K Borowski

Wasn't it a commercial failure? Then again, a lot of my favorite current movies have been the same. "Synechdoche, NY" comes to mind. A lot of people called it pretentious. Roger Ebert named it one of the greatest movies of the 2000s. No that is not why I like it, but I suppose it lends credence to the pretentiousness argument ;-) For better or for worse, a lot of artists aren't accepted in their own times. There is a long list of movies that had limited success but enjoyed widespread fame and even rereleases in later years. I won't lie, I find "Kane" a bit dry at time, but there are some moments of real suspense, and some very very clever photographic tricks going on that I really appreciate! I love movies that aren't aimed at the IQ 80 or the semi-preoccupied twittering teenie bopper. I like movies that tell stories that don't have neat endings, easy-to-understand meanings. I don't think it has gotten worse, just the bad movies have been lost, thrown in studio bonfires, swept under the rug, but I am really annoyed with the formulaic approach to storytelling. Movie X did well so let's add twist Y and use Z instead of A as the lead actor. There was a zombie movie out whose trailer at least was very clearly likening it to "Gattaca" a couple years back that really disappointed the hell out of me.

Well, that would certainly be cheaper, but compared to a 2nd gen contact print, you realize you'd be throwing out a huge amount of resolution, especially if you shot 4-perf. I mean, how many seconds, or minutes of footage are you talking about? I will get flamed for this, but there is nothing wrong with just having an analog stereo track. I forget if there are compatibility issues with B&W film and any digital soundtrack systems; I don't think so though. Keeping those densities at spec. makes any pushing, pulling extremely hazardous to sound quality. There certainly is a practical matter with all of this in keeping the sound pristine. The digital sound systems are all proprietary ($) anyway. I'm no expert on sound, but if you wanted any digital sound at all I'd find the cheapest supported and stick with it. Personally I like DTS as it is just a sync pulse and you can burn as many copies of the CDs as you want. I look at it as you have to fix the problem anyway, you can film-out in almost real time, why not do it, unless it's more than 20% of the movie? I am SURE you can cut the two pieces of footage together and make a strong argument for a redo. Just FYI, I was wrong, they do still make acetate release printing stock, at least according to Eastman Kodak's website.

My parents were not film snobs by any means, and they both loved Citizen Kane. Then again, they didn't grow up with cheesy barrages of explosions and other action movie cliches that are almost a requirement of cinematic storytelling now. Oh, and no shakey camera, steadicam, scenes that last more than 3 seconds before a cut, how dare they actually have FUN making a movie? (Instead of shooting a thousand angles of everything and making the crew's life a living hell. . .) Tom, what about "Kane" is dated? Don't you dare say B&W :ph34r:

No, my apologies, I completely missed the B&W reference when first reading your post. Think the only thing new about it is they switched to polyester base. Unfortunately, B&W print stock doesn't have the quite handy ability to be printed through either yellow or magenta filtration to alter contrast, like B&W paper does. Are you doing a large run of prints? What sort of soundtracks are you doing? You *are* going to have silver sound (wonder if this is an issue now for LED-equipped theatre sound-heads), but I think the B&W process is a single developer as well, although I assume you can get far more range up or down pushing and pulling with B&W than with color ECP stocks. You also won't get color shifts, not that I've observed them anyway with ECP. David: Schindler's list was before Polyester. IDK about the other two. Unless Francisco got access to an expensive ultrasonic splicer (or an expensive charge for someone else doing the work) it would have to be tape splices for the prints, which aren't ideal. Do you know if Schindler used cement splicing? Problem with tape is that it is visible (tacky, amateurish way to deal witha $1500 piece of film IMHO). If the changes really are "drastic" as you put it, there must be a huge amount of added contrast; your only way to fix this in a professional manner will be to redo the shots and re-film out. All this other discussion is academic. I think you have a strong argument to have the work redone for free, at the very least at cost. B&W is a far easier animal to work with than color and they still mucked it up? It almost sounds like they somehow incorporated the LUT into the actual output file, like a "double film gamma" treatment. I forget what the print-through and actual gammae of B&W are. I want to say they are higher than the ECN-ECP system.

I remember seeing some Kubrick documentary where he was pissed off at this practice. Then again, someone here pinted out, the man seldom ever seemed to need his own time to "recharge."

