Sony F55 & F65 Work ow Workshop with Curtis Clark, ASC

Cinematographer: Nico Navia Format: Sony F65 Notetakers: Dawn Shim and Stephen St. Peter

Goals: The goal is to see how well the F65 works in a low light setting. The test will consist mixed color temperatures with daylight from the windows and tungsten from the practicals to see how they behave together. The character is shot against a big window allowing the light to come from outside and edge the characters creating the necessary separation from the background.

Mood: Dark, cold and moody setting inside a bar during a cloudy day. Camera Settings: ISO 800 FPS 23.98 T 2.0 and T 2.8 180-degree shutter Color temperature 4300K Action of the Scene A man will be sitting at the bar as we capture the setting in a wide shot. A bartender will come up to him and serve him a drink. The customer drinks it without hesitation, drops some money and the counter and walks out of the bar.

Big Sur, Cinematography by David Mullen, ASC

Lighting oorplan

Backdrop

Vista Beams

Imira 6 tubes w 2/3 1/2 grid di

Bar y 400, 4 tubes W grid Bar y 400, 4 tubes W grid

4x4 BBoard 2

4K HMI

1&3 3 2

1st Setup

Spot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

T Stop T 1.0 T 4.0 T 22 T 2.0 T 0.7 T 1.4 2/3 T 0.7 2/3 T 2.0 T 2.0 1/2

Foot-candle 0.2 1/2 fc 23 fc 35 fc 0.5 0.2 fc 0.5 1/3 fc 0.4 fc 0.5 1/3 fc 0.5 1/3 fc

Foot-lambert 0.2 1/3 fL 3.5 fL 11 fL 0.8 fL 0.1 fL 0.6 1/3 fL 0.2 fL 0.8 fL 1.3 fL

2nd Setup

Spot 1 2 3 4

T Stop T 1.0 1/3 T 0.7 1/2 T 11 1/2 T 22

Foot-candle 0.5 1/3 fc 0.4 fc 20 fc 35 fc

Foot-lambert 0.2 7 fL 0.1 6 fL 9 fL 11 fL

3rd Set up

Spot 1 2 3 4

T Stop T 1.0 1/3 T 2.0 1/3 T 1.4 T 2.8 1/2

Foot-candle 0.5 2/3 fc 0.7 1/3 fc 0.4 fc 0.7 1/3 fc

Foot-lambert 0.2 7 fL 1.1 fL 0.4 4 fL 2.5 fL

Conclusion At the end of the day I believe that the real purpose of the class was to experience the entire work ow of production from shooting to the projection phase. It would be unfair of me to re ect on the actual camera itself since I didn't have any previous testing before the shoot and I was basically judging the image from the monitor. Having an on-set DIT/Colorist was my rst experience in that kind of work ow. I can see how having the right person in that position can be bene cial for a cinematographer but personally if I had to divide my on-set time between walking back and forth between the actual set and a tent, it would drive me crazy. I think that I would prefer to adopt the 1 LUT school and learn how to light and expose for that. If I had to say anything about the F65, it would be that I was surprised that I didn't have faster fall-o in the shadow region. There were too many shades of gray between normal exposure and deep blacks. I wished it had been less subtle of a change but I guess that's just personal preference. I know that if I was shooting on lm I would have gotten exactly the levels I wanted. I also wouldn't be able to judge how my lighting would be a ected by this camera as most of what I used was what was already set-up on the stage. If I could have done it from scratch, my approach especially to the light coming from the window, would have been di erent. I would have used bigger units bounced o of material to penetrate inside the room. I also would have used a little smoke to add to the atmosphere of the space Finally, I believe that even though there was as light shift in color between the projected image and our on-set monitoring they match rather well. De nitely better than what I had expected and better than anything I'd experience before. I don't know whether the system was malfunctioning or something was not calibrated properly but this shows me that rigorous testing and attention to detail is paramount and that at the end of the day, metering is still better than any type of on-set monitoring.

Cinematographer: Daniella Nowitz Format: Sony F55 Notetakers: Dawn Shim and Stephen St. Peter

Action of the Scene A man looks out the window. He thereby sits down to nish his drink. Goal The goal is to shoot a low light scene at the factory ISO and rate the camera it 1 stop overexposed, compare the two; looking at noise and details in the blacks and see what manipulation that can be done with the image in grading. Camera Settings: ISO 1250 FPS 23.98 T 2.0 and T 2.8 180-degree shutter Color temperature: 4300K

2x3 bounce for CU Tweenie Single + double S4 1

10k 2x double scrim 3 8x8 showcard

2 Baby Solar Half scrim 2

1 Tweenie Full House 4x4 BBoard

1st Set up

Spot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

T Stop T 8.0 2/3 T 1.4 2/3 T 4.0 1/2 EU T 0.7 2/3 T 2.8 2/3 T 0.7 1/2

Foot-candle 40 fc 9 fc 18 fc 0.9 fc 0.4 1/3 fc 13 fc 0.2 fc

Foot-lambert 16 fL 0.5 fL 3.5 fL EU 0.1 1/3 fL 2.0 fL 0.1 fL

2nd Set up

Spot 1 2

T Stop T 1.0 1/2 T 0.7 2/3

Foot-candle 1.1 fc 0.4 1/3 fc

Foot-lambert 0.2 fL 0.1 1/3 fL

3rd Set up

Spot 1 2 3

T Stop T 1.4 1/2 T 1.0 1 EU

Foot-candle 3.5 fc 17 fc 0.1 1/2 fc

Foot-lambert 0.4 1/2 fL 0.2 fL EU

Conclusion Low-key scenes on the F55 appear to have better contrast ratios when the camera is rated at 1 stop overexposed. Although the noise level was more or less negligible at EI 1250 the brighter image at EI640 gave richer blacks and had more detail in the shadows once it was brought back down in post. Curtis mentioned that switching the grey point more towards the highlights to have more detail in the shadows for a lowlight scene would be something he would prefer especially when you dont risk clipping your highlights.