RookieGeek

I must confess that, having purchased all three Extended DVD sets, I've watched every last bit of the 'behind the scenes' material. Can't be helped; filmmaking fascinates me. What's remarkable is that, during the last film, toward the end, when the team was really pressed for time, Peter Jackson had an A crew, a B crew, a C crew and a D crew running around New Zealand --- each crew with its own director and DP, of course. The effort required just to coordinate all those individuals, who each (naturally) wanted some artistic input to the process --- I am actually amazed they survived to tell the tale, let alone assemble a movie that looked, well, somewhat cohesive, in terms of cinematography. It reminded me of the stories about George Lucas' first Star Wars shoot, when the studio told him he had a week to wrap everything up and that was it. He had camera crews running almost around the clock. ("Hey you with the mop! You're a grip with 'C' Crew!") When the money runs out it can get a little chaotic, I guess. As for the LOTR shoot; there was just so much of it that some of it was bound to be hard. In the second movie, the night battle sequence at Helm's Deep, during the rain --- that was tough on everyone. There was also an incident when they filmed some burning huts. The wind changed direction and strengthened, blowing right toward (you guessed it) the camera crew. As camera operators ran from their posts, nearly with their hair on fire, the cameras continued to roll and captured some good footage. Comment from the Safety Supervisor? "Everyone was safe as the buildings burned to the ground."

Daniel: My highest recommendation is to read every word in the Columns section of this web site. And the Indy Pros section. Ah, just read the whole thing, but save the Forums for last. http://www.wordplayer.com It is a fascinating look into the life and times of a screenwriter in Hollywood. And these guys are among the best - in my humble opinion. All the best in your journey.

Just wanted to say thanks to all for your excellent feedback and suggestions. The spirit of community and level of intelligent discussion on this board has simply astounded me. We're going to pencil in a VariCam rental for our current budget plan. Thanks again. Cheers.

Thanks to all for the feedback, especially Mr. Mullen (Member #3!) and Mr. Rhodes. And in the case of Mr. Rhodes, for the pointed feedback. I respect your candid comments. And your cameras must be hungry indeed if it takes $150k to feed them, sir. So even if you have every sequence, every scene, every shot storyboarded and rehearsed, the best your can reasonably expect is 7:1? I humbly yield to the experience and first-hand knowledge displayed on this board. Is this the consensus of the group, based on an organized shoot? Or as Oswald says, is 5:1 doable? I think, since as a general rule one should always budget for trouble, we'll plug 8:1 into the plan and if we get better than that, great. I also appreciate Mr. Mullen's reminder of hidden costs. This is why I'm asking the questions and trying to calculate the cost of 'going analog' at this time, so I can present my case for 16mm image acquisition. I am of the strong opinion that HDV is not ready for prime-time, as they say --- even though some independent filmmakers are raving about it. We might be four to five years away from the arrival of a sub $30k digital camera that can rival the CineAlta/VariCam. Maybe longer. But if I'm going to expend the effort to accomplish this great thing, I don't want to mess it up (Remember the prayer of Alan Shepard). I'm not worried about printing back to film (yet). And to one of Oswald's comments, the filmic look isn't really a major concern. Image quality is a concern, so I'm looking for the cheapest way to get quality images into our systems. It appears, from my initial research, that shooting on 16mm, and using BonoLabs (or someone like them) to process the film and provide digitized 1080/24p footage is actually cheaper than renting/buying a VariCam/CineAlta. Seems surprising, perhaps, but it might work out. Am going to really look hard at this before we move either way. However, there's no apparent way around DI. Everything we want to do is an effects shot, so the footage has to get into the system. We're planning on doing a short first, as a test. Maybe five minutes, maybe eight. Short enough that we can easily afford it, but long enough so that we can get a variety of conditions. It will be a good test, because we can rent/borrow a camera to do it, and at the end of it we will know whether or not our workflow, ah, works or not. And we'll have a very good estimate on the actual costs. Thank you all very much. P.S. Pi was reported done for approx. $68,000.00. Here's a link to some interesting budget figures, and the site is nice enough to tell you up front that these might be complete studio fiction. But that's not the type of story we're interested in telling.

Sean: Thanks for the link to BonoLabs. That's about exactly what we're looking for. According to their published price lists, I could deliver an hour's worth of developed 16mm film to their lab, and they'd charge: Prep & clean: $108.00 (16mm film @ $0.05 per foot) Telecine: $650.00 (charge for 1 hour) Drive usage surcharge: $144.00 ($2.40 per minute) So for $902.00 -- per hour -- plus shipping and other incidental charges, I get a QuickTime file digitized at 1080/24p. That's pretty freakin' cool. If we can get our shooting ratio to, say, 5:1, we could have everything digitized --- and that would make image acquisition less than five thousand bucks. Then me and my crew could get medeival in Maya. As said, that's pretty freakin' cool. I'd love to shoot HD with a CineAlta or VariCam, but those deals are north of $100k, and HDV just doesn't cut the mustard. (I'm confident that eventually there will be a reasonably priced all-digital signal acquisition system that's affordable to the small guy, but we're not there yet.) Thanks very much for the replies. All the best.

I'm looking for a specific service, and it might be an odd type of request, but my little team has arrived at the decision to shoot 16mm based on three issues: (a) we want to own the camera, (b) the cost of a CineAlta or VariCam is still much more than a 16mm camera, and © the quality of image available from HDV or anything else is not satisfactory. Hence, we're looking at 16mm (or S16) for image acquisition. Simply put, we're just looking for a lab to scan in 16mm film at 2K, and deliver a hard drive full of the sequential images. We'll do the editing, color correction and effects work (we love! and use Maya and SynthEyes) on our own machines. You'd think this wouldn't be a big deal, but after searching the Internet for a day and a half, I'm gettin' nothing. Do any of you folks know of a lab offering this type of service? Thanks for your time.