Tyler Purcell

There have been a few Fries on ebay recently.

That's how the studio system win's and the little guy looses. The more we don't care, the more we're forced to do whatever the industry tells us.

Yep, I agree with David, but I don't see the density changing on the side where that problem is very much.

Really, I had no idea that film was 3 strip. Was that right in the period prior to adoption of single strip color?

444 is only ONE small element of what RAW delivers. RAW takes the imager data and records it, unaltered (though in most cases compressed) Bit depth and pixel count are based on the imager's electronics. 444 in most cases is still a REC709 format. It could be highly compressed 8 bit .h265 or it could be practically uncompressed Pro Res. Even though it delivers full 444 color space, the color information is still squeezed into a REC709 format. Even when using a LOG gamma curve, it's still a heavily compressed image. So the difference between RAW and REC709 compressed LOG is pretty huge. Pro Res XQ is NOT Rec709. To my knowledge, it's the ONLY quicktime compression codec that gives you higher bandwidth then REC709. It's a 12 bit 444 codec, but it doesn't conform to the REC709 standards.

I'm not a book worm, so I didn't even know John Carter was a book! LOL :P

Thanks guys! That would be cool to find someone who isn't so busy servicing stuff. I've been told the name of the top Arri guy here in LA several times, but I've been told he's difficult to get in touch with. I'm going to have a meeting with the owner of Abel soon, they are the Aaton importer and I want to see if we can get a letter to Aaton and explain what we're doing. One of my business partners is actually in France for the next two months, I was really hoping to have her go meet the guys at Aaton. Honestly if I had it my own way, I'd just work with Aaton for the time being. Arri kinda scares me because they're SO electronic.

I actually liked John Carter. It's far better then the god awful crap we're force fed today like Batman VS Superman and Independence Day: Lets do this all over again but worse. I think John Carter failed because the studio failed to understand what they had and how to market it.

The final product should be exported in a format that's similar to the original file. So for instance, if you imported 10 bit 4:2:2, you should export 10 bit 4:2:2. If someone is doing the color for you, they would be coloring from the original media, not an "export". The normal procedure would be to consolidate the media onto a deliverable drive with a small quicktime movie as reference with burn-in timecode. The timeline/sequence will be exported as XML or AAF. This drive will then be handed off to the colorist who will import the XML or AAF into the color program and then do the final color. The work they do will be exported at the highest quality possible from the coloring program. You can't send a colorist an exported file of the finished project because it's all one clip, how can they color individual scenes if they're all one? Most coloring programs have scene/shot detect, but it doesn't work that well and if there are any transitions or effects, it's nearly impossible to make it all work. This is why you "FINISH" in the coloring program, that's where the whole movie comes together and whatever comes out of that program will be your final picture. Make sense?

Well yea, but at the same time you're probably destroying your cast and crew. The 50 setup's per day quote from earlier is crazy in my mind and all I do is work on low budget stuff. Right, but you don't need to make a $140M to have top actors. In fact, I've worked with some pretty top actors before on smaller projects because they loved the script. You DO need to have certain provisions for top actors, like a private vehicle on set, special food and a wrangler just for them. None of that really costs a lot of money, far less then their rate, which a lot of times on these smaller films is $64k, which is sag schedule F. On a feature film, I'd rather find another $100k to have a top actor, then only have B- or C+ actors. Yep, the $140 does not include P&A, so you're looking at 10's of millions right there. Producer C: Spends 40M and gets back $65M. The risk on a $140M movie is quite high and in my opinion, too risky. A big hollywood movie with star's can generally get back $30M - $50M without a problem. Much over that starts to get into grey territory, especially if there is a huge P&A campaign.

Yea twas good. I think it was a little bit slow, especially at the beginning. I'm personally not a fan of continuous voice over, I think it's a cop-out for delivering dialog on set. The moment I heard the VO, I kinda turned off as a viewer. However, I stuck with it and around half way in, I was engrossed enough to finish. The big problem for me was too much explanation. I always let the audience explore the world and give them just enough information to put the pieces together. I think handing everything to them on a silver platter, especially with a short film, can get a bit over the top. The repetitive "lost my family" bit, was over the top. All you need is a look from the actor and a quick flashback with the actor putting the picture down to realize the family is gone. I would have started the film with a conflict, maybe an out of control victim that he needed to put down before shooting. Something that would keep the audiences attention right away. I always tell filmmakers the same thing I was taught... hit the audience in the face for the first few minutes, get their attention and they will be come invested much quicker. Once invested, it's hard to get people to shut it off, especially online when it's a click of the button. Over-all however, it was well made, which is in a lot of cases, the hardest part of making a little short film. The filmmaking itself needs to be really good these days for people to care enough.

I believe the black gear is simply an updated polymer. They had issues with the white one's cracking.

There is a lot of waste, but there is also a lot of beauty. I can't imagine shooting some of these big movies with all the complex moving parts in the time it takes to make a low budget movie. On last month's feature, we had big horse scenes with all the cast on horseback, what a mess. We had dialog on horseback, we had stationary and mounting/unmounting scenes, it was very slow work. Over the last two shows I've been on, I've learned about how NOT to do things. The big thing I see wrong on the shows I'm on is the lack of prep work. Storyboards and pre-vis is so important, spending some time with an artist to get down the scenes and understand what they entail, is so important. Then on set, I felt the director sitting behind video village was also too separated. He was so far away, like the great OZ calling in a performance from a distance, it just doesn't work. I like prepping, I like going to set with a piece of paper that shows what every shot needs to be. I like having discussions with the crew about those shots weeks, sometimes months in advance, so when we get there, the list of surprises are low. That's how you get excellent lighting setups and appropriate coverage to make your end product look top notch. I also like to be right next to or running the camera. Being there I feel really helps to speed things up. You can do a 2nd take right away with notes without even moving. Hindsight is always 20/20.

