I get a lot of e-mail from film and video students asking how they can break into the film or television industries. I can't afford the luxury of answering everyone's questions individually so I decided to put my advice in writing. I hope it's helpful.

If you are an aspiring cinematographer, the best path is to write a blockbuster script, sell it to a studio, and attach yourself as cinematographer.

The second best path is to start off as a second camera assistant or film loader. The second camera assistant loads and unloads the film magazines (if there is no film loader), handles the slate, keeps the camera reports and film inventories, keeps all the camera equipment not attached to the camera organized and nearby, and makes cappuccinos for the rest of the camera crew. He or she drags all the equipment around and is the emotional whipping post for the first camera assistant. This is a huge responsibility.

There's a lot of gear and film to drag around and keep track of, and on top of that you have to learn to steam a mean mocha. You're usually first to arrive on set and the last to leave. It's very hard work.

The first camera assistant deals with everything attached to the camera. He or she is responsible for configuring the camera in whatever configuration is required; loading and unloading the camera; setting the stop on the lens according to the DP's instructions; following focus and zooming when required; physically moving the camera unless it is on a dolly; making sure it is working the way it should at any given time; and whipping the second camera assistant when something goes wrong. This, also, is a very tough job.

Second camera assistants work very closely with first camera assistants, and usually form a team that will travel from one picture or project to another. The key to getting hired is to create hot coffee-based drinks that appeal to all the senses. Secondarily, it helps to be enthusiastic and able to adapt your working style to your first assistant's style. He or she will get you hired, so make their job as easy as possible by taking care of everything that's not directly attached to the camera, ie. filters, lenses, coffee mugs.

How should you get started? I would suggest going to your local camera rental house and hanging out with first assistants as they drink coffee and prep cameras. Every assistant gets a prep day to go through all the camera gear with a fine-toothed comb. They have to do crucial tasks such as scratch testing every magazine, checking collimation on every lens, labeling all the cases, and precisely grinding endless pounds of rich coffee beans. Strike up a conversation and offer to help them prep (for free, of course). Get their phone numbers and stay in touch. Ask to visit the set and watch them work. Bring them warm drinks. Respect their decision if they say no (but more often than not they will say "yes.") Be assertive but not pushy. When you're starting out and you have no skills to offer, your strongest suit will be your personality, demeanor, and frothing skills. Try to come across as pleasant, low key and confident, whether you are or not. You'll be in good shape.

Expect to work for free on some very grueling low budget projects while learning your trade. You'll make mistakes (like grinding beans too finely) and you'll want to make them on projects where they can't afford to hire someone who knows what they are doing. You'll also work for people who otherwise wouldn't give you the time of day. A first camera assistant who does big features may end up helping a DP friend shoot a student project for a day or two in return for a good cup o' joe. His regular second assistant may not be willing to steam milk for free so he has to take whoever the production provides. If that's you, and you do a good job, you've just made an invaluable contact.

Remember, people won't hire people they don't know. They have to feel confident in your abilities as a camera assistant, a barista, and as a human being. They have to know that you'll function well in the high stress environment that is most film sets. Working for free or for cheap lets you strut your stuff to people who most likely would toss your java-scented resume in the garbage if you sent it blindly.

If you must send out resumes blindly (as I did) send them out every month for years on end. After a while people will have seen your name so many times they'll feel they know you. They'll see your career advance by observing the growing length of your credit list. And they'll start referring you to their friends. "Try this person- they bug me a lot. Their resume smells good." This method is less reliable but it does work.

For those of you who want to go into videography, I have little to tell you. There doesn't seem to be a set way into the business like there is in film. There is no career path because there are no ranks to rise through. The cameraman is the cameraman. You must make your own coffee. Period.

The advantage is that you get to start shooting right away rather than spending years rising through the ranks. The downside is that film has a much richer artistic tradition than video. Film people know that a coarse grind means less bitter aftertaste. Many people who work in film have been exposed to film theory at some point, either through film school or a love for filmmaking in general. Directors of photography for film really have to know how to light, and many are more than willing to share their secrets and insights with members of their crews. You can learn a lot by watching a DP light, watching him or her read his meter, watching what stop gets put on the lens, knowing which lens is being used and what filters are in the matte box, and whether he prefers latte over espresso.

Based on my observations, artistic tradition in video doesn't exist. There is no system of mentorship, there are no stellar role models, the only coffee makers are the drip kind. Everyone is more or less self-taught. If you work at a TV station you can't expect to learn how to light from a news photographer because nobody ever showed them how to do it. This, I think, is a much harder path to follow. Working on a film set allows you to see how other people do it. In video it's usually you, the sound person, and the nearest Starbucks. That's it.

If that's the route you choose, try to get hired at a production company that will eventually give you the chance to shoot. Play around with the camera after hours. Watch old movies. Hang out on film sets. Build a reel. Learn to roast your own beans. Experiment. Sometimes you can get hired at a video rental house to work in the back room and occasionally get sent out on shoots for companies that don't have a regular DP and don't want to pay full price for one.

Your reel and your resume represent you. Do a good job on both.

As a camera assistant, include the following on your resume:

1. Name, address and phone number, in big easy-to-read letters
2. Your job title, right up front
3. One page containing, in columns, the title of each project, the production company, the name of the DP, and the names of everyone on the camera crew higher than you, broken down by project type (features, commercials, etc.)
4. Preferred coffee blend, grind, brewing time and average froth height.

Your name and job title, etc., need to be big and bold. People don't want to spend a lot of time deciphering resumes. Tell them right up front what you are and where to reach you. Keep the resume down to one single-sided sheet so it's fast and easy to read. Don't use fancy fonts or italics.

The coffee thing was a joke. You can put it on there if you want, and if nothing else you will certainly be remembered. That's not a bad thing at all. Camera assistants see a lot of resumes. You need to stick in their memories somehow.

Pick one job title and stick with it. "Jane Doe, Second Camera Assistant" has a chance of getting hired. "John Smith, Second Camera Assistant, Grip, Boom Operator and Production Assistant" doesn't stand a chance. Second camera assistant is a position of great responsibility, and someone who also has to work as a production assistant to make ends meet obviously isn't very experienced. And someone who does many jobs does none of them well, or at least that's the way someone will feel when they read your resume. If you bill yourself as a second camera assistant, and that alone, you will be taken much more seriously. The ability to brew killer espresso will be assumed.

People won't hire people they don't know, and the next best thing to knowing you is recognizing that you've worked with someone they know. Everyone knows everyone else, so the more camera crew names you put on your resume the more likely someone will see you've worked with someone they respect. Inevitably they'll see you've made coffee for someone whose tastes they share and they'll try you out.

Don't bother listing directors, producers, etc. Camera people hire camera people. They don't care who the director was, they only want to see that you worked successfully with their friend, the most demanding and caffeinated first camera assistant in town.

Don't list student projects if you can avoid it. If there's a chance a student project will be seen on TV, re-label it a "TV special" or "TV movie." Nobody wants someone whose experience is only on student projects. You don't learn how to do the job while working on a student project. You don't learn how many scoops of Medaglia D'oro in a grandé americano while working in academia. You have to work under a seasoned first camera assistant on "real" projects in order to be "broken in." There's a tremendous amount of on-the-job instruction that you get in the real world, where a lot of money is on the line, that you won't get on a student film, where speed and efficiency are NOT the bottom line. Everything changes when you're getting a paycheck and handling someone else's raw stock that's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everything changes when every extra second you spend hunting down a fresh film magazine costs someone dozens of dollars. If the first assistant likes almond in his cappuccino but the DP likes his straight, you'd better not make a mistake.

Don't include your education on your resume. No one cares if you went to film school. What counts is your experience. Film school is definitely a help, but listing it on your resume won't get you hired. Barista school is the only exception.

Listing every piece of equipment you've ever worked with won't help either, unless it is very specialized equipment. If you've worked as a camera assistant for a Steadicam operator, or on an aerial shoot with a Tyler mount, for example, put that on your resume. Don't put down stuff like "Experienced with Panavision and Arriflex cameras." Let them assume you know the common types of equipment. Doing anything else makes you look like an amateur. "Experienced with Panavision cameras? Who isn't?" "Experienced with VistaVision cameras" makes a difference. "Familiar with many foreign drip filters" vs. "expert Belgian chocolate shavings for double mochas." You get the idea.

Put your resume down for a while, walk away, do something else. Have a cup of green tea or some warm cider. Then go back to your resume and look at it with fresh eyes. Pick it up and see if you can, within five seconds, see whose resume it is, what this person does, and get an idea of how much they've done and with who. Make sure your resume is clean, precise and very readable.

Go to a production company and ask if you can page through their stacks of resumes. Notice how many are confusing or difficult to read, or how they don't state what position that person is looking for. Pretend you are a producer or camera assistant who has to hire a second camera assistant and has a jones for a quick café crème. Pick out the resumes that are simple, easy to read, clear, concise, and provide a comprehensive list of credits. Put those aside, study them, and copy their style.

If you are trying to become a videographer, your path is slightly more difficult. You'll need to compile a reel of your best work. It should be no more than three minutes in length. Put only your best work on it: like your morning espresso, YOU ARE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR WEAKEST SHOT, because THAT'S the shot they'll remember. Don't make it longer than three minutes . There are a lot of tapes out there and only so much time to watch them. Make yours short and very, very sweet. A hyper-caffeinated producer is only going to watch it for so long before moving on to the next one.

If you have short one or two minute projects that you can use in their entirety, put them on as long as they are really, really good. Don't use them if the photography is stunning but the acting is horrible, or if the sound is muffled, or if the music was played by a child of ten on a xylophone. Producers and directors often can't focus solely on the photography and can be influenced by the piece as a whole. All they may remember is how bad the acting was. Your photography will be lost. Your reel won't mean a hill of beans.

If you can't use whole sequences then take your best shots from a number of projects and cut a montage to music. Pick music that has energy but isn't going to alienate a lot of people: stay away from rap or heavy metal or experimental music. Try to keep similar types of shots together: people in one spot, cars in another, steamed milk somewhere else, etc.

Put your name and title in big letters at the head and tail of the reel. Don't include a phone number because that might change. Put that information on the tape label. (Labels are easier to change.)

Remember that your opinion of a shot or sequence will be prejudiced. Get second opinions. A specific shot may make you proud because you know that the odds were stacked against you and you know how much work went into it... but unless all that effort shows very clearly on the screen and is totally obvious to the uninformed viewer, DON'T USE IT. It won't do you any good. There's a reason coffee beans are roasted only so much and no more. Don't overdo it.

