George Ebersole

I've told this story before, but your anecdote brings up a sore point with me; I was working an INTEL shoot years back for a woman who ran her own production company, and was essentially a "one-man-show" deal; she did everything, and only hired people when she absolutely needed to. She shall remain nameless. We were shooting something about a car-pool service Intel was offering its employees, and she wanted shots of traffic on southbound 101. So, come 4:30 PM we get on 101, and between 92 and San Jose we're hitting all kinds of traffic jams. But, even when the traffic lets up and goes normal speed, get this, she insisted that I do 25mph in the fast lane. Not a chance. sorry. No. Not going to happen. And for anyone who knows bay area traffic, you know that 75 is the average for fast lane. And, on top of that, get this, she told me she didn't care if we were in danger. We parted ways after another shoot. Again, no names mentioned, but I would never work for her again. She was a "do things my way no matter what" kind of director. And she got a lot of high profile and high paying clients because of social connections, not really because she was particularly good ... she was so-so in terms of skill and artistic savvy. But she actually didn't have a lot of knowledge on gripology, sound, and even though she called herself a video technician, she couldn't tear off a camera cover on a video camera and trouble shoot a problem. So yea, those people are out there, and at all levels of success.

Yeah, when I first entered all those years ago I made it a point to learn everything I could about everything. I never did learn how to load a magazine, nor too much about sound, but it just seemed to me then (and now) that the more you know the better shape you're in to trouble shoot and overcome problems, and also appreciate everyne else's job. It just seems like you'd know better how to .... what's the term ... "gauge" a shot. Not neccesarily compose it, but just have a kind of idea of how it could be best achieved. Again, many thanks for the replies. Very much appreciated.

How much knowledge about lights and gaffing in general should a DP have? Does he need to know anything at all other than what he wants visually? I'm kind of curious here, because I've never seen a DP have any significant knowledge of gripology or gaffing, but it seems like they'd benefit from it.

*snippage* I think that's probably it. The few 16mm films I've seen in theatres, including a screening room at a studio I used to work at, look very vibrant, but just had a sliver less detail than 35mm rushes I used to see. Both were raw footage, but I don't recall 16mm having as much grain as I've seen not only on my blurays, but on YouTube uploads. Replies are much appreciated.

Yeah, but here's the thing that gets me, and that is a lot of footage I've seen in years past doesn't have a lot of grain to it. It has less visual information because it's 16mm, but it doesn't look grainy like today's Super-16. Is that my imagination, or is there some real reason for that?

Since you're doing it for a game it does sound like atmospheric music for a town. It sounds like there's a little "Everquest" influence there.

I have a 2C and it makes a racket. It's in storage right now. I really like the look of super-16, but it feels like it gets grainy for low light or night shots.

Well, I guess. I didn't think the first one was that good in the first place. Kind of interesting to watch. I didn't feel ripped off by paying a ticket to see it. But it wasn't the comic masterpiece that a lot of males were touting it as being. Whatever.

Another one; the new "Ghostbusters" with the all female cast. I really liked that movie, but it seems like it got a lot of negative press. A friend of mine made the ultimate comment about the first film, and that was "It's not that funny." The first film rode on the ego Bill Murry injected into his character, who was a sexist sleaze and fraudster criminal who turned hero in the end. I thought the new one was just as technically competent, a little better by the benefit that there's better camera technology today, but the original also, for a "ghost film" was not scary. The new one had some actual scary moments in it. I'm not a big civil rights "SJW" for anyone in particular, but it does strike me that a lot of the negativity against the newer film came from sexist and even racist jerks of all stripes simply because the cast was female. I really don't get that. What if they were all ... black ... or all ... I dont' know ... what if they were all Eskimos or all .... Brazilian Amazon tribesmen? What if they were all Irish, or Spanish, or Finnish? Italian? Japanese? What if they were all multi-ethnic? Martians? Just more venting. I should probably grab some food and get in a better mood.

"RAN" One of my all time favorite films because of the massive artistry and static film making style. But it's not a movie for "the masses". I've reccomended it to several people, and where they think it's a very impressive film, I've only ever had one or two people come back to me and say they thought it was a fantastic movie in terms of them actually liking it as as movie going experience. One woman, a psychologist, who liked Shakespeare's "King Lear", never got back to me on whether she liked the film or not. She's into female psychology and all the stuff that happens in King Lear (for those not in the know, it's about a king dividing his kingdom among his three daughters, and how he gets the shaft). Ran is the same thing, but uses samurai sons to tell the same story. And where the film has reached legendary status, it's like most people have never heard of it, and it's certainly not a film that everyday 9 to 5 people. Just had to vent on that.

See my follow up post.

I stand corrected.

I believe YouTube offers editing tools, though I've never used them. Given than they show 1080p streams, I would assume that you could whatever you want without worrying about losing data from editing online.

Thanks Tyler. That's interesting about the history of super-16. I had no idea. I was under the impression that a lot of commercials were shot on 16 pre mid 80s. Looking at a lot of the commercials from the 70s, to my eyes at least, it seems like a lot of them were shot on regular 16. Very interesting. Thanks for the run down and history lesson. I truly did not know this.

But don't you have to do a lot of color correcting with short ends because of the different chemical mixes in the emulsion? At least I've been told that one of the reasons that you buy a batch of film for a project is that the film itself has a certain image consitancy, and that if you mix batches, even the same type, that the image varies. Not to get too off topic, but I thought part of the reason S16 was created was to give DPs and directors a good inexpensive film stock that had consistant image.

Curious though, was it the client that wanted you to shoot on 16?

Okay, that's right. I misunderstood. My bad.

I'm sorry to hear that about Super-16. When the Sharpe series first aired the image quality was limited by SD TVs. But seeing it now on bluray is like seeing the series for the first time all over again. It's that good. All the scenes now really stand out. There is a bit of grain, but the image quality compared to previous 16mm stock really pushes it back. Although in some shots, noticeably night shots, there is a bit of artifacting going on. Still, the amount of information your eyes and brain see is really amazing. Coaxial magazines; don't most modern Arriflex cameras use coaxial mags? Sorry for the stupid question, but I'm not a DP.

Drugs were another issue I had with LA crews who cruised through the bay area. I shake my head at it. Back to smoking; we had an egotistical client renting our stage; glasses, long gouti, dirty blonde poney tail, glasses, plaid shirt, jeans, who came in and smoked. And my senior, the facilities manager told him there was no smoking on the stage (some issue with nicotene getting into the ceiling baffling), and said client all but shouted "That's a problem, Howard!" (Howard being my boss), and stormed off the stage as the grips and gaffer were unloading their equipment for the day's shoot. My boss even explained to him why, and didn't say that he couldn't smoke outside the stage, just not in the stage because it was a small facility with ventilation issues. Whatever though.

So it's the lack of actual cameras that prevent more producers from going Super-16? Is that right, or am I misinterpreting the replies here?

I guess my real question is, is anybody shooting on S-16? I mean are there any major productions using it? Mark; there appears to be more image from the original DVD and broadcast versions as per Brian's anecdote. It really looks great.

Yeah, it looks like there's more image than when I first saw it, and from my old BFS DVDs. Truly, this series looks stunning in bluray. You can actually see the fabric textures, leaves and blades of grass and so forth. Detail on skin, strands of hair, it looks "sharp" (pun intended), and the colors are really vibrant, where with the old BFS set they look flat and the red bleeds. I seem to recall Lucas shot his Young Indiana Jones' Chronicles on Super-16. I wonder if that'll get reissued in bluray.

I did not know that about "Gone with the Wind". Yeah, that film was shot standard ratio. I wonder why they changed it. The Sharpe series is indeed widescreen. When I saw it way back when the first two or three films in the series had very minor letterboxing. Then after that, the rest were standard 4:3 TV ratio, as well as subsequent reairings, including the first three films. To me that was just strange. But the image quality is really superb. I'm just baffled why more shows didn't shoot super-16 as a cost saving measure.

I recently got my set of "Sharpe's Rifles" on bluray, and the detail is incredible. When I first saw this series back in the 1990s on PBS the series looked like it was shot on standard 16mm and transferred to 3/4" tape for broadcast. The series is still good, but again the image looked like your standard BBC "shoot exteriors on 16mm film" production from the 1980s and before. Checking the IMDB website the technical specs say the show was shot on super-16. I checked because the image quality was outstanding, so much that I thought it had actually been shot on 35. So, given what I've recently seen, I'm curious why more shows weren't shot on super-16 as a cost saving measure. Does anyone have any insight?

Don't like smokeing. I think it's a disgusting habit, and don't understand why anyone picks it up in the first place. Way back when there was a proposition to ban smoking in San Francisco bars, and the prosmokers rented one of our stages. The place stank to high heaven with nicotene. When I was fresh out of high school and in junior college I worked at an importer, and the guy who ran the place, a former colonel I think, smoked all the time. The whole building reeked of his nicotene. It had to be a health hazard. Now, having said all that, it is a habit that, if exercised with some respect and restraint, shouldn't bother too many people if said smoker keeps their distance. But, as a non smoker, I can smell cigarette smoke from yards away, and I'm glad smoking as restricted and that the habit seems to be dying a slow death. If you smell of smoke, that's one thing, if you smoke around me, that's another.