65mm demo film

[David Mullen ASC]

I don't remember if I posted anything about seeing Bill Bennett's amazing test of the 65mm format that was shown at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood (American Cinematheque). But here is an interview with Bill Bennett, ASC about the demo:

 

http://www.fromscripttodvd.com/bill_bennett_interview.htm

 

I can say that it's incredible to see a contact print in 70mm of 5-perf 65mm photography shot on slow film stocks -- the clarity and detail is so much better than anything we see in theaters today, short of IMAX photography.

[Guest]

This was for ASC and industry people only I assume?

 

I'm sure it looked incredible.

 

My second greatest goal in life is to shoot 65mm before I die.

 

R,

[David Mullen ASC]

It's been shown a couple of times for different groups, once as an ASC meeting event. I missed those because I was working, so I was glad when I got an email from someone saying the Bill was going to project the footage over at the Egyptian the next day -- there were about a dozen or so people who showed up, an odd collection of people, not just cinematographers.

 

We sat down in our favorite spots -- usually the halfway back spot where the seats start to slope uphill -- but Bill made use move to the front third of the theater, which was disconcerting, but it really showed off just how detailed and fine-grained the image was.

 

The desert footage, unfortunately, was mostly shot in hazy overcast, but it still looked very sharp, just not as snappy and 3D it would have if shot in hard sunlight. The mountain lake stuff though was shot in the sun and was very crisp.

 

Weeks later I was talking to the Arri engineer who gave the demo for the Fuji laser recorder stock, because he used some 65mm footage scanned on a 65mm Arriscanner in Germany, even though the test was recorded out letterboxed within 35mm Academy at 4K. He felt that even with 4K scanning, the oversampling from using 65mm meant that finer details ended up in the 35mm image. But I couldn't convince him that Arri should build a 65mm laser recorder to go with the 65mm scanner -- he said there wasn't enough recording out to 65mm/70mm to justify such a scanner -- if you shot in 5-perf 65mm, it would either go down to 35mm or up to IMAX (and use a Celco CRT recorder.) I said "yeah, but anyone who goes through the trouble of shooting a feature in 65mm and doing a 4K or 6K D.I. is going to at least want one 70mm print to show the movie to people at certain theaters." But he felt that was a luxury.

[Guest]

Well one good thing about the advances of digital is that it will light a fire under the film stock makers of this world to keep coming up with some thing new and better year after year.

 

Didn't Braveheart say:

 

"They can take our film, but they'll never take our freedom!!!"

 

R,

[Alexander Joyce]

This was for ASC and industry people only I assume?

 

I'm sure it looked incredible.

 

My second greatest goal in life is to shoot 65mm before I die.

 

R,

 

Which is why I only shoot with 120 film for stills if I shoot on film. Love my old and trusty 501 Hassie.

 

This is a few years ago now, but I still remember this event.

 

http://www.in70mm.com/newsletter/1996/47/id4/spektrum.htm

[Chris Keth]

Which is why I only shoot with 120 film for stills if I shoot on film. Love my old and trusty 501 Hassie.

 

I'm a 4x5 and 8x10 shooter myself.

 

This gives a bit of steam to my secret hope that HDTV will fuel a similar increase in theatrical projection quality and coolness like TV did back in the day with cinemascope et al. ;)

[Ken Minehan]

Hello guys do you know of any online articles or reading material that talks about the DI process. I was a little confused when the article was talking about 6k and 8k scanning

 

thanks

ken minehan

[David Mullen ASC]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_picture_film_scanner

http://www.arri.com/prod/digital/arriscan/...AN_Brochure.pdf

[Michael Coate]

Hello. I'm the one who interviewed Bill Bennett for this article. Thanks, David, for posting the link here and initiating the discussion.

 

Just chiming in to mention that Mr. Bennett has informed me that the demo is scheduled to be screened on June 21 at UCLA (right before CineGear as he mentioned in the interview). It'll be at the James Bridges Theatre in Melnitz Hall.

