Will Paguntalan

Lightwave 3d has a plethora of new cinema-related features(always had a filmic renderer): will simulate many lenses from a drop down list, irradiance falloff, super-customizable flares. technically you could make your own glass "shape" and shoot the scene thru it! Its a stiff learning curve -but its pretty incredible and with the new agressive software dev team...Remember: Avatar was first simulated properly on LW.

I had the opportunity to see the original Star Wars (new hope) projected on a big screen.The Models worked. I have a theory, that unconsciously your mind gets "cues" from a physical 3d object moving in perspective. 3d animation is a simulation and may not be able to cover EVERY cue necessary to convince the mind that its real. That why for the most part: CGI is glorious photo-accurate movie matte painting. but its missing that thing,elusive "I am here" that even a cheap,badly focused model has. for example: "The Right Stuff" -The one time I was fooled was the P-40/Zero work on "Pearl Harbor"

Just some extra info, - Jim and Don's 12-perf system was known as the "Horizon-12", the company was Imagination FX out of Burbank,Ca. I was FX supervising there for a short time and the company was in a slow death spiral in 1999. Spent a lot of time asking questions in the tech dept, handled one of the 12-perf movements - what a jewel of mechanical engineering! They did have a optical printers for the format and I think they were building a scanner. They were counting on sales to Events and Theme parks...well...not so much! Sadly, I never got to see a projected image- I was told it was impressive! -Sort of 70mm in Imax-y resolution.

As an owner of one Scoopic I and 2 "M"s :the lens on the M is quite nice . sharp, warm and contrasty Unlike the "I" that was just bad. Shot a fair amount of 2nd unit -matching ARRI SR2 footage rather perfectly -IMHO I only wish I could afford to re-barrel the lens and mount it on my CP-GSMO!! (oh yeah and that canon 1.5x extender is a magnificent piece of glass!)

If you do spool down make sure you turn those reels SLOWLY as I ruined 400ft by winding fast and "sparking" all the footage (static sparks from friction) That was a long tima ago -and I havent forgotten! GOOD LUCK

Was the lighting of the old Trek series typical of the time? It appears to have the elements of classically lit TV of the 60's But then there's a lot of "crosslighting" and colored wall washing with "party gels" looking at the Internet Fan-Series Starship Exeter (starshipexeter.com) they have uncannily reproduced the "look" of the 60's series with a couple of high 2ks with 216s and practicals washing down the instrument stations-shot with a canon xl1s. I could mention New voyages (newvoyages.com) but the lighting was spotty at best and only the latest episode really hits the mark. LOoking at behind the scenes photos reveal either 3 -2ks or 5ks just touching the set . no softlights or diffusion visible (world of star trek) Thanks WIll

I too ,am in fear of losing membership I have lots of camera equiptment and film , sadly they are mostly broken and in different formats and the stocke is 8 years old . (Ye Olde Stocke) meanwhile I have to work on others projects and silently seethe at their arrogance and incompetence. I hope to perish in a Nitrate fire before film is finally phased out for profits and Japanese control and consolidation of media by 2012.