Tyler Purcell

Can you send a link in motion? It's impossible to tell what's up with a still image sadly.

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Yep, but not sharpness. The gate does not have diagonal rails to keep the film riding against a hard surface when exposing and the film channel is a lot wider. So setting up the camera properly, requires adding a bit more depth to the flange, (we set them at .001), because the film can simply float more. You'd not expect this to be a problem, but you can see it in the results. I've scanned 416 material used with my lenses, tack sharp. Never once have I scanned Aaton footage that sharp and I've scanned A LOT of Aaton footage from various cameras. It's not even a design flaw, it's simply how the cameras were engineered. JP went with a simpler stable process and it works great. But for ultimate sharpness, you need a well calibrated SR3 or 416 with some super sharp lenses.

Super 16 resolves AT BEST around 2.5k, so I don't think a higher res scan would offer much. Plus, to get that sharp of an image, would probably require a better setup than mine for testing. Aaton's are not the sharpest cameras, as they have a lot more film float than the Arri counterparts. I was only comparing what I had at my disposal. A proper test would probably use a 416 and Zeiss primes, things I don't have access to unfortunately.

I haven't done the math, but perhaps. The nice thing about the S35 variant is that you have a S16 mode, which auto crops, so you aren't having to do that work in post.

As some of you may know, I've been one of those film-only shooters for the last decade and until recently, it had paid dividends. People really appreciated having an expert on set and sometimes I would just go out with my camera to supersize and load, but those gigs paid the bills believe it or not. As covid ravaged our industry, it became apparent producers had less money for such luxuries as film and the film-only workflows dried up, so I started blowing money on my own productions to keep me creatively active. This of course, has led to a gross amount of money being spent on stock and processing (we scan ourselves) which until recently, hasn't been that big of a deal. However, as the pricing of film is due to increase shortly, along with discounts drying up for nearly everyone, I'm approaching a precipice I always knew as coming; pricing me out of my own favorite format. The solution to keeping busy is of course is simple; shoot digital. Now, one could argue that buying something basic like a C70 and using stills lenses, may have been a win, but honestly I wanted a shoulder mount camera because I do mostly documentary work and I like the feeling and workflow of a heavier shoulder mounted camera. Plus I wanted old school ENG controls, which is what I'm use to. Having auditioned the FX6 and FX9, plus shot with the FS7, F5, F55 multiple times on paid gigs, I failed to find the allure and the cost to buy new lenses would have priced me out. The competition from Canon, also struggled and even though I felt the Canon color science was superior when I had used the C300MKII and C500 to Sony, I didn't much care for their workflow or camera design either. This is something I'll be using quite a bit and I wanted it to be dead simple to navigate the menus and of course, be something that works on my shoulder. The other caveat was not wanting to buy all new lenses, which is a big problem when you only have a few EF and S16mm lenses. So the choice was to spend $15k (camera and lenses) on something that would be probably outdated in a few years and not work with my S16mm lenses OR try to keep researching for something that may be outside of the wheelhouse for most people, but would allow me to work with those S16mm lenses. When I saw the original Blackmagic 12k come out, I was impressed with it immediately, especially in full imager mode. However, I had always been curious about S16mm mode, which crops the imager quite a lot but delivers 6k of resolution, if that term can even be used on the 12k. The imager has far fewer color pixels than white pixels, thus it uses an extrapolation process to deliver color, so even though it has X amount of physical pixels, when compared to cameras with standard bayer pattern imagers, you clearly can see the 12k does not have THAT much resolution. It's a very clever process because it allows for the use of the full imager, to deliver 12k, 8k or 4k finished output raw files, something no other camera can do. This means when you want the higher resolution of 12k, you can get it, but when 8k suffices, you can drop the bandwidth quite a bit and still get an exceptional image. So with these things in mind, I bought one used for cheap and I wanted to share my initial experiences with the group, having not made a video about digital cinema cameras since the original pockets released. I would like to thank Jonathan Hornby for helping with this project, along with Hayden my partner. The two of them were very patient as we collected material and I think we have a good understanding of the cameras potential to share with everyone.

Awesome, thanks for the review! I've been waiting to see it, hopefully we'll go this weekend before the New Bev dumps their 35mm print. I wish I could see it at a big theater on film, but they evidently didn't make a lot of prints.

For what? Vistavision was a pretty much dead format outside of VFX during the time Rotavision existed. "Clint the Stranger" was in my understanding the last feature length film shot in 8 perf horizontal until The Brutalist and it came out in 1967. So what movies were shot with Rotavision if it had "solid service records" because that's quite the comment, seeing as nobody has actually seen one outside of the prototype. The list of movies that used 8 perf for VFX, is also not very long, around 65 or so and most of those, used the Mitchell or Beaumonte cameras.

A prototype doesn't count.

So happy it works well! We will have a finished version sometime out in 2025, we're just waiting for the fancy printer.

Right! I remember thanks for sparking my scatterbrain! LOL 😛 Did you get VO with the guy? He seemed like someone who may have a good voice.

Lovely film that was great! Did you see my Luthier film?

I don't think Spectra has it hooked up, no. Our partner has one, I think I've mentioned that.

