Aapo Lettinen

one thing which may need to be checked is that the film has been in stable temperature from all the sides, one can sometimes have problems if the other side of the can has been warmer than the other and the film has been stored like that for longer time. it may lead to "pumping" grain which intensifies every turn of the feed roll. Some of the old EXR 50D I purhased from eBay had this problem: "pumping" red grain which intensifies at regular intervals of every couple of seconds. if you suspect the roll might have developed this problem you should do a small test shoot with lots of middle gray and black subjects (or gray charts) so you can spot it out. it usually affects first the most sensitive layer, with daylight film the red layer and with tungsten film the blue...

clip test will tell you the stock's condition as others suggested. alternatively you can shoot a small test roll of it, maybe 15m or so, if you are processing other films soon and can include the test to the same batch. that will show you the overall quality you can expect from the stock in your project and if you have to take elevated grain etc. into account. old film usually has elevated base fog and the sensitivity may be little lower. I tend to overexpose all old stock by about 1 stop (5 - 8 years old) and it usually works very well. background gamma radiation may sometimes be a problem with very old stocks, it happens at about the same rate even with frozen film so one can't store the cans forever, though long times are of course possible. you can also experience colour shifts with old film but usually nothing so extreme that it can't be corrected rather easily in grading. most of the time I purchase all films over 200 ISO new because it is easier to see the age and storing conditions with them, especially in smaller formats. storing a 500T film for several years is not ideal I think, even if it's 35mm. but if you have something like 50D it is not a problem at all

ultrasound image is not nearly as detailed as a X-ray image but it might still have some uses. it is also disturbed by air gaps so it would not be ideal for film cans unless the rolls are removed from the cans for inspection. something like infrared could also be an option if choosing a wavelength which the film is not sensitive of. the other thing is that even if your local airport had the system installed, you'd still have to deal with all the other airports in the world and there would always be the one which just has the 80's x-ray machine and nothing else :ph34r:

if the movie is good and the format choice is justified, then it should not matter. some films work best when shot on film and some work best on digital. of course the shooting format matters but more of if it's a wrong choice and thus makes the end product worse than it could be

the reason why I am shooting film at the moment is that it is both cheaper and more practical for the stuff I do (hilarious isn't it :lol: ) for getting VISUALLY the same impact I would need to rent something like an Amira or Alexa Mini and it would cost about 5x per day compared to shooting on 35mm (I'm shooting small amounts per day and almost only MOS stuff). It is of course great to get a good looking image most of the time but the main reason is practical. I also shoot a lot with digital cameras and I'm happy with them. btw why anyone would want to shoot film with only a SINGLE look? I know that Kodak has aimed to it and the main reason people like Alexas is because they emulate that "universal Kodak movie look" but still it's kinda boring... you can shoot the "Kodak look" either with grains (real film) or without grains (Alexa) or fake grains (Alexa + film emulation) :blink:

like I mentioned earlier, if making a serious project with larger budget one can just order the raw stock via courier directly to the location and send the exposed stock to the lab also with courier. no need to fly with film and worry about it especially in connecting flights where there may be multiple security checks during the journey. they may even x-ray your luggage when you go OUT of the airport building in some parts of the world, like they did in Tangier (there you can't even get inside the airport terminal without x-ray at the building door and of course the real security check is afterwards, so one x-ray when getting out of the airport and at least 2 when departing... )

one additional thing to note is that RAW image is not usually UNCOMPRESSED. almost always RAW is compressed slightly or very heavily depending on situation and system used. after debayering the RAW compression artifacts usually look very different from rgb/yuv format artifacts so they are maybe not considered compression artifacts or are not as apparent to the general viewer which may give a impression that the image is uncompressed which is not the case at all. for example heavily compressed redcode loses lots of fine details but does not create visible macro blocks (which are those which people usually seek when they look for compression artifacts)

I don't think ANYONE can ask them to leave the complete bag alone if there is all kinds of stuff there along with the films. electronic devices (cameras, light meters, etc) need to be scanned separately anyway, one can remove the film from the camera for scanning if the film can be hand inspected separately

one thing to take into account is that you easily get the films x-rayed multiple times during your journey. for example, when we went to Morocco for a film festival my photo films were x-rayed 7 TIMES total (for example two times at Helsinki airport when departing and all double checked and swab tested because my lens cleaning blowing bulb looked like a bottle in x-ray, didn't realise that at home so forgot to take it out of the bag. something to remember when travelling with photo gear, be extra sure there is nothing even remotely suspicious in your bag because they will double or triple x-ray it immediately with the films.. <_< ) If the material is very important I would buy the film locally and send it via courier to the lab so it never goes to passenger airliner during the trip. after it is developed you can use whichever shipping method you like.

