Saul Rodgar
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Posts posted by Saul Rodgar
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This is a screen grab from a Final Cut Express timeline. The footage was dubbed in
camera from P2 card to Mini-DV tape and then captured into Final Cut Express. The shot
was obtained with an HVX-200 shooting 720P 24PN, Cine V with stock lens.
In this shot the frame of the archway in the hall seems curved but is not in
actuality. I haven't had this occur before. Does anybody know?
Thanks.
Hmm. Barrel distortion. Your zoom was at its widest angle setting.
From wikipedia:
Barrel distortion, in which image magnification decreases with increasing distance from the optical axis. The apparent effect is that of an image which has been mapped around a sphere. Fisheye lenses, which take hemispherical views, produce this type of distortion as a result of a hemispherical scene being projected onto a flat surface.
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Rock on!
Love the colors! Not a lot of people use strong colors on film anymore. Did you have to fight production for that?
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I didn't put two+two together until now... I know Hally Grounds. In fact, she contacted me about "Naked Eye" last January. We made a b&w 35mm short film in Acapulco years ago (she produced and acted in it) -- unfortunately the production was somewhat cursed and after getting a mediocre b&w workprint from the lab, we never saw the negative again because the lab bill went unpaid for years. Then the lab went out of business. Too bad because I shot a few nice shots of cliffdivers in b&w 35mm, in slow-motion.
I'm glad she got ahold of such a talented DP, just the right fit for her project.
Hally Grounds, that's her name. Last year I sent her my B/W demo reel. I met someone who was going to produce her project -I never heard the name, by the way- but eventually coulnd't and she suggested I give Hally a copy of my stuff. Then Hally called and said she had liked what she saw, but that she wanted David to shoot it, whom she had worked with before. She said she would keep me posted but I obviously considered myself out of the race right there and then . . .
It was funny (or it's funny now), actually, because she said that "Northfork" was shot on B/W when I knew it wasn't. And she got a little piqued when I said so. (Maybe it is all that desaturated, Fuji-stock look . . .) Not wanting to start off with the wrong foot, I just politely said maybe I didn't remember correctly. Then she went on to assert that lighting for 35mm is TOTALLY different than lighting for 16/ s16mm/ HD, which is what I shoot mostly. I didn't argue anymore but thought she wouldn't be easy to work with at all. I am glad to hear from Jayson that wasn't the case - for him. So I was actually relieved to be "disqualified" from the project from that one converstion I had with her. She came across as "my way or the highway." Never talked to her again, and I assumed that David would shoot Naked Eye eventually. Then I lost track of the whole deal since our mutual would-be-producer friend said she wasn't getting involved due to scheduling conflicts. Until I saw Jayson's last post and started suspecting right away. It was the B/W Oklahoma thing, I guess . . .
Like David, I am glad she found Jayson, who did a helluva job from what I can see, and had fun doing so!
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[quote name='Jayson Crothers' date='Nov 7
Saulie - Yes, this was Hally. She was fun to work with (very easy-going), but not necessarily well-prepared in terms of knowing how she wanted to approach each scene. I had so many issues trying to track down a 3-perf camera that I never considered 2-perf.
It looks great! I am glad she finally did that project and it looks so good!
S
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Wouldn't I want to shoot the grayscale at 2 stops under if I were going this route? I would think that transferring as if the two stops over exposed grayscale were middle gray would increase my exposure range above middle gray.
Yes, under! Sorry for the dislexic slip up!
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What I mean: is print up from properly exposed footage instead of printing down from blown out footage. The detail that you lose in your camera original is gone forever, so printing up form proper density negative is a lot safer. The last thing you want is to realize later your investment and hard work is ruined.
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I'm shooting Vision2 200T. I was thinking of over-exposing two stops. Am I on the right track here?
Yikes! two stops over in daylight is quite radical. Even using Kodak **17, with its incredible latitiude, I think you are taking a huge risk. This assuming that you would filter your lens to compensate daylight on tungsten film, right? 125 ASA after 85b filtering is still blazing fast (and hot) at 24 fps. Especially since you haven't done any testing, but maybe you'd like the look of nothing but white on film. With 200T you would want to bring the ASA down to 40 from 125 after your tungsten to daylight compensation, unless you are shooting in dusk. Otherwise you probably would see nothing but white and some vague shapes.
