Simon Wyss

Look, additive colo(u)r printing has to be understood in connection with the films, i. e. Red-Green-Blue are distinct fields within the spectrum. With subtractive printing you employ Cyan-Magenta-Yellow filters for which must be said: Cyan lies between blue and green. Yellow is quite a narrow band between green and red. But Magenta does not exist as a light colour. You won't find it in sunlight. It is half red, half blue - two colours that are way apart from each other. A transparent magenta filter lets simply pass red and blue. Our eye-brain complex understands this as a colour. Balancing is therefore much more intractable and has always been. Manufacturers would have designed their -color materials for red, green and blue since 1950. You can't develop quarter points out of -color stocks. The corridor given by Eastman Kodak which one can keep up embraces about two points like between 24 and 26. So the customer sees his precision sunk in the suppleness of the combination film-chemistry. We more or less beat around the bush while still maintaining varying batches within one printer point. Chemistry changes? The most important factor is time, then comes agitation, next temperature and last composition. The film does more to the process than the baths do. You understand that it is a simple task to control time. Agitation remains constant in a given machine. Temperatures tend to change at slow paces. We now know that the printer light output is pretty constant. There is nothing else we can do than have test strips processed and measured. Densitometer readings are "calculated" back: It's collected data to show the degree of change necessary to parameters. One method to clear out chemistry faults is to replace the developer as a whole, I mean dump one after the other like with one-shot preparations. We must not confuse different things. I find it hard to accept the approach of perfection when we're at dailies and first answer and soon after negligence when a picture goes into series. What the paying public is served can be sort of different from what the director saw. No trick specialist runs out of a batch of duplicating stock during a given production. Such a man is a beginner, although it's been reported that funny things have been sold to producers. He who manages to persuade a cinematographer into his mistake is a genius and I am looking for that man. Hoping everything is totally unclear now, I'm going to bed.

Don't you, Karl, think I'm a metric guy. I've been raised on foot and inch and line. Glen, it was crystal clear to me from the beginning that the films run in perpendicular fashion. What stirred me up to some slight extent is your request for 5-perf 65mm print. Projectionists will refuse 65mm prints. VistaVision furthermore has the picture image aspect ratio of 1:1.85 whereas Todd-A. O. 70 mm is standardised to 1:2.2(5). But it is a pleasure to dream of a brand new printer that is going to occupy another room for a single order of 4000'.

Now, let's see - $ 200,000 to build the machine everything included divided by 4000 equals $ 50 the foot. Serious, you can't find anybody who did that job, can you ?

How many miles are we talking of ?

Of course we countercheck raw stock. The trimming goes optically (condensor). Let me add that also r-g-b are of very constant wavelengths. Deviations have been a dispute subject with other people of the branch here in Europe, and when I wanted to explain that I regard them (deviations) as variables of the processing, not of light or manufacture origin, imagine what storm broke out. Our WRR printer light control system seems to be too precise for some colleagues.

I know someone who pushed a 35 mm Photo-Sonics up to over 400 fps . . .

Q. Is there any new technology with printers at all ? A. Well, yes. We have replaced the incandescent bulb by an r-g-b gun that reproduces light amounts exactly from day to day and over years. When you order 25-25-25 you get 25-25-25. This printer light control actually replaces a sensitometer. The accuracy lies within fractures of the thousandth of unit. You have 50 steps. With a 0 no light is emitted. And then you have complete freedom with programming. You may want 34-28-11 for frame 1, 49-2-17 for frame 2, whatever. You can introduce a flash effect by entering 0-0-0 for frame 15,367. Frame 15,367 will receive no light and thus be blank after processing. There are no more limitations to editors. Cuts can be literally only one frame long. A programme holds up to 32,000 values for each printing light colour. We deal with Excel files. Q. What is the working speed of the printer ? A. Step printers can be run at changing speeds between 1 and 25 frames per second. Q. Can you repeat sequences ? A. Oh, yes. Press a button on the control unit, zero the counter once the printer is laced up, start the machine.

I know that ARRI stems from Arnold & Richter. Their first cameras were the Kinarri, closer to the Akeley. There is no such thing as an Arriflex 1 or I, it is just the Arriflex. I know that the camera was in use at Berlin, 1936. One more similarity with a Bell & Howell design? The gearing is basically that of the 2709 turned by 90 degrees. The Caméclair of 1920 has a six lens turret. Most certainly nobody noticed any brand in Los Angeles had a prototype been used. It's about a license agreement.

