Christian Appelt

I also recommend Andec Filmtechnik, they do a great job in all 8 & 16mm formats even 9.5mm IIRC) :) I also recommend bringing your stuff there in person and having some fun in Berlin while you wait...

Advantages and characteristics of these lenses has been discussed before, please simply do a search on "anamorphic lenses" in the Forum archives. Pictures of some, but not all Russian lenses are to be found here: Russian Bent Glass by Steve Morton Lomo Anamorphics (1960+1970s) Foton Zoom with anamorphic front adapter Round front Anamorphics (1980s )

@Landon D. Parks & pd170user: No offense meant, but reading your adjoining posts brought a happy smile on my face. I think you two should meet in a baseball stadium and negotiate a production deal by shouting at each other with megaphones... :rolleyes:

ND filters do nothing but cut down the light intensity without affecting colors, that's why they are called Neutral Density (or Gray filters, to say it simple). Photographically it is the same as stopping down the lens. There is a correct exposure that renders the relevant object in your image correct. If you either stop down or reduce the light by ND filters, you will underexpose the film stock. Without correction in printing, the picture will look dark and underlit, and the colors get more saturated. When you correct the underexposure, colors will look normal again, but you lose image quality. So it's yes and no: ND filters and underexposure will affect colors, but your image will not look correct (unless you shoot day for night, but that's another story...). :)

I do not have their newest price list, please mail them from the website. It will depend on whether you order it directly or if they have a dealer near you. Filmotec is a company founded by former technicians of ORWO (Filmfabrik Wolfen) of the former German Democratic Republic (aka East Germany). Filmotec specialises in black&white only, and they developed new cine emulsions. They have a low speed black&white negative (80ASA) and a high speed (400ASA) stock, both can be processed by any lab that has a standard b&w neg process or handles Eastman b&w. Filmotec stocks are available in 16 & 35mm, they offer negatives, dupe positive, dupe negative and release positive stock, but no Super 8.

No, Konvas lens mounts are mostly OCT-18 (older turret Konvas) or OCT-19 (Konvas 2M and Kinor 35, similar to Mitchell mount) Most converted Lomo lenses are rebuilt for PL mount, but you may contact a dealer and ask if he can have it converted to Arri Standard. In my opinion, a better procedure would be converting your Arri to a single PL mount, that way you can use any modern optics, and PL conversions of Lomo anamorphic lenses. If you look & search long enough, you may find an older anamorphic lens in Arri Standard mount on eBay, a friend of mine bought a nice UltraScope 50mm prime, and some weeks ago there was a French DyaliScope lens for sale. But it is very hard to find a whole set of lenses or a decent zoom. It also depends on the kind of project you are doing. If you just want to do a short in Scope, you even could use an anamorphic adapter (like a Kowa 8Z) which will turn your prime lens (from 50mm upwards) anamorphic. But forget zooming & focus pulling, and there is to be some slight distortion at the edges. Well, just for a short and when it fits your style... Yes, you can turn standard footage into anamorphic release prints, but there are some problems too. - No matter if you do it digital or through optical printing, it is going to be expensive. Unless you edit on video/computers and leave the postproduction costs to an distributor, you just pay later and compromise on image quality. - I suppose your Schneider lenses are quite old. While they certainly give a nice picture, modern optics with better resolution are necessary for anamorphic conversion. Remember, you are using only half the area of your 35mm frame). New lenses are not cheap and will most likely not have Arri Standard mounts. - Your Arriflex has (I am guessing) an academy aperture, that means the sound track area is not exposed by image information. Basically, you would be doing what they called Superscope in the 1950s: SuperScope AWSM Using smaller image area means less resolution, more grain and problem in using high speed stocks and certain lighting techniques (like using smoke) that will make the image appear less sharp. I had the same dilemma and solved it by buying a Konvas 2M for which all types of anamorphics are available at decent prices, keeping my Arri for commercial and short film projects that keep turning up. If you want to keep using your Arri, have it converted to an anamorphic aperture plate and PL mount, then get some Lomo anamorphics in PL mount. Some people seem to be very happy with the work of Les Bosher: Les Bosher Camera Engineering You also could have your Arri rebuilt to take OCT-18 (old Lomo) lenses, but why should you keep yourself from getting newer, cheap Russian lenses and the option to use (rental) lenses for special purposes. Remember, the two elements that create the image are lens & film stock, and no system is easier to "update" than an old Arriflex! ;) As you will note, I am biased towards anamorphic photography because it has these advantages: B) - Best image quality of all 35mm formats, grain is lower because of lower magnification. - Workprints and answer prints can be made from cut negative without expensive scanning/recording or optical extraction printing. Betting on a distributor paying for lab work can be trap, especially for low budget films it is important to get a screening in a theatre or being able to deliver 35mm to film festivals. - Inexpensive Russian anamorphic lenses are widely available , a good set of primes or a zoom will get you through your picture without paying huge rental sums. But in the end it all depends on the type of film you are making and the money you can spend on it.

