Robert Houllahan

Ha! I love an unbiased opinion, I did not see a booty on either camera but maybe I wasn't looking hard enough :unsure: Still a little three foot fall for the HVX and a busted screen later... -Rob-

They are made by Bell&Howell, they have 8mm, 16mm and 35mm punches/movements which are interchangeable... -Rob-

They are not being used, they are just in the back room. There are already two companies making Super-8 film and we are not exclusively a Super-8 shop as we do 35mm and 16mm projects as well. Maybe someday we will have the time/staff to stuff S8 carts.. until then... -Rob-

This is absolutely true, I have a set of B&H perforator machines at Cinelab and a Slitter too, they are precision mechanical instruments like a milling machine or lathe but not exotic. Perhaps on the DIY nanbot laid emulsion I am letting my imagination run away a little bit :lol: I used to work at an exotic materials company after I got out of NYU and I ran the electron microscope, etc.. modern film emulsion is exotic stuff for sure but who knows what will come about in the next fifty years. I am sure that a laser based stereolithography machine would have shocked the crap out of a 1950's engineer and now even small companies and individuals can buy one.... Imagination is fun... -Rob-

Realistically I think this is interesting because it shows that the basic tools for making photographic emulsion are within reach to a DIY type, this implies that a small company could setup a production line for film that does not necessarily rely on a multi-billion dollar megalith corporation to be successful. Also I can only imagine that human ability to manipulate materials with Nano and Bio technology will grow to a point where an artist would be able to make film in possibly every different emulsion Kodak or Fuji had made, maybe the recipes would be available by download. -Rob-

Well for now I am quite happy buying their triacetate with emulsion applied and packed in 100', 400' and 1000' cans... :rolleyes: But if society collapses...... -Rob-

I like my LTR for it's orientable viewfinder and nice aesthetics, but the ACL is smaller and has both 200' and 400' mags available. If you get the ACL with a good motor it will run to 75fps which is only available on a XTR Aaton...I love may Aaton but have had good experiences with the ACL when I have used one.. -Rob-

The ACL is really nice but maybe look at an Aaton LTR too... -Rob-

Ok I done smashed a HVX a little bit.... I set a HVX on a crappy tripod on Friday (a loaner camera) and as I let go of it (to shoot some hand crank 35mm with my EYEMO) the damned thing let loose and fell about three feet to the floor and smashed the screen but good. My fault, it was a crazy night and a wild ass band i be filmin' (The Viennagram) any idea on a cost to fix the screen? I swear it wasn't my fondness for film that made me do it.... or the fact that i said the EX-1 was a better camera.... :blink: -Rob-

Tim, I think I was doing my best to agree with you.... :rolleyes: -Rob-

This is really a dis-service to the students when we see more and more top budget films rejecting the digital aesthetic and going towards either complete analog workflows (There will be Blood and American gangster for example) or using more advanced Film technique like the new batman shooting much of the beginning of the film in 65mm Imax... Ask Spielberg if it's dying... -Rob-

Your teacher is a dope, as others have said film is film and the Bolex/BL combo is not bad at all, Kubrick shot allot of films in 1.33:1 non wide screen, was he wrong? If you love your workprint then you'll really love your answer print. IMO There are allot of fools in the academic community who push digital because they are lazy or inexperienced and it's easy for them... -Rob-

I think it's made from triacetate, like from cotton or wood pulp. there are companies that make triacetate for other applications than film just google triacetate then you just need to slit and perf it after applying some emulsion... -Rob-

Those gang sync's can sneak right up on you and they bite! -Rob-

OK.. Long after the dinosaur goop has become scarce, making a gallon of gas $467.00 and a Mini-DV tape $1596.00 people will be using film. Bitchin!!! -Rob-

