Simon Wyss

Nothing special Arri or anything new then. See this: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cin%C3%A9matographe, where you’ll find the came Carpentier of 1895.

Please, not Edison. It was William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, Edison’s chief engineer and house photographer who entirely devised everything about moving pictures for Edison. Thomas Edison would never have been able to. Same with the Lumière family. It was Charles Moisson, b. 1863; d. 1943, their chief mechanic at the Lyons works who constructed a prototype of the Domitor, as the Cinématographe was called at first. The Lumière machines were built by Jules Carpentier, b. August 30, 1851, Paris; d. June 30, 1921, Joigny. Same with Marey, who’s assistant Georges Emile Joseph Démény, b. June 12, 1850, d. December 26, 1917, invented the beater or “dog” movement. Not Marey. Hannibal Williston Goodwin, b. April 21, 1822, in Tompkins County, New York; d. December 31, 1900, invented the transparent flexible photographic film. Not George Eastman. Eastman’s a** was saved twice by people who deserve attention: Henry Reichenbach and William Stuber. Without them Eastman would have lost everything still in the 19th century. Same with Jacques Bogopolsky who never designed the Paillard-Bolex H camera. Cinema screens pertained the 3 to 4 aspect ratio through half a century. A first standard was set at the Paris International Congress of Cinema in 1908. Until the advent of wide screen exhibition in the 1950s everything was projected onto screens three-to-four, also the above-mentioned Movietone pictures. Some feet and heads got cut off then. The first photographic cinema sound systems involved either a separate and parallel running film (Berglund*) or a wider film such as Triergon’s 42 mm format. There a sound track was placed outside the perforation. American integration won by reducing the image size. An advantage of the Academy aperture is a generously high frameline on which can be set equally generous splices. * Sven Oscar Fredrik Archadiusson Berglund, b. July 20, 1881, Stockholm; d. May 1937, Berlin. He first presented lip-synchronous motion pictures on February 17, 1921, before public in Stockholm, Sweden.

That’s the circle of confusion: “i dont want to go deep just for knowledge i want to know exactly” What is it you want? To know exactly, circle of confusion is the ever present imperfection of an optical lens in projecting a point as a point. The image of the point is a small circle or disk. Its diameter will be defined by the optical engineer. So far, you don’t want to go deep, do you?

To me it’s about work. That everything is much more thoroughly prepared with film cameras, that the production is a bit slower in the shoot but much less wasting dailies, that the general consciousness is about making something out of something, not scanning something only. It is versus because video does away with the artificiality of material work, there is no replace. With what would one replace film? Everything physical can not be replaced with anything informal. Abstraction removes life. Film is chemical, video is electrical. Of course do I know we’re of the same generation if there’s some interest in such ephemeral things.

I think the film vs. digit debate is also somewhat hooked to a generation, that one of now 50 to 70 years old, roughly. I have a 1951 born boss who can react so superficially, so lightly, incomparable to for instance my generation of now 40 to 50 years of age. It’s no wonder to me that Deakins and others, let’s include Jean-Pierre Beauviala here, switch between film and video any time. Beauviala is an electrical engineer and the cameras he designes or co-designs are like some more apps of an electronic world. A producer of 44 years today for whom I was busy prefers an Arriflex 35 II to everything else except perhaps the Wall he acquired lately. Again another cinematographer I know personally works Mitchell, Bell & Howell Standard, Moviola. Of course they vanish in the mass. But we’re here. I am a film man, too. I have an uncle who says film although it’s video. He is a 1942er.

Most times I write like I speak. Sometimes I use Leo. Sometimes it’s fun to play with words for the risk that it might go wrong. Then I was unsure whether footage or mileage. But I never employ an electronic automatic translation service, ne-ver. Everybody is right smiling over my English. At least I can make myself understood. My French is better. Them is also nearer to us. “what kind of damage is we lookin' at?” :) How much watch?

Aren’t we only waiting for some weights in the trade to justify the use of gear heads?

At my lab the offer was 81 Rp. per foot of 35 sound negative and 86 Rp./ft in 16 until August 2008. Today’s currency is more or less one to one, so Rappen would be US Cents. Rebate with increasing mileage. Fresh noiseless variable density track

♪ Winchester Cathedral ♫ Holy Winter, what a mess! Format, Canon 7D, power hz, PAL, NTSC, film? Judging by the way you’re writing, it’s a digital video. To me Canon 7D is Canon EOS 7 D with which you can switch from 24 to 25 fps, and 30. Light from 60 Hertz mains will not cause any problem when camera is set to according mode. PAL and NTSC are analogue television systems. Your camera is a digital one. Haven’t you got a manual for it? Please don’t say film. Film has a photochemical layer and perforation holes. I am totally wacky in this, forgive me. Video is not film. Ne-ver.

Black and white is easier, of course. It’s only complicated if you want to imitate nature and colours.

