Tyler Purcell

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.

Then, watched it in on 70mm real film, IMAX dome, seated near projector, worst looking movie I've seen in a long while.

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.

I don't think Steven Spielberg runs out of time. I think he makes a decision that what he has looks good enough, or he comes back the next day

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!

Old Murph on the death bed was very out of focus in the 4K screening I saw.

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?

Depends on if you need really good slow-mo. I don't know a single decent, non-MPEG based/Raw capturing/Interchangeable lens camera which has excellent slow-mo. Mostly all of the cameras which allow you to do over-cranking use MPEG codec's which are absolutely atrocious to edit.

I gave up trying to make slow-mo and simply learned how to tell stories instead… I use the Blackmagic Pocket cinema camera's and honestly, they aren't really designed for sports, but they work great. The rolling shutter effect isn't really bad and they have a more cinematic look, totally different then the "trying to be too sharp" DSLR's, of which I dislike tremendously. I also prefer the Blackmagic concept of shooting RAW and Pro Res.

If you copy and paste the link in my signature below into a web browser, you can see some of the motocross stuff I've shot. Unfortunately I can't embed those links into this page.

Maybe the optical printing done from 35mm to 70mm simply caused more problems then it was worth? The IMAX film prints had the 35mm stuff DI'd which is why it looks totally different. I think it must be more of an issue with the 70mm prints, because I'm not nit picky and the focus issues were so bad in the 35mm stuff, I thought there was something wrong.

Ohh and David, love your stuff on the Widescreen Museum site. That's the cinema format bible for us younger folk! :D

I have watched a few Cinerama movies on the dome, it was a unique experience. Today with digital projection it could be a worth while format to experiment again with.

Crystal Skull I believe is anamorphic 35mm as well.

Yea, the BluRay's of the Indy films are amazing. As a kid, I remember reading the ASC articles from my home-town library of producing the original films from Raiders through Crusade. The sets were so well lit, there was so much light in every nook and cranny, even the dark scenes were perfectly exposed throughout the entire shot. It's that even lighting and as pointed out above, the stopped-down nature of the shooting which makes the films so amazing looking. It's awesome to have these films restored to eye-popping quality.

As a side note, been going through the Ultra Panavision and Super Panavision films from the 50's and 60's like Ben-Hur, Mutiny on the Bounty, West Side Story and Lawrence of Arabia and they look absolutely amazing on BluRay. I was always depressed with 80 Days Around the World because they seemed to have a lot of production issues, even the restored version has lots of color shifting and dirt in the negative. Still, most of the other films are absolutely worth watching on HD at home.

You're not going to get even focus projecting onto a curved screen, it's not bad but it's not even. Curved screens were originally designed for the three projector Cinerama system where each projector just had to fill 1/3 of the screen.

That was my initial thought until it went to IMAX material and it was perfectly in focus, even the close up's.

But yea, the edges of the screen weren't in perfect focus, that's to be expected at the dome. It's far worse with their digital projector, it looks like crap.

I was thinking the same thing Doug, about the editor taking an out of focus take due to performance. However, there is so much out of focus, it's more likely an incompetent operator. I suggest seeing the film at The Dome because I think the experience was pretty good, outside of the curved screen and the focus issues with the edges, which kinda sucks.

I saw it on a 2k screening and i couldnt believe how bad the film looked at times. Too much grain at times, other times i saw the film being blurry and also too warm at times. The beginning of the film when the main character has a nightmare and the daughter says something, that scene looked horrible. Does anyone know why the film looked so bad?

The Anamorphic stuff looks really bad. They didn't even bother lighting, they opened up the lens and yelled action. I'm under the belief, if you have to use 500 ASA stock (I assume they used Vision 3 500ASA) for critical dialog scenes, you've for sure under lit too much. Roving camera, master wides, heck even medium shots or quick dialog bits, fine. But when every single emotional moment has an actor out of focus and dark, it gets tedious. Besides, the IMAX stuff looks so different, it's almost like too movies.

Nolan should have taken a cue from PT Anderson and shot THE ENTIRE MOVIE in 5 perf 70mm. It would have required them to light more and as a consequence, it would have looked a lot better.

