CineAlta Magazine Issue 4 by Sony Professional

behind the scenes

Annie

It's a 4K life Director Will Gluck and Cinematographer Michael Grady on retelling the classic tale with the F55 and F65

A perfect match for The Wedding Ringer by Cinematographer Bradford Lipson Our journey from a C300 to an F5 by Mark Doyle and Srael Boruchin Interviews with

Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC on the F55 Director Joseph Kosinski on his Destiny Daryn Okada, ASC on Let's be Cops and Dolphin Tale 2

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Letter from the Editors We think you’ll agree the CineAlta magazine presents a diverse line-up of production stories, told as always by the filmmakers themselves. It’s perfect timing for our 4th issue: the most wonderful time of the year. Not the holidays, but the holiday movie season, and again, highprofile movies shot with Sony’s 4K large sensor cameras are present on the big screen. The newest adaptation of the classic tale Annie hits theaters in December, with a new, re-imagined look by Director Will Gluck and Cinematographer Michael Grady, using seven F55s and an F65 in locations all across New York City. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC, used the F55 in multiple productions including commercials, an HBO pilot directed by Martin Scorsese and the feature film, The Homesman in some interesting lighting situations to recreate the Old West. Screen Gems is continuing its run of 4K releases with The Wedding Ringer, and Daryn Okada does double duty in this issue, talking about his experiences using F55s and F65s to shoot two completely different films: Let’s Be Cops and Dolphin Tale 2.

You’ll see an interview by Jon Fauer, ASC, with Director Joseph Kosinski, about his experiences over the years, leading up to his most recent project: shooting a commercial for the new game Destiny with the F65. Those are just a few examples of the stories you’ll see here in the fourth issue of Sony’s CineAlta magazine. Once again, we’ve assembled another great collection of production stories from almost every genre — motion pictures, TV, corporate, documentaries and more. Of course, this magazine and its success are due to the support of our customers and the feedback we continually receive from the professional production community. We think it’s a great resource for you, and we hope you enjoy this issue. We also hope you continue to send us your comments, your experiences and your stories. Keep those cards and letters coming to production@am.sony.com. Thanks. Alec Shapiro and Peter Crithary

Alec Shapiro

Peter Crithary

President Professional Solutions of America Sony Electronics Inc.

Marketing Manager (Twitter: @CineAltaNews) Professional Solutions of America Sony Electronics Inc.

What’s new in CineAlta By Peter Crithary At Sony, we take user feedback very seriously and continually implement new features and improvements that make a real difference in your daily work. That’s been the case with the F5 and F55 cameras, which have benefited from significant improvements and new features since their introduction over two years ago. It should be noted that all firmware updates since introduction of the cameras have been free, implementing powerful new features thus protecting your investments way into the future without having to invest in new camera technology. At the time of this writing, we are coming up on version 5 of our firmware development timeline. This release is unique because of the hardware accessories being made available to coincide with the firmware update. With the v5, powerful new features such as Interval Recording (time-lapse), switchable with both XAVC™ and RAW is implemented. The Interval Time will be: 1-10/15/20/30/40/50 sec, 1-10/15/20/30/40/50 min, 1/2/3/4/6/12/24 hour, with the number of frames being 2/6/12 frame in 50p/59.94p, and 1/3/6/9 frame in 23.98p, 24p, 25p, 29.97p, 50i, 59.94i. Other capabilities include stepping through FPS values via the menu dial without using the Sub Display or entering the Camera menu, among other features. Coinciding with the v5 firmware release are exciting new hardware options. The optional CBK-55PD Apple ProRes and Avid DNxHD® encoder board enabling the cameras to record these codecs to SxS Pro™+ media. The initial implementation will be 10 bit HD — 4:2:2 at various frame rates including 50i and 59.94i, and in the future via a firmware update, 12-bit RGB support in 2015. The board will require the camera to be shipped to an authorized Sony center for installation. With a power consumption of approximately only 3 watts, the optional CBK-55BK Shoulder Doc Dock unit — available for both the F5 and F55, effortlessly docks to the camera body and instantly transforms into the perfect documentary camera with all functionality at the user’s fingertips without having to navigate the menu system. The Doc unit supports audio controls, a wireless audio slot, balanced XLR, assignable buttons, white balancing

and much more. The Doc unit will also support the AXS-R5 RAW recorder. The solution enables perfectly balanced and highly functional “Run and Gun” operation.

The F5 will also benefit from an optional upgrade, the CBKZ-55FX enables 4K functionality with XAVC 4K/ QFHD recording and playback, 4K SDI, 4K HDMI output and simultaneous recording (XAVC 4K/QFHD and MPEG HD). This option is a purchase, and will be activated via a license key which will be downloaded from the Sony web site and installed by customers. This comprehensive set of feature updates re-affirms Sony’s commitment to these cameras, as we continue along our existing firmware timeline, implementing very powerful capabilities enabling the F5, and F55 to be the most flexible and future-proofed cameras on the market today. Stay tuned for more news about upcoming upgrades, and thanks as always for your support. Be sure to keep the feedback coming!

Visit Sony Professional web site for a list of CineAlta authorized resellers, USA only.

“Annie: A New Home for a Classic Story” Director Will Gluck and Cinematographer Michael Grady discuss shooting in New York and using the Sony F55 and F65 on the set of Annie

Interview with Daryn Okada, ASC Daryn Okada talks about using the Sony F55 and F65 cameras on two completely different films Let’s be Cops and Dolphin Tale 2

An evolution to the Sony F5 Mark Doyle and Srael Boruchin details their journey from a C300 to an F5

Jon Fauer, ASC talks with Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC and First Camera Assistant Zoran Veselic Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC and Zoran Veselic on why they chose to use the Sony F55 for The Homesman and the new Martin Scorsese HBO “Rock N’ Roll” Drama

Joseph Kosinski’s Destiny Joseph Kosinski discusses TRON: Legacy, Oblivion and his commercial for the video game Destiny

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New tools to enhance workflow

A perfect match for The Wedding Ringer

Learn how to use Catalyst Browse and Catalyst Prepare in production

Bradford Lipson talks about using the Sony F65 on the film The Wedding Ringer

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Content 1 “Annie: A New Home for a Classic Story” 27 Interview with Daryn Okada, ASC 53 Jon Fauer, ASC talks with Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC and First Camera Assistant Zoran Veselic

71 An evolution to the Sony F5 77 Joseph Kosinski’s Destiny 91 N ew tools to enhance workflow 111 A perfect match for The Wedding Ringer 125 We chose the F55 145 Getting a script on its feet 153 Behind the scenes with Sony Professional Services

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We chose the F55

Getting a script on its feet

Behind the scenes with Sony Professional Services

Why did Ferguson transition from the 2/3-inch camera to the Sony F55

The Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Labs helps first time Directors

Top 10 things to know about Sony Professional Services

“Annie: A New Home for a Classic Story” by Will Gluck (Director) & Michael Grady (Cinematographer)

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The latest adaptation of the classic tale Annie came to theaters in December 2014, with a modern look and an updated sound. Retelling the story for a new generation was a tall order for Director/Producer/ Screenwriter Will Gluck and Cinematographer Michael Grady. The two worked together on the films Easy A and Friends with Benefits, and the recent TV series The Michael J. Fox Show. Here, they talk about how their previous collaborations helped on the set of Annie, and they share their experiences filming in New York City, re-inventing beloved characters and working with 4K technologies, including the Sony F55 and F65 cameras. back to TOC

Annie

Will Gluck Director/Producer/Screenwriter It wasn’t easy modernizing a tale like Annie, while still remaining loyal to the original story. So many people have vivid, personal memories of Annie — whether it’s the original Broadway play, the previous movies or their sister’s 9th grade school play version. We wanted to take the feeling and emotion of Annie, her dreams, inspiration, and hope, and place them into a contemporary world. We tried to honor the heart of the original musical, but we did change the story and the characters. We brought it out of the FDR Depression era and into the modern day, but kept the core of what Annie is all about.

“This is a film that can make everybody happy, put a smile on your face and keep it there all day.” It’s fair to say I definitely brought my own ideas to the set. I like to do blue-sky movies, and this is a wide movie, very big. I wanted it to be an epic family event, a big Christmas movie. I also wanted it to be a fall movie, so people watching it feel like they have to bundle up. I wanted them to feel warmth in each other. If it was set in summer it would feel much different. I didn’t want snow on the ground, but I wanted to make you feel that there was. I was excited by the chance to work on a film that captures the magic of family. When we started filming, my daughter was the exact same age as Annie — 10 years old. I wanted to be a part of a movie that I could share with my family; This is a 3

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film that can make everybody happy, put a smile on your face and keep it there all day. The story of Annie has never gone out of style. It’s about finding family — which is the only thing that any of us want. The newest Annie [played by Quvenzhané Wallis] thinks that if she finds her parents, her ‘family,’ then she’ll be happy. On the other side of the coin, you have Will Stacks [played by Jamie Foxx], who doesn’t believe he needs family. He believes he’s fulfilled by work and money. These two people are living parallel lives, and each thinks they know the path to happiness. They finally realize that their idea of happiness is not what they thought it was — it’s actually in each other. That’s a story that would resonate in any generation. That’s why the songs and story still entertain as much as ever. We had a chance to make a great version that would appeal to today’s kids and their parents. But we wanted to give this “tale for the ages” a contemporary spin, and that meant taking a wholly different approach, from the songs to the costume designs to the cameras we used.

We wanted to take the feeling and emotion of Annie, her dreams, inspiration, and hope, and place them into a contemporary world.

Photo credit: Barry Wetcher

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Annie

Also, it had to be shot on location in New York City, because Annie has always been a New York story. If the movie was to be authentic, we couldn’t shoot it on the stage. We had to be in the streets. I wanted all of New York City to be a main character in the movie. Our production designer Marcia Hinds — who I’d worked with on Easy A and Friends with Benefits — was an expert at finding the film’s locations. We shot in Harlem, Washington Heights, the Upper West Side, at the Guggenheim Museum, on the lower East Side and in Greenwich Village. However, our most spectacular location was 4 World Trade Center, a state-of-the-art, 72-floor skyscraper that we used to film the interiors of Stacks’ luxurious penthouse apartment — because “Will Stacks had to live on top of the world.”

“Also it had to be shot on location in New York City, because Annie has always been a New York story. If the movie was to be authentic, we couldn’t shoot it on the stage. We had to be in the streets. I wanted all of New York City to be a main character in the movie.”

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We totally lucked into that location. Somebody said, ‘4 World Trade Center’s not open yet,’ so we asked to see it, and it was perfect. Working with Marcia and our cinematographer Michael Grady, we made the most of 4 World Trade Center’s distinctive terrace on the 57th floor, which filled in for Stacks’ personal outdoor terrace.

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Annie

Right across the Hudson River from 4 World Trade Center, at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, N.J., we shot the film’s climax, as Stacks, in his helicopter, comes to Annie’s rescue. A real helicopter was also used not only for exterior shots, but for several scenes that take place inside the Stacks corporate helicopter with Annie and Stacks. It was Jamie Foxx, Quvenzhané Wallis, me and Michael up in the helicopter for four hours. It’s all real, no green-screen. Much of what we were able to accomplish is due to the cameras we used, mostly Sony’s F55. The colors had to be rich, everything had to be big. We spent an enormous amount of time making sure everything looked good; very filmic with bright colors. The Sony cameras fit the bill and gave us the flexibility we needed for what we wanted to do. 7

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"The colors had to be rich, everything had to be big. We spent an enormous amount of time making sure everything looked good; very filmic with bright colors. The Sony cameras fit the bill and gave us the flexibility we needed for what we wanted to do."

“Much of what we were able to accomplish is due to the cameras we used, mostly Sony’s F55.” For example, I worked with our costume designer, Renée Ehrlich Kalfus, to consciously avoid the color red in Annie’s wardrobe palette, or in anything else: props, sets — until the film pays homage to that red dress at a very specific moment. Once Annie is living in Stacks’ home, he gives her the red dress to wear at a black tie event at the Guggenheim Museum. It’s an iconic moment, and because we had not used red at all until that point, when it makes an appearance it really pops. The difficult part about shooting in New York City is it’s really hard to eliminate anything, but we tried until that moment so it explodes off the screen. Then the rest of the movie is all rich in red. You don’t really realize it, but it’s very subconscious. We needed the camera to bring out all the other colors so much so that you didn’t realize we were missing red and I think we did a pretty good job of that.

“It’s an iconic moment, and because we had not used red at all until that point”

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Annie

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I’d used the F55 before, so I’m familiar with what it can do. When the time came for the Annie camera tests, Michael Grady and I had an advantage, starting with background knowledge.

“I like to use the camera test as an actual day of shooting, and there’s a lot of the finished movie that was shot on a camera test day.”

Michael and I have worked together forever and we always do camera tests together. I like to use the camera test as an actual day of shooting, and there’s a lot of the finished movie that was shot on a camera test day. I shot the Annie wardrobe camera test on the Michael J. Fox set, and then the second day of the camera test we shot exteriors of Annie riding her bike through the streets of New York. That’s all in the movie.

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Annie

“Our familiarity with the F55 was a big factor in us using it on Annie. What I like about Michael Grady is no matter our personal camera preferences, we always do all the right due diligence when choosing cameras and doing camera tests. The great thing about this movie is Sony Pictures will never make a creative team use a specific camera, so the fact that we settled on Sony means we truly wanted to use it. My initial reaction to anything when it’s the home team is always negative so it has to win me over. The fact that the F55 won me over for three movies now and my shows tells you how good it is.”

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Annie

We shot scenes in film and digital and put them side by side, and I really believe that at the end of the day the F55 looks so much like film. It gave us our “look.” We also used the F65 high speed in 4K for a few scenes and both cameras complemented each other really well, giving us flexibility, and the ability to shoot at different frames rates. With the F55 in 4K, we were able to shoot up to 60P but in 2K, we had the option to go up to 240 frames in RAW. We wanted to remain in 4K, and that’s why I wanted to go F65 for 120 frames. Our ability to shoot in different ways let us tell each character’s story uniquely. I always like to give characters their own “moment” as they enter, so we spent a lot of time thinking about how we introduce each one cinematically. Some movies Michael and I have done were handheld, so we didn’t really do it that way. Shooting Annie with the F55, we could give each person their moment, even though it was an ensemble. We really wanted to make sure that each actor had the right amount of space to develop their own kind of character arc. On set, I would check the visuals with the look management, and I was very happy with what I was seeing. I always go look in the DIT tent for the first take, to see it on a beautiful 4K monitor. Once I trust the look, then I don’t even look at the screen anymore; I just go to the camera. And funnily enough, even though we were shooting in 4K, I wouldn’t always look at the dailies in 4K. Often, I just looked at the dailies on my phone — of course, much to the Cinematographer’s chagrin!

“We shot scenes in film and digital and put them side by side, and I really believe that at the end of the day the F55 looks so much like film. It gave us our “look.” 13

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Since we shoot eight or nine hours a day, I don’t look daily. Tia Nolan, my awesome Editor cut together a rough scene so I’m usually two days behind. They send me scenes, I watch them all on my phone and if I think they’re in good shape, then great. If not then I add or re-shoot. Of course that’s after making sure that Michael Grady has the great look on the actual 4K monitors.

I always like to have backgrounds pop, but you could do so much with this camera. That’s the one fun thing once you get in the DI with this 4K camera. You can do anything.

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Annie

Once shooting wrapped and we proceeded through the DI process, we had the ability to change the look of what we had shot, but one of the great things about Michael is he spent so much time doing LUTs on the set, so we’re kind of fiddling the whole time we’re on the set — back and forth, back and forth. We had a great DI technician, Abby Levine, so by day 40 or 50 we were pretty much locked in. By the time we got to the DI and put the LUTs in the Avid, it was more a matter of fine-tuning and pulling out things in the background and making them pop. While we were in DI, we were actually working with the LUTs that were created on set. We did the DI at Sony’s Colorworks [in Culver City, Calif.]. I’ve done all my movies and TV shows there so I have a sure hand with the colorist and as always, it was a great experience. Now that it’s finished and ready for the real test — the movie-goers — I’d like to say we’re 100 percent satisfied but the reality is, you’re never completely happy with the end result. You see it so often for so many months on end, and when you finish with the final print you literally don’t ever want to see it again. All you can see is things you might have done differently. But I’m very happy with the look. We were very lucky with the weather in that we didn’t have one rain or snow day, even though we were shooting during the winter. One bummer is that we shot at the World Trade Center with the most stunning views ever and maybe out of the 15 days we shot there, there were four overcast views. When I see those scenes, I see one shot of a beautiful view of uptown Manhattan and in the next shot it’s overcast and that depresses me. We did do a lot of sky replacement to fix it, but I just wish I had the luxury of waiting until the weather was perfect to shoot. However, that’s just because we’re so close to the material. Overall, I think the movie turned out great, and we had great experiences shooting with these cameras. Even though they’re 4K and digital, they give you the visual aesthetic of film. I think 4K is great and I know technology has to move forward, 15

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but the interesting part is that no matter how hard we work on everything, the majority of people are going to see my movies on a computer screen, phone or other device. The window of seeing your work in the theater is very short now. As a result, there’s one side of me that says, ‘we should really edit and mix everything in color based on a phone screen because that’s where it’s going to live for 95% of its life.

Now, having said that, I do think there are advantages to originating in 4K because when you derive the HD or the Internet versions for streaming services or Blu-Ray, it will transfer better into those media than if it was originated on HD or 2K. So there are advantages to mastering it in 4K. Then in years to come you’ll have that distribution option already in place.

I remember the first TV show I ever created. The producers told me to shoot it 16x9. I thought, ‘are they crazy? Who is watching that way?’ But of course, you have to protect for the future, which 4K does. In 10 years I absolutely want people to be watching Annie in 4K on their phones, as well as on their 1080p televisions!

“By the time we got to the DI and put the LUTs in the Avid, it was more a matter of fine-tuning and pulling out things in the background and making them pop.”

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Annie

Michael Grady Cinematographer I never thought I’d do a musical. Having worked with Will [Gluck] before on a number of projects, I’ve learned to trust his vision, his experience and his creativity, plus the quality of his projects. He has a really sharp wit and I’m interested in anything he’s doing, regardless of what it is.

We used seven Sony cameras in all — F55s and one F65 — often all at once. We would have three or four with us on the A unit, the others with the second unit, and then one in the helicopter. So there were days that we had them all over New York City — F55’s going berserk!

Annie is a big project. I hope people watch it and enjoy it. It’s such a “pop” piece of art.

We wanted Annie to be “free” and realistic, not like a traditional musical, with big choreography and all that. Sure, the movie certainly has that, but in between, we just approached many of the scenes like “After talking with Sony further, working we would any sort of family drama with them at their Digital Motion Picture going on in New York City.

Center, and talking with other DP’s, like Daryn Okada, ASC it became clearer that the Sony cams were the right choice.” To be honest, in the past few years people have asked me, ‘what camera do you want to use?’ and I’ll ask, ‘well, which one came out most recently?’ I have a lot of that in me. I’ve used enough of the Arriflex and RED to know the difference. As we started the camera tests for Annie, it was between Sony, ARRI and RED. I’ve used the REDs and ARRIs plenty and they have their strengths but they weren’t appropriate for this movie. After talking with Sony further, working with them at their Digital Motion Picture Center, and talking with other DP’s, like Daryn Okada, ASC it became clearer that the Sony cams were the right choice.

Will wanted more cranes, more movement. So size became an issue and also there was a tremendous amount of helicopter work, too. We had scenes with actors singing to each other in a helicopter, which made it more challenging than the typical aerial footage. For that, the F55 was perfect, and we also used the F65 for a lot of off-speed shots.

“We wanted Annie to be “free” and realistic, not like a traditional musical, with big choreography and all that.”

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Annie

A big part of Annie is a “movie within the movie” sequence. The lead actors go to a premiere screening of a movie called “Moon Quake Lake.” That one was all F65, primarily because we wanted high speed shots. So I was able to switch back and forth between cameras and I liked that. But it’s mostly the F55 for the whole movie. I know Will’s talked about this often, and I agree completely: the colors had to be just right for this movie. With these cameras, the color management is so superior, in terms of the latitude and how much it can handle in the extremes. The Sony cameras are very forgiving when you mess up. Whether you’ve just shot your first project or have been shooting for 30 years, you know that you can’t control everything. Weather changes, lighting changes, and if you’ve got more latitude in the camera, it enables you to work more quickly and more efficiently. I wish you could control things more, but it’s hard to be very controlled and precise with six-, eight-, 10-year olds running through a super-size production. Since we were shooting 16-bit 4K RAW, we had enormous latitude with dynamic range, color, and gamma. It was unbelievable, and I would always be shocked in certain scenarios at what the cameras could do. We were shooting in a lot of extremes from sunlight in the fall to light skies and shadows,

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and the cameras would perform so well. Will was very adamant about making New York City a character in the movie. That goal led us to some of our most challenging and beautiful shots — all in the same location. Some of the shots were a little dreary based on the weather, and some were in bright sunlight.

