Tyler Purcell

Supposedly it's cropped on the sides. Same thing PTA did with The Master.

Well, saw Inherent Vice and was quite surprised at how good it looked. They wanted a seriously grainy look and it worked very well. It could have been projected digitally and been exactly the same, nothing about the gorgeous 70mm print really stood out, no real excitement. However, it was very cool of PT Anderson to demand 70mm prints be struck and release the film early to those theaters capable of running these prints. The film is for sure worth the watch, both cinematically and storytelling. I really enjoyed every aspect of it.

Not to get away from Interstellar, but PT Anderson's new film Inherent Vice open's here in Hollywood this weekend with TWO 70mm prints at the Arclight! Both optical blow-up's and the film was evidently finished photochemically. So many 70mm prints in such a short time, we're really keeping the cobwebs off those projectors! :)

I use to fix computers in Hollywood when I first moved here and one of my mentors was a customer. I think becoming a friend outside of the film industry is kind of important when it comes to this type of mentoring. Plus, once your foot is in the door, it's a lot easier to find and talk with other people now that you have a glowing industry reference. I'd absolutely be nowhere without my first "connection" and it's making that connection, even if it's with a producer or director, is the most critical element.

With film, camera logs generally stay with the negative in some way or another.

After Effects can do the conform for you. It has a powerful media conform engine which is good at tasks like this. I'm pretty sure you can build a batch convert as well, though I've only used this trick for one or two files in a project, not an entire shoot. Hope that makes sense. tye

I apologize, I was not referring to the glass itself, but to the electronic controls our modern Micro 4/3rds glass has. These "aids" make using modern glass annoying because focus isn't repeatable and iris control is done through the body. My point was, if you're stuck to using menus on the camera to control the glass and there isn't repeatable focus, then it doesn't matter what camera body you have. It's the same for modern DSLR glass, which is why I won't get near the stuff with a 10 foot pole.

Heard a vicious rumor two weeks ago from a local projectionist… With the success of Interstellar, Episode VII is rumored to have 5 perf 70mm projection prints made utilizing the 6k scan back process they used on Interstellar.

I figured as much… Plus, if you don't use real cinema glass, ANY camera is worthless. Imagine putting micro 4/3rd's glass on a Alexia! (if it could fit). All the quality of the camera would be lost immediately.

I own two Blackmagic Pocket cameras and they are awesome, nothing like what you describe. Furthermore, with Pro Res 422 HQ capture and CInema DNG color space, you can fit 40 min onto a single 64gb SD card and not have to change the battery once. Wide angle, telephoto and zoom lenses are easy to come by from a multitude of manufacturers used on ebay and with a speed booster, you can bring them back to native focal length. I've use Tamron Nikon mount zoom lenses with all manual control and they work awesome. My standard glass is from Rokinon and the whole kit is about $2k on Amazon, for 6 primes. In post production, the files are linked without any importing or transcoding directly into Avid, Final Cut Pro and Premiere. Pro Res uses the computers GPU for playback, meaning you can run multiple video layers unrendered without dropping frames, without the need to run a proxy version first and then upres later. With DaVinci's integration, applying lookup tables to the Cinema DNG color space files is a cinch, tweaking and exporting is even easier, using the power of DaVinci for finishing, rather then your editing tool. I've been shooting film and digital cinema for two decades and I've been nothing but impressed with the Blackmagic Pocket camera. They aren't for big hollywood movies, it's not their design what so ever. They are for low-budget, run and gun style of shooting where you've gotta "get that shot" on the first take and move on. Perfect documentary camera because of their size, ease of setup and most importantly, extremely high-quality final output.

I'll say this much, a camera body is the last thing you need to make a movie look like that. I agree that "hiring" a cinematographer with their own package, is a far better proposition then simply buying a camera and trying to recreate a look which is mostly lighting and mood created on set.