Am I missing something here? 2302? 2383, 3514, 2393 and I forget Fuji's other stock designation. I work with print and intermediate stocks almost every day now, but I'm not familiar at all with 2302. Sounds like a color separation B&W panchro neg number, but I am guessing. Forgot to add, you can FLASH print stock too to lower contrast. Dominic Case mentioned doing this in the film-for-TV days before they came out with low contrast print stocks. This will bring up the higjlights instead of lightening the blacks, like a pull would. I think digital soundtracks would be fine with a slight deviation from AIM density, but not analog tracks, especially now that they're cyan and there's no silver retention and soundtrack redevelopment to either silver or high magenta. Keep in mind my only soundtrack work is 16mm silver tracks, so take this with a grain of salt.

If someone DROPPED THE BALL in the DI, I'd demand they re-do it. I think I saw something similar to what you describe as your problems here in "Dumb and Dumber" so I've seen DI shots not match the rest of the film in some pretty big-budget stuff (albeit early '90s stuff). The only way you could conceivably change contrast with print or intermediate stock is pushing or pulling it NOT something that is really done at all these days. With ECP (2383 or 3514 DI Fuji or Agfa) you can really only LOWER contrast, and it is not something you could get right on the first try. I don't think it's feasible as it would alter soundtrack densities on a print. I can't go into it in detail, but 2383 is already maxed out with a standard process, not sure about 3514. Intermediate stocks can be pushed though. Can you describe what was done with the DI filmout, what stock used, what colorspace? Maybe I can be of more help if you are more specific. Was it CRT or a laser recorder?

"The American and British People are two peoples separated by a common language!" -Patton quoting I want to say George Bernard Shaw?

TOT

Film is NOT going strong anymore. It has lost almost FIFTY PERCENT of its print stock customers, mostly over the course of this past year! Look at still photography. The quality of digital *still* not being up to the medium format film that used to dominate there did nothing to stop an almost complete conversion to the former. A lot of "labs" don't even offer film processing anymore, and now the digital juggernauts have their sites set on ridding the world of pesky "chemical" photographic paper, even though it is cheaper, and of an overall higher quality! Again, emphasis on "chemical" "analog" paper. Good thing all these heavy metals and pigments used for inkjet, computers are good for the environment, and they are so energy friendly! BTW, the professional standard of 300DPI bottlenecks the resolution of an 8x10" print to 7.2MP, very effectively less than what you could do with chemical, celluloid, analog film. Much the same abortion of image quality is happening with bold new two THOUSAND line digital projection. Practically every bea up 35mm print could offer you better except S35 blowups ten years ago. We are entering into a bold new era where everything has to be on your smartphone. No more pesky dedicated devices, solid glass optics, heavy (more than 1 lb.) cameras, thank God! There is a massive, concerted effort to steal every last cent of the photographic industry's profits. God forbid anyone do anything without a goddamn chip planted somewhere in the process. A lot of the "improvements" I hear touted for why "I'll never shoot film again," are laughable, too. Almost every single one is a paraphrased sales pitch or marketing slogan. People love to spend all of their money on "new" and "easy" and "better" for some reason, not for a second stopping to look at the big picture, or the bottom line! Why actually compare the product you are about to buy to what you've been using, either? Why not just buy into the "common knowledge" that everything digital is great, new, fun, happy, a beautiful sunset on the beach with your drink in your hand and the low tide coming in, and everything analog is sh__. Not that film companies don't have their moments of sales brilliance. Kodak loves to tout itself as the "King" of the industry the "best." Their films still have the same horrible color fading problems, half the stability of FujiFilm, but Kodak is "premium" more exensive, all the big boys use it, so it must be better. A lot of ways this is like Coca Cola. The funny thing is. . . BOTH of them will often undercut the competition (FujiFilm Pepsi) with the big boys, undercut on price to the people that don't need it. They then turn around and use this "proof" that they are the best, and charge a premium to the little guy. Kodak then turns around and basically burns their AgX profits on the front lawn. At least Fuji seems to be in a position to survive. I hope the big K gets its act together or gets the F out and lets the dozen brave souls who are basically responsible for almost ALL of their yearly profits, go down with a fighting chance and some dignity. The way they are milked like a cash cow until the teats are sore and worn out is despicable. They're slashing and burning all the stock selections of their only segment that's in the black!