“Since we were shooting 16-bit 4K RAW, we had enormous latitude with dynamic range, color, and gamma. It was unbelievable, and I would always be shocked in certain scenarios at what the cameras could do.” A lot of how this turned out is due to the work of our great colorist. Every DP knows, some things just don’t work out well while you’re shooting, you have to try to re-create them as best you can with color correction, and we have some pretty powerful tools available to us now. You can’t ever redo what you’ve done, but I do believe you can make things better, and we’ve got to work with what we have. One day, it was freezing cold, about 20 degrees, and the sun was behind the World Trade Center so our subjects are all in shadow with a lot of Manhattan in bright sunlight. It was pretty much the worst case scenario for digital acquisition: New York’s behind us, it’s the wrong time of day, with direct sunlight on the city, bright skies, dark subjects, wind blowing so high that there would be no way to balance or light. We’re 60 stories up, so we couldn’t use a lot of equipment, because if anything fell off, it’s lethal by the time it hits the ground. It was one of those situations where you just fire away and try to keep the sky out of the shot because there’s no way you can pull that information back. It took a lot more work to control what happens in those situations because you’re not able to do your Cinematography the way you want, to make things match.

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Annie

This is the location where we shot one of the movie’s pivotal scenes, where Annie announces, “I think I’m going to like it here.” It’s supposed to be the funniest, grandest moment, with everyone dancing and twirling around. It involved a lot of tedious work where you’re picking out everything you can in the frame. That’s one moment where the F55 did well in the sense that if you have to go back and try to recapture any of the information that’s overexposed or underexposed and pull it all together, we knew we could. It made everything work out a little easier, because, quite frankly, every movie has “those

moments.” Everybody has a scene, or two or three, in each movie that more than likely is your egg, your bad one. Color correction becomes a common denominator. You may have to pull things towards that bad scene because it throws off the movie or whatever look you may be trying to get. Then it comes down to whether or not you have a good colorist — and we had really good ones at Sony and Will’s pretty savvy, too, since he has his father’s architectural background. So there are certain things sometimes in the background that some Directors wouldn’t pursue, but Will’s attitude is like, “we have to recover that, we have to see it.” It’s cool that he will doggedly pursue each shot to make it as best as it can be. Or he’ll say let’s go in and try to put it into an effect so that they can isolate a section, for example, splitting windows so that you could find that information. One thing I will say is the cameras reacted well to the dynamic range of our locations. For this movie, I used a lot of mixed color temperature. In New York, where you have a lot of sodium vapor and mercury, you’re going to get cyan and a deep warm orange in the streets. So I mixed it up a lot and then inside we use mixed color. We tried to play with some different settings, even when we used soundstage shots to match the outside footage. We really tried to stretch color temperature as much as possible. It’s not an incredibly exterior-lit movie. When the little girls were the focus, we wanted to make each one of their faces pop in the streets of New York. We also tried to make our star, our subject matter, really pop among the crowd around them so that they actually are just a hair brighter than everything else. We had very mixed lighting, and a lot of electronically-controlled soft

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“I can’t think of any moment that went wrong where we would blame the camera. Any scenes that didn’t go well weren’t due to the camera.”

light. We had a lot of exteriors all over the city that you couldn’t control, combined with stage work, so were trying to balance ins and outs and some of that really worked out well. We were pretty hard on the cameras, slamming them around, especially with the helicopter scenes, but I can’t think of any moment that went wrong where we would blame the camera. Any scenes that didn’t go well weren’t due to the camera. I loved the cameras’ forgiving nature, the huge range and ability to handle shadow and buildings and then stream sunlight all while holding detail in some extreme conditions. It’s in those extreme moments when your hands are tied that the camera can really take up the slack. That’s when a camera is most valuable in my opinion when you talk about the benefits of this camera over that camera.

So, it’s obvious, we had some things to contend with, but it’s also clear we had a pretty unique vision, and we were able to achieve it with these cameras. When it comes to the “look,” I was involved in building the LUTs before production started, and the great Abby Levine in New York also worked with us on our tests. I didn’t do a ton of manipulation. There were a couple of LUTs and I made it through so that way when they first built the movie, it comes together well but there really wasn’t anything elaborate. There are maybe two or three but I mean who doesn’t do that? I was relatively straightforward in terms of manipulation of the look. We ended up getting a nice contrast with strong color.

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Annie

One touch that people will be talking about is how we tried to avoid the color red until two-thirds into the movie when the character Annie finally puts on that traditional “red dress.” We played with color temperature and other features in terms of how we portrayed New York City, but it was a lot more natural and there wasn’t anything in the LUT that’s not there on the screen. Maybe a little contrast, a little polish because you’ve got to come up with something that will pop, but something like this also is relatively straightforward, a little warm and pretty, for lack of a better term.

“It worked out pretty well. After we saw the film, when everything was done and the DI was finished, we definitely felt we achieved the “cinematic look” we were after.” We went through a lot of the backgrounds and isolated some things in post and took them out if it was red. We took signs away, or would cover them. It was more an avoidance of the color red as opposed to something I was specifically doing with color. When we got into the DI process — and as a Cinematographer and artist, it’s important for me to be there for that — we stayed with a lot of the original on-set look. A lot of it came down to eyeball management. Once it’s in a new color space and you’re looking at it 23

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on a big screen, it changes your opinion. You can easily start changing what you thought was good on the little DVD dailies. Once we had a few looks, a few settings, it flew along pretty well, but it’s all just sort of an “eye and a gut” feeling. I don’t really do it by like oh these are the numbers and this is the LUT and we’re going to follow this and sort of look at the picture. It worked out pretty well. After we saw the film, when everything was done and the DI was finished, we definitely felt we achieved the “cinematic look” we were after. Will and I both think it’s pretty cool that we were able to tell the same story but in an updated way. It feels new and not like a re-hash. It’s a different movie but with all those same familiar songs that people still love. It was sort of a strange, weird post-modern pop sort of touch. You’re remaking a movie that was a musical that began as a comic strip. There’s always the question of “how different is it supposed to be from the original, and how much are we allowed to change?" In the end it’s definitely different but it is also still very much Annie.

“we stayed with a lot of the original on-set look. A lot of it came down to eyeball management. Once it’s in a new color space and you’re looking at it on a big screen, it changes your opinion.” back to TOC

Annie

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My final thoughts are on 4K. People make a big deal about shooting in 4K, but often you don’t really shoot that way. With the RED, it’s more like 3.6K or whatever, which is what happens to the RED because you can’t use it in full frame because all the lenses vignette so actually you’re just punching in. That’s not the case with the F55 though, not at all. This camera is the real thing, and in that sense it gives you an advantage. I know 4K is spreading everywhere, even to Netflix and other streaming services, and more and more people are going to be watching on other devices, not just on a movie or TV screen.

“But still it does make sense to originate at the highest level you can, to give you maximum story-telling ability. The 4K in the F55 is “true” so it’s interesting to me, but it’s really more about the creativity it gives me.”

With regards to 4K, it’s not all about the extra resolution. Getting the right look is more important. Having more pixels could be a good thing in some instances, but overall, I just think 4K is very sharp and there’s too much detail. Manufacturers keep making things sharper and I’m thinking that none of our naked eyes can really tell. Yes, if you put them side by side on a projector you can probably show me and then I’d be able to see the difference. You don’t tell stories with resolution and sharpness. If it’s just a cityscape or landscape, you look at that, and it looks so real, it’s like you’re really there. Then you put a person in the frame and every flaw is sharper and harsher than they are in reality. It becomes a question of “how sharp do we need it to be?” So we used filters to bring the images down and give it more of a classic soft look, especially in a movie like this. I think you probably could do something that would be interesting even if you didn’t use filters and did something in post, but that’s dangerous because you lose some of the control you want to have as a Cinematographer. But still it does make sense to originate at the highest level you can, to give you the maximum story-telling ability. The 4K in the F55 is “true” so it’s interesting to me, but it’s really more about the creativity it gives me. In some ways, I think it’s enough with the whole “K” thing. I know that there’s this quest for more but I don’t really know what the end is, you know what I mean? back to TOC

Daryn Okada, ASC Let’s Be Cops and Dolphin Tale 2 By David Heuring Daryn Okada, ASC recently used Sony F55 and F65 cameras to shoot two completely different films — Let’s Be Cops and Dolphin Tale 2. His other credits include Mean Girls, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, Dr. Dolittle 2, and Anna Karenina. Here Okada, known for his technical expertise as well as his ability to deliver superlative visuals on time and on budget, looks back on his experiences. 27

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Daryn Okada, ASC

DH: What were your initial impressions of the Let’s Be Cops script? How did you envision the film? Okada: I immediately liked the script a lot because it wasn’t a one-note comedy. The story changes genres. It goes from a couple of loser guys to a less familiar situation where they are in way over their heads, in actual danger. Visually, director Luke Greenfield and I wanted the look of the movie to change with each phase that these characters are going through. We never wanted it to feel or look like a straight comedy. We always wanted it to be grounded in a motivated reality. That’s where we started. We felt that with this approach, people could identify with the characters more and really kind

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of dig into it. The other thing is that about 85% of the movie takes place at night. That was going to be a challenge. And it takes place in Los Angeles, but we were going to shoot it in Atlanta. DH: So how would you describe the visual arc of on Let’s Be Cops? Okada: The first act introduces the characters in naturalistic lighting. In the second act of the movie when they impersonate cops, all of a sudden people respect these two guys and notice them. And they start enjoying this and living larger than they really are. Luke and I came up with the idea of intensifying the colors of everything in the second act, especially at night, giving it this very colorful, idealized “Sunset

Boulevard” look. There’s billboard lighting, colored LED lighting, all the light sources are constantly changing. Then in the third act, we change what we’re doing with the camera. We go more handheld so that you’re really feeling that things have gotten too real for these guys, that there really is a life-and-death situation. As the circumstances get more intense, the lighting gets more contrasty, and the images get more stylized. We used a 120-degree shutter and slow motion to lend power and underscore the deadliness of the situation. I knew that in order for the movie to be fun, we had to challenge the audience. If you don’t, it’s like a composer using the same type of score for every scene in the movie.

“85% of the movie takes place at night.”

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Daryn Okada, ASC

DH: What was the thought process that led to the decision to go with the F55 and F65 on Let’s Be Cops? Okada: I knew I wanted the color to start in a film-like palette, and to use lighting as if I were shooting with film. I had been working with F65s for about a year and really liked the results I was getting because my style of working is next to the camera. The image from the F65 gave me the confidence to work like I did on a film set, close to the director and actors. The other reason I gravitated to the Sony cameras in the first place is that I’m a firm believer that any recording device should be a part of the camera. It should be dockable and it shouldn’t have external video wires coming out of it. With the F55, the R5 recorder is also docked right on the camera. The contacts for everything are going right through to the camera. There are no external wires. I was definitely going to have an F65 on Let’s Be Cops, and I did. But on this film, it looked like we would also need cameras that were more portable. I had tested the F55 for image quality and I saw that I could intercut the two cameras if I had to. The F55 was just being introduced — in fact, they weren’t even officially out for a couple of months — and they needed accessories. I heard that Panavision was working aggressively on outfitting a Panavised F55, so I checked out what they were doing. We ended up using four Panavised F55s on Let’s Be Cops, provided by Panavision in Woodland Hills. They were rugged and dependable, and because the accessories followed the Panavision system, they were familiar to the crew. We took notes with this first system and provided feedback to Panavision on how things could be improved.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;I knew I wanted the color to start in a filmlike palette, and to use lighting as if I were shooting with film.â&#x20AC;?

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Daryn Okada, ASC

DH: Which lenses did you choose and why? Okada: On both Let’s Be Cops and Dolphin Tale 2, we used Panavision Primo lenses. I already knew what the Primos could do, and that took another variable out of the equation of using a new digital camera. I lit atmospherically, scraping surfaces to bring out texture as opposed to lighting on top of surfaces, and the Primos worked perfectly with that. The coatings are really nice, so it felt filmic already. I never felt that I wanted anything more broken down in the image because we needed the contrast in the capture. We needed to retain all the color saturation we were putting in through art direction and by color gelling the lighting. I felt that using a newer type of lens might take some humanity out of the image. I wanted the audience to feel that it’s a story of real people in real situations unfolding in front of them. We know the performance characteristics of these lenses so well — we knew exactly which lens to use in each situation. And they all went together as a system on the front of the camera with the rods that Panavision designed for the F55. DH: Did you use zooms? Okada: Yes. We had an 11:1 zoom and a 3:1 zoom. With the 3:1 we mainly worked on the 300mm to 420mm end. Because the lens was a T2.8, we could shoot with the same lighting at any time. We used the heavier zooms if we needed to get in tighter really fast. For the most part, we shot the movie on Primo primes. Using prime lenses gives you a better reference of what you’re starting with. Both cameras were always on dollies and sliders anyway, and I’d rather move the camera to adjust the shot than grab the zoom ring and magnify something. In the second act, we shot more on longer lenses, stacking layers up to compress that Sunset Boulevard look, so it felt like you had extra depth going on behind the actors. DH: What was the workflow you devised on Let’s Be Cops? Okada: We were recording in 4K RAW. We went through Company 3 in Atlanta, and they rendered Apple ProRes HD 4:2:2 dailies for me from the 4K RAW file. At 1920x1080, I could check things out closely on the Sony BVM-F250 monitor playing back through my MacBook Pro and AJA io XT. I didn’t have to guess if there was a problem in some intermediate transcoding if something didn’t look right. The idea behind capturing on 4K was to use the exposure latitude and the 16-bit color gamut. That was an important part of our whole approach — having enough headroom not just in terms of capturing luminance range, but also capturing wide color gamut, which meant we could work with those really intense colors that we designed into the lighting and art direction. It couldn’t be gaudy, with the colors clunking together. We needed enough code values to adjust color with precision. It was planned as a 2K finish at first, but then 20th Century Fox decided to finish the movie in 4K. I think they felt that since we did not have a whole lot of visual effects, it was an opportunity for them to do a 4K finish and see how it went. I think they’re thinking ahead

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;we shot more on longer lenses, stacking layers up to compress that Sunset Boulevard look, so it felt like you had extra depth going on behind the actors.â&#x20AC;? to 4K home displays, and saw a chance to create a native 4K title. The 4K grading would require more bandwidth than what was available, so we graded a 2K proxy and then applied that color correction to the 4K files for the final render out. The 4K helped, but having a camera that is capturing color and everything else with 16-bit precision makes a big difference in the time it takes to set the color grades. back to TOC

DH: What was your approach to lighting on Let’s Be Cops? Okada: I pretty much lit it the same way I would have lit film, except we were shooting natively at ASA 1200. I was able to shoot at round T2.8 1/2 to T4 so I let the assistants have a little more stop because we did a lot of improvisational things where they didn’t know exactly where people would end up. We also used selective focus. We came up with a way to mimic the changing light that you see on Sunset Boulevard from all the LED video billboards. My gaffer, Jim Crawford, rigged big banks of Maxi-Brutes that we put on dimmers on top of cranes and parking structures in Atlanta. We used different colors on those, and put them through diffusion. That gave us soft, changing, colored light. Combined with car headlights sweeping by, that really made it start to feel like you’re in that midst of that kind of lighting action on Sunset Boulevard at night. There were no locations in Atlanta to do night towing shots that looked like Sunset Blvd. The solution I pitched was to have a crew shoot night driving plates in LA with existing light using four F55’s and 27mm and 40mm Primo lenses. They shot rear, driver and passenger window plates with the fourth F55 with a 14.5 Primo Lens shooting a windshield/hood reflection plate all at T2.8. PRG set up 4 digital projectors with media servers controlled through their custom console which also sampled the video plates to feed LED color blasters which moved light across the car in sync with the background plates. We could instantly recue everything during a take and interactively capture improv performances from Jake and Damon. With no green screen, Luke could use as many shots as needed. Also production was happy because we shot over 10 pages in 8 hours with our three F55’s getting three angles at once. It’s a technique I carried over from rear projecting VistaVision film for in camera background plates with the Hansards. 35

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Daryn Okada, ASC

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Daryn Okada, ASC

DH: Obviously there are major differences between Let’s Be Cops and Dolphin Tale 2. How would you compare them? Okada: The two films are aesthetically very different, but both depended on having a wide color gamut available beyond the 10-bit DPX type of workflows. Let’s Be Cops is predominantly a night movie, and it called for a more textured, edgier, urban sort of look. And Dolphin Tale 2 had to feel like a beautiful nature exploration with a lot of natural daylight. For Let’s Be Cops, we ended up finishing in 4K, but with 10-bit DPX files. For Dolphin Tale 2, I definitely wanted a 16bit OpenEXR ACES method to finish because I knew from testing that I could utilize the extreme color and exposure latitude of the F55 and F65 to capture scenes when the sunlight was changing or if I did not want to disturb the natural balance and beauty in the light I saw by eye. DH: You mentioned in the behind-the-scenes promo footage that the way the animals move has an inherent honesty, and that part of your job is to connect that honesty to the actors by setting moods.

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“The two films are aesthetically very different, but both depended on having a wide color gamut available beyond the 10-bit DPX type of workflows.”

Okada: Exactly. I wasn’t approaching Dolphin Tale 2 as only a family film. I was approaching it as an emotional and dramatic story. That was the biggest challenge I put upon myself. To respect what the characters are all about and what Charles Martin Smith wrote and directed, I wanted everything to feel as genuine and natural as possible. That reflected on the choices I was making for the tone and the look. I didn’t want the movie to start out totally foreign to the audience. We begin with a look that people who saw the first movie would be comfortable with. Then, when things start to

happen in the second reel, the look, the lighting, and the contrast develop into a lot more depth to engage the audience into the larger story. That gave the movie the visual emotionality it needed. The animals really do interact with the human characters, and I wanted to make sure that connection didn’t feel like it was shot as some sort of generic kind of wildlife footage. It was integral to visually feel what was going on in the scene. There is emotion with the human characters, and there is emotion with the animal characters. I was manipulating the daylight to the tone of the scenes in the aquarium by a system of overhead diffusion or negative fill panels that Key Grip Jack Chouchanian designed that was also safe for the dolphins. The most important aspect for me as a cinematographer was visually giving the characters and the director a visual setting that the audience could sense was honest, so they could have mood and foundation to build the scenes and performances on.

“The animals really do interact with the human characters”

DH: Describe your preparations on Dolphin Tale 2 and how you devised the workflow in that case. Okada: During pre-production, our intent was to preserve all the latitude of the Sony F55/F65 cameras and have it available in the DI theater in postproduction. Because this was a location-based movie with variable sunlight extremes along with surface and underwater work, it was essential to the photographic design and production schedule that the wide color gamut and dynamic range be easily available. We accomplished that by using elements of Academy ACES in the Technicolor workflow, and by making 16-bit OpenEXR the colormanaged file format during the DI color timing. [ACES is an architecture and supporting tools for digital motion picture production, mastering and archiving that maintains consistency through the many various formats in today’s production pipelines. Okada was one of the many filmmakers and color scientists who donated their time to develop ACES under the auspices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.]

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Daryn Okada, ASC

DH: Why was that important in terms of the production schedule? Okada: The schedule for the second movie had fewer shooting days than the first Dolphin Tale movie. Our plan was to really free the camera to do more, to explore more visually. If I’m shooting on film, I know what the latitude is. Shooting digitally, I had to make sure that the camera could capture a wide range. From the discipline of shooting film, I’m used to getting it right in camera — if I could preserve everything that the camera captured and have it available to me in the DI, then during production, when the sunlight unexpectedly changed, for example, I’d know when we could keep shooting and when we had to stop. Having an OpenEXR 16-bit file as our digital intermediate source enabled me to keep shooting when otherwise I might have had to stop for the weather, or to do more lighting in order to fit the range into the camera. I knew the camera itself had a really wide range, but very often in post you don’t get all of that range because it’s been truncated to be more bandwidth-friendly — often a 10-bit DPX-type file. Instead, I knew I had everything available to me, and I could adjust the skies without doing like a heavy Power Window, for example. Having that range and color there, I could keep the production going. DH: What was your approach to Lookup Tables on Dolphin Tale 2? Okada: Basically, we used an adaptation of an ACES profile that Technicolor’s Josh Pines created as the base LUT, and I didn’t change anything from that. That ACES LUT was profiled to the F55 and F65 so 39

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we could be consistent with color management in post. It served as an ACES viewing LUT, essentially. From there, the only adjustments I would make would be ASC-CDL value changes. But I didn’t do a lot of it on the set since I was used to shooting for one light film dailies. I basically looked at the LUT that Technicolor built for the movie to get my bearings when I was going into really extreme, uncharted territory. We had a lot of water, and water kicks up sunlight. I wanted to make sure when I was splitting hairs with the exposure — holding the detail in those glimmering water shots while maintaining the slight underexposure I needed to get the facial tones that I wanted. So, basically it was a one-LUT movie with ASC-CDL values that I would adjust using Technicolor’s DP Lights on-set color correction system. DH: Were visual effects a consideration? Okada: We knew that when it came to visual effects, there would be some companies that might not be up to speed on using EXR files with ACES color management. So with Technicolor’s assistance, we designed a backdoor way of helping them see everything accurately. That’s why we had a LUT that did pretty much everything ACES can do, while also addressing some compatibility issues. I knew that the effects budget and schedule were challenging on this movie, and I wanted to make sure that the intercutting of multiple VFX vendors would be as transparent as possible. Part of that strategy was using 16-bit OpenEXR with an ACES color management philosophy so we would have maximum image quality and control over the material when I was fitting the shots into the mood of the scenes during the DI. The VFX vendors supplied mattes for all the different elements so Mike Sowa, our colorist, and I could grade each layer and area of the image with a specific contrast and color to enable the shots to intercut seamlessly. Our visual effects supervisor, Bob Munroe, was really supportive and put a lot of trust in me with this workflow by commiting to it in pre-production. Because of his support for using 16-bit OpenEXR and Technicolor’s ACES workflow, we were able to reach a transparent blend of his VFX artist work and the live action cinematography.

