'Film was never this sharp': Breaking Bad photographer interviewed

Jesse Pinkman and Walter White (alias Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston) in a promotional still for Breaking Bad. Photo: Frank Ockenfels III

Commercial photographer Frank Ockenfels III has worked on several high-profile blockbusters like Harry Potter and Men in Black 3, as well as a number of TV shows, and his most recent work is currently being used to promote the season five finale of Breaking Bad on AMC. Ockenfels’ moody portraits of the cast, shot using medium format digital equipment are very distinctive and PopPhoto has published an interview with him, in which he explains how he got started in the TV and movie business, the equipment he uses and why he bases his career around the concept of ‘never having just one idea’.

Jesse Pinkman and Walter White (alias Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston) in a promotional still for Breaking Bad. Photo: Frank Ockenfels III

Of particular interest to photographers are insights into what gear Ockenfels uses, and how. Shooting ‘a lot on the Hasslblad and the Phase One backs’, he explains, surprisingly, ‘we had to step back a little on the Phase One backs because the higher resolution ones are so high-resolution that they almost have to retouch the sharpness out of them. I couldn’t tell you which one we’re using, but we’re not using the highest-end ones because people complained that they were too clear’.

‘Film was never this sharp. It’s sharper than real life. You shouldn’t be able to read a hair inside the tear duct of someone’s eye. On one of those high-end backs, though, you can almost read what someone is thinking. It’s kind of terrifying’.

What he really needs, says Ockenfels, is better low-light capabilities – ‘being able to shoot with a medium format camera at ISO 2000 would be really nice. You have to know you can’t have too many dark areas’.

The main cast of AMC’s Breaking Bad. Photo: Frank Ockenfels III

When it comes to lighting, Ockenfels likes to keep things very simple, saying ‘I teach classes and I teach people not to overthink things. People get nuts and think they need all these lights. I’ll have people show up to my classes and they’ll tell me all these things they want to do, and I’ll tell them to go over to Home Depot and buy a light. They say, “That’s only 12 bucks!” Or, I’ll say use your cellphone. There are a million things you can do that doesn’t require a truckload of equipment’.

Ockenfels is also a keen Instagram user, saying ‘you can [find people on Instagram] who aren’t professional photographers, but they do the most amazing work. If they can do it, how a professional doesn’t do it is beyond me. They’re seeing this way every day. It’s amazing’.

The full interview is well worth reading, and you can check out Frank Ockenfels III impressive portfolio at his website.

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film wasn’t just a 2d array of finite integer values either. it had soul, man 🙁

That last photo is a composite of 8 studio shots and a nice desert wallpaper, but hey i guess it works, imagine the cost of getting all celebs out there in the dirt at the same time. That is professional these days, making it work.

For several years I’ve been giving Lightroom workshops and start every one with this line; “Ansel Adams is banging on the lid of his coffin to get out because it took him two weeks to do what you’re going to be able to do in 5 minutes.
It goes along with something my father used to say; “I could built a house with just a hammer and saw, but why would I”.
Our work as photographers is way beyond what was possible only two decades ( less, really) ago.

Whilst I don’t wish to diminish the message you’re trying to impart on your students, I believe Ansel Adams’ ashes were scattered over the mountain named in his honour.

I really wonder what it is he could not do with a current 400$ DSLR and the right lens. For what do they need the crazy resolution? Ok, maybe billboards. But technically, a modern DSLR should do the job just fine- I think.

Film was never this sharp because it was more faithful than digital is. It’s almost like the old vynil vs CD debate. Are CDs really better because it cuts off unwanted frequencies?

I assume you are joking because it is all the opposite of what you just wrote 🙂

Provia_fan, you’re right. Both about vinyl and film. Of course, people who never heard a good recording on a good turntable will disagree, and so will people who are so obfuscated by technology that they would never care to look at a good photograph made with a film camera.

Another good analogy in this is comic book art vs painting. Which one looks more real and natural? The outlined comic book art or the painting one?

