Tyler Purcell

Deferred payment in my eyes shouldn't be discussed unless you know for certain there is money coming your way. For instance, I just wrapped on a 250k feature that has no post/finishing budget. I did them a solid favor and did all the prep work and in 4 days, cut a version of the feature they could show the producers. I also cut a trailer that will be used to get potential buyers interested. For me as an editor, it's great to be credited on a feature film, so I don't mind delaying payment. I know the director, he always pays, I know the producers, they have more money so if anything goes wrong, I could get SOMETHING from them, even if it's some used gear or something. Point being, if you know the people involved and it helps give you good IMDB credits (a product that is guaranteed to go somewhere), then it's a little less of concern for deferred payment. If you're working with a bunch of rookies, without any prior success, you absolutely don't want deferred payment. In fact, I'd be so bold as to say, deferred payment is ONLY worth while if there is something to back it up. IMDB credit on a project that goes nowhere, doesn't help either. This is why deferred is really only good when there are professionals around that YOU ALREADY KNOW and have a track record of recouping on their investment.

Working with directors notes/complaints. I always color to the director and/or DP's notes. Since recently I've been on set with them during production, it's easy to identify problems and figure out solutions before we even get to post. BTW your stuff looks great, but those are examples of situations where digital shines. I can see why you wouldn't need to do any correction.

Ya know the material looked ok at rec 709 but when I dove into it, there was so much more to be had, I was kinda surprised. The more I dove, the more I found. So it was several passes before I was remotely confident in showing it to the producers. I wasn't in love with what the cinematographer shot. It was boring and very flat, I personally like a more contrasty image. I'll post a few clips when I'm done with this shoot.

Yea, I don't share the same experiences, but hey, it's all good. Every project is different and every cinematographer has their own way of shooting and expectations in the back end. Nobody I work with would even contemplate accepting a straight REC709 as a finished product. They laugh at me when I use REC709 basic LUT converted media in an edited sequence of any kind. I generally have to spend a week re-coloring/tooling a product before the producers will even watch it. Generally the director is a bit calmer and understands the process, but the week it takes me to clean poop up just to get some producers happy, is a real pain and it happens on every project. Heck, just delivered a trailer before I started this show and it had REC709 color, looked fine, but the producers complained about the color.

It's sad, they COULD have made that design so much better in a 2nd generation product. I felt there was some potential in what they were trying to achieve, all be it, underwhelming in the original release. They spent too much time trying to be something super unique and not spending enough time being practical.

I use to operate a Rank Cintel HD telecine for years. It doesn't have nearly the range of correction that scanning negative and manipulating later does.

That's not quite what I mean. What I mean is if you shoot with a digital camera, there will be more manipulation required to get a decent image out of it for viewing then film. Where you can do a one light print of an original camera negative and it generally looks pretty good. Heck you can project reversal right out of the camera and it looks wonderful in most cases. The digital intermediate process has spoiled audiences since it's inception. People just expect modern movies to have a heavily posted look. Yet, it appears to me the whole digital workflow is trying to be more filmic. I completely understand and recognize the issues associated with a 50 year old film workflow, it kinda sucks. Yet, that workflow is still in a lot of ways better then our modern digital one, mostly due to it's limitations. There are pretty much no limitations in the digital world, so that generally pushes filmmakers into realms they probably shouldn't have tread. I love Manu's comment above... "it looks so clean, yuck". That to me is pretty much every digital show. There is no LIFE to the image, it doesn't breathe like film does and as I've said many times, no flicker either. See, I don't have to shoot things digitally, there is nothing that says my personal projects have to be shot that way. If I want, I can pickup one of my film cameras, go to my refrigerator, grab some film, shoot and edit at home and project when done. All of this is possible and right now, quite easy to achieve as well. There isn't a director over my shoulder telling me I need to XYZ, I'm the director and I'm the guy making it happen. I'm also the guy editing and finishing my own personal projects as well. So when I shoot digital and I say, meh... it looks digital and I shoot film and I say, WOW that looks great, without any manipulation, it always surprises me when this subject comes up, more people don't think the same way. My theory is that more and more people want that extra layer of hyperrealistic manipulation digital post gives them and are now so use to that look, film doesn't look as good anymore. Yet any one of us could sit and watch Hateful Eight in 70mm and be blown away by it's completely photochemical post.

