Ruben, I think technical improvements in film stock have had the unfortunate tendency to shrink lighting budgets on many movie sets. When everyone was shooting iso 25 film, there was no option but to light the set. Now, we have iso 500 movie film. 😀
respectfully, this is a completely ignorant statement.
when people were shooting low iso motion picture stock you didnt have lots of options, the rule of the day was carbon arc (or worse mercury) which just spilled light everywhere. I havent had the pleasure of working on a set with carbon lights but apparently its a thing to see. Problem was, if you DIDNT want that look you were well out of luck as fresnels were in their infancy and magnetic ballasts for hmi werent even someone's fantasy yet.
You were also dealing with an era where most movies were part of the studio system (when it meant something) and there was no lighting budget because everything was owned by the production company, which was also the stage which was also the distributor, which was also, it goes on... Totally different system from what we have today.
Cut to today, there has probably never been a time where line items for lighting were greater. There are more toys and more variety of lights available and not only available but in standard use, than ever before. I havent worked on a movie in a very very long time that did not have full tungsten, HMI and kino flows on our trucks which discounts all the crap that is rigged on the stages.
There isnt a DP alive that wouldnt be offended by your statement. The last feature I did, the DP did everything she could in her power to keep her stop at 2.8 for all her interiors and the gaffer was in some kind of race to use virtually EVERY light he had in his package, I have *never* seen that many heads used to light the way that he did.
f16 at 24fps at 500 iso is equivalent to 1/60th at f16 at 500 iso.
no matter how you cut it, you need *alot* of light to light a movie set. Much much more than you might consider practical if you've never done it before. Film speed has very little impact on the amount of heads required. The size of them, perhaps, but practically speaking, not really. Alot of people will use a given head for the look it has even if it provides 100 times more light than you need. I worked with a gaffer years ago that would use a 10K bounce regularly where anyone else would have just put up a Baby and be done with it.
On topic, I was going to mention knife in the water, the movie looks amazing and also feels like available light to me. Paths of Glory is another that is incredible.
Oh also to note, if you dig through old copies of American Cinematographer you can find interviews with some DP's who have shot color negative for black and white positive just based on the look (as many here do), you can add schindlers list to that list. Its very very rare to find a black and white movie these days originated on 5222. In addition to the look, hollywood having absolutely no balls to commit to a decision, another factor is processing cost and infrastructure- as you can run your color negative with everything else. I would also consider the idea that everyone knows how to light for the color emulsions we have today, and while a good team would get up to speed on black and white negative, these guys have a routine that not only works with the emulsion and lights, but also with whatever they have figured out with the labs, so its a lot of dont fix whats not broken. Its pretty much excactly the opposite of where we were in the 60's when everyone knew how to light for black and white and not a soul could get up to speed on color to save themselves, so you had everything looking like the batman tv show for a while until the industry figured it out...
