Nancy Schreiber: Countering Super35 Optical Loss

From American Cinematographer, In the Company of Men and Women by Eric Rudolph (September 1998)

Schreiber's ability to dramatically light this key location was facilitated by the use of Kodak's Vision 500T 5279. Before committing to the stock, she tested the emulsion all the way through to the Super 35 IN/IP {Internegative/Interpositive} stages; she underrated the film at 400ASA to obtain a thick negative that would hold up to the optical step process required for Super 35 formattting, ensuring that she would retain deep blacks.

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."

Conrad Hall: Approach, Source Lighting, Practicals & Roomtone

"Source lighting is something that the inventors of cinema brought forth as a technique, and it's a good starting point when you're telling a story, but that doesn't mean you have to follow it. If I have an interior daylight scene, I usually struggle to use one light coming in through a window. Inside, I use smaller units and practical lights, and I also figure out how to take light away and create the little separations that provide depth. I can use practical lamps a lot as lighting sources, but will often add to that with additional 'movie' lights. However, you have to make sure that the additional lights you're using on an actor are not also lighting the practical. Finally, I add the proper amount of fill light, which I call room tone, to give the blacks the right tonality. Light bounces off of every surface in a room-- the walls, the floor, the furnature-- and that's what room tone is. I usually hit a white card above the set or directly on the ceiling so that it doesn't cast shadows on the walls. If you were to turn off all the other lights, you'd barely see anything, but everything would still be visible. There's no directionality to it. Room tone is very improtant, and you can use varying amounts of it depending on the speed of your film."

-Conrad Hall, ASC