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K Borowski

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Everything posted by K Borowski

  1. What Chris said: Last job I worked 12 hours was basically the minimum. MAYBE ther was an 11 in there somewhere. I think 12 was where double OT kicked in, so they would usually work us right to 12 since it was budgeted for. So yeah, you want to work in the business, deal with 12 hour days, or sve yourself disappointment and get out. Trust me, you'll never see an 8 hour day in the US doing this professionally. . .
  2. If you REALLY need to use computers/smartphones to keep track of a day of shooting (unless you are shooting HS all day, it really isn't that hard to use paper), just use Microsoft Excel and make yourself up a spreadsheet. . . Most smartphone platforms have support for this. Good luck explaining where all the data went if your phone gets wet, crashes, etc though! :blink:
  3. I see the point of using common sense and establishing a common procedure, but when a thread about lens handling reaches two pages, discussions arise as to which hand one should hand off with, that is taking it too far! I've worked for some pr*cks that want to control you to that level. You want to prevent gravity and a sudden deceleration caused by concrete or asphault from shattering your $4,000 rental lens. Common sense, establishing someone has control of a lens before letting go yourself, and preventing said lens from getting smudged are all I would do. I agree with bringing the case over to the camera, rather than taking it out elsewhere, unless there's a serious cluster going on. But pre-setting a lens, or putting it in a position where it gets smudged, scratched up seems more of a hassle than just keeping caps on until the very end, maybe take off the rear cap and hold that upwards or towards you to avoid the potential for a hurried cleaning. I'd take the front cap off as soon as someone else has "control" of the lens. As far as RED glass, how is that relevant? I assure you, 35mm glass, a long zoom or prime can get very heavy as well. I wouldn't worry about RED glass being heavier, I'd worry about its fragility. Some of the lighter lenses are far more fragile, but no lens likes bouncing off the concrete. Even a small fall can jar all of the elements and ruin shots.
  4. No, you should shoot whatever slow-speed stocks or high speed stocks you need. Kodak discontinuing Plus-X without a suitable replacement is their problem. I would never shoot Double-X in broad daylight. I'm just saying that some of these ideas would actually make things worse rather than helping anything. Anyway, unless you shot a lot of XX, you're not going to offset even a 1% loss. Not knocking what you're doing. Just keep in perspective the amount of film they're losing compared with a single 16mm doc. Who knows how much Kodak makes (if anything) on B&W. It's certainly not their profit leader. If you want to help Kodak, you need to shoot 35mm, their 500T (or whatever their most expensive neg. stock is - yeah and no discount 500T, '80, '60?)
  5. I'm sure that story is true. And I'm sure it's irrelevant, because losses elsewhere have still brought total film sales down 30-40% in the past year. Profits tend to be dropping at least 30% year over year over year. Marketing film?!?! To the consumer? Are you guys nuts? Half those idiots in the theatres think their camera phones are good enough to shoot movies with (the resolution is technically a bigger number than theatre screens at 2K). Saying "this film was shot on 35mm" will be received as "who cares" by about 70% and "it'd be better if it were DLP" by the other 30% many of whom are the same IT guys that regularly post here with a delusional sense of authority. Sorry, but this all seems way off base. Kodak needs big film productions, therefore its ads are geared towards them. They have PLENTY of support in the US for filmmakers. You just stamp "shot on 35mm film" on the tail of a print, and you'll give the cleaning crew a good laugh. About 2% of movie customers, if that, stay 'til the projector rolls out. . . Anyway, I guarantee that most of what is being said here is irrelevant. In a year 90% of US screens are going to be digital. That is going to cause another 30-40% drop in film sales, at which point we will see if it is profitable for Eastman Kodak to continue making film at all. Probably the other 10% of theatres are going to go out of business if they can't organize and fight the studios, who want Eastman Kodak dead as much as the chains.
  6. K Borowski

    VISION 4

    David: How, in your expoerience, has F64 compared to 5245? Maybe Fuji doesn't see the need to upgrade it because you DP types are in love with bigger numbers :P I'm amazed how many shoots opt for mid-speed daylight to shoot at high noon, or go 500T everything, some with 16!
  7. Umm, you are talking about which part? Because the planes in "Pearl" were real in several parts. I mean "CGI Faces" as in bad digital camera exposure/color on the live action. Of course they were real people. Then again, it wouldn't surprise me if Lucas did eventually go for the "Simone approach. . ."
  8. Rob :-) You found my plug! Happy New Year to you and your crew, my man. How's life at the new digs? BTW, do I remember correctly from a year and a half ago when Brad said that he bought that on eBay? If so that certainly tops my most infamous acquisition there.
