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>Starting with The New World, Malick has instituted “rules” in his filmmaking, including using only natural light, no cranes, no big rigs, and handheld cameras only [1].

You might want to checkout New World if natural lighting interests you. Malick is known as the "director's director" and has done a lot of very interesting work. He loves trying to capture "unrepeatable moments", like how he used a clip of an in-costume Christian Bale taking a break smoking a corn cob pipe in New World when Bale didn't even realize he was on camera.

[1]http://stillsearching.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/39-facts-abou...

There's also the films of the Dogme 95 group (ie, Lars von Trier) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95

Notable rules for them being avoiding music that doesn't exist in the environment, shooting only handheld, only the barest of lighting.

I've seen many poor Dogme95 films, but I can heartily recommend Thomas Vinterberg's Festen as both a prime example of the experiment (he was one of the co-institutors of Dogme) and a great film on its own merits.

Do you have a source for the story about the corn cob pipe? I'd love to see that scene, but can't seem to find any mention of it online.

As I recall it was discussed in the DVD extras on The New World. I remember that scene in the movie, but it's been years since I've watched it.

"Don’t allow yourself to fall in love with the camera. Keep it in its place and keep your eye open for those little moments you didn’t plan for. It’s my definition of what it is to be a movie director: A man who presides over accidents." -Orson Welles

Great quote, haven't heard this before, thanks.

Similarly, Werner Herzog said:

"Coincidences always happen if you keep your mind open, while storyboards remain the instruments of cowards who do not trust in their own imagination and who are slaves of a matrix... If you get used to planning your shots based solely on aesthetics, you are never that far from kitsch."

Kubrick would have loved the high sensitivity of current senros, which makes it practical to shoot without artificial light* though it has to be said that film stocks have improved a great deal since Barry Lyndon was shot. But I'm much less certain about whether he would have embraced 48 FPS (not Hz, because we're not modulating a coherent beam). He had such technology fully available to him as far back as the 60s and chose not to employ it.

* Lighting is not just about making sure there's enough light. Some scenes look great just as they are. Most...don't. Your brain filters out a lot of what you don't care about it in the real world, but when you see it on screen it sticks out like a sore thumb. Lighting is more of an artistic than a functional thing in most cases, and is used to draw the viewer's attention towards or away from what the director wishes.

The unit Hz is used for frequency, per definition "per second". If "frames" are implied, surely 48Hz is acceptable?

It doesn't bother me, but it's not the standard nomenclature in the film industry.

> Kubrick (in)famously did this in Barry Lyndon[1] 37 years ago. To do this he used f/0.7 Carl Zeiss lenses

And about 250 candles (not exaggerating). There is nothing "natural" about that. Normal humans use maybe 10 candles in a room that size, the camera needed way more.

I never understood what made candles so much better than electric lights with a color filter for that scene. The number of candles made it completely unnatural.

This reminds me of the Dogme 95 movement from Danish directors[1]. It's a set of 10 filmmaking rules among which is:

> The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).

[1] : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogme_95

> I would love to see cinematographers experiment with natural lighting for shots.

What are you talking about? Many films are made with natural light. Kubrick wasn't alone.

indoors.

Yes. Some Dogme95 films. Pedro Costa's Colossal Youth. Amadeus. I'm sure I'm missing many others...

I believe there are some, but it's still unusual.

I think it is interior shots filmed using only candlelight, as described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Lyndon#Cinematography

This was/is unusual.

Here's a great piece on that lens[1]. Also, it's on view at LACMA through June 30[2].

[1] http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/sk/ac/len/page1.htm

[2] http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/stanley-kubrick