K Borowski

"Film projection is now useless." Sorry, I am going to have to call bullsh** on this one. Because some sound rack was improperly installed or some minimum wage, untrained vidiot up there twittering on his iPhone 4 instead of marvelling at the 20+ miles of precision 35mm film dancing all around them has dropped the ball, you're going to blame the FILM for the problem? Don't blame the 2K masters used to make film prints either. You sound like Dolby Labs. Because every step of the mastering process in the photo-chemical workflow has been compromised, that somehow proves that a 4th generation 35mm print on '83 or '14 (either of which can easily be able to resolve 4K, encode the latest, greates 25 channels of mixed stereo sound with 10 subwoofer channels) is the problem. I won't even comment on sound. Sorry if this is your line of work, but sound is in all ways secondary to the visual experience. Movies existed long before synchronous sound was even perfected. I like a good score as much as anyone, but most movies are recorded MONO, with one boom mike. All the "surround sound" "stereo sound" is artificially mixed together. Not that I would like being in a mono house with muddy sound, but I still cannot understand people who go to movies for the audio first, seemingly. That'd be like going to a rock concert with the costume design anywhere but at the front of my mind. I don't advocate throwing anyone anything under a moving bus, but if you are going to do it anyway, make sure you throw the RIGHT thing under the bus. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Umm, well, it is a Mission: Impossible movie. What do you want him doing, jockeying a desk? I'm pretty sure that Mr. Cruise did NOT do his own stunts off of a building either, unless it involved a less-than ten foot fall.

So it will be at 75-80° for 5 hours (22-25°C). How is that going to be, in terms of effect, any different than it being in a magazine on set for four or five hours? You'll be fine. Even if it were taken out of the can with just the black bag to protect it will be fine. Left a 100-foot can of film in a car lastd summer, unknowingly, for better part of a MONTH (it fell out of a box with more film that got taken into the house while I was on travel). Isolated the roll, threw it in the freezer (think it was 320 or 400D), read it after doing a clip test, and it read IDENTICALLY to the film that hadn't been baked for a month. Now, that being said, after you've breathed a sigh of relief, I am going to have to be a bit of a buzz-kill. You mention "clean" 7219 will, by no means, be CLEAN in any way, even if you rate it at EI 250. 16mm and 500-speed will produce very grainy results, especially in 1080P HD. I'd recommend 250 or slower with 16mm for footage that isn't noticeably grainy. BTW, if you want to do a clip test, and the film was insured for shipping, maybe cut 4-5 feet (120-150cm) from the head of the roll and test it and get UPS to reimburse you for that cost. Ultimately, they should have known better if the package was clearly marked as containing film, and, despite my anecdotal account, I'd probably still test in this situation if it were for something important, just to have peace of mind. Unless there is a huge time crunch, I always try to shoot some sort of test with each new emulsion batch I work with.

No they don't! They generally just want it to fill the screen, no matter how much they stretch, distort, or otherwise mangle the image. Why would "Joe 6-Pack" want something physical when he's traded in his CDs for an iPod and a Frostwire or a Youtube to MP3 converter? With smartphones starting to saturate the market (even getting old school folks like me), you can't NOT have a digital camera, MP3 player, digital camcorder. I agree the quality of downloads leaves a lot to be desired (then again, so does my cable HD service, because they compress the HELL out of it, and there are many people working at television stations, like A&E ahem ahem who SHOULD know better than to mangle the image for Joe 6-Pack's tastes but don't. Starz is committing crimes against many fine Scope movies daily ;-)

I'd be interested but you are on the wrong side of the border and the wrong coast of the Canada ;-) Any other specifics you can provide? What are you shooting on? What types of locations will you be shooting in? Good luck finding good crew! P.S. is that $1000 CDN or USD? Used to prefer USD, but these days with China owning us, CDN is probably worth 20% more again!