Arthur, CinemaScope is the tricky format in terms of assembly. Dominic Case did already point it out. I my eyes the only neat way to splice a -scope original is in at least two rolls, the so-called checkerboard method. That way you will make disappear the splices entirely and never hear a displeasing word from projectionists. If you have time, go classic. A cutting room is much cheaper than a DI. To find a lab and a negative cutter can change your life. Invest in wo/man, not in machine.

Friends, I seem to stumble over a simple fact here which is that too many things happen behind camera instead of in front. I mean, the time of black-and-white cinema was the time of human, personal intimacy, of the sense of community. That’s gone. So in a way we’re ridiculous guys. Already the question for colour or black-and-white film turns me sour because it comes a bit like is it better to have music in minor or major? It does not go. Also, video or film is as foolish as electric bulb or candle. To me cinema is a phenomenon that links an older era with the actual one. I think nobody will deny that we live very differently from our grandparents. One of the criteria for discerning is electricity. So many things were done by hand in 1930 still that are occupied by a conglomerate of thirds now. There is always someone between me and the thing I do where there wasn’t any third party before. There are industries behind a video camera which produce cell phones, solar panels, calculators, and microwave ovens. For a movie film camera it takes a mechanical workshop. Compared to a television set or computer monitor a Mitchell camera is something from the ancient world. The technical drawings given I can produce such an apparatus in a single room. Mill, lathe, drill, grinding device, measuring instruments. Circumstances are even simpler for the processing of photochemical film. Spiral reel, tub, drying drum is all I need. Not so with the electronic moving picture: You take part in the global numeric control industry. You deal with IBM, GE, Matsushita, Siemens, Sony, ABB, and those behind these again. So the decision is rather do I want to learn about the past or do I co-operate (way of writing 90 years ago) with today’s big players? Do I care at all?

Evan, give us some more information if you please: film gauge, intended length of production, lab contact. Not to have any money for at least a hundred foot of film appears really meagre to me. Silvery, glowy? Do you mean high-key lighting? Do you mean brutes and spotlight projectors? Do you have black-and-white cinema in mind that doesn’t exist any more? A dozen workers for lighting alone! This is nothing to be conjured up digitally. You will have to establish it back yourself, your own silver movie, with heavy cables, dirty arc lamps, reflectors, and sweat. I am so sorry to disturb your innocent dreams. But if you do it I’ll gladly help you as well as I can.

I stay away from actual production exactly for this reason. Posters are already ugly to death. Actresses and actors are engaged by considerations I will never be able to understand. Bruno Ganz for instance, a man from my country, has no mimic. We have to see his slam face in CUs as if we were dumb. They pour prizes over him. I disregard him, such a weak actor. Louis de Funès, save me, your face is at least alive! What a generation is making films? Potatoe brains like Arthur Cohn, James Cameron, Woody Allen, Jean-Luc Godard. Most boring people. So I go and watch Billy Wilder, François Truffaut, Marcel Carné, Mario Monicelli. Totò!

I was incorrect.

Yes, let’s leave Schindler in the mist. 7266 overexposed a stop and underdeveloped a stop as compensation leads to finer grain and lower contrast. TXR is already finer grained than comparable negative films due to reversing the image. Why not. If I can give this as food for thought: Each film bears its own chemophysical structure. A given emulsion can be processed to the best — or not. Some reliable experience has been published about practically every make, and most labs apply that knowledge in order to best serve their clients. What bothers me is that so many young filmers do not attempt to produce technically best pictures first but try to know better. Only, how can one know better without any experience for oneself? I mean, don’t we have to know how Railway Station is written before playing with the words? Something is rotten in the state of North Korea. Danish railway stations!

Mind the reconcilement truck ! Sure I am for the experiment. But where is the experiment? Brian only asks questions. How many feet did you expose in this context? Papa, feed me! Sure I am for black and white. Here’s my offer: 100 feet of Gigabitfilm 40 in 16 mm, perforated one edge, US$ 50.00. For the time being you’d have to send it to Germany for processing unless someone in Manhattan or Lebanon does it as well. Else, why not give the Ilford-Harman folks a k* in the a% that they’d turn out a few hundred foot of Pan F plus. These woodpeckers have a renamed film but don’t sell it. No peace with the English, I fear. I don’t get it. And sure I am for screwing up. Learning by doing and making mistakes, of course. One of the major obstacles we silver birds have is the lack of paragon. Schindler’s List wasn’t true black and white at all, it is color negative and color positive. Period. Unfortunately. Almost no silver production in Hollywood any more. They lost the art. Let it down the drain, am I tempted to say. No fresh black and white on the telly. No more film in classroom. Frightening loss of touch and knowledge in monochrome motion pictures with the archival world. Really frightening. No more carbon arc lamps, no limelight anywhere. Pordenone? Do you laugh. New York? Doubtful. Why match Plus-X? That is something I can’t understand, either. Imagery must never be an industrial standard. Like its granularity was a measure for the cinema. Uhm, struggle with the words, like Utrillo’s brush stroke was a caliper over impressionists. No grain can be a goal. Sorry, that’s my point of view. Brian alone can judge on the stock to be used. Again, this I do with pleasure, first comes the content. What is it I want to express?

