Tyler Purcell

Cinelab is great, that's where I'd go. I'd buy a mag stock recorder and transfer the stuff yourself because you need to transfer stuff all the time.

You can print any source, but you can only bench edit on mag stock, so yea you're stuck. 35mm mag stock sounds great, so it's not a big deal when bench editing on 35mm, only really a problem with 16mm. Editing film is awesome and I apologize if you think I'm trying to persuade you away from it. My concern is really to do with what happens after editing, how the audience will appreciate all the effort you put in.

The blackmagic pocket camera has a similar sized frame as S16, so it's a good start. Mixing that with older bayonet mount lenses, may help a lot. You won't get the grain, but adding a film stock LUT in DaVinci, should net you a similar color pallet. One of the things that makes that music video so powerful is the slow mo. Looks like mostly everything was over-cranked, even if just a little. It was a really nice piece, thanks for sharing. :)

The optical track dynamic range is 40db and 200hz to 6khz frequency range. This is worse then one of those dictation note taking cassette recorders. In contrast, that beautiful Nagra 1/4", half track @ 15ips will produce 70db of dynamic range and a frequency response of around 30 Hz to 18khz, which is perfectly acceptable for dialog recording. In contest, CD's are 90db of dynamic range and 20Hz to 20kHz and most films today have extended the dynamic range to well over 100db and frequency response of 10Hz to 96kHz. My biggest beef with the 16mm editing process is the mag stock itself. Recorders are rarely calibrated, so getting any decent quality audio onto mag stock and back off again for a film print, is nearly impossible. I've experimented with DBX noise reduction and had some success with making dialog sound OK. However, I had to calibrate everything myself by hand which was time consuming. I used a 6 plate table, which enabled me to run 2 strips of 16mm mag stock. My first pass was 2 tracks of dialog. My 2nd pass was 2 tracks of effects. So in total, I'd have 4 tracks of audio to deal with in post production. I ran over to the lab and we dupe those tracks to one channel of 35mm mag stock in a "mix" session, which cleaned up the transitions and levels. My music was on CD and on the fly played it out onto 35mm stock on 2 channels in stereo. This gave us a 3 strip master, stereo music L/R and center channel of dialog and effects. This allowed us to work with the mag stock for dialog and effects only (since dialog frequencies are limited anyway) and the 35mm mag stock was superior in quality to 16mm mag stock, so taking the digital audio masters from my score and putting them on the L/R channels of the 35mm mag stock, retained much of the quality. So now I had a 35mm 3 strip mag master with Dolby SR already encoded, which was easy to process onto 35mm optical track with Dolby SR noise reduction. The nice thing about Dolby SR is that you don't have to pay royalties. Lab's can take your mag, run it into the optical soundtrack printing machine and mate it with a 35mm print no problem. With digital audio, you've gotta pay royalties/fee's to use their formats and it can get exorbitant. Plus, every theater on the planet with a 35mm projector can playback Dolby SR optical tracks, it's the "backup" format and it works great. I've been struggling to find some examples of this workflow I can post for you, but all of those films I worked on in the past have restored audio. When I was 17 years old, I shot and edited a film called "Elvis and Me" about teenagers worst fears using a Cinema Products CP-16R, angenieux zoom lens and vision 7219. We did the 2 track dialog trick, we used the 35mm stereo track with SR trick as well. Unfortunately, we never did the 35mm blow up, so this video is made from a one light print of the negative that I painstakingly matched to the audio because I no longer have the original audio tracks, just the 35mm 3 strip. This scene has the best example of audio because it has good indoor dialog recorded with a Nagra 1/4" half-track at 15IPS. http://tye1138.com/stuff/elvisandmeclip.mov

It's true my approach is much more conventional. That's because the vast majority of people who will see your film, are probably not filmmakers. When I sit down to develop a story, I think about the audience first. I think about holding their attention and even making them want more when it's over. In that case, "technical" decisions like shooting on B&W and working with a special anamorphic 16mm workflow, could theoretically be detrimental to a film's outright potential. If your film is good, it may never see the light of day in the way you want, due to technical limitations. I look at our modern 16mm films; 'Hurt Locker', 'Beasts of the Southern Wild', 'Black Swan' and they are good looking films. It would take a real cinephile to point out they were shot on small-gauge. Heck even 'The Walking Dead' AMC TV series was S16 until the last season. So you can make 16mm look great, it's a fantastic format. So why risk all the hard work to find out people don't appreciate the same things you do? Shooting, editing and distributing on film in a conventional way, is one thing. But using obscure lens/format selection, odd-ball projection system and potentially B&W formatting, it stretches the technical aspects a bit too much in my eyes. This is why unfortunately, more conventional filmmaking methods are usually the best. You can still do everything photochemically, but wouldn't it be sweet to hold your 35mm print with digital audio so you can go anywhere and show people your vision?

