Michael Lehnert

"Circuschrome" is the informal name given to Fuji Velvia 50 D by users on this and "the other" forum when originally introduced in 2006: I believe the term was coined by Santo. It refers to the (some said: grotesquely) oversaturated and intense colours V-50 delivers in comparison to other motion picture film technology, making it in some exposure conditions look like Technicolor on steroids. This wanted to indicate then that unlike with other film stocks, cinematographers should be first seriously testing V-50 for themselves to assess whether it can be used aesthetically in their respective film projects due to the potential visual overtaking of the entire film's cinematic impression by the strong (some said overburdening) colour palette of V-50. Hence the term "circus" for its grand over-the-top appearing and style and potential application... think in terms of the many "Circus of Vampires" Hammer horror shockers from the 1970s, starring Peter Cushing and other screen legends. It also refers in another take to the "circus-like" euphoria created particularly in Germany around its original market introduction by Gottfried Klose with media assistance by Jürgen Lossau and technical input by Tak Koyama (not Wittner or Spectra, they came in much later, doing independent productions and being in some ways earlier to market with a finished product) as the "saviour of Super 8" and of amateur filmmaking alike (regarded synonymously there). There was also the undercurrent notion of V-50 symbolising Fuji's indirect (Single 8) revenge on Kodak's claimed "abandonment of Super 8", a view put forward by Single 8 aficionados at that time - all this brouhaha due to the cancellation of the obsolete Kodachrome technology in 2005. This was particularly spearheaded then by "Schmalfilm" magazine whose current German issue is again filled with all sorts of odd throwbacks à la "Take this, Kodak"-propaganda while eshewing a balanced reporting on the manufacturing, production and marketing state of the format by that company, now richer and more committed to the format than at any time during the last 3 decades. If you want to re-read the past battlefront threads, then readers can go back a few dozen pages here in this sub-forum to read the exchanges between David Mullen ASC and Jürgen "Filmfreund" Lossau about the K-40 death/V-50 rebirth; the first tests of V-50; the Fuji-v-Kodak antagonism and so on and so forth. The thread titles are in the Super 8 FAQ here in this forum. BTW, the future of V-50 via Cinevia is still unclear, as orders are not taken and the online store re-openings cancelled indefinitely, let alone to think of the eventual (?) introduction of the new GK-Film precision cartridge for V-50, a project looking very much abandoned right now.

I totally agree with you Freya. That's what I was on about. The variety here in the US is pretty much amazing. Greetings to you in LDN :) -Michael

Well, I am currently in LA (first time for me) and hence pretty much off this forum for the next weeks, but I start to realise the perspective on the indy and small-outlet market that many people here in the US have and that really cannot be found in the UK - yeah, I can even see Phil Rhodes points of contention (insider joke). I am afraid the the UK market does not have this richness or proliferation of small rentals even for no-budget student etudes as material there is supplied from the big ones by grant of good will. And the broadcasting industry has its traditional suppliers. That is what I also meant with me remark about the German market, which is actually oriented in strucuture closer to the US than the UK. Why don't you try to get in touch with the Widescreen Centre off Baker Street in London. They serve a fair share of low-budget 16 and 8mm work, and although they do not rent out on a big scale, the Ashbury brothers there might be enticed to put Joker Bugs into their sortiment. Sorry for not being more helpful here - should I come across something once back in LDN, I will post it here, of course. Cheers, -Michael P.S.: as your subsidiary is basd in France, how is the French market actually comparing to DE and UK

Hi, are you asking fellow UK members here for product feedback, R&D input for your product development, or a sort of "contextualisation" why we think your sales figures in the generally smaller UK market (esp. in comparison to the hetergeneous German media market) are underperforming so visibly? Cheers (and just remarked your new banner ad on the right hand side of ciny.com :-) ) -Michael

No problemo, Tony. Glad to hear that you could get the shutter to operate normally again. Beaulieu and Bauer cameras have an excellent track record in tropical and subtropical shooting environment, but heat and sand and being based in the field most of the time is always the greatest stress you can put a camera through. I already freak out with my own cameras on a simple beach ;-) . So "hat-up" for the very micro-engineered 4008 so far, I must say! I suspect that the mechanical play suffers from the exposure, and a good lube job will be pending upon your return. I can't wait to see really anything, pics, rushes, diaries from your film. You should have opened a thread in the "In Production" sub-forum about your project! So best wishes to you and your filming in Mozambique from me in London, although I will actually be off to L.A. later this week (another sort of adventure :-) Cheers, -Michael