“We had a lot of water, and water kicks up sunlight. I wanted to make sure when I was splitting hairs with the exposure — holding the detail in those glimmering water shots”

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Daryn Okada, ASC

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DH: How was your approach to LUTs on Let’s Be Cops different?

all the scenes to the emotional visual tone that we wanted at that point in the movie. I knew I had the color gamut to be able to make changes without everything shifting to one entire tone of yellow, for example. There were many gradations of different colors going on, so it felt more natural. Bandwidth within the DI theater is an important factor. I wanted to do the DI at Technicolor’s Theater 1 on Seward because that theater is self-contained. Since nobody else is playing back from that SAN, we can play back and work on OpenEXR files in real time, using our ACES method, without getting any bandwidth hits. That kind of bandwidth is still a new thing to most facilities, which are usually engineered for 10-bit DPX.

Okada: Let’s Be Cops was done with Company 3, which didn’t have a profile for ACES of the Sony cameras because they were so new, so I took a slightly more generic approach. For that film, I needed to know the camera’s capabilities so I could shoot very saturated color. It was more of a testing situation, like shooting tests of the look of a movie with a new film stock and putting it through the lab to see what you’d get in dailies the next day. I visualized the images going through the workflow from what I learned in testing. It was like imagining the workflow LUT in my head. I wanted to make sure that the dailies were always derived from the Your dailies process “I knew I had the color gamut DH: RAW file. Every time a was carefully designed as different deliverable was to be able to make changes well, correct? made, it would come without everything shifting Okada: With Technicolor, from the Sony 4K RAW to one entire tone of yellow, we set up our own file. That way, I knew provisional lab at the any deliverable would for example. There were production office. We had always come from a 16many gradations of different two people working there — bit source, as opposed to colors going on, so it felt one doing data ingest, and coming from a truncated, the other doing the actual Rec709 source. I wanted more natural.” dailies color timing. Even to make sure I had the though I had ASC-CDL widest color gamut to numbers as a guide, I didn’t work in a black tent on dumb down to dailies. On Dolphin Tale 2, I had more the set. I would just basically throw a piece of black extremes, so I needed to preview that in a properly duvetine over my head and look at the monitor, as calibrated setting. That’s why we really pushed to if I were looking through a view camera, to get a have Technicolor set up a specific ACES workflow, reference. After that I would judge things based on from dailies all the way to the finish. experience. But then I left it to our dailies timer, who was on location with us, to do the real work, DH: Tell us about the DI process on Dolphin Tale 2. similar to what you do with film. That’s why we had How did you use it? a 2K projector set up. He could grade the RAW files Okada: Well, it was amazingly close when we looked through the Technicolor FrameLogic system. He at it, but of course that’s your first impression. Then would start with what the ACES LUT came up with you watch it a few times and you begin to see and then apply any CDL I might have set. But he what the other possibilities are. We just put it up could see in a controlled environment, on a 12-foot with the ACES LUT that Josh Pines made, and the DI screen, totally removed from everything, what the colorist Mike Sowa said, “It looks good just falling best dailies grade would be. We would come in at off the truck!” But from that point we found creative wrap, and it would be just like dailies on film shoots. things we wanted to do, with the edited scenes we We took over a room, blacked it out and set it up as started creating or embellishing different moods. a dailies theater. Twenty people would come in, The bulk of the work that we did in DI was to bring and we would all watch dailies playing live off of back to TOC

Daryn Okada, ASC

the FrameLogic SAN. It had enough bandwidth that we could play the 4K files back with the color corrections he put in, supersampled for 2K. We were able to see what we were really doing, in higher resolution than an HD or DVD situation. All the departments seeing their work that way made a big difference. We saw colors and densities the way they should be. It got people excited about coming right back the next day. All the departments were amazed seeing their work shot by the Sony F55s and projected on location. It was a great filmmaking experience, and we were all on the same page because of it. I always push to have projected dailies, because it brings all the crafts back and involves them in the process. And if there was a scene I wanted to change before it went to editorial, I would stay and make a couple adjustments. Then they would start doing the deliverables that night, right there in Clearwater off the FrameLogic. We would do an AVID file for the editors and a file for the studioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s online viewing systems. All that was then transmitted back to Technicolor Los Angeles and delivered from there. We had about 50 terabytes on location, so we would keep the files until we knew they were verified and archived in LA. We also kept a sample of all the scenes, in case we needed to refer to them for continuity.

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“We saw colors and densities the way they should be. It got people excited about coming right back the next day.”

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Daryn Okada, ASC

DH: What was your thought process on the underwater scenes? They seem especially important in Dolphin Tale 2. Okada: When you’re underwater, sunlight filters through and it becomes biased toward the blue side. The degree depends on how deep you are — how much water you have between yourself and the sun or the light source. But if you are capturing it with a camera like the F55 that has a wide color gamut and exposure latitude, you can either correct it back to normal, or play it as the cooler blue, which we did. But we also were able to have color separation in all that. It’s not just a totally blue cast we put on there. That look was really exciting to my underwater cameramen when they saw dailies. I also wanted to shoot up from underwater towards the sun. I used the water as if it were atmospheric smoke. I projected light through the water as our own sunlight. I was using shafts of light and trying to create that power you feel when you look up and see the source. The F55s underwater were incredible

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at holding the darkest detail and the brightest detail. And not just that, but holding a separation of color in what could have been an all-blue environment. Without that separation, things can look very onedimensional in a color sense. That separation also helped us in DI to choose where we wanted to go with the viewer’s eye. Just like the surface scenes, each underwater scene had its own mood. We created sunset looks underwater. We created night looks underwater. The script called for some very tense moments underwater, and we kept those a little cooler. But even in those cooler, bluer scenes, you still see separation in the dolphin’s gray skin and the depth of the water. Since we had the wide color gamut, 16-bit OpenEXR files, we were able to make all that work. We weren’t penalized by color adjustments — I knew I could always just go back to the null RAW file look with the ACES LUT on it and start from there if I had to.

DH: You had a custom housing built for the F55, correct? Okada: This was one of the first times the F55 was used completely underwater. Early on, we talked about using a different camera underwater — one that already had underwater housings designed and built for it. But when we looked at the F55 underwater, we knew it was absolutely worth going to the trouble of having a custom housing made for it. The look was incredible — you could see that the image just came alive underwater. So the housing was made for this movie. We wanted the ability to do fast pans. Peter Zuccarini, one of our underwater cinematographers, has a company that designs underwater equipment. With Sony’s help, he fabricated a lightweight, modern, carbon-fiber housing that fit the F55 perfectly. The incredibly long-running batteries of the F55 were an advantage, and since it runs cooler, the lens port didn’t fog up or require additional fans.

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Daryn Okada, ASC

DH: When did you use the F65? Okada: The F55 was our main camera. The F65, I think, is one of the best-looking cameras around. But we needed a slightly smaller camera that we could move around faster. I didn’t want to mix too many cameras — I wanted to keep to one camera system as much as possible. But I used the F65 system for any high speed 4K shots or visual effects plate shots. We used it in a similar way on Let’s Be Cops. We probably used it on about 20% of Dolphin Tale 2. Theoretically, we could pull an 8K image out of it if we needed to. Also, the F65 delivers a slightly less compressed version of the Sony 4K RAW, and I really like the look of the F65 sensor and its rotating shutter. The image just feels 47

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solid like film. It really has enough unique RGB pixels for true 4K that you are not getting into a whole de-Bayered situation. It’s a de-mosaic type of approach, so in terms of resolution and color, it just gives you an edge. The first digital camera I used was the F65, and I thought the image was phenomenal. After doing two features with both cameras, I think on my next feature, I would try to change things, depending on what the movie was. If the movie lent itself to it, I would try to make the F65 my A-camera and use the F55 as my handheld, Steadicam body. I’m sure most people don’t see it, but the F65 just has a little more of an edge to it. It’s just a little more well-defined in the separation of color and the way it represents everything.

DH: How did exposure fit into your approach? Was the low-light sensitivity a factor? Okada: A lot of Dolphin Tale 2 was shot in daylight. The F65 I kept at ASA 800 all the time. The only thing I would change would be the color temperature. The F55s, I shot at ASA 1250, which is pretty much what Sony recommends. Sometimes I gave it a little more exposure, and I would use neutral density and polarizers to bring the light down to a level where in daylight, we could shoot at a 5.6 or and 8. The low light capability of the camera helped us light larger areas at night. It’s interesting, when you are shooting in an environment that involves water and a lot of dark night sky, there is an ambient light that doesn’t exist. So you are pretty much creating it as if you were using a capture medium that has less sensitivity. So you still have to light and create everything. I found that it wasn’t any different than shooting with film. I didn’t find that the amount of light that I needed to use was dramatically different than what, personally, I am accustomed to doing. In film, I was always used to taking away light from certain things at night. I used the same sort of technique shooting digitally. The simpler answer is that it didn’t make the impossible possible. You still had to determine where you wanted the light to come from. Now it may have meant that I needed a slightly smaller source, but when you compare what we had on film, shooting between 500 and 800 ASA, it’s pretty much the same view. I find that with digital cameras, when you are shooting in an ambient city environment, it seems to look into dark areas more because there’s a lot of lower level ambient light in existence. On Dolphin Tale 2, where I was shooting in the middle of nature or close to the water, there wasn’t as much ambient light. So I had to create it all. So in that sense, it probably took a little more effort. In night city situations, I could get exposure without doing anything. It may look like crap, but I could see it all, whereas on Dolphin Tale 2, I really needed to do my lighting the right way to get the exposure, period.

“I found that it wasn’t any different than shooting with film.”

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Daryn Okada, ASC

DH: How did that compare with Let’s Be Cops? Okada: When I did my test for Let’s Be Cops in Los Angeles, on Sunset Boulevard, there was a lot of ambient light there. When we recreated that same feeling in Atlanta, there was not that same amount of ambient light. So I pretty much had to make all of that. But I found that I could expose at a lower light level, so that made it a little easier. But I still had to put the light in the right place and add color to that light. And if I didn’t put it in the right place, it didn’t matter how sensitive the camera was. DH: Did you use the built-in neutral density filters? Okada: Yes, I tried to use those as much as I could. On an F65, it was great having those built in. The 49

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F55, I would like a couple more choices of ND, but it was really helpful to not have to put anything else in front of that lens. I found the less glass I put in front of the lens, the better, especially shooting in daylight with a lot of hot highlights everywhere that are constantly in motion. If you add another piece, no matter how much you tilt that filter, the digital camera, because it’s a hard sensor and not a soft emulsion, it seems to bounce the light around more and pick up double reflections. So, built-in NDs were my first go-to for adjusting exposure.

“built-in NDs were my first go-to for adjusting exposure. ”

DH: Some cinematographers working in digital make decisions based on what looks filmic, in their opinion. Others say that digital is fundamentally different from film, and demands a completely different approach to visual storytelling. Do you think in these terms? Okada: I don’t look at it as trying to completely emulate what film did. But there is a value to the way film represents the world, by how it’s exposed and what you can do to it. By totally ignoring what we learned by shooting and looking at film, I think you end up losing emotion in the image. I think that’s because digital imagery can be so pristine, the audience can perceive it as artificial, as too finished, as plastic. There are a couple reasons for that, but one thing that lends value is to start off

by representing the world in a slightly filmic sense, working with images that you know tell the story in a way the audience understands and feels. As with any medium, you must be creative conceptually and simply be true to the story. I think it’s just a part of visual storytelling that works. And it’s not to say that you want to emulate film, or that you are trying to clone film digitally. I think using digital has its advantages, but also retaining the things that make moviemaking and storytelling on film so successful, is a great combination. I think when you create something that’s totally fabricated in a digital sense, the audience has to play a little bit of catch-up to feel comfortable. It may look really cool and everything, but I think they need something that is relatable. back to TOC

Daryn Okada, ASC

DH: When you are hammering all these technical details out, do you sometimes feel like you are inventing the future? Do you have a sense that you are pushing the technology? Okada: Oh yes. I wish we had a state of the art, industry wide digital workflow, but we don’t. I’m lucky I got to shoot a lot of film and the cinematographers, laboratories, and color scientist that came before me had the passion to be adventurous in the quest for improved imaging. I got to help work on the look of Kodak’s 5219 a few years back and now just want to do my part in this impressionable digital era so other filmmakers can pour their hearts into making their movies. You can do a lot of theory, you can do a lot in tests, but to come up with a method and make it work through an entire production, with other people who need to work on the same material, and deliver the production on time and on budget — that’s really like working on the future. It’s like R&D. It’s fun, but it has to be practical. Everybody has great workflow ideas, but when you have to do it in quantity, in a timely manner, it’s different. You can ask for the world, but it’s got to make sense. Hopefully, we’re taking what is technically possible and using it in a practical, cost-effective, production-friendly method, so that creatively, we can do our best work, use it to our advantage, and not feel like anything is compromised. And hopefully, that all leads to the audience getting the best product they can get on a big screen.

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Dolphin Tale 2 Technical Highlights 4 - Sony F55 Cameras from Panavision 1 - Sony F65 Camera from Panavision Panavision Primo Lenses Recording Sony 4K RAW, S-Log 2, S-Gamut On-set viewing: Technicolor DP Lights with ACES Sony BVM-F250 OLED Monitor 2 - Sony PVM 740 OLED Monitors 2 - Boxx Meridian wireless video links Zuccarini — Watershot F55 Carbon Fiber Underwater Housing (custom made for Dolphin Tale 2) Near Set Digital Lab — located at production office in Clearwater, FL Technicolor On Location Services FrameLogic Dailies System with Technicolor DP Lights with ACES NEC 2K Digital Projector for dailies color grading and screenings Technicolor Production Network (dailies deliverables transmission to Technicolor-Hollywood) DI Finish Technicolor Seward DI Theater 1 Autodesk Lustre Colorist: Mike Sowa DI conform file format: Sony 4K RAW to 2K ACES 16-bit OpenEXR VFX delivered in 16bit OpenEXR DI Masters — (Theatrical) 2K 16-bit OpenEXR Master 2K 16bit DPX to DCI XYZ (Video) 1920 x 1080 Rec. 709 from 2K 16-bit OpenEXR back to TOC

Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC on F55 Rodrigo Prieto discusses The Homesman and the Martin Scorsese HBO “Rock N’ Roll” drama By Jon Fauer, ASC Photos by Dawn Jones

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Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC

JON FAUER: You first used the F55 on The Homesman? RODRIGO PRIETO: Yes, that was the first time I used it. Originally the whole film was going to be done with digital capture. To decide which camera to use, we tested several digital cameras and also shot with film as a reference. When we screened the results, we ended up deciding that we wanted to shoot on film because the lack of grain of digital gave it more of a contemporary feel than we wanted. Tommy Lee Jones, the Director, wanted the movie to feel like a Western so that when the audience would see the first images, they’d think it is a traditional period film. And then the drama twists, things happen — so that’s why we chose film. In the process of testing the digital cameras, we were very impressed with the Sony, in particular with the color reproduction. I shot tests in the different locations we were filming in Santa Fe, and it was amazing how it reproduced the color of every leaf on the trees and different gradations of green and gold of the grass, the earth and the sky. For example,

we found that with other digital cameras, and even with film, the sky looked sort of blue/magenta. But with the Sony, the sky looked more pleasing — with a bit more cyan or turquoise, which seemed a little more natural. We really liked the Sony’s color and skin tone, but in the end, we decided to shoot on film because of its grain and texture. However, it was interesting that during our tests, I was able to compare different night scenes lit with candles and fire — and we felt that the camera that best was able to shoot in low light conditions was with the Sony F65. We ended up deciding to shoot all of the night scenes with a Sony F55 because of space constraints. We needed a smaller camera, and that’s why we ended up using the F55. I should add one thing about The Homesman. We added grain to the F55 digital images in DI to match with our film scenes. That became necessary because the images with the F55 were very pristine compared to film.

“In the process of testing the digital cameras, we were very impressed with the Sony, in particular with the color reproduction.”

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;We ended up deciding to shoot all of the night scenes with a Sony F55 because of space constraints. â&#x20AC;?

Photo still courtesy of Dawn Jones

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Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC

JF: What ISO did you rate the camera? RP: 1250 ISO. We shot the night scenes with Master Prime lenses, lit with real oil lamps and candles. There were two scenes where the key light was just an oil lamp. Instead of having to hide little bulbs, we actually used the flame, and it was a very beautiful sight to behold. 57

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JF: Those scenes dig into the shadows. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not all murky. RP: Indeed, you can see deep into the shadows and the highlights as well. I was quite impressed with the dynamic range as well as the color depth.

Photo still courtesy of Dawn Jones

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Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC

JF: I guess Stanley Kubrick would have enjoyed something like this on Barry Lyndon — not even having to use 3-wick candles. On The Homesman, how did you settle on the style in scouting and preparation? RP: From the very beginning, Tommy Lee was interested in being very minimalist in every sense for the look of the film, so the composition was mostly sky, flat land, flat landscape, the grass, and the wagon. Those were the main elements of composition, and we didn’t want to look for spectacular mountains or anything like that. He was really keen on the color of the sky, the color of the ground, where we placed the horizon line within the frame, and shooting the wagon straight on as opposed to three quarters front. We were trying to be as simple as possible, and the same applied to the night scenes in terms of color. That’s why I used fire as the color element, the oil lamps, fire — and we never used moonlight. It was all minimalist. It was just the color of the fire against the black of the night.

“I used fire as the color element, the oil lamps, fire — and we never used moonlight. It was all minimalist.”

Photo still courtesy of Dawn Jones

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The day interiors used very simple window light and ambient light coming in through a window, which of course I had to enhance because Tommy Lee also wanted to be able to see outside the windows and see detail, the horizon and the sky. That meant I had to bring up the level of the interiors, which were pretty dark because the windows were small and in many cases they had pieces of cloth in front of them to keep the dust and the elements out. The characters in the story couldn’t afford glass. Sometimes I’d have to use an open doorway as a source of light. In summary, the lighting was very simple: light coming through an open doorway or just an oil lamp or a candle.

Photo still courtesy of Dawn Jones

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Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC

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JF: You avoided the weird blue artificial moonlight that rarely looks realistic. RP: That was intentional. Moonlight is very difficult to reproduce to make it look real. In our case, we had a huge empty landscape. To see the whole area, you’d have to light all the way to the horizon, which of course is impossible, even if it’s low-level moonlight. There is one shot that we had to do day-for-night: Mary on her horse. The rest of it was either dusk or night with a campfire. JF: I know you like to operate. I assume the eyepiece was satisfactory. RP: No. That is one issue that I have in general with digital. I’m discovering that I don’t like operating anymore when I have to shoot digitally. I think I’ve tested every camera and I still prefer the optical finder (spinning mirror shutter) on the Alexa Studio. Even though it flickers, I prefer it to looking at a little monitor or even an eyepiece that doesn’t show the exact look. A big thing about operating, for me, is seeing the image. When I see it optically, I understand it. I know what the results will be. I can feel the lighting — but I cannot on a small video monitor. I know there are monitors that totally can apply a LUT. That is something that is still frustrating for me and I haven’t totally been able to work it out, so more and more I find myself not wanting to operate and spending more time with the DIT and watching the monitor there — because then I see the image with a proper Look-Up Table that helps give us an idea of the lighting. JF: I guess electronic finders are still a work in progress. RP: Yes, a work in progress. Another problem with the F55 is that you’re using the entire sensor top to bottom. In terms of operating, you don’t have a frame line on the top and bottom with the ability to see a little bit above and below. So if there’s a boom in the frame, you only see it once it’s in frame. Or if something is about to come into frame — you only see it once it is in the frame and it’s hard for a camera operator to anticipate what’s around the edges of frame when you’re in a 16:9 sensor. Photo still courtesy of Dawn Jones

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Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC

“I’ve been doing quite a few commercials and I did a pilot for HBO that Martin Scorsese directed.”

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JF: You went on to do the TV pilot in New York and then you did some commercials with the F55. RP: Yes, I’ve been doing quite a few commercials and I did a pilot for HBO that Martin Scorsese directed. The working title is “The Rock and Roll Project” and as always, I did comparative tests for it. I actually wanted to shoot 16mm, because this story happened in the ‘70s with some flashbacks. That was a time where 16mm was used a lot to film concerts. I wanted to emulate that, but when I approached HBO with this notion they told me that they’re phasing out the film for their productions. One problem was that they would let me film the pilot on 16mm, but the rest of the series would probably be digital. I figured I’d better design something that could be reproduced later in the series. So, I tested 16mm, 35mm, different camera types, digital cameras, and then I tested adding grain to that image in different ways. I ended up showing Martin Scorsese the test, and we both preferred the look of the Sony F55. I must say that even comparing it to both the 16mm and the 35mm film, we found that the Sony with the S-Log3 and S-Gamut3.Cine plus the LUT from efilm gave the F55 a beautiful look.

