Aapo Lettinen

maybe it is a bit easier here in Europe, I don't know :lol: the movies also generally being better (personal opinion) whenever them not trying to imitate American ones but that is another matter :lol:

I have never heard about this either and I have worked couple of years full-time in a production company :blink: Normally producers, prod managers and line producers trust the cinematographer and post people when it comes to the camera equipment and workflows... the Arri cameras for example have generally been the most practical choice for fiction here: drama, comedy, etc. as a main camera (economic and easy to shoot, reliable, great look, easy post workflow). And Red cameras (resolution and framerates and dynamic range with hdrx, even when having some problems like more expensive post and grading) or Alexa Mini for aerials. On documentaries it is common to mix cameras+formats a lot depending on the shooting conditions and Sony cameras have generally been handy for our documentary stuff for being more versatile than Arri or Red stuff in wildly varying shooting situations. documentaries use anything which does the job best and switch the brands and models whenever needed... one of the nature documentaries shooting on two Varicam35's and Varicam LT and EVA1+Shogun Inferno at the moment for dual iso advantage (lots of 50-1000 material etc) still not understanding Tyler's affection towards Blackmagic stuff... they are quite OK cameras with interesting features and so but their build quality is not very good on most of their equipment and most of their stuff is targeted on indie and low budget commercial/corporate market and live use. not really pro movies :ph34r: mostly they make sense on low budget productions where one can't even afford enough cfast cards or rental lights to make a day ^_^

Not credibility related, but... always charge as large % of the invoice as possible before handing off the material. nowadays I tend to charge all the shooting costs before the shoot on small jobs (car and equipment rentals if I hire them for the shoot, any hired employee costs, etc. ) so that I only lose my own salary at most if the client does not pay for the shoot at all and does not even want the material for some reason. they tend to also pay late unless you're lucky so it's best to have them pay any rentals etc beforehand if they are on your responsibility so that you don't have to loan money to pay the rental costs etc. The good monitor with correct LUT is a very good advice. Clients don't necessarily understand the concept of grading and think that what they see is what they get... or even if knowing that they forget it after a while and start complaining :ph34r:

Oh I understand, it is just a matter of different attitude then and not about how the computers are used or what quality parts they are made of... if every problem is user's fault then of course the computers themselves don't ever crash or have any errors, the user does :lol: Even the piece of crap software I use, like Premiere or Resolve or FCPX is not prone to crashing, all the rest of the universe is just going to hyper speed every time the user THINKS that the software has frozen and responds very slowly B)

I personally somewhat hate all the editing programs out there, for differing reasons... I have to use regularly FCPX, Premiere CC, Resolve14, FCP7 and every now and then Media Composer and I have also used Vegas Pro and Pinnacle Pro in the past long ago. There is no good or perfect editing program, they all are more or less annoying, have stupid logic and lack necessary features. The best thing one can do is have lots of different program tools and just switch to other WHEN a project cant be completed on one of them. Just like there is no good or perfect computers, there is just mediocre stuff which is only waiting the chance to fail you and destroy your work and the best thing you can do is to have multiple spare units readily available so that you can continue working with the backup unit WHEN the computer or camera or hdd or other gear burns down B) I have had Apple computers and Windows computers crashing and having problems literally thousands of times, I don't quite understand the argument that one could work years with a piece of equipment without any problems :wacko: Either they are not noticing any mid level problems, only the largest ones (the ones where the computer catches fire and burns the building down) and thus think the gear does never fail at all.... or just being super extremely unbelievably lucky and would be millionaires if just buying a lottery ticket once in a lifetime :lol:

mostly the hard drives are breaking (3 hard drive failures total on my 2011 imac. every about 2.5 years the hard drive dies and needs to be changed. Additionally couple of broken laptop hdd's and one broken hdd on 2014 imac. ) . Other problems too: continuous reliability problems with Thunderbolt ports, probably firmware/chipset related stuff, which the service center have not been able to repair. Also the 2014 imac had the hinge spring broken after just two days of normal use so that the display did not stay on level and it had to be sent to service... And there is that thing which may be a intentionally designed feature but is super annoying and is present in most of the imacs and newer cinema displays we have: the freaking stand (the L shaped metal "leg" under the imac or display which supports it) is slightly bent sideways so that the display is not perfectly horizontal but slightly off level, always :blink: I don't know if it's a feature or a manufacturing fault but as said super annoying and completely unnecessary :angry: -- Yes they DID make good machines back then. Even the laptops were good and handy even if a little bulky because of the dvd drive. This later hipster stuff is more of a made for decoration and photographer use and may not be the best option for serious work though the osx is the main reason these things are used anyway, not the hardware :rolleyes:

