John Sprung

The one I have measured something like 16 - 18 volts. -- J.S.

Three pin XLR is non-standard for power, and somewhat dangerous, because three pin is used for microphones. 12 Volts DC is more than enough to fry a dynamic mike. The standard is 4 pin XLR, with negative on 1 and positive on 4. 2 and 3 were used in the old days for 60 Hz sync pulse and bloop. As for powering a II-C, an ordinary car battery charger from AutoZone or Kragen or the like should be plenty good enough, and dirt cheap. -- J.S.

That's the problem, finding the needles in the haystack. It's also an opportunity for you. You can save others the time and effort by posting links here to the good stuff there. Start a thread for that, maybe call it "Needle Exchange" ;-) -- J.S.

That could be about 1000mm on Academy 1.85. The sun and moon look about the same size from earth, about half a degree. -- J.S.

Why even bother? The flash and dazzle days of '08 and '09 are long gone. Red is now an established company, an ordinary player in the game of techno-leapfrog. -- J.S.

Adding to the above, film cameras with variable shutters rarely go wider than 180 degrees because of the reason the shutter is there in the first place: It protects the film from exposure during the mechanical pulldown from one frame to the next. Angles as large as 288 degrees have been used with specially designed film movements (the hot kinescope process of the 1950's). With digital cameras, you can get shutter angles within just a hair of a full 360 degrees. This enables some interesting possibilities. With that much motion blur you're immune from skipping (aka incorrectly "strobing"). -- J.S.

Matt, I think you're basically right. What we have now is a kind of termite mound approach, no central planning or organization, but that may well work better than an enforced one size fits all approach. Those termites are doing OK. http://www.google.com/search?q=african+termite+mounds&hl=en&biw=1680&bih=908&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=G-tvTvGAJKLt0gGnwcWcCg&sqi=2&ved=0CCgQsAQ -- J.S.

It's customary to use wavelengths instead of frequencies, but yes, that's how it's done. See the earlier posts in this thread from Ben Syverson and Hal Smith, they have graphs of intensity or transmission versus wavelength. Rosco has transmission vs. wavelength graphs to tell you exactly what their gels do. -- J.S.

The only thing I can tell you is that 1229 would be a 35mm nitrate stock.... -- J.S.

Interesting -- a price/performance point between Red and the Panasonic AF-100. The big difference is that those are from strong well established companies with substantial installed bases. Support and resale value are what would scare me away. -- J.S.

Yes, it was done by Walter Murch. He put a tremendous amount of time and effort into it. I saw it at a show and tell he did at Universal right after it was finished. Alas.... no matter what you do with it, it's just not a good movie. -- J.S.

Yup. Big time. I've seen it done. -- J.S.

It's cleaner to color time just once. The DP should make the look in timing, not accept some automated software's idea of color timing. Add grain if you want, it's kinda like making your car smell like a horse. -- J.S.

Back in the wet splice days, that would require re-printing. In the tape splice days, that kind of thing wouldn't run thru the machines all that well. It was a sign of incompetence to have a lot of those little pieces taped together. -- J.S.

OK, try a thought experiment. Take a light meter and three strongly colored filters, red, green, and blue. For these colored light sources you're thinking about, what measurement would you get through each of the three filters? Guess what -- that's how the cones in your eyes work. That's the meaning of the first graph that Ben posted, it's the filter curves of the three photopigments in your eyes. Different combinations of wavelengths and intensities can result in the same readings with the light meter and filters, and look the same to your eyes. Film doesn't reproduce specific wavelengths or combinations of wavelengths, and it doesn't have to. It just makes other combinations that look the same. -- J.S.

What's the serial number of the camera? -- J.S.

How do you do that? -- J.S.

COSHARP was a Tech Council project, I was a member back in those days, and heard a lot of the progress reports. It was fussy, required extreme precision, but they did get some adequate results. The theory was that it would be an inexpensive way to get from 65 original to scope workprint. The clever part was that both pieces of film were on sprockets that were machined from a single piece of steel at the exposure point. Dick Stumpf of Universal was the guy pushing it, good man. Alas, he died in February of 2006. CFI is gone, the buildings were torn down a few years ago. -- J.S.

There was a company at HD Expo or CineGear within the last few years that had a line of lighting gear based on big CFL's. IIRC, they were mogul base, and about the size of a 1000 Watt incandescent. -- J.S.

For day exterior, just be sure you know in advance where the sun is going to go. Hang the green where it'll get good direct sunlight and no shadows for the duration. Talk to the effects people, better yet, get one of them to be there for the shoot. Knowing what they can and can't do with garbage mattes can save you time. Night exterior is more like being inside, you have more control. -- J.S.

We use ProRes HQ and DNx175X. DPX is only used for effects work, it's just too bulky to be practical for dailies, and it doesn't have sound. For long term reliability, everything is backed up on LTO's. Don't trust those hard drives.... -- J.S.

Yes, it was Jerry Lewis, who was both acting and directing. It was his idea, he asked if it could be done. As for saving time and money, it's a two edged sword. It's expensive to have everybody sitting around on the clock watching playback instead of getting the next setup. -- J.S.

You might want to think about the gear ratio. The traditional 8 frames per turn was chosen when the standard was 16 frames per second. If you want 24 frames per second, you have to crank uncomfortably fast with that. A 12 frames per turn ratio would be better where 24 fps is the display rate. Or, you could look at making it variable.... More money, though. -- J.S.

The British did one brilliant thing early on in the space race. They built Jodrell bank. They knew that they couldn't afford the big fireworks, so they put their resources into the best possible capture of the data coming back from other nations' probes. Their images from the Venus landers were much better than what the Russians got. -- J.S.

Good question. I can think of a couple tests, both debateable: HD lens and adapter on a big chip camera vs. HD lens alone on a three chip camera HD lens and adapter on a film camera vs. equivalent cost film-designed lens on the same camera. -- J.S.