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Although 5299 is tungsten-balanced, Lonsdale and Messer-schmidt have been impressed by its daylight performance. “There have been situations where we were outside during the day rating the film at 500 ASA, and with an 85 filter/Pola and ND.9, we were at 12 ASA, and by sunset, we’d pulled all the filtration and were shooting at 1,000 ASA,” says Messerschmidt. “When you want to change your ASA, you just shoot a new chart and ask the timer to re-rate the film for you; you can go all the way to 1,000 ASA that way, except for the pushed rolls.” Because principal photography takes place in Los Angeles, a second-unit crew shoots background plates for driving scenes and some walk-and-talks in and around Washington. The first episode of this season, “The Widow’s Son in the Windshield,” called for a scene between Bones and Booth at the National Mall. The actors were shot against greenscreen, and plates of the Reflecting Pool and Lincoln Memorial were composited in later. Lonsdale says 5299 is satisfactory for visual-effects elements at any speed below 1,000 ASA “as long as you expose it right on the nose.” When 5299 was introduced, Kodak recommended the exclusive use of its HD Digital Processor for telecine transfer. However, when Lonsdale ran his emulsion tests through the Digital Processor, he didn’t care for the results. Ultimately, he and Level 3 dailies colorist Rick Smith decided to transfer the film at 1080p 24 fps on a Spirit and grade with a da Vinci 2K. In that respect, 5299 “is no different than any other film stock,” says Lonsdale. Smith notes, “It’s really important for the dailies colorist to stretch 5299 and get as much of the image out of it as he can because when it goes to the final color, a ton of contrast is added. If you don’t transfer at exposure and clip out windows or highlights when necessary, 5299 will turn into a noisy, grainy stock in the final color.” “The nice thing about TV is that you can constantly experiment to see what works and what doesn’t,” says Messerschmidt. “We’ve had lots of practice with 5299, and Gordon really knows how to expose it to get the look — he gets it to pop.” Lonsdale says he welcomes any opportunity to operate outside his comfort zone. “We don’t know what any film stock is capable of until we take it there; that’s what makes our work exciting,” he says. “Cinematography is about always learning, pushing and seeing what develops.” — Iain Stasukevich
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