Red Camera

 

When you can buy a camera for approximately £25,000 (admittedly without lenses) capable of producing  a major international movie such as Night at the Museum, Che, The Lovely Bones or Angels and Demons, it’s obvious that something dramatic  has been happening in the world of movie-making technology.That dramatic development is the result of one camera entering the market: the RED Camera, and more specifically, the RED One. Aimed at the low-budget independent film maker, its incredible image quality, low price and ease of use has taken the movie world by storm, with noted directors such as Steven Soderbergh commenting: “This is the camera I’ve been waiting for my whole career: jaw-dropping imagery recorded on board a camera light enough to hold with one hand… RED is going to change everything.”

Interesting if you’re a film maker, but what has all that got to do with me, I’m a photographer? I hear you ask.
Well, the answer is everything, because  not only has RED’s impact on the movie world been like a balloon bursting, it is also  being adopted by an increasing number of  high-end portrait and fashion photographers across the world. Why? Because the RED allows a photographer to grab a high-resolution image from film stock. It has become an invaluable tool for anyone needing to shoot large-scale print advertising alongside or from commercial footage.
Although as Matthew Wilkins, technical assistant to celebrity portrait photographer Andrew Eccles says: “Its size can be variable, but its maximum resolution is 4,000 pixels in its longest dimension. HD TVs now have a maximum resolution of 1,080 pixels, so the RED shoots almost four times that. Basically, there’s nothing consumers can purchase that can display the RED’s full resolution. As for the still image that the RED shoots, it is equivalent to shooting  8-11MP. About the same as the original 5D.”

So it’s impressive, but not incredible. The key benefit the RED has over everything else at the moment for a photographer is its ability to grab a still from the moving image at a usable quality. The RED is also considered to have the closest colour palette to original 35mm  film stock, which is attractive to many cinematographers trained on film. Flat and muted, it is the best neutral palette that a digital camera has been able to achieve, and is therefore lit in a similar way to traditional film work. A favourable quality to work with for many cinematographers, but not for all. Film maker Richard Jobson is not convinced by the RED’s colour palette and as an early adopter of the Canon 5D MkII to shoot  films, he chooses the 5D over the RED for its aesthetic quality as well as its economic benefits. “Originally, HD was about economics, but now it’s about aesthetics.  It’s digital cinema, not film, and I look
at things with a photographer’s eye,  isolating the subject. Too many people get confused with all the hullaboo that’s going on outside the frame. Stanley Kubrick is  my favourite director and he was a great photographer,” he states.

Jobson works with the RED but is  not a great fan, and is not backward in pointing out its frailties. He’s not the
only one who has found it to be technically fragile on location. If you read the forums and blogs you’ll find lots of comment and talk about the reliability of the RED. However, cinematographer Simon Dennis, who regularly works with Jobson, is  a fan and was previously a photographer.  He feels a lot of the forum talk is  unfounded based on his personal  experience. “I ignore blogs and forums;  I just get out there and use it and I’ve  had no horror stories or problems.”

The RED Camera has blown its competitors out of the water. Even Steven Spielberg has shot two features on it. But its rivals are fighting back. While companies such as Arri and Panavision respond to the RED Camera, the people at RED are looking at the Canon and worrying that if Canon gets its resolution up to 12,000 pixels, RED will be in trouble. The RED is comparatively cheap in the movie industry, but the Canon is ridiculously so. If you consider that on an average £1 million film budget,  between £15,000 and £20,000 would be  for camera hire, and just four or five years ago a standard HD 2k resolution body was £75,000, it is not hard to understand why film makers are now buying the RED and avoiding rental costs completely. When  you look at these hard financial facts and combine them with recent technological advances, it’s not hard to see why the boundaries have been removed from
what is possible in film making.

Talking about film stills video

Unit publicist Susan d’Arcy and three photographers – David Appleby, Murray Close and Alex Bailey – who currently work in the film industry discuss their approach to shooting stars on set, and how they manage their relationship with stars and crew.

Watch the video:  http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/LivebytheLens/videos3.asp

And the winner is……..Professional Photographer magazine

 

A few months ago I set out with best intentions to review all the photo mags that I get due to the publicity surrounding the book Movie Photos that I published last year.  Well……Best laid plans I kept on reading them but never really got round to the reviews I originally had in mind instead here is a quick round-up ….. The one mag that comes monthly that I can never put down and find most if not all of it interesting is Professional Photographer magazine, well written very varied articles from high-end pros to jobbing photographers not to technical all round 1 st class – subscription renewed. 2nd place goes to my old faithful read the BJP, which have to say does seem to be getting thinner and thinner and a lot of the time the articles are pretty Arty biased they feel a bit detached from main stream photography I’m not sure quite where it fits in , subscription renewed (out of habit!) Next is Aperture magazine – firmly in the art camp but never tried to be any where else good and glossy quarterly comes from the US ideal coffee table stuff. (except I don not have a coffee table!!) Also get good regular emails that are as interesting as the magazine.  F2 Freelance started very well not seen a copy for a while and I have cancelled my subscription to Amateur Photographer which in fairness caters extremely well for the market it is aimed at but not appropriate for me..  Lomography wins first prize for bombarding me with emails but very imaginative so no way will I unsubscribe!!  And the best freebie goes to the Nikon pro mag a brilliant give away.

