Robert Houllahan

So sorry to hear that John has passed a right good man...

-Rob-

i've started using my prime lenses more so i can't be tempted to do any zooming. it also makes me think a lot more about composition.

Check out one of our customers projects http://www.graciediary.com/ all Super8 (with Process and Transfer by Cinelab) this film is really great a super intense high quality Super8 production....It's all how you use it....

-Rob-

Whatever you do, avoid the Shadow Telecine. It is not truly hi-def (at least not from my K3 footage). In fact, the Cinelab transfer of the same footage (using a Rank Turbo) looked about 90% as good/sharp in Standard Def as the Shadow looked in DVCPro HD, at 1/4th the cost. I am not saying the Rank is a great telecine, more along the lines of that the Shadow was a huge disappointment. Hope this helps.

We just had a different tube put in and a complete tuneup because of a 35mm anamorphic dailies job we are doing so the Turbo 4 is looking better than ever. I get allot of comments about the Shadow and many people are not pleased with it. I regularly use a C-Reality and a Spirit in NYC and I have never seen anything come from a Shadow which I found to be equal to either of these in HD. I find that the machine has a hard plastic look, sorry.

-Rob-

I don't think Min'd Eye can do HD unless he's upgraded since I last talked to him (it's been a while). Try Postworks.

Try Calling Rich Torpey at Rhinoceros Post in NY They have a Sony Vialta which supposedly is s machine which rivals the Spirit and maybe he can cut you a deal, tell him I sent you.

Their number is 212 986 1577

I don't know if they direct to disk which is what you want I think.

-Rob-

But after having worked in several TV news rooms I'm surprised this did not happen sooner or more often.

Considering how local news rooms use their helo's I would say they should not be allowed to have them, i.e. the news cutting to a shot of a man on the LA freeway putting a 12ga in his mouth at 3:30-4:00 during after school kids programming. Local news (and non local too) is a real sewer at times.

-Rob-

I know that some Criterion titles were transferred on a Spirit at Nice Shoes to Thomson/Philips D6 "Voodoo"

 

You could go to HDCamSR instead now....

 

-Sam

The stuff they were working on at PL was Jackie Chan films from HK for Miramax and a Criterion in B+W....about a year ago..

-Rob-

Spectra products page has most of the editing goodies you'll need if you care to attempt your own film prep: http://spectrafilmandvideo.com/Products.html

 

However, I do not recommend negative film prep! It is nearly impossible to keep it clean as a lab prep room.

In general, as Justin said, the best policy with Super8 is to make sure it is clean from the drybox on the film processor and then keep it clean through all of it's handling steps. You can use a anti static lint free "handy" wipe to hand clean the film but this will meet with limited success, especially if the dirt is stuck in the emulsion. There are really only two good ways to clean super 8 thoroughly one is a Lipsner ultrasonic cleaner, the other is to "re-wash" the film, i.e. run it through the film processor again this will soften the emulsion, let any dirt go free in the turbulation of the processor and remove any residual water and kill any growing mold if the film is older.

-Rob-

Most telecine work is pretty stable, as evidence by the fact that a Spirit can be used for D.I. work.

 

There is some restoration work done using film scanners though -- "Dr. Strangelove" for example.

 

Unfortunately most "restoration work" is really not that at all, it's a digital clean-up and repair of a telecine transfer for home video, usually at HD resolution.

I have done some work at Post Logic NY and while we were there the second room was working on mastering several films for video. The workflow was Spirit/DaVinci 2k or Spirit/Pogle to D5 and then dust busting and general cleanup of prints in a single link hd enviornment. D5 is a nice video format but as David says it's not real restoration as it's still video.

hooligan

Steven,

1. There is nothing on your original order form about PC or MAC, I can post a copy of it if there is any doubt.

2. The original drive reads fine on both the G5 mac and the Dual Xenon WinXP Avid system, are we responsible for your computer problems too? The drive is formatted MacOS (extended, Journaled) the second drive we sent is NTFS.

3. We sent the drive as we said we would for Saturday delivery and UPS screwed it up, I can post the tracking number for all to see, are we responsible for UPS do you want me to call them incompetent?

4. We sometimes are delayed getting film out and sometimes smaller jobs like tests get caught in the volume we do, we need to add staff to help us expedite jobs I am doing this right now.

5. Steven your insulting tone and statements are unjustified grow up.

-Rob-

Thanks for the quick response Charles. I am anxious to shoot some tests as you can probably tell.

 

Can you suggest a lab or two to contact about re-rolling the film. I would be willing to pay a fee for that. The stock cost me nothing so I can afford to pay someone to do that for me so I can be sure it is done right.

 

Sean

We would be happy to do this for you for a bench fee (probably $75) and we would be happy to supply you with 100' daylight spools and boxes for free plus the shipping cost.

-Rob-

Sorry, I haven't checke dhtis in a while no one was repsonding. The shoot is approaching. I'm going into the space just to shoot, although there will be a small audience present. The director is pretty hooked on the idea of the live video projector, and shooting on film. I guess I just need to light the dancers to be brighter than the screen, and, worry about the trakcing lines on the projector.

