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Best light vs timed scene scans


Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

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1 hour ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

I have never questioned your skills/abilities, Tyler. I question your attitude and yes, I will check you if you get snippy or disrespectful with me.

You have not only questioned my skills/abilities on several occasions,, but also have done the same with others in the past. You have gotten snippy several times unprovoked (like tonight) and your name calling is disrespectful to a level of a middle school bully. You have taunted me now three times in the last month for simply answering your questions. 

All I've done is answer your questions. 
 

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58 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

You have not only questioned my skills/abilities on several occasions,, but also have done the same with others in the past. You have gotten snippy several times unprovoked (like tonight) and your name calling is disrespectful to a level of a middle school bully. You have taunted me now three times in the last month for simply answering your questions. 

All I've done is answer your questions. 
 

Maybe I am judging your tone wrong because on this side of things, you come off as incredibly arrogant and curt.

For example, I mention dailies:

Normal person: "Actually, those are not used so much these days"

You: "The days of dailies are behind us...Good luck delivering raw files to clients."

Also, I say "I am not sure of the quality of those scans (maybe someone can chime in?) but that is an amazing feat if they look on par with past scanning solutions."

Normal person: "Although the Blackmagic seems like a good deal, it does have some tradeoffs that make it not the best for professional work."

You: " it's really blown off as a toy due to..."

Me: "Mocking? I just assumed this is what you wanted to hear. I tried disagreeing with you and that doesn't work so why not just be super nice and flatter you? Still not right?

Not sure I know how to please you, Tyler."

You: "You can please me by not mocking me. "

You in other places: "You haven't even shot a real film on motion picture film, so how do you know?"

"Most industry professionals wouldn't waste their time with a group like this OR answer rudimentary questions. "

"Having your film on Netflix? Been there, done that. "A Cowgirls Story" that I co-produced, edited and graded was on Netflix."

"Having your film win film festivals? Trophies are on the wall. "

"How about working with stars? I've lit and lensed; Mark Hamill, Bill Duke, Tim Roth, Joe Dante, Wim Wenders, William Friedkin, Jennifer Beals, James Franco, to name a few. "

"I will never understand people who make feature films that nobody will ever see. Is it an exercise in futility? "

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Tyler, I think your heart is in the right place, but your posts sometimes come across as confabulations.

For me it has mostly to do with the fact that when your information has been found out to be wrong, you don't write: I stand corrected, I've been wrong on this one. Instead you come up with excuses why you had it wrong.

This results in people doubting what you say - even if it's true sometimes, or who knows, most of the times.

 

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On 12/17/2021 at 8:16 AM, David Mullen ASC said:

I've only heard those terms applied for transfers to a video format, usually for dailies.  For film footage, frame scans (as opposed to a telecine transfer) themselves would usually be to 10-bit Cineon Log DPX files but then in a color-correction session they could be corrected and recorded to some sort of playable format.

I know it's a bit of a gray area, scanners versus telecines, but I think one distinction is that scanning doesn't happen in real time, whereas a telecine transfer does.

 

I think it is a term used by scanning companies. I knew about it before I learned of the term. When doing scans I would sometimes rewind film because the settings were crap or the framing was off. This is especially prevalent with home movies and ancient stag films which are multi, multi dupes. I just didn't know what to call it. If you get the sane pretty good you can post it better than if the scan is poor and there are no details to post. Say in the highlight area that is easily blown out with my scanner. 

I just didn't know if it is better to start a new scan where you start the new timed scan or just pause the scanner and add it to the old scan. Rewinding the scanner has to be done by hand with my scanner and it is done blind. No way to review the rewind other than start the scanner up again. Do the big boy scanners have that same issue, or can you rewind and review at the same time to find the exact spot?

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On 12/18/2021 at 1:24 AM, Matthew W. Phillips said:

Maybe I am judging your tone wrong because on this side of things, you come off as incredibly arrogant and curt.

