How do you REALLy shoot a city at night?

TimurCivan said:
Or, you can pull a "1970's" and just get a key light and rim on talent going. (Think taxi driver, vengence, dog day afternoon, etc...)
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As a child of the seventies, and a student of the cinema of that time (Sorry Timur.... Gordon Willis is God!!), what I find exciting about today's crop of high light sensitive cameras is that by adapting the seventies WAY of doing things, small camera and lighting/grip packages shooting out in the streets, we can really make some images that look great. Yes, you would still need to deal with all of the HPS yellow, but if you are following the seventies ideal of augmented reality, then that wouldn't be all of that big of a deal.

I wonder what kind of images Gordon Willis, Michael Chapman, Victor J. Kemper, Owen Roizman or any of the other great cinematographers known for their "Gritty street photography" in the seventies could have made with a camera like the Arri Alexa (or with a film stock like the Vision 3 stocks). :beer:

EDIT: As a suggestion for someone looking for a great example of a seventies crime drama with great cinematography (With a cool story and great acting as well) I would suggest checking out the movie "The Friends of Eddie Coyle". I recently saw it for the first time and I now love the movie. I would also suggest watching the movie "Klute". Gordon Willis' cinematography, especially his us of soft top light, is amazing. ... Just my two cent!
 
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David G. Smith said:
Yes, you would still need to deal with all of the HPS yellow, but if you are following the seventies ideal of augmented reality, then that wouldn't be all of that big of a deal.

I wonder what kind of images Gordon Willis, Michael Chapman, Victor J. Kemper, Owen Roizman or any of the other great cinematographers known for their "Gritty street photography" in the seventies could have made with a camera like the Arri Alexa (or with a film stock like the Vision 3 stocks). :beer:
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FYI, the great Roger Deakins took just such an approach in his first venture using digital capture. You've probably already read it, but the American Cinematographer article about "In Time", which Deakins shot using the Alexa, describes how he incorporated the color palette of Sodium Vapor lights into the movie. Much of the night photography was available light augmented with gelled tungsten units and store-bought sodium lights. So I think that train is arriving. Every feature I've seen shot on the Alexa has looked amazing to me. Drive, In Time, Hugo. But it doesn't hurt that each one of these was shot by (in my opinion) great cinematographers who have embraced the technology.
 
dvbrother said:
FYI, the great Roger Deakins took just such an approach in his first venture using digital capture. You've probably already read it, but the American Cinematographer article about "In Time", which Deakins shot using the Alexa, describes how he incorporated the color palette of Sodium Vapor lights into the movie. Much of the night photography was available light augmented with gelled tungsten units and store-bought sodium lights. So I think that train is arriving. Every feature I've seen shot on the Alexa has looked amazing to me. Drive, In Time, Hugo. But it doesn't hurt that each one of these was shot by (in my opinion) great cinematographers who have embraced the technology.
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I have to agree with you on this, for the most part. I have read the AC article about "In Time" and have seen the movie on the big screen. I am a huge fan of Roger Deakins and i thought that his cinematography was the best thing about the movie... and it is absolutely great!. The flick is playing at the two buck theater near me and I am going to go back and see it again. Yeah, Mr. Deakins gets it. "Drive" is another great looking film, IMHO. My question above is just about the great cinematographers of the past, and the great images they made, with less capable equipment. I think that with the equipment we have available to us now, and by learning from the past, by maybe not taking the exact "How", but maybe by embracing the "Why" of the past methods, we can make great images also.
 
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