Primo & Cooke Xtal Anamorphic Flare tests

Because the internet needs even more flare tests...

John Toll Document

The ipad version of the document can be found here

"COWARD" online

That epic little movie i shot last year has gone online in full

From a recent shoot

Some BTS images from a commercial I did for Dusthouse recently. We shot on a RED MX with Panavision C-series Anamorphics using some older split diopters and shot through an interesting array of household items like Ice cubes, Christmas tinsel and pieces of glass, all heavily back lit to provide impressionistic images. The camera was kept at 320asa and 3200 tungsten. Yellow 101 was used on some shots and Full CTB used on others for a colder contrasting look. For the single flashback shot I kept the lights neutral in colour and smeared Vaseline on the lens, and then in the grade pushed it towards a 70's reversal film look, tinting the blacks and the highlights.
The Lighting plot gives you an idea of where we started, although i did modify it slightly.

Photos courtesy of Jason Cuddy and Stephen Murphy.

Onegin_Promo (Directors Cut) from Stephen Murphy on Vimeo.

Advice for camera trainees

Some advice for camera trainees From the blog of a very experienced and highly regarded Focus Puller. Read it people...
http://talesfromtvland.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/camera-trainees.html

More Baltar Lens tests

Some very unscientific lens tests I did today at Panavision comparing the look of Baltars to Primos. In looking at the Baltars I was primarily interested in how they'd render colour and contrast compared to more modern glass. I think they give a beautiful look, especially on digital sensors, where their softer contrast really helps the highlights.

I also took a quick look at the crop factor of a 2 x anamorphic on a 16x9 sensor which is something I'm considering for an upcoming project.

Back in New York

Some Lighting plots and other notes from my shoot for the RSC in New York last week. Shooting on an Alexa Plus with an Arri Master Zoom with a 1/2 Black Diffusion FX on the front and one of my Dior Black Silk Nets on the rear. I rated the camera at 400asa and shot at T4. We had the camera on a Libra 5 Stabilised head on the end of a Moviebird 45 for most of the shoot mixed in with a little bit of traditional coverage off a dolly. The trick to this shoot was to design a lighting style that would allow us to shoot 180 degrees, give the actors some flexibility with their marks, let us cover the 65 pages of script in very limited time by not needing to constantly relight and still maintain an interesting visual style. Phew..

I've started using Lighting Designer for iPad to produce my lighting plots and this was the first job I could put it into practice on. It was a huge help in communicating my intentions to the crew, and allowed me to prep extensively from the UK. Along with Light Source Pro it's now become an essential part of my prep for any job.

We recorded Log C to Prores 4444 and the frame grabs below just have a basic Rec709 correction on them.