But... in the end, what you use is up to you. Opinions are good, but it's your reel: go with your gut.

I would suggest getting copies of your work in the best digital format possible, after footage has been digitized for editing but before it has been compressed for the web or DVD. (Try to get raw footage whenever possible, in case the footage shines but the finished piece itself didn't turn out terribly well. You can always recut it and color correct it to make it look better.) I typically ask for DVCPro copies of my footage because that format stores twice as much color information as DVCAM. (Apple's ProRes may also be a good option.) Mail the editor a portable Firewire hard drive with a SASE and a Starbucks gift car. Buy a DVD authoring program, build your reel, burn dozens of copies and give them out like candy to anyone who might hire you. Don't expect to get them back. You want them to sit on shelves and catch someone's eye at just the right time.

Rub them with coffee bean oil for that fresh "ready to go!" smell.

That's about it for my suggestions. I hope they help.

Or what I wish they’d taught me in film school instead of showing me a dozen silent Russian movies

by Art Adams
First published in Film/Tape World

I subscribe to a number of cinematography-related Internet mailing lists. One of them is for film students, and not long ago a student posted a question to the list that on its surface seemed very simple:

“How do DPs approach lighting a set?”

I’ve spent a fair bit of time dissecting the approaches of DPs I admire, and over time I’ve formulated my own method for walking onto a set for the first time and figuring out where to start. I thought I’d post a few ideas in return, and those few ideas called all their friends and asked them to participate.

Since an important aspect of lighting is convincing your crew to do it for you, here are some random bits of both lighting and management advice for aspiring cinematographers and videographers.

-------------------------

I try to follow the sources in the location, when possible. When I can’t follow the sources, I follow the story. A good story will tell you what it should look like, and by extension where the lights should go.

When you light a set, don’t ask yourself if it looks real. Ask if it is believable. There’s a difference.

When in doubt, backlight. When you can't backlight, sidelight. When you have too much light, unlight. I use a lot of negative fill. If I can’t add light to create contrast, I’ll take it away.

Light the background first, if possible. You'll always need a background to shoot against. People aren't too hard to light once you know where they are.

Don’t worry too much about lighting people evenly as they move from place to place. You can create a feeling of three dimensionality if your subjects become brighter and darker as they move through a space. Just make sure they look good where they stop and deliver a line.

Sometimes the only place you can put a light is the right place.

Sometimes the right place to place a light is the opposite of where you normally would. I recently lit the background of a small set and then had to figure out where to put the lights for the single actress in the scene. The obvious answer was to hang them from above but that seemed too predictable so we put all her lights on the floor. The shot looked very cool, and not formulaic.

Don’t hang on to the “rules” too tightly. In film school they teach you that lighting someone from below is “horror lighting.” Trying putting a 4’x8’ bounce card under the lens and bouncing a light off it. To me it looks like sunlight reflecting off the floor on a summer day. Oooo, scary! Not. Sometimes the rules are outdated, or don’t apply to all kinds of light. Learn the rules, and then practice breaking them.

For me, lighting is all about layers. The background is one layer, the talent is another, the foreground a third, etc. The question I always ask myself is, “How can I separate this layer from that layer to create a sense of depth?” I recently shot a spot where a couple danced in the entryway of a house. The entryway was so small that I had nowhere to hide lights. I lit the dining room in the background instead and let them play against it in partial silhouette. It was beautiful.

The better a set is decorated the easier it is to light. There's nothing worse than being stuck in a blank white-walled room with windows... except to not have windows. The eye goes to bright areas first so making your subject brighter than your background is usually a good thing... but not always.

When I first walk onto a set I usually stand there for a minute or two looking thoughtful and competent while I run all sorts of different scenarios. "What if I smack a hard light through that window? How do I avoid that boring white wall? What if I build a big soft source right over the camera?" I'll play all sorts of crazy games in my head. Most of it revolves around how faces will catch the light (I'm all about making actors look good) and experience working in other locations. I'm also thinking about how malleable a setup is so that I'm not locking myself into shooting just one direction. I don’t want to spend a lot of time relighting each setup if I can avoid it. As a mentor once told me, “It’s not just about making pretty pictures. It’s about making sure the trains run on time.” It may be fun but it’s still a business. Fast lighting makes for a popular DP.

Another mentor once told me, “Every chance you have to make a decision, make it. If you’re right half the time you’re doing extremely well.” He was a very successful man. I paid attention. It works.

Occasionally I’m asked, “How often do you compromise?“ I think every setup is a compromise to some degree because it rarely looks like I see it in my head. Occasionally it’s better, though, and it’s always an adventure. You're playing "beat the clock" and you're trusting your experience to steer you right.

It’s important to prioritize, and to know when good enough is good enough. If you spend two hours lighting a hallway shot where one character asks another for the time you’ve lost 85 minutes towards lighting the pivotal love scene later in the day. Know which shots are crucial and which ones are gravy, and act accordingly.

It's imperative that you work with a gaffer you can trust and who has a good eye, who is on your side and isn't competing with you. Trust them to learn what you like and turn them loose once in a while. It's very important to let your crew contribute in their own areas, as long as you're all on the same track. It's not necessarily entirely up to you to have all the ideas; it's usually better to have the key ideas and then manage the contributions of others. As a DP I was operating for once told me, "The more ideas you have the fewer I have to have." That was a very confident DP.

It’s always a group effort. Take advantage of that, to your benefit.

Don't let on if you're not happy with a setup. Most likely the bosses won't know that you've done anything less than stellar. Your eye is better than those you work for, which is why you’re working for them. If they’re happy, there’s no reason to let them know
you’re not. I once saw a gaffer say loudly to a DP, "This setup sucks! I hate it" The DP responded, "You only make yourself look bad by saying that." That was a good lesson.

The most important things for an aspiring DP to remember are:

(1) Keep a good attitude, no matter what. Being pleasant will get you farther faster as a rookie DP than anything else. Always keep in mind that you could be flipping burgers or working in a cubicle for the next 30 years. Every day you shoot is a gift.

(2) Work as quickly as you can. Prioritize your shots and know when you need to work quickly on a throw-away shot in order to spend more time on a crucial sequence. Plan ahead. Do your homework. Have contingency plans for your contingency plans. This will seem like hard work at first but it gets easier with practice.

(3) Don't beat your crew up unnecessarily. Some DPs think they only need to keep the director and producers happy but if you can keep your crew happy they'll watch your back. If you cause your crew to do a lot of extra and unnecessary work, apologize profusely and they'll continue to help you. Otherwise they'll sit back and snigger when you screw up, and you'll know they saw your mistake coming for the last hour.

You need your crew to make pretty pictures. Show gratitude for their efforts. You can’t do it all yourself.

(4) Know what kind of shoot you’re on. I shot a video game-style piece recently where we had to shoot 71 pages of dialogue-heavy script in four days, with occasional green screen shots. I focused on simple and fast, making the most out of whatever was at hand, because the director made it clear that the priority was just to get the material on tape. Some setups looked really, really nice and others were just fine. The important thing was to keep moving forward no matter what.

I go into every shoot intending to make it look phenomenal, but if the producer or director tell me that it’s more important that the trains run on time, I bring a train schedule and wear my finest conductor’s hat.

(5) It’s not about you. We’re in a service industry, and it’s crucial that we give our clients what they want. Hopefully you’ll be hired by clients who are excited by the work you do and give you a lot of freedom to create, but sometimes you’ll find yourself in a situation where you have to shoot in a style you don’t like. When that happens, revel in the craft instead of the art. If you can’t focus on good and fast, just focus on fast. You’ll make the bosses very happy. In a few days you’ll be on another job with another style anyway.

(6) Enjoy the people you work with. You’ll be spending a lot of time with them. A LOT of time. Be nice to everyone, especially the PAs. One of them may hire you someday.

(7) As a young camera assistant I was taught four cardinal rules: Show up early, punch in on time, do your job, keep your mouth shut. As a DP the “mouth shut” rule no longer applies but the other stuff still counts.

Art Adams is a DP who specializes in beautiful simple lighting and train metaphors. His web site is at www.artadams.net.

©2005 by Art Adams

First published on the Cinematography Mailing List, cinematography.net

The following was translated from a little known parchment relating to a discussion between Rembrandt and one of his many patrons:

Patron: "You're killing me, Remmy baby, you're killing me! I can't stand like this all day and these costumes are costing me plenty!"

Rembrandt: "Just one more candle... I need to add one more candle..."

Patron: "Just sketch it in, I'll have one of your students fix it later!"

Rembrandt: "But this is the third time I've painted this portrait! Always time to do another painting but never enough time to light one more candle..."

Patron: "Hey, I can hardly see into those shadows, add some white, will 'ya?"

Rembrandt: "Always with the shadows... next it'll be too much perspective..."

Patron: "Yeah, what's with that foreshortening stuff? I paid for everything in this room and I want it all to look BIG!!!"

Rembrandt: (sighing) "Time for the large brushes and a gallon of thinner..."

©2008 by Art Adams

or
Prying my cold dead fingers from the camera was the best thing that happened to me

by Art Adams, S.O.C.
First published in Camera Operator (SOC) Magazine

I’ve consistently worked with the same operator for the last 15 years. He’s been on every job I’ve been on and he always does things the way I want them done. Yes, my regular operator is... me.

Most of my work is spots or corporate videos and those budgets rarely have a line item for an operator. And when I say rarely, I mean once every 15 years. The last time I’d had an operator working with me was on a low budget feature called “American Yakuza.” I was the second unit DP and I had one day where Dave Elkins, S.O.C. operated “B” camera for me. That was it for the next 13 years.

I’d worked for a particular production company two years ago, and while they’d love my work and had tried to hire me for further projects I wasn’t available until May of 2006. The project sounded like a challenge: it was what is sometimes called a non-broadcast spot, meaning that it’ll go out to retailers or on the web to convince stores to carry a new line of products. The goal was to create something hip and cool, and the director wanted the entire piece to have a floating feel. The producer called and said, “We think we want to use a Steadicam for the whole thing. You’re okay operating one of those, right?”

My one experience with a Steadicam-like device was when I was working as a second camera assistant on a film called “The Five Heartbeats.” I told operator Kirk Gardener that I was interested in learning more about his work, and he offered to take me outside during a long lighting setup and let me try on his Panaglide rig.

