Tyler Purcell

Yea, that's pretty close. You don't need audio though, I'd focus on camera original only. I heard the 16mm gat was $2k from my Blackmagic rep, but she may have been wrong. Currently, it's a non-feasible solution because as we've talked about in length before, it crops the imager for S16mm. When they solve that problem, it will be a workable solution. My number for a build-out was more like $45k, which isn't that bad all things considered. Yep, all completely accurate information. However, the one little bit you may not realize is that ALL cinema cameras require the same transcode to a "common" format when shooting RAW. So that step can be put onto the client instead of at the telecine shop, which will save the client a vast amount of money. My point is that the system is set it and forget it. The only post process done is copying the files to a drive for the customer and that can be done very quickly whilst your loading the next roll of film. True, however the cost of owning such a nice product, falls onto the consumer. That's the big problem... It's not a game about quality as much as it's about price. I'm talking about charging people $150/hr for a real 2k or 4k scan of their product with no audio, just camera negative. Ohh no doubt! However, they aren't that complex. The manufacturers make the systems MORE complex by needing special computers, special one-off software that nobody else uses and overly specialized hardware. If Blackmagic can build a machine that runs on standard computers, using over the counter standard software, so can other manufacturers. In fact, by now most of the manufacturers have amortized the cost on building specialized movements. It's all about imager/sensor quality today and how fast it can scan. The genius of the blackmagic scanner is that it just works. It doesn't take a highly trained/paid employee to make it work, anyone can be taught to run it. You may argue, you don't want some novice touching your camera negative, but I argue the results won't be much different. We shall see! I just think it's a game changer if it works at all. The moment Blackmagic sticks a 6k sensor in one and real optics for similar price, the other manufacturers have something to worry about. I still use Compressor and DVD Studio Pro for making DVD's. The 64 bit version of compressor works great and delivers a pretty good image in not much time. I don't do any BluRay authoring... nobody really wants them for some reason. :shrug: Sure do! Obviously, I'm new to the scanning business and it will take a while before we can afford something. However it's on my agenda for my school because it will lower the cost for my students. It will also teach them how to do that kind of post production, which is nice. But I 100% get your points and agree with them. I'm just hoping there will be a paradigm change soon.

Yea, I just want to watch the trailer before I give advice!

Umm but that old price doesn't come with processing or telecine. If Kodak truly wants to sell stock for $50 USD and that includes stock, processing and HD transfer, that's a game changer.

Yep Perry is spot on, that's why I blame the manufacturers and not the post houses. In my eyes, the current scanning technology and workflow are archaic at best. Yes, we've seen dramatic speed increases along with resolution, but the VAST majority of people who want their film digitized, don't need the quality of the current lineup of machines. This is why I'm (for better or for worse) excited about the blackmagic scanner. It's a first-gen product, it has a lot of bugaboo's, but it snaps the current workflow in half, throws it in the garbage and starts over again from scratch. When they figure out a way to change lenses for each format, it will be a game changer in my opinion. Real-time 4k scanning to Cinema DNG deliverable. Using modern thunderbolt 2 enabled computers and drives, copying files takes minutes not hours. Those same drives have USB3 on them for the client's work station. If Blackmagic fixes the optics issues, I'm buying one and I'll have the best scanning prices in the world. If you want professional quality, go to a top shop. If you want something that looks great, in raw color space, that costs less then a telecine, come on down! I only bring this up because I'm constantly fighting with labs on pricing and I'm tired of it. I know they can't go any lower, but it's cost prohibitive! Film isn't the expensive part, getting it digitized is and that's what needs to change.

It was for sure dark, but I don't think the practical material was underlit. It was more the CG/Composited elements which were dark.

I don't think the workflow is a problem, in my eyes it's one step away from shooting digital raw. The current market pricing is the problem in my eyes. There are labs who try very hard to do competitive pricing, but most labs don't care. They have high end clients who will pay their exorbitant fees, so they keep them high. The problem is that equipment costs are still high, which pushes cost onto the consumer. Once the equipment cost drops (which it will eventually) the cost to shoot film and finish digitally, will drop. It sucks to spend all this money and effort on shooting film and spend twice as much on making it visible in a digital world. It should not be cheaper to make prints, it should be WAY cheaper to scan. There is zero reason why scanning is so expensive, they're practically DSLR's with electronically controlled film movements. If Blackmagic can build one for $40k, someone else can as well.

