steve hyde

Well.....go for it. I'm sincerely interested to see what you come up with. I'm in the editing suite today. Here is a 3mb 2:30 minute roll that I intentionally overdeveloped in D76 for half and hour without agitation for a halation effect. This is from My Beaulieu 4008 test reel. This particualr shot was made with an Angenieux 5.9mm prime lens on a roll of 7265. D76.mov Steve

If you plan to push the film in processing you will want to shoot a larger gauge than S8. (unless you want excessive grain) My background is in still photography too. One of the first things you will learn in cinematography is that controlling light is the best way to get reliable images. Rent some lights... Steve

I use CinePost in Atlanta: www.posthouse.com for rank transfers at 135.00 USD per hour to DVcam. If your project is "super low budget" go for a super low budget transfer. Keep your EDLs organized and you can always conform your edits back to your film reels in a color correction session at some place like www.fsft.com or just work with your cheap rank transfer and call it good. Your extra money might be better spent on your next project. If your feature gets picked up the distributor will likely pay for the high-end post production. Steve

Dominic, This is fun stuff! A very rhythmic editing style and clever effects. It reminds me of the days when music videos were interesting and imaginative. Thanks for posting it.. I'm sure the Super 8 fanatics over at www.filmshooting.com would enjoy seeing this too.... Steve

...yes, I have just started doing this with regularity. I have a LOMO tank that takes 100 ft. With a bit of practice, it becomes remarkably easy to load. I can spin two cartridges of super 8 onto the spirals in a snap now. I have used a G3 tank too and prefer the Lomo. I don't do color - just black and white "reversal" as a negative. This means I'm not bleaching and re-exposing the film in a reversal process. The results are a bit more grain, a bit more exposure latitude, white spots instead of black spots (and dirt). It's a look and it's great for film testing cameras. It is also nice to eliminate the most expensive step in the film to tape workflow. :D Steve

I saw a new (and beautiful) 35mm print of this film last night at the NWFF. http://nwfilmforum.org/ Apparently Mikheil Kalatozishvili and company began shooting the remarkable film "Soy Cuba" on location just after "the BAy of Pigs". According to IMDB, this was the director's twentieth film in a twenty one film carrer that began in the silent-era 1920s. The director died in 1973 and the film was not released for distribution until the 1990s. (Cineaste v22, n2 (Spring, 1996):52.) This film has some of the most remarkable cinematography I have ever seen - The entire film is shot with, what appears to be, one wide angle lens. The tracking shots are some of the most visually stunning that I have ever seen - lots of really long takes. The landscape photography was recorded on infrared film so the tabacco fields, suger cane and palm trees are all bright white. If you are in the Seattle area - check out the new print at NWFF. You can learn more about the film here: http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue09/revie...amcuba/text.htm http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/IAmCuba.html http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/23/iamcuba.html Also available from Milestone Collections on DVD: http://www.milestonefilms.com/movie.php/iamcuba/

...Thanks Mitch. I'm curious - what kind of problems were encountered with the negative cut? Steve

...I searched a bit in the archives to no avail. The film "Station Agent" from Tom McCarthy was a sleeper indy hit back in 2003. This remarkably beautiful film was shot on S16 and then DI to 35mm via "Heavy Light 3K" at Technicolor. (see interview posted below) http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/fall2003/...eat_railway.php My question: What does "Heavy Light 3K" mean?. Thanks in advance, Steve

...I suggest going to the venue before the night of your shoot and take some light meter readings. I was going to shoot a performance on 500T a while back, but shot stills instead because of insufficient light for motion picture photography. 500wt Fresnel stage lights twenty feet above the stage just don't offer enough light for a good exposure. Actually, I have some stills on line from that night: F 1.8 at 1/15th EI 400 Neopan 400 ("correct" exposure) F 1.8 at 1/60th (a couple stops under) I decided I would get mud if I shot Vision 500 wide open with my Nikon R 10 which has a shutter speed of about 1/55th. I suppose I could have shot it and then cranked up contrast at transfer, but I decided not to do that since that. Have you seen: "The White Stripes Under BlackPool Lights" From Dick Carruthers and Third Man Films. It's a Super 8 color negative thing.... Steve

...well it sounds like Alex has never actually been to Alaska. :blink: Shooting at Northen latitudes in summer is amazing. I have done quite a bit of outdoor photography in Alaska . Snowboarding decents at two-oClock in the morning and all of that. I agree it is a fantastic place to shoot. Perhaps you guys should have an architect design a daylight studio up there. How much daylight do you have now? 10am -1:00??? Here in Seattle we are seeing sun from about 7:30 to almost 5:00pm... Days are getting longer now :D Steve

