7218 Scratched!

Adrian Sierkowski · October 25, 2007

So, I just shot some footage on my SR 3. everything was going well, and overall, I was happy with how it was turning out (minus being way under powered). The client was happy and the like.

Then I go into Telecine with the footage this morning, and bang, a scratch on the most important 2 shots of the entire piece. Figures, I suppose. Just wondering what could have caused it and how to best avoid it in future, and any ideas on how to work around/with it now that I have it all digitized to DVCAM (Project is going right to SD-DVD so no need for HD transfer).

Anyway; here's the scratch. . .

Charles MacDonald · October 26, 2007

Then I go into Telecine with the footage this morning, and bang, a scratch on the most important 2 shots of the entire piece. Figures, I suppose. Just wondering what could have caused it and how to best avoid it in future, and any ideas on how to work around/with it now that I have it all digitized to DVCAM (Project is going right to SD-DVD so no need for HD transfer).

Blue scratch is indicative of a scrtch on the enuslion, since it is partway on the same part of each frame, that is pointing the finger at the loop. (assuming it stays in that spot on all frames...)

Since you are doing the digital thing, perhaps your computer editing can paint it out using nearby data.

Adrian Sierkowski · October 26, 2007

Thanks for the fast reply. I was thinking of (loathing) having to take every frame into photoshop, but it does seem to be the only way. THanks for the fast reply!

Jonathan Bowerbank · October 26, 2007

Did your colorist try to work with the scratch at all during telecine? Usually they can do a somewhat good job of making the scratch a bit more subtle, and anything else to polish it has to be done in the vfx realm.

Adrian Sierkowski · October 26, 2007

Nope, according to him there wasn't anything he could do. I work with him a lot and we were only doing a transfer to DVCAM, off of his C-Reality, so I'm guessing he was telling the truth?

Robert Houllahan · October 26, 2007

Thanks for the fast reply. I was thinking of (loathing) having to take every frame into photoshop, but it does seem to be the only way. THanks for the fast reply!

Looks like a loop problem to me, be careful with photoshop-ing as you can go fix every frame and then find the fixes are visible, if you make files of the shots you could contact a post house with a restoration system (like MTI, etc.) could fix this pretty easily and it might not cost much..

-Rob-

K Borowski · October 26, 2007

Unfortunately, since this is a scratch on the emulsion, there is no real way of fixing it optically, as would be possible with a scratch on the base using wet gate or something comparable.

As far as fault, this could be something that happened in the magazine. I wouldn't dare try to fix this myself. This looks like a job for a dedicated professional. Were you insured against this sort of thing? If you can find fault with the lab or the rental house's equipment (assuming you don't own yourself and that you tested prior to the shoot), usually you can get them to cough up the money.

I'm sorry you're having such bad luck. That is a particully nasty-looking scratch in a particularly bad area of the frame. Murphy's law of negatives at its worst, I'm affraid :-(

Best of luck getting this taken care of, my man.

Regards,

~KB

Matthew Buick · October 26, 2007

How about glorious Rotoscope? :)

Adrian Sierkowski · October 26, 2007

Unfortunately, since this is a scratch on the emulsion, there is no real way of fixing it optically, as would be possible with a scratch on the base using wet gate or something comparable.

As far as fault, this could be something that happened in the magazine. I wouldn't dare try to fix this myself. This looks like a job for a dedicated professional. Were you insured against this sort of thing? If you can find fault with the lab or the rental house's equipment (assuming you don't own yourself and that you tested prior to the shoot), usually you can get them to cough up the money.

I'm sorry you're having such bad luck. That is a particully nasty-looking scratch in a particularly bad area of the frame. Murphy's law of negatives at its worst, I'm affraid :-(

Best of luck getting this taken care of, my man.

Regards,

~KB

It's my own camera and no insurance. I was doing it all pro-bono. Alas, I'm mostly just p*****d about loosing a nice set of shots to it. Thankfully, it didn't seem to affect other loads on that same mag. But, yeah, murphy's law :(.

We might just go in and add more scratches to it all; ya know, make it look intentional. . . or something of the sort.

As for rotoscoping. . . I thought of that too; but no time. We'll have to cut 'round that if possible, and pray we have enough coverage from the other angles.

Though, with 1600 foot of film, and a 4 min song, I'm sure something can be worked out.