K Borowski

NASA can't even get Seven Up anymore, let alone nuking some rogue asteroid. That's what Hollywood is for, right?

John, I wanted to be the gloom-and-doomsman in this thread, and you have just one-upped every depressing thing I said with that phrase :-D

At the same time, Kodak uses Panavision New York, supposedly, for their ECP testing. I'd imagine the real damage would be done at high speeds. I've seen a mishap at a certain film society where the projectionist was too busy twittering or something on his laptop to notice the problem, but if the camera is manned, it can be stopped before the mechanism loses the strength battle with the polyester base. Nevertheless, there are high speed cameras that specify a polyester base; perhaps these are the ones that are moving so fast they don't require intermittent movements for exposure. . .

No it wasn't clear to me. :)

No, that is a HORRIBLE idea. If you have even the latest, greatest DSLR, there is a SIGNIFICANT difference between ISO 3200 and ISO 100 in terms of noise. If you want to maintain a constant depth of field, why not stack NDs (0.3ND) (0.6ND) (0.9ND) and try to set a standard exposure for your dimmest, least illuminated scene, and work from that to how much ND you need for your brightest scene? In other words, I would SET your ISO for the dimmest lighting of the movie, then build up ND filters to your brightest scene (although past three stacked filters - still 9 full F/stops - you get noticeable softening) before I would change ISO or lens aperture. EDIT: I see you have no ND filters - buy some! You will be rewarded with a consistent professional look. Only in a music video calling for bizarre changes in noise amounts would I do what you are suggesting. Compression noise is not aesthetically pleasing, just like extreme chunky, muddy film grain.

Adam, I think the issue here is whether whatever incarnation of 5-perf. 65mm is being used as opposed to 16, 35, or HD, not what type of 65mm camera is being utilized by production. It is funny if someone is feeding off of poster's frustration. Generally I only reduce myself to such trickery on or around the 1st of the 4th month of the year.

I am not the keenest on different types of lenses, but I always like to shoot color charts of each lens and each emulsion batch to at least eliminate color balance variables automatically. I've heard the look of the Cooke line is, in general, softer than something like a super-speed, but I have never had a chance to shoot with Cooke lenses personally. Having worked with softer Angenieux 12-120mm glass from the early '70s, I've learned that the "sweet spot" is almost always 2-1/2 F/stops down from wide open, which may or may not work with your lighting and location. Do you have zooms available for the Arri? If not, one can always shoot a quick test the first day and see how the dailies look, go from there to decide whether or not to use it. Set up the A-Minima and the SR simultaneously, and even worst case if it is unacceptable, you won't lose any of the scene.

Well, why not try to confine each to different parts of the shoot? I wouldn't recommend cutting together a scene with different emulsion batches, let alone different stocks if you want a consistent look. For instance you are doing a dialogue scene in a shed, shoot that on '17, and then use the '13 to shoot the car chase and gunfight that follow. . . There'd probably be a smaller difference than you would think, though. Of course, you make a good point about editing changes, but as long as you aren't shooting coverage of the same scene with different stocks, I doubt even a trained eye would notice it unless you pointed it out to them.

Not true here. Kodak has a proud tradition of USING its patents. Look at the long line of innovation they came up with: From the first movie films in the 1890s to some of the first digital cameras, polyester film, color negative, Kodachrome, the stocks for technicolor, the first films to land on the moon, Super 8, Cineon, the Kodak picture CD in the '90s, and a lot of things I am not remembering too well late on a Friday night. Kodak has had a lot of CURRENT INNOVATIVE IDEAS LATELY, that that ink peddling buffoon running the country has killed on the vine.

Not true here. Kodak has a proud tradition of USING its patents. Look at the long line of innovation they came up with: From the first movie films in the 1890s to some of the first digital cameras, polyester film, color negative, Kodachrome, the stocks for technicolor, the first films to land on the moon, Super 8, Cineon, the Kodak picture CD in the '90s, and a lot of things I am not remembering too well late on a Friday night. Kodak has had a lot of CURRENT INNOVATIVE IDEAS LATELY, that that ink peddling buffoon running the country has killed on the vine.

