British Cinematographer - Issue 29

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29

SEPTEMBER 2008

LET’S ROCK #26: CAMERA CREATIVE TONY RICHMOND ASC, BSC ON HOW PREVIOUS EXPLOITS IN R&R CINEMATOGRAPHY INSPIRED HIM ON THE ROCKER

ALSO INSIDE … #18: SHOOTING THE FUTURE – YOUR INDISPENSABLE GUIDE TO SHOOTING 3D, PART 1 INCLUDING… DO'S & DON'TS, BRITISH 3D PIONEERS, CASE STUDIES, WHAT'S ON AT IBC AND MUCH, MUCH MORE… #15: CLOSE UPS - MIKE SOUTHON BSC ON U BE DEAD, GEOFF BOYLE ON DARK COUNTRY in 3D, JONATHAN FREEMAN ON EDGE OF LOVE, SHELLEY JOHNSON ASC ON THE WOLF MAN #25: MEET THE NEW WAVE NATASHA BRAIER AND JESS HALL

RRP: £5.00

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire SL0 0NH, UK Tel: +44 (0) 1753 650101 Fax: +44 (0) 1753 650111 PUBLISHERS Alan Lowne Tel: +44 (0) 1753 650101 Stuart Walters Tel: +44 (0) 121 608 2300 EDITOR Ron Prince Email: ronny@dircon.co.uk SALES Alan Lowne Tel: +44 (0) 1753 650101 Email: alanlowne@britishcinematographer.co.uk Stuart Walters Tel: +44 (0) 121 608 2300 Email: stuartwalters@britishcinematographer.co.uk DESIGN Paul Roebuck, Open Box Publishing Ltd, info@openboxpublishing.co.uk contact: Stuart Walters Tel: +44 (0) 121 608 2300

>> C O N T E N T S UK P03 P05/32 P08 P10 P12 P34

President's Perspective: in her inaugural column Sue Gibson BSC says that communication between DPs is vital as the industry moves forward Production / Post & Techno News: the latest news concerning DPs POV: Kodak and its vision of the future Who's Shooting Who?: your comprehensive overview of which DPs are currently shooting To Live & Let DI: discover who's delivering the DI grades right now GBCT News: the chairman's statement, plus other news from the Guild

THE PUBLICATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE comprises of Board members from the BSC and GBCT as well as the Publishers BRITISH CINEMATOGRAPHER covering International Cinematography is part of Laws Publishing Ltd, Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire SL0 0NH, UK The publishers wish to emphasise that the opinions expressed in BRITISH CINEMATOGRAPHER are not representative of Laws Publishing Ltd but the responsibility of the individual contributors.

INTERNATIONAL P15 P18 P28 P30

Cover Photograph: A shot from The Rocker, which was lensed by Tony Richmond ASC, BSC

>> Editorial Team Ron Prince: has many years experience working in the film, TV, CGI and visual effects industries. He is the editor of British Cinematographer magazine and runs an international communications company (www.princepr.com).

Close-Ups: Mike Southon BSC, Shelly Johnson ASC, Jonathan Freeman & Geoff Boyle Shooting The Future: 3D - there's no easy learning curve, as you'll discover in Part One of our two-part look into the deeply fascinating world of stereography.

F-Stop Hollywood: you guessed it, LA is going mad for 3D F-Stop Down-Under: the latest developments from Australia and New Zealand

FEATURES P25 P26

Meet The New Wave: Natasha Braier and Jess Hall Camera Creative: Tony Richmond BSC, ASC on how he shot The Rocker

British Society of Cinematographers – Board Members: President, Sue Gibson. Immediate Past President, Gavin Finney. Vice Presidents, Joe Dunton MBE, Alec Mills, Chris Seager, Nigel Walters. Governors, Sean Bobitt, John de Borman, John Daly, Harvey Harrison, Tony Imi, Phil Meheux, Nic Morris, Tony Spratling, Mike Southon, Derek Suter, Robin Vidgeon. Secretary/Treasurer, Frances Russell.

Guild of British Camera Technicians – Board Members: Jamie Harcourt (Chairman), Trevor Coop (Immediate Past Chairman), Peter Hughes (Vice Chairman), Darren Miller (Vice Chairman - North), Tim Potter (Vice Chairman), Caroline Sax (Vice Chairman), Jacob Barrie, Steve Brooke-Smith, Jason Coop, John Keedwell, Rupert Lloyd Parry, Suzanne McGeachan, Keith Mead, Shirley Schumacher

Carolyn Giardina: is the technology reporter at Hollywood Reporter in the US. She previously served as editor of Film & Video and as senior editor of postproduction at SHOOT. Her work has also appeared in IBC Daily News, Digital Cinema, Post and Below The Line.

3D? Or not 3D? That is the question!

David A Ellis started out as a projectionist and then moved on to work for BBC Television in London as a film assistant. He has written numerous articles about the industry including features about cinematographers.

Dear Readers Kevin Hilton: is a freelance journalist who writes about technology and personalities in film and broadcasting, and contributes film reviews and interviews to a variety of publications

John Keedwell: the GBCT's Eyepiece Editor, is a documentary and commercials cameraman who has worked on many productions over all the world. He crosses over in both film and tape productions and has great knowledge of the new formats and their methods of production.

Pauline Rogers has published over 1,200 articles on the technical side of the movie-making process. She is a staff writer for ICG Magazine, and freelances for various venues.

Rachael Turk is the editor of Inside Film – Australia's filmmaker magazine. Last year she won the Australian Writers Guild Award (AWGIE) for Best Short Film.

George Jarrett has worked in film and TV journalism since 1969. Now a regular contributor for Film & Video and TVB Europe, he founded and edited several leading industry titles including Audio Visual, TV Producer, Cuts and Soho Runner. He has been on the IBC conference committee for ten years.

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3D stereo. It's pretty much in everyone's faces right now, if the cacophony in the press is anything to go by. Digital has helped to pretty much eradicate the neuralgia factor from the viewing experience, but the world of 3D has other headaches to contend with.

When we set out to cover 3D stereography, it rapidly became apparent that it's a deep topic, with deep issues. For some, 3D is the new saviour of the cinematic world, providing an experience (and revenue streams) that will also cascade into many other related areas - general TV and sports broadcasting, DVDs, video consoles and pocket Nintendos. Don a pair of glasses and watch some footage on a 3D-enabled TV, and you'll soon realise that audiences, especially the younger end of the

market, could quite likely become transfixed by the immersive experience. Whether you will get irritated wearing the glasses, or if they accidentally disappear down the back of the sofa, are other matters altogether.

Kit manufactures are falling over themselves to develop new rigs, cameras and workflows that assist 3D from production to post. This is a genuinely fascinating area to watch, and we'll be looking at that in Part 2 of our global investigations into 3D.

The world domination of 3D is likely to be a way off. As we know content is king. And as we found, there are precious few people with the knowledge and skills, and precious little equipment worldwide, to shoot and post produce 3D material in really meaningful volumes as yet. Talk to any of the people who do have experience in 3D, and you will discover there's a significant learning curve involved, and that there can be some wildly different interpretations of what makes for good 3D and what makes for shoddy 3D. The words “convergence” and “interocular” keep cropping up in these conversations.

Right now, cinematographers need to at least think about arming themselves with the skills to tackle a 3D project, so they can also truly name themselves as stereographers when a project comes along.

3D? Or not 3D? Whether 3D does or doesn't go on to be, as some have claimed, as big an evolution in cinema as sound was, it's clear to there are yawning gaps in this nascent. emerging market. The whiff of opportunity is in the air, and who knows you might just make an outrageous fortune. Read on!

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president’s perspective

Come together Recently I had the pleasure of hosting my first BSC Summer Luncheon. A daunting prospect or so I thought, but my nerves were soothed by the warm welcome I received and once proceedings were under way it became a very enjoyable task. As this is my first President's column I thought I would use it as an opportunity to thank every one for being there, and hope you all had as good a time as I did.

The BBC recently announced more changes in the way of HD delivery formats. A response from the BSC has been posted on the Society's website, and I urge you all to read it and keep abreast of the situation. The new guidelines are effective until 1st November, so doubtless there are more changes in the pipeline. The main gist of it is that they have included both 3perf 35mm film of any ASA rating and 2-perf 35mm up to 250ASA as acceptable production formats, which had previously been discounted. The tests, produced by Paul Collard of Ascent Media in London and FujiFilm, played no small part in these being accepted as a form of HD acquisition.

There is also a ruling that up to 25% of a programme's duration can come from standard definition sources, meaning that 16mm film of any ASA rating can be included, whether transferred to tape in High Definition or not. Now I'm confused, and I think the majority of you will be too. Further clarification from the BBC is needed on this point. It may be that a clause is required to specify exactly which sort of productions this ruling applies to. Documentaries and factual programmes have different requirements to drama, and I think the BBC has not taken account of this.

Please have a look on the BBC website to familiarise yourselves with the options available. It could be very helpful if we, the cinematographers, could inform production

There is still confusion out there as to the best way to cope with an industry in a state of flux - it would help if we can all communicate, educate and inform e a c h o t h e r.

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companies with the latest guidelines from the BBC. There have been several TV drama productions about to start that have been struggling to find the best solution to HD delivery.

Some have been fortunate enough to be able to use 35mm film, the D-21, or the Genesis, but others have found their budget just wouldn't allow it, and have gone back to shooting on Super 16mm film. Now if this is the case I wonder if they are aware of the ruling. As I see it, Super16mm film up to 200ASA was acceptable last year but it is now not mentioned as being suitable for HD acquisition. Has the BBC down graded Super 16,mm or is it still acceptable? We must have clarification on this point. There is still a great deal of confusion out there, not just amongst cinematographers, but producers, editors, and post production companies as to the best way to cope with an industry in a state of flux. I'm sure we will find a way through, but my opinion is that it would really help if we can all communicate, educate and inform each other.

It has also come to my attention that the European Union is currently reviewing Working Time Law. A recent communication from BECTU states that a dangerous new proposal has been made, in that limits on the working time week should only be made when an individual works for more than ten weeks for any given employer in a year. As most of us are freelance, and work on short term contracts, this means that we would have no legal protection on the length of the working week if this goes through, simply because of the ten-week rule. BECTU is lobbying MEPs to vote against this proposal and is running a survey to find out … a. How many different employers have you worked for over the last 12 months? b. What proportion of your working time was spent working on contracts of ten weeks or less?

I urge you to help them by emailing your response to lpd@bectu.org.uk. It will help us all to fight this ruling as it doesn't just apply to the film industry but to everyone. I know the Unions have become less effective than they used to be, but they still have a role to play and we must safeguard the future. We certainly don't want to go back to the days when people were working 12 hours a day, six days a week or more.

The health and safety issue here is important, so please help them to help us.

rounds of the film festivals. The danger is that this becomes the norm for these potential filmmakers and that they never really integrate into the industry proper.

However, one recent project I was involved with went a long way to address this. It was a Skillset initiative with LCC, EIM and NFTS film academies, where every department had a mentor attached. They made three short films at Shepperton Studios and employed the students in every capacity, building the set with a student production designer with plasterers and carpenters all supervised by a professional construction manager, to shooting with a student crew all mentored by industry professionals.

Now it was a very costly business with all those people involved, but the end result was quite rewarding for the students. Two of the three productions were shot on 35mm film, the other being shot on HD. You would have thought that they would all be very keen to embrace HD technology, but surprisingly (or not, depending on your view,) they were most keen to shoot on film. Over a period of three weeks I saw these young people change from finding it very difficult to organise themselves and communicate, to understanding the importance of passing on information, developing real skills and becoming disciplined on the set.

I have recently been working with a lot of young people who are the future of our industry. It seems that there are so many young people now who want to work in the movies that there is becoming what I call an “alternative” film culture. Various initiatives are in place as to how best to teach them the skills required at the various film academies, but once they have left the fold, so to speak, there aren't the opportunities for them in the mainstream industry. So what do they do?

We all take it for granted that a film set runs like a clockwork machine, but these are some of the skills that have to be taught, how to communicate being one of the most important. Being brought up in the computer age with email and text messaging being the norm didn't help when it came to verbalising what they were trying to do. The instant messaging culture may be with us forever, but forward planning is also a skill and making sure we understand each other, vitally important. As long as we pass on good working practice and communication skills we can help ensure the future of our industry. It's not just all about new technology, important as that is, but good common sense and discipline, as without firm foundations we can't progress.

Some are very enterprising, and make films an a shoestring budget, ask the crew to work for free, beg equipment from whatever source they can, and produce films that do the

Sue Gibson BSC President British Society of Cinematographers

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production news

BSC members are Guiding Lights

UKFC fund backs new films New films developed by award-winning British writers and directors are being backed by the Lottery through the UK Film Council's Development Fund programme for established filmmakers.

Some of the UK's next generation of filmmaking talent were recently teamed with members of the UK filmmaking elite as this year's Guiding Lights mentoring matches were announced.

Run by Brighton-based Lighthouse, Guiding Lights is part of A Bigger Future, the UK film skills strategy - a joint project set up by Skillset and the UK Film Council. Established members of the industry, including Guiding Lights sponsor Optimum Releasing, and a range of illustrious filmmaker mentors, have been brought together to support the scheme. Over the year each mentee will develop a one-on-one relationship with their carefully chosen mentor and take part in networking events and masterclasses at venues across the country including the London and Edinburgh Film Festivals.

This year cinematographers were introduced into to the mentoring pool. Applications for the scheme were high this year and on the four cinematographer matches were: Stephanie Hardt and mentor Oliver Stapleton BSC, Urszula Pontikos with Seamus McGarvey BSC, David Raedeker and Barry Ackroyd BSC, and Faye with Remi Adefarasin BSC Tim Bevan of Working Title Films, chairman of the Guiding Lights steering committee said, “Guiding Lights is a great mechanism for bringing new blood into British film, as well as being a vital opportunity for those at the top of their game to channel what they've learned back into the industry.”

Producing mentors include Paul Webster, Alison Owen and Damian Jones, with directors including Anand Tucker, Roger Michell, David Yates, Paul Greengrass, Kevin Macdonald and Gillies MacKinnon.

Skillset connects DPs and VFX supers

This summer Skillset launched the Skillset Connects series of events which aim to bring together different skill grades across the industry. The evening gave cinematographers and VFX technicians an opportunity to network together and to hear from Iain Smith, chair of the recently established Film Industry Training Board, and highly-acclaimed producer of Children of Men, and Alexander). Janine Marmot, Skillset's director of film, interviewed Smith about his career and his forthcoming release, the VFX-driven Wanted featuring Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy.

The event was organised with the support and input of Gaynor Davenport at UK Screen and Gavin Finney BSC, who attended along with cinematographers and VFX technicians whose combined credits include: Hunger, Casino Royale, United 93, Elizabeth, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Harry Potter.

Skillset will roll out the Skillset Connects series throughout the year, networking different grades within the film industry at each event. So far Skillset Connects has organised similar events for post-production supervisors, sales agents and sounds supervisors, and most recently an all-industry event connecting exhibitors, distributors, sales agents and film critics.

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Screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh, a BAFTA winner for Control, is working on Nowhere Boy, the story of John Lennon's relationship with his mother and aunt, which receives £35,500. Robert Bernstein and Douglas Rae will produce for Ecosse Films (Brideshead Revisited, The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep). The script has been co-developed with UK distributor 2 Entertain. Signature filmmaker John Maybury (The Edge of Love, Love is the Devil) continues his anti-biopic approach to real-life subjects and will write The Lives of Lee Miller, about the iconic model, photographer and muse whose life story reflects the liberated spirit of the 20th century woman.

Norma Heyman (Dangerous Liaisons, Gangster No.1) will produce for Heyman-Hoskins. Funding for the film is to the tune of £116,500.

Multiple award-winning filmmaker Michael Winterbottom (A Mighty Heart, The Road to Guantanamo) is working with £25,000 support on Promised Land, a Graham Greene-esque story which takes place in Palestine at the end of the Second World War. The film will be produced by Winterbottom collaborator Andrew Eaton through Revolution Films.

Director Roger Michell (Venus, Enduring Love) and producer Kevin Loader (through their company Free Range Films) have teamed up with David Aukin and producer/partner Hal Vogel at Daybreak Pictures to make Hyde Park on Hudson, an account of the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Franklyn D Roosevelt's upstate house in the summer of 1939, which will receive £47,540.