Seamus McGarvey Talks Atonement

 by Bob Fisher

 

Seamus McGarvey shoots Atonement (2007). Photo: Alex Bailey

Though this year’s Oscar ceremony may be Seamus McGarvey’s first as a nominee, the cinematographer is certainly no stranger to awards buzz. As one of this year’s most nominated films—and the Golden Globe winner for Best Motion Picture—McGarvey’s been riding Atonement‘s wave of success and collecting his own share of accolades along the way. In addition to his Oscar nod, McGarvey’s work behind the camera has been singled out by the American Society of Cinematographers, BAFTA, Chicago Film Critics Association, Irish Film and Television Awards and the Online Film Critics Society. Only time will tell if he’ll walk away from the Kodak Theatre with a golden statue come Oscar night. But as he prepares for his night in the spotlight, MM got the lowdown on how he’s getting ready.

Bob Fisher (MM): How and when did you meet Atonement director Joe Wright? Joe and I met about 15 years ago in London, when I was shooting music videos and documentaries for Oil Company Films. He directed some music videos and a short film called The End that I shot for him. We remained friends over the years.

Seamus McGarvey (SM):

MM: What is the story about? Atonement is based on a novel written by Ian McEwan. The story spans three periods in the lives of Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan), her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie (James McAvoy), who was a servant at their family estate. It begins in England in 1935, when 13 year-old Briony falsely accuses Robbie of committing a crime. The second period begins in 1940 with England at war. Briony is working in a hospital and trying to mend her relationship with Cecilia. Robbie is on the beach at Dunkirk with thousands of other British soldiers who are waiting to be evacuated as the Nazi army approaches. The third period takes place when Briony is an elderly writer being interviewed about her career.

MM: Did you look at and discuss visual references during pre-production?  [Production designer] Sarah Greenwood had a huge collection of decorating magazines, including Country Life. We referenced pictures from the period and places in those magazines. We also looked at various films, including In Which We Serve, a David Lean movie from 1942. One of the stars was Celia Johnson. Joe was interested in the sensibilities of her performance, the cinematography and production design. Later, Joe encouraged me to listen in on his discussions with the actors. That gave me a broader appreciation for how he wanted to depict them during the three periods.

MM: With the three diverse period looks, I imagine that a collaborative relationship with the production designer must have been important. It was absolutely vital. Sarah and set decorator Katie Spencer were wonderfully collaborative. They created sets with the right environments that also facilitated the motivated lighting we did. 

MM: Why was Atonement produced in Super 1.85:1 format? We wanted to be on the edge between objective and subjective imagery. We spoke about framing images in 1.33:1 or 1.66:1 aspect ratios, but decided that wouldn’t give us the space to put characters in their environments. We also discussed shooting the Dunkirk beach scenes in anamorphic format (2.4:1 aspect ratio), but decided that the perceived grandeur of this format wouldn’t be appropriate. When we scouted locations, Joe and I agreed that a squarer, more vertical Super 1.85:1 frame felt right.

MM: Why not shoot in straight 1.85:1 instead of Super 1.85:1format? With the Super 1.85:1 format, you use the entire frame, including the part of the negative that was once reserved for the sound track. I knew that we would be shooting some scenes with high-speed stocks in lower key light. Using the greater negative area of Super 1.85:1 allowed me to keep the grain to a minimum, which was the right for this film. We also knew that we were going to do a digital intermediate (DI) on the film, so it made sense to give ourselves the larger negative.

MM: Tell me about the visual grammar at the beginning of Atonement. : The opening sequence has kind of a nostalgic quality with a sense of what life was like for people in the upper class in England in the looming shadows of the coming war and the reality of all that was happening in the world at the time. Many of those scenes were filmed in a house on an estate which was built in 1898. There is kind of a staccato visual rhythm at the start of the film. The audience meets Briony when she is 13 years old. She is a mischievous person who uses a typewriter to write her stories. Dario Marianelli composed and recorded a score mimicking the sounds made by typewriter keys as she walks around the house and skips down the stairs. The interior of the house was on the dark side. We lit daylight scenes through windows with 18K and 12K PARs. It looked like hot summer sunlight. Sometimes I let that light go four to five stops over-exposed. The hot, blown out sunlight and the luster of glimmering reflections contrasted with shadowy darkness in the house. I used filtration behind the lens made from a black silk stocking, which softened the look a bit.