I was referring to non-lab setups. People working at home in their kitchen vs a special location with proper ventilation and dust control. If you have a decent lab setup at home, you can get decent results with b&w, but even color can be very tricky.

To answer some questions, yes I mostly work in marketing promotional, training/educational, documentary and a small bit of narrative features. Our workflow is heavy pro res origination with log/flat look out of camera. We also do a lot of red code but not much Arri raw. I spend a lot of time on set to insure things are looking good, interface with DITs and cinematographers on a regular basis. I'm on my third project in 2 months right now, just slammed with work. People hire my expertise and eye to help guide the look of projects prior to post. It's a new way of doing things but it's valuable since I'll be the creative force during the entire post process. The statement I made which set off this discussion was me staying how digital looks like crap without a lot of work. This statement is true if you take a camera and shoot with it. Nobody does that, everyone manipulates their cameras and shooting style to make it easier in post. Yet post in of itself is more expensive. I also do budgets for films as one of my pastimes is helping friends shoot their projects. So I've done the a/b comparison between shooting on 35 and digitally without an on set specialist. In my eyes there is a huge difference between paying someone daily for that technical experience vs paying a lab for a specific job. It's true that shooting 4 perf 35mm is more expensive then digital. But when you get down to 2 perf and 16mm, film and digital costs are about equal, if you're shooting 4k 12 bit 444. When I hand people budgets and they see where the costs are going they're shocked. Digital is expensive to shoot and super expensive to make look good. The reason why I seem like disregarding professional cinematographers opinions on this is simply because most guys are not paying for the colonists time. When you're paying someone $750/hr for color time and it takes 60hrs that's a huge expense. Sure you can pay a lower end person but they may not be able to make the digital stuff look good, you never know. Yet generally a lab technician can make film look great for dollar per foot rates, in about the same amount of time as a digital finish. As pointed out above, the limitations of film make it easier to work with. You can't underexpose and expect it to look acceptable. You kinda have to light well because you can magically section out a given part of a shot and make it look good, there is too much noise. Yet digital filmmakers spent so much time on set and in post making their projects look filmic, but they may have saved money shooting film. They'd absolutely shoot less material (as we just started take 12 on a lengthy dialog scene) because there is cost associated but with digital there isn't much. Yes consistency is better with digital, that's absolutely correct. Yet photochemical process can be made better, it just never was. We're still using 50 year old technology to make movies on film. So maybe if someone did develop better post workflow for film there maybe less consistency issues. Of course nobody cares, but I think of those things all the time and I know the consistency can be made better. To me, I've had more consistency issues between lenses and different cmos imagers then on film, which kinda masks a lot of problems. All in all I'm sorry if people think I'm disrespectful, I don't mean to be. I just have another side, a different understanding based on coming from post rather then simply shooting. And yes I work with film all the time. Mostly in a digital workflow.

Yea, but nobody really uses that workflow. Again, I've worked on literally hundreds of shows in post production and I have yet to see out of camera proxy's. I know some people do use that workflow, but I haven't ever seen it. Well, yes the transcoding process generally applies one LUT, however I've found cinematographers to have less then stellar consistency with their material. Most stuff will not pass through a flat LUT correction and be acceptable to a clients eye. This isn't necessarily the DP's fault either, in a lot of cases it's the directors for pushing a scene through quickly and being OK with something heavily under or over exposed due to time constraints. Don't doubt it, as David pointed out, you CAN be VERY cautious when shooting, constantly keeping tabs on your calibrated monitors to insure you're close. However, that's a tremendously limited part of digital filmmaking, you must keep that thing in the sweet spot. I believe you, I mean I'm not trying to be argumentative. I just haven't seen that before. Maybe because people who need companies like the ones I've worked for, have problems in production, so they need a specialist? Honestly, I've worked at several shops and worked with dozens of DP's, the story is the same across the board. DP's really like to have one-off LUT's for their movies, DIT's to insure their footage is being shot right during production and color corrected material on the backend for editing using that LUT. This is the case on everything from TV to commercials. In fact, my DIT friends have told me, even though they don't have as much full-time work, they are still making one off LUT's for even the basic of shows. I haven't been involved in a big enough PRODUCTION to see this applied on set, but the last two shows I did on set, the camera technician at the rental house had applied special one-off LUT's in each camera, without anyone else in post production knowing. It has nothing to do with film bias... my comment about digital coming out like crap without all these tools, still remains truthful. Go out and shoot a feature without ANY monitoring, using an Alexa Studio (optical viewfinder) and then compare that to a show shot with proper calibrated monitors, with a proper LUT system and NO color done from dailies through editing.