Personally, I love the Pageant. I've had the B&H's, I've had the Revere and Keystone's, the Elmo/Eiki. Heck I even have a Kodak Model A sitting in my basement, which still works great! For me, the Pageant is the only one I use. I love the projectors ability unload mid shot without damaging the film and sound-block bypass. Showing dailies is so easy because the film is so exposed, it makes for easy marking for edit points. I use to wrap the output of the film into a gang station next to a splicer and make edits right there on the spot for clients. Anyway, that's my personal preference. It's also the first 16mm projector I owned. So it does have some sentimental value for me. The Ampro's are very nice however. ;)

I mean the Asian markets are a strange thing, lots of money in pirating and they aren't worried about getting thrown in jail. You can't fight those markets, but here in the US, nobody is buying a scanner, "borrowing" a print and scanning it for pirate reasons, it just doesn't happen. The Asian market issues are an easy thing to resolve, simply delay the release substantially for those markets. In my eyes, there is no "cure" for the pirating problem. With our busy schedules, it's prohibitively expensive for people to leave the house, pay for a babysitter and a night on the town, just to watch a silly new release at the theaters for $14 - $18 dollars per seat! Plus, most theaters today are garbage, the whole "experience" of cinema has been pulled away from us over the last 30 years. People want to watch new content and content owners need to figure out a better method of allowing that to happen. The only way to fight piracy is to shove the content into the faces of those who wish to watch it and make it easy for them to hit the "watch now" button, for one flat yearly rate. Imagine AMC theaters offering an online service for movie goers to watch in the comfort of their own home. People will pay for content, if they can get it now, without being charged ridiculous prices for a sub-standard product.

I use to work for a trailer house and we'd get movies several months (sometimes more then year) prior to their release, a lot of times on HDCAM! It doesn't take much to realize how stupid that is. Movies are on servers which are accessible through services like Aspera and most companies have their own private FTP link for access. Plus, the Academy hands out DVD's for awards season and they "claim" there is tracking on those disks, but it's all easy to find and remove. One of those disks falls into the wrong hands, it's online in a matter of hours. Remember the whole reason we switched from film to digital distribution was to cut down on shipping costs? They were going to satellite movies to the theaters and all this crazy high tech stuff. Well… they aren't doing that. The solution is to ship hard drives to the theaters with an encrypted key send separately and the projector storage system, decodes the movie for playback. How long will it take for someone to hack that code? It only takes ONE corrupt projectionist to allow full distribution of current content in high resolution. Remember the days of film? Best thing you could do was take a video camera and shoot the screen? When everyone used film, it was physically impossible to steal anything. Someone might notice you walking out the door with a print. But hacking into a server? Copying a DVD? Encoding an HDCAM tape? These are things which are out of our control and the studio's shouldn't be complaining when all their films are online for free. They did it to themselves!

Umm… Toast works great! You can set the bit rate and it makes menu's + burns right out of the program. I usually encode with Apple Compressor which is part of the Final Cut Pro Suite. It has a wide range of MPEG settings which allow for decent output, far better then any other tool I've used. The hardware encoders like a stand-alone DVD recorder, are garbage. You need a multi-pass system for variable bitrate in order to fit long-form content onto a DVD and make it look good. If you have a mac and can get compressor, I'd be more then happy to toss some settings your way. :)

I'm always here, send me what ya got! I've been very unlucky at grading stuff and making it look good on Vimeo. I have a beautiful 2k cinema projector which is color calibrated and if it looks good there, it usually looks like poop on Vimeo. So, I've given up trying to make things look good online. :shrug:

Josh has some great ideas! In terms of OTHER theaters… I love the El Capitan theater which is right across the street from the Mann's Chinese. They have a nice theater organ and excellent 4k projection. Yea, they play kids films, but if your lucky, it may not be that bad during the time you come here. Send me a message if you have some free time. I've got a convertible and would be more then happy to drive you around to see the kool stuff. It's really hard to do it without a vehicle AND knowing where everything is! :)

I personally like the graded shot over the vimeo. However, nothing I've been able to produce out of my DaVinci coloring tool, looks even close on Vimeo. SO don't sweat it! Looked good though, I would have not gone as white with her key light, maybe something a tiny bit softer and less bright. But that was the only thing that stood out to me.

