Xl2 For Independent Film

[Charles Papert]

Alex:

Thanks for the nice words on the Seinfeld piece. That was a high-budget effort. I've done a few projects since that I think have some equally nice moments on a much more modest budget. For instance, we used the Cooke S4 lenses on that job, which are phenomenal; my last three Mini35 projects have been shot with 1st generation Zeiss superspeeds, which are about 20 years old and rarely seen any more. However, I'm delighted with the results.

As far as pointers...it's a long, long list, because at this point what we are really saying is "how does one shoot well?" A lot of this is predicated by the individual shot and the story and the style, so it's hard to give generic guidelines for cinematography. I've already seen poorly lit, exposed and composed shots made with DV cameras sporting 35mm lens adaptors, and I would personally rather see better crafted images with deeper DoF.

I recommend for anyone intending to output to 35mm that they shoot tests of whatever camera, format or lens system they are considering and send them to a lab that specializes in output to film, then screening the results. The stakes are really too high for this sort of thing to take anyone else's word for it.