Robert Houllahan

Hi

Our color lab head Bob Hume and I were talking about 100' super8 cartridges just yesterday. Bob said that Kodak used to make 100' loads that were in the same 50' cartridge. They managed this by putting the film on estar base. Bob said that they did not really work well because the thinner base routinely jammed in the cartridge making it more like a 30' roll than 100' maybe 50' is alright after all.

-Rob-

I generally try to get our customers shooting Super16 to do an anamorphic video transfer. If you edit in 16:9 anamorphic and build a DVD at the end the set top player will auto letterbox for 4:3 sets and play 16:9 for newer widescreen sets. Seems like a good all around way to go as many people have plasma's or lcd's now.

-Rob-

I thought it was Scorsese's best since Goodfella's maybe I am biased because I am from Providence where "they just will not stop having the maafia" as Jack said.

I did feel that I could see the DI, probably scanned on a Spirit rather than a Northlight or Arri.. looked past it thought the performances were pretty funny, esp. if you have spent some time in Boston.

my $0.02

-Rob-

Hey,

 

I'm completely new to this forum, so forgive any naivety.

 

I'm shooting my classmate's freshman film, he's purchased all Fuji stocks, Eterna 250D, Eterna 250T, Reala 500D. He just asked me how we would go about shooting the moon. I don't have a spot meter, and we can't get one. I'm sure there's no way an incident reading will help, so my question is: Is there a rule of thumb when trying to properly expose for the moon? Do you just open all the way up? It's a short shot and he doesn't mind bracketing it so maybe it won't be a problem at all. I'm thinking of shooting it at 2, 2.8., 4, and maybe 5.6.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions about which stock I maybe should use of the ones I mentioned, any comments are useful.

 

Thanks

 

- Matt

I just did this and saw it on the DSX at Mi in NYC on Monday, I shot Fuji 250D with a ND 2.0 (5 stops) and at a T8.0 looked great. Camera was my Aaton LTR54 with a Zeiss 12-120.

-Rob-

As a camera/shooting format, beta-SP cameras, to my eye, still tend to outperform DV cameras, but this is mostly due to the difference in camera design (pro vs. consumer, 2/3" CCD vs. 1/3" CCD, etc.)

 

The main problem with analog tape formats, as everyone knows, is generational loss, which probably can be mitigated by never going more than one generation down from beta-SP in the chain.

 

Anyway, from a purely practical what-you-see-with-your-eyes level, I don't think there is a definite overall quality difference between DV25 and beta-SP, it's sort of a toss-up, but it really depends on the post chain planned. If you can avoid either DV25 or beta-SP, you're probably better off anyway.

What Dave said, period :D ....I think Beta has a bit nicer color from a Telecine session, but it's a tossup.

I do know a few well respected ENG shooters with pretty extensive (early career) film experience and both of these guys work in NYC for hi-end news, etc. One's got a D600 and a Dsr-570 and the other has a D-35 with Beta and DvCam backs, the BetaSP is what's called for 90% of the time and esp. for national broadcast on air personalities on major news networks. Maybe that's what the producers are used to or maybe there's a possibly real perception that the beta is nicer on the "talent" I don't know more but that's what I have heard....

-Rob-

The liquid you mention isn't water (that WOULD make neg and stock stick, fatally!). It's used in very fancy printers, the liquid is usually tetrachlorethylene (local environmental requirements are putting pressure on this)

Is tri-chlor still legal in Australia? it has been outlawed in the US for 5 years? I think. We run Per-chlor in our wet gate, as I assume most other US labs do.

-Rob-

Hi I´m working in a "no budget" projet.

the 16mm film will be telecined to miniDV or Betacm SP. i can handle two formats, but which you prefer? miniDV or BTC SP?

 

thanks in advance

I would go for the Beta.

-Rob-

I am shooting a film on regular 16mm in a few months and I am trying to find the best transfer house to use. I live in Vermont and there are no film labs in the state. I figured New York would be my best bet to check, but I also have been looking in Boston.

 

Pretty much I want to find a place that will process and transfer my film to HD hard drive files. I am still a little confused between telecine and di, but I am looking for the cheapest method possible, not so cheap it doesn't look good though. Eventually we are planning on entering the film in a few festivals so I want it to be nice enough quality to be projected on a big screen.