What I would do is: shoot your grayscale 2 stops over and the rest of the footage exposed normally, even underexposed 2/3 of a stop. I would also shoot with a polarizer -ND would help a lot- and plenty of backlight, so your mids and lows are nice and contrasty to your over-the-top highlights, exposing for the mids. My guess is trying not to keep the highlights blasting on someone head on, unless that's what you are going for: the post-armagedon your-skin-and-everything- else-is-frying look.
If you shoot that way you can ask the telecine/ DI operator to compensate in post for the grayscale only (set-and-forget) and the rest of your footage will be two stops over mostly on the highlights: but only because it was telecined/DI'd that way. Your actual camera original footage will have the right density, for future tweaking. If you do that your footage won't be ruined should you feel 2 stops were too much, which is likely.
That's what I would do anyway.
Good luck keep us posted . . .
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Hi, was this Hallie's movie? I can't remember her last name, but last year I spoke on the phone with a woman named Hallie who was going to make a feature film in Ok -where she is from- in B/W. Reading your posts I gather the director is a woman from one sentence - you refer to the director as a she- but you don't give her name anywhere that I can find. This project sounds too close to what she described to me to be coincidence.
"I?m still impressed by how much we did with so little, but I also wish I could find a better way to explain to people that the most valuable resource on set (and the one that you should spend the most money on) is people, not equipment. We shot a Super 35 feature on location for about $150,000, but we could have made a much better movie (in my opinion) by shooting on Super 16 or even HD and spending more money on hiring more crew ? of course the movie would look different, but in the end it?s about making a better movie and not simply about it looking pretty."
Did you ever think about shooting 2 perf 35mm film? Good old Techniscope revival. 2.35 :1 aspect ratio using spherical lenses with significant film savings and longer running mags sound like you could have benefited from. Just a thought.
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Recently (last couple of years) you had "28 Weeks Later", "Vera Drake", "Last King of Scotland", "Venus", "Hustle & Flow", parts of "Babel"
Darren Aronofsky's Pi was shot on 16mm also.
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If the difference amounts to $0.05/foot, I'll suffer the inconvenience of asking them to do that. I find it ridiculous that I have to pay MORE to shoot and soup B&W film.
- G.
What I find ridiculous is that I would have to ask someone to do their job right. I much rather pay a professional lab who doesn't need me to tell them that their soup is too old for my film than some cheap lab who just runs as much film as possible on the soup to maximize profits. I am not rich, but penny pinching on certain things has never paid off. If one wants something done right, one does it oneself or pay someone who will without one having to supervise them.
When you go out to dinner, do you expect to pay rock bottom prices but ask the wait staff to have the cook use clean utensils and fresh ingredients to make your food?
Certainly we all want affordable, quality product- but when prices are too good to be true, well, more often than not they are. For discriminating patrons, paying more for better results is the way to go.
Arguing that cheap, non-standard photographic process is better than more expensive, fresh chems photo process just bewilders me to no end . . .
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I was wondering if anyone could inform me whether it would be possible - via jiggery pokery of the lens or camera - to expose one half of a 16mm film stock then rewind and shoot the other half.
Could this be done and (if so) how; on either a Scoopic, Bolex H16 or K-3.
Of the cameras you mention Bolex H16, along with other earlier Bolexes can definetely be rewinded if you cover the lens. K3 can't. Scoopic don't know about. But you would have to be really carefull to frame the shots. If the line in the middle, ie. between the two images, gets overlap it could look rather cheap. That could take a couple of rolls to figure out without video assist. But it can, and has be done.
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Have all of you who are criticizing writers for getting royalties lost your minds? Are you all so rich and powerful that you think than monstrosities like Viacom are the good guys in all this? Busting unions is what damn near caused a revolution in this country in the 1930's. FDR and the New Deal are what saved the nation from conflagration. It never fails to amaze me how people who are basically working class get conned into thinking that unions are a bad idea - and it's good for the "economy" if extremely rich people don't pay taxes. How's your health care? How's your job security? How are you being treated at work? Not good? Ever think that maybe a good union might just be what you need?
Indeed. Unfortunately, to a lot of people in this country, anything that sounds even remotely related to unions and health care and the like amounts to calls for communism in America. This is OBVIOUSLY not true. But it doesn't matter, because that just won't do to all-American working men and women, however poor, disenfranchised and unhealthy they get! They really hit it big when they figured it out how to con the working class into thinking that making the rich richer through policy and sinkning the ever-shrinking middle class to below poverty levels was what was needed to keep America great! And don't even get me started on foreign policy and "the war on terror." Got to thank Bush, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and the rest of them scuzzy neocons!
