Alain Lumina

I've been watching a few Technicolor films, and I'm aware that, mechanically speaking, they used a three-strip system. But what I've noticed color-wise is something really -- well, I don't know what it is, but the blues look really different from other films I've seen. Could anyone explain what is different about technicolor blues, besides the fact that it was three strip? Are they more saturated? Are they really Blue-Green instead of a different blue. It's really haunting, I'm not trained enough to understand what's different. Here's a screen cap of Gene Tierney in Leave Her To Heaven, the upper left of the frame has a lot of those blues. http://www.magicalrealismfilms.com/tc.jpg Thanks a lot for any ideas, especially how to try to fake the look, as I don't think I'll be shooting any three-strip soon! A.L.

Film looks better for most things, but also even to my inexperienced eye one big thing is it doesn't crap out on motion like cheap digital does. I have 16mm film (CP-16R) and a Canon 7D -- both cams cost about 1.5K now; but the Canon looks way worse on most motion. And as far as convenience and cost goes, I don't think it's as one-sided as people think. With film, you have to lose a pretty substantial object (the processed film) to be SOL for real. With digital, hit ERASE once too often..... However, on the last day of a shoot 20 min after sunset, squeezing in scenes, the 7D with a Zeiss 1.4 lens that only cost me $250 used got the job done. I don't know enough about cinematography to know if we could have gotten away with film there, but 1.4 lenses seem a lot more expensive. However, the biggest difference I've seen as a nobody from nowhere just deciding to make films with no connections and no training, is that incredibly talented, experienced people are inexplicably willing to come on board with someone so green, precisely because they know I'm using film. I think they believe it means I'm not a total dolt. One DP who worked with Fred Astaire was just blowing me away with stories; and it was like getting essentially free tutoring from someone far beyond me, someone it would take years for me to meet clawing my up through the computer cam world. One really funny thing is a lot of these talented people contact me because I'm using film, but then try to convince me to use digital because I don't have enough money. But when both cams are sitting there, guess which one they pick up! And I don't know why they think I don't have any money. I haven't gotten an eviction notice yet from my tiny studio apartment, and my 30 year old little Toyota runs fine. I should buy a chair or something for my apartment

From micro-budget POV, I do think the faster cams are having an effect, especially for the kind of atmospheric things in remote locations I like to do. With a backpack filled with a 7D, a few modern, small, high powered flashlights, I can cut costs in so many ways that the cumulative effect is huge, and makes projects previously impossible doable. Below was done with available light when it was almost dark-- Canon 7D with Zeiss 50mm 1.4 http://www.magicalrealismfilms.com/BruceSMann.jpg The DP was David Mallin who has a MFA from AFI; but the equipment cost very little relatively speaking. If I want to do a campsite scene, for instance-- I just wait 'til magic hour, highlight actors with the flashlights, and hit it. Don't even need the flashlights until it gets almost pitch black, I shot with a Canon w/ Zeiss 50 1.4 until it was deep dusk no problem. No, it's not going to look like David Mullen, ASC lit it; but my scripts are better than anything with Megan Fox in it. And my cost is literally 100x - 500x less. I just shot a 1/2 hour TV pilot in Palm Springs, with a retro pool house location, 2 1960's cars, and wonderful desert scenery in the mountains above for about 4-5 thousand, and about half ( house location stuff) was done on 16mm with a painful 3-1. And all actors and crew got paid, lousy pay I admit, but there's no "investors", just me and my pathetic paycheck hoarded for a few months. It's not just the camera and the lighting-- 1) Less Equipment->Less Costly accesories->Less Crew->Less Vehicles->Less law enforcement problems->vastly expanded guerilla locations... MEANING-- I can shoot more episodes of my little TV show with high fidelity. The [hardware] cost of producing music approached zero a decade ago, the same thing is happening now to cinematics. It becomes more and more a social thing, success is determined who can recruit collaborators with their scripts or other attractors. Again, this is for people with no connections functioning totally outside of studios or even independent investor level. This means now one person with a job can put together a legitimate feature.