The Development Fund is also working in partnership with BBC Films in funding two literary adaptations.

Dramatist/director/actor Moira Buffini will adapt Posy Simmond's acclaimed graphic novel Tamara Drewe with £48,375, and playwright/novelist Biyi Bandele will adapt Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 2007 Orange Prize-winning novel, Half of a Yellow Sun on £39,375. Sophie Fiennes is re-teaming with Slavoj Zizek (The Pervert's Guide to Cinema) to make The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, with the assistance of £10,000. The documentary will use cinema to argue that contemporary culture has a hidden subservience to ideology.

Other new films backed by the Development Fund include the second feature from the Cannes Jury Prize winning Andrea Arnold, Fish Tank which is also being funded by the Council's New Cinema Fund and currently in pre-production; Armando Ianucci's In the Loop which is currently in production; and Jane Campion's Bright Star, currently in post-production. Awards to new projects by first-time filmmakers were announced in April.

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production news

Deakins honoured at BSC 2008 summer lunch

left to right Paul Hitchcock, Sue Gibson, Billy Williams, Shirley Anne Field and Remi Adefarasin

The weather held fair for BSC members and their guests attended the 22nd BSC Summer Lunch, which took place on the terrace and in the ballroom at Pinewood Studios on Sunday 20th July 2008.

The BSC's newly elected president, Sue Gibson BSC, welcomed the Society's guest-of-honour, veteran producer Paul Hitchcock (Phantom of the Opera; Mission Impossible 1 & 2; The Man in the Iron Mask, etc.), who responded with some amusing tales from behind-the-scenes. He then announced Roger Deakins ASC, BSC as the winner of the BSC Best Cinematography Award, for his photography of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Deakins, one of the busiest and most respected BSC members, accepted the award via telephone from his home in Santa Monica, LA, where he was preparing the next Coen Brothers movie A Serious Man, in addition to finishing post on Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road and John Patrick Shanley's Doubt.

Alan Almond BSC and Gerry Fisher BSC

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Billy Williams BSC, with whom Deakins had struck up a friendship during their visits to Camerimage in Poland, accepted the Golden Camera on behalf of the absent cinematographer from the Society's special guest, actress Shirley Anne Field. Her first appearance on cinema screens was in Simon and Laura (1955), shot at Pinewood and directed

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Guests gather in the Pinewood garden

by Muriel Box. She then presented a framed nomination certificate to Remi Adefarasin BSC for his photography of Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Other nominees for the award who were unable to attend were: Seamus McGarvey, BSC for Atonement; Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC, for Babel; Dick Pope, BSC for The Illusionist and Peter Suschitzky ASC for Eastern Promises.

Among the guests were veteran cinematographers Douglas Slocombe BSC and Wolfgang Suschitzky BSC and film director John Glen; film critics Philip French (The Observer), Angie Errigo (Mail on Sunday/Radio 2/Empire), Matt Wolf (Theatre Critic for the Guardian and International Herald Tribune) and James Cameron-Wilson.

UKFC launches new £3m production fund The UK Film Council has launched the Production Company Vision Awards, which will offer up to $300,000 (£150,000) over two years to as many as 10 production companies developing feature films. The initiative, part of the UKFC's Development Fund, is designed to help producers develop projects which will, according to a press release, "broaden the quality, range and ambition of films and talents being developed in the UK." Applicants must have produced at least one feature film that has been distributed theatrically in the UK and screened internationally in at least one major territory within the last five years. The production company's principals must also have received producer credits on at least two other feature films that have been distributed theatrically.

Investment: UKFC's Seghatchian wants to create a supportive arena for creative producers

Tanya Seghatchian, head of the development fund that aims to invest £12 million over three years, said, “We want to provide a supportive arena for creative producers with forward thinking UK production companies who have a clear vision and commitment to UK Film'.

Applications must be received by 6pm on 19 September 2008.

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production news

New products from ARRI at IBC 2008 At IBC 2008 the ARRI Group will present a range of new products in all three of its key business areas: cameras, lights and digital postproduction. ARRI has undertaken a major upgrade of its film style digital camera. The resulting ARRIFLEX D-21 incorporates improvements to the image processing engine, higher image quality and simpler operation. New options include a 2K raw data output mode and the use of anamorphic lenses to take advantage of the 4:3 sensor by capturing images that surpass the resolution of HD. Anamorphic images can either be recorded on a hard disc device in Data Mode or recorded to HDCAM SR using Mscope, a process that splits the image into two HD streams and permits it to be recorded as a dual HD signal. The ARRIRAW T-Link (Transport Link) certificate allows data recorder manufacturers to market a certified ability to record 12-bit

raw data from the D-21 camera in the RGBA HD file format.

Continued innovations in the field of film camera technology are reflected in the introduction of the ARRIFLEX 416 Plus High Speed camera, which offers higher frame rates for slow motion filming.

Sporting the same 35mm style viewfinder, high quality video assist and compact, ergonomic design as the 416 and 416 Plus, the 416 Plus HS can run at up to 150fps.

Designed to complement the 416 cameras, ARRI's Ultra 16 lenses are the result of an ongoing collaboration between ARRI and Zeiss, and with high-quality optics being produced specifically for the Super 16 format. Four new lenses in this range will be presented at IBC 2008: in addition to the existing 6, 8, 9.5, 12 and 14mm, cinematographers will now also have 18, 25, 35

What's shooting on Kodak?

and 50mm focal lengths at their disposal, enlarging the Ultra 16 set to comprise nine T1.3 high speed lenses. Featuring a touch screen interface, the recently developed WRC-2 Wireless Remote Control aims to simplify wireless camera operations while extending options for camera crews. Compatible with all new ARRIFLEX and ARRICAM cameras, the WRC-2 combines the functions of previous units such as the RCU-1 and WRC-1 with a number of entirely new features.

True Blues are the latest generation of ARRI's lighting product range, representing an evolution of the studio and tungsten fixtures that have been popular workhorses for over two decades.

Borne of feedback from respected lighting professionals and great advances in technology, the True Blue lampheads incorporate over 30 new improvements for studio and location lighting.

ARRI will also showcase advances to its ARRILASER systems, and will present a DCI-compliant quality control server for Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs) - the ARRI Quality Control Player (ARRIQCP).

Manaki and Camerimage festivals

Features being shot on Kodak 35mm stock include Prince of Persia, dir Mike Newell, DP John Seale ASC; and Dorian Gray, dir Oliver Parker, DP Roger Pratt BSC. Features on 16mm include Souled Out, dir Shimmy Marcus, DP Vladimir Trivic; and Jean Charles, dir Henrique Goldman, DP Guillermo Escalon. TV shows include Above Suspicion, DP Tim Palmer, La Plante Productions for ITV; Lewis III, DPs Paul Bond and David Marsh, for Granada; Midsomer Murders XII, DP Colin Munn, Bentley Productions for ITV; Merlin, DPs Geoffrey Wharton and Dale McCready, Shine Productions for BBC1; The Four Seasons DP Tony Imi BSC, The Gate for ZDF - German TV; and Survivors, DPs Tony Miller, Graham Frake and Nigel Willoughby for BBC.

Two festivals dedicated to the art and craft of cinematography, taking place later this year, are calling for submissions. The 29th Manaki Film Festival, based in Skopje and Bitola, in the Republic of Macedonia from 27 Sept to 4 Oct 2008, and the 16th Plus Camerimage Film Festival, taking place in Lodz, 29 Nov to 6 Dec 2008, both have a range of awards and non-competitive screening programmes for experienced cinematographers, as well as students, across different production formats - longform, short film and documentary.

Participation at either festival requires a DVD copy of a film with English subtitles, production information (trailer, synopsis, film credits, stills from the film, dialogue list in English, bio-filmography of the cinematographer and the director, as well as personal photos of both of them), plus any press and promotional materials, although the organisers are urging entrants to check their festival regulations online. For more information visit www.manaki.com.mk, www.pluscamerimage.pl, or IMAGO the European Federation of Cinematographers at www.imago.org.

Motion Picture Film‌ and Beyond!

But, of course, it's not just about capture. The distribution of motion picture content is evolving as well. Kodak is actively participating in the digital cinema space. We have close to 200 Kodak DCOS (full digital cinema systems) in place, along with approximately 2,500 ACOS (cinema advertising systems) installed to date. Exhibitors continue to show interest in Kodak digital cinema solutions, as our reputation for quality and reliability continues to grow.

Firstly, congratulations to British Cinematographer Magazine on its five-year anniversary. Your publication has become an important voice within our industry. And thank you for the opportunity to give Kodak's perspective on the evolution of the motion picture industry.

We are currently in the midst of an industry transition. Film has been the central technology supporting the production and distribution of motion picture content for over 100 years. Across the entire value chain, every application has been serviced through film science and technology. Now, the traditional workflow dominated by film is shifting to one that includes a growing number of hybrid and digital solutions, where no single media runs throughout, and no single piece of equipment or software carries the entirety of imaging science across the full motion picture workflow, from capture to distribution.

Throughout this technology evolution, Kodak has continued to invest in its traditional motion picture film business.

Based upon our customers' expectations for the very highest quality images, and for flexibility and ease-of-use, Kodak remains committed to camera negative films for image capture. As such, we continue to innovate with our silver halide technology, while also evaluating nontraditional growth options for the future.

The introduction of the first member of the new Kodak

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An additional key area of focus for Kodak is production workflow. Multiple film and digital options are now available to filmmakers from production, through post and on to distribution. Our customers are looking for end-to-end solutions. The opportunity exists to pull all these elements together into a relevant, efficient workflow. Customers would benefit from improved productivity and image accessibility, as well as assured image integrity across the full chain.

Bright: David Webb is optimistic about Kodak's film portfolio Vision3 product line, last November, is tangible evidence that our commitment to innovation, and the satisfaction of our film customers, is unwavering. It makes a statement that we believe the possibilities for the evolution of silver halide are very robust. We are happy to say there are several more announcements coming over the next 12 months.

Make no mistake, Kodak is very optimistic about its traditional film portfolio, as well as its future beyond film.

We look forward to providing our customers with valueadded solutions for many years to come.

David G Webb General Manager, Kodak Entertainment Imaging, UK, Ireland, Middle East and Africa

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production news

Modern: Radiohead's recent music video used advanced scanning and laser technologies, rather than cameras and lights

What is this? No cameras? No lights?

Radiohead's recent music video for the single House of Cards was shot without the use of cameras or conventional lighting. Instead, the band used advanced visualisation techniques to produce an assembly of computer renderings in real time.

A scanning system, Geometric Informatics, was used to produce structured light to

capture three-dimensional images in close-up. Then, for atmospheric location shots, a Velodyne Lidar system, which uses multiple lasers to capture large environments, was used to create scenes of suburban Los Angeles. The system uses 64 lasers rotating in 360 degrees at a rate of 900 times per minute.

The end result is memorable video, full of what looks like millions of points of light that seem to move as if the data were alive.

The live action promo was created entirely with visualisations of that data. Radiohead decided to "open source" the project, allowing anyone to use the data to produce their own interpretation of the promo, and combined with Google to release the data (but not the music) using a Creative Commons licence, which can be downloaded from the Google Code site, and a visualiser to help play around with the code.

The promo's director, James Frost, said the project was, “a direct reflection of where we are in society.

Everything is [computer] data. Everything around us is data-driven in some shape or form. We are so reliant on it that it seems like our lives are digital."

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What's shooting on Fujifilm?

Feature Films - Fish Tank, DP Robbie Ryan, Dir Andrea Arnold; The Tidal Barrier, DP Ju Keung Cheung, Dir Thomas Nerling; The Big I Am, DP Shane Daly, Dir Nic Auerbach; Exam, DP Tim Wooster, Dir Stuart Hazeldine; Land, Gold Women, DP David Rom, Dir Avantika Hari; The Be All And End All, DP Zillah Bowes, Dir Bruce Webb, TV Dramas Waking The Dead - Series VIII, DP Mike Spragg; Red Riding - 1974, DP Rob Hardy, Dir Julian Jarrold, Moses Jones, DP Tim Fleming, Dir Michael Offer; The Prisoner, DP Florian Hoffmeister; Wuthering Heights, DP Ulf Brantas, Dir Coky Giedroyc, Margaret, DP David Odd BSC, DP James Kent; Commercials / Promos - British Gas (HSI London), DP Ray Coates; BBC Children's Brand (Red Bee), DP Dan Bronks; Wrigley's (Mustard), DP Brian Newman; Natty promo (Partizan), DP Tom Townend; NSPCC (Passion Pictures), DP Richard Stewart; IKEA (Outsider), DP Alex Melman.

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who’s shooting who?

Who’s Shooting Who? Over the shoulder: John de Borman BSC on the set of An Education earlier this year

Casarotto Marsh's… Sean Bobbitt BSC has received an Emmy Award nomination for his work on Sense & Sensibility. He has just started prep on Unforgiven a crime drama for Red directed by David Evans. Natasha Braier was recently currently in Guadeloupe recceing on Laurence Coriat's new film Mexico.

Julian Court has finished The Devil's Whore, the epic English Civil War drama for Company Pictures, shot in South Africa, directed by Marc Munden. Rob Hardy has started prepping Red Riding: 1983, directed by Julian Jarrold. This gritty trilogy, being made by Revolution, has been adapted from the books by David Peace and will shoot in and around Leeds. Baz Irvine has just shot Rimmel's new commercial campaign directed by Chris and Rankin, staring iconic model Kate Moss and singer Sophie EllisBexter. David Katznelson recently worked on a new spot for HSBC, directed by Kevin McDonald and shot in India. David Luther is attached to shoot Kudos's UK version of Law & Order directed by Geoff Sax. Prior to grading on The Soloist in the autumn, Seamus McGarvey BSC is working on a number of projects including an art installation with director Willie Doherty in Ireland. Tim Palmer is lighting the new drama from La Plante Productions called Above Suspicion, shooting in London starring Ciaran Hinds and Kelly Reilly.

Erik Wilson on the set of the television series Trinity.

Directed by Colin Teague through Rough Cut TV for ITV.

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Over at Independent… they are absolutely thrilled that Henry Braham BSC and Benoit Delhomme have both joined the roster.

Simon Coull has been keeping busy with TempoMedia in Germany continuing to shoot many beauty products and in London with Shane Meadows and Ben Miller of Tomboy Films.

Before heading off to work out in the US Jess Hall shot Royal Mail with Knuckelheads' Johnny Green, plus a London based shoot for The Natural Confectionery Company with Tom Kuntz of MJZ. Mark Patten has continued to work with Matt Kirkby of RSA and recently completed three grueling weeks with a Russian-based company, Action Film, where he shot on location in Moscow, Kazakhstan and Cyprus for Lukoil. George Richmond has been working with Paul Weiland at The Paul Weiland Film Company, before heading off to Scotland to shoot a corporate short film for Johnny Walker with Jamie Rasn from HLA. In the tiny gap between drama projects, Ben Smithard shot a Twix project with Jeff Thomas of Sonny London in Barcelona. In between prep periods on his latest film, David Ungaro managed to fit in a Diesel shoot with Paul Gore through Flynn productions.

Having shot a Mercedes ad with Johnny Green at Knucklehead, Joost Van Gelder continued on the same theme, shooting Mercedes again with Nicolai Fuglsig in the US, and is now about to head off to Moscow on his first shoot with Pleix. Ed Wild has continued to work with Paul Gay at Hungryman shooting a Crunchy Nut Cornflakes spot, a Sam Sparrow promo with One in Three at Colonel Blimp, and is about to set off on a documentary for Canon with Peter Webber, shooting on location in Kenya.

Oliver Curtis BSC has just started work on Claire Kilner's new feature, Virgin on Bourbon Street, over in the US. Ben Davis BSC has started shooting Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass in the autumn.

Anthony Dod Mantle BSC, DFF is lighting Lars Von Trier's new film, Antichrist, in Germany. Christopher Ross has recently finished shooting Simon Fellows' Malice in Wonderland, a modern take on the classic fairytale set in the North East of England. He is about to start work on Collision for ITV, to be directed by Marc Evans. Ben Seresin is shooting Michael Bay's Transformers 2 over in the States. Nigel Willoughby is shooting block two of Survivors, a remake of the 70s sci-fi series for BBC1.

