• Composition – cinematography Cheat Sheet

    https://moodle.gllm.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/190622/mod_resource/content/1/Cinematography%20Cheat%20Sheet.pdf

    Where is our eye attracted first? Why?

    Size. Focus. Lighting. Color.

    Size. Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) on the right.
    Focus. He’s one of the two objects in focus.
    Lighting. Mr. White is large and in focus and Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) is highlighted by
    a shaft of light.
    Color. Both are black and white but the read on Mr. White’s shirt now really stands out.


    What type of lighting?

    -> High key lighting.
    Features bright, even illumination and few conspicuous shadows. This lighting key is often used in musicals and comedies.

    Low key lighting
    Features diffused shadows and atmospheric pools of light. This lighting key is often used in mysteries and thrillers.

    High contrast lighting
    Features harsh shafts of lights and dramatic streaks of blackness. This type of lighting is often used in tragedies and melodramas.

     

    What type of shot?

    Extreme long shot
    Taken from a great distance, showing much of the locale. Ifpeople are included in these shots, they usually appear as mere specks

    -> Long shot
    Corresponds to the space between the audience and the stage in a live theater. The long shots show the characters and some of the locale.

    Full shot
    Range with just enough space to contain the human body in full. The full shot shows the character and a minimal amount of the locale.

    Medium shot
    Shows the human figure from the knees or waist up.

    Close-Up
    Concentrates on a relatively small object and show very little if any locale.

    Extreme close-up
    Focuses on an unnaturally small portion of an object, giving that part great detail and symbolic significance.

     

    What angle?

    Bird’s-eye view.
    The shot is photographed directly from above. This type of shot can be disorienting, and the people photographed seem insignificant.

    High angle.
    This angle reduces the size of the objects photographed. A person photographed from this angle seems harmless and insignificant, but to a lesser extent than with the bird’s-eye view.

    -> Eye-level shot.
    The clearest view of an object, but seldom intrinsically dramatic, because it tends to be the norm.

    Low angle.
    This angle increases high and a sense of verticality, heightening the importance of the object photographed. A person shot from this angle is given a sense of power and respect.

    Oblique angle.
    For this angle, the camera is tilted laterally, giving the image a slanted appearance. Oblique angles suggest tension, transition, a impending movement. They are also called canted or dutch angles.

     

    What is the dominant color?

    The use of color in this shot is symbolic. The scene is set in warehouse. Both the set and characters are blues, blacks and whites.

    This was intentional allowing for the scenes and shots with blood to have a great level of contrast.

     

    What is the Lens/Filter/Stock?

    Telephoto lens.
    A lens that draws objects closer but also diminishes the illusion of depth.

    Wide-angle lens.
    A lens that takes in a broad area and increases the illusion of depth but sometimes distorts the edges of the image.

    Fast film stock.
    Highly sensitive to light, it can register an image with little illumination. However, the final product tends to be grainy.

    Slow film stock.
    Relatively insensitive to light, it requires a great deal of illumination. The final product tends to look polished.

    The lens is not wide-angle because there isn’t a great sense of depth, nor are several planes in focus. The lens is probably long but not necessarily a telephoto lens because the depth isn’t inordinately compressed.

    The stock is fast because of the grainy quality of the image.

     

    Subsidiary Contrast; where does the eye go next?

    The two guns.

     

    How much visual information is packed into the image? Is the texture stark, moderate, or highly detailed?

    Minimalist clutter in the warehouse allows a focus on a character driven thriller.

     

    What is the Composition?

    Horizontal.
    Compositions based on horizontal lines seem visually at rest and suggest placidity or peacefulness.

    Vertical.
    Compositions based on vertical lines seem visually at rest and suggest strength.

    -> Diagonal.
    Compositions based on diagonal, or oblique, lines seem dynamic and suggest tension or anxiety.

    -> Binary. Binary structures emphasize parallelism.

    Triangle.
    Triadic compositions stress the dynamic interplay among three main

    Circle.
    Circular compositions suggest security and enclosure.

     

    Is the form open or closed? Does the image suggest a window that arbitrarily isolates a fragment of the scene? Or a proscenium arch, in which the visual elements are carefully arranged and held in balance?