LET THE SLEEPY GIANT SLUMBER!
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In that case you can ask "Please hold these for a fresh bath", I did that once.
- G.
Hmm, I find strange to have to have to ask a lab to do their job properly. I much rather take my business elsewhere. Which is what I did.
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. It looks pretty damn grainy and the contrast is more reversal like.
Cost wise, it's a lab to lab issue. Generally black and white is more expensive, because the labs get less of it and they run it once or twice a week. Some charge more for processing the higher speed B&W negative stocks (5222/7222 and Ilford HP-5) because they eat up more developer replenisher, some don't. Reversal tends to be the same for both stocks.
If you find a cheap B&W lab let me know!
One thing to be aware is the cheaper labs often don't change their chems as often as advisabe. For a cheaper price on processing you maybe getting some really nasty dirt-coat on your camera original footage, and it won't come off. I won't name any names, but they are out there.
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Well even the older "Vision 1" 500T stocks in 16mm were perfectly viable for real production. The Squid and the Whale was shot that way (all on 500), Leaving Las Vegas on even older 16mm stocks, and lots since and before of course.
You see grain that bothers you in 35mm, on TV?? Wow, you must have a 40ft TV screen. I can barely notice it (and its not a bad thing anyway!) when I'm watching 500T 35mm movies in the theater, much less on TV, unless it's purposefully done. But maybe it's because I'm not trying to find some problem with every little thing; I'm enjoying the movie like everyone else. What bothers me are TV shows shot with Varicams or the like. It always looks so cheap and video like. Even worse are the huge numbers using little 3chip cams for TV... that's a joke and always looks like highschool level stuff (which I guess it is overall) Thank you so much MTV and VH1.
I understand less and less about what people are seeing out there, and why they like or don't like certain things with every new post. I give up. <_<
Long live real cameras and talent!
YEAH MAN! You tell them! :D
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I, personally can't tell the difference in sharpness between EXR and Vision2. But I think I like the colour tone of the EXR more.
But I don't see why anyone in their right mind would bother with an ancient film stock. :ph34r: ;)
Well you answered your question. If you liked the color tone of the EXR more than the Vision 2 and wanted that same quality on your next project, wouldn't you use EXR instead of something else you don't like as much? Why have to use digital or optical efx to turn Vision 2 into EXR when you can just shoot EXR? Well frozen film will last for long. Or if you can afford it, Kodak will make you afresh new batch. It's all about the look. If you can't agree there, you are in the wrong business, pal.
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It's hard to say looking at heavily compressed clips online. The first clip had some really bad artifacts around the hand of the kid as it is about to touch the handlebar of the motorcycle against the blown out sky, towards the end of the clip. Again, this could very likely be be due to the compression to get it online. However, until seeing the original uncompressed camera files, it is hard to judge. To me it looks like great looking VIDEO (razor sharp and souless/ no grain), therefore not like film. In terms of latitude, the images look great!
If only we could stop gettting people to treat HD as THE SLAYER OF FILM, soon to wrestle its nemesis from its evil grip on image aquisition . . . (sigh)
Film vs HD. Hmm . . .
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WOW WOW! Hold your horses about teh NPR, I have one, and is solid and sturdy, and it's pretty quiet to, the ACL is good, the Aaton's are great, but the NPR has its great things to, ( Variable shutter, lens turret, etc)
I have mine with a PL mount converted to S16, and it's like grabbing a Datsun 280sx and putting super charger to it, trust me it will put up some steam!
Best
I personally strongly dislike NPR's. Heavy cameras, with the motor sticking out in the bottom making it really hard (impossible almost) to hand hold, inadequate handle (a mere hook) and a PAIN to load. Sturdy and solid yes -but not enough to offset its disadvantages, quiet not so much. Variable shutter is what I wish ACL's had. The lens turret makes for a bigger, heavier camera. Just not a fan of the darn thing.
Sorry.
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(Though I imagine some here might chime in now with "Well why don't you just buy an S16 camera then!?" but i really do just like the compact size of these 2x8 ones. They're awesome!)
So has anyone here ever tired it? I couldn't find it in the forum search.
