Aapo Lettinen

we have to also remember that the viewers don't usually notice nor care what format a movie is shot on (after they have watched it about 5 minutes as long as it looks great and doesn't distract them from the story. I personally think that with digital projection, the Ultra Panavision origination added maybe 15-20% to the Hateful Eight experience for average viewer and the rest is just marketing. Haven't seen it on film, maybe would add more to the experience. and if most of the viewers are watching movies on 2k dcp it is quite difficult to benefit from for example IMAX origination. maybe some added contrast may be there but otherwise it just adds almost nothing to the experience I think. it's a great marketing tool though

here we go again :lol: --- It doesn't really matter which format is technically "better" or "worse". you just have to pick right tools for the job and the best choice varies from project to project. I would not shoot on 65mm over Alexa in the middle of Namibian desert for example, you can do it of course but it is highly unpractical: high temperatures, flying sand and dust, thousands of miles to the nearest lab, horrible logistic challenges to get the dailies on time... if you had the Alpha Lab type service with you it might be ok but otherwise I would definitely go digital. film is great when you have a risk of great amount of overexposure, digital is better when shooting in low light and usually better in tough conditions as long as you have enough batteries for the more power hungry cameras. (if not, then film is usually better) . Digital is also excellent for VFX and green screen because it has lesser noise ('grain' if you like) and usually better shadow response (more dynamic range in shadows and less noise/grain) depending on the equipment and settings used

you might want to slit clearance films or short ends because 16mm short ends are very rare nowadays when most professional productions and tv are switched to digital and the remaining prods are shooting wider stocks, 35mm and 65mm. Factory sealed stock at normal price, certainly not. but if you have cheap excess stock like lots of short ends and you don't need to care about key code numbers or have very small tolerance needs for perfs etc. , then why not :lol:

it would probably be much easier to get Kodak to make a custom batch of b/w for you than color film, much fewer layers and therefore much fewer different emulsions and filters to cook. you should ask them directly. you may have to buy couple of features worth of stock to make it happen if possible at all, but if you get couple of productions involved I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work out

I believe it should be possible if the base material and developing chemicals are the same. They are doing the emulsion (gelatine) stuff in batches and then coating it to the base. I have understood that they are using the same coating machine for all the films so it is really down to the emulsion only. it is probably more than one master roll though, if they have to cook custom emulsions they would want to make a huge amount of it, not just a brick or two. It's just chemistry and following the recipes, the practical batch size would be the problem for them. when cutting the master rolls the sides are unusable but I don't remember how many percent in average that number is of the total width. maybe something between 15 and 25% I believe

connections are usually more important than film education (the main purpose for film schools I think is to get you proper connections which will lead to work) . Connecting with the local DPs is a great start. they may get you some type of department work so you can get started and give you advices how to proceed. you have to get yourself into professional sets to learn from people who are more experienced than you. in the beginning, take whichever job they offer to get you into the set to see how they are working, especially if they pay something for it, and then you can little by little get to the camera or lighting departments when you gain experience and they know you better. for example, when I was in tv/doc school, I was working ONE DAY as a grip in a commercial shoot and learned more about lighting than in TWO MONTHS in the school... working abroad is not a problem as long as you are skilled enough and speak the language relatively well. English may be enough depending on the crew and production. film school helps a lot IF you build your connections and career at the same time like mad. some people make the mistake thinking that it is enough to get a degree from great film school and then you will have career just like that. actually it's more like double or triple the work: you have to get the film degree and at the same time do all the productions you can to build your career like when starting out of nothing without school. the school is only to get you into the basics and get you more connections. it is also for artistic projects which would not be possible to do outside of school environment which offers free equipment and support.

another example of the metal surface macro http://www.shutterstock.com/fi/video/clip-4312847-stock-footage-abstract-metal-background-with-slowly-changing-lighting-only-optical-effects-used-no-digital.html?src=rel/4312817:6/3p

speaking of macro lenses, here is some stuff I made a while ago using a custom low quality macro lens, lots of extension tubes and shooting blurred satin aluminum surface with changing lighting http://www.shutterstock.com/fi/video/clip-4312820-stock-footage-abstract-background-with-slowly-changing-lighting-only-optical-effects-used-no-digital.html?src=gallery/z4H6fuwAMG6j7qVsNAkfYw:12:91/3p you can experiment with other shiny surfaces, various small crystals, metal powders, etc. I could also produce this type of material for you but it would cost a bit (one day shoot) so not possible with 0 budget

I thought it's more like seven stops or so. If you are using hdcam as a backup and recording the edit version with external recorder to prores, then it might make sense: you would have relatively good camera for handheld docu-style shooting, edit ready recording format and onboard backup which can be stored as is and will last for 10 years or so. You could also use it for documentaries or reality style shooting where a ENG zoom is very handy. for normal cine use there is much better options nowadays especially if the capability for onboard readily storable backup is not needed

I would only buy the very well working ones, if some of them have oil or mechanical problems just don't buy the problematic ones. These lenses are so common that you can pick them from ebay very easily in great condition and reasonable price, so you can substitute the missing or badly working ones very easily

I have a 105mm F2.5 .there is also other versions of it. They are usually optically quite good lenses, I use them for 4k shooting with gh4, sony fs7 and bmpc4k. You have to stop down one or one and half stop to get rid of chromatic aberrations. Make sure that they are mechanically sound, there is often some play on the focus ring which can make movie use difficult. I have mostly the 2.0 versions which are a bit newer. Make sure they are not e-series stuff which are plastic body lenses and a bit cheaper glass

