dan kessler

Visual effects virtually gone

All those early DI's finished on film. That was always the final goal back then.

Back when digital vfx was the new big thing, one of the major marketing points for the process was its superior integration into the film workflow versus traditional optical effects. First-generation quality was assured all the way through to final delivery. You originated on film, scanned it, added the digital stuff, then you output to film at the gloriously high resolution of 2K! Everybody was aiming for a film finish (no such thing as DCP yet) and companies like Kodak were constantly beating the drum that the digital pipeline preserved all of film's outstanding qualities.

I agree just doing the top of the hat as CG would make tracking easier. If that and the bird are CG, it's just head motion you have to track. All the hat and bird interactions take care of themselves.

How and why would you shoot the hat separately? I think I'd just opt for a CG hat along with the bird.

This is a camera I built. My scale has newton and gram calibrations so the Arri values might just work. I'll give it a try tomorrow. Thanks again.

Do any of you camera techs know if there is a typical recommended value for take-up tension in 1000' 35mm magazines? I've got a spring scale hooked into the rim of a 2" core mounted on the take-up hub. Thanks.

Yes, I know and appreciate that this is your first cg animated movie. There are a lot of professionals on this forum, so it's a good place to post images and ask for feedback, which is what you did, and that's what you're getting. Rest assured that many here do understand exactly how you created your images. When you say you have no need to learn how to paint, you're quite mistaken. The principles of painting are EXACTLY what you need to learn. That was my point before. That's one thing that's missing in your work right now. Do that and your work will improve.

Well, compare your stuff to what you yourself have referenced in the link you provided. Before a single frame of cg ever gets rendered there is an enormous amount of planning and design that has to be done. Composition, perspective, line, depth, contrast, color, lighting, tonality, texture, are all meticulously developed for every single shot, and then the flow of these elements from one scene to the next is hammered out. They create hundreds, if not thousands, of individual drawings and paintings in the process. Do you draw? Are you a painter? Can you work in pencil, charcoal, acrylics, oils or pastels, or create a scene in photoshop? That's where a cg movie, or any kind of movie, really begins. The storyboard artists, the lookdev artists, the art directors all do their work before anything else proceeds. You have to do those things, too, even if it's just you working alone, and no cg software can do any of it for you. At the moment, your sample frames don't really show very much beyond the software default settings.

What do you have against cgi? Happens to be a good way to add set extensions. If you shoot miniatures, you have the focus, depth and lighting issues, and your models must be painstakingly well-done to look convincing.

At the risk of stating the obvious, it sounds like the adapter is slightly undersized. If you've got dial calipers, you could check the dimensions to make sure, but if that turns out to be the problem, then, yes, boring it out slightly should solve it. I'd measure it, though, because .5 mm might be more than you need to remove. You don't want to end up with it being too loose.

Related to your question, I've often wondered why foveon chips don't get used more. They have a true, layered RGB structure, similar to film itself, with absolutely no Bayer artifacts, and without the need for beam splitters. They're in Sigma Merrill DSLR's, and produce stunning images. Maybe there are good reasons why they haven't been more widely implemented, but I'd like to know what they are.

If you're not acquainted with view camera adjustments, do a little research to find out what lens swings/tilts do. Technically, you're not increasing the depth of field, but you are angling the plane of sharp focus. So, it is possible to bring more of the subject into focus if you can align it with that plane.

If you include animated films in your study, then you will find a great deal of input from art directors who work on them. I worked for a number of years at Dreamworks Feature Animation. A "beat board" was one tool common to all of the projects there, which mapped out the emotional curve of the story, and against which all color palettes were meticulously planned.

Can't tell focal length, or anything else besides this, just by looking. You could determine focal length with a simple optical bench test. Silly me, we can get the focal length by measuring the diameter of the aperture at f/8, then doing this calculation: f.l. = dia. X 8

Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, it simply appears to be a barrel lens of the type typically used on view cameras since the earliest days of photography itself. There's no shutter or focusing mechanism, because both of those functions are located elsewhere on a view camera. Well, shutters were separate in earlier cameras, anyway. Modern view camera lenses usually have leaf shutters built into them. The speed range only begins at f/8, so the lens arrangement is a simple one, probably a symmetrical doublet. Can't tell focal length, or anything else besides this, just by looking. You could determine focal length with a simple optical bench test. Manufacturer, age, collectors' value? You need a real expert for that.

The design and construction of a precision film transport of any type is a significant engineering challenge. If you have the necessary skills, tools and experience, it's possible. If you don't, then expect a very long learning curve.

Don't want to delve too far into something at which I'm no expert, but there is one variant that does not have a Bayer pattern. The foveon chip, which is utilized in Sigma digital cameras, is an RGB design whose construction is similar to film itself. It is a layered arrangement with no offset. It delivers stunning images with absolutely none of the artifacts associated with the Bayer pattern. I often wonder why it hasn't made a bigger splash. They don't seem to market it very aggressively.

If you are familiar with basic lens geometry, then you can understand what diopters do. You know that parallel lights rays coming from an object at infinity pass through a lens and get focused to a point at the lens focal length on the other side. That's where the image is formed. However, this arrangement works in reverse, too. Think of a diopter as a lens working backwards. Light rays from an object one focal length away from the diopter will pass through the diopter and emerge as parallel rays on the other side. When these parallel rays now enter the main photo lens, they get focused just as they would if viewing an object at infinity. So, anything that is one focal length away from the diopter will be in sharp focus. Closer or farther, out of focus.

A lot of people have undertaken the challenge of building their own film scanner. Some have posted here before. Among the basic requirements are repeatable film registration, consistent illumination, and the transport system you already have been thinking about. Not to mention the computer and software that drives it all. Suffice it to say that building (or modifying) a film scanner is a major engineering project, which is doable, but only if you have the knowledge, skills and tools to do it. Not saying you shouldn't try, but the impression I get from your post is that first you are going to have to spend a huge amount of time and money acquiring the latter before you end up with something that scans any of the former.

Like Tyler said, this would not be a good choice for live action. Camera was built for a film recorder, as described below. 35mm Stein Mitchell VistaVision camera, serial number 10. This VistaVision camera shoots 8 perf frame 35mm film, as opposed to the standard 4 perf 35mm film and provides a large format original for feature filming. It is called a Stein Mitchell because it was built by a Mr. Stein and utilizes a Mitchell movement, except that the stroke is 8 perfs rather than four. It certainly runs 24 frames per second, but because the frames are twice as big that means that film is moving through the camera at 180 feet per minute, rather than 90 feet a minute. The camera was owned by Digital Effects Inc.; the company purchased the camera in 1981 and used it as a single frame transport to film on the Dicomed, a CRT color film recorder. All of the sections Digital Effects produced for the original TRON were made using this camera. Digital Effects purchased the camera from Murray Learner, who used it for shooting some of his features. I do not know how he came to own the camera. Likely it was made in the 1950s, when the VistaVision format was introduced. It does not come with any lenses or live action motor, it does come with a single frame stepping motor. We do have Mitchell magazines which we could sell in addition to the camera. Most certainly the camera runs at full speed flawlessly. MORE INFORMATION: In response to questions, we wish to report that this movement has two (not three) registration pins with one claw with (obviously) a very long stroke. The shutter appears to be a single blade of approximately 180 degrees. And yes, the camera is a rackover. Weight with the case is 72 pounds. Mark in Salt Lake City (ebay ksa50) advises that he owns an earlier one of these camera and that he has drawings he acquired from ILM to convert the camera to reflex operation and we will be happy to pass along his contact information to any purchaser of this camera (although his plans are not part of this offering). He also ads a bit more history about this instrument "There are less than ten of these cameras still in existence. Originally it was a camera built for two color cinematography known as Fox Nature Color. It had a largish lens that was actually a dual lens. Kodacolor filters snapped in the front half of the lens. Believe it or not the Stein Machine Company is still there in Rochester and the great Grandson has one of these cameras in original condition."

When using an incident meter, you want to aim the sphere towards the camera, not the light source. There are numerous resources on metering techniques to be found online

I'm no authority on underwater photography, but shooting from outside a tank seems like it ought to work. The camera lens is shooting through a transparent barrier either way.

I don't think you can mix cloud tank elements with the live model in the same set-up. Each type of water effect is quite beautiful, but you have two entirely different scales, each working best with different frame rates and lenses. Cloud tanks rely on the illusion of scale, making us believe little puffs of ink or paint are gigantic clouds in the sky. A live model in the same tank would reveal the true size of the paint squirts. Also, those tanks rely on a stable, calm volume of liquid, sometimes layers of static liquids with different densities. Too much turbulence would just muddy everything up. Plus, the technique is very labor-intensive, requiring numerous retakes, with a fresh tank of water each time. Oh yeah, and the model probably wouldn't like it, either. Shoot the elements separately.

Remember when those photoelectric signals were called 'video?' We digitized them so computer chips could process them.