Annie's actually a *Ginger* now Cap'n! Anyway, Paul was the "chief perpetrator." And I never said that either of you were "stalking" her. What does the quote say? LOL Ogling and tongue hanging out. You were just the latter, and Paul was both. Even if she ISN'T a Grace Kelly (with all the makeup, costuming etc.) Annie certainly isn't unpleasing to look at; no shame in it, certainly :-D (Watch, she is going to pop up here now and FLAME me for typing this, but I've already gotten in trouble twice in this thread. Why not keep going?) Glad to see you again! Give me a ring sometime (PM me for the number. Don't want to hijack this thread anymore. Would love to hear how labwork, movie production is going. Had a couple of pieces of equip I was looking for personally was wondering if you had and hadn't any use for. . .)

This would probably be better posted in the film and processing forum as it pertains to densitometer values. Anyway I can find any one of a thousand digital color space values, but even on the manufacturer's website, cannot find status M neg values for ECN-2 or Status A values for motion picture print. If anyone has a link or a list of these handy I'd really appreciate it. The Kodak Trudy has posted values for AIM and "flesh" but there are PLENTY of frames of film exposed without caucasian flesh in them! (Interpret that any way you'd like) It's appreciated. P.S. a CONVERSION formula from a common computer colorspace to densitometer numbers would be great too. Only one I know of (that, fortunately for me is not provided in any of the tech pubs I can find) is Cineon, which is 10-bit incompatible with the vlaues I have access to.

No time for a full reply now, but I could get you a formula for starter if you're interested. It is probably listed outright in the Kodak Tech-Pub on ECN-2 processing. I wouldn't be surprised if another process starter (C-41, maybe even E-6, RA-4) would be ALMOST interchangeable (i.e. it would work fine, but you'd have to alter the amount added.) Too bad you're probably 7,000 mi. away. I have a whole plastic container FULL of nothing but starter, starter III for some of these processes (not ECN-2) that I could probably give you half of. We are taking the thread a bit off-topic though. . .

I wouldn't dream of shipping film to the U.S. from Ireland, Australia, unless I flew with it sitting on my lap. At least if there were an accident, I wouldn't live to see it probably. I'd at least get the neg. and some protection done locally. Richard surprised to see there is that much of a price disparity. Double cost, really? Granted film isn't coated in Australia (although Japan is rather a bit closer, probably about the same distance as Rochester is from LA). Are there sever environmental regulations that make processing costs higher? Or is it just a far smaller demand for processing "down under" that accounts for that price disparity?

Alex, God knows I've had to resort to the legal system to get things done from time to time, but can you say "frivolous lawsuit?" That sort of excess is why they're pulling friggin' jungle gyms off of playgrounds tort lawyers and school administrators afraid of people like you! I think the only case he'd have is if he A) weren't paid, or BN) they DESTROYED his master. There's something that happened like that with a pinater whose paingtingt was damaged, or altered intentionally by the owner. I can actcually, to a certain extent see that, but only even there, to a degree. I've shot nothing that has gotten to the point of putting me in that situation, but saw plenty of newspaper photographs in HS , college, that were poorly cropped, printed, and there was always a penchant that the editors had to pick my worst hsots of the take that I submitted! But ultimately it is a job and you get paid for it; movies are never completed they're only abandoned.

Nice last line: Went to give you a "Like" until I realized this wasn't another place, another time. Pesky internet addictions! You know way more about E-6 process than I do. I know they eliminated fomaldehyde, formalin from E-6, thought they'd added it to the pre-bleach. Guess it's incorporated into the films themselves? In any case, EXTRA formaldehyde can't hurt [the film]. I like a little formadlehyde in my stab, even if it has been replaced now by formalin (forms the stuff, but not as good) or something even midler. Watch, those pesky Feds are watching this thread! ;-) By ANALOG gain, I mean illumination. First it's the orange base instead of mask, now it's gain. You're really tough on my improper terminology! But I know the scanner, and if you follow my link, you'll see although I'm not always able to "talk money" I'm not the latter either. I can pull up numbers from our E-6 strips if you'd like. Think they're at least 3.8, but Fuji is higher. I'd assume, not too familiar with '85, but because it is of the "Vivid Saturated" variety, rather than E100G or GX, it will have more exaggerated contrast and D-Max. Where exactly are you located, that film processing is such an oddity? I'm interested in your ECN procedure. I run a somewhat non-standard process myself, using C-41 2ndaries for everything. How do you get around the hassle of 100-L kits?

