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Robert Houllahan

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Everything posted by Robert Houllahan

  1. I am prepping 2 of my cameras for 3 days of shooting and I just put my Peleng 8mm and Kinoptik 5.7mm on my Super16 LTR54, as a refresher, I usually use the Peleng 8mm on my eyemo. These lenses are fairly similar in FOV for S16 and I do not think you would be mad at the Nice Peleng 8mm. Ups is that it has better sharpness edge to edge than the kinoptik, is readily available, and you can use it on a 35mm camera as well (where it is a full 180 FOV) the downs are that it's slower at 3.5 vs 2 and it does have a bit less of that Warped Bendy look as I see the thread has gone to 3.5mm and 1.9mm lenses since I last looked, sign me up! I would like to see that 3.5mm on some S16. -Rob-
  2. Any Rank with a metaspeed will be able to run at 9fps, we routinely transfer at 5fps for one client and the machine is capable of transfer of film at any speed between 1fps and 40fps with no real issues. Other Telecine's like the Spirit can do the same. I just shot a 10min little super8 film on 500t and shot much of it undercranked, anywhere from firing off single frames by hand to setting my Bauer's intervalometer and ramping fastest speed was 18fps, and then transfered at 18fps to disk. I speed changed the video to between 40% and 60% of it's original video speed. I have some really nice looking flash frame looking stop motion out of this one. I would suggest a slow speed transfer and some combo of that and post manipulation for this look. -Rob-
  3. Of course David has said it well, DI does have intermediate in it, furthermore I think it's important to understand that the idea behind this type of work is to represent most or all of the information in the original negative digitally and this means working in hi dynamic range rgb color and not the limited dynamic range and colorspace of all types of video, hd included except maybe Hdcam-SR. Also 2K seems to be the "standard" these days and it represents a bit more resolution than 1080p but much more range and color. -Rob-
  4. Any real modern telecine (SD, HD) and certainly 2K 4K etc scanners have no problem running reversal it is no easier or harder than negative. -Rob-
  5. I personally would not want that big chunky thing on the top of my LTR looks to me like it makes a mess out of the nice ergo of the camera and if you can get a side/internal tap so much the better. I am fitting a B+W PAL tap to mine on the side. -Rob-
  6. Cineon is 10bit logarithmic not linear like 10bit video, the log nature of the file allows for it to represent the same info as 16bit linear with less data. All DI systems/DI's do not necessarily use cineon DPX files, in several flavors, are popular too. There are 16bit 32bit, etc. files used and remember cineon, dpx, etc. are RGB formats and each color is represented by the bit depth i.e. 16bits each for Red, Green,Blue. -Rob-
  7. I would suggest a digital flash recorder of some type, M-Audio has a nice cheap compact solid state recorder and there are other options too like the marantz, etc. I think Minidisc is kinda dying out and may be hard to find media, etc. If you have a flash recorder you can dump all the sound onto a laptop. -Rob-
  8. I think that would be more like a complete package with a recorder and lenses, I would imagine the body would probably list around $100k and then be discounted before you buy "accessories" like a viewfinder? I don't know what are considered extras from the basic camera head but that's probably in the ballpark. -Rob-
  9. Everything I have heard about AlphaCine/Forde labs has been good. Furthermore we have seen a bit of their Super8 Color negative and it has been consistently as clean and well processed as ours so they must be doing something right. ;) -Rob-
  10. Well I guess this myth is busted :rolleyes: But it is something very many people seem to believe, I did and I work at a lab, but then again there is always more to learn... -Rob-
  11. The ratio for the HD telecine will mostly depend on how many flats of film you have and how randomly distributed the shots are. Also a highly organized edl list and an idea of where the shots are on each flat plus a list for each flat will aid tremendously in moving through the film. I do not think anybody could give you an exact ratio until the organization of the original negative is understood. I have found that the most film you can get through in a hour is 44 minutes with roll changes and basic timing this would be 1600' of 16mm or 4000' of 35mm. Figure that you have 1600' in 2 800' flats and you have 6 shots on these flats that have a total run time of 15minutes I would think that between scanning through, finding the shot, timing it and laying it down you could probably go through the full 1600' in 45 minutes maybe less maybe more.I can guarantee that the selects scan will be less than a scene to scene on all the footage. -Rob-
