In Memoriam.

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DAY 4 of AIDS/LifeCycle 2009. Photo © Chris J. Russo.

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Shell of a Sea Urchin, Malibu, CA. Photo © Chris J. Russo.

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Two Palms, Santa Monica, CA. Photo © Chris J. Russo.

the Martin Backpacker Guitar

I finally bought it—the Martin Backpacker Guitar—an amazingly cool, travel-friendly steel string that I’ve had my eyes on ever since the first day I picked one up at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival back in the summer of 1988. I’ve been playing the guitar since I was a teenager and been in rock bands from high school through college. But one of my favorite venues to play the guitar is when I’m on the open road, camping in the mountains and writing music that’s inspired by my travels. This guitar was designed for just that—solid enough to withstand the rigors of hiking and being in the wild, and light enough to strap across your back and carry just about anywhere. It’s a gorgeously designed instrument with a mahogany neck, back and sides, and has a slick and smooth fretboard that makes its bright, light strings a pleasure to strum. The guitar’s narrow design requires getting used to when holding, and it’s actually easier to play while standing up because of its shape and center of gravity. It’s awesome for noodling around and impromptu campfire jams, and you can’t beat the convenience and ingenuity Martin brings to this deceptively small, super cool guitar. Summer road trips, here we come!

Larry Fong ON FILM and off the record

Cinematographer Larry Fong and Bob Fisher's arm, photograph © Chris J. Russo.

Legendary photographer, Douglas Kirkland has been shooting Eastman Kodak’s ON FILM ad campaign for the past 18 years, photographing a cinematographer a month for publications such as American Cinematographer. It is always a treasure to spend the day at Kirkland’s home studio and watch him at work with his subject and listen to the amazing stories of his subjects. This month, DP Larry Fong was in Kirkland’s studio, whose feature credits include 300 and Watchmen, the pilot and first season of the hit television show Lost, and music videos from artists such as REM, Prince, Van Halen, Shawn Colvin and the Indigo Girls to name a few.  He is also an accomplished magician and kept us quite entertained even while he was in front of the camera.

After the photo shoot, journalist Bob Fisher, interviewed Fong about his inspirations and aspirations. ”Similar to magic, I was always drawn to the mystery of cinematography,” Fong says, citing Stanley Kubrick and Steven Speilberg as some of the director’s whose work he is drawn to.  Fong’s passion for image making began at an early age with his love of still photography and making short films, and through college — after receiving a degree in Linguistics at UCLA, he went on to study at Art Center.  ”The director is the dreamer and the cinematographer helps make the dream come true,” says Fong.  Look for Fisher’s ON FILM interview with Fong in the upcoming months at: KODAK On Film Interviews.

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Cycling Mandeville and Bundy, photograph © Chris J. Russo.

Is 2-perf the next 3-perf?

Filmmakers who shoot film might be interested to know there is a new format in town called 2-perf.  Actually, 2-perf has been around since the 1960’s, developed by Technicolor and called TECHNISCOPE, a format that was ultimately made popular by Sergio Leone’s “Spaghetti Westerns”.  The attributes of this format lend itself to super widescreen (2.35), and uses half the image area of a typical 35mm motion picture film negative.  Most studio features are shot 4-perf and 3-perf using the DI process, while most television shows are currently captured 3-perf.  The quality and resolution of a 2-perf negative is considerably better than super 16mm and just slightly less than a 35mm 3-perf negative.

For the last several weeks, I’ve been producing a technical demo for Eastman Kodak Company that compares the image quality of a 2-perf and 3-perf negative.  Working with award-winning Director and Cinematographer, James Chressanthis, ASC, (director of No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos, a feature-length documentary currently on the film festival circuit, and cinematographer of ABC Studio’s Ghost Whisperer,) we shot four separate scenes, both exterior and interior day and night, on the Universal Studio’s lot using KODAK Vision3 film stocks, 5207 and 5219.

Director and DP Chressanthis checks the monitors

Cameras were donated by Panavision, and mounted side by side on a single dolly, donated by JL Fisher, to capture the scenes simultaneously.  This would allow us in post-production to intercut both the 2-perf and 3-perf footage together to show a seamless comparison.  The camera reports were proof of the film savings: 3000′ of 3-perf was shot vs. 2,000′ of 2-perf, a savings of exactly 1/3 the negative.

Thanks to ABC Studios and Executive Producer, George Perkins of “Desperate Housewives,” Kodak was given permission to shoot our demo on the hit TV show’s Wisteria Lane, and use some of the “Housewives” sets as our backdrop.  The show had just wrapped for the season two days earlier, and held back on striking one of their interior sets specifically for the Kodak demo.  Because we were able to shoot on such beautiful sets and locations, the production value is unbelievable.  Inspired by the mis-en-scene, Chressanthis wrote a short narrative where a young man and woman accidentally meet and then have a romantic encounter, adding emotional weight and story to our demo — straying away from the typical chart-holding, model-turning, science-project like-film test.  

Chressanthis works with the actors

Using the new Kodak Vision3 5207 daylight stock, the scenes included the man strumming a guitar on an exterior front porch while the woman rides by on her bicycle, dropping a rose accidentally.  Moving to interior, still daylight using HMI’s, we see the woman arranging flowers in her studio, while the man drops in with the rose.  Fade to hours later, night interior using Kodak Vision3 5219, the two share a glass of wine in her studio. And finally, night exterior, the man and woman enjoy the stars at the end of their evening.

Processing, telecine and online color correction is being completed at Laser Pacific, and offline editing with Final Cut Pro.  Sitting in the telecine suite, I was amazed at how incredible the footage looks, as I was completely surprised by the image quality of 2-perf.  A trained eye can see the difference if you are looking at a frame grab side by side, but it is really challenging to differentiate the 2 and 3-perf formats when the scenes are intercut. 

Camera crew with side by side Panavision cameras

One of the great advantages of shooting 2-perf include more film stock for you money. A 1000’ load can run for 22 minutes, which provides a substantial savings (50% compared to a traditional 4-perf negative or a 1/3 less compared to 3-perf), which can also translate to a savings with lab processing costs. Then there’s that super cool widescreen format just like the old westerns – 2.35, that allows you to really maximize the image area of a 2-perf negative.  Whether you shoot 1.85 (generally for television) or 2.35 (for features), the image area is close to double that of a 16mm negative, allowing for much higher image quality and smaller grain structure.

Our last phase of post-production on the demo is locking the edit, recording Jim’s voice over, doing a final online and color correct, and marrying the composer’s soundtrack to the HDCAM SR master.  Thanks to the talented producing team of Zachary Kransler and Dan Radding and the incredible creative eye and technical prowess of Jim Chressanthis, Kodak will have both an interesting and informative technical demo to show filmmakers who want to learn more options when shooting film on their projects.

For more technical info on image size, aspect ratio and frame measurements, check out: Panavision’s 2 Perf Explained.

This post originally appeared on 5.15.09 at PluggedIn, a blog about Kodak products and customers: PluggedIn

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Shifting Gears cycles the RUSSO RIDE in Malibu, CA. Photograph © Chris J. Russo.

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Dita McCool on set, KODAK Demo.  Photograph © Chris J. Russo.