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By Clark Nikolai · Posted
I use it both for my own films as well as I get hired to do music videos and events. I just finished a feature length experimental film shot entirely with it called Shapes, Colours, Patterns. (There's a trailer for it on my Tumblr. https://clarknikolai.tumblr.com ) I'm very happy with it, and of course the image from that camera is gorgeous. Something I've discovered with the Digital Bolex's footage, is that it looks the best projected rather than shown on an LCD screen. I'm now working on a new project. It's a narrative, collectively written, performed and crewed by myself and three other artists. It's set in the present day in east Vancouver where three artists are working on their art projects. The characters are based on the people involved and their real lives (but fictionalized so we have more freedom.) We're using French New Wave and Availablism methods. Quick half-day shoots. It's self funded, using what we have around us, the equipment we already own, locations we already have, etc. (I think so far all we've spent on it was some coffees.) I plan to enter it in to film festivals when it's done. Here's a picture with the camera mounted backwards on the shoulder rig. This is so the camera operator can walk forward while the talent is behind them and they don't need a spotter. It's tricky to learn how to move but it's going okay. It works fine with a wide lens but not easy when zoomed in (as you'd expect.) We have to flip the image in the monitor or it's disorienting. -
By Clark Nikolai · Posted
Here's a pic from a shoot I did last December. I don't know the brand of the shoulder rig (as I got it used on Craigslist), the EVF is the (sadly discontinued) Kinotehnik LCDVFE. The camera attaches to the rig with a Niceyrig quick-release plate (that has feet). The lens is a vintage Angenieux 17-68mm zoom with a screw on wide angle adapter, on top is a Niceyrig top handle holding an Audio-Technica stereo mic and a monitor mount. A bit hard to see is an attachment that goes below the rails between the shoulder pad and the grips for two wireless mic receivers. -
"A man of his time", a French film which was part of the official selection at Cannes and was very well received, was shot entirely on a digital Bolex. https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/a-man-of-his-time-review-a-superb-swann-arlaud-powers-emmanuel-marres-ambitious-overlong-vichy-france-drama/5217030.article -
Old cameras have a number of challenges, including: - weak codecs, often 8-bit low bitrate files - terrible low-light - dated colour science and no log profile (rec709 profiles only) - poor DR - lack of IBIS or EIS - etc At the time these were pretty significant challenges. Now they aren't the challenges they used to be, because fast lenses and film emulation assist with all these limitations. Let's take these one at a time. Weak codecs Weak codecs, including 8-bit low-bitrate files can be soft, and can be overwhelmed by motion. By shooting with faster lenses you render more of the frame out-of-focus and therefore the limited bit-rate only has to focus on a smaller percentage of the frame. Thanks to cheap Chinese optics companies, we are now awash in F1.4, F1.2, and even F0.95 primes. The soft image is now no longer a liability, because compared to our modern 4K sensibilities, even 35mm film is noticeably soft by comparison. This means that by adding film emulation you'll be softening those edges and smoothing over any subtle compression artefacts. Film often has a more compressed colour palette, pushing hues closer together in many instances, lessening the visibility of artefacts. It doesn't work magic, but every bit helps. Terrible low light Cheap F1.4, F1.2 or even F0.95 primes sure make a big difference after the sun goes down. That "fast" F2.8 vintage lens you were shooting on back then is 3 stops slower than these things now. That can really bring a lot of situations back from being unusable to being at, or close to, native ISO. Dated colour science and no log profile Rec709 colour profiles are basically a creative filter the camera has applied, and they often weren't that good. Film emulation takes that image and applies an incredibly large transformation over it, which goes a long way to hiding any imperfections the colour profile might have had. It's like if you put on a pair of rose-tinted-glasses, you can still see that things have different colours, but any subtle differences aren't visible because the image has had a strong look put over the top. Also, film emulation plugins often come with controls for exposure and WB etc, which can help to grade the 709 footage, which was a major pain back before we had colour management pipelines. Poor Dynamic Range You know what else has pretty poor DR? Print film! Kodak 2383 has about 5-6 stops in the linear region, and then everything else in the image is squished into the highlight