  12. A scan made on a pin registered scanner is (or should be) a full dynamic range representation of the original negative at the chosen resolution (2k, 4k, 8k, etc.), and these are made in RGB color space not YUV like hd the scans are usually individual .DPX files for each frame and the color fidelity and dynamic range of the file is much higher than a HD transfer. The issue is that the scans are not color timed and if you just looked at them direct you might think they looked washed out and somewhat flat. The typical workflow would be to put these scans into a color finishing system like a Lustre or baselight, etc. and do all of your color timing and film assembly in a calibrated system with a calibrated projector to match what the finished film will look like on a 35mm print at 70' wide. This is a typical feature film DI workflow a transfer to a HD video format is just that a video format not data. -Rob-
  13. We recently did this on several projects so here is my take on this: Transfer all of your film to Dvcam (beta, Dvcpro, etc.) one tape clean and one tape with keycode, timecode, Foot+Frame numbers, lab roll, etc. burnt in and make your edit in FCP, Avid, etc. The rates for a SD keycode transfer should be around $0.14 -$0.16 per foot. The finish edit will have the lab roll (flat) with foot and frame and keycode numbers so you organize the lab rolls and figure the shots you need based on Keycode and foot + Frame numbers and go through the rolls in a "finish" telecine session with the TK house running their keycode reader and transfer just your selects with maybe 5 frame "handles" for each shot. I would figure around $800 per hour for the supervised HD session YMMV. We did this for Chris Burke (who posts here) we did his SD keycode transfer and National in Boston (www.nationalboston.com) did a HD transfer to disk from his selects. This process could be considred a didital negative cut and is standard industry practice and certainly should be less expensive than doing a scene to scene on all your raw footage. Check out Pixelharvest.com in LA too they do 2K pin registered scans (selects) we did a 35mm job with them a few months back (they do 16mm too) but these are ungraded so that may push it out of your price range... -Rob-
  14. I think the 1K plus price would be for a very nice lens maybe even in PL mount I paid $300 for mine but that is because the person who had it before me did not realize there was a set of shims under the mount which caused a focus issue on his camera. If you want a top lens be prepared to get a mount put on it and have it collimated. I do not find mine to be a particularly heavy lens so with some care I would think a C-Mount would be fine. I do not know about the Angie but I think it has better sharpness but lacks full coverage both lenses are a tradeoff between price/performance. -Rob-
  15. Well shivver me timbers!!, I stand corrected ;) I was under the impression that Bypass has a shorter shelf life and I think I got that impression from Brad here at the lab, amongst others, maybe this is a Emulsion urban myth? Could the interaction between the silver and the color couplers/dyes have something to do with this? thus the alleged difference when compared to B+W?? I think we may have a Bypass job in storage in our "vault" maybe even something from the 80's might be interesting to see if that's so and take a look. X-Process Ektachrome certainly does have a shortness but it's a seriously cool look and we run allot of it in Super8 for transfer. Is there a particular stabilizing agent that is reccomended Dominic? -Rob-
  16. I think the Kinoptik 5.7mm is the least expensive option for a lens that fully covers Super16. I have one for my Aaton and it is softer on the fringes than in the middle but the next step up is a Century for 3-4 times the price. I think 5.7mm Kinoptik lenses are going for $1000 to $1500. -Rob-
  17. you will need a set of rewinds and a dark room for them, you then spool the 400' onto a second core (using a tight wind setup for this would be essential for Super16) so that the film is on that core tail out. You then get 4 100' daylight spools and you wind the film onto them one at a time. You do not want to try to fill the 100' spool and even if you manage to be consistent the last 100' spool will be more like 70-80' because when daylight spools are loaded at the factory they actually load 112' per spool and that's why buying 4 100' spools is more than a single 400'. Ask your lab for 100' spools and boxes they should have plenty i know we have hundreds and hundreds of them. -rob-