“I ended up showing Martin Scorsese the test, and we both preferred the look of the Sony F55. I must say that even comparing it to both the 16mm and the 35mm film, we found that the Sony with the S-Log3 and S-Gamut3. Cine plus the LUT from efilm gave the F55 a beautiful look.”

We really liked the color reproduction, the skin tones, and the characteristics that I liked in testing on The Homesman. But, of course, this was an urban drama, and very different. We liked the way the sky looked as well as the reflections of the sky in windows and the shadows and the shade from the buildings in New York. It looked more cyan than both on film and other digital cameras which looked more blue/ magenta — so it was much more pleasing with the F55. Scorsese himself liked the Sony look. He liked the color of it, and especially because I was able to add grain. Suny Behar, an independent consultant working with HBO showed me Live Grain. We shot different film stocks: 35mm 5219 normal and pushed one stop, and then I shot 7219 normal and pushed one stop. So we had all these different types of grain. We filmed a gray card that’s very clean, neutral gray with all different levels of exposure from five stops under, four stops under, three stops under, and the same thing to overexposure, so we had the grain of all these different stocks and all these different exposure levels; grain is added separately to the low light, to the mids, and to the highlights — with the actual grain that has been photographed. When you’re color timing, if the scene goes darker, you’ll go more into the low-light grain or if the image is brighter, you use the brighter grain. It reacts exactly the way it would with the film grain. And then, not only that, you can design your own grain structure, and adjust the mid-tone 35mm grain, the low-light 16mm, and the highlight 35mm grain. In fact, for this show I designed a specific look. As I said previously, it was the Sony S-Log3, S-Gamut3.Cine plus the efilm LUTs plus I tweaked the LUT by adding contrast and reducing saturation. It was as if I were designing my own negative, and then added the grain that I lacked. That’s how we created our own very specific look for this show, and I was very happy with the results. We wound up using two types of grain. One was emulating regular 16mm, 7219 film stock and then we did our own heavier grain version where we wanted it to be even a little grittier.

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Rodrigo Prieto, ASC, AMC

“Scorsese himself liked the Sony look. He liked the color of it, and especially because I was able to add grain.” What’s interesting is that when we actually shot the tests with 16mm, the film looked a little bit mushy in terms of the contrast and particularly the definition. The eyes were a little soft. Of course, with the F55 you have very high resolution and definition, but then we were able to adjust the image. It was like something I’ve never seen before because it had grain and the grittiness but still maintained the sharpness of a 4K camera. It was really interesting. JF: It’s almost a re-imagination of what we thought we remembered from 16mm and probably the way it should have been in the first place. RP: Exactly, it’s an updated version of 16mm. Because when we saw the actual 16mm projected, we said, “Really? Is it that soft?” You didn’t expect it to be that soft, but yes, I guess we’re used to sharper images these days. JF: I guess we also forgot how much 16mm bounced around in projection. It wasn’t steady. You did a similar thing on Argo, right? RP: Yeah, in a way, although on Argo we were more radical in terms of anamorphic, non-anamorphic, 2–perf, very high grain, or anamorphic without extra grain, things like that. We also played with different levels of grain, but I don’t think that will be something that you’ll notice very much. JF: On the Scorsese TV pilot, what lenses were you using?

“Of course, with the F55 you have very high resolution and definition, but then we were able to adjust the image, it was like something I’ve never seen before because it had grain and the grittiness but still maintained the sharpness of a 4K camera.” 65

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RP: That was a Panavision show. We used Primo lenses. I tested different vintage lenses: old Cookes, Baltars, old Canons, and compared them to Primos with different amounts of diffusion on the lens. We found that the Primos with Soft/FX filters were pretty similar actually to some of the old Baltars, without all the problems of having limited focal lengths and very different characteristics from one focal length to the other. With the older vintage lenses, some are more contrasty, others are less contrasty or the flare characteristics are different,

and the color of each lens can be different. So, we had the uniformity of the Primos, and then we added a little bit of diffusion, which in this case was optical. Another reason we used Primos was because they provide small round filters you can put behind the lens. That avoids ghosting of the image when you stack two front filters, which can be very frustrating. So having the filter on the back allowed me to use a grad in front of the lens or a Pola or whatever. That came in handy. We used a Soft/FX ½ or 1. They screw in behind the lens.

look similar. I think the modern lens with the Soft/FX filter is a more pleasing image.

JF: I have a delicate question. It seems to me that since you and Scorsese like the cinematic look so much, wouldn’t you prefer another digital camera over the F55?

“I tested the Sony F55 and showed Scorsese comparisons with film and other digital cameras, the skin tones really were a decisive factor in choosing the camera. That extra depth of color really makes a huge difference; and the latitude. Add grain to it and you really have a beautiful image.”

RP: Actually not. I think with the Sony F55 S-Gamut3. Cine, that way of debayering really has a very filmic look to it. When I tested the F55 and showed Scorsese comparisons with film and other digital cameras, the skin tones really were a decisive factor in choosing the camera. That extra depth of color really makes a huge difference; and the latitude. Add grain to it and you really have a beautiful image. JF: How would you compare the F55 to the look of the other digital cameras that you have used? RP: I used the Sony on the “Rock and Roll Project” and immediately after that I shot a commercial in New York with another digital camera. On the commercial I was doing comprehensive lighting, and I immediately noticed a difference of latitude of the filming with the camera, I lost more detail in both the highlights and the shadows that I had now become accustomed to seeing with the F55. JF: In terms of 4K, I guess you’re shooting all these shows in 4K and you don’t mind higher resolution. RP: Well, that’s a little bit of an issue. That’s why, more than before, I end up using filters like Soft/ FX or Diffusion. What I like about Soft/FX is that you don’t notice the filtration. The highlights don’t bloom as much as Pro-Mist where you definitely know that there is a filter on the camera. But, to reduce sharpness and resolution, when I compare older, vintage lenses to using a Soft/FX filter, they

JF: What was the workflow? Did you have a DIT? How do you see dailies? RP: It depends. For the “Rock and Roll Project” we did dailies at Deluxe, but I had the same look-up table with the DIT on set, and so we were able to provide CDLs. On the commercials and other jobs, we’ve been generating the dailies on set and watching them on set.

JF: You are timing your latest commercial at EFILM. Do you go directly from the 4K RAW with the applied LUT or do you just start from scratch? RP: We take the 4K RAW with the LUT and start from there. With EFILM, we knew that we were going to use their Truelook, so that was the basis for our LUT on set. We have the CDL generated on set, and now that I’m color timing, sometimes I use those CDLs as reference. But I just treat it exactly as I would a negative where it has known characteristics to it. For me, the LUT is that characteristic, and I don’t deviate much from that. I just treat it as if I were color timing a film negative. JF: On average, how long does it take you to grade 20 minutes of finished film, for example? RP: Well, today it took us around five hours, and tomorrow morning we’re going to show it to Scorsese. He’ll see it in a remote session in New York and I’m going to be here in LA and we’re going to look at it at the same time. I hope we get a green light.

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Zoran Veselic on F55 By Jon Fauer, ASC

Jon Fauer: Zoran, you have been working with Rodrigo on many productions as First Camera Assistant / Focus Puller. Tell us about the camera equipment you used on The Homesman.

was shot in New Mexico and we dealt with a lot of different temperatures, a lot of dust, where you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you, and our F55 cameras withstood all of those challenges. I can say I was very impressed.

Zoran Veselic: On The Homesman, we shot 4K, in Super 35, 2.40:1 spherical format with the Sony JF: With all that dust, how did you deal with lens F55. I loved that camera. As a focus-puller/camera changes to avoid getting dust on the sensor? assistant I work with all cameras and they are all excellent. Each one has its merits. It’s important ZV: We protected it from the wind. We would ask where they come from — which rental house is the grips for 4x4 solids all around the camera. I have packaging and accessorizing them. I really am a big to say it wasn’t really that much of a problem in fan of the Sony F55 camera, retrospect because we shot F55 particularly the ones that for night scenes and dark interior come from Otto Nemenz scenes. Exteriors and the rest “On The Homesman, we shot International. The person in were shot on film. The interiors 4K, in Super 35, 2.40:1 spherical were lit by candle and the F55 charge of most things digital format with the Sony F55. there is Ryan Sheridan. had a great latitude. The images I loved that camera” Ryan is a brilliant guy — look absolutely beautiful, very very smart. He completely natural, and stunning. understands our needs in the field, the needs of the DP, and the result of that JF: What was the ratio of film and digital? is a beautifully workable camera, not a camera that ZV: Maybe 10% of the movie was shot with Sony just produces beautiful images with a great sensor F55. All the daytime scenes were shot with film. and all that, but the way he sets it up makes it very user-friendly. JF: What was the reason for that? I’m sorry if this sounds like advertising for Nemenz. ZV: Well, Rodrigo loves film. Our next project will be But it’s true that these big companies like Sony, shot in film and digital. Canon and Panasonic unfortunately make cameras that are lacking access to electrical power for all JF: In anamorphic format, I heard? the accessories that we put on a camera. It’s not just about the camera. It’s about the monitor. It’s ZV: Yes. Rodrigo and Martin Scorsese are very about the viewfinder. Actually, the viewfinder is a nostalgic about film, but they do feel that film, with whole other story that they should all pay a little its texture and blacks and highlights simply looks more attention to. All these electrical two-pin, better. On The Homesman, the reason we used the three-pin ports are needed so you can power the F55 for the scenes lit with fire or candles was because accessories, and that’s what makes it user friendly, it looked best in comparison with the other digital and makes it a good experience when we’re not cameras we tested and because of its physical size. in the friendliest environment. The Homesman 67

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;The interiors were lit by candle and the F55 had a great latitude. The images look absolutely beautiful, very natural, and stunning.â&#x20AC;?

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Zoran Veselic on F55

JF: Did you have a DIT for the digital scenes? ZV: No, we didn’t. We didn’t have a DIT because the look was established in pre-production. We recorded 16-bit Linear RAW onto AXS Memory cards using the AXS-R5 recorder. JF: It’s interesting that you did not need a DIT, and you could just shoot the way you always shoot film. ZV: Yes. It reminds me how we shot the movie Her. We treated it just like film…even though we used an Alexa with Codex recorder. We had, I believe, 24 or 28 Codex Memory cards. That number of cards was very expensive, but we treated them just like film magazines and rolls of negative. We’d shoot them and send them out to be downloaded, and we’d rotate them. We didn’t have a DIT. It was just me and my camera department…and that was it. JF: What lenses did you have on The Homesman? ZV: Master Primes. And the Fujinon 18-85 T2 zoom, and 24-290 Angenieux Optimo zoom. The Fujinon Premier zoom is absolutely wonderful with very consistent, sharp, beautiful tracking, no deviation for every focal length, no shifting in the tracking, no shifting in focus. It’s just the most impressive zoom there is out there, as well as the other one, the 85-400 zoom. JF: Are you still using the Angenieux 24-290? ZV: Yes, absolutely, the Optimo is the only one of that size and range. I don’t think there’s anything out there that’s as good as that. The Optimo is still like a work horse in the longer zooms. JF: Discuss ergonomics a little more. ZV: As I was saying before, it’s not just about the sensor. What makes a good camera is how it works with accessories that you put on it. These days, you simply don’t do a movie without a hand-held monitor. The camera is on a crane and it makes you so much quicker — don’t need to be touching the camera. Everything moves independently. These days, we also always use an onboard monitor — sometimes two, one for the operator, one for the assistant, and a wireless lens control unit — these things all go onto the camera all the time. 69

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“The F55 cameras are small and very easy to use. They’re very manageable because of the small footprint...”

JF: Did you have multiple cameras, multiple F55s? ZV: Yes, we had two: an A and B camera. The B camera would be used for Steadicam. JF: And then you used the F55 on a TV pilot? ZV: We did a pilot with Martin Scorsese — that was an eight-week shoot and the whole pilot was shot with F55 cameras. It was a Panavision job.

“We recorded 16-bit Linear RAW onto AXS Memory cards using the AXS-R5 recorder.”

JF: So you used F55 Panavised cameras with Panavision mounts?

JF: Did you have a DIT on that New York job? ZV: Yes, Nick Kay was our DIT.

ZV: Panavision mounts. JF: Was it spherical or anamorphic? ZV: It was spherical. The F55 cameras are small and very easy to use. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re very manageable because of the small footprint â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which is great in situations when you shoot in a car. It is very adaptable. You can take things off.

JF: I heard that you also did some commercials with the F55 as well. ZV: Yes, we did a very big budget commercial with Martin Scorsese right after the Pilot, using the F55.

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The Owner/Operatorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Story: An Evolution to the Sony F5 By Mark Doyle and Srael Boruchin

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To borrow the Disney forward “the story is as old as time” — well, maybe not as old as time but fifteen years of shooting HD is an eternity and has seen evolution that rivals the Big Bang. As owner operators we want and need “bang” for our buck. We need cameras that look amazing and work well. Spending our own hard earned money on lighting, lenses, camera support, and cameras means each piece of our kit is an investment that must pay its own way. With clients as diverse as The Rachael Ray Show, My Grandmother’s Ravioli, The New York Yankees, Microsoft and L’Oreal, we look to use cameras that give us an edge and help us create exceptional footage in sometimes less than ideal circumstances.

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“Spending our own hard earned money on lighting, lenses, camera support, and cameras means each piece of our kit is an investment that must pay its own way.” The Canon C300 had that initial promise: great picture and convenient workflow at an attractive price point. The excitement of unboxing the C300 was quickly tempered by multiple realizations that eventually led us to conclude that this would not be a match made in heaven. Although we both had backgrounds with DSLR cameras, we found that the new video camera was not much friendlier to documentarystyle acquisition than the still cameras we already knew. So it began, the erector set-like builds and rebuilds that would consume many months, many hours and many, many dollars in efforts to construct the perfect camera build. Virtually every

“Although we both had backgrounds with DSLR cameras, we found that the new video camera was not much friendlier to documentarystyle acquisition than the still cameras we already knew.” 73

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C300 shoot required time to develop and experiment in order to accomplish what we once could with conventional ENG cameras that were invented decades prior. After purchasing a proper shoulder rig, mounting an external monitor for use as a viewfinder, finding an external microphone, follow focus, rails, handgrips, space for a time code sync box and, finally, a rig for an external battery adapter to power all of the accessories we just added on to the camera — which should be standard equipment — we were ready to shoot…kind of. Now, our cameras were a mish-mosh of many different parts, from many different manufacturers, and we were the ones trying to get them all to play nicely together. There was no harmony with the camera; and the gear was not helping us to acquire great images. The creative process suffered. What to do. We had given the rig the “college try” but we were still missing basic functions that we had previously enjoyed on our cameras dating back to the Betacam days. The ergonomics that allow for creative versatility were key to our decision to change camera systems. The ENG zoom lenses we started shooting news with included aperture control right on the lens, but using the C300 with Canon EOS glass meant having to “click” through aperture

settings using a poorly placed control knob on the camera body itself. What? When did this become a good idea? When larger cinema and ENG lenses were retrofitted, the rig became even more unwieldy, so those options were non-starters. If we were working on a sit-down interview, it was no problem to control exposure. But on documentary and vérité shoots

Evolution to The Sony F5

like My Grandmother’s Ravioli, we were trying to capture medium, close, and wide shots, handheld, all within the same take and in locations that were not always evenly lit. We found that we could not possibly zoom, focus and iris, with the same hand, and all at the same time. We could not allow content to be compromised due to technical limitations. The very reason

“But on documentary and vérité shoots like My Grandmother’s Ravioli, we were trying to capture medium, close, and wide shots, handheld, all within the same take and in locations that were not always evenly lit.”

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Evolution to The Sony F5

we exist as owner/operators is to test, refine, and present the best gear available to our clients within their budget. Our reputation is on the line and we need to capture the content that tells the story without compromise. This is what we do. Along Comes Salvation After a more than adequate investment of time, it was clear that something had to change. Enter the F5. A rig that not only feels at home on the shoulder, but also adjusts to various lenses and camera accessories that are part of every shoot. Multiple

video outputs to drive all of those accessories. Wait, we can control aperture on the actual lens? What wizardry is this? Brilliant! Of course these are only the initial features that caught our attention. We were still to learn of the multiple Codecs (with more on the way) and lens mount adapters including the LA-FZB1 that allows us to use the ENG lenses we already own with the focal length we’ve come to depend on. PL and yes, even EOS adapters keep all options open by allowing us to use whichever lens is right for the job. Now we have a camera system taking lessons

“Enter the F5. A rig that not only feels at home on the shoulder, but also adjusts to various lenses and camera accessories that are part of every shoot.” 75

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learned from legacy ENG camera systems, which changed content acquisition in their time, and applying those same lessons to a fully scalable Super 35 HD and 4K capable platform. Now we’re evolving. Wow Factor To us, ‘wow factor’ is that moment when people see what you are shooting and their eyes pop and their jaw drops — the “pop & drop” is always great to see on set. The client can feel the exact emotion you are trying to capture using light, lens, and camera. In certain situations

anyone can achieve this with any given camera, but we are in the business of striving for this in every circumstance. There are some cameras that hinder the creative process and others that actually help advance the vision. The F5 is definitely one that helps. Immensely. Shooting S35 with the F5 has unleashed creativity on set. No longer is there worry about bolting pieces of the camera together and trying to get them to function as one. Instead we can concentrate on lighting, composition, and content. This is how we work with directors and talent — collaborating to create the best content possible. Looking Back to Leap Forward: We still recall those first Betacams, our first cameras as independent owner/operators. They enabled us to “hang out our shingle” and gave us a foothold in the business, no matter how tenuous. At that time, we bought the camera knowing what it was, what it could do, and accepted it. A different white balance here, a few filters there, maybe even a few scene file options. For the most part, the camera was the camera you purchased from day one. It performed basic functions and worked well enough. Remember when the industry was on the verge of going from standard definition to the mysterious “high definition”? We want 720! Shoot this in 1080! 24P this, 60i that. Flexibility became a requirement. By being adaptable, we made sure the footage looked amazing and ensured

that the client would call us back having met their needs without breaking a sweat. That is what the F5 is doing for us today. HD? 4K? MPEG? XAVC? RAW? S-Log? No sweat. The F5 is the right answer right now — no waiting. It is also what we need for the foreseeable future. The ability to scale the camera to a wide range of expectations through the multitude of hardware and firmware upgrades is unprecedented. It is truly a multitool of image acquisition. Not only are we able to serve the needs of our diverse clientele, we are also able to greatly extend the lifespan of our initial investment which is no small feat in today’s ever-changing market. Imagine owning a two year-old camera and being

“That is what the F5 is doing for us today. HD? 4K? MPEG? XAVC? RAW? S-Log? No sweat.”

“The ability to scale the camera to a wide range of expectations through the multitude of hardware and firmware upgrades is unprecedented.” able to consider that its best days may actually still be ahead. The kind of vision it takes to execute this is not commonplace. It takes years of research and development, a long memory, and true innovation to forge a new standard in a complex market. At a time when it seems there are so many “flavors of the month” in the camera world, we need a manufacturer who is looking out for the people who are investing in these cameras. Rather than stumble forward, the F5 allows us to leap into a multifaceted future. No matter what the client needs, we can simply say, “Yes.” That is evolution.

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Joseph Kosinskiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Destiny

The director discusses TRON: Legacy, Oblivion and his commercial for the video game Destiny Interview by Jon Fauer, ASC 77

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Joseph Kosinski’s Destiny

John Fauer: Why don’t we start from the beginning? Tell me a little bit about your background, your education, and how that relates to what you’re doing now. Joseph Kosinski: I got my undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering with an emphasis on design. I thought I was going to be an engineer when I went to school. I was interested in aerospace and industrial design and that was where I thought I would be going. But one of my professors told me I had a good eye and should consider a career outside of engineering, perhaps something more visual. That’s when I started thinking about architecture, and ended up getting into the graduate architecture program at Columbia University. I was lucky in that I entered the program in 1996 just as everything was starting to go digital. If I had gone a couple years earlier I would have been working with tracing paper, T-squares, lead pencils, and all of the traditional tools of the trade, but I came in right as things were switching over. I had access to Alias, Maya, 3DS Max, Premiere, Photoshop as well as digital video. Architecture school was not only enlightening from an artistic point of view but also from a technical one. I had access to all of these incredible tools, and came out of that program with the ability to do a lot more than architecture. I started making short films one of which was selected for a digital film festival called RESFEST. The short caught the interest of an ad agency, I started doing small 79

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commercials, and have been working ever since. JF: Interesting. Where did you do your undergraduate work? JK: Stanford. Architecture is an interesting field because it spans the creative and the technical. There’s so much application to what you’re doing, and the skill set travels well. JF: It travels very well, which probably is the reason why your films have this architectural design sensibility to them. You must be heavily involved in that. JK: Certainly. I love that part of it. The two films I’ve done required worlds that had to be created from scratch, and I enjoy working with the art department. I’ve been lucky to have the time to flesh out the worlds in detail and craft them so they serve the story. Even though they are both heavy visual effects films, there’s a lot of practicality to them because I like shooting real things. JF: I guess a good example would be the glass house in Oblivion where you projected real backgrounds. JK: Yes, the Skytower. All of those scenes were done completely incamera, from the inside looking out. It was created with 21 cinema

projectors re-projecting footage that we shot in Maui from the top of the Haleakala Volcano onto a massive cyc that surrounded the set. It was a case where the technology had just reached the point where we were able to pull that off in terms of light levels. We needed a camera that was rated at 800 ASA with Master Primes to be able to capture the light levels and make it feel like daylight. Claudio [Director of Photography Claudio Miranda, ASC] and I were just talking about that set and the risk involved in building it. We thought it would work, but we wouldn’t know for sure until the whole thing was built. Once it was, it saved money by eliminating visual effects shots that didn’t have to be created. JF: Yes, and it was beautiful because the projection then became the source of the light and you could see it on the actors faces. It was very cool. JK: That’s why I put as many reflective and transparent surfaces in as I could. That’s the kind of thing you can never do with blue screen. It was a wonderful place to shoot as well. You became immersed in the world and did not have to imagine anything on set — which was a nice change.

