Raz Birger

I agree, actually printing a roll is the best way to get an impression of a film stock (specially 16mm that let you see more into the stock), but the thing is that nowadays what you are going to get in the end usually won't be a print. Most of the film shot these days goes through scanning\telecine (tell me if I'm wrong about this). So they do show us an example of what this stock may look like - when scanned. Anyhow, it is right, this video suffers from heavy compression and we can't really get an impression of it. I would like to hear an opinion from someone who has got the chance to test it or has seen a projected demonstration of the stock. Best, Raz.

Did anyone watch this 5203 sample footage from Kodak? What do you think?

If we are talking about quality difference, not including problems like hair caught on the gate or re-framing options, you should consider what is your target aspect ratio. For 16:9 (1.78:1) there is a difference. Part of the exposed area of the 2-perf frame is cropped from it's sides in order to get this aspect ratio. With 3-perf the whole width is used with very minor cropping of the top and/or bottom of the frame. For 2.39:1 there won't be a big noticeable quality difference. The width of both formats is close. 2-perf is a bit less wide than 3-perf, about 3mm shorter (even if you shoot 2-perf and use these extra millimeteres, the area which is used for Super35, eventually it would be cropped in order to get the 2.39:1 aspect ratio). Therefore it uses a smaller area on the film. In conclusion, there is a quality difference which is more apparent when shooting 16:9, but with 2.39:1 the qualities are very close. Best Regards, Raz.

I'm glad I could help. I have found the PDF on Kodak's website. I do not know why they didn't mentioned it on YouTube. About the blow-ups - I think they did some on the 2-perf / 3-perf demo, I have watched it as soon as it was released and by now I don't remember exactly everything which was shown, but I think they did some. Anyhow, presenting 2-perf as 16:9 is actually a kind of blow-up, the footage is quite massively cropped when you do so. You could see that on the Choices clip where it shows the whole 2-perf frame (which is much wider than 16:9, should be 2.39:1 or even wider).

Hi Martin. The YouTube compression on these clips is a killer, one of the reasons you may not be able to notice the differences so well. The 2-perf, 3-perf and the 4-perf refers to how many perforations of the 35mm film makes a frame. This affects the frame size, the area which is exposed on the negative. Take a look at the PDF Kodak has released with the "Choices" clip: PDF file from Kodak On page 5 you can see a side by side comparison of the 2,3 and 4-perf as they actually appear on the negative. There is even further information on each format. If you still can't find your answers let me know. Best, Raz.

Hello Matej. Thank you for sharing your results with us. I think the cropped 16mm footage looks really good and is holding up with the Super 16mm quite well. Oh, and I think wouldn't touch the grain :) Let us know if the 1080p version is up! Best Regards, Raz.

Hi Jonathan. I believe an one-year-old film stock which has been kept frozen will be just fine. However it might be safer to use it only for a specific scene (or scenes, depends on how much stock do you have) so there won't be any noticeable difference within the same scene. Best Regards, Raz.

Thank you Phil. I am glad to hear that the DNxHD really does work with Premiere. How about exporting using this codec later? Having 2K resolution of super 35mm 4-perf frame means 2048x1556, which is not an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, but of 1.32:1 (or so). This gives me the ability to crop it later exactly the way I want, and I am also going to crop the extra width pixels from each side of the frame, I believe such a slight down-scaling as you mentioned, would reduce sharpness and detail rather than anything else. And John, I did think about DPX, but it would be easier to handle ProRes or DNxHD files due to their significantly smaller size, and if they can carry visually lossless 10bit picture, then why not? (if it is possible to use them) Thanks again, and I would still like to hear about ProRes experience with Premiere on PC environment. Best Regards, Raz.

