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Tim Tyler

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  • 2 months later...

Screening 16mm. archive from the 90s at home for a mountaineering documentary (Chris Terrill, Universal/BBC)

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The BBC archive in Perivale, where the director had planned to shoot, is closed for the duration, so I'm now in the studio business, apparently. A fee for rental plus the same again as a facility fee- what's not to like?

It doesn't show here, but this was a cutting copy- the wrong print had been archived, and the transmission print destroyed. Oops. They still had the mag stereo mixes though.

 

"Ipcress File" credit: James Watkins/ITV; DOP Tim Maurice-Jones, my image.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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  • 5 weeks later...

First post also first time working with a techno today - very humbling to watch Mathieu Roberts on the wheels and his crew on the arm, SO smooth with millimeters of clearance and not a single bump.

64079728544__AC52DB72-5BFA-4C1C-805F-BF42B67C168B.jpg

Edited by Greg Comollo
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  • 4 months later...
On 4/22/2021 at 10:57 PM, Greg Comollo said:

First post also first time working with a techno today - very humbling to watch Mathieu Roberts on the wheels and his crew on the arm, SO smooth with millimeters of clearance and not a single bump.

64079728544__AC52DB72-5BFA-4C1C-805F-BF42B67C168B.jpg

 

Yes, very impressive. Do they use a computer to map out any movements or is it always done by operator live?

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On 11/26/2020 at 8:18 AM, Mark Dunn said:

The place is pretty  well-known but I get the idea. I'll see what can be arranged on a future visit.

I don't know about the film collection- I think much of it is "distress" collected, otherwise known as "rescued" when the alternative is a skip. Ronald Grant has been in the game since the 40s so I don't think acquisition is on his mind. Indeed some duplicate items are aon ebay as we speak.

Changing a Steenbeck belt is something you can still get done by a dealer, albeit at considerable expense, hence my offer of help. A charity that the government has forbidden to fund itself by selling screening tickets doesn't need engineers' fees.

One is always too busy doing the job to document much- hence the paucity of material on London Steenbeck- but it's not as if it's some ancient machine that no-one alive has ever repaired. Yet.

But again, I take your point. Must do better.

 

If you are short on time, don't make a big deal of it. Walk around with a pocket cam or cell phone and grab what you think is noteworthy. Just make sure it is decent for archival purposes. Many times I archive on the fly. I'm at a presentation so I record audio, stills or video. I'm already there, so why not? Things like that. Make it fit your schedule.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
On 9/15/2021 at 4:41 PM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

 

If you are short on time, don't make a big deal of it. Walk around with a pocket cam or cell phone and grab what you think is noteworthy. Just make sure it is decent for archival purposes. Many times I archive on the fly. I'm at a presentation so I record audio, stills or video. I'm already there, so why not? Things like that. Make it fit your schedule.

Haven't checked in for a while.

To answer your previous question, films of all sorts are donated here all the time- packages are arriving every day. Ronald Grantwas at Pordenone last month, they know who he is.

Work on the Steenbecks is ongoing but at least the Museum can take paying audiences again

http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/

We replaced the belts on a 1901 the other day and ran a test film. Ronald stuck his head in the door to discuss some matter of admin and I happened to say, "it's Ninotchka by the way, Ron", because it was.

I'm ashamed to admit I had to look up Melvyn Douglas. I thought it was Franchot Tone.

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  • 2 months later...

 

Everyone too busy to shoot photos??

I got a collection of press photos of movie sets. I will have to dig through them. Lots of stuff on Clint Eastwood on set and many D.P's at the camera. 

Here is one of D.P. Ernest R. Dickerson. (I wonder if they call him Roscoe on set? Whenever I hear the name Roscoe, I think back to my early days in L.A.. I should have shot some photos back then of Roscoes Chicken...but never thought about it.) 

Anway, Spike Lee is on the ladder directing 'School Daze.'