or shadow rolloffs. Yes, you can see into those rolloffs a bit, but if your camera has 8 stops then you've got at least a stop to put into each rolloff. People think film has huge DR, and it did at the time compared to consumer digital cameras, but it was the negative film that had the huge DR, not the print film. It's very common now for people to shoot on film, scan it, and then do everything else digitally, so they keep the full DR of the negative, rather than taking half of it and pushing it into the rolloffs. This is a still from Minority Report from 2002: It's not exactly a dynamic range demo - the streams of light INSIDE THE ROOM are blown out and every item of clothing the main character is wearing is crushed blacks. Lack of IBIS or EIS So there's a little shake in the files... well, film had this thing called Gate Weave, which was where each frame didn't perfectly align in the camera and so when played back there was movement of the whole image. Once we started doing digital intermediates people started stabilising the images digitally and that went away. When I went to the cinema and saw Goodfellas projected on celluloid they played a bunch of old ads and movie previews also on celluloid, and some were jumping around all over the place and some were rock solid (which means the projector the theatre was using wasn't the source of it) and much to my surprise, Goodfellas itself had quite a bit of it. By just using modern tools you can now stabilise things pretty easily, but this will create artefacts if you do it too strongly (especially if the camera had bad RS), but applying film emulation gives you much more leeway. This is because you can stabilise the image, then apply some Gate Weave, and once the viewer notices your images look like film they'll potentially just accept the shake in the image as being part of the film look. By adding Gate Weave and getting some grace from the viewer you can potentially increase the strength of the stabilisation you're applying too, with there being more wiggle room, and also because the softening of the image will mean that any distortions in the image will be slightly less visible. I was inspired to write this partly from my GX85 Super-16 camera project, but also partly by this video of the GH2 shooting at night. You can still see the ISO noise and macro-blocking creep in as blue hour ends, but he was also using the 9mm F1.7 and 35-100mm F2.8, the F1.7 is reasonably bright, but the F2.8 is pretty slow compared to things like the TTartisan 50mm F1.2 or the 7Artisans 35mm F1.2 primes that are $109 and $97 on B&H. These won't offer OIS, so your options for these on non-IBIS cameras are to spend more (Canon and Sony both offer 35mm and 50mm F1.8 primes with OIS) or to use a tripod or larger rig of some kind. Far from perfect, but much more useable than you'd think. These cameras have actually gotten better over time as the rest of the ecosystem is better able to support them. The only reason we don't think so is that our expectations have inflated faster than their potential. -
I just learnt very early in my career, unless I did not do that, it left me open to all kinds of issues. I make it very plain before each and every client books that other than a handful of things that are more or less a given, I do not and will not shoot to shot lists as they both stifle creativity and are open to interpretation and potential recrimination. Nor will I edit or produce a result to any other specification than my portfolio would suggest. Despite it being in the contract, I will still get someone every now and again who will send me a detailed shot list of 50 other individuals work on 50 other days, that may or may not even be the same season never mind time of day, captured at 50 different venues...and then have to politely remind them I cannot do that...and they will STILL complain after the fact I have not done what they paid me to do. Well actually, I have done EXACTLY what you paid me to do, but fortunately these freaks are maybe 1/100 clients and all you can do ultimately is politely and professionally move them on. Having said that, if I feel I can accommodate or work something in, I will at least try, but we are never going to get close to that 50 'Must Have' list...and you still won't win, but at least you can occupy the moral high ground and state you bent over backwards even though you did not need to. It's just part of running a business and anyone who has been doing so for 25 years, will have experienced issues from time to time and as long as they are not the norm, then you are doing just fine. I can count on just 2 hands from 850+ jobs/clients over 25 years those who have had a hissy fit and hand on heart, can say with 100% conviction, it was them not me! But I do work in a very specific niche where I can operate in this manner and I am the type of person who is comfortable saying no with a smile.
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