 

Any suggestions on labs would be great.

We are the closest lab to you, national in boston will do hi-def transfers to HD you could process with us and we can courier the film to boston. Keep in mind that Std16 fits funny in the HD frame. Another alternative is to do 2k scans there is a guy in LA we have been doing a few jobs through while I look at scanners the issue with a 2K scan is that it then needs to be graded.

Feel free to call if interested.

-Rob-

No laughing please, but my time lapse Eyemo is currently run by a small heavy duty windscreen wiper motor, powered by 12v gel cell supply and controlled with a basic intervalometer.To make it go backwards I simply reverse the battery polarity!

This ,of course, seems perfectly proper for an Eyemo I assume you also use the Eyemo for hammering nails on occasion and as a proper device to open stubborn adult beverages? And watch out if a burglar breaks an entering on your premises the old eyemo will show it's ww2 heritage :D

Pics of the eyemo with NCS motor when I pick it up.....

-Rob-

If your goal is zero dust and dirt defects than I doubt the super-8 negative stocks will deliver that. However, they do provide far more latitude than the reversal stocks so it's a trade off. Most of the specks could probably be easily taken out with certain NLE software

Dust introduced into the camera while being shot will show up in the film image only if it is in the gate of the camera. When the film is processed any dust particles will be knocked off the film once the film goes into the developer tank with it's strong turbulation. Dust from the camera gate (when shooting negative) will show up in the picture as black. Dust in telecine (when shooting negative) will show up as white in the picture.

Super8 color negative can be very,very clean if proper attention is paid in the processing and film handling steps after processing. This clean negative does require special and attentive handling. Our head of color processing, Bob Hume, has developed a good set of simple techniques for combating dirt as any lab that runs color negative seriously should. One should expect the same amount of dirt on 35mm negative as you would on super8 color negative. This is of course a relative statement as any dirt on 8mm will be far more visible but the 8mm should not be a mess either. There are many good labs out there that turn out clean 8mm.

-Rob-

If it's movie film, I'd send it to Martin Baumgarten. He's your best bet, the man knows his poop about film processing, EVERYTHING about film processing. Over the phone he's explained the workings of 3 different movie processing tanks, developer replenishment, bleach replenishment, densitometry, color comparators, color space theory, just one of the most technically knowledgeable laboratory guys you'd ever meet.

 

You'll probably have to wait a while to get it done though. He does it as a hobby only.

Rocky Mountain film lab would process this, usually older film like this will end up B+W instead of coloor, or at least that is usually what happens with older Kodachrome.

-Rob-

Just another thing to note - looking at the official Kodak catalog, they only offer 1200' for 7217 (V2 200T) with 1 perf. Minimum order is 8 rolls. If you don't mind 2-perf, then you can also get 7218 (V2 500T), again 8 rolls or more. Otherwise, it's 800' rolls, which most of the other emulsions offer.

 

That all being said, with a sufficient order, I'm certain anything is possible.

I would stick to 800' mag loads, 1200' watch for dishing!! loading's going to be a hassle and the minimum order will cost you a decent used car... :P

-Rob-

I am an "undercranker", and recently shot material with a Canon FD hard-frontrd Eyemo for a TV network promo celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

 

Maybe I'm just lucky with the condition of the camera movement, but the footage was pretty steady when intercut with footage shot on a trusty Mitchell.

 

This particular Eyemo has no view-finder options fitted, ie. no parallax correcting side finder or video tap etc.

I had a machinist fabricate a simple tripod adapter that allows me to block a shot with a Canon SLR and selected lens in the centre of the portrait position, and I then simply swap the SLR for the Eyemo, and the lenses to film plane line up.

 

For wider angle shots I *sight* along the lens barrel and with a rough field of view knowledge i can get the shot.

 

As we in the time lapse fraternity deal in time, the above camera swapping set-up isn't too time consuming in the overall equation.

This all sounds very positive I have a similar rig but Nikkor mount, no finder, what timelapse motor are you running? very nice to hear that it intercuts well with Mitchell footage. I overhauled my eyemo and she has a nice smooth movement. I will probably pick my camera up from NCS in Queens (intervalometers.com) this weekend as he was not quite done with finalizing the build on my motor last week.