Yep but nobody has the equipment to print that onto film and it doesn't alter the dynamic range issues. They did magnetic stereo sound as well, but it's impossible to make those tracks today. The glue necessary to stick the magnetic track onto the stock is toxic, so Kodak stopped production in the 90's. This is why Super 8 sound film doesn't exist anymore and why 70mm prints have been digital audio ONLY since around the same time. 35mm is the only stereo optical format around today and with Dolby A encoding, it doesn't sound too bad.

I was referring to the lower to mid range cameras like the FS7. Sub $10k for a complete package with lenses sorta deal. The F5/55 is a MUCH more expensive package and its a pretty good camera. But when you're a Chinese company (Kinefinity)trying to market high end cameras and your sensor has the same problem as Sony's lower to mid cameras's, it doesn't matter how good it looks at 50% in my view. A sensor needs to look good ALL the time, in darks, in over-exposing, it's critical because mistakes happen with the work I do (documentary) and there is no way to control everything, it's nearly impossible. Cameras that need to hide from bright sunlight are worthless in my world. You can't expose for the possibility of getting the sun directly in the lens, you have to expose for the subject. So that means, the sun will be blown out! If the blow-out looks like crap, then you're in trouble.

Harsh clipping is a Sony character trait and the problem looks identical on the Kinefinity cameras. It's not a "cinematographers" problem, as the Alexa, Red and Blackmagic cameras (of which I've worked with) don't have harsh clipping at all. When they clip, the white area gets softer, like out of focus. On the Sony/Kinefinity camera's, the white area turns into a blob of over-sharpness, which is extremely distracting. You see it mostly on reflections in the background of images. Example would be properly exposed footage of a car driving down the road in between tree's or buildings and when direct sunlight hits the car for a brief moment, you get this harsh blob that appears. I've seen it also with solid colors, there are literally 20 videos online showing this problem on stage shows. Sure, if you're shooting indoors, have full control over lighting, then you most likely will never see this problem. However, that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist. It only means you're good at bypassing the issue. This is one of the MYRAID of reasons I don't even contemplate a low/mid range Sony or Kinefinity camera. Funny enough, I've worked with the Sony F5/55 and never had that problem. It was the first thing I tested on that shoot, literally going outside with the camera on my shoulder and shooting over-exposed reflections of light in the parking lot. So it's clear to me, it's just the lower-end sensor of the low/mid range cameras. My blackmagic cameras never had that issue either. You can shoot the sun directly and it's just a nice soft bubble.

Anamorphic S16mm is a piece of cake. Hawk V-Lite 1.3x squeeze for super 16mm cameras. It delivers a 1:1 2.40:1 aspect ratio for direct 35mm blow up and anamorphic decoding. Larger the negative, the less noise you'll have within the image. Those older 2x anamorphic lenses have a nice look, but at a cost of them being slow and horrible close focus. I was going to shoot with them once, did a few tests and the quality was not there. I wound up shooting S16 and cropping to 1.85:1 which works great. It's mono and it's low-fidelity, really sounds like crap. Sound is a critical part of modern filmmaking and having hi-fi stereo sound is really important in my view. There isn't any solution for 16mm, there are solutions for 35mm, but they can't easily be adapted for 16mm, so there isn't any solution to make that better. Plus, projecting without a proper decoder lens, kinda puts a nail in the coffin. Ohh there are projectors, most theaters didn't throw all of them away. You just gotta ask, I bet most theaters have at least one still hooked up and functioning, especially the smaller houses. Shoot film with the intent that digital is your master. When someone likes it, spend the money to make the 35mm master negative and present it on film. It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun seeing your movie ON film.

If you have control over you lighting, it's never a problem. However, I rarely shoot in controlled situations, that requires money and if I had that kind of money to make stuff, I'd be shooting on film anyway. So in my eyes, if you can't control the lighting and you're shooting in a more natural setting, it's important to have a camera which has a soft clipping. Sony camera's don't clip softly, they clip harshly and even with SLog/RAW capture, there is very little you can do. Just watch anything shot with a Sony low/mid grade camera outdoors and look for hot spots. They look like old school NTSC cameras, really bad. There are boatloads of articles and videos about the problems. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/archive/index.php/t-332373.html

Yep, the cinematographer is a hired gun. Kinda like anyone else on the standard "production" crew. The only difference is that cinematographers are generally allowed to be involved in post production. Directors are generally involved with the story/production from the very beginning, especially on low budget stuff. I have yet to direct anything I haven't shot as well (though I've shot a lot of stuff I haven't directed). I love the challenge of cinematography, everything from shot composition to lighting. On film it's a great challenge, round table discussions with actors as you load magazines. With a small crew and no real overhead, it's a fantastic experience that really puts one person in the drivers seat. With bigger shows, it's a lot difficult to get away with that mentality, it gets pretty draining. However, I do like the collaborative process quite a bit. I just enjoy the cinematography aspect of it so much, it's hard for me to let go and PAY for someone else to do a job I'm fully capable of doing. Sure, it's more stress on set, but it's worth it in the long run.

