Nate Yolles

Like you said David, this is a "poor mans widescreen." I'm not converting the camera to super35 and for my own projects I'd like to be able to shoot in the 2.39 aspect ratio. It is what it is. That being said I'd still like some of my peer's opinions on the ground glass.

Amazon Film Tools Studio Depot However, I hear the 9th edition is coming out soon... Anybody know?

Exactly, that's the point. I don't want excess distractions running through my finder. Ideally I would have a different glass for 1.85 and 2.39 pseudo-scope like you mentioned. Here's the deal; it's my understanding that the ground glass is not easily accessible in this camera (Cameflex CM3). Please let me know if I have been misinformed.

2.39 would mostly be for my own projects and I'm not exuberant about doing a great deal of zooming, so it does in fact come down to personal preference. I've never framed with a common topline before so I'm simply asking for other's thoughts on the subject. Whether you think tilting with zoom is worth clearing the ground glass of extra lines? Or if the extra markings even bother you, would you find it distracting and hard to choose the correct framing when all the action is happening?

I understand the s35 and the waste issue. I also understand that this MOS camera won't be the A camera on too many features and probably about 99% to 100% of the footage off of the this camera would be destined for telecine rather than print. That's an excellent point. So now the question would be which is the lesser of the two evils: more clutter on the ground glass or tilting while zooming?

As I mentioned earlier, I've purchased a 35mm camera. Now I'm designing my ground glass for camera and would like some opinions. The glass that is in the camera now is a beautiful piece marked with Academy, TV safe and 1.85, as seen below. I do, however, want to be able to compose for 2.39 as well. Does this seem to cluttered? It was suggested that I just put the edges of 2.39 in. But that might still be too difficult to frame unless someone is riding the frame edge. I could go with a common topline. I think this last one is the best for keeping every ratio while keeping the clutter away. Would it ever be a problem though, if I shot in 2.39 and the frame isn't centered on the negative. When I goto video, in telecine they can recenter the frame - no problem. If I am correct, shooting for print won't cause a problem either. There's an optical step to goto anamorphic anways, so they should be able to recenter while doing that step. Am I missing anything? Did I overlook anything? Do you think that this would be the best ground glass design?

I meant, it would still be cheaper to have the telecine house do the dupe for you.

Yes, they charge a little bit extra to record simultaneously to both tape formats. Although, keep in mind you can work all kinds of deals and prices aren't necessarily written in stone. Typically, deals withstanding, it would be cheaper to telecine to your "good" stock and then dupe that down to your offline stock. People - people on this board - have said that they don't like dupping from one compression scheme to another (ie, digiBeta to miniDV) so they pefer the simul.

Well, for your final product for a professional film, there is no point in shooting 35mm and only transferring to miniDV. You transfer to your professional grade tape stock (whatever you choices may be) and you transfer to something lesser as well (ie. miniDV) for your own purposes. Whether those purposes are for personal viewing, logging, evaluation, and most likely the off-line edit. Keep in mind though that miniDV has it's own timecode so doing an offline edit with miniDV will not give you an EDL that matches your high-res version. You can get the miniDV tape with a DVcam stamp which will make the timecode match, but it won't play in regular miniDV decks, the deck must be a DVcam/miniDV deck.

Your steps 2 & 4 can be combined and done at the same time. You can telecine simultaneously to your high res tape as well as your low res tape or you can do a dupe to a lower format. The dupe is cheaper, but many prefer the simul. Either way, when done this way, the timecode matches between your two versions and that's how your EDL makes work more efficient. Super 35 does use more negative space, the space intended for the optical track. For the most part, people frame for 2.39 when shooting 3-perf super 35. A lot of TV is shot on 3-perf though. As Phil said, if you're doing a DI, costs will be the same in post for 4-perf and 3-perf, the savings will be in the 25% less film shot and thus the 25% less film developed.

You must have the negative developed. No matter which post path you take, the negative must go through the bath. From there you can print it so that it can be projected. OR If you go to telecine it to D5/DigiBeta/miniDV/pixel vision or whatever, you can save some money and skip the printing step by going straight off of the negative - the developed negative. Not to mention that it is one less step in the process to a better finished product.

and would you have the contact information for Mr. Bosher?

Net Flixed it, straight to the top. How'd he survive that picture...writer, director, director of photography and camera op.