It wasn’t terribly heavy at first, and Kirk showed me that the first skill I needed to practice was moving my body from one side of the post to the other without moving the camera. That was about the time some guy approached and hailed Kirk as an old friend, and they immediately launched into a lengthy conversation. When they finally got caught up and the friend moved on, Kirk turned to me and said, “Okay here’s the next thing to learn...”

“The next thing to learn is HOW TO GET THIS THING OFF OF ME!” I’d realized that my skinny 120 lb. frame and fragile spine were not meant to carry Panaglides or Steadicams.

I asked the producer to call a Steadicam operator I knew from earlier times when we used to work on multi-camera shows together. Tim Bellen, S.O.C. and I shared what was perhaps the lowest point of our careers: operating on an infomercial for the Power Vacu-Mop 2000 at the seal tank in Marine World at Vallejo, CA. Over one 18 hour day and a subsequent 25 hour day we had the pleasure of shooting an Australian charmer and his two shills testing this amazing space-age sponge-on-a-stick in between elephant rides and seal stunts. The Australian started throwing takes to get laughs at hour 21 of the second day, and as he survived the shoot to act again I knew that Tim could say calm under pressure. I try to surround myself with crew who are competent, calm, and very easy to work with, and Tim seemed like the perfect addition for the project.

The shoot looked to be a difficult one. The client changed the creative on a daily basis, which meant that locations and equipment requirements changed daily as well. In the end I told the producer that I had to order everything I could think of, within reason, since I had no idea what we were doing. To her credit she agreed: the client had to be kept happy no matter what, and they were willing to pay up to a point. She said she’d let me know when we reached that point, and I guess I should have tried harder because we never hit it.

The shoot was scheduled for three days. The first two days were on location in Santa Cruz, CA, and those were the days I’d have Tim on board. The last day was on a green screen stage, and the decision was made to drop the Steadicam for that day and have me do the operating.

Our first location was in an office building that we turned into a loft. Two hip 20-something guys are hanging out when one’s girlfriend comes in and the guy and gal start smooching. The other guy, jealous, tunes them out, and in a roundabout way leads to him using the product. (As I write this the product is top secret, so please forgive me for being a bit vague.) The goal was to shoot this quickly and move outside, where we had several sunset scenes to shoot near the Santa Cruz wharf.

Initially I was a bit nervous about letting go of the camera. I have very specific ideas about how I like things framed and how I like the camera to move. It became evident after the first rehearsal, however, than Tim had a great eye too... and that I liked what he was doing! I try to keep my crews engaged in the work that we’re doing, and if my gaffer or dolly grip or someone working for me has a good idea I’ll use it and give them credit as long as they come to me privately first. The last thing any DP wants is a PA talking the director into a 360-degree move that I then have to light, but thanks to a conversation I had with Victor Goss, ASC on the set of “Nash Bridges” a few years ago I’ve learned to stop trying to be the sole photographic author of the image.

I’d shown up at the last minute to replace a sick operator, and “B” camera was already set up for a stunt. I looked at the shot and, after some thought, went over to Victor and said, “I know I’ve only been here 20 minutes but I think that I’ll have a better shot if I move ten feet to the left. Do you mind?” Victor took my suggestion and moved my camera. Later on I asked if I’d been too pushy for an operator who’d just showed up on his set.

“Not at all,” Victor said. “The more ideas you have the fewer I have to have.”

That really stuck with me. Not only was he obviously a very confident DP but he’d recognized that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. After that experience I started thinking of myself different as a DP: not as the sole creator of the image but as the manager of the image’s creation. As DP I was the gatekeeper of visual ideas, and if someone working for me had a good idea it made sense to use it. I knew from my years as a camera assistant that I occasionally had ideas that my DP didn’t see because he or she was too busy dealing with other things, and I decided that I would be stupid to stifle my crews’ creativity and ignore their years of experience working with other DPs. I’d worked with a couple of DPs in the past who refused to listen to their gaffer or key grip when that person offered advice based on their years of experience and often the result was time wasted while they executed the DP’s setup and then re-did it all when the DPs plan didn’t work.

The more I watched Tim work the less I worried. I sold a piece of camera choreography to the director and Tim, who overheard what I was selling, immediately showed the director what I was talking about. He got it, quickly, and supported me totally. In return I tried to support him: if he found a cool shot that the director liked I made sure that we moved whatever lighting and grip equipment we could out of his way unless it compromised the look too much. That kind of give and take does nothing but improve the quality of our work as long as we’re all on the same page.

I feel a lot of gratitude toward my crews and I try to look out for them because I know they’re going to look out for me. Tim was a real trooper but I knew that he was going to be wearing his rig most of the day so I tried to be conscious of allowing him to rest when we didn’t need the camera up. The one thing I couldn’t back down on, though, was the cable harness running from the camera to the DIT station. We were shooting HD using the Panasonic Varicam and a P+S Teknik Pro35 adapter, and I wanted my DIT to be able to see a picture and have paintbox control during the shot. Tim showed me how the cables threw him off but I had to apologize and insist they stay attached. We needed to see how the shot was unfolding in real time in order to watch for out-of-control highlights, changing light levels and focus. Tim’s brother Steve Bellen did an amazing job of keeping everything sharp, and it kept our confidence in his abilities up when we could see the shot happen in real time and not have to check playback to know he nailed it.

I couldn’t get one DIT for the entire shoot so I split the job between two of my regulars: Jay Farrington, who did day one, and Louis Block, who did days two and three. During the prep they worked together to make the cable harness as small and flexible as possible. In the end I think we had one composite video cable and a thin paintbox cable running to the camera, and that was it.

At some point I felt I had to justify my existence physically on the set. The producer had asked me to shoot some “texture” shots with a Canon XL-1 but I found that I just didn’t have the time. Freeing me from operating the camera allowed me to run around and plan ahead with my gaffer and take a higher level view of what was going on. I found myself working faster than usual because I didn’t have to pry my head out of a shot to think about lighting ahead. Instead I could work out a shot with Tim and the director and then wander off and talk strategy with the rest of my crew. When it came time for the big camera turnaround everything flew into place because we’d hashed out, and rehashed, where the lights would go and what could be wrapped to the truck. Still, when it came time for a little bit of handle held work with the Varicam I did a bit of it myself. I wanted to make sure the company didn’t think I was just standing around doing nothing because I wasn’t behind the camera.

Sometime on day two I grew out of that completely.

After the loft setup we moved to the wharf, where we shot a scene at a bus stop and then moved down to the beach. The director decided he wanted to shoot at night instead of sunset so I suddenly had to figure out how to light a beach with what was handy and quick. While I worked on that Tim rehearsed some shots and by the time I was ready he was too. Tim got some great candid Steadicam shots walking through the sand around a crowd of actors and extras using the product around a campfire. At some point we had to take the Pro35 off as we didn’t have enough light so we put a video zoom on and Tim and I took turns shooting handheld. We had different styles of framing shots and I liked them both, and it seemed that a fast-paced spot like this could only benefit from both our styles.

The next day saw us shooting under a bridge, at a skate park and in a café. Still having to justify my existence I took the camera handheld once or twice but by now I was really confident leaving the operating to Tim and stepping back to take a high level view of what was going on. The creative had been re-written again that morning and after waiting several hours a revised script we had to make up a lot of time. Being able to watch shots on a color monitor, instead of on a small black-and-white viewfinder the way I usually have to when I shoot HD, was incredibly helpful and we moved along faster because I knew exactly when we had the shot. I didn’t have to rely on my DIT to show me playback; I could see when everything fell into place. HD isn’t nearly as malleable as film is, and it’s not as consistent either, and color correction on this kind of job can sometimes be an afterthought. It was a real pleasure to work with my DIT to finesse the look of the shot right up until we rolled tape.

Not being tied to the dolly allowed me to be in all sorts of places I normally wouldn’t have time to be. I could wander around and check lights and shiny boards or pay close attention to where the sun was going while my gaffer was working on something else. I could pay more attention to the actors’ makeup and scout for the next shot while the current shot was being rehearsed. I didn’t have to drive the photography all by myself, and that freed me up to map out where we were going several moves ahead.

This became invaluable during the café sequence. We showed up at the location late, having tried to play catchup at the previous locations, and I really needed to light the location overall so that we could shoot any direction with a minimum of re-lighting. That worked to some extent but once we emptied the truck and found ourselves at 70% of that goal we just had to start picking our shots carefully. While Tim and Steve executed one shot my gaffer and I went to the next spot, picked our angle, added a light or two to complete the look, and then showed Tim and the director their range of movement. Then off we went to find and light the next shot. I’d wander to the monitor long enough to see a take and make sure it was working out to my satisfaction and then head back to finish lighting the next setup.

In the end we worked a 15 hour day, but it could have been longer if I hadn’t been able to consistently work ahead of each shot while it happened.

In spite of the craziness I also had to make sure Tim wasn’t killing himself. At one point he came up to me and said, “I’ve had this thing on so long I’m starting to go numb.” I asked him how much of a break he needed and he told me ten minutes, so I made sure that the next lighting setup took at least ten minutes. (It’s amazing how tricky it can be to place an Image 80. Very, very tricky sometimes.) He put his rig back on and leapt right back into action.

The final day saw me shooting green screen on a stage and having to operate my own camera again. I’d been fully spoiled by having an operator. Fortunately once the lighting setup was complete it stayed basically the same all day long. I was operating underslung off a Straight Shoot’r jib arm on a Fisher 10, and I hadn’t worked with that particular arm before. It’s a marvelous toy with a slider on it that allows the head to slide in and out several feet at the end of the arm. I have to admit it was a lot of fun, but if I’d had an operator I could have spent more time with the director figuring out how to cram more shots into the day. Now I ask you, is it more important for me to have fun operating shots or to make the company more productive? Hmmm...

I have no doubt that I’ll continue operating my own camera on a regular basis. When you shoot smaller projects, like spots and corporate, that’s just the way it is, and to tell you the truth I’m fine with that most of the time. But the next time I have to take on a big, crazy, impossibly fast-paced shoot I’m going to ask for an operator. Not everyone thinks the DP is working when they’re just standing around looking thoughtful while watching an operator execute the shot, but my experience is that DPs don’t drift off to the Bahamas while they’re sitting in a chair at video village. If they’re anything like me they’re figuring out the fastest way to get everything they need in place for the next shot so that it will be the best it can be.

