-
Posts
2,364 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Robert Houllahan
-
-
So everything I wrote was ridiculous.
No I was just trying to be funny and it's and art and a craft and well one should be serious about it one should not take it so seriously.
There are lots of different frames you can compose for i.e. 2:35 in miniDV if thats yer happanstance every job will be priced differently. I am sure you could find a condition where a piece would cost $30m in 2:35 miniDV and one where $100k in imax however both are a stretch.
-Rob-
-
what do you mean by " a compositor as a color corrector"?
Digital Fusion is really a FX and Compositing package and of course includes a color corrector but a dedicated color package like a Lustre, Scratch, DaVinci, etc. will have more sophisticated tools for color finishing and a more streamlined interface but you will not buy one of these for a personal color station as they are very expensive.
-rob-
-
Hi there, I have a bit of ukranian color reversal film that I successfully processed using c41 35C (it melts @38), as I would like to have them processed in 120m loads, I wonder if I could just send it to the lab to be processed as ECN2. But I am afraid that it would not survive the machine. Any thoughts, suggestions etc? For example, what would be the working temperature of the ecn chem? Many thanks.
Richardson
ECN-2 Developer is 106F or 41C so if it melts at 38C you may be out of luck.
-Rob-
-
O'Conner 100
in 35mm
Hello Gents,I just snagged an O'Conner 100 fluid head off Ebay. I'm not crazy about what I payed for it but they come up so rarely that I needed to go ahead and move on it. I hope it works. Where can I get a rebuild kit for it if it's blown its little guts? As well, what's its maximum weight limit. I'l throw a Fries 35R3, XL2 and full-size NC blimp on it. It will also get an assortment of 8" TFT monitors, remotes, varied widgets, and an occaisional obie. Can an O'C 100 handle all that?
Thanks,
Paul
I am pretty sure you can get a complete set of rebuild parts directly from O'Connor and yes it will hold all that on the right sticks (i have one)
-Rob-
-
Hello Gang,
I'm wondering if anyone has had a chance to shoot 35mm cine frames of a recently issued, high-res LCD monitor? Since they are going up in contrast and resolution and down in price, I wondered if anyone has shot one to see how well it's imagery transfers back to film.
I know Jeff Kreines at Kinetta is building a 35mm film recorder based on a LCD panel I think a proper camera/panel alignment is essential and then you get into colorimetry issues and calibrating the panel to the film stock. For quick stuff I am sure it would work but any LCD is a 8bit device.
-Rob-
-
hi
i'm doing most of my color timing for shorts in HD with this software
i'm interested about your opinion
I would say that DF is a really good software package with render farm ability and a good Color Corrector which works in hi precision color space. If you can deal with the use of a compositor as a color corrector and you have a calibrated monitor why not?
-Rob-
-
This photo is by available window light, by the way, but whether artificially or naturally lit, the cost of lighting both shots would be the same.
This is where you have seriously made a mistake David, now that Sol Inc. has been taken over by an intergalactic conglomerate they are raising the rates on photons at an alarming clip. Clearly the use of more photons would drastically increase the costs of this frame you are shooting.
Rob "Injecting more ridiculousness" Houllahan :rolleyes:
-
Hey guys just searched the forums for threads regarding this but couldnt really find what i was looking for
but yeah here goes
is HD that much better? Ive seen HD filmsf (not hi-end stuff) but prosumer level cameras and well it looks just about the same to me. I know im not a tech guy or anything but this is just me.
The only thing ive noticed is more of a hyper reality then DV cameras since everything has more pixels and more is seen the faults of the people turn into big. I remember hearing that a news station had to get rid of their top of the line HD cameras because of this.
as well as their super accurate need for focusing.
Any who this is just my opinion but i think this race for SUPER HI-REZ image is getting taken out of proportion.
is the trade off beneficial ?
any thoughts?
I think that you generally get what you pay for, hi end HD solutions get more sophisto because they actually do the things they claim, prosumer and especially consumer cameras have a fairly wide range of marketing (i.e. Bulls**t) attached.
I was at a friends the other day helping setup a 4-core mac for editing DvcProHD and HDV and I was looking at a bunch of sony hdv footage and it did not really look much different than most DV I have seen, sorry ;) . It is widely known that a small sensor (1/4" or even smaller in many consumer cameras!) cannot resolve anything near the chip's photosite resolution because of the MTF of the optical system (lens and prism block) will not resolve it, this is basic physics and optics. So there is a optical "filter" limiting resolution at the very front end of the system, all additional resolution is sort of "made up" in the ccd sampling and electronics. People buy "HD" consumer cam's because it's a new thing and consumer electronics and computer manufacturers need to sell people on "new-better" to move boxes out the door and that's about it.
-Rob-
-
Given a choice, would you fellas recommend the O'Connor 50D or the 100 model? And what about a choice set of sticks?
I would look for a 50D and a set of peter lisand sticks they were a popular set together and the 50 is good for a camera in the weight range you a using, I have a 50 and a 100 which is too big for a smallish hd cam like the jvc.
-Rob-
-
that will one great effect S16 lens
will see?
meanwhile I will love more info on some cool wide angle lenses, plus some footage or frame grabs that will great
thanks guys
Best
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-
-
It should work for you. I have done it. The trick is a telecine service that will transfer at 9fps, as it's not that common, but maybe you have that part worked out. Is the look exactly what you want? Not sure. You have to try it.