Dear Mr. Rose Let us presume you were the cinematographer guest in my film lab, having explained this to me, and I’d have attentively listened to you, like I always do, my reaction were without hesitation: What are you after, Sir ? Why overexpose the stock by two stops ? Do you think you won’t get enough color saturation by following the manufacturer’s E. I. ? Do you think that all the others exposing for their films’ speed as neatly as possible are on a wrong trail ? Since I haven’t got a film lab right now, I’m speaking to you as a friend. And what does a friend say ? You better expose right. Pull processing is risky and should be reserved for mishaps, say First Assistant forgot to set iris with an irreplaceable shot, and it got noted. You are after something in fashion, almost indigestible for a technician. Even if I were absolutely polite and said nothing I’d shake my head afterwards. There are hundreds of fashion trends. We have had extra coarse grain, colours drowned in a brown-greenish sauce, low-key till extinction, shaky camera dogma, lollipop sugar candy overkill colors gone with the wind now, saturation for the colour blind in Fujiyama cherry blossoms, série noire with black and white, boldest sound mixage, earthquake rumble to say nothing of toot, whistle, plunk and boom from all sides. Listen to the experienced. The biggest laud I got was for the photography of a six minute 16-mm. black-and-white movie many years ago, for which I lit with what I had. Meter was set at film’s nominal speed. If interested in some other black and white try to see Welcome in Vienna. Take it easy, Brian, but take it !

Hands off! That turret plate tells a sad story. Bent shutter lever, a motor thread socket missing in the housing, switches missing with the Perfectone gear, all the rust, this is a NO-GO. Not even for parts, you have rust everywhere. If you don’t want to pay a lot purchase a simpler camera like a Revere. They run for 50 seconds by the way. Cinematography comes out of you, not the camera.

Let me tell you why some choose film. Because they have to wait for the takes to be processed, for rushes to be printed, processed, screened Because picture and sound have to be synched Because there is cooperation with lab people Because they like moving pictures lacking half of the action due to 180 degree shutters Because there’s more lighting, more work, more human friction in film I had the chance to work with a cameraman who assisted Eugen Schüfftan in the Twenties. Having to wait until rolls were developed meant that he could open a bottle of wine and share it with those who wanted. He smoked all day. At the age of 76 he went for another Indian Sea turn like almost every year. Film work is slower but more intense. You’ve never prayed in the dark next to the step printer that it might swallow a heavily shrunken film, still after the stripe has been given total overhaul, perfect cleansing, moistening. For me it has to do with the inner freedom to do what I can do. I use my senses. I want to feel that somebody projects a film, a person. She or he adjusts the focus while looking through binoculars. Somebody is payed for doing something, not for doing nothing.

Let us see: Aaton 7 Arriflex 16 BL Beaulieu News 16 Berndt-Bach Auricon Cinevoice, Pro 600, Super 1200 Bolex 16 Pro Canon Scoopic 200 S/SE Cinema Products 16 Debrie C 16 Sinmor Eclair ACL Frezzolini FR 16, LW 16 Mitchell R 16 Single System

Everything you want to have copied must be cemented or welded in the case of polyester base film. I think you don’t find a lab where a film full of tape joints will be put on a printing machine. Dailies/rushes are taped. Some work with Catozzo and likes, some prefer Rivas and likes. Magnetic stock is taped only. One can produce inaudible joints. Cement splices last as long as the film itself. Pressure-sensitive tape slowly dries up, becomes brittle, may fall off. Some of lesser quality tend to smear. Also consider film and image formats. CinemaScope originals must be spliced in two rolls. Actually, 16 mm must be A- and B-edited as well in order to make splices invisible. Same with all 8 mm film. Ninepointfive can accommodate the splice between frames. All this does not apply when pictures are being scanned and the edited data transferred back onto film. You learn to respect film and human work within it by making wet splices. I’d like to suggest reading this book: The Technique of the Film Cutting Room by Ernest Walter. Focal Press

Oh, no! Now I know why your camera rattles, it was on that Pier where I met the sweetest Swedish girl, and we were very sad at the day of departure. Unbelievable how the neutrals can cause trouble but we did. Her name is Rose.

formulae, not formulaes formulae is already the plural of formula

No, there isn’t. No lab technician in the world, not even Rembrandt if still alive, could add to a photographic colour picture what’s not in it. RGB printing light systems influence the copy as a whole, I want to say: you alter the base for the exposure, not the colours alone. These interrelations go overlooked a bit with the electronic simulation because there contrast, density, and hue seem to be variable separately. In fact, one can change a single colour channel’s value alone. Chemical film responds broadbandly, we have to set more distinct points than the computer-educated client expects. You see, bigger steps on the printer light scale alter the colour balance so much that a subtle filter is just outdone. Personally, I’d never dare attempting to time for anything else than a combined colour-grey board. The rest must be before the camera. Isn’t this what cinematographers demand from a lab, repeatable accuracy?