If the Keycode reader is properly setup with the telecine and decks and the film is properly punched on each "k" frame and the keycode reader is run right the Flex file and neg cut list from Avid or FCP can be highly accurate. There are allot of "IF's" in there. I have two Aaton Keylink keycode readers and we always punch every first "K" frame of each roll then we always run the Keylink as a Pass-1 with tabs and then a Pass-2 synced to the film, this is the most accurate and reliable way to run a keycode job on the Aaton. As an example of what can go wrong I have seen people run a one-pass with the aaton and that can cause multiple rolls of keycode to only have code from the last roll on the flat when wound back to the head. There are many TK shops that do allot of TV Spots or Episodic tv where the accuracy of keycode reading is not as important and they will often do incremental timecode for each tape but this becomes a problem for a feature where the timecode will repeat as there are more flats of film that 24 or 48. As always good post planning saves money in the long run.. -Rob-

I believe that was Summit film lab, I think the bank took the building and/or threw them out, unfortunately ceasing the operation. -Rob-

I used a pair of EX-1's at Harvard a while ago and a HVX the other day for a music Video (mixed with 35mm and Super8) overall if I had to choose between buying one or another I would probably take the Sony for the 1/2" real 1080x1920 chipset and overall better ergonomics. I think both camera's lenses are lacking one way or another, but maybe that is just the case with any permanently attached lens. I found the P2 or SxS cards to be easy to use and fast to import into FCP or Avid from there it's not much different than editing any compressed hd format (HDV DvcProHD or Xdcam) and of course there is no original media issue. Also with the Sony you could record the 1080x1920 SDI out... -Rob-

The A-Minima uses special plastic split reels, not the typical 200' metal ones, plus the film is wound emulsion out. It is easy to wind film onto a aminima reel and they have a little lip on them, for extra light tightness, that also kinda lets you know when they are full... -Rob-

There are telecines which will run at 60fps, I am not sure if that is possible in HD or just SD, no HDV deck has "real" inputs only Firewire. I wish I could say that HDV is just a shitty format, but actually it is two completely incompatible shitty formats in both Sony and JVC forms. I cannot see HDV lasting too long, it's too compressed and there is no SDI or YUV into it, and what a waste to put a HD transfer onto a 25mb/s format. -Rob-

Try to get a job at a smaller facility which will put you within several feet of the telecine room, then work (slave?) to get a night job timing dailies or student stuff.. After a year of timing millions of feet of film you will have been yelled at enough to know what people like and what they don't. It is essential that you have some artistic grasp of color itself!! then you need to figure out the knobs and buttons to make the machine sing.. An alternative might be to get a Color system together (does that new cheap tangent panel work yet?) and try timing indie HVX projects and corporate stuff... Not as good as running an older DaVinci888 with a telecine in my opinion (because there is so much less to work with in terms of color and latitude in these video projects) plus with a DaVinci everything is real time.. but it's another way to start... -Rob-

I agree that if editing in PAL a 25fps transfer is the way to go, even though it is possible to do a 24 (23.98) transfer to 25 frame PAL. My next question is whether you are cutting negative or conforming a scan list? If you are getting a keycode transfer you might want to make a safety transfer with keycode burnin to DVCAM as a properly setup keycode reader will place the 'A" frame on the right field for truly frame accurate EDL's a hard drive transfer will not necessarily be a field accurate sync to the flex files. This is more important when having the negative cut than a scan list with appropriate handles added. -Rob-

Absolutely not, the 50hz 60hz power source has nothing to do with the video standard being used. As an example I have two house sync generators, one NTSC and one PAL The telecine(s) has two switches on it to set it up for either PAL or NTSC and then when the proper sync source is fed to the suite it runs in the desired frame rate from scanner, color corrector, Aaton keylink keycode reader to Monitor, etc... -Rob-

most labs in the US can transfer to either NTSC or PAL with keycode at either 25 film fps to 50 field or you can set the Metaspeed to 23.98 film to 50 field.. I do not believe than any facility would transfer film to HDV as no HDV deck i know of has a HD-SDI interface, HDcam is the HDV of the transfer world.. -Rob-

I have operated a Spirit-1 with a Pogle I do not believe that machine had a IR pass, the newer 2K/4K Spirits might. -Rob-