Robert Houllahan

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-

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-

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-

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-

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-

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-

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-

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-

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-

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-

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-

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-

Depending on how much footage you have and what kind of deal you are getting... I would make a Simultaneous Keycode transfer with a Best light grade to 2 DvCam tapes (one Clean, One Keycode Burn-In) I would generally avoid MiniDv for keycode transfer but you could go that way. With the set of 2 tapes you can edit your footage with keycode, Foot+Frame numbers, etc and then re-batch from the clean tape to make a clean copy. Plus Take the Keycode transfers and just work on the Selects with your Colorist for the online grade and finish to HD or Digibeta. my $0.02 -Rob-

The Peleng 8mm will cover 35mm (as a true circular fisheye, it is decent glass and is pretty cheap for such a wide lens. I have one I use on a Nikkon mount Eyemo 35mm rig. -Rob-

This is true and if they cannot get real time 2k performance out of this super powerhouse desktop machine there really is something wrong in the code of this software. -Rob-

I have no preference for the JL Cooper. It has a cheesey fake stone look which is almost laughable, the Tangent panels are much better but more expensive. I was suggesting that someone who has a Hi-End FCP system could add a simple panel and a OK grading monitor such as the $5k JVC LCD and for less than $10k have a system which has some capability to do color finish work for the "one man band" style edit, this may lead to better looking work. The problem with the Tangent and certainly the JLCooper panels is that they are generic, I have spoken with people at both Assimilate and Iridas and both companies really would like custom panels like the bigger players. The reaction may be So What? who needs custom panels? however the reality is that if you cannot get to the tools quickly it makes this work much harder UI rules in grading. Furthermore yes if Apple had bought FilmLight and made a free Baselight we might not be having a conversation here, but they did not. I have had experience with 2 of the 3 major systems that are a good alternative to a DaVinci 2K+ or Pogle Platinum, these are Baselight, Lustre and Nucoda of the three I have not seen Nucoda yet. These 3 systems do work in real time (Yes when they work they are complex) and when they run out of Juice they gracefully render and cache to maintain playback. Both SpeedGrade and Scratch also do realtime work in a simpler kind of configuration (GPU single seat CPU) and i have had a Scratch system here and it works in real time for most things and also has good rendering when it runs out of steam. Both Scratch and Speedgrade and all of the other "Big Iron" high dollar software grading systems do work and allot of it in real time and with real time output to your grading monitor. It is very unclear if Color will produce any real time output to the grading monitor, you may be able to apply real time work but is it just to a little preview window on the control monitor? I do not know. Believe me as a smaller facility looking at software grading systems Apple's Color seems very attractive at a distance, I am sure we will get a FC Studio 2 package this year and I will find out more. It also took Apple a decade to bring FCP to a spot where it is competitive as a editor so who knows where and on what timetable Color may get the same treatment. -Rob-

Check this out for another opinion about Color. http://prolost.blogspot.com/2007/04/color-my-impression.html -Rob-

I grade film on a regular basis at Cine on a Real time CC ( a Copernicus) and I have run a DaVinci 2K and a Pogle Platinum to grade work I have shot, and worked with a Baselight 4 for an extended time period, I think my experience is a little weird industry wise. I personally cannot stress how important a tactile surface and real time feedback is to this work, I think any Colorist will tell you the same thing it is very reactive work and having to wait for the machine is a real downer. Furthermore I think that any skilled colorist will just ignore a system that is workflow disfunctional and client based work will not flow on a system without performance. I also have heard that Final Touch is certainly a clunky interface compared to Baselight, Lustre, Nucoda, etc. That said i think the addition of a JL-Cooper panel and a decent monitor to a 8core mac can make a fine secondary CC system and aid editors in finishing their work with a better touch but you have to spend the funds to properly equip the editor, it will still not be a finishing system though. Secondarily I have camera gear and shoot on a regular basis and I think I compartmentalize my mind a bit for where I am and what I am doing. I am, and have been, shooting a feature in a mix Super16 and 35mm around 300 rolls of film, blah, blah. My point is that while I could shoot/grade the film either at my facility or at another in NYC I feel it's not really a good idea for the DP of a show to grade it even if said person has the experience and technical knowledge to do both. The picture in NY I am shooting is being graded at Moving Images post in NYC and we have a great colorist, Eric, who does allot of MV and Spot work and he is really psyched to work on a feature. I think the interaction between the Colorist, Director and DP is a valuable collaboration and increases the value of the work being done and at the best what you get out of this is so much more than a one man band approach. -Rob-

We did a process and dailies job last year on an indie feature that they shot entirely with the 500D in Super16, I thought that was a strange choice, especially all the interiors, but i thought it mostly looked good allot like 7277. -rob-

Good question I would like to know as well, I would assume in some cases the Zeiss lenses would be faster/sharper, etc. Anyone know what lenses are available? -Rob-

This is true but probably only for a primary grade as soon as you try to apply anything like a multiple grade or windows the laptop is going to crawl. A LCD grading monitor is $5k and up and all are 8 bit devices but I guess people are starting to use them for grading work. I think people have had mixed feelings about Final Touch beyond just the bugs, i.e. weird "rooms" interface and non realtime performance in complex grades (a issue with all software cc systems) but a DaVinci 2K is a bit more money :lol: than this setup even with a properly configured system. This is just my opinion but I think that on set grading is a ridiculously stupid idea. -Rob-

You can run the Tangent panels or JLCooper panels with Color as a control surface the JL Copper is the cheapo around $5k and the tangent panels will run you $20k or so for all 4, still not too bad. Figure $50k for a system, panels, storage, and some kind of low end "grading" monitor like that new JVC lcd ($5K) not that I entirely believe in LCD for this task. There are some good Lcos projectors but bulb falloff is a problem and there are now 1080p plasmas which might be a choice if you can calibrate them. I think running a Color Correction suite on a laptop is going to be a no go as there is really not the computing horsepower for the task. -Rob-

Last Wednesday I went to a nice private pre-show of Mike Corrente's new anamorphic 35mm film "Brooklyn Rules" this was a wet gate answer print (No Di) on a nice big screen and a very fresh print. I have to say that there is something soo much more to a good 35mm print than the supposed 700 lines of resolution, which is a somewhat arbitrary number to me. Every 1080p film I have ever seen in 35mm print form has looked soft. -Rob-

Come on Mike don't you know by now that computers make the need for talent completely irrelevant obviously guys like Brad and Bob who work here who have been hand timing prints for 30 years are totally covered by the 14 preset "big feature" film looks built into the software. Everyone can now have a "Layer Cake Bad DI" and have it for free, which may be more than it's worth. Furthermore you clearly have not heard of the new calibration standard which all new grading sets are precisely set to these days, that is the "Best Buy Showroom floor sell what is in stock or has a spiff standard" which is clearly superior to any so called fancy adjustments which are just hype. :D :D :blink: :( :angry: -Rob-

Again it's certainly interesting and essentially makes 2K grading "free" Ha ha until you buy hardware, control surfaces and a Monitor/projector et all but the new Apple suite looks pretty crazy and a nice 8 core mac pro is not soo. much considering. -Rob-