dr_gonzo

Super 8 is great for all those reasons, but if you were shooting a narrative film and were shooting on a set with a decent sized crew would you make the same choice??

Its really not a bad short, but seriously five years??? Theres maybe ten different shots in the film total! Where did the 10k go!?

in TEN years perhaps their will be a 50/50 division of features shot on HD vs. film....but give your professor a good punch in the throat for me.

So Im taking my footage over to post works (www.pwny.com) and Im going to get 4000 feet of my footage transferred to digi beta and hopefully also transferred uncompressed to my 500 gb drive... How much storage space would I need on the drive to get all of my uncompressed footage?

How much space are we talking to digitize uncompressed to a hard drive? Ive got 3680 feet of film to transfer to my 500 gb drive...

I remember a few years ago having a friend who needed footage of space shuttle launches. He ended up writing to NASA and they sent him a few tapes free of charge!!!!

it would help to know what city you are located in!

I recently bought a 500 GB hard drive to edit my new film, and was surprised to discover when it came in the mail that it only ran with USB. Is this going to be a huge problem when I edit in FCP from my digibeta or DVCpro transfer. Also is DVCpro50 really that much better than DigiBeta if I have to online it in the end anyway?

I was looking at tapestockonline.com to buy my stock for my transfer...is there any difference between the blue lidden DVC Pro 50 Panasonic tapes and the yellow lidded DVC Pro 66 min Panasonic tapes? The 66 min tapes are faaaaaaar cheaper...but do I get what I pay for???

I will say it once again... why waste all this time and money with rigging when you can rent a jib for the day on the cheap, set it up in ten minutes and save yourself a couple of hours that would be devoted to rigging and shoot it!!!!

Check out Post Works www.pwny.com I just talked to them about doing my transfer to digi beta and they gave me a great rate!!!!

*"But I was making the point that I'm sure that everyone involved would feel a whole lot better if they could walk away from a setup KNOWING that they have it instead of just hoping that it all turned out okay. HD gives the Director, the DP, the Operator, and the Focus Puller that assurance right away that they "got it." * I believe this is why monitors, video taps, and clamshell recorders were also invented. *More craft? What's that supposed to mean? Define "craft" and how "film" inherently demands more of this "craft" than shooting video does. Please. An experienced cameraman of any kind shooting on any format will get it right the first time. Again, I don't understand why it is anymore true with film than with video.* It also seems to me that if you learn by lighting film and then move to shooting video you will have a better product since you will know much much much more about cutting lighting, achieving your stops, etc to break up the endless depth of field that video and HD yield. It is true that its much harder to make video look as good as film, there are a few who have done it and my hats off to them. But until there is a process that can replicate light hitting emulsion properly ill stick with film stock for the projects i fund for myself. This debate is essentially pointless because both these mediums have their drawbacks and strengths.... IMO the only filmmaker that is really doing anything interesting with video is Hal Hartley. He's shooting these microbudget features on older cameras that look more beautiful than anything shot with George Lucas's latest gadget.

Noah keep us updated...Im pondering the same thing at the moment. Im thinking Du Art to process my negative and then take it over to Post Works (where all of the moving images people moved to after their company was sold) for my Digi Beta transfer. I also never heard of a lab capturing your footage to your drive. I was going nuts trying to find a place where i can cheaply capture from a digi beta deck.

Last I checked you can get next day dailies at any lab.... More craft goes into shooting on film, and an experienced person will get it right the first time. Video is a good tool, but if your serious about having a nice looking film why bother with video. Especially considering that renting an HD camera can cost MORE than renting a nice S16 camera. I understand people not choosing video or HD because they aren't partial to that look, but demeaning the format because of it being inherently instantaneous is a red-herring argument that means nothing. I also wasnt demeaning video because its an instant result like a polaroid...I've just seen far too many DP's take the short cut in lighting for video with the age old excuse "we can fix it in post". It seems like there are far too many point and shoot camera ops passing themselves off as DP's these days.

Hah yes I love waiting..... the instant gratification of video just takes the magic out of waiting a couple of days in anticipation of what you have shot....

Recently I used a skateboard dolly running on track and hot button wheels while shooting a short with an ARRI SRII. It produced some pretty nice results when smoothed down with some sandbags for added weight on the dolly. It barely takes up any space in yr. grip van as well... I got mine from hit and run productions in NYC. It was 70 bucks day rate for the dolly and 16 bucks per 8ft of track. Not too shabby.

You can rent a jib arm for about 75 bucks a day....spend that small amount of extra cash and save yourself a couple of hours of rigging up something that might not be the safest thing for the camera to be on! It will save you a shitload of time during production which is worth alot more than the small rental cost.

All I can say is you get what you pay for. HD can be a great tool when used properly ie: hard candy...but film just does it for me compared to the instant gratification of video. There is something to be said about shooting a film, sending the negative to the lab and waiting a week to see your images. I worked on a Hammer style horror feature last summer that shot on HD. The images looked nice, but it was just missing so much of the style it was trying to emulate.

So it seems like most of the labs in NYC dont offer B&W processing any longer. I've got about 4000 feet of film to get developed and transferred. I am gonna go with Post Works for my telecine since they have hands down the best prices and the nicest staff in the area. But for my developing its either Du Art or Color Lab to get this done. I know Color Lab will likely be cheaper, and that Du Art treats everyone like crap unless you are a feature film. Do you think it will be worth the extra cash and hassle to go with Du Art? I've had a great deal of footage processed and transferred at color lab and I never had any problems with them...but Du Art is supposed to be the "best".... So what do you think Du Art or Color Lab???

I lost my friends disk while I was shooting my film....anyone know where I can get one. B&H is the obvious choice, but they arent always the cheapest. and so far ebay has yielded no results. Thanks in advance.

I've shot guerilla style on the subways many times shooting film and video. I would advise that you shoot on a train thats usually empty and relatively police free. I've had no problems shooting on the G, and the NW in the burroughs. Also you can always look into shooting with an LED light that you can rigg off batteries that you can carry in a fanny pack. Good luck.

thanks so much, this actually wont be too big of a deal with the actors hair since i wanted it to appear even lighter than it actually is. Ive got a few HMI's in my kit for this shoot so I can afford to cut down a few stops with a filter at night, although I think Ill just save myself the trouble and just shoot with a 1/8 pro-mist glass. Thanks!

So I'm shooting day and exteriors on friday for my film. Shooting on Kodak 7222.... I was thinking about shooting with a red filter, but Im not quite sure what it will do to the hair of my lead actor which is very light blonde. The makeup dept. will likely have sprayed his hair to make it appear a bit whiter. Im most likely going to shoot without any filters for the nighttime exteriors, since a red filter will really kill the shadow areas...but would an orange or a yellow give me a similar effect while getting more shadow detail?

Every ARRIS i've used has fluctuated btw 24-26 frames while the motor was running. and unless I was shooting on a 300mm lens and had the camera piled under sound blankets I doubt I would even attempt to use this for sound work. Its not worth the trouble. But for MOS...great camera.

I love the Bolex, its like a swiss watch...but if you want to do longer takes you would have to find a motorized bolex as the spring version will only run for about 22 seconds at full crank. I would go with the arri s...you could go out all day hammer nails with it, bludgeon someone to death, and then shoot a film without harming the camera at all. Its invulnerable to conventional weapons...you can get some great image results. And for a little bit of an added cost grab the 400 ft mag. But the camera is loud as all hell and cannot possibly be used for sound due to that and the lack of a perfect constant frame rate.