grant mcphee

There's an esoteric film processing technique called 'film acceleration' I've been reading about. It seems to involve shooting colour reversal, underexposing by 2 stops then developing in a B+W negative developer such as D76. Then, after being exposed to light processed normal in a colour neg developer like C41 (or ECN2?). i.e. developed twice. The results from stills I've seen are completely bizarre but very interesting. I was wondering if anyone had tried it with movie film? I'm going to have a bash next week with some 7280 and processing it myself at home (d76 + C41) but was hoping someone would have tried it in a professional film lab with decent telecine, or if it has been used in any films. Would be interesting to find out what experiences people have had with this, stills or movie thanks.

Say you were shooting a CU of a face. If you had your zebras on a video camera set to 80IRE so the highlights were just showing, and your stop was showing 5.6. Would your light meter be set at 100IRE? i.e. if I got a reading at one of the points where the zebras were just showing on the video camera would the image exposed on 16mm be under exposed campared to the video image? thanks

Has anyone cross-processed ECN2 Neg in E6. I've read a little about people processing c41 stills in E6 and they roughly seem to agree that the negative should be 3 stops higher than manufacturers suggestion (either over-exposing by one then pushing by two, or a combination). What about getting rid of the orange mask? Thanks

Hi, Does anyone have any suggestions for a cheap alternative to 12v Block batteries for powering Monitors/Video Assists etc on location. Is it possible to convert car or motorbike batteries? Thanks, Grant

Hi, I recently noticed this http://www.archos.com/products/video/av_50...=gb&lang=en and was wondering if anyone had used it as an alternative to a clamshell minidv recorder? It dosn't look anywhere near as rugged but is a lot cheaper and seems to be a bit more portable (could be gaffered onto a camera / steadicam where video senders might be a problem) I can't seem to get any help from their site. I want to know if I can record directly onto it using a composite signal (like that from the video tap). The specs seem to suggest it might be possible as there is an av in/out but it also mentions some kind of tv docking pod. Obviously I want to be 100% sure that I can use it in the same way I would use a clamshell. Anyone had any experience with this or any of the other portable hd recorders? thanks

Thanks xavier, I emailed Martin. A really nice guy. He sent me this reply: about the shooting of it: we always knew that we would have little money and time to have the best control over the look we wnated to create. we tested kodak b&w film stocks but did not like the heavy grain and the very limited choice of sensitvies. as you might know kodak did not spent much energy lately on developing or enhancing any b&w stocks. so we decided to shoot everything on kodak vision two 5217. only for the concerts we used 5218. we wanted those to look and feel a little rougher. we knew from the start that we would use the DI process. we ended up doing the grade in stockholm at a company called chimney pot. i think they did a great job for us. there are many reasons to go that route. with our limited resources it was impossible to do a lot of testing or special development for the final copies. we did some copies on black and white print stock, but for the general release that proved to expensive. it is very difficult to print real b&w on color print stock as the slightest offset in the process results into a tined picture. henrik at chimney helped us a lot. working together with anton was great. he is a very respectful yet very decisive director. during prep we spoke a lot about the feel which we wanted to create. we did not really settle or imitate any photographs, we went more for a general feel of it. like we liked a lot films like KES for example. during the shoot, anton let me light the shots and then if there was something which he did not like we would alter things til we both felt fine. it was his first feature so we worked together very closely. in his photography anton uses a lot of available light so our lighting should feel very natural, beautiful without getting in the way of the story. we did the same thing with movement. everything is very simple, there's only one crane shot and only one steadicam shot in it... i really enjoyed working with anton a lot. the big advantage of working with a photographer like him, was that we were able to move fast as he always knew how he wanted the movie to look. working aside him, many people might think that it is his style which we brought to screen and that it follows that. that's fair enough, but i do feel there's a lot of me in it.

