When is enough, enough? A vent.

Ryan Patrick O'Hara

Ryan Patrick O'Hara

Veteran
Film is over 100 years old. For around 80 years, film stocks and newer mediums have been increasing drastically in sensitivity, but the amount amateur cinematographers complain about sensitivity has remained the same. What gives?

Will low-budget filmmakers not be happy until they find a camera that see's in the dark and makes everything look magically cinematic? It won't happen.

If I hear one more person complain that they don't have T/1.4 lenses while shooting at over 1000+ iso, I'm going to hurt them.

For the life of me, I remember shooting 250 speed film stock... and I managed to get an exposure. So given 4x the sensitivity, you'd think I'd still be able to manage.

I'm so over-it. I need to stop dealing with other cinematographers and just focus on my own work. Their lack of creative problem solving and constant dissatisfaction with resolution and sensitivity is bringing me down. If I could get proper exposure and a great looking image five years ago using the original RedRock M2 and the original HVX200, (effective ISO of 100! hahaha) AND using only Arri lighting units 2,000w and under (household circuit ok), surely the new wave of spoiled digital cam-kiddos shooting with 1600iso'a can stop whining; at least for a minute or two.

I'm very happy my cinematography foundation was established when cameras were not super fast. I think the restrictions really forced me to learn how to light with what I had, get the most out of lights and problem solve. I feel bad for those who can't appreciate what they have.
 
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I got my start in Cinematography during the digital relm. I studied at Utah Valley University where I got my BS degree. Its a great school, but they preach Indie style film making a little too much. They swear by the HDSLR which is basically where your grief really began. When the HDSLR was introduced everybody got spoiled. It made it possible for any moron to pick up a camera and call themselves a "cinematographer".

Even though I'm finished with school, payed my dues and received my degree, I still feel a little uncomfortable with calling myself a cinematographer. Though I aim to have such a title, I feel like a true cinematographer should be proven through the work that he puts out, not from the fact that he can point and aim a camera and get shallow depth of field.

Like you said, you were able to shoot on 250 stock and were still able to get a decent exposure, well my friend, that's because unlike a lot of these budding HDSLR "Cinematographers" you know how to work with light. You understand the concept of true cinematography.

The HDSLR is both a blessing and a curse. It allows people who are truely interested in the craft to get an inexpensive start. But it also makes it possible for any jackass to acheive a nice looking shot without understanding how or why.
 
I hear you, Ryan. But I think this new wave of increased sensitivity is really terrific for getting that gritty, realistic feel. I watch movies made ten years ago and much of the lighting seems very false, almost fake. I just watched FAIR GAME (the Sean Penn version NOT the Cindy Crawford version!) and it just had this great realistic feel, mainly with practicals. And that certainly helps the actors. We light much of our stuff with practicals on ceiling grids, which really frees up the camera for lots of unrestricted movement, and saves heaps of time in lighting setups.

I'm not sure I agree with you about a camera that sees in the dark and makes everything look wonderfully cinematic not happening. I think the 5d mark 3 or 4, could do this. It already sees pretty darn well in the dark, not to mention having shallower DOF than 35mm, and given it was only 5 years since the HVX, in another 5 years we could well see, say a 4K 5D mark X, in the same compact form it is today. That would really be something.

I think you're right when you say you should focus on your own work. There are so many optimists and pessimists in this industry that it's easy to be swayed by one side or the other.

Congrats on being made a mod BTW! Kholi too, my 2 favourite DVX users. About time.
 
agree with this thread so much - the tech has become too much of a resolution race- people focus on that more then their own skills - I say pick up a camera and learn to make a nice image - that will get you further then any 4K iso 32000 camera will
 
Amen Ryan. I feel the same.

I also get crazy, when those DSLR kids keep complaining about, that everything above the size of a 5D with a pancake lens, is absolutely way to heavy to carry around and to cumbersome to work with at all.

Ha! My rigs are huge and they weight at least 30 lbs, and I never had a problem to "get in tight spaces" - where are they shooting all the time - in a coffin?

Also their only problem seems to be, to shoot in the subway. Really, I hear that so often.

"hey dude, it´s soooo wicked cool that, with the high ISO and small body, I finally can shoot in the subway dude"

WTF? I mean, yeah - it´s nice to be able to shoot in the subway, but would you please learn how to pull focus first?