I recently saw some fascinating B+W stills shot in Russian city in very low light at night, the faces were sort of smeared to the sides, someone told me they were shot in film with very slow shutter speeds. That made me think of a desert magic hour scene I want to do where a ghost approaches from a long distance, at first unrecognizable, until it nears and it seen to be the dead wife of the protagonist. With a CP-16R and a "bow-tie" rotating shutter, I can reduce the shutter speed to I think 12 or 16 FPs, does this mean that, at , say, 12 FPS the shutter is open twice as long as at 24 FPS? And maybe I can get that intentional smearing like very old movies. And if the shutter speed is twice as long and I use 500T, could somebody offer a ballpark meter reading F stop which with a 2.2 lens which would be the farthest I could push it? A reading of 1.2? 0.9? Understand I'm looking for an extreme effect here, don't care if it's grainy as hell... I'm more thinking of how far can I push it and still get any image at all that's recognizable. And what about the faster B+W stock from Kodak, which I think is 200? Could it maintain recognizability of objects in the frame as well as 500T? Analog degrades gracefully. All ideas welcome, thanks!

Thanks a lot, some of the most obvious things I hadn't even thought of, like what color is the background-- I was thinking of lights and controls.. (Doh!!!!)

Just for the sake of completeness, I'll volunteer the experience of someone who is under the bottom of the totem pole in micro-budget land-- I'm directing out of pure necessity-- I started writing screenplays simply to see if I could do it, finished some people liked, and was damned if some suit with a three million dollar house in Hollywood was going to decide if my movie got made. He is the exact person who should not. It was a question of what need I do next to make this happen no matter what. That requires the kind of arrogance that one can create a unique, compelling world in ten thousand words. Hitchcock said 80% of his job was casting. He also deliberately helped torpedo the career of Tippi Hedren when she wouldn't put out. Offering a professional opinion ( I finance microbudget with my psychologist income) it's a strange mind that believes it deserves to be allowed to persecute the innocent. For further reference, see Michael Douglass's interview on youtube in which he describes how during the filming of Wall Street Oliver Stone deliberately called his competence as an actor in question again and again during the making of the film, until Douglass finally confronted him and demanded he stop. It's so bizarre. But Wall Steet lives. Maybe you really need a little bit of an emperor complex.

Hello, I am shooting a very abstract fantasy pic. 16mm , stock undecided. It will be a very simple set, just two people talking, one of whom is dying from a knife wound after a battle. I want to have 40-85% of the frame completely black throughout the short film. Sometimes I'd like to see just the waist up of one of the characters, sometimes just one face floating in the darkness with just some small colored light/shapes behind to provide dimension without identifiable background. I'd like to have some lit things in the frame, but not have it really clear what they are, because the audience really has to be the set decorators in the film with their imaginations. I have a Midget fresnel 200 watt, a junior solarspot 2k, some portable spotlights ( non-professional) . I may buy some more Mole Midgets as they are cheap and seem versatile. HMI's are beyond my budget. Would snoots be key here? I'd like to request: 1) Film stock rec's ( 200T? 500T) 2) How to best shape the light for the "surrounding darkness" look. 2) In general, is it better to light it more ad stop the lens down, or to be economical with the light and leave lens open? Here's an extreme example, a face almost completely in darkness. http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1067/134302..._adbf445c50.jpg

HI, I lucked onto some pro Tifen filters-- low contrast 4.5 , soften net, for nearly free, and they are in a 138mm round format with no threads. I have a CP-16R film cam with a Canon zoom lens with 72mm threads, assume I'll have to buy some kind of filter holder or matte box ( I can't afford $1500 matteboxes I'm afraid) to hold the filters. Any ideas? Gafffer's tape is fun but doesn't look so good. Thanks!

I have a 7D and have been struggling with price/performance in buying lenses. Here are some things I found out, I am not a seasoned "pro" so I may be wrong somewhere here. 1) You can buy cheap pentax manual lens to canon EOS mount adapters 2) You can buy all sorts of cool manual focus, all-metal super Takumar and Pentax SMC lenses for cheap, Takumars are I think 42mm screw mount, you can get adapters for those too. I got a Pentax 50mm 1.4 for about $90. 3) It's hard to get cheap wide, and for shots in cars and interiors, it makes things really hard without them 4) However, I went too far for my price range when I got the canon 10-22 super wide for $700. It is sort of a specialty lens and I cannot afford that much on that. When I'm not shooting a landscape, I keep having to swap it out. So in short I think you DO need something like a 16-17-18 for all around shooting- 24 or 28 are NOT enough! But you don't really need a 10-11 or similar unless you are doing realestate pictures of interiors. 5) Canon L lenses get me hot and are all metal but DON'T have image stabilization, which for handheld helps I think. 6) If you're operating guerilla and/or run and gun, changing lenses while your $1600 camera's sensor sort of sits naked out in the breeze is REAL nervewracking. and you have to worry about BOTH lenses while you're at it also. 7) THis makes me long for a nice all-in-one lens if I can do it; like an 17-55, which could do a lot of interior, outdoor and even portrait style I think. There is an zoom L lens that's F4 throughout, but is that enough to get blurred background? 8) What I don't know about is how noticeable, and in what specific aspects, does something like a 35 1.4L canon exceed the performance of the the above zoom a the same distance-- contrast, sharpness? Sample Shots? 9) I would ask the aggregate user base here and I think this is not hijacking-- (a) What is the BEST beauty lens for facial closeups (B) best REASONABLE (<$600) lens for facial closeups? Thanks