    The most nebulous of all the categories of mise en scene, the type of form is determined by how consciously structured the mise en scene is. Open forms stress apparently simple techniques, because with these unself-conscious methods the filmmaker is able to emphasize the immediate, the familiar, the intimate aspects of reality. In open-form images, the frame tends to be deemphasized. In closed form images, all the necessary information is carefully structured within the confines of the frame. Space seems enclosed and self-contained rather than continuous.

    Could argue this is a proscenium arch because this is such a classic shot with parallels and juxtapositions.

     

    Is the framing tight or loose? Do the character have no room to move around, or can they move freely without impediments?

    Shots where the characters are placed at the edges of the frame and have little room to move around within the frame are considered tight.

    Longer shots, in which characters have room to move around within the frame, are considered loose and tend to suggest freedom.

    Center-framed giving us the entire scene showing isolation, place and struggle.

     

    Depth of Field. On how many planes is the image composed (how many are in focus)? Does the background or foreground comment in any way on the mid-ground?

    Standard DOF, one background and clearly defined foreground.

     

    Which way do the characters look vis-a-vis the camera?

    An actor can be photographed in any of five basic positions, each conveying different psychological overtones.

    Full-front (facing the camera):
    the position with the most intimacy. The character is looking in our direction, inviting our complicity.

    Quarter Turn:
    the favored position of most filmmakers. This position offers a high degree of intimacy but with less emotional involvement than the full-front.

    -> Profile (looking of the frame left or right):
    More remote than the quarter turn, the character in profile seems unaware of being observed, lost in his or her own thoughts.

    Three-quarter Turn:
    More anonymous than the profile, this position is useful for conveying a character’s unfriendly or antisocial feelings, for in effect, the character is partially turning his or her back on us, rejecting our interest.

    Back to Camera:
    The most anonymous of all positions, this position is often used to suggest a character’s alienation from the world. When a character has his or her back to the camera, we can only guess what’s taking place internally, conveying a sense of concealment, or mystery.

    How much space is there between the characters?

    Extremely close, for a gunfight.

     

    The way people use space can be divided into four proxemic patterns.

    Intimate distances.
    The intimate distance ranges from skin contact to about eighteen inches away. This is the distance of physical involvement–of love, comfort, and tenderness between individuals.

    -> Personal distances.
    The personal distance ranges roughly from eighteen inches away to about four feet away. These distances tend to be reserved for friends and acquaintances. Personal distances preserve the privacy between individuals, yet these rages don’t necessarily suggest exclusion, as intimate distances often do.

    Social distances.
    The social distance rages from four feet to about twelve feet. These distances are usually reserved for impersonal business and casual social gatherings. It’s a friendly range in most cases, yet somewhat more formal than the personal distance.

    Public distances.
    The public distance extends from twelve feet to twenty-five feet or more. This range tends to be formal and rather detached.

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  • Key/Fill ratios and scene composition using false colors

    www.videomaker.com/article/c03/18984-how-to-calculate-contrast-ratios-for-more-professional-lighting-setups

     

     

    To measure the contrast ratio you will need a light meter. The process starts with you measuring the main source of light, or the key light.

     

    Get a reading from the brightest area on the face of your subject. Then, measure the area lit by the secondary light, or fill light. To make sense of what you have just measured you have to understand that the information you have just gathered is in F-stops, a measure of light. With each additional F-stop, for example going one stop from f/1.4 to f/2.0, you create a doubling of light. The reverse is also true; moving one stop from f/8.0 to f/5.6 results in a halving of the light.

     

    Let’s say you grabbed a measurement from your key light of f/8.0. Then, when you measured your fill light area, you get a reading of f/4.0. This will lead you to a contrast ratio of 4:1 because there are two stops between f/4.0 and f/8.0 and each stop doubles the amount of light. In other words, two stops x twice the light per stop = four times as much light at f/8.0 than at f/4.0.

     

    theslantedlens.com/2017/lighting-ratios-photo-video/

     

    Examples in the post

    (more…)

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COLOR

  • Eye retina’s Bipolar Cells, Horizontal Cells, and Photoreceptors

    In the retina, photoreceptors, bipolar cells, and horizontal cells work together to process visual information before it reaches the brain. Here’s how each cell type contributes to vision:

     

    1. Photoreceptors

    • Types: There are two main types of photoreceptors: rods and cones.
      • Rods: Specialized for low-light and peripheral vision; they help us see in dim lighting and detect motion.
      • Cones: Specialized for color and detail; they function best in bright light and are concentrated in the central retina (the fovea), allowing for high-resolution vision.
    • Function: Photoreceptors convert light into electrical signals. When light hits the retina, photoreceptors undergo a chemical change, triggering an electrical response that initiates the visual process. Rods and cones detect different intensities and colors, providing the foundation for brightness and color perception.

