Robert Houllahan

HI Maybe I can add some situational awareness to this. 1. This is a very specialized machine for a specific high end segment of the film business, this means high initial cost and extreme depreciation. A 2008 DFT Spirit 4K or Arri Arriscan (this machine's competitors) initially sold for $600,000-$2M and are now valued at around $30K-$40k on the used market, running. 2. It is unclear in this eBay listing if the machine runs or not and what options it has, the built in computer is not plugged in and the eBay listing says the hard drive was removed, I understand the general Military policy procedures as I have personally done consulting work in the film/video biz for the US Naval War College-War gaming dept. so I understand the policy on removing drives in general. If you are lucky there may be a thumb drive taped inside the chassis or inside the computer to restore the computer to it's original Windows 7 and scanner install, I would check as this would be a big point on getting the machine into a running / saleable state without the major cost of having LaserGraphics bring it to a "current" state of software release. 3. LaserGraphics is particularly rigid and protective of new machine sales over support or upgrades of older machines they have sold. The Director is a "Current" model but there are little similarities between the new Director 10K and this 2010 model, only the chassis and the platter system to hold the film are the same. Most possible sales prospects for this model of machine are large clients like Sony or other big studios, they generally lease new machines to write down the depreciation. 4. This model original Director may be old and slow but it is a true RGB pin registered scanner and it still has some big advantages over the new faster scanners like the Scan Station 6.5K which has a fast color camera. This Director has a monochrome camera and does sequential R , G , B , IR "Flashes" to make true color and the "New" scanners do not meet the requirements for color accuracy for very high end clients. So In My Opinion if you can get this machine running to it's original state it would be a fine machine to offer to a very niche business doing motion picture scans for maybe $30-40K.

If you bought a C&C machine from a company that was 10yrs old or a 10yr old John Deere automated farming combine and you wanted it to be under service contract it would be a similar percentage of the original cost to be under service. Same with a Scannity or Arriscan as they are professional tools with high initial costs. Of course they will never sell this Director for anywhere near that asking price on eBay and the latest Director is a completely different gate and camera system etc. etc.

I think they graded it at NFL Films in New Jersey we did the processing and scans for them.

Maybe it was badly processed? I don't find it to be particularly grainy... We did this in 2020 and just ran another job recently for NFL and I thought the 16mm Ekta (run as color reversal by us) looked pretty nice and not grainy: https://www.nfl.com/videos/who-are-we-nate-burleson-narrates-the-stories-behind-the-2020-season The very first shots are Ekta and it was a mix of Ekta 100D Tri-X and 7219 plus Alexa. Also here is some E100D and Tri-X S8mm I shot a few years ago:

http://www.claytonchem.com/pdfs/Darkroom/PBF76PLUSFILMDEVELOPER.pdf

It appears FotoKem did a X-Process in ECN2 for this.

Maybe pushed +1 and maybe stretched a bit in post ? Definitely looks like nothing else and kind of makes everything else look like boring vanilla.

So a show is being originated on some Kodak Ektachrome 100D 35mm.... sure looks great.

That is not even comparatively that bad I have scanned much worse. Also that would be prepped to try to get it a bit flatter before going onto the scanner. And while scanning turning the speed down and stopping the lens down for better field of focus with more lamp time works pretty well.

The last version of the Spirit (HD 2K 4K) series has allot of fans and moves air through the machine with filters on the bottom, it also has allot less electronics (1 rack) than earlier machines and it does not really require any ventilation, just a reasonably climate controlled environment. The two I run are 3-phase but can be run in 220v and they really draw less power than one would expect. They are loud but in the lab everything is loud and compared to the (silenced as best as possible) ring compressor based air knives in film processors the fan noise of the Spirits the Scan Station the Xenas and the San stuff it is reasonable or even not that noticeable. Of course in a post house they live in silenced machine rooms as not to disturb the hard work being done in color suites on cat food commercials...

Probably around $8k to $10K

I think all labs do rewash in processors, or rewash machines which are just somewhat smaller modified processors and PhotoMec and Debrie have RW Machines as current products. Basically you feed the film into the processor forward of the developer so it goes through some fix and wash and the final and drybox. Kodak has a manual for this process that is pretty specific about the best methods and how to setup a machine. This is probably the most thorough cleaning method due to the much longer time the film spends in a tank and the amount of heat and agitation that can be safely applied to the film. They are just not practical for a post house / office environment. I have saved some really valuable film and delighted a few clients with the rewash process, one in particular was a rare and famous concert on 16mm Kodachrome from the 60's and some of the reels had very bad mold damage stains and cracked emulsion. After the rewash the mold was totally gone and the stains with it and the emulsion was warmed up and the "cracking" had healed considerably. Went from almost unusable and a tremendous reconstruction and painting out of the mold stains job to almost good enough to use right from the scan. Rewash costs a bit more than processing (say $0.20-0.25/ft say) and some setup fees and it is not for every job. I am sure FK charges allot to do it. The latest Lipsner HFE8200 machines do a pretty great job for allot of stuff in a high end post house that can afford the liquid but they were a re-design to a Tric machine so a bit of a legacy design. Can get some embedded stuff out so a step above the buffer machines like the Lipsner XL etc which can do a great job at removing surface dirt and dust and greasy stuff.