If I have understood correctly, there is enough room in a Super8 cassette to fit such amount of certain materials that it can dr*p a plane. Not multiple cassettes, a single one :wacko: I can thus fully understand why they are so nervous about security and why they have to check everything thoroughly, and why they hesitate to let anything through without x-ray. It's a huge responsibility and completely underrated profession. I highly respect their effort to keep us safe :)

I still have to find a usable chemical fogging method to use instead of re-exposure...

the Lomo UPB-1A (2x15m of 8mm or 16mm) needs closer to 2L and the smaller 10m tank needs something around 1L. it would be very unpractical to slit the super8 cassette to 10m + 5m and develop them separately so thus one needs the larger tank and around two litres of developer. the Ilford paper suggests potassium permanganate + sulfuric acid bleach and using sodium/potassium metabisulphite as a clearing bath. I haven't tested the recipe yet but I will try it next month, all those chemicals are very inexpensive and I already have the developers and fixers :lol:

for example http://www.ilfordphoto.com/Webfiles/20061291034093.pdf chemical safety precautions are of course required. the concentrated sulphuric acid is pretty nasty stuff and permanganate stains skin and clothing and is dangerous to eyes. the working solutions are not as dangerous, only the concentrated ingredients

if you have enough time to experiment you can mix your own bleach bath and use the normal cheap b/w developers and fixers for the rest of the process, would be much cheaper than buying a dedicated reversal kit

colour reversal is easier than colour negative to do at home but the developers are quite expensive. may be practical for Super8 but I'd hesitate to do it for 16mm because of the price of both the film stock and the developer. reversal is almost impossible to get in 35mm in usable lenghts for any mp use (I think the absolute minimum usable lenght for 4perf is about 100ft for MOS second unit indie work) so that is also out of question. the developer (I have used the Tetenal 3-bath kit) also ages quickly and the stuff is oxidation sensitive and the process is very temperature sensitive. and it includes formaldehyde which is not safe to breathe, I have a very good gas mask but why bother when lab developed colour neg is both cheaper and easier to work with :rolleyes:

If they are paying separately for coloring all the material multiple times then it's kinda OK i guess but sounds like quite unefficient workflow to me. Rarely actually heard anyone doing it here in any production, it's the producers who would say no for that because it's kind of, well, expensive and unnecessary :wacko: the Faust movie did that I believe but others are usually pretty much edit-with-the-basic-lut-and-if-you're-not-ok-with-that-you-can-adjust-by-yourself-with-the-edit-software's-tools :lol: tests and everything which is published is of course worked with a pro colorist always but not the intermediate versions for productions's internal use unless necessary for testing and determining the look etc.

You have to define in more detail what do you mean with the footage "looking good". I have seen lots of video and film material that "looks good" when a simple LUT is added. but it always looks better if it's adjusted much further, shot by shot. For example, Alexa material "looks good" when a LUT is added because it now (generally) has somewhat decent contrast and colors. But it can look better if some minor corrections are made. It varies when these corrections are made though, some persons want to make them on set, others want to make them in post prod but not for dailies, others want to make them for everything they see including dailies, others want to always use the same custom look on set through editing and post prod to the screen... the usual difference with film and digital is that film has more limited shadow response but huge highlight headroom which leads to the on-set corrections to be made closer to the mid tones of the range rather than in highlights (exposing digital, especially "indie-style") (approaches vary though) . so it may give you an impression that the film is "easier to color correct" because you don't have to use the mid tone/gamma boost as often and you have limited shadow detail in the original so you probably won't be allowed to boost the shadows at all, plus the shadow corrections are already done on set with lighting and not relied on the post prod gamma corrections. It's thus more of a shooting style difference than actual difference between formats. I could shoot film material for you that is hell of a work to color correct and digital material which is very easy to work with, or vice versa

dust is more of a problem in the drying stage, the final wash takes it off of the emulsion quite easily if there was some in the tank. if you are doing re-exposure for reversal it might matter a little. the Drying Spots are usually bigger problem than dust but can be managed with washing aid and using distilled water for the final wash