Got a trailer?

DALSA's imagers didn't have Bayer either.

I hope Logmar is not manufacturing them, otherwise it's going to be very expensive. Kodak needs to make these in China or Japan for peanuts and sell them for $499. Much more then that and you're looking at a VERY specialized product. At $499, these things will sell. With the Max 8 aspect ratio/format, improved gate, new stocks and built-in sound, this thing is a winner all the way around. It's what Logmar attempted to make, but in my opinion, couldn't quite achieve. It's pretty exciting stuff and I hope it's the first of many products like this. I truly hope we see a S16 version as well, that will be a real game changer for the industry as a whole. I haven't been this excited about Super 8 in a long time! :)

Not to spill the beans even more, but Kodak is going to be a full-stop shop. Stock, Processing and Transfer shop coming VERY soon. So for one price, you will get a roll of film, ship it to them and they will return a high def transfer. It's a great idea and if it works, they want to expand it to other film markets.

Well, anyone wanting to invest in short films (which have little to no resale value) probably doesn't care about a return on investment, or doesn't understand how things work. So the first thing is to learn about resale value of films and then educate your potential investors. Then, you need to read about producing and line producing. You will need to learn about contracts and legal documents. Of course, to accept any investment you need to protect yourself, so having a business (LLC) and insurance is critical. Finally, I highly suggest finding a seasoned producer to help guide you through this process. Books are great and they will help, but there are many steps to doing this right and if you miss one of them, you could be screwed down the road.

Yes, it will run at a constant speed until the end of the wind, where it will taper off. Some of the earlier Bolex cameras don't have a decent regulation system. I remember using one once and being shocked how much it tapered off compared to the later models. Since the OP mentioned his camera NOT being a reflex model, it's one of the very early cameras then. So I was just saying, his problems maybe normal. It's hard to tell without a physical examination.

The Bayer pattern is always there, but it's executed differently with RAW. http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/pdfs/understanding_digitalrawcapture.pdf

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/ces-jj-abrams-backs-kodak-852128

Welcome to the forum Noah! What you're describing is pretty typical for a wind up camera. The wind itself only lasts a few seconds and as the spring unwinds it has less and less torque to move the take up reel, so it will slow down. Generally speaking, a full 100ft roll of film will need several winds to complete. The moment you hear the camera start slowing down, that's when you stop shooting and wind it up again. The later cameras have a better regulation system, but no matter how much regulation you have, it's still a spring based system and the spring dictates everything. Unfortunately, servicing Bolex cameras requires many specialized tools, it's not something a regular camera tech can do. There are two speciality Bolex service shops in the US, though I don't know of any in Canada. They're expensive, but worth the price. I personally love the wind up Bolex cameras. When you learn how to use it well, you can do all sorts of neat tricks. One of my favorite is to set it at the highest speed it will go and with an unwound spring, start cranking the spring and you will control the speed of the camera via your hand motion. It gives you a very old-time cinema look with each frame being exposed differently. Of course, it has a great stop motion function as well, rewind function (for double exposure and dissolves) and no batteries required! I can't tell you how much of a pain butt it's been getting my electronic bolex working due to the aging electronics. :( Hope that helps!

My cameras always say "END" with no cartridge. There is a button that the cartridge hits, which resets the counter system. Without a magazine, the counter doesn't work, so it says end. If the film came out fine, there is nothing wrong with the camera. If the pull down claw wasn't working properly or skipping, you would see that in the image. Super 8 uses the pull down claw to advance the film. So if the claw was skipping, the film wouldn't advance fast enough and you'd get over-exposure blooms every few frames. You can't tell if it's working properly by looking at it running, that's impossible. I'm sure the camera DOES need lubrication, but I've tried to work on many Super 8 cameras over the years... I'm a pretty good bench technician and have no problems fixing my 16/35 and digital cameras, but the Super 8's are so compact, they're very fragile to work on. They don't come apart easily and dropping oil near the claw, doesn't do anything. The pull down mechanism is lower in the camera and it's probably caked with grime as the grease they use from the factory goes bad over time. I had to completely re-build my recent Aaton LTR acquisition because the grease went bad. There are MANY super 8 speciality shops around the world. If you google Super 8 service, you will find many. Pro 8 here in Burbank, CA is a very good shop and they know the Canon cameras really well.