I don't know, I mean I work on the post production side and have worked on many decent sized shows and the digital workflow is far more complex then film. Most shows have special LUT's made by a special technician which is costly to the production. A full-time technician is on staff with most films (DIT) to manage and monitor color during the production. Things like monitors now need to be specialty items, designed to display accurate colors as reference, again more technicians to make those work. Then in post production, all of that prep work needs to be translated first to the transcode of media for editing. Then to the colorist for the final color. When it hits final color, the point where the cinematographer sits in and works on it, the show has already been tweaked heavily. Most movies final color includes substantial re-working of shots, with multiple mattes, nodes/correction layers. I've worked with top colorists since post production is kind of my business and they all say the same thing, a film show takes 1/3rd of the time a digital show takes. They've shown me how much easier it is to work with film and I've personally colored film using the modern tools from DPX and Pro Res clips from sequences. Generally film comes in and with the built-in LUT's, already looks great. No reason to make a special LUT like they do for MOST productions. No need to have a DIT/manager to deal with those LUT's. No reason to display any special color on the monitors during production. Heck, one light dailies and you're good to go. Now I haven't been a DP shooting decent sized movies like you have, but I've done the entire workflow on dozens of movies. Unfortunately, when you work at companies who provide those services, you don't get IMDB credit for them all, which really sucks. From my personal experience, shooting without a DIT, without a technician to program LUT's, without someone managing/monitoring waveform/histogram on every single shot, digital comes out like poop. You can meter it all you want, it still comes out like poop unless you have those "speciality" tools, which are extremely complex and unnecessary for production. If you don't follow the technical formula, your results will suck in the back end, there is literally no leeway.

