Sam Wells

High contrast stock helps but it's how you play highlights against shadow too -Sam

The *appearance* of "deep rich blacks" is really not so much a question of camera stock dmax (reversal) or dmin (neg) as your destination format will determine the blacks; but of building contrast into what you shoot via light / lighting. -Sam

You are aware, I hope, that these numbers refer to single perf (1R) 16mm stock, not 35mm ? -Sam

If you're on a Mac and FCP I'd skip DVCProHD and work in ProResHQ. This doesn't sound like a project that will want to be dealing with dpx files. -Sam

They better pull some large rabbits out of their hat soon is all I can say... -Sam

I used to have one of those lenses, I hated it. Quite sharp but flare prone / veilling glare galore. Spent way way too much time flagging off flares. etc. -Sam

Are you talking about uncompressed or Redcode ? If Redcode, is there any reason to think Red's CF cards are not or will not be an "established digital recording system" ? -Sam

Long story short re the rig we had at Allscope - Paul came to Princeton; took the optics (he said he could rent it to Disney) gave me the rail & carriage system & controllers (later being good props for a 50's sci fi movie ! IOW Nettmann CamRemote controller was a **BIT** more advanced....) so I had everything but the Snorkel tube ---- the rail and carriage rig was way cool but I couldn't find a place to set it up - I even tried to foist it off on Garrett Brown and Jurgen Jurgens in the Skyworks era. I gave it to a DP friend of mine who had it working as some kind of video tabletop rig in a studio in Pallisades Park NJ -- but I've lost touch and have no idea. There were Type A systems in Tokyo & I think UK altho the latter wasn't operating at this time - 1986. I have no idea what became of them or what you used in LA. PM if you want to. Takes me back :) Sam

The Kenworthy Snorkel system "Type A" which I worked with a lot had a pellicule mirror for the video tap (I" Vidicon camera) -- I pulled focus via the tap on B&W monitors many times -- video camera gained up a bit :) also of course checked focus at critical points on the Mitchell gg w/ a test chart if in doubt after a take... It didn't seem to do the film image any harm - although I never tested with/without for comparison. I would suppose Paul K had done so, tho... -Sam

Interesting; I wonder how this would translate to telecine. Kodachrome I've seen printed to 7399 gives an orange cast to practically any underexposure of skin tones. I have Kodachrome printed on 7387 I shot in the late 70's -- skin tone forget it but the reds are something the RED would envy :rolleyes: -Sam

Is it fair to say that film gives you both signal and localized decorrelated noise ? Built in dithering so to speak, benign up to the point where it becomes (very subjectively !) objectionable..... -Sam

Or if the Kodak box is all that unique anyway --- Does any post facility aside from the one Kodak owns in LA (I forget which) use this thing I wonder ? Kodachrome the perpetual enigma, can't reproduce it. 16mm prints on 7399 came closer than you might expect. When I shot Kodachrome tungsten slide film for some artists portfolios -- I remember for one artist I shot 6 exposures per piece so she wouldn't have to make dupes... All that said I'd love to find a way to preserve or even fake it's unique property of color falling off to monochromatic in / near the toe -- a black and white feel to a color stock (and why it's critics call it 'muddy' - you really have to know how to expose for it -- another lost art ----) -Sam

Can you point me to someone who has actually emulated Kodachrome with it ? I mean Kodachrome specifically, not some idea of "Reversal Looks" -- most of which are cartoon ideas of what reversal stocks look like.... -Sam

You'd be surprised how fast some lenses misfocus at the deep red end of the spectrum. -Sam

In LA, FotoKem has a Millennium. Among other things, I'm working currently with 16mm material (ECN) transferred on a Spirit - cutting in both DVCProHD and ProResHQ. One thing I've been doing is using Apple's Color as "Decolor" and making B&W images. Going back to previous C-reality SD transfers of the same negative, I like the look from that much better when turned to B&W for some reason; it's 'smoother' even when scaled up. There's almost -- what to call it --- a patina to it that I don't find on the Spirit transfer - even in shots where I prefer the telecine grade from the Spirit...... No I have no grand theory as to why yet... -Sam

"Laws Of Gravity" shot by Jean de Segonzac for Nick Gomez -Sam

The Smoothcam filter in FCP 6 (which is taken the Optical Flow technology in Shake) is surprisingly good. Way better than what FCP had previously, no comparison. -Sam

Well Dalsa seems to be pursuing it nonetheless. -Sam

"Overlord" -- poetic WW II film directed by Stuart Cooper, from the mid 70's. GREAT B&W work from John Alcott (including very interesting matching of period footage --- & no DI here !) Certainly fits this category. -Sam

That's _now_ Hal, in 15 years they'll have all our biometrics and cell phone calls in a database; if our interviewer can access the data he or she can just construct the interview in Maya version 19 :o -Sam

And like the Avedon-ish see every wrinkle Storaro shot in the witnesses sections in "Reds" (no relation :) -Sam I was sorta bored with Optima 32's before they even invented Kinos........

That's what I've been thinking as well --- if this is what Sony sells to Casio, what are they saving for themselves ? -Sam

EI 8000, 6K resolution with the highlights clipping ? :lol: -Sam forgive me....

I've never had any problems with Colorlab's processing including frequent push processing - quite the contrary. Can't tell much from this frame grab. It looks insanely over - degrained. -Sam

But what format (codec) was it transferrred to ? You could do a short image sequence to look for problems. (If none, I'd opt for ProRes HQ over DVCProHD when it came to a codec to use for cutting in FCP) There _are_ reasons to transfer from telecines to a tape format (HDCamSR; D5HD) before digitizing to disk although no one wants to hear about it..... I mean I'm in favor of going to disk when if possible, but if the system used can't handle it..... -Sam