[Max Jacoby]

Weeks later I was talking to the Arri engineer who gave the demo for the Fuji laser recorder stock, because he used some 65mm footage scanned on a 65mm Arriscanner in Germany, even though the test was recorded out letterboxed within 35mm Academy at 4K. He felt that even with 4K scanning, the oversampling from using 65mm meant that finer details ended up in the 35mm image. But I couldn't convince him that Arri should build a 65mm laser recorder to go with the 65mm scanner -- he said there wasn't enough recording out to 65mm/70mm to justify such a scanner -- if you shot in 5-perf 65mm, it would either go down to 35mm or up to IMAX (and use a Celco CRT recorder.) I said "yeah, but anyone who goes through the trouble of shooting a feature in 65mm and doing a 4K or 6K D.I. is going to at least want one 70mm print to show the movie to people at certain theaters." But he felt that was a luxury.

That 65mm scanner can do up to 6K resolution. I'd like to see tests though how well that intercuts with the original neg as I figure you'd need at least an 8K scan to have it kind of match. 6K in 65mm seems a bit like doing 2K in 35mm.

 

What kind of 65mm recorders are there by the way?

[David Mullen ASC]

65mm is twice as wide, so a 6K scan of 5-perf 65mm would be like a 3K scan of 35mm.

 

The 65mm recorder is a Celco CRT recorder of some sort, I believe.

[Dan Goulder]

The desert footage, unfortunately, was mostly shot in hazy overcast, but it still looked very sharp, just not as snappy and 3D it would have if shot in hard sunlight. The mountain lake stuff though was shot in the sun and was very crisp.

Sorry to rehash an earlier question, but since you've recently viewed footage from RED, Dalsa, and now freshly shot 65mm, how do the electronic acquisition formats stack up to 65mm (the epitome of film)? This may give some indication of the future of film which, in terms of resolution, may possibly evolve to the point where 35mm could at some point approach the level of quality achieved by current stocks on 65mm.

[David Mullen ASC]

5-perf 65mm photography and 70mm print projection is gorgeous, plain and simple. I haven't really ever seen anything to match it yet. 4K digital projection comes close in terms of resolution on screen, but has other problems with black levels, etc., at least current 4K projection technology.

 

But if 5-perf 70mm print projection never makes a comeback, then 4K projection of 65mm photography may be the only option to see the quality on the 65mm negative (short of an IMAX release.)

 

It's a shame that the technology exists right now to raise film to a higher quality level, hampered mainly by cost, somewhat by inconvenience.

 

In the meanwhile, digital technology keeps improving, so there is potential there for advancement. Unfortunately with film, you are paying for real estate and the prices seem pretty constant, whereas with digital, you are paying for increasing data for more quality (i.e. information), which keeps getting more affordable over time.

 

I can't really say how they all compare to each other without testing and then viewing in similar conditions.

[Chris Fernando]

I'm a 4x5 and 8x10 shooter myself.

 

Chris,

Aren't those formats required (for landscapes, at least) if you live in Utah?

 

BTW, just came back from Capitol Reef with a few nice transparencies. It's the only thing that does the place justice (and even then...).

[Nate Downes]

Chris,

Aren't those formats required (for landscapes, at least) if you live in Utah?

 

BTW, just came back from Capitol Reef with a few nice transparencies. It's the only thing that does the place justice (and even then...).

4x5 here, can't afford 8x10 yet.

[Matthew Buick]

Wouldn't 65mm on today's slow stock be the equivelant of about 16,000 lines? That must have been a sight to behold. :)

[Chris Fernando]

4x5 here, can't afford 8x10 yet.

 

So no plans to go out with one of these anytime soon?

 

 

[

[John Pytlak RIP]

Here's what I wrote about 65mm production and 70mm prints almost ten years ago:

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/plugins/acrobat/en...ytlak/70mm1.pdf

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/plugins/acrobat/en...ytlak/70mm2.pdf

[Jon Kukla]

It's a real shame. I was discussing this with some projectionist friends of mine the other week, and the consensus (in London at least) was that it would actually not be too difficult to reintroduce 70mm, at least in the booth. Many of the slightly older model projectors (which are still running beautifully) can be converted to 70mm in less than 5 minutes. Would also be vastly cheaper than a digital booth conversion.