All Foma b&w materials I ever used had standard processing. What stocks do you mean exactly? I cannot imagine that they produce a low-priced chromogenic (like Ilford or Kodak's C-41 color compatible b&w films) stock. Did you already check out Filmotec stocks? Very good b&w film for your money, their ASA400 negative is much better than respective Foma emulsions I know from still photography. Filmotec / Orwo data sheets

Jonathan, I saw the print in Frankfurt, Germany at the Cineplex theatre #4. I usually attend this multiplex although it takes me half an hour longer to get there, but the management cares about presentation quality. They even do 70mm and 35mm mag screenings sometimes, and being a former projectionist, I see the difference between bad prints and projection problems. John P.'s answer does not fit in this case, since projection is generally very bright and sharp in all auditoriums at that Plex, and as I mentioned, trailers and ads were shown on the same projector running from the same platter and without any changes of lens, mattes or in focus. The anti-piracy message before the movie (red letter to make it wors) already was jiggly and hard to read. The same goes for Buena Vista's logo following. Every long shot in the film was unsharp and lacked detail. During the whole feature, image steadiness remained bad, and the end credits were extremely hard to read because the jittered so much. Projection focus was perfect all the time as I could see the grain (or whatever the DI process added) tack sharp. You are right, there seem to be enormous differences in print quality even on the same national markets. I have seen HARRY POTTER 1&2 prints that looked slightly above home video projection and others that were sharp and decent. Same with LORD OF THE RINGS (John P. will remind us that LOTR was not printed on Kodak stock, but no manufacturer's film stock in the world can produce such unsharp prints! ;) ) A lot of European major releases mass printing is done in GB and Italy, and I suspect that the problem mentioned lies mostly not in printing, but in incorrect preparation of dupe negatives. John P. has pointed out the correct procedure on Film-Tech.com a few times, but the short time period between postproduction and release date forces distributors to destroy their own product's inherent quality. In my opinion, studios and distributors are on a dangerous road because many films (from my personal viewing experience, it is more than 50% of major films) lose much of their impact on a huge screen. I have seen below-average or grossly inferior prints of MASTER AND COMMANDER, KILL BILL, TROY, HARRY POTTER 1&2, I ROBOT, and in every case the faults (lack of detail, unsteadiness etc.) point in the direction of improper duping/printing. It is sad, but only a small fraction of what Motion Picture film technology can deliver is visible at the theatres, in most cases it is destroyed before the film arrives there. :(

I found this one disappointing because both Roger Deakins and the Coen Bros. are favourites of mine. It's a strange, narrative meandering movie to begin with, and in almost every aspect much inferior to the original British comedy. I felt a lack of depth in many shots. But Buena Vista International effectively killed this film by doing bad dupes and/or prints once again, the print I saw was more like 16mm, had little sharpness and the strange "edge-enhancement" look and texture of a not very good DI. Registration was terrible (I checked projection, but the pre show program in the same format was steady), so watching the film on a big screen was a straining experience to the eyes. It's a pity that the whole DI technique did nothing to improve the presentation on foreign markets, time and money saving techniques degrade many American films to inferior visual levels.

