Filming Titles

[rubento]

I will be filming titles for the first time using the Double Exposure function on my Nizo 6080. Background will be a live landscape and Titles will be pure White over a Black background. Any advice on the exposure compensation (override) I should use?. I understand that the Auto exposure will be cheated by the black background on the titles and I should use a lower aperture, am I right?. What about the live background that I'll be filming in the first pass?. The auto setting will be right in this case?.

Thank you for your advice,

Ruben

[reg8mm]

Take a light reading off the white movie screen that the lights are shining on, behind the transparent positive title. That will expose the white light to a medium gray, right? Open it up a couple more to burn them out to white. Too much will make them bleed, so take it easy.

Michael

[andro]

Hi!

A 18% gray card will allways give you the correct exposure. It's a lot more accurate than just opening up the aparture on "random" to make white, ehh, white.

[mattias]

A 18% gray card will allways give you the correct exposure.

actually, that isn't always true. that method will only assure you that medium gray will get the right density, and really says nothing about the exposure of highlights and shadows. what if you had a low contrast film stock like the vision 200t? using your method wouldn't push the whites up to the burned out level, making the titles transparent.

using a quasi zone system would be better to get the white where you want it. i'd say white is three stops above gray on k40, so if you measure a white sheet and open up three stops it should work, but you should test it first.

i very often use this method when shooting snowboarding. take a reading of the snow, open two or three stops, shoot. this always gives me just a little detail in the snow, which to me is the most important thing, even if the riders themselves sometimes become too dark. what good is a perfectly exposed medium gray snowboarder on a burnt out background? ;-)

/matt

[reg8mm]

Bracket, Bracket, Bracket
choose
cut and splice
write notes

[mattias]

Bracket, Bracket, Bracket

word!

(although it's not easy with superimposed titles, as in this case)

/matt

[David M. Leugers]

Burned in titles are not overexposed. The use of the 18% gray card gives you the correct reading for the light falling on the subject when used with a reflective light meter. This is exactly the same result as taking a reading with an incident meter. The live action is filmed with normal exposure. The title being a double exposure will cause the bright white titles to "burn in" and look just like the fancy titles you see in the theatres. This works wether you are doing a double exposure in camera or using A and B rolls and making a print such as is common in 16mm. I have done both and I can tell you that the best results are done at proper exposure. You can even do colored titles burned in this way. I make titles with black ink or transfer letters (high quality laser or ink-jet computer printers are good) on white paper. From this I have made a lithograph at a printer shop. This is a negative on high contrast film of your sheet of paper with the titles on them. I place the lithograph film in front of an evenly lit white card so that the camera films a solid black background with white letters since the white background shows through the clear areas on the lithograph where your lettering was on the original. Use the 18% gray card in front of the white card to get the exposure reading. Set your lens to that reading and film. I have some cool shots of my kids using my Bolex H-8rex camera and Kodachrome film with titles burned in this way for a professional look. I use the same technique to create titles for inserting in 16mm films using the A and B method. Hope this helps.

[mattias]

This is exactly the same result as taking a reading with an incident meter.

really? that's amazing, not to mention completely irrelevant. ;-)

Burned in titles are not overexposed.

yes they are. if you're shooting negative, for example, a white paper still has detail at normal exposure. it's *very* important to expose the white letters above the latitude of the film, pushing them to d-max/min, or they will be transparent. if you've always succeeded, good for you, but you were actually just being lucky.

by the way, if you're shooting titles that won't be superimposed, it's the other way around. you often have to underexpose to keep the detail in the blacks from showing.

/matt

[Guest]

This is exactly the same result as taking a reading with an incident meter.

really? that's amazing, not to mention completely irrelevant.

Hi, Mattias!

Sorry but David is correct. This is hardly irrelevant and here's why:

Burned in titles are not overexposed.

yes they are. if you're shooting negative, for example, a white paper still has detail at normal exposure.
[/quote]

Totally incorrect. A pure white piece of paper will only still have detail in it if you meter off the paper. The whole purpose of using a gray card or an ambient meter is to make the whites white and the blacks black. After doing thousands of burn-in titles on Oxberry cameras for the better part of my adult life (both reflective and using Kodaliths), I agree with David. If you set your exposure according to a grey card, then the letters will be true white and will burn in normally. That's not luck. That's just the reality of the way it works.

it's *very* important to expose the white letters above the latitude of the film

Wrong again. If you over expose the letters beyond the latitude of the film, they can flare and lose sharpness. Using a grey card will insure that the natural contrast of the film will let the letters hit maximum white without flaring. If you push it more than that, exposure wise, then you will get undesirable results in terms of sharpness.