  18. We had a piece of tri-x crash our reversal machine a month or so back, a student sent a daylight spool of unprocessed film which had been tape spliced in the middle of the spool with scotch tape and unfortunately Bill missed it and the whole machine crashed. We were not happy but during the school year the B+W reversal machine runs 8-10 hours a day 5 days a week and there were only 2 accidents like this this school season. As far as I know in the 4.5 years I have been at Cine we have not ruined any ECN (8mm, 16mm, 35mm) but I think we are lucky that we have Bob Hume running our color department as he is a particularly experienced and meticulous guy. We also run a smaller 70ft/min demand drive machine and not a big 200ft + sprocket drive machine (for 35mm) which I think is more tolerant of torn sprocket holes in 35mm. We also have a dedicated 8mm ecn machine. As anyone who works/has worked/etc. at a lab knows it's a lot of work to run film and I am sure most if not all labs try to hold them selfs to a zero defect standard for processing. With Color Neg where the value of the original can be astronomical, such as work we do for a Jet Aircraft engine manufacturer where 900' of 16mm ecn (cut down from 24 400' rolls) is worth $33m !!! :blink: the work that goes into shooting it does register and nobody wants to be known for ruining anything. -Rob-
  19. This is true a bypass keeps the silver in the film instead of washing it out and the silver will eventually tarnish producing the blackening. This does not happen right away but it is a time sensitive process. You can run a bypass and then rewash the film later (re process it) with the bleach tanks to wash the silver out and mostly reverse the bypass process. Why is it surprising that minority report had a bypass? that was the look they wanted and the finished film probably got a 3 strip B+W separation master at the end of post for archival storage. -Rob-
  20. You would have to split the roll either before you shoot or have someone decide where to split the roll at the lab. When you setup a machine for bleach bypass you are literally cutting the machine leader (which pulls the film through the processor) so it does not go through the bleach tanks. So there is no way to run a bypass on part of a roll and then "throw a switch" to not bypass the rest of the roll. Setup for a bypass usually runs $125 to $300 and some extra charge per foot sometimes. This also depends on how much footage you have to run as setting up for a large run is more cost effective for the lab than a short piece of film. We charge $125 to setup and an extra $0.02/foot for shorter runs and down to just the setup on longer runs as an example. Your mileage will vary from lab to lab. -Rob-
  21. I would suggest speaking with your lab if you want A-Minima custom loads I know we have a whole shelf of empty A-Minima daylight spools and it would not be much of a challenge to spool 400' core loads onto a a-minima spool. I would suspect that many other labs have empty spools as well. -Rob-
  22. Sure but you have to know whats happening here, underexposed film will make the colorist work at "digging" the image out of the emulsion or in a one light it will just be left dark. Basically you increase the sensitivity of the scanner and then up the gains on the channels to compensate for the lack of density in the film. This exposes the noise inherent in the telecine/color corrector system this noise can look like grain but it will not look like block compression artifacts because the whole Telecine/Color Corrector chain is uncompressed from Pickups to SDI out any compression happens in the VTR. -Rob-
  23. No...there should be no heavy blocking or any other gross artifacts on the tape. I think you either got a bad tape or there is some compatibility issue with your Deck/Camera and the recorder at the Telecine house. Try another Cam/Deck to capture but if you cannot get a clean picture send it back for a re-transfer. -Rob-
  24. Just get a set of AJA composite video to SDI and SDI to Composite video adapters and you can do VHS tape to tape Color Correction. You will have to buy another VHS deck and that may be the deal breaker on this one. -Rob-
  25. Pulling the stock a stop will end up lowering the contrast and with the bypass it may slightly reduce the natural tendency to blow away the highlites. If you are looking for a more contrasty look you might want to control the exposure with ND instead of a pull. I would shoot a 100' and try it out. -Rob-
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