Video//film Dailies

Landon D. Parks · February 24, 2005

What is one to do if they want dailies every day, and your shooting in a town thats no where near a film lab?

The nearest film lab to me is Chiciago (I guess there is film labs there?), but thats around 3.5 to 4 hours away.

Do you:

A. Do the whole Fed-ex overnight thing, even then you would't get your dallies daily.

B. Hire a runner to run the film 4 hours to the lab at night, and have him go back and get the dalies the next morning for viewing durring lunch., then go back that night to deliver more film, ect? That would mean if I hired a local person to do it, he would be driving 4 hours there every morning, 4 hours back every morning, 4 hours there every night and 4 hours back every night. Then do it all again in the morning.

Hmmmm... Any other suggestions.

David Mullen ASC · February 24, 2005

You find a system but don't expect dailies the next day -- a two days later would be more likely. On "Northfork" we had a runner drive the film to the airport in Great Falls, MT (some air freight carrier that doesn't x-ray boxes of film) and it went to Seattle (AlphaCine Labs) for processing and telecine, and then the tapes were shipped back to us (maybe Fed-X, not really my department to handle those issues.)

I also did a film once in Houston, TX where the film was flown to Dallas every day.

There are existing systems for such things; talk to the local film commission office, for example, for suggestions.

This has been one advantage of shooting in HD in distant locations for me, like when I was in St. Petersburg, Russia.

You don't always get dailies the next day even when shooting in Los Angeles. For example, my current work week is Saturday through Wednesday, and the labs don't process Friday night through Sunday morning, so the telecine place doesn't get any footage until Monday morning, which means if we're lucky we'd get dailies back Monday evening when we wrap. Also, dailies mean getting your film to the lab before 10PM if you want them processed that evening.

Landon D. Parks · February 24, 2005

Will do David, Thanks!

Greg Gross · February 25, 2005

Kodak Look Manager

Greg Gross

David Mullen ASC · February 25, 2005

Kodak Look Manager
Greg Gross

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That has nothing to do with getting dailies back, only previewing the look and communicating to the colorist the look of the dailies. But it cannot replace dailies.

Greg Gross · February 26, 2005

Oh!,okay,excuse me. Seems I remember a famous cinematographer who

wasn't worried about dailies because he was using Look Manager.

Greg Gross

Greg Gross · February 26, 2005

I'm speaking in terms of interpeting how the dailies will look based on

the returned(e-mailed stills). Quote Stephen Goldblatt,ASC(American

Cinematographer page 26,Dec. 2004): He's referring to the film "Closer",

"Deluxe had it there and then. In terms of skin tones as well as general

effects,they literally could see what my preferences were. Instead of the

dailies being hit and miss, this specificity was quite a joy for everybody.

There was no "we'll fix it later" types of conversations. Mike Nichols got

a very clear idea from day one what the picture was looking like". If you

had stills e-mailed to you or could access a server via password, you would

have a good idea how your dailies were going to look. The e-mails can be

sent to you a hell of a lot faster than your dailies. Look Manager also helped

Mr. Goldblatt to troubleshoot problematic lighting situations in advance."You

can dial in the film stock you're using,then you can dial in the print stock you

want to use and any special processes you have in mind, and the system will

immediately give you the color result based on the color characteristics of

those specific negatives. In addition you can see how it will look if you push

or pull one or two stops. In a sense, you can test looks before you get into

principal photography, in the comfort of your hotel room". " I do think using

Look Manager helped us overall, because our dailies came out pretty well th-

roughout the shoot," he adds. -Stephen Goldblatt,ASC

All I'm saying David is that if you had access to stills(e-mailed) even though

you could not get the dailies,you would have a good idea how the dailies would

look. Please excuse my grammar, I would always skip english class and play

with cameras.

Greg Gross

David Mullen ASC · February 26, 2005

No, you're missing the entire point of dailies -- TO TELL YOU IF THE FILM CAME OUT. You could have a beautiful digital still photo stored in the Kodak Look Management system but that's not going to help you much if there's a giant scratch down the film or if the negative had aged and the blacks went all blue and milky or if the camera assistant loaded the wrong stock or the wrong filter behind the lens or if the focus was off or the lens not mounted properly, or there was a big flare or HMI flicker, on and on and on and on...

YOU NEED DAILIES TO KNOW IF THE FILM NEGATIVE IS OK. Getting the image to be color-corrected the way you want it to is of secondary value to simply finding out if your negative is OK in the first place! I mean, there could be something seriously screwed up with the negative and the colorist might even be able to make it look correct through playing with the color-corrector, using your Kodak Look Management still as a guide, but all of that is pointless if this is a project for print.

All of this reminds me of a discussion I had with a producer who wondered why we couldn't just record the video tap image, edit that, and hold off on developing the negative. And the reasons are the same: you need to know what's on the actual piece of film. The video tap image or the Look Management still is a representation but it's not the actual image.

The only "security" that the Look Management System may give you is that the colorist will color-correct the image the way you want him to -- but it gives no security in knowing if there's even an image on the negative to begin with. That's why saying that if Landon couldn't get his film to the lab and the dailies back in time, he'd be OK if he used the Kodak Look Management System is completely missing the point, I'm sorry to say. It's apples and oranges. The KLMS idea is about (1) previewing a look; and (2) communicating that look to the post people. The point of dailies is to know that everything is working properly and the image on film has no problems and THEN get it to a colorist to be transferred to video in some accurate manner.