MM: How did you differentiate the look in part two? In different ways. For instance, I didn’t use the silk stocking behind the lens, and I overexposed the negative just a bit to make the black tones slightly darker with a little more contrast. We enhanced that look a bit during DI timing.

MM: Were you typically covering scenes with one or multiple cameras? We were using two cameras most of the time, particularly when we had children in scenes. Our goal was to get shots with children in the first take. Sometimes the cameras were side by side covering scenes from different angles, or maybe one was on a close-up and the other one was on a medium shot. We were on a tight shooting schedule, so we did a lot of leapfrogging.

MM: What you mean by “leapfrogging”? Joe and I would plan what we were going to shoot the next day the night before, so there was a shot list in the morning for all departments, including our plan to leapfrog from one shot to another. The B camera grips were setting up the next take while we were shooting, so we could finish a shot and leapfrog to the next one.

MM: There are wonderful close-ups that remind us of faces in Ingmar Bergman movies that were shot by Sven Nykvist where the eyes of characters revealed their souls. How did you approach shooting those close-ups? Every shot was different, but we generally lit faces with a 4K or another lamp bounced off of foamcore through silks, so skin tones are natural looking, and the audience can see the light in the character’s eyes.

MM: What was your palette for recording images? I used three Kodak Vision 2 color negatives, (100T) 5212, (200T) 5217 and (500T) 5218 depending upon the scene. 

MM: The word “collaboration” has come into this conversation many times. Joe was the leader of the pack; he was absolutely collaborative. That extended to having everyone watching film dailies together, including the editor, Paul Tothill. We had an ARRI LocPro projector and a screen in a tent wherever we were shooting. It was a relaxed environment and communal experience that bonded us together and kept everyone excited and feeling like we were doing something special. It brought people together in a primal way which resulted in a more organic feeling.

MM: You timed Atonement in digital intermediate (DI) format at Capital FX, in London, which is affiliated with EFilm, in Los Angeles. Share that experience. After the film was edited offline, the conformed negative was scanned at 4K resolution to preserve all the details on the negative. Joe and I approached timing the DI the same way we shot the film. We were making decisions in real time just like we did on the set in collaboration with DI colorist Adam Inglis. 

MM: Did knowing there would be a DI affect how you shot scenes? I believe that it is important to do whatever is necessary to get the look you want on the negative, including flagging light and using the proper filtration.

MM: What is next for you? I am working with Joe Wright on The Soloist. It’s an uplifting story about a schizophrenic, homeless musician and his friendship with a journalist from the Los Angeles Times.

Well there’s a funny thing

Here I am saturday PM looking through photos from the last film I worked on: Brighton Rock now what I can’t help noticing is the difference in the quality of the images from interiors shot on a Nikon D2xs versus a D3 - There is no doubt at all when you do direct comparisons like this that the quality of the D3 images is superior technically ie sharper brighter and little if no noise – (both shooting a bout 100asa F4 1/80) – but here is the funny thing the images from the D2xs look more filmic - subjectively preferable?? I believe that digital cameras are reaching a plateau at the moment – I mean you can take pictures in the dark now with a Nikon D3s - personally I prefer to take pictures in the light!!!???!! and the resolution on cameras like the D3X (25mil pix) is arguably better than traditional films like Kodak EPP 100 asa + 64x – some say there getting to sharp!!

Movie Photos – Behind the scenes – take 5

As the day moves on I find my artistic perception increases, I begin to see images and their possibilities much easier, I also find that my mind works in so to speak auto pilot when it comes to the technical side, computing as it were the possibilities of camera, lens and any other creative contribution the technical side might add. Where as in the early stages of covering the set it is almost a technical record as the photo coverage moves on and the ‘creative juices’ begin to flow the coverage becomes more dynamic. This creative process of getting tuned in is something that takes a long time to get finely tuned to the stage where by one can rely on it and call on it more or less at will. Of course the stumbling block is lack of inspiration which can come about mainly due to a mundane subject as much as possible something I totally avoid. You must be inspired by a subject in order for the creative energy to spark.  As I walk through the Dunkirk set I really study the small details and take time to consider them… It may be a pack of period playing cards an old boot or a pile of clothes; all these details have taken consideration by members of the art department who would have researched carefully these items importance. I know for a fact that piles of shoes figured heavily on the beaches of Dunkirk as the soldiers took them before they ran into the water. See! How these small details have significance and a story – they should not be over looked – my theory is that if you concentrate on the smaller details you will build the overall picture. I believe that this approach to covering photographic assignments is appropriate in a wide range of scenarios. It is important also to cover the physical set itself………………..

