Bruce Taylor

Introvision International Corporation, Tom Naud. They moved their operation up to the Apple Valley area. I don't have their number, but a little searching will probably yield it. Quite an impressive list of credits. Bruce Taylor

Which is another reason why 2 perf is so great on a project like that, 'cuz you are using fast spherical lenses. Depending on the size of the boat, 16mm does sound like a good idea on your next shoot. Bruce

I know this has already been well hashed over, but I feel the need to comment. Most other industries in the US have strong financial dis-incentives to overwork their employees. Worker's comp insurance rates, the threat of lawsuits and concern for employees well-being work to keep the work day reasonable. The 14-16hr workday should be banned as a health and safety issue. Bruce Taylor

To concur with Paul, 16 and 35 are about the same, except everything in 35 is obviously bigger. I didn't really see the point of director's finders until I started shooting 35, you just don't want to lug those cameras around when looking for a shot. The 2 perf option might be worthwhile, depending on why you want to shoot Super35. I don't have the figures off the top of my head, but 2 perf is approximately the same amount of film area as Super35 when Super35 is cropped for 2.35:1 presentation. If you want to use S35 because of the framing options and various aspect ratios it offers, then you should stick with that. I'm one of those guys that rents those 2 perf cams. I put together a hopefully useful page on 2 perf here: http://www.indi35.com/2_perf_techniscope If your final presentation is on film or HiDef, then other than film stock the costs would be about the same in post for S35 and 2 perf, as neither will yield a contact print. Good luck! Bruce

I was looking the other day and got similar results. I rent relatively inexpensive camera gear, and I also require renters to provide their own insurance- as my insurance carrier suggests I do. To find out what my customers are faced with, I got a quote of between $600 and 700 from Film Emporium. That included $25K (can be increased, of course) in equipment insurance plus general liability for I believe 1 to 12 days of production. Not bad, especially since you get the liability converage you'll need to get permits anyway. If you're a student, check to see if your school will help you here. I found that film schools here often provide insurance certificates for their student's productions at no additional cost. Just yesterday heard of one other possibility. Apparently www.photo.net (http://photo.net/learn/insurance) has a deal worked out with an insurance carrier. A membership costs $25, then you can buy liability coverage at $175 a year, and the coverages are generous- a 2 million umbrella I believe. The sticky bit is they insure your own equipment at $1 per $100 ($150, $15k equipment minimum), but there is no mention of rented equipment. I'm going to contact them to see if they offer coverage for rented gear because their prices are pretty amazing-- if you had $25k in gear you could get a year's worth of liability and equipment coverage for $450. Oh, and the deductible is $250. All commmercial policies I have seen these days have a $2500 deductible. Hope this helps, Bruce Taylor

Paul, I think what has happened is that most of the gear that was flowing out of the former USSR dried up. It's hard to find a lot of the gear now, and prices have risen. Take a nice Lomo lens, put a PL mount on it and it's off to RED land. I guess lots of those guys that bought Konvi never figured out how to come up with an 8.6v battery, put 'em in the closet and went out and bought a video camera. I'm not being a smart-ass either (maybe a little...)! Bruce

Ray, Have you given a thought to the CP16R? I might as well throw in a plug. I have one that I am not using and I need to get rid of it. It can be converted to Super16 (Visual Products), but I don't think that would be a good investment. It was serviced just before I bought it, and I only ran about 1200 ft through it. It's crystal sync, quiet, comes with a sharp 12-120 Canon macrozoom, a couple of batteries, charger, orig case and 2 400 ft mags. The CPs were not elegant machines like the Eclairs and Arris, but they work well and are inexpensive. $1200, and I guarantee if you thread correctly it can make nice pictures! Bruce

Hmmm. I know little about Arris, except that the 16mm Arri cameras from the era of the BL were pretty much the standard of the industry at the time. So there is no doubt an Arri 16BL can be a great machine. I am supposing the Zeiss 10-100 is the f2.8 model, a very good lens for its time also, and a big improvement over the Ang 12-120 that was usually used back in the day. I think it comes down to this, the Arri is in a different class than the Bolex, and you can be assured that repair and service costs will be high, and likely required, to have the camera operating as designed. It looks unlikely that the current owner treated it like someone who made their living from it. If you decide to purchase it, be prepared to put some real money into it, or perhaps find out that it would not be cost effective to repair and/or service. I see lots of great gear being sold on ebay by professionals that take care of their equipment. Their stuff costs more because it usually has more value. I have to admit, I have bought a lot of camera and support gear through ebay. Much of it has been great, some of it required expensive repair, some of it was unrepairable junk sold by people who I like to think didn't know any better. You take your chances. Like used cars, I am better off buying an old car from the little old lady from Pasadena than the third owner that ran it into the ground. Good luck! Bruce

Thierry, I don't know if Sergey reads these posts, so I would suggest you contact him directly on his 2M in St Petersburg if you haven't already. I have purchased a couple of cameras from him, including a new 2M. Mine was everything he promised it to be and I have been very pleased with the camera. Bruce

