Simon Wyss

Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince William Kennedy Laurie Dickson Georges Emile Joseph Démény Eugène Augustin Lauste Arthur Melbourne-Cooper

Do not read any books before you have shot film. Jump into the mud ! Get yourself an Eyemo, load it with a roll of Eastman 5234, you can buy this at better labs, throw yourself to the front like a newsreel hero and shooot. You will never ever learn more about filmmaking than with that canned hundred-footer in the hand.

I used it as camera stock. It gives nicely soft negatives (that is what the film is made for), prints well (naturally). Today far too grainy compared to Gigabitfilm. ISO 32 was my estimation, you can expose at ISO 25, the emulsion's latitude takes it. You know, the batches are not so severely selected like with real camera stocks. Yes, they sell it to labs, so nothing like 400 or 100 ft. Gigabitfilm is my pet, I introduced it as 16-mm alternative to cinematography in 2005. I still have a few kilometers of it. Because of the thickness you can load 800 feet into a 400-ft. magazine. It is perforated along one edge, 0.3000".

Really, nobody else cares. What ?! Have you ever heard of laboratory people ? Have you ever had conversation with projectionists or read in their talks ? Fellow, you are seriously underexposed (dare not say underdeveloped). I am a film man and master for instance synchronisation, you know, that picture and sound come together, also known as lip-sync. To say the least about frustration is videoists to the overwhelming major number do not even care about sync. They are lost in front of a synchronizer, you know, the thing with at least two toothed wheels on a shaft because they've never learnt to use their senses in order to see the sound and hear the image, so to say. Maybe it's not the sensorium than rather our proper brain memo function. Filmstock is just one way to accomplish that . . . Correct, but filmmaking is the past, the tradition, the fundament for all of us. Do you think pixels and algorithms will ever serve saving Limelight or, what shall I take, The General ? No. Films are only films as films. Most of them are produced for projection, you know, 514 visitors together in a cinema and three or four employees at work, ushers, projectionist, cashier. Is the difference so unimportant that future generations should perceive Limelight from pixel screens with the light coming from behind the screen ? Video is video. I call it video, be it quadruple Ampex two-inch analogue, be it latest 8 K numeric 16 Bit whatever digital. Chronophotography, cinematography and computerography are clearly distinguishable things relative to . . . . . . us. We, humans, you know, the animal that laughs, we who don't flee fire. I am a humanist, I admit, the term is not so en vogue now, especially on the U. S. republican side. What a time, 2008, what decadence ! Go, throw away the lightmeter, let it be 11000100010100001001001001000100010001111110010001010. Filmmaker !

Orwo Universal-Negativ 54, panchromatically sensitised, ISO 100, grey triacetate base Orwo P 100, panchro., ISO 100, blue polyester base Orwo Negativ 74 plus, panchro., ISO 400, grey triacetate base Orwo Leader Film 20, ortho., around ISO 12, colourless triacetate base Orwo Ton-Film 12 d(igital), ortho., around ISO 12, colourless polyester base, anti-halation undercoat Eastman-Kodak Plus-X negative 7231, panchro., ISO 80, grey triacetate base Eastman-Kodak Double-X negative 7222, panchro., ISO 250, grey triacetate base Kodak Panchromatic Sound Recording Film 2374, around ISO 20, grey polyester base Eastman EXR (Extended Range) Sound Recording Film 3378E, orthochromatic, around ISO 12, grey polyester base Eastman High Contrast Panchromatic Film 3369, around ISO 32, grey polyester base Eastman Fine Grain Duplicating Panchromatic Negative Film 7234, around ISO 32, grey triacetate base Eastman Fine Grain Duplicating Positive Film 7366, non sensitised, around ISO 10, colourless triacetate base Eastman High Contrast Positive Film II 7363, ortho., around ISO 15, colourless triacetate base, anti-halation undercoat Eastman Fine Grain Release Positive Film +302, non sensitised, around ISO 10, colourless triacetate or polyester base Kodak Plus-X reversal 7265, panchro., ISO 100, grey triacetate base Kodak Tri-X reversal 7266, panchro., ISO 200, grey triacetate base Gigabitfilm, 0.068 mm thickness, panchro., ISO 40, colourless polyester base * Ilford FP 4 plus, panchro., ISO 125, grey triacetate base * Ilford HP 5 plus, panchro., ISO 400, grey triacetate base ________________________________________________________ * Minimum order quantity: 108 rolls of 100 foot

Your camera needs an overhaul by a specialist. Old grease seems to stick the governor setting mechanism. Do not force. Once cleaned and freshly lubricated don't let the camera run faster than 32 fps without film. The Bell & Howell cameras are partly made from hardened steel. You can't have anything better although I have once found a wrongly mounted governor in a 1931 Eyemo.

