What F stop are Hollywood movies generally shot at?

[DLD]

Multiple cameras per scene.

Say for example you are shooting single camera, you start with the master at 24mm then want to move into coverage on a medium shot on a 35. Your preference is to shoot wider lenses than long lenses for whatever reason, like you watched that interview with Roger Deakins . On a multiple camera show (which is virtually all episodic and feature work I've shot in the past decade), if you tried to do both of those setups at once, the A camera would be photographing B camera. So with the B cam pulled back out of A camera's shot, now it is shooting that same size medium shot at maybe 80mm." ...

That's what I thought. (without watching the full Deakins interview, that seems to be a fairly standard procedure). Of course, then you have your typical soap opera 3-cam with the overhead lighting and actors not moving off their marks.

Further question, if you don't mind. Eyeballing a typical TV/medium budget feature production, what would the time savings be on, say, a three actor scene with two/three vs. single camera?

And would newer auto focus enabled cameras make a difference or would a large set have top quality focus pullers anyway?

PS. As to flying walls - in his 1976 classic (OK, it was a classic by the Soviet standards), the "Irony of Fate", director Eldar Ryazanov not only moved walls around, he entirely redesigned the main set toward the end of the film. Part of it was kind of a "Friends" effect, as it were, where no director wants to shoot inside a 450 st sq set even while shooting what is supposed to be a 450 ft sq. apartment. Off various sources, the set was around 1,500 ft sq. But then he added a room divider in a late scene. When asked about it, he just shrugged his shoulders.

I saw the film in my teens and even then found the in-situ alterations extremely odd. And it wasn't the problem of continuity either, where a flower vase might be on the left in one shot and on the right in another. It was just something that Ryazanov wanted to do. The "Irony of Fate", a romantic comedy where the action takes place on a New Year, became a December, 31st tradition in a Russian speaking part of the world a la "It's a Wonderful Life" in the US.

 

[CharlesPapert]

That's what I thought. (without watching the full Deakins interview, that seems to be a fairly standard procedure). Of course, then you have your typical soap opera 3-cam with the overhead lighting and actors not moving off their marks.

Hardly! Multiple cameras doesn't mean a sitcom (and cameras and actors move around plenty in sitcoms too). Most of what you are seeing on TV and in features is shot multiple cameras without these specific restrictions. Exclusively overhead lighting is generally reserved for 360 degree shooting which is usually a single camera exercise.

Further question, if you don't mind. Eyeballing a typical TV/medium budget feature production, what would the time savings be on, say, a three actor scene with two/three vs. single camera?

If properly utilized, for a 2 camera day I'd say we can shoot a given number of setups in 50-70% of the time it would take with a single camera. Adding a third camera I think is slightly less efficient percentage-wise as the compromise increases, but you are getting extra pieces of coverage that you may not have had time to otherwise. Many episodic shows are increasingly shooting with three cameras on a regular basis. The key is that you design coverage around the multiple cameras from the beginning, rather than lining up A camera on the first shot on the list and then "finding" something with B camera (vs actually shooting another of the shots on the list).

I discuss this ad nauseum in this vintage thread.

And would newer auto focus enabled cameras make a difference or would a large set have top quality focus pullers anyway?.

I only hire skilled focus pullers, regardless of the size of the set! Auto focus is still a rare bird in narrative shooting except in specific circumstances (vehicle or human moving towards camera with very long lenses would be a typical example). I played with it for a commercial last year where I bunged a few A7III's into a free-driving car, and my tests were encouraging, but learned just in time that feeding the signal out of the HDMI compromised the auto focus capabilities of the camera due to splitting the duties of the processor so we had to pull focus conventionally via remote. There are some heavy duty focus aids like the Preston Light Ranger that incorporate an autofocus mode but I've yet to shoot something where an AC has activated those.

 

[J.Brown]

I shoot between F2.8 and F4 95% of the time. Rarely faster but sometimes above F5.6.

 

[fatman]

To each his own. I think that can get a little dogmatic. There's a good argument to be made about consistency within a scene, such as matching coverage on characters having a conversation (or specifically opting to not match their sizes if that effect is desired). If shooting a closeup of a character inside a small room and then in the next scene they are outside with a distant background, I'd challenge anyone to notice whether the focal length is the same by at a good 20mm.

That said, I agree that thinking of a zoom as a variable prime is a good notion so that there is some thoughtfulness to the process, rather than parking the sticks and punching in. This is ironically how a great deal of television is made but that because of multiple cameras and speed more than anything else. I have probably shot hundreds of closeups on long lens that I would have rather moved the camera closer simply because it would have gotten into the simultaneous wide shot.

Often for me it is more about framing the background just so rather than sticking to a specific focal length. In other words, framing a specific size on an actor at a given focal length, I may find that we are just missing a practical, clipping the ceiling or including a protruding set element. In those instances I will move the camera and compensate on the zoom to keep the same size on the actor but change the magnification of the background. Chances are those focal lengths are not going to end up being prime sizes.

As always, these are not one-size-fits-all. There is something lovely about the formality of primes and limiting ones choices as a creative exercise and when I get to do it, I am reminded of the benefits. It's part of the reason I bought a prime set last year. I'm just hesitant to think that even a savvy viewer can really feel the difference between an 85mm prime and 72.3mm on a zoom.

Lastly: there was a time 20 years ago when the 40mm was a bit of a unicorn (Mitch can help me here with his insane encyclopedic brain, but I feel like it was exclusively a Primo size and then others followed suit). Sometimes directors would tell us "the 40mm is so beautiful--so much better than the 35mm". Once we covered up the number on the 35mm with a filter badge and handed it to the director on a finder when he called for the 40. After lining up the shot, he took the bait "damn, I love the 40 so much" etc.

I rented a cooke prime kit in tel aviv and was shooting in a hospital doing an interview and because of the space in the room asked for the 40mm (the kit had more than a standard #) and my guy was like "why do you want to use a the hipster lens?" lol ... It was purely because of the space and distance, but it vignetted anyway so we had to use a 50 and cramp the hell out of that setup to make it fit in the room.

Anyway, I will never look at 40mm without the memory.