Sorry John, am going to have to disagree with you here: The only thing MAKING Kodak money is their film. They haven't lost nearly the market share in MoPic imaging as they have in other areas to Fuji. I hear with color photographic paper Kodak only has 30% of the market share on its home soil here in the United States. Pretty pitiful figure! I don't agree with this practice (of mandating Kodak) but I hear some US networks require 35mm Eastman Kodak neg. for television shows. HBO may be the one I am thinking of. I don't agree with them mandating Kodak, but good for them mandating 35! They want the highest calibre for their audiences unlike the movie studios :-/ I swear, what I am seeing for some of these 3D movies, what is the latest 3D shark movie out? This summer's "Pirhana 3D" they must WANT IT to look bad. They've got to, they've got to be making fun of themselves, the genre, something, right? Back on topic, I'd be curious to see the breakdown of numbers between Kodak and Fuji marketshare of cine film sold. I remember David saying something about Fuji not having the physical size or capacity to actually coat enough for the world market at least before all the theatres went digital. I would assume even with the loss of clientele, they would still get a net gain in production from say '08 if they had to take world color film production upon their shoulders. It appears that Lucky Film, checking their site, is still in business so I was wrong there. Movie film or bulk film had disappeared though, so they may be out of that market. I remember at one time their manufacturing ECP. Looks like it's back to Agfa-Gaveart, Fuji, Kodak again.

Phil, I agree with your feelings on patents, but I don't think that is what Kodak anticipated happening to their patents when they filed them. Unfortunately, they seem to be going off half-cocked trying to compete in inkjet printing, as if this is going to somehow save the company. I think SELLING their patents is foolish. I think there is a lot that they can use them for in manufacturing, engineering new devices. But whatever they decide to do, their film segment is still one of the only profitable ones in the entire company. If these potential buyers want, as I fear, nothing whatsoever to do with this segment of the field, they should spin it off to someone who does care. . .

Because they anticipate it being sold off and or bought out? That's hardly an increase to be proud of. . . And if you'd invested your life savings in Kodak stock in, say 1997, your life saving would be gone. Kodak was worth nearly $100 a share then.

I have called, e-mailed them about film processing starting in 2008 with no response. As far as I know, they got out of it in '08. Kodak's dying spells a destabilizing moment in color photography; it's a race to the bottom at this point folks, with Fuji being given leverage to cut their products with a total lack of competition. Kodak going under will have a destabilizing effect on ALL film-based photo-chemo-optical imaging, and could hasten its demise. I only hope Kodak's ONLY PROFITABLE SEGMENT can be spun off at this point and allowed a fighting chance to die with some dignity, not being dragged down by deadweight digital products. Anyway, Daniel, I wouldn't make such light of it. . . (P.S.: Several of the respondents of this thread should take careful note to the remarks I made prior to this article, all which were based upon, unfortunately true rumors I heard about EK Co.)

John: It's possible that's what I worked with. I just know it wasn't three bladed from when we had to re-time them to eliminate ghosting.

I think it's a gross oversimplification to say that ALL cine projectors have double-bladed shutters and project 48 times a second. I've been to several that had standard shutters.

Chaqrles, are you a potential buyer or a former customer? I've had the last roll of film come off the processor (or close enough) at too many labs for my taste. Either of you know what the customs situation is with equipment from Canada to the US? Definitely see equipment worth acquiring. Don't have a current passport though and don't know if they are even willing to ship. I'm sure I'll be calling.

