Robert Houllahan

We have 3 Allens a Treise and a Filmline...... none are turbofan powered... The TFS seems really great and I wish one could be supported here in Boston..... I don't see much difference between a newer treise or calder and our allen(s) ( one 35/16 and one 16/8 ) demand drive ecn processors... which run at 50ft/min. I assumed the TFS cleaner worked like a rewash with the accompanied emulsion softening and what looks like a big drybox on the machine. I would think it would work well but keeping up on maintaining clean mold free water would be a big priority. We have a San Labs alcohol machine and a older Lipsner ultrasonic it seems with commercial 35mm any little spec is a big (producers??) problem (which I think is a bit silly but..) so I have been looking at a Lipsner CF8200. -Rob-

When i inquired about the "cleaner" which I kind of considered as a possible stand alone re-wash machine (with heavy modification) I spoke with Mike at TFS and he was very helpful and I would think he could scare up an old manual but any further support would be out of the question. I got the impression that the machine was very well engineered but as Dominic said when you loose a 747 in the film lab world that's that.... This machine seems like an interesting concept from a enviornmentally friendly POV but with alcohol and newer engineered fluids like prista and novec (3m right?) being used for cleaning using straight water seems pretty risky on valuable films... -Rob- Oh and BTW the TFS film processors really seem like the Cadillac's (or Bently's) of the processing world but at 200fpm for the smallest one i do not think many have been sold outside of LA...

I looked at that machine for Cinelab and spoke with the owner of TFS in LA, they make very hi end hi volume film processing gear. He told me that these machines were pulled off the market after ruining 50K ft or more of archival OCN at a big facility. The machine uses water rather than a solvent like Prista or alcohol. The problem stemmed from mold growing in the water for the system which then contaminated the emulsion. Be careful with the machine and get a good fungicide to use with it. -Rob-

It certainly is more expensive to shoot S8 and optically blow up to 16mm as Interbeg stock is expensive but the look of a S8->16mm optical blowup is very distinctive and cannot be made any other way... -Rob-

I have seen some really great looking E6 and K40 Super8 optically blown up to 16mm on a JK printer using inter-neg stock. Really amazing results but the original was well shot..... -Rob-

We at Cinelab run B+W reversal every day and B+W negative at least twice weekly, Duart is probably the only other choice in NYC for negative and Pac-Lab runs B+W Reversal. We have a drop at the Standby program ( www.standby.org ) in NYC. -Rob-

Wasn't Last King of Scotland 'scope 2.40 from a mix of Super16 and 35mm ? -Rob-

I agree! 4:3 is a waste and in a pinch you could up-res the 16:9 D-beta to DvcProHD or HDCam with a Terranex box. -Rob-

Sorry , I know this is an international list, yes in the US you can just go buy AK-47's for a few hundred bucks at your local gun shop. I am not making this up, it's true, almost as common as orange juice. -Rob-

Blah blah it's a "concept" or "revolutionary", or whatever, this piece of hvx with cg is trash, I make my living from film and would not pick up a cheap camera to film a 300' monster that was trying to eat me. I would pick up a gun, I own plenty, and try to stay alive. I was hoping this piece of low end trash would bomb on the numbers but considering that every third spot run in the US last week was for this mcnugget movie I guess every dope was suckered in on this one, I have to buy a few AK-47's for a film I am shooting tomorrow maybe I could test them out on the director and producers of Clovernugget before I have the gunsmith convert them to fire blanks. Hula

In LA try : www.pixelharvest.com or www.metropolis-mps.com -Rob-

Machine leader is usually tougher than white leader, a tape splice like one for editing will break and crash the machine, in general stainless steel staples and special tape splices with punch holes in the film such that the splicing tape contacts side to side through the film for strength are the way to go. Also machine leader does not have perfs... -Rob-

Quick question, what stocks were used for Last king of Scotland? was any 500t used in Super-16? -Rob-

The cost of entry into 8mm or 16mm is really about the same, they have different looks, what look are you trying to achieve? You can pickup a cheap Super8 camera or a old B+H or other non reflex spring wound 16mm camera for around $100.00. Super-8 stock and processing is a little cheaper than 16mm. At this rate you could pickup both a cheap 16 and a cheap super8 camera and try both out.... -rob-

Colorlab bought a Nova telecine and Pro8 is installing a Millenium, both will do 444 as they are both flying spot (CRT) machines, as with most film scanning oversampling will yield better results (nyquist) this is why a 2K scan made on a machine that scans 4k and down-samples will look better than a scan made on a "straight" 2k scanner.... -Rob-

I would try to get a pin registered scan (to DPX files) instead of a telecine transfer for this stuff, every bit of stability will help with compositing elements, there are allot of scanners in LA I would think you could find a good deal on a northlight or something similar... -Rob-