Hi, I'm a big fan of the photographer Anton Corbijn. He's just made his first feature film "Control". It has a very similar look to his stills work. Does anyone know which stock he would have used for the film? It looks a bit 5222 but more contrasty. Any ideas? Heres a still. http://www.neworderonline.com/Photos/Pictu...PictureID=11324 thanks

Hi, I didn't post this in the 'effects' forum as I'm specifically wanting to do this in 16mm. I'd like to create an in camera effect like the burnt out look you get at the end of 100' loads. I'm not really sure how to explain it very well - the film goes orange and fades to white (so I'm assuming that it is caused by fogging due to the loading and unloading of 100' rolls in daylight) I want to do this in the middle of a roll rather than the end. I'd like to try this probably on an old BL and possibly on a non-reflex bolex. How would I go about it? I thought maybe taking my eye off the eyepiece for a second but don't want to run the risk of fogging the whole roll. Is it specific to reversal or would it be different on neg? Any ideas? Thanks, Grant

Hi, I'm going to be using the HDVR for an upcoming feature. I havn't used this model before so I was wondering if anyone has any advice. I don't think there is going to be anything too complicated being done - just recording and possibly playback with the slow motion option. It looks fairly straight forward and I will get a chance to try it out before the shoot but would like to be as prepared as possible. I'm hoping to try and get a pdf of the manual but it would be handy if anyone knows anywhere online that has one. All I've heard so far is that it can crash fairly often. Any tips are appreciated. In basic mode is it pretty much similar to the DV combo? Thanks, Grant

thanks brian. do you know how this works? I've searched google but could only find info on the pulldown method. I'm assuming that the other 'true 24p' domestic cameras use the same system. if this is 'true 24p' then, why if it is so cheap was it not used on the ntsc f730 and f750? it would make sense that it was somehow based on the pulldown method as it is only available for ntsc cameras. thanks

Hi Brad, Panavision do have them. Give them a call. I used the one for the sr3 (which I think is also the same one for the 435 and arricam, sorry, not sure what it is called other than the WLCS i'm afraid!) ) which worked no problem on the sr2. Also tell them which lenses you will be using so they can provide you with the correct gears. And best to mention it is an sr2 incase of any cabling issues. Don't think you will have a problem. Sorry - Tommy, not Brad!

thanks brian, i'd be interested if you know why the 750 didnt offer 24p like the f900 if it is available on consumer cameras like the canon dv20? Apparently it is 'true 24p' but there must be some catch. can these domestic cameras really offer the same 24p as the high end versions?

why is there such a price difference between 24p on pal hdv cameras and 24p on the f900 and the other large format cameras? can it be the same thing? if it is so cheap to do then why was 24p not available on the 750? and will there be any 50hz issues using filming at 24fps? thanks

thanks david. thats interesting to know. i'll try a few tests with reduced time and see what happens. i think though, i'll just use the remaining rolls (all from same batch unfortunately) as leader. or for scratching onto

yes, me! i was asking why i didnt get an image using a b+w developer (d76). I'm usually pretty successful when home processing (apart from a few mistakes on my own part) but couldnt seem to get the hang of k14 (though i think it was k11 i tried). I think that it must have been fogged due to age. anyone else tried? i think you get a green mask with d76. cheers

i think it was here that i read (could'nt find who posted it to quote sorry) that the reason dwaynes can still develop cine kodachrome is because kodak still produce the chemicals for their 35mm slide range.

yep, it's 35mm slide film

hi, i do a bit of home processing. i've just tried to develop some kodachrome 16mm as a neg in d76 but it didnt turn out at all. i had, what i thought was some k14 but it turns out it was k11 so was returned from the kodak lab as 'too old to process' so i thought i would develop it myself. as it was originally intended to be shot as reversal i kept the exposure as exact as i could (i.e. i didnt over expose when shooting as i would normally if i were developing reversal as a neg). I use d76 at 20C. i normally process negative in this for 7-8 minutes and it comes out fine. as i hadnt over exposed i thought i would push the stock so kept it in for 91/2 minutes. when i took it out there was nothing there! just a heavy fogged green filter. any ideas what went wrong? i know there are quite a few variables like the film being so old and not knowing where it originated. when kodak checked it could they have fogged it? or tried to develop it and it didnt work? the remjet is still there so i dont think so. anyone tried kodachrome? if so any suggestions are appreciated. thanks, grant

Try Blueaudiovisual. I can't think of anywhere cheaper in the UK. Postage is only £1.50! http://www.blueaudiovisual.co.uk/products.php?cat=12 Not as extensive a range but a really good price Grant