©2006 by Art Adams

What professional crews really need to know about working in HD

by Art Adams
First published in Camera Operator (SOC) Magazine

When I left Los Angeles in 1993 to pursue a career outside the sphere of Hollywood I realized that, going forward, I probably wouldn’t be shooting a lot of film. I never dreamed that would be a good thing.

I’m originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, and when I returned here to search for work I didn’t know what I’d find. Now, thirteen years later, I find myself happily ensconced in a market that shoots mostly 24p standard and high definition video. I say “happily” not because I like shooting these formats more than I enjoy shooting film, but simply because I’m on the crest of a new wave of technology that is slowly and surely sweeping away the chemical imaging processes we’ve grown to love. I miss film, but I’m thrilled that I’ve made the transition from film into the new digital hybrid world where film skills meet video engineering know-how.

My market is unique in that most of the location sound mixers here also know how to paint and match video cameras. I’ve not found this combination anywhere else in the world. The benefit is that on nearly every shoot I’ve done here, regardless of whether I have a full crew or it’s just myself and a sound person, we’ve had a waveform monitor, vector scope and a paintbox on set. (A paintbox is a camera control unit, used for adjusting many of the camera’s picture parameters on the fly.) By watching my audio/video tech at work I’ve been able to learn quite a bit about the internal workings of the video and high-def cameras that I’ve worked with, and I’ve learned how to work with this new breed of technician we now call the Digital Imaging Technician, or DIT.

Since this is a magazine for camera operators I’m going to focus on what operators need to know when working with this new technology. I’m also going to touch upon what I expect out of camera assistants, and I’m going to tell you why you’d better become good friends with your DIT. I’ll also give you a little idea of what the DP is going through when working electronically.

I’m going to focus on the cameras I know well, the Sony HDW-F900 (Cine Alta) and the Panasonic Varicam. My area won’t see the likes of the Viper, Genesis or Origin very soon, but much of what I have to say will apply to those systems as well. Besides, once you learn the F900 and the Varicam the other cameras should be easy.

FOR ONCE, IT’S ALL BLACK AND WHITE

As operators we’re used to looking through a viewfinder at a tiny image and judging how it will look on the big screen. When you’re looking through a high-def viewfinder you’re actually looking at a postage stamp-sized black-and-white LCD monitor with a blueish cast and displaying much less resolution than the camera sees. This puts the operator at a distinct disadvantage. In my early days of shooting video I operated a dolly shot where I ended up coming close to seeing the far end of the dolly track in my end frame. I managed to avoid seeing the track but I did capture a bright orange sandbag in all its glory. Nobody was watching the color monitor and I only saw the shot in black and white, and the sandbag simply looked like another part of a stone wall in the background.

There have been numerous complaints about the fact that most of the current HD cameras only offer black-and-white electronic viewfinders. It’s a pain to wait for the camera to be powered on before framing a shot, and annoying when the DIT has to lay down color bars at the head of each tape and you can’t see through the lens until he’s done. (Don’t blame the DIT, he or she is only doing their job.) Optical viewfinders would be a great improvement for dramatic work, although the electronic viewfinder is a huge help when the operator has to adjust exposure on the fly (something that happens a lot in documentary or ENG work.) The electronic viewfinder at least gives a hint of what’s going on exposure-wise, something that’s impossible to determine with a light meter when using the F900 or the Varicam.

The one reason to be happy about a black-and-white viewfinder is this: it helps you judge focus better than a color viewfinder would. Color electronic viewfinders don’t have the same resolution that black-and-white viewfinders do, at least not at the time this article was written. Your best chance of judging focus through an HD viewfinder is with a black-and-white high resolution viewfinder.

The F900’s viewfinder has a vertical resolution of about 700 lines, which handily beats NTSC’s 480 effective lines. The problem is that the camera is capturing an image with a resolution of 1080 vertical lines, or about 50% more detailed, than what you can see in the viewfinder. It’s also impossible to see all the detail contained in an HD image on anything less than a 17” monitor, or on a 14” monitor in a pinch. You can find focus on still objects through the viewfinder, but once that object starts moving, forget it. It’s very easy for an operator to miss a buzzed shot that’s perfectly obvious on a 17” or 20” monitor.

Who is most likely to have a very high quality 17” HD monitor on your set? The DIT, of course. He or she just became your best friend.

FOCUS ON THE IMPORTANT THINGS

The DIT is the only person on the set who can tell you whether your shot is in focus. Be nice to them. No matter what you see in the viewfinder, the DIT is the final word on whether the shot works technically, simply because they are the only ones who can actually see what the camera sees.

When can you trust focus in the viewfinder? I’ve found that I can grab an eye focus through the viewfinder fairly effectively when the object or actor isn’t moving. I’m aided in doing this by the viewfinder’s “peaking” circuit. This circuit draws an artificial black line around areas in the image where contrast changes abruptly, with the effect of artificially enhancing the areas of an image that are in focus. With peaking turned all the way up I can see an actor’s eyelashes snap into sharpness while getting a focus mark. I can see nearly every hair on an actor’s head in bas relief. As soon as the object I’m looking at goes out of focus I instantly lose that artificial sharpness.

The peaking circuit only affects the viewfinder image and it can be turned on or off and adjusted to taste. I tend to run mine full up, and even though it makes the viewfinder image noisy and overly sharp it gives me a fighting chance of being able to tell when something isn’t in focus.

The peaking on the F900 can be turned up quite high, which is important as it’s capturing a very high resolution 1080 vertical line image. For some reason the Varicam’s peaking is less robust, but as its resolution is much lower at 720 vertical lines so focus is slightly less of an issue.

A lot has been made of the perils of back focus in HD. Yes, it’s an issue, but it’s not a horrible one as long as you’re dealing with a camera whose lens mount has not been altered post-factory. 99% of the time, when using an unmodified F900 or Varicam, we’ve checked the back focus at the beginning of the day on our lenses (usually two zooms) and we’ve been fine all day. Dramatic temperature changes can have an effect so do check back focus after going from one extreme to another, but otherwise you’ll be fine. Besides, your new best friend the DIT will be watching out for such problems.

By the way, if you’re using a video style zoom lens with a macro adjustment, you can use the macro ring to pull focus without seeing the lens breath at all. Focus on your far distance and then use the macro ring to bring the focus forward. This works best when starting on a foreground object and racking to the background, but a clever assistant can find ways to mark the macro ring accurately. This is NOT a method that should be used constantly, but it is a trick that can occasionally be used to make dramatic focus racks without a dramatic shift in focal length.

If I really want to force perspective on a small object, say for a product shot, I’ve found that I can place the camera quite close and then use the back focus adjustment to force the focus closer than normally allowed. In some cases I’ve been able to focus as close as the front element of the lens. Don’t plan on pulling focus easily if you try this as none of the other focus adjustments will work as they normally would.

IT’S NOT ALL CABLES, IS IT?

No, but it’s a lot of cables.

My regular assistant knows a lot of the gear inside and out. He knows how it all goes together. He’s almost a DIT himself. He knows a fair amount about the camera menus, and if he has to he can dial in a basic setting for me. He’s not quite at the painting and engineering stage, but he’s as much my DIT’s right hand as he is mine. Which is awkward, what with two right hands and all, but he makes it work.

When working with a DIT the assistant doesn’t have to check the gate anymore. The DIT will check tape playback remotely. The assistant will probably work with the DIT while checking back focus, since the DIT has the very big super critical focus monitor at his disposal. The DIT has his hands full with cabling and menus and such, and there’s nothing that says that the camera assistant can’t help out with a certain amount of that. How much varies on the crew and their working relationship, but my regulars work seamlessly together. If I had to define roles I’d say that the DIT is master of the engineering station and the camera assistant is master of the camera, but the two meet in between to make sure that the camera is talking to the engineering station and vice versa.

The assistant should keep the DIT advised of filter changes, since that will affect color and/or exposure. The assistant should check with the DIT before powering down or detaching the camera from the engineering station, because in certain situations those will cause the camera to lose settings. Assistants and DITs should work together on tape changes, since one has to load the tape and the other has to switch the color bars on in the camera. There are a lot of little duties that used to belong solely to the camera assistant that are now the domain of the DIT, and a few extra duties that didn’t exist before. Don’t worry, there’s still too much to do for both. As I was taught as an assistant, “If you have free time you’ve forgotten something.”

Once again, make friends with the DIT. They are the hub through which the camera, and the camera crew, operate.

THE AXE FALLS NEAREST THE DIT

I’ve heard a couple of stories from DITs working in Hollywood that tell me that not all camera crews know what to do with them. A common story seems to be one where the camera crew wraps the cameras and leaves the DIT to wrap his engineering station and several hundred feet of cable. That’s not cool.

The DIT is a full and complete member of the camera department, and should be treated as such. Their burden is monumental. I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying that “There are no small mistakes in the camera department.” On HD shoots the DIT has the most opportunity to make mistakes because he or she has to keep track of an enormous amount of technical detail.

Not only is the DIT painting the cameras to the DP’s specifications, they are monitoring the image to maintain that look in case the light, color or generator speed changes. They are also responsible for making sure the tapes are properly time-coded, striped with bars and tone, and if there’s more than one camera they have to make sure they are all matched in both color and electronic timing (genlock). On top of that they are often held responsible for spotting things on their large engineering monitor that the operators can’t always see, like focus, mics, reflections, etc.

Stories abound of DITs being held responsible for all sorts of errors and mistakes, not all of which are their fault. It’s just that they are the only ones who are really staring at, literally, “the big picture” all day long. They also have to deal with all sorts of technical minutiae that film crews aren’t use to dealing with. They are, ultimately, best friends to all the camera crew: they are the ones who maintain the DP’s look and also let the operators and assistants know how sharp their images are and whether they’re free of bogies.

Don’t make them an island inside the camera department. Be nice to your DIT.

MARKINGS, MARKINGS EVERYWHERE

When I’m working without a DIT (something I try to do rarely) I’ll go into the camera menus and turn on most of the viewfinder telemetry: safe markings, filter wheel setting, F-stop, tape remaining, audio meters, etc. I’m used to seeing past them to frame a shot and I like to have the information in front of me in case I have an “Oh my GOD am I shooting on the right filter?” moment.

And, while I don’t take responsibility for audio, on small crews it’s a good idea to have the audio meters on in the viewfinder, not to watch audio levels but just to make sure the sound person is actually feeding sound to the camera. On at least one occasion I’ve been blamed for missing audio because a cable pulled loose and I didn’t catch it, even though I made sure the producers knew that I don’t take responsibility for sound getting into the camera. I’m too tied into watching the image to pay attention to audio meters.