Yeah, but I could have an IMAX camera and not be a filmmaker either. It's never been about the equipment. I think we're getting way off topic. Cameras as an investment? Never been a good idea, not with hand cranked 35mm, not with Mitchells, not with 16mm news cameras, not with S8 not with digital. Too much depreciation, too many moving parts, too much that can go wrong. Even the RENTAL HOUSES are having trouble with it now the lifecycle is 3 years. . . I'm worried filmmakers will get into a situation where there ARE NO RENTAL HOUSES in the not-so-distant future. Maybe the studios will go back to having their own camera departments.

There's no arguing the slower, costlier workflow. That's why 16mm isn't used for *newsgathering* anymore though. Kind of hard to say overnight dailies that have been an industry standard for 60 years are "too slow." Grain structure, pfft! I like how no one complains about the way that digital is made "clean" by sharpening edges and softening everything else. One could just as easily write a program that did the same "cleaning" to film on a scanner head. If anything, resolution requirements are in freefall. Everything but television has gone backwards in the past decade. The only thing manufacturers are "improving" is their bottom lines. I still can't wrap my head around how, at $12+ per movie ticket, exhibitors can't spare $1500 for a print. Where is the equivalent of widescreen, color, cinerama, 70mm now that 3D is dying a natural death? If anything ticket prices have gotten far worse, far exceeded inflation. What possible reason is there to go to a movie you can own for less with shrinking windows? Haven't I heard some 3 mo. windows between theatrical release and Bluray? The bluray, for all practical intents and purposes will look better than the film print, will probably look better than the 2K with focus, dirty glass issues, operator-less booths. Where's the value in the theatrical experience? There's a practical reason not to offer film though when the nearest lab is 500 mi. (800 km) away. It simply isn't practical to offer film programs with access to 16mm processing being so limited outside of the big cities. There is a valid point to not offering film when the infrastructure isn't entirely there to support it. . .

Cameras in general (I only ever bought one camera new) depreciate like crazy, even the latest and greatest film cameras before all this digital garbage with the 3 year life cycle built in. They're a stupid investment in all but the most specialized situations. Rent them and you will save money 99 times out of 100. I forgot to mention: Kodak is NOT doing well in the suits; they're expected to be thrown out. I heard this at the ACVL conference and I agree: At this stage in the game, any bad rap that anyone in the film industry gives film hurts EVERYONE. Any lab screwup, supplier screwup, price increase, quality decrease, disruption in supply chain, delay in product makes EVERYONE LOOK BAD. So Kodak dying will destroy confidence in Fuji as well, and just give them a faster way to race to the bottom, compromise their own product. I think three film companies would be far preferable to just two. They can both get away with an awful lot now. Compromise this, discontinue that, and the other company can follow suit! Raise prices? The other company will follow suit. Film is still quite profitable, one of Kodak's only money-makers. Their other poorly-implemented technologies, focus on affordable consumer inkjet printing (that is the only mainstream Kodak advertisement I've seen or heard outside of specialized movie film / lab marketing in the past seven years), is dragging film down with them. Unfortunately, Kodak sold off all of their well diversified side industries in a gamble that simply has not paid off. Professional digital cameras, sensors (still make these but very limited), tapes, consumables, medical imaging, digital servers, film scanners, have all fallen by the wayside. They are milking their cash cow, film, and making half-hearted attempts to compete with other companies who are years ahead of them in very competitive, low profit margin markets. They are using the profits they make off of film in a manner that is akin to robbing Peter to pay Paul.