It could be done. If you were so inclined, I suppose. The time you would spend would offset the benefits, I think. Also THERE ARE S-16 mm cameras that are just as compact as the ones you are refering to, such as the A-minima and the A Cam SP16 (this one is really small) on the contemporary camera level and the Classic 16 on the "older camera up to current standards."
http://www.pro8mm.com/main.php
http://www.aaton.com/products/film/aminima/index.php
The main problem, beside the pull down claw issue is that 8mm is a fourth of the image size as 16 mm. So your 8mm lens would have to go and instead you would have to literrally make room for a bigger lens with a bigger apperture. I don't now if the chassis would even acomodate for that on most compact designs. Those two issues alone could mean soooo much trouble.
If you are a tinkerer and you don't mind the years of (trial and error) hard work tryng to retrofit a technology that was never intended to be used the way you want it to, go ahead. Plenty of people have, with extreme levels of successs and failure and everything in between. I would just rather get a camera someone else engineered and built and shoot some film with it. But that is just me.
And I don't know of anyone ever trying it. Most people would probably think is better to start from scratch than spend two years of gureling work to MAYBE make the retrofit work. But then again, you could be the one who makes it work and prove us naysayers wrong. Nothing like a little bit of challenge to get one going, I supposse.
Good luck and let us know!
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Pro8 (or maybe spectra?) could possibly cut some down and cart it up for you if you sent them some 5245. The 35mm can still be accessible sometimes. I just grabbed 800ft recently from Certified Film.
Love 45 EXR! In my opinion a lot better than the current 50D 01 stock in that 45 has a lot more contrast and is not bland looking. It is nearly impossible to shoot 01 in daylight without underexposing it, ND'ing and using a pola to achieve something I like. I would much rather have less detail in the shadow areas than having as much incredible latitude as 01. Never imagined I would acutally say something like this: It makes senses to have more latitude on faster stocks, such as 500 ASA, don't get me wrong. Kodak should not phase out older fave stocks like they do.
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An interesting variation of this question, is how the interaction of filters, lenses and stocks of the era produced those images? One must remember that the era optics were used throughout the entire of optical process, from principal photography to theatrical release.
Were a movie production use ONLY lenses and filtering from the 70's for principal photography be able to achieve the look of, say, Days of Heaven or In the Heat of the Nigh today without the use of computers? Today's stock being radically different than the one used then, not to mention current lens optical and coating advancements.
Alternatively, is it possible to use older lenses with current stock and not get a "vintage-y" look without digitally altering the image?
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Pretty images. Good overall in image selection and timing. Shows you have range as cameraman.
Did notice a lot of the whites are blown out/ badly clipped throughout. I don't know if it is .wmv compression issues or what, but I would try to fix that.
Good work, though!
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No problems whatsoever. Have used several times. When you press record on the camera, the firerstore automatically follows suit, if in the right settings. An instruction manual should come with the firestore, if not you can find it online.
Highly recommended!
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Hi.
Pretty nice "lens wide open" shallow focus on the images. Image 4 does have some curious looking out of focus distortion, for lack of a better word, on the street lamps in the background. It kind of has its own, distinctive look, like anamorphic out of focus and flares. On image 3 the clipping on the sky where it turns red in the top left is very "video" clipped, but IT IS video. Other than that I like it.
"DUDE, It looks just like 35!"
How much was it?
Kodak Vision 500T
in Film Stocks & Processing
Posted
If you want to use 500T during anything else than dawn/ dusk daylight you will need plenty-to-some ND on top of the 85B, unless you want over exposure. The problem with using too much ND on a lens is that it gets hard to see through the viewfinder, especially at f11-16.
Try to find the closest diameter filter to your lens and you can make it fit with ring adaptors, step-up, or down. As a last resort, you can jerry-rig some filter in front of your lens with gaffer's tape, but 'tis non-standard and problematic at best. So I'd try to get ring adaptors first.
As to the night footage I would incident read the light from your street lights and go from there. But of course that's up to you and what you want exposed as middle gray, and what you find acceptable in terms of contrast, etc. Or spot meter your picture and judge from there. Michael Nash explains it very well above. I generally want my negative as well exosed and with the right density as possible. You can always tweak it in post. The style and look you are going for, though, well that's up to you. But I wouldn't shoot 16 fps on 16 mm unless you really need more f-stop and you don't mind /or are going for the faster-than-live-action- look, think old Chaplin Charlot-style movies here.