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imagemaking for cinematographers & directors theory and practice cinematography second edition This page intentionally left blank imagemaking for cinematographers and directors theory and practice cinematography blain brown AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier second edition Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451, USA The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, UK © 2012 ELSEVIER INC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions. This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein). Notices Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, Blain. Cinematography : theory and practice : image making for cinematographers and directors / Blain Brown. p. cm. ISBN 978-0-240-81209-0 1. Cinematography. I. Title. TR850.B7598 2012 778.5--dc22 2011010755 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. For information on all Focal Press publications visit our website at www.elsevierdirect.com 11 12 13 14 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the China cinematography v contents Introduction xiii The Scope of this Book xiv Titles and Terminology xiv writing with motion 1 Writing with Motion 2 Building a Visual World 2 The [Conceptual] Tools of Cinematography 4 The Frame 4 The Lens 6 Light and Color 8 Texture 9 Movement 10 Establishing 10 Point-of-View 10 Putting It All Together 11 shooting methods 13 What Is Cinematic? 14 A Question of Perception 14 Visual Subtext and Visual Metaphor 14 The Frame 15 Static Frame 15 Cinema as a Language 16 The Shots: Building Blocks of a Scene 17 Establishing the Geography 18 Character Shots 20 Invisible Technique 27 The Shooting Methods 27 The Master Scene Method 27 Coverage 28 Overlapping or Triple-Take Method 29 In-One 30 Freeform Method 30 Montage 32 Involving The Audience: POV 33 visual language 37 More Than Just a Picture 38 Design Principles 39 The Three-Dimensional Field 41 Forces Of Visual Organization 45 Movement in the Visual Field 51 The Rule of Thirds 51 Miscellaneous Rules of Composition 51 Basic Composition Rules for People 52 language of the lens 53 The Lens and the Frame 54 Foreground/Midground/Background 54 Lens Perspective 54 Deep Focus 56 Selective Focus 61 Image Control at the Lens 63 Lens Height 64 Dutch Tilt 66 vi visual storytelling 67 Visual Metaphor 68 Telling Stories with Pictures 68 Lighting As Storytelling 69 Film Noir 69 Light As Visual Metaphor 70 Light and Shadow / Good and Evil 71 Fading Flashbulbs 72 Visual Poetry 75 cinematic continuity 77 Shooting For Editing 78 Thinking about Continuity 78 Types of continuity 78 The Prime Directive 81 Screen Direction 81 Turnaround 85 Cheating the Turnaround 87 Planning Coverage 87 Cuttability 88 The 20% and 30 Degree Rules 88 Other Issues In Continuity 89 Introductions 95 Other Editorial Issues In Shooting 96 Jump Cuts 96 The Six Types Of Cuts 98 The Content Cut 98 The Action Cut 98 The POV Cut 99 The Match Cut 100 The Conceptual Cut 101 The Zero Cut 102 lighting basics 103 The Fundamentals of Lighting 104 What are the Goals of Good Lighting? 104 Exposure and Lighting 107 Some Lighting Terminology 108 Aspects Of Light 110 Hard Light and Soft Light 110 Direction 113 Intensity 114 Texture 115 Color 115 Basic Lighting Techniques 116 Back Cross Keys 116 Ambient Plus Accents 117 Lighting with Practicals 117 Lighting through the Window 118 Available Natural Light 118 Motivated Light 120 Day Exteriors 124 Fill 124 Silks and Diffusion 124 Open Shade and Garage Door Light 124 Sun as Backlight 125 Lighting For High Def Video 126 cinematography vii lighting sources 129 The Tools of Lighting 130 Daylight Sources 130 HMI Units 130 Xenons 135 LED Lights 136 Tungsten Lights 136 Fresnels 136 PARs 138 HMI PARs 140 Soft Lights 140 Barger Baglights 141 Color-Correct Fluorescents 142 Other Types of Units 142 Softsun 142 Cycs, Strips, Nooks and Broads 143 Chinese Lanterns and Spacelights 143 Self-Contained Crane Rigs 144 Ellipsoidal Reflector Spots 144 Balloon Lights 145 Handheld Units 145 Day Exteriors 145 Controlling Light with Grip Equipment 145 For More Information On Lighting 146 HD cinematography 147 High Def and Standard Def 148 Analog and Digital Video 148 Analog 148 Digital