“The Skytower interiors were done completely in-camera. It was created with 21 cinema projectors re-projecting footage that we shot in Maui from the top of the Haleakala Volcano onto a massive cyc that surrounded the set.”

JF: Tell me a little bit more about the look of TRON. It was also a Sony camera. That was an F35 right? JK: Yes, that was the F35. I think that Oblivion was the first F65 film released and TRON: Legacy was the first shot on the F35. JF: You and Claudio are pioneers. JK: In fact, we used the very first F23 before that on a commercial, so we always seem to be waiting for the next Sony camera, and always find a way to use it. On

TRON: Legacy we strapped two F35s together using the Pace 3D Camera System, which has one vertical camera and one horizontal camera going through a beam splitter. It was all shot on Master Primes. That one was not driven by front projection but by the suits because they were all practical. The suits were a light source and we needed to capture as much of that light as possible. We were losing about a half a stop with the beam splitter and the F35 was the most sensitive digital

camera at that time. I also liked the way the F35 captured color, and the Master Primes were the fastest lens we could source. We had two complete sets of them. That film was largely practical: uplit floors on the bigger sets and fully lit suits. Certainly it had all-digital sequences, but the film was meant to feel like we took a camera into the world of the Grid and shot it from the inside. So we tried to make it as seamless as possible. I went with a Wizard of Oz approach where everything in back to TOC

Joseph Kosinski’s Destiny

the real world was 2D, and once you entered the world of TRON, we switched to 3D. For certain sequences of the film in IMAX, we used the full frame chip, which at that point was 1.78:1. On Oblivion, with the F65 for the IMAX release, we did the whole film in the full chip format, which is 1.89:1. Then, for the standard release, it was 2.40:1 matted. JF: What do you use for previzing? JK: On Oblivion, we used a company called The Third Floor, which was founded by some ex-ILM guys. The reason they’re called the Third Floor is because they were on the third floor of the house at Skywalker Ranch doing the Star Wars prequels. They eventually started their own company. We also did postviz with The Third Floor on Oblivion so we could work with

something temporary for the six months before the final visual effects are finished. It allows you to see the movie and show it to people with something rough in there that tells the story. On this commercial I worked with a company called Halon out of Santa Monica, who are also very good and very fast. JF: And with Maya, all that, can you just grab the controls and do it yourself? For the prevising? JK: Every once in a while, I’ll do a little bit of previz or camera setups by myself. Claudio uses it as well. We were using it to visualize a complex lighting rig we’re building for something we’re going to do on stage. It’s great just to have the ability to sketch something out to make sure dimensionally you’re covered.

JF: What program are you guys using? JK: Claudio uses Strata3D. It’s great for quickly building camera rigs, to see where your lights are going to be, how much bluescreen you need, and to check stage dimensions to make sure you’ve got the space you need. JF: Can you tell me a little bit about the commercial that you shot with Claudio? JK: Yeah, we were shooting a two minute spot for a video game called Destiny. And we were shooting live action in a few locations around Mexico and then in Moab, Utah and Southern Utah and then a little bit in Los Angeles. That spot was released in early September. That’s what we were working on and just couldn’t talk about it at the time, but now obviously the spot’s out. JF: This summer when you were in Utah, you mentioned the heat. JK: Yes. We ran into some problems because in Utah it was 105-110 degrees. The cameras were getting pushed. The DIT cart was getting hot. We had some air conditioning tents that were actually brought in to just kind of try to keep the cast cool, but we ended up having to use some of that AC just to keep the equipment cool so it would function. So it was definitely pushing the limits in terms of the environment.

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JF: Did the cameras overheat? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them working in that kind of temperature. JK: They were monitoring them. They were operating above their maximum temperature I think. We ended up strapping dry ice to the outside of the camera bodies. The temperatures we were reading on the cameras were above what was the maximum allowable and they were still working. JF: That’s above the normal specifications. JK: Yes. So they had these porous bags of dry ice that we would strap on to the air intakes on the cameras. It’s not only the air temperature of 110 degrees, but then being in the sun and a black camera body. It became really,

really hot. But the cameras actually worked fine. It was more the DIT cart and the VTR equipment that was having trouble staying cool. JF: Alright. So what was the concept of that commercial? JK: We were following what’s called a Fire Team, which is a group of three characters, representing players as they traveled around the solar system. So we shot Mexico for Venus, Moab, Utah for Mars, and Southern Utah doubled for the Moon. Then we shot a couple of pieces on stage in Los Angeles: live fire weaponry, shots inside the helmets and a little bit of motion capture for some of the digital scenes. So it was a two week shoot for this spot that aired for the first time during the first NFL game. It was shot on the F65 with Master Primes and the

Fujinon 4K lenses. And the idea was to try to do as much of the spot live action as possible. That’s rare in video game commercials because generally they like those to be either 100% CG or even sometimes done inside the game engine. So it was great to have an opportunity to be able to shoot 90% live action. JF: And it was, about what, 10 days of shooting? JK: I think all in it was seven, but it was spread across two and a half weeks because of all the travel. The last scene was shot at the Cave of Swallows, which is in central Mexico deep in the jungle. Very hard place to get to. All the places we shot at were difficult to get to so it generally involved a couple of days of travel for each shooting day. back to TOC

Joseph Kosinski’s Destiny

JF: And how did you do all these effects in camera? JK: The characters are full live action so we rapid prototyped the suits from the game with Legacy Effects, which is a costume and creature company here in Los Angeles, founded by Stan Winston. And that, just from a technology point of view, is pretty interesting. We took the 3D mesh data from the video game and used that to 3D print out many of the components of the suits as well as the helmets. So we had full painted costumes in about two weeks, which is the fastest I’ve ever seen costumes of that complexity and sophistication manufactured. So getting the characters 100% in camera was a huge part of it. And then we had the weapons rapid prototyped as well. We had operable weapons that shot blanks. We used live pyro. Found great locations. We even built half of the Sparrow, which is the hover bike that the characters ride in the spot. So we were able to get a lot of it in camera, which was great. And in terms of visual effects, it was just about replacing backgrounds. And that was generally because we only had three weeks of post on the back end, which is not a lot for a two-minute spot.

JF: And was it a single-camera shoot or multiple cameras? JK: It was a two-camera shoot for the most part. JF: And you used the F65? JK: Yes. Our camera and lens package of choice right now is the Sony F65 and the ARRI Master Primes. We found on Oblivion that it captured all the detail of the Icelandic landscape and provided the fast speeds that we needed for the Skytower interiors. In my opinion, it’s at the top of the heap in terms of digital cameras. We constantly test everything and always seem to come back to the F65 and Master Primes. For the zooms, we both love the Fujinon 4K zooms, which are as sharp as the Master Primes. Everything seems to come together very nicely when you use those two packages together. That’s the equipment of choice right now and we’re sticking with it until we find something better. JF: I wonder why more people aren’t using the F65. JK: I don’t know why. It’s a big camera and I know it uses a lot of power but, as far as image quality, I don’t know what other faults people have with it. It has an 8K sensor and then downsamples to 4K — so in terms of

“In my opinion, the F65 is at the top of the heap in terms of digital cameras. We constantly test everything and always seem to come back to the F65 and Master Primes.”

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detail I feel it’s the best out there. Everyone’s allowed to shoot with whatever they want, but I find the picture quality that comes out of the box is neutral and easy to grade in whatever direction you want. There’s little work required to get it to a neutral place and the image pushes in any direction you want to take it. JF: So, in terms of getting there, what’s your role in doing the camera testing and the lens testing in preproduction? JK: We did camera tests. We did projection tests. We tried a number of different lenses. Claudio and I are together in all of that. Claudio is an artist first and foremost, but he’s also a technician. After we’ve worked so long together he knows what I like. Our communication is very easy. It’s almost unspoken at this point. JF: And let me guess: your equipment comes out of Keslow Camera? JK: That’s correct. I did actually get a chance to go and tour the facility a couple of weeks ago. And I was very impressed by the whole setup just as you said I would be. JF: Did you go to their open house party? JK: No, it wasn’t an open house. I got an opportunity to tour one afternoon. They just wanted to show me around since I’ve done a lot of work through

â&#x20AC;&#x153;For Cave of Swallows, we actually hired 30 locals to carry the crane down, piece by piece, down 500 steps in the jungle. I mean it was hard enough just by yourself to hike down and out of the cave, but the crane and equipment and the lenses and cameras and all that. It was a huge effort.â&#x20AC;? back to TOC

Joseph Kosinski’s Destiny

them. Claudio’s crew was there prepping that day for another job, so they had a lot of people I knew working there. The facilities are very impressive and it seems like a great place to prep and test. I was particularly impressed with how they have their own 3D printing and

“The picture quality that comes out of the box is neutral and easy to grade in whatever direction you want.”

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milling department that makes customized equipment for their cameras as they need it. It was cool that they had their own design department and manufacturing department in house to make things that the crews are requesting. JF: And architecturally it was pretty interesting, wasn’t it? JK: Yeah, it was beautiful. I love all the natural light and it’s just a great environment for testing and prepping. Very organized and very well laid out, so I was definitely impressed. JF: This is a leading question. If it’s a TV spot, it’s HD. Why bother shooting in 4K? JK: Even though you’re finishing at HD or 2K for the movies I worked on, you still appreciate the sharpness and resolution that something like an F65 gets you. Especially with some of the jungle

Temperatures in Utah ranged from 105 Just a typical location shoot:toCave of Miranda Swallows, Mexico 110°. lines up a shot.

“So we shot Mexico for Venus, Moab, Utah for Mars, and Southern Utah doubled for the Moon.”

environments we shot in, the Mars environment, all the texture on rocks and leaves. The dynamic range of the camera obviously applies no matter what resolution you’re shooting at and we used the 4K plates. Sometimes we punched in, sometimes we used it for stabilization. It’s good to have all that extra information there regardless. For me, commercials serve as a laboratory for feature projects. I always like to try to use the same equipment I would use in a feature as much as possible. JF: Yes, that’s a very good point. You get to experiment a lot more, don’t you? JK: Yes, absolutely.

JF: So that leads to a big question: Is shooting in 4K or 8K down to 4K very important to you? JK: Everything ultimately makes its way to HD for home viewing and mostly 2K for theatrical. There are very few films right now that finish all the way through 4K and that’s primarily due to the fact that the visual effects cost of finishing everything at 4K is still too high for most films. So ultimately almost everything’s viewed at 2K. I find that the 2K images coming from the F65’s original 8K chip are sharper and more detailed. That detail still shines through in the 2K image. I like capturing in the highest quality format possible. I can shoot a little bit wider and

know that I can punch in and go tighter if I want to. Or, if I want to reposition the frame, I have the image quality and data to do that. JF: Yes, especially on commercials. There probably never was a commercial done in the history of commercials where the art director didn’t ask to blow something up right? JK: Yes. It’s nice to be able to punch in. Commercials are on a faster pace. It is nice to know that you have the ability to get two sizes from one image if you need to with the 4K master.

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“And then we had the weapons rapid prototyped as well. We had operable weapons that shot blanks. We used live pyro.”

JF: What about this notion of being future proof? Are the studios increasingly asking you about 4K so they can have high resolution in the future? JK: My experience has been that I’m the one who’s pushing for the 4K, the Dolby ATMOS, the IMAX release, etc. Pushing for those formats and the newest technology seems to be more director-driven rather than studiodriven. That’s just been my experience. I’m interested in ways we can improve and push the theatrical experience as far as possible. 87

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JF: Good for you. You probably capture it RAW right? JK: Yes. Always capture RAW. As much dynamic range as possible. JF: And do you have various looks that you’ve set on location? JK: We have a DIT so he’s doing an on set LUT with us. At lunch, Claudio and I will dive into the tent and do a look on each scene, transcode it and deliver to editorial on site. We’re traveling with an editor, cutting it together as we go.

JF: I have a question about your location work in these difficult locations like the jungles of Mexico. So you’ve got two F65s. Did you have DIT carts and the whole regalia? Or how did you handle that? JK: Yes. Alex Carr, our DIT was there on location and he was processing and doing a basic grade on all the footage real time, while we were shooting. So at the end of the day, Claudio and I would go back to his cart either on the truck or sometimes he’d move it back to his hotel room and we’d sit there and spend an

Joseph Kosinski’s Destiny

post, we were actually cutting versions of the spot and the 30 second cut downs, while we were shooting. So we were delivering edits on the fly and we couldn’t show flat material that would then get passed up the chain to the client for them to view. It’s not fair to show them flat material. So we wanted to make sure they were at least seeing 80% of where I wanted to take it. It was more for that reason. If we had had a longer post schedule then we probably wouldn’t have been grading it there. We would have taken time at the end of the shoot to grade it properly and cut it. It was because everything was being done simultaneously, which sometimes happens on these fast-paced spots.

hour grading the footage from the day. For some of the crazy locations like Cave of Swallows, we actually hired 30 locals to carry the crane down, piece by piece, down 500 steps in the jungle. We built a platform at the edge of the Cave of Swallows and assembled the crane there to get some of those overhead shots so it was pretty crazy. I mean it was hard enough just by yourself to hike down and out of the cave, but the crane and equipment and the lenses and cameras and all that. It was a huge effort.

JF: So you actually set up DIT carts and tents there and in Moab, Utah and everywhere else? JK: Yes. JF: I have a question for you. When you’re directing a job like this, I mean you pretty much know what the limits are of the camera and what the camera can do. Do you really need Alex to be grading there or you know in advance what it’s capable of and you don’t really need that? JK: It wasn’t for me so much. It was for the agency and the client. Because we had such a short

JF: Oh, so you were shooting in S-Log I guess, right? I mean normally out of the camera, it comes looking kind of flat and looks like a negative and then he applies the LUTs to it. JK: Yeah. It was not only a LUT, but because we were shooting live action locations for different planets, it was a stronger color grade than neutral. We were really pushing it to make sure Moab felt like Mars and Southern Utah felt like the Moon. It was a stronger color grade to differentiate the different planets.

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Joseph Kosinski’s Destiny

JF: Yeah, I see. So Alex is grading on set and then did you also have another person doing mirror set back ups and all that and data management? Or was Alex doing everything? JK: Alex was handling everything. He was making the backups, grading and handling all of that even in Mexico. We were flying back extra copies with the agency to LA, making sure that we had versions spread around in case anything happened. JF: I was going to ask you about the post. Just three weeks. Wow. Where did you post it — editing and finishing? JK: It was done at Digital Domain. Eric Barba was the VFX supervisor. So it was a lot of the same people who worked on Oblivion as well as on TRON: Legacy with me. It was a feature-level VFX crew, which was great to get on a TV spot. JF: Thanks, it’s been great talking with you. Before you go, you know what is really interesting to me? That Sony A7s camera. Have you seen that? JK: Yes, Claudio has one and we’ve been playing around with it, including shooting video in slomo. It’s an amazing little device and I’m impressed. So is it a 4x3 sensor? JF: It’s a 24x36. The math works out to 4x3. But if you want to use Master Anamorphics or anybody else’s anamorphics, you use a PL to E-mount adapter. JK: And it’s a 4K sensor?

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JF: Yes, it’s a 4K sensor. You know, I just got back from Europe and it seems like 4K is coming on like a freight train everywhere in the world, except Europe. It’s partly cultural and artistic — like Monet compared to Hiroshige, and economic. Everywhere else in the world it’s coming on faster than even I expected. I mean for Apple to announce the new iMac in 5K. It’s incredible. JK: Yeah, well I think it’s once the content becomes easily available

whether it’s Netflix or whenever iTunes starts streaming 4K or the cable companies start. You need the material there to drive it. And it feels like right now it’s still a little hard to access. We’re just not quite there yet. I feel like it’s on the cusp. JF: And one last question, where do you see the industry going in general? And specifically: in theaters, TV, and video games? JK: Well, games continue to

get more and more impressive every year. At E3 this year, there was a lot of interesting stuff both in the game play and the game trailers. I don’t think this idea of one replacing the other will ever happen. But I think movies, television and games will all continue to learn from one another. People in the movie industry are looking at television and being inspired by what’s out there. Games have always looked at movies

as they strive to be more cinematic. I think movies are looking at gaming now with the success and popularity of these huge titles. They’ll all continue to feed off each other, but I don’t think any of them are going to make the other ones extinct anytime soon.

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Sony releases new tools to enhance file-based workflows. By Michael Bryant and Kevin Canney Sony Creative Software www.sonycreativesoftware.com Sony Creative Software support www.sonycreativesoftware.com/support

Introduction There are many trends in creative production that are competing for your attention, including competing camera and format standards, 4K+ frame sizes, RAW data, high‑frame‑rate (HFR) video, mandatory GPU acceleration, cloud services and collaboration, and users’ desire for mobile editing platforms. Catalyst Browse™ and Catalyst Prepare™ were built to harness these trends, streamlining the video-production workflow from clip management through preparation for editing. In this article, we’ll examine how these two applications work within a modern production workflow on desktop and portable PC and Mac platforms. 91

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• Catalyst Browse is a free clip-management tool for the portfolio of Sony camcorders and decks. You can use Catalyst Browse to browse media files on drives and devices connected to your computer, preview clips, view metadata, adjust color content, and assemble clip lists. • Catalyst Prepare is a cross-platform media-preparation tool for all Sony pro formats as well as formats from other leading manufacturers, such as Canon and GoPro. Catalyst Prepare supplies mediamanagement functions such as browsing a collection of files from a device, detailed clip views, media import to a production drive, viewing and editing metadata, source color space support for accurate viewing, color correction and color looks, transcoding files to a variety of formats, secure full-volume backup, and storyboard creation. Catalyst Browse and Catalyst Prepare natively support Sony professional formats such as XDCAM™ SD and HD, XDCAM EX™, XAVC™-Intra, XAVC Long-GOP, XAVC S, NXCAM®, RAW, HDCAM SR™ (SStP), AVCHD™, AVC H.264/ MPEG‑4, HDV, and DV. All formats can be mixed and matched when building a storyboard. If you’re working with multichannel files, Catalyst Prepare supports files with up to 16 channels of audio. Both applications take advantage of the power of modern GPU devices from Intel, NVIDIA, and AMD to enhance playback and transcoding. If you’re working with a touchscreen device, Catalyst Browse and Catalyst Prepare put browsing, viewing, and playback at your fingertips with touch-enabled interfaces. Use gestures to navigate the application, select clips, start and stop playback, scrub clips, adjust colors, and more.

Browsing devices and copying clips with Catalyst Browser When you connect your camera, deck, or card reader to your computer, you can use Browse mode in Catalyst Browse to view the connected deviceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clips and copy them to your computer.

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Workflow tools

Acquiring clips in Catalyst Prepare For more flexibility and improved organization, you can use Import mode in Catalyst Prepare to import clips from your camera or deck to a library on your computer.

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In Import mode, you can browse multiple devices that are connected to your computer. Connect cameras, decks, or card readers, view the clips as thumbnails or as a list with metadata, and preview each clip to log mark in/out points. Import mode offers the ability to copy all clips, selected clips, or subclips from storage media to a production drive or a backup drive.

You can rename clips during the import if your workflow has specific file-naming requirements, and you can choose to import only the video between each clip’s mark in/mark out points. When files are imported, they are added to a Catalyst Prepare library, allowing you to organize your media in a way that works for you: create a separate library for each production, location, or shot type. When you’re ready, just select the library where you want to import clips, and click Import to start copying files. In Import mode, you can also create a full‑volume backup with the confidence of checksum verification. Videographers and digital imaging technicians (DITs) can feel secure knowing that they have an exact replica of the original storage media — with all files and volume structure — backed up for long-term safety and storage.

“In Import mode, you can browse multiple devices that are connected to your computer.”

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Workflow tools

Organizing your imported clips An efficient workflow requires careful planning and organization. You can use Organize mode to review your imported clips, group related clips in folders, view and edit metadata, and view mark points.

In the Inspector pane, you can view file and camera metadata associated with each file. You can use the Summary tab to add additional metadata such as Status, Title, Creator, and Description to further annotate the file. Shot marks and essence marks that were recorded during the shoot are presented in the Mark Points tab.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;You can use the Summary tab to add additional metadata such as Status, Title, Creator, and Description to further annotate the file.â&#x20AC;?

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Workflow tools

Editing clips You can use Edit mode to log mark in/mark out points, create subclips, create storyboards, and adjust color.

