Karl Walter Lindenlaub: Adapting for New Film Stocks

From American Cinematographer, This Old House by David E. Williams (August 1999)

Dailies and prints for The Haunting were handled by Technicolor, and like some other cinematographers who have now used Vision negative and print stocks in combination, Lindenlaub found that their increased contrast compelled him to rethink his lighting methods.

"The 79 is more contrasty than [EXR] 5298 was—with the newer stock, the blacks fill up and grain disappears, but latitude disappears as well. To my surprise, the Vision print stocks became the only option for release prints after April [of this year]. Between that factor and our dark sets, I had to reevaluate all of my lighting ratios, especially for moonlight effects—and those were methods that I had been using for 20 years! For moonlight, I would normally go two stops under on the faces, and the backlight would be the moonlight at key. On this film, though, two stops under was almost too dark, because everything just under that would drop to black. With 98, you would have had a stop or so left, and you’d get some shadow detail, but that’s not the case now unless you use more fill. The amount of fill determines the look of the movie much more than any other factor, but on this picture I was adding a lot more fill than my eye was used to seeing, which meant that I had to depend on my meter much more. My exposures had to be precise as well, because the 79 doesn’t handle under- or overexposure very well—it gets too milky. Grain isn’t a problem, but milky blacks look wrong to me."

Asked if using other stocks were an option, Lindenlaub replies,

"No, we needed the speed because of our big sets, but because we were using so much smoke in the film, the grain in 5298 would be too apparent. Before this, I’d used the Vision 5277 320T, which has much lower contrast, but I overexposed it to get good blacks. I liked it because it took the contrast out of faces and was more flattering, but it was too slow. I also looked at Vision 800T 5289, but I wasn’t too happy with the grain. The 89 would be a great stock for a gritty big-city thriller, but not for The Haunting .

I know that some people’s use of lab processes like ENR to get better blacks prompted Kodak to add contrast to their stocks, but not everybody wants it. If I ever wanted more contrast, I could do it with my lighting. Now, lighting for 79—in combination with the Vision print stocks— is like lighting 5247 or 45 in the studio, and it will take time to get used to that. Of course, the blacks we got with 79 were great for the atmosphere of our film, since it’s a dark movie."

- Karl Winston Lindenlaub, ASC, BVK

Aaron Schneider: Reversal Film

From American Cinematographer, Swanky Modes by Bob Fisher (October 1998)

"We used two Kodak Ektachrome films in 35mm format. One is a 125-speed film [5240] balanced for tungsten, and the other is a 160-speed film [5239] balanced for daylight. My friends at Kodak were very helpful in quickly generating these two stocks for our production. An entire section of their manufacturing plant had to be converted to reversal production. I think everyone in the company and at the network looked at a print of Clockers [shot by Malik Sayeed, see AC Sept. '95] to see what Ektachrome film looks like onscreen, but I was doing something different. They used a cross-processing technique on Clockers, which gives you a negative that intercuts with the rest of the footage. The side effect of the latter is very strange and peculiar color rendition. I processed normal because I wanted to use reversal for its sort of "newsreel" quality with rich blacks and all the trimmings of a positive print.

I remembered how beautiful and grainless it looked. The grain structure looks equivalent to [Eastman EXR] 5248 or 5245. It has a fluttery quality. The film's density varies in areas of middle gray and mid-tones. The film kind of breathes as if it's alive. I also did some research and found out which lenses cinematographers used 20 years ago on shows like Mannix, Cannon and MacMillan and Wife. I told my assistant cameraman that I wanted a decent set of [Panavision] Ultraspeeds that were functional, but not too functional, if you know what I mean....

Yale is the only lab that is presently processing 35mm reversal film on the West Coast, and it runs about four times slower through the soup. They could only turn out approximately 8,000 feet a day, and would need 24 hours to begin the turnaround. We ultimately convinced those concerned that a one-day delay wasn't going to be the end of the world. We actually came in under budget for exposed film too. At one point on the set Charlie blurted out, 'When I work with you, Aaron, I'm in my minimalist period.' I took it as a compliment. You know, quality over quantity.

I shot my standard exposure test using a gray-scale card with a human face and colorful fruit in the frame. I find using real objects of color we can readily identify with is more telling than a color chart. I over- and underexposed five stops in 1/2-stop increments. It's a test that shows not only the shape of the curve but the over- and underexposure latitude, as well as the [equivalent] ASA that makes the film look the way I want it. By "correcting" each over- and underexposure, I can see what the film looks like at different ASA interpretations. Leon Silverman at Laser Pacific, set up a room for studying the developed film on the telecine. From what I learned, I decided to underexpose both films by a half-stop, because it makes the images a little more saturated with deeper blacks — the exact opposite of how negative film behaves.