Dinedor's… Trevor Forrest has started shooting on the Forward Films' horror feature, Tormented, and David Rom has come to the end of his first feature, Land, Gold, Women. Peter Butler has completed on block II of Shameless for Channel 4 and has gone on to Minder for Talkback Thames and Channel Five. At Kudos, Ian Moss has started shooting on series II of Moving Wallpaper for ITV, whilst Andrew Johnson has begun series III of M.I. High for the BBC. Mike Fox BSC has lit Paul Merton's Silent Hitchcock for BBC4, interspersed with dailies for the new series of Channel

4's Skins. He starts shortly on BBC Bristol's documentary Human Planet. Hugh Fairs continues as lighting cameraman on fly on the wall documentary Island Parish for Tiger Aspect and the BBC. Peter Thornton has shot dailies on Larkrise to Candleford for BBC1 and is going on to Robin Hood in August for Tiger Aspect also for the BBC. Florian Hoffmeister is in Namibia on the remake of The Prisoner for Granada and AMC, Steve Buckland is on Carnival's Hotel Babylon, and Grant Cameron remains on Taggart for ITV in Scotland. Peter Field recently finished operating 2nd unit on the new Bond flick, Quantum of Solace, and has been operating on the miniature unit on werewolf thriller The Wolf Man. Steven Hall was operating on Appraritions II for Lime Pictures, and has been fitting in some dailies for Hustle V. Hubert Taczanowski has started on the next FA Cup title sequence for Hat Trick/Plum films. Ed Mash has been shooting Summer Rocks and Weekday Morning Party for Disney, and Garry Turnbull has been lighting Sana Margarine. Tom Townend has been busy on promos for Bryn Christopher, Spiritualized, and The Verve, and commercials for Warburtons Bread and Audi. Adam Frisch FSF is currently in Frankfurt on the new Honda Jazz campaign, having shot music videos for Roy World, Frisco, Ministry of Sound and Alphabeat. Pete Ellmore lit a commercial for National Express and is now nine weeks of stop motion for Lynx Deodorant. Ben Filby is back from South Africa where he was on a Peroni campaign, and has since shot for TK Maxx, Nokia and The Royal Mail. Steve Annis has shot music promos for Fujiya and Miyagi, The Guillemots, and White Denim. Eric Maddison FSF has returned from New York for Funeral For a Friend. Matt Fox shot a promo for David Holmes and a viral for Nike. David Raedeker has been shooting for telecom giant Alcatel, Matt Cooke has been lighting funky virals for Boots and Virgin Atlantic, corporates for DUIS and V Cashpoint, and a music promo for Feeder. Damian Daniel shot a music video for Jason Donovan, a corporate for IET, and a promo for Fashion TV, as well as daily operating on the upcoming Warp X comedy feature Bunny and the Bull. Franklin Dow has lit a Bands Go Pop shoot for ITV. Wizzo Features has signed DP Duncan Telford who shot the film Extraordinary Rendition directed by Jim Threapleton, which was selected for Edinburgh Festival last year, and he also shot the TV Drama W10 for Kudos. Erik Wilson is busy shooting the whole series of Trinity for Rough Cut TV; basic plot line being, new undergraduates arrive at Trinity College that reputedly has had strange happenings. The Dean is played by Charles Dance. Karl Oskarsson is lighting the film Three Seasons In Hell for Dawson in Prague. It's a fascinating and poetic love story set against the dangerous political backdrop of late 1940's Czechoslovakia. Kjell Lagerroos has recently wrapped on the period feature

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UK

who’s shooting who?

Decemberheat that was shot on location in Tallin, Estonia. Per Tingleff recently wrapped on the comedy series Massive starring Johnny Vegas and Ralph Little for BBC Manchester, and Donal Gilligan has wrapped on the second series of Kitchen directed by Kieron J Walsh. In the world of short films, Erik Wilson's short Stiletto, starring Beth Winslet and directed by William Mager, was selected to screen as the best of the 'Triangle' short films at the BoBs short film event at the BFI. And finally, congratulations to Antonio Paladino whose Sky: Billboards commercial, directed

by Sara Dunlop, was named Best In-Book Cinematography at the recent D&ADs. The news from Sara Putt… is that David Marsh is currently lighting Lewis III for LWT Granada, directed by Billie Eltringham.

Graham Smith is working with director Penny Woolcock again on 1 Day for Blast Films, Nick Dance continues lighting on the latest series of Skins for Company Pictures, and Peter Edwards has just completed filming on Horrible Histories for Lion TV. Des Whelan is operating in Morroco on Jerry Bruckheimer's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, directed by Mike Newell. Joe Russell is operating on Hustle for Kudos. Julian Morson has just begun on Dorian Gray for Fragile Films at Ealing Studios, with director Oliver Parker. Vince McGahon is operating on The Damned United for BBC Films, directed by Tom Hooper, and Douglas Hartington has just completed on 1066, the 2 x 90mins drama for Hardy Pictures for C4, shot on Digibeta, with Justin Hardy directing.

Mmmm… McKinney Macartney Management's… Balazs Bolygo is about to shoot Consuming Passion with for the BBC, exploring the 100 year phenomenon of Mills and Boon steamy romance novels for director Dan Zeff, which is sure to raise a few eyebrow in Tonbridge Wells. Ben Butler has been shooting commercials for Trevor Melvin, Susie Roberson and Keith Schofield. Mick Coulter BSC is busy shooting commercials, including Gillette, Kia and Buick for Gerard de Thame. Denis Crossan BSC is currently shooting a Boots commercial for Anthea Benton through Believe Media. He has recently been working with Bryan Buckley and Sean Desperango. Shane Daly is on the new series of Primeval, ITV's hit show about time travel, dinosaurs, and all the hijinx in between, for director Richard Cuzon Smith. John de Borman BSC has finished shooting in New York with director Bharat Nalluri on the ABC television show pilot Cupid. Gavin Finney BSC recently returned from shooting a commercial with Vadim Jean in Cannes. He is currently shooting a commercial with John O'Driscoll. Graham Frake will be solving mysteries with director Nick Renton on the ever-popular Miss

Who dunnit?: (L to R) Jonathan Earp (focus puller), Steve Weightman (grip), James Chesterton (camera trainee), David Marsh (DP Block 2), Gabriel Hyman (clapper loader), Steve Alcorn (operator) on ITV's Lewis. Other DPs on the show are Paul Bond and Chris O'Dell.

Marple as the famous aged detective sleuths her way to the truth behind murder. Having just returned from Vancouver where he shot the Co-Op Christmas campaign for Luke Scott, John Lynch is currently shooting a short film for directors, Blake and Dylan Ritson. He has also recently filmed commercials with Dom & Nic through Outsider and Frederik Bond through MJZ LA. Phil Méheux BSC is joining director Martin Campbell on Edge of Darkness, the US remake of Martin's own BBC series about a police officer investigating his own daughter's death. Sebastian Milaszewski is busy shooting commercials, including T-Mobile for Mikko Lehtinen and has recently been working with directors, Petri Kotwica and Jason Harrington. John Pardue is in Paris filming a commercial with director, Bryan Buckley. He was in Prague too, where he was working with Dan Nathan, and has been shooting commercials with Shane Meadows and Simon Cheek. Mark Partridge is working on further episodes of the hit BBC television drama Lark Rise to Candleford for directors Maurice Phillips and Julian Holmes. Jake Polonsky has filmed a

Climate Change project for MTV with director, Theo Delaney. He has also been working on commercials including BBC Olympics for Terry Hall through Red Bee, and Friends First for Rory Kelliher through Company. Chris Seager BSC has finished working with Bob Blagden on the documentary Marvin and Me, exploring the history of the legendary singer Marvin Gaye. Katie Swain is filming TV idents for Steve Qui through Lambie Nairn. She has also been working with directors Declan Lowney, Matt Carter and Marcello Anciano. Clive Tickner BSC recently shot a short film for director Mark Harbour, through Home Corp. Clive has also been shooting commercials for Matt le Sasso and Georgia Glynn Smith. David Tattersall BSC is putting on his wings as he and director Michael Lembeck bring Tooth Fairy to life, where a man has to become a tooth fairy in order to make up for his past mistakes. Darran Tiernan has been busy shooting commercials includng Digital UK for Lucy Blakstad, Stella for Psyop and KFC for Ben Sedley.

Men at work: (L to R) Dave Marsh, Doug Hartington and Oliver Cheeseman (is he really that tall?)

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UK

live and let DI

To Live and Let DI Deluxe DI in London was responsible for the DI on this summer's smash-hit-wonder for teenagers - Paramount's Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging, which released in the UK at the end of July, and was lensed by Dick Pope BSC. The teen rom-com, based on the novel by Louise Rennison, and directed by Gurinder Chadha, centres on a 14-year-old girl who keeps a diary about the ups and downs of being a teenager, including the things she learns about kissing.

Angus is a fantastically bright and colourful film shot on the south coast. One of the biggest challenges faced by the production team and Deluxe DI was that the film was filmed during the grey, dreary, early winter, but needed to look bright, colourful and fun.

“The fact that Dick shot on Fuji stock to capture as much colour as possible, helped us enormously in the final grade,” says Greg Barrett, Deluxe DI's director or film. “We had completed two entire HD preview grades before the final DI which helped set the looks and build the rapport between ourselves, editorial, Gurinder and Dick.”

Deluxe DI scanned the feature on its Spirit 4k at 2K resolution from the original camera negative. All film-out recording was done on Deluxe's ArriLasers housed in Dering Street, W1, at 4K resolution, giving the final DI neg a little extra lift and resolution, and bringing out the colour and vibrancy still further. All of the VFX shots for the feature were scanned on the company's NorthLight scanner, and all grading was done on a Baselight 8 system by John Claude.

Also at cinemas during the UK summer (what summer?) was Universal Studios' Hellboy II: The Golden Army, directed by Guillermo Del Toro, and produced by Lloyd Levin and Lawrence Gordon. The film shot at Korda Studios in Hungary and was lensed by Guillermo Navarro.

Marcus Alexander, the senior DI producer on the feature at Deluxe, told this magazine that the film provided the huge task of integrating over 1,300 VFX shots into the cut and across the changing picture, from early preview to final completion.

“This required a markedly closer collaboration with the cutting rooms across the span of the post schedule than many other DIs tend to require,” he said. Two preview grades, multiple

Deluxe DI: Hellboy II needed the careful integration of more than 1,300 VFX shots trailers and publicity deliveries were achieved alongside the main DI with both Del Toro and Navarro in attendance. Grading was by Adam Inglis, using Autodesk Lustre. The production's VFX scanning and recording, plus the DI scanning and recording was done at Deluxe in London. A joint filmout between Deluxe Digital London for international release, and sister company EFILM in LA for domestic was done to provide image consistency across both the UK and Hollywood.

Pablo Post… based at Pinewood, has been remastering and resizing the original 3D IMAX film Bugs!, using its Quantel Pablo. (Read all about it in our 3D special in this edition).

Deluxe DI: bright and cheerful from Dick Pope BSC

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Technicolor Creative Services… has completed the DI on the Ealing Studios/Fragile Films production of Easy Virtue, lensed by Martin Kenzie and directed by Stephan Elliott.

Based on the play by Noel Coward, the film focuses on an American divorcée who meets her new in-laws after tying the knot with a young Englishman on the spur of the moment in France. Stars include Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth. TCS has also worked on the Rainmark Films/BBC/HBO feature My Zinc Bed, shot by Brian Tufano

BSC, with Anthony Page directing, in which Jonathan Pryce plays a recovering alcoholic who becomes involved with his boss's wife, a former cocaine addict played by Uma Thurman.

Moving Picture Company… was responsible for the DI on Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, shot by Anthony Dod Mantle, starring Anil Kapoor and Irfan Khan.

German DI group…. CinePostproduction has strengthened its marketing efforts with the appointment of John B. Birchell Hughes, as senior VP of international workflow development.

Hughes is technically versed and commercially successful in digital production and distribution workflows, having worked at Boeing Digital Cinema, and most recently, at digital cinema services provider XDC where - through the acquisition of projects for major international, independent and German studios and distributors - he developed DCI-compliant workflows and was involved with the implementation of digital cinema in Europe.

CinePostproduction says it will now be better able to respond to the needs of international producers and distributors offering them a one-stop package from consultation, through

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live and let DI

film and digital post-production to the production deliverable for all traditional and digital distribution channels.

CinePostproduction, a subsidiary of CineMedia Film AG, is one of the largest post production houses in Germany with its facilities Geyer Berlin, Geyer Cologne, Atlantik Film Hamburg and Bavaria Bild and Ton Munich. The company has recently turned out DIs for Die Buddenbrooks (Bavaria Film / Warner), Summer (Sixteen Films / Mediopolis Film und Fernsehproduktion) lensed by Tony Slater-Ling and Waltz With Bashir (Ari Folman /Razor Film), which was in competition at Cannes this year.

Down-under, New Zealand in fact… Peter Jackson's Park Road Post confirmed its position as a key player in DI delivering Red Cliff, Asia's biggest-ever movie production, directed by John Woo. Red Cliff is a film of epic proportions, and is Woo's return to Chinese-language film after years in Hollywood helming projects such as Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2.

Red Cliff is based on part of the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Set in the final days of the Han Dynasty, in the year 208 AD, it covers the war that established the Three Kingdoms period, when China had three rulers. Written as a four-hour film, Red Cliff is split into two films for Asian territories, the first part released in July 2008 and the second in January 2009. A third film, a re-edited combination of the two parts made for audiences outside Asia, is planned to release in early next year.

Park Road completed the first part of the film, and will start work on the second part in a couple of months. The facility's head of laboratory Kai Cheong Yeung and head of DI Adam Scott played a key role in developing relationships with other facilities in various parts of the world that provided services for the project. Yeung said that, “coordinating with other facilities from the outset, and developing the post

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Park Road Post: Red Cliff, Asia's biggest-ever movie, was directed by John Woo

workflow with the production in China, was imperative for successful post.

“We were dealing with material from all different parts of the world - live action from files processed and scanned in Beijing, VFX from San Francisco, sound from Sydney, and, of course, we were bringing it all together here in New Zealand. Working closely with the Chinese production from the start enabled us to develop a solid workflow and to deliver the film to the highest quality.”

Park Road senior colourist Dave Hollingsworth worked closely

with DP Lu Yue to grade the film and trailers using Quantel Pablo. All film and video deliverables were competed at Park Road through the in-house laboratory and the DI department.

Park Road also used its Quantel Pablo for the DI on Second Hand Wedding a low-budget NZ independent, bittersweet dramatic comedy, directed by Paul Murphy, produced by Kerry Robins, Paul Murphy and Nigel Stanford, with Richard Bluck the DP, and David Hollingsworth the grader. The film was shot with a Thomson Viper camera. After nine weeks in cinemas the film made it into the list of the top ten NZ films of all time.

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INTERNATIONAL

CINEC

Cinec looks to the future Cinec, the biennial trade fair that is essentially Europe's equivalent to Cine Gear Expo in LA, will open its doors for the seventh time, from September 20-22, 2008 at the Munich MOC trade fair centre, with exhibitors from around the world showing brand-new innovations in the field of film technology and post production. This show's overall theme this year is the future of cinematography, writes Annette Zoeh.

More than 130 exhibitors from over 15 countries will showcase their latest achievements. ARRI will demonstrate its D-21 filmstyle digital camera, the Arriflex 416 plus HS, and a range of new long ultra 16 lenses.

ARRI will also show new follow focus systems designed to bring filmstyle accessories to its digital cinema camera, the Arricube for precise display and DCI projection measurement, an upgraded Arrilaser Highspeed II package, the ARRI True Blue location and studio fresnels.

Many more renowned equipment suppliers

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such as Vantage, Sachtler, Panther, BandPro and Aaton will be offering major product innovations and equipment improvements. Chrosziel will show its DSW 400 direct swing-away-system; P+S Technik is showing the SI-2K recording system.

Other striking highlights include: Kamtek`s must-have tool Polecam; a snorkel finder for HD video cameras from IB/E Optics; the new, ultralight Carbon camera remote head; MATTowercam presented by Betz-Tools; and Glidecam's professional camera stabilizing system, the X-22.