Just to make sure that your description of the problem is as I understand it: By gate, do you mean the film gate (i.e. that the shutter is irresponsive to all movements of the topside shutter lever and permanently shutting at 1/2 shutter opening) or do you mean that the shutter lever moving in the topside gate which has a mid-position lock (activated by slightly lifting the shutter lever, and de-activated by pushing the lever in) cannot be moved? Have all attempts to change the shutter opening angle really failed by moving the shutter lever for- and rearwards, repeatedly? I have never encountered this problem or indeed ever heard of it (I have, however, encounter asyncroneous shutter opening & transportartion, resulting in terrible flicker - had to go to the workshop as most work on the variable shutter has to), so this is the only 1st aid I can think of. Furthermore, as you are in the field, what tools and sets do you have with you or access to to do mechanical repairs? Best wishes, -Michael

Hey, Dave! That means one pint of stout on me should you be in London, or a decent Heurige on me should I be in Vienna! At least someone isn't as "camera"-centric as I was this morning, me fool! (don't ask what I thought about when it was put to me :wacko: )

Eh, no, it's not about the latest RED marketing claim...

Here's a quiz I have been forced to play by my editor today; so everyone else here can suffer from it as well (I know, I have a sick humour): Name That Camera! Focal length: fixed, 22mm. Maximum ISO: 800. Maximum aperture: f/3.5. Field of view: 180 degrees. Resolution: 576 megapixels. Enjoy the obvious, -Michael

Our technician is based in posh Baden-Baden - excellent cinema and broadcast credentials and working longer in this business than Adenauer did as Chancellor ;) . Probably the most ingenious and inventive cine-tech east of Grenoble and west of Mumbai, and excellent sales inventory. Can source the Aaton motor quite surely. Selective in his customers, only by personal referal, and only deals by phone or face-to-face, so no webform tickets and late-night e-mails. German language required. If you want contact details, PM me, and I will set it up. He has recently been befallen by several unfortunate ill-health issues in a row, which delayed several customers' jobs by 3-4 months (ours and some others from this board, too), but he is on the up again and my brother had three meetings recently to go through the development so far. Both came up with some additional mods to the transportation system of the NPR to further ameliorate frame stability, and hopefully final delivery (i.e. personal delivery by him to our premises in Basel) will be in a fortnight or so. Fingers crossed. As promised to Martín earlier, I intend to post digipics when they eventually land in my mailbox here in London. Cheers, -Michael

Oh, don't remind me of those two RED threads here, John. Terrible business, and (potentially) bad chatter. Want to forget those, and return to cinematographic issues, like talking about a good film stock with grain, or a beautiful take of a scenery with natural light in Llanberis, or how having to shoot with f/2.8 all day ruined my other day ;) . Cheers, -Michael

http://www.cinematography.com/forum2004/in...showtopic=32238 (Been there, done that - The Sequel)

:lol: well, everything is possible with RED. Anyway, I am off to see Mamma Mia now, so I shall bring this thread back on-topic should I have something to post about it ;) . Cheers, -Michael

I very much agree with you on precisely the reasons you mention, particularly Tarkovski (what irony to be labeled like that!). That's why I in-quoted "...mainstream..." above. That mainstream/newspaper-critic/google-feedback referal is quite erroneous ;) . For too many people, "RSR" (as I shorten it) equals to any "arty-poetic non-narrative film with rugged sets and B&W inserts" made by a human whose name ends on -vitch, -ej, -ov or -stein. For my parents who fled from communist rule in the 1960s, "RSR" invokes memories of unbearably badly-written propaganda flicks about happy farmers force-shown every Friday afternoon after school that had a message so obvious ("love mother Russia, the great communist provider, creator of a socialist reality on Earth") it's odd someone even thought it needed any form of promotional emphasis or label. What you have to leave to these films is, that when they needed 20,000 extras for a re-enactment of Waterloo or Crimea, or some peasant uprising against a local aristocrat, the director/producer called in the Red Army via the Politburo and they got them immediately, in historically correct props and all. I personally think, however, that Eastern European and Russian film adapations of fairy tales or the Bros Grimm tales are beautiful and highly underrated, and allowed the only uncensored output of somewhat regime-critical film messages. For many cinematographers, working at Barandov's fantasy department was political liberation...

Sure you have, Max ;) ! I guess "Russian Social Realism" a.k.a.s to "Russian Socialist Realism" which means in a mainstream way: "Tarkovski films": Andrej Rublev, Nostalgia, Stalker. As these films are almost never shown on television, let alone in theatres (even London), I would take up every opportunity to see them, in any projection or print quality, at any day, even in back-to-back screening while being force-fed with Russian borch soup. On the other hand, I recently saw a "Russian Capitalist Realism" movie about an elusive slasher killing innocent commuters in Moscow's underground metro system, and how a messed-up agoraphobic ticket controller tries to catch "it" during his off-shifts, i.e. when he is not having psychedelic visions of flying owls and poetic angels and rave parties. That film bored me to death, despite a valiant effort in cinematography, so much so that I even forgot the title of it and the names of the director/writer and DoP. Now, reading this thread inspired me to go watch Mamma Mia tonight at the Everyman in Hampstead (with, yeah, you guessed it, more female than male friends... :rolleyes: ). The ideal venue for it: they even throw in strawberries & cream and a bottle of sparkling for every ticket. That's like Wimbledon all over again, just in the dark. Looking forward to seeing the contentious cinematography myself.

