Claudio Napoli. Directory of Photography and 3D Specialist in London, UK » Blog

3D in Italy

Claudio — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:36:59 +0000

In December 2011, after being in contact with DBW and supporting them with Sony UK, I finally made it to come back in my country, to work in the first Italian broadcast of a Seria A football match, Rome vs Juventus, in 3D for Sky. In February I will be involved as well in the first Italian broadcast of the 6 Nations match Italy vs England.

Human Body in 3D

Claudio — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:10:20 +0000

Human Body in 3D at Oxford Hospital. On the 15th of December I took part in the first day of shooting of another interesting documentary that Cancommunicate and Touch Productions are doing in 3D. Most of it it will be shot around the East Coast of U.S. I might be involved in more UK scenes in February.

Fashion and Art

Claudio — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:55:00 +0000

Recently I have started to work more with the guys at Pundersons Gardens, giving me the opportunity to shoot new things compared to my usual kind of work. A very first interesting one was to light and operate, and sort of directing the model as well, picking the best angles myself, three different video for the “video manuals” for the Mr.Porter website, the male fashion equivalent of the successful NET-A-PORTER. The aim was to light it in a bright daylight white space, and shoot it all at 100fps on a RedMX, to deliver smooth movements and to linger more on clothes details. Here there are some short bits you can look at in between the interviews: 1 – 2 – 3.

In September I worked as Camera Operator to film Burberrys R2R: different models wearing the new collection creation and styles, that there were going to be showcased the following week at the London Fashion Week. It was again RedMX 100fps.

Another interesting project was to film the annual Serpentine Gallery Art Marathon, the theme of this year was Garden.

Two shorts

Claudio — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 11:32:31 +0000

In June I flew with lots of enthusiasm in Morocco, to work as Dop on a short movie called “La Singerie”, directed by Fdil Abdelattif, a story about a little kid challenging some Islam rules in a small village.

It was a great experience, we shot in two main location: a seaside town south of Casablanca, and a village close to Khenifra, in the Middle Atlas. I used my DSLR, some new lenses, and old Nikon ones, and since this project I became a fan of the Technicolor Cinestyle, picture profile, so much better especially for exteriors. The locations, the quality of the warm light, especially in the Middle Atlas, the colours of the buildings made me really love Morocco from a photographic point of view.

In September It was time for France, I worked as Dop on “La Constellation Humaine” the second short movie of director Indira Solovieva, after her first successful one “L’amnésie infantile”. It is an interesting project, not strictly narrative, very visual, there will be a lot of animation and a voice over guiding through the images. We shot in two location in Paris, a bookstore and the library of the Court of Justice there, and the rest was on location in Picardie, around a beautiful cliff.

A spring and summer of 3D work

Claudio — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:33:50 +0000

It has been a busy 6 months for my work in 3D, I have started being involved in doing some testing and days on the feature film Jack the Giant Killer, directed by Bryan Singer, I then worked on all the preparation for setting up the workflow for the 2nd Unit using 3ality rigs, and consequently worked various days in studio and on location as “stereo assistant”, so called on this set.

Meanwhile I got back for a bit in 3D sport as a convergence puller, first working for the Champions League Final in Wembley for SKY 3D; in June was the time for the first ever 3D broadcast fro the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament and the BBC. I really enjoyed it and I think tennis is one of the best sport to enjoy in 3D.

Going back to feature films, I managed to do dailies on 47 Ronin, working with a new 3D system for me, the Pace rigs, as convergence puller.

The summer got even more exciting when I was asked to work on the final week of shooting, in London at Pinewood Studios, and then for three weeks in Iceland, for Prometheus directed by Ridley Scott. It was a great and demanding job, all on location, sometimes in difficult weather, mainly in two different parts of Iceland. I worked as main Rig Tech, for all the 4 camera shooting on set, working closely with the Stereographer, at times sharing the duties of keeping an eye on the convergence.

Here a couple of stills of the two locations, in this incredibly surprising and diverse Iceland.

My 3D summer finished with a very interesting project, produced by Renegade Pictures, 3D done by Can Communicate, for Sky 3D and Discovery 3D: a documentary shot at Woburn Safari Park, telling different stories of animals and people in the park. Being a more flexible documentary crew organization, I also enjoyed a bit of time doing some stereography myself.

Retro Passion

Claudio — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 16:10:54 +0000

The third week of last July I started to shoot the first week of Pilli Cortese’s independent feature film “Retro Passion”, in London. The remaining two weeks of the production will take place in November in the island of La Digue, Seychelles. I shot this using my new Canon 550D DSLR, with really nice results. More to come once in Seychelles…

Update: The shooting in Seychelles went well. Now the film is being finished with grading and sound design. Some production stills here:

South Africa World Cup 2010 in 3D!