It's like 5000 or 6000 feet long. And they don't make Iinfrared anymore John. Those products were getting down to one master roll per year (forget the math, something like 1/4 or 1/2 a million linear feet of 35mm equivalent) Problem is, that was to make one PRODUCT. When they loose 6 billion feet of ECP, they loose TWO THIRDS of the work. Already, they have (perhaps anticipating this) a wonderfully automated facility. There are basically a dozen people sitting in a room in Rochester who are responsible for one half of the world's color photographic film . A well-placed Tornado or other similar act of God could take it all out. Anyway, they have robots basically doing everything, the human beings just do the thinking, inspecting, interpretation. But, again, 2/3 of the volume means (simplistically) 2/3 of the money. Granted Kodak makes a hell of a lot more per linear foot of 35mm camera neg, or even more for still film in terms of markup, but the company is hungry for money to sell ink jet to people thanks to the HP idiocy they've inherited, err, um hired. Anyway, I don't know the situation with the coating plant as to how far upside-down it is, anything like that, but at least they've basically eliminated the component of human labor costs (never thought I'd hear myself saying that) It's utility bills, upkeep on the robots, equipment, and cost of raw materials coming in. To Kodak's credit, and I don't often credit their decision-making, they have gotten the process as efficient as humanly (inhumanly?) possible. But, God, I never thought I'd see them down to 5 ECN stocks in 2011. Talked to someone the other day, worked for Kodak until December of 2010. They've got a billion cash left, $1.5 billion in liabilities. They are selling their PATENT portfolio. STock is at $2.20 (before this massive selloff, may be below $2 now). They could be bankrupt before the end of the year. They are HEMORRHAGING money right now. Film's about the only thing that IS making htem money right now, but their upper eschelon don't even know what the hell it is/want it to die. They wanted AgX photographic paper dead, laid off their staff, no new R&D. It's declined but one of their biggest profit makers this year. I'm worried it is going down with a sinking ship, idiots at the helm. They haven't been able to make a single, God-damned thing make money for them outside of AgX in the 21st century, sold everything else offf that did, are selling their patents that make them money. What's left that's good to buy when film profits bottom out and the company is underwater, and they pump all the money that film DOES make into endless other dead-end digital avenues?

You're getting he same effect as selective flashing of film. You will lose dynamic range, and detail in the shadows (although, you see this more with age fog that occurs POST exposure). SHadows become hazy, milky, and grain can often be exagerrated. Contrast is reduced. If you're going for a certain look this can be pleasing, but realize this can obscure fine detail and is going to be particularly problematic to work with using either high speed film or 16mm format, or BOTH. I'd definitely shoot clip tests and try to shoot with one emulsion batch if possible, that is all aged to a similar condition. You will get distracting imagery if the grain jumps around from one shot to another having obtained film from a multitude of sources, storage conditions. Of course, you can compensate for a decent amount of age fog with overexposure, but this can give scanners, telecine systems that have become such an integral part of the post workflow a great deal of difficulty, punching through higher densities that could be handled in optical/contact printing without any difficulty at all.

At the same time, handling long lengths of exposed photographic film and protecting them from light, heat, processing mishaps, idiots at the airport, and radiation is not a cakewalk! I'm very adept at handling film, but had a real scare a couple weeks back, there was a power outage at the lab with film in the developer tank. Very easy to make a mistake that costs thousands of dollars in a split second, not that I'd have it any other way. But I still have nightmares (and am told I grumble in my sleep, to this day, about ruining film) about 16mm cameras I started out with, rolls of film unravelling off of reels.

Rich: God knows I get yelled at for making too much light of things at times, but you realize those are REAL figures for best selling items on Amazon UK, right? I admit, still funny in a vain of dark humor. I wouldn't want to bring a metal bat to a gun fight. Personally, I'd really like to have those British Street Urchin Gloves (missing all the fingers), coupled with a nice Cockney accent, telling every passerby that access to the street will cost "Half a Crown, Guvnah!" It's not as if this sort of phenomenon is not without an historical precedent. Indeed, many of our Australian forum members owe their current locales to the 18th Century British Government's solution to this sort of street violence ;-) Phi: Love your outlook. In danger of appearing a bit optimistic as to the riots getting you working? Then again, I can picture you cracking a bit of a wry grin, heading out in the rain, with a beat up video camera (whatever the model, I'm SURE it will be rubbish in one way or another) so you can finally prove the world is coming to an end and the sky really is falling.

Did I just fall into a classic trap? I think I read something about this in "Painting with Light" or "Cinematography" by Malkiewicz (sp? - as a Polock I should know this one). My apologies for the erroneous information. Double fog is actually less of an effect than a fog? Double fog is graded and fog is just one strength? Or did I still read it wrong? If you seldom used anything over the 1 for double fog, was there a 2 double fog? That is an unfortunate choice of filter names in that case.

