Alain Lumina

I'm A "producer", of the brokest, absolute most powerless sort . The idea of calling me a capitalist is unbelievably hilarious. My net worth is six figures-- in the NEGATIVE. Best of all it's student loans which are not dischargeable in bankruptcy. This might make a good movie plot, but it's my actual life-I just got out of my full-time job IN A PRISON where I work in health care. I am saving up to to buy an Arri SR3 from my PRISON JOB, then I look for actors and crew to work on my projects. The idea that someone, somewhere, has money they are hiding from you while they bask in Monaco is simply not true. I have never made a dime from film, I've spent tens of thousands making microbudget stuff-- MUCH OF IT VERY LOW PAID work I've given to cast/crew. It was the best I could do. I wish I could have paid them more. They were geniuses working for $35 a day because they liked my script. Come work in the maximum security prison I work in every day if you want to see the luxurious life of a "producer". They are always hiring. This is such a cartoon, but a true one. I sometimes come home from my job and my micro-budget pleas for help from others to make films are FLAGGED on Cragislist because I am an "exploiter." I am a pro-union leftist, but what someone is saying when they say these aspiring cast/crew should demand $150 per day or so to work, and demand I pay it-- what you are saying is "Don't make a film, poor boy. You aren't good enough" You simply don't have that right. We have the constitutional right to free association. As I think Edgar Varese said, "The present day composer refuses to die."

Yes, I was looking at the digital formats you mentioned (4:4:4 etc) and on my own projects when I've added up --the number of hard drives needed to store and to back up all the raw data and edits -- The more expensive camera rentals --The fact that processed film is its own 50-75 year backup so you don't need to keep refreshing hard drives with new ones -- The fact that every few years you'll have to replace the hard drives the film is stored on for at least the next 5-10 years before they find SSDs that don't deteriorate ..unless you have time to do high ratios ( which means more camera rentals?) film isn't much if any more expensive. Most of the Cinematographers I've read interviews with ( except Deakins who says he hates grain now) seem to say they like digital as a defense for their jobs, they think that if they say they prefer film they'll be seen as uncooperative and backwards, and, the ultimate sin in Hollywood: Old. I remember one cinematographer who let it slip when they asked him about it that film as "far superior" then caught himself and backpedaled, it was pretty obvious he didn't want to get left behind when producers are making the decisions. Another thing with film is I've gotten far, far more experienced people willing to work for a given rate of pay when I'm working with film . There's a lot of very talented people -- usually older-- who see film as superior. The "upstart" is glamorized in America, but the reality is the average person with experience is better than the average person who view him/herself as an "upstart". Most upstarts just don't really know what they're doing.

I make micro-budget films, usually costing under $500. This comes at the expense of me owning a car, having health insurance, eating at restaurants and the like. Naturally, being poor means I am a socialistic leaning character that advocates fair play for the little guy. But I'm not bigger than the people who collaborate with me. Often they are students on career tracks for more well-paying professions that will be far wealthier than I ever will be. I don't even make enough money to support myself, so this "people have to be paid" thing is from another planet. If we go back to basic Enlightenment ideals, every person is free to make their own decisions, in the US constitution "freedom of association" is a pretty well established right. Now I certainly see when a Sony making billions should be pressured not to pump and dump interns, but for someone like me, it's just another way to prevent me from bootstrapping and getting to the point where I could conceivably pay people someday. It actually functions as a way to keep the big boys in control. Many professionals like the ones who post here flag my ads for collaborators on Craigslist so they're removed and insist that they and everyone should be paid. It's the "just world" hypothesis. Everyone has a fantasy there's a "producer," somewhere- someone who "has money" and is cruelly, selfishly holding onto it.

I loved my CP-16r, Bernie at super-16 made it Ultra, it was quiet, hard to thread, but he's told me not to buy another since I lost that one when storage was raided. Most important is LOOKED like a cool movie camera and impressed actresses. My understanding is CP-16's have proprietary ICs in them that can't be replaced if they die on you. Some of them are going so cheap that you can get a quiet camera for 300-400, but if it has a dead IC.....

I've gotten great service including lengthy explanations for my miniscule writer-director mind from Cinelabs in Mass. Don't know about NY. Cinelab also has high-res for 16mm also and Ultra 16MM scanning. No biz relationship, just a satisfied customer.

And don't forget the hard drives you have to buy over and over through the years as they obsolete if you want to keep your masters. Or a multi-thousand dollar tape drive. Film is its own backup.

Any info on their selling those terrible, obsolete, "old school" film cameras? I'm interested

Have you sold it?

Asking price?

I liked a lot of the images, most clips were too long by at least two times though. My fave in the two minutes I watched was they blurry scnene with a face and a ton of colors in it. Also in the opening there aren't enough faces, a lot of shots of people's bodies walking by, it's kind of alienating. I think we're wired to try to see faces, to take cues from the facial expressions we see in our environment ( my day job is psychologist) so it gave me a feeling of emptiness in the opening. I would as an experiment re-edit with 1) more [attractive] male or female faces in the beginning, the girl with the crystal ball is pretty. I don't remember seeing any guys in the first minute. Forget political correctness, making a film is 100% literally objectification and there is no way around it. Contrary to popular conception, IMO finding truly beautiful faces to shoot is NOT easy without money or some connection to the beauty industry. 2) Shorten most of the clips to 1/3 of their current length, interspersed with current longversions only when they're appropriate. 3) The woman in the store looks a little washed out, is not that attractive ( IDK she may be a neurosurgeon saint, I don't care), and you made that one of your longest clips. Why. 4) Again, the duration of this would be for someone who already just loves your work. My guess is it's intended instead to get people interested in your work-- they don't need this much. Should be less than 1/3 this long/

5D will get more cinematic images and be better in low light; for run and gun documentary or getting long speeches or events the other will be more practical

well, one big thing is it's finished! Most projects never get that far including mine!! But I'll admit I only watched a couple minutes. The focus, color and lighting seem good, it was just too slow with no tension introduced. The intro is way, way too slow, long black pauses between opening credits. You can have dramatic pauses in film, but you have to build tension first, otherwise it just seems pointless and meandering. IDK if it's my system but the faster pans look jerky. too many shots of the dollhouse in opening, there's no introduction of characters, it's just objects, so there's no drama. it just looks ponderous with the very slow pacing. Who or what are we supposed to care about in the first minute? Now if right in the first 10 seconds after the title, you showed the daughter asking the mom "Do you like my dollhouse?" and the mom backs away terrified saying "Please don't!"; I'd be curious.

dupliduplicate

Hello; I have a microbudget shoot Tues in San Dimas and want to walk in and buy some Fuji Vivid 500T 400ft 16mm on Monday in the LA area. If it's near San Dimas that's even better, but most importantly I want to know it's in stock and waiting wherever I stumble into. Anyone know if there's a Fuji retail counter in LA area, I've seen addresses but I'm not sure which is corporate etc. Thanks LONG LIVE THE ORGANIC AND NON-LINEAR ERROR!!!

if you don't have a lot of money, google earth is a powerful force multiplier

it's not as fun but since you lose so much res with ana lenses anyway I'm considering taping a piece of cardboard across the bottom part of the viewfinder. seriously.

if you're really low on money you can get contax yashica manual lenses (50 1.4; 28 2.8) add a $15 adaptor and your DOP will still think you are cool. I got a 50mm 1.4 for $300.

on looking at your sample it looks more like grain than noise as it lacks the outright "wrong" color flecks of true noise (ie green on his face). neat still smooths that, it'll look more like 35mm.

i've had the same problem, i've never been able to pay for scene to scene supervised telecine and stuff with some dark comes out noisy. my guess is since it's being scanned through a process much like when a digital video camera tries to adjust to a dark scene, it adds noise in it's struggle to find detail. i'd rather they just let scenes have more black in them but it doesn't seem to work that way since i can't afford supervised. i use neat brand noise reduction plugin or fcp, it works well and it still looks like film.

You sure are right. Hep cats get with the New Thing and it's only about 70k for an Epic with some lenses. Pocket change for that bllionaire daughter girlfriend. Only old rejects want to shoot film. You should sell it cheap if you still have it. Say, what kind is it? How much you want for it? Storage history? :rolleyes:

I've been writing makers of lens adaptors to try to get something so I can use other lenses on my CInema Products CP-16r. it's quiet and reliable, but I need a wider faster lens (Currently have a Canon 12-120) and I have had a lot of trouble finding one. I think there are Angie 5.9 1.8's w/ CP mount, but they're rare. Does anyone know someone who can make a custom adaptor, and if so, what is the best mount I can get for best price-performance lenses? thanks

Guy nears 60; eyesight softens, has made his pile, wants convenience. To me the elephant in the room is probably one of the largest feature-to-feature drops in quality by a major American cinema artist: Mulholland Drive Vs. Inland Empire. Am I speaking Greek here? Interviews with Lynch focus on the need for changing magazines and the ability to get into less interrupted dialog with the actors. MD = great-singular!, IE = mediocre. Maybe I'm cherry picking here, but as a good rant seems to remain fun ( unfortunately for my listeners) through repeated recitals--as a total bottom-of-the economic barrel guerilla, I STILL find film not only better when there is any decent light, but overall significantly CHEAPER, especially at the the bottom [my] end of the economic spectrum. Why? 1) Far higher talent level cast/crew recruited simply with the mention of film for given "wages." A official nobody from nowhere with no training, I get awesomely talented AFI grads to work with me precisely because I use film. They even pretend not to notice how dumb and inexperienced I am. And the people you get are more important than the equipment. 2) No buying PAIRS of hard drives every 4-6 years (as connector specs obsolete) to preserve your masterpiece, film is its own backup when you also have telecine you like. And it takes work or heat to destroy developed film. A hard drive can go completely at any time with no warning for no reason. Better back up A LOT. 3) Much less chance of understaffed crew ERASING a CF CARD because of disorganization. That never happened to me. Really. It didn't. 4) That 5 LB roll of processed film is HARD FOR HYPERACTIVE Directors to LOSE. 4) You get a nice camera now for 1-2k, NO CAM RENTALS of rapidly obsoleting cameras. No overhead/time waste of dealing with rental places. Now the truth is, to do the nobody from nowhere film technique, it helps a lot to have a 7D to do low-light shots. I've never even PRICED a generator truck as I know it's hopeless. But ironically, digital looks better with really low light if you can keep it below the noise horizon. It isn't so crystal F-ing clear so as to be annoying. The more people switch to glassy, soulless digital, with the two year product cycle keeping everyone on the Buyanewa treadmill, the better off nobodies like me are in our little ghetto of compatriots. Someone please post an image, ANY IMAGE FROM ANY DIGITAL PRODUCTION as beautiful as this cap from Story of A Prostitute (1965) cinematography by Nagatsuka. Just one.

Killer! As far as your lighting I thought there was great contrast, and you could really see the texture of the singer's skin and hair. An absolutely insane performer ( in a good way) and you captured the aggressive sensuality. Even with the millions of musicians out there, I think you would remember seeing this video! As far as direction I would like to have seen more of the backing musicians, the shots where the singer was interacting with them were good dramatic contrasts to the solo shots on him. I didn't notice any noise, which I guess is sort of the worst outcome when doing something like this.

I forgot who I stole this from, but I love it: "You can either make films, or make excuses." David Lynch advice: "Find a way to make the film. Find a way to make the film." Ridley Scott advice: ( Interview at AFI) "There's a lot of technical problems...There's 50,000 reasons not to make the film.. just make the film." Whatever you do, don't ask anyone. They might try to talk reason to you.