Matt Bizer

Ok, I am shooting a low budget short on 16 in june. what I am looking to find out is the best workflow after shooting. I wanted to send my footage in to a lab for mini dv dailies.

I have a $2500 post production budget with a final output as digital HD or DVD and I need to figure out my best route.

should I edit with the mini DV dailies and then go back and have the edited footage worked through with a colorist and then put on HD or digibeta??

I want to get the biggest bank for my buck and I think a local colorist may be cutting us a deal.

would it be more practical to just have it done best light and just go with it?

This is my 1st experience in working with editing and workflow of my own project shot on film.

If anyone can give me a better perspective on it I would be more than thankful.

-Matt

Ok, I have been editing video and hd in Final cut for pushing 8 years.

I have never worked on any film projects.

Here is where we start.. I need an Idea of how to even begin the work flow.

ok so we are getting dv dailies and the sound will all be on DAT tape to be captured as well.

do I need key code and such on the dailies?

this is where the edit begins. I am not sure where and when I sync sound, and or even how to continue on.

The project will go out from the edit, be teled again in HD with a colorist and then how do I get a final edit back together? what info do I send to the colorist to get these cuts corrected?

if anyone can just give me a step by step workflow or point me to some literature i would be ever so thankful.

-Matt

Your project looks great. I am highly impressed.

what shooting strategy did you follow to frame at this aspect ratio? I see you say you shot on standard 16.

congrats on a good project,

-Matt

You can get them in either Eclair or Arri. If you get them with the most popular, an Arri bayonet, you can put an adaptor on there and it will mount to your Eclair. Price for adaptor around $250, maybe cheaper on Ebay.

Thanks for all the help.

I just realized that you are the same Bernie that I want to send my camera to for the modification.

Thanks for all of your help.

-Matt

A couple of things regarding this lens.

First of all, it's not in the same league as Zeiss or Cooke. Loses definition mid-range on the zoom.

Second, it's quite heavy for the little 'c' mount. Needs a support.

Thirdly, it's out of the ballpark when compared with good primes. Why go all the way to Super 16 and end up with questionable glass/images ? The camera is only the box which holds and moves the film. The glass is what's important. I would save up and try for either used Russian primes, or used Cooke/ Zeiss/ Canon zooms.

Thanks for the feedback. In using Cooke / Ziess/ Canon would I need to upgrade to a different lens mount or will I be able to find these in reasonable ease as C mount covering a super 16mm frame?

Ok, yeah, after the 2nd thought I was wise to ask you guys.. I am looking at doing the conversion to an eclair npr instead.

Actually, I will just state my situation.

I have an Eclair NPR and I am looking to convert it to super 16.

what are my lens mount options/ best choices for lens mounts and lenses that cover the super 16mm frame.

i am new to the super 16mm world and this will be my 1st conversion of any camera I own.

any info on experiences and ideas for the NPR let me know! I am open to feed my brain.

Thanks for the help everyone,

Matt

Ok, so I hear there is a c-mount to Nikon for the Eclair npr.

Does this mount work and will any 15-150 or other nikon lens cover super 16mm?

Has anyone here converted an Arri s/b to super 16? I was looking to get mine possibly modified.... any pointers or reasons I should not?

-Matt

Hello to all,

Does anyone know of any decent rental houses (anywhere) in Texas that rents 16 and super 16mm cameras?

thanks for your help.

-Matt

Thanks for the input. I am for sure considering ends. I had not even thought about that up to now and I think it will be the best route for me. I am hoping to get through production under $5000 and any corners I can cut would be amazing. I have free equipment, but I am going to be a little over budget after crew and cast. even 5 min costs a lot more then I had ever expected. It looks now like I will be doing the initial edit then shopping it around for post money to do the final color correction and sound engineering. Anyone know of any good leads as to cheap yet talented post facilities in Texas/ southern states let me know.

Once again this forum is a great resource. I hope I have been able to help anyone as much as I have been helped.

Ok, This may be a dim question but I need a little help.

I have been shooting for others most of my short life, but I know very little of resources for independent producing. I am looking to fund my own 5min short film this summer shot on 35 and I cannot find any good idea of stock costs.

I am looking for a general price estimate for 35mm color negative stocks. I havent decided on a specific stock, but I most likely will be leaning to a 500T. I heard of a price calculator somewhere but I havent found the link yet. I have been breaking down my budget and this is holding me back.

Thanks to anything you can offer.

Thanks to all for the useful info. Looks like I need to go back and watch some of these movies again.

It depends entirely on what sort of look you and your director are trying to get.

 

(Incidentally, shouldn't the director be saying just what sort of look he or she wants, and shouldn't YOU be the one to suggest how you get it?)

 

Bleach bypass gives you increased contrast - particularly at the highlight end if you do it in the negative, particularly in the shadow end if you do it in the prints.

 

It also gives you reduced colour saturation. And it accentuates the graininess: in negative sometimes you will see some colours start to "crawl" more than other colours (test, test, test!) , while in print it tends to give a "gritty" rather than "grainy" feel.

 

The effect is considerably more subtle when applied to the print, but it is quite variable depending on which negative stock you shot on. In general, faster stocks seem to be more affected, but it dcepends on so many other things it's hard to be definitive without testing your particular set-up.

 

If you are bleach bypassing the negative , you will need to underexpose by a stop or more if you want to retain highlight detail and block up the shadows. If you want seriously burnt out highlights and just normal black shadows, expose normally.