But on a sizable crew with a DIT present there should be no reason to have anything in the viewfinder other than frame markers. I usually use 90% safe markings turned on, and occasionally when I have to shoot 16:9 but protect 4:3 I’ll have the square TV safe markers in the finder as well.

There are several other “odd” markers to pay attention to: 14:9 and 13:9. I had no idea what those were for until I went to London a few years ago and saw that nearly everyone in the UK had 16:9 digital television sets. Those that don’t see their television in 16:9 see their programming much the way we see a lot of shows on BBC America: letterboxed, but with very narrow strips of black at the top and bottom. This letterbox is not true 16:9 but rather a compromise format, usually 14:9, that allows 4:3 viewers a near full screen viewing experience.

I occasionally use 14:9 markers in my finder when I’m shooting 16:9 for NTSC television broadcast. I don’t want to frame things too far off the sides because I know that I’m going to lose a certain amount of that in transmission, and sometimes the letterboxes end up being less than 16:9 for reasons I’m never consulted about.

I also give myself a little extra headroom if I’m shooting something that will have a long shelf life. Right now letterboxed images show the frame from very top to very bottom, but in the not-so-distant future we’ll have 16:9 television sets to watch and keeping a bit of safe area on the top and bottom may be important. If I’m shooting a spot that will be gone in a few months I don’t worry so much about that.

DP BASICS

I don’t have much experience with the newer uncompressed HD cameras so I’ll focus on relating what I know about the F900 and the Varicam. They will likely be the workhorses for at least a few more years, and if you understand something of how they work you’ll be way ahead when dealing with a more DP-friendly camera like the Viper or the Genesis. The F900 is to the Viper or Genesis what transparency film is to color negative. If you’ve learned to shoot transparency film, color negative is a snap.

When I work with the F900 or the Varicam I choose the “right” camera for the job. The F900 wins any time I need high resolution, for example if a project will be transferred to film or projected digitally in HD. The 50% extra information recorded by the F900 really makes a huge difference when you’re looking at a large projected image. The F900 really sees into shadows, and the subtlety of detail and shading that it captures is what makes people “ooo” and “ahh” when they see HD for the first time.

I use the Varicam when I want to see into highlights. While it doesn’t see into shadows quite as impressively as the F900 (probably because of its lower resolution) Panasonic has really figured out how to see into highlights. Blown out featureless highlights are the bane of any digital imaging system and the Varicam handles them very well, reaching into them and bringing out detail if it’s at all possible. There’s also a function called “dynamic range” that allows one to expand or contract the contrast range of the camera depending on the situation.

Panasonic has also figured out colorimetry in a big way. The Varicam sees colors very accurately, where the F900 has problems seeing secondary colors accurately without a great deal of adjustment. The Varicam has the most “filmic” colorimetry I’ve seen in an HD camcorder using basic settings.

Varicam footage downconverts to NTSC very well, and it’s currently the only camcorder that will record a high speed image (only 60 fps, but better than nothing.)

Speaking of colorimetry, at some point or another you’ll end up dealing with a feature called the matrix. Actually each camera has several matrix functions built in, and each deals with how the camera responds to color. One way to think of the matrix is that you are electronically telling each electronic “emulsion layer” which colors to respond to, and how.

Manipulation of the matrix can be a bit dangerous, so be careful and experiment with looks only under the guidance of a very good DIT or video engineer. You can create some very interesting looks by using the matrix to define the camera’s basic color space and how it responds to different hues. There’s a standard matrix for the F900 that leaves most things alone except for adding a little red to flesh tones. There’s another I’ve seen that makes it look very much like a Varicam. Basically you’re reallocating color information from one place in the spectrum to another, based on what you find pleasing.

There’s a lot that can be done with the matrix, but keep in mind that there’s a lot that can’t be undone later so only use it to create an overall look that you find pleasant and shy away from using it for visual effects unless you really know what you’re doing and your director is totally committed to the look.

If you’re shooting for a film output most post houses will tell you to turn the matrix off so they can more easily color correct the footage later. That makes for dull dailies on the set so be sure to explain to those concerned that it will all look a lot better in post. That, or cheat your monitor to make the shots look more interesting and colorful.

Nearly everything I shoot is shot at 23.98p or 29.97p. Those frame rates downconvert to NTSC video quite easily, and if you’re shooting for a film output you won’t notice a difference when 23.98p is sped up to 24fps. I’ve never used 24p or 30p, and I use 60i under protest. (Why shoot interlaced video if you don’t have to?)

Pay attention to detail. Yes, I’m talking about the dreaded detail circuit. Every video camera has one, and since HD is basically a form of video it has one too. Actually it can be considered to have several, but my eyes start to glaze over when I think about that so I’m going to speak about it in general terms.

The detail circuit adds a black line around areas of contrast, usually between light and dark. You can control how big that line is, and control when it kicks in and when it goes away, and you never want it to be obvious. When detail is turned up too high you’ll see every blemish on a person’s face, and that is not terribly attractive. I see detail turned up too far on the evening news all the time. You don’t want to go there.

But you don’t necessarily want to turn it off, either. Many post houses will tell you to eliminate detail completely if you’re doing a film output, but otherwise you’ll need a certain amount of it or the picture simply won’t look sharp on a monitor. It’s counterintuitive, but you need a certain amount of artificial detail engaged when you down-convert HD to NTSC video or the image will look very soft. A good DIT will ride the detail level to your taste, turning it up a little to enhance details in wide shots and turning it down a bit to help you with close-ups.

Many say that to truly emulate the “film look” in HD you need to perfectly match the shutter speed of a film camera. That is, if you are shooting 23.98p you need to use a shutter speed of 1/48th of a second. From a technical perspective that may be correct but aesthetically it doesn’t quite work out. Depending on the camera and the version of software that it’s running you can easily dial in a shutter speed of 1/40th of a second. This has two advantages: the increase in motion blur makes the image a little less staccato, and it also puts the exposure right in the middle of the 60hz HMI safe window.

Speaking of strobing, in some situations you may see more strobing on the monitor live during a take than you will on playback. I don’t know why that is, but if you see objectionable strobing during a live take you’d be well advised to check playback and see if it’s still there. Believe what you see on playback.

One last tip: get rid of that quick draw holster for your light meters, and forget about calling out F-stops to assistants... at least with the F900 and the Varicam. Electronic cameras don’t respond to light the same way film does, and on top of that each camera is slightly different in the way it’s set up. The only way to reliably judge what is happening to the image is to watch a big monitor in a controlled environment.

You should definitely learn how to read a waveform monitor and vector scope. It’s not that hard once a good DIT explains it to you, and it’s very informative. The waveform monitor will become your light meter, and you’ll come to rely on your DIT to help you dial in exposures and to maintain them by remote control during the shot. At times when your brain is trying to fool you the waveform monitor is a constant, steady and trustworthy friend.

Don’t be fooled by salespeople who tell you that it’s easy to match cameras by reading a single set of setup files into them. It doesn’t work that way. Digital cameras still have analog circuits in them, and no two are set up the same way. The only way to really match them is to have a DIT work on them, or set the cameras up as closely as possible and shoot reference charts for post color correction.

And curse the salespeople who sold the lie that you don’t have to light HD in order to make it look good. HD is harder to shoot than film because the contrast range is so limited. The only correct exposure is dead on, and the only difference between a film set and an HD set is the lack of film and the addition of a DIT. Don’t plan on saving much on your lighting package, and plan on spending a little more time flagging highlights. The big savings is on film stock and processing. You won’t save money anywhere else.

ENGINEER? ARTIST? BOTH!

Depending on how you approach high definition it can be either very difficult or very easy. I’ve got regular crew people that I work with regularly and trust, and I tell them what I want and get out of their way. I’ve been working with my main DIT for ten years, long before they were called DITs. He, and several others, helped me give up my film snobbishness and learn what to ask for when manipulating our new digital mediums.

I remember back in 2000 when he and I tackled our first HD job, a spec piece we took on simply to get our hands on a high-def camera. We used an F900, and although we had very little idea of what we were doing we quickly found ways to make pretty pictures with it. He treated it like a video camera and tuned it up as best he could, and I lit and framed my shots as I would film, tweaking my exposures occasionally to correct for highlights that the camera couldn’t handle. We both look back at that shoot and say to ourselves, “How did we do that? We had no idea what we were doing!” But it’s still on my reel. Obviously we didn’t need to be propellor heads to make pretty pictures in HD. We just needed our normal problem-solving skills that we employ when making pretty pictures.

It’s just another tool. Have fun with it.

Art Adams worked on feature film and episodic camera crews in Southern California in the late 80s/early 90s. He currently works as a DP/operator on commercials and industrials in Northern California, mostly in HD. His web site is at http://www.artadams.net/.

©2005 by Art Adams

Digital Intermediate Comes of Age in the Bay Area

by Art Adams
First published in Film/Tape World

"The Darwin Awards," a feature film starring Winona Ryder and Joseph Fiennes as investigators looking into a series of accidental and stupid deaths, is the brainchild of Bay Area writer/director Finn Taylor, who wrote the screenplay based on the same stories chronicled in Wendy Northcutt’s book of the same name. Says Taylor, "This film sends you on a journey through many different worlds, and all the people I trust aesthetically told me I would have more flexibility in the looks if I finished the film through a DI."

DI, or digital intermediate, is swiftly becoming the rage in the Hollywood feature world. A few years ago it meant scanning a feature film's cut negative into a computer, performing color correction digitally, and outputting back to film so that film prints could be struck directly. Now it means much, much more.

"I've been involved with Monaco on three film projects," says Taylor. "Previously we worked entirely on film and had fun changing looks by printing on different interpositive stocks. But this film has a lot of special effects and originated on a lot of different mediums, including super 16mm, 35mm and high definition video."

After discussing his needs with editor Rick LeCompte, Taylor decided that scanning all the film stocks and adding them to the same digital workflow as the high definition footage, such that all the visual mediums become part of the same workflow, was the answer. "This film was shot on three different formats, "says LeCompte, "and when you bring them all into the digital realm it becomes one thing instead of many separate elements."

