My collection of cinematography tutorial videos: lewispotts.thi... Watch in 4k! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Business Inquiries: lewis_potts@live.com #cinematography #euphoria #16mmfilm
I never wanted to become "film still looks better" guy, but film still looks better. Granted, the benefits of digital outweigh film, there's definitely no going back, but gotta call it like I see it, the film looks so much better.
Digital never has looked better. Film provides such a naturalistic feel and carries what 99% of digital cameras lack: texture, latitude, color separation, film grain and not digital noise, saturation, 10000x better at rendering skin tones. You can do soooo much with film and all the different mediums that exist. In my opinion, digital is the reason cinematography and overall cinema has completely plummeted over the last decade. Because of its convenience, its made dps, directors, studios, and writers lazier than ever. It's become far too easy to make a film or tv show now. What was once, for the most part, a very particular and meticulous process, (buying the physical film, only having so many takes, dallies, development, analog color correction) has now become a "well, we can shoot however much we want and delete footage on set so who cares." This art form because of digital imagery and digital technology, (and many other factors) has turned into nothing more than "content." Mindless entertainment meant to be played in the background on your living room tv while you shift through tik toks and make amazon purchases on your phone. Obviously, there are exceptions every year, but for the most part directors and dps mainly shoot digital nowadays for its convenience and convenience only. Remember, digital cameras were created to emmulated the look of film, not the other way around. Sorry for my rant, lol. But yes, film has always looked better.
@@TweetBomb Absolute crisis in movie lighting, in particular. No need to do an elaborate lighting set up, digital will capture everything! Most productions have that flat, low contrast, underlit look, as a result. And it's a two sided attack! Lower budget films do it for "a naturalistic look" and big budget films do it to make it easier to add CGI in post. Dire time. Everything looks like procedural television.
@@JohnnyCashavetes Don't get me wrong, I think that the convenience of digital imagery as well as social media is a dream for an independent filmmaker. It allows them the opportunity now more than ever to put their work out there for it to be seen by millions without having to break the bank on film. (very expensive for indie filmmakers, even 16mm) But for the life of me I cannot understand why as a professional you would choose to shoot on digital over film for any visual reason; it's literally only because of its convenience and "yOu HaVe MoRe To WoRk WiTh In PoST." What happened to putting an unparalleled amount of effort on getting the shot IN CAMERA? The most recent example of how digital is killing cinematography and cinema which is very much a visual medium, people often forget, (it's why we don't shoot movies on iphones) is Spider-Man: No Way Home. That production had a 200 million dollar budget and you cannot convince me that it was not shot by first year film students. It is the dullest, flatest, laziest highest grossing movie I have ever seen. They literally blued screened a cemetery LOL. Granted, the story was great and I enjoyed it in that regard but that doesn't excuse how boring and terrible the cinematography was in that movie. Contrast that to say the cinematography of TENET with the same budget, and you'd think NWH was just a really good fan film. Lastly, (sorry for rant) I will say the only digital camera that I really find visually pleasing is RED's first camera: the Red One Mx, most notably used to shoot the Social Network. It actually provides such a unique and cinematic look while still retaining a very nice level of softness that isn't overly digital. With these insanely high budgets, I don't know why more productions don't shoot on 65mm and 65 IMAX and release 70mm and 70 IMAX prints. Seems like it's really only Nolan, PTA, and Tarantino. 65mm and 65 IMAX produce the most gorgeous images and for the life of me I don't understand how a dp and director with 200-250 million dollar budgets choose to shoot on a those digusting ugly soulless Arri digital cameras. End of rant, lol. Also, your analysis is 100% spot on.
@@TweetBomb I think they thing about Marvel is that it has to do with the over lighting and improper color grade. Flat ultra neutral lighting makes digital elements easier to integrate. The Alexa is not inherently ugly or soleless and it is not what’s causing the downfall of cinema. Gifted filmmakers were able to use it to give us work like Moonlight, Ida, Green Room, Cold War, The Marvelous Mrs.Maisel (although that one is more about the great blocking and art department), The Shape of Water, You Were Never Really Here, Honey Boy, The Revenant, Nightmare Alley, I could keep going. I kind of resent the “cinema is dying or declining” argument because more often than not, it’s coming from people with a very narrow view on what cinema is and should be. Chaplin called sound the decline of cinema and Tarkovsky called color film the decline of cinema. Yes, the instant gratification formula of capitalism has made the form more disposable, but guess what, that happened to literally everything else. Our furniture, our food, our homes, our technology, our very lives are more disposable as we all just try to survive and work with what little we get to make something meaningful to us during it. Yes the Oscars are never going to pull in Super Bowl numbers again, yes, the majority of genuinely great, memorable films are more often than not going to be played on televisions, those movies will still exist and impact someone and there will always be a place for them in some capacity, just not in a multiplex or on a 35mm print. It’s a bummer but it’s the concessions cinema has to be willing to make to survive, just like the rest of us. Maybe a new radical shift will take place that brings some of the reverence for it back but planting your feet in the ground and refusing to accept what’s happening is only going to make sure it gets left behind and dies.