Hello. I am going to shoot some Super 35mm (4-perf) footage soon and I will be editing on a brand new PC workstation equipped with the new Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 . However I am quite not sure which intermediate format should be the right one to use for the occasion. I would really like to get my files with ProRes 4444 (LOG) encoding, but I can not be sure how does Premiere handle it (on a PC). I see there is a ProRes decoder for windows QuickTime, and as I understand it should make Premiere able to deal with it. Has anyone ever had experience with it? I know I will not be able to export back to ProRes, but this is no problem since I only need to finish on bluray. The other alternative is Avid's DNxHD codec, which only supports up to 1080p resolution. Well... I can live with that, but I do prefer having the whole S35mm frame at 2K resolution. Thank you all in advance for any kind of help or suggestion. Best Regards, Raz.

This was some very nice footage! The results of the 'Fat16' were actually pretty good. How was your experience with ScanYourFilm ? Their transfer looks quite stunning. Best Regards, Raz.

Hello Ricky. First of all good luck with your little project (there is a thing about these little projects, however short they might be, they can still be quite big in terms of producing them). I have shot 16mm film only once with a Super 16mm modified Krasnogorsk-3, using the Kodak Vision2 100T film stock. I shot both indoor and outdoor with this stock which might be quite slow for shooting indoor, however with some lighting you can get very good results. I used 3 x 500W Halogen projectors, these simple cheap ones you can find almost everywhere. When shooting outdoor I stupidly forgot my ND Filter, but I would definitely recommend using it - on a sunny day without it even a slow rated 50ASA film (like Kodak Vision2 50D) requires the aperture to be set on f/16. I shot my footage without the 85 filter, the colour temperature was corrected during telecine and it turned out fine. Using slow film stocks is the way to go if you are looking for best picture quality, specially if you are shooting regular 16mm and cropping to 16:9 - therefore using a smaller area on the negative, which means less resolution. You said you wanted to shoot B&W, I did not forget about that. I really liked the Plus-X from Kodak, it was discontinued though. I think the Double-X is the only B&W stock available these days, which is a negative stock rated 200ASA if I remember correctly. I would not recommend transferring off the wall. You will get much better results with a good SD telecine than with such a method. There are options for upressed SD to 1080p telecine services with some very pleasing results. I have seen some beautiful footage from both CineLab in Massachusetts (which is also a lab) and Cinelicious in Los Angeles (they also provide a true 1080p telecine). Plan everything to the detail, rehears again and again before shooting. You cannot afford much mistakes under the limitations of low-budget film-making. You are more than welcome to ask any other questions you may have. Best Regards, Raz Birger.

Ha ha! That was nice, I really like it :) Great little funny clip - and the super 8mm did the best for it. I just loved the look. Best Regards, Raz. P.S. - I also left a comment on Vimeo.

Thank you very much Jeremy! You have answered everything to the detail. What you were saying about the beauty of your workprints made me even more eager to try and get one! In order to do that I will have to send my footage abroad, the only lab in my country, unfortunately, does their prints digitally and it won't look like an optical print + will cost a fortune since I would have to pay for scanning (with their Spirit 2K). Do you recommend sending it to your lab? The HD scan of your footage looks very nice, it's an interesting look of a scanned workprint and I don't think there is any other way to achieve that kind of a special look. I hope to see more of you project so keep us updated. Best, Raz.

Nice work Jeremy! Your trailer is quite short, but seems beautiful judging by the wonderful shots you got there. I see you put a lot of effort into it. The Bolex survival is amazing I wouldn't believe a camera could actually work after such an incident. Recently I have been curious about workprints. I have only used negative for video telecine so far, but I am really anxious to get a workprint once. Do you find the workprints' quality good enough to reflect the beauty of the original negative? And how would you compare it to reversal film? Pardon for asking this very last question, but since I'm tight with budget - what are the rates of such a service? Just to get some image in my mind. Thank you in advance and good luck with your project, Raz Birger.

Hello James. I just shot a test roll with my modified super 16mm Krasnogorsk-3. I don't consider it professional, it's only a test, but I tried my best. I planned to shoot for 2.39:1 aspect ratio, but the viewfinder was made 4:3 for regular 16mm and I had to imagine the extra area on the right side + how much the black bars are going to cover. Here is the link for my post: http://www.cinematography.com/index.php?showtopic=45547 I hope you will find it helpful. Best, Raz.