Speaking about "The Master" what a stroke of genius that film was and the cinematography was nothing but outstanding. All the things that hurt Interstellar, aren't a problem at all with "The Master" and it's unfortunate Nolan continued to push is IMAX craze so much. Honestly, flipping between 2.35:1 and 1.9:1 on the IMAX prints, gets tiring for the audience. It takes them out of the film and I know many people who could care less. In my view, any technicality which takes the film away from the story is bad and out of focus, grainy dialog scenes are just that. Nolan really needs to re-work his process for the next film because if he keeps down this path, it won't matter if he shoots film or not, people will simply not watch his movies because of these issues. A beautiful 2.20:1 aspect 5 perf 70mm negative, optically blown up onto 15 perf IMAX and projected in 2.20:1 works perfect. So what it doesn't fill the screen, it's still larger then life!

So you're saying that the film projection looks better than the digital?

I know this theater pretty well and have seen many 4k presentations originated on 4k and this thing blew me out of the water with it's sharpness and texture. The IMAX stuff looked flat-out amazing, almost as if it was from an entirely different movie because as someone else mentioned, the 35mm stuff is purposely shot to be grainy and dark. So once you see the IMAX stuff, it looks absolutely flat-out amazing. I'd love to see this movie in IMAX just to get a feel for the full negative scenes. I have a decent home theater projector and excellent sound system, so I'll wait for the HD video release before seeing it digitally.

In my eyes, this 70mm presentation of Interstellar is exactly what this industry needs to get moving along. It's something special and it's something very unique, which is what the old days of road show films was all about! Anyone can watch a digital screening of this movie at home or at the cinema. We've spent so much money promoting digital projection, we've lost sight of quality, we lost sight of uniqueness. What Nolan has done is bring back some of what the industry is lacking and hopefully his box office will be enough to do the same thing with his next film. In my view, the cost to produce big films like Interstellar on 70mm entirely, using vertical Panavision and skipping the IMAX phase, is far less then producing the entire film in 4k 3D. Basically do what PT Anderson did on "The Master" and be done with it. Strike a few vertical and horizontal 70mm prints, allow the smaller theaters which can show those prints to "premiere" the films in a roadshow format (for this week only) before all the other cineplexes. Make movies an event once more, rather then something you see on a rainy day or when your bored sitting on your couch at home in your underwear. My experience tonight with Interstellar in the Cinerama Dome, was exactly what cinema should be like. Outside of the rude and uneducated friday night audience, it was a fantastic experience that I will put on my wall of experiences as something very special and hope to one day do again.

I must confess, I'm a madman for celluloid, clearly born 50 years too late. The few years I had hands-on experience with film in Super 8, 16mm and 35mm were brief and mostly documentary/industrial projects, rather then narratives. The near-death of film stock production this year, scared the living piss out of me. Broke and barely able to afford my own equipment, I felt so helpless and upset I was forced to shoot digitally in this modern world. When I heard that Christopher Nolan was going to be shooting substantial chunks of Interstellar on 70mm IMAX and projecting on 70mm, my ears perked up. Living in Los Angeles has a few benefits and one of them is having a 70mm theater only a few miles away from my house. The 8 month wait between the announcement and ticket sales, was arduous. However, tonight I finally got to watch the movie at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood and wanted to discuss some of the filmmaking elements which make this movie so interesting.

Being the first one into the cinema, I quietly stood there facing the projection booth, being a complete nerd watching the projectionist feed the 70mm film from the supply spool out of sight through the projector. Not like I haven't seen this many times before at IMAX theaters, but to see standard 70mm vertical projection today is very rare and is mostly "classic" films. For those who haven't been to the Cinerama dome, it's a great theater for film, but it sucks for digital because they never invested in a curved lens for the projector to match the screen. So the image distortion is off the hook and very annoying to anyone who knows anything about technology. The trailers were digital up to a certain point, then the screen went black. I turned around and by golly gee, the film projector was running. PT Anderson's new movie (his last film was shot with Panavision 70mm) had a trailer included with Interstellar on 70mm! All of a sudden, all the technical issues with the lens went away and I knew we were in for an amazing screening.