Claudio — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:25:03 +0000

Since May 2010 this year I started to get involved with the shooting of some tests, mainly in France, in preparation for the filming of the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa in 3D, for the first time ever! So the UK company Can Communicate hired me as 3D Rig Technician to embark on this adventure; together with the French company AMP we undertook a series of test shootings during football matches in France and in their headquarter where we would find the OB truck and all the cameras, lenses and rigs to use in SA. In SA we worked to film 25 matches for HBS , the host broadcast service for FIFA, and the other main investors and partners were ESPN and Sony. All four recently won an Innovation Award at the IBC this year in Amsterdam. I was part of the main Johannesburg unit, who filmed all the main matches between the two stadium there and one semi final in Durban, including the opening ceremony and match, the closing ceremony and the final.
So finally I arrived in SA, the main stadium Soccer City immediately looked impressing against a clear winter sky.We had eight camera positions in the stadium, four side by side configuration up in the stand,

four mirror configuration by the pitch, so to be able to get a closer interocular distance between the two lenses for close action.

The equipment we use was Element Technica Quasar Rig, Sony HDC-1500 cameras and Canon zoom lenses.
My job was to set up the cameras, the rig and to check all the cabling and to liaise with the stereographers

and the convergence puller, back in the OB truck,

to make the stereoscopic alignment work perfectly throughout the match, or to problem solve any possible fault during the live broadcast.
The feed from any of the camera would go back to the OB truck via fiber, and in there, there was one convergence puller for each camera that could remotely change the convergence and the interocular distance on the rig according to the action filmed, and stereographers who will supervise and assess the quality of the 3D images. In the end, after a lot of different processing and added graphics the broadcasted output was a HD signal to be viewed with polarized glasses.
It has been a very good experience for me and an incredible and quick learning curve regarding the 3D, I wish I could have seen more spectacular landscapes of SA, but this one below will be my strongest memory.

BSC Show 2010

Claudio — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:26:30 +0000

Again this year I went to the BSC show, which looked a little bit the same every year to me, apart for a couple of interesting things. It is still a valid appointment to meet and mingle with all the other guys though, especially after the usually “work-quiet” months at the beginning of each year.

Finally, there was a real Arri Alexa at the show, that captured the attention of the crowd much more than any other stand.

I also liked this solution by a Belgian Grip Firm to have the hand held feel still using a proper head and a massive zoom as in the photo below, here it is the Airfloater:

The biggest news for me was this:

Basically through this red electronic eye and, hopefully maybe still, a Focus Puller away from camera and in front of this:

(You can still see a remote follow focus on the right, maybe just in case Focus Pullers will have a Luddism moment smashing the whole device!)
You will be able to track positions and have a first serious attempt or success of autofocus in Cinema, all through a touch screen and this software:

Cool, I actually look forward to see or use one on set.
Finally, thanks to Litepanels! I took part in a draw at their stand dropping my business card in a box and for the first time in my life I won something, actually a very nice LED portable light. At their stand they had some bigger ones with the nice features on the back to select different colour temperatures and a dimmer.

Camerimage Lodz 2009 – Equipment & Industry News

Claudio — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:14:10 +0000

In the hall of the Grand Theater during the festival there were several exhibitors of camera and lighting equipment. Moreover everyday there were presentations, conferences and meeting about specific piece of equipment or general cinematography subjects.

Some of the interesting news were:
A new range of Hawk anamorphic lenses with 1.3 squeeze ratio for HD cameras.

Lots of LED lighting including one of the the ARRI solutions to it, a very small, practical LED unit with different lenses easily interchangeable and a control board capable to switch between different sources, color temperatures and all the possible gels on the market.

And at least a 3D rig, brought in by Panavison, celebrating all the fuss in the last year and still to come about the great comeback of 3D.

I followed the presentation by Bill Lovell, ARRI Media’s Head of Digital Department, of their new range of camera systems called Alexa. As he was explaining they went for less pixels resolution for more ISO/latitude (800 ISO), having a 3.5 K sensor (16:9 or 4:3 size) that it will be outputting 16:9 HD or 2K, so that the rest of the sensor can be also dedicated to show the surrounding image area in their digital viewfinder, adopted for the first time in the history of Arri.

Especially the “middle of the range” model A-EV Plus looks very interesting, and I’m sure it will be loved by all the operators and camera assistants, thanks to a clever and tidy set of built in connectors and an integrated wireless remote control that can be used for monitors as well, basically less cables less velcro on the camera!