Ernest%20R.%20Dickerson%20Spike%20Lee%20

This was shot by Spike's brother David Lee about 1987. The original press photo was terrible. Black people are hard to shoot in harsh sunlight if you mix dark people with light people. Something has to give; dynamic range won't do justice to both.

I can't blame David. This was the wet print era, not the digital era. And I don't really know what the original was like, but press photos are usually garbage. So, I give him the benefit of the doubt.

Newspapers didn't care about quality back then. Their press prints, especially the wire photos are very bad I.Q. I spent 40 minutes + on the PP. I don't have another photo of 'Roscoe,' so I invested some time in him. He is a talented D.P.

 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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Two%20Jakes%20Vilmos%20Zsigmond%20Jack%2

On set with D.P. Vilmos Zsigmond and Dir. Jack Nicholson

The photog didn't bother to straighten the photo. Or did they do it in printing? Or was the photog going for a Dutch angle? Or is he a Winogrand copycat?

Many of my photos are crooked...but I straighten them usually. I guess a Photoshopper could cut it out and reinsert it straight. But I'm an old film photog and not much of a computer person. I only know how to use Lightroom. This photo had about 20 mintes of Lightroom.

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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  • 1 month later...

Something from yesterday's office...

I've got a small collection of Tru-Vue films in the Archive.

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eBay photo: Fair use

Within the collection, which is mostly vintage burlesque, there is a series of shots from a 'behind the scenes on a movie set' roll.  Looks like the sets are about 1939-40, although did not look at them all, as I don't have the Tru-Vue stereo viewer.

As you can see in the photo above, the film is wound super tight. It is very hard to deal with for scanning. I tried storing the film in a reverse wind for a few days and while it did relax the film some, it still is very tightly wound. All the Tru-Vue films I've seen are the same tinted color.

The film has to be scanned at an angle on the scanner or you get a error message if the film extends beyond the top and bottom of the frame. So you can only get in a few frames at a time. And with stereo, every 3rd frame is a dupe.

img083-11%201.68mb.jpg

 

I will have to buy a film holder that the kids use for camera scanning film with a camera. You shove the film through it, and it holds the film flat. (Hopefully it holds this heavily curved film half-ass flat.)  The you take a photo of the film in the film holder over a lightbox. Even when taped on the scanner glass, the film buckles and is not flat.

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I got some anti-Newton ring glass somewhere; I could tape that over the film. But it introduces more dust and it is in storage and who knows where it is. There are a lot of nice scenes from the movie set on the roll.

img083-13%201.05mb.jpg

 

 

 

 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
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A while ago I posted gear porn with an Ursa Mini and various accessories, and wished for a Fuji zoom.

I was recently able to scratch the itch, this time with an Ursa Broadcast G2, Blackmagic's new 6K baby, with the Teradek Bolt 4K 1500, Anton/Bauer Titon 150, Wooden Camera UMB-1 and power distro, and of course the mighty Fujinon Cabrio XK6x20. This configuration appeals to what's left of my tendency toward ENG cameras.

image.png.ac9c6242c07a347d13327b76a81fd67f.png

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  • 2 months later...

Was working with the Advertising Archive.  Ran across some 1962 shots from the making of Lawrence of Arabia in Life magazine.

Lots of sand sweeping when shooting in the desert! I thought this guy was the sound man. But it may be a light. The guy in the hole was supposed to be caught in quicksand.

 

Lawrence%20of%20Arabia%20Life%201.12.62%

Lawrence%20of%20Arabia%20Life%201.12.62%

Lawrence%20of%20Arabia%20Life%201.12.62%

Lawrence%20of%20Arabia%20Life%201.12.62%

 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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  • 3 weeks later...
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1 hour ago, Jon O'Brien said:

Very cool Dom. Are people hiring the occasional Panaflex in Australia, or does Panavision sometimes send you over a camera to work on?

Haven’t had a Panaflex job down here in a while. This was for a prop, but it needed to run.

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