Sam Frazier

Thank you for your reply. Checked out your site as well. You've done some really cool stuff. Anyway, I've spoken to a few people about this and appaerently the reason some people choose letterboxed over anamorphic for super 16mm transfers is that unsqueezing the material to a letterboxed version is a task many NLEs, including FCP, do poorly. Apparently you end up with artifacts and some other weird issues. I have been told that After Effects does a pretty flawless letterboxed version from anamorphicly squeezed material though I have no experience with this myself. Don't suppose you have any experience of this sort, would you? Thanks again for the help!

Question: IS THERE ANY REASON NOT TO DO AN ANAMORPHIC TRANSFER (as opposed to full aperture/ letterboxed) ON S16 FOOTAGE? I have read a few discussions about this, but am still a little confused. This is for a short film so I'd probably send DVD screeners and present it in festivals from a digibeta or beta sp tape. My thought was to telecine the footage anamorpic and crop it a little more in FCP to 1:1.85. By squeezing to anamorphic like this on the digibeta tape I'd preserve more resolution and quality than a letterboxed version. The colorist at the lab promised me that anamorphic transfers do not crop any part of the image. It just squeezes it in and I can unsqueeze it later in post. So, I should have the same options as far as repositioning framing when I crop to 1:1.85. I haven't done it, but I understand I could then make widescreen DVDs that would come close to filling a 16x9 screen (only a tiny bit of letterboxing as I'd be 1:1.85) and which would also automatically add letterboxing on 4x3 screens. Also, if I ever needed a letterboxed version for Digibeta or Beta SP I could just render out a letterboxed version from FCP. So, am I wrong about something here, or is there really no reason not to transfer S16 footage anamorphic? If understand things correctly, the only problem would be I couldn't do a timecode burn in on the anamorphic tapes. But, I am new to this and could be missing something here. The tranfer is tomorrow, so PLEASE help me out if anyone out there can. I'll probably spend around $10k of my own money on this project and I really don't want to make a costly mistake so soon. Thanks ahead of time for any help!

Thanks everyone for the help! I have not bought from Kodak so far b/c they're asking $147 a can and Film Emporium sold me sealed cans for $125. They told me yesterday that they've run out of this stock from their old supplier, and with the new supplier the cost will be $147. HTTK- I haven't check with 'Raw-Stock' yet. I think I found them here: www.raw-stock.com, but please let me know if this is the wrong place. Anyway, I'll defiitely check with Raw-Stock and Media Distributors, but I'm starting to wonder now, is there a reason these resellers have lower prices than Kodak? I just figured it was the old 'buy it from anyone other than the maker and it'll be cheaper' rule. Wish I wasn't such a newbie. Am I in the dark about something here? Thanks again for all the help!

Thanks for that. Unfortunately, both film emporium and Dr Raw Stock are out of the stock I need. Don't suppose you know of anyone else who's reputable and who sells Kodak? Thanks again!

I'm new here (and to film) so please forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask. Did some searches, but found nothing relevant. Anyway, I need to get 5 400' cans of Kodak Vision2 200T 7217 here before the evening of friday April 22nd. Bought the first 4 cans from the Film Emporium, but they are out and Kodak is much more expensive. I did find drrawstock.com (now the dr group) but have no idea how reliable they are. Can I trust them and are there better places to go? Sorry, google is only getting me so far and I'm a newbie. Thanks ahead of time for any help!

Just wanted to say thanks for the help and all the links! I appreciate it very much.

Thanks for the help y'all. Sure, I can pick up a phone and do all that, but unfortunately filmmaking isn't my day job and it's hard to squeeze that sort of thing in during the day. So research is something I do at night mostly. Guess I just find it odd that film stock seems to be the only thing that doesn't have prices listed online. Even buying a new car, which I consider a very one on one matter with a salesman, has lots of info online. Oh well, these days using film (as opposed to digital) seems to be a different thing to do, so I'll just have to approach it differently. Thanks again for the help!

Thanks for that, it explains things a bit. But, the weird thing is I can't find any prices online. I've never come across that before. It's almost like film is an old medium so you have to do business the old way, call (rather than online). Still, that can't be right. Don't suppose you could give me a link to a place that sells kodak, better still one that might list prices or detail some discounts, could you?

I think I'm missing something very obvious, but I've been all over Kodak's and Fuji's sites and can't find a damn price list for their stocks. Google etc searches never lead me in the right direction and I can't find anything on this site from my searches here either. The closest thing I've tracked down are places that say to call for prices. I'd really like to compare the costs of various stocks and check the requirements for educational discounts, can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks for any help!