Expect lighting highlights from California Sunbounce with its Micro mini and flash bracket; Lightequip with the Apollo right arm Pro; and Dedo Weigert's new pole-operated tungsten lampheads DLH650PODMX. Mole Richardson is offering an upgrade of the fresnel lamphead, the 12/18/24KW daylite fresnel Type 6801 with new features. JL Fisher will introduce its Skater wheels for dollies.

This year, the show's conference and seminar programme is dedicated to camera people as well as newcomers and young film creatives eager to get established in the film business.

There will be opportunities to acquire expert knowledge about the economics of film

production, digital film shooting, data quality, file-based workflows in postproduction and data archiving. Yet again, Cine is set to prove itself an important event, where new trends in film technology are unveiled and it's a show that should not be missed.

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INTERNATIONAL close-ups Shelly Johnson ASC

The Wolf Man

“I have never really relaxed into shooting one style, but rather let the subject matter of a given story create the path to the most appropriate visual treatment,” says Shelley Johnson ASC, who was in the UK earlier this year to lens Univeral's $120million horror picture The Wolf Man, starring Benecio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving. While investigating his brother's death, Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro) is bitten by a werewolf. The ensuing story deals with one man's struggle to find the truth in himself before his life and sanity unravel.

Johnson was brought on to the production by director Joe Johnston with whom he had previously shot Jurassic Park 3 and Hidalgo. “Joe is a true filmmaker in the real sense of the word. He knows everybody's job at least as well as he knows his own. His expectations are high and his ideas are difficult to execute. It's all worth it because he is a gifted storyteller.

“To me, the wolf man lives in the extremes. When I first read the script on the plane, I reacted to how many contrapuntal elements share the same space in the story. I wanted to emulate this visually by creating opposing elements in the storytelling. That meant mixing hard and soft, light and dark, warm and cool, black and white.”

Visual inspiration came from the paintings of American realist Thomas Eakins, and Johnson says he was exhilarated by the concept designs of production designer Rick Heinrichs. “His conceptual art possessed a mood and heaviness that I wanted to execute with the photography. I had already designed a final look for the film using a process I call the 'Black Layer Luminance' technique. This consists of a heavy black that blooms and affects highlights with a pearlescent effect. The faces look almost illuminated from within.”

The film has a fluid camera style, which involved heavy use of a Technocrane, operated by grip Gary Hymns. “Gary and his crew were really proficient and made it easy for Joe to make adjustments to the camera, as the scene would dictate.”

Johnson also praised his operator Des Whelan, ACs Julian Buchnall and Lewis Hume on the ACamera crew, Pete Cavacutti on B-camera, and the sizeable second unit helmed by Frasier Taggart and Peter Talbot. The movie was shot on Johnson's “new favourite film stock, 5219”, and the camera and lighting equipment came from Panavision, “Our night work was extensive and was handled by gaffer John “Biggles” Higgins. `He's a marvellous collaborator and a very talented lighting man. He and his crew always backed-up my lighting designs with any added units that were needed. I cannot thank John enough for his fearless approach to this film. If I could, I would adopt him.”

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INTERNATIONAL

close ups

Mike Southon BSC

U Be Dead David Morrissey and Tara Fitzgerald star in U Be Dead, Darlow Smithson's TV thriller about the true story of disturbed stalker Maria Marchese, who was sentenced to nine years in prison for the intimidation of a London doctor and his family via threatening texts and phone calls.

U Be Dead was lensed by Mike Southon BSC, who was drawn to the project by the director Jamie Payne (The Baby War, Child of Mine, Suspicion), the script by Gwyneth Hughes (Miss Austen Regrets, Five Days), and the fact that it was made, and will be screened, as a one-off drama.

Southon says the recent French thriller Tell No One (Ne Le Dis à Personne), helped to inform the visual style for the production, as did the work of Nan Goldin, the American fine-art and documentary photographer whose images explore love, gender, domesticity and sexuality, and are usually shot with available light.

“U Be Dead is all about how frightening, tense and scary it can be in the daylight -

about how alone and vulnerable you can feel being stalked in Poole harbour in the middle of the afternoon,” says Southon. “We were careful that we didn't make the production into a film, and avoided making it look like a documentary too. The camera angles and moves have a considered, observational quality to them. Jamie wanted intricate tracking shots, with lots of moves in one take, which sometimes entailed the actors performing for several minutes at a time, and really having to find their marks. But they liked it. On interiors, I used a lot of practicals or light coming in through windows, and not much up in ceilings.”

The lighting and camera package were provided by ARRI, and a highlight of the shoot turned out to be the capabilities of the D-21.

“Jamie wanted to shoot 35mm, but it wasn't going to happen on the budget we had. So I suggested the D-21. When he saw the showreel, that camera has a full-on 35mm chip and can take Prime lenses he said, 'Why not?'. Also, actors can sometimes be wary of performing on front of digital cameras, that it might be second-class cinematography. But

the D-21 give them what they are used to, something to act to,” he says.

“The quality of images we got were superb.

We shot linear 4:2:2 and I did a lot of work at front end in terms of colour temperature and saturation. Using a waveform and monitor on set I could see what the finished image would look like. I really explored the shadows, and lit the close ups with a front light, but way under key. It makes you bolder, as on the spot I could know what I was going to get. I could show the director too, who liked the immediacy of it all.

Southon hired Alex Howell, “a great focuspuller, who knows the camera inside-out. The D-21 is operator-friendly too, which is a good thing as I was operating. There's not much difference between looking through a D-21 or an Arricam - it's like a film camera in the way that viewfinder swings on both sides, and I was happy not to be looking at an electonic viewfinder all day long during the course of the four-week shoot.”

As an aside, Southon also remarks, “The D21 is good in the hand and on the shoulder, especially on a cold night shoot, as it keeps your ears warm.”

Jonathan Freeman

The Edge of Love “Team Maybury”, the moniker that cinematographer Jonathan Freeman gave to the moving forces behind The Edge of Love - the story of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' war years - had a tough job. To portray the fragile balance between desire and despair.

passion. The proximity of death only heightened the desire to live life to its fullest.

John felt it would be interesting to romanticise London through expressionistic lighting, colour, set details and wardrobe.

Think Powell and Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale.”

John Maybury (director), Alan MacDonald (production designer), April Ferry (costume designer), Jonathan Freeman (cinematographer) and his 'fantastic' British crew literally split Thomas' world in two. On the one hand there was the portrait of London during the blitz; romantic and carefree (far from the brutal reality of the nightly Luftwaffe onslaught). On the other, Dylan's self-imposed exile to Wales, where his relationship with the two women in his life, wife Caitlin (Sienna Miller) and his first love Vera (Keira Knightly), slowly unravels after Vera's husband William (Cillian Murphy) goes off to war.

The second half, in Wales, needed to be more about brooding naturalism. “I called it a 'low-rent Tarkovsky' look,” says Freeman.

“Wales is stunning, it has striking terrain scarred by the glacial age. A perfect setting for the slow decay of the trio's bonds.”

“In the beginning, our characters escape into sealed pubs, nightclubs and tube-stations where makeshift stages were assembled to entertain the crowds waiting for the all-clear sirens,” explains Freeman. “It was a claustrophobic, dark world, yet full of

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Two visual styles. Two media. London, partially set at night with the occasional darkish day interior was shot with the Panavision Genesis. Wales, with Arricam LT and Kodak's 5218 stock. “It was more practicality than aesthetics,” Freeman admits. “The two worked together without compromising too much.”

One character in the story were the historic blackouts, and nighttime sequences. “We all agreed that 'cinematic' moonlight would not be unconvincing for the night exteriors of Wales,” he explains. “A night exterior field, lit by a big light source in the distance, always seems to look like what it is - a field at night,

lit by a big light source in the distance. Also, in reality, there is often more light in a night sky. Since moonlight and artificial sources were out of the question creatively, these scenes could only be 'lit' with 'ambient darkness'; ambient light that filters through a cloudy night sky.”

Murky, dark images don't win over producers or audience. So, Freeman's solution was dayfor-night. “It's always risky,” he admits.

“Traditionally, the image is under-exposed

and is 'cooled off' using a filter in front of the lens. But with DI technological advances, incamera treatments are not required. I was fortunate to have a true artist as my colourist.

Brian Krijgsman of Framestore CFC was integral to the look of the film. We tested printing down an image many stops without black detail being crushed. We also were able to shift the colour in any direction and could literally paint the screen with pools of light and shadow.”

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close ups

Geoff Boyle DP

The Dark Country 3D

There aren't many cinematographers in the UK yet with direct experience in 3D stereo, but their number grew by one recently when DP Geoff Boyle took on the job of lensing The Dark Country, a $5million noir thriller, whose extreme look is likely to get the industry watching. Boyle got involved with the production following a call from Thomas Jane, (The Mist, The Punisher, Deep Blue Sea, Boogie Nights) lead actor in The Mutant Chronicles, which Boyle had lensed 12 months earlier. Jane was both the lead and the director of The Dark Country and wanted Boyle on board.

“Thomas and I spent a lot of time in pre-production in LA, discussing the look of the film, best described as very contrasty and almost monochrome - but not quite. Amongst the noir, the skins tones and the powder-blue car remain saturated. We also looked at camera positioning in classic 50's noir films, so in the film you will find a lot of strange POVs such as the footwell of cars.”

LA's Paradise Effects, a firm based in Van Nuys specialising in high-end digital, 3D cinematography and post production, whose kit had been employed on Terminator 2 3D, coordinated all the 3D elements including a large rig fitted with RED cameras and Optimos.

They also got LA's Element Technica to build a new 3D rig, weighing just 10lbs, that fitted inside the stabilised ring of an MKV/AR steadicam rig and could hold two SI2K cameras, with a variable interocular of three inches to zero.

Not satisfied with just that, Boyle also commissioned a side-by-side rig of only 3lbs that could be clamped anywhere - with fixed 8mm lenses on SI cameras, but limited to minimum working distance of around 5ft.

“The 3D needed to be immersive, but without those '3D moments' that wham into the viewer and distract from the story” explains Boyle. “To get the level of impact we wanted, we had move the camera a lot and to move it over and through objects. “ The five-week shoot (three on location, two shooting greenscreen) took place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, utilising the 20% tax break offered there. The majority of the location footage was shot with the SIs, and studio/greenscreen with the REDs. The SIs recorded data in Cineform to MacBook Pros, with the material offloaded to portable RAIDs when the chance offered itself up. The RED cameras recorded R3W data to five-minute compact flash cards, offloaded to RAID disks.

“The poor guys are Paradise were swamped with data, but there was nothing we could do about that,” he remarks.

A post-production facility was built on set, using a combination of Iridas Speedgrade XR for playback/review, and a 56-inch Samsung 3D-enabled TV. Wearing shuttered glasses, Boyle and the team could regularly check the how the 3D was looking. On set, RED LCD viewfinders in a beamsplitter configuration, allowed Boyle to put his head “in a box” wearing polarising glasses to check the 3D. Due to budget constraints and mobility, monitoring on the SI camera shoot was even more rudimentary - MacBooks placed side-by-side and physical crossing of the eyes until the image merged into a 3D effect. Boyle confesses that this was at first bizarre, but did in fact work. All-in-all, Boyle says the experience of shooting The Dark Country was, “a huge learning curve, but I can't wait to shoot 3D again.”

The Close-Ups section was researched and written

by Ron Prince and Pauline Rodgers.

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Deeper images: Every department, from the set through to post production, needs new skill-sets and tools to deal with 3D stereo production

Your Indispensable Guide to Shooting 3D Stereoscopic Pick up any industry-oriented (and not-so-industryoriented) magazine right now and you can guarantee there will be an article on a 'new' phenomenon in movie-making, writes Pauline Rogers. Cinemas are spending a lot of money adapting their venues to 3D. There's even a company or two that will “3D” material shot in good old 2D. They call it “dimensionalising”.

Even though 3D has been around for a while (just ask 3D guru Peter Anderson ASC, who has been working in the format for close to 30 years), the move into the digital world seems to have created a new life for the format.

“Let's make the next Angelina Jolie picture in 3D.” “We really want to pull the audience into this love story. Let's shoot it 3D.” It's a cry heard in many studio meetings.

Interesting ideas? Yes. The problem: You can't just decide to “shoot it in 3D”. Making a 3D picture might not need the intelligence of a rocket scientist, but there is a major learning curve.

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(it's not a little learning curve!)

so much more to look at, so much more to become involved with. And, that can be a double-edged sword, because there could be a tendency to overdo a good thing.

“Think of it as a musical composition,” Peter Anderson explains. “Listen to Ravel's Bolero and you feel the emotion. It builds and builds and builds, reaches a crescendo, then tapers off. Translate that into 'kickass off-screen images', 'tonsil grabbers', lots of depth and space, then settle down and tell the story.”

Time to learn some new tricks Every department, from the set through to post production, needs new skill-sets and tools. Actors have to know more than hitting marks and saying lines - they have to understand what is happening 'within' the scene. Of course, a good script is always important, and with 3D writers can envision longer sequences. Directors can choreograph them with longer lenses and fewer cuts. That's because 3D gives the audience

And what does the camera department need to know? Have you got time to read a whole book? That's about what it would take to get a good literary education in 3D production. The tipof-the-iceberg. But you can learn a whole lot more in production.

Let's start with an assistant's learning curve. It's probably the most challenging and involved. Prepping a camera no longer

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shooting the future

Effects Journey to the Centre of the Earth The cinematographer has to light the set not for what looks good in front of camera, but ultimately what will look good projected on a screen. means 'matching cameras', it means 'matching cameras exactly.' One pixel off in either camera on the 3D rig is not only painful to the viewer, it has an impact on the 3D matte too. Finally get on the set and there's more to deal with than the lack of really good focus marks. Where an assistant pulls the focus and how fast or slow the pull is made can really make a difference in the final experience.

Then, there is the other assistant (or assistants) on 'convergence' and 'interocular.' Convergence being where the two images (from the right and the left cameras) spatially overlap and become one image.

Interocular is the special difference between the two camera images. Making the second work depends not only on what the director wants, but also what's, say, in the background. Busy vs. Neutral. It's a judgment call.

And, let's not talk about the amount of maths an assistant needs to learn! Or that new 'classification' the digital imaging technician whose challenge it is to intimately know each piece of camera equipment, and to paint each camera shot-by-shot, sequence by sequence, location by location, or time or day. Okay, that's sometimes a luxury - but they try!

The camera operator's learning curve could be said to be 'jarring.' Physically, at least. Operating is operating.

A 3D rig might be a little different, but the operator can still put it almost anywhere. That is, after one gets used to the first moments when the camera seems to move by itself as the 3D maths are adjusted.

Still, an operator has to pay a little more attention to a few different things. For example the easiest way for an operator to accidentally take the viewer out of the experience is to break the frame. Then there is the term 'stacking', where the relationship between what is off the screen plane and what is deep is crucial.

It is no longer about what is pleasing to the eye in the viewfinder, but what is favourable for both cameras, and ultimately the viewer. That not only means what is in the scene, but also what things, or people, are doing in that scene. An actor, or a dolly, missing a mark even slightly can throw everything off and take the audience out of the experience.

Now, let's tackle just a little bit of the cinematographer's learning curve.

How about working with depth-of-field?

Shallow depth-of-field, plus dynamic racking of focus, can isolate, define or connect specifics within a scene. A greater depth-of-field can bring the audience deeper into the sequence. The careful stacking of objects in both foreground and background is a key element in 3D. Using a Technocrane, or any other tool that moves the camera to

A science professor (Brendan Fraser) believes that the events in Jules Verne's book are real. And that his brother's disappearance is tied to those events. So, with nephew in tow, he sets off on a quest that leads him down a volcano in Iceland and to the mythical centre of the earth.

Directed by award-winning visual effects artist Eric Brevig, Journey to the Centre of the Earth unfolds in a very different visual world - a world created in 3D. “CG imagery is a little more difficult, when you are working in 3D,” Brevig says. Take real and virtual sets as an example.

“You can't cheat depth,” he explains. “You can see the cheats. You can't do things like use painted backings. Computer graphics have to be the same scale or the camera must exactly match in a model. Far away has to be far away.