@@TweetBomb I pretty much disagree with everything you said. Comparing film to digital today, both when it comes to the ascetics it can produce and the capability of the medium, has reached its end. Digital won. Digital is better. That doesn't mean film cant look stunning, and OFTEN do. But it's a dead medium. And can we please stop referring to "film grain" as this magical dust that makes every shot beautiful. Film grain is simply an artifact of the first medium that could capture an image. Thats it. We don't see film grain in real life. If film grain was never a thing, and was introduced today, we would all agree it's completely distracting. The only reason some people still have this emotional attachment to it, is because it reminds us of our favourite movies. It's been romanticised completely out of proportion. Do many films today look like they were shot and color collected by the same team? Yes. Do many films today have "boring" cinematography void of any character that could have literally been shot by anyone? Yes. But that has nothing to do with digital, and everything to do with talent. If PTA shot his next movie digitally, he would make it look and feel like he wanted it to look and feel, because he care. Because he has talent. You dont remember the horribly boring looking films from the past, shot on film, because you look at the past through rose coloured glasses. Digital has won, because it has become superior in every aspect. Every single one. You can literally make digital look and feel like anything, even if you wanted it to look like film you could do so and make it completely indistinguishable from real film. I remember seeing a press conference with Tarantino where some students told him they were starting to use 8mm at heir film school and Tarantino smiled and told her that this was a wonderful thing. NO ITS NOT! It's a horrible thing. Film has become this illusion of talent that seems to brainwash so many filmmakers these days. Someone like Stanley Kubrick would have never touched film if he could have used a modern digital camera back when he started.
As far as I understand Euphoria exclusively has access to Ektachrome in 35mm for motion picture. Meaning Kodak exclusively is sending them it in 400ft / 1000ft quantities. Ektachrome in 35mm is only available to the public for still 36x exposure photography. So if that's the case, it's not something that can be replicated today.
As far as i know you can order Ektachrome in 400ft rolls just by calling up kodak. Some ebay people already did so and are selling their home spooled 36 exp canisters
I honestly still find the film beautiful. It's not an 'accurate' image but has a surreal painting like look aesthetic to it. Specially the night shot. I can see how it can work for a specific look or a project.
Aspiring director here (only done a few low budget ads), I'm so happy youtube recommended one of your vids, I've watched them all, thank you so much for putting these out there for ppl to enjoy and learn.
I'm glad they shot on 35mm haha. That grain intensity of the 16mm variant would've been so distracting. To the lighting part, I remember reading that they had to go crazy on the lighting budget to compensate for the limitations of the range that the stock is usable. Idk, it's an interesting looking stock, but I was much more fond of what you got from the Komodo, at least in these examples. The exception being the shot against the red backdrop; absolutely gorgeous. But at least I know for the future now that I'd rather go Vision3 neg if I shot film. Appreciate you sharing this!
It's important to note that the film stock is usually almost grainless on 16mm when processed as a positive. Negative processing completely destroys the fine grain characteristics and exceptional color rendering on 16mm. This isn't really a fair assessment of this film stock, when developed in e-6 it's truly one of the finest films Kodak has ever produced.
@@brilligfilms You are absolutely correct. I have shot a handful of E100 on 16mm and processing as a color positive gives very excellent fine grain. I was wondering why this looked so grainy!
The grain here, especially in the skies, is also being mutilated by the RU-vid bitrate - even at 4K. I'm sure it looks much better in the original scans, although I'm a bit of a grain fetishist so take that with a grain of salt. 😅
They cross processed the Ektachrome 35mm which was brought back specifically for the show. E6 chemistry gives a more color accurate effect because that's its native chemistry. That being said, it's already an incredibly contrasty stock because it's reversal. I'd say you get about 7 stops of range with it. I always expose it 1/2 a stop under, rating it at 150 instead of 100. Unlike negative stock you do not have a lot of flexibility. I think filmmaking wise Euphoria is amazingly done. I know some of the key crew and they used Ektchrome for most of the show with some 500T as well. Really incredible! I love that Bed shot Lewis, that was amazing!