I don't think they ever existed. Few friends of mine told me they were kinda vaporware sadly, the mockup was a BL. No way you could run film left to right in a BL chassis, not going to happen.

Annoying sound is probably the motor trying to turn the movement, but it can't. EL's evidently are a nightmare to work on, not sure why. I work on the older Bolex wind up cameras and they're a PITA for sure, but nothing a tech can't conquer.

8P VistaVision

Shot on film and 70mm prints too! A lot of it was shot with vista vision cameras too, not all tho.

There is one available for rent if you want it. My friend Ben owns it. These new IMAX cameras are 15P and not dead quiet, according to inside sources. They are just A LOT quieter than the older cameras.

Those LUT's are for finishing, not for grading. You don't apply them to the source material. They are only a "look" for a finished product. It's not a LOG image. LOG images are encoded and decoded. This image is not encoded OR decoded. You have to build the look yourself using the node color. Again, I build the look using the color wheels; lift, gamma, gain and of course, saturation. If you work the wheels, you can get the look your after with a single node and simply refine with a 2nd. The offset wheel, isn't really used for anything but correcting issues with single channels of color. I rarely touch it for anything unless I'm restoring heavily damaged film and need a way to change the gain on a single channel. If you're using the offset tool for grading, then that could be part of your problem as well.

Well, the film scan off the machine, isn't going to have a look applied, it should be pretty flat. Are you applying a look initially or grading it directly off the scanner? My process is to create a balanced node first, get the RGB values right on the nose for luminance using the color wheels (lift, gamma, gain). Then I'll start by working the image to a desired look in the subsequent nodes, mostly using the custom curves and eventually the color warper tool. What tool are you using to increase exposure? Are you checking your scopes? If you are working in the wrong color space or have a LUT applied, you could be pushing the levels in the wrong direction.

Oh interesting. I thought the punch was synched frame to frame to the picture not accounting for the offset due to the different printable formats. So you're saying they make the punch mark with the added frame buffer between image and sound head?

Right, it's combined after the fact unless you use something like a Cinevator, which records direct to print stock, that CAN record soundtrack at the same time. I think it's the only device that can however. Answer print is a generic term for creating a print off a set of originals. Panel printers are really cool. They have multiple incoming rolls of film, which are contact printed to original stock. They aren't necessarily setup for color grading, they're just for one light printing. The stock runs through two different print heads on some of them, where the picture head is the same distance from the sound head as the projectors are. Most of the modern lower-cost scanners are area scanners. Higher shutter speeds these days and as you said, more light, can do multiple captures and combined them to create even an HDR image in a single pass. Since they align the perforations (frame) later, they can take as many images as they want, as long as it's within the imagers range. You actually don't even need that much light with modern digital imagers. Our basic Film Fabriek scanner, works similarly and the imager is very good, ultra low noise floor. Scanity and Arriscan both use monochrome imagers (non-color) and create the color by flashing individual color lights (RGB-I) at the imager and then the hardware/software turns those black and white registries into color, similar to how YCM separations work. So no, the lights flash different colors. For HDR, it would flash R+B+G, R+B+G and then an infrared pass, which helps mask out the dirt/dust. The Arriscan however, is slow compared to a ScanStation and even Scanity. So if your customers aren't paying $1.50 a foot, you need something faster like a ScanStation, which does a very good job.

Eventually it'll do fine, it needs a 2nd life on home video.

What you have setup will probably work. I honestly re-time every shot anyway, there is no magic with film scanners. Just because it's in a Cineon log file, doesn't mean the manipulation abilities of Resolve changes dramatically if you work in that color space. I have worked with Cineon in standard Rec709 or Rec 2020 space and it's never been a problem. It only really bakes in the color on export anyway. So internally inside Resolve it should be fine. The reason they have Cineon workflows, is for finish grading consistency across multiple shows. If you're just doing one show and one edit, doesn't matter.

I mean, there are thousands of guides on how to shoot on film. I myself have an entire YouTube channel dedicated to it. There are tricks to the trade for sure, but outside of standard lens cleaning tools and perhaps some wooden sticks and pointed Qtips to make sure any build up emulsion is off the gate, there really isn't much you need that's specialized in an AC kit. You aren't installing a video assist onto a camera, that doesn't happen. All the same tools work across the board. Most rental film cameras have HD tap's too, so you're just using the standard wireless transmitter. When you have an SD (composite) tap, you will need to adapt to HD, but if you're renting, that would already be done. Most of the commercial cameras, even use the same 3 pin and 2 pin Arri power connectors, making it easy to adapt from an Alexa kit to an Arri film camera, which is the most widely used camera system for motion picture. The real differences come into play with just learning each camera system, which isn't really related to what you bring on set. Every system is different, from the Aaton coaxial quick change mag, to the 1000ft Panavision system that requires threading the camera. Learning the systems requires hands on work, it's not something you can just learn by watching a video. To learn this stuff is not like learning digital, it's all muscle memory and because so much happens in a darkroom, you have to know your shit. As a DP however, I don't think it's a lot different than shooting digital, few little things ya gotta think about, but for an AC, it's very different. You really need to know more and it's challenging to learn due to the physical nature of it. I tell people, you need to really work at a rental house that does film cameras and get to know them inside and out, it would help a lot.