Yea, if you yank the lever it could yank the film out of the cartridge for sure. When I use to load my own cartridges, I had that happen a few times.

Hey Valerie, I have a film school here in Los Angeles and if you have any interest in donating a 35mm and 70mm trailer, we'd really appreciate it. I need samples of things to show my students and 70mm stuff is hard to get a hold of, even on ebay. I can pay for shipping etc... In terms of the projectors, decent pictures would help start the search for new homes. Identifying components can be done via image and some parts will have visual model numbers. There are some brokers who buy old equipment like that and re-purpose it. Boston Light and Sound is one of those brokers and I'd start with them. They can tell you how much things are worth and what to do with them. Another good site is film-tech.com, they've got some great guys on there as well. If they don't think there is any value in the hardware, then it maybe wise to find a school to donate them to. In terms of complete film reels, it would be interesting to know what there is. Some prints of feature films have decent value if they're in good shape. So it's back to getting decent images. I'm sure we can help find homes for most of the film itself. :)

Did you process the roll of film you shot? Did it come out OK? The cameras don't know how much film is left really. They have a mechanical timer that resets when you put a new cartridge in it. However, I just shot some Super 8 few weeks ago and the cartridge had WAY more film in it then the counter thought it did, like 10 feet or so. My camera said "end" but it was still shooting film. I pulled the cartridge out, put it back in again and kept shooting for quite a while before it was officially out. I know my camera works as well, so maybe the gauge on your camera isn't working well and it's figuring the film is out before it actually is.

Yea, but not really. The DSLR age has kinda come and gone as lower-cost digital cinema cameras have become the mainstay. The reason is quite simple... DSLR's are designed to be still cameras first. So they focus all their attention onto creating a still image and the "video" side is just another feature. So the DSLR's suffer from problems like rolling shutter effect, low dynamic range, severe highlight clipping and reduced color space from the MPEG capture. Since you're kinda new to the whole digital thing, let me break it down for ya. A modern motion picture film scanner captures an image in 24bit RAW color, nearly identical to a raw still image. Each one of those images is packaged/stored in a file format or folder, generally in a Tiff file format. Programs like DaVinci will read the Tiff sequence (Targa/Cinema DNG) and which allows for the application of appropriate color. We use something called a look up table (LUT) to match a specific look for viewing. These LUT's are based on film stocks in the film world and when applied, they will mimmic a particular look. Digital cinema cameras like the Red, Arri and Blackmagic, shoot in 12 - 16 bit RAW (Tiff/Jpeg) and deliver a very similar post process. The files are brought into DaVinci (or other coloring tool) and color is applied. Without the color applied, the image is washed out and very flat looking with little to no dynamic range, unlike a film image. In the world of digital, the look up table (LUT) is actually built for the specific camera. So the image is almost decoded in a way to whatever viewing system you have. Still cameras, DSLR's and home video cameras (outside of a few rare examples) shoot using a highly compressed MPEG format. This format is designed for easy playback on a myriad of computers, software and encode efficiency. Unlike RAW, it's not a frame based system. Every 8 - 24 frames, there is a key frame and every frame after that is only encoded based on changes in the shot. So if you don't move the camera, it will look fantastic! The moment you have a lot of movement in the shot, the image falls apart because the limited bandwidth MPEG file, can't deal with it. Plus, these cameras shoot in 8 bit 4:2:0 color space which is the lowest "acceptable" quality format. It's actually nearly identical to broadcast tv. Plus, due to the size of the cameras, the manufacturers are unable to put the requisite powerhouse processors and imagers, to produce a smooth beautiful image without blurring. This effect is commonly known as "rolling shutter". The CMOS imager scans from top to bottom, so if you move the camera fast or an object moves in front of the camera at speed, that object will be in a different part of the frame at the top then at the bottom. On some cameras, it's really bad, you'll see object warping and distortion, on others it's not so bad, but on all of them it's noticeable. So because these consumer based cameras are light, cheap and don't chew up batteries, they're very limited in operation. Even if you shoot perfectly with them in perfect conditions, pulling out a reasonable image, can be very tricky and challenging. So trying to get a certain "look" is nearly impossible without substantial post processing. Even then, MPEG artifacts are a constant battle, especially if the exposure isn't perfect. I mean, if you shoot it and never make any changes in post, you could get away with MPEG cameras, but the moment you make changes, you will open a pandoras box of unwanted noise and artifacts. What's the solution? Well, ya gotta start with a camera that shoots RAW (RED, ARRI, Blackmagic, etc). Then you've gotta scanned test pattern from a 35mm source. Take that source and build a LUT based on it using DaVinci. Then simply apply that LUT to the RAW camera material. It may take a few tries, but if you do that, you will absolutely get the color tinting you're looking for. Then the best thing about DaVinci is that you can apply a print film LUT on the output as well. So you can say, hmm... today I want X print film on my output, which will taint the colors one more time. The whole workflow works wonderfully, but it doesn't work without a LOT of color space 12 - 24 bit, full raster (RAW) and a lot of work with DaVinci. Sorry for the long winded response. I don't mean to pick on the DSLR, but unfortunately it's just a toy. Yes, consumer cameras have come a long way, but they're very restrictive for the filmmaker looking to make major changes in the image. I personally stayed away from DSLR's and went for the newer generation cinema cameras and they look other-worldly compared to the DSLR's.

