really knitted us together as a crew and gave everyone a common sense of purpose. That type of experience is very unusual today with the widespread use of electronic editing; as a result, people can sometimes feel very dislocated from a project."
- Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC
"What was wonderful about the production, in spite of current trends and our lower budget, was that we were able to have film dailies every night. This became an amazing point of bonding and cohesion during the shoot, particularly given the isolating and lonely spot we were in. After a hard day's work in the freezing wind, sitting and watching the previous day's rushes really knitted us together as a crew and gave everyone a common sense of purpose. That type of experience is very unusual today with the widespread use of electronic editing; as a result, people can sometimes feel very dislocated from a project."
- Seamus McGarvey, ASC, BSC
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