“Matting foreground over background can lead to the foreground embedded in the background because of the 3D cameras. You simply can't cheat to get sloppy,” he adds.

The three main visual effects houses, Frantic Films VFX, Hybride and Meteor Studios understood that - and more. Frantic (specialists in realistic water images) for example, had one of the biggest challenges in a pivotal and frenetic four-minute sequence. Here, the film's main characters stand atop of a raft on turbulent 100 percent computer-generated seas, with some 100 fish and at least seven plesiosaurs all jumping out of the water.

“Much of the Raft scene involved the actors (shot against green screen) interacting directly with the sea creatures,” explains Frantic Films VFX supervisor Chris Harvey. “In one shot Trevor (Fraser) wrestles with a particularly monstrous sea creature.”

Frantic's challenge - making actor-to-digital character interactions look real. Doubly challenging because of the 3D. “Depth perception tells the viewer if an object is in front of or behind something, so we had to keep that in mind when creating and animating the sea characters,” Harvey explains.

Frantic's workflow was also impacted by the 3D process. After extensive research, they decided to develop a proprietary technique using custom software that assembled left and right eye images at the same time.

“Typically, 3D composites are done by working on the left eye frame, followed by the right,” explains VFX Supervisor Mike Shad. “With our process of doing the compositing and effects simultaneously on each eye as one doublewide image, we had a way to review the images in stereo at every level of completeness.”

And, that is just the tip of the iceberg for visual effects in 3D. Journey to the Centre of the Earth may be one of the first to take on those challenges, but this film will certainly not be the last. And more and more post houses will constantly be refining their tool sets to incorporate their approach to complicated and exciting images - in a stereo world.

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Move the camera through the scene don't cut it up into 30- second blips.

That's a great way t o m a ke t h e audience reach for t h e s i c k b a g.

Beam-splitters require more lighting because the 50%/50% mirror split creates one stop loss. That means a doubling of the light level to create the same depth-of-field.

Then there is the cinema screen. Perhaps you didn't think that had an impact on the cinematographer? In 3D there is an impact. Most 3D equipped cinemas use silver screens. Higher gain is needed to allow the use of polarised glasses. This higher gain means more 'contrast' to the audience. More contrast means more light. Even when it is 'supposed to be' night.

3D kit: manufacturers of production and post production equipment are falling over themselves to develop 3Dcapable technologies create a shifting plane between objects, enhances the experience.

That means move the camera through the scene - don't cut it up into 30-second blips. That's a great way to make the audience reach for the sick bag, and take them out of the experience and story.

And back to that 'focus' thing. It is here where the cinematographer and assistant can often affect the mind's eye. One of Peter Anderson's newest teaching tools is a sequence from a 3D short he recently shot for David Arquette.

In this film, The Butler is in Love, there is a great example of using depth-of-focus.

“The shot begins as an ultra close-up of water being dropped on a sugar cube in a glass of Absinthe,” he explains. “The only thing that we see sharp in the beginning of the shot is the spigot and the drop of water as it falls into the glass.

Everything else is soft. We then rack to the butler and the lady of the house, and that action takes your eye with it. We first showed foreground, then background, leading to the 'action.'”

In situations like this, it is the cinematographer-assistant 'mind-meld' that can influence the shot. That's because it is the assistant's 'hands-on-the-wheel' so to speak, that does the actual rack. Slowing down, changing the timing, based on where the object is in the scene adds the 'human' element to the shot and controls the mind's eye.

Lighting for 3D And that is a natural segue to controlling the viewer's eyes with more than just the focus. It's also about the lighting. In 3D it is about highlighting (or not highlighting) what the cinematographer wants the audience to see. Anderson loves

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to go back to a Francis Ford Coppola/Vittorio Storaro ASC project called Captain EO. Yes, it was over 20 years ago. And, Yes, it was 3D. At one point in the story the bad guys literally come out of the set and attack Michael Jackson. Aware that they were doing a 3D project, and that 3D required more light, Anderson worked with Storaro to adjust the lighting on the set. This allowed the audience to see the dancers (in black) come out of the set (also black). Okay, he cheated a little, by sewing reflective material into the wardrobes and adding lights on the cameras. But, the idea is the same - light helped focus the eye.

There are a lot more 'tools' the cinematographer must be aware of to 'light' a 3D project. There's back light, modelling, contrast, colour-contrast and separation. Lights, and where they are put, do some things - smoke can do others. In fact, smoke can be a big part of a 3D project. In the U23D project, atmospheric smoke was tripled. It was a great way to soften the light and work the atmosphere. And was great for the 3D cues.

Remember the end product!

But there is even more that a cinematographer has to be aware of. It's not just the camera, the set, the actors, the wardrobe - that's in front of the camera. It's also the end product. And, keeping that end product in mind is a different mindset in itself. Often, in 3D, the cinematographer has to light the set not for what looks good in front of the camera, but ultimately what will look good projected on a screen. And taking into account the outside elements this is something very new for the cinematographer.

The rig, for example, changes the amount of light needed.

And how about the projection system? 3-D projection systems use polarisation or notched colour filters. Even the best don't have perfect left and right eye image crosstalk cancellation. So, a cinematographer has to take into account and control overlapping dark and light on off-screen or depth scenes to minimize bleeding through crosstalk (also known as 'image ghosting').

Okay, how about the screen brightness? The standard for 2D is 14 to 16 foot-lamberts. The filters used on the 3D projection system only allow about one-third of the light from the projector to the viewfinder. And, if a single projector is used for both left and right eye - another 50% is lost.

In a recent interview for a prosumer magazine in the United States, Peter Anderson reeled off a few more variables. Just the tip of the iceberg. He called it an 'engineer's list.' Each issue that should be considered in 3D. These included effective projected resolution, system bit-rates and compression, cinema-to-cinema variations, the number of image re-processing steps to delivery on the screen, highlight clipping and saturation, perception of colour and sharpness at low-screen brightness levels, flat vs. curved screens, even frame rates (23.97, 24, 29.97, 30 etc.).

And, that's only some of what the people behind the camera must wrangle in their minds when tackling a 3D project.

There's a lot more. The visual effects department has to know what can work and can't in 3D. A small monitor won't do for an editor any more. In fact, whole systems with cinema-type screens are being designed that can be 'driven to' the shoot so that post can happen as the production shoots - so that everyone can see what's happening - and what goes right (or wrong) as the shoot progresses.

So, to clear a little of the smoke over 3D away (ritter fan not applicable), there is a lot to learn but learning is exciting. It's a medium that can't be taken lightly. But, learning curve aside it is an exciting medium and it's here to stay. Action adventures seem to be 'playing well' in 3D these days at the box office. But, who knows? We might just see a comedy or two - a romance or three - or anything else creative minds come up with and creative crews capture - as 3D takes its place in movie-making history.

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IBC 2008 Conference makes 3D history IBC 2008 is set to accelerate global interest in all aspects of stereoscopic 3D production and display, and make double aspect history with the world's first transatlantic transmission of live 3D pictures, writes George Jarrett.

Sunday, September 14. However, IBC's 3D events start earlier that day with the masterclass A production language for 3D and run through to a screening of Journey to the Centre of the Earth on the Monday evening.

The technical element of the transmission 3ality Digital will handle the acquisition and encoding, and Arqiva the satellite delivery from LA - will be one half of this momentous achievement. The other will be the hugely significant content, a live interview with no less an industry mogul than DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.

The masterclass, featuring experienced 3D producer and consultant Phil Streather (Bugs! 3D), has been designed both to give something hugely meaningful to weekend visitors, and to set the scene for four sessions under the banner New Dimensions for the Big Screen.

Speaking for IBC, director of technology and events Phil White said, “Jeffrey is currently one of the few people who understands both the business aspects of 3D and the creativity. If you look at DreamWorks' slate it is 3D movies all the way.”

The Katzenberg interview (and his International Honour of Excellence Award acceptance) happens on the evening of

Working with Ralston Humble of Pablo Post, and filmmaker Celine Tricart, Streather will look at 3D basics and linguistics, move onto the issues around shooting straight in 3D, and finish with how to sort problems out in post production.

The Monday sessions will have a strong Hollywood ring to them. First up, Disney's Howard Lukk will lead a discussion on acquisition technologies. There will be

plenty of 3D clips, and the issue of 'rig-amortis' - the lack of enough top quality rigs to hire or buy - will also be discussed.

Wendy Aylsworth of Warner Bros will steer a panel chosen to identify the post production tools required for finishing 3D movie projects. This is an important session because this year's IBC will see the launch of many new tool sets on the show floor, from companies like The Foundry, Quantel, and Autodesk.

Session three will give movie exhibitors the chance to compare the 3D presentation systems offered by the leading contenders Real D, Dolby and XpanD. The big news here is that IMAX will present its new presentation technology.

All 3D session attendees will be able to compare the first three systems mentioned, because the glasses will all be used in the various venues; the master class HQ Room L will feature 'active' XpanD glasses that work from a white screen, while the Big

History: Katzenberg will be live in 3D Screen will use the Real D and Dolby systems at various times.

The last session will look at the future of 3D away from the big screen - on TV and mobile devices, and in consumer formats, education and the games business. The front man here will be Bill Foster.

IBC's White confirmed, “3D is the industry's hot topic. If you want to find out what is happening in stereoscopic 3D, everything from acquisition to post, and from transmission to display, IBC delegates are going to get the most fantastic briefing. All the cutting edge companies and top end players will be there. The Katzenberg live 3D interview is the most ambitious thing IBC has ever done,” he added.

British 3D – Axis Films Axis Films developed its own pioneering position in the digital 3D market through its camera rental and post facilities at Shepperton Studios, and the Quantel-based 3D finishing and screening suite it retains at Concrete Post in Soho.

It joins Can Communicate and Inition in an entity know as the 3D Firm when projects require the skill sets offered by all three outfits, but otherwise it follows its own 3D path. Asked what credits the company has racked up so far, MD Paul Carter said: “We have completed a number of European corporate projects, all shot on passive rigs.

We have also tested the P+S Technik rig with 2K cameras. There are a number of ongoing projects, and these include both long form features and short form music and sports events. The number of stereo rigs will be a major factor in determining how many consecutive 3D projects can be

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managed. Axis is attempting to address this issue, and we are in discussions with rig suppliers,” he added. “For the foreseeable future multi-camera stereo shoots will only be serviced by a mixture of mirror rigs and passive rigs.”

Asked if Europeans are waiting to see how consumers react to high-profile productions like Avatar and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and whether the depressed economy is a producer deterrent, he said:

Boxing clever: the 3D Firm, comprising of Axis Films, Can Communicate and Inition shot a 3D promotional film for Reebok, starring Amir Khan. Kit used included 2 x Iconix cameras on a polecam in a passive stereo rig, 2 x Panasonic Varicam cameras with Canon HJ11 lenses on a stereo "Calcutta Rig".

On-set stereo monitoring employed a Planar 23" viewing screen.

“Yes. Europeans are waiting to see how the current slate of productions is received globally. There is also hesitancy to push production forward until the rollout of 3D digital screens provides sufficient locations to maximise a 3D release.

digital stereo production, and the three main companies are all based in the US,” he added.

“There is a lack of experience as well as resource, but not just in Europe. Worldwide there are really only a handful of serious commercial players in the new wave of

With the rig business in its infancy, Axis has a strategic Soho foothold. And IBC will also see the arrival of exciting new offline tools from the top software companies.

“The development of new tools for the post industry will definitely assist the filmmaker

in creating quality material, but as with VFX this can only be achieved if the material acquired is of a high enough standard to start with,” warned Carter.

“The development of stereo tools is a natural evolution for the digital industry and will help to aid the 'fix it in post' approach,” he added. “As always the amount of digital involvement to finesse the final product will come down to the size of the post budget.”

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Lighting Final Destination 4: 3D with Glen MacPherson ASC A teenager's premonition of a deadly racecar crash spares his life and that of a few others. Or, does it? For death stalks the survivors. Such is the story of Final Destination 4. Shooting in 3D has given an extra edge to this horror film. And an interesting challenge for cinematographer Glen MacPherson ASC. MacPherson did a lot of research for his first 3D feature. And, guess what? His learning curve matches the 'basics' of our main article! Light loss, choice of wider lenses, and adjustments for the final projection among them.

“We had some very large night exteriors and interior sets on FD4 3D,” he says. “If I were lighting these locations for 2D, I would have rated my film stock at 800-1000ASA, with a one stop push.

“On FD4 3-D we used Pace Fusion rigs with Sony F23 cameras. The light loss through the beam splitter is one stop, and we were running the cameras at -3db for the cleanest possible signal, giving me an effective ISO of 160. Obviously that means a lot more light for an acceptable exposure. We at least doubled our usual firepower for night exterior and major set pieces.”

MacPherson also considered depth, distance and space so backgrounds wouldn't fall off into blackness. “We made sure we had something in the foreground, mid-ground, background and deep background lit to take advantage of the format.”

In FD 4 3D objects appear to jump off the screen into audience space. Elements would sometimes be just inches from the beam splitter, and that meant enormous light levels to get a deep enough stop.

Bigger lights and more of them solve that problem, right? Not that simple. Putting more in the frame - more actors, more layers and more elements that add to the sense of depth means wider lenses. “So, where do we put the lights?!” he says. That was a challenge.

“Dark and flat doesn't work in 3D,” he adds. “Before beginning the project I familiarised myself with the popular projection methods. Polarised projection, 3D glasses, everything means you lose light on the screen. So, even in the dark scenes, contrast was extremely important. I'd do things like keeping the mood by silhouetting actors against a glowing window or light bulb, or by using strong backlight.

The contrast not only helps the 3D effect it also helps with the low output of the current 3D projection systems.”

Ask Glen MacPherson what he learned about shooting 3D on Final Destination 4 and he'll gloss over the technical 'curve' and go right to the heart of things. “It was fun!” he laughs.

“And I look forward to my next 3D project where I can employ more of the tricks and tips that became second nature on FD4 3-D.”

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British 3D – PLF/Pablo Post

PLF/Pablo Post: keen to see more people get up to speed in the art of stereography Bugs! first appeared in 2003, as an IMAX 3D movie with a run time of 40 minutes and tons of stunning macro shots. A new 25-minute version - a conversion to digital 3D - has been created for the California Academy of Sciences by the film's original producer Phil Streather. Dolby UK mastered the DCP for this incarnation of the multi-award winning natural history drama, directed by Mike Slee.

Elements of the re-positioning work - done in partnership with Ralston Humble of Pablo Post, based at Pinewood Studios - will be featured in the IBC masterclass (see IBC 3D story), and there will be a special preview screening of the film after the groundbreaking interview with Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Much of Bugs! was shot with parallel cameras, although this creates issues when IMAX 3D films are converted to digital 3D. First up, parallel shot images when projected park all of the left-eye image to the right of the right-eye image, and vice-versa. IMAX projectors are separated by 2.5 inches (left to the left) so infinity falls behind and not at the screen plane; and when parallel pictures are not reconverged in post you can have problems in digital 3D. “In digital 3D infinity will be at the screen plane because the L and R images are exactly overlaid from a single projector, and the image will look flat,” said Streather. “In addition, whilst objects breaking frame are not a problem in IMAX, because the edges are outside the peripheral vision, they are in Digital 3D, because the edges are well within the peripheral vision. So, you need a cropping mask, to reduce the edge conflict.

The stereo of the film had already been set by US DP and stereographer Sean Phillips, so the bulk of the conversion at Pablo Post has been re-positioning for the given screen size. Sean had taken great care to make sure the viewers' eye convergence did not swing wildly from shot to shot,” said Streather.

Now the Digital 3D version exists, the post production issues centre on screen sizes.

“The California Academy of Sciences has a 7-metre screen, so for the background we had to move the left eye over by a calculated amount,” he said. “On any screen, the ideal value of positive parallax is 2.5 inches [on screen left eye image to the left of the right eye image, giving depth behind the screen]; our eyes are then parallel, as in life, for viewing the most distant objects in any given scene. So, this ideal 2.5 inches is a different offset for each screen size. We are doing a bespoke version for CAS, but will do a generic 40-minute version, set at the average digital

screen size, according to RealD, of 40 feet. It's great to be able to breathe a new lease of life into a film that was made five years ago!”