Rick
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-
-
If you're just transferring the D-beta to film, that's a video-to-film transfer really, although you could consider the D-beta as the "digital" part of a digital intermediate. But generally the digital stage has to be higher in quality than standard def video.
If you just retransfer the film and conform in HD, that's HD mastering, not a digital intermediate.
Digital intermediate mainly means "film-digital-film" -- digital as the intermediate stage for creating an element for cinema release. Usually this means transferring the digital master to a film element for printing, but the term has been expanded to also creating digital masters for digital projection.
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-
-
I do not think reversal is a problem for transfering, in fact it might even be easier to transfer. Im pretty sure all places scan reversal, so that shouldnt be a problem.
However, as you might already know, its easier to fix a poorly exposed negative film than reversal. Negative my nature has simply more latitude. With reversal, its basically what you see is what you get, a negative image can be manipulated more.
Reversal film can also be ''prepared'' for telecine through various techniques such as ultra sound or ''wetgate'', so I wouldnt worry.
The reason that people are more careful with negatives is because theyre more volounarably, theyre more easily scratched. Also
dirt is always a problem, and since negative films are inverted dust is more visable and distracting. This is because dust is white when
the image is inverted, and its a lot more visable than black dust you see on reversal.
/Jan
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-
-
One disadvantage, I'd imagine, would be the loss of your ability to under-sling that camera if you did the top-handle assist.
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-
-
The Cineon system was introduced around 1993, I believe. And back then 10 bit was big thing.
Correct me if I am wrong, but if understand it correct, all high end DI's use this file system, right?
If so, why not use a high color bit depth, is it simply to little improvement to be worth bothering with?
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-
-
A mini disc would be the best way to collect sounds. They are cheap, and user friendly for PC use with NLE. Why worry about sync?
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-
-
Isn't it like a good 300,000 dollars?
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-
-
Hi- I'm considering going to Alphacine for Super 16 feature (color processing and telecine).
Anyone had experience with them?
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-
-
I agree with everything that Dominic says; also remember that for the last 60 years or so we have effectively used bleach bypass for sound tracks on colour film. The sound track area was re-developed to bring back the silver after bleaching. I have never come across any tarnishing of sound tracks.
Brian
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-
-
I don't know how I can make this any clearer. I don't need info on pricing, only ratios.
There will be two telecines.
1) I will have a one light done on Standard Def. I will edit the film with that footage (all of the footage). That means I will have an EDL for the 100 min film plus some other footage to be safe.
2) I simply want to telecine the footage correlating to my rough edit (and then a little more to be safe). The total footage transferred for the second telecine should only be about two hours.
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-
-
I don't fully understand all the details in this post ("ungraded", etc), but it does not seem to answer the central questions which are 1.) What ratio should be average for the time it takes to transfer selects? & 2.) Am I missing something about the factors time it takes to do selects? I was told 50 hours. I don't think I should need 50 hours to transfer the less than 2 hours of footage I would need from my SD edit (I think they understood that my SD edit was going to use Keycode, etc).
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-
-
Telecine Time Ratio for ?Selects??
I am trying to budget for post production telecine, probably 16mm to HD, but I am getting some rather confusing information from film labs. I am doing a low budget feature.
My original idea was to transfer to SD, do a very rough edit on my regular Final Cut Pro Mac, then use the EDL to go back and do a scene-by-scene transfer of only the footage I want to work with in HD.
I have done scene-to-scene transfers before, but never with ?selects?. Being very efficient, I was always able to make it a 3 to 1 ratio, so I was calling to find out what the ratio would be for working with selects.
I was told that doing ?selects? will be more costly then a scene-to-scene of all 15 hours of footage at once (100 min film). I am shooting at a 9:1 ratio which means that if I am as efficient as before, would be looking at 45 hours of lab time if transferring all the footage.
Even if the selects take me twice as long as my regular scene to scene (6 to 1 lab time), that only equates to 10 hours lab time, so how in the world are they saying it is going to be cheaper to transfer all the footage scene-to-scene? If this were the case, I don?t understand why anyone would even do selects (other than a small benefit of less tape used)
I understand that there are different factors that affect this process, but what have you found to be the average lab time ratio for select (supervised) transfers?
If there are any legitimate factors they may be putting into this equation (or is this absurd?), please let me know how I can eliminate this from the process.
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-
-
I agree about the kinoptic... but 1000-1500 I think that's on the market but I wouldn't pay that much for that lens ....
Also I will love to try the Angenieux 5.9 I know it vignetes a lttle bit but some people use it and they love it
BEst
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-
-
Hmmm. Not sure about the tarnishing, Rob.
After all, it's the same silver that you have in b/w film, and that lasts long enough! In fact it is a very stable archival medium.
There is no evidence to suggest that a bleach bypassed negative will have any shorter life than one with the full process - so long as it has been fully fixed, washed and dried, and is stored in the proper environemnt with regard to temperature and humidity.
However, labs don't usually have the resources to do extensive Arrhenius testing to determine the long-term prospects of blaachbypassed film (or normal film for that matter) - and I know that the manufacturers (who do this testing on normally processed film) can't really provide any data on film that has not been processed to their specifications.
Now cross-processing (reversal through a neg bath) is a different matter, and that has a seriously short life unless a stabiliser is added to the ECN2 process.
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-
Good Glass
in 16mm
Posted
I had a complete set for a arri m that I sold to get my ltr54 I thought the cookes were great glass. I would be interested in seeing what your mount looks like if you were to make a few more.....
-Rob-