Two terrific cinematographers, [ASC members] Paul Ryan and Bob Primes, worked with me on the tests. We spent 12 hours shooting at Panavision — Phil Radin was kind enough to set us up with a camera and their shooting stage — and a large part of a day analyzing the results at Laser Pacific. I wanted to find the shape of the [sensitometric] curve. You only have about 3/4 of a stop less under- and overexposure with reversal film, but the shape of the curve is radically different. Negative has a more gradual curve. You lose information a lot faster with reversal film."

- Aaron Schneider, ASC

David Mullen: Anamorphic & Resolving Latitude

A Written Response to a Question Regarding A Quote by John Schwartzman, ASC on Anamorphic Negative Size and Shadow Detail Latitude (May 2009)

The Question (written by Ryan Patrick O'Hara):

Hello, David Mullen.

We've met briefly on a few occasions, such as the ASC open house and etc. I always try to save my questions for the good ones, and today I think I've found a good one for ya.

I was recently reading the July 1998 issue of American Cinematographer, and I came upon the article for the best film ever, Armageddon... haha! Despite the film, the article by David E. Williams was quite good and a wonderful read! In the article, Micheal Bay and DP John Schwartzman, ASC discussed using Super 35 on The Rock, and how they were not happy with the process, liking true anamorphic widescreen better. This made me very happy as I am in love with true anamorphic origination.

However, in their brief dissertation on the anamorphic medium, Schwartzman made a comment regarding an advantage of anamorphic which I was unaware. According to Schwartzman, the larger negative improves latitude in the shadow detail. I am a very young cinematographer, so I apologize if this is a well known fact, but for me, I was completely unaware, and confused on how this happens.

Besides the differences in lens characteristics, I thought shooting the same cut of film stock whether it be in 8mm, 16mm or 35mm had the same characteristics such as latitude, speed ASA/ISO, color rendition, grain structure, etc. The only major difference being, when projected
the resolution and apparent size of the grain structure is obviously lacking, the smaller the negative.

To make a long winded thought process come to an end, does a larger negative size increase latitude of a film stock? The only thing I can think of is that Anamorphic is known to have monster flares... perhaps it is the bouncing and refracting of light inside anamorphic lenses which cause a slight "flash" effect (around 10%?), raising the latitude in shadow detail?

Here is the quote:

Quote:

From American Cinematographer, When Worlds Collide by David E. Williams (July 1998) Though Schwartzman and Bay expressed enthusiasm for the Super 35 process while shooting The Rock, the theatrical prints were a bit of a letdown for both men. "The drag about Super 35 is the grain and its 'optical' feeling. We did about 30 ENR-treated prints on The Rock to keep some of the contrast. Those were shown in major cities, but the other prints lost a lot of snap. The film looked good for Super 35, but we were still working with this tiny negative." - Micheal Bay "What became very apparent to me was that Super 35 is not just an optical process that makes the grain more apparent; the grain is also bigger because it's enlarged so much during projection. You're getting boned on both ends. The beauty of anamorphic is that there is no intermediate optical process. If you like your dailies, you're going to love your release print. The larger negative also gives you greater shadow detail and greater latitude, so even though I was shooting deeper stops in 'Scope, I felt I was using [relatively] less light to get more image. On Conspiracy Theory, I was doing very large night exteriors in New York City, and I needed to be working at least a T4 or 4.5 for them to look good. But that didn't mean I had to light everything to that exposure. If I could get the lenses to that range, I found that the level of shadow detail I could get in the darker areas was quite extraordinary. One of the things I explained to Michael on Armageddon was that for shuttle interior scenes, I was going to be shooting at a T4.5. I might only have a T2.8 on the actors' faces, but he'd be able to read them beautifully even though they would be underexposed by a stop-and-a-half. The faces wouldn't be muddy, just dark. I was able to do that simply because of the resolving power you get with anamorphic's big negative." - John Schwartzman, ASC

So can shooting 5219 on anamorphic yield greater shadow latitude then shooting the same scene with the same stats (shutter, lighting, T-stop, etc) on Spherical lenses? Does shooting 5219 yield greater shadow latitude then shooting 7219?

Thanks for your time!

Best,
- Ryan


The Answer by David Mullen, ASC:

"Depends on how you define "latitude" -- larger negatives capture more fine detail with less grain, so you have more flexibility in making corrections before grain kicks in, and in softer muddier light, the larger negative still resolves detail. Plus a larger negative will differentiate between an area made up of tiny bits of color, like a field of flowers or even fleshtones -- smaller negatives, because they capture less information, tend to reduce fine gradations of color into a single color. I remember seeing a 70mm print of "Far and Away" (shot in 65mm) and there were subtle shades of pinks and golds in warm colors, colors I hadn't quite seen before in 35mm.