the main issue with Apple computers apart from the graphics cards is the non-maintenance design, you are totally screwed if something breaks up in the middle of a project. Most authorized service centers here are used just to take the machine in and repair it when it's best time for them which may take couple of days or a week or so... and they really really like to reinstall a clean version of the operating system like PC repair shops so that you will lose everything on the hard drive. I personally clone my system drives very often so that I have a full bootable clone of the system drive on external hdd and I can boot the osx installation on different computer if the edit mac fries and needs to be sent to service. At the moment I use the 6-core trashbin macpro as main edit and one can't even get the freaking Firepro drivers for it separately, I mean not at all! they are custom drivers and Apple does not allow them to be downloaded separately and can't be downloaded from app store, so a clean osx installation in repair shop is basically the only way to get you the trashbin firepro drivers if you need them for some reason. Anyway, the non-serviceable architecture means you can't do anything about it if having an issue. other than send it in for days or a week or so. With a pc you could just open the thing and change a component by yourself, or update the gpu and other parts if needed, with mac it is like having a solid block of metal which needs a gpu update... not gonna happen :blink: The trashbin is quite handy in some situations though, I have transported it back and forth in a backpack, also in airplane as hand luggage...very easy... you can't do that with an iMac. the integrated display is handy in desktop situations if not having enough space but for an editor it may not be handy at all if you are working on different locations regularly.

the problem with very fine airborne mineral particles is that some of them don't come out of the lungs after once inhaled. that's like, they never come out of there, ever. so one builds up small stone particles inside one's lungs and they cause fibrosis etc until one can't breath anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumoconiosis I don't know how much of a hazard this would be with the on-set use of Fullers Earth but I would not use any mineral dust for effects without protection just to be sure. It is a serious medical condition after all, thousands of people have died from it and even if not being super dangerous for very short term use the mineral dust will still have some negative health effects. Kind of like exposing the crew and cast to large amounts of tobacco smoke for days and days and expect it not having any negative health effects...

no but continuous file system conversions and paragon-everything does not work if you have couple of 8tb and 15tb drives at a time full of material which needs to be verified, reorganized, made previews from and then backed up to lto. One does not really want to add additional delays and conversions etc to the mix with intentional equipment mismatches, there is thousands of better uses for that time

Oh and you probably want to purchase two small hazers instead of one larger one... These things clog up and malfunction easily (broken pumps and heating elements etc.) so you will need a backup for it

I use a Stairville branded small hazer sold by Thomann.de which is at about 100euros price range. Has worked very well for me. Get a model which is easily adjustable and can do continuous small haze output . smoke machines are good for making smoke clouds but for atmosphere you wwill really want to use a hazer and fan to get continuous output so that the look does not vary from take to take

most hard wood dust (oak, ash, etc.) is hazardous and may be potentially carcinogenic. carpenters are usually very careful about this.... not a good idea to blow hardwood dust all over the cast and crew unless wanting harm their healt :huh: if that would be the whole point maybe adding a little bit of grinded asbestos on the top :ph34r:

Ps. Dyst masks are good for nothing, they are mainly a cosmetic fix and will still let harmful particles through. One really needs to use a respirator when working in dusty environment fir longer time. I personally use the same filters used by asbestos workers, they work better for fine dust than a cheap-o chinese paper mask...

Yeah even the salt dust can be slightly harmful if inhaled in larger amounts. Drying of membranes etc. I would not use wood dust, both more or less flammable and some wood species create potentially carcinogenic dust... I think it is not recommended by physicians to use heavy respirators if one has asthma or lung problems, so asthma patients can stay away from the set and the rest use a respirator if using dust effects. Normal hazer smoke is safe to use though without protection, it only smells bad for normal people and most others only get slight symptoms from it

it depends on what you do. Windows on Avid editing, mac with fcp7.... In picture post it apart of editing and sound it was more pc based here, running software on linux or windows based systems (Lustre, Flame, Resolve, etc) depending on the company and artist. I think the macs have been better used here for editing purposes and maybe some encoding and the rest been pc based. Now there seems to be more mac based post but it will change again soon i think. Vfx has always been pc based, it would be insane to do heavy vfx with mac shitty graphics :P

I think clear water would be the only really safe particle to breath... but haze/smoke is probably the look the OP wants to create. normal hazers/smoke machines use ethylene/propylene glycol +water which does not cause too much breathing problems for most people. salt crystals (pure NaCl dust) could also be quite OK to use for shimmering effect I think though could still cause breathing problems and is not good to inhale in large amounts. Any fine flammable powder in air = explosion hazard. Metal particles are additionally very unhealthy to breath as well as fine mineral particles (stone dust, fine sand, etc.) . IF the whole cast and crew would use good quality P3 respirators ("gas masks") then it might be ok to do a particle scene with powders, otherwise not

yep... our current trashbin macpro was originally bought for DIT use, running Silverstack XT and Resolve and it was really important then to have osx based system for file transfers. And most of the work and archive HDD:s (around 150TB total) are hfs+ so it is much faster and easier to work with the raw files with native hfs+ support. But for editing etc. use it only depends on how you manage your media and if you really want to use programs like FCPX which are only available for mac. For generic use PC is normally much better option, even if maybe being noisier and slower to setup. Macs are not very reliable or stable either, and they are especially bad if needing more power than the very basic default configuration could offer. With macs you can basically add memory afterwards but that's about it, everything else needs to be custom factory ordered when purchasing the machine new. For 5000 or 10 000 you will get hell of a cool pc system (or couple of them) with multiple new gpu:s and lots of cores on two physical processors. For a photographer or other graphics artist the imac pro could be neat though, especially if considering the computer also as a part of int.decoration in addition with being a tool (this is what macs are mostly used for I think :lol: )

