Jarin Blaschke

I saw 'Rabbit Proof Fence' last night and when Doyle's card came up at the end, I was quite surprised. Throughout the movie I was thinking "What hack shot this? What just plain bad lighting this is." I also recall my same reaction to seeing "Made," especially after a very underexposed/printed up day exterior scene (I believe at a zoo or aquarium - it's been a few years). With such an amazing portfolio behind him, what happened to this guy? I heard he has some worsening alcohol/drug problems but that may just be gossip. Does anyone else have any more info/ opinions on this icon of innovative photography?

Do anamorphic lenses with the 'squeezing' element placed in the back have the same 'ovular' distortion of background elements as a lens with the element in front? For example, using a rear-mounted anamorphic lens with a night exterior, would the lights in the background appear as circles (like a spherical lens) or vertical ovals, (like an anamorphic lens with the anamorphic element placed in front)? If there is such a visual difference according to where the anamorphic element is placed, it seems that a set of anamorphic primes (front) may have problems truly matching the zoom (rear), even if the two are colorand performance matched. -Jarin

Could someone give a primer on the grades of nets and stockings and what to look for when buying them? I've never had a use for them but want to explore my options for an upcoming music video. Thanks. -Jarin

I'm shooting some night scenes using a lot of unaltered location light. I like a hearty negative for good contrast, rich blacks and saturation. To get the stop I need (anamorphic), I figured I should rate either 5218 or 5229 at ei 640 and push one stop. Which stock would be advisable for this sort thing? I imagine '18 will keep better grain but '29 will hold more shadow detail and ease the contrast gained from the push. I may not be able to test on location. Any opinions out there? Thanks. Jarin

I had another thought - I prefer a good healthy negative so naturally I thought to shoot 5218 at ei320, but instead, perhaps I could rate 5229 at ei 500 or 640 and push a stop to compensate for the flatter stock and enjoy the speed increase, still with a hearty negative. Any thoughts on grain issues/ loss of shadow detail? Highlights should still hold, right?

Thanks, everyone. Do the superspeeds veil much - flares I can go with, but a wash over the image would be decidedly bad. How about the other lenses in this regard? Is this even an issue with night stuff? Also - how's the minimum focus on the Hawks? I think I might go rent "Escape From New York" now. -Jarin

I know that the "35mm Only" forum sometimes reads like the "Anamorphic Only" forum, but here goes: A short I will be shooting involves a lot of night exteriors/interiors with a good deal of uncontrolled 'atmospheric' location light playing in the scene - namely in and around truck stops and casinos. I'm shooting '18 at my preferred rating of 320, but from cursory scouts with a meter, I've found that I will still have to use an aperture of about a T2 to *maybe* an occasional 2.8. The director wants 2.35 and I'd love for it to be an anamorphic shoot if possible (for a number of reasons). The questions: In people's experience, which series of anamorphic lenses performs best wide open? Any notes on the Panavision superspeeds (T1.4)? Do the Primos tend to crush the dark areas - spaces miles away in the background that I can't light? I realize that spherical lenses (super35) are much sharper at the open end than anamorphics, but I'm going for eliptical lights in the background and a shallow-focus look, even in the wide shots. We'd also like to simplify the option of making a print someday, however unlikely. Thanks folks. -Jarin

I attended the launch in New York where the projection was embarassingly dim, particularly toward the top of the screen; a Kodak rep eventually admitted that the illuminance was only 6 lamperts. It seemed strange to me that Kodak would go through the trouble of securing an IMAX theatre to screen a critical comparison of the new stocks and then neglect to screen it properly. For grain comparisons, I constantly had to look for bright, smooth areas toward the bottom of the image. It was impossible to really compare how the stocks treat areas of skintone, since faces were even darker toward the top of the screen. Thought I'd rant in case someone from kodak might be reading... Despite these conditions, one difference I could see between the '48 and the new stocks was in saturation. The '48 just looked punchier- it draws you in more, particularly in areas of flat lighting. The grain difference seemed minimal, but again the viewing conditions made it difficult to really tell. It seems sad that the only options for future film stocks will be low contrast and very low contrast. For projects going to print, I'll probably have to get in the habit of force processing everything atleast half a stop.

I'm based in New York and am shooting my first piece out west, using Los Angeles equipment and facilities for the first time. Over the phone, I've found lab prices to be much lower (35%!) and people to be much friendlier and helpful than out here in New York(surprise!). Anyway, I've come down to two labs: CFI and Deluxe. They both basically offer about the same price - within a couple hundred bucks for 20,000 feet. Both reps are very accomidating. What are peoples' experiences with these labs, especially regarding cleanliness of the processed film. This project will be shot on 35 to finish on video. Thanks. -Jarin

Anyone have any information as to how these telecine machines compare, especially as image noise is concerned . I have usually worked on a Spirit but am involved with choosing a telecine house for the transfer. The project is being funded out-of-pocket, so price is certainly a major concern, but quality is more so. Is the Rank that much worse than a Spirit to cost $60 less per hour? How do these machines stack up against each other? We would be transfering to DigiBeta from an anamorphic negative. Thanks. -Jarin

Does anyone have any experience with this filter? I've only read brief bits about it. Apparently it's a yellow-green color and when combined with color timing, desaturates the image. Does anyone know: how much light loss? Does it desaturate some colors more than others? Does it create color-crossover problems from highlights to shadows? Do any other manufacturers make this filter? Thanks, Jarin

Someone please advise as to what Ultra16 is. Thanks.