I'm getting set to do a pilot presentation ( a pilot to get more funding to do a more legit pilot production. ) 16mm C0-16r ; sound design recorder dual system. I'm figuring on using 50D for full daylight, maybe 250d or 500T with filter for later, more amber sunlight and then 500T ? magic hour. There are three lighting situations I'd like to request advice and ideas for: 1) Bright late afternoon- ( 50d) beautiful girl in pool -- A pretty girl swims in pool flirting with her boyfriend standing at the edge. I know in the full afternoon, I will have trouble getting interesting lighting because te sun will be real bright. I'm trying to think of ideas for scrims and some kind of overhead gobos to turn the sun in to a patter. 2) more indirect ilghts-- ( Maybe 250d) how do I get blacks in there while keeping their faces lit-- reflectors? I hace some small Mole fresnels. 3) Magic hour 250D or 500T? They're making out on a chaise lounge now. I need some dramatic contrasty light for overlit situation Thanks for ideas.

I am absolutely not being sarcastic, just being effusive. My apologies for not specifying whom I was thanking for what-- this did made the post look possibly sarcastic. When someone with hard won, stressful professional experience take 10-20 minutes to think though someone's question and write out basically free custom professional consulting, I think that is a really kind thing, and further has signiicant financial value. For instance, if I know now not to wait too long to process film, it could save me a blown weekend shoot, 2 months of planning, the goodwill of the actors, and the $1000 it costs me to do a weekend microbudget shoot, which is 2 months' of disposable pay for sitting in a cubicle. And as far as the debate about cold storage, it benefits me to hear all the experienced opinions, you can kind of extract a hybrid best-practices from that, because often one person thinks of things the other hadn't, for instance the person that brought up _repeatedly_ going in and out of the freezer-- it's good someone pointed that particular case out. Thanks again for all input.

thanks, helped me to confirm the reality no one was going to make things easy for me to get a geared head!

micro-budget 16mm guy here, I love the smooth look of geared head shots, and I weighed my CP-16r at about 18lbs. Bogen 3263 geared heads rated at 22 lbs, have little handles sticking that look similarly placed as the handles on big-time, $3000 plus heads built for 100 lb cams, but I suspect the Bogen heads are more intended for larger format still cameras; to move them between still shots. Still, as long as there's no play in the device, would it be possible to use this for those cool slow pans you can get with a pro cine gear head? Thanks-

Thanks so much for taking the time to write such a detailed response as well as the important points mentioned by all, this really helps me with keeping track of everything.

This looks nice and sturdy as well as SIMPLE. But from my limited knowledge this is mostly for translport between shots, it would only work for moving shots in very smooth floors, right? What about poured concrete? Can you tell where you bought the wheels? You just drilled through the cross pieces and bolted the wheels to the bottom of them? Those struts that are pointed up and then seem to rotate down, were they part of tripod original design or did you add them? Thanks!

Vertigo! Vertogo! I can't stands it! Someone already did a 4k frame by frame restoration, so all they have to do is "mixdown" ( dunno right term) to do BR.