The film starts off in 35mm anamorphic and drops right into IMAX material. Shocking as that cut is technically, the phenomenal sound system and "It goes to 11, so set it to 11" loudness, blows the audience right out of the theater within the first few seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if car alarms on Sunset were going off during this movie from how much rumble was produced, to me… that's one of my favorite things to experience. As the film settles in, it was abundantly clear anamorphic 35mm was the wrong choice as a substitute shooting format to complement the IMAX material. Not only was it grainy, but critical focus was lacking in many scenes. At first, it seemed like the projection, but the moment the movie switched to scenes shot in IMAX (very blatant) all the focus issues disappeared. This disturbed me greatly being a filmmaker and watching this fantastic story unfold, but being distracted by poor focus. Funny part is, medium's and wide's were fine, it was only the very close stuff that had a problem, mostly under-lit stuff with the aperture wide open. The funny part is, because it was a film print, the 35mm Anamorphic stuff simply looked like we were watching a 35mm print. The moment it switched to IMAX material, the true quality of 70mm shined through and boy was it amazing to see. The detail was quite good on the 70mm print, far better then I expected actually. Some of the digitally created shots were glass, could have been 4k digital projected and you wouldn't have noticed the difference. Even with the slight registration issues on the projector and the very noticeable flicker (not seen on digital projection) the image was bright and crisp during the IMAX material.

Watching the film, it's very clear some of the 35mm anamorphic stuff could have gone though a photochemical finish and optical blow up. There weren't any deep/rich blacks, it was very muddy compared to the IMAX material which clearly went through DI because all of a sudden the rich blacks showed up out of nowhere. Plus, mostly all of the IMAX originated material had special effects of one kind or another, I can't imagine very much of it being 1:1 without any clean up work. Some of the effects were astounding, clearly lots of model work was used and composited onto shot background plates. The compositing was excellent, except for a few minor issues which were quick and clearly stuff they didn't have time to make better. Being a fan of the movie Gravity for it's technical ingenuity, Interstellar in my view is more realistic looking. Partly because they never resorted to using fake fire balls or shots which were completely created in a computer using multiple composites.

Part of Interstellar's soul comes from the music and powerful mix. I was absolutely blown away by the complexity and presence of the music and mix. Hans Zimmer's score was off the hook, absolutely by far the best thing he's ever produced and in the credits, it seems he had a lot of help making it. Modern 70mm uses DTS 24bit 7.1 surround sound and the days of magnetic stripes on 70mm are long over due to the chemical agent needed to bond them to the film being illegal. One small fault which I blame the theater on, was the lack of center channel. It was quieter then all the other speakers. Needless to say, if it was intentional, it was clever because it made voices harder to hear during loud scenes, making it more realistic. However, I do think it was the theater because as loud goes, it didn't have much dynamic range when it was loud, making me believe they simply peaked out their system.

Over-all I really enjoyed the film. Without ruining anything, it's a combination of Gravity and Contact mixed together. It's pretty heavy on the science, with a heartfelt story that pushes the plot forward to a very interesting and clever resolution. As a Nolan fan, this is by far his best over-all movie because it's the most accessible, with the most interesting story. It also makes the audience think, like Momento or Inception, rather then simply watch eye candy. Every bit of dialog or action, moves the plot forward, there is no time to waste in this movie and in my eyes, that's how proper movies should be made.

So the big question is… see it on film or not? Well, if you can see it on 70mm, horizontal (IMAX) or vertical, I'd go for it. We may never get another opportunity and next time I see it, I'll be headed over to the Chinese theater to see an IMAX print, just to get a sense of what else I may have missed on the vertical 70mm presentation. There is no question in my mind, everyone who enjoys cinema and likes science fiction, should watch this movie. It's a cinematic journey that not only moves the heart, but also makes you really think about a subject not many of us have ever thought about.

Sorry ya… CInema DNG not DPX.

I did talk with BMD about it being a 4k camera in an enclosure and they said it wasn't because it will capture still images and the camera can't.

We talked in length about the current philosophy of zooming the chip. They said a different magnifying lens will be available for super 16mm and the prototype didn't have it.

We scanned 4 perf so yea… it can do 4 perf no problem.