  9. Once again, please don't pretend to know the lab industry. More B&W labs than not (I've only seen one that had this) DO NOT have IR sensors in their film processors. You'll want to send a test roll first, some guys load the stuff in the darkroom in a changing bag to be doubly cautious, but IR film can be handled by all machines that don't have any IR sensors, cameras, or other supplementary illumination. A lot of the B&W labs or B&W sections of a lab are running older equipment anyway. The high-tech stuff goes on the E-6 or ECN machines, usually. I've never heard of Fuji Infrared film, ever. Kodak just discontinued their last IR stock (no not B&W it was color) at the end of last year, and Agfa Geveart still makes one. It gets knocked off like crazy in still photogrpahy, have seen the Agfa branded I think as Rollei AND Maco. All just cut down 70mm aerial film. . . If you're shooting 35mm movie film for just about anything other than cel animation, titles, timelapses (and with Vistavision this is twice as easy @ 180 feet/minute @24), he should have no problem with getting to the magic number of 5,000 feet (at least this was Kodak's magic number, whatever the length of one master roll is at FujiFilm, probably 1500m or 2000m. . . I personally haven't had any experiences, positive or negative with Glen, so if you're implying, Keith, that I am being critical of him due to persoanl bias, that is not the case. I know that all is definitely not as it seems on the internets, and am only critical of the lack of footage I see. Hell, I happen to know where one of the only Vistavision printers in the US is at the moment, a model formerly in use at Lucas Film Ltd., although it's an optical printer, I believe. Rob can shed more light on the subject.
  10. A 35mm print loses roughly 30% of the negative (not to mention the dynamic range in the highlights, shadows that are obliterated in a high-contrast print), in a 4th generation contact print. I'd say that a 4K DMR is less than 5%, maybe more like 2-3% because the resolution of the negative far exceeds the information that has been blown up on it. I'd say IMAX blowups, optical or digital, come close to 4K projection, definitely with better colors and contrast ratios. Just FYI most "4K projectors" show movies through 3D lenses (less than 2K resolution) or only have 2K files even if they DO have the right lens. For practical purposes film IMAX decimates its current digital competition. I personally dislike grain reduction, but that is another can of worms. It can be applied just as oppressively to a 4K DI master.
  11. It is good that companies are showing increases in film processing. We had a 250% increase in film processing last year. . . BUT HOW MANY LABS WENT OUT OF BUSINESS THAT WE PICKED UP, OTHER LABS STARTED SUCKING? The real figure to look at are the billions of feet/year figures for Kodak, Fuji. They are in very real decline, especially Eastman Color Print (theatrical film prints), and this is a worrying figure, because it may take Kodak's film sales into the red if it drops to zero. The United States will very quickly become 90% digital. All of the chain theatres have already inked deals to convert. There is no room for making 35mm film production, coating, manufacture more efficient at Eastman Kodak. I'm sure FujiFilm is in a similar predicament. If the volume drops, I assume they can cut some more cost and make it profitable, but from what I understand, there are only a DOZEN people working to manufacture roughly half the world's color film at Kodak. There aren't any more jobs to slash there. There are very real issues with the rpice of silver last year that hopefully will be fully abated in 2012. But the volume of a low profit margin product like Vision 2383 are still offset by the shear volume of it that they are losing.
  12. Is that supposed to be a good thing? I mean, it honestly looks as bad as an F900 movie from 1999. . . I'm not a snob, but it makes whatever camera system used look bad. I'd run screaming if this were used to try to sell me this system to shoot some dramatic short. @Phil: Why do you want to remake "Battle of Britain?" You want it to look like this? If you're talking about the movie I'm thinking of, it is still one of the better aerial WWII films out there. I think they ripped off stock movie from this film in several others. Anyway, I'll take matte lines and good color over the entire movie looking cartoonish, even the live action. That movie has me cheering "Go RAF!"
  13. TWO link answers? Ouch. There was Plus-X Neg, Double-X Neg, then there was either Tri-X or 4-X neg. Plus-X Tri-X 4X reversal. The ASAs were all over the place depending on the time period.
  14. I thought he was talking about an IMAX print, regardless of the movie there should be a 70mm projector in an IMAX booth (well unless it is "IMAX" digital. . .) No offense, but I really think you are nitpicking me. The point I was trying to make is that an IMAX blowup of a 35mm movie should look really good, but from an IMAX neg will look a lot better, and, either way, a film IMAX presentation will look better than just a couple of crummy 2K projectors with an IMAX logo stamped on them ;) That's optical DMR, 8 perf. 15 perf., whatever. 70mm blowups look better than 35mm, unless the projector's out of focus during the duplicating process.