Hey Paul, That's the guy I met with the old VistaVision camera and projector movements. He told me he paid 80k to have the camera movement made. True? I have no idea, but that's a lot of extremely precise custom machine work. No idea what camera it was made for- his VV camera looked nothing like a Mitchell, it had 2 vertical mags on the top. He used to have a special effects company that did front projection stuff, hence the need for the big negative backround plates and high speed VV camera movements for exploding miniatures. Unfortunately blue and green screen and CGI pretty much put him out of business. Bruce

Do not do that unless you know a lot more about the motor, electronics and power supply!! Yes, "some sort" of ac to dc converter will work, but you need to know which one. Many ac to dc converters are much too "dirty" to use to power dc equipment, i.e. they leave a significant part of the ac sine wave in the signal that can damage dc electronics. So it's probably cheaper, easier and safer to use batteries. I just went out to check and here is what I have for a 12 and 24v power supply that lasts a very, very long time before it is discharged. From Interstate Battery I got the Small U1 battery case, 2) BSL1105 sealed agm batteries which fit well inside the case, and a CTEK Multius 3300 charger (it's a "smart" charger). If you wire them in parallel you get 12v, in series you get 24v. The batteries come with standard spade connectors so you can get some wire and connectors at Radio Shack and put it all together. http://www.hvacmechanic.com/basic_electric...20OF%20CIRCUITS This is a website I found that has the basics you need on circuits. Let me try to write it out here too: To get 2 12v batteries to make 24v, you wire one negative connection to a positive on the 2nd battery, then use the single remaining terminals (one on each battery) for your output. Bingo, 24v. For one double strength 12v battery, wire the batteries positive to positive and negative to negative and take your 12v power from either terminal. Get yourself a cheap volt-ohm meter too, then you can double check your work to be sure you've done it correctly and have the polarity right before you hook it up to anything. Good luck! Bruce

I don't know anything about the Norris system, but I know a little about batteries. Is this Norris system variable speed? If so, it may need more voltage (24v) for the higher speeds (loads). My Russian cameras willl run with 18-24v. The 24v is needed for running the higher speeds (like 40fps), but I can run it with 24v power at any lower speed as well which I often do for convenience and battery life. With an 18v supply they are happy to run at 24fps as I imagine the Norris will be. I have put together some very powerful and inexpensive battery packs using gel cell batteries I get from the automotive battery distributor Interstate, though you can pick them up at many places. They are most common in 12v, so you can wire them in series for 24v, or in parallel for 12v. I picked up a boat battery case, 2 of the biggest 12v gel cells that would fit side by side in it and a rapid charger for about $170, the battery pack itself being about $100 of that. I'm sure the Norris system has some amperage specs too (probably on the plate with the voltage requirements), I can't remember the formulas off the top of my head but it's easy to find the watt/amp/voltage/amp hour formulas on the 'net. On the other hand I figured if these batteries could run some fairly big consumers (like garage openers and other machines) they could handle a film camera, so I just guessed and got some big batteries. If you need more power, you can just get more batteries and hook them up in series. You'll be safe with voltages between 12 an 24 volts. Bruce

I have forgotten the name of the guy who put together and hosted the commiecam site, but he decided to shut it down. The good news is that he gave all the files to the webmaster (Adam Frey) at Konvas.org. Adam has kindly posted the web pages on that site. I had forgotten a detail on Konvas mag threading yesterday, and I pulled up the same great pages on mags that had been up at commiecam. James, you might try a post over at Konvas.org for the 35C anamorphic gate you need, someone might have one gathering dust in their closet. It's all too true that the activity over there has wained. Between the supply of Kinor and Konvassi drying up and the move by so many to the Dark Side :huh: (its a joke!), things have been pretty quiet. Bruce

Exactly. I was asking about the real, true costs of high quality digital and film image capture and manipulation to a high quality presentation, like a theatre screen. As that changes, I wanted to get a reading on where things are now. I suppose it comes down to the old standard, "it depends." A non-DI, film acquired photochemical finish can be less expensive, and if one counts up the extra engineers on a digital set and the costs of storing and transfering files around they are significant. The cost of people (labor) is always the most significant expense no matter what you're doing. Fran's observations from the digital stills world is interesting-- I'm sure we'll see that in the future when all movies are shot digitally. Thank you all for your observations. -Bruce

Actually, I posted it over at www.Konvas.org for Mike. One of the members purchased it, and it will shortly be shooting films in Ecuador. The man who will be shooting with the Kinor is quite an amazing DP, IMHO. He regularly posts his stories of home built HD to anamorphic film-out devices, no budget digital workflows and other shooting adventures in his country. Lately there have been more Kinor posts on Konvas.org than Konvas. Also, webmeister Adam Frey has organized a lot of archived posts from a few years ago when the Russian camera thing was a lot more active, and there is some very useful material to look through if one has an interest in Russian 35 and 16mm motion picture cameras. Bruce

http://www.rondexter.com ? Whether that it is, or is not the website you refer to, I would like to thank Ron for putting together all that information and sharing it with anyone who cares to view it. Bruce Taylor