Monaco’s digital intermediate supervisor, Jim Moye, describes the process further: “The flexibility of the DI workstation allowed us to bring all formats for this project (super 16mm, 35mm, Sony HDCam and standard definition video) into the same timeline. After scaling and conforming the source material in the workstation, transition effects such as dissolves, wipes, repositions, flops and speed changes were added. Afterwards we focused on titling, color correction, dirt and scratch removal as needed. As the final reels were completed they were digitally projected for approval, then rendered for output to 35mm on the laser recorder.”

With all the visual elements stored as a stream of 2k digital images it was quite easy to shuttle through them in real time, making creative decisions on the fly and seeing the results on a big screen as they were intended to be seen. "When you watch a film you can see how each scene affects the scene after it, and the scene after that. This film has some very strong looks and we were really able to play with them and make them flow together."

Taylor wanted certain portions of the film to have a handheld documentary feel, so he encouraged his director of photography, Hiro Narita, ASC, to shoot these segments on super 16mm film. "A lot of the handheld shots would have been very difficult in 35mm. We felt that we could reduce the amount of grain in the DI process so that it would match the look of the 35mm footage."

"This is the first film I've done with DI," says Narita. "I've known that the ability to blow up 16mm negative to 35mm through DI is much better than blowing up the image optically. Optical blowup is extremely time consuming and not as satisfying. Honestly speaking, I can't tell the difference between digitally blown-up 16mm and 35mm."

DI: Looking Good!

Narita found other benefits in the DI process. "What I am discovering is that DI is like another stage of photography. I find that I have chances to fix things I couldn't fix on the set due to time or budget constraints. We shot a sequence around an ice fishing hole where the contrast was very high. Normally we'd bring in a half dozen large HMI's to fill in the shade, and we didn't have that ability on this picture. We used fewer lights knowing that we could fix the sequence in post. If we were completing this film optically I don't think we'd could have done all those changes. It's really a luxury to have DI on a low budget project like this."

Taylor tells the story of how the crew shot one scene over the course of five days of changing weather near Barstow. "It was winter time and we had constantly shifting light. One day it was sunny, another day it was cloudy, and another was a mix of sun and clouds. We were able to compensate for a lot of that in the DI."

"A couple of shots in the film turned out too flat so we were able to add a little light to the sides of faces," adds Hiro. He stresses that one can't add what isn't there, only enhance an existing image. "Sometimes there are too many choices. It can actually slow you down. You can indulge too much."

Editor Lecompte agrees. "It's like editing on an non linear editing system. You can make infinite versions and test them all. You can get lost in the candy shop that way."

The Colorful Bay Area

"The Darwin Awards" is being finessed by freelance colorist Gary Coates, who is working with Monaco's newly installed "Scratch" digital intermediate system. He and John Carlson, vice president and chief colorist at Monaco, were interviewed by Film/Tape World a year ago about the state of digital intermediate technology. Back then their take was that it wasn't yet ready for prime time.

"Now," says Coates, "it's conclusively ready, and it works appropriately with the character of the Bay Area as a maverick filmmaking kind of town. This is a system that fits Bay Area budgets without compromises. You're not giving up anything with this workflow that you would find available in other facilities. The premium you would pay in Los Angeles doesn't mean they have something over us. The same facilities are available here on a more cost friendly basis. 'Darwin' couldn't afford to go to LA for DI.

"The joke a few years ago was that DI was a half million dollar solution to a $50,000 problem. That's changed. Technology has advanced dramatically, especially with digital projection. I've done DI color grading in a video environment but the DPs can't tell what it will look like in a movie theater because the color space on a video monitor is wrong. For example, this film has a sequence where Metallica performs on stage and some of the stage lights project a turquoise beam you'll never see on a phosphor monitor because it's outside of the monitor's color space. With digital projection we can finally see the colors in a projection color space and filmmakers can see their work the way it will really appear."

John Carlson adds that there's been a steep decline in the cost of software, digital projection technology and data storage over the last year. "DI is now a cost effective solution, and our clients are thrilled with the huge increase in their 'freedom to choose.' Creative decisions can now happen in real time because they can see the results on the big screen at high resolution. They finally have the freedom that they had in telecine but with even more power and resolution.

"This film intentionally has very different looks within it and those looks have been finalized much later in the game than they would have if we'd gone the optical route. Working in the digital realm also meant that the effects work remained flexible even though the whole look was changing.

“We’ve made a huge investment in film scanning and recording equipment in order to serve our clients better. DI is not necessarily cheaper than a standard film finish but it does offer an incredible amount of creative latitude.”

“One significant breakthrough in the technology is the use of user definable space correction,” says Coates. “These are similar to what are known as Power Windows in the telecine world, but Power Windows tend to be circular or rectangular in shape. In this system we can make the area any size or shape we want to, and then apply color corrections inside them and animate them. I can add very specific touches to the image, and there are no limits to the number of shapes I can create.”

“In on sequence Gary was able to select a single face and add a slight glow to it,” says Taylor. “It’s a really powerful tool. He was also able to keep us out of trouble: in DI it’s possible to make an electric red that will never reproduce on film. Gary can tell us what will work on film and what won’t.”

“Working in 2k instead of HD was very nice,” notes Finn. “The 2k scan was very sharp. HD was not as crisp.”

“Also, we were working in a 2k color space, which is much bigger than HD,” adds Coates.

Effecting Change

Will Anielewicz and Doug Macmillan have known each other since 1981 when they worked together at a company called Omnibus in Toronto. They have fond memories of the first time they ever saw NTSC video played back from a digital storage medium. "The disk drive," says Anielewicz, "was the size of a refrigerator."

Times have changed. Within the last few months Anielewicz and Macmillan left their careers at ILM, and with coworker Marjolaine Tremblay-Silva they started Element FX in San Rafael. Shortly thereafter Element FX was awarded the responsibility of executing over 100 shots for “The Darwin Awards.” They immediately set out to make sure their clients knew what they were getting before the final results were output to film.

"We decided that clients needed to see their shots as they fit into the context of a scene," says Macmillan. "We needed a system that would play back several minutes of 2k uncompressed digital images in real time. We had to make sure we saw every pixel before the film out so that there would be no surprises in the screening room.

"An acquaintance, Dave Van Hoy at Advanced Systems Group in the East Bay, said, 'I know you guys aren't into DI but I'm putting in a system at Monaco that's really slick!'

That system, Scratch, immediately caught their attention, not because they planned on doing DI work but because it would fulfill their playback requirements. The best part was full compatibility with Monaco: Element FX was able to calibrate their projector so that images would look the same regardless of what facility they were viewed in.

Anielewicz is very pleased with the results. "Five years ago we'd say, 'This red on my monitor looks like orange when it's recorded on film and that’s just the way it is.’ Now we are able to perfectly match what the client sees in Monaco's DI suite in our own digital screening room and the DI projection looks exactly like that on film. Recent innovations in color science allow for a much more accurate match between the digital projection and the printed film.”

Macmillan points out another advantage of scanning a whole film for DI manipulation. "There was one 40 frame shot of a computer monitor screen, and in post it was decided that one of the names had to go. Since the footage had already been scanned we had them send us the footage via 'Sneakernet' (where a runner drives a hard drive from facility to facility) and we quickly fixed the shot. In the old days it would have been cheaper to reshoot than to scan one shot for a quick fix."

Taylor loved having the ability to see full frame digital projection at his effects house. “An effects shot on its own may look fine but it’s important to see it in context. That’s how you see if it looks real or if something wrong jumps out at you.”

Same cost, more options

Nobody interviewed for this article said that finishing a film through the DI process was cheaper than the standard optical printing process. But nobody said it was more expensive, either. The consensus seemed to be that while the processes cost roughly the same the DI process offered vastly more creative control.

“If you go the normal (optical) way the visual effects people still have to digitize the shots they’re working on,” says Narita. “Optical 16-to-35mm blowups would have been another expense. Ultimately, though, the cost balances out and we have more control.”

“Cost effective isn’t the right word,” says Finn, “but this is my third film with Monaco and if you show loyalty to the different people you work with they will try to work with you. I just think that’s the way to go.”

Shake Down Cruise Docks Safely

Finn Taylor is one happy director. “This was the shakedown cruise for DI at Monaco and we’re getting extra attention. It’s been great and the process is running very smoothly.”

Hiro Narita agrees. “If you go to Hollywood labs and look at the film and say, ‘Okay, change this,’ they’ll do their best to make the color timing a mysterious process. They don’t want you to know that all they are doing is adding three points of red. Then you have to wait three days to see the results.

“I don’t claim to understand Gary’s language,” he continues. “One point of magenta does not translate to digital so I have to say ‘a little more or a little less.’ But I can say it to him while he’s sitting next to me and see the results in real time. I can have a much closer discussion with the colorist and all concerned.”

“This is going to become the norm,” says editor LeCompte. “It’s kind of sad but film timing and finishing is endangered at this point.”

For Taylor the real advantage is having all the resources he needs right here at home. “I’ve always tried to do every facet of my films in the Bay Area. Occasionally in the past I’ve had to go to Fotokem in Burbank but now I can do everything from preproduction to post production in the Bay Area.”

--------------------------------------------

Art Adams is a Bay Area based director of photography who occasionally lives vicariously through the production experiences of others. His web site is at http://www.artadams.net.

©2006 by Art Adams

by Art Adams
First published in Film/Tape World

Forget the numbers... why does it look good, and what does it take to shoot pretty pictures?

Talking about high definition acquisition can very quickly become an exercise in high school math. If you’re like me, you were much too creative to pay much attention to math in your teen years and you never learned how to successfully complete a quadratic equation without fingerpaints. I walked away with the math skills I knew I’d use: how to calculate ratios, figure out f-stops, and take advantage of the inverse square law in my lighting. Frequently I get caught up in conversations about pixel counts and I wonder how important that is to my knowledge of how hidef works.

The answer is that it’s very important. But to only talk about the mathematical side of hidef ignores what our brain is telling us: that the hidef is better and richer than what we’re used to, and that the aesthetic rules have changed. In this article I’m going to focus as much as possible on the aesthetic differences between standard def and hidef and what that means to you.