Yea, that link is good. Really the biggest difference between the LTR and XTR is standard PL mount, built-in beam splitter with more standard video tap and magnetic drive magazines. My LTR doesn't make much noise, the XTR is even quieter. Outside of those differences, they're pretty much the same camera with minor changes over the years. Aaton pioneered and patented the tapered pull-down claw system, which is quite amazing and very different from what Arri uses. Plus, since the film runs through gears, the pull-down system is less in charge of the film movement. So even though it doesn't have a registration pin, I've found the registration to be absolutely spot on. Without the pin, the movement is a lot quieter because all it does is pull down instead of hold. Not saying the SR3 is loud, it's pretty quiet, just saying Aaton's design is better. If you want a camera tomorrow, call up visual products. They have a refurbished XTR prod with 3 mag's and new batteries for $3k. It's a great package to get you started. You can find them for less if you look hard, but if you just want one, I'd nab that one.

WOW so sad! Just hearing this for the first time! I absolutely love his work, for sure one of my favorite DP's. Though I admit, 'Close Encounters' is where I first recognized his work as a youth. It wasn't until I was older that I caught up on his older films. It's truly unfortunate he didn't continue working with Spielberg because the end product of their not so eye to eye collaboration, was brilliant in both cases. He did repeat work with some amazing directors over the years however and in between he took on much smaller films, which was always interesting to me. Even though it's a loss to the industry, his legacy will live forever.

I didn't see any problems, outside of some minor color balance. No head cut off's nothing of the sort. I thought the hit and run was simple and worked. I thought the printing of the "lost and found" papers was cute and worked (how do you hand write 30 papers with a picture on them). I thought the directors focus on the papers and not the girl as she posts them, worked. I thought the caroler scene worked as well. It was cute, though I expected a bigger pay off in the end, not just "aww isn't that cute". I wouldn't have done much differently, only minor things that would have tightened things up slightly.

I agree with Adrian. I'd spend less money on the body and more money on glass and support. I have an LTR 54 and it's a wonderful camera. It has a great tap, crystal sync up to 54fps and is well made. I really like its straight forward simplicity, it's just a black box, it doesn't need to be a Swiss Army knife like the 416. I've also learned that most of the recent 16 productions have used aaton. I never understood why, but now that I own and have used one on a few shoots, it's so well balanced and works great hand held. I also like the 12v battery system and super easy to load mags. Coming from the word of arri, I'm very impressed with the Aaton inside and out. You can get XTR prods for peanuts if you look around.

:D