"virtual cores" are based on processor technology so should work the same way on mac and windows like with any other intel processors (dual registers per cpu core instead of only one register per physical core) as for the iMac Pro itself.... I think it is kinda difficult to fit to for example my working environment where one needs to have a backup system if something breaks up and I would not trust the i-pro to be absolutely reliable (I suspect heating issues etc) and it really should have dual gpu etc. for that price. The "trashbin" mac pro I currently use is not that good either (thunderbolts and usb:s unreliable, impossible to get gpu drivers separately, etc.) but it is much easier to transport than imac because of being small and relatively lightweight (one can have monitors in workplaces A and B and just transport the computer back and forth) . The thing is... most heavily cpu and graphics use for me would be rendering Blender and other 3d modeling stuff and for that Windows or Linux based pc with interchangeable GPUs is much better anyway . If one does very cpu intensive format conversions or very heavy noise reduction to large files on hfs+ drives then the imacpro could make sense... otherwise kind of meh at the moment for me. I would maybe take one trashbin macpro and one windows pc instead for that price -_-

I think they bought it new in 2011 or 2012. Machine age does not affect the scan quality much and they do very good transfers with the Millenium. It is a tube scanner so the look is slightly different compared to cmos/ccd scanner but quality about equal when the machine is well adjusted and maintained. I don't know how much the shipping would be though, can't be cheap from Tasmania to here and back...

I was able to repair it by copying the mpeg2 playback component to the Library from other osx installation and tweaking but it did not work the first try by just copypasting and I don't remember exactly how I got it working. so it IS possible to repair but it needs to be done manually :unsure: AppleMPEG2Codec.component should be the correct file at Macintosh HD > System > Library > Quicktime

Reel One Oy in Finland can transfer 9.5mm on their Cintel Millenium2 telecine. they are normally setup for fullhd prores422hq and prores444 and should be able to do 2k dci as well on 444. they could also transfer on 4k if having a (separately rented) external recorder. they use their machine on both home 8mm films and archive and pro material on 16mm and 35mm. ( ask Anssi Kallio, reelone@reelone.fi ) they normally transfer at 25frames/second and rates are per working hour of the scanner

I don't know your situation very well but I think it will be the right decision. and if you have already lived in the LA you have lots of contacts there to help you out so will be no problem when you'll find a good apartment for your family :) Good luck and let us hear if you have some great old cameras which need a new home ^_^

that is getting rather interesting :blink: at least you have a great story to tell... "they fired me because they wanted to shoot porn instead of paying film developing costs and this new guy had better camera for porn" :D

there MAY be actually some benefit in buying gear but on indie production that only includes stuff which is very difficult or expensive to rent compared to the purchase price or if the learning curve necessitates owning the gear... this may include: -low to mid range steadicams (learning curve + rental costs+availability) -brushless gimbals (rental costs+availability) -onboard monitors (rental costs) -some basic lighting stuff (always needed) -computers and programs (rental costs+availability) -some very often used low cost lenses (I for example use my Nikon AI-S lenses on almost every indie job unless PL lenses are needed) (rental costs) -hazers and smoke machines (at least here they are difficult and also expensive to rent. one day rental may cost the same than a basic hazer purchased online) (rental costs and availability) -underwater stuff if you need it often (availability. very expensive to buy though) cameras not needed generally if you have a basic kit like dslr

on a larger production (like a feature film) the parallel working procedure may save anything from 1.5 months to 1 year of post time because people don't need to wait for the finished version from other dept (audio, online, grade, vfx ) before they can begin their own work. VFX is normally done here to the ungraded RGB versions taken from the online or grading program processing the original camera files (prores, raw in full resolution, using the same raw settings than the grading will use) and the shots and the all movie can be graded when the VFX guys are working their part, then the grade updated to the imported finished VFX renders on the grading program when the VFX is ready. this can be done even couple of days before making the DCP because the different depts have been able to work in parallel and it is just importing the files and copy paste the grade when working this way. same with finished audio tracks, they can be combined just before rendering the end deliveries and everything in between can just use the latest preview version available. of course, if one wants to constantly change the picture lock during the picture+audio post, then this all goes to peanuts and the post producer and line producer will not be very happy B)