THE OLD RULES

NTSC video is a kluge. There’s no arguing this: we’ve all dealt with its drawbacks for as long as we’ve been alive. Color problems are rampant, as anyone who’s tried to shoot a vibrant red on Beta SP can attest, and we’ve all had to deal with interlace “ants” when the talent shows up without reading the email that said, “Do NOT wear fine patterns to the shoot.” (I actually have a shirt with a small red checkerboard pattern that I call my “Keep me behind the lens!” shirt.)
But beyond that there are subtler problems with NTSC. Standards of quality have been allowed to slide over the years to the point where a significant amount of television programming is handheld and unlit. We’ve come to accept this run-and-gun news style as acceptable for all kinds of programming, and in a way that’s okay: if the story is strong enough it doesn’t matter what the picture is shot on, as long as the picture doesn’t get in the way.
It’s unfair, though, to say that picture quality has no bearing on the telling of a story because it does. A good story can stand up to poor visuals. A bad story can’t.

THE NEW RULES

The world is inexorably marching towards digital television. Whether that means hidef or a digital version of what we have now remains to be seen, but hidef has become the acquisition format of choice for those who want to protect assets for the future. It has also become a viable and less expensive replacement for film in certain situations.

The reason that hidef is considered a replacement for film extends beyond money to taste. Hidef can look really, really great if shot properly and lit nicely. And there lies the rub: shoot hidef well and it will look phenomenal, but shoot it poorly and it will look worse than anything you’ve ever seen before on a screen. Beautiful lighting will look gorgeous, but bad lighting will remind you of the thought that ran through your head when your high school literature teacher asked you to imagine what Medusa’s head looked like.

Hidef is frequently compared to film, and hidef is often shot in situations where the production requires a “film look” but doesn’t want to spend the money on a film shoot. Hidef has its own feel, and it certainly feels better than the video we’ve lived with for 50+ years. But is the difference solely due to hidef’s “sharper” image?

Partially. Resolution is the key player, and bandwidth follows along as a close second. Having twice the resolution of standard definition television, hidef reveals subtleties not seen on television before. These subtleties go beyond mere sharpness, since the greater bandwidth (think of bandwidth as the width of a pipe through which all picture information must flow) allows more of the texture of an image to be recorded.

For example, when shooting NTSC I tend to use a lot more backlight because the image lacks so much detai that I feel I need to light with a heavier hand in order to separate objects from their backgrounds. I feet this need less when shooting film and I feel the same way about hidef. The subtlety of color and tone makes this kind of layer separation less necessary in most cases.

Another example is the use of hard light. I almost never use hard light on faces because the light has to be placed precisely for every face I light in order to make it look its best. Soft light requires less precision and less tweaking, so it’s often faster, but there are times when I’m shooting NTSC and lighting a wide shot that I know I can get away with harder light if I need to control the spill. Hidef is much less forgiving: hard light must be perfectly tailored to a person’s face, makeup must be perfect, and the fill light must usually be brighter in order to achieve a desirable result. Soft light is much kinder in hidef, and the subtlety of shades from light to dark make the image richer and more beautiful. Much of the detail of that transition from light to dark is lost in the NTSC signal.

Camera movement can also be a factor. Hidef images are so real that shaky moves can have dire effects on a large screen. Moves that are meant to be smooth need to be executed with care because the bumps will really show. I always try to use either a gear head or a very solid fluid head (like the O’Connor 2575 or 2060) when shooting HD.

DON’T SCRIMP! FOCUS ON THE IMPORTANT STUFF

Occasionally I meet people who try to take shortcuts with hidef production. My advice is, “DON’T.” Ending up on a hidef shoot without the tools to manipulate light appropriately and paint the image electronically can be a recipe for disaster. Documentaries are an exception, but we make allowances psychologically for documentaries. If you’re shooting anything else, think of your shoot as a film shoot on tape. The only place you’re going to save is on film equipment and film stock. (That’s still a significant savings.)
I’ve shot documentary footage and corporate talking heads on hidef with very small crews and not a lot of equipment. As long as the expectations aren’t in the stratosphere it’s easy to do small hidef shoots with a sound person/video engineer and a gaffer.

Film-style lighting for a head shot isn’t difficult to achieve with a few of the right tools and focus isn’t an issue if neither the camera nor the subject are moving.

Once the camera goes on a dolly or the talent starts moving focus becomes a challenge. When shooting NTSC it’s common for the DP or operator to pull their own focus simply because it’s possible: NTSC is so soft and mushy that the depth of field appears greater than it is. You can’t see the boundary between sharp and soft as easily. Hidef, however, sees that boundary very clearly, and asking an operator to pull his own focus a recipe for disaster. The hidef eyepiece doesn’t see nearly the same resolution that the camera does so the operator may not always be able to tell what’s really in focus. And because hidef is so sharp, by the time the operator sees the talent go out of focus it’s too late: go back to number one and try again.

That’s why I always ask for a camera assistant on hidef shoots. Focus must be dead on all the time. It’s not good enough to promote a production assistant to pull focus for a shot or two. Hidef requires an experienced camera assistant who makes a living keeping things in focus. It’s that precise, and it’s cheaper to hire someone who can do it right the first time than it is to shoot a dozen takes of the same shot because of focus problems.

QUALITY CONTROL

On a recent commercial shoot an executive producer suddenly had an epiphany: “I know what you do!” she exclaimed to my video engineer, Jay Farrington. “You’re quality control!”
She’s absolutely right. As well as being my on set lab, the video engineer is often the only one who can see subtleties that I can’t see through the viewfinder. Hidef can’t be judged on anything less than a 14” monitor, with 17” being ideal for most location shoots, because the detail in the hidef image can’t been seen on a small monitor. Since my video engineer has the only set of trained eyes that are consistently watching the monitor for color, focus, detail and other issues, that person takes on a fair amount of responsibility for the quality of the final picture. Until someone invents a great hidef color viewfinder my video engineer will have to be my full time QC department.
In addition, it’s very important to control color on the set. For all the talk of color correcting hidef in post it’s still a fact that as soon as the image hits the tape a lot of bits are thrown away. It’s easier to fine tune the image in the camera, where the bits are more numerous, than it is in post, when the remaining bits have a habit of complaining endlessly and being uncooperative.

A good video engineer is worth his or her weight in gold. Fortunately they won’t insist on a lump sum and will instead take payments.

The rest of the crew remains the same as it would for a film shoot, because you’re seeing the same degree of detail that you would if you were shooting film. You won’t have the flexibility that film offers, but perhaps the cost savings outweigh that. You’ll still walk away with a great looking image... if you don’t treat it like NTSC and take a lot of shortcuts.

THE BIG LESSON

We’re used to getting away with murder in NTSC. We can leave the body in the open and as long as the shot is no closer than a medium shot we probably wouldn’t be able to identify it or even discern the gender. In hidef we’ll not only be able identify the body but we’ll be able to discern the cause of death and whether the victim had a good dentist.

There are a lot of shows on television that, until recently, shot using prosumer mini DV cameras because that was a good way to keep costs down and a low-resolution low-bandwidth camera was “good enough.” Networks are now demanding hidef deliverables and those same companies are wondering why their shows now look worse than anything they’ve ever produced before. It’s because hidef doesn’t allow for sloppiness, not in operating or lighting or makeup. Shooting hidef does not guarantee a great image just by virtue of its technology. What you put in front of the camera, and the crew you put behind it, now count more than ever. Keep this in mind, and plan accordingly, and your hidef shoots will be stunningly successful.

Art Adams is a freelance director of photography who shoots a lot of hidef and is seeking a little resolution. His web site is at http://www.artadams.net.

©2005 by Art Adams

by Art Adams
First published in Film/Tape World

I started my career, many years ago, in the film world, so I like to think in film terms. When I take on a film shoot I choose the best film stock for the case at hand, and now I do the same when I’m hired to shoot in high definition.

The two cameras I'm going to focus on are those prevalent in the Bay Area: the Sony HDW-F900, or "Cine Alta," and the Panasonic Varicam. Both are suitable for nearly any type of high definition shooting, but based on my experience I've formed opinions based on the subtle strengths I perceive each camera to have. These are my opinions and do not necessarily represent the opinions of other cinematographers or video engineers in town. This is what works for me, for the moment, until I can delve even deeper into the souls of these cameras and their manufacturers.

The single most important factor I consider when picking a high definition camera is determining where the end product will be seen. When a project is going to be projected on a large screen or transferred to film I lean towards the Cine Alta. With 1080 lines of vertical resolution the Cine Alta trumps the resolution of the Varicam by 50%. The Varicam's resolution is 95 lines finer than a 625 line PAL image, which beats standard NTSC's 480 lines, but falls far short of Sony's offering.

If the project will only ever be seen on broadcast television or in a venue on a plasma display the Varicam becomes a viable option. Several networks broadcast 720-line high definition feeds and Varicam footage down rez'd to NTSC looks phenomenal. Shooting with the Varicam is a good way to shoot programs for near future broadcast in NTSC while protecting their life span as high definition programs.

There's a test that I've shot on both cameras that allows for easy resolution comparison. Wait for one of those beautiful days where the sky is filled with puffy clouds and the sunlight breaks through in patches. Take both cameras out to an area of The Presidio that overlooks the ocean and frame similar shots that comprise both the dark cloud-covered sea and the bright sun-struck ocean ripples. The Cine Alta will allow you to see all the little ripples and wavelets that rush across the surface of the ocean, whereas the Varicam's lower resolution will cause those details to mush together. It will still be a beautiful image but with 50% less resolution you won't be able to "see into the image" to the same level that the Cine Alta allows.

Beyond resolution both cameras offer additional subtleties that I take into account when planning a shoot. The Cine Alta, because of its increased resolution, offers subtleties of shade and detail that screams out "I am High Def! Bow down before me!" when seen on a large high definition monitor under good viewing conditions. A lot of this subtlety is retained when the material is down converted to NTSC, creating a viewing experience that isn't exactly like film transferred to video but comes close in its own unique way.

The Varicam shines in two areas: color and highlight retention. The Varicam's colorimetry is very film-like: it sees colors much the way they actually are and renders secondary hues beautifully in most cases. Video cameras have historically had a hard time accurately reproducing hues that fall between primary colors, for example cyans and purples often read as just plain blue. Reds and oranges often don't look quite right and subtle differences in similar hues can blend together to make one big splotch of color. The Varicam, and its little standard definition brother the SDX900, see colors more accurately with less tweaking than any other high-def or standard-def camera I've used.

Highlights are the bane of any electronic medium. High definition and video cameras use something called the knee circuit to compress highlights into a range that the deck can record. There's only so much bandwidth available to record the high definition image onto tape and highlights frequently surge outside of this boundary. The knee circuit does its best to reach up into the highlights and crunch them down into the narrow range reserved for bright image details. Many cameras don't do this very elegantly; highlights can turn ghastly shades of green and appear flat and "metallic." A touch of knee control is all I can stomach normally, but the Varicam's Film Rec (for "film recommend") mode solves a lot of those problems.