What takes life experience in it? What a question! :blink: Making a feature film is totally different from doing school theatre and other noncommercial projects. They are good for practising and getting your feet wet, but directing actors in a way that holds up on a big screen is another thing. I directed my first film when I was 23, and I was lucky to have unknown, but extremely good and passionate actors who knew how to interpret my intentions. And (that's important) I was so absorbed by the technical side of filmmaking that I could not give all my attention to the actors. Well, I was lucky, but it could have ended really bad. Recently (13 years later, to be exact) I codirected some scenes for a friend's feature film, and just when I made a suggestion to the director and talked with him about a possible change in the scene, I had a flashlike insight that went like this: "Oh my God, I did not know that back then - I was lucky to survive that first film." - Just like a pilot realizing that he was just inches away from crashing his plane during his first mission, that he had been just lucky, not as smart as he imagined back then. As I am preparing some scenes for my own film now, I realize that it is much, much harder and takes more self criticism and redoing things to get what I consider good - and this comes from experience. Landon, directing actors - and I mean getting the best performance, not keeping them in frame and make them hit their focus marks - is in my opinion the most difficult job in filmmaking. People will NOT see your film because Johnny Depp worked for two days (in fact, when stars appear just to "upgrade" a weak or badly done film, some people feel cheated, I for example will never watch a single frame again by the people who rented John Travolta's face to push THE PUNISHER...). People will NOT see your film because you did some nice, professional-looking camera moves. People will see your film and recommend it because they care for the characters, and the key to it is fine acting and fine directing. Since you have proven that you are not easy to discourage: I don't think you are another Orson Welles or a genius at all. As others have said, he already was an actor, a talented entertainer, a radio wizard and a genius in manipulating his public image. Directing has a lot to do with respect and experience, with knowing people's character, understanding repeating patterns and the human condition itself. You need personal experience to connect to the characters. All this comes, I'm sorry to say it again, only with own experience and this takes time. No way to avoid it. But choosing the hard way certainly is an own way to experience, just don't say that you have not been warned when the poop hits the fan. But deeds speak louder than words, and if you get your movie made and distributed, I will be glad to tip my hat and admit I didn't believe it back then. ;) PS: What happened to your "coming soon" website ? It just disappeared from my screen. You are not trying to beat Orson Welles' magic tricks? :)

Just after reading the newestUltra-16 Thread, I stumbled over an article about a really clever format called "DS 16:9". Ruedi Muster, a Swiss camera technician, is famous for his pioneer work in converting old standard-8mm Bolex cameras to Double Super 8. Some years ago, he converted a 16mm Bolex to handle DS8 stock which has smaller sprocket holes, thereby getting a wider image on 16mm wide film. On the frameline, timecode is recorded, and he even experimented with putting a stereo mag stripe on positive prints. Look at a film clip here: DS 16:9 film clip & camera (text in german) I know people who shot wildlife for years with Muster's converted Bolex cameras, he always did a great rebuilding job. Now this format would seem really clever for telecine/DI applications, provided modern film stocks (not only Kodachrome 40) were available, friction-driven processing equipment should handle the stock without problems, but of course film scanners/telecines would require an new drive sprocket (or are there models that do it optical anyway?). Just mentioned it for fun, but if anybody wants to contact Muster's company, their adress is on the linked website... ;)

Landon, my best wishes for your film project. I can understand that you want to do it your way, and I like that you seem to be excited about the process of filmmaking. I have done what you seem to be doing, I didn't accept other people's attempts to share their own experiences, and to some extent I feel today that everybody has to learn for himself what hurts and where the alligators are. If you feel like it, take that route, but be prepared to pay for it, possibly by losing a lot of money, maybe losing valuable years of your life. I did it, and I assure you, it IS a way of learning the facts. Too melodramatic, you say? There IS a chance that you may become the next R. Rodriguez, and I would be glad to see it. But there is also a danger in believing all the nice legends and cool stuff they tell you in magazines and on DVD audio commentarys, because it's mostly bull****. In most cases people who did a professional job tell you how spontaneous they were and how the actors made up the lines while shooting, and how they always knew it would turn out to be a success. It's human, it's advertising, and it is not to be taken serious. Behind every successful indie film there are many that have been abandoned before or during production, that were shelved or sold cheaply without a dime for the creative people. Those people will remain silent because only success talks. In the old days studios made sure that a new director was helped by experienced craftsmen so he could concentrate on his work. If you have the greatest vision of your film, get the best craftspeople to make the film, don't try to reinvent the wheel. That said, good luck on your project! ;)

There are two Arri blimps, one called model 120, one model 300. Numbers are(referring to the maximum film load in meters, so the smaller one will take the usual 400ft. mag while the big one does not use a camera mounted magazine but a Mitchell (or was it Bell&Howell?) 1000ft. mag with its own torque motor. That way the camera had not to move all the heavy load. There were different flatbase motors for blimp use. There is no problem in using the Arri blimps, but remember that with the model 120 you will have to open and reload every four and a half minutes, so your operator should be fast and know his stuff. If you intend to use long zoom lenses or anamorphic lenses, you need the special Arri extension window part that gives you more room in front. While all this is no problem in studio work, it can be a pain in the neck outside. Rainer Werner Fassbinder adapted some of his films to shooting with the 120 blimp, he just staged 4 minute shots... :rolleyes:

