Behind the translation

Picture © Guy Armitage / Sleepless Films

With film, we knew that looking through the viewfinder was equivalent, as far as exposing a scene, to looking at the scene with our naked eyes. The ‘monitor’ was just a video tap, a video camera in the viewfinder, and as such was of no help in exposing a scene. Nothing could be gleaned, as far as exposure, that could not be gleaned from looking at the scene directly. DPs knew they only had their eye, their meter and their experience of how to use both to help them determine how the scene would photograph, and they therefore used their eyes and their meters, and gained experience.

And then came the digital camera. Now we are shown a real-time digital image captured by the sensor. For the first time, we have direct access to how the scene looks once photographed. By and large, we can ‘see what we’re getting’. What is the result? Those of us who are too early in our careers to have deep-set habits (and those who have only known digital) are bound to end up doing all our work through the monitor or EVF (electronic viewfinder – a little monitor inside an eyepiece). A self-operating DP will necessarily end up being in the EVF most of the time, and how could a non-operating DP resist the luxuries of the monitor?

Before, we were looking at the scene. Now, we’re looking at a translation of it. Before, we were necessarily in constant contact with the scene itself. Now we need not be. It is conceivable to be, and in fact everything about the technology encourages us to be, in contact only with the translation (See false colour, in-camera metering, the HUD-like nature of the modern EVF – ‘Look here!’, it says, ‘Everything of importance is right here!’). Now that we need only interface directly with the translation, over time we will lose the ability to interface with anything other than the translation, that is, we will lose the ability to look at a scene and know, or at least understand something about, how it will photograph. We won’t know what our light meter is telling us in relation to what our lens is set to (‘What should I know what the lens is set to? I just rotated it to where the histogram looked good’), how many footcandles are kicking about, what the contrast ratios are. Not only as individuals, but as a collective conscience, we will get trapped behind the translation, we will lose the big picture, and in so doing, our understanding of the building blocks of our craft will be diluted.

Anyone who is not persuaded that the corrosion of the craft is anything to fuss about might be swayed by the thought of how one of these new translation-centric DPs is going to answer when the studio asks how many space lights he wants hung (‘I don’t know, I’ll decide when I look through the camera’) or when he finds himself at a recce, unable to make any real lighting decisions. I’m sad to say that many working DPs are in the midst of this conundrum, and they are routinely saved either by the kind of work that does not require them to make decisions before the camera turns up, or by their gaffers, who, not being able to constantly look through the camera, develop a real ability to eyeball a scene and determine ‘off-line’ what units might be appropriate. I don’t exclude myself from the list of these DPs – but at least I admit that there is a problem and I’m seeing what I can do about it.

I said before that we risk getting trapped behind the translation. That’s exactly how I see it: since we are looking at everything through the translation, the process is effectively in front of us, between us and the scene. With the optical viewfinder, the process was necessarily behind us. What does it mean for the process to be behind us? It means that we are in direct contact with the scene itself, using our eye, meter and experience to expose the scene.

The guiding idea here is that the camera is incidental, not in the sense that it’s unimportant, but that our understanding of the scene in front of us is largely independent of it. Not independent of a lens stop – we’ll factor that in when we meter – but of dynamic range, viewing LUTs, monitor-to-monitor and EVF-to-monitor discrepancies, miscalibrations, ambiguity about grading pipeline, that is, all the stuff that is going to get in the way of a proper understanding of footcandles, footlamberts, ISO ratings and T-stops unless we find a way to stop it clouding our big-picture view of exposure. Yes, we will have to adapt our work to what camera is capturing it, and yes, it’d be arrogant not to take a peek at the monitor, but we shouldn’t be dependent on these things for our understanding of what’s going on with the light in the scene.

I’ve tried to show this by way of a simple diagram.

(A) was how film worked – one had to look directly at the scene, and had no access to the translation. (B) is the paradigm reinforced by digital camera systems – we only get at the scene through the translation. (C) is an interesting mix brought to our attention by digital cameras with optical viewfinders, such as the D21 and Alexa Studio – using the optical viewfinder to look straight at the scene, and referencing the monitor where necessary. In my view this represents the ideal scenario – staying in touch with the scene whilst taking advantage of the digital technology. You don’t need an optical viewfinder to work in this paradigm – with a bit of effort, you can use it with any digital camera. How? First, by studying any bit of theory that brings you closer to a holistic view of the whole thing. Footcandles, footlamberts, the zone system, darkroom work, whatever you find useful. Second, by incorporating a light meter into your working method (I’ll discuss the light meter in more detail in an upcoming article). Third, by doing some lighting by eye before you bring the camera in, or at least eyeballing a shot and considering how it might photograph before you check your hypothesis in the monitor (Which might be what I’m doing in the photo, apart from looking completely demented). The last two should ideally be done together – after all, they represent two elements of the holy trinity – eye, meter and experience – and their careful application will eventually bring about the third.

As I said at the beginning, the above is helpful to those of us who are too early in our careers to have deep-set habits and those who have only known digital, that is, those who are in danger of getting stuck behind the translation. Once we have established the habit of looking and using the meter, we may of course light the occasional shot or day’s work through the camera. Are we going to run a hundred feet to meter something while everyone is waiting for us? Probably not. But if we’ve done the hard work, lighting through the camera becomes an additional tool in our arsenal, rather than a limiting factor on our mastery of the craft. And thinking of it as a tool rather than the normal process makes a lot more sense in an age where we meter Rec709 and record Log, or meter redgamma3 only to then start from scratch in the grade. Just like we ask ‘How does this meter?’, or ‘How does this look to my eye?’ we can ask ‘How does this look in Rec709 vs Arri LCC vs Log?’ knowing that the log we’re recording is never going to resemble the finished image. Top DPs switching to digital say they love being able to see what they’re getting. Of course they do – they are adding that tool to a lifetime of using their eyes and their meters, and ‘added’ in this fashion, digital monitoring can only be a good thing.

L.

Rome, July 2013