Just wanted to thank everyone for all the help. I had no idea Caravaggio was that popular for cinematographers, but I agree. He did some beautiful stuff and I'd love to get something close to that look. The problem is I'm still pretty green. I've got a decent amount of book knowledge, but not enough field experience and know very little about film. Also, I need to be finished with production by the end of March, so testing is going to be hard. I'm used to the help others with their projects and get them to help on yours, but for this and with this time frame, I may just have to find a way and pay an experienced crew. Hopefully it won't be much more than a term in film school, and it doesn't look like I'll ever get the chance to go there, so what the hell. So basically the plan is to get some 35mm stills using some of the suggestions here and pass those results along to the experts (the crew). There are going to be some tricky things to deal with, such as the scene outside in bright sunlight. Also, the wardrobe is going to be pretty much modern day, but the script is an adaptation of a famous essay made the 1700's-thus the need for the old world look to bring things together. But, I won't have the period clothes to sell the look. So thanks again for all the advice and support. Wish me luck!

I'm making a short film that I'd like to look as though it takes place in the 1700s. I posted in the First Time Filmmakers forum here and I got a good recommendation to check out the Baroque painter Caravaggio to get a reference for the old world feel. I did some research on him and it seems he was fond of a single source of light and lots of rich colors against dark shaddows and dark backgrounds. Here's a site with lots of pics and some info about him: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/caravaggio/ Here's a picture from there that I think really illustrates some of these points: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/carav...eath-virgin.jpg So, my thought was to light with a dominant but soft key (his light was always soft) and surround the scene as need (but sparingly) with very gentle fill. So, I was wondering if this sounds like a good approach and if there were any recommendations towards acheiving this goal. We will be shooting on super 16, though I don't have any particular stock in mind currently. Thanks ahead of time for any thoughts or help!

Thank you everyone for the help. Lots of good thoughts. Experimenting with looks- reminds me a lot of the Visions of Light DVD. I'd love to experiment, but I don't own the camera and don't even know how to load it. I know, this isn't the way to do things. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to go to film school or do an internship for a production company. Perhaps at some point I can sneak away to one of those Maine summer classes or Kodak's 2 week crash course. Until then, the only experimentation I can do is really with my pd150 or post stuff. I do have Cinelook and Magic Bullet, if that would help at all. So basically, for me film at all is an experiment and obviously I need to find a good DP. I'll definitely check out the paintings for ideas about the look. Good advise. David, I was meaning I wanted the colors of films made to look like they're older. Kind of like a lot of Shakespearian films. Deep and rich, not vibrant, and with a somewhat limited contrast range. I?m still checking out the Kodak site. They have a couple of products that seem to be designed to help you get an idea of what they?re different stocks will do. Here?s the link: http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/products...gerSystem.jhtml Perhaps my browser, but there?s no mention of pricing or anything terribly in depth. But, maybe this will begin to give me an idea of what looks to expect. Overall, it does seem like I should be thinking more about lighting and having a solid product to work with in post. Still, just off the tops of people?s heads, are there any certain filters (both camera and post) that I might want to try, or possibly different film stocks? Thanks again for all the help! ps- David- D.E.B.S. came to the festival I work for, but unfortunately I was running a different venue and couldn?t see it. Actually, my movie was playing just before it and a lot of people ran out at the end to catch D.E.B.S. Definitely had a good buzz about the film. I?m looking forward to its wider theatrical showings.

I'm making a short film that I want to have the colors of films that are meant to look like the 1700's. The set and the characters will be modern, but the narrator is reciting a famous text from the 1700's, so hopefully it will make sense. Anyway, checking out a few films that were supposed to take place in days or yore, I've noticed 2 basic looks. The first are Technicolor films like Ivanhoe and The Vikings. Then there's the more modern rich, dark, and subdued look of things like "Juana la Loca" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". Two pretty different looks, granted. I'm shooting this on super 16mm and was wondering 1- if there's a particular stock that might help achieve either look? 2- if these looks might depend more upon color correction in post, or 3- if lighting is more than anything else used to establish these looks? I'm guessing lighting plays a part, but the real magic takes place in the stock or color correction. But, I don't really know how to do this kind of thing with color correction and know next to nothing about film stocks. Sorry for the long post, but any help is greatly appreciated!