Vaseline is great for on set effects, you can also use nose grease on a filter if very light effect is desired

Are you trying to archieve psycedelic effect which is on the real image eg.the singer for example or completely separate psycedelic effects? If the latter, you can experiment with macro lenses and chemical chrystals, colored liquids, etc. I think they used milk and colored liquids in the Tree of Life for example. If you try to experiment with chrystals I recommend mid to low quality lenses with chromatic aberrations, lots of extension tubes or bellows, and using moving polarized lights for shooting. You can try growing vitamin c chrystals for example (check youtube)

I uploaded couple of Lomo Foton tests to youtube in uhd if someone is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK_TGxAn-JQ

if you want to use a computer monitor, use at least one that is native full hd so that it does not create scaling artifacts. I would not use the cheapest one but something from the couple of hundred bucks range which has decent image and can be at least coarsely adjusted

you can also use a cheap hdsdi to hdmi converter and tape it behind the monitor so that you can use bnc as a cable and have far less problems

magic lantern raw is a huge pain if you try to shoot longer project with it. depending on the specific system it may also have reliability problems, some may get away with it just fine and others (like myself occasionally) have constant problems which may need camera reboot or cooling it down in the middle of the shoot, bad pixels, frame drops, etc. even if used with recommended specs and cards. for short projects it is great if you have trustworthy and tested system and can handle the more complicated post workflow. otherwise it's better to just shoot straight to prores or xavc with for example blackmagic or fs7. the 5d3 is quite good in low light though. again, the magic lantern is good for very short projects with limited amount of material but is a huge pain in longer projects and when reliability is required. I usually use it only for single shots or brief 2nd unit stuff for this reason and process the 5d2 and 5d3 raw to prores444 "technical grade" with after effects and do all the rest of the work in prores to avoid further problems with the material.

would be nice for low light work. otherwise there is lots of competition from other manufacturers, especially at that price point

in the case of very long runs for student films we usually had some kind of 3 phase outlet we could use, either 16 or 32a. I think the longest run was over 250m from single 16a 3-phase outlet to two 1.8k arrisuns, a kobolt 400 and couple of arri 200 fresnels. I started with a 16A to 32A adapter, used all the 32A cable I could find (about 100m of it), added distribution box to convert to 16A cable, used all the 16A 3-phase cable, maybe 120m of it, and then continued with 2.5mm extension cords. it worked fine for the arrisuns but it was one phase per AS18 and the third for the rest of the stuff. I think the AS18 takes something like 2200-2300w when in full power, I metered it once but can't remember anymore...

no, you have to either re-wire it or use more sturdy cable for a part of the chain to fight the voltage drop. if you had 16amp 3-phase cable you could re-wire it to single phase and make at least 200 -250m run with it but it is tricky and also may be illegal in GB, I don't know :/ I would just use 2.5mm cable as much as possible and if absolutely necessary I could add some 1.5mm

with tungsten lights it is not much of an issue if the colour temperature changes little, your main concern is whether the stingers and sockets get too hot and melt or even burn if your chain is too long /too many watts for the cord. something like 60°C is quite normal for heavy use but if they are burning hot then you should definitely switch it off and change the light to a 1k :ph34r:

with student films we did this all the time, the 1.5mm cable should do if you don't have anything else but it is much better if you can get some 2.5mm or 4mm cable to start the chain so that the voltage drop is lower and they don't heat as much. HMI lights may have serious issues with a 100m 1.5mm chain so it is best to avoid it the best you can. if it can't be avoided, you can use two or more chains on separate fuses and lower wattage (maybe 30-40% of the rated amp) per chain so that you don't run into problems. I think we did something like 150m for about 1.5kw once with 2.5 and 1.5 cords though not very practical compared to a genny and we fried a stinger or two when added 100w more to the chain <_<

great! I can loan a BMPC 4k for the weekend and test it against Nikkor ai-s and zeiss jena lenses. nikkors have approximately the same look than the modern Nikon lenses

what sensor size do you use, I have a Foton 37-140 T4.4 with switchable PL and EF mounts and rafcamera follow focus gear which I could sell (have two of them at the moment) . creates a bit of chromatic aberration (thus I asked the sensor size) but otherwise reasonably good lens for the price. if you're interested I can pm you samples :) if you are looking for telephoto lenses you there is couple of Pentacon Six (zeiss jena) lenses you could look, at least the 80mm, 120mm and 180mm. Ef mount adapter for them is very cheap and PL mount adapter is quite affordable, you can use it as a intermediate mount. stop down 2 stops or more and they're very good lenses if the mechanics are ok :)

if possible, mask all the green which is not used as Satsuki suggested. I believe your vfx sup is going to be on set when shooting, if not then you should be extra careful about tracking markers and pre plan everything more carefully with the vfx department. 3d match moving is especially tough with green screen because the background is so even that you can't necessarily pull enough tracks to track the camera move correctly and the marks also have to be at different depths so one may have to add extra markers on stands to different depths and sometimes even fill half of the frame with them if it's difficult shot. if it's that kind of difficult shot you should reserve some small light stands for the parallax markers. with tracking markers you have to know the camera move and what the background will be, even a simple tripod panning shot may sometimes need 3d track if it has 3d objects added close enough so that the parallax can clearly be seen. so you will need from 1 to >500 markers depending on the shot ;) blurry markers are more difficult to track but you can usually get away with them most of the time.