But in terms of actual dynamic range and contrast, technically the size of the negative doesn't matter, but again, by dint of capturing more fine detail and subtle variations, you preserve information with a larger negative that may drop away or blur in a smaller negative, giving the impression of more depth to the shadows. Plus if you shot in Super-16 or Super-35 and did the conversion to a 35mm sound format using an optical printer, as was done until recently, you did have contrast build-up from duping, which did lose dynamic range.

So it's sort of a yes and no answer -- if your recording format has more resolution, it picks up more texture and variation in detail, contrast, and color, then dark and bright areas near going black or white will appear to have more "life" to them and thus give the impression of containing more dynamic range.

Plus you have to factor in that both film and digital pick up shadow information in the bottom end, the noise floor or murky grainy level, and if that noise/grain is reduced because you used a larger negative (or a sensor with less noise) then more of that low-end information is usable in the final color-correction. So less noise/grain can give the impression of creating more dynamic range because more of the range is actually usable."

- David Mullen, ASC

John Schwartzman: Anamorphic & Resolving Latitude?

From American Cinematographer, When Worlds Collide by David E. Williams (July 1998)

Though Schwartzman and Bay expressed enthusiasm for the Super 35 process while shooting The Rock, the theatrical prints were a bit of a letdown for both men.

"The drag about Super 35 is the grain and its 'optical' feeling. We did about 30 ENR-treated prints on The Rock to keep some of the contrast. Those were shown in major cities, but the other prints lost a lot of snap. The film looked good for Super 35, but we were still working with this tiny negative."

- Micheal Bay

"What became very apparent to me was that Super 35 is not just an optical process that makes the grain more apparent; the grain is also bigger because it's enlarged so much during projection. You're getting boned on both ends. The beauty of anamorphic is that there is no intermediate optical process. If you like your dailies, you're going to love your release print. The larger negative also gives you greater shadow detail and greater latitude, so even though I was shooting deeper stops in 'Scope, I felt I was using [relatively] less light to get more image.

On Conspiracy Theory, I was doing very large night exteriors in New York City, and I needed to be working at least a T4 or 4.5 for them to look good. But that didn't mean I had to light everything to that exposure. If I could get the lenses to that range, I found that the level of shadow detail I could get in the darker areas was quite extraordinary. One of the things I explained to Michael on Armageddon was that for shuttle interior scenes, I was going to be shooting at a T4.5. I might only have a T2.8 on the actors' faces, but he'd be able to read them beautifully even though they would be underexposed by a stop-and-a-half. The faces wouldn't be muddy, just dark. I was able to do that simply because of the resolving power you get with anamorphic's big negative."

- John Schwartzman, ASC

"You just have so much more resolution in anamorphic, and the dupes look great. That's why I wanted to use it even though I had to give something up in the lenses. I like the depth and close-focus effects you can get with spherical lenses, but the sacrifice was well worth it."

- Micheal Bay

Schwartzman points out, however, that Bay's definition of "close-focus" is an extreme one:

"What he means is that he can't take a 75mm anamorphic lens and focus it down to 11 inches. He considers the 17.5mm close-focus Primo to be a 'normal' lens. On The Rock, when Ed Harris was giving his speeches, the camera was literally 11 inches from his face. Most cinematographers would consider the 180mm anamorphic lens at seven feet to be close we were routinely working where there were no more measurement markings, at about 4¹/2 to 5 feet. And that is where camera assistants do not want to live."

- John Schwartzman, ASC

Janusz Kaminski: ENR & Flashing Film

From American Cinematographer, Breaking Slavery's Chains by Stephen Pizzello (January 1998)

"This was the first movie on which I used ENR, and it was also the first where I flashed the film. On The Lost World, I did extensive tests with Deluxe's CCE process. It's an incredible process, but it was a little too harsh for that particular movie. I felt that Amistad would be the right movie to use a process on. If you don't prepare, though, you can really get yourself into problems with the darkness and the contrast. ENR can almost be so high-contrast that there are no mid-range tones; if you're not careful, everything becomes either black or white. You therefore have to test, and you have to use a certain lighting style. You don't necessarily have to flash, but you do have to start filling out the shadows a bit. I flashed this film because I did comparison tests for certain things-- with flashing and without it. I found that the ENR becomes very slick and elegant if you don't flash it. It's very beautiful, but if you flash 10 or 15 percent it becomes grittier, which was the look I wanted for the story. I learned a tremendous amount about ENR from the interview American Cinematographer did with Darius Khondji [AFC] on Evita. That's a good example of a film in which great lighting is augmented by ENR for a beautiful final result. Darius' explanation of his ENR work was very helpful to me; he basically said, 'Flash it, test it and see if you like it.'