I recommend "Burden of Dreams" from Les Blank: on the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo. It is now available on Criterion. I haven't seen the new xfer. Steve

...I just watched this on a television last night. This is an excellent doc. Looks just fine and the editing was truly remarkable. I wonder what the postproduction workflow looked like for this picture? Steve

...I agree. I use both of these stocks in Super 8 and 16mm. Light for one stop overexposure. Don't be afraid to overexpose these color negatives. I'm always amazed at how many people are worried about overexposing this stock. I'm still learning how to use it, but based on the tests I've already shot, I'm going to rate 7218 at EI 250 the next time I shoot it. I've been shooting 7217 at about EI 100 with good results. I suggest shooting two test rolls and light for mid aperatures and shoot at mid focal lengths if you want minimized grain. If you have a high contrast situation 7218 will give you a bit more exposure latitude, but otherwise in ideal light conditions and one stop overexposure, I bet you will find the stocks will look about the same. 7218 is often used in low light conditions and night photography so it gets a reputation for being too grainy. There is really no substitute for lighting well - but for spontaneous shooting you will find color negatives offer low contrast images, amazing color and a lot of grain. Edit: (grain applies to super 8....Super 16 has much finer grained results) Steve

Santo, How are you conducting your projection tests? What kind of projector? What tape format? Are you getting answer prints? I have to admit, I have not found an ideal projection system for videized Super 8. What kind of projection system do you suggest? Steve

That is a nice communist propaganda image! Well done! For me this is also the key issue when making small gauge format choices. The cost differences are hard to measure and it depends on what kind of *life* the filmmaker wants for the film. Santo's approach might make sense for a straight to DVD production that seeks a gritty look. If you calculate the costs based on list prices between 8 and 16 I think you will find stock and processing are about 1/3 cheaper. Saving a third is worth it for me with my student projects which will be straight to DVD. But who pays list prices for film in the industry? Steve

...well, here in Seattle I see a lot of anti-smoking propaganda. Personally I find this kind of propaganda to more effective when it is aimed at advertisers not smokers. Your spot shows a lot of young people that probably have lots of reasons to want to commit suicide. We don't get access to those reasons. I think this spot is too over the top. It's made in the same genre with the "Just Say No" campaign here in the States, which I have always found a bit insulting - both as a kid and now as an adult. In terms of content, I recommend reading Ad Busters Magazine. You will find a lot of clever content there and you might get some new ideas from it. I hope I don't sound rude by saying this, but truth is this spot isn't very imaginative. The sound and imagery are excellent though. Did you shoot this in an infinity cove? Steve

...If it is all one take under the same light conditions, wouldn't this be a relatively easy transfer for the colorist without a lot of grading? It seems like a good way to go might be using a double system workflow: Ask for a simul record to both DigiBeta and DVcam then make off-line edits from DVcam and conform to DigiBeta in the online. This way he only has to transfer once. Steve

....well all the "big" North AMerican festivals video project (for better or worse!!) Better, since most indies can't afford to print without a distribution deal so if they didn't allow video projection it would be more of a rich-kids club than it already is - and for worse, obviously, since there isn't a projection standard that producers can rely on. I imagine some projectors work better with BetaSP, while other work better with DigiBeta or HDcam. It has to be a matter of what resolution the projector can handle. I would guess distortion might occur when using a tape format that is not optimized for a particular projector. I have not found any information confirming this. I will see if I can find some information out at SMPTE. Steve

....yeah, maybe HDV is the way to go. I really don't know having no experience working in that format. Hopefully other will chime in. I'm really surprised that video projection is not more of a hot topic with grand strides being made to improve projecting technology. I have seen some decent BetaSP projections and I don't hear viewers complaining about how it looks. I have also seen MiniDV back projected HUGE with one of these things: http://www.sanyo.com/business/projectors/l...m?productID=632 It looked pretty jaggy to me, but I bet it looks decent when projected at a realistic scale. On a slightly different topic - the guys that transfer my film (FSFT) told me HDcam downconverted to DigiBeta looks worse than a standard straight to Digibeta transfer. I imagine more artifacts would be seen in a HDcam to BetaSP downconversion. Steve