Hmm, I've found data that suggests 63lp/mm is really really pushing it, but 40lp.mm is a reasonable resolution for 35mm (of course, the things I have read take into account more the THICKNESS of the emulsion than its speed, so clearly there is more going on than just resolving power in determining useful resolution) For some reason the conversion I found is FOUR pixels per line pair. IDK why, reading it five times, but that puts 40 just slightly less than the 85 I saw quoted. Maybe it is pairs of pairs, as I've seen lines per mm quoted as well. Anyway 40lp/mm x4 = 160 pixels per mm equivalent that comes out to 10,400 on a 65mm horizontal plane. Lens resolution for some reason is 0.7 but as we take digital sensor data as the full number, you'd have to take only two thirds of what any digital sensor going through a lens resolves as well. 10K with a slow film, good lens stopped down 2 stops is a pretty good number. So that comes out to 96MP, which I think is at the resolution of the human eye. That agrees with my observation; my eyes are worse than your average viewer's ;-) Here's the article, an interesting, comprehendible take on the very complicated physics involved: http://www.theimage.com/photography/photopg1.htm So, by this count, IMAX is selling 4 TIMES as much bullsh**, to offset the 25% resolution of 4K "replacements." I find this upsetting.

EDIT: Kodak USED TO HAVE stores in all the big cities. They were closed down. Kodak exited the lab business with the closing of Qualex. They probably exited the lab business seventy years ago for movies, when they lost a suit involving selling process-included Kodahcrome in the US. There are no new S8 cameras, therefore Kodak can't sell them. They only sell NEW products. Computers are used by everyone in the U.S. who isn't Amish, 80 years old. S8 cameras are not. I agree with you that Kodak is letting film die. They have extended up to 35mm, which I find really bothersome because they used to spoil 35mm filmmakers. Kodak offering really; exceptional 8mm products is only going to hurt their own sales. S8 is great to learn on, but ulitamately generates Kodak 1/4 the revenue, or a little more sinc ethey mark it up. Why do you think 7201 isn't available in S8 (with the exceptions of those Pro8mm Con Artists). It is simple math that there are what 16 frames of S8 per 4-perf. 35m frame? They'd have to sell 16x as much. Not trying to be a buzz kill, but they don't have the money. Their money is in 35mm. For the longest time, Kodak wanted everyone to shoot 70mm film, 4-perf. scope. They've only finally gotten with the program and even started MENTIONING 2 perf. They've finally got it that, in many ways it's a win-win for them if people can shoot 2-perf. as cheaply as 16mm, except for maybe the labs, and for the viability of formats other than 35mm(pretty sure they cut S8 and 16 from the same slits, so 16mm losses affect S8, just as much, if not moreso). S8 is a loss leader and charity. It gets flim students into bigger, better formats. Phil: Agree with pretty much everything you say, except on the demise of 35mm orignation. With 3D dying faster than 35mm release printing, a lot of the "progress" made has been lost. The Arri Alexa will take a chunk out of the film pie, but there are still TELEVISION STATIONS that mandate 35mm negative. MTV still shoots spots on 35mm in NYC, whereas AMC the theatre chain does not. GO FIGURE there. Anyway I'm not the only stubborn purist that is going to die really Fing hard, so there will be plenty of 35mm holdouts. Matthew, I don't know what point you're trying to make. This thread is about bashing Red, which is just as childish as bashing film. I was not in any way belittling film, just I generally find distasteful giving the other side the same crummy treatment as our camp gets. Where do you gather I DON'T think the other side is generally full of really nice people? You called me out for attacking someone's treating them as otherwise. My chief sticking point throughout this whole silly battle is thta digital wants the WHOLE PIE, always have. They want every industry, every job to be insepatrably linked to their products. I will fight this foolish, arrogant attitude. Phil, you're right that color film may only have 5-10 years left, but I bet you will still be able to walk into a store (may be behind the counter) and buy a roll of B&W film,e ven movie film 100 years hence. Far more interesting than Tom's bet about 35mm origination for features, albeit far harder to collect upon the outcome! I think the only way color will survive is in some sort of far lower-tech technicolor type process, which would have to be resurrected at this point.