Panasonic has created a very gentle knee circuit that can compress a lot of highlight information elegantly and beautifully, dramatically increasing the useful exposure range of the camera. Several video engineers that I work with are nervous about using Film Rec mode because once the camera is switched into this mode it automatically takes control of handling highlights and prevents any manual tweaking of the knee circuit. Being a fairly hands-on DP that would make me nervous too... if it didn't work so incredibly well.

Just because this mode is called "Film Rec" doesn't mean you can't use it for projects finished electronically. It works for everything.

Another neat feature of the Varicam is something called Dynamic Levels. The best way I've found to describe this feature is to imagine the brightness of an image being split into 1000 equal steps. Dynamic Level lets you space those steps out, when needed, to record a much higher range of exposure. For example, in an interior situation I may be happy with a lower Dynamic Level setting because the range of bright-to-dark isn't that great; but a day exterior can be very contrasty and spreading those steps apart will help me capture the full range of tonalities available. This feature has to be used with care, as spreading those steps out in a low contrast situation will result in a very flat image indeed, but it can be a lifesaver when used correctly. In a recent test conducted with John Chater of Chater Film we found the Varicam could capture a range of up to eleven f-stops of brightness when shooting a high contrast day exterior scene with maximum Dynamic Level. Technically that rivals some of the newest Kodak film stocks; realistically the effect isn't quite the same but is still extremely impressive for an electronic imaging system.

The Cine Alta can capture the same range of contrast in skilled hands but its strength lies not so much in handling highlights but in reproducing rich and detailed shadows. If I'm going to shoot something dark and moody the Cine Alta is often my first choice. It may seem counter intuitive but I often "light" my shadows when shooting film to create different shades of darkness, and occasionally I color my fill light to create a subtle mood. Film is the gold standard by which we judge all other mediums simply because it can capture and reproduce that kind of subtlety in an image like no other media can. The Cine Alta comes a close second thanks to its high resolution and incredible ability to record subtle detail and tonal variations between gray and black.
Ultimately either of these cameras serve me well when shooting most projects, and the decision to use one or the other can boil down to personal taste, money or client familiarity. Both cameras produce beautiful images in the hands of a good cinematographer and a competent video engineer. I tend to think of these cameras as film stocks, with certain looks and advantages to which they are each predisposed. Either camera will work in most situations, but sometimes I can gain the advantage by picking the one that, in my humble opinion, is slightly better suited for the job at hand.

DP Art Adams is a Bay Area native who spent ten years working in film in Southern California before his sanity returned. He is equally at home in both the film and electronic worlds. His web site is at http://www.artadams.net/.

©2005 by Art Adams

Making spot budgets work in a zucchini-eat-zucchini world

by Art Adams
First published in Film/Tape World

I made a name for myself years agi as a DP who excels at making something out of nothing. In hindsight I recognize that all those experiences were great training for the world of the future, also known as “right now.” Usually my projects get enough money to do what needs to be done but occasionally our ambitions are greater than the production pocket book. When that happens it helps to have a lot of experience stretching the “visual dollar.”

I enjoy those kinds of challenges, so when director Tom Donald asked me to shoot two spots for the restaurant chain Fresh Choice and told me we’d have to shoot them in HD, I didn’t bat an eye. I knew what the problems were likely to be and I set about figuring out how to solve them.

It’s unusual to shoot food in HD. Most food photography requires shooting film at high speeds to slow the movement of rolling, falling or flying food and make it float through the air gracefully. High definition cameras that can shoot at very high frame rates that exist but not in the Bay Area. I knew I had to make do with equipment that was already here.

The obvious choice was the Panasonic Varicam, not just because it can shoot at speeds up to 60 fps but also because Tom and I both love its filmic colorimetry. I’m no stranger to the Sony “Cine Alta” F900 HD camera but I try to save it for shoots where it’ll really shine: projects that need the extra resolution because they’ll be projected on a large screen. While the F900 sees into shadows wonderfully well and packs the kind of resolution that slaps audiences in the face and shouts “I’m HIGH DEFINITION!” it doesn’t render colors very accurately in a lot of circumstances. Certain matrix settings can make its color rendition more accurate and “filmic,” and indeed John Chater of Chater Camera in Berkeley has created an F900 matrix that does exactly that. We didn’t need the extra resolution and we did need the option of shooting at higher speeds than 24 or 30 fps, so we rented one of Chater Camera’s Varicams.

I’ve found that the frame rate I use most often for slow motion is 120 fps. Sometimes I’ll roll a little faster to smooth out camera shake, such as shooting at 32 fps for aerial photography; or I’ll just want a hint of slow when shooting dance footage or people bouncing into frame on trampolines (48 or 60 fps). For flying or rolling food I’d normally roll film at a minimum of 120 fps because that’s what it takes to make a tomato drift gracefully through the air. As we were committed to shooting HD we had to figure out how to make the Varicam’s top speed of 60 fps work. Editor Brandon Butrick had an idea of how to do just that.

A test was in order. A number of us convened on Tom Donald’s roof top: myself, Tom, art director Andrew Lewis and producer Michele Dennis. Using Brandon’s HVX-200, we shot some flying food tests at 60 fps using sunlight and a piece of white perspex as a background. Then Brandon took the footage away and played around with it in Adobe After Effects, experimenting with ways to stretch our 60 fps footage out to 120 fps. The method that proved most successful was using a plugin that studied two adjacent frames and then created an intermediate frame to drop between them. When Brandon posted the tests on his web site for evaluation later that evening the consensus was that we could get away with tossing bowls of lettuce across the screen in HD and still be able to show our faces at the salad bar the morning after.

Then came the shoot day. The spots called for three hero food shots per spot, plus several dozen ancillary food shots. Yes, that’s right: several dozen. As we stood in front of Bayshore Studio shortly before call time I chatted with Sandra Griswald, the food stylist.

“You know this is at least a two day shoot,” she said.

“Yeah, I know,” I responded, smiling. “Welcome to my career.”

Sandra was a trooper. All I had to do was photograph all those plates of food; she had to make them. Every once in a while I’d wander back to the kitchen to take a look at what was going on and she was always the embodiment of composure, but at the speed those dishes were coming out I thought the room would be a flurry of lettuce, tomatoes and chives, as if a salad tornado had touched down and was searching for a trailer park with an organic garden.

I had a number of my regular crew with me: gaffer Alan Steinheimer, key grip Todd Stoneman, and digital imaging technician (that’s “HD speak” for video engineer) Jay Farrington. Also present was newcomer Stephen Connell, a grip newly arrived to the area from Denver. It helps when one’s crew is not only dedicated and able but incredibly mellow and easy to work with. A good attitude is contagious, and on tough days it helps if we all spread it around.

Art director Andrew Lewis quickly set up what was to be our stage for the entire day: a 4’ square piece of 1” thick translucent white perspex. Every shot on our schedule used that backdrop. The plan was to roll food down it, toss food across it, and shoot straight down on it as plate after plate of food was brought in. We put several banks of 4’ Kinoflos underneath the table to light it from below to make it glow an even white. The lighting from above was what changed between setups.

Our first shot was rolling the food down the table. Producer Michele Dennis suggested building a barrier across the bottom so that instead of rolling out of frame the food bounced and settled at the end of its run. Tom seized that idea and asked that all the food be wet down before the shot so we’d see bouncing droplets of water. The lighting consisted of a couple of 10k fresnels bounced off a 4’x8’ bounce card as backlight, to create linear highlights on the tops and sides of the veggies, and another big fresnel through diffusion from near the lens to create a soft highlight in their shiny skins. After a couple of tries tossing buckets full of veggies and water down our table we unanimously decided we had the shot and moved on. It’s important to note that we had no way to play back our 60 fps HD footage in slow motion on the set, but when you’re keenly focused it’s amazing how your brain tunes in and tells you when one little moment of action went exactly right.

From there we went on to the food shots. I asked that the food be grouped into similar shapes. Round foods and tall foods want to be lit one way, while flat foods and foods with texture need to be lit another. We quickly fell into a routine. The camera was rigged straight down over the perspex table, and our base light was a 10k through two 4’x4’ frames of diffusion from the back side of the table (or, from the camera’s perspective, the top of the frame). Opposite that was a 4’x4’ piece of bead board as bounce fill. Another 10k stood ready to bounce into the bead board if more fill was needed, and two Source 4 Lekos raked the food from frames left and right. Lekos project a very hard beam of light and have internal blades that act as very sharp barn doors. They made it easy to quickly bring out texture by raking across the food while allowing us to easily cut light off the white dishes that the food was served in.

Every time a plate arrived I made a snap decision as to what lights were turned on or off based on the height, shape and texture of the food, and that’s how we spent the middle portion of our day. In the beginning of the finished spots there’s a matrix of food dishes that fill the screen and I’m proud to say we shot every single one of those.

The toughest shot of all was when the three hero plates were placed side by side for the camera to move across. Each of these items required totally different lighting and yet they were all within inches of each other. On top of that we were on a strict schedule and I had very little time to finesse. The solution was to create a soft wall of light from behind the food using a wall of tracing paper and several 10k’s, with a little front fill and some hard light to pick up texture in lettuce leaves and such. Soft backlight works wonderfully on all kinds of food, and while this shot was a little bit of a compromise it still turned out remarkably well considering the time constraints we were working under.

Our final shot was the majestic “lettuce in the air” ballet. We rigged the perspex vertically, lit it from behind and tossed salad in front of it. This was the one shot that really needed to be photographed at 120 fps or faster to work well on its own, but our test had told us that as a background for text our 60 fps-stretched-to-120 fps look would suffice.

The spots turned out incredibly well in spite of an action packed schedule. Tom Donald’s direction was spot on, and if you don’t think food needs direction you should try to get it to act the way Tom did. All the plates were turned and propped in ways that complemented each other perfectly, especially considering that 16 of them were to appear in one shot. Everything flowed seamlessly. His continuously running dialogue with Andrew Lewis during the shoot suddenly made perfect sense.

In the end the client was thrilled, and the spots were on the air a week after we shot them. With the right team and an understanding client it’s amazing how much quality can be had for the price.

Art Adams is a DP who loves photographing vegetables because that means he doesn’t have to eat them. His web site is at http://www.artadams.net/.

©2006 by Art Adams