For a typical scene, I would flash the wide shot about 10 percent, but if I wanted a bit more drama or contrast I would flash maybe 7 percent. We used standard white light in the flashing. The Panaflasher is a very interesting device; I'd tested it on seven or eight other occasions, but I'd never liked it, simply because I love to have contrast. But this time, in conjunction with the ENR, I really liked it. We flashed the negative, which introduced some light into the shadows and added some grain, and then applied the ENR, which kind of counterbalances the flashing by adding more contrast and getting rid of the grain. However, ENR also affects your color saturation; the colors become softer, and the highlights become a bit metallic. That was the kind of look I wanted. I was losing a bit of the grittiness by adding ENR, but the flashing made up for it."

- Janusz Kaminski

"The special processes really added something to the film, because all of a sudden the stocks didn't look so clean. I just did some commercials with stocks that have up to 9 or 10 stops of latitude, and as the emulsions go more in that clean direction, it becomes harder to give scenes a really emotional feeling. Nowadays you sometimes have to go through leaps and bounds with the lighting to make it interesting and give it a real signature. When you use special processes to alter the way the film records, you can create a look that doesn't look quite so stylized, because the lighting doesn't have to be so overt. If you control the look on several different levels-- as Janusz did on this film with ENR, flashing and smoke-- it's a bit more effective."

- David Devlin, Gaffer for Janusz on Amistad

"During my career, I've always put a barrier between myself and technology. But on this movie I was branching out more with the ENR and the flashing. I also started underexposing the negative which I had never done. And all of a sudden, a new door opened. I started going much further into darkness than I had before. I'd always felt that you could achieve the same type of look without underexposing the negative; you can, but you won't achieve the painterly quality that the grain gives you. In addition, the color saturation becomes different when you go two stops under-- I'm talking about reading T2 on the keylight and shooting at T4. Here and there you might have a hint of light somewhere, reflecting off some glass or something, but you don't want to go more than T2 because you'll start to mess things up."

- Janusz Kaminski

Janusz Kaminski: Technicolor's ENR Process

From American Cinematographer, Breaking Slavery's Chains by Stephen Pizzello (January 1998)

"When I'm doing a normal movie-- without ENR-- I typically try to add a bit more contrast, especially when I'm lighting faces. I want one side to be light, the other side to be darker, and so on. I always end up flagging the excess light to create some contrast because of the latitude of the film. While doing tests with ENR on Amistad, I learned very quickly that the process allows you to dispense with a lot of the grip equipment, because extra contrast is inherent to the ENR process. We could simply put a frontal light at a certain angle, without using flags."

- Janusz Kaminski

"We did have to adjust for that a bit. I'd ask Janusz about [flagging] certain setups, and he'd say, 'Don't worry, the ENR will take care of it.' The ENR really absorbs light in some areas that you'd normally want to control."

- Jim Kwiatkowski, Key Grip for Janusz on Amistad

"I'd find out what would happen if, for instance, I put a black net filter behind the lens, added smoke and ENR to the mix, and then lit flatly. We got to the point where we were trying to create the most implistic and idiotic lighting possible, where you just put a bounce card in front of someone's face and aim a light into it. That's as flat as you can get! We were dealing with a lot of contrast right there-- the light is reflected from a black face, and it just falls off. But that didn't create any problems for us, even when we were putting someone as pale as Matthew McConaughey next to Djimon. Djimon's magical face is truly black, but he reflects light beautifully; that compensated for Matthew's skin tone. If I had them in a two-shot, I'd maybe put the light closer to Djimon. My hat is off to Kodak in that regard; these days, the emulsions are so sophisticated, and have so much latitude, that you don't have to do very much to accommodate the tonal differences. For all of these reasons, we started doing very simple lighting tests with very easy lighting; there were no tricks."

- Janusz Kaminski

John Alexander Jimenez: On Kodak Film

From American Cinematographer, Opportunities With Attitude by Holly Willis (March 1999)
Director: Joe Carhahan
DP: John Alexander Jimenez

"For the outside shots, I'd keep using 7245. Even though it was bits and pieces from different cans and different times, I tried to keep it as consistent as I could," he (Jimenez) says. Interiors were shot on the 500asa EXR 7298. Notes Carnahan, "The 45 is pretty much like the vanilla [emulsion] of the Kodak line-- their basic exterior stock-- but it's got incredible latitude. On some scenes, we were overexposed by more than a stop-- some of our exteriors were completely blown out-- but it came out pretty well. Again, with the interiors and the 7298, there was a lot of latitude, and we also got very dense blacks, which I like."

Matthew Leonetti: On Kodak 5279

From AC magazine regarding Star Trek Insurrection:

For interior scenes, Leonetti selected Kodak's Vision 500t 5279 stock because...

"It's got better resolution and better blacks [than EXR 5298], but the latitude is just as good and it actually has less grain."

-Matthew Leonetti, ASC