Sounds like fun! Yea making a film in 16mm with a photochemical finish, isn't really a good idea for the following reasons: - The smaller negative degrades tremendously through the printing process. - 16mm projection is limited to 4:3 w/sound track - 16mm print is only mono optical, which sounds like crap - The cost is exorbitant without garnishing a quality image If I was shooting 16mm, I'd do the following.. - Shoot in S16 with low ASA stocks to reduce grain - Telecine the material to digital - Edit on Avid - Conform the S16 negative onto A/B rolls - Make a 35mm blow-up internegative - Produce a dolby digital sound track master - Strike an answer print off that combined master - Strike a theatrical print off the answer print Then you've got an EXCELLENT quality master, something that will blow the doors off a 16mm print. You've also got a widescreen aspect ratio matching the S16 source. You've got unlimited audio tools and can print a stereo optical track if you can't afford the dolby digital licensing. I love editing on a steenbeck, there is nothing like it. So you could simply make 16mm work prints, edit that way then telecine the A/B negative, fix up the audio digitally and do the same workflow I mentioned above with the 35mm blowup. If you really, really, really want something that will project on a home 16mm projector, that's a different story. I had a friend who spent all that money building a 16mm print for her film and never once projected it. She really regretted spending all that money and looking back, would rather have a digital cut for safe keeping. The great thing about my workflow where you edit digitally is that you can show people your movie in a decent quality without having to worry about the film aspect. In today's world, that's kind of important and scanning a finished print into a computer isn't smart, far better to scan the original A/B negative. Ohh and standard photochemical workflow? - Process negative - Make 1 light work print - Transfer Audio to mag stock - Cut shots out of camera rolls - Edit shots - Take cut work print and write down keycode/frame numbers for negative cut - Cut A/B negative - Make internegative of A/B rolls with color timing - Make optical audio track - Make answer print (combines optical track and picture) - Make theatrical print The A/B roll thing is for cross dissolves and blind splices. With 35mm, you simply throw dissolves/effect shots into an optical printer and splice them into the cut negative. With 16mm, they generally don't do that, using A/B roll instead to save cost.

I don't think Sony will ever move away from rolling shutter on their low/mid cameras because in doing so, they loose a lot of light sensitivity and perceived dynamic range. The Japanese brands are all about specs, so building a camera that has less spec with global shutter, just doesn't appear to be their strategy. Plus, with a big imager, you need an even faster processor to deal with global shutter. This adds cost and most importantly space inside the camera for a heat sync. Because Sony is so focused on building cameras with crazy amount of functionality, they literally don't have enough space to fit a big enough heat sync. By the way, Red Cinema cameras don't have a global shutter either, they use adaptors to "fake" the global shutter look at an additional cost. Honestly, the RED solution is pretty magical and it does work well. I've been researching Kinefinity cameras for a while and haven't been too impressed. The color science is a bit whack, what comes out of the camera requires a lot of correcting. Plus, the HARSH highlight clipping issues you see on pretty much all the Sony camera's, seems to be front and center on the Kinifinity cameras. I can't stand harsh clipping, it spoils the shot and makes it look like video. There are some demos where people shot with grey sky's that look good, but the moment you see anything shot with bright sun and there is any chance at reflection in the shot, the highlights are harsh. In contrast, the Blackmagic and Arri cameras, don't have harsh highlights, they have a very nice highlight curve. You still have detail in over-exposed areas, even though there is a slight color shift, you can work with it in DaVinci and get something out of it. I've had harsh clipping cameras before and would rather have a 4k camera that didn't have harsh clipping and had global shutter option vs a 6k camera that had harsh clipping and no global shutter.

Very cool! Thanks! :) I'll be in touch soon btw… been REALLY busy, which is good!

Blackmagic Designs is doing the right thing in my eyes. They're building industry standard tools for not just acquisition but also finishing, stuff that nobody else has seen for that price. They've enabled people like myself to shoot and deliver cinema-grade products, without relying on other people or their equipment. Plus, Blackmagic have thought about their workflow and they've developed something that works great. Unlike the Japanese brands who constantly compete against one another via specs, blackmagic does their own thing and ignores everyone else. This has created some wonderful cameras like the Pocket and URSA mini. Two cameras which have really nothing to do with anything else on the market. Where I'm not a fan of the original Blackmagic cinema cameras, I think they've figured out their issues and in the next few years, will make more and more low to mid range cameras. Blackmagic has no interest in taking over the Alexa/F65/RED market, that's not their business model. They are focused on the low to mid market, complete camera packages for sub $10k. If Blackmagic wasn't around, there really wouldn't anything I could afford that shoots in a format compatible with Avid, FCP and Premiere natively.

Must have more lens flair!!!! :D

It's a lot harder… I didn't have a dime growing up in the north east and was damn lucky to get a scholarship to film school, where I had free-reign of their equipment stash. Without that and some luck, there is no way I could have made the precipitous move to Hollywood. Still, it's been a difficult road, more then a decade since landing here. It's taken me almost 30 years to finally take my childhood dreams and turn them into reality. Fortunately, I've arrived at a time where technology dominates and that's enabled me to produce without the expense previous generations endured. Yep, you've gotta love it or you're in the wrong business.

Spielberg had the best connections though. His student film Amblin was the only one of those to be shot in 35mm. Not quite trust fund, but two of my favorites; Christopher Nolen and Paul Thomas Anderson, had lots of money. Neither one of them bought cameras though! LOL :)

It's true, but you've gotta start somewhere. I've met a lot of people who started doing similar shows and they made it big time. Who the heck has a 4k cinema camera graduating from college anyway?

This is the problem… Because you really need a 2k or 4k camera to tell a story. :blink: So even the "volunteer" gigs have gone nuts on equipment requirements. I've said this before and I'll say it again… Digital cinematography is the final nail in the coffin for this art form. Why? In the past, cinematographers were craftsman, understanding the mysterious of professional equipment and how lenses and celluloid reacted to light. This required education, on-job training, experimentation and most importantly, since celluloid is expensive, it required a patience you don't see in today's filmmaking. With digital technology, anyone can look at a monitor and see exactly what a shot is going to look like. You can nail down a scene much quicker, shoot even faster and move on, without the need for perfecting anything. This 'need for speed' in filmmaking has literally destroyed any sense of craftsmanship. It's brought on by technology and now cinematographers are forced to work faster then ever, with substandard product as the result. Now that there is so much substandard product out there making money, what's the point of taking your time to make something look good? If they made money off crap, why should you do any better? I own everything necessary to make a film, outside of grip equipment which isn't expensive to rent. I invested because I feel it's important to constantly be shooting. The more hands-on experience you have, the better you'll be in whatever position. So there are positives to owning some equipment and likewise, maybe even scoring a few gigs from it. People who spend tens of thousands on personal equipment however, that's just insane. So you can brag to others about being able to shoot in 4k? I honestly think that's really the core issue today. People use catch words like '4k' and don't even know what it means. They think it magically makes them something that looks good and as we all know, it really doesn't. With film, it forces people to go seek money, hire appropriate crew of craftsman in an attempt to make a decent product.

I'm budgeting a short documentary film on 65mm right now. It may get off the ground quicker then any feature as there is potentially some big funding behind it. Now that it looks feasible to shoot large format, I can apply this model to ANY script/story I want. Honestly, I may search for a better, more worthy script first. There are plenty of great one's out there. :)

Got some numbers for you guys! So here is the cost to make a 65mm film through and through: 8003659 50D 1000ft = $1247 Retal 1662428 500T 1000ft = $1400 Retail 8 min per 1000ft roll 120 min total length of film 8:1 shooting ratio 106 rolls of film (MAX) $148k production stock Processing $35,000 Telecine $20,000 Feature = 16,000 feet inter positive $62,000 answer print $14,000 Audio= $2720 $135,000 + $15,000 (audio licensing) + 6k (negative cut + splice) Panavision Sound camera package = $120,000 for a 6 week shoot $180,000 (processing) + $148,000 (stock) + $240 camera = $568,000 So for $568,000 you can pay for 65mm, if you're efficient.

Anytime "i" is used after a frame rate, it refers to "interlaced". So 50i is an interlaced version of 25 FPS. So 25P is the progressive version. Broadcast TV is interlaced, that's how they can fit so much data down the pipe and make it work. One field contains half the data and the other field contains the other half. This creates an image on your TV at 50 fields per second or 50i. This is an old frame rate which was generated by the frequency of electricity, 50hz in Europe and 60hz in America (50i/60i) Interlaced material has many benefits, it's easier to do post production slow mo where two fields are blurred together. It's generally a smaller file size because there is less data. The disadvantages are also pretty big, as David said, the scan lines can cause some jagged edges on motion shots. So broadcast generally uses interlaced and everything else is usually progressive.

It's true, nobody bothered updating the standards set during the 1930's. If you look at technology, standard vertical 35mm is the most archaic way to shoot and project film. The problem is, once those standards were set, nobody wanted to change them. Rolling loop horizontal projectors are a far better technology, one that would have worked well with 35mm due to a substantially larger image size. So film as a medium isn't the problem, the problem comes down to super old technology that should have been retired in the 50's and wasn't because the industry was looking for cheaper and cheaper methods to make and distribute content. Digital projectors are just as sensitive to temperature. Plus, the DLP chips can very easily fall out of alignment on their own, something theater owners are less likely to bother fixing. I've never seen a problem where the film is rolling with no lamp or something and it needed to be rewound. That's just being a poor projectionist and I would ask for my money back, even if they COULD rewind it. Has nothing to do with the format. Most theaters where I grew up, stopped the film before the credits rolled completely so they could fill the house with more people and squeeze in an extra screening each day. Rolling loop horizontal film projectors are a step in the right direction. Cleaning the film before it enters and as it exits the projector, is a step in the right direction. Projection booths being "clean rooms" is a step in the right direction. Wait… are we talking IMAX? I've seen IMAX prints that have played for 6 months, 10 times a day which look perfect their first showing and their last. With film projection, if the print is made properly, all the projector has to do is shine a light through it. The "image" is developed in the lab, making the job at the theater more of a personal one. A talented projectionist can project a film properly without too much fuss even if they're controlling multiple theaters at once. With digital projection, the image doesn't exist until it's at the theater. Nobody can inspect it, nobody can verify it's OK, what you see is what you get. It's not the "directors vision" it's whatever the calibration level of that particular projector is that day. There are many problems with DLP, the biggest one is imager mirror size and shape. Imagers are generally the same size as 35mm film projection. However, the pixels inside that imager have square edges. So when they flicker, you get aliasing on any hard edge. This is particularly noticeable on any credit sequence or shot with solid square edges. The DLP chips themselves get super hot due to all that light hitting them all the time. They use a liquid cooling system to help keep them working, but it's not very efficient and they tend to get super hot. When they cool down during after-hours, the chips tend to shift ever so slightly. That shifting causes color bleeding over time. Plus, the colored glass elements fade over time, which causes substantial color shift. Even with laser DLP technology, imager shift is still a huge problem. You can't avoid it because when you try to take three things and make them line up perfectly, it's never going to be perfect forever. Calibration is a constant battle and most theaters won't bother. In terms of contrast ratio, the top of the line laser DLP projector is 2,500:1, which is about the same as 35mm film. So nothing really unique to the format what so ever. Projection in theater is limited in contrast ratio due to how much light is being pushed through the system. Burbank AMC, Arclight Cinema's in Hollywood, The El Captain and the Chinese theater are the FOUR test beds for developing projection technology in the US. So if it looks like crap in those theaters, it's going to look FAR worse in others. The Arclight and El Captain have never blown me away, they look OK, but not anything crazy. I was impressed with the new IMAX laser projectors looked when I saw Jurassic Park. They have a true 4k source and overlay two 4k projectors to equal 8k of total resolution. It's a gimmick which will work for a while and it looked pretty good. Too bad each projector is $1.5M and there are only 4 theaters in the US which have them. Let's face it, theaters aren't in the business of spending money, distributors already rape their profits, so what do they care. The industry said no more projectionists and that was it, everyone bought cheap Barco 1920X1080 projectors and laid off their projectionists. They could care less what is better quality, for them it's a cost savings. So back to what I said about film projection earlier. If the lab's do a good job, what comes out of the lab will be the same thing the filmmakers saw in their final screening before release. It should look the same at any theater around the world, the projectionist will be the only person capable of ruining that experience. With digital projection, nobody really knows if it's calibrated or not. Besides, you aren't seeing the full color range with DLP because it's only dealing with three primary colors and mixing them to create whatever the digital data entails. Film has FAR more substance within it, the color gamut isn't confined to three colors mixed together. Sure. digital technology will change over the years, but theaters have already been forced to invest in the current lineup of projectors. It's doubtful they will put in any effort to do the same thing in another two or three years. I know it's too late, but it's annoying. Digital projection is amazing, it's killer technology, but it's really a toy compared to photochemical. The only reason we can't see photochemical prints properly is due to projection technology and it's sad nobody tried to make that a reality.

Couldn't agree more. :)