     

    2. Bipolar Cells

    • Function: Bipolar cells act as intermediaries, connecting photoreceptors to ganglion cells, which send signals to the brain. They receive input from photoreceptors and relay it to the retinal ganglion cells.
    • On and Off Bipolar Cells: Some bipolar cells are ON cells, responding when light is detected (depolarizing in light), and others are OFF cells, responding in darkness (depolarizing in the absence of light). This division allows for more precise contrast detection and the ability to distinguish light from dark areas in the visual field.

     

    3. Horizontal Cells

    • Function: Horizontal cells connect photoreceptors to each other and create lateral interactions between them. They integrate signals from multiple photoreceptors, allowing them to adjust the sensitivity of neighboring photoreceptors in response to varying light conditions.
    • Lateral Inhibition: This process improves visual contrast and sharpness by making the borders between light and dark areas more distinct, enhancing our ability to perceive edges and fine detail.

     

    These three types of cells work together to help the retina preprocess visual information and perception, emphasizing contrast and adjusting for different lighting conditions before signals are sent to the brain for further processing and interpretation.

     

     

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  • Photography basics: Why Use a (MacBeth) Color Chart?

    Start here: https://www.pixelsham.com/2013/05/09/gretagmacbeth-color-checker-numeric-values/

     

    https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-color-checker-tool/

     

     

     

     

    In LightRoom

     

    in Final Cut

     

    in Nuke

    Note: In Foundry’s Nuke, the software will map 18% gray to whatever your center f/stop is set to in the viewer settings (f/8 by default… change that to EV by following the instructions below).
    You can experiment with this by attaching an Exposure node to a Constant set to 0.18, setting your viewer read-out to Spotmeter, and adjusting the stops in the node up and down. You will see that a full stop up or down will give you the respective next value on the aperture scale (f8, f11, f16 etc.).

    One stop doubles or halves the amount or light that hits the filmback/ccd, so everything works in powers of 2.
    So starting with 0.18 in your constant, you will see that raising it by a stop will give you .36 as a floating point number (in linear space), while your f/stop will be f/11 and so on.

     

    If you set your center stop to 0 (see below) you will get a relative readout in EVs, where EV 0 again equals 18% constant gray.

     

    In other words. Setting the center f-stop to 0 means that in a neutral plate, the middle gray in the macbeth chart will equal to exposure value 0. EV 0 corresponds to an exposure time of 1 sec and an aperture of f/1.0.

     

    This will set the sun usually around EV12-17 and the sky EV1-4 , depending on cloud coverage.

     

    To switch Foundry’s Nuke’s SpotMeter to return the EV of an image, click on the main viewport, and then press s, this opens the viewer’s properties. Now set the center f-stop to 0 in there. And the SpotMeter in the viewport will change from aperture and fstops to EV.

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  • Tim Kang – calibrated white light values in sRGB color space

    https://www.linkedin.com/posts/timkang_colorimetry-cinematography-nerdalert-activity-7058330978007584769-9xln

     

    8bit sRGB encoded
    2000K 255 139 22
    2700K 255 172 89
    3000K 255 184 109
    3200K 255 190 122
    4000K 255 211 165
    4300K 255 219 178
    D50 255 235 205
    D55 255 243 224
    D5600 255 244 227
    D6000 255 249 240
    D65 255 255 255
    D10000 202 221 255
    D20000 166 196 255

    8bit Rec709 Gamma 2.4
    2000K 255 145 34
    2700K 255 177 97
    3000K 255 187 117
    3200K 255 193 129
    4000K 255 214 170
    4300K 255 221 182
    D50 255 236 208
    D55 255 243 226
    D5600 255 245 229
    D6000 255 250 241
    D65 255 255 255
    D10000 204 222 255
    D20000 170 199 255