Thanks, Mitch - have you had any experience with the superspeeds?

A couple weeks ago, I saw Jim Henson's "Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas" (or similar title, sorry) for the fist time on DVD. I thought the look was remarkable, especially considering that it seemed to be shot on video in the 1970s. I could tell they needed to use a lot of fill light and sparks and fire looked very 'video' but overall it was very sharp, clean with a distinctive, dry, desaturated look. Does anyone know what format this was captured on? I'm very intrigued. Thanks. -Jarin

In a couple months I am shooting a 20 minute piece in anamorphic with a few flashback sequences. I have yet to choose my lenses for the body of the material - I've only used Primos before and would love to test the Es and Cs once I can make it to Woodland Hills. By the way - is there a certain person I should speak to there to get a full look at all sets of lenses? Anyway, for the flashbacks, I'd like a much different look - introducing more softness, distortion, maybe some fun flares, perhaps even a select shot or two with some veiling. Basically older, ill-corrected optics. Does anyone have any knowledge/experience with the super speed anamorphic lenses - particularly shooting near or at wide open (exagerating the imperfections)? What can I expect from these lenses? For example, do the lenses display any distortion at the longer end, say the 75mm and the 100mm? What sort of flares can I anticipate? This film might also have very brief distorted flashes from the past. I once did a music video (spherical) where I took a plastic lens from a very old TLR snapshot camera - the piece intended for viewing rather than shooting through, actually. It was a single piece of plasic in worse shape than your typical magnifying glass. I mounted it in a piece of cardboard and measured it's diameter to get a rough f-stop. I then simply held it in front of the open lens mount to shoot abstract images of broken glass. Instead of panning and tilting, I would just move the glass. Really nice - murky softness with glowing hotspots and even some chromatic abberation. Anyway, I might want to employ this technique for some very brief imagery in this film. The only problem is that we are shooting anamorphically and as strange as I want the images to be, I don't want any horizontal stretching. We will have only one camera. Is it possible to obtain just a naked anamorphic element and mount it onto the lens mount? I could then just hold my toys in front of that. Or should I attatch (tape) it to my simple lens? The only other option, it seems, is to do an unsqueezed extraction and just crop 2.39 from that. But I wouldn't expect there to be a standard 35 groundglass available in that ratio(well, maybe, if I expect there to be a mountable, bare anamorphic element somewhere) and most importantly, I'd like to avoid opticals if I go to print. Not to mention all the nice anamorphic artifacts I'd love to get. Anyway, I'd appreciate any and all advice on this strange attempt of mine. Thanks, Jarin

I have a shoot in a couple months with many night driving scenes along deserted roads. I want these scenes to look dark and quite desaturated - as things truly look to your eye in really low light - not simply blue as treated in most films. The dark part I can do - but I'm wondering how to selectively desaturate certain scenes in an organic way, should the film ever make it to print. I believe I once read about a desaturation filter made by Tiffen that was yellow-green in color and when combined with counteractive timing, would kill color - I would expect some more than others (blue and magenta). Does this exist? Does anyone have experience with it? How much desaturation can I anticipate? Do other brands make a similar product (esp. Schneider)? Would it be worthwile to test black and white filters - or would you anticipate them to be too strong? Also, when making such hefty timing adjustments after shooting through such a filter, might there be significant color crossover from highlights to mids to shadows? The only other option I could concieve of would be an ENR treatment to the negative of these certain night scenes. As I understand, this process adds some film speed so I could then pull-process to keep the contrast more manageable after adding silver to the image. Am I correct in understanding that the ENR mostly affects the upper areas of the curve, pushing them higher, and a pull-development also works hardest in this area, holding it down somewhat, although probably not enough to restore normal contrast? Is ENR available for negative processing, or only the hefty bleach-bypass? Also, because the scenes are so dark, most of the information will lie in the low to mid areas of the curve with occasional highlights like headlights. Would ENR do much work with such a negative? A part of me also wonders if a negative ENR might affect the look too much (adding sharpness as well as punch) - it still needs to cut with the rest of the film. Obviously I will push for a good batch of tests, but as usual I'm sure these will be limited (low budget 35mm). I'd greatly appreciate anyone's experience/opinions/expertise. Thanks. -Jarin

When shooting super 16, will a 16mm format lens perform better than a 35mm lens? It never crossed my mind before - I've always used 35mm lenses when shooting 16 in order to get a better array of focal lengths (I love 35mm and 65mm focal lengths in the format for example), but last year I had a super16mm film (shot with superspeeds) blown up to 35 and it was much softer than another film I had seen at the festival blown up, shot with a zoom lens. Previously I had only finished on video and any softness of the image was not nearly as apparent. I also shoot very open - usually around a t2 to get less depth of field in 16mm. I'm sure that didn't really help either. Anyway, I figure lenses designed for 16mm can attain better resolution for that format since they don't have to cover as much film and can get glass closer to the film plane - like a medium format lens can technically atrender more lines per millimeter than a large format lens when shooting still photography - but it's image is enlarged more so this difference is negligable. Is this an accurate assumption? If so, is this enough of a resolution difference to become noticeable? I'd like to pin down why the film was so soft. Thanks. -Jarin