Print VS Telecine

HudsonNY · November 4, 2004

I have been shooting video (SD and HD) and film (16 and 35) forever. All of my film work up until now has been for telecine. I have always been completely happy with the out come of the 40 or so projects I've shot on film and transferred to video.

I just got back from a telecine for a short film I shot and was thinking about all the things that I did to get the look I wanted and I got to wondering whether I would be as happy if the project if we had to strike a print instead of transfer. I do have a basic understanding of the timing process...I've seen the equipment. I know there are three timing lights, etc....but my question is how much can you play with the image as far as total brightness and color hue shift and still bet a believable/acceptable result? In other words, how DEAD ON do you have to be as a DP when shooting for a print?

I know this is hard to characterize, but I appreciate any insight.....

November 4, 2004

Blah! Shoot it how you like...then just run the film through a computer and back out to film.

How do you think they made Lord Of The Rings?

DC

PS: Oh yeah I forgot about the 300 million dollar budget, oooops.

John Pytlak RIP · November 4, 2004

Simple contact printing on an additive printer allows you to change the color balance and density of the print on a scene-by-scene basis. But to change contrast/saturation or isolate a portion of the frame for a certain "look" (e.g., decolorize), a digital intermediate or sophisticated photographic printing techniques (e.g., masking, making B&W separations, double printing) or processing techniques (e.g., silver retention processes) are needed. Although Kodak does offer several "flavors" of VISION Color Print Film. :D

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/support/h1/printing.shtml

Filip Plesha · November 4, 2004

Are you refering to vision and vision premiere film as two flavors or are there

different versions of each?

John Pytlak RIP · November 5, 2004

Are you refering to vision and vision premiere film as two flavors or are there
different versions of each?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Three "flavors" (if you count KODAK VISION Teleprint Film 2395):

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products...d=0.1.4.8&lc=en

2383, 2393, 2395

Even more if you count B&W print film. :D

November 5, 2004

Oh I have a question off this thread for the gentleman from Kodak, John_P_Pytlak.

I used 5277 to shoot some night scenes of New York's Times Square this year. The aperature was 3.5, the widest the lens would go. It was pitch black, except for all the neon lights.

I transferred the film to D-Beta using the DaVinci system and I was not super happy with how it came out :-( The shots looked a bit "milky", hard to describe. And even a little too grainy in the blacks.

I'm shooting the Vegas strip this month, also at night. So my question is what stock would you suggest for shooting a place like the Vegas strip at night?

One fault in my system may be that I don't have a multi-million dollar Zeiss prime lens for this particular 35mm camera. Not sure how much of this is a lens issue vs film stock?

I'd like it to turn out like the night scenes of Times Square in the movie, "In America."

Thanks

DC

November 5, 2004

Ok telecine is where you scan the film onto computer and then edit it digitally.

What's a print?

Jeff Tanner · November 5, 2004

"...I used 5277 to shoot some night scenes of New York's Times Square this year. The aperature was 3.5, the widest the lens would go. It was pitch black, except for all the neon lights..."

I feel certain that your negative was underexposed. 5277 at night will require superspeed primes at least. I'm thinking T1.3 at 24fps with 5218 would suit you better.

Jeff

Filip Plesha · November 5, 2004

Ok telecine is where you scan the film onto computer and then edit it digitally.

What's a print?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Telecine does not need to involve a computer. It is not actually scanning frame by frame into separate files. It is a realtime process. You transfer film into video format. Now you can store it on a computer, or you can just store it on a tape.

In my head the best analogy of telecine is a film projector and a video camera working in sync, whereas I see scanning more as a digital still LF scanning back and a film projector.

And what do you mean what is a print? It's a print. It's what you put in

the projector. A high contrast copy of a negative.

Edited November 5, 2004 by Filip Plesha

November 5, 2004

And what do you mean what is a print? It's a print. It's what you put in
the projector. A high contrast copy of a negative.

Oh. Well, I suppose the print would be better then, because it keeps most of the resolution.

So if telecine is the process of transfering film to video, I take it a Digital Intermediate is a 2 step process, telecine the footage to computer, and then edit it digitaly?

(Sorry if this sounds completely basic, but I'm just going through it to make sure I'm not getting the wrong idea)

David Mullen ASC · November 5, 2004

Digital intermediate, by dint of the word "intermediate," is a three-step process, i.e. shoot on film, scan into a digital form and do all post work digitally (color-correction, efx, titles, final assembly, etc.) and then record the results back to film. Hence why the intermediate step is digital. Film-digital-film.

In theory, the intermediate step can be a transfer to Mini-DV, since that is a digital format, but ideally the digital step would not lead to a visible loss in picture quality compared to a film-to-film method. In other words, the digital step should be transparent.

If you merely transferred the image to digital, cut it digitally, and stayed digital and never went back to film (like the majority of film shot for television) then it's not a digital intermediate process.

Any digital HD, NTSC, or PAL transfers are more than likely to be recorded to a videotape format, while 2K or 4K data scans will either be stored in a big data storage system, a bunch of hard drives, on computer tapes, etc. Although of course HD, NTSC, and PAL could be stored that way too. It's just that likely with a video transfer, the client wants to walk away with the transfer and play it somewhere else, like in a deck in an editing room.

You don't know what a print is??? Have you never been in a projection booth and seen the reels of film being loaded? It's a positive copy of the film meant to be run through a projector, usually made off of a negative, just like you make positive paper prints off of still camera negatives. Except that movie prints are not on paper but on a clear flexible base so that light can shine through it.

Edited November 5, 2004 by David Mullen