 

Do projectors project at the same frame rate as TVs display?

I think you can do very well with a newer LCD projector which will not have flicker issues and with rear projection it will look cleaner than a post production insert.

I would say any newer high brightness LCD projector will work, I don't know about DLP as many projectors have color wheels and may have slight flicker issues (or they may not) you can adjust projector brightness with the internal controls and or ND in front of the lens.

-Rob-

I just got my first test roll from Cinelab. Nothing wrong with it that was not my fault.

Things you hear around a film lab:

"My film is jumping you guys did not bolt your film processor down right"

"You intentionally processed my film out of focus"

or

Student: "there is nothing on my film" Bob Hume: "did you shoot it on a bolex maybe the shutter was not open" Student: "that's impossible! Where's the shutter?"

We really do try to do things right and we always admit to our mistakes and even if the mistake was not our's we try to help out.

Here are some samples of recent telecine and they will be available on our website in full res to pick at.

Logon is: User: guest Password: guest

We have 2 telecine suites both are full proper suites with realtime all SDI digital color correctors (a System Copernicus on room 1 and a DaVinci888 going into room 2) both suites have AAton keylink keycode readers and a both Ranks have Dave walker upgrades and Quattroscan 10bit framestores. Pretty good for a bunch of old junk and improving all the time, when I go to NYC and sit in a Spirit/Davinci or a DSX/Pogle room is the pic better? yes do I come back and hate my machines? No they are good proper mid grade suites and priced at $175/hr now.

Stu Debenham at 3516.com does a good job with a different approach i have sent him home movie work when we were too busy and could not get everything done. Myron at Cinepost in ATL does good work too we have processed film for both they have both transfered stuff for us at times, like a nice happy distant cousin's relations here on the east coast.

-Rob-

Top row Super8, Middle row Super16, last row Super35

No, it's not bigger -- go to that link posted above.

http://marylandfilms.com/16mm-super16-ultra16-compared.html

I think the biggest problem with this format is the issue with scratching the film inside the perf area. It is easy to modify the gate of a camera or telecine, etc however to modify the complete film path may be difficult or in some cases impossible depending on the mechanics of the camera.

I feel that this is a low end modification and I personally think that there is no reason to consider it over Super16 if any real money will be spent as there is too much risk of damaging the negative.

It is easy to machine a gate on a camera or TK and cheap too on an older TK for example a spirit is another matter. Modding a older 16mm gate is probably the extent of support I will give this format as other mods get very expensive and do not equally compete with all of the excellent Super16 equipment out there.

-Rob-

My point in Ultra 16 is to ask those people that started the whole trend and rummors = Arri

I have seen their new lenses and I was really exited for it , but , why start and invest with something like that if you don't have a complete workflow

 

I might be wrong about this, please feel free to correct me

Best

I do not see why Arri would care about Ultra16 when they are selling the super nice 416 I would think that they would not consider it to be a "proper" or professional format and I can not see them supporting it with the Arriscan.

I think Ultra16 is a possible way for low budget film people to sort of breathe new life into STD16 cameras and that is about it.

-Rob-

I refused to get sucked into it again. I don't see much value in it but if others do then go ahead.

Here is the opinion from another irish film lab guy <_<

We had been hearing about Ultra16 like everyone else but I have not had more than 2 or 3 people inquire about the process in the last 2 years, and we run allot of 16mm it's really our bread and butter.

Processing Ultra16 is not a problem and bench handling is no problem either if you use Super16 handling techniques, i.e. tight winds, etc.

I have a STD 16mm gate for our rank suites (BTW Suite #2 is getting a DaVinci888 right now) and I have a plan to machine the skid plate to Ultra16 dimensions so we can safely run it on our Telecines and extract keycode, etc. with our Aaton Keylink systems.

I am looking at several scanners and I am sure the one I like will be able to scan Ultra16 to 2K.

To me it would not be so much work to support and I would like to support it like I would like to support 2perf 35mm it's just a matter of when some would show up. I will re visit the modification to one of our gates as it is a fairly simple mod for our CnC machine shop to do.

-Rob-

For anyone with HBO, check it out.

 

I shot Episodes 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12. I think they may be airing Episode 3 tonight.

I think the show is great makes me want to have 2 or 3 girlfriends! :blink:

-Rob-

It looks like static sparks to me. I did it once when a roll got very loose and I over tightened it so much that it "chattered." I could actually see the sparks since I was in a darkroom and not a tent. It looked about that shade of blue.

Thats a good guess it also might be a light pressure mark caused by any number of things including something in the mag or loading/bench handling.

-Rob-

Well look at it this way, there isn't a image file format I know of that I cannot open today. The world of still images seems more stable than the world of digital video, etc. If there is a file I can't open, there is usually a plug-in I can download that allows me to open said file. As for your 20 year-old Word Perfect file, yes you can open it today, it may just take some finagling. I think computer companies, mainly that of software companies, have become a lot smarter on this issue. While I might not be able to write a file in a format of the past, I can open it and rewrite into some other format. This is becoming more prevalent in today's designs than say 20 years ago, but only because of the experience of what has happened to digital formats and mediums of the past.