For example, I mention dailies:

Normal person: "Actually, those are not used so much these days"

You: "The days of dailies are behind us...Good luck delivering raw files to clients."

Also, I say "I am not sure of the quality of those scans (maybe someone can chime in?) but that is an amazing feat if they look on par with past scanning solutions."

Normal person: "Although the Blackmagic seems like a good deal, it does have some tradeoffs that make it not the best for professional work."

You: " it's really blown off as a toy due to..."

Me: "Mocking? I just assumed this is what you wanted to hear. I tried disagreeing with you and that doesn't work so why not just be super nice and flatter you? Still not right?

Not sure I know how to please you, Tyler."

You: "You can please me by not mocking me. "

You in other places: "You haven't even shot a real film on motion picture film, so how do you know?"

"Most industry professionals wouldn't waste their time with a group like this OR answer rudimentary questions. "

"Having your film on Netflix? Been there, done that. "A Cowgirls Story" that I co-produced, edited and graded was on Netflix."

"Having your film win film festivals? Trophies are on the wall. "

"How about working with stars? I've lit and lensed; Mark Hamill, Bill Duke, Tim Roth, Joe Dante, Wim Wenders, William Friedkin, Jennifer Beals, James Franco, to name a few. "

"I will never understand people who make feature films that nobody will ever see. Is it an exercise in futility? "

 

Don't know about all that. Just getting back to the thread. Have not been following the replies. I like to let things brew a while and see what the replies are. And due to ADD, sometimes I read the thread backwards! 

As far as...

"I will never understand people who make feature films that nobody will ever see. Is it an exercise in futility? "

Everything we do is not a masterpiece. We try, some things work out, some are flops. But as we try things we never know where a flop will lead us. 

 

 

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On 12/18/2021 at 12:10 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

You have not only questioned my skills/abilities on several occasions,, but also have done the same with others in the past. You have gotten snippy several times unprovoked (like tonight) and your name calling is disrespectful to a level of a middle school bully. You have taunted me now three times in the last month for simply answering your questions. 

All I've done is answer your questions. 
 

People tend to get agitated at Christmas. But I don't know all the history of this mentioned bickering, so just guessing. 

I've been on forums since the bulletin board days back in 1998. So, I've seen a lot of Christmas holidays go by on forums during those decades. One-time someone called me a 'mouth breather' on a forum. I made a mouth breather production out of their idea and am thankful for their insult!

 

A%20Mouth%20Breather%20Production%20Nano

A Mouth Breather Production

DDTJRAC

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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On 12/17/2021 at 10:02 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Film scanners are generally slower than telecine's and it's rare there is an operator associated. They generally one light from the first frame of picture. You will get the entire roll as one image. So this is why your first frame of a new roll should be a gray card that matches the scene you're about to shoot. What I recommend (but don't practice since I have my own scanner) is loading the camera and the first few seconds of the roll, shooting a color chart and gray card. You wanna run the camera a bit on any roll of film due to dust and dirt in the threading/processing process. I do at least 2 seconds minimal. 

 

That is a good idea. That is what the museums would do for their copy stand work. All my stuff is archival footage. So usually nothing to go by like that. 

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On 12/17/2021 at 4:16 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

I've only heard those terms applied for transfers to a video format, usually for dailies.  For film footage, frame scans (as opposed to a telecine transfer) themselves would usually be to 10-bit Cineon Log DPX files but then in a color-correction session they could be corrected and recorded to some sort of playable format.

I don't work for a scanning company or anything, but what I understand "best light" to mean is they will stop the scan and adjust for exposure or re-calibrate to different film types as necessary in the scan. For dailies that's probably less meaningful unless you really need to stop and adjust for incorrect exposure or something like that. For restoration I imagine it would be quite important if you have an original cut camera negative with different types of film spliced together or something along those lines. Maybe the negative was repaired many decades later or something by splicing in a new section for example.