  15. Don't have the bandwidth to watch it, but what's the use bragging about high-quality footage and then you process it in your bathtub or something? So many filmmakers out there that love makign film look, well, bad. One thing if it were a music video or a distressed print for effect here and there, but there are guys that shoot whole movies embracing the "make film look bad" aesthetic. Anyway, B&W rates are so cheap anyway, assuming that's what he used and not desaturated color, I don't know why he wouldn't get his film done at one of the many good B&W labs still out there. . .
  16. Do you realize what a VHS copy of a movie cost in the early '80s? And, if you're talking about Blu-Rays, they deliver almost seven times the image quality as 480P (you can argue it's almost forteen times since SD TV was progressive. Not sure how this compares to PAL which has a higher resolution, but you're still talking 5-6 times time quality I think.) I hope you aren't implying that movies should be 99¢ for a download. I agree, we're moving away from "instrumentalities" as they'd put it in "Forbidden Planet," but that doesn't mean the movies should cost any less. What's the cost of distributing plastic BluRays? They're almost weightless, and the high volume produced the price has plummeted from what it was for a CD, DVD fifteen or twenty years ago. I have a feeling the cost you're after just isn't realistic, like an iTunes download. And the studios are justifiably scared, no doubt, now that "freedom from censorship" has given torrent sites and piracy a victory.
  17. Do you have a re-wind bench to use? You'll need to do two winds on it if you are using Keykode, as it won't work if it is oriented backwards when run through the camera. Also, you realize you won't be able to get a third 400-foot out of 1000 feet, unless you curve the fabric of space time and utilize the fifth dimension ;-)
  18. The CGI Faces look like CGI Faces too. Looks like Lucas is still shooting with the F900 they used to shoot the 2nd "Star Wars. . ." Love the content, but what's the use of seeing it in theatres? Optimized for my 1080P TV I might as well stay home, or visit the torrents to support "free speech."
  19. What Rich says. Phill, sometimes I honestly wonder if you don't run a torrent server farm out of your basement. Not much more widespread than pre-internet, seriously? Before you had VHS and 8mm films on the screen. I won't name names, but there was also the infamous act of renting a film print, making a dupe, then SENDING THE DUPE BACK. Actually have a certain fondness for that last. But Rich is right, a bunch of lying slinking, matrix-dressing little bastards, that ought to be snuffed out. I don't know about the law, haven't read it. There's potential for abuse with any law. But just as I haven't been locked up as a terrorist, I'm pretty sure Google and Wikipedia are overreacting. If you think about it, arguing against SELF-POLICING COPYRIGHTED CONTENT is the height of laziness. Should they expected to catch all of it? Of course not, but if your site contains millions of pirated images, movies, songs, it's kind of hard to argue about unreasonable demands. They make plenty of money on Google with ads and there are plenty of volunteer editors. Just as a brick and mortar business is liable for events that happen on its grounds, there should be a certain reasonable expectation of at least an *attempt* being made to block illegal content. Let's use kiddie porn as an example. If there were a law to block KIDDIE PORN instead of piracy, theft, would WIkipedia, Google be up in arms? Maybe that is too extreme, but just because piracy is so rampant, doesn't make it any less legal. I'll admit to having in my possession a good many MP3s I haven't paid for, but not a single movie. I get very ANGRY at people who brag about pirated movies, tell them thanks for stealing money I could be making a-hole. You had best believe when you can rip off movies for free at resolution better than the theatre and spend the money your parents gave you to "go to the theatre" on some Naddy Light so you and your teenaged buddies can get drunk instead and still watch the movie, your young audience is going to do this 99x out of 100. Just as there are penalties for physical theft, there need to be penalties for piracy. Sure, it's not a matter of taking the only copy, but it is still stealing from vendor's pockets and it DOES have a monetary impact no matter how over-stated the MPAA or other organizations' figures are Phil. You should be ashamed of yourself for taking this outspoken stance that doesn't have a basis in fact. You've got a pipe, it's got a leak in it, and you're arguing that there's still a good strong flow of water. It's simple addition and subtraction. You subtract some of your target audience you're going to get less. Howabout this link? Dark Knight Rises I do think the law needs to be reworded, but whether or not these versions will survive, something of this type desperately needs to be implemented.