Use a fog filter! The film was shot 35mm, so I'd stay away from the 500T, no matter how many cool, big numbers, and attractive packaging it comes with ;-) David might be CLOSE to an ASC Magazine walking, talking encyclopedia, but I'd recommend you try to find that issue. I would assume there's an article in there on this film? As this movie far precedes the world-wide web, you'll have to really hit the periodicals to track down detailed information on it. I think it'll be well worth your effort though. Looking back through a big pile of '70s film and photography, I would strongly suggest you shy away from the level of filtration you see there, unless you want a dated '70s look. For instance, if they use a double fog filter, I'd use a single instead. Add to that the reduced clarity of 16mm film, and you don't want to go too heavy on any sort of filtration unless you can settle for a more severe loss in image clarity. To put it another way, shooting 16mm already adds a level of "diffusion" to the look, so I'd go even easier on any sort of sharpness-reducing filtration in the 16mm format than I would rolling 35. . .

Shelly: Sounds like you are the preeminent expert on 3D on these fora. Any reason why you guys in the big leagues don't have enough clout to demand a 4-perf. budget and just resurrect some of those special 2-perf./eye special lens cameras? Seems like there is a bunch of nonsense out there that you need a monstrosity 2-camera HD rig to shoot 3D. I'd think the 2-perf. would still produce more than enough quality for a 1.4K image. In other words, seems like 3D has been quite effectively used to sell a "digital only" as far as camera packages are concerned.

That's what sticks in my mind, too, the fog filters. Very dated today, but certainly an effective, trend-setting look in this film that perhaps led to some less motivated abuse in the future. If I were to emulate the look of this movie, I'd try to dig up exactly what different filtration they were using. Camera, almost nothing to do with the look. Lenses a very small part.

Slow connection here too, but aren't MICROLENSES, by their very design, going to be exremely limited in terms of resultion? Digital this, megapixel that, you are still resolving line pairs per millimeter through glass. I think any technology where the control is taken AWAY from the cinematographer is a bad one. I don't WANT everything I shoot to have DOF like Citizen Kane. Why is fixing everything in post so alluring anyway? Often times it costs MORE money than just making the decision on set.

I only saw the initial response of the DP to Joseph's thread, not the follow ups that I assume got it banned. I think he may have been a bit blindsided and taken aback at the actual director of photography coming in to defend his work! In that sense these fora are almost too good to be true. Where else in all the internets will the Director of Photography of a big budget major motion picture show up to explain, defend, or comment on their own work? :-) I for one will happily accept a modicum of censorship to enjoy this really elite privilege of interacting and conversing with some of the industry masters. And yes, that is biased as being mainstream accepting "the man" and I don't care. Corruption, nepotism and luck aside, these guys really know what they are talking about if they have an ASC (or the like) next to their name and we can all learn from them! Matt: I don't know what caused the thread to be banned; nothing I saw yesterday around noon EDT looked worthy of that, but I can't comment as I assume other things were said afterwards? Maybe Joseph was embarassed and said something more hurtful. I certainly am guilty of condemning a lot of digital movies for looking "digital;" at least as far as my personal tastes are concerned, having seen only the trailer, I saw nothing worthy of Joseph calling i what, the wrorst movie of the year? To be honest, had just assumed it was film from what I'd seen on my 1080P TV.

Since the sound racks are the SAME for digital projectors, how is getting rid of film going to solve blown speakers and sh** repair, minimum wage making, unqualified 27 yo kids (hypothetically) general managing a theatre? How is ill-maintained film equipment somehow magically going to replaced by not-ill-maintained digital equipment? If anything neglect will be far MORE costly, because digital (this is a generalization, but a pretty accurate one) either works or it doesn't. The myriad of issues that plague getting a soundtrack off of film through tangles of wires, cards, readers, and speakers will be multiplied tenfold when it is ALL electronic and there is a far higher tech (therefore far more easily broken) replacement for it.

I have honestly, never once been in a theatre where I felt the need to walk out due to bad sound, not once in my entire life. I've certainly been in theatres where sound is too loud. The only thing I have ever walked out to complain about is focus issues or film damage, projection issues. Did you read the title of this thread? Film projection is now useless due to poor quality. IDK how that has anything to do with the 35mm print. It has to do with poorly maintained ELECTRONIC components, not the photomechanical, reliable, components that have remained remarkably similar to what was brought about in the very beginning of photographic sound. Blown out mono sound? Not the film's fault. How is digital going to in any way eliminate technical issues? It is just as easy to crank a sound rack all the way up to 10 and blow out all of the speakers with a hardrrive as it is with a 35mm projector and a platter.