 

If you plan to bleach bypass in the print stage, expose normally.

 

Since the gamma of the negative is increased substantially in this process, your exposure latitude is reduced: exposure is critical. You will need to test.

 

Bleach bypass processing will cost the production a surcharge on processing: sometimes per foot, sometimes per run. THat will make the test particularly expensive, but still vital if you want to be confident of your results.

 

If you are finishing on tape rather than printing, forget the whole thing and do it at telecine where you can see what you are doing.

Thanks for the great feedback. I agree with the "shouldn't YOU be the one to suggest how you get it?"this is why I need to know more about the details of bleach bypass. I cannot claim I know all and I want to help her get the look she desires. Once again thanks.

I was just reading up on it last night - there is heaps of info here and at other sites (frequented by the usual suspects) ... search is your friend - try 'bleach bypass' as well as 'skip bleach'

 

Buuuut...

From what I gather under-expose one stop and you'll also need to decide at which point the bypass will be made - on the original neg for instance (possibly risky) or all the prints ($$$) or somewhere inbetween ...

Thanks for the info

I'm sure the topic title is very vague. I'll try to explain: I've seen many film where the camera scans a document, or a painting, or a photograph, very closely. I suppose it's done with a macro lens, by getting very very close to the image, but that's not the issue. The issue is that the movement is very smooth -- the camera must be on a tripod -- but panning or tilting at such close range creates awful line distortion (I'm not sure I'm using the right term): in other words, lines don't look straight when one pans at close range, they tend to curve up, etc. In the films I'm thinking of (many many classic films, like Andrej Rublev) the movement is perfectly even, as though the camera is tracking. Are they really tracking with a dolly at such close range?

 

I know that one can just import an image into FCP or equivalent and generate movement, but it looks dreadfully mechanical (though maybe there's a way of making it look more natural?). and suppose you wanted to do it with a film camera?

 

It seems like a really simple problem, but I can't figure out how to slove it without building some kind of a moving platform on which to place the document?

 

thank you for reading my post...

I have shot a few things with a Macro/ closeup lenses using both a steady cam and a small home-made dolly set up. It works for getting those close shots. I mounted a bogen hi hat and a small table top skateboard dolly before and it seemed to work. The camera used was a XL-H1 so it was pretty light weight and I weighted the dolly with some sandbags for a smoother pull. If I can dig up some video clips I will try and post em.

best luck

I am shooting for a director that has chosen to process using bleach skip methods.

I havent had an experience with it yet.

Is there any special lighting/ exposure notes I should take?

from what I understand it holds in silver and makes the image washed and contrasty? Anyone have a more technical perspective?

Also, can anyone point me in the direction of some films that may have used this process?

thanks

the Lenses used are a Wollensak cine raptor 1/2 inch f1.5 wide angle and a Som Berthiot Pan cinor 1:2.8 F20a60 (has the parallel viewfinder). It was Cintel/Davinci, but no special instruction.

not bad lighting, little dark, but good colors. I love color reversal, although there's really not a good reason to shoot it other than quick processing for a news report in 1973. I'm at work and have no speakers so I don't know if you linked sound. Image was mostly steady, only a couple jumps that are standard in bolex land. I'll say it again, awesome saturation of colors. Looks like you have a fully functioning bolex.

good luck!

Thanks for the feedback. I appriciate it! The Darkness of the scenes is intentional, but the .mpg conversion isnt really tweaked and it lost some information in exporting. I based some of the lighting concepts on some paintings by caravaggio. I got the camera for free though so I am really happy to see it turned out.

Thanks again.

I shot my 1st reel of film on my new Bolex H-16 non-reflex this week...

Let me know what you think.

It is a pretty low res mpg sorry

I also agree. Still Photography is a great (and much cheaper) place to start your path. I would also tell you to go out and research all you can. Watch your favorite films with the sound off, look into the great Cinematographers as well as still photographers of the past, look at other uses of light in art (my first awakening to this was seeing the work of caravaggio in art history), find your local book store and read read read about the technical information, visit american cinematographer magazine's web site and look at the suggested reads... there are many great books, look at lighting situations and real life you think are beautiful and try and re create them, and most of all experiment and learn. This site alone is a great place to post questions your run into along the way. The fundamentals stay the same, but the technology and industry dont. you can never learn too much. I would say step 1 would be BOOKS.

Best of luck on one of the most rewarding journeys you can ever take.

It looks really good. I was just given a old bolex non-reflex H-16 and am shooting my first test footage next week. I can only hope it has as clear of an image.

Since the movie was shot in 35mm anamorphic, were you seeing the letterboxed version? If not, half those pans may be electronic ones from panning & scanning, not in the original. I don't recall flickering when I saw the movie in the theater.

 

You need to change your User Name to your real first and last name. Thanks.

That makes sense.. It is the Television 4:3.

Will do on the whole name thing. I joined last night so I wasnt sure how things run around these parts.

I was flipping through the channels tonight and came across the womens baseball flick A League of Their Own.

The film has in incredible amount of image flicker in the movement. I also noticed a huge amount of pans which had no subject... causing more flicker.

Has anyone noticed this before?

What do you think they were shooting on that would make it so distracting?

Thread a couple of feet of single perf through it.

 

If the non perf side is damaged, it only takes double perf.

Yes, It seems that sometimes common sense is the last thing I use.

Turns out it is single. It has what looks like 2R rollers, but the 1R runs clean and had no problem.

thanks for all the help