I do not think it "edges out" a Spirit or Millenium, etc I was just trying to say that the shadow is a great Super8 telecine and a less than optimal machine (Compared to a Spirit 2K or HD, etc) for 16mm or 35mm. The shadow was sold as a lower cost alternative to a spirit and designated as a video only machine. As far as i understand the shadow will not resolve mare than 1440 pixels and that anything higher is interpolated on output to SDI. All thompson telecine's are line array devices, i.e. there are 4 linear ccd's (one for luma and three for R,G,B ) with the Shadow and Spirit-1 the luma is sampled at full res and each color is sampled at half i.e. if luma is 1920 R,G,B are 960 I have always considered the older Spirit to be a 4:2:2 machine even if it produces 4:4:4 at the output. The new 2K and 4K Spirit is a true 4:4:4 capable machine (and actually the three HD,2K,4K all use the same CCD and optical system with capabilities turned on or off depending on what model you buy) as the Luma and the R,G,B linear arrays are full res (2048 or 4096) and can be sampled as such. All Flying spot telecines are 4:4:4 at the front end (tube and photomultipliers) and all newer ones can produce 4:4:4 at 10bits. I am not sure about full edge to edge on the Shadow for Super-8 I know from operating the Spirit that it cannot capture into the sprocket area in Super-16 and I assume this is the same with Super-8 in fact I do not know of any telecine that can capture into the sprocket area without a heavily modified gate. As stated above you can run a Shadow in data mode to get 444 1920 HD but it cannot resolve that on the front end so some of that performance is "made up" like a HVX "makes up" some of it's resolution or a bayer mask cam "makes up" 444... Your mileage may vary. I have seen some very nice Super-8 from the shadow, to get "real" 444 you would need to scan on a Northlight or a Arriscan (both of which do not offer a Super8 gate) or a machine like a Millenium or Nova... -Rob -

In general I think 1200' is the max for camera negative assembly and 800' is a nice size for transfer purposes. Sometimes we will assemble alternating 1200' and 800' flats for dailies transfer in order to fit the dailies with keycode onto 64min DvCam's or betaSp...with the most efficiency. When a flat of 16mm gets bigger than 1200' it becomes a bit more difficult to handle and you have the danger of dishing it. With 16mm prints it is not uncommon to get 1600' or 2000' flats for transfer, many educational films are of this size. -Rob-

Depends on who modified the camera for Super-16 if it was a thorough, proper, job all rollers and surfaces which contact the emulsion will have been machined to accommodate super-16 dimensions. -Rob-

I would say that you have to look at any roller or surface that comes into contact with the extended (Super16) area or the film's emulsion and have those rollers or plates machined to match the super-16 area. Those rollers on the throat probably need to be machined for s16 and then re anodized.. -rob-

I think it looks pretty good for a DIY setup but compared to a good HD Cintel or Thompson telecine the pic seems flat and the color is very washed out. The flip side of that is a used Spirit-1 is around $500,000.00 but if you have ever used one you can see why...... -Rob-

Yes, I believe Technicolor moves this gate around from facility to facility but it can be scheduled, I think their rate starts around $1800/hr so it is a top shelf option. I think the Shadow (which i feel lags in image quality compared to other HD telecine's for 16mm and 35mm) is a near ideal match for Super-8 HD transfers (I think the shadow is 1440X1080 native imagers) such that a transfer from FSFT will be about as good as you can get out of the medium... -Rob-

We are not yet equipped for HD transfers, unfortunately. dpx or tiff files can be the same resolution as a mov file, in general dpx files are RGB not YUV (like mov video files) which is better color fidelity so if fsft can do a data transfer to dpx files that would be the best quality. Furthermore you could get a quicktime file and export a series of tiff or dpx files from Final Cut which you could further manipulate in shake, after effects, etc. -Rob-

If you get a 24fps progressive transfer you could speed change the 24fps to 18fps with no loss, or ask the fsft or colorlab can run the telecine in data mode which would yield dpx files that you could then set to whatever frame rate you would want. -Rob-

I used a standard small air tank run up to 120psi it had a standard auto shop air hose attached and the 'duster valve" is just a simple attachment to the air hose that has a nozzle and a hand actuated switch valve. These are usually used to blow stuff out and they give good control over the amount of pressure you release. I JB welded a barbed brass end onto the nozzle on the duster valve and attached a 1/4" poly hose to it which I clamped also. The poly hose was run to a rubber which we scored with a razor blade and taped back shut with scotch tape (you don't want tape that is too good scotch tape breaks away easily) we filled the rubber with nasty bloody gunk and taped it to the poly hose (with the hose submerged in the bloody goop) the hose was run up the actors clothing and the rubber was taped to his undershirt and a score was placed in his shirt. I had to put this all together on the fly and did not have time to perfect it, I actually got the idea from some kids who shot a ww2 movie i did some work on. I got 3 shots out of the tank before I had to re pressurize it. All parts were bought at home depot. -Rob-