Sure, without focus assist and a stupid cable that sticks out the side that's easily damaged. That will last probably 4 shoots before it's destroyed, even if mounted in a fancy shoulder rig. Besides low-end monitors don't have proper protection for outdoor shooting, like the $99 viewfinder adaptor from kinotehnik for the BMPCC. I pull focus using my $99 kinotehnik viewfinder adaptor. It's a magnetic box that sticks to the back of the camera and allows you to put your face up to the camera. Good luck pulling focus off a big monitor when shooting anywhere else but indoors in a closed/dark environment. Everything I need is built-into the blackmagic pocket camera: - Frame guides (format guides/mattes as well) - Histogram - Peaking/Focus aid - Audio Meter - Timecode/Time Remain/Battery life/Shutter angle/ASA, etc. I honestly don't want or like more poop on the screen. Give me ONLY what I need and I'm good. The only thing the pocket doesn't have that I'd like every once in a while is a waveform monitor, but the histogram in my eyes is better for a lot of things, especially Blackmagic's more spread-out design, it's really good. Neither camera comes with a monitor of any kind. Both offer monitoring devices as add-on's of varying types. Generally cameras like that are used for bigger, more higher end productions where other people need to see the monitor for things like focus pulling, dollying and video village/scripty. Again, if you need a monitor output for a camera the size of an iphone for those purposes, you are clearly using the wrong camera. Lets face it, $1000 cameras are "low-end" cameras, the blackmagic pocket camera is the lowest end real cinema camera made. It was made specifically for the Super 16 market, which is hyper/ultra portable. It's so portable, it doesn't even need a backpack, it can fit into a small fanny pack with lens, viewfinder adaptor and shotgun mic. Just grab it, turn it on and start recording. So if you spend $2000 making your $1000 WORK... you've now spent $3000 without sending a dime on glass. Dude, you can get A LOT MORE CAMERA then a Blackmagic Pocket for $3000. Heck, there is an URSA Mini 4k on Craigslist for sale for $2500 bux, with all the accessories already! I saw a Blackmagic 4k cinema camera go for $1800 on a private production gear facebook page. Heck, buddy if mine just bought a Red Epic for $4500 bux few weeks ago on ebay WITH tuns of accessories. Those are cameras you use external monitors with. Those are cameras you run big battery packs and put on tripods/dollies/steadicam/gyro rigs to get your cool 4k shots. I mean dude, to spend that kind of money on ANY $1000 camera is in my opinion crazy. Cameras like the pocket are good for one thing... quick one person shoots. If you need more then one person, if you're running all day with even half a crew, it's the wrong camera. It's like brining a wind up Bolex onto a film set as an A camera... great camera for run and gun, horrible at production. If I didn't shoot run and gun, if my entire life didn't revolve around documentary filmmaking, I would have never bought the pocket camera. Well yea, but if you buy a $10,000 camera body, it's worth spending an additional $20k on accessories because generally the $10,000 camera is pretty good. The flip side of the coin is the pocket camera, it's at the bottom of the list, there isn't a single cinema camera below it in price NEW OR USED. Per my comment above, I don't believe they are good at anything but portability. You should know the reasons why by now. All completely worthless and unworkable toy/Chinese components that will fall apart first chance they get. Reality is, you've gotta spend close to a grand to even get a portable image out of it. If you put it on a tripod, you could probably rig something up pretty cheaply, but man that's lame for the addition of one feature; 60p. I'll take the so-so built-in monitor of the pocket any day of the week over some crappy external monitor with no way to magnify the image.

Well you don't need to do scene to scene correction with film, you can do one light no problem. Also with telecine, all you do is balance as that's all you can do... So it's an entirely different process then working digitally. Digital cameras look like crap until you rework and retool the image heavily in post.

A few small tidbits... Professional digital cinematography requires MORE processing and is far more time consuming to deal with then film is in the modern world. Lab's are 1 day turn around, so if you're local to a lab, what you shot monday is seen tuesday or wednesday if you have to ship. The results aren't instant, but they're fast enough and unlike digital which uses an encode/decode method of viewing, what you see with film dailies is what you get. Unlike digital which the image is created through the use of another artist; the colorist. This person didn't really exist prior to digital filmmaking. No doubt film has an associated cost that digital doesn't and if you have no budget, film unfortunately is ignored as a shooting option. However, the wonderful things about motion picture film is that it has an instant "filmic" look no matter what you do. With digital, most filmmakers (as you pointed out) strive to emulate and unfortunately, very few get it right. The "Revenant" was suppose to be shot on 65mm and Alexa for intimate scenes. Unfortunately due to the logistics, it wasn't possible to do that, even though they started shooting on 65 and switched to all digital early on in the project. Today, more and more filmmakers are switching back to film. Mostly because people are done experimenting with digital, they've had their play time and when it comes time for serious filmmaking, the vast majority of shooters still prefer film. Since the next generation of filmmakers aren't as exposed to film, a lot of them are excited to experiment, so we're seeing a brand-new movement of young people shooting, which is very exciting. It's why I teach filmmaking on motion picture film, to high school and college kids. It helps them get the hands on experience necessary to understand how to work with film in our digital age. The next movement will be people projecting on film as well and that just started with Hateful Eight and most likely Quentin and his Weinstein groupies will work out deals for future 70mm releases. There have been two releases already this year and perhaps more as the year goes on. The cool thing is that, like the retro vinyl movement, the whole film thing is growing thanks to it being different then digital. If you make a movie on film and it looks good, there is a much higher likelihood of it going somewhere, then if it was shot on the same digital cameras everyone else uses. It adds a layer of interest that just doesn't exist with the standard digital fare.

