Tyler Purcell

I have a lot of notes about using it on the Blackmagic thread. I've got quite a bit of time on the machine.

It's kind of a beta product. They're using the older 4k imager that nobody really likes. The concept is great, the pricing is decent, but it's not a complete product. It's really designed for people like me, who need a quick way to transfer camera negative at my shop. I won't ever work with archival material and I have a lot of clients who need low-cost transfer work done. When they update the imager to the new 4.6k version and use optics to go between the different formats, it will be a really good machine.

The cheaper lenses will always have the same problem, they're going to be soft. I know the Rokinon 16 very well and it's not very good. Around F8 it starts to become workable, but the moment you open it up, it becomes soft. I really like the 21 through 85 Rokinon's, they're VERY good for the price and are F1.5. I've run those lenses all the way open and they still look crisp. It's funny, even my Optar wide angle's get soft when you open them up all the way. I guess it's just a character trait of cheap glass.

Where it is true that lower-lumen DLP projectors in dark rooms, have better blacks then high-output theater projectors... it is NOT true that digital projection in the cinema comes even close to that of film... because it doesn't. Before you go on a rant about technical specs of the projectors, let me first start by saying that DCP's have only 12 bits worth of data per frame, where film is 32bit equivalent. Lets say the DLP mirror only moves 20 degree's between full black and full white. The black area itself would constitute around 2 - 5 degree's of movement. There is NO WAY... neh, it's IMPOSSIBLE for DLP technology to have enough detail in that little bit of movement. What laser projection (Dolby Vision/IMAX) does deliver is noise-free, pitch black. However, the dynamic's necessary to produce all the tones of black from pitch black to lets say Sam Jackson's face, don't exist! What you get instead are STEPS in the blacks. You don't notice this phenomena until you see it back to back with a film print. The 12 bit source material literally doesn't have enough information, so it literally doesn't reproduce the fine details you see on the film print. To the untrained eye, you'd just assume that those black areas look really good. However, you're actually missing a substantial amount of data, not just from the 12 bit source, but also from the lack of the DLP imager being able to reproduce it. UHD BD is currently only an 8 bit 4:2:0 format, so it will look like utter crap compared to the film print. It's unfortunate that REAL photochemical film prints have been lost for over a decade. Most film prints from 2000 and on were DI, which means most of them were only made from 2k sources and at 12 bit color space. So comparing a standard film print that you MAY remember from a few years ago, is nearly impossible. Hateful Eight was done photochemically, so it retains all the dynamic range DI prints lack. Interstellar was done photochemically as well, but special effect shots were rendered at 24 bit and 8k, so the scan-back to 70mm prints was the highest quality ever done for a standard theatrical release. Those two films (Hateful Eight and Interstellar) are the only films done this old fashion way recently. So if you really wish to compare film to digital, you'd have to see a 70mm print of BOTH movies and watch it digital as well. I've actually done that with Interstellar and wasn't at all impressed with the 4k presentation. It didn't have NEARLY the dynamic range of the film print. Hey, what can you do with only 12 bits of data! It's the old adage; just because it's new, doesn't make it better!

I personally like the cloth diffuser more then the soft boxes. My gaffer brought some stretch fabric with him on a shoot that was amazing. We took speed rail, built pretty much any size frame we wanted and stretched the fabric to fit. He told me what the stuff was, but I never wrote it down or investigated it further. It eliminated the need to have different sized flag frames. The metal soft boxes aren't really controllable and you can't direct the light. The great thing about cloth based diffusion and fresnel light's, is that you get diffusion AND the ability to focus a stream light. Sometimes I'd stick three or four smaller lights behind the diffusion, focusing them on different parts of the scene. Can't do that with a metal soft box. However, buying a chimera ring for the front the lamp and running a cloth soft box, that works great! I have one of those and use it all the time for interviews. I find though for narratives, I like to be more creative with the lighting. I use a lot of hard light and bounce it off tables and stuff, like they did in Hateful Eight. I really like that trick for quick shoot.

Ahh, that would make a lot more sense! Did equipment companies donate to the cause?

Yea, I like the Fresnel's better. I know those 2k's very well, used them for years. We'd use them if we needed a lot of soft light. So shooting a night-time exterior with heavy diffusion, they work great, but so does the 1k that comes in the Arri kits. I really like the Arri 300's, I had a box of those as well for hitting spots that needed SOMETHING. Though honestly, most of the time I'd just run the 650's because that's what came with the kit. I'd run a few scrims to bring the lumen's down to match whatever was round it, but that's about it.