Video 149 Types of Video Sensors 150 Three-Chip vs Bayer Filter Sensors 150 Digital Video 151 Standard Def 151 High Def 151 Shooting Formats 152 2K, 4K and Higher Resolution Formats 152 Digital Compression 152 RAW 154 Monitoring On the set 155 The Waveform Monitor and Vectorscope 156 Waveform Monitors 156 The Vectorscope 156 Video Latitude 157 Clipping 158 Video Noise and Grain 159 The Digital Intermediate (DI) 159 The Video Signal 160 Interlace Video 160 Progressive Video 160 NTSC and ATSC 160 Colorspace 161 SDI 162 Setting Up A Color Monitor 162 Monitor Setup Procedure 162 Camera White Balance 164 viii Digital Video Encoding 165 Is It Broadcast Quality? 166 Do It in the Camera or in Post? 166 The Decision Matrix 167 10 Things to Remember When Shooting HD 167 Timecode and Edgecode 168 Video Frame Rate 168 Drop-Frame and Non-Drop-Frame 168 29.97 Video 169 How Drop Frame Solves the Problem 170 To Drop or Not to Drop? 170 Timecode Slating 170 Tapeless Production 171 Metadata 171 Tapeless Workflows 171 Digital File Types 172 Container Files: Quicktime and MXF 172 Compression and Codecs 173 Intra-frame versus Interframe Compression 173 Bit Depth 173 MPEG 174 Other Codecs 176 The Curve 177 Controlling the HD Image 179 Gain/ISO 180 Gamma 180 Black Gamma/Black Stretch 180 Knee 180 Color Saturation 180 Matrix 180 Color Balance 180 exposure 181 Exposure: the Easy Way 182 What Do We Want Exposure to Do for Us? 182 Controlling Exposure 182 The Four Elements of Exposure 183 The Bottom Line 185 How Film and Video Are Different 185 Two Types of Exposure 185 Light As Energy 186 F/Stops 186 Exposure, ISO, and Lighting Relationships 186 Inverse Square Law and Cosine Law 187 ISO/ASA 187 Light and Film 188 The Latent Image 189 Chemical Processing 189 Color Negative 190 Film’s Response to Light 190 Densitometry 191 The Log E Axis 193 Brightness Perception 194 Contrast 194 “Correct” Exposure 197 Higher Brightness Range in the Scene 198 Determining Exposure 198 cinematography ix Video Exposure 198 The Tools 199 The Incident Meter 199 The Reflectance Meter 200 The Zone System 200 Zones in a Scene 203 The Gray Scale 203 Why 18%? 203 Place and Fall 205 Reading Exposure with Ultraviolet 207 Exposure and the Camera 207 Shutter Speed versus Shutter Angle 208 camera movement 209 Motivation and Invisible Technique 210 Basic Technique 211 Types Of Moves 212 Pan 212 Tilt 212 Move In / Move Out 212 Zoom 213 Punch-in 214 Moving Shots 214 Tracking 214 Countermove 214 Reveal 214 Circle Track Moves 215 Crane Moves 215 Rolling Shot 216 Camera Mounting 216 Handheld 216 Camera Head 216 Fluid Head 216 Geared Head 216 Remote Head 216 Underslung Heads 216 Dutch Head 217 The Tripod 217 High-Hat 217 Rocker Plate 217 Tilt Plate 218 The Crab Dolly 218 Dolly Terminology 218 Dance Floor 219 Extension Plate 219 Low Mode 219 Front Porch 220 Side Boards 220 Risers 220 Steering Bar or Push Bar 220 Cranes 220 Crane/Jib Arm 221 Crane Operation 221 Non-booming Platforms 222 Camera on a Ladder 222 Remote on Cranes 222 Technocrane 222 Cranes on Top of Cranes 222 Car Shots 223 x Camera Positions for Car Shots 223 Vehicle to Vehicle Shooting 223 Aerial Shots 224 Mini-Helicopters 224 Cable-Cam 224 Other Types Of Camera Mounts 224 Rickshaw, Wheelchair and Garfield 224 Steadicam 225 Low-Mode Prism 225 Crash Cams 225 Splash Boxes 225 Underwater Housings 226 Motion Control 226 color 227 Color In Visual Storytelling 228 The Nature of Light 228 The Tristimulus Theory 228 Functions of the Eye 229 Light and Color 230 Basic Qualities of Color 231 The Color Wheel 232 Color Models 232 Controlling Color 235 Color Temperature 235 Color Balance with Gels and Filters 238 Light Balancing Gels 238 Conversion Gels 239 Light Balancing Gels 241 Color Correction Gels 241 Correcting Off-Color Lights 244 Stylistic Choices in Color Control 244 image control 245 Color Printing 246 Controlling Color and Contrast 247 In the Lab 247 Bleach-Bypass and Other Processes 248 LookUp Tables 254 1D LUTs 255 3D LUTs 256 Camera Filter Types 256 Diffusion and Effects Filters 256 Contrast Filters 258 Effects Filters and Grads 258 Color Temperature and Filtration 259 Conversion Filters 261 Warming and Cooling Filters 262 Contrast Control In Black-and-White 262 Polarizers 263 Density Filters 