I believe you are talking mostly about Commercials and not Feature Films? commercials are quite different productions in many ways, you may have clients on set all day every day staring at the monitor and thus have to get the best quality closest to the final look monitoring on set all the time, and of course fully color corrected dailies for then to view so that they are convinced that you are super and the material is just as they expected. the client may not understand what is bad raw material and what is intentional underexposure for example. with features/making dailies for pro people you can expect them to know that the final show will look much better than the quickly made dailies so you don't necessarily have to do full CC for all the stuff on set. Depends on the Director of course. the DP is usually always experienced enough to know what works for the look and what not even if there is no dedicated monitoring LUT available at all times. Here in Finland it is quite normal to make straight or almost straight LUT dailies and offlines btw for budget reasons in feature productions, depending on the show and DP of course. it can be actually safer to the DP to know the dailies are just through standard LUT and nothing else so it is easier to see how much CC is needed for the material and if there is for example filter color casts etc. so some DP:s even want you to deliver only the basic LUT versions without any corrections

if you buy a model which has the plastic loop formers, those can also scratch film and most users take them off for that reason. you should mark the correct loop sizes to the inner panel so that it is easy to get them right, as said the upper loop scratches very easily if too big because the pressure plate edge near it is quite rough an unpolished. if you decide to take open the camera inner panel for maintenance, make sure to mark first the correct position of the transport sprocket wheel relative to the rollers. they may seem symmetrical but they are NOT and if wrongly assembled they may jam the mechanism every now and then. (if it jams mid shoot you have to open the jamming upper/lower roller and close it again. I strongly recommend installing it right the first time so you don't have to open the rollers all the time because of jams)

I think the main difference is that there is lots more Power-Window-All -persons in all-digital DPs, they are used to making lots of creative decisions afterwards because the shooting format does not limit it as much as with film. A film person can work more efficiently on digital I think, especially in the post production stage, because of having made most of the creative decisions on set and therefore does not need extensive, almost vfx-like post work to get the footage to look good and constant. Mostly lighting and exposure decisions... keeping constant working ISO and tweaking lights and camera filters if possible rather than changing ISO and aperture shot by shot all the time. aka treating the video camera as a single ISO film stock with known latitude and using the scopes as a exposure meter if needed

the main problem with motion picture film is that the film amounts are easily 100-1000 times larger than with still film and you have to maintain very tight tolerances from batch to batch because one single bad batch shows up very easily from the final product. with home processing you can try everything exotic, for example using special developers, stills film in a MP camera, etc. I am starting to experiment in July with for example ferricyanide leeching and using sound print film and stills film as a camera negative, I am testing them first with stills and can then use the same film in Konvas to practice with longer lenghts :lol:

just a comment on the cheap-o Chinese accessories kits: the matte boxes and follow focuses are usually complete garbage which does not last even in hobby use. It is possible to use Chinese or Indian camera accessories with SOMEWHAT good results but one really needs to buy all the parts separately and assemble the kit by themselves. The rod parts and the rods themselves are for example not ideal and have to be tuned. I myself use couple of rod adapters custom attached to a cheeseplate and a Manfrotto long quick release plate again custom attached to r15mm rods. needs milling and drilling and couple of hours of work but works way better than any Chinese stuff out of the box, I can use it with for example dslr:s, bolex, Kinor2m and FS7. The rods are from different manufacturers, as well as the handgrips, cheeseplate, various rod parts, shoulder pad, etc. I recommend buying a used Chrosziel etc. professional mattebox and not bother with the all-plastic Chinese stuff. most of the rods parts can be Chinese if needed but the cheap matteboxes just are not worth it. the Tilta stuff is more usable but is also much more expensive so you could probably get a used quality item cheaper

additionally, film comes mushy very quickly if underexposed so it needs to be exposed more carefully than digital and more based on mid/low range response than highlights. with digital you may need to be careful to not blow out the highlights but most other aspects can be corrected later. corrections are also easier to do because there is generally less "grain" (noise) in digital image so the corrections don't show up as easily as with film where for example contrast boost can be immediately seen in grain texture

that "ease" of using film comes from the standardising of the film stock/developing/scanning path. I bet all those shows used same 1 or 2 film stocks (probably Kodak 5219, 5213 or 5207) for the entire show, always same lab with same processing, and same scanners with the same settings. So there is very little difference compared to the Alexa LogC workflow colour correction wise. If one does like me, using 10 - 15 different film stocks with different labs and different telecine/scanning with different settings, of course one has A LOT of work color correcting the stuff later shot by shot. (we did a short film scenes btw with using only 5207 stock with same lenses, careful lighting and exposing, flat telecine with minimum adjustments and it was very easy to colour correct. the difference comes from how much work you do on set to balance the shots VS how much work you want to do later in post production)