  20. Sure the 35mm shots were put through DMR after being scanned at 4K resolution from the timed master positive. The IMAX shots were probably 15-20 minutes worth of footage 2nd generation contact prints at all IMAX theatres, or scanned at it was at least 8K for SFX work and then output back to film and contact printed. This latest "Dark Knight" installment is supposed to have more IMAX. While some IMAX theatres are running a smaller frame size, believe it is 8-perf., the vast majority of real film installations run 70mm 15-perf. It certainly is up to the cinematographer (and those over him) what is put onto IMAX film. It can only resolve 12K+ if it is in-focus and shot on IMAX negative. Even 4K DMR onto film, this should look far better than a pair of 2K projectors. At 3.6K+ (probably really close to 4 even through two film generations considering the 12x area of an IMAX frame compared with 4-perforation 35mm), this is still almost double the resolution at any digital equivalent. Consider also screen size and brightness, even against true 4K projectors, which often have brightness issues.
  21. You are courageous. I didn't see this, I don't think, before you shot, but I think a lot of people wanted to avoid telling you advice that could potentially wreck a $100K camera! I've had still go haywire electronically doing just SMALL sun-in-the-frame shots, and on one of the Apollo missions, they have practically no stills of the landing (not 13 :-p) because one of the astronauts pointed the Hasselblad at the sun and similarly fried its metering system. I am fortunate, thusfar, in never killing a camera with this technique :-D
  22. That or true 2K scans (4K is almost never worth it in 16mm). There's also the quality issue of linear versus logarithmic scanning, where you can tweak and access higher quality color density if there is more severe exposure, color balance issues. There are telecines/datacines, and scanners. The latter tends to be more expensive, but of a higher quality. Telecine, think of a film projector with an HD camera 1:1 copying the frame more or less steady in the gate. Scanners scan each frame. They tend to be slower, hence the higher price, but they produce a steadier image and much sharper frame quality. I'm sure someone with more time can cover this in greater detail. 2K is 10% higher resolution than HD, roughly than 1080P (1980 lines across the width versus 2048 for 2K).
  23. Geoff, the cost of a DECENTY 2-perf. scan (better than standard def. pixelated, mushy quality) is still up there. A 2-perf. frame is a very small size to scan well. That being said, this is an INCREDIBLE little invention. I note there's already a post on here from November, that I totally missed, probably from banging head against darkroom wall with all the Kodak doom and gloom. I digress. . . Anyway, I don't think anyone should knock a fun, simple, inexpensive foray into the world of filmmaking. This is arguably the greatest invention for the amateur filmmaking enthusiast (read student filmmakers, schoolkids, up-and-comers) since the '50s. Honestly, this is better, more flexible education than any windup 16mm, 8mm could be for a kid. Give a 12-y.o. a Bolex and some Kodachrome 25 back in the dayand you'd probably shell out 2-3 times the cost of processing a 35mm 36 size to get blank film back. Think of the potential here! This is a HUGE OPPORTUNITY for any of you in the lab industry as well. It's a $90 2-perf. camera! Honestly, I think it's only a matter of time before they come up with some sort of simple rubber-band or 24 system. Even a 100-footer wouldn't be too outside the realm of possibility. There's a Flickr and a Vimeo group (or groups?) on this camera worth checking out. IDK if I'll buy one personally, I shoot plenty of 8- and 16, but I'd love to have one of these movies for an icon at the lab. Anyone that is willing to lend me theirs I'll make you high-res TIFF 100+MB scans of four or five of your movies for the "rental." I'm going to explore the opportunity of making either contact prints, or 2- to 4-perf. pulldown conversions so that one of these can actually be looped on a 35-mm projector. That'd be another great innovation for this company. . . Hmm, looking at it here, it's already been motorized, how hard would it be to stick say a 100W lightbulb in it and project a positive copy? Like I said HUGE, LOW-TECH. potential that is limited only by the bounds of imagination. This, arguably brings HD production to the masses even more than any $XX,000 camera that supports single frame time-lapse mode too. As to the optics, I'd really like to know the quality, but I wouldn't surprise if even a 2-perf. with a simple meniscus lens is capable of reaching 1080P quality. Again, my offer stands, anyone wanting to get 4-5 movies souped scanned and *printed* in exchange for us making a LomoKino movie about LomoKino processing :-D
  24. Honestly, I'd shy away from 500T altogether, if I were shooting 16. If you can get an extra stop and change of light, why not go for the 200T? (Heresy, I know, not going for the biggest number, coolest packaging :rolleyes: ) Keep in mind that Kodak, Fuji do the biggest volume in 500 stocks, therefore make the most profit from it. It may have more silver, be faster, but they're coating so much, that stock is the one that they have the lowest production costs on. It'd be different if you were shooting 35. I don't care if it's the current lineup, two generations of film ago, or if it's ten years down the road (hypothetically that either of these companies can keep making film that long), and there's some great improvements, I'd ALWAYS stay away from the fastest stock, unless you really need it. Now, that all being said, you definitely have some high-contrast situations where you might be able to hide grain in the shadows. Some of those Polaroid shots look flatter though. Not sure if that's what you were going for or if you meant more the colors (paper prints tend not to be able to produce the deep blacks when they're scanned). Anytime you get a lot of greys, out-of-focus areas, your grain is going to jump up. Not that this is a good reason to pick film, but I really wonder if it will even be an option for you much down the road. Seems like the students are more and more eager to borrow their friend's DSLR than make something that actually looks good. They're more interested in the brochure and the ISO speed (100,000 wow :-/ ) than how the images actually look on the big screen. For better or for worse, the hype and the marketing are what is going to kill film, not a quality comparison. Shoot the slowest film you can get away with and don't be afraid to look for deals on [new] stock :-) There are still some ends of 16 floating around out there if you can find them.