....well any good liberal arts college will be a good starting point. I think it is helpful to think of filmmaking as having two components. First an intellectual component made of ideas that always, always have a political motivation. Some filmmakers want to conform to popular ideas because marketing experts have their little spread sheets that show what ideas sell and don't sell and they conform to that so that they can advance rather than ruin their filmmaking careers. This is how capitalism kills art....or as many wil surely argue, this is how capitalism advances art. You will decide for yourself. Film critic A.O. Scott just published an interesting argument on this in the New York Times yesterday. He argued that spectacularly bad films aren't being made anymore. Then he added spectacularly good films are not being made either. Instead we are seeing a lot of films made with big safety nets. Nothing outrageous, nothing courageous, just a lot more of the same samey sameness that distributors know will sell. There is a politics to filmmaking and filmmakers have to fight to get their ideas to the screen uncensored. Women filmmakers have historically been silenced before even given a chance to put their ideas on the screen. Director Lina Wurtmuller, who crewed on many Fellini films, was an exception back in the 1970 and 1980s with remarkably courageous films like "Love and Anarchy", "Swept Away" and "Seven Beauties", all are politically charged narrative films with Fellini influences that run pretty deep. (just recommending them to you) Documentary filmmaker Barbara Koppel's "Harlan County USA" is a must see for any aspiring documentary filmmaker as is Stephanie Black's more contemporary "Life and Debt." Now a documentary filmmaking rennaisannce is underway and many women are leading the way with really interesting ideas. The second component of filmmaking is all of the technical stuff that requires commitment to artistry and craft. If your ambition is to write and direct your own films you will need only a well infomed overview of the film production process and a good understanding of how the process works. This is what I would call the more vocational side of filmmaking. Course work in film production will serve this purpose as will volunteering and or interning for film productions. You will also want to develop skills in project management. Business Schools tend to have some of the best courses in this area (all universities have business schools) A director is a project manager. Perhaps an intersection between the intellectual and vocational aspects of filmmaking is in the field of Visual Communications and Visual Design. You may want to investigate course work at your universitie's Communications School. I personally think a strong back ground in Journalism serves filmmakers well. Unlike novels - filmmaking is about telling stories economically under space constraints - like screenwriting. ...I see my post is beginning to sprawl so let me sum up by suggesting this: Go get a solid liberal arts education at Columbia or Dartmouth if you are rich or just go to a Community College and read the same books if you are not. Then pursue an MFA in filmmaking or maybe a Ph.D in Communications....Just take it one year at a time and make at least one short film every year. have fun, Steve

"Like all good philosophies, the maximization of super 8's potential for narrative filmmakers as a goal can be summed up in one sentence: Super 8 is the format to choose when you really want your film to look as much as possible like it was shot on film because it accomplishes that better than any other format, but the goal is for it not to look like bad film -- which is what you get unavoidably using the traditional super 8 hobby approach to short filmmaking and the methods and means inherent in that." Santo, I think I see what you mean here, but still think this is an oversimplification. I agree that Super 16 often looks glossy and "overproduced", to borrow a term from the music biz. The problem with Super 8 is that it blows-out when blown-up. David Mullen made a good point above when he said we can get a grainier film look with 16mm by using specific shooting and developing techniques. Shooting 16mm offers more presentation options for the final cut. Personally, I think Super 8 is great for straight to DVD productions that want, as you say, a "film look". That said, Super 8 looks pretty good projected in small screening rooms if post production is carried out with care and added expense. When it comes to narrative work, I think Super 8 is a great format for small self-financed productions that aren't seeking distribution deals. If a production has ambitions to get "picked up", it is probably best to shoot 16mm or even video. That said, Super 8 cutaways, dream sequences, titles, historical retrospectives etc. can be comimentary to a mixed format production. That is how I'm seeing it. Steve

Santo, Nice of you to take the time to make this explanation. I know FSFT wants to get set up to do these hard drive transfers too. In the mean time I'm still learning the "double system workflow" that I have referenced elsewhere and have not followed through with it. Also for projects with high shooting ratios rank transfers are cheap and frame accurate making it reasonable to conform edits back to the camera original negative. Time and technology will shape these decisions. A while back we talked about sound aesthetics and Godard's "Breathless" on Filmshooting.com. Personally, I'm a fan of warm, mono, rough dub dialogue sound. (I'm not a sound expert). It sounds like your MiniDV locations sound will serve the purpose of place holding, but I wonder about using MiniDV sound in the studio. It seems like you might get warmer voice tones on a mono Nagra with the same mic.....who knows? Again thanks, Steve

Santo, I'm using an old monitor (nine years old). Maybe you have a 30" Apple cinema display ( I don't know?) Anyway, I do see a difference between these images although I have to look very carefully. For me the knife in the 4:2:2 image looks sharper. The rest of the differences are indistiguishable on my old monitor. Your workflow sounds very interesting. How does this work? You have your footage transfered to hard disk at a bitrate that is comperable to DigiBeta - then you generate proxy files for off-line editing and conform your EDL to the uncompressed files and take your hard disk to the posthouse for a DigiBeta or HD master tape? Is your online in real time? or Will you have to do a lot of rendering during the online? Steve

....neo-noir? Perdo Almodovar's "Bad Education" Steve

....this is a great link. Thanks. Very informative. Cheers, Steve