Tyler Purcell

Yea the old layout was great, but very insecure. If you wish to run a BBS, sadly you've gotta keep the updates going. What kills me is that the BBS software writers, don't understand how to make good ones anymore. Nearly everyone has moved to this new format and it really sucks. But 10 years ago, when people had to move from the "classic" bbs to the last bbs you're use to, it was the same freak out. Everyone gets upset about the updates because they never seem to be great on the user interface side of things sadly. I've already gotten use to this new one and it's not bad. The new features are very nice as well. 🙂

Well it's been a while since I've updated this, so figured it was about time. It's been slow the last few months, waiting for the shoot that just wrapped up last weekend. Things went really well with the shoot. I only had a few things to shoot, mainly because the convention was indoor and I couldn't afford to go randomly shoot stuff this time around, my budget has been cut pretty hard due to personal financial issues. However, I was able to get what I needed and I'm excited to incorporate it into a 2nd teaser trailer soon and of course, use the footage in the final feature. My XTR Prod was dropped by a customer recently, so it was serviced by Abel cine and they wound up accidently blowing up my main board, which fried my video tap. So I helped Girvan re-build the camera from spare parts and It's working better than ever. I also tweaked my 35III for the shoot, making it a lot quieter which is nice. Both cameras ran great for the entire shoot, most of which was on steadicam. We only ran through 2 rolls of 16 and 3 rolls of 35, but it was very specific shooting. My friend Derek came out from Utah to shoot 35mm, where I stuck with 16mm on the steadicam, so we could get close up's and wide's on two different cameras. I hope it came out well, it's at the lab now. This new Steadicam is from Came, it's one of the Chinese ones. I'm amazed how good it is and everyhting works better than the standard lower-end Tiffen Steadicam product. The cabling, weights and even sled parts, are very universal and not proprietary. So far my skills as an operator have increased dramatically simply because the steadicam works so much better than the Zephyr I've used prior. This is my new fursuit of my character Renn. Last year I ran around the convention with the 35mm and Steadicam, this year I did it with the 16mm camera. Derek on the left with the Aaton 35III and me on the right with the XTR Prod on Steadicam. This was the first time Derek used 35mm and it was funny to hear him complain about the camera weight, knowing the Aaton 35III is one of the lightest 35mm cameras ever made. I joked with him about the weight because he wants a 35mm camera and I keep saying, he ain't gonna get much lighter. I think he's gonna just keep his 16mm and roll with it. As a side note, notice the extended handle that Clairmont made for the camera, it's really helpful when running hand held. We shot all the interiors with 500T and simply set the stop all the way open. Even though there are occasions where it would hit F2, most of the time it would be below F1, so we didn't bother metering. I did use the zoom a few times, but MOST of the shoot was 9.5mm on the super 16 and 24mm on the 35mm camera. I did a little bit of exterior work for the film because Ashaeda spends most of her life in a wheelchair. I blew an entire roll of 5207 on her and her wheelchair. It's a huge part of the story and I had no footage to cover it. I didn't want the footage to seem like it was part of the event, so I went outside near the hotel, to gather random shots of her in the chair. Here I'm using the 35III with an ND .9 250 ISO at around F2 in an awning leading into the hotel.

I mean, I don't quite see the reasoning. My 35mm and 16mm camera's are both "cartridge" based cameras. You load the magazines before you run the camera and simply slap a new one on when you wish to change rolls. The modern coaxial quick load magazines are dead quiet, pretty light and durable. To make a camera system that used a cartridge to the level of that, would be nearly impossible. They would need to have some sort of universal drive mechanism that didn't make much noise and the cartridge would need to either have a beautiful well tuned pressure plate OR you'd have to thread it like a daylight spool camera OR Logmar Super 8 camera. So I don't see how it would work really...

Small update, Kodak is not offering discounts for Ektachrome at all. It's only being sold at full retail. 😞

Well first thing, that video was not made in 1993. D-VHS wasn't even developed until 1995 and wasn't shown until 1997. It was probably shot with one of the analog HDVS HDC-500 camera connected to HDV-10 videocassette recorder nearby. I'm not sure they ever made a portable recorder for the format however. D-VHS is a digital format that literally records ones and zero's onto video tape, so it shares nothing with analog video formats, outside of the VHS cassette standard. The tape inside the cassette was S-VHS evaporated oxide tape, which is very robust and can deal with the narrow tracks of the higher quality format. No VHS camcorders can look like this. Even then, this doesn't look very cinematic anyway. It looks like mid 90's broadcast that's wide screen and sharper.