-Rob-

Hey all, I was wondering if anyone could recommend some books or resources that discuss film processing and techniques? I want to learn more about silver retention, adding a slight fog to a neg, or bleach bypass and much more.

 

I've orded the book Image Control: Motion Picture And Video Filter Lab Techniques hoping that it will answer a lot of my questions; however, are there any other books that discuss the process and artistic reasons for choosing a certain method.

 

Does Kodak or Fuji distribute any reference guides?

 

-Gracias

There is allot of reference information on Kodak's website under the motion picture imaging department. I think Dominic Case from Atlab, and a frequent poster here, has a book in circulation. There are/were many books published on a wide range of photochemical process and techniques. I am sure there is a wealth of this kind of information at the public library there were many very good books on photography published in the 60' and 70's.

-Rob-

This is one thing I think my school does very well. In Production 1, students make short films with 1-300' of B&W reversal film and a Bolex, and edit with razors and tape. The whole process is obviously obsolete as hell

But isnt' it great? I am cutting a sound picture on a workprint for a 8min 16mm short doing film editorial on film with mechanical machines and getting your workprint all dirty and getting your fingers all over it is greaat. I would not want to edit a film any other way and could not even imagine how bitchin it would be to have a 35mm workprint for a feature and assemble a picture like that.....mannn...

-Rob-

Or maybe Star Wars and Titanic...just to piss Max and Robert off. :rolleyes:

I liked the original star wars I was a young kid when it came out but the reverb of it was quite strong in my childhood and have seen it many, many times. The film has it's hokeyness and some poor poor dialog but it was built with skill and there was good attention paid to the look and quality of the vfx. I do not think it was up to Doug Trumbull's work in some area's but the picture did bring you into another world and had style. The new stuff is just really sloppy looking, kind of a phoned in job.

I just got "Star Trek the MP" on my netflix and found it to be really great with a look that could be released today and really seamless vfx (Trumbull) that have survived the near 30 years since release and are watchable over and over.

I just watched "The Departed" down in Brooklyn with one of my film co-conspirators and we looked at one of the head popping scenes a few times and it seemed pretty clear that it was enhanced digitally but had a practical fx base. I am not necessarily saying no digital but it has to stand up and much of it has not to date.

Maybe if you do not care how your picture will age it's not a problem but that's not really the attitude a real artist would take. The lack of caring makes that creator an accountant.

-Rob-

There is no "dark art" and there are no "secretive techniques." There is only talent and experience, as in anything else.

 

If you want a good source, try Steve Hullfish's book, "Color Correction for Digital Video."

I don't know about you but I sacrifice a small animal before every sit in session and I only use fresh holy water to clean the panels on the Copernicus.

-Rob-

BTW Check out ScopeBox for the mac (scopebox.com) the current release is good but the upcoming scopes (I'm alpha testing) are really great even when compared to a set of nice Tek's good way to get a set of scopes.

-Rob-

Lots of good info Robert. Do you think for Super-8 purposes there is a noticeable difference between Digital Betacam and Betacam SP? And for low budget purposes, betacam sp should still be acceptable for 16mm and 35mm, no?

I have always really liked BetaSP I feel it is overall much better than DV based tape and is more robust and has nicer color. There is however a big difference between SP and Digibeta/Uncompressed Disk (which I am going to consider the same) but this really depends on your finish format and workflow needs. I will maintain that the less compressed the original, especially with a source with allot of grain, the better a final DVD will compress.

-rob-

The physical process used to create the Matrix effect may be processed, but the resulting image cannot be. At most, someone could attempt to trademark or copyright it, but I suspect the attempt would be unsuccessful.

One would hope so, however patent law does seem somewhat flexible these days. If the genes which made up your liver (or lack of if your irish recently :angry: ) were patented would you still be able to use it? or would you start to get a bill for it's usage from Monsanto? Possibly with the admonition that you were required to have a proper metering system installed to comply with the proper billing specifications.

I do not think the most overused shot should be patented as a product in itself I feel that if I want to get 30 remoter triggerable slr's together on tripods and do something dumb I should be within my right to do so.