Nice, came out great! :) So all of those people didn't get paid a dime? WOW what a HUGE crew for a short film! I've seen less crew on a special-effects based feature film! EEK! Ohh and what was it shot with?

Depends on what you're shooting. Some of the kits are deceiving because they work for some situations only. When I was shooting film mostly, my favorite kit was the Arri 2x650 and 2x1k's. That kit was perfect for low-asa shooting. I'd augment that kit with some high-watt practicals, chimera's and a BFL (big **(obscenity removed)** light) of some kind. A friend of mine had a 2k that I'd always borrow but my favorite was a 5k HMI, that was always enough light to blast in windows. I just think with today's digital cinematography world, that style of shooting can be a bit over-kill. I shot a feature a few years ago digitally and we used different style of lighting on every day. Sometimes we'd use LED panels, Kino's, chimera's, fresnel's, you name it, we used it. I always kept coming back to incandescent lighting, the look of the LED and Kino's is just not me. So where there are some great low-cost, small size, lighting solutions today, they just don't have the look of the more classic lighting.

Yep! LOL :)

A commercial film is something that looks professional, sounds professional, has actual actors in it, and tells a story in a more conventional way.

Hey Carl, Super 8 is a low-cost, non-commercal/consumer format, we've had many discussions on how the film stock isn't made right, how the magazines are only 2 minutes and some change long and how nobody makes a truly silent camera. Logmar's nearly $6000 USD entry price, pushes it into the territory of some serious commercial cameras. For instance, I bought an Aaton LTR-54 Super 16mm camera, 6 prime lenses, Zeiss Super 16 zoom, tripod, complete audio kit and all the accessories necessary to shoot a feature film for LESS then a Logmar camera body. I've seen complete Arri SR3 HS Advanced kit's go for less then $3000 USD. Plus, I've done the math, foot by foot, S16 is actually nearly identical to work with price wise. So why would anyone in their right mind shoot with Super 8, when they can shoot with a far superior Super 16 format? Maybe because they want a certain look, but that's a hard bargain for $6000 USD when you can buy a decent super 8 camera off ebay for $50 dollars. What makes the Kodak camera so intriguing is the potential for the lower-end model to be a $499 price tag. That places the pricing below any other "modern" camera. Plus, with Kodak's marketing engine behind it, they will push the whole format into territories not explored in decades. If Logmar had a spinning mirror reflex design with optical viewfinder and forgot about all that audio nonsense, just flat-out made the camera for "professional" shooting, I think they could have gotten away with a $2000 price tag and sold many more of them. However, because they were trying to be everything to everyone, because they felt people wanted to record audio in the camera and that magically LCD panels can be viewed outside in broad daylight (which they can't), the camera is too convoluted and has too many bugaboo's for the kind of person who would invest nearly $6k USD in a camera that shoots a consumer format. Sure, die-hard super 8 fan's love the Logmar and I've seen some amazing images captured with it. However, I have yet to see anyone shoot a real short film or feature that looks good, sounds good and isn't more of a camera test then anything else on Super 8 in recent years. Everyone and their mom has great super 8 home movies, but why spend $6000 on a camera to get home movies?

Umm, no not at all. It's a way to get recognized and once you HAVE recognition and a positive reputation, you can make anything you want! People get this whole thing backwards, they think experimenting and making what they want early on is the right thing to do. Yet in reality, the best thing to do is make commercially viable products, even if they're short. Bang out a few short films a year, good quality one's that have a positive message and tell a good story. Have a very marketable feature script in your back pocket that's VERY low budget and find some low-end investment to make it happen based on the success of your short films and the quality of filmmaker you are. Freya is 110% right and if you wish to be a filmmaker (which is a career, not a side thing) what he says is filmmaking 101, it's a business. It's not about the creativity really, in the long run filmmaking is a business.

Nope, they are building a lab in the city since there isn't one anymore.

Well, it still takes money to make a film. So even though I have the connections to sell properties, I don't have the connections to fund the properties I would sell. It's kind of a catch 22 and generally the opposite of what people normally do. I just happen to have a lot of buddies in Hollywood in the right places.

Hey Carl, I don't think Kodak will be forcing Australian's to ship their film to New York.