Streather and Humble have bought a P+S Technik mirror rig, built from a design by French DP and stereographer Alain Derobe, and will be trading under PLF/Poblo Post, offering training, consulting and 3D production/post production. But what about the general 'rig-a-mortis' out there in the market - the sheer paucity of 3D rigs?

“Pace has about 15 rigs and 3ality has a good number too.

One of the only other companies out there right now with viable 3D rigs is Paradise FX,” says Streather. “But none of these rigs are based in Europe and none of them are currently for sale. Until P+S Technik came along the problem has been, if you are a producer, you are a victim of Hobson's Choice, and that can be expensive.”

“Currently there are no other mirror rigs in the UK - ours is the first. We have equipped it with a pair of Sony EX3s, which can produce full HD (suitable for HD broadcast and cinema) from the HD SDI out, into a high-end recorder very exciting for such a small and cost effective camera.

Primarily, we will produce product launches, big budget corporates, 3D features and start building an archive. P+S has made 15 rigs in its first batch, and they cost around the €18,000 mark. Ralston and I also want to form a P+S Rig user group, so if we have a requirement for more rigs they are accessible within Europe, from a known source,” he added.

Perhaps currently the most UK's experienced protagonist in 3D production, Streather is keen to see more people get up to speed in the art of stereography, and is also offering training and consultancy schemes.

“PLF/Pablo Post training programmes are versions of the IBC masterclass elements. We are based at Pablo Post, Pinewood Studios so we can plug the rig into the Pablo and Christie CP 2000 and watch the images live on a 4.5 meter screen. We are able to shoot and get immediate feedback.

We run our training and consultancy activities at a relatively high level, and aim at attracting top directors of photography, line producers, unit production managers anyone who needs to know what this “dark art” of 3D is really about.”

“One key issue is that everybody wants 3D to be easy. I don't want to be sniffy, but it has been hard to watch some of the eye-straining 3D that has been coming onto the market, using side by side rigs, with too large a distance between the lens centres, filming things too close to camera. Our rig will change that.”

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FEATURE

meet the new wave

New wave of cinematographers Taking advice from trusted industry sources, we've identified a new wave of cinematographers who… have a decent slew of films under their belts… are not upstarts, but not quite of “a certain age” either… they are not yet members of the BSC, but they do have the potential to become the next Seamus or Haris or Sue.

Jess Hall

Where did you train?

St Martins College of Art, and New York University.

What are you favourite films?

Apocalypse Now - a brilliant modern interpretation of Conrad's classic novel and outstanding cinematography by a young Vittorio Storaro.

Days Of Heaven - for any cinematographer inspired by natural light this is one of cinema's towering achievements, a film shot almost entirely during magic hour. Nestor Almedros's subtelty is perfectly matched and enhanced by Terrence Malik's poetic direction.

The Conformist - masterful lesson from Vittorio Storaro in how to use the camera, not only to tell a story, but also to convey the complex psychology behind the characters' behaviour.

Jess Hall was taking a long holiday with his family travelling in Italy and Corsica at the time of this interview, although he did admit some of it was busman's break - he went to the Locarno film festival! He was thrilled to learn that Brideshead Revisited, which he lensed last year for director Julian Jarrold, is proving a hit with US audiences grossing nearly $1.7m in its first 10 days. It releases here in October.

Filmography: Brideshead Revisited (2008), Hot Fuzz (2007), Son of Rambow (2007), Stander (2003).

When did you discover you wanted to be a cinematographer?

As soon as I understood what a cinematographer did it was added to my list of possible professions alongside marine biologist, architect and footballer. I was eight.

Raging Bull - I was studying at NYU a group of us used to go to see films after school in an old independent cinema in the West Village. I will never forget the impact that a double bill of Raging Bull and Taxi Driver had on me. If there was any doubt that I wanted be a cinematographer it ended right there!

What's the best advice you've had?

“Go to film school” - Isaac Julien.

Who are your DP/industry heroes?

Vittorio Storaro, for the depth of his conceptual thought and exquisite lighting. Roger Deakins, for his versatility, naturalistic lighting, composition and humility. Chris Doyle, for unique contemporary vision and a series of films that should inspire any modern DP. What's you proudest moment?

Watching Son Of Rambow in front of 8,000 people at Locarno film festival last week.

What's been your best/worst moment on set?

My worst moment on set was when my camera-car driver was shot in the face whilst shooting Stander in Johannesburg South Africa. My best moment was when my five year old son arrived on the set of Hot Fuzz, positioned himself in front of the bank of monitors, and started shouting directions at the camera operators.

Tell us your most hilarious faux pas?

I can't think of one. I'm probably in denial!

Away from work, what are your greatest passions?

My family. Music, playing my acoustic Martin guitar, in particular. Art is always inspiring.

What one piece of kit could you not live without?

My Leica M6 and 35mm Lens What's weirdest place you've ever shot in?

The high security prison in Pretoria, South Africa.

What's the hardest shot/thing you've had to light/frame?

I think the human face is in some ways the ultimate challenge - to represent it faithfully in all its subtelty and uniqueness, and to do this consistently throughout a film.

In the entire history of filmmaking, which film would you love to have shot?

Citizen Kane.

What are your top albums?

Robert Johnson King of the Delta Blues Singers, Bob Marley and the Wailers Exodus, Keith Jarrett Melody At Midnight With You What's the worst thing about being a DP? Films rarely change the world.

Natasha Braier We caught up with Natasha Braier as she was taking a break, visiting her parents in Barcelona. She was excited about the release of Somers Town, and her creative connection with Shane Meadows.

She remains great friends with the Dunton family, particularly Erica with whom she attended the NFTS, and Joe who she describes as a super-supportive mentor. “At film school I was always the artsy, crazy, revolutionary South American. Joe would give me help and guidance, and reassure me that I was not too weird in my ideas.”

Filmography: La Teta Asustada (2009), Somers Town (2008), Dolce Vita Africana (2008), En la ciudad de, Sylvia (2007), XXY (2007), Glue (2006), Holiday (2005), RedMeansGo (2005).

When did you discover you wanted to be a cinematographer?

I was in Argentina, 18 years old. I was finishing a degree in still photography. I discovered something called “cinematography” and I immediately wanted to go to film school and do that next.

Where did you train?

Film school in Argentina, the FUC, a great school. I shot a few shorts and did a few courses at different schools in Spain, and then studied for three amazing years at The National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield.

What are you favourite films?

Mauvais Sang - by Leos Carax, shot by Jean Ives Escoffier. It is poetry.

I love the framings and the use of long lenses.

What's the best advice you've had?

“Just follow your guts” - Chris Doyle.

What's you proudest moment?

When I see one of my films in the big screen for the first time, like Somers Town the other day at the NFT. What's the worst knock-back you ever had?

One of my favourite shorts was rejected from a small film festival. The funny things was that they attached a letter from someone on the selection committee, complaining about the awful framing and the handheld work, and asking why didn't we use a tripod. I love that film, especially the edgy framing and handheld camera work.

Double Life of Veronike and Short Film About Killing - by Kieslowski, both shot by Slawomir Idziak. They were very inspiring to me made me want to be a cinematographer. I was lucky to learn from Slawomir later at the NFTS and to operate for him in Black Hawk Down.

What's been your best/worst moment on set?

One great moment improvising with Shane in Somers Town, when the boys get drunk. We did two ten-minute takes, totally improvised, handheld. No idea what they were going to do or going to go. I loved the adrenaline so much I didn't even feel the weight of the camera on my shoulder. Worst moments are when you are ill, and you still have to work.

Happy Together - by Wang Kar Wai, shot by Chris Doyle. I've been hugely inspired by film language they created together. Happy Together is the one that touched me the most.

Away from work, what are your greatest passions?

Making music on my computer is an addiction. I also practise yoga, meditation and love climbing.

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Which films are you most proud of to date?

Somers Town, directed by Shane Meadows. Glue, directed by Alexis Dos Santos, and La Teta Asustada (The Frightened Tit) by Claudia Llosa.

What's weirdest place you've ever shot in?

I've been in many countries and many weird places, but the weirdest thing is when I'm behind the camera, I always end up squeezing against a wall, or in a corner.

Tell us your hidden talent/party trick?

I used to be a gymnast when I was a child. So sometimes at a party, my body thinks I'm still 15 years old and I start doing gymnastics.

In the entire history of filmmaking, which film would you love to have shot?

Happy Together, Une Femme Est Une Femme, Alphaville, The Mirror.

Give us three adjectives that best describe you and your approach to cinematography?

Instinctive. Passionate. Playful.

If you weren't a DP, what job would you be doing now?

Pop star.

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FEATURE

camera creative

A rocker and a gentleman Although Tony Richmond made his move to America in the 1980s, there is still a lot of Englishman in his soul. At first working through a gaffer and key grip took a little getting used to. “In England, I had a gaffer, an electric crew and one person on the dolly,” he explains. “But, once I got used to the American system, I began to think, well - fantastic! With the right partnerships, we can do so much more. I still, however, hold onto the English system, where the operator(s) have more input and often work closely with the director. I have two or three operators that I work with, constantly, and their input is crucial. As a DP, I still have the overall say and am in charge of composition - however, to me, the more pairs of creative eyes the better.”

It is said that, once you catch the music bug, it never leaves your soul. As a veteran of music documentaries for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who, Tony Richmond will heartily agree. And, it is that, perhaps long-dormant 'bug' that gave him a unique perspective in shooting the upcoming Fox Atomic feature The Rocker.

It's the 1980s and the hair band Vesuvius is living the rock 'n roll dream. After their breakout concert in Cleveland, the recording company offers them a big contract. But Vesuvius is thrown a curve. Robert “Fish” Fishman, the extremely dedicated and passionate drummer has to go. He doesn't fit the company's “image.” It's a tough decision to make, but the dream is too powerful for the rest of the band's members. (Sound familiar? After all, it is rock 'n roll history.)

Twenty years later, Fish has just about given up his rock star fantasies. That is, until he hears that his nephew's high school rock band, A.D.D., is looking for a new drummer.

This gives him a chance to reclaim the rock God throne he always thought he deserved, that is, if the kids will accept him.

Ironically, their break-out concert just happens to be opening for Vesuvius, as they are inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame. And another curve. Vesuvius is caught doing a Milli Vanilli, and they leave the stage in disgrace. And, who takes over the glory spot?

A.D.D. - of course.

“The script was exciting. The opportunity for a range of rock 'n roll visuals was great, as was working with The Full Monty director, a fellow Englishman, Peter Cattaneo on his first big American picture,” says Richmond enthusiastically. “There were major challenges, of course. There was a careful budget, a short shooting schedule and making Canada look like Cleveland.”

Sold on HD What wasn't a challenge and in fact turned out to be exciting was that Richmond got to shoot HD. He fell in love with the format when he tested it for The Comebacks, another Fox Atomic feature.

“These days, schedules being what they are, we rarely get to see print dailies,” explains Richmond. “Often, they are viewed on a compressed DVD which we watch on a hotel television or computer. That's no way to judge a day's work!

“With HD, I have a 24-inch monitor in the DIT

Memories: shooting a rock ‘n roll picture took Richmond back to the ‘good old days’ tent, and a way to see everything immediately. I had E-Film programme into the Genesis display process our LUT, which emulated 5218 Kodak stock. So, every day I was getting a colour and contrast of the film on the monitor. What else could I ask for?

“And, there is nothing bad that I can say about the Genesis camera,” he adds. “It gives us incredible images, very much like film, and can do almost anything you dream of.

“On The Comebacks, neither director Tom Brady nor I wanted to go HD. We weren't sure it was right for the picture, since there were a lot of day exteriors. But, it was what Fox Atomic wanted,” he recalls. “So, we took the Sony 900, the D-20 and the Genesis outside, on a cold and clear November day in Los Angeles. Bright sun. Moving quickly. The football co-coordinator set up 16 or 18 guys and they played their hearts out. The next morning we did a one-light colour correction and filmed out. The Genesis footage was fantastic! That's when I began to embrace this new HD format with open arms. And, now, The Rocker is my fourth HD project.”

Awesome: Richmond embraced HD with open arms

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The format really gave Richmond so many different opportunities, whether it was capturing the hilarity of Fish's 'drumstick'

attack on the band's car, after he is told he's out of the band, to the various concert elements, from small clubs to 15,000 seat venues.

Gymnastics with a Technocrane Often bands would start their careers in small clubs with dark walls and low ceilings. With barely two feet between musicians and the roof, Richmond would have his work cut out for him. “PAR cans did the trick,” he says.

“They were hooked up to dimmers and we could control them and give the sense of the period's reality.”

With the introduction of Vesuvius, Richmond faced an interesting challenge. The concept was to shoot them playing, passing from character to character, as a way of introduction, then landing on Fish. “The problem was getting the 30-foot Technocrane in the venue we were using!” he recalls.

“Against everyone's wishes, we partially dismantled the crane and the club entrance,” he recalls with a slight chuckle. “Not exactly what the club owners, or the Technocrane people, thought was going to happen.

However, after we carried the equipment into the building and put everything back together we brought-about Peter's wonderful vision - a

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FEATURE

The script w a s exc i t i n g.

The opportunity for a range of rock 'n roll visuals was great, as was working with Pe t e r C a t t a n e o on his first big American picture. very powerful way to show what the world of rock 'n roll was for this young group.

“It gave us an amazing shot! The Genesis comes out of the blackness over the audience, swings the jib in and extends the crane across the crowd to the full shot of the group. We then arm in and single out every member, with a big close up of Fish. Great shot! We sure could have used that Technocrane in the '70s, when I was shooting those history-making rock 'n roll documentaries!”

R&R lighting For the final concert, it was full-tilt rock 'n roll lighting. Richmond brought in one of the best concert riggers in the business, Jason Jennings, and watched in amazement as a rather large grip crew set up The Hershey Center (a hockey rink like The Staples Center, in Toronto), pulling huge trusses and grids into place as if they weighed nothing.

“Once that was up, it was amazing,” he says.

“It took 12 hours to programme the lights to the music. All I had to do is supplement the look just a little for our band and we were good to go.” Or, rather, Richmond and six Genesis cameras, in various configurations, were ready to go.

camera creative

“This is where the DIT tent, the 24-inch monitor, the 13-inch monitors and the switch box, as well as our open mike Telex system came in handy,” he says. “Peter and I had headsets, so did all the operators. So, we could talk, finesse the shots, and really get into shooting rock 'n roll!

“My days with The Beatles and other bands really came back to me, as if it was yesterday. Although, now I had a very modern set of tools. And of course Peter, who certainly felt that rock 'n roll bug, had enough enthusiasm for everyone.

“It was fabulous, working with a director of this calibre,” he adds. “His energy and love of the story infected everyone. It was an intense shooting schedule, and having that feeling spread through the cast and crew really helped us make it through some difficult times. Peter and I have become great friends, and I hope to work with him again, soon. I will always remember how he brought the best out of me, out of all of us. And, how he made us all feel good and believe in ourselves. Which, in reality, translated to all of us giving our best for him.”

Once the picture was finished, Richmond returned to his “home” - not just Los Angeles, but E-Film, where he finished The Rocker in the DI process with favorite colourist Natasha Linette. “I shudder when I hear people say 'we'll make it right in post',” he says. “That's bullshit. What DI is for is to have the tools to perfect something. To give things an extra edge.”

While doing the DI, Richmond confesses to having a great time. It almost felt like he didn't want to let this picture go. Shooting a rock 'n roll picture not only took him back to the 'good old days', it gave him a chance to play again himself. The language, the 'bug' was obviously still in his soul.

“And, I hope we can give the audience a little bit of the same experience, when they come to see this picture about a rock 'n roll god, who got to live his dream, albeit 20 years later than he expected.”