Take advantage of viewing your Rec. 709, S-Log1, S-Gamut/S-Log2, S-Gamut3/S-Log3, S-Gamut3.Cine/ Sâ&#x20AC;&#x2018;Log3, and RAW sources in the full high dynamic range color space. Get close with predefined magnification, or zoom in and out quickly as the video plays to spot check every corner of the scene. Show safe areas, mask to cinema aspect ratio, and apply clip settings such as horizontal/vertical flip and anamorphic stretch.

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To make sure you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss a single detail, you can preview your clips using the source frame rate or the Play all frames mode to accurately view every frame. Adjust the playback speed up to 4x to move through a clip quickly, and then use the scrub control slider or JKL scrubbing to accurately locate a specific frame.

Logging mark points and creating subclips Log mark in and out points during playback or scrub the timeline and log mark points to focus on the important part of the clip. Creating subclips allows you to capture important sections of a longer clip. Subclips save disk space when transferring media to the

NLE: you can deliver only material of interest and apply a meaningful name to help your editor.

“To make sure you don’t miss a single detail, you can preview your clips using the source frame rate or the Play all frames mode to accurately view every frame. ”

Workflow tools

Storyboards The storyboard feature lets you organize and sequence a set of clips into a rough cut of the storyline. Change the sequence, edit in and out points for individual clips, and add or remove clips.

Storyboards also allow you to create collections that may not have a specific sequence but have a common theme: “good shots,” shots from a specific location, or shots with a particular actor in them. With Catalyst Prepare, it’s all about organization

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and your imagination. When you’re ready to share, you can use Export mode to render a storyboard to a single file for stakeholder review. This is a perfect way for stakeholders to see the initial idea for a project.

If you need to deliver the storyboard for additional editing, you can export the storyboard as an EDL with media. This saves the editor time as the project is already started, the initial edit is done, and the media is present,

sequenced, and ready to finish. Supported NLEs include Vegas™ Pro, AVID Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve (via an FCP XML).

“Storyboards also allow you to create collections that may not have a specific sequence but have a common theme...”

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Workflow tools

Color grading Take advantage of the high dynamic range and wide color gamut of your professional camera.

The Adjust Color workspace in the Inspector pane allows you to set the Source and Convert to color spaces. If you need to change your Grade in color space, it’s just a click away in the Options menu. Apply a look profile and use the Tone Curves, Color Wheels, and Color Correction sliders to adjust color while viewing the Waveform and Histogram displays, as well as a side-by-side or split before/after view. You 101

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can adjust the color content of your clips using the on-screen controls, or — for a more tactile experience — you can use Tangent Element Tk, Kb, Bt, Mf, Vs, or Tangent Wave control panels for fluid adjustment of Saturation, Lift, Gamma, and Gain. When you’re working on critical color adjustments, you can preview your clips on an external reference monitor via HD-SDI by using a Blackmagic SDI or UltraStudio device.

Color grading is simple and intuitive: •P ick the source color space — Rec.709, S-Log1, S-Gamut/SLog2, S-Gamut3.Cine/S-Log3, or S-Gamut3/S-Log3. •S elect the grading color space — Rec.709, Log, or ACES.

• Waveform and Histogram displays update during playback, and the preview window allows you to compare the color-corrected version to the original in split-screen or side-by-side preview modes.

•F or S-Log2, S-Log3 or RAW sources, adjust Exposure, Color Temperature, or Tint using adjustment sliders.

If you need to share or reuse settings, you can click the Tools button at the bottom of the Inspector pane to save and load color presets and ASC-CDL files.

•A djust Lift, Gamma, Gain, and Saturation with standard 3-wheel tools or adjustment sliders.

When you’re finished editing, you can transcode files using your new color adjustments.

•T he Tone Curve enables you to adjust red, green, and blue graphically.

For even more information, see “Close up: Log (cinematic) color grading in Catalyst Prepare” below.

“If you need to change your Grade in color space, it’s just a click away in the Options menu.”

Workflow tools

Exporting, copying, and sharing clips You can use Export mode to transcode clips to a variety of NLE-friendly formats or copy clips to another location. Select the clips you want to export in the middle pane of the Catalyst Prepare window and use the Export Settings controls on the right side to choose how and where you want to export your files.

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Transcoding clips When you select Transcode clips, the selected clips are exported to a folder in a format that you specify. You can transcode to a variety of formats, including AVC/AAC (.mp4), DPX, Apple ProRes 422 (Mac only), Avid DNxHD®, or XAVC with a variety of frame rates and resolutions.

You can use the Rename files controls to customize the exported file names to ensure files aren’t overwritten or to create more intuitive file names for the editing stage. You can choose whether you want to include color adjustments in the exported files. The source clips are not affected during the exporting process. Transcoding is processed in the background, allowing you to queue additional transcodes or to continue with other work.

“You can transcode to a variety of formats, including AVC/AAC (.mp4), DPX, Apple ProRes 422 (Mac only), Avid DNxHD®, or XAVC with a variety of frame rates and resolutions.”

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Copying clips When you select Copy clips, the selected clips are exported to a folder that you specify. The original clip name and format are preserved if possible, and color correction is not applied to the copied clips. The source clips are not affected during the copy process. Sharing clips in the cloud In Organize mode, you can upload selected clips to Sony Media Cloud Services Ci for storage, transport to another location, or stakeholder review. Simply select the clips you want to share, click the Clip button, and choose Upload to Ci.

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;In Organize mode, you can upload selected clips to Sony Media Cloud Services Ci for storage, transport to another location, or stakeholder review.â&#x20AC;?

Workflow tools

Close up: log (cinematic) color grading in Catalyst Prepare

1. Click the Organize button at the top of the Catalyst Prepare window to view the Media Browser. 2. D ouble-click a clip in the Media Browser to load the clip you want to edit. When you load a clip, the colorcorrection settings saved with the clip are loaded. 3. C lick the Adjust Color button at the bottom of the Catalyst Prepare window. In this mode, Catalyst Prepare displays a waveform monitor, a histogram, a video preview, and color controls that you can use to adjust the appearance of your video. The waveform monitor, histogram, and video preview window allow you to monitor your progress as you adjust color values. in the 4. Click the Inspector button toolbar to display the Inspector pane. In the Adjust Color workspace, the Inspector pane provides controls that you will use to adjust color grading settings. 5. The Source drop-down list displays the color space that is applied to your source media. Click the Unlock button and choose a setting from the Source drop-down list to choose the color space that should be applied to the source media. When you choose a setting, the video preview is updated. â&#x20AC;˘ Choose S-Gamut/S-Log2 for S-Log2 or RAW sources. â&#x20AC;˘ Choose S-Gamut3.Cine/S-Log3 or S-Gamut3/S-Log3 for S-Log3 or RAW sources.

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6. The Grade in box displays the color space that should be applied to color grading and adjustments. Click the Options button choose Log from the Grade in drop-down list to change the setting if necessary. Rec.709 is a good starting point for users who are familiar with grading video footage; Log grading is more cinematic, as the grade is applied before the look; and ACES grading uses the ACES color space for grading.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The waveform monitor, histogram, and video preview window allow you to monitor your progress as you adjust color values.â&#x20AC;? back to TOC

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7. If your source video is set to S-Gamut/S‑Log2, S-Gamut3.Cine/S-Log3, or S-Gamut3/S-Log3, you can use the Source Settings controls to adjust the Exposure index, Temperature, and Tint of your clip.

To add look profiles to Catalyst Prepare, save them in the following folder:

8. C hoose a setting from the Look profile drop‑down list to choose the profile that is applied to convert your video to Rec.709.

Mac: Control-click Catalyst Prepare.app in the Applications folder, choose Show Package Contents and browse to Catalyst Prepare.app/ Contents/Resources/ColorManagement/Looks/

When you choose None from the Look profile drop-down list, the output will be S-Log.

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Windows: C:\Program Files\Sony\Catalyst Prepare 1.0\Resources\ColorManagement\ Looks\

• The sgamut-slog2 subfolder is used for S-Gamut/S-Log2 sources.

•T he sgamut3cine-slog3 subfolder is used for S-Gamut3.Cine/S-Log3 sources or Convert to choices. •T he sgamut3-slog3 subfolder is used for S-Gamut3/S-Log3 sources or Convert to choices. 9. Use the color wheels and controls in the Inspector pane to adjust your colors as needed. I f the color wheels aren’t visible, click the at the bottom of the Wheels button Catalyst Prepare window. at the bottom of 10. Click the Tools button the Catalyst Prepare window and choose Export color settings from the menu if you want to export your settings as a 3D LUT file. 3D LUT export is available only when the Source drop-down list is set to an S-Log or RAW format.

To learn more or to download a free trial, please visit https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/catalyst

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A perfect match for The Wedding Ringer By Bradford Lipson

I met with Writer and Director Jeremy Garelick in early 2013 about shooting a pilot. I immediately loved his creativity, humor, energy, enthusiasm and his down-to-earth nature. At the time I didn’t know he had a feature project at Screen Gems ready to go into production. I also didn’t realize that shooting this pilot would, in a sense, be my audition as the potential director of photography for his feature.

Cinematographer Bradford Lipson on the set of Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

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A few weeks after wrapping the pilot, Jeremy called and asked me to meet with some people at Screen Gems. He described his feature project and sent me the script. I was blown away by how funny and clever it was, and I knew right away I wanted to be a part of the project. Soon after, I received a call from Screen Gems executive producer Glenn Gainor about setting up a meeting. When we sat down over lunch to talk, I immediately realized how knowledgeable he is about today’s digital cameras and post production workflows, including the technologies’ capabilities and limitations. Glenn has an amazing passion for filmmaking and he told me he would love to see more films come back to shoot in Los Angeles. This led to an in-depth conversation about keeping a small footprint with equipment, while still being able to light, be creative and make a great looking movie. Director Jeremy Garelick on the set of Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

His theory is: if we can keep a low impact on locations we can have greater access and more flexibility while keeping the costs down. We also discussed a variety of other points on shooting comedies, lensing them and how I thought The Wedding Ringer should look. Jeremy and I had previously discussed how the movie needs to look really big and slick, a perfect fit for the Sony F55 and F65 cameras, coupled with the Leica Summilux C prime lenses.

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Jeremy was big on having three cameras rolling, something Screen Gems was willing to support if it saved time and captured the great comedy improv of Kevin Hart, Josh Gad and Kaley Cuoco. Our producer Valerie Sharp miraculously found a way to make this work within the budget. I couldn’t always promise cross coverage and a master at the same time, but I knew we could make good use

of all three cameras 95 percent of the time. My package consisted of two F65s and one F55, which was often converted from studio mode to Steadicam mode. I carried Leica Summilux C primes from 18mm to 100mm T1.4, two Angenieux Optimo 24‑290 T2.8, and two Fujinon 18‑85 T2 zoom lenses. My package came from Otto Nemenz.

“Jeremy and I had previously discussed how the movie needs to look really big and slick, a perfect fit for the Sony F55 and F65 cameras, coupled with the Leica Summilux C prime lenses.”

With our creative direction set and our equipment ready, we set out to make the film. I have seen the difficulties of not having good dynamic range in the digital medium. With the F55 and F65 I had little concern about this, especially when it came to the cameras’ performance in low light levels. My greatest concern was the day work, but these worries quickly disappeared after shooting some tests. It was all about

making choices that worked, such as shooting at the right time of day, which was critical for most of these locations. Our First AD, Mark Little, kept us on track and made sure we could continually meet our lighting needs. Jeremy’s vision was to make Los Angeles one of the characters in The Wedding Ringer. Our approach of using the cameras’ low-light capabilities to limit our

impact on locations allowed us to work with a smaller grip and electric package. This helped us gain greater access to locations while giving us the “big” look we wanted. A few locations really stand out to me when it comes to the performance of these cameras and how I was able to focus more on working creatively with Jeremy and not having to worry so much about the technology.

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The first location was the wedding planner’s office. These scenes are a great example of the cameras’ dynamic range and how they handle highlights. We shot on the second story of a building that had two “L” shaped walls of windows. Across the street on one side was a church with white walls. I knew we could block the scenes to minimize seeing the church, but from

morning until mid-afternoon the sun hit the side of the church facing our windows. This created a beautiful soft bounce light, but the balance was out of control as far as shooting those windows. Outside the other wall of windows were a few buildings and trees, which was easier to handle. It wasn’t important to see detail outside, but I didn’t want the windows to be a distraction.

“I wanted a cooler, contrast-y look, which felt right for the space. Using these cameras, I had total confidence that we could do this without big lights.”

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It would have been easy to bring the ambient level of the room up to compensate for the windows, but I didn’t want a super flat look. I wanted the natural look that we saw when we initially scouted the location. I also could have pushed for a rigging crew to have large HMI’s outside on lifts or scaffolding, but we were committed to a low-impact-onlocation way of accomplishing our shooting. Moving away from HMI’s, I asked our production designer, Chris Cornwell, to hang cream color shears on the windows. My key grip installed hard ND 9s on the church-side windows and ND 6s on the other half. Even with the ND’s installed I was spot-reading an F22 through the windows. There was

Kayley Cuoco and Josh Gad on the set of Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

Kaley Cuoco on the set of Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

The Wedding Ringer

still plenty of natural light, which bounced in so beautifully that my gaffer only had to put a little fill in the room and we were able to shoot the master scene almost entirely with natural light. The windows had little detail but they didn’t bloom, or clip and distract from the actors. Another location that illustrates the dynamic range of these cameras was Doug’s (Josh Gad) condo. Our location was an 18-story building in downtown Los Angeles called The Luma Lofts, and the condo had these fantastic huge windows on two sides with a great view of the downtown skyline. I wanted a cooler, contrast-y look, which felt right for the space. Using these cameras, I had total confidence that we could do this without big lights. Since the condo was on the 15th floor, we didn’t want to do a big cable run to a generator. My gaffer had a tie-in installed and we only had around 100 amps to play with. We achieved the look, holding some detail outside, yet maintaining the contrast and cool look inside. We used a combination of HMIs and LEDs. Our largest HMI was an ARRI M 4K. I also like using Jo‑leko’s for bouncing and we had a few Cineo HS TruColor HS units, which you can plug into wall outlets. We also shot a scene on the balcony at magic hour through sunset with Kevin and Josh. We only had a short time to get the scene so I made optimal use of all three cameras. I had

the A camera handle a wide lock-off shot from inside the condo looking out, while B and C cameras were on the balcony to cross cover the actors, hidden from A camera. At first, the actors were sitting and as the scene progressed they got up and walked back and forth, ultimately rolling into improv. We only used one light and that was an ARRI M 4K through a full grid to fill

Josh, since the sun was low and directly behind him. Both B and C cameras were on the zooms so we could quickly change focal length depending on what the actors were doing. This was one of those extra-satisfying moments that stood out for me because it was so much fun watching Jeremy. He was like a kid in a candy store, having the time of his life with his actors, back to TOC

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“Using the hi key/low key function I could see there was a great deal more detail, and conversely in the shadows with the night work, knowing when the time comes for the DI I could pull in more detail if needed.”

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directing and watching this wonderful scene unfold in front of us. Once it was dark, we shot the night interior scene, all from the A camera lock-off. For this we bounced a Kino Celeb into a wall, a 500W soft-bank was used as a key light, one Westcott TD5 with a 48-inch soft bank as an edge and one little LED wand to pick up Kevin when he was reclining in a chair. Everything was dimmed down to a few foot-candles to be wide open at a T1.4 on the Leica 18mm to photograph the downtown skyline in the background. When we returned the next morning to shoot the lock-off shot for the day interior, the sunlight coming in was gorgeous. We brought the actors in immediately so we could take advantage of the beautiful natural light.

At this location I took advantage of one of the great features on the F55 — the hi key/low key function. This lets me see what the sensor is really capturing in the highlights and shadows, beyond what you see on the monitors whether you are looking at RAW or a LUT. An example of this is where the windows looked like there was only minimum detail. Using the hi key/low key function I could see there was a great deal more detail, and conversely in the shadows with the night work, knowing when the time comes for the DI I could pull in more detail if needed. During the first week of production we shot a great night exterior scene where the Kevin and Josh characters really connect for the first time, sitting

Crew on the set of Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

in chaise lounges by a pool at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey. In my mind’s eye, the light from the pool would be lighting them. Jeremy wanted to cross cover this at the same time. He wanted very slow movement on these cameras going back and forth as the actors shared their stories. Jeremy also wanted full shots, mediums, and then close ups and he didn’t want to have to cut and break the moments between Kevin and Josh, which meant both cameras being on 12-1s. We really did minimum lighting I had a few HydroPar’s in the pool to augment the light on the actors and we hung a soft bank rigged from a palm tree to add a warm edge on the guys. Also, we added up-lighting to some of the foliage behind the talent for better separation. This was shot at the end of our first week, so I asked if I could swing by Sony and see the dailies projected at Colorworks in 4K. I was blown away by the amount of detail in the shadows and how spectacular the colors were on our actors. Another great low-light level shooting experience is the scene where we first meet Kevin Hart’s character, shot at night on the rooftop of The Los Angeles Athletic Club. We had a crane, two dollies, a Steadicam and about eight hours to get the scene. Most of the base lighting was practical. Chris Cornwell and the art department

Cinematographer Bradford Lipson on the set of Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

worked with my gaffer and me to come up with some lighting solutions that would give us the most bang for our buck. We all knew this wedding reception scene needed to look different to set it apart from the other reception scenes we would see later. We decided on a cool blue look to contrast with the later scenes. We also thought introducing Kevin’s character Jimmy in the cooler blue light would help suggest his lack of

empathy and detachment. We installed an LED dance floor that really gave the dancing and party celebration great energy. For the part of the scene when Jimmy gives his speech, I turned the LED floor completely blue, which bathed the entire area with a cool blue atmosphere. We also set some vertical aluminum truss towers around the perimeter with RGB LEDs inside and then spandex socks stretched over each truss. These back to TOC

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On the set of Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

were color changing during the dancing and then they also went blue during the speech. We augmented the blue on the guests with TruColor HS LEDs. I shot this primarily on the Leica primes anywhere from a T1.4 toT2.0 and the Fujinon 18-85. The downtown skyline surrounding the location looked majestic and really helped sell the big look we were after.

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Another great low-light level example was a big outdoor bachelor party scene that takes place at night. The location was a family fun park in Torrance. The idea at this location was to give Jeremy great flexibility and be able to shoot 360 degrees, handheld, Steadicam, or on dollies and cranes, so the lighting had to be largely incorporated into the location.

There were mercury vapor practicals all over the place, but there wasn’t much color and “flavor” in the primary areas we were shooting. I didn’t want to shoot our actors under the mercury vapors. My gaffer came up with the brilliant idea of mounting Cineo TruColors on the face of the mercury vapor practicals over the areas we were shooting. They disabled the actual practical and then we

“This turned out to be a very colorful scene, between all the practical lighting we created, the moving lights on vertical truss towers and the existing lighting from the facility that was in the BG.”

how incredibly well the F55 and 65 cameras handled the sharp color spectrum of the mercury vapors. The image was vibrant and I didn’t see the abundance of green you usually get when you photograph these lights. This is a great example of the color gamut and ACES and how much better color rendition is with these cameras.

could dial in the exact color and exposure I was looking for on the LEDs. There was an overhead structure above some picnic tables where the pivotal moment of the scene takes place. We mounted gold Kino tubes along the structure to add some visual interest and color. This turned out to be a very colorful scene, between all the practical lighting we created,

the moving lights on vertical truss towers and the existing lighting from the facility that was in the BG. One of the short vignettes Jeremy wanted to shoot was in a batting cage area. It was a quick action sequence and we didn’t want to lose any time lighting it, so I shot it using the existing mercury vapors, and just added a little fill. What I noticed was

The big wedding reception at the Biltmore Hotel’s Crystal ballroom is a scene that comes to mind where the performance of the cameras really helped us make our day — along with a very hard working crew. The electric department didn’t have to run a costly and timeconsuming 4/0 run from a generator to power a bunch of high wattage lights. Instead they installed a banded run from a tie‑in using house power. back to TOC

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The art direction in the ballroom was outstanding. Chris Cornwell came up with the idea of using ornate glass candelabra table lamps on every table. This added to the glitzy big wedding reception ambience and it also gave us a nice base exposure to work from. I had two helium balloons in the room, one on each end, not because we needed exposure, but to add a soft edge to everything and everyone in the room so it wasn’t so flat. Finally, from some of the balconies in the room we had 12x12 light grids and 5Ks to push in some fill and add soft billowy light on the actors as needed. I love how this scene looks so natural, warm and rich. We had a huge amount to shoot in the

ballroom and we were able to work three cameras constantly and make our days. Right now the buzzwords in our industry are “4K” and “resolution.” When I was at NAB recently, it seemed that many people would flock to any camera that can boast 4K and I listened to many of my peers who were focused only on resolution. I am not as concerned about the clarity or resolution. Sometimes images have so much resolution that they are too crisp, and some of the texture is lost. A great analogy is to imagine pixels are like cups that hold light as if it were water. To get more cups in a certain area, they have to be reduced in size. The smaller the cup, the

Jimmy (Kevin Hart) and Doug (Josh Gad) in Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

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Doug (Josh Gad) and Jimmy (Kevin Hart) in Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

less light can be accumulated. In essence, the ability to hold more light has a direct correlation to dynamic range. Traditionally, as manufacturers push up the resolution in their cameras, dynamic range is almost always sacrificed. My excitement about

4K technology, and primarily with Sony’s cameras, are threefold: the much wider color gamut that is captured, the bit depth and the dynamic range. I think Sony engineering did an amazing job of giving us everything without sacrifice.