I’d love to see a video on your exposure techniques for film! As someone who has yet to shoot film, I’ve always wanted to learn more about those exposure practices and apply them to a digital workflow. Almost as a way of practicing for film without having to shoot a whole bunch of test rolls. At the end of the day, I’d like to learn more ways to treat any digital camera like a film camera
I had no idea that they processed the euphoria film as a negative. Seems like more work than payoff. LOVED the tests you put out though. fantastic video.
Your video topics are so well-chosen and documented it's INSANE. You're truly one of the most inventive, knowledgable, and digestible filmmaking storytellers on this platform right now. I cannot wait to watch you blow up as the year goes on. Grateful for all your knowledge and the joy that your uploads give me!
This was beautiful. I love seeing things truly fall into black and the discipline of getting the look right from the get go. I'd love to see more film videos from you when you have the time/resources/inspiration 🙏
The shot at 5:40 has a more interesting look than the Komodo. It doesn't reveal as much as the digital shot. Also, I like the way the highlights on her arm look over the digital version, even though her arm was on a different posture the film version has a more paint like look to it.
Just found this channel and by far the best I have found. For your cinematography videos, can you do some with some diy/consumer setups? Love these vids
Really don't understand why they did this. The whole point of positive films is, well, that they're a positive. In the old days that meant threading a projector and being able to watch home movies you shot on Ekta/Koda-chrome. Positives invariably have terrible latitude in comparison to colour negative (less than a third of the dynamic range or something like that) and look pretty bad as you showed when cross-processed. Not sure how they are in ECN-2, only ever really seen C-41 but I can't imagine there's a whole lot of difference. I love shooting film but, eh, I'd just shoot colour neg and either filter it or grade and keep the shadows. And save money!
Gorgeous footage and colours! To answer your question, any decent look LUT designed for a Cineon scan is applying a film print emulation and is going to assume that the image is a traditional Cineon negative technical scan conforming to the spec, and not just a "flat pass" from positive film stock. So broadly speaking, given how front loaded the creative decisions are when shooting this way, what you're doing in post is correct as far as just doing minor tweaks. It could be beneficial to shoot with a filter since that saves throwing away more dynamic range in post when removing the green cast if the filter already offsets that. But then the question would be how much is the cross processing still contributing? It would be interesting to shoot a grey card with and without the cross processing, with and without correction filters to compare what you get and maybe design a technical transform based on that.
I agree! I would like to see camera tests comparing what different scenarios does to Ektachrome and decide what gives the best results. I’m sure the camera and lighting team on Euphoria did lots of testing, and I hope they would share it one day. I also asked the colorist for Euphoria, Tom Poole, what he did with the 500T and Ektachrome to make it look the way it did in the show, and he just said: “I built my own LUT for the 500T The x-process Ekta comes in super flat with green mids and magenta highlights. Was a lot of work, but worth it”
Usually you cross process the positive because you want to keep the funky colors for a stylized look, not grade it out. They would do that a lot before there was a DI and utilize photochemical processes to achieve certain looks. Bleach bypass is a good example. You can get that same look now very easily in the DI, but before then it had to be done photochemically. Also, loved the green tones in the ektachrome shot with the girl in the room with the 1200D punching through the window. Had a totally different feel to it and emotion to it. Love your vids Lewis!
Really interesting to see Ektachrome being used on Euphoria and other TV shows, such as Atlanta and Succession, opting to shoot on film rather than digital. Donald Glover recently spoke about wanting season 3 of his show to feel "cinematic" which likely contributed to his and director Hiro Murai's choice to employ the medium. Funny that a format which has always brought incredibly rich images into movie theatres could now become the go-to for high-end television! Excellent video as usual Lewis, I'm going to pick up some Super8 Ektachrome now :D
Having started my career on 16mm It’s the last thing I would ever want to shoot on in 2022, LOL. But I understand the curiosity and the very rare circumstance where it would be aesthetically perfect.
Nothing can match the look the organic film provides, be it negative or positive. Its best to manually grade film footage. That how it has been done for decades, there was no LUT back then. You did it right!
I don't think the shot of the person laying in bed is anything worse just because the shadows get cut out. To me a prime example of WHY to use film, that sharp transition from contrasty lights to pitch-black can't be digitally manifactured.