    8bit Display P3 encoded
    2000K 255 154 63
    2700K 255 185 109
    3000K 255 195 127
    3200K 255 201 138
    4000K 255 219 176
    4300K 255 225 187
    D50 255 239 212
    D55 255 245 228
    D5600 255 246 231
    D6000 255 251 242
    D65 255 255 255
    D10000 208 223 255
    D20000 175 199 255

    10bit Rec2020 PQ (100 nits)
    2000K 520 435 273
    2700K 520 466 358
    3000K 520 475 384
    3200K 520 480 399
    4000K 520 495 446
    4300K 520 500 458
    D50 520 510 482
    D55 520 514 497
    D5600 520 514 500
    D6000 520 517 509
    D65 520 520 520
    D10000 479 489 520
    D20000 448 464 520

     

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  • Sensitivity of human eye

    http://www.wikilectures.eu/index.php/Spectral_sensitivity_of_the_human_eye

     

    http://www.normankoren.com/Human_spectral_sensitivity_small.jpg

     

    Spectral sensitivity of eye is influenced by light intensity. And the light intensity determines the level of activity of cones cell and rod cell. This is the main characteristic of human vision. Sensitivity to individual colors, in other words, wavelengths of the light spectrum, is explained by the RGB (red-green-blue) theory. This theory assumed that there are three kinds of cones. It’s selectively sensitive to red (700-630 nm), green (560-500 nm), and blue (490-450 nm) light. And their mutual interaction allow to perceive all colors of the spectrum.

     

    http://weeklysciencequiz.blogspot.com/2013/01/violet-skies-are-for-birds.html

     

     

    Sensitivity of human eye Sensitivity of human eyes to light increase with the decrease in light intensity. In day-light condition, the cones cell is responding to this condition. And the eye is most sensitive at 555 nm. In darkness condition, the rod cell is responding to this condition. And the eye is most sensitive at 507 nm.

     

    As light intensity decreases, cone function changes more effective way. And when decrease the light intensity, it prompt to accumulation of rhodopsin. Furthermore, in activates rods, it allow to respond to stimuli of light in much lower intensity.

     

    https://www.nde-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/PenetrantTest/Introduction/lightresponse.htm

    The three curves in the figure above shows the normalized response of an average human eye to various amounts of ambient light. The shift in sensitivity occurs because two types of photoreceptors called cones and rods are responsible for the eye’s response to light. The curve on the right shows the eye’s response under normal lighting conditions and this is called the photopic response. The cones respond to light under these conditions.

     

    As mentioned previously, cones are composed of three different photo pigments that enable color perception. This curve peaks at 555 nanometers, which means that under normal lighting conditions, the eye is most sensitive to a yellowish-green color. When the light levels drop to near total darkness, the response of the eye changes significantly as shown by the scotopic response curve on the left. At this level of light, the rods are most active and the human eye is more sensitive to the light present, and less sensitive to the range of color. Rods are highly sensitive to light but are comprised of a single photo pigment, which accounts for the loss in ability to discriminate color. At this very low light level, sensitivity to blue, violet, and ultraviolet is increased, but sensitivity to yellow and red is reduced. The heavier curve in the middle represents the eye’s response at the ambient light level found in a typical inspection booth. This curve peaks at 550 nanometers, which means the eye is most sensitive to yellowish-green color at this light level. Fluorescent penetrant inspection materials are designed to fluoresce at around 550 nanometers to produce optimal sensitivity under dim lighting conditions.

     

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  • Is a MacBeth Colour Rendition Chart the Safest Way to Calibrate a Camera?

    www.colour-science.org/posts/the-colorchecker-considered-mostly-harmless/

     

     

    “Unless you have all the relevant spectral measurements, a colour rendition chart should not be used to perform colour-correction of camera imagery but only for white balancing and relative exposure adjustments.”

     

    “Using a colour rendition chart for colour-correction might dramatically increase error if the scene light source spectrum is different from the illuminant used to compute the colour rendition chart’s reference values.”

     

    “other factors make using a colour rendition chart unsuitable for camera calibration:

    – Uncontrolled geometry of the colour rendition chart with the incident illumination and the camera.
    – Unknown sample reflectances and ageing as the colour of the samples vary with time.
    – Low samples count.
    – Camera noise and flare.
    – Etc…

     

    “Those issues are well understood in the VFX industry, and when receiving plates, we almost exclusively use colour rendition charts to white balance and perform relative exposure adjustments, i.e. plate neutralisation.”

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LIGHTING