  25. At 10% generation loss(not taking into account that a 2K filmout is alaready less than 2K), 35mm prints that cost at least $1500 a piece look substantially *WORSE* than your $14.99 Bluray. The $80,000 2K digital projector can look, at best, 10% better. The only "film" worth seeing in the theatre is 4K DLP, 4K DI (now that 35mm print volumes are falling, I've heard rumors there are a lot more 2nd-gen. copies out there. "Warhorse" was a 4K DI that looked, literally razor-sharp on 35mm), or contact print. Honestly, at over $10/ticket, why see something once for more than the price owning it 3 mos. hence. I was watching some old television the other day I'd taped way back when, and Jurassic Park was selling for $24.95 on VHS in 1994. With the price of inflation that has got to be at least $35 in today's money. To put it another way, with, adjusted for inflation, theatre tickets doing nothing but increasing in price (coupled with a sometimes 50% loss in quality), and home movie quality hmm, 240i to 1080P that's at least an 18-fold improvement, for reduced costs, of course theatres are going to die out. The public has, frankly, glotten pissed off at 3D admission prices and big screens with small video projection quality. They don't come out spouting about all the technical nonsense I just did, because they don't do this for a living, but they "sense" something is wrong. They don't know what the hell it is, but they know it's not worth the $16.95 per person for the "IMAX [2K projectors that look REALLY bad on a big screen, especially in he 4th row]" "3D" movie they just saw. I've probably watched my last movie ever on 35mm, maybe the last I'll ever see. I'm unapologetically Union, and when my brothers and sisters get booted out of the booths at the end of the year here in the US, I'll be God-damned if I get caught dead giving a pure $9 or 10 in profit to Plano Texas, Kansas City, or Tennessee. And I want to know who is going to fix the focus, restart the movie when a server that's probably controlled by some hack in Mumbai crash on a Friday night? There's literally no one upstairs watching now. The only people that work in theatres are the kids behind the candy stands. And, not to call out anyone in particular, but God forbid someone in a fellow IATSE have any loyalty to the little guys in a local affiliate. When I was out picketing over the summer, I really have to wonder how many union guys crossed the line and went to see the movie anyway instead of going another mile or two out of their way to the IA affiliated theatre. You're outside 12+ hours a day getting rained on, then you drive by a full parkinglot (anyway) on the way home. I guess what I am trying to say is, if you take all the skill, showmanship, hundreds of years experience and replace it with some IT guy on a server running the whole company, do you really think you can get away with this and not have people notice? The '50s response to television was MORE COST MORE INNOVATION, 70mm film, widescreen [real] 3D, the kind that you needed two film projectors, one for each eye. What's the response to Bluray in 2008-9? Cut costs eliminate any job, except security, that makes more than $15/hr. raise prices, slap "SUPER DUPER DIGITAL HD DLP IMAX!!!!™" on everything, and pray to God noone notices or says anything about it. Seriously, what company [CINEMARK] would be in its right mind tearing out a projector capable of projecting at least 2,000 megapixels per second [iMAX 15-perf. 2nd generation contact print] and replace it with a 2K twin projector (at most 108 megapixels per second). So the theatres are offsetting the 18-fold improvement in home movie quality by introducing a greater-than 18-fold *reduction* in their own! Who in their right mind would, seriously, do something like this? I'm pretty sure it's a corporate suit who has never run a foot of film in his or her life. This is not surprising, though, as one would expect the management at theatres to know how to do this job skillfully as well, and they don't judging by all the scratches, damage, missing chunks of footage at every non-Union theatre out there. . .
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