-Rob-

"and have often wondered if any clever chap had built a sort of electric shark repeller for divers"

 

Yes there is such a device, surfers use it as well. I have seen a number of very convincing tests. ie bait tied to the ocean floor in great white infested waters with the device to "guard" it. The video showed the sharks trying to get the bait but swimming off when they got close to the field of the device.

 

Now, do you want to trust such a device against a charging two ton great white? I dunno, in that case I'd feel better in a cage. Other wise all you could do is close your eyes and hope he turns away.

Trust? I dunno... but I would suppose every inch counts in that situation.....

-Rob-

I fully anticipate once Arri is done "testing" the D-20 as a rental only item, they will introduce some digital backs for their film cameras. If they don't, someone else will. Super16 is awesome, tho. I recently saw a demonstration of Super16 and D-20 on a Cinetal HD monitor... Let's just say digital cameras are a hard sell as far as image quality is concerned... Where speed is the #1 priority, digital is clearly the winner, obviously.

It will be nice to snap a Digiback on your Sr or Ltr/Xtr seems rather logical.

I would also say that making jobs pay for kit is a great way to get more kit. I have taken the approach of a bit older or specialized cameras. I have 2 brand new (2002 manufacture) Hycam's because a customer had a instrumentation need and I got them at the right price. I just finished putting together the rest of my Eyemo kit with a few more Nikkors (18mm, 28mm, the 1/4 turn for focus :) ) and I am picking up my NCS Timelapse motor this weekend in Queens. I am sure I can sell some nice long shutter duration (stars flyingby, etc.) shots in 35mm probably pay for the motor in a few weeks.

I had thought about buying a nice XTR about a year ago but finding 10K (plus my ltr) to stretch to get it just did not make sense for me. Having some kit and then going to the rental house is a good way to go, let the rental house pay for the high ticket camera system and maintain it. If I had a job where the client wanted a fancy looking spot and was willing to pay going to Boscam and getting a 435 and support, etc. is what I would do in a flash might bring the eyemo package but as a specialty rig only. Owning the 435 would only make sense if I were in a market and climate where it would give me great leverage or be run almost every day.

-Rob-

And please for heavens sake don't anyone go and start thinking I am saying anything bad about the red I am sure it is going to be a very fine example of it's type of camera, similar to the Dalsa I would think in many ways.

I am afraid to even say red it's so like pissing on the third rail around here.

-Rob-

[Would you now consider buying a camera such as the Aaton Prod, or will cams like RED negate the probable investment benefits over the next two or three years.

I bought my LTR54 6 years ago and probably have 10-12K (lenses, support,blah, blah) into it which seems relatively cheap to me, I have gotten tons of use out of it and I am not saddled with a big monthly payment to own it. Film's film and I do not think a video camera no matter how much talk is made about it will negate that look and methodology, and there are major issues with all of the types of imagers be it a bayer or prism block.

I know things will go digital someday, of course

This is, of course, the prevailing wisdom but I do not necessarily see it as having to be true, the digital phenomena is still fairly new and most people seem to be resigned to digital representations replacing everything from sex to toast in the coming years. Many digital systems are vastly more complex, power hungry, short lived and not ultimately as good as what they have replaced just throw the digital moniker on and accept the dulling effect.... :D

Does any (working/ex pro) in here have an opinion they might like to share with me on this? Is it unwise to invest $25k in a used Aaton when I could get a new RED for close to the same?

I think a used aaton or sr will set you back allot less than 25k and a complete red will set you back more like 75k after glass and accessories, etc. unless you want to use a plastic follow focus with a nikkor prime with a 1/4 barrel turn for focus.

I honestly haven't enjoyed my digital experiences at all. Everything becomes so rushed and the American "push-button" mentality seems to rear it's ugly head quickly and any "craft" turns into soggy work instead. Not to mention that thus far, the images are never anything that excites me.

There are allot of lazy slobs (directing) working at the hi-end of American cinema pushing the "new" button history will not have anything to say about the early 2000's all blue screen digital "film" because it will be quickly forgotten and almost as quickly the "originals" will be eaten by entropy. Entropy loves a highly ordered complex system, yummy tasty.