Please forgive this question --the discussions on lighting and sets of this film are a lot more interesting-- but I do wonder: is it in fact significantly cheaper to go with digital acquisition in the long run? When David was going through the post workflow, there were large amounts of data being stored, processed and moved around. That's not free. At the point where final prints are to be struck, is digital acquisition truly significantly cheaper? Bruce Taylor

I don't know if you saw it on ebay, but there was a guy fairly local to me who was (is?) selling an honest to goodness 8 perf VistaVision camera. I think the ebay i.d. is lattjam. I was picking up a very spiffy McAlister crab dolly at his place and they showed me their camera room, and there it was. They claim it was used to shoot backround plates for Gone with the Wind. I wouldn't doubt it. I would have bought it, but my 120ft short ends just wouldn't last long enough :rolleyes: ! -Bruce P.S. He has a bunch of VistaVision projector movements for sale too (New! Never Used!), so after you film your epic you can project it for family and friends in your living room.

If you are thinking of going for this, I have a mint Ang 12-120 with reflex side finder that I believe was intended for an Auricon. $250 + Shipping. Bruce Taylor

Kirk, I'm south of you in LA, but I do have a Konvas to rent cheap. (see www.indi35.com/cameras). Check it out, let me know if it's interesting. I do occasionally go to the Bay Area too. Bruce Taylor

Hi Matthew, It's a CP16R with the t2.3 10-150mm Ang zoom. The glass looks perfect to me (particularly the front element), and the zoom, focus and iris all move smoothly. The noise is not normal, it's a problem. It's pretty quiet without film in it, but when it pulls film through it makes a noise. It could easily be something simple- I just never pulled the cover off to look inside. It's my impression that the inner workings of these old CPs are pretty basic. Like I said, it still pulled 24fps though. I think it was serviced regularly by the university and sold off as surplus, so something may have been jarred during shipping that caused the noise. I used the other CP, and had this one as a spare so I haven't shot anything with it. I can't say about the condition of the battery, may need a recell which is not a big deal. Charger is included and a copy of the original manual. I haven't weighed it so I don't know the costs to ship from LA to Sacto, though I would think UPS ground would be $30 or less. USPS or FedEx would be more. Let me know if you want further info. Bruce Taylor sales@indi35.com

I have a CP16R that I have been thinking about selling- I paid $1200 for it. CP16R body, very sharp 12-120 Canon macrozoom, 2 batts, 2 mags, charger, case. The seller told me it was serviced by Whitehouse just before I bought it, and I think he was telling the truth- there was a glob of grease on the mirror which would have been quite noticeable if he had actually used the camera. I have run about 800 feet through it. I shot some Ektachrome 100 and projected it -wow- beautiful. It's in my way now and I don't anticipate using it anymore. So if anyone is interested $1200 + shipping takes it. While I'm at it, I also have an Ang. 25mm f1.1 prime (mint), a Zeiss 10-100 t 3 (very good, clean glass) both in CP mount, and a somewhat rare video tap adapter (no vid camera, just plate and optics) for the factory hole on the top of the camera. Also a 2nd body, 2 mags, batt, charger, Ang 10-150. Runs fine empty, but with film in it it makes some noise, but runs @ 24fps crystal anyway. Came from UCSC. $700 + shipping. Cheers, Bruce

ebay item 330239511163 If you have any interest, it looks as though a friend of mine has been forced to give up his Super16 Eclair NPR. It's quiet and makes very beautiful images. Bruce Taylor

Very true. Interestingly, there is a great combination of short ands and cheap camera. If one is shooting MOS, the Russian Konvas with quick change mags and $0.06 a foot short ends (thank you ReelGoodFilm.com !) is hard to beat. Also, as a shameless plug for Indi35.com, a 200' short end in a 2 perf camera (like a Kinor 35H Techniscope mod http://www.indi35.com/2_perf_techniscope ) is the equivalent of a 400' load in standard 4 perf. Lots of ways to skin a cat. Bruce Taylor www.Indi35.com

Hi, Have you contacted Anders Banke? anders@solidentertainment.se Perhaps that's who you are renting the camera from that's going to be late, I don't know. Last I heard he had about 6 Kinor bodies converted to 2 perf. I have one of his conversions (2 perf, vid tap and modern electronics) and it is a very nice piece of work. The Kinors are limited to 40-50fps for speed unfortunately. I could rent my rig to you, but I think the shipping costs to and from Los Angeles would equal or exceed the additional costs of shooting in 3 perf. Good luck and let me know if I can provide any addtional information that would be helpful. Bruce Taylor www.indi35.com sales@indi35.com