Isopropanol, an alcohol, from your drugstore. Cotton swab What do you mark the film with ? Throw away all grease (China) pencils, only felt markers !

A registration camera with an 8000 fps capability would be an engineering marvel still today, my friend. There was the french Debrie Grande Vitesse which made 240 fps from 1921 on. Photo-Sonics has a camera that goes up to 360 fps with register pins. With 16-mm film intermittent top speed is 500 fps because its mass is smaller. I have designed a 35-mm film camera myself and know what this is about. By the way, the big marvel of the Sixties is that they achieved to make almost everybody believe a manned moon landing story.

Your Bolex-Paillard H 16 M(arine), year of manufacture: 1959. This model was created for work in the then famous Bolex underwater housing. Shutter opening angle: 170 degrees. Have it lubricated by a specialist before the governor or axles run dry. Body alone around $ 250 today

Yes, there is prose, there is poetry. Coulour equals industry equals prose. Black-white equals handcraft equals poetry, the immediate. Real black and white, not Schindler's List, that was colour negative and colour positive, is silver in the cinemas. The perception of a black-and-white film has to do with the heart, our dreamful side. Our reaction is in the head. The perception of a colour movie has more to do with the brain and the reaction is in the heart. Try to observe this with yourself.

Jay, would you pay us a visit if we'd surrect our lab in Hollywood ? I had to close my facility but want to continue, www.filmkunst.ch.

The RX mark means that the particular objective has an additional lens as compensation for the prismatic focus error introduced by the reflex prism block. To compensate for this error you stop a non-RX objective down to f = 3.3 or more. Such information was published years ago. By chance I know of. It's about 9 millimeters of glass between lens and film and even more between lens and ground glass (actually the etched top surface of the prism block). The inner combined surface of the two prisms deflects 25 %. That is the additional quarter from 1/80 to 1/60 second.

The worldwide standard for 35 mm film optical sound reproduction is the monaural track since 1927 (Fox Movietone Newsreel) and should remain such. Dolby Stereo and Spectral Recording comes in addition. For me it's a pain in the brain that everybody walks out on the tradition. Single centered variable area tracks reproduce badly with the twin cells of modern projection. Not only the 3:4 aspect ratio of the classics is disregarded but also the optical tracks are not properly read. Non-Dolby sound negatives are still available and they cost less. Sorry for the counterpost

I looked at the pictures. The character's head is sometimes cut across at the upper image edge. That is a very optical issue.

Hi, Daniel This is something we encounter every day in the dark room, the rubber resin adhesives produce light while beeing torn apart. It can influence the film when close enough. Depends of course also on the film's speed. What to do ? Look for a different tape Like to add my most personal wish here: That the camera operators do not put any self adhesive tape on the apparatus, not on the camera, not on a magazine, no tape onto very expensive equipment. It is most annoying for the one who has to work with a sticky magazine, he who has to remove the sticky stuff from the gear. Why can't camera people not hold their head together like lab workers do ? Notes can be kept in a different manner. Get rid of the raw stock manufacturer's sealing tape. Employ only tape around the cans. Let this be white tape so that you can write on it. Do not write over the can label's information. No tape on the lid, please We have the magazine open (in total darkness) and must not make a mistake with the film which might contain hundreds of thousands of production value. Tape is no good. No tape on film and core ! Insert the transversely cut film into the core's slit so that the film is bent over an angle of more than 90 degrees. To do this in perfection one can snip off the film's corners by about 2 mm. With an old Arriflex I'd want to recommend that the tongue be cut away once the film is back in the mag. So long . . .

I totally agree.

Why cut a man's head ?

Hi, Simon Don't think an airplane's wings are something quiet in the air. They shake and tremble like my grandpa's chin when he laughed.

Exactly. Humbly undergo the blood, sweat and tears of our tradition. It sounds horribly, I know. Look, Michelangelo did not cast cement, he worked on stones.

Has anybody made experience with Gigabitfilm, be it the first one which has 40 ISO, be it the new Gigabitfilm HDR 32 ?

Michael, is that A 2 subject still actual ? I'd love to do the job for the production running a lab with everything you need in black and white. We also have 35 mm printing machinery to cope with P or N type perforation.

Gee ! Per mill. The thousandth part of something. In stead of one-tenth of a percent. I shall let it rest in peace. Promised

Is there anybody around in this country ?

weighing where to move our lab, australia or america or siberia, between grapes and meringue

It's going on my nerves. It's becoming worse week by week. Can the electronic people not take care of picture and sound to be together in, let us say, 10 feet from a television screen or computer monitor ? Youtube is a horror. The advent of sound movies, isn't it 80 years old ? I want lip synch ! Exclamation mark, you lazy lizards everywhere :angry: And the cinema exhibitors, too !