American Cinematographer - March 2008 - (Page 67)

either in a tungsten atmosphere with a chart, or we went to the back door at Panavision, opened it, and shot the Manhattan skyline. We set our black levels as close to the stills from the magazines as we could and otherwise went into it blind.” On set, the footage was captured to 4:4:4 log space on HDCam SR tape, and the filmmakers saw the LUTs applied in real time on a Cinemage monitor from Cine-tal. “I was able to program 15 buttons that basically gave me different film stocks,” says Medick. “I had the LUTs available right there on the monitor, and by pressing a button, I could see what my dailies were.” He adds that the LUTs also served to counteract the green cast that characterizes footage shot in the Viper’s FilmStream mode, a tint that might deter some filmmakers from using the camera. Occasionally, Medick felt constrained by the project’s low budget, which prevented the production from keeping a DIT on set. “It would have been nice to have someone come in once a week to do a new LUT,” he says. “There were times toward the end of the shoot where we’d gone through all of the preset looks and could have used something new.” In the end, however, the cinematographer felt the restrictions were as liberating as they were limiting. “We learned to embrace the LUTs and treat them like film. There were a few we threw out immediately, as well as some we saved for specific sequences or moments. Essentially, that limited me to five film stocks on a daily basis, but I felt I learned how to best use those five rather than relying on an engineer who could tweak anything at any time.” From Farnsworth’s perspective, the LUTs provided plenty of options. “It was tough enough having 10 different concepts in front of us at any given time,” he says. “If there had been more, it would have been even harder to decide [on one]. But I think we made the right decisions. And we’re going to reapply the LUTs in post, so we can always change [the look] in the end.” While shooting, Medick would Medick worked closely with digital-imaging technician Dave Satin at Mega Playground to establish an array of look-up tables for the feature. Shooting with a Thomson Viper, Medick and director Matt Farnsworth were able to view the LUTs in real time on set, though the footage was recorded raw to give the filmmakers flexibility through post. note which LUT had been chosen for each shot and then send the camera reports to Mega Playground’s downtown facility in New York. “They did all the conversion work for us,” says Farnsworth. “They dubbed our masters and made clones in 4:2:2 SR, and they applied the LUTs as they brought the footage in and did the downconvert. We wound up with 4:2:2 SR tapes that we digitized with a DVCPro HD codec for the offline.” The footage was captured with an AJA Kona LHe capture card to a 7-drive Xserve RAID with 4.1 TB of storage for the offline, which Farnsworth then carried out using Final Cut Studio 2 on a Mac Pro G5. Ultimately, the filmmakers found the workflow to be both economical and creatively fruitful. “Sometimes, you get slowed down when you shoot digital over 35mm because of all the extra equipment,” says Medick. “But in this case, the process was sped up because I could really trust the monitor. I used no filters; I shot everything raw 4:4:4.” ¢ American Cinematographer 67

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - March 2008

American Cinematographer - March 2008 Contents Editor’s Note Short Takes: Bill Viola’s Ocean Without a Shore Production Slate: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days Production Slate: Chantal: A Night at the Pyramids Magical Mystery Tour Some Kind of Monster Tantalizing Television Making Sitcoms “Sexy” Post Focus: Mega Playground Helps Set Look for Sibling Post Focus: Visual Effects Society Launches White Paper New Products & Services International Marketplace Classified Ads Ad Index In Memoriam: John McPherson, ASC ASC Membership Roster Clubhouse News ASC Close-Up: Wayne Kennan

American Cinematographer - March 2008

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