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Film-out 2022


Daniel Porto

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looking to potentially provide film out services here in melb aus given it doesnt send me broke. not finding much information online but maybe im blind... arri has their laser 2 for sale. can ayone point me in the right direction to A find a film printer and B how to do it thanks ?

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Ah... yeah. 

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but that's like asking how to design a car and how to run a factory to build them!

A film recorder is not made like an appliance, nor does it operate like one.  You will need full knowledge of digital color science, film lab color science, close coordination with a color film lab (onsite being the very best) and a small fortune to purchase and maintain it.

It is far more economical to just have your filmout done by a lab that has the experience, unless you are very wealthy and have tons of time and brainpower to throw at the problem.

I don't like to discourage people, and I understand your motivation,  but take this sincere bit of advice that this one is really, really difficult and probably beyond practical DIY means...

 

 

 

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11 hours ago, Frank Wylie said:

Ah... yeah. 

Sorry to be a wet blanket, but that's like asking how to design a car and how to run a factory to build them!

A film recorder is not made like an appliance, nor does it operate like one.  You will need full knowledge of digital color science, film lab color science, close coordination with a color film lab (onsite being the very best) and a small fortune to purchase and maintain it.

It is far more economical to just have your filmout done by a lab that has the experience, unless you are very wealthy and have tons of time and brainpower to throw at the problem.

I don't like to discourage people, and I understand your motivation,  but take this sincere bit of advice that this one is really, really difficult and probably beyond practical DIY means...

 

 

 

dont worry i hear ya! I dream sometimes a little too much but thats not enough in my opinion ? yeah im currently getting a quote from fotokem! leave it to the experts i guess Im more creative than technical anyway ?

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Do let me know if you can get it up and running Daniel! Would be a brilliant facility to have access to here in Melbourne.

Are you thinking to offer both film outs and scanning to "film in"? (aka the Dune Recipe) 

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14 hours ago, Frank Wylie said:

I don't like to discourage people, and I understand your motivation,  but take this sincere bit of advice that this one is really, really difficult and probably beyond practical DIY means...

This is good advice. I have fell into this trap too. I still have to try to talk myself out of thinking I can design a new film camera from scratch. It is a stupid idea but it "feels right". However, once I get knee deep into it (and down quite a bit of money/time), I will probably asked myself why I started such a silly quest.

Edited by Matthew W. Phillips
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On 12/25/2021 at 1:33 AM, Daniel Porto said:

looking to potentially provide film out services here in melb aus given it doesnt send me broke. not finding much information online but maybe im blind... arri has their laser 2 for sale. can ayone point me in the right direction to A find a film printer and B how to do it thanks ?

Recording is not easy, in fact it's down right hard. Calibrating an Arri recorder is not easy. It may take days for an expert and where are you going to find one in Australia? I know of one guy in the world who works on them and unless you got deep pockets, he ain't flying to Australia. Arri recorders can also only record to internegative, which you will then need to add soundtrack to. Where are you getting the soundtrack from? Dolby digital is nearly impossible to make, the licensing in the US is $5k just for the security key per title and you then need a mixing facility who has the encode box, which is very difficult to find. Only the top shops have this hardware and they charge a premium to use it. Sure you can somewhat easily record out optical soundtrack, but who is doing that work for you? Optical audio cameras are not expensive, but now you need to also process black and white film as well. Also, who wants lousy optical sound on their movie? I sure don't. 

Then you need a serious printer, one designed to make theatrical prints at high speed. Double head one for picture and one for soundtrack. This machine is huge, several hundred pounds, computer controlled, needs to be setup in an ultra-clean darkroom. Who is programming the computer? Who is setting it up? 

Of course, now you got film, but what about processing. There are no labs in Australia that you can hand off 35mm internegative to for processing. Camera negative is a bit easier, but internegative nobody I know. So are you now gonna build a lab? You just added $250-300k to build-out of your film-out service AND permits that will take years to get. Wanna add a string of camera negative? Add another $150k. Then you have to pay for a professional lab technician because let me tell ya something, running a photochemical lab requires one. The machines are old, the process is not easy, everything gets dirty and corrodes fast, you have angry clients because you can't get the chemicals perfect and get inconsistencies. 

Wanna get a quick low cost print made of your movie? Contact CPC, they have a Cinevator which is a high speed recorder that goes direct to print stock WITH optical audio. It's around $200/minute and you don't need to do anything but send a file + money and they'll send you back a finished print that looks perfect. We have used them quite a bit for quick test prints and they look great.

I know millionaires who can't afford to make the facility you're proposing to make. There is a reason Fotokem does nearly all of the printing and film out work in the entire world these days. They have the knowledge AND the proper equipment to do a good job. The entire world is watching their prints. 

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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