On a historical trail Arri states that Erich Kurt Kästner, 1911-2005 (not to be mistaken for the writer Emil Erich Kästner, 1899-1974), joined Arnold & Richter in 1933 and acted there as designer-in-chief. Note that he had 21 or 22 years of age then. The Arriflex is still the most compact and most lightweight 35-mm movie film camera with a three-lens turret. After many years of research on the development of the motion-picture film camera I am near conviction that this camera is older than what they say at München and has its origin somewhere else, presumably in Chicago, USA. Many technical points indicate that A REFLEX evolved almost consequental in the Eyemo line and everything that was not covered by Mitchell. The Californians went the studio line: Standard (1920), High Speed (1925), Newsreel Camera (1927), Beamsplitter Three Strip Camera for Technicolor Corp. (1932), Blimped Newsreel "Sound" Camera (1934). The Bell & Howell Standard Cinematograph Camera of 1911 was banned from studio floors from about 1929 on. In that year the Eyemo got its three-port turret. One needed money in Chicago. What to do ? The Olympic Games were up to Lake Placid for February and summer 1932 in Los Angeles. Bell & Howell Co. opened affiliates in New York City and in Los Angeles in 1932. Is it not astounding that two people in Germany should have found the design and not a most active research and development department with experienced engineers ? Is there anybody out there who could follow until here and would share some thoughts on the subject ? Someone with a dismantled Arriflex is politely asked to make some measurements on various parts in the imperial system. I think there can be found some inch values . . .

We're not upset. That is the sound of rolling commerce. He's got it ! [Freely adapted from ]

I cannot help understanding that a purely psychological thing is on. They dream of the BNCR on the Worrall on the Universal tire wheel crane, see the counter weight ?

Fine tuning of print contrast is the real art of copying because you want to develop out maximum density in the deep shadows and have blank spaces in highlights at the same time with a pleasing grey scale image. There are different stocks on the market for printing purposes. Filmotec have - as a novum - a positive material with an anti-halo undercoat, the Orwo PF 2 plus. It's intended for use with dense (archival) negatives. I have nine years of practical experience in hand processing. When you give in with the belief that motion-picture films must be treated in machines you can find out about the advantages of manual treatment. One of them is flexibility. It is possible to change developing time at once, also to change baths, temperature (within minutes) and more. It is a fact that the results are most even. I refer to treatment in spirals. Let me cite a much more experienced laboratory technician: "There are film-makers who demand that film processes must be more constant and repeatable than they are, that the laboratories obtain exactly what he or she wants however well or badly shot the film was, and that the lab go on making print after print until it is right. These unfortunates do not understand the real truth - that photographic chemistry is closer to cookery than science - that there is an inherent variability in chemical processes which we do not have the funds, equipment or, in some cases, the understanding to control." * He appears to have a bitter undertone, must I say. What has almost gone lost is the freedom of practice known in the silent era. There was close hand-in-hand collaboration between cameramen and lab people. Most camera magazines did not hold more than 200 feet of film, lengths that can be handled with racks or reels (spirals). Only the Pathé industriel and the Debrie Parvo took 400-ft. cassettes for some time. Positives were broken down for individual processing now and then. This was entirely swept away by the mechanical treatment of the photographic sound films. * Paul Read: A Short History of Cinema Film Post-Production. In: Weltwunder der Kinematographie, tome Eight; Polzer, Potsdam, 2006. ISBN 3-934535-26-7

Hey, Dustin What sort of tape recorder is it that you have and at which studio will you have your recordings transferred ?

Gigabitfilm 40 is a derivative of Agfa Copex Pan Rapid in conjunction with Ludwig's special chemistry. Gigabitfilm 32 HDR is a totally different make with a freshly developed formula. Here the chemistry became developed, not the film, haha. Foma Bohemia did have microfilms but that business has run out. Minox film is 9.5 mm wide. Thanks to everyone for noting.

You may want to turn to a friend of mine who has an Arriflex II TC with crystal controlled motor as well as other cameras: Claudius Kelterborn, info@beboptools.ch

Like NASA states: "It was made on August 23 1966 from Lunar Orbiter 1 as a part of the NASA Lunar mapping missions made between 1966 and 1967 in preparation for the eventual Moon landings." I don't believe in all the crap. The moon is still virgin. No one ever rose higher than 300 miles into space. I don't believe that all the pictures of mars are from there and the voyagers and galileo and so on, all fake. Stanley Kubrick mocks Apollo programme in 2001: A Space Odyssee, remember Zero Gravity Toilet with 10 point instructions to be read before use (a lot of text), at around 35:10. More interesting than the hoaxes is reality. Thinking to myself: If WTC twin towers have been brought down by controlled demolition the explosives must have been preplanted, and judging from how the buildings came down it takes more than a few dozen thermate packages. It takes thousands of them. They built the towers without any entrepot, the steel elements came directly from the works to the crane hooks. Yes, I say that the WTC has been a time bomb for 35 years. I'm off-topic.