I saw one and had a full hands-on experience a few months ago during a Blackmagic Design demo session. It was quite an amazing kit, plugs in via thunderbolt and will color on the fly in DaVinci using a Macbook laptop in 4k! I mean, absolutely stunning technology at work here. My biggest beef is the gear drive mechanism and the fact for $40K USD (suggested retail) you don't get a keycode reader, sound reader or even an alternate gate. It also won't do 2 perf 35mm, only 3 or 4 perf. These aren't huge problems for people still shooting film, looking for a reliable system to telecine, I think it's awesome for what it is. One semi-unknown feature which will be on the final production model is a scanning function vs telecine. It will actually pause each frame in front of the sensor, which will then take a picture and store I assume as an uncompressed DPX sequence. I'm not sure how fast it will be, they mentioned 15fps, but that could have been an arbitrary number.

Registration on the unit was excellent, far better then any Cintel I've ever used. The source material was newly shot 35mm negative, not a scratch or bit of grain in the image, it was flawless. We had it presented on a big monitor and I saw absolutely zero registration glitches, it looked like a scanned image vs telecine, quite amazing.

In summary, I'm throughly impressed with the Blackmagic telecine/scanner. It's absolutely worth looking into for those who need a telecine/scanner at their side at all times. The downsides seem minimal, though buying a thunderbolt computer with an excellent graphics card are two prerequisites. So right there, your cost of ownership just went way up!

I agree with Carl, it's far more important to have a dedicated non-creative career path, then waste money on creative stuff for college. Anyone can make a movie these day's, decent cinema grade cameras are cheap and if you're talented enough, weekends are all you'll need to hone your skills. Very few (if any) graduates of film school, wind up being "filmmakers" of any kind. Degree's don't get you cinematography or editing jobs, you need a portfolio of work, to prove your worth. So that means, you've gotta start shooting stuff on your own dime, helping people create little projects here and there to build your skills. A really good industry trade school like Los Angeles Film Academy will teach you the ancillary technical things you may be missing. Most colleges or universities which teach film are all about theory and history, rather then hands-on experimentation. It's that experimentation time which is what you need to succeed and you've gotta be able to tell a good story.

All of that to say… having a backup skill set is the most important thing. Once you have that down, then you can head out to L.A. and take some classes as you build a resume in your backup skill set. This way you always have something to fall back on which can keep you a float. I didn't get here until I was 24 and it took me another 12 years to be a full-time filmmaker! During that time, I used my skills as a technical engineer type to survive outside of being a filmmaker. Without that backup skill set, I would have been screwed. The funny part is, I have lots of degree's and nobody has ever asked for them, nor do I bother putting them on my resume. The film industry is a strange world, it's all based on a feeling, on a snapshot of what your capable of doing and if the stars don't align, if you don't have exactly what someone is looking for, you won't get the gig. It's a dog-eat-dog world and it's very, very, very difficult to get your foot in the door, let alone be successful. The only reason why I've been successful at all is because I'm a technical guy and I've been able to make friends with some top people in the industry because of my technical expertise. That's not something everyone can do, but it's for sure a gimmick which has allowed me to be in the right place at the right time and make a living at doing what I enjoy doing most! :)

Good luck!

Funny enough, I read Kubrick shot Eyes Wide Shut in full frame in an ASC article. He did that on many films including; The Shining and Full Metal Jacket due to his belief that cinema's of the day were inept at presenting wide screen images to specific aspect ratio's. He simply framed scenes for 1:85 and if the theater used the wrong cropping (1:66 or 1:85 or full frame) it didn't matter. It's the same reason why most of his 35mm release prints were in Mono, yet the film's were all meticulously produced in stereo and converted. Kubrick believed most theater's wouldn't have stereo audio, so it would be better to mix in mono to produce accuracy across the board.

It surprises me Kubrick never returned to 65mm shooting after 2001. Projecting on 70mm would give him all the specifics he needed, but I gather his budgets weren't quite big enough. I for one would love to have seen Barry Lyndon shot in 65mm… that would have been very interesting. ;)

Yep, its just anti-alising. My video projector does the same thing, smoothens out SD pretty good honestly. Even my laserdisc collection doesn't look bad! LOL :)

I posted a new version of the video, a little bit more professional and discusses some of the issues people had with the first version.

Thanks for the comments and hope you enjoy it! Use the same link above to see the new version! :D