The Sony F55 and F65 cameras help keep the creative doors open. Instead of having to compromise because of technology limitations, I found myself with greater creative freedom. When I use the F55 and F65 I don’t have to worry or back to TOC

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“The Sony F55 and F65 cameras help keep the creative doors open. Instead of having to compromise because of technology limitations, I found myself with greater creative freedom.”

Jimmy (Kevin Hart) with Doug (Josh Gad) in Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

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The Wedding Ringer

Josh Gad and crew on the set of Screen Gems’ “The Wedding Ringer”.

think so much about how the camera will interpret something I light. I know I can take risks, as well as keep things simple, which often leads to better images. This also allows me to work more closely with the director. The cameras’ wider color gamut and phenomenal dynamic range deliver amazing color mixing, especially night exteriors in low

light levels with different types of lights, colors and intensities. Ultimately we are there to help the director tell a story, and in today’s world of extremely costconscious budgets, the choice in cameras and lenses can be a huge factor. Among all the hard work, the set was continually filled with

laughter. Jeremy is a great leader, has an amazing imagination and is incredibly quick witted. I appreciated working with him and the strong collaboration between the two of us, during blocking and coming up with all the shticks that we’d be shooting. This was one of the most rewarding and satisfying shoots I’ve had! back to TOC

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We chose the F55 By Joshua Napier Video Production & Studio Manager Ferguson — a Wolseley company

THE INTERVIEW I find myself in an impossible situation. Having just finished two great interviews with two different managers in the marketing department, I now sit in front of the Senior Marketing Manager interviewing for a new position — Video Production & Studio Manager. Things are going smoothly…he’s asked me at least a dozen questions and it’s obvious that he likes what I have to say, because near the end of the interview he pauses, shuffles through some folders, then hands me a 40-page equipment list. This was everything — cameras, microphones, tripods and lights, hardware racks and RAID towers — you name it, every single piece of equipment for the new production studio — the studio I may be hired to manage, listed item by item. I begin flipping through the pages. When I get to the final page I hear “so, what do you think”. As I look up, I see the face of a proud father, the face of a man who had spent nearly three years gaining approval for this initiative. I could see by the look in his eyes the tremendous amount of effort he had put into this project — working with designers, engineers, and equipment integrators to create this list. So here I sit. Having just pulled off two great interviews and with the finish line in sight on the third, and I get the rug pulled out from underneath me. You see, most of the equipment list was good; gear that I would have spec’d myself — with one glaring exception. The cameras listed were 2/3-inch. At the time, nearly all in-house video 125

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production departments in the corporate world used 2/3-inch cameras, but large sensor cameras were rapidly changing the industry — a trend that I was very much a part of. I had been shooting corporate and short form documentary style shows with an F3 for a few years now and really loved the images I could create. With the F3, I could make images that were impossible shooting with a 2/3-inch camera and I didn’t want to go back. So I had two choices, keep my mouth shut or give this guy my honest opinion, neither of which were good options. If I kept my mouth shut and ended up taking the position, I’d be stuck with cameras that were good for some tasks, but not for the huge range of projects I knew I would be creating in the position. Not good. If I told him I thought the cameras spec’d were the wrong tool for the job, I risked alienating my potential new boss and looking like a prima donna. I chose to bite the bullet and to tell him I thought the cameras listed were not right for the department and explained my reasoning. Looking back I’m very glad I did, because I now have two Sony F55 cameras with R5 recorders, a pair of Cabrio lenses, an array of support equipment, and a state-of-the-art studio that allows my team and me to create an impressive range of video projects. From multi-camera switched shows, green screen, to training videos — with the F55 we can handle any project that comes our way.

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We chose the F55

FAST FORWARD That was a year and a half ago and today I manage a small team of video professionals. When I say small I mean it: myself, producer Gene Harris, senior video editor Barry Boniface, and just a few weeks ago we hired a second editor John Pietrocarlo. We are a small group but each of us brings a lot of experience to the table. Most importantly we rely on one another and work together as a team. Our studio is located at the corporate headquarters of Ferguson Enterprises, Inc. If you look us up on

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the web you might be surprised to learn that we are over 20,000 associates with locations in all fifty states, Canada, and the Caribbean. With annual sales in excess of eleven billion dollars â&#x20AC;&#x201D; we are a large company and our business is diverse, which means the videos we produce are just as diverse. In my time at Ferguson, my team and I have produced nearly 150 video projects ranging from internal communications to new product launch videos. We are a small unit so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s essential that we work quickly and efficiently in order to keep

up with the demand. We needed a tool that was flexible yet did not compromise on image quality. In the end we chose the F55. Ironically, the folks at Sony may find this surprising. When I began the process of researching large sensor cameras for the department, the ability to record 4K was very low on my priority list. For us, 4K delivery was a very long way off and I was more interested in some of the other features of the camera; such as interchangeable lens mount, it’s high-speed capabilities, S-Log recording, and of course the

cameras high dynamic range. Although I didn’t value 4K recording as much as I valued some of the camera’s other features initially, I’ve since come to appreciate and use it extensively. I’d like to discuss some of the projects my team and I have created and how we use various features of the camera to our advantage.

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We chose the F55

ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S SHOWTIME Runtime: 15-20 minutes Recording (External): Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) Color Space/Gamma Curve: Hypergamma7 Resolution: 1920x1080p Frame Rate: 29.97

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We chose the F55

to speak directly to the sales team. It’s a more effective means of communication than email and helps associates from Maine to California feel like they are a part of a team all working toward the same goals. Topics of the show include; performance metrics, company wide strategies, sales goals and initiatives, and recognition of top sales associates. Each month a guest is invited on the show. Past guests include Ferguson associates such as the National Appliance Director but have also included representatives from Jenn Air and other preferred vendors. The show is filmed on our sound stage using four Sony F55’s and a mix of Fujinon, Canon, and Angenieux zoom lenses. For our usual set up we use two Cabrio 19-90’s, one 85-300, and an Optimo 24-290, but for the last two episodes we swapped out one of the 19-90’s for the new Canon 17-120 and the 85-300 for the new Cabrio 25-300 studio lens. This gave us a lot more flexibility in our shot compositions. Three of the cameras are on tripods with the forth on a jib arm. SDI lines run from each camera into a control room, which we build for each cycle. Each camera feed is sent to a switcher and to a solid-state recorder for ISO recording. The line cut is sent to a fifth deck for recording of the switched master.

In a few weeks we will shoot episodes 15 and 16 of this monthly, multi-camera show. Filmed in the style of a talk show, It’s Showtime features Ferguson’s Director of the Showroom Channel and the National Showroom Manager as host and hostess. The show is recorded, cut, and then simulcast to over 270 showrooms across the country where thousands of sales associates gather to watch the program. It’s a fantastic communication tool and allows senior leadership

The filming of It’s Showtime is a hectic four-day cycle, which we repeat every two months (we film two episodes at a time). The production begins with the loading in of the set, laying the floor, and erecting the scene flats. Some of the equipment belongs to Ferguson but we rent the switcher, two of the cameras, Telex, prompters, and a few other odds and ends. This equipment usually arrives the afternoon of day one. The crew shows up at 8:00 am on day two for prelight, camera build, and the setup and wiring of the control room. Day three is when it gets really crazy around the studio. Call is at 8:00am, and prompters and audio equipment are installed on this day. This means an all hands-on-deck scramble to be ready to shoot by the time talent walks on set at 10:00am.

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We chose the F55

To reduce production costs, we shoot two episodes per cycle and with talent whose time is very limited. It can be a real challenge. Shooting takes place from 10:00 to 4:00pm with an hour lunch break. Then itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a race to strike the gear, pack it up for return shipping to the rental house, and get the crew wrapped out before we hit overtime penalties. Finally on day four the set is struck and the studio is returned to its normal state. Like I said, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a hectic four days but we always pull it off even though it sometimes looks like we might not â&#x20AC;&#x201D; but in the end it all comes together. For example, on our last cycle the National Showroom Manager landed at 8:45am the morning of our shoot. She had flown the red-eye from Hawaii, which had three connectors. Shoot day is normally stressful but being uncertain as to whether your talent will arrive takes it to a whole new level. After rushing home to shower she made it to the set at 10:30am. Despite her late arrival, we still managed to wrap before overtime penalties.

The open, close, and supers are all added in post. We use the line cut as a base track and refine the edit using the ISO tracks. The audio and music tracks are mixed and a final is sent out for approval. The final deliverable is 1080p, with a 29.97 frame rate, and compressed using h.264, and then sent to our digital signage manager for distribution. back to TOC

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GREEN SCREEN — SINGLE TALENT Runtime: 00:15 – 2:00 minutes Recording: MPEG-2 Proxy (Internal SxS); RAW (R5) Color Space/Gamma Curve: S-Gamut3.Cine/S-Log3 Resolution: 1920x1080p; 4K Frame Rate: 23.98

We shoot a lot of green screen, single talent shows here at Ferguson. They range from our CEO addressing an internal audience, a holiday greeting from one of our Major League Fishing personalities, to a national ad featuring NFL Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw our Counter Sales spokesperson. Regardless of who we are filming or the intended audience, the style of these shows is always the same — talent reading lines from a prompter. These shows are fairly simple, but due to the nature of working with executives and celebrities, time is always at a premium and it’s a requirement to work quickly. In the past, I’ve shot shows like this at three focal lengths; mid-thigh, waist up, and a close-up. This gave me the coverage I needed to cut the show. If the talent was looking off camera, I could save time by using two cameras each at different focal lengths, but when the talent is addressing the lens, this doesn’t work due to mismatched eye lines. So with the limited number of takes I get on shows like this and not being able to use two cameras, I found myself looking for a new approach. I began experimenting with shooting 4K and reframing in post. It worked beautifully. I now shoot all my green screen single talent shows this way. I’ll frame the first two takes midthigh, and if I feel confident I have a good read for the majority of the script, I’ll punch in for an in-camera close up. If the first two reads aren’t as solid as I’d like, I stick with my original framing for all three takes.

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Since we always cut our shows on an HD timeline, we can simply reframe the medium shot in post to create a close-up if one of those takes is better than the incamera close up. The image holds up very well, and we don’t worry too much about whether or not we are using the “real” close up or the reframed medium shot. There is a difference but it’s very slight, and mostly due to the change in optics when going from a shorter to a longer focal length. The image remains sharp after reframing and this technique has saved me on many occasions. It’s especially useful when

the talent blows parts of every take. Using the reframing technique I’m still covered. I can cobble together a nice edit using the good sections of each take going from the wide to the tight shot at will. It’s very liberating.

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Speaking of editing, we have recently begun shooting both RAW to the R5 and an XAVCâ&#x201E;˘ proxy file to SxS cards simultaneously. The workflow is really easy and saves a lot of time waiting around for the machine to catch-up. We begin the edit by importing the proxy files into the Avid to create the cut. Once we are happy with the cut, Barry pulls the time line into Resolve where he grades the RAW 4K versions of each clip. He then exports the 135

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clips using Apple ProRes 4444 making sure the file names match the original names off the cards. Then it’s simple a matter of pointing the time line to the new graded clips. From there it’s a trip to AE for keying and background insertion. It’s a really simple workflow and works extremely well. Regarding keying with the F55. I have shot green screen with the camera utilizing three different recording options: 4K XAVC, 1080p HDCAM SR® 444, and 4K RAW. While it’s possible to obtain a clean key from XAVC recorded material, it requires the green screen to be very evenly lit and the exposure nearly perfect. There is not much room for error, but if you get both of these right you can achieve a clean key. However, both the HDCAM SR 444 and RAW captured material are much more forgiving, and the key

from properly lit and exposed images is incredibly clean. This is due to the reduced color information of the XAVC material as compared to the other two. My suggestion is to chose to shoot RAW — you won’t be disappointed. I realize it can be an uphill battle to convince a producer to shoot RAW as there are a lot of negative misconceptions surrounding RAW capture. But Sony’s version is very easy to work with because the data rate isn’t too severe. Add proxy recording and use an online/ offline workflow and you get the best of both worlds — superb image quality and ease of editing. It’s my opinion that no other camera on the market in the F55’s price range come anywhere close to its performance for shooting green screen.

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COUNTER TRAINING VIDEOS Runtime: Various: 2:00 – 3:00 minutes Recording: XAVC (Internal SxS), RAW (Green Screen) Color Space/Gamma Curve: S-Gamut3.Cine/S-Log3 Resolution: 4K Frame Rate: 23.98fps

We developed a series of training videos for our Counter Sales channel. Our internal client wanted videos that reinforce on-site training sessions that would illustrate how to handle different situations an employee may encounter. Our approach was to use a “host” as an on-screen guide and actors to play customers and Ferguson associates in reenactment scenarios, cutting between the two. The host was filmed against a green screen using the techniques described above and the 137

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reenactment scenes where filmed on location using two F55’s, one shooting a wide shot and the other shooting both the medium shots and close-ups, depending on the take. We used our in-house Cabrio lenses, a 19-90mm and an 85-300mm. For the reenactment scenes we used ¼ Hollywood Black Magic for the wide shots and 1/8th for the mediums and close-ups. I really like this series of filters for just taking the

edge off of the image but still retaining overall detail. The F55/Cabrio combination is really clean and together they create a very pristine image. I like the look for many subjects but there are times when I want to remove some of the fine detail and add just a touch of bloom to the highlights. Shooting S-Log3/Cine and recording to the internal SxS cards, we shot six scripts ranging from 2:00 to 3:00 minutes in a single day and the results look spectacular. Using the store’s overhead

fluorescents as a base exposure allowed us to move very quickly. We supplemented with a couple of Joker 800’s, a few 4x4 Kino’s, and a Lite Panel 1x1 each gelled to match the practicals. The F55 handled the mixed light sources well. In a few set-ups, raw daylight could be seen coming through the doors in the background. This would normally require a lot of light on our talent to balance the exposure. Our schedule didn’t allow for this, but the F55 performed beautifully and held detail in the highlights. back to TOC

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PRODUCT PROMOTIONAL VIDEOS Runtime: Various: 00:30 – 2:00 minutes Recording: MPEG-2 Proxy (Internal SxS); RAW (R5) Color Space/Gamma Curve: S-Gamut3.Cine/S-Log3 Resolution: 1920x1080p; 2K Frame Rate: 180fps At Ferguson, we sell products from thousands of different brands and we also sell products from our own brands — a half dozen private label brands with thousands of SKU’s. We support this side of the business with three types of promotional videos; product awareness, new product launch/ announcement, and point of sale.

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We are currently working on two such videos, both of which fall under the new product launch/announcement category. One is for a new toilet that features an innovative flushing technology that cleans using centrifugal force and gravity. In a nutshell, the water enters the bowl through two horizontal ports that spin it around the bowl. This results in a bowl that is more thoroughly cleaned than a traditional toilet. The product is called EcoClean and sold under out private label brand — Mirabelle. The challenge is to show the movement of the water during the flush cycle and clearly illustrate its advantage over a traditional toilet. The water moves extremely fast so we had to slow it down so that the viewer can clearly see the action. We shot the moving water at 180fps with a 1/500 shutter. We also used a motion control system from Kessler that allowed us to precisely move the camera during the flush. The resulting footage was stunning and the detail captured by the camera was exactly what we needed to sell this product.

In addition, we captured beauty shots of the product as it rotated on a turntable, again shooting at a high frame rate but this time the goal wasn’t to freeze the action but rather to speed it up — ramping time as the camera pans and tilts across the product.

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The second video is a commercial for a new line of reciprocating saw blades sold under our Raptor tool brand. These blades, branded Raptor Raw, are heavy duty premium saw blades with superior cutting power. This video is being shot in the studio and on location. For the studio shots I wanted to clearly show these blades in action as they tear through different materials. So again, we shot high speed with a fast shutter to dramatize the action of the saw ripping through whatever got in it’s path. For the final scene I want to show a “table top setup” that was broken into three sections. Using the motion control rig, I wanted the camera to move through two of the sections before landing on the final “family of products” shot that featured all seventeen blades in the line up. We pumped the room with smoke and back lit it with source fours to create drama. Then we programmed the camera to “fly” though the still life vignettes and ending up on our hero shot. This was also shot at 180fps so that we can time‑ramp the sequence, flying quickly through

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the sections, and swooping to the end frame. We shot the location photography at a new home being built in a local subdivision. We prepped both of our F55’s to shoot 4K RAW using the R5 recorder.

We chose the F55

One camera was dedicated to a Steadicam and the other moved between sticks and a dolly. It was an ambitious shooting schedule and in the end we used the Steadicam for all of the shots. It was equipped with an Optimo 15.5-40 and again I choose to use a 1/8 Hollywood Black Magic diffusion to just take the edge off of the fine details in the first two scenes and stepped up to ¼ strength for the final “destruction” scene. We also added smoke and dust particles in the air to create the mood I was looking for. The premise for this portion of the spot is to have the Raptor RAW blades literally come alive or transform into a beast. It’s a play off of the product slogan of “Work Like a Beast”. We shot three scenes…the first scene sets up the action with a foreman asking one of his workers named Joe, to cut a new opening in a stud wall. He also asks Joe

to “let me know what you think about those new blades” while pointing at the product. Joe, having just loaded one of the new blades into the saw, gets interrupted by his co-workers who talk him into breaking for lunch. So Joe has enabled “the beast” but didn’t feed it. While at lunch the beast destroys the place — ripping apart walls, ductwork, water lines, and even ripping open a metal jobsite

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box. The spot culminates with Joe, his fellow co-workers, and the foreman all staring in disbelief at the destruction. And of course, Joe, being young and naive, thinks all this is cool and answers the foreman’s earlier question by responding…”I like’em”. The spot was a lot of fun to shoot and once again I used a feature of the camera that literally saved the day. As I said before, the shooting schedule was ambitious and we literally shot right up to the last few minutes of daylight. The final shot came as the last little bit of daylight sank behind the trees. As the sunset, we quickly compensated by reducing the output of the set lighting and cranking the cameras ISO to balance the background and foreground. Thankfully, this allowed us to keep shooting because we needed every minute of the day to film the final scene.

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CONCLUSION The F55 has allowed my team and me the ability to do a lot of great work at Ferguson. It’s a fantastic tool for all kinds of production work. The F55 truly is a camera that can handle any type of production. I know because at Ferguson, we do a lot of different types of programs and the F55 handles them all. With its long list of features and capabilities, different recording options, and durability of a Sony product it’s a real win for us. Sony is also constantly updating and improving the camera with each new firmware update. Add to that the support we receive from Sony when we encounter any issue that we can’t resolve on our own. I suppose I would have been happy with just about any large sensor camera given the situation I was in on the day of my interview with Ferguson, but looking back, I’m very happy that I pushed to scrap the proposed 2/3-inch cameras and even happier that I chose the F55. back to TOC

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Getting a script on its feet Helping first-time directors at the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Labs Produced by Glenn Estersohn

What do Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin); Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler); Me and You and Everyone We Know (Miranda July); and Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Pierce) all have in common? They were supported by the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Labs. Every June, eight promising first-time directors arrive with scripts for their first feature films. The Lab gives them a one-of-a-kind opportunity to collaborate with actors, rehearse, shoot and edit key scenes. Directors get to work with accomplished Creative Advisors and veteran production crews — all without the usual pressures of a commercial production. Here is the space to experiment, take risks and develop the visual language for their stories. The program’s digital workflow delivers “instant gratification” as each scene proceeds directly from shoot, to edit to the screening room. In this way, the director gets to see the script “on its feet” for the very first time.

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The Sundance Institute Feature Film Program Labs offers a Directors Lab each June at the Sundance Resort. ÂŠ Sundance Institute. Photo by Jonathan Hickerson.

The Program was founded by Robert Redford in 1981 as a place to foster the independent film movement. The Directors Lab is held at the Sundance Resort in Utah and is supported by state-of-the-art digital equipment from Sony and Avid. To get an inside look at this summerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s program, we spoke with four participants: assistant cameras Taylor Hall and Jaqueline Stahl, post-production supervisor Melissa Tvetan, and assistant editor Alexander Johnson.

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Prepping and painting: Taylor Hall, assistant camera Q: How do you prep? Taylor Hall: At the Labs, we have a couple of days to play with the cameras when the DPs get here. For many of them, this is the first time they’ve ever shot with the Sony F55, which we’re using with Carl Zeiss, Angeniuex, and Schneider Xenar lenses. Some DPs can be a little daunted by this camera and feel insecure at first. But then, we’re able to show them quickly how they can get very nice looks. We shoot camera tests, usually a couple of interiors, a couple of exteriors, low light and other situations, so that we are prepared to go out and shoot. The way the Lab works, we generally don’t even know where we’re shooting until the day before. So we have to prepare at the very beginning for any possible location. Then when we arrive on location, sometimes there are other factors like fluorescent lighting. The F55 makes it very easy for us. In just a couple of minutes, we can make changes, whether we’re prepared for them or not. So the DPs can dial in their

settings and we can save them all and use them on multiple days. We’re able to share looks among the cameras and among the DPs. Everyone really likes it in the end.