This may be a bit true but the supposition of file format cannot be separated from the physical media entirely either. Todays USB or SATA bus will be possibly completely unknown in the future as has happened time and again with computer hardware. Then you have "finagling" with the file format and it becomes work and effort every 15 or 20 years to maintain data which means in the real world much of this will be lost due to the inherent complexity of the system.

-Rob-

I want to do syncro sound recording for a documentary feature. Did somebody of you use the modern flash card recorders for this job? I want to buy a zoom H4 recorder. Anybody out thee who has used the zoom H4 for syncro sound recording?

I think it should be fine, any digital recorder will keep an acceptable consistent timebase to sync with film or video.

-Rob-

At the ASC, we recently had a presentation on theories regarding digital preservation by some guy from Sun Microsystems. Without espousing one format or facility over another, he basically said that any preservation system had to be built around regular data migration to eliminate the issue of format obsolescence and medium disintegration/deterioration.

 

Basically he proposed four master copies in two locations as a starting point that would be migrated to whatever data format you chose (maybe LTO tapes) every five or ten years. The risk of data error was fairly low he calculated.

 

The trick was getting an archive fully funded that could do that data migration on a regular basis. There are some practical problems -- some tape archives are so large that at any one time, a quarter of the collection may have to be in the process of being copied, which is beyond the staffing capabilities (archives are notoriously underfunded) and despite the low data drop-out rate of LTO tapes, for example, many post houses complain that some copy that they pass around to each other aren't playable at all. Someone pointed out that the ASC Stem material test had five LTO tapes made and sent to various post houses, and four weren't playable. Someone else mentioned that they can't even access and playback files that are only two years old at the D.I. facilities. So there are real-world practical problems despite the theoretical high standards of data storage.

I can attest to the tape issues right now, we took on an archival job for a US Senators library this year which consisted of a large volume of 16mm film from the 50's to the 80's and an even larger volume of all types of tape formats from 1" to VHS. Migrating all of the tape to DVCams was the solution, and a less than ideal one at that IMO, but the cost factors weighed in heavily on this job. Two copies made and then one copy held and digitized onto a server at the library and the other copy sent for proper storage but no funding for any real data migration schedule although we all talked about and were soberly aware of the issues. Much of the videotape had degredation and especially the vhs which I do not think will last all that much longer.

We do archival jobs for 16mm all the time and had a large collection come in about a year and a half ago with footage dating back as early as 1907 or so. The film was in surprisingly excellent condition proper storage and chemical sieves from Kodak and back to the library for another 100 or more and a D-Beta copy for access.

I think there is a strong desire to believe that the digital information generated these days will last forever, as the marketers have advertised, this is just not a sober look at the reality of data IMO. Digital data is highly ordered and highly complex and the mechanisms which it is stored on are of an exotic and complex nature I do not think it should be surprising that they are ripe for entropy and degrade quickly. Furthermore the issues of material and energy expenditure to keep this form of information alive into the future are a real problem with no good current solutions.

-Rob-

i really like this idea. i'm used to working with large image sequences from my work with after effects. do you know of any services that will help create high rez image sequences from 16mm?

Check out pixelharvest.com in LA they can do real 2K scans for a reasonable number. And give us a call if you want a 16mm dupe to archive.

-Rob-

Tapes don't last as well, drives fail to re start

 

If you really want to preserve the film have a Dupe made in 16mm and send it to a real cold archival storage facility like Iron mountain where it has the potential to last for a millenia.

-Rob-

As if to prove my point the USB backup drive I use to "archive" all the stuff I have on my laptop has just failed to spin up. This is a 120G laptop drive in a little USB2 enclosure and about 10 mo. old. Just sitting there on the shelf at my house doin' nothin' and now dead.

-Rob-

What about this place? http://www.moonpro.us/ It looks like a Sniper or a Workprinter scan frame by frame with a 3CCD HD camera. Iwas thinking of getting some of mine done there.

Hate to be a spoiler here but there is no digital medium which will last even a fraction as long as the original 16mm film if stored properly. Tapes don't last as well, drives fail to re start and the many many digital formats and codec's interfaces etc. mean loss of technology and difficulty accessing data later on. Try to buy a floppy disk now they were ubiquitous just a few years ago.

As for the work printer I would not try to do an archival process on a clearly consumer system get it scanned on a real telecine or scanner which will capture the range and color of the original properly and try DLT tape but just do not expect there to be a working tape mechanism in 40 years.

If you really want to preserve the film have a Dupe made in 16mm and send it to a real cold archival storage facility like Iron mountain where it has the potential to last for a millenia.

-Rob-

Looks cool I'll have to build one for mine :rolleyes:

-Rob-

Have you managed to shoot any footage with the NCS motor?

Is it the time lapse only version or the realtime/time lapse combination?

 

Any suprises or technical tips?

I just did my first real timelapse gig with this camera, came out great, considering it was raining :-( I will see if I can post a clip. So far I am very happy with the NCS motor.

Steel_Yard.mov