John Sprung

Indeed, you have to test the individual camera. These are all so old that condition trumps design.

-- J.S.

The CP16 is an Auricon movement, it's about as good as a non-pin movement can be. The NPR "bench type" registration pin didn't really work all that well, so they're about a wash. For significantly better registration, you have to go with Arri or Mitchell.

-- J.S.

The NPR is of far more historic importance, and was far more widely used. The CP is more rugged and reliable. The NPR was hard to keep working even when they were new.

-- J.S.

That's about half the bitrate of 4444 and HQ, so it could be part of the problem. It was intended as a quick source for offline, rather than the final product.

-- J.S.

I think it was John Waters who pointed out that you can't get a much cheaper means of production than a pencil and paper and yet the 20th century didn't produce a single Shakespeare.

Don't be so hard on the 20th. Neither did the 17th, 18th, or 19th. (He was 36 at the end of the 16th century.)

-- J.S.

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If they save time, hassle and money enough that you can put more resources and attention into writing and acting, yes.

P

If they save time, hassle, and money, the producers will just give you less time and less money. Guess what they'll give you more of.... ;-)

-- J.S.

[*]The environmental and real estate "footprints" are much smaller

Actually, the Hollywood IB line was quite a bit larger than a conventional processor. Lynn Trimble worked there in the 1930's, he said it was 100 feet long and three stories high. The building they built for it is still there, Gold's Gym is on the ground floor now....

-- J.S.

? maybe worst case it might be a frame and a bit behind reality (?).

Actually, they can be several frames behind, like 6-8 in some cameras. No problem on lockoff shots, but it can look like the operator was stoned if there's any action.

-- J.S.

We've never used anything but 422HQ and 4444. What was the bit rate of the mode you used? Perhaps the problem is too much compression.

-- J.S.

Sitcoms are using four cameras, and have been digital for about ten years. New ones starting up from 1999 onward went digital, old ones that were on film mostly stayed on film for their last few seasons. Sitcoms mostly use 2/3" because the depth of field is an advantage when four assistants have to pull focus on an eight minute take with loads of moves and marks.

-- J.S.

Yes, if you use a reasonable shutter angle, near 180 degrees, 3 fps will give you lots of motion blur.

-- J.S.

If Kodak decide to stop making film in the US, it will probably be because they've shipped the plant off to Shenzhen or somewhere similar.

Back in the 1970's, Technicolor shipped the Hollywood IB plant to China. Does anyone know how that worked out? What became of the equipment?

-- J.S.

The Arri is so much better than a Bolex -- rugged, reliable, pin registered -- that I've been tempted to grab one as an antique. What's the price of a factory new Bolex?

True, there are no wind-up digital cameras. But there are hand cranked flashlights and radios. There are solar battery chargers, why not a crank/windup charger? Not sure if it was ever produced, but there was also some discussion of a hand-crank attachment for a digital camera. Not to power it, but to control frame rate and exposure.

-- J.S.

OMG, our souls have been spared the agony...

 

From the Bolex web site, "Today in 2011, BOLEX INTERNATIONAL SA in Switzerland continues to manufacture the legendary 16mm and SUPER 16 film cameras".

With people dumping Arri S kits all over the internet for $500, who would pay for a new Bolex?

-- J.S.

For really long motion blur, consider digital instead of film. You can get very close to a 360 degree shutter angle. Creating more blur in post is very easy if you start with the 360 degree shutter, you just combine successive frames to make 720 degrees, 1080 degrees, etc. To make more motion blur in post with anything less than 360 to start with is much more difficult, because you have to fake the missing information. Arri's Relativity software can do it, but it's an expensive post house job. FotoKem in Burbank has it.

-- J.S.

It's best to get a complete solution from one vendor, so there's only one place to point the finger when something needs to be fixed. I haven't used them, but I've heard good things about Isilon:

http://www.isilon.com/

-- J.S.

I think maybe the trailers were deliberately graded in a more modern, saturated, grain free fashion.

Trailers are done and in release weeks before the film itself. So, they're often graded before the final decisions on the film have been made. I'm not sure how it works on major studio features, but in low budgets, the DP doesn't get consulted on the trailers.

-- J.S.

Yes, they're called quarry trucks, used for gravel pits, open pit mines, etc.

The standards for uncompressed are a bigger problem than for compressed -- DPX is basically all there is, and it's a silent dinosaur.

-- J.S.

I don't know about this making film cameras historical objects, advanced objects like combat aircraft continue in service long after they've stopped manufacturing them. A prime example being the B52.

There are lots of things like that -- Volkswagens, pretty much all the high quality pianos like Chickering, Knabe, etc.....

-- J.S.

True, and the shutter shadow is generally very soft edged, because of its distance from the film plane. It's another of those woulda-been-nice-to-test items....

-- J.S.

Ah, OK, you mean niche players. That works, unless some of the critical chemicals get banned for environmental reasons.

-- J.S.

Pushing the problem into post - are you characterising an LTO backup procedure as "post" in that context?

.....

I think ultimately the bucket-size issue will be made trivial by Moore, so this is certainly the future even if there are arguments that it isn't quite the present.

Yes, and either working with it or compressing it into a more usable format. Our shows are typically shooting half a terabyte a day on Alexas using ProRes. Make that three and a half, and just transferring stuff on and off SAN's, SAN storage, etc, -- everything gets way too big and slow. It's like driving a Euclid truck into town.

Moore may be slowing down on us, but it would be a good idea to have something better than those archaic DPX files standardised before that future gets here. Something with more that one frame per file, sound, time code, etc......

-- J.S.

There will certainly be B&W film even a century from now.

Interesting -- on what do you base that hopeful prediction? Do you mean that we'll be able to shoot and print 35mm B&W movies?

-- J.S.

Furthermore, isn't it dangerous to run the camera without film in it?... I seem to remember someone telling me the mirror shutter can be damaged?

No, that's just misinformation. Go with the largest shutter angle you can, mainly to be sure you get all the strobe flashes that don't hit the mirror. Since you can't test, go with what the stills flash meter tells you.

-- J.S.

It's small light and cheap because it isn't doing compression. It has a big enough bucket and can just pour the bits in fast enough. That makes things simple if you can afford enough drives. It pushes the problem into post.

-- J.S.