Hell yeah new film channel to binge unique vibe! I have ektachrome super 8 I’ve been dying to use but need to find a super 8 camera. Used 16mm bolex a few years ago with some normal stocks, so cool they got ektachrome now!
dude the 16mm gives that scary image, it like horror classic, we can see the pixel in pellecul that keep bomping sometimes, it get that grain frames, holly shut, dont joke with old stuff guys, todays camera like like angels not evils,
Thanks for sharing! I’ve shot reversal film photography, by I’ve been wanting to try out some 16mm Ektachrome on my SR2. Obviously lighting and framing is the biggest part of what makes your images look so good, but I like what you got with the film! 👏🏽
This is so beautiful, I mean, it have a mood specific. It's amazing how the image becomes instantly full of an nostalgic emotion, as if our memories were.. like, fading into the messiness that is our minds while we getting older. But I'm curious, which lens do you use on your bolex? I loved it too
We are at a place where film is not better just different. And even that difference can be emulated pretty well now because it’s a subtractive process from a digital file instead of an additive process with the film stock if trying to match digital for some reason. I like the film look but the dynamic range & latitude paired with easier workflow makes shooting digital the go to process. Would only shoot film now for the process but not for the end goal.
Hey Lewis. Huge fan of your work! Your content is so educational - thank you! I wanted to ask you if you could break down a short film that you shot? What were your thoughts on lenses/focal lengths in the different shots, lighting, blocking etc. That could be very interesting to see. Cheers from Denmark
Great video as always, I really enjoy the chill vibe and your cinematography. Quite a tall mac mini in the background there... Although I don't shoot analog I still want to pick up my camera and go try out some of your lighting techniques.
I think the reason the LUT won't work is due to scanning being a variable process. Scans from different scanners and different places will all come out differently. It generally still relies on the operator setting the RGB light levels to illuminate the film, and setting the cameras gamma/gain level. It would only really work if these things were locked in, and the LUT was created from this. I think getting into the colour wheels/curves in resolve yourself is the best way to get the look you want. there will be a heap of range for adjustment.
This is fascinating, great video. I shoot a lot of film stills and genuinely love how larger formats look compared to their digital counterparts. For example a 6x7 negative out of say a Mamiya RB or RZ gives you something that I just love. Even with a Phase One digital back, which is the largest digital sensor available practically, the super sharpness feels a bit unreal to me. However, I came away from this thinking, wow the final graded Komodo footage looks incredible lol. I find myself asking difficult questions about why in stills I prefer analogue in larger formats, but when it comes to the moving image, something like the Komodo is a clear winner in this direct comparison. Admittedly, shooting in 16mm AND cross processing is asking something of this stock that it isn't really up to, but that's just my opinion. I guess we all just have to be Chris Nolan now and just shoot everything in IMAX on massive negatives. That's not too expensive or overboard for my corporate jobs right guys....right?
film looks better. Nothing is more magical than getting back your negative and watching it for the first time. It feels like opening a treasure chest every time. It always looks better than you think it will and it always surprises you. Very sad that a whole generation of young filmmakers will never get to experience this.
This is about cross processing Ektachrome 100D 16mm and your skillfull results. Wonder what a guy like you could do with correctly exposed and processed Ektachrome! First rule I've learned is with negative you meter for the shadows you want to keep because there is much room for the highlights. With Ektachrome you more look after your highlights and enjoy the shadows going black if they want to so you have to avoid underexposure of important areas.
I kinda wish they shot it on 16mm now - 35mm is nice but I find it offers diminishing returns with how good digital is now, and how close you can get it to 35mm. 16mm has a look that we haven't full captured with emulation. I've re-watched SPENCER like 5x now and I'm obsessed with that image.
Yeah man, Spencer is a great unique looking movie! I know what you mean by not getting there with emulation for 16mm, but I think you can get pretty close, you just have to add so much grain, blur and shit to the image that I think when people try it they don't commit 100% because you really have to destroy the image to get there hah
@@lewispotts yeah filmbox's 16mm is really great too. I got pretty close in my Taco Bell one but I probably could have pushed it further. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MyWRJshfYcg.html
thanks for sharing this vid Lewis. I recently shot on 200ft of 16mm 50D and 35mm 250D and 500T. It's still at the lab and I'm curious how it will look, there's one mistake I made which was having to use 250D for the final shots inside with Tungsten. Since they will convert the negative and balance for daylight, I hope it's not too hard to correct the ending portion of the film which will be all blue I think, (fingers crossed) I wanna make a video talking about it too hehe.
i always hate when people say "oh but you can have the same thinh digitally" because it misses the whple fucking point of what makes film such a beautiful thing.
If I had to guess, I'd say there's not really a conversion to do (cineon or otherwise) since it's a positive film. My assumption is that it's basically "709" as-scanned.