263 IR Filters 264 Controlling The Look Of Your Project 264 Image Control With The Camera 266 Frame Rate 266 Shutter Angle 267 Time Lapse 268 cinematography xi optics & focus 269 Physical Basis Of Optics 270 Refraction 270 Focus 272 Mental Focus 274 Circle of Confusion 275 Depth-of-field 275 Depth-of-Field Calculations 276 How Not to Get More Depth-of-Field 277 Zooms and Depth-of-Field 279 Macrophotography 281 Close-Up Tools 283 Lens Care 285 Lens adapters for Video 285 set operations 287 The Shot List 289 The Director Of Photography 289 The Team 291 Camera Crew 291 Operator 291 First AC 291 Second AC 293 Loader 294 Data Wrangler 294 DIT 294 Slating Technique 295 TimeCode Slates 296 Camera Reports 297 Electricians 299 Grips 300 Other Units 302 Coordinating with Other Departments 303 Set Procedures 305 technical issues 307 Flicker 308 Filming Practical Monitors 310 Monitors and MOS Shooting 311 Shooting Process Photography 312 Greenscreen/Bluescreen 312 Lighting for Bluescreen/Greenscreen 313 Dimmers 314 Working With Strobes 317 High-Speed Photography 319 Lighting For Extreme Close-Up 319 Underwater Filming 320 Measures of Image Quality 320 Effects 321 Time-Lapse Photography 326 Time Slicing 327 Sun Location With A Compass 328 Transferring Film To Video 331 Prepping for Telecine 331 Shooting a Gray Card Reference 332 Framing Charts 334 xii film formats 335 Aspect Ratios 336 Academy Aperture 336 1.66:1 and 1.85:1 336 Wide Screen 336 Alternatives to Anamorphic 337 3-Perf 338 2-Perf Techniscope 338 16mm 340 acknowledgments 343 the cinematography website 343 bibliography 344 index 347 cinematography xiii INTRODUCTION To a great extent the knowledge base of the cinematographer over- laps with the knowledge base of the director. The cinematographer must have a solid familiarity with the terms and concepts of directing, and the more a director knows about cinematography the more he or she will be able to utilize these tools and especially be better equipped to fully utilize the knowledge and talent of a good DP (Director of Photography). Any successful director will tell you that one of the real secrets of directing is being able to recognize and maxi- mize what every member of the team can contribute. The DP has some duties that are entirely technical, and the director has responsibilities with the script and the actors, but in between those two extremes they are both involved with the same basic task: storytelling with the camera — this is what makes the creative collabo- ration between them so important. In that regard, one of the main purposes of this book is to discuss “what directors need to know about the camera” and “what cinematographers need to know about directing,” with the goal of improving communication between them and fostering a more common language for their collaborative efforts. The primary purpose of this book is to introduce cinematography/ filmmaking as we practice it on a professional level, whether it be on film, video, digital, High Def or any other imaging format. Sto- rytelling is storytelling and shooting is shooting, no matter what medium you work in. Except for two specific sections that relate to motion picture emulsions and the laboratory, the information here is universal to any form of shooting — film, video, or digital. The first three chapters are a basic introduction to the essential concepts of visual storytelling. It is absolutely essential to understand that a cinematographer or videographer cannot be just a technician who sets up “good shots.” Directors vary in how much input they want from a DP in selecting and setting up shots; but the DP must understand the methods of visual storytelling in either case. Cinema is a language and within it are the specific vocabularies and sublanguages of the lens, composition, visual design, lighting, image control, continuity, movement, and point-of-view. Learning these languages and vocabularies is a never-ending and a fascinating life- long study. As with any language, you can use it to compose clear and informative prose or to create visual poetry. While wielding these tools to fully utilize the language of cinema, there are, of course, rigorous technical requirements; it is up the DP to ensure that these requirements are met