Because that’s what digital kind of does, it makes outlines stronger where they never existed in the first place.

I’ve done stage and movie stills. Al i can say is it is A LOT harder than most people realize because you aren’t just shooting the cast and freezing a couple of scene highlights… You have to capture and be able to transmit the essence of the show through your stills.

That, regardless of what gear or how big a assistant crew you have, is very difficult.

Weddings, high-end fashion, events, are all baby work compared to movie shoots done right.

Cudos to Frank Okenfels for getting it right!

Film was never this sharp? I take it he has never seen the humongous, yet finely detailed prints of Avedon’s “In the American West”.

Yeah, but Avedon shot those images on a Deardorff view camera with 8×10-inch sheets of film. Shooting with a huge, clunky large format camera with 8×10 sheet film is a pain in the butt to work with. I’m pretty sure Ockenfels is comparing to film formats that he might have been using to do these kinds of shots back in the film days, like 6×4.5, or 6×7 at most, not some enormous woodframe 8×10 view camera.

Indeed. Having viewed some really large prints from large format, and watched someone actually use one of these cameras, I concluded large format can’t easily be beaten, for inconvenience or the quality of the resulting photo. Imagine what large format digital could do, if it were ever to happen!

there is large format digital it works like a scanne bed that you put in the film holder area of the camera you open the lens and it literally works like a scanner

“What he really needs, says Ockenfels, is better low-light capabilities – ‘being able to shoot with a medium format camera at ISO 2000 would be really nice. You have to know you can’t have too many dark areas’.”

If he wants to make hi-iso pics with a Medium format, he should leave PhaseOne for a Pentax 645D, which have a nice hi iso mode :

LOL! that’s funny

How about the new Leica S ? Although it is almost not even medium format, i think it has decent ISO performance … (?)

“You shouldn’t be able to read a hair inside the tear duct of someone’s eye.”

How do you see that on a 1920×1080 screen? He is shooting for TV now.

he’s shooting for posters and other promotional work related to the TV show, not filming the show.

Blow the image up and put it on a billboard, and passers-by will be able to ‘read a hair inside the tear duct’.

It makes sense then.

Just another Canon shooter;)

I can’t disagree. Images have never been better, work flow has never been easier to manipulate, and products have never been easier to share.

A lot of the criticisms tend to boil down to angst-driven “get off my lawn!” cries from self-annointed purists that have the time to cry in the wilderness.

Most people simply go on shooting images. Life moves on.

‘you can [find people on Instagram] who aren’t professional photographers, but they do the most amazing work. If they can do it, how a professional doesn’t do it is beyond me.’

Why would that be surprising to anybody? It’s been always the case that people do much better work as their hobby than as their professionl. One thing is to be compelled from within, the other thing is to be compelled from outside by the desire to make money. Professionals need to learn to do only one thing well — making maximum amount of money with minimal efforts. All the greatest artists were not the greatest businessmen.

I think what he means is it’s surprising to find truly inspiring work among the dominant majority of generic happy snaps on Instagram. Although I get your point – hobbyists (inc the very talented ones) don’t have as many channels to publish through, so of course you’d find them on Instagram etc.

If someone could give me reccs of who to follow, I’d use it more, rather than as another social network (which I don’t need).

Most of instagram is garbage. This comparison picks a handful of the best pics from millions upon millions of examples of crap and then compares these few with the worst available shots from one professional. how surprising is that?
Instagramers accidentally get a good shot and then post it. A good professional gets a great shot on-demand every time.

PS… even a mediocre amateur hockey player will occasionally get the best of a pro

too sharp? That’s not accurate, it’s more like “film was never this detailed.”

The title is slightly misleading. Mr Ockenfels III didn’t mean to make a mockery of film, but to set a reference against which to compare medium format image quality, which he deems too sharp. And rightly so: I, for one, don’t like images sharper than real life.
As for Instagram, well… I’m yet to read an interview with someone who actually finds something less than glamorous about it here at DPR, but I’m afraid that ain’t never gonna happen. Oh well.

