Tyler Purcell

Like James Cameron, they see film as a hindrance because it doesn't allow them to fully create their vision. I see film as a two dimensional canvas which just needs to be painted and they don't want the canvas anymore. They want audiences to be in a three dimensional realistic world, yet they're still stuck showing their vision through the canvas. This is the perplexing thing about these early digital cinema adopters. They place all the blame on film, stuck working with the same blank canvas, yet there final product is shown on the same bloody canvas. So all those DV films where the filmmakers were so excited about shooting digital, they could have used Super 16, the cost vs quality would have been worth it. What depresses me is that none of these guys cared about quality, they only cared about making their life easier. To me, that's the sign of a lazy filmmaker who wants instant results. To your comment about preserving film… I'm working on it. I have to do a feature on digital first, just to prove I can make something that's sellable. Once I do that, everything from that point on will be film. I'm already budgeting two films, one on 35mm and one on 65mm as I type this. On my sets, there will be no digital camera's allowed. :)

Sorry for the confusion. When I was referring to artists in post production, I was talking about having too many hands on the movie after it's shot. Everyone knows the cinematographer is critical part of coloring, but you can tweak things so much in today's films, what's shot through the camera is more like a template rater then a finished product. Editors create the story, visual effects artists create the image and the cinematographer has become a glorified lighting cameraman, overseeing the look of the film from a distance, whilst other arts create the actual final image. In the past, the cinematographer created the image including the color pallet. Post production was only the process of assembling the shots the cinematographer made and doing minor color balancing corrections. In my opinion, this is the "proper" way to make films, not the current "fix it in post" method we use today. I can't say in good faith, I'm an advocate for digital image acquisition, because I'm really not. In my eyes it's destroyed everything I love about the art form. We live in a disposable world and everything we do today from stills on our iPhone to shooting films digitally, all of it's disposable. With one wrong click, one technical glitch or dropping something from shoulder height onto the ground, can destroy everything in the blink of an eye. Even if you're careful, even if you make multiple backup's and store them in different locations, media just sitting around goes bad very quick. Our film labs have become data centers, where studios pay big bucks to retain as much of the original content as possible. We even have data centers in underground bunkers, but all of that comes at an expense, something us younger filmmakers working on smaller shows, can't afford. So pretty much anything we shoot, is completely disposable. With that said, us young filmmakers are stuck shooting digital because it allows us to experiment without the cost of purchasing stock, processing and transferring. Since I'm stuck, I might as well embrace what I have until there is a steady flow of money to shoot on something else. So yes, I do really like my blackmagic cameras and cheap prime lenses. It allows me to work on my craft and shoot projects without any financial backing.

Hate to dig up an old thread, but don't feel it's necessary to post a new one… I just watched a film called "side by side" which is all about the differences between digital and film. They had a lot of great filmmakers (directors, producers, cinematographers, editors, colorists, etc…) discuss their point of view on this whole mess of digital vs film. Unfortunately, they didn't interview the guys who are sticking with film till the very end, outside of Christopher Nolan. Every single thing that came out of his mouth I agreed with, from the longevity of celluloid (preserving art) to little things like breaks for the actors and crew whilst film is being reloaded. Some of the absolute absurd nonsense uttered by some very well known filmmakers was atrocious. You could tell, they were only interested in making their own life better and easier. They don't realize, the moment you do things digitally, you're basically handing the film over to other artists to make your vision for you. Micheal Ballhaus had the most prolific thing to say; "what I see in my lens is what the final film should look like". This to me is real filmmaking, it's the cinematographer who makes the image what it is, not a committee of people sitting around a monitor many feet or rooms away from the actors. Filmmaking isn't a democracy, it's a dictatorship, the director tells the cinematographer what he want's and the cinematographer gets the image, the end. There isn't a committee telling you how to write a poem, how to paint a picture, how to take that snap shot… so why is there a committee on a film set telling you what is good or not? Today, we spend more time worrying about the image then ever before because it's so sharp, it's so crisp that makeup, set design and art direction are more challenging. Most filmmakers don't even bother doing anything in camera because it's easy to mettle with them in post for weeks, months, sometimes years. One interesting point most of the editors made in the doc, was the fact there is so much footage today, editing takes a lot longer. Instead of relying on an assistant and lead editor, you have a whole team of people working to sort out the mess. Plus, as I've always said, with modern NLE systems, you can literally do anything and mess with every aspect of your image. This almost inhibits the natural decision making process because sometimes you need to simply make a cut and move on. Today our films are more and more perfect due to computer editing, but there is absolutely no need for it. Part of cutting on celluloid is making a decision right the first time and moving on. It's a lost art and it's something that people don't practice enough. It was sad seeing people put down celluloid because they say it's hit the end of development. It just shows how some of these filmmakers have no idea what they're talking about. People stopped developing better film equipment because nobody wanted to make the investment. Theaters were FORCED to go digital as the labs literally stopped printing film. I'm sure most of them would have kept showing film prints to save money, if that had been an option. Had theaters been forced to update their film projection to something more advanced, it would have probably saved the format for a few more years at least. I'll wrap up by saying… if I win the lotto, I will devote all of my energy into making some machines that will advance film production in a big way. It just takes some money, some ingenuity and most importantly, the desire to save the art form. Ok, done with my rant! :)