Here are a few more of the XL1100 and how the buffers and film path work:

HFE is a "engineered fluid" by 3M I think and it is hella spendy like $1K/Gal and is basically non toxic under the conditions it is used in. I know the Lipsner 8200 HFE machines at Co3 NY needed an environmental cert to be run as they are vented to atmosphere but nothing compared to the Perc one. That said many Dry-Clean businesses still operate with Perc. Ultrasonic is a small tank with the tank itself having ultrasonic "speakers" to do hi-freq oscillation of the tank liquid, this works but a it is too small and too short a time to really open up the emulsion and get it to release embedded dirt and dust stuff, a rewash processor does that but that is like running a 1/3 of a full film processor so not allot of places outside of labs will want to do that. I could see a possible DIY machine for immersion cleaning using a non evaporative method and some kodak kit chemistry then air knives and a drybox as a possible more modern lower enviornmetal impact way to get at stubborn dirt and also to kill mold etc. Here is the Lipsner XL1100

Well I think these machines were built in another time and can make good platforms to modify and improve.

Here is the PhotoMec / Kodak PF200 cleaner which uses two stages of atomizing sprays and rotary sponge buffers, I think it is about $45K from Kodak.

I have an early version of the San Labs Pristsa it is sub par compared to the Lipsner XL1100 series IMO and for some inexplicable reason it's transport puts the dirty film on top and the clean film on the bottom as if gravity did not exist.... It would not be hard to modify a Lipsner Alcohol cleaner to run IsoparG and if you look at the San Labs wetting buffers (with the two gold anodized bars under them) and then the four buffers for post wetting polishing below that is essentially the same configuration as the XL1100 but without an air knife as I think IsoparG evaps very quickly. The rest of the machine is a pile of PTRs. I heard from some people in NY Post that the SLS worked ok but was not ultrasonic cleaner. The "Prototype" Cinelab has from San Labs was a real pile of junk. I am using the cabinet and some other parts from it for the rewash machine I am building.

IMX-253 (4112x3008) Sony Pregius cameras from FLIR or IMPERX etc. run about $3K and that is the 4K sensor in the Film Fabriek and has been used in the Scan Station and Xena and many other scanners, it is quite good and fast. Youc an get USB3 or GIG-E or 10GIG-E interfaces which should work on the Retroscan.

One does not necessarily need to use a solvent like Perc or Novec as a cleaning solution. There was a interesting and supposedly quite effective cleaner made by TFS in LA that used distilled water in a rewash-like setup that had heaters for the water and a tank with turbulation / agitation and then a dry box. Supposedly it worked well but it required people to maintain the distilled water to prevent mold and that is why it was not a popular machine like a Lipsner Ultrasonic with Tric or Perc. Rewash "processing" is an extremely effective way to clean film and it basically uses some of the tanks of a film processor to do heated full immersion in turbulated tanks and then out through the drybox. This does not need the semi hazardous Perc and a ton of ventilation. I am building a rewash processor out of some PhotoMec spares right now. On a smaller level there are tons of heated ultrasonic tanks for stuff like jewelry and a fairly simple transport and post ultrasonic air knife system could be put together maybe running a final bath or bleach bath as a solution. Machines like the Lipsner XL1100 or San Labs or the new Kodak PhotoMec P200 spray or wet the film then buff it and dry it, this is good for surface dirt but cannot really "open up" the emulsion and turbulate away trapped dirt.

You probably have to get it from Kodak but maybe check B&H Photo or Mono No Aware in NYC. Not sure about international shipping of that chemistry, also I believe there is a running lab in Mexico check the Kodak lab directory.

Here is the setup on the DFT Spirit 2k/4K series:

Process chemistry ECN-2 and ECP are the same stop fix and bleach only the developer chemistry is different, ECP works it just requires different printer light trims when making a print. I would guess that C41 might need more development time and ECN2 for running ECP but that is just a guess.

It might be worth noting that the Liquid Gate for the Scannity costs more than a Scan Station. It fully immerses the whole lamp and optics in a wild looking and large chamber.

We have successfully developed ECP in ECN-2 so it might work in C41

I do not think the any LaserGraphics scanner is equipped with a liquid gate from the factory. DFT has one for the Scannity and Arri has them for the Arriscan XT and DCS Has developed them for the Xena.