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Robert Houllahan

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Everything posted by Robert Houllahan

  1. Helps to be in decent shape (if nobody's said it) all film people are part sherpa, right? schlepping heavy gear around is a hazing ritual in this business. It's fun though :lol: -Rob-
  2. I have looked into this pretty extensively as we do allot of disk xfer at cinelab, I have a copy of Scopebox which will take timecode in (LTC through a horita box over 422) but does not act as a deck, I have thought of getting a DPS reality system online as it has deck emulation which is very good but I believe it is only 8bit (SDI) for SD. We currently do "free run" recording to SD 10bit over a decklink card all of these recordings are for video finish. We have allot of customers who either do 16, S16 or 35mm SD dailies with keycode they are all either Dvcam, BetaSP or sometimes D-Beta (sometimes a clean and a burnin tape simul) it is really not worth it to try to make film matchback from SD disk recordings, just go to tape, all of the better solutions are for HD or better files and (like Clipster, Blurfish444, etc.) are priced appropriately or maybe as much or more than the URSA you got. -Rob-
  3. Any "modern" telecine from Cintel or Thompson and maybe Sony (includes Mk3, Ursa, Millenium, DSX, etc. Cintel's with metaspeed or Shadow, Spirit Hd, 2K, 4K, not sure about Vialta) can transfer techniscope to SD or HD for SD transfers with keycode you will need to be using a newer Aaton or Everetz keycode reader which understands 2-perf. -Rob-
  4. I operated on a indie S16 picture based out of LA this summer (in Massachusetts) and the budget was fairly low, there were several actors who were up and coming (I saw the lead actress on a ABC primetime network show last week) I think there are a good deal of working actors that get smaller parts in big budget productions who do indie work to show their talent, and that this crosses over to the Director/DP Producer, etc. and can be a work to see your work and get into bigger jobs. I am shooting a feature (in NY/NJ) which has 4 actors who have had various parts on tv and in studio features this is my first full feature picture as DP (and co producer) I do not expect to make money back on the project but I think it will get seen and maybe go to festivals which will help getting other projects made, or at least that is what I think! The above mentioned both have certain "hooks" with the first being a romantic comedy and the second having an interesting mix of SVN :rolleyes: etc. I think as you go money people will ask what you have done and building a portfolio of quality projects is a way to make a investor comfortable with giving you loot. -Rob-
  5. National (www.nationalboston.com) has a Shadow and does disk transfers and Finish (www.finishedit.com) has a ArriScan. -Rob-
  6. We are only doing SD transfers right now but that should change significantly in the next 6 months. SD can be done to any Blackmagic flavor (Uncomp. 10bit or 8bit or Dv50, etc..) -Rob-
  7. Should work with 200' in a 400' mag with no problems. -Rob-
  8. Think a Eclair ACl with 200' mags or new a A-Minima with 200' mags do you have a loader? 2-4 200' mags and a loader can be continuous shooting... -Rob-
  9. There is a tremendous amount of top dollar spots ($1M or so) that are finished to Digi-Beta and much of the broadcast news world is still using BetaSp or Digi-B for interview or intro stuff with "A" talent like anchors. A terranex can (and do regularly) up-res top end SD to HD and have the result look very good, D-Beta has less compression (1.5 or 2 to 1) and more color space (10BIT 4:2:2) than most compressed hd formats. I would not assume that a D-beta client is a bottom feeder, if they request it it is probably a good dollar job (of a sort) and talking them into hd may be technically better and more usable in the long term but maybe that client does not care beyond 6 months... -Rob-
  10. I would take a model 2 for my LTR.. -Rob-
  11. Hi Conrad, Magno is gone I would think that you will get the best deal/attention from either us (cinelab) or colorlab... -Rob-
  12. We get allot of hi-con shot for non-title purposes it's cheap and certainly has great blacks and contrast.... -Rob-
  13. All Redlake or Visual Instrument Hycam cameras need 400' daylight spools and the film for these cameras is usually 500t 7218 on estar base delivered from Kodak on the daylight reels. A hycam will pull a 400' reel in 1.5 sec so a core is potentially troublesome. I do not think you need daylight reels with a Photosonics. -Rob-
  14. I think one of the factors may be an older Spirit vs a newer machine like a Spirit 2k or 4K or a scanner like a arriscan. We can go and argue about the artistic merits of film grain and whether or not it is relevant, or as Phil believes, just noise but that would take us nowhere fast. I have seen that a oversampled scan with better nyquist characteristics will resolve the grain better and make it finer appearing vs. a hd or undersampled scan which seems to enhance the grain. Atrocious broadcast television compression seems to get worse all the time, sure there is a picture there but as soon as there is alot of movement in frame it's all blocks. Yay! lets squeeze more dollars out of everything. -Rob-
  15. Editorial is one thing dealing with the ridiculous amount of data and conforming it all is something else I had a conversation with one of the post supervisors on that show and I guess a few people had breakdowns because of the large amount of footage shot and the very difficult edit process because of the sheer voulume, imo this did not make it a good movie and I am not even talking about the look of the image.... Furthermore it is very easy to blame the lab for problems anybody who has worked at a lab kows this (" my film s out of focus your film processor was not properly bolted down" or "you messed up my film it's blank (underexposed) I want you to put the pictures back on" ) I would also say having known a few Germans that this production would run into more than a few issues due to the attitudes towards that era. I am sure that Arri has all of the latest, newest processing gear and the fastidious attitude to make sure problems are little to none. Billions and Billions of feet of film get processed around the world in the MP industry every year with very few problems overall.... -Rob- "blame the lab" Houllahan