Apart from the camera mock-up, in a dark corner a silver box was containing the actual sensor showing really crisp and noiseless images in no light conditions. Lovell also showed a promotional and comparative video that Arri produced in which you could see amazing quality especially in some night tests, but as always they show us what they want us to see, then on set is always another story.

Finally it was very interesting to attend the Imago Forum, following the invitation of president Nigel Walters BSC. In this seminar and panel discussion were raised and discussed important subjects as author rights across Europe, the possibility of the cinematographer to be recognised as co-author, and thanks to the presence of a lawyer as well, the issues of changing working conditions were analyzed.

Camerimage Lodz 2009 – Festival, Films & Workshops

Claudio — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:22:49 +0000

The opening ceremony in the Grand Theater started with a video presentation with the epic soundtrack from the The Last of the Mohicans celebrating with a montage the work of Italian cinematographer Dante Spinotti and his Lifetime Achievement Award at this edition.

The ceremony carried on with several awards to Allan Starsky as production designer, Thelma Schoonmaker as editor, Terry Gilliam as a director with unique visual sensitivity, Darius Wolski as cinematographer, Richard Zanuck as producer, Vittorio Storaro and Carlos Saura s director duo, Terry Sanders as documentary director, Volker Schlöndorff as director. Different guests introduced these awards, in light and entertaining way, like Bill Murray presenting a student award named after his friend László Kovács, Michael Ballhaus, Nicola Pecorini and John de Borman. A video message with the talking head of David Lynch against a thick red curtain appeared on the screen too! And one from Johnny Depp remembering Heath Ledger and his help to complete The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

The list of films that I manged to see during the festival starts with the opening one:

Get Low: I really liked the work of the cinematographer David Boyd.
Departures: An interesting insight into Japanese culture and good framing.
Dark House: An interesting Polish story told through nice images. Winner of the Silver Frog.
Oxygen: A Russian film structured around 10 music tracks like a visual CD album, framed inside a blue line around the screen, interesting visual experiment.
Rabbit à la Berlin: A very creative way for a documentary to describe the Berlin wall story through the life of rabbits, brilliant!
Bloody Mondays & Strawberry Pies: A documentary offering a nice observation of boredom, time and lives of five characters in different places and situations in the world.
A Single Man: A visually impeccable 60′s stylish story, interesting solutions in using transitions between warm and desaturated sequences. At times looked like a continuous fashion photo shoot.
Taking Woodstock: A funny and lighthearted version of the days of Woodstock from Ang Lee.
An Education: A good independent British film with a good period look accuracy from dop John de Borman.
Lebanon: Powerful, claustrophobic, dark “inside tank” cinematography. The winner of the Golden Frog.
The Solitary Life of Cranes: Brilliant images of London from the point of view of cranes operators. I loved this documentary.
Salt: The photographer Murray Fredericks does everything nicely in his personal documentary. Great timelapses, landscapes solitary travel introspection and captivating images of a salt desert in Australia.
Poste Restante: A great poetic documentary again, about undelivered post, by Marcel Łoziński who made my favorite 89mm from Europe.
I, Don Giovanni: A very flat theater like framing film, about Lorenzo da Ponte, from the duo Storaro and Saura.

I also attended nearly all the available workshops which started with a late night chat with Chris Doyle, I liked that he said:”I’m here because of you, not you because of me.”, to the audience, which was an interesting change of perspective. I also appreciated his ideas and thoughts about the role of the cinematographer and the importance of a place of and a space. Being at the same time within the space for inspirations and detached from it for “another view”, which has a lot to do with the tradition in the past and now of many cinematographers working outside their countries, me included, so I agreed to something I already felt.

Dante Spinotti also did an interesting hands on workshop for a couple of days. Vilmos Zsigmond gave a very interesting and inspiring masterclass going through stories, techniques and ideas of his greatest films.

Oliver Stapleton did a fantastic workshop, in my opinion the best for me in the festival, about arranging, lighting and framing car scenes in studio, night and day. He was very good in involving people in taking initiative and offering solutions. An Arri D21 was used as camera and projected on big screen, so that everyone could see live the effect of every decision and change.

David Boyd and Aaron Schneider, director of Get Low with a career as cinematographer before his first film, did a good workshops at Lodz Film School. They provide good examples of communication between the dop and the director and quick and efficient solutions.

Donald McAlpine offered a good lesson about past Australian cinema, of which I wasn’t aware of, and showed us many clips and examples. I like to remember one of his quotes: “…some directors are visually illiterate, but literally proficient.”

Finally I also had the chance to have a look for the third time at the BSC Film and Digital Image Evaluation just to be convinced further than skin tone and film are a difficult link to be broken by digital images, but this is another long story!