These are my opinions as a Jerk...... :D

-Rob-

High end Videotape and direct to disc probably will mutually co-exist for a while longer. Even though you followed a 10 bit process, the final "real" master is the digibeta, no? So now the additional test to do would be to start with a digibeta transfer and then see if there is a noticeable difference between the 10 bit and the digibeta or even the betacam sp version.

 

If ten bit is using RGB for it's codec than that would be different process than the component video signal that digibeta and betacam sp use, which is Y, R-Y, B-Y.

I have done this many times there is really no visible difference between the uncompressed 10bit 422 video and the Digibeta 10bit 422 1.5/1 compressed tape. This is looking at the video out (SDI) from the disc recorder or telecine and then the video out (SDI) from the D-Beta deck on a A-grade CRT. There are things you will see on a A-Grade CRT that you will not see even on a nice SDI PVM and certainly not on a consumer tv. I think our Panasonic's were $26k new for a 20" CRT.

BetaSP is a significant step down and DV is a little step down from there, both of these formats in either YUV or in the DVcam from SDI have very significant quality difference from the original Uncompressed SDI signal coming out of the Telecine/ColorCorrector.

The 10bit file is not RGB there is no practical SD RGB video format. It is in our case (and most) a Blackmagic 10bit 4:2:2 Uncompressed YUV video signal, the very same signal that comes out of a Telecine or a D-Beta deck. The capture card basically ingests a bitstream and puts the bits in a Quicktime wrapper, the D-Beta deck ingests the same bitstream and compresses it 1.5/1 and stores it in a plastic tape wrapper. When it comes to the video signal there is practically no difference.

I agree tape will be around a long long time, it stores much better than optical or hard disc media.

In a direct to disc workflow the above mentioned D-Beta tape is the EDITED master and not the full raw master but there is nothing stopping you from making your edited master and then filling up another D-beta tape with your raw. There would be no quality difference between this and making the raw masters to a D-Beta deck attached to the telecine.

Direct to Disc is a good way to provide D-Beta quality workflow to people who do not own a D-beta deck and can only swing the cost of a rental for final output. It also saves you all the digitizing time as you have the files on your disc array.

-Rob-

Evening folks,

 

I've set up my Bolex EL to have a a sync output so I can attach a stills style flash and use it for short bursts of 12fps stills photography and have ended up with 30' of little 1 to 8 or so frame sequences of 12fps 'stills' ... (after 8 flashes the strobe cap would run out of juice)

 

Projected they make a very stoppy-starty movie and what I'd like to do with it instead of a telecine is to turn selected segments into still scans of about 10 frames or so but retaining all the frames edges and sprockets so you see the actual film as is (a vertical strip)

 

I could do this with a simple scanner with transparency setting (the 4x5 backlight on the lid thingy), but I imagine the resolution would be low ...

 

Stills photo labs do 35mm and 120 film in drum scans - but not 16mm as far as I'm aware ... I'm thinking they can probably hack a system together to get a nice result but I thought I'd ask here to see if anyone have any solutions or methods from the telecine/film scan world ?

 

I was thinking perhaps enlarging the film onto photo paper (its B+W reversal), scanning the paper then inverting it in photoschlock but that would involve setting up my darkroom in this heat ... :mellow:

 

Soooo...

Any other suggestions/thoughts/methods ?

 

cheers + Rock the Casbah,

Nick

Any flying spot telecine (Cintel, Nova, Millenium, etc.) and the Sony Vialta can zoom out (optically) to see the frame and sprockets on the right side of the film. If you wanted a 720x486 res scan then a SD telecine can do most of what you want, if you transfer at 30fps to NTSC video you could then dump that into a frame sequence (tiff, jpeg, etc.) and de-interlace in photoslop. Rinse and repeat on a HD scanner and you'll have 1080x1440 (std 16) to work with but costs go up and maybe this is all too complex.

You could also fix up a rig on a lightbox to hold the 16mm film and then setup a decent D-Slr to then take a picture frame by frame, a bit of work making the rig and a bit of time photographing but you could control the framing and get everything including perfs, keycode numbers, etc in a hi-res form.

-Rob-