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1 hour ago, Dan Baxter said:

I don't work for a scanning company or anything, but what I understand "best light" to mean is they will stop the scan and adjust for exposure or re-calibrate to different film types as necessary in the scan. For dailies that's probably less meaningful unless you really need to stop and adjust for incorrect exposure or something like that. For restoration I imagine it would be quite important if you have an original cut camera negative with different types of film spliced together or something along those lines. Maybe the negative was repaired many decades later or something by splicing in a new section for example.

Anyone who stops the scanner and will re-start it again, is considered a "managed" scan, so the costs go way up. 

So there are 3 ways of doing this: 

One light, which is where the scan is set at the first frame and then run off for the entire roll. This is how the bulk of scanning is done. 

Best light, where the scan is run at the head of the roll and if there are any major changes during the roll, there will be a minor correction made. 

Scene to scene, where every shot is graded as it's being scanned. 

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Recently I scanned an archival film needing to be timed scanned. It was a 1937 600 footer on Bible Camp. It was done by a semi- pro / advanced amateur that took on the job of memorializing the event. I didn't know there were 2 parts to the film until I hit the 2nd part. The 2nd reel was the finished reel with titles, intertitles and all. The 1st part were the outtakes and not used in the finished film. But I didn't know any of that other than the title Bible Camp 1937.

The film was exposed pretty good throughout, although there were areas that benefitted from exposure adjustments. But the main problem was the entire 2nd reel's framing was off. I could have cropped the entire 2nd reel to fix framing. But decided to rescan it starting with the 2nd reel to frame it right. A lot of times you don't know how long an exposure issue or framing problem runs for.

To do a scan right, you really need to see the film in its entirety before scanning and take some notes. But that is hard to do, at least for me, being a one-man operation and overloaded with work. I just scan first and if things go south with the scan, then will rescan parts.

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Shirley%20Temple%20Daniel%20D.%20Teoli%2

A young Annie Leibovitz guarding the cameras.

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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56 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

To do a scan right, you really need to see the film in its entirety before scanning and take some notes. But that is hard to do, at least for me, being a one-man operation and overloaded with work. I just scan first and if things go south with the scan, then will rescan parts.

 

Every time to you run a film through a scanner, you potentially get it dirty. So there is a trade off. Obviously if it's an old print of something, it doesn't matter. 

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On 12/20/2021 at 11:44 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Every time to you run a film through a scanner, you potentially get it dirty. So there is a trade off. Obviously if it's an old print of something, it doesn't matter. 

Yes, that is true. That is why I gave up on projection. It can be really hard on films. 

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42 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

Yes, that is true. That is why I gave up on projection. It can be really hard on films. 

It sucks, truly sucks. I ruined one of my favorite prints from rewinding it. Luckily, I have the negative, but that's $200 bux down the drain. Scanning is worse because the film is exposed to the elements for much longer than a projector. Some scanners are 1 - 3fps! 

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42 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

IScanning is worse because the film is exposed to the elements for much longer than a projector. Some scanners are 1 - 3fps! 

Wouldn't any scanner worth its salt make sure the light isnt too "hot" on the film?; compensating for the extended duration under the light with a cooler (real temperature; not Kelvin) light source than a projector?

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2 hours ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

Wouldn't any scanner worth its salt make sure the light isnt too "hot" on the film?; compensating for the extended duration under the light with a cooler (real temperature; not Kelvin) light source than a projector?

Oh I was referring to dust/dirt in the environment, rather than heat from the light source. 

Many modern scanners have UV detection which helps find dirt and bust it as it's scanning. That's how they get around this issue. 

Scanners also can chew up film if you aren't careful. I've seen incompetent machine runners, not change out PTR's per roll and let debris build up on surfaces. We clean all the rollers and the PTR's on every roll of film we run. On our scanner you can swap the PTR's in 2 seconds, we also have 2 spare capstans. So when you're scanning you can be washing them and let them dry and swap them each 1200ft roll. 

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