Kodak USED TO HAVE stores in all the big cities. They were closed down. Kodak exited the lab business with the closing of Qualex. They probably exited the lab business seventy years ago for movies, when they lost a suit involving selling process-included Kodahcrome in the US. There are no new S8 cameras, therefore Kodak can't sell them. They only sell NEW products. Computers are used by everyone in the U.S. who isn't Amish, 80 years old. S8 cameras are not. I agree with you that Kodak is letting film die. They have extended up to 35mm, which I find really bothersome because they used to spoil 35mm filmmakers. Kodak offering really; exceptional 8mm products is only going to hurt their own sales. S8 is great to learn on, but ulitamately generates Kodak 1/4 the revenue, or a little more sinc ethey mark it up. Why do you think 7201 isn't available in S8 (with the exceptions of those Pro8mm Con Artists). Not trying to be a buzz kill, but they don't have the money. Their money is in 35mm. For the longest time, Kodak wanted everyone to shoot 70mm film, 4-perf. scope. They've only finally gotten with the program and even started MENTIONING 2 perf. They'vew finally got with it, in mayny ways a win-win for them if people can shoot 2-perf. as cheaply as 126mm, except for maybe the labs, the viability of formats other than 35mm.(pretty sure they cut S8 and 16 from the same slits, so 16mm losses affect S8, just as much, if not moreso). S8 is a loss leader and charity. It gets flim students into bigger, better formats. Phil: Agree with pretty much everything you say, except for 35mm oriignation. With 3D dying faster than 35mm release printing, a lot of the "progress" made has been lost. The Arri Alexa will take a chunk out of the film pie, but there are still TELEVISION STATIONS that mandate 35mm negative. I'm not the only stubborn purist that is going to die really Fing hard. Matthew, I don't know what point you're trying to make. This thread is about bashing Red, which is just as childish as bashing film. I was not in any way belittling film, just I generally find distasteful giving the other side the same crummy treatment as our camp gets. Where do you gather I DON'T think the other side is generally full of really nice people? You called me out for attacking someone's treating them as otherwise. My chief sticking point throughout this whole silly battle is thta digital wants the WHOLE PIE, always hve. They want every industry, every job to be insepatrably linked to their products. I will fight this foolish, arrogant attitude. Phil, you;re right that color film may only have 5-10 years left, but I bet you will still be able to walk into a store (may be behind the counter) and buy a roll of B&W film,e ven movie film 100 years hence. It is simple math that there are what 16 frames of S8 per 4-perf. 35m frame? They'd have to sell 16x as much