and that everything works properly. Those requirements are covered here as well, as not only are they an integral part of the job, but many seemingly mechanical requirements can also be used as forms of visual expression as well. This is why it is important for the director to have at least a pass- ing knowledge of these technical issues. Another reason is that less experienced directors can get themselves into trouble by asking for something that is not a good idea in terms of time, budget, equipment, or crew resources. This is not to suggest that a director should ever demand less than the best or settle for less than their vision. The point is that by know- ing more about what is involved on the technical side, the director can make better choices and work with their DP to think of solu- tions that are better suited to the situation. xiv We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Rules It is a well-worn saying that you should “know the rules before you break them.” This is certainly true in filmmaking. Newcomers often try to do things “the way it’s never been done before.” Sometimes (rarely) the results are brilliant, even visionary. In film, however, reshooting is extremely expensive and sometimes impossible. All of the basic rules of filmmaking exist for good reasons: they are the result of over 100 years of practical experience and experimenta- tion. Can you break the rules? Absolutely! Great filmmakers do it all the time. Once you not only know the rules but understand why they exist, it is possible to use a violation of them as a powerful tool. Our emphasis here is to not only explain the rules but also the underlying reasons that they exist. The Scope of this Book What does the cinematographer need to know about filmmaking in order to do the job properly? Almost everything. The knowledge base encompasses lenses, exposure, composition, continuity, editorial needs, lighting, grip, color, the language of the camera, even the basic elements of story structure. The job is storytelling with the camera, and the more you know about the elements of that art the better you will be able to assist the director in accomplishing those goals. The DP need not command all these techniques at the level of detail of the editor, the writer, or the key grip, but there must be a firm understanding of the basics and more importantly the possibilities — the tools and their potential to serve the storytelling and the vision of the director. This is especially true as the task of directing is more and more accessible to writers, actors, and others who may not have as broad a background in physical production and the visual side of storytelling. In this situation, being a DP who has a thorough command of the entire scope of filmmaking but is able and willing to work as a collaborator without trying to impose their own vision in place of the director’s is a strong asset. By the same token, to have a reputa- tion as a director who can utilize the talents of their creative team and get the best from everybody is also a goal to aim for. In this book we cover the storytelling issues, continuity, and pro- viding what the editor needs as well as optics, special effects, exposure, composition, filters, color control, and all the other aspects of cinematography that go into the job — all of them approached from the point of view of their value as storytelling tools. The craft of lighting is included here, but for a much more in-depth and thorough discussion of lighting, see the first book, Motion Picture and Video Lighting. It is also important to note that if you are dedicated to the idea of using the medium of cinema to its fullest extent and employing every tool of the art form to serve your story, then lighting for video or High Def is not essentially different from lighting for film. Titles and Terminology Cinematographer refers to someone who shoots film or video. Direc- tor of Photography refers to a cinematographer on any type of project. Cameraman/camerawoman/cameraperson is interchangeable with either of the above. Although a great deal of production is now done on High Def (HD) video, and HD is clearly the wave of the future, it has become common practice to still refer to it as film and filmmaking.