Well yea, if you have a lot of money, time on your hands and understand the mechanical/electrical systems that go into such a project, it makes sense. I mean, none of this is difficult, but all of it is costly and time consuming. You'd have to process millions of feet to make it worth while. Plus, you still have a higher risk of things not coming out well vs a professional lab.

Agreed, but I'd still like to see the hour of stuff they cut out. Would it make the movie better? Nope. It would sure be interesting though. Funny enough, Aliens, The Abyss and Terminator 2 directors cuts are FAR better then the theatricals. But they are the only directors cuts I've seen, which are far superior. Most of the longer cuts don't do anything better, they just roam about in the movies own world a bit more then the theatrical.

Then you may have bought the wrong camera. The entire purpose of the pocket camera is to NOT have it in a rig. The moment you put it in a rig, you could use a whole host of larger/higher quality cameras for similar money to a fancy rig. I mean when you do the math on all the accessories, you'd probably find yourself in the price bracket of a used 4k camera for the price of the pocket with all the accessories.

Dude, the mini has NO VIEWFINDER OR VIEWFINDER PROVISION!!!!! I have yet to use any other viewfinder on my pocket, what's the point? It works great, it keeps the size/weight down and keeps the price in-line with it's value. If you spend $2k "upgrading" your $1k camera, you're failing.

The only way to diagnose is to post a sample.

I haven't seen anything impressive from ANY home processing, motion picture film or still.

Most scanners like that are ULTRA slow. It make take upwards of a minute to capture each frame. I'm not sure how they go about capturing Super 8, but not 16 or 35? I think someone made a small mistake when they wrote the info page. Also, even if it DID work, there is no registration. Yea scary, now when it doesn't come out right, you have no recourse. At least when you do it yourself, you can only blame yourself. :) Again, Cinelab in Boston deals with european stuff constantly. Just shoot them a call via skype and they'll hook you up! :)

The Morse (rewind) system will never work. Film can't be touching each other during the processing phase. Also, no color once again.

Sure, but that market is even MORE myopic then then B&W. Most people who take the time to shoot something, doesn't matter what it is, care greatly if what they shot looks good. Yes, there are a hand-full of people around the world, that only shoot film for artistic purposes. I personally don't understand the market, because it's easy to take something that first looks good and turn it into something that looks bad. Give me a perfect negative and when I strike a print, lets mess it up. It's useful for hobbyists who are only interested at screaming "eureka" when there is something that resembles a processed image. They are tricky, I've loaded them before. The film is so close to each other, it's impossible to know if it skipped a rail. Plus, the lomo tank is only 50ft at a time. Complete impractical for any serious work. So how do you do 16mm? Do you break the film in half mid scene and splice it back together again?

The Blackmagic Micro Cinema camera is not an "update" to the pocket, it's an entirely different camera body, with identical electronics to the pocket, designed specifically for drone cinematography. Why Blackmagic have delayed brining 60p to the pocket, is not clear since its the same camera head. But the micro has no viewfinder, so it's really not anything like the pocket in functionality. Blackmagic also have a new 4k camera called the micro studio, which is the same form factor as the micro cinema, but has an all-new 4k imager. It has no recorder or viewfinder, so you'd have to add those things, but theoretically you could. But you'd be loosing the 12 bit RAW capability of the pocket and of course, loose the all-in-one form factor. If you're going to build a multi-thousand dollar rig to contain all the different components that makeup your "camera", might as well go with a different camera body. The whole point of the pocket is that it's self contained and doesn't need rigging to work.

If film is a specialty market in of itself, Black and White is a myopic specialty within it. Most people are looking color negative solutions, as that's where the cost is. Right, so when you're talking about super 8, an image HALF the size of what you're use to, those things are a REAL problem. Plus, the other inconsistency you didn't mention were the developer and fixer phases. If there isn't enough gap between the film during these phases, there will be further inconsistencies. I'm unaware of a super 8 tank/spool which works properly, for 16/35 there are a few difficult to find ones, which require spooling off the film inch by inch in a dark room. Anyway, I've processed my own B&W and color film for over a decade at specialized facilities. I couldn't imagine doing it at home and unless quality makes no difference, there is no point. If you make something and don't want it to look good, just buy a digital camera. :shrug: