Colin Malone

The major difference I think is film grain is usually black where as digital noise is usually white. But both show up most in the blacks, so digital noise being white in the blacks seems to take away from the blacks significantly. While film grain is like texture, much akin to painting impasto. Digital noise and even the quality of old VHS tapes and my mis-calibrated TV all have a certain general resonance if you want to call it emotional, psychological, or cultural, that you can invoke. Occasionally I get nostalgic for bad video... like David Lynch's Inland Empire.

I'm not replying for the sake of telling people themselves as I didn't address them. It's to not propagate misinformation for anyone that might be doing research, like myself.

Hey Karl thanks for the responses. Actually cross processing reversal in negative doesn't usually cost anymore from my limited experience at Colorlab in Rockeville Maryland. You pay a $50 fee for stabilization...if you want it. I am awaiting quotes from Technicolor and Deluxe on ENR and ACE processing. Those are my missing variables so far. And am unsure where you got those quotes on processing in general, because I was under the impression that 35mm was not significantly more expensive to process per foot than 16, but rather it was the fact that 35mm is over twice the length as 16 for the same amount of time. It also is not double the price to push in my experience. http://www.colorlab.com/prices/pricelist.html#cncp This is all very interesting. I didn't know they'd have to dump the chemicals and that they never usually dump the chemicals. Yes yes the price thing. This is why I am testing still images, so I am still wondering if there is a still photo lab that does an equivalent partial silver retention to ENR or ACE? I understand the concerns. However I enjoy digging holes for myself to get out of.

I believe it was one man named Ernesto Novelli Rimo http://www.theasc.com/magazine/nov98/soupdujour/pg2.htm

Yes, sorry about the name. I didn't find out about the rule until I had already changed my name twice within a 6 month span. So, now I actually have to wait until April 5th to keep it real. Unless an admin can enable it. Yes Three Kings looks sort of like off video but with thick blacks, and it is the most lauded and referenced touchstone for cross processing. However I can't ignore a film like U-Turn shot by Robert Richardson, or even Domino shot by Dan Mindel. I obviously don't think cross processing is a waste of time-that's like saying to a painter that a certain palette is a waste of time. It could only really be a waste if one were to demonstrate that the process could not achieve certain ends that were intended. The test you linked to is spectacular in some regards. It the type of test I am looking for, and learning to read at the same time. But the control stocks 5277 and 98 haven't been available since I've begun cinematography. And also, I have never actually printed film to use printer lights but rather have had almost exclusive experience with transferring s16 with the Spirit 2k. Is the ability to "pump more light" during the transfer comparable then to "printing-down?" (The real question here is, do they use the same variables?)

I've used and done something fairly similar. $40 at a hardware store can net you one of those hand held bug foggers that takes propane to fuel and juice to kill the bugs. Where you would put the bug juice we rather put mineral oil. Turn it on. Let it heat up. Bam! Industrial Handheld portable fogger for under $50. Of course after playing around with it for about an hour the oil instead of turning into fog, turned into fire and became a fairly controlled flame thrower. Then the end melted and the thing stopped working. I am not advising that you do this. I am sharing experience. Flame throwers are dangerous, the propane tank might have exploded had we kept playing. This is all pending on the fact that your exterior environment is still enough to allow for the fog to dissipate into a haze. Wind is bad.

So anyone know how Khondji ahieved the look of My Blueberry Nights, the Wong Kar Wai film? The grain was immense and beautiful. The scenes seemed to be shot very close with telephoto lenses and available lights. But that grain and those blacks? Perhaps it was just my first time seeing a print of Khondji's work, but did he ENR this as his earlier work on Seven and Delicatessen? How did he get that grain, and is this the end of Doyle's collaboration with WKW?

First of all it is possible to skip bleach in the negative bath when cross processing reversal film right? For some reason I don't think reversal has silver to wash off of it... and yet it seems to be exposed to bleach in the E-6 process from what I understand. Please enlighten me as to if this alternative processing combo is possible or why it would not be. I am running this test. I loaded some of the film into a still camera and am looking for a lab in the Philly area to cross process the test I shot, bracketing different types of lights and shooting a range of bright colored objects, neutral colors, and flesh tones under various types of lights. Tungsten, blue flourescent, CTB'd tungsten, Mauve gelled tungsten, old green spiked subway flourescents. I need to shoot a roll in daylight and also, does anyone know a lab that would be able to process it, preferably within the Philadelphia area? I'll post the test when I get it back. By the way I am a cinematography student at Temple U in Philly and work in the area as a freelance gaffer/DP. I am very interested in doing a lot of experiments with film processing. I've shot a few short films on various stocks, and some push/pull tests. I am also currently interested in testing flashing film. I'd like to preflash some s16mm 100' loads of the vision 2 stocks 50D, 100T, 200T, and the new vision 3 250D, does anyone know how to run a flash test relatively cheap? I don't know how much to open the aperture while shooting a grey card so that isn't a very sensible test. And I don't think I can spare the money to rent a Panaflasher. Perhaps a lab would be willing to do it for me for a reasonable sum? I will also try to post these. I am also interested in doing a test of ENR and ACE processing if there are any suggestions on how exactly to do this economically... is there a still equivalent? The idea is to eventually combine this knowledge for my friend's film in late May, rather than just run with my intuition to try to find a lab to flash Vision 3 250D (what's the number?) 5%, underexpose it 2 stops, push 1 for night scenes, 2 for day, and ENR it for 35% silver retention. TEST! TEST! TEST! This website would greatly benefit the art of cinematography by collecting and organizing these types of tests for a reference catalog. It would do so because, it would help save young cinematographers if not us all the money and time we really don't have to spare on extensive and strenuous tests by putting us in the relative ballpark of how a film will look, with an ongoing dialogue about the limits of cinematography itself. This would be much more useful than the standard response of "well test it out and see for yourself. and suit it to your taste" because lets be serious, the greater expanse of aesthetic experience at our disposal, the more refined and more useful our cinematographic taste becomes, which I think is the goal.

Piggy backing: I've recently come across a very inspiring film, the 1960s Japanese horror film of the Criterion collection called Jigoku. It has a pearlescent outburst on the highlights and remarkably dark sets. I was wondering if this perhaps was shot with a Promist or Japanese equivalent? Also, was this possibly reversal film? Here's the only clip I can find... you can see what I'm talking about when the women in the white robes raise their umbrellas. The recent kung fu film Dragon Tiger Gate had some outrageous glowing highlights very similar to Jigoku. Is the Promist behind this? It is especially beautiful where the highlights glow out into the blackness, like the scene in Jigoku where the man who was run over is being wheeled on a stretcher down a hall. I find this scene to be completely astounding.

I'm not entirely opposed to halation, besides not having that rem-jet backing, would make the film a bit easier to self process. But still, is there a way to modify a movie cam to shoot photography film?

Is it possible to take a bulk load of say 100ft of bulk photography film, and use it in a 35mm movie cam? Now, my first inclination would be to check the distance between perforations in the bulk photography film. I searched but found nothing and thought this would be a good place to check. My second inclination is that if the perfs from photography film are a different distance apart than standard movie film, then how/where would I go about changing the hook in the 35mm cam? My third inclination is that of course it is possible, but has anyone tried it? My fourth concern is processing. I thought this might be a good question/idea for some advanced folk.