Tony Richmond ASC BSC Filmography Autopsy (2008) Playboys (2008) The Rocker (2008) The Comebacks (2007) Good Luck Chuck (2007) Employee of the Month (2006) John Tucker Must Die (2006) Just Friends (2005) A Cinderella Story (2004) Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004) Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003) Shade (2003) The Sweetest Thing (2002) Legally Blonde (2001) Someone Like You... (2001) Men of Honor (2000) Cherry Falls (2000) _ Agnes Browne (1999) Ravenous (1999) A Walk on the Moon (1999) Playing God (1997) The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (1996) First Kid (1996) Bastard Out of Carolina (1996) Tales from the Hood (1995) The Immortals (1995) The Sandlot (1993) Candyman (1992)

Timebomb (1991) The Indian Runner (1991) Scissors (1991) Cat Chaser (1989) Sunset (1988) The In Crowd (1988) That's Life! (1986) Slapstick (Of Another Kind) (1982) Improper Channels (1981) Nightkill (1980) Head On (1980) Bad Timing (1980) The American Success Company (1980) The Kids Are Alright (1979) Love and Bullets (1979) The Greek Tycoon (1978) Silver Bears (1978) The Eagle Has Landed (1976) The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) Change (1975) Stardust (1974) Vampira (1974) Don't Look Now (1973) Madame Sin (1972) Glastonbury Fayre (1972) The Insomniac (1971) Let It Be (1970) Sympathy for the Devil (1968) Only When I Larf (1968) A Cathedral in Our Time (1967)

“One of the challenges on this picture was that it got green-lit quickly. I had three weeks of prep. The director only four. The relationship between production, costume, cinematography and such was minimal.

Locations were chosen. Colour chips were chosen and the walls painted.

“This is where the DI can help a great deal. It can take the edge off something, make the colour on something else better, and so forth…”

Fast and furious: Richmond only had three weeks of prep

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INTERNATIONAL

3D-tastic: there are already at least ten 3D films scheduled to open in the US in 2009

f-stop hollywood

Photo Credits: Sebastian Raymond/New Line Cinema

Hollywood goes wild for 3D So too did labour. Actors have been working without a contract since June 30. At press time talks between SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers had stalled. Anxiety can be felt around the town, although some big titles have started production. For example, Roland Emmerich's 2012 has started production in Vancouver.

British Columbia.

In other labour news, Tom Short, president of The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, Moving Picture Technicians, Artists and Allied Crafts of the United States, its territories and Canada, announced his retirement. A member of the IA for over 40 years, and an elected official for the past 21 years, Short became president in 1994.

Following Short's announced retirement, the IATSE General Executive Board unanimously

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elected Matthew D. Loeb as international president.

3D dialogue The recent opening of Journey to the Center of the Earth, the first live action narrative film to open in digital stereoscopic 3-D, gave another boost to Hollywood's ongoing 3D dialogue. During its opening week in North America, Journey made roughly four times as much revenue per screen in 3D than in 2D. While early digital 3-D releases were computer-animated fare such as Disney's Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons, now there are increasing numbers of live action 3D titles going into production. Meanwhile, the CG 3D titles continue to open. The computer-animated Fly Me to the Moon, opened in the US on August 15th.

More digital 3-D titles will debut here in late 2008. Amongst them, Disney will rerelease Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before

Christmas, and open Disney Feature Animation's Bolt. The live action independent Dark Country is slated to bow in digital 3D; so too is stop-motion Coraline, helmed by Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick.

There are already at least ten 3D films scheduled to open in the US in 2009, including a growing number that include live action, such as horror remake My Bloody Valentine 3D, Jim Cameron's anticipated Avatar, and Disney's G-Force and A Christmas

Photo Credits: Sebastian Raymond/New Line Cinema

Emmy nominations, early Oscar season buzz, IATSE, and digital 3-D all made Hollywood news this month, writes Carolyn Giardina.

Report: formal standards for 3D are at least 18 months away

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Photo Credits: Sebastian Raymond/New Line Cinema

f-stop hollywood

Money-spinner: Journey 3D made four times as much revenue per screen than in 2D Carol. Scheduled digital 3D computer-animated titles include DreamWorks Animation's Monsters Vs. Aliens and Disney's planned rerelease of Pixar Animation Studios' classic Toy Story in 3D. There's additional 3D production activity taking place in Los Angeles. On the heals of its wildlysuccessful Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour in 3D, which opened number one in the North American box office last February with $31.5 million on just 683 3D ready digital cinema screens, Disney is making a similar 3D concert film of Jonas Brothers, the band that appears in the Hannah Montana film and more notably several Disney Channel programmes. The Brothers are currently headlining their Burning Up concert tour. Like the Hannah Montana title, this film will be lensed in 3D and include footage from their concerts as well as behind the scenes. A release date has not yet been announced for the Jonas Brothers movie. The Hannah Montana film was posted in a rapid 11-week schedule and opened the day after the live concert tour wrapped.

(Disney's Beauty and the Beast was nominated for best picture in 1991.) Oscar watchers also have Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight on their radar. This would become the first of its genre to earn a nod in the top category. But races including best picture remain largely unclear at this early stage. Many hopefuls will be released later in the year, and who knows what unexpected surprises are ahead?

Hopefuls include, but are not limited to, Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road, Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, Baz Luhrmann's Australia, Gus Van Sant's Milk, Ed Zwick's Defiance, Clint Eastwood's Changeling, and David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, among others.

Developments in 3D production workflow continue. Among the latest: Technicolor's Los Angeles-based on-set production service unit, Creative Bridge, has started to offer locationbased 3D dailies services. Activity is also increasing in the direction of 3D home entertainment.

The Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour aired in 3D on Disney Channel and Starz in the US. It is also available here through Starz on Demand and Starz HD on Demand.

Meanwhile, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers recently revealed plans to develop 3D mastering standards for content that will be viewed in the home.

SMPTE is forming an industry task force to identify the parameters of a mastering standard for 3D content distributed via broadcast, cable, satellite, packaged media and the Internet, and played-out on televisions, computer screens and other displays. Its goal is to produce a report within six months that defines the issues and challenges, minimum standards, and evaluation criteria. SMPTE will then form a standards committee that will use the report as a guide. It is believed that formal standards are at least 18 months away.

The 3D Home Display Formats Task Force held its first meeting on August 19th in Los Angeles.

Stakeholders including content creators, broadcasters, technology developers were invited to participate in the task force. Organisations including the US-based Consumer Electronics Association were also expected to participate.

California Dreamin' of Emmy and Oscar The 2008 Primetime Emmy nominations have been announced. Television cinematography categories include half-hour series, one-hour series, miniseries or movie, nonfiction programming and reality series. Among the nominees: John Toll, ASC (Breaking Bad); Michael Goi, ASC (My Name is Earl); and Peter Levy ACS, ASC (Californication). The full list of nominees can be found on the web. Winners will be revealed at a September ceremony in Los Angeles.

In Hollywood it's never too early to start speculating about Oscar season, and this summer was no exception. Two releases in particular drummed up some early Academy Awards discussions.

Disney/Pixar's Wall-E is already a favorite for animated feature, and some are wondering if it holds the potential to become the second animated feature to earn a best picture nomination.

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INTERNATIONAL

f-stop down under

ACS celebrates 50 years British cinematographer Roger Deakins ASC BSC (The Shawshank Redemption, Kundun, No Country for Old Men) was announced as the Australian Cinematographers Society's 2008 winner of the International Award for Cinematography for his work on the Hollywood feature The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, writes Rachael Turk.

The award was presented on May 31 in front of 550 of Australia's cinematography elite, at the ACS's 50th Anniversary and 2008 National Awards night in Sydney. The conference included masterclasses with Mad Max, Dances with Wolves and Apocalypto cinematographer Dean Semler, as well The Lord of The Rings maestro Andrew Lesnie, and Babe and Happy Feet producer George Miller. It was accepted

by Nigel Walters BSC, vice president of the BSC and president of IMAGO, who was in Sydney for the ACS 50 conference.

Deakins has seven Oscar nominations for cinematography to his credit, as well as awards from the American (ASC) and British (BSC) societies of cinematography. Shawshank earned the British cinematographer the ASC's Outstanding Achievement Award in 1994.

UK bright sparks advise on Aussie scripts English scriptwriter Paul Fraser (A Room for Romeo Brass, TwentyFourSeven) and producer Dominic Minghella (Robin Hood) were two of the international advisors who were selected to frontline SP*RK - Australia's development hothouse for feature film scripts - this June.

Other advisors included top Hollywood scriptwriter Robin Swicord (Memoirs of a Geisha, Little Women), award-winning writer and script editor Keith Thompson (Clubland, Lockie Leonard), acclaimed Australian film editor Nicholas Beauman (My Brilliant Career, Little Women) and former CEO of the Irish Film Board, Mark Woods (Wind That Shakes the Barley, Six Shooter).

The advisors worked with the selected scriptwriters during a seven-day residential script workshop in Byron Bay, providing detailed feedback through informal one-on-one sessions, joined by the directors and producers on the final days.

Don't drop it! Nigel Walters BSC collects ACS award on behalf of British cinematographer Roger Deakins ACS BSC. Photo courtesy of the ACS.

Guarded secrets: Animal Logic road tests Red Australian digital production studio Animal Logic has been using the Beta Red One digital camera to shoot reference material for its next major project, the Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) directed animated adventure feature Guardians of Ga'Hoole.

The film's CG Supervisor, Animal Logic's Ben Gunsberger, joined production designer Simon Whiteley and DP Tom Gleeson on a guerilla-style shoot in the wilderness of Tasmania, with the Red One tied to a helicopter with a bungee cord mount.

Gunsberger told British Cinematographer that the Red One's high-resolution, high frame rate and linear capture made it the logical choice given that they would be working in a digital environment later.

“The resolution is obviously good for us, especially if we end up using it for matte paintings. Being able to shoot 24 frames or slower is a big bonus if we are shooting reference movement of owls or other animals. And if we start with something that's already in a linear domain we can really look closely at the relationships between how the light reacts with different parts of the environment,” he says.

The film's look will be based on reference textures, lighting and geological formations found in Australia, primarily on Tasmania's wild South West coast. And, just as The Lord of the Rings was at once New Zealand and a fantasyland, Gunsberger says the setting of Guardians of Ga'Hoole “will end up being quite stylised but still have a sense of that [Tasmanian] location.”

The area was in fact so remote that the team utilised Google Earth technology in planning for the shoot.

“There isn't much mapping available for that area but we were able to extract and download the flight plans that Simon did in Google Earth into a hand-held GPS unit,” Gunsberger explains. “We then synchronised the clock on the GPS unit with the clocks on the Red camera and on the stills camera, so for all the photographs and footage taken we know the exact location.”

The AU$100m (£49m) Guardians of Ga'Hoole is being produced by Animal Logic's Zareh Nalbandian for Village Roadshow Pictures, following the companies' collaboration on Happy Feet, which won the 2006 Academy Award for best animated feature film, as well as Animal Logic's collaboration with Snyder on 300. The film will be co-financed and distributed by Village Roadshow and Warner Bros. Pictures.

Based on the popular children's book series by Kathryn Lasky, Guardians of Ga'Hoole is set for release in 2010.

NZ offsets Australian incentives Chopper: Tom Gleeson ACS, DP on Guardians of Ga'Hoole, mans the helicopter-mounted Red One. Photos by Ben Gunsberger.

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In a move deemed a direct response to Australia's Producer

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INTERNATIONAL

Into the wild: the production designer's reference shoot of Guardians of Ga'Hoole Offset Scheme announced last May, a new government incentive scheme for New Zealand film and television production has been established as of July 1, 2008, including increased funding for medium-scale films with approved New Zealand content, as announced in the country's 2008 Federal Budget.

“The Commission views it as a positive response to the Australian Producer Offset Scheme which had potentially put at risk some filmmaking capability in New Zealand,” says New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) chairman David Cullwick.

The New Zealand Screen Production Incentive Fund (SPIF) will provide a government grant of 40% of qualifying New Zealand production expenditure (QNZPE) for eligible New Zealand feature films, and 20% of qualifying New Zealand production

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f-stop down under

Acclaim: thumbs up for Weta's Jane and the Dragon series

expenditure for eligible television and other screen production expenditure. For feature films, the minimum QNZPE threshold is NZ$5m (£1.9m).

Racing Car, Bob the Builder) announced the formation of a unique partnership to develop a range of children's television properties.

The new SPIF has been allocated a total of NZ$53.8m in film funding, intended to be structured in such a way as to accommodate fluctuations in demand over several years.

Operational from July 1 this year, it will only be available to screen productions qualifying under section 18 of the New Zealand Film Commission Act 1978 as having significant New Zealand content.

The first venture is an animated comedy targeted at boys aged between six and nine. The development project will be jointly led by Martin Baynton and Richard Taylor of Weta and Chapman Entertainment's Creative Director Keith Chapman.

They are working on a selection of 2D and CGI animated properties, which will be presented to broadcasters and the licensing community, with pre-production expected to commence this year.

Weta-Chapman partnership in motion New Zealand based VFX house Weta Productions (Lord of the Rings trilogy, King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia) and Britain's Chapman Entertainment (Fifi and the Flowertots, Roary the

Weta recently ventured into children's television, through Weta Productions, with the production of the animated series Jane and the Dragon, which received critical acclaim.

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UK

post and techno news

PFL/Pablo buy UK first P+S mirror rig 3D film producer and consultant Phil Streather of PLF and Ralston Humble, owner of Pablo Post at Pinewood Studios, have combined forces under the banner PLF/Pablo Post, to exploit the growing interest in all things 3D. Along with conducting a 3D masterclass at IBC this year, Streather and Humble have bought the UK's first P+S Technik mirror rig, built from a design by French DP and stereographer Alain Derobe.

PLF/Pablo Post is now offering training, consulting and 3D production/post production out of Pinewood.

PFL/Pablo: converging on product launches, big budget corporates and features

FilmLight shows Truelight On-Set FilmLight will showcase its latest Truelight colour management product, Truelight On-Set, at IBC 2008. Truelight has a heritage of accurate colour management and print emulation within post-production over many years and on many productions. It was designed to give directors and DPs the confidence to sign-off digital reviews without requiring a screening of a print. That level of assurance is now available to cinematographers in the on-set environment, together with a clear and accurate communication channel for the 'look' back into post.

Truelight On-Set works with traditional film dailies and new digital acquisition workflows. At IBC 2008 FilmLight will demonstrate this technology with the Sony F23 camera and the Codex Portable data recorder in a digital workflow.

The Truelight On-Set system provides for a calibrated reference display, an emulation of the intended delivery medium and colourspace, and compensation for the acquisition device and its encoding. This means that what the DP sees on-set is an accurate representation of how the images will look in the final release.

The system also allows images to be modified or corrected by applying lift, gain or gamma changes as detailed in the ASC Color Decision List (CDL). The CDL can be transferred to postproduction for the colourist to review and apply to the original footage as a guide.

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“Currently there are no other mirror rigs in the UK - ours is the first,” said Streather. “We have equipped it with a pair of Sony EX3s, which can produce full HD (suitable for HD broadcast and cinema) from the 10-bit HD SDI out, into a high end recorder - very exciting for such a small and cost effective camera. Primarily, we will produce product launches, big budget corporates, 3D features and start building an archive.”

P+S has made 15 rigs in its first batch, which cost around 18,000. Streather and Humble aim to form a P+S Rig user group, “so if we have a requirement for more rigs

they are accessible within Europe, from a known source,” added Streather, Perhaps currently the most UK's experienced protagonist in 3D production, Streather is keen to see more people get up to speed in the art of stereography, and is also offering training and consultancy schemes.

“I don't want to be sniffy, but it has been hard to watch some of the eye-straining 3D that has been coming onto the market, using side by side rigs, with too large a distance between the lens centres, filming things too close to camera. Our rig will change that.”

PLF/Pablo Post's rig is not yet motorised, but at IBC P+S will demonstrate how it can be.

The new rig supports a range of common HD cameras from HDV to 4K, including the Arri D-20/D-21, 235, Canon XL-H1, Panasonic AJHPX3000, Panavision Genesis, RED One, Scarlet and Epic, Sony HDW-750/790, HDCF950/1500L, F23, F35, HDW-F900/F900R, and the SI-2K Mini Camera Head. At IBC, P+S Technik will present the SI-2K digital cinema camera, a complete digital recording system with interchangeable hard drives offering up to 4 hours of data storage, suitable for 3D stereoscopic production.

Egripment gets its dollies out Egripment has established a reputation as a manufacturer of a wide range of grip equioment and will be showing its Spyder and Skateboard dollies at IBC. The simple 3-Leg Spyder Dolly converts a tripod into a portable tracking dolly.

The design uses lightweight aluminium parts to keep the weight of the dolly to a minimum.