“Too sharp” images are a ridiculous thing to complain about, it’s trivial to blur or resample them in post. Good luck adding detail to a blurry, grainy film image though.

That’s all nice and well if you believe detail is the ultimate achievement in photography. Some people want the images to look natural, though.
And, if someone doesn’t have the skill to make sharp images with film, then he/she’s got a serious problem and should look elsewhere for a hobby.

A good analogy in this is comic book art vs painting. Which one looks more real and natural? The outlined comic book art or the painting one?

Love the series, love this shots!!! Yoooo Bitxxxh! 🙂

FILM IS DEAD! Long live mirrorless!

Mirrorless film has been around for a century

Maybe it’s ironic snark? The mirrorless fanbois just got “pwned?” Eh, I’m trying to see a way it works for him, because otherwise he might as well be running around the comment spool screaming “I DON’T KNOW WHAT A LEICA IS!” Nothing good comes from that.

Sorry to see two personal attacks on G3User. Regardless of his opinion, let him express it without being disparaged by anonymous critics.
—

Which ones are anonymous?

In any case, G3User makes some very strong yet unsupported statements that are insight-free. He’s decreasing the S/N ratio around here. The replies may help to increase the S/N ratio in the longer term.

@itsastickup

Ad hominem attacks also decrease the SNR…

These images don’t impress me. Camera manufactures strive to produce great images from their products and then this guys throughs a yellow instagram filter on them, very unprofessional. I would expect this from my teenage daughter but not a pro. The expressions of the 2 people at the top are not very nice, they are saying to the Frank ” I have no respect for you, put that camera down”.

Haha, wow. Let me guess, you’re part of the older generation?

I’m sorry you’re such an angry person. You should try meditation.

Meditation could help, but maybe he’s been sampling some of Heisenberg’s product.

If you can’t tell the difference between a typical lousy instagram shot against these professionally lit, sharp and well composed production shots then YOU are the amateur here.

Dude, it seems you’ve never seen the show. The staging, lighting, and post processing all seem to work to convey the mood and storyline of the show.

Those guys are in character – these are not candid shots.

“The expressions of the 2 people at the top are not very nice …”
Seriously? Have you ever watched the show? I don’t think gritty dramas want their actors looking “nice”. This isn’t a sitcom or a Disney after school special.

I’m going out on a limb here … T R O L L

Oh sure, Instagram could produce those shots…once you set up all the lights the right way to manage the dynamic range. I mean come on, taking the car shot as shown would be impossible with an Instagram phone app without some kind of reflector in the car, and the group shot would be hopelessly backlit. These are not amateur shots.

G3User you might not be aware of this having never shot stills for a major film or TV program but the standard industry practice is that you shot Raw files which at the end of each day are handed over to the publicity department. The TV/films own publicity department then do their own colour grading and retouching. This arrangement will have been built into the contract that the photographer would have signed at the start when they also signed copyright over to the production company. This is the give the production company full control over the images and what is done with them.

The expressions of the actors in the first photo will be what the publicity department of the TV program required in the photo. A series of photographs would have been taken for them and they then would have edited through them until they decided which one they used to promote the production.

G3User probably doesn’t know what Breaking Bad is.

It’s a highly stylized, very deliberately shot series in general.

I don’t watch it, it’s too much of a chick flick frankly, but the way it’s shot is very nice in my view.

They are watching television. No posing for portraits.

“The expressions of the 2 people at the top are not very nice…”

Uh, have you ever even seen this show? LOL. Oh, wait, you probably don’t own a television. Sorry, but these aren’t meant to be Sears portraits. Clearly, you don’t understand the atmosphere of the show, which is appropriately reflected in these images.

I agree! Picasso and Salvador Dali sucked as well for not portraying the world as it is …

Come on guys, G3User’s post just has to be a joke.

‘Film was never this sharp’: Breaking Bad photographer interviewed

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