Adam Frey

Thanks for the kind words, Jon. I can't remember exactly, but I think I got all of those recans somewhere in the $2000 range, which would roughly be about $10 a minute. When we wrapped, I had one can left over. For that particular project, I figured every minute of film shot was roughly $50 per minute to buy (and shoot), process, and transfer to DigiBeta. But, of course, most of these were older recans/short-ends, which kept the cost really low (of course, I'd rather shoot with fresh film, or at least a fresher batch of recans, on normal projects). When you can start thinking of things in terms of exact numbers per minute, it really helps you to keep a grip on how much film/money you roll through. The price difference between film formats is minor. If you want to shoot 35mm with recans, and can keep the shooting ratio under 3:1, then the difference between 35mm and 16mm (or even Super8) is extremely low - we're talking only a few thousand dollars... Worth it to shoot 35mm? Maybe, then again, maybe not. Depends on your budget and if you have a director that can keep down the shooting ratio... Three quick thoughts to add for anyone that might consider shooting a 35mm feature: 1) Do about 5 to 10 walk-thrus with the actors and the camera before you even think about rolling a single frame of film. 2) Always roll sound and keep the mic as close to the talent as possible. 3) Blimp the camera. Buy one or make one, but either way - blimp it.

Thanks Sean! In the winter of 2004 we shot Hunting Dragonflies (http://huntingdragonflies.com) for $10,000 - and managed to test premiere it to an audience of roughly 400 people by the Summer of 2005. After getting a lot of great feedback, we went back in and worked on it some more before releasing the DVD. Shot it with recans, which were mostly made up of Kodak 5279, but had a few other stocks in there as well (we ran out and couldn't find anymore 5279), including a batch of K320T. I actually wanted older recans (but not blued), because I wanted the film to have a very gritty look to it - it's an action film that takes place on a deserted farm in the winter. I has a heavy influence from Westerns, and I figured an extremely gritty look would help to sell the total idea better. So the recans I bought were around one to two years old, which means I definitely got the grit in spades, and I also saved money. I was trying for a 2:1 shooting ratio, but it ended up being 200 minutes of exposed footage shot for an 82 minute movie. So it works out to something like a 2.44:1 shooting ratio. Shooting was harsh. It was the winter of 2004 and it was pretty cold in our area - but it barely snowed. Luckily, the film was never supposed to have snow in it (again, going for that "Western" feel - and winter looks pretty bleak), so I was very happy. When it did snow, we'd shoot around it (interiors and such). Post sound work was the absolute worst part about the entire process. Since the cameras were the MOS 35mm Konvas 1M's (check out http://konvas.org for some good info on the Konvas), they were nice and loud and not much was able to be recorded while the camera was running. Exteriors were way better than interiors. Some scenes were shot without sound altogether (on a few weekends, I was the only crew) We shot mostly on weekends and shooting wrapped by spring. We had a rough film edit by early fall, but then we got into sound editing and that killed another 9 months. Altogether - it was shot for under $10,000. It was a great learning experience, especially since it was my first feature - and I'm glad it was shot on 35mm. But I can honestly say it was the hardest work I have ever done in my life. Many times I had less than 4 hours of sleep a night. After carrying equipment, loading and unloading the vehicles, and shooting all day, I still had to feed everyone (to keep food costs low, I'd make a stew in the crockpot every evening), then I had to go load magazines and perform other camera upkeep every night. It wasn't a lot of fun and the lack of stress and sleep isn't good for anyone. So, you can shoot a feature on 35mm for under $10k - I know, we did it. But it would have been so much better if the budget was bigger (even $20k) and we could have afforded a few luxuries, including one really good AD and an AC. Btw: we just finished shooting another feature - this time on HD. There were a few very big drawbacks to shooting HD that I had to accept (film has way more latitude, 35mm has a much higher resolution, etc.), but I have to say, it was much easier than film, in a few key ways: we didn't have to carry a 60 pound camera, we didn't have to change the magazine every 15 takes, and I didn't have to stay up late nights trying to load a stack of magazines. Of course, HD is not film (and I don't even want to get into a film vs HD debate - use the right tool for the right job), but we managed to shoot this last feature in 8 1/2 days (would have been shot in under 8 days, but an actor had a family emergency), which, unfortunately, is something we just could not have done if we were shooting 35mm.

Hey Nate, someone passed this thread onto me - apparently at the time you tried emailing, the SMTP servers were having issues with a blacklist of some sorts. I was prepping to leave for Spain at the time, so I didn't catch it. But, it's all *supposed* to be fixed now... I see you've already joined up on the http://konvas.org discussion list though. So I guess you finally got on. Cheers, Adam Frey Director/Cinematographer Crimson Chain Productions http://crimsonchain.com A fun, action-packed indie film: http://www.huntingdragonflies.com

Hey Erik, Mine is a "heater" barney, which means it is designed for shooting the camera in extremely cold weather, not really for noise, although it did help some. I was figuring on a worst case scenario of shooting in and under 0 degrees Fahrenheit for a majority of that particular winter, and didn't want the film to become brittle. Although it did help some of the noise, it wasn't anywhere near as much as a "sound" barney would. As a note: There are two different materials used on barneys; the one helps insulate, and has "warmer pockets" (those hand warmer packets you buy) and the other helps deaden sound emissions. But from what I understand, it should help cut the sound emissions by as much as half. If you're looking to kill all the sound, then you can actually build your own sound blimp for any given camera. It just takes a little patience, but you can do it with stuff you buy at the Home Depot. I think http://commiecam.com has a description or two... Hope that helps!

Uncompressed footage from 10-bit DigiBeta doesn't take that much extra hardware. A pair of drives striped together with raid0 should work just fine on a G5. This is '10-bit' digibeta, correct? If so, I'd go with the 10-bit DigiBeta over the others; it's Uncompressed, it's only 2:1 compression, and it's 4:2:2 color sampling. But most importantly, 10-bit gives you 1024 levels of black, where DV50 (an 8-bit format, if I remember correctly) only gives you 256... Also, if I remember correctly, for every 8 minutes of Apple's Uncompressed SD 10-bit format, you'll figure it'll be about 10Gb. Creating a DVD from Digibeta looks great compared to something like minidv/dvcam with it's 5:1 compression. I personally can't stand to look at minidv anymore - it's gawd awful on the eyes, especially when you want to look at film you've transferred. I agree with Michael - I can't fathom someone transferring footage for free, unless you paid for it and they screwed it up. Also, if you have someone transfer from digibeta "digitally", watch out, because some facilities will claim digitial transfers, but may have analog signal in the middle creating "video noise" - you don't want that; it looks terrible. If you do it on your computer with Quicktime or FCP it may take some extra time, but you'll likely be a lot happier with the results.

A few years ago I had a 35mm Konvas 1M heater-barney custom made at customupholsteryproducts.com. I agree whole-heartedly with Paul Hanssen - The Gaither's are real nice people and I'd highly recommend dealing with them. I know they have plenty of design templates for a lot of different cameras including super8's. They've been making both heater and sound barneys for a good many years and keep the templates in a file. So once someone pays for the 1st custom job, the template for that camera is there from then on out, which means they probably don't need your camera to do camera measurements again (thusly making it all-around much less expensive to make the barney). Unfortunately for me, mine was the 1st heater barney made for the Konvas 1M (turret mount), so it was a "custom" job and a little pricey, especially when you add in the cost of shipping it out and back. btw: I have a nice super8 D10 Minolta here that I keep telling myself I'm gonna get a barney for... Cheers,