The lesg can be folded together into a small package for traveling. It is also equipped with tripod locks that accept any type of tripod, a euro coupling to mount a bazooka set or risers and a carrying pin. The Skateboard dolly is Egripment's platform track dolly for multi-purpose use. A key feature is the dolly's strong platform and anti slip surface. It is equipped with Egripment's high quality boogie wheels and can be upgraded with a push and pull bar. A euro coupling can be mounted on several locations on the board. Both dollies run on straight as well as curved track.

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UK

post and techno news

New Fujinon lenses

New products expand Matthews' international market Matthews Studio Grip has now shipped its Roundy-Round Doorway Dolly, Blue/Green Screen, Quick Corners and other grip and electric products to new international markets and customers, including Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Africa, Dubai, Russia and more.

“Out hottest product at NAB 2008 was the Roundy-Round Doorway Dolly-Bazooka-Operator seat combination. We can't manufacture them fast enough,” said Robert Kulesh, Matthews' VP of sales and marketing. “The ability to make tight six-foot/two-metre circles with greater flexibility has captured the attention of companies throughout the world. Our RED Dolly is a small, highly-manoeuvrable and versatile platform for both video and motion picture camera people as well as a new, creative tool for Steadicam operator. We are looking forward to showing these at both IBC and Cinec 2008.”

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Fujinon's new HA23x7.6BE HDTV lens, a Premier Series lens offering advanced optical technology, is being introduced to the European market at the IBC 2008. Fujinon will be located in booth #11C20.

demanding, high-end applications: including HDTV broadcast news, sports, special events, commercial, and network television production. Fujinon's new HD Select Series of cost-effective ENG lenses will also be exhibited at IBC.

As the newest member of Fujinon's HA Series of Premier lenses, the HA23x7.6BE is a lens that includes updates to its predecessor, the HA22x7.8BERM. The new HA23x7.6BE is designed to support a wide range of

The new family of lenses for 2/3-inch HD video cameras consists of three ZA Series HD ENG lenses: including the ZA22x7.6BE HD telephoto ENG lens, ZA17x7.6BE HD standard ENG lens, and ZA12x4.5BE HD wide-angle ENG lens.

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GBCT - The chairman speaks

Managed Migration

Chins up, chests out

Right now, when a film producer wants to bring in a crew member from outside the UK or European Union, they usually have to get a work permit permission from the Government for a named individual to work for a named employer in a defined job for a defined period of time. Traditionally, this situation arises when producers want to bring in someone from (say) the USA on the basis that they have some unique creative talent. More recently they have also used the “continuity” argument - e.g.

Person A (say, a DP) is working on a film, and they want to work with their favourite Person B (say, an Operator) - not because there are no world-class Operators in the UK, but because they want the comfort zone of familiarity or “continuity”.

Surely the glass is half full isn't it? Well normally I would say yes it is, but quite clearly it isn't; and as much as I'd like to wax lyrical about how buoyant the film industry is at the moment, and how the majority of us are all gainfully employed, it just isn't the case. It would be wrong to deny that a lot of people are really struggling to make ends meet right now.

For many years, the Work Permits office has consulted BECTU on work permit applications. They are not obliged to consult, or to follow BECTU's advice, but the inner workings of the film industry can be pretty obscure, so they find it helpful. On the whole the arrangement has worked well. But it's all about to change.

Sadly three big pictures in pre-production foundered at the end of July. They were the victims of either the actors strike in America, or business conditions worldwide, I guess. My sincere condolences go out to those of you who had either already invested time and energy in these projects, or who had been relying on that income to pay the bills and the mortgage.

It has become extremely difficult to be able to rely on this business to support one and one's family throughout the year, and my worry, wearing the chairman's hat, is that our enormously valuable skills base (in terms of its direct value to the film and television industries, and the knock-on benefit to the national income in general) is at great risk of being seriously eroded as people have little or no alternative but to seek employment in other industries.

Years of hard-learned experience and skills, which we often take too much for granted, can so easily be chucked away and wasted, leaving the business very vulnerable to inexperience, poor practice and consequently an inferior end product.

Very soon, work permits will be replaced by a new system called “managed migration”. This is part of a broader Government policy of making the UK into a high-skill economy by actively encouraging highly-skilled workers to come here. It means that approved employers will no longer need case-by-case permission to bring people in.

This may be fine for IT consultants or City institutions.

However, for the film industry, which is certainly highlyskilled, but which relies overwhelmingly on insecure freelance contracts, this approach could spell catastrophe.

This is why industry organisations - BECTU, Equity, employers and the UK Film Council - have spent the last three years negotiating with the Government to achieve a special code of practice for the film industry. This code of practice will give us valuable rights to receive information and track trends - but only retrospectively. We will not necessarily know that an employer is bringing in an operator, or a focus puller, until they're already here.

The code of practice is therefore a real achievement - but in itself, is not enough. If we are going to protect the worldclass skills and talent that we have in this country, we need a bush telegraph system, a monitoring system, across the industry, to identify cases of abuse where people are coming in unnecessarily and displacing UK technicians. We need to mobilise all our networks, union and guilds working together, because we're all on the same side here.

We therefore suggest that if you know of a production that is either employing or considering employing somebody from abroad - who you consider is, or will be, doing a job that could and should be done by a British technician or supervisor - that you urgently contact the GBCT office with as much detailed information as possible. This information will be forwarded via BECTU who have graciously offered their support and resources in this matter, to the relevant government office.

In Remembrance Pat Newman

These are the very conditions that both the GBCT and the BSC were founded to positively counter. We are all about expertise, excellence and professionalism in our chosen crafts, and we are bound to strive to uphold these principles in order that the standards which are recognised throughout the world as being of the highest order, are well maintained by us all.

If you need an example of a potential problem that we are all facing, you must read the article about Managed Migration.

The fallout from that has the potential to be very damaging to our livelihoods if we allow it to gather momentum, unchecked.

Meanwhile back in the Guild office things are slowly but surely taking shape and a number of interesting events and courses are being planned. Do please contact the office for any assistance you may need. Pop in and say 'hello'. You might even bump into someone and get a job! I did, and spent the rest of the day putting the new crew directories into envelopes!

As Alec Guinness once said to me, “May the force be with you”. Or was he talking to the other bloke?

Jamie Harcourt GBCT Chairman GBCT

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l to r: Pat Newman, Denis Fraser, Lionel Baines BSC and Jack Lowin It's hasn't been a good couple of years, with a good few of our friends passing on. I was really sad to hear that Pat Newman, affectionately know as “Huckell”, had passed away. Pat was a real gentleman, and a really fantastic grip, loved by everyone who knew him and worked with him.

60s. I was lucky to have started my gripping career with Pat on films such as One Step Beyond, Chalk Garden and A Shot in The Dark. He was so helpful, and I couldn't have asked for a better teacher. His talent helped me in my career, and I shall be forever grateful to him. Pat retired gracefully and enjoyed a quiet retirement with his wife Dolly.

He was one of six resident grips at MGM in the 1950s and

Dennis Fraser MBE

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Ideal World Once upon a time there was 35mm film acquisition and post production, and there was TV work based on video tape formats. Each did their own thing and had a way of working that was similar, yet different in many ways. Then came along the 'young upstart' in the form of George Lucas who produced and directed a notable movie or two with the digital HDCAM tape format, and has continued to work digitally ever since. This concept of shooting digitally was always eventually going to happen, and has been discussed for decades before this. All it really needed was a big player in the business adopting the electronic medium as the greatest thing since sliced bread, and running with it.

The writing was on the wall for this to happen probably 30 years or more, yet was a long time coming to reality, mainly due to the technology not catching up with the vision. This perhaps was the catalyst for digital acquisition being acceptable, although many films had heavy digital before this, including the revolutionary film Tron, made back in 1982.

The idea of shooting on a digital camera format works quite nicely as long as the camera is able to 'talk' properly to the storage medium, and then this data then talks to the edit suite and then ultimately to the final storage as a form of data.

Unfortunately in the electronic acquisition area what we now have is different recording formats, some based on various flavours of magnetic tape, some as a hard disc recording, and some now as RAW recording onto flash memory. All have their own file formats and codecs that won't necessarily converse with others, however, and this is a potential minefield for the future.

35mm film can be bought from either Kodak or Fuji, and it will still work in any 35mm film camera from many decades ago, and would be able to create stunning depth and beautiful images in the hands of skilled craftsmen. That has been the same for decades, and still is the same universal format to this day. A film shot in the UK can be projected in India, Australia, Hong Kong or Russia, and indeed anywhere in the world. If stored correctly a film negative can be accessed many years later, and with new techniques it can be transferred into a new format so that new generations of people can watch it. Yes, of course there are different standards of aspect ratio and how many perfs the cameras and projectors pull down etc, and that affects some post production routes taken, but ultimately the film is essentially the same whatever camera you choose use it on.

Movies vs. stills If we were to compare the stills camera market to our film business, there are two main manufacturers of stills camera that professionals will use, Nikon and Canon. They can take a flash card and this can be used in either camera with ease, a photograph taken and downloaded. Yes, there are RAW formats that are unique to certain brands of camera, and there are other manufacturers such as Olympus, Pentax etc with their unique RAW format, yet all manufacturers will produce images in their own RAW format that will then be able to be read and manipulated via a common third party programme, namely Adobe Photoshop. They are also able to produce images in a compressed JPEG format that can be read on just about any computer anywhere. If only the digital film world was the same.

What is different now in the moving picture world is the plethora of digital formats that are unique to a particular camera system, and all are fighting for dominance. For

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example, HDCAM, Dalsa RAW, DVC Pro HD, Panasonic P2, XDCAM HD, HDCAM SR, JPEG2000, and at the lower down the market, there are plenty others such as XDCAM, DVCAM, HDV and the recent Sony XDCAM EX SxS flash format, along with other formats too numerous to mention here. Add to that the REDCODE Raw format, and other RAW formats that can be recorded onto compact flash cards and you get the picture.

Things have got somewhat out of hand. What this creates is a potential stagnation in the market where many camera hire companies are wondering where to invest, and trying to make a decision on where the market will go next. In that time they are deciding what to do, the market has come up with yet another camera and format that they have to consider buying to stay ahead.

safe to say that we would not be able to access the files nowadays. They would be lost forever. We must take care that the films we shoot today are not lost in the endless quest for newer technology.

There was a famous incident regarding the European Space Agency, who collected data over many years from satellites and probes. There was so much data collected that in the time it took the scientists to look at it, the computers had been upgraded and systems changed, which meant they were not up to the job and the data was not able to be accessed any longer. We must avoid this happening.

Storage

We only need to look back in recent months at the Blu Ray and HD DVD battle to see what happens. In 2007 only 2% of the DVD market was either Blu Ray or HD DVD; the consumer didn't invest in either format in any great numbers because they felt they may be stuck with an obsolescent format. Until one format became the only one supported the floodgates were opened to the sales of players and discs. Whilst they are still lower sales than regular DVD's there are now about 9% of the market consisting of discs bought that are Blu Ray discs.

The market has been damaged, as sales of Blu Ray players still needs to catch up, and that may take some considerable time before the discs outsell conventional DVD. I am sure that most of us recall when the DVD was launched, not that long after CD's, we were told this is the format of the future. A few years later we are expected to ditch out DVD players as they are 'old technology' and buy a new Blu Ray player. Yes, technology marches on, and we must always crave better and better, yet there comes a point in the domestic market where the consumer doesn't want to pay for this any more until the market price comes down.

It is, of course fabulous that camera technology is advancing at such a vast rate to create better and better cameras for us to produce better quality images, yet what we have in store is a future where most images are stored on digital file formats. If we don't archive them correctly and have a common readily accessible policy for formats, we have the potential for future generations to lose out on being able to see them. Think back only to 1981, and the operating system MS-DOS was introduced. If we were to use this system, it is

What we need is a standard that is as future proof as possible, and open source that can be accessed by everyone, and a useful starting point may be a target format such as 100 Mbps and 10-bit JPEG2000. It would need to be free of resolution and data-rate constrictions, and be an open source to everyone, so that in ten years time we can readily access it and upgrade to an even better format that will stand the test of time‌until the next upgrade.

As a comparison, in the stills world a photographer is not sent on an assignment because they shoot on Nikon or Canon or Olympus or Hasselblad, it is due to their skill, vision and experience, and they choose their camera and lighting accordingly to the task and individual preference. They don't choose cameras based on what codec it uses, or what file format it uses, and normally they decide the best tool for the job in hand will be. It is possibly true to say that if a photographer has invested in say a digital Hasselblad, for example they will shoot on that even if it strictly isn't the correct tool for the job, and that is where the potential problem lies. As DPs are sometimes told which camera/post production route they will follow, that has been decided by an accountant somewhere, because it will apparently save them lots of money - it's is a slippery slope to embark upon, and could further erode the vision the DP may have for the movie.

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Hybrid stills and moving image cameras.

Why? It has been suggested that the future of stills and moving image cameras is possibly going to merge to make more of a hybrid camera that can shoot both stills and video. With some moving image cameras now able to shoot 12Mp sized frame images, the same size as a top-end digital SLR, the argument now goes why not use them as a stills camera and movie camera at the same time and have a duality of use? A photographer could 'hose' a scene with a video camera, and then pick a frame from the resulting footage at will later. Yes they could, of course. Or could they? This could have an impact on the way some cameras may be manufactured, of course, and I will take a look at the possibilities and likelihood (or not) of this happening soon.

We must first look at how the various cameras are used, and this is the biggest difference to start with.

1. To look at a stills camera compared to a moving image camera, the first factor that strikes is the multitude of shutter speeds readily available. Many cameras have a shutter speed of perhaps as fast as 1/4000 sec, and higher. This is possibly the biggest drawback of moving image cameras, in normal use at 24 or 25fps they are generally limited by a 1/50 sec shutter. Yes, the shutter angle can be altered to other shutter speeds, but the mechanism that makes a film camera work means that is somewhat of a limiting factor. It is also true for any electronic camera.

A movie camera image only works due to the way the human eye works, and the persistence of vision, and at cinema frame rates each individual frame would be somewhat blurred with motion blur as the subject moves through the frame. This movement is totally acceptable in movies as we are seeing a progression of images that blur into one, and in fact the motion blur can assist the transition from one frame to the next. However, on a still mage this would be totally unacceptable to the viewer.

2. Secondly, the way the various cameras are used is a large factor in how they look and the ergonomics of them. Largely a moving picture camera is designed to be used on a tripod or other mount most of the time. Yes, of course they can be used hand held, but everything is designed with operating switches and other controls to be used on a tripod. This is also because a movie camera is normally considerably heavier than a stills camera. Again there are exceptions, and the RED cameras are relatively small and light, although I wouldn't want to walk around with one as a stills camera all day!

3. Storage is also an issue. With a 12Mp image shooting at 24 or 25 frames per second, a great deal of data is generated.

Even with compression it's still a lot of data. The RED EPIC, promised for early 2009 has a 5K resolution, will weigh 6lbs without a lens, and will need a recording medium such as Redflash or hard drive RAID array. It's a fantastic achievement, yet hardly a camera for everyday stills use.

4. Add to that the searching for the frame that captures the

moment, and we are into coverage without thinking what the end result will be. It only really works with high speed cameras such as the Vision Research Phantoms, mainly due to the shutter speed being very high due to the nature of how they are specifically designed for high speed use. Oh, and they require a great deal of light (like any high speed camera does) through sheer physics of the image capture process.

5. That brings me onto the point about the camera and the artist. Probably the most important aspect of this whole debate. Once someone can buy themselves a camera, then 'hose' the scene in front of them, then choose the pictures later, it considerably lessens the creative process, and anyone would be potentially capable to be a photographer. Of course they would still need to accurately frame the scene, get the colours right, the lighting, then look through hours of images later, choose the frame to use then extract and edit them, so where does that take us? In some situations a stills camera needs a high frame rate, yet Henri Cartier Bresson managed to choose the decisive moment all those years ago, so maybe we need to learn from that master.

In conclusion, stills cameras and moving picture cameras will most likely become closer, and have features that are common to both. Great in certain circumstances, yet I feel the ergonomics, working practices and sheer skill will not alter too much the way we use a movie camera alongside a stills camera, and they will look different, and be used in different ways.

The GBCT section is written and compiled by John Keedwell GBCT page

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