I've been an editor for almost two decades, started bench editing on film and moved into ABC roll linear, then into non-linear with Media 100 and was a developer of the first version of FCP back in 1999. When I got FCPX and started cutting with it, I realized Final Cut Pro was dead. Even the current versions have huge issues because Apple has decided to make it for the masses. This means, you basically have to function within the operating system parameters for smooth media integration and MOST functionality has hit the cutting room floor compared to it's counterparts. Working with Avid and Final Cut 7 all day long and switching to FCPX is a lesson in futility. Managing media, adding/subtracting multiple effects to shots, preview/program windows and previewing media, all very poorly conceived. It makes the absolutely poorly written Avid, look like a genius software package. Honestly, I dislike every single editor on the market. Each one of them has their own substantial bugs which leaves them neutered in some way. Avid is poorly written and way too complicated, developing their own terminology and workflow which makes no sense. If you work in Avid, you'd better have extra displays and keyboards because there will be moments of rage where both will get destroyed. However, it's the industry standard and if you wanna cut fast and proper, it is the best tool on the market. Final Cut 7 is 32 bit, so it's very slow compared to Avid with simple things like rendering and exporting, but it's still very powerful and more intuitive then Avid. Final Cut 7 is also a "lightweight" software, not needing expensive GPU's to function properly, which is very nice. You can run it on an old system perfectly fine and it's compatible with the latest and greatest codec's natively. Media management is also much easier with FCP 7 and so is import and export. Adobe Premiere is kludgy, Adobe wants you to use their software for media management and there are some other silly things about mixed media and exporting which aren't so friendly for post production. However, it's the cheapest software on the market today, only $49 bux per month and it's very powerful, with a 64 bit engine and all the tools necessary for doing some serious work. If I wasn't a professional, I would delete Avid off my computer and use Adobe Premiere. However, as a professional, the Avid workflow seems to be the industry standard and if you treat Avid like FCP, do your own media management, it does work very well. It takes a while to get use to it, but if you can live in Avid world, you will reap the benefits of being able to get work in places you wouldn't normally get work and that to me is the most important part. If you truly know Avid, you're truly an asset to the industry.

WOW really? They projected it on a domed OMNIMAX screen? WOW that must have been really interesting. I would have gladly switched places with you! HAHAHAH. But yea, it's for sure meant to be seen flat, must have been really strange watching everything so big and mis-shaped.

Maybe… I've just been told contrary things over the years by people who've worked with him recently. He moves very fast and if it looks good, they move on.

Tim, when you watch that scene closely, I think they ran out of daylight during shooting. Maybe they didn't have a lot of time allotted for that location. The quick fix was to bring in the HMI's and flood the place, which for the opening of the movie, didn't bode well. :(

Second watching today at the Dome in 70mm and loved it even more the 2nd time around then the first. Saw it with a few friends and they were all blown away, none of them even noticed the focus issues. The introduction made by the Arclight staff now includes a statement about the sound mix and low levels of dialog, being what Chris wanted. It's unfortunate today is the final day of 70mm screenings at the Dome. The stupid Hunger Games film will replace it starting thursday (tomorrow). I'm anxious to see the film in 70mm 15 perf IMAX at some point, if it wasn't 20 bux a showing, I would have already gone. If the Chinese still has it next week, I'll absolutely go again and see what that print looks like. In other news just this week, Tarantino announced the Hateful Eight will be shot in 65mm 5 perf and most importantly, be a roadshow presentation with intermission and everything. Harvey Weinstein is on board and the filming is suppose to start in January. Tarantino has already set into motion the pieces necessary for wide 70mm distribution, including coordinating with lab's. With Interstellar bringing home $326M in world-wide box-office only three weeks after release and only a $165M budget, one would think this may be a new paradigm. It makes me wonder if JJ Abrahams will be doing the same thing with Star Wars.

Looks like your having fun Miguel! Having the tools at your disposal really helps a lot experimentation wise. It allows you to test concepts and ideas without a crew hanging over your shoulder, rushing to get that next shot. A lot of this trade is making mistakes and learning from them, which is why most people start at the ground level, being a production assistant and eventually find their way into a bottom end position in whatever department they wish to end up. A lot of people rush into it, trying to learn a lot in a little bit of time. However, the most successful and talented DP's have spent years in the doldrums of being 2nd and 3rd AC's, moving up to operator and eventually getting a job as a cinematographer. It takes time and I fret, rushing it through schooling, may not get you much further up the food chain job or education wise. Simply having equipment at your disposal and getting feedback from someone in the know, is sometimes the most important thing. Good Luck!

Yep, pulls you right out of the scene as well! I kept on saying to myself "they'll fix it" but the focus never changed. So at least we know it has nothing to do with the optical blow-up's if it's also on the digital print. Makes me wonder, is my vision THAT good?