And by the way, you don´t light a scene because your camera isn´t sensitive enough, you light it caus photography means painting with light. If you don´t light, just because you have high enough ISO, you rob yourself one of the best instruments in your toolbox.

Ahhhhhrghh!

Frank
 
Amen Ryan! I too recall when ISO 250 first came out. We though we had been blessed by the film gods. These flim kids want to light with a match and a flash light. We would commonly be in a small room with 2k's and 5k's and giant soft boxes. We were tough, we sweated our butts off we loved it and we rarely complained.

Hey guys just because you own the latest DSLR wiz-bang-wowy you are not a DP, I am not sure you are even an operator. Buy some lights, learn how to use them then we can talk.
 
One of the forums i visit is cinema5 and whenever i see a few threads there i feel like i'm in some bizzaro world where people know nothing (and i mean truly nothing!) about filmmaking, lighting, cameras... Topics such as "I never used a follow focus before but this Chinese knock off is great, i highly recommend it - much better than arri" are filled with such contradictions one starts to ponder do you even bother pointing out obvious flows with logic of such statement much less flows with recommending one device over another not having used another device... Or in another thread a guy keeps on sending his camera for repairs because of ...rolling shutter! The level of ignorance about the most basic stuff is so tremendous one starts to think that if people are so uninformed about this specific topic what else can they know nothing about and yet still engage in. Than this sinking feeling sets in that those are members of voting public (let's get a bit political here) - people who have a small part in influencing which way their respective countries are going, can they be as ignorant about the issues surrounding them as they are about cinematography? And if so what hope is there really for true democracy?
 
When I started shooting with my own Arri 16S/B, SRII and Elaine, we felt lucky to have the new T-Grain 100, 250, 320 and 400 speed film stocks from Kodak. The 400 5295 in particular was a boon for VFX work, which was predominantly done on blue screens. One great thing about the DSLRs is that they enable young people to actually go out and shoot, which is the best gateway to learning. We owned our 16S/B, but rarely had the money to go shoot with reckless abandon as the digital generation does. The cost of raw stock, develop and one-light time telecine was so restrictively expensive, we had no choice but to lavish pre-production time on our shoots because we would shoot at 10:1, 5:1 or even 3:1 ratios... on commercials!

We are all trying to make digital perform like film does, so it is logical that there will be intense scrutiny over the medium. Everyone could stand to be less emotional about what we're working with and more passionate about the resulting stories we're telling with the technology. It has been said here a million times and bears repeating.

What we need to refocus on is the larger filmmaking process - creative and technical. Filmmaking is a curiosity - where artists are really just craftspeople and the entire art form collides against the undeniable crush of concerns over money. No other medium requires so much infrastructure.

As making movies becomes more democratized, we need to, more than ever, concentrate on learning the crafts, building good, professional relationships and using the exciting techology we have today to tell the best story possible.
 
On the flip side, this will make everyone with a solid foundation in cinematography that much more valuable and hirable. I agree it's annoying, but it's also pretty obvious when people are bullshitting, and that doesn't go very far on jobs.

And really from what I can tell the fake experience and posturing can slide by online but gets checked pretty quickly on set. It's not a threat, but I agree it can be pretty annoying. This is why it's good to unplug and go shoot/create when you find yourself getting pulled into the gear talk vortex of saying and not doing. One thing I really appreciate about hearing really good DP's talk about their craft is that they don't talk about how cool a piece of gear is, but they talk about how a shot services the story. That is something missing in the discussions online.
 
I totally agree with you. It's not about having the best equipments. But about really being creative with what you have. As I have a background in Photography, I've really had the foundation of doing so. There is a certain cinematographer in school who despite coming up with some decent work... Always complains that he would have done much better with a 5D MKII, a Red, a Zeiss Lens etc.

I am a strong believer that Film is an art form. And that with all arts, not everything is possibly with what you have, or the medium you're using. But, you can still do amazing work if you think and work creatively.

Oh, and I particularly dislike people who starts showing off whatever gear they have rather than talk of their work, their abilities. Equipment is important. But it's not everything.
 
While I totally agree with Ryan, I think the "race" is really just getting started. How jealous are people over the 25,600 ISO of the Nikon? Or ga-ga about the +30dB on the FS100?

