Fuji jumping out of screen!!

[Charles MacDonald]

Of course, if you’re not doing much in the DI, it begs the question why do a DI at all… But it doesn’t seem like Cohen thinks that a DI is doing horrible things to Vivid either. (I’ve yet to see The King’s Speech myself.)

 

I think they folks tend to just like editing as video. {particularly when the edit is effectively done by a committee} Once you have edited the show as video, who wants to go back and cut the film, when you can just write out the final result with an ARRIlaser or equivalent.

[Anthony Schilling]

In my opinion, the out of the box look for Kodak negative V2/V3 stocks are a little too flat for my taste as well. However, you can punch them really far. I usually go with a 2/3rds overexposure for some good density and have the colorist punch the colors. The result can resemble an oil painting, which is what I like to go for sometimes.

[Katherine Bauer]

I make films with 16mm film and I am trying to make it so that I can edit the films on film with a Steenbeck. Sometimes depending on the project and the time frame or concept I might digitize the footage by filming it with a video camera off a screen and then edit on FCP and then mirror that edit with the actual film. I also optically print for transitions, special affects, etc... I can not afford the expenisve techniques of scanning film. I actually am just learning about all of these processes from reading these posts. I guess I have been living in a cave. But basically I want to know then for a film maker like me how I should buy stock if I do prefer the high saturation in color you can get from reversal stock - but if I want to buy negative film - so I can make copies (without paying for an extra internegative) - you know also have a back up of the shot footage - what stock should I get. I also like shooting at night or in the evening and pushing film a lot. I have had good results from kodak vision 2 and 3 500T stock - but it doesnt really have the look of reversal. Would Fuji vivid 500 be more effective. I would run tests...and I will...but I have a project coming up where I may not have time to order Fuji film, processes it, and view the footage before I am going to need to head out with the stock for this project I have coming up. I was just going to risk it and shoot in reversal, but a friend told me of this site and my mind is sort of being blown.

 

52/7299 are DISCONTINUED.

 

 

So obviously the market has decided that is NOT the way to go. Instead of "HD Scan Film," they've gone with HD Video. They can only sell what people want. That strike in the U.S. in '08 didn't help their cause, the way the contracts were written so that shows could get around the strike shooting "video" (formerly live action, but now, obviously dramas on HD tape fit in under those rules in a situation the original contract writers didn't imagine.)

 

 

John, I agree with you that Kodak has done some stupid things, made some stupid decisions, pissed people off. I am in a situation now where I am in the same boat as you: They've discontinued some of my favorite stocks.

 

 

I don't know why other people are into high contrast films. I think they're, frankly, ignorant of the lab process, how all of their film is scanned, how scanners hate higher contrast ranges, and can't handle it, and are instead buying film based on stupid words like "Vivid" "Extended Range" "Vision" Big Numbers, like oooh, wow 500, instead of getting off the computer, buying 100-foot cans and shooting tests.

 

Lazy people + marketing = sales of the highest-priced stocks. Why else would the film students be shooting the grainiest, worst-looking, least compatible film for S16 (7219) instead of a film, like 7201 that would look really good in 1080P? Why is 100T, the finest-grained tungsten stock, that again would make S16 look really good in HD discontinued?

 

Why is '99, a film that is the most compatible with the current workflow, has the most latitude, the most ideal for scanning, discontinued?

 

 

I think it's almost entirely because Kodak, Fuji, make the most money by the foot for 500T stocks; that's what they're sellilng. So that's what people are (blindly) buying.

 

I think the only think high-con. films have going for them is that they look better with older, crummier glass. They are GREAT for optical printing/contact printing, but honestly who is finishing movies that way anymore?

 

 

"Inception" was the only cut-neg. movie I know of in the theatres in 2010. Maybe the next Batman movie will be cut-neg. Then I don't know if we'll ever see it again. And cut neg. is going to be harder and harder to do, now that the greedy theatres are eagerly ripping out and scrapping every 35mm projector they can, as fast as they can build new digital ones.

 

Remember "Murder, She Wrote?" That was the last time a finished-on-film television show aired in the U.S. It's been FIFTEEN years already!

 

 

 

So to answer your question, there's now logical reason that high-con. products are selling. It's all marketing and hype, not what will look best through the DI pipeline. I just hope Fuji is making as much money as they can in the short term, because in the long term it's only selling film short because high-con. products won't render the best result scanned.

 

They're making the most profits (I hope) at the expense of long term film sales, because only scanned film that looks better than HD is going to keep people coming back and shooting 35mm, 16mm when it costs their budgets more. Why spend more money for something that doesn't convert to HD as well as straight HD without the extra costs?

 

I really hope they have a better pitch than high-contrast and nostalgia, because the new generation looks up the meaning of Nostalgia on Wikipedia on their iPhone 4s. Hopefully they can come up with a film stock that says NEW NEW NEW.

 

 

 

 

And John, I know ECN-2 didn't look as good as ECN, but did Kodak really force Agfa out of the market, or did Agfa worry too much about their product and not the snazzy name on the box? I know Agfa also had the WORST color fading characteristics. Maybe it looked the nicest, but I wouldn't want to be in charge of archiving those neg.'s. . .

 

I wish we had 3 film manufacturers left instead of two. At least we can get print stocks from Agfa still, as well as the Chinese. At least there are some options left there, at least for now.