Since I shoot so much film these days, I started noticing a very strange issue with my film. My shoots are always identical. I buy brand new film from kodak on monday or tuesday. I fly out/travel on wednesday, I shoot thursday - sunday and I come home and drop the film off monday to be processed tuesday morning. The first thing I noticed is that stuff I shot earlier in the shoot, was more noisy than the stuff shot later in the shoot. Mind you, the film is always stored in the hotel room refrigerator. Since I edit so many different shows shot on film, I started noticing a trend. Some shows were super noisy, others were not. I started asking the filmmakers about their processing practices and it was very clear; people who didn't process right away, had a much higher noise level then people who processed immediately. To prove this theory, I brought some friends in to do a camera test between 16mm and 35mm and store it in a refrigerator for a few weeks before processing. The results were, pretty horrible actually. I'd be more than happy to assemble what it looked like, but most likely you'd just say "it's film, it's suppose to be grainy". However, you can nearly eliminate the noise, if you process right away. Since I shoot so much film, I know what it's SUPPOSE to look like. People can go on all day about "my film looked fine" when processed after a few weeks, months or years, but just imagine how much better it would have looked if it were processed immediately? My goal as a filmmaker is to make things that look professional, not that look like a student film, full of nasty grain. Well, considering I see a difference between what was shot on the first day of a shoot, to the last, yea one would think that is noticeable within a few days. Yep, but if you push it 2 stops... it has the same noise floor as 500t! So it only takes a reasonable person to think. Hmm... what is the difference between 200t and 500t then? It's simple... The tungsten stocks are, pretty much the same stock. The difference is that Kodak has formulated them so when processed, they have different slightly different optimal IE range. Also, 2 stops is a nothing difference. I've over-exposed 500T by 8 stops before and still had details in my highlights. I've underexposed 500T to the point where my meter said "below" (which means zero) with an F.1.2 lens and was still able to get a beautiful image out of it. So the concept that 200t and 500t are literally the same stock, just slightly balanced different for the sake of processing, makes perfect sense to me. As I said earlier, imagine if every stock needed to processed differently? I can't afford to do these tests however, but Kodak has done them for years and I've seen them, I know what I state is accurate.

Video camera preamp noise creates an overlay similar to film grain. Sure, it's not exactly the same as film grain, but it is in most cases an unwanted noise floor within your image. That's the whole point of this discussion... noise floor. Otherwise, there is nothing to talk about. Kodak's sensitivity hasn't improved much in the last 20 years. What they've focused on is making a stock that has finer grain, thus the noise floor isn't as prevalent when using at higher exposure indexes. They simply offer balanced stocks that can be processed all the same, for cost savings. If you were to rate 200t at 500T, it would have nearly identical noise floor as 500T. This has been proven time and time again by numerous filmmakers. They are in essence the same stock, just like 50D and 250D. The only difference is the balance when processed. From my experience, the fog level is always increasing from the moment the film is manufactured. This is why Kodak destroys or gives away all unsold stock after 6 months of sitting. When the fog level increases, you need more light to push past the fog. So the film is still usable, it's just the base IE has changed. So if you shoot a new roll of film and let it sit in your refrigerator, the fog level is still increasing. Reality is, the image is actually fading. I don't have any A/B comparison footage that directly compares. What I do have is quite a few examples of film processed next day vs several days later. I even have a 16 vs 35mm example to show noise floor between the two formats, which is super nice to have. Remember, most of the time it's a mistake when you don't process right away. So it's not like we're actively trying to destroy a few rolls of film ya know?

I know a bit about them, when you say the display is not working, you mean there is no electricity going into the lamp? Have you measured the lamp ports to insure it has electricity going to it?

The loops will always jump, that's why they're there in the first place. Sometimes if the camera settings are just right, they will seem like a blur.

That's what I kinda thought. You can go deeper into the film plane, but not the opposite way. It'll always look good in the viewfinder because you're just focusing to the ground glass. You do need to measure flange distance.

This is the same film from last time right? There was some really nice stuff in there.

Yea that's totally normal... but make your loops a tiny bit bigger.

For 4k Pro Res you really should be using CF cards. There is no limit with CF cards, just SD cards.

Actually, hitting the film with more light, AKA using a lower ISO stock, does make a huge difference. I have done numerous tests to prove without a shadow of a doubt, the higher the ISO, the faster you need to process in order to eliminate noise. With the narrow gauge formats, the difference between one day and one week is astronomical at 500ISO, but not as noticed on 200T or 250D. This is because there is less light hitting the film on the higher ISO stock. If you were to rate 500T at 200iso, it would react like 200iso stock does in terms of noise level. So it has nothing to do with the optimum ISO range of the stock, it has everything to do with how much light the stock has been exposed to. Remember, the reason why film stock has an optimum ISO range is due to processing and color. Imagine having tungsten balanced stock that you have to filter for daylight that doesn't have a base ISO at all. You simply rate it to whatever ISO you want, write it on the can and the lab processes it at the appropriate length in the bath. That would be expensive for the lab work AND very time consuming for the lab workers. However, it would work fine, just not as "efficient" as properly balanced stocks. Kodak's solution was making properly balanced stocks that can run together in the bath. It's a far more complex process for Kodak, but it's easier on the labs, creating greater consistency.

Yea you could try that! Just gotta re-check the flange distance however.