David: I have to disagree with you here. An OPTICAL PRINT looses 50%. Since we all know contact prints are of a higher quality, I can't see, worst case you loosing more than 20% of the resolution. You'll loose values in the D-min, D-max of the neg, but if we are talking about spatial resolution, there's no way a CP's losses are that high. Aren't IMAX prints also printed frame-by-frame, as opposed to being run on a continuous motion contact printer? Where you'd conceivably loose a little bit more is with one of these machines, cranked up to maximum speed to churn film out. I've read an article, I think one posted by someone on here, that shows the horizontal resolution is significantly higher than vertical resolution on a 35mm release print due to these practices. Maybe I am wrong and IMAX prints are churned out as fast as possible as well. Then again, this is the fault of the industry, not a technical problem with the medium itself. As far as 35mm goes, even at 10% loss per generation, the ONLY form of 35mm content that has conceivably gained resolution since the advent of the DI is the Super 35 blowup process. Scope and Flat movies have lost near 50% of the release print resolution. . . due ENTIRELY TO THE 2K DI. Let's give "credit" where credit is due: poor laboratory quality control, equipment cranked up way past its recommended speeds, and lazy DI, low-res. files. I need to look up the image area of IMAX again. I know it is smaller than 58x65mm, which is what I quoted. So my numbers may be a bit high, if only because I forgot the exact negative dimensions. Even 10K with the best glass (say rehoused Hasselblad or Fujinons) may be a bit high. At 4x3 dimensions 8K is 48 megapixels, 6000x8000. I think this agrees with 85lp/mm. I forget if you multiply this number by two for calculations, as there are PAIRS of lines. Then again, plugging that into a 22x18mm scope frame gives a number that is so low it can't be right, think might be less than 2K, so I think in some ways the resolution is adequate, but in other ways it is far too conservative an estimate. I think 8K is *good enough* but agree with you on the excess factor. My experience watching the film "The Dark Knight" were that the camera (or contact print of the camera negative ;-)) was out-resolving what my eye could've seen were I up in the helicopter instead of the IMAX camera. I want this experience to remain if they expect me to continue to travel to other states to see Chris Nolan movies. . . EDIT: Missed your comment about 2K. From a 2K file, a *Blu-Ray* is significantly better than a 35mm print, even with just 10% loss per generation, you are down below 1500 lines starting with a 2K master. Using 10% per generation and starting I think it was 3.2K for negative, you were down around 2.5K as the best possible scenario for a 4th generation release print. Still don't understand why 35mm RPs are 4th generation, there should be a high-speed laser film recorder that goes straight onto ECP right now to combat the digital trend in the lab industry. They have just allowed it to die, they aren't doing anything to fight back. At most why not make only 2nd gen copies from 2K files. Even there you are worse than an HD movie delivered on a harddrive, but at least it is close.

http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=51425&st=0&p=349600&hl=+paul%20+korver&fromsearch=1entry349600 A few posts into this thread several industry scanners are compared for OD range obtainable.

IDK why C-41, ECN would not produce stable results in E-6 because of a stabilizer. Both of these processes have stabilizer steps, C-41 right at the end. Not saying there aren't compatibility issues, but they are NOT due to a lack of a stabilizer steps, probalby, as you said Daniel, the color developing agent differences, or different dyes, incomplete blixation in the 2ndaries. As for a MOVIE lab CUSTOM MODIFYING CHEMISTRY, come on. How can you do that on a 52 U.S. gal. developer tank? If that sort of thing is going to be done, you either have to do it yourself, or find someone like Martin Baumgarten who specializes in custom hand processing to do it for you. IDK if even he would want to monkey around with mixing up a custom developer from scratch. There are a lot of interesting options with XProc., but they are definitely limited by the logistics of a cine processor. And seeing into the blacks with standard E-6 processing, will be an issue, I'm telling you, because I've seen it with my own eyes; the scanners used being optimized for neg. will have similar issues at many other movie labs.

? My $60,000 film scanner at work has only 3.3 OD (yeah, "more" a stop more), and it has a transparency mode. IDK what the maximum obtainable d-max is on E100VS, but I assume it's over 4. That's the case with several film scanners I've observed in use at labs I've seen posting on here as well (won 't name names, but I've seen that quoted as a GOOD NUMBER. Since most mopic work is done with neg. films I assume many labs have felt even lower numbers are adequate; 95% of the time they are right too. So I wouldn't assume that, anecdotally, because XXX scanner does X.X OD, that a more expensive cine film scanner will do more, just because it costs XXXXx more. Even if the spirit can adjust its analog gain up or down six camera stops, that doesn't expand its dynamic range unless it is running multiple passes.

I know there is some new equipment out there, Simon, coming out for archivists and such I assume, but it's been almost a quarter century since mainstream cut-film editing died. "Murder She Wrote" was the last TV holdout (off the air 15 years) and I think there's still a few holdouts in the movies. What Brian said about durability; these aren't like iPhones 4, they last forever! (Of course, you know that.) If you decide still to go ahead with it, you're competing against industry standards, so it will be tough. I'd cater towards the archive market, rather than for new production, maybe find something appealing to film schools as well. I'd think for the latter though you'd want to deal with 16mm. Overall, I'd think more hand-cutting of films business is out there to be had for 16mm

I do know that you want to up the gamma of the monitor (and, yeah, desaturate it) as B&W tends to have a bit more punch than neg. film. As for adding XX grain, good luck ;-)

@Andre, that was pretty funny. You realize though that that is the forum sensoring a certain substitute for the word "butt."

