1 The Director of Photography – an overview

134 Practical Cinematography
but in colour with the tone scale modified to match the tonal scale of
modern colour emulsions.
If one is honest, the most common use of a modern pan glass is to
look at the clouds in the sky to see if one can get a matching lighting
state from the previous shot. Many DPs still judge their lighting by
them as, particularly when using a camera operator looking down the
viewfinder may be inconvenient, a colour viewing filter can be a great
help in judging the lighting ratio of a scene.
A good gaffer will do the sky watch for you. My gaffer has
developed an uncanny ability to guess a cloud’s progress across the
sky. He might use his pan glass or a gaffer’s viewing filter I found for
him. This is incredibly dark and green, as this is the safest colour to
look at the sun with, though he reluctantly admits that in the UK it’s a
bit too dark – hence he is always asking me when we are going to get
that picture in California so that he can make proper use of the glass
I gave him!