Mr. Gross is quite right. I'm paying a little more however, since I'm having a few upgrades like replacing the eclair CA1 mount with a PL mount, adding an extra mag, etc... It's a nifty little camera. It actually shoots both 35mm and 16mm, it's crystal sync with variable speed and it has a variable shutter. Coutard used it to shoot Godard films in the French New Wave. Haskell Wexler, ASC owned one. It is quite loud though.

Well, you could go with cyc lights which are strips of several lights somewhat like broad lights or nook lights. However, their reflector is asymmetrical; so if you hang them along the top of your green screen, they will throw futher down the cyc wall with the same intensity as the top of the wall. Thus your screen is evenly lit even though the lights are only on the top. You can light with sky pans. I've also light green screens with kinos, goyas, and space lights.

As a side note, Apocalypse Now was a "co-winner" tying with great film known as The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel, 1979).

You must process the motion picture film at RGB labs, still film uses a completely different process. I think that it would be rather pointless to test exposures with still film since each stock has its own unique characteristics and it is the different motion picture films that you really want to test and compare against each other. If you take a certain still stock and test it and push it to its limits that's great, but when you go to shoot a movie your film is going to behave differently and you still don't know the limits of what you can do.

It's www.rgbcolorlab.com. They do put Kodak motion picture stock into still canisters. If you want Fuji, you can go down the street a couple blocks away to the Fuji Building. (although if you're shooting 25fps, I don't suppose you're around that side of town) If you take your light reading at 1/50 or 1/48 and set your camera to 1/60, you'll be 1/3 of a stop closed down. You can take the reading and open up the 1/3rd to compensate. With my camera I can set the shutter to 1/45 which is as close to 1/48 as I need to be. I think it is a fine way test stocks for lattitude, over and under exposure. Except I like to see the grain moving.

Despite the fact that the book was written in 1965, I still feel that the majority of the text is valid. ("C"utting obviously became outdated with MTV). You take your two actors and you draw an imaginary line between them (line A). You camera must stay on one side of that line, hence the 180 degree rule. Therefore, Camera A and Camera B are fine while Camera C is not. With this setup you can film each actor in the scene while keeping the orientation correct. The actor on the left stays on the left, the actor on the right stays on the right. If you jumped to camera C, the actors would suddently swap sides of the screen which is completely jarring to the viewer. Now if you were to film someone in the background as a cutaway you can move your axis of action (line B) as long as it stays parallel to the original axis (line A). So camera D which is over your original line is now fine. Mascelli was saying that Camera position D could still have been filmed from over the original line A if you had thrown on a longer lens. By "redrawing" your line, orientation stays the same while you are permitted to move in with the shorter lens. If I remember correctly, "Shot by Shot" by Katz has many diagrams.

Use 1/2 CTO on an HMI (5500) light OR 1/2 CTB on a Tungsten (3200) unit. Either way it comes out to the same color, then add your 1/4 or 1/2 plus green on that.

It's come time to purchase a camera for myself and I'm just curious as to what kind of word of mouth is out there on these two companies. 1) The Optical Electro House in Culver City, CA 2) Visual Products Inc. in Wellington, OH. At the time being, I feel confident with either company. Yet, I am curious as to anybody's dealings with them. Thank you

Use a UV filter on the lens. Your incident meter won't work, so use your spot meter. But remember that the spot reading will place the object at zone V. So if you have an actor wearing a white t-shirt under the black light, spot the shirt and open up to put the glowing shirt in zone VIII to X or wherever you want it. I actually just shot some tests but haven't seen the results yet.

For those in Orange County where it's a little harder to find showings of the classics, try the Bay Theatre in Seal Beach. Bay Theatre Website

That depends on how much depth of field you want. A 1.4's depth will be far more shallow than an 11. Aside from depth, over time many people come to the conclusion that they find an apature that works best for their lenses.

Not necessarily. The grain structure is going to be the same throughout the frame, but it will be most apparent in the midtones and any unvarying portion of the frame (e.g. a large single colored wall). By trying to keep the key to fill ratio low, you are simply controlling your contrast. By opening and closing your iris, you are affecting depth of field. For your apature to key light correlation, you should set the apature according to where you want to place your key light (i.e. a stop hotter, 2 stops hotter etc.) I don't believe there is any connection between the apature and apparent grain.