Tyler Purcell

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.

The built in tools won't work on film. You need Neat Video de-grain to actually do it properly, without the swirly video artifacts. Even the new AI "Ultra" de-noise, sucks on film. I have tried all the tools in Resolve and none of them do anything. I believe Neat Video does have a Resolve plugin that is GPU based as well, it's $179 and it'll work great for ya.

I haven't seen any difference between the 4k DPX and 4k Pro Res 4444 files, zero. Maybe at lower resolutions perhaps, but not at 4k.

DRS Nova has an excellent frame stabilizer, I would consider that the industry standard. I'm not happy with the Phoenix tool and Resolve can do it, but you need a backlit (offset color) perforation. It's also slow.

Yea, 17.5 is probably fine for S16. I don't have a C mount S16 camera to test mine, but that sounds about right.

Not at 12,5mm.

No a good LCD won't strobe. You can test it with your still camera in video mode, set to the same settings as the film camera to double check.

I wasn't referring to removing grain, I was referring to removing dust/dirt.

Oh BMD are for sure sticking that imager into the Pyxis in the near future. No way did they think using the old 6k imager with horrible refresh, would work long-term. They need that RGBW imager to control the BRAW workflow properly, it's just, it needs to be 12k because the actual theoretical res is only 4k or so.

Ah got ya, so the idea is to just use that imager in a smaller body. I heard they were doing a new LF camera, but it wasn't clear if it was going to be 5 perf 65mm LF or standard FF LF. It makes sense to use the older imager in the 5 perf 65mm aspect for sure. I wonder if they'll simply make a new imager for a FF LF version. I think what's missing in their lineup is a high-res camera, something to compete with the Venice 2, which is probably the first camera that's given the Alexa a run for it's money.

Dust minimization is easy during the scan, with the proper lamp source and/or mix of IR pass like the Arriscan. Other solutions like a wet gate, can also help reduce dust and scratches before the scan. Once you have a good scan, you can then use software tools like Phoenix and DRS Nova, which are both pretty powerful tools. MTI (DRS Nova) is coming out with AI frame regeneration tools, which will fill in for damaged or missing frames automatically. It also has an automated scratch/dirt removing tool. I frankly like Nova over Phoenix, but their license is $1499/month, so you need to do a lot of restoration for it to be worthwhile. Phoenix is what I've been using for the last 3 years and it's decent, not perfect. It's extremely slow due it being CPU based not GPU based. But it's $349/month, so ya just deal with the speed issues. There are other newer tools which are going to be coming out shortly, using an AI workflow. I'm honestly shocked we haven't seen more of them, as film restoration could be easily done with AI. Interpreting what's being seen and then coming up with a fix for the issues, is basically the core functionality of AI to begin with. I just don't think the money is there for a lower-cost tool right now, but hopefully in the future, we will see more automated tools come to the forefront.

Yea of course Arri is going to do LF version of their new 35. I also was told they want to get into the mid-tier market with a camera, but who knows what that means. They for sure will not undercut what they currently make, so it doesn't make any sense to make a lower end product. If you do the math, an LF version of the 35 could be 8k, but I think they'll shoot for 6k ish.

Digital source is recorded to either camera negative (CRT recorder) or Internegative which is more popular for 35mm (laser recorder). There are some machines like the Cinevator which use a DLP projector, they record directly onto print stock. There isn't a laser recorder made for large format, so you can see how that can be confusing. A standard 35mm movie, would record using an Arri Laser most of the time, which gives an internegative which would be used to go directly to print stock with. The soundtrack is added during this process. So IN>Print. Sound is recorded out using a similar method, tho the machines uses use a slightly different technology. The soundtrack would be added to the finished print as it was being made.

Yea shoot it at 25, if it's a modern screen with high refresh, it should be fine.

I have one, it does not cover S16 at the wide end, no. Gotta zoom in to around 30mm or so.

Do not buy from BH, they just make up pricing.