Hey guys, just calm down a tiny bit. I can help Phil because I have all the distribution connections. Nobody takes solicited material, you can't just call them either. You need an insider who talks with guys on a regular basis and I'm one of those. Plus, I have a great sales agent and if she likes the trailer, I'm sure she'd love to talk with you. So please... no more bickering about the "quality" of Phil's film. Lets see a trailer and then I'm sure we can all put together helpful advice. Ohh and Phil.. I know how exciting it is to have finished something and you wanna get it out there. I'm just telling you, there is FAR more to the puzzle then you know about. I've seen people in your shoes, spend $50K trying to get their films bought and nobody buys them. The other lads on this forum are just trying to express what they already know is a long hard road. I'm telling you from experience, I've seen films with all-star cast's, great stories and very well made (some of them shot on film) not get bought and disappear into obscurity because of one mistake made in this critical process. I'm not trying to be a negative nanny, I just want to help you as much as I can because I think what you've done is cool, even though maybe not wise. :)

All Yelden is doing is showing how great the finishing tools are today. What he captured with the Alexa didn't look like that in camera, it looked like that after careful manipulation. Plus... it's in a digital world! Once you take film and scan it to digital, it's no longer film, it's no different then what's shot with the Alexa in my book. The real test can't be done with a MPEG file on your home computer or with a DCP at a theater. It has to be done with a film projector and photochemical process vs a digital projector and an all-digital process. It's easy to do split screens this way, simply install a masking on the projectors. I guarantee you, the difference between the actual photochemical film and DCP is night and day. Not only will the film have far better blacks, but a far better contrast ratio. Shots that had blown-out skies on the digital, would be probably perfect on the film print (if done right). In Yelden's discussion, http://www.yedlin.net/160105_edit.htmlhe's asked if one (film) is real and digital is "simulated". He responds; "This is quite a value judgment. Are you saying that film is “real” and digital isn’t? I don’t even quite know what it means to relegate digital to a lesser status of existence than film. If you take the terms literally, then of course digital is real and the distinction between “real” and “simulated” doesn’t exist. If you take the terms more figuratively, then I’m not sure what you’re getting at other than expressing an a priori belief that is at odds with the empirical evidence rather than making any kind of statement about the empirical evidence itself." My answer to the question is of course digital is simulated. It doesn't exist in a form our senses are capable of viewing it. We can't touch it, smell it, see it or hear it. If you gave an solid state drive to a monkey, he'd probably smash it and try to eat it. Digital requires translation from reality into simulated non-reality and then back again. Film or any physical analog asset, exist in a form our "analog" body can work with. We can touch a paint brush, feel the layers of dried paint and smell the oils as well. We can hear the paint brush hitting the canvas and of course we can see it as we do it. Same with anything that exists in our 3 dimensional world. Film is only slightly different, as we can't really hear film but we can sure as hell touch it, we can absolutely smell it and of course see the image, without any translation of any kind. It's a "real" physical item that exists right in front of your face. Here is another great comment... "What I myself am propounding is that we perceive it as magic precisely because of a prior held belief that it’s magic and not because of any actual (as opposed to imagined) attribute. It’s just like the computer-composed music study you quoted — it’s a placebo effect. People believe they can “see” and “feel” film because it has some kind of “soul” that digital doesn’t, but the fact that they believe it does not prove that it’s a physical property of the objects rather than a psychological projection of an imagined truth. " Umm, I'll gladly hold a picture of me touching an actual frame of film. It's a physical thing! I think this statement is also funny; "Also, why the mention of “24fps,” that doesn’t distinguish digital from film acquisition since they’re both quite literally 24fps." But see they aren't! Film projectors have black gaps between each frame, for the next frame to load. Digital projectors play the frames back seamlessly, there is no gap between each frame. So the frames stay longer on screen per second, then film. I love this as well: "“Superstition" seems more precise to me, though, for describing the (outspoken) belief that the perceptual attributes traditionally associated with film are always and only seen in photochemically acquired images and the perceptual attributes traditionally associated with “video” are always and only seen in digitally acquired images. That’s because “superstition” very pointedly connotes an unfounded belief, especially one that ascribes a causal role to a non-essential object or phenomenon. The word also implies a preference for cherry-picked belief-confriming anecdotal evidence over rigorous unbiased empirical evidence." No... it's because digital has far less bit depth then film does, PERIOD. Technically, we physically don't have the technology today to reproduce film identically from acquisition through projection. We could easily produce a 24bit 8K image from film (theoretical max bit depth of film is 32bit). However, computers and drives aren't fast enough to work with that media in real time. So we compress the color space down to 12 - 16 bit and even worse, we shrink the resolution down to 4k or even 2k. Pixar doesn't even have acquisition and they finish everything in 12bit 4k. They COULD finish in 32 bit like film, but they don't because it's unnecessary and overly time consuming. Why? Simple! The projection technology can only accept 12 bit, the image reproduction systems (DLP chips) don't have enough steps in their movement to differentiate. They only move a few degree's from full black to full white. It's wonderful technology, but it's nowhere near the quality of our capture devices today. Digital still cameras and some film scanners can easily capture 24bit color, which is still less then film. Yeldin sounds smart, but I just don't think he understands the technology behind what he talks about. There is more to it then "look" because anyone can mimic something in computer environment, that's easy. The hard part is getting the digital process to work like the photochemical one. I could care less about what digital scanned film looks like, it still looks nothing like an actual complete photochemical workflow.