Roger

[MovieStuff]

Oops! Forgot to log in. Man I hate it when I do that. Then I can't edit what I posted. Anyway, that was me.

Roger

[mattias]

Totally incorrect. A pure white piece of paper will only still have detail in it if you meter off the paper. The whole purpose of using a gray card or an ambient meter is to make the whites white and the blacks black.

no, using a gray card or an incident meter makes sure medium gray registers as medium gray. that's it. how a white paper registers depends on the relative whiteness of the paper and the latitude of the film. i'm sure you know this perfectly well, so i'd really like to know what you're after. i just don't get it.

If you set your exposure according to a grey card, then the letters will be true white and will burn in normally. That's not luck. That's just the reality of the way it works.

and it doesn't depend on the latitude of the film or the relative whiteness of the paper? amazing. you've just redefined the physics of photography.

Using a grey card will insure that the natural contrast of the film will let the letters hit maximum white without flaring. If you push it more than that, exposure wise, then you will get undesirable results in terms of sharpness.

using a gray card, again, will not insure anything except that medium gray will register as medium gray. and i'm obviously not suggesting that you should push the whites to the point where they flare, just to the point where they really become white.


/matt

[mattias]

sorry, one more reply...

if you're shooting negative, for example, a white paper still has detail at normal exposure.

Totally incorrect. A pure white piece of paper will only still have detail in it if you meter off the paper.

i'm not sure if you're joking here or what's going on, but come on? do you really think this is true? i have a feeling you haven't used any modern negative stock lately, but i'm also sure you have so i'm a little confused. anyway, they provide several stops of latitude above a white paper, and several below a black one. like i said, you're probably fine using k40, but it's probably the only stock, along with b/w reversals and the high contrast title/matte stocks, that this is true for, which is what i meant by "luck".

/matt

[MovieStuff]

Mattias wrote:

no, using a gray card or an incident meter makes sure medium gray registers as medium gray. that's it.

Nah. It affects the entire gray scale from pure blacks to pure whites. Doesn't matter if you are shooting negative or reversal. It sets the midtone calibration so that the film's latitude ends where it should so the blacks are true black and not, say, sort of grey and that the whites are true white without flaring.

how a white paper registers depends on the relative whiteness of the paper and the latitude of the film. i'm sure you know this perfectly well, so i'd really like to know what you're after. i just don't get it.

Apparently not!

First off, let's put this back in the context of the discussion. If you are going to use a reflective white surface for your backlight, then why would you use anything other than pure white? And, if you ARE using pure white, then the only way you would retain any detail in that pure white surface is if you metered directly off the white, which would make it go darker. On the other hand, if you meter off a grey card, the iris will open up to a point where the pure white surface goes pure white without flaring. You basically stated this your self when you previously wrote:

i very often use this method when shooting snowboarding. take a reading of the snow, open two or three stops, shoot. this always gives me just a little detail in the snow, which to me is the most important thing, even if the riders themselves sometimes become too dark. what good is a perfectly exposed medium gray snowboarder on a burnt out background?

If you simply took a reading off a grey card, you'd get the same thing.

and it doesn't depend on the latitude of the film or the relative whiteness of the paper? amazing. you've just redefined the physics of photography.

And you've just redefined the context of this discussion, which makes as much sense as using off white paper for your backlit titles. Again, if you have a pure white surface and you meter off a grey card, that surface will register as maximum white on ANY film, regardless of whether it's negative or reversal. Why? Because the film manufacturers design it that way.

If you shoot on negative, you might see some detail in the highlites on the raw negative but that detail will be lost during the course of normal printing or transfer when contrast levels are re-established on the positive image. Can you bring the contrast level down so that the highlites DON'T go pure white? Sure, but that will affect the rest of the shot as well, so why would you want to?

Now, if you want to maintain that using an OFF white surface would require opening up the iris to achieve pure white, then I'd agree. But I assumed from the beginning that, since we are talking about shooting back lit titles, then the surface in question is pure white and not off white.

using a gray card, again, will not insure anything except that medium gray will register as medium gray.

If you want to believe that, go ahead. However, years of experience tells me and thousands of other Oxberry operators different, Mattias. Grey cards are the primary tool for camera operators to ensure that their copy work is correct, especially when it comes to maintain black and white levels.

and i'm obviously not suggesting that you should push the whites to the point where they flare, just to the point where they really become white.

Well, I'm glad that we agree on that. However, what you just wrote totally conflicts with what you previously wrote:

it's *very* important to expose the white letters above the latitude of the film

If you do that, the letters will flare. That is a fact. You can take the exposure to the edge of the latitude and get pure whites but not above, if you want to maintain sharpness on the letters. And how do you do that?

USE A GRAY CARD!

Here's a good example:

Let's say you have a camera with backwind capability. Now, you have a nice sunny day; ideal "Kodak" shooting weather with the sun behind your back and everyone squinting like Clint Eastwood. In front of the camera you have two things - In the distance, a group of people enjoying an picnic. Near you to one side a bit, you also have an easel with a title made up of pure white letters on a crushed pure black velvet background. Now, there is no question here. The blacks are pure black and the whites of the letters are pure white.

You want to superimpose the letters on the shot of the picnic. You do the following:

A) Meter off a gray card to establish you overall exposure.

B) You shoot the footage of the picnic

C) You rewind the film

D) You pan over slightly and shoot the titles

The end result will be perfect white letters with no flaring superimposed over a perfectly exposed shot of the picnic. No exposure change was necessary between the shot of the picnic or the shot of the titles. Why? Because metering off the grey card insured that the blacks were black and the whites were white. Again, if you want to maintain that OFF white letters would require an increase in exposure, then I'd have to agree. But why would you want to use off white type for burn in titles in the first place?

Roger

[mattias]

Mattias wrote:

no, using a gray card or an incident meter makes sure medium gray registers as medium gray. that's it.

Nah. It affects the entire gray scale from pure blacks to pure whites.

i still don't understand what you mean. yes, it obviously affects the entire gray scale, but it can only shift it, not change the relative values. take two different film stocks and shoot the same scene, exposed with the gray card method. the midtones of the two versions will be exposed exactly the same, but there's absolutely no guarantee that the whites will be the same level. a white paper will usually be "pure white" on kodachrome, but a lot darker on vision 320t.

And, if you ARE using pure white

but there isn't such a thing. it's all relative to the latitude of the film and the light level.

i very often use this method when shooting snowboarding. take a reading of the snow, open two or three stops, shoot. this always gives me just a little detail in the snow, which to me is the most important thing, even if the riders themselves sometimes become too dark. what good is a perfectly exposed medium gray snowboarder on a burnt out background?

If you simply took a reading off a grey card, you'd get the same thing.

no way. snow is *a lot* brighter than a white piece of paper. it often reads 5 stops or so above medium gray, which is beyond the latitude of k40 and most other reversals.

And you've just redefined the context of this discussion, which makes as much sense as using off white paper

all paper is off white compared with an even whiter paper.

Now, if you want to maintain that using an OFF white surface would require opening up the iris to achieve pure white, then I'd agree.

then we do agree. it's just that you don't seem to understand the relativeness of contrast and exposure. again, there's no such thing as a "pure white".

using a gray card, again, will not insure anything except that medium gray will register as medium gray.

If you want to believe that, go ahead.

oh, please? that's a really great argument.

You can take the exposure to the edge of the latitude and get pure whites but not above, if you want to maintain sharpness on the letters. And how do you do that?

USE A GRAY CARD!

i'm very sorry, but *it won't work*. if you don't know how white the white is and not what the latitude of your film is, the gray card won't tell you anything useful.

Let's say you have a camera [snip] Now, there is no question here. The blacks are pure black and the whites of the letters are pure white.

this is *exactly* where the question is. if you had a film stock with 100 stops of latitude, you'd need a nuclear explosion to get pure white, and a black hole to get pure black. with kodachrome i'm sure black velvet an white paper is enough, but that's just pure coincidence.

/matt

[rhcvatni]

Mattias think about what you are saying. If a grey card ensures that grey is grey, wouldn't white be white. I thought light meters where set to 18 % grey in some way, so if you wanted a perfect exposure(making white white and not grey) you take the reading off of the grey card in front of your subject.

Taking the reading off a white paper would result in a correct exposure for seeing the texture of the paper, making the white paper sort of grey. try it Mattias. Now put the grey card where the white paper is. take a reading of the grey card, put it away and shoot the white paper. what do you think will give you the best result?