Jonathan, would you mind explaining what operational step you changed to suddenly make the automatic exposure control work, after you are certain that you already tried everything and it must be broken? Furthermore, as I am a bit sceptical about "I tried everything and nothing works for sure" statements (as proven here quite clearly), could you go into some detail how you actually operate the manual aperture control to come to the conclusion that it must be broken? As Jim said, you have to turn the switch considerably to see an effect in f-stop changes.

Hi Scott, and welcome to cinematography.com :) ! One of the best things here is that if you ask a question while providing as much background to it as possible, you will get the best expert advice (for free) you can hope for; often beating film school ;) . So in light of that: What topic do you exactly mean? The lingering controversy if scanning 35 @ 8K is worthwhile, or do you enquire about digital postchains in general; or IMAX, or how a specific scene in "Dark Knight" was shot; or do you mean filmmaking or cinematography in general?

Well, in that case, there are really no reasons to be benign to the seller if he sold it as "operational" - seems that the entire exposure system is either electrically or motorically broken. @ Art: HOLY MOLY, that is what I call a bad sales experience, particularly as Super 8 Shop had a good reputation so far, and was aside of Super 8 Arena the only seller with some form of "good appearence". I truly hope you can sort of this mess. Best wishes, -Michael

I can see your point. Let me try. -Michael

Do you have new batteries in the battery compartment? Do you have a PX-type button cell in the exposure meter battery compartment which powers the lightmeter in all Nizo big-bodied cameras? Run a battery test by moving the master switch from the black '0' forward to the black dot. Any reaction of the battery check diod in the viewfinder? Is the camera operational in all other ways, i.e. filming speeds, intervalometer, Rewind-based effects etc? Do you have a manual in your own language supplied with the camera? Contact the seller about this immediately to make the point that this potential malfunction is something that occured right out of the box, and isn't something that happened to you after "manhandling" the camera for the first days (where people can accidentally damage devices by unintentionally untrained operations)

Agreed! I PM you in due time. -ML

Excellent news! Looking forward to reading it! :)

Excellent stuff, cf my other post in your other thread. As a sustaining member, you have 15MB of attachments available to you. That´s what ciny.com offers for posting/hosting pictures here. Maybe this would be something for you? BTW, ever thought about contacting Chris from Super 8 Today for publishing this with nice pics and all? Just a thought...

Great, Terry, that sounds not only brilliant but I am really looking forward to this! This also takes some pressure of me to work on the FAQ soonish as I will be working in L.A. in August and hence have no time to spend here. I suggest the following: as I want to maintain the FAQ in a somewhat orderly manner, I will take care of everything. In order to keep a content theme going from the currently last FAQ post, I will be posting a new FAQ post about the exposure index working in Super 8 first in the next week or so fist. Then, I will do four FAQ posts which I am gonna make on your subforum threads with hyperlinks and text intro once all is posted by you in the subforum here - I think this is the best way. Why? - You can do the original forum post with pics and all, with a layout to your wishes - People can read, reply and contribute to it freely in the subforum thread in question which boosts the knowledge even further. So the FAQ post will be a portal to the knowledge base you created here. - This approach limits traffic to your posted pictures. FAQ readers will click on the relevant hyperlinked thread of yours in the FAQ, so the pics will only be loaded for really interested people. Otherwise, your hosted pics would suffer from a great deal of traffic as for every FAQ reader (roughly two to three per hour on average) would make them load up alot without being necessary. So I think this solution I suggest would be in your interest. To conclude, may I suggest the following order that I am gonna do with your threads here in the FAQ: FAQ post 0: this will be with content by myself about the EI/ISO chaos and how to handle this based on the Nizo 136 thread we had here. FAQ post 1: - "Super 8 Inside Out": your two threads about the Super 8 cart disection & how to safely open up the super 8 camera. FAQ post 2: - "Solution to Jitter": this very thread. FAQ post 3: - "Soundproofing the camera": a future thread of yours FAQ post 4: - "Projecting Super 8 - Tips by Terry": your projector thread Does that sound okay to you? -Michael

Here is a hyperlink for the documentary mentioned above: CLICK ME