  16. "Okay.. it was a pretty stupid question....I'll admit that." There are no stupid questions only stupid people and I have been that person :blink: "Ive been working in post-production for five years now... everything that comes B4 post-prod is pretty foreign to me. And yes... I was pretty clueless... I know how to expose film properly." There is alot to it and all film has to be processed that is how the latent image formed by the light sensitive silver halides turns into a not light sensitive usable visible image there are no bits or bytes here just organic chemistry. " But for some reason I confused processing with "making a print"... I thought that what I shot was already the negative... but for some reason it was still light-sensitive and I had to process it.... anyway." There is allot of lab and film terminology that makes more sense when you become more familiar, Films like "Touch of Evil" or "Taxi Driver" for example would have "rushes" made from the processed negative and that is what you would use to edit with, there was no video, really, used back then. Even people like Michael Bay will have these prints made for large action films they help accurately judge the photography and a 35mm contact print is roughly equivalent to a 4K scan and recording but much cheaper and simpler. So in some instances Process and Print go hand in hand but now with all of the techno-devices it has become less common. "If I make a one-light transfer and do my color corretion in Combustion or Shake or whatever... Im guessing that since it's been transfered to an 8bit image sequence, I don't have as much control as I'd have with a telecine , right ?" NO all color corrections systems are at least 16bit internal processing with a 10bit I/O for HD video there is significant loss of ability to grade images done in 8bit space. Often a show will do what is called a "milky" transfer to a format like D5 and then after the show is edited go back to the color corrector and do a final grade. You could do similar with Combustion or Shake or Color you just need a "real" file like a uncompressed 10bit HD quicktime for example and if you are going to use a software package like the above mentioned allot of patience and a realization that a calibrated grading monitor is essential. "Does that mean that a datacine like a Spirit scans the film at a high dynamic range ? Like a cineon file or smtg ? Or is it just an internal mechanism that dims/brightens the light in front of the negative b4 it gets digitized... like the post proudction equivalent of a push/pull ?" The spirit has a basically constant and controlled diffuse light source that I believe can be irised a bit for film setup and then there is a set of controls on the color corrector (I have only used a Pogle with the Spirit but I assume that the DaVinci is similar) which allow you to setup sensitivity of the individual color pickups. There are many versions of the Spirit from the sdc 2001 to the Spirit 4K the results in data mode for an original spirit will be something like 3 f.p.s and the color is half sampled and it cannot capture the full D-min to D-max range of negative but it is primarily a "video" device meant to make top quality broadcast HD video. Devices like the Arriscan or Northlight will capture significantly more dynamic range than a telecine but the newer Spirit 4K or Cintel DSX are close in data mode. It is not like a Push/Pull however the better the scanner the more usable information can be wrung from the original negative. -Rob-
  17. First your film must be processed :blink: Most telecine houses will be setup to go to better formats than dvcprohd, it is considered pretty low end for a super16 transfer, mostly it would be used for keycode dailies and not a "finish" video format. In general either D5 or Hdcam/SR are the preferred tape formats or direct to disk recordings. Most shops which will go to disk will offer either Quicktime uncompressed or DPX scans. Both of these are high bandwidth formats but you could always recompress down to a low end hd format like dvcprohd in FCP or Avid. -Rob-
  18. Doh! I knew that! but their souping is very good none the less.... -Rob-
  19. Labs I would send my ECN super8 to: Cinelab (I work there and co own but we do excellent ecn super8 process and transfer) Spectra in LA (top quality reputation for Process and transfer) Forde in Wa. (Excellent processing I do not know about transfer) Other guys do it, Pro8 and yale come to mind but I think you will get the best results and the most personal attention at the three above, in the US that is. -Rob-
  20. As someone said on cml a bit ago you can tell the pioneers because they are the ones with arrows in their backs :lol: The "market" for D-Cine cameras is still wide open Jim J is about third in the line after Dalsa and Arri he is first to deliver a camera from a small shop and I can only imagine that others (Including Kinetta) will follow him down the trail to a production camera. I know Jeff has delivered multiple scanners. -Rob-
  21. No itis just that they have finally discovered how to eliminate the persian rug from the system, you will see them flying off the shelf from now on. -rob-
  22. I have shot a ton of double perf in my Super-16 aaton ltr never had a problem, the image extends all the way to the right side, minus two sorta square chunks :lol: certainly does not affect registration or steadiness. -Rob-
  23. Both Kodak and Fuji have certain stocks available in double perf i.e. 7231 80iso B+W negative is available in either but 7222 200iso B+W negative is only available in single perf right now. Check the Kodak catalog for which stocks are available, Fuji recently made a number of their 16mm stocks available in either single or double where all of them were single perf just a while ago. -Rob-
  24. Probably between $1200 and $1800 per hour. -Rob-
  25. And it all went through an Arriscan then right? that has also come along quite a bit. -Rob-
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