I hope so! That would be a great outcome. When you get me the trailer, I can give you some insight on who to talk with next.

Yea, well... I feel you there. It's great to have "succeeded" at completing a project, no matter what the final outcome is. However, in this industry the "success" isn't necessarily based on completion, it's getting people to see what you made. If what you make isn't watchable (quality, story, not enough eyes on it), then in reality, it's not a success. Ya know, I have a great script, all the film necessary in my refrigerator, all the equipment necessary, actors chomping at the bit to get going and a producer who pressed the green button months ago. However, I learned 20 years ago not to invest in your own projects unless there is a guaranteed pay off (which doesn't exist). That may sound counterintuitive, but its the lay of the land around these parts. Investing in equipment so you can work, that's one thing, but investing in a feature... that's hard. I've seen SO MANY really decent first features fall by the wayside because the filmmakers thought they could do it all. Great scripts that are ruined by lack of art direction, sound design, poor acting/bad casting and other very fixable things. So in my eyes, there aren't very many positives to investing in your own feature. So sure, it's very cool to say to people "Hey I made a feature in 35mm", you'd think that would get people really interested. However, unless those people have seen it in the theater or on Netflix... they really don't care. You could have told them you shot it with IMAX and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. You can make anything you want, but if you actually CARE about filmmaking, you'll realize there is far more to it then simply going out and shooting/completing something. Unfortunately, a lot of films like yours, do wind up going to the grave with the filmmakers.

Phil does have a point about everyone shooting "test" films. It's pretty ridiculous, when you search anything related to lenses, cameras or stocks, you're most likely going to have MORE test films then finished products. Plus, those test films are always staged in one way or another, either just shot in someone's back yard or under heavily controlled lighting situations. What, do people have no imagination? It's very frustrating because the last thing I want to see is a static shot of some person sipping tea when I'm checking what your camera looks like. People have no imagination, they don't bother putting together something that is even remotely close to what a practical shoot would look like. I just did a camera test and instead of wasting a roll of film, I shot stuff I'm going to use in a promo. Yes, it's not complete, but it's a start to a final product and it's not getting posted on Vimeo, even though it looks amazing, until it's a completed product.

Yea, but if you knew how much the CEO made... you'd be disgusted. Like most charities, the money doesn't go towards the wish, it goes towards the top 1% of the company. It's one thing to help a friend or an up and coming film student, it's another to help a multi-million dollar organization without ANY compensation. Heck, I've done A LOT of work for credit, meals, travel and per diem, but on projects where the producers truly had zero money and the project would get A LOT of exposure.

Nice find! Looks great! :)

Umm... if I shot stuff for random companies/people for free, I'd be living on the streets with no equipment. The biggest problem we have in the film industry today is the fact strangers can get "free" help. Once you spoil them once, they will ALWAYS expect you to do it free again. This is why we have a craigslist generation of filmmakers. They know people are out there and are so desperate to make something, they'll do it for free. Do you think Make a Wish Foundation asks's their CEO to work for free? They have employees, they pay rent, they have no problem blowing money on themselves, so they can absolutely blow money on you. Which is the frustrating part... if NOBODY accepted that job for free, they'd be forced to pay someone. Now, how much they pay, that's a different story. Honestly, even if they paid $100/day, that would be SOMETHING and you'd be much happier getting something! Even if I do projects for myself, I always work them around the possibility of getting paid. I never ask people to work for free anymore, that just doesn't happen.

Yep, that's kinda what I thought. The back end stuff (printing/scanning) is the expensive part anyway. Good to know thou! thanks! :)