Q: What’s the biggest difference between shooting out in the real world and doing a workshop? Taylor Hall: Turnaround time. Even with television, you have time to really go back and tweak

the image a lot more in post. But everything we’re doing is all in camera and on set. In a normal shoot, you would just set your basic settings, shoot RAW and then go to color in post. But at the Lab, we just don’t have

“We don’t even know where we’re shooting until the day before. The F55 makes it very easy for us. In just a couple of minutes, we can make changes, whether we’re prepared for them or not.” —Taylor Hall 147

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time to do a turnaround with the color. So when we first started setting up, the Sony F55 really gave us some nice options. We’re able to burn in very nice color settings, using the paint menu. So we’re essentially able to do the DIT in-camera and get the looks we want. We get great-looking pictures straight from camera.

Q: What settings do you use? Taylor Hall: It really varies. Today our DPs sat together with our assistant camera people doing a camera test, comparing some of the different Hypergammas in the camera. We’re all looking at the different colors that we can get with the camera. We took the camera outside and we’re looking at latitude and how far we can push the camera with the different settings. The DPs were really happy because they were able to compare several pre-set

looks and then after they found one they liked, they were able to go in and customize it even further to be perfect for the story. All settings really had really high dynamic range. We were very impressed with the way that the highlight detail was still there, even when we were shooting very high key outdoor scenes.

Q: What does that mean to the directors?

Taylor Hall: We’re able to set up a look so quickly in camera and not have to worry about having to color correct it later. It really gives the directors another dimension in which they can tell their story, through the mood and the look of what we’re shooting.

“We were very impressed with the way that the highlight detail was still there, even when we were shooting very high key outdoor scenes.” —Taylor Hall

Shoot days: Jacqueline Stahl, assistant camera Q: So tell me, how do you outfit the camera?

Jacqueline Stahl: I started the Lab with the F55, the EVF and then a small HD monitor attached. Then my DP prefers to use his own monitor. So I have his monitor and the small HD monitor attached. But it’s nice because when we’re outside, I can just easily switch to the EVF. Then inside for studio mode, I can see both monitors. I do really like handgrips, which I keep on all the time no matter what. When things get crazy, the first thing the director says is, “Let’s just do it handheld; it goes quicker.” The way that this camera is built and the size of it, it doesn’t matter if I keep the handgrips on.

Q: And are you familiar with the camera?

Jacqueline Stahl: This is the first time I’ve ever worked the Sony F55. But it feels familiar, like I know these settings are going to be located under this sub menu and so forth. It’s really easy to navigate. Something I do appreciate about Sony is no matter what body you use, if you know Sony’s menu system,

then you kind of know all their cameras. Their features change a little bit so you have to read the manual to know everything. But it’s usually fairly easy to find stuff. Whereas something like the RED EPIC, they change their software and they completely change their entire menu system. At Sundance you only have six hours to a day instead of twelve hours. So you have to really know where you’re going. You don’t have time to wait.

Q: I understand. What kinds of scenes have you shot so far? Jacqueline Stahl: I’ve used it out in the woods, in grassy fields, on the stages, at house locations. So I feel like I’ve done about as many different locations as you could do. James Laxton is the DP for my group and we both try to run things as if we were on a normal set, with the regular number of ACs. But sometimes, if there’s a lot going on and we need to move the camera, he can

just pick up the camera himself, move it where he needs it, while I grab other things. It’s so small and light that it makes for a very efficient set at times. If I had a normal camera that was heavy, I would never say to my DP, “Here, you move the camera.” That’s my job. Here, knowing it’s lightweight and we have to move efficiently, I don’t mind and I don’t think he minds either.

Q: Great. Can you tell me a little bit about the specific content? Jacqueline Stahl: Yes. My scripts are very different. One is a drama, but there’s tons of comedy to it, about a man on a deserted island who discovers a dead body and

Getting a script on its feet

befriends this dead body and the adventures that they have together. Our first shooting day was the first time he’s discovering this body and we’re out in the woods and in this grassy field. The coverage was pretty basic, but when we ended the day, we needed to get a shot of them coming down this grassy hill. We needed to make it look like they were flying in a way and so we did all that stuff handheld. James and I were basically running alongside

Q: I heard the project has lots of visual effects.

Jacqueline Stahl: Yes. And all of their stuff is done practically. They don’t do any post effects. They do them all there on set. Going down that ski slope was definitely something that we tricked in camera. And there were dream sequence scenes. There’s another thing James likes to do with this camera. The native ISO is 1250 and he likes to jack it up. Yesterday we were shooting at 4000 ISO and it looked great. It still held everything as it should, which is impressive because usually if you go right too dangerously, it can mess up your image.

Q: And then the other project?

Jacqueline

Stahl:

These two friends want to be MC rappers and it’s their journey about believing in themselves and getting other people to believe in them. That project has been a lot of fun too, Sundance Institute. Photo by Ryan Johnson actually. Not as specialour actors down this grassy ski effect heavy. But it’s been mostly slope. James is operating. I’m handheld stuff. pulling focus. Again, that speaks to how lightweight the camera is. Q: How are you determining We wouldn’t have been able to “looks”? do that if it weren’t lightweight. Jacqueline Stahl: The Sundance James is hunched over getting a Labs don’t really allow a ton of low profile shot and we’re both time, especially in editing. So running together down this hill. whatever the director and DP But the shot turned out great. We want, it usually happens on set. watched it and it was fabulous. So when they’re both happy with the image, the DP can lock that

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look in. Then when the director is editing, he doesn’t have to worry about how it’s going to look overall. The DP already put his or her stamp on the image. And there are so many different ways you can tweak the image in this camera, so many options and scene files that are already either pre-built or you can build them yourself and make your little tweaks. So it’s nice. It allows them to lock in the image, but it also gives them a ton of room to play.

Q: Do you think that language on set helps the director get an idea of how to work with their DP? Jacqueline Stahl: If I were a director I think it would help me get in the mindset of the mood and the feel. “Oh this is what I want, I’m now seeing it.” Knowing what the look is going to be allows more time for them to focus on their actors and the scene itself. You know, the DP makes the tweaks, the director comes over approves it, and, ultimately, there shouldn’t be a ton of dialogue as far as the look goes when you’re on set at the Labs. And it probably also gives the director the confidence to let the DP work, like, “Oh I can see how this is going to look as the final product, I trust you.” Or, “I can see how this is going to look as a final product, let’s tweak it a little bit.” It probably makes the DP/director relationship nicer as opposed to the director getting in and having to fix things at the end.

Fast turnaround: Melissa Tvetan, post-production supervisor Q: What is your background here at the Sundance Institute Directors Lab? Melissa Tvetan: This is my seventh year at the Lab. I started in 2008 as an assistant editor and I’ve been the postproduction supervisor for the past few years. Technology improves every year and seeing how Sony and Avid evolved together functionally helps me tremendously as a professional on and off the mountain. Q: Tell me about the scope of your work.

Melissa Tvetan: We have eight Directors Lab Fellows. Eight different projects with four editors and four assistant editors. Each editor and assistant works closely together on two of the projects. The Fellows alternate shooting and editing days. Since they only have one edit day per one shoot day, time is very precious. The fact that Avid so easily ingests footage from Sony’s F55 means that the assistants can spend more time supporting their editors and Fellows than organizing the footage and sourcing sound effects.

linked media in preparation for dailies viewing for the editors and directing Fellows at 6:15 pm. As soon as they finish that last shot, it’s 45 minutes before we have to have the footage ready for viewing. So it’s a really fast turnover. Once the dailies sessions are finished, the AMA linked media is consolidated while we all eat dinner and the assistants return to finish preparing the footage for the next day’s editing sessions.

Q: How are you set up for

there’s a lot of excitement in exploring the capabilities of the equipment loaned to us. I’ve worked closely with the DPs and camera teams trying out the F55’s various codecs, color space settings and frame rates. Since we have such limited time, there’s no room in the schedule for color correction and a lot of the stylistic choices are made in camera. The time spent learning how all the settings affect the image improves the DPs’ abilities to craft the look in support of the Fellows’ stories.

editing?

Melissa Tvetan: We have Sony Q: You make the workflow Q: What does the work day PVM-2541A monitors in each of look like?

Melissa Tvetan: As soon as shooting is wrapped at 5:30 pm, the SxS cards are rushed from various sets all over the mountain to our village of editing trailers. The assistants load the cards into Sony’s SxS card readers and quickly log the footage as AMA

the editing bays, allowing for a beautiful viewing experience. The editors, Fellows and the visiting Creative Advisors have a nice big image while screening their cuts. For the Directing Fellows, the Labs emphasize the process of discovery through taking risks in their art. For crewmembers,

sound pretty efficient. Melissa Tvetan: Yes, and that’s important. The efficient workflow between the Sony cameras and Avid’s Media Composer enables us to maximize results within our strict schedule. It allows the Fellows and editors to focus more on the creative process of storytelling. back to TOC

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“Seeing how Sony and Avid evolved together functionally helps me tremendously as a professional on and off the mountain.” —Melissa Tvetan

Getting onto the screen: Alexander Johnson, assistant editor Q: So how does your process they missed. The editor can say from the Avid as opposed to begin?

we need this, this and that, which

exporting it and putting it on a

Alexander Johnson: At the end helps the directors to get exactly tape or whatever. That helps us a of the shoot day, we’ll go down to our respective camera and grab the SxS card. We literally just walk it up to editorial. Traditionally it would have to go to the lab, be color corrected and all that stuff, but because of our tight schedule, we can literally grab the card, take it to editorial and use an SxS reader, to link it directly. We link it via AMA with Avid so it’s almost instantaneous. That’s important because the director comes almost immediately after the shoot to look at the dailies with the editors. So we link it via AMA and we log it quickly, putting in all the information like scene, take, angle, circled takes, notes from the script supervisor. So the director and editor can talk about the shots and plan their cut, which they usually do the next day. But if they happen to be shooting the next day, they can see what 151

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what they want. The compatibility between the cameras we’re using and Media Composer makes it simple. We can get all of that footage to them quickly enough and it doesn’t impede that flow. The schedule is so tight where they shoot one day, they have one day to edit and then they have to screen. After the dailies are done, we consolidate the footage onto our ISIS, which links all of our systems. This makes it easy for the AEs to work while editors are working. It’s also extremely efficient when we screen, because our projector is hooked up to Media Composer. So we literally will do an audio or video mixdown, and screen directly

lot with this tight, tight schedule. The AEs support them during the cut with sound effects, music, any video or reference materials they need to help them get the cut to where they want it. Q: And how long is a day for the editors? Alexander Johnson: We usually start at 8, break for lunch, come back. The cuts usually finish at 6. We go to dinner while it’s consolidating and then come

back and usually finish all the little things with the logging if we didn’t get to them quickly enough. If they have finished a cut, we have to put together the screening cut so that it’s got the titles of the director and the scene number and the mixdown so that when we screen off the Avid there are no problems.

Q: What would you say is director and they’re watching the the main difference between here and working on a normal feature film that has more time, more scenes, more footage? Alexander Johnson: Instant gratification. On a feature, they shoot, do dailies, they’re color corrected and they’re sent back and you bring them in. The editor takes a couple of days to cut

dailies that evening, which usually doesn’t happen on features.

Q: How would you say that the director is reacting in those moments? Is it all about the process? Alexander Johnson: It is. And you can see how quickly the directors are learning as a result.

Q: And you work two productions?

Alexander Johnson: One of the great things about this workflow is that it enables us to support two different directors. So a director will be shooting one day as another director is cutting and at the end of the day, the director who is shooting will give us the dailies, we cut off the director that’s cutting. We can get their dailies in within 15 minutes so that they can screen from 6:15 to 7:00, until dinner. It’s great that we can constantly have the editing rooms in use, essentially switching back and forth between the two Fellows. You also get to work with different styles and see the different styles of directing, different styles of cutting and that’s really interesting. That’s made possible by the great compatibility between the Avid systems and the Sony cameras.

them. Whereas here, you get to see what is shot immediately and the next day you get to see a scene cut together. It’s closer to television. You get to see the stuff a lot sooner, but we’re even more efficient. Everything working together creates immediate results, which is gratifying.

Q: They bake in color looks in camera. How does that affect your workflow? Alexander Johnson: That makes it really easy. It’s one less post process to worry about. It helps us get everything out on time and on the schedule.

Q: Does it help the director have a better conversation with the editors? Alexander Johnson: Absolutely. The editor is a lot more involved than say in a feature film because they’re interacting with the

They have to think like an editor and get that input from the editor so they can literally adjust their style the next day. One of the Fellows saw the dailies and spoke to the editor about it and thought a couple shots weren’t composed correctly for the scene. The next day they redid some shots that really helped the cut. So immediately from one day to the next, they learned something that helped make their scene better, which will help make them better directors and better filmmakers. That’s good for everybody.

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Behind the scenes with Sony Professional Services The Top Ten things to know Say “service” to most camera owners and they think of the place they hope their camera never goes. Everyone envisions the service department as fixing what’s broken. At Sony Professional Services, we do some of that. But did you know that we were the first people to unpack your Sony camera when it came into the country? Did you know that we’ve got experts standing by, ready to answer your tech questions, free? Or that we refurbish as “B-stock” inventory the Sony products exhibited at NAB? With apologies to the Sony customers at a certain late night talk show, we hereby submit a Top Ten list of the lessexpected ways Sony Professional Services backs you up.

Before you get to see your Sony monitor, we do, calibrating and confirming performance to spec.

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Number 10 Assuring quality At Sony Professional Services, we understand that your livelihood depends on equipment that works. We appreciate the pressures, whether it’s a news event where there’s no chance for a re-shoot or a Hollywood sound stage, where the entire cast and crew are assembled. That’s why each Sony professional product is thoroughly checked by the factory Quality Assurance team, prior to shipment. You expect that. But did you also know that we perform Quality Assurance when products arrive in the US? In our Carson, California facility, we test functional operation, measure key performance specifications, and confirm that the unit has all of the most recent upgrades. back to TOC

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Number 9

Number 8

Call out the Posse

Cross (point) training

Not sure how to get the most out of RAW, XAVC™ or MPEG-2? Need to know about importing Sony files into Media Composer®, Final Cut Pro® or Premiere® applications? Need advice about LUTs or metadata? When you have a question about Sony professional products, we’ve got the answers at our Product Operational Support Center, abbreviated POSC and pronounced “posse.”

The Sony Training Institute was established in the 70’s in response to Hollywood demand for state-of-the-art training on emerging video technologies. Today, that spirit lives on in the training sessions we give on Sony’s system products and solutions. Customers of our MVS8000X and MVS-7000 live production switchers and our Media Backbone Production Systems get step-by-step, hands-on training. We go out of our way to provide the best instructor, whether it’s one of our own staff instructors, a sustaining engineer or a third party professional.

In suburban Teaneck, New Jersey, we’ve got eight people with a combined 175 years of expertise in Sony pro gear. These guys don’t speak from a script. They wrote the script. If your issue is really challenging, we can often duplicate your setup and suggest a workflow that best fits your needs. And if necessary, we can escalate your issue, bringing in additional Sony resources including the engineering team in Japan. All this is available to you—free of charge—via telephone, email and social media forums. We’ll even talk to you before you buy, and walk you through the technical fine points. You can email POSC at bis.product.support@am.sony.com or call 1-800-883-6817, and select option 5.

Sony expertise is just a phone call away

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Number 7 We configure it out Some Sony products require preconfiguration prior to shipment. And in other cases, the products are actually turn-key systems that require substantial work before they go out the door. Here again, Sony Professional Services shines. We work behind the scenes to make life that much easier for Sony customers. Gary Simpson knows whereof he speaks. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a senior manager with responsibilities in training, sustaining engineering and publications.

Configuring SRX-R320P 4K Digital Cinema projectors.

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Behind the scenes with Sony Professional Services

Number 6 Better by the block Because downtime is deadly, we often isolate a fault to a specific circuit board or Field Replacement Block (FRB). By replacing that block, we can skip the time-consuming process of diagnosing the individual failed part, getting you up and running much faster. Afterwards, we can diagnose and repair the individual block without the time pressure of a waiting customer. FRBs are not just for Sony service techs. If you perform your own maintenance, you can order FRBs just like any other Sony part. Speaking of parts inventory, Digital Cinema projection represents a special issue, with movie theater revenue depending on maximum uptime. So we developed a network of 24 forward stocking locations including Hawaii, Alaska and Louisville, Kentucky. This last warehouse is literally alongside the runway of our third-party logistics provider. So you can call us as late as 11:00 pm and we can still make next-day delivery. For genuine Sony parts visit sony.com/servicesplus , email Proparts@am.sony.com or call us at 1-800-538-7550.

Service, Sony style.

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From Russia, with love. A Sony Field Service Engineer at the winter games in Sochi.

Number 5 We go further than you think. Sony can cover your equipment in ways you may never have imagined. For example, what if your drop your camera? Our Extended Service Plans can cover accidental damage from handling in addition to parts, labor and return shipping on mechanical and electrical failures. For details on Sony Extended Service Plans, visit pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/services.servicesprograms. bbsccms-services-servicesprograms-supportnet.shtml. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another way we go further. Sony Field Service Engineers get out of the service center and travel to customer locations to install new systems, perform system check-out and commissioning, and do repairs as necessary. Whether in a Hollywood post house, a call-letter station newsroom, entertainment events or sports at any level, Sony Field Service Engineers rise to the occasion with unparalleled skills.

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Behind the scenes with Sony Professional Services

Number 4 Keeping a remote eye on things Some Sony products are always in contact with the mother ship. And that’s just how the customers want it. For solutions such as Sony Media Backbone Production Systems, Sony offers 24x7 system monitoring with our own Tier 3 Network Operations Center. A team of dedicated engineers stands ready to take your calls 24x7, often diagnosing and fixing issues before they ever become operational problems. And we do it without ever physically touching the equipment. Customers love getting the fastest possible restoration and maximum uptime. By the way, Sony does not have a big room with screens hanging on the walls to monitor all these customer systems. Instead, the call center is virtual, using highly skilled engineers working from home offices.

Our Senior Engineer for CineAlta cameras, Rashmin Mecwan is part of the Sustaining Engineering group.

We also work with a third-party Tier 1 Network Operations Center dedicated to our Digital Cinema customers. They’re able to resolve 95% of customer issues remotely, escalating the remaining 5% for resolution by Sony staff members.

Number 3 Not just maintaining, sustaining You may have never met Rashmin Mecwan, but if you’ve used a Sony CineAlta camera, you’ve benefitted from his work. He’s the honcho for CineAlta cameras in the sustaining engineering group. That means he anticipates the special requirements of digital motion picture cameras everywhere from quality assurance to parts inventory, diagnostic tools and tech training. He’s the highest tier of issue escalation, investigating the rare challenges that cannot be resolved by the bench technicians. Finally, Rashmin is the eyes and ears of the factory teams back in Japan, investigating, reporting and resolving product quality issues. 159

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Number 2

Number 1

Grade A upgrades

Beautiful B-Stock

Would you like to add the Avid DNxHD® and Apple ProRes 422 encoding board to your F55? Do you want to upgrade your FS700 to an FS700R? Or transform the F5 that you bought into an F55? You can’t do these upgrades yourself. But we can — quickly, professionally and accurately. And we’ll check your camera completely before we ship it back. As many DPs already know, these upgrades are powerful additions in Sony CineAlta cameras. Sony Professional Services makes them happen.

Have you ever wondered what happens to all that Sony gear out on the floor after the NAB Show? Or what happens to the Winter Games cameras and switchers after NBC is done with them? All that inventory comes back to our Carson, California facility for refurbishment and sale as B-stock. We can’t call the products new, because they aren’t. But they’re awfully close to new at a very substantial savings. “Refurbishment” is quite a process. We thoroughly test each returning unit and repair any problems. We perform any hardware and software upgrades. Unlike a standard customer repair in the service depot, we pay great attention to cosmetic appearance. Parts are replaced to make the unit look like new. We supply a complete accessory pack — just as the product would have if new. We even replace parts that would typically wear out during normal operation, so you can expect trouble-free performance. Finally, B-stock is sold with exactly the same Sony warranty as the brand new product. The bottom line? At Sony Professional Services, fixing what’s broken is just the beginning. We do tremendous work to make sure things don’t break in the first place. And we have the training, logistics, network operations and sustaining engineering to make it happen.

An F55 is put to the test

We dedicate vast technical resources to ensure you receive the best service and support in the industry. From our service centers in Teaneck, New Jersey and Carson, California, highly trained engineers perform repairs and upgrades to professional products — both current and legacy. And our diverse team of experienced Field Service Engineers can conduct mission-critical repairs and maintenance at your location. Our goal is to keep you up and running, provide value at a fair price and to do it better than anyone else. back to TOC

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ÂŠ2014 Sony Electronics Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Features, design, and specifications are subject to change without notice. The values for mass and dimension are approximate. Sony, AVCHD AXSM, BRAVIA, Catalyst Browse, Catalyst Prepare, CineAlta, Digital Betacam, HDCAM SR, HDMI, NXCAM, SRMemory, SRMASTER, SxS, SxS Pro, TRIMASTER, Vegas, XAVC, XDCAM, XDCAM EX, and the Sony logo are trademarks of Sony Corporation. Mac, iPad, and ProRes are a registered trademark of Apple Inc. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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