I see what you mean. I don't believe that there is an absolute right or wrong in artistic decisions. Tom Tykwer is a fine director who knows his craft, so maybe Mr. Ballhaus took care to give technical sound answers. I have heard great DoPs like Jack Cardiff or Jost Vacano explaining complex technical facts to general audiences, so I know it is possible. That I happen to dislike the permanent personal advertising of Ballhaus and his "trademark" 360 degree shots is just a matter of taste - I don't believe a good cinematographer needs a trademark because his treatment will come out of the storytelling he deals with. (BTW, that Ballhaus is especially popular in Germany is mainly because he does American films, the same way Hans Zimmer is popular for being a successful German in Hollywood, which has nothing to do with the artistic value of his scores.) <_<

I have noticed some baaaaaad keying effects, like the ascending crane shot of Will Smith on top of VIKI's memory terminal. Almost any exterior shot must have had green screen elements, so 50% seems possible. Nice movie, but many long shots looked very soft. Some shots stood out because they were so unsharp that they should have been reshot, two horrible closeups of the leading lady come to my mind.

It has been years that you cannot be sure of the Panavision credit any more. It used to be "Filmed in Panavision" for anamorphic films and "Lenses and cameras by panavision" or "Filmed with P. cameras and lenses" for spherical ones, but then the "Filmed in..." credit turned up on many spherical Super 35 productions. IIRC, for some time they tried another label for S35 spherical, was it "Super Panavision 35" or "Panavision Super 35" ? Whatever, these credits are not to be trusted any more.

To me, the square fronts have a kind of 1960s look, which I happen to like very much. You can get even better performance if you do some tests before production and try to work roughly at optimum f-stops, meaning not wide open and not at f16. Don't expect the scope image to look as flawless as footage from new Hawk primes or Panavision Primos, but these Lomos were good enough to shoot Tarkovski's ANDREJ RUBLEV and other amazing anamorphic films of the past. Have your lenses calibrated on your production camera, make sure the scales are correct and mechanics are smooth. That's for the primes, the older zoom lenses with a front adapter will give a good picture too, but they are slow and should be stopped down to at least f5.6 IMHO.

It's a very good solution and requires no post production work. I did a similar setup on a very low budget film, and for this kind of ghost effect it is not necessary to use a high quality front surface silvered mirror, a sheet of glass will do it. To get some diffusion on the ghost, we stretched a household plastic wrap foil (actually for kitchen use) between mirror and "ghost", which produced both a diffusion and slight deformations of the image. It certainly looked like an expensive effect! The actor was strongly backlit from below which gave a slight halo contour through the plastic wrap. We tried a thicker foil sold for gardening purposes and it looked spectacular, but the actor's features were not recognizable any more which was a must in that shot. Just my $ 0.02...

"ah-ree" is correct. The names of Arnold and Richter are spoken with a hard "R", which is AFAIK not used in the English language at all. The "A" in ARRI is pronounced similiar to the Scandinavian "å" , but short because of the following double-R. (Unless you come to Arri's hometown Munich where different Bavarian dialects are spoken, a local technician may speak of his "orrifleks" (with a strong "rolling" tongue-R). They say that Bavaria is to Germany what Texas is to the U.S. :) Steenbeck, the company that makes the 16&35mm flatbed editing tables, is a German company like its competitor KEM, both are located in Northern Germany. The double-E in the company's name is pronounced correctly "stain-back" in German, but very often I have heard film students and young filmmakers talk about how they watched a print on a "stiinbeck" (like "steenbeck" in English, of course). They believed that sophisticated film equipment (except Arri cameras) had to come from the United States. On the other hand, they never heard of a Moviola and are generally surprised when you explain that most pre-1980s English language films were cut on this strange beast. So never mind what's correct as long as people understand what you mean! :D