Hello, I am a screenwriter who ventures into ultra-low-budget shooting of my scripts (I scrape up a few hundred day-job dollars a month for film) I have a Cinema Products (CP) CP-16R Ultra-16 camera with (2) 400-ft mags. I'm in Sacramento California, and shoot in San Francisco, Sac, and Tahoe. My mode of production is intermittent shooting, basically shooting on occasional weekends. Since it can be 6 months before a 400 ft roll is used up; and I might want to alternate back and forth between stocks while rolls are still unfinished, I have 2 procedures I'd like help with: 1) What to do when it takes several months to shoot a roll? Let's say I have a roll of, say 500T Kodak and it's going to take five months to shoot it. Two months in I've shot 250' of it, and it'll take another three months to shoot the rest. Should I cut the film, store the exposed film (freeze? In what? I'll run out of cans if I split rolls?) while waiting to send it all in, and then perhaps store the magazine with the remaining stock in the freezer too? I could actually fit the camera in the refrigerator but I'm worried about condensation. CP-16'S have proprietary ICs that I think cannot be replaced. 2) It's an overlapping question, but what's the best way to manage stocks? I think I can get by with two stocks, and can keep one in one magazine and one in the other. I have a Bolex for special needs if it's a must. Let's say on a weekend shoot I shoot MAG-A with 500T Friday evening. Then the next day, I want to go shooting MAG-B with 50D in the bright sun in the snow. (By the way, would 50D be good for mountain resort skiing footage?) I HAVE to cut the film in the camera to pull off the magazine. Anyway, you can see I have some process problems to solve; when I get enough money for film that just changes the set of problems I have! 3) One other question, I bought a CP magazine off ebay and it looks like it seals OK, I'm thinking it'll cost about the same to shoot 100' feet through it and ask the processor if it's "flashed" or worked OK as it will to do a magazine overhaul ($50) (although Bernie is reasonable) Maybe I'm wasting my money, if it doesn't need it and I do a successful short run. Ideas? Thanks so much, especially since I can't yet hire any of the people who might respond to me. However if you can help me, maybe I can get some backing and hire you to do film, which hopefully, if you're on here, you think is mucho cooler than computer shooting, althought I'd like to get one of those too! Never met a camera I didn't like, but I love my CP-16r. It whispers.

Wa-hoo! NOW we're talkin'--blowing up the camera with hell-bent overclock! Man, that's some serious rock filmmaking. Sort of makes me think, much as I resist, --there's no real filmmaking equivalent of smashing your guitar, is there? I could send the Bolex down a flight of stairs........ maybe getting in fights with the actors is the entry point for insanity in film. Speaks to the corrupting size of capital base needed to make films... Thanks for the upside-down suggestion!

>But having said all that grinding them off just sounds ugly to me, get yourself a nice fine metal file, >jeweler style and do the 'lathe' trick - honestly - I'm not joking ... Thanks a lot for making sure I remember to check WHICH TEETH to grind. Forgetting THAT would be a good way to brick your cam hahaha. I'm starting to lean towards lathing them to in-camera or paying someone to do it. Too bad I can't get a vacuum in there while I'm lathe/filing to suck out all the particles. Maybe I can tape some 1.2" hose onto a small vacuum so as I file all the dust is sucked out and then I don't have to get figure out how to file the damn rollers off. If I have to start diasssembling geared parts I am headed for Perdition. Wait, I'm a screenwriter and independent film producer- I'm already there!!

Hi; Thanks for the advice, I examined the sprockets more closely and there are TWO set screws which go into the side of the sprocket perpendicular to the spindle. Loosening the two screws on the sprocket definitely releases the sprocket from the spindle. Now the only barrier to removing the sprocket is that the film guide ( see pic) intrudes into the side opening of the sprocket and prevents the sprocket from lifting off the spindle. I can only see one very small screw fixing the film guide to the camera wall and I hope it doesn't have to be removed because the screw is so small the blade slot for the screwdriver is about as thin as a razor blade. I'm trying to post a pic, thanks for input.

Hello; I bought a basically unused bolex H16 Serial number 67068, it still has the warranty card in the case and no scratches anywhere. It is 2 perf, I need to grind off sprocket teeth. Are the teeth to be removed the ones near the base of the sprockets, or at the end away from the mount ? I found the set screws on the sides of the sprockets and was able to loosen them, but this doesn't release the sprocket, unless something else is holding it in there that I don't see. IS it just friction on the spindle? Does someone know of a manual PDF that instructs how to get them off put them back on? Is there a failsafe key for replacement so they go back at the right rotation or to you have to do some kind of fine tuning synch? Thanks.

Looks great, nice acting , lighting; what medium is it? All I can tell is I don't think it's HDV.

All I can say is, go, go go! Me and my CP16R are waiting. :P We needs slo-motion! I need to waste film!!! Thank You.