I really enjoyed the film as well. No real story to speak of, but it was a lot of fun. I'm kind at a point where if there is a flying person in the movie, I'm kinda not interested in seeing it. What bothered me the most about the film cinematically was the over use of 5219 35mm for interiors. It creates really grainy out of focus areas in the background which don't fit in well with the 5207 which is what most people use to shoot exteriors. Plus once you scan to digital, all of the film grain turns to digital noise, making the grain in the background stand out even more. I know filmmakers want to light less, making things look more realistic, but sometimes it's better to reduce artifacts and grain so it's not distracting. I don't know what prevented them from shooting the whole film on 65mm since they already had the cameras and shot quite a bit of film.

Blackmagic Designs makes several cinema-grade cameras. Some of their first generation cameras like the 2.5k, are less then stellar. However, modern stuff like the Ursa and Ursa Mini 4.6k, are absolutely at the same quality if not better then the Alexa. Obviously the Ursa 4.6k cameras aren't out yet, so you'll probably be using an older one. If that's the case, may I suggest the 4k because even though it does have a few minor issues, it's a far better camera then 2.5k in my opinion. I've done a lot of mixing Alexa with other cameras, but not the blackmagic's.

Whoops, sorry mis-typed. :(

Ohh got ya, so your entire workflow is standard definition. In that case, you're stuck to 29.97 because your stuck with 1997 technology. I'm very familiar with the SDX-900 and the BVW-600, both were great cameras in the mid to late 90's, but technology has shifted since then and workflows have pushed towards high definition (1920x1080) and cameras that have no idea what interlaced means. Honestly, if you wish to stay in 1997 (not a bad year mind you), I think your current workflow should offer you the best results. However, if you sold everything you've got on ebay, I guarantee you could buy a decent cinema grade camera like the Blackmagic Pocket and it would change your world. BTW, when you edit tape to tape, you have substantial generation loss. Modern editing systems offer 1:1 lossless editing. I shoot with my pocket camera, edit on my macbook pro laptop and turn out a delivery file and it's identical quality to what was shot in camera. Generation loss starts the moment you hit the output of your VCR's, converting what is on tape to composite, S-Video or Component, is the first part of that loss. With digital formats like DVCPRO, if you had the firewire deck, you could capture that material in a 1:1 format, identical to what comes out of the camera and loose nothing. Those decks are cheap on ebay today because nobody uses DVCPRO anymore, it's a lost format unfortunately. Anyway, just some thoughts. Its cool to see someone still using old gear, I'm happy it's not in a dumpster. I grew up shooting with that stuff. :)

Why do you shoot 30fps? Since the very first DVD, the format has been 24p native. It does the 3:2 pulldown in the player which allows the filmmaker to do everything in the "proper" film frame rate and distribute exactly the same way. Plus, with 24p it's a progressive signal on disk, where with 29.97, most of the time it's not. So you're dealing with interlacing lines. All standard theatrical disks are 23.98, exactly what came off the HDCAM master. Web doesn't care about frame rate, I've done 23.98 for more than 15 years online. Finally, most scripted television for decades, has been shot in 24fps. They deliver a 59.94 master for broadcasting, but it's all 24fps original. In my eyes, 29.97 is a dead format. Everything is done 23.98 or 59.94 today, those are really the only two deliverable formats and mostly everyone shoots 23.98. Not only does it deliver a cinematic look, but it saves film and space on disks. Lower the frame rate, the less media you consume, so it's a smart choice as well. I understand the reasoning behind 30FPS, but in today's world it's no longer necessary. Ohh and what film/digital combo do you use?

There are two different films being discussed, the new 3 movie franchise of which the next two installments will be shot on 35mm by Gareth Edwards and the one-off splinter film helmed by Greig Fraser. This thread is about the one-off splinter film called "Rogue One". It appears Fraser wants to use 2.76:1 aspect ratio and the logistics of shooting 65mm in the UK are probably a bit much. So they're going to stick with the Alexa 65.

OK, just reported… Rogue One shooting digitally. Whilst the other three films will be 35mm with intermixed 65mm for certain IMAX scenes. I gather too many logistical issues with shooting 65mm in the UK and having to deal with lab's. Dang… I was really hoping they'd go for it. Good news is, the Alexa 65 looks great! :) http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/star-wars-rogue-one-eyes-65mm-digital-shoot-episode-viii-sticking-with-35mm-film/

Lets hope there is A 35mm print struck for the Cinerama dome! :)

Yes, technically accurate nisen bokeh is a good way to explain it. You see that A LOT with digital cinematography and decent glass, it stands out like a sore thumb. These beautiful pieces of glass distort the colors in the nisen bokeh, so it looks imperfect without offsetting the bokeh what so ever. I dislike glass that offsets the bokeh a great deal, it's just distracting. I'm not a huge fan of anamorphic lens flares myself, so the oval flares and distortion were kind of distracting to me. However, everything else about the glass was simply divine. As Richardson pointed out in another article I recently read, he doesn't like the standard blue lens flares what so ever. Maybe great for a sci-fi film, works fantastic in Close Encounters, but for a western you need something a lot warmer. I stumbled upon an article written in the Kodak motion publication about Jurassic World shooting in 65mm. They shot 150,000 feet of 5 perf 65mm, which to put in perspective, "Bakara" and "Samsara" used quite a bit less. So it appears a great deal of Jurassic World is 65mm, which includes all of the special effect shots. I find it hilarious when ILM said they didn't want the production to shoot digital, they wanted the dynamic range and color gamut of film. FotoKem did an outstanding job on the production with one day turn-arounds on the 65mm negative for projection. John Schwartzman did a fantastic job on the film, which was clearly very technically challenging. http://motion.kodak.com/motion/Publications/InCamera/Jurassic_World_Calls_for_65_mm_Film.htm ​The film was shot with IMAX presentation in mind. They used a 2:1 aspect ratio, which was cropped slightly down to the IMAX digital format of I believe 1.9:1, something like that. I watched the film last night at the Chinese theater, the only theater in So Cal with the new IMAX laser projectors. Unfortunately, the film was in 3D so it was nearly impossible to get a good sense of quality. The system uses dual 4k projectors to produce an over--sampled 8k image on the screen. It was clear the film wasn't shot for IMAX, Schwartzman used standard framing, which made for a lot of head movement on the count of the viewers. Still, the blow-up looked pretty darn good. The interiors were 5219 and the grain looked like MPEG noise in the background. The exteriors were 5213 or 5203 and they looked a lot better. You could tell the moment they switched from 35mm to 65mm, the wide shots and special effect shots were like glass, no perceivable grain what so ever. I wasn't too distracted by the grain switch, forgot all about it until the very end during the night photography where things went a bit crazy special effects wise and you were more engaged in what was happening, rather then looking at the background. Outside of the horrible 3D conversion, I really enjoyed the film. It was a departure from the flying people doing amazing thing's movies which occupy most of our big-budget releases. Dinosaur's going amuck in my eyes, is much more realistic and grounded in some sense of realism. Sure the story was stupid, but who goes to see a film about dinosaurs and expects a story? I went to be entertained and ya know what, I was really entertained. The guys at ILM did a great job with the all CG dinosaurs, they looked really clean and outside of the 3D conversion artifacts, I was very impressed. During the credit scroll, I realized this is what youth of today want's to see. They want an in-your-face experience and I don't know if there are enough eyes out there, willing to pay for a more classical experience even if it's better quality. ​Finally, the laser projection was pretty darn good. Wasn't quite up to 15/70 but it was the closest I've ever seen.

I can't imagine shooting with RED, the post workflow is absolutely a nightmare. At least with the blackmagic cameras you retain all that dynamic range in Pro Res mode, which means you can edit right away without even applying a LUT. But to answer the question, the pocket is good enough. Sensor isn't great, but I use 'em and they work well as a B camera.

Maybe the 50 screens includes Europe?

The audience was eerily quiet as the first anamorphic 65mm footage was show in public since the format disappeared in the 60's. There was gate weave and flicker, showing how un-calibrated the Paramount theater projector was, from decades of not running this format. However, everyone was in awe of what was projected, the contrast, the color, depth of field, lens coatings and flairs, it was like watching an old film shot with modern stocks. The story behind this format being resurrected and how it may usher in a new era of large-format acquisition and distribution is very interesting. Robert Richardson wanted to do something different for Quentin's new film. It appeared he was tired of the same old look. Whilst at Panavision he brought up this subject and was shown some older lenses for a more unique look. Unfortunately, every single lens that was brought out, still looked too damn good, too "modern" for Robert. As a last ditch effort to supply Robert with something unique, out came the old Camera 65 lenses from the way back of storage. Some may recall this format coming from cinerama when they switched from 3 strip 35mm to single 65mm acquisition. They developed a lens system which would allow them to retain the same ultra wide aspect ratio (2.76:1 with 1.25 squeeze) of their screens and use a single negative. Although the cinema version was short lived, it spawned two future systems; MGM 65 and Ultra Panavision. Of course, Richardson fell in love with these lenses, mostly with the softness of the image which had a lot to do with the coatings. Our modern cameras and stocks are so good, it's nearly impossible to have good resolution without showing too many imperfections in the actors, sets or backdrops. In some cases, even out of focus areas are overly sharp with modern lenses, making it look unrealistic. These lenses allow the resolution to show through, but deliver a softer image throughout with out resorting to filtration. Plus, they have a much more artistic look in the out of focus areas. Of course, the other thing which was super important was anamorphic lens flairs. The lenses had sat since the 60's and were completely frozen. Plus, the lenses were designed to be used with 65mm cameras, of which Panavision has very few of. The dynamics of the situation were about to be taxed further when Panavision explained there were zero projection lenses available to unsqueeze in the theaters. However, Richardson wanted to do a test with these lenses and show it to Quentin. So Panavision went ahead and took a few select lenses and started to experiment. The first big hurtle was freezing the lenses. This was huge because back when they built them, they were using brass and aluminum with lithium grease. So the grease has turned into concrete and corroded the brass. This meant, the lenses had to be stripped down, but the only way of taking them apart is to get them to twist! So they tried everything and the only thing that worked was heat, lots and lots of heat. Eventually they freed the lenses up and could dismantle them. The second hurtle was the fact the elements had dots on them, typical stuff you see with glass that's been sitting for a long time. So the elements themselves needed to be re-worked with new coatings, comparable to the original. Finally, the original camera's weren't reflex, so the glass could protrude further into the camera. This proved to be a huge problem with modern reflex cameras, the glass actually touched the mirror! This forced Panavision to alter the final element and move it away from the mirror. With lenses in hand, Richardson and a small team went out and shot some test footage in similar locations to where the film was going to be shot. The day of screening the footage was nerve racking for Panavision. They still didn't have a solution for projecting and they only had a few lenses. Of course, when Quentin saw the material, he was overwhelmed and the decision was made right then and there, to shoot his next film; The Hateful Eight, on Ultra Panavision 65. Panavision spent the next few weeks rebuilding a total of 19 lenses, some of them with the older prism anamorphic element. They made special filters to go along with the lenses, matte boxes to hold those filters, they made a special 2000ft magazine for the sound camera since Quentin wanted long takes and even convinced Kodak to make those longer rolls of film. The final step in the whole process was to figure out the projection aspect. The workflow for spherical 65mm projection is straight forward and has been done on many films over the last few years; The Master, Interstellar and even Inherent Vice, all projected on 65mm Spherical. So projectionists have some experience with this format, but very few people have experience with anamorphic 65mm. The call went out and an expert was hired to come in and not only develop new projection lenses but also service the 50 theaters in the US who signed up for the 70mm release of The Hateful Eight. The projectors will calibrated to eliminate flicker, gate weave and reduce registration issues. Schneider got the contract to make the lenses and it appeared Quentin paid for them out of either the budget for the film or his own pocket. Outside of a few production hiccups with principal photography related to the freezing cold, the 65mm cameras performed flawlessly in negative degree weather for the entire shoot. Sure, lens fogging was always a concern and needed to be looked after, but according to on-set reports, the camera bodies were perfect. Here in Los Angeles, the production was on freezing sound stages to mimmic the location shooting so everyone had actual condensation coming from their breath. Yet, those old film cameras, originally made for Far and Away in the early 90's, worked flawlessly. What Robert Richardson and Quentin Tarantino have done is successful resurrect a film format which had long been since forgotten. In doing so, they've paved the way for future filmmakers to use this format since the workflow from production through distribution will be well established. There are already two major hollywood movies signed up for this new format, rumors are one will be PT Anderson's new film. At the same time, Panavision has been flooded with requests for budgets and timeframes/schedules. There has been financial battles as well, studio's battling with money to just get ONE of the 2 sound cameras before someone else get's them. This demand has made Panavsion contemplate building an all new silent 65mm cameras and they may do so if these films wind up being good money for them. They're also adapting the new Arri Alexa 65 to work with the new anamorphic glass, but there aren't any projection lenses being developed for digital projection. So there will be another huge investment to make that a reality. Rumors are that 35mm and digital releases of The Hateful Eight will be standard 2.35 anamorphic with black bars at the top and bottom. After seeing the test footage, there was a rousing applause. It's apparent, everyone in the audience was stunned by what we had just seen. However, it wasn't over yet. The next thing we saw was a DCP version of the material and it really shows how far away digital projection is to film. The blacks were mushy and undefined, the highlights were clearly peaking and the whole image looked flat. All of that beautiful depth seen in the film projection was lost. It was a sad realization this format developed in the 50's, is still better then all the money we've thrown at conventional digital projection. Sure, laser projection is one step further, but at a huge cost and still lower resolution then 65mm prints struck off the original negative. Quentin's goal is to produce all 50 prints off the negative and deliver an amazing cinematic experience and bring people back to the theater.

The URSA is a professional camera, capturing with industry standard formats like Pro Res and CinemaDNG Raw. These formats however, do require your computer to be setup properly for use. On Mac's, everything is built in because most post production firms are still based on the mac platform. However, on windows you will need to download the drivers from Apple's web site and if you haven't installed quicktime, you'll need to do that as well. Transcoding to another media format for playback, can't happen without quicktime to read the files in the first place. Second step would be to have fast storage to play it back. The 4444 12 bit files will have issues playing back from a standard hard drive, they will work, but you could have dropped frames and stutters. You'll need a tower computer of some kind with PCI slots and a small outboard raid with high speed connection like E-Sata or Fiber, for them to playback flawlessly. I work a lot with that format and have found it most challenging if you don't have the right hardware. Hope that points you in the right direction.

EX1's should be fine.

The problem is 4k requirement, if you could do 1920X1089, you can find cameras and operators no problem. You need a long record time and good quality output file with zoom lenses. So look for ENG operators with cameras, that's your best bet.

The moment you export a quicktime file for viewing purposes out of DaVinci, you've agreed to conform to REC709. Sure, within DaVinci, it looks wonderful but if your previous reference for quality is based on watching something on your computer, it's gonna look entirely different as a DCP in the theater.

Welcome! I'm confused… all I see is a lens flair and artifacts generated within the glass itself.

I've seen my un-sharpened BMPCC stuff on DCP in a theater and it looked great right out of DaVinci Resolve. If you do the proper DCP workflow, it will look a lot better then the REC709 encodes you're probably use to.

Nice! Brings back some fond memories of editing from my youth. :D

Funny! Good eyes David! :) I hate these kinda camera tests, I wanna see what it looks like being used, not under special/perfect conditions. :(

Assigned seating, mostly adults due to the price of admission, clean theaters, clean screens, perfect image and sound every single time and most importantly, they've built the theaters properly for 2.40:1 aspect ratio. So you don't get theaters which are tall and narrow, you get threatens which are wide and short, which is very nice and well thought out. Arclight also has the Cinerama theater in Hollywood, which unfortunately has horrible digital projection because the lens they have, doesn't fit the contour of the screen. So I only go there for film screenings because they have a 35/70 projector and use it all the time. :) In terms of the sony projectors… they have other issues due to the refresh speed of their imager. DLP is extremely fast AND accurate in it's 3 chip D-Cinema configuration.

I've shipped many DCP's of final products and we always up sample or down sample to 2k. I don't believe 2k projectors can read 4k files. However, the hard drive probably contains both 2k and 4k versions. So the theater can upload whatever version they have the license for.