Mr. B's comments on technical questions are often very strange. I remember him talking to an audience at a film museum after THE AGE OF INNOCENCE had been shown. A lady in the audience politely asked two very interesting questions about lenses, to which he replied that he wouldn't like to "bore" the audience with such elaborate technical matters. Then he continued his anecdotes about having breakfast with Madonna and so on. Sure, great promotion for himself, and nice advertising for Super 35, and people went out thinking how great it was that such a new thing had been invented, moviemaking had been nothing but compromising before. As if the great works of cinematography had not been created with other lenses/formats/camera systems before. :blink: I remember him telling similar *misleading* information about the electronic speed control from Arri, people must have thought that it had been virtually impossibleto change the fps during the shot all the decades before. As if the boxing fights in RAGING BULL with manual changes in exposure and speed had not be done years before! :angry: To sum it up, I consider Mr. Ballhaus rather a source of misinformation on technical details of cinematography, but I'll admit he is a fascinating and charming storyteller. I talked to film students who really believed that he also shot RAGING BULL (Michael Chapman), CASINO (Robert Richardson) or CAPE FEAR (Freddie Francis) ! :o

What you saw was either the CAP code which is a marking system invented by Eastman Kodak. Every print gets a different spot pattern in differnet places, so when the film is pirated in the theatre, it can be traced back on the video. There is however a non-Kodak version which is referred to by many as the CRAP-code because it uses larger spots and is much more distracting because it intrudes into bright parts of the image. You will find a lot of data on both types of code on Film-Tech.com when you do a search there.

They tried to get a foot in the door in the early 1990s when they teamed up with Isco to make new anamorphic primes that went under the trade name Arriscope. It was certainly bad market research and timing because they did not provide smaller lenses for Steadicam use and hand-held work like Hawk/Vantage did, I believe that the sheer size and weight of the Arriscope lenses scared away many DoPs from using them. But remember, in most markets there was very little demand for anamorphic lenses at that time, even Arri's own UltraScope lenses (which were 1960s technology but still sharp & fine lenses) had not been rented out for years.

Not so! Kubrick used both Cooke, Zeiss and Schneider primes in the 1950s/1960s, he had zooms by Cooke, Angenieux, a Kilfitt Macro Kilar, 9.8mm wide angles by Kinoptik and many adapted photo lenses like a Novoflex 640mm, Canon 35mm f1.4 and many others. Even in his last film EYES WIDE SHUT there are some shots done with an older Cooke 20-100mm zoom, I could not tell them from the Zeiss Variable Primes footage.

The correct proceeding depends only on the flavour of chocolate the camera fell into. But generally you don't have to worry about keeping the chocolate liquid, just let it harden and melt it later back until you can extract camera. But beware: California environmental laws are very strict about rejuvenated chocolate containing camera lube! :P

I saw SPIDERMAN 2 yesterday, and while I think it's much better than the first one both in storytelling and in terms of cinematography, I don't get thatexcited about it. Positive 1. That 4K postproduction certainly is a great improvement, the visual effects blend better with the liveaction. 2. The framing and composition have an almost classic look, the director was not afraid of showing long stretches of dialogue without "keeping it alive" through small dolly movements or zooms. The audience appreciated that and did not seem to get bored watching those long speeches. 3.The anamorphic 2.39 release format suits the action much better than 1.85, what I hated about the first film was the lack of space around Spiderman when he did his net swinging. Negative: 1. Closeup and medium shots were sharp and fine, but I missed fine detail in almost any long shot. Maybe the Super-35 is to blame for it, not the digital work, but I detest long shots without adequate detail. Will check another print in another theatre to make sure it wasn't the projection! 2. Someone mentioned a "plastic look" regarding faces, and I feel the same. It's not necessarily bad, it may have something to do with grain management in digital post and grading, I don't know. To be fair, maybe this was the look they preferred. 3. Some visual effects shots are absolutely amateur stuff, really to be ashamed of. Especially Spiderman holding up the wall at the end and, as mentioned before, the terrible helicopter shot that ends the movie. 4. Kirsten Dunst looks splendid only in the b&w still during the credits, either she was ill during shooting or they didn't care about making her look good. She looks much older than Tobey to begin with, that unflattering photography could make her pass as his mother or at least big sister easily. This is not a standard beauty queen face, and it takes care to underline her attractiveness. To sum it, solid cinematography and mostly okay effects, but to me the movie faded away ten minutes after I left the theatre. I always liked Spiderman, and I believe a James Cameron version would have captured the darkness of Marvel's universe much better. Well, no use complaining, Raimi had another vision and the public likes it, but IMHO Tobey M. as Spiderman is the worst casting since Harpo Marx as Sir Isaac Newton (THE STORY OF MANKIND, 1957) and John Wayne as Genghis Khan (THE CONQUEROR, 1956)... :rolleyes: