dan kessler

The cutting idea might work, or it might disappoint.

You seem to be thinking more in terms of special effects, rather
than visual effects.

Don't know your budget or capabilities, but there's always the
CG route. Sparks and electrical fx are definitely part of its
repertoire. Almost nothing you can't do, and you will have
absolute control.

Pyramid films does not refurbish lights at least the ones they sell. They also will advertise a picture of one light and send you something that looks 10 times worse.

 

I have refurbished many MR lights including 200 mini moles. Have the housings soda blasted and repaint with MR paint. They sell the paint in rattle can form.

 

Just a note: Bondo will hold up on a 5k but glazing putty will not. If you buy anything used from Pyramid expect to get sticky. Im not squeamish around dents but i couldnt even use what they sent me.

Sorry to hear this. Wasn't my experience when I dealt with them some years ago.

Bought a lot of stuff from them, visited their facility, knew the guys, always treated me right.

Yes, if you were a Panavision customer you certainly had little to complain about. Great service, unbeatable backup, a fantastic inventory to choose from, and at really competitive prices.

And all that doesn't come cheap.

Yes they sure made a lot of friends over the last 20 years, but they basically did it by maxxing-out their credit card to the tune of somewhere around $1 billion, virtually none of which is ever going to be recovered.

Now put yourself in the place of one of their competitors, who actually had to make an operating profit to survive.

If Panavision finally goes down the plughole it should by rights have gone down about 15 years ago, all your freeloading days are going to come to a sudden end.

Wasn't a lot of their debt the result of merger and acquisition mania?

Many a company ended up loaded to the gills with debt after deals

that made the dealmakers fat. Sort of typifies the present condition

of the entire world, and no, the story does not have a happy ending.

I would try keeping the actor on the ground surface,
but I think angling the camera would work, both for the
wall and ceiling effects. Pay close attention to your lighting
and camera angles and continuity. You'll have to piece it
all together in the comp, but with careful planning, it just
might work.

Is your monster a human actor or a CG character?

If it's CG, you don't need greenscreen at all.
Just use your plates as reference, build a CG set from
the measurements you took to provide surfaces for your
character, then animate on top of them.

If it's human, seems to me you have some problems.
Are you going to build a greenscreen set to match
the plate? Even if you do, how is your human actor
going to climb up to the ceiling? Shots where people
appear to climb the walls are usually done on big
"hamster wheel" rigs.

Tape splicers are intended mainly for cutting and splicing workprints,
while cement splicers are for conforming negative.

Not saying you can't cement splice a print; it just isn't typical.

By the same token, you would probably not want to tape splice a negative.
The tape overlaps into the frame area and would show up in the duplicates.

Also, you need to be careful about running tape splices through
anything other than a projector or a flatbed editor. They could jam
in gates not designed for the added thickness.

And, yeah, the Hollywood and Ciro tape splicers were (are) standards.

The portable cement splicers you usually see have heating elements
to cure the cement and are a little more complicated to use than tape.

Sure, cameras can have all sorts of problems, but Robert Lewis did a comparative
examination of orwo and kodak film stocks and quickly discovered a pitch difference.

If, for example, he were comparing 16mm short pitch to long pitch, the difference
would only accumulate to about 1/16 of an inch over 30 inches of film, or 100 frames.
If he was seeing more than that, then something was definitely out of spec at the orwo
factory. (assuming, of course, that the kodak film was IN spec)

I also have a number of old fresnels, various manufacturers,
some with rust. My plans are to do just enough and no more.
Not sure it pays to invest too much in them. Try contacting
Mole Richardson for parts. (www.mole.com) You might also
contact a company called Pyramid Films. (www.usedmovielighting.com)
They manufacture new lights and refurbish used lights.
They will be able to advise you, I'm sure.

Wow, if that's the case, then Orwo does have a serious q/c problem.

Pitch variation that extreme would account for all the problems
people are having. The more precise the camera, the worse the problem.

First guess is they're running camera stock through printer stock punches,
and still labeling it camera pitch.

In 16mm, camera pitch is .2994; printer pitch is .3000

It's that or one or more die sets are out of spec, but either way,
they are churning out intermittant batches of defective film.

I have an anamorphic attachment like this, too.

It's called "totalvision" I think, but it was definitely made in France

When I bought it several years ago, I took it to Paul Duclos, who

cleaned it up and seemed impressed with its performance.

That made me feel pretty good about it.

Pilotone alone would not provide a reliable start mark.

You still need to slate each take somehow, using clapsticks,

bleep tones and lights, or something. Even if the camera

has crystal control, it still needs to come up to speed

before you can establish sync.

Remember, too, that pilotone depends on a cable

connection between camera and sound recorder.

Consider how that might affect your run-and-gun

style.

Exactly. Pilotone is only useful if you're recording sound on
a Nagra or an equivalent tape recorder. Digital recorders are
already constant speed, very precisely controlled by the internal clock.
Crystal-controlled or microprocessor-controlled motors on cameras
give them the necessary precision to maintain "cable-less" sync.

Chris, once upon a time, before Nagras ever existed, this was done routinely.

Camera and mag recorder need to be equipped with synchronous motors and fed from

the same AC power source. As long as that is done, film and tape will be in sync.

Well, I guess that's what these guys are attempting to do right now, not someday.

"Off-the-shelf" parts already include the sensor and associated chip sets.

Even so, the amount of engineering required to put it all together into a reliable,
working camera is substantial, as evidenced by the scope of this group effort.

For a solitary hobbyist to tackle at this level, the obstacles seem overwhelming.

If one day it evolves into a kit of some sort, well that's different. All the heavy lifting
is already done.

Like yourself, though, I'm quite intrigued by it. Still, you have to watch out, because efforts
like these can become careers in themselves. A long time ago I embarked down a similar path,

wanting to build a 35mm motion picture camera. It necessitated becoming a machinist first, which

led to a career for awhile in the machine tool industry, before I actually ended up with a camera

that could contribute to my ambitions as a filmmaker.

 

Your numbers are ridiculous. The rates you quote for Alexa are representative of a pretty decent shooting kit with good modern lenses and so forth, which is both far from the minimum cost, and will massively inflate your BL4 purchase numbers for matching equipment. Your 5:1 shooting ratio is effectively impossible to achieve for all but the simplest productions. Digital post for Alexa can be effectively free, as ProRes can be posted on computers that many people already own, and in any case remains a consideration for film as well unless you want to spend thousands creating workprints.

 

Look, I threw out some ballpark figures to try

to illustrate that you can definitely reach

a point where running 35mm short ends through

a camera that you own will beat paying lofty

rental fees, whether digital or otherwise.

The longer the clock runs, the greater the

advantage accrues to the one who doesn't

have to pay for the time.

And, hey, the same thing applies if you

own your own digital camera, and if you

pay little enough for it, your break-even

point arrives even sooner.

Okay, Phil, Chris, I wasn't expecting this, either,
but here are a few back-of-the-napkin calculations.
Most features are shot on an Alexa or Red or similar.
For a Red or Alexa camera alone, I see rates of around
$1600/day. If we're talking about a feature-length project
requiring at least a few weeks to shoot, just the camera
rental alone is already in the neighborhood of $25,000.

Digital post will push that number much higher.

You can get 35mm short ends at around .10/ft.

Let's say the finished length is 9000 ft. Give yourself
a 5:1 shooting ratio, or 45,000 ft. total, for a cost
of $4500. .15/ft to develop, around $7000 total,
.25/ft to print your good takes (9000 ft), $3000 total
or you can telecine the footage and edit on your
existing computer set-up

Total film cost approx. $15,000

You can buy a used Arri 2c or even a BL these days for a couple grand,
which you will own and take as much time as you want to shoot your project.
Our indie filmmaker can be resourceful and pick up other used gear in similar
fashion.

Even before post, we're still doing better than our Alexa-based project.


Do all projects pencil out this way? No, but all I said was that it
CAN be cheaper.

Chris, for an indie with a limited budget, equipment rental and post-production
for state of the art 4k digital is VERY expensive. You CAN get 35mm film gear,
buy short ends and recans and cut on film for less money. Not talking about HD
or lower quality that you edit on your home computer, cause that is NOT comparable
to 35mm. Not talking about large budget or Hollywood, either. Try reading what
I wrote, and don't tell me it ain't so, cause I know for sure that it is.
You show your occupation as 'student.' I have a great many more years of
experience in this industry that you do.

In retrospect, that statement from Coppola was perhaps a little too off-handed.
It never was just about the camera. It is far more about what happens in front of it
and behind it, both of which still demand "professionalism." One of the dreams about digital
was that it would give indies the access they couldn't get with film, yet I find it ironic that today

it can be cheaper for an indie to shoot 35mm film (short ends and recans) than to shoot comparable digital.

If you want to live in New York or Philadelphia, that's fine.

If you want to go to school to learn visual effects, that's

something else again. You won't necessarily be able to do both

at the same time.

First of all, going to "VFX school" pretty much means any

university with a decent computer graphics program, where

you come out with a degree in computer science.

There are also schools that teach computer animation.

What kind of job do you want afterward, and where?

two places I know of that sell used grip equipment in L.A. -

Used Movie Lighting

c/o Pyramid Films

7838 Clybourn Street

Sun Valley, CA 91352

(818) 768-5924

usedmovielighting.com

WOODEN NICKEL LIGHTING INC.

6920 TUJUNGA AVE.

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA 91605

818-761-9662

woodennickellighting.com

Don't trust, and I repeat don't trust hyperfocal on wide lenses, you may look at your worry wheel and see a 10mm with a 4 stop yeilds 3ft to infinite. put that lens at 3 feet and look down the finder, you'll be amazed at whats not in focus.

In no way am I questioning your experience or your recommendation not to trust the charts,

but do you really mean what you just said?

I don't think you want to set focus at the low end of the hyperfocal range, but inside it.

No personal experience with Orwo film, but very interested in this thread.

Looking through the link-referenced material and at Orwo's published specs,

I frankly don't see any deviations from standard pitch. Any more info on this?

Also try film-tech.com

It's all about everything projection.

There's more than one way to skin a cat.

Mainstays of high-end 3d are Maya and Houdini.

Lots and lots to learn, and like Mel pointed out,

it's not just about the software.

The fantastic level of realism in this piece owes a lot

to the renderer. I don't know what it was, but you should

find out, since you said your goal is to produce this type

of work.

While I don't know the specifics of this machine,

I suspect it isn't much more than a rotary prism

flat-bed editor/viewer with a video tap.

You won't have the optics, image stabilization or

illumination controls of an actual telecine.