Brian, I fear you have answered a homework assignment! B)

I got yelled at, last movie I worked on, for bugging the DP too much about some emulsion batch discrepancies in the film he ordered. "You don't even have to worry about emulsion batch differences anymore," one of the ACs told me. Nevertheless, I tried very very hard to keep the few oddball cans we had of '07 confined to inserts, and locations with a short amount of screen time; this is with new film. I'd recommend you get all old stock clip tested, and, if working with different batches, try as hard as you can not to mix an emulsion on a location, especially without shooting a grey card and Gretag/Macbeth color chart. If you shoot these charts for each location, properly illuminated by your key light of course and not washed out, you can as-closely-as-possible with film time out any discrepancies short of severe age fogging. On neg. film, those RGB numbers you get, status M densitometer numbers translate so that roughly 0.17 or 17 points is equal to a camera F-stop, due to neg film's low contrast. The number of points over ideal that you are getting in base fog is roughly what I would try to overexpose to overcome age fog, but again, with matching it, you'll get contrast, shadow, highlight detail differences that could become objectionable. Even with a skilled camera crew that actually knows this sh__, you may want to avoid the hassle of having them juggle different emulsion batches. Unless they have an "it'll be fine" attitude (ignorance is bliss, after all) it adds a lot of stress to production having to worry about running out of individual batches of film in addition to different stocks.

I mean corrected to neutral on a grey card. I want to say that Fuji neg. masks have less yellow in them. Problem with Fuji is/was that the mask densities were far more inconsistent from stock to stock than Kodak. This may have changed, though. Almost the opposite is true with their intermediate films. One wonders if this is due to trying to contribute as little generation loss, contrast buildup as possible, even within a single color layer, so "adding the opposites" in the color mask might help keep grain buildup down?

The look of Kodak isn't warmer BECAUSE it's in a yellow box. If you shoot identical scenes on Kodak and Fuji, and correct a grey card back to neutral, the fuji tends to have trace magenta in the face with the other tow colors neutral, the Kodak is almost more of an orange. There are subtle differences between the two. I think the "box" analogy is just an easy way of remembering it. I've never heard it said "because" they are in those colored boxes that is what caused the differences. Of course we're just talking about ECN here. VNF, E-6 is/was a whole other ballgame. The Kodak Ektrachrome line of films was always aimed at being more nuetral (often with a blue bias or a cool look) whereas Fuji was more vivid. Even 5285 is pretty tame compared to Velvia.

Last night, I posted "digital soundtrack systems" and I meant LED analog readers. PM me and I can give you some contact info for soundtracks that could do a far better job of explaining it to you than I can.

Good man. I didn't say this before, but I would recommend printing film as many opportunities as you get while there is still time. It has really gotten that bad. . . :_(

I'm no expert on HD media of any kind, but everything I hearrd at the ACVL conference suggests LOT is NOT a good archiving optionn, it's an expensive finicky one like many other bad digital technologies. I think the later generation LTO has gotten better, but there are like 3-4 year windows before they star failing. Hell VHS tape was good for 10 years with the library of congress. Surely someone can do better? I am no expert on this, going to have to consult the notes of what I've heard, but that was my general impression. There's short, medium and longterm archiving. Why not some densitometer numbers on a piece of acid-free paper with acid-free ink instead? They can be converted into 10-bit log cineon numbers easily. You can immediately determine your fade (not that you should get any medium-term with proper storage conditions). Keeping it low-tech has some real advantages over the long term. That being said, I recently survived an Act of God that would have wiped out all the advantages of analog storage over digital had I not moved all of my stuff out of the basement floor at the office. You can throw film in water if it is wet and rewash with minimal to no impact, but if you can't get to it in time because you have a million feet down there. . . Digital would fare better I would think. It doesn't get along with water at all, but can be recovered easily in these situations. A long length of film in a can can be surprisingly fragile when exposed to the elements. . .

Diversifying your portfolio, sure Bruce, I can see that. Businesses almost all have to have loss leaders. And if you're renting equipment it's definitely a wise idea to offer both sorts of equipment in the big markets (film - either 16 or 35 or both depending on where you are - digital - RED HDSLR Pany) Shooting your own independent films with ANY equipment (film, digital, analog) it just ain't gonna happen. If you have more than 100 days of shooting independently every year or so, then owning is worth it. How many cinematographers, cameramen actually do that though? They DREAM of doing it. Owning the equipment is not the impediment that prevents their getting there. I'd sooner own LIGHTS than cameras. You'll need them on every shoot unless you are going with "12,800" on your DSLR ;-)