Georg :-) As far as an OPTICAL copy, are you talking about a contact print, or an actual optical (through a lens) copy? I'd agree with you a 4K, even a 2K will be better than optical, but NOT with a contact print. Those are very sharp. As far as my percentages, that is a guess. I don't have access to the equipment to measure myself. I do a lot of 1:1 optical printing and I know that this method looses a lot. I actually HATE optical printing, and wishI could transition everything to optical; the equipment just isn't available.

Sorry, alcohol has nothing to do with my criticism of your attitudes. A little early here for it, anyway! Not high noon yet, but I am shaking with anticipation when I can crack open my first can in the daily 24-pack. Sure beats drinking listerine, Sterno. You want to write an informative, thought out comparison of different cameras, formats, publish a PAPER, I am all for it. But this thread you are launching personal attacks, taking pleasure in another's bad fortunes (probably temporary until they come out with a contender). You've come to the opinion I have a particular liking for this camera, I don't. I liked the movie "Knowing" and the way it was photographed, looked, and you POUNCED on me for it. Look at my thread on ACVL and you'll see where I stand. Those photos of folks gathered around the Alexa? I had a similar expression on my face. I admit my conflict of interest, but get away with it, I think, because I have specific legitimate gripes. All I see is you reveling in these flaws. So what is the point of this thread other than to bash? This is as senseless, tasteless as someone driving around Rochester with an Arri Alexa and shooting themselves dancing on George Eastman's grave, heckling out of work former employees, doing wheelies in the Kodak parking lots (that are so empty the minor league baseball team uses them now), and gleefully interviewing people about the digital revolution and how it has revolutionized their lives. It is natural to take pleasure in a rival's pain. I'm guilty of it myself on occasion, but you take it to an extreme sir and that is what I object to here. I just got criticized for being so negative, I'm not. I am hopelessly, romantically positive about film! The only thing I'm negative about is camera stock, and that has its advantages in my line of work ;-) Negativity is depressing, contagious, and ultimately counterproductive. Instead of a negative thread about Red, howabout a positive thread about the Alexa? That's all I'm saying.

I am sorry to hijack this thread, but I want to clear the air here, since you want to follow me around now criticizing me, Matthew. IDK how this has anything to do with being PC, being childish. Now you're following me from thread to thread. If you want to "duke off in the back alley" let's do it like men, off of other people's threads, OK? Truce? As for Paul, he and I had a falling out, he died, but now it has been a year and I am not going to bite my tongue and pretend he didn't do these things. I didn't specifically single him out; thought he was divorced at the time, anyway, so don't even see how I disparaged his integrity if he was single at the time. . .

Texts can be useful things. I've texted projectionists to tell them to FIX the focus at certain theatres (being on the inside hath its advantages), saving me the trouble of getting up and interrupting anyone's "buzz break." As for "harshing a buzz, man" give the kid a break, maybe he was, cough cough, sick. Let 35mm print die? Those 16 yos are working up there because they get padi sh__. They can't pay the price of ONE TICKET an hour to a dedicated projectionist. Smaller theatres don't have that problem around here. The former owners of the four-screen in town STOPPED BEING SHIPPED FILM when the cinemark was built down the street. They eventually bought an eight screen down the street. Walked around, toured their booth, not a single scratch, focus problem, flicker problem (except for one he was getting ready to change end of a show). Incredible what throwing just a little bit of money at the problem will do. Don't throw 35mm under the bus, throw cinemark, 27 yo GMs 19 yo managers being in charge of projectionists, and $7.84/hour pay to run 32 mi. of film around upstairs for the "precision work."