I haven't tried using charts in DaVinci, which is what my post was about. Sorry it wasn't clear enough. Unfortunately. As I always say, I know 80% of everything and 100% of nothing. :(

Do you have to fill the screen to get enough resolution for it to work when you shoot, or can you simply crop it in and DaVinci figures out the rest? I haven't tried to use charts before, but I may on some upcoming projects if it helps with getting a base correction.

It's called having a sense of humor.

Spielberg shoots very fast. I've been told the average shoot for him is 45 days. So they'd have to be shooting more then 2 pages a day, which is still inefficient.

They sure have, but these guys can work with an iPhone and deliver amazing images. If being one of the best cinematographers alive is the only way to make digital look good, then digital has a long way to go. Well, I'm not a great cinematographer. In fact, on these last few shoots I've been on, I've really felt under-skilled. Yet, I've gone out and shot stuff on film for shits and giggles that blows the doors off anything I've ever shot digitally. Sure, I rarely take my digital cameras out for fun and shoot things like sunsets, but I look at the projected image and I say to myself; why does anyone spend so much time mucking around with digital when they could have THIS!!?! That's very true and it's absolutely part of the current film movement. When digital came out, it was garbage, but people used it because it was unique. Now that digital is the mainstay, film has become the unique thing. As you say, people have embraced film's artifacts because they realize the merits of the format.

Wait, one isn't allowed to express their opinion? I didn't start this thread. I'm not the guy who wanted yet another film vs digital discussion. Furthermore, I believe you should re-read responses made by other members who go further then I do and say digital looks "dull and boring".

No, I'm merely agreeing with what Satsuki said in his own comments. Besides, I do one light work all the time on film prints. In my eyes, I've ever seen digital hold a candle to a properly exposed one light print projected with a film projector. Lets face it, digital is very flat and stale. It does a job and that's all it does. Film MOVES the soul, it's energetic without the need for fancy camera moves to draw attention away from the staleness of the image.

It's not just youth, most of my adult friends think the same way. People don't want to own physical things anymore, they take up space, they require work to use and since most media consuming people have their noses in computer screens all day long, why should they get up to watch something? :shrug: I on the other hand, rather enjoy having a "library" of things to reference. I also like giving back to the filmmakers who make great product. Purchasing a DVD or BluRay is pretty much the best thing one can do. Now that BluRay's are $5-$12 dollars at most stores I visit, it's a no-brainer to buy instead of pirate. The BluRay's look better then ANY streaming media service and you don't need to pay a monthly fee, which is awesome. Few years ago before BluRay really took off, I was still buying laserdisc's of movies used from Amoeba in Hollywood. Even though I sold MOST of my laser disk collection when I moved to Los Angeles, I still have around 800 laser disc's, around 1700 (movies/TV/Documentary) on DVD and only a hand-full of BluRay's. I had been downloading BluRay versions of my DVD's, but the quality isn't there on many of them, so I've just been buying the movies I really want in HD. Streaming services are absolutely the future, no question in my mind. I do think BluRay will die at some point because nobody wants consumers to own content anymore. They feel piracy comes from ownership (which it doesn't), so they are working long and hard to figure out how to limit it. Once the theaters sign on to internet distribution (which will eventually happen) it's all down hill from there. The big problem in my mind with internet-only distribution is down to the money, right now there is no sustainable business model when it comes to internet distribution. Everyone is throwing millions at out doing one another with their internal content production and they've forgotten the non-internal products. Right now, Netflix pays $20k to distribute a feature film for 2 years. Amazon and Hulu are even less. So where is the money GOING to come from to put everything online? That's the next big challenge because people aren't willing to pay much more then $20/mo for access to everything, which is crazy cheap when you think about it. That all could change if someone broke up the cable companies and allowed each network to do their own thing meaning, stream online as well. Imagine if everyone was streaming online and there was no need for satellite or cable connections for your daily content? Now that would be a game changer and I do think it's coming.

Which is insane! I'm on break from my 2nd feature in two months! And we average around 15 setups a day, pushing 12 - 14hr days. The first show, the crew was a bit slow, but all of the setup's at each location were within feet of each other AND most were outdoors, so no lighting necessary. The show I'm on right now, we're doing a 90 page script in 9 days! Good pay, fantastic/fast crew and we're only doing 15 setups a day. Both films have a lot of long scenes with dialog, so you can get away with fewer setups. Just do a minor tweak to the camera position for coverage and you've got the scene. It's unfortunate this current project is a corporate feature, made for educational purposes because it looks and sounds great, but of course isn't content the general public would be interested in.

Looks fantastic Satsuki! As I've said many times, the film image is just a winner right away, before you do any tweaks. I have a few cinematography buddies who are doing a lot more shooting on film now because they want that look and they understand how easy it is to create that look by simply shooting on film.

I think it's great for filmmakers to use digital image capturing systems when making special effects movies. It makes life SO much simpler on set and since the "quality" of the image usually is down to the CG artists, rather then the plate photography, it just makes no sense to deal with film.

Yep, I think your diagnosis is spot on. It's a registration issue for sure. I'd also make sure your film is loaded properly. I did find it initially tricky to get those mags loaded properly and not loose the loop when putting onto the camera body. They have a tendency to loose the top loop and that CAN lead to this problem for sure. I took some bad film and learned how to load better and do some tests with the magazine take up door open to see what was going on and discovered, it was just an order of operations issue. So pull down claw not going out enough. Pressure plate spring stuck. Top loop not big enough. Those are where I'd start.