Louisiana Film & Video Magazine

http://www.louisianafilmandvideo.com/mainLM.php   PAGE 40

What’s occurring? ……. 2010………The out look…….

There is great optimism for the New Year and an expectation that the recession will start to ease, probably helped by an election and new government (in the UK) early this year. It has been a very tough time for a lot of businesses not least for established photographic practices, I myself am fortunate in the way that I do not maintain a large studio and office with the incumbent overheads nor do I employ staff on a full time basis so therefore I can keep my costs to a minimum especially at times of economic uncertainty. The film industry like all industries has suffered over the last few years. It is commonly said that people continue to go to the cinema at times of hardship, possibly even more? This has been reflected in very good box office receipts during the last couple of years. However as far as film production is concerned, yes it has suffered. All of us who work in the industry have seen a slowing up of film’s being made over the last 3 years. Why is this? Well…….. Naturally in such a deep recession when such uncertainty exists ………..Cash is KING…… People / companies etc. Hold onto their DOSH and caution rules… There are other potential reasons why production is slow at the moment……namely distribution and it’s future. Yes the internet grows and more and more people are getting their film hit via downloads… All well and good but this brings problems for the distributors mainly the same one as the music industry that is ………… Once a product is digitalized it is very easy for third parties IE those that have downloaded the first time to pass it on FREE of Charge …. No Money for the film makers!!!!! and …. NO Money = No more film making so there is a problem there that needs to be sorted for the film investors and distributors to feel re-assured that their investment will be protected and relative financial return received in order for them to continue to invest again in other films. (It’s exactly the same as what has happened in the music industry) So there you go…………..All you top computer buffs out there, work out an encryption code for film distribution and you will be very wealthy.

So where does that leave us photographers coming out of the recession? Well, trust me, one things for sure it’s not the same as when we went in! Particularly for us photographers – You often here about: Waiting for things to get back to the way they where…. Well, there has been a fundamental change in photography in the last 3 years while the recession has been going on. It’s all about video now!!!! Or at least there are a lot of people saying it is. ‘Photography is on the way out’!!!!! Was one comment made by a leading photographer in an article I was reading at the weekend, another prominent photographer interviewed a few weeks ago in another photo mag announced that:  ‘All photography students should study video only and forget photographic practice’. There is no doubt that the digitizing of the western world is changing the way information is conveyed.  Print press is suffering hugely (although when you look on the newsagents shelves it is hard to believe) But I have positively noticed over the last few years that rarely, if ever, do you here about the launch of a new magazine, 10 years ago there was a new mag once a week!!!??? So is the printed picture on the way out? I don’t want to be naive but I really can not imagine a world where all our info comes to us digitally although I am open minded enough to go along with it ….if it did.  But I for one am still going to hang photos on my walls and want to look at pictures in a book from time to time. But papers and mags?? Cant say I am that bothered I could just as easily read my BJP or Professional Photographer + all the other Photography and film related mags on-line and surely the environmental impact of electronic distribution is much better than print press with vehicle distribution and one going to the shop to by it and then then having to go to a recycling centre to get it back in the system. No its bonkers electronic distribution has to be the way forward and in fairness probably for films as well – downloaded directly to your TV. Via subscription? 

Whatever happens duality is the key word.  I do not believe we are witnessing the death of the still image only the birth of image making duality where photographers will be required to shoot stills + video clips

So my message for the New year is if you are budding photographer or photo student stick with it learn the photography but don’t be afraid of the video on/off switch: Remember that some of the very best film makers in the world were, and still are, photographers. Most,  if not all, of the film makers I work with (and that’s a lot) studied, worked in, and continue to have an active healthy interest in both still and moving images. They go hand in hand. Besides let us not forget a film is only a series of stills…… Good luck for 2010……

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes Premiere Leicester Sq.

Guardian review

Sherlock Holmes

Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes took advantage of Christmas’ falling on a Friday this year to set a single-day record for the holiday with a $24.9 million domestic haul. In second place, Avatar kicked off its sophomore weekend with a lean 12 percent dip from last week, bringing its cume to $160.8 after eight days. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel slid to third place with $14.5 million after briefly grabbing the top spot on Wednesday. At fourth place with $7.1 million, the Meryl Streep-Alec Baldwin comedy It’s Complicated bested the $5.3 million first-day gross of writer-director Nancy Meyers’ Something’s Gotta Give in »