Bigger numbers sell, and always have. Why else would there be such a thing as a "300x digital zoom"? Seriously? 2x digital zoom looks *horrible*. 300x? 300X?

I did this shot on an AF100. ONE CANDLE. One candle for the entire three-point lighting setup.

Just how much more do we need? But whether we "need" it or not, people will clamor for it and they'll still line up to view "low light tests".

On the flip side, the high-iso creates a real problem when shooting outdoors. One of my few complaints about my GH2 as vs. the GH1 is that the GH1 went down to 100 ISO, and the GH2 goes down to only 160. That extra 2/3 of a stop is annoying, it puts the f-stop too close to diffraction for my taste.

5245 50D for the win.
 
I shot a no budget feature on a HVX and SGpro combo (ISO rating of 80 or 100 or something) with about 2000 watts of light. 25 pound rig, most handheld, usually outside in the summer heat or in a cramped garage. I think DSLR shooting has made me way more grateful of where technology is now.
 
I'm sick of people throwing out solid traditional film making technique simply because the capture device has changed.
 
yrpfilms said:
I'm sick of people throwing out solid traditional film making technique simply because the capture device has changed.
Click to expand...


Well, that presumes they 'knew' what they were throwing out... For many of the 'problems' I've seen on the GH camera section, many of them seem to center around not knowing much, if anything about either still photography, or cinematography.

I couldn't afford to run a movie camera way back when, but I did learn to use my available still resources... at the time a 50 year old 4x5, and an equally as old lens... which I bought for about $50 at the time... The Wife on the other hand, coming from the other side of the tracks bought Hasselblads... when we do seminars she always points out that I'm the one who reads the manuals...

But we are often amazed at how lacking people are with their camera knowledge... and expect to be able to call themselves 'pro'...
 
I agree here be grateful for what you have... Some folk who shoot now never ever used tape, now that digital is here they want faster transfers and no transcoding.
 
I don't think it's the type of camera a person has. It's either a lazy mentality they have or an anti-establishment ego trip against the somewhat elitist attitude of "professionals", a lot of which who rant on forums and pat each other on the back while forgetting that they were there once too... :D

Seriously though, it's nothing new, it happens in pretty much any skilled industry. It's part of learning. The process will weed out the skilled and unskilled regardless. Cheap cameras only allow more unskilled people to get their stuff out to a larger audience more quickly but more skilled folks will also get out there too. I don't think the ratio has changed at all, just our awareness.
 
The fact is this:

Digital Cinematography IS the future. In some ways I'm saddened that I have never truely had the experience to work with film. But in other ways, Im glad digital is the future, it's cheaper, it's faster, it's simpler, and damnit, it's gorgeous. I think that people who hate digital format are stupid for being so stubborn. Why would you not want to practice your craft in all forms and mediums?

Like my grandpa who hates cell phones because "In my day we didn't need cellular phones" these people refuse to move up with technology... I think its because they're afraid to. One more reason I think Roger Deakins is the best, He shot on film his whole life, but he's adapted his game for digital, he recognizes that its the future, and rather than ***** about it, he accepts it and continues to make gorgeous films.

So rather than focus on all these little weiners who claim to be cinematographers because they can suck light out of outer darkness with their huge sensors, (as apposed to truely knowing what cinematography is) focus on your game. Focus on why you're playing the game, and focus on how you're going to make your game stronger. In the end, those little guys won't be getting the jobs anyway, because directors don't just want somebody who can point a camera, they want somebody who understands WHY you point the camera, and WHY you point your lights.

Film isn't going away for good, but its also not going to be the standard for long. Acceptance is our friend.
 
let's not go down the road of calling people stupid because they prefer one acquisition format over another. seriously.
 
It has a lot to do with youthful exhuberance in many cases. In the real world of commercially distributed film and television, there is still little tolerance for anarchy. Less than you'd think from reading forum postings. I recall hearing from an engineer at Post Group, where I was employed as a very young man in 1988, that NHK was going to kill film with HD in the very near future. Not what a video-hating Arri camera owner wanted to hear in those days. Many of us, fresh from film school shared our open hostility toward video, which, in the 20th century, did not shoot at variable frame rates or with progressive sensors. As technology has improved wildly, so has my tolerance for new things. My advice to youngsters is to concentrate on learning by shooting with whatever you can muster. And only get emotional about telling your stories.
 
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