Black and white is always right. Everybody can expose the film they like to, russian Polypan F which is made after an Ilford formula, Orwo P 100, Bergger 200 and 400 from France, sticky Efke (non-hardened back gelatine), sound negative stocks, plain positive, infrared emulsions, you know, Tri-X in 70 mm. I team with Gigabitfilm, Ltd, to offer something new and non-standard. Colour cinematography is controlled by the Rochester joint. Nothing besides it except Ilfochrome. Black-and-white films can be freely combined. You may want to capture scenes on Fuji Neopan at 1600 ISO or on Kodak T-MAX P 3200 pushed to 10,000 and have them copied on Gigabitfilm. That works if you have little light in projection. Gigabitfilm has a thin layer with not so much silver so that a lighter positive comes out (less density in the shadows). I think we better leave out the calculations. It's typical for the time of now: figures, numbers, abstracts, computed data. Mr. Ludwig's and my wish is that curiosity and open-mindedness leads to test it. For operators and DoPs who fear a stomachache of polyester-base stock in the camera: We had Gigabitfilm run through Arriflex 35 BL II, Bell & Howell Eyemo, Bolex-Paillard H 16, our step printers ( ! ) and of course projectors without problems. If our company will become operative in the U. S. A. we shall have all Gigabitfilm products in the fridge, promised.

Siemens, not siemmens Want to do it yourself? Black paper and white paper. Cut triangles out of white paper and lay them out on black paper. Try to be big, the bigger the better. Then shoot.

Why dunce? Ryan, have you ever thought of the hundreds of thousands if not millions of professionals and amateurs who edited their 8-mm films since 1932 or 16-mm since 1923 or ninepointfive since Christmas 1921? Of course you can cut and splice it together. Movies are still made that way, be it 35-mm film or 65-mm film or 70-mm film in the cinemas. Projectionists also splice. One more thing: Let me suggest you walk along your own line and forget the Jarmans, Triers and Brakhages. They only stand in your way.

So, this is one general assumption, f 5.6 on primes for black-and-white stock? Why don't we then just condemn whole classic Hollywood? Nono, Karl, boring cinematography has nothing to do with solid techniques but rather with a lack of ideas and flow and surprise. There is always a guy who deviates from mainstream and he is right in doing so. I'd like to apologize for my harsh expressions. Looks like everyday German is a kick harder than English. Speaking of Eastman-Kodak Company: You all know EXR. But who imagined it? XR - Extended Range Film was invented by Edgerton, Germeshausen & Grier in 1964. Speeds from 0.004 to 800 ISO, at least three different layers. They might have left that concept with the Vision series, I don't know. I have absolutely nothing against experimentation, on the contrary. There was this lady student who made a short on 7302 as originating stock. She wanted to bring the contrast down later, so the pictures were duplicated onto 7234. I must say that it had its own charme. What turns me into a steam engine at full throttle is the more and more prevailing ignorance of exactly the basics. Not to have a connection with what happens when the pace is changed or shutter angle or the iris or perspective or light scheme, that is sad. I'm outing myself here: technique comes from texne (greek) meaning grasp. The most human about us, the use of our hands, is it. Those people with little or no feel frighten me. Everybody is free to join such a forum, only should I never simply go and ask questions in order to get free answers. Isn't it much more interesting to learn from the reactions that come up, to learn about the workers themselves? Physics are the same all around the globe. More or less

Chris, you cannot provoke me that way. You're saying yourself, the 'experts'. That's it, we have expertise. Like stated above it is the creative who has to ask the technician for a change. Don't you think I never came out the darkroom with heavy dense negatives, the cinematographer still in the ear: "Everything should be fine." The sh[ ! ] was f{ = } overexposed two to three stops. "We'll fix it in post . . . " I am a peaceful man.

But what is the problem there?

Since the test method for filter density is so simple you can readily rely on manufacturers' data unless they are false.

With 18 X 24 mm (half frame) stills no problem, with 24 X 36 mm you get a thin double exposed line in the middle of your stills. What raw stock did you have in mind for the duplicates ?