GeorgeSelinsky

I've rarely peered into here, actually. But there's an old Russian expression that my great grandmother used to use in a case like this, "It doesn't ask for food". If this Off Topic forum doesn't tax the forum's resources and cause serious problems, I see no reason not to keep it around. Granted it's tough to police this section and if discussions in this category were to go into extremes, there are two options, 1) do not moderate it, which could lead to problems potentially - although I don't see any right now developing (I mean, it's not a war of neo-nazi's versus weathermen, or one member posting nude pictures of some other forum member's wife), or 2) delete it if things do get out of hand. It's obviously not Tim's job to be policing this section (I mean, it's terrific he's hosting and running this site - for free!), and if this section gets ridiculous then its time to call it a day. Usenet anarchy belongs in the usenet. I voted for keeping this section alive, but it really should be at Tim's discretion. It's really up to all of us to keep all communications, on and off topic, respectable. That's one of the things I like about this forum, people tend to show respect and they become friendly. If they want to talk off topic that should be okay, as much as it would be okay if I sat down with these people in person and we had such a discussion. - G.

It's really a very fine machine and with that comes fine maintanance. I remember at NYU we had one and the teacher (who was also a camera engineer) used to fix it all the time. There are focusing cams and other things that have to be set correctly, not to mention the table itself. If an Oxberry's going so cheap, I can't imagine it's been kept in good shape. - G.

I just felt I'd return and give a report on my results. I got a copy of Cool Edit to play with and I tried using its noise filter, which is a vast improvement over Goldwave. Let me tell you - the Arri IIc is murderously bad when it comes to the quality of its noise. It screams throughout the whole spectrum, the noise varies with time (I gather motor fluctiation), and to make matters worse its hum peaks over the human vocal range, so that makes the job very difficult for the software. Of course it doesn't help that we never miked anything close, just held the camera with an omni mic from far away. I was able to get some audio that was okay, but for the most part I'd say its better for the actors to hear it without the digital noise removal. No matter how much the settings are tweaked, the voice still sounds like its coming from a bathtub at its best. - G.

Yes, but it also locks you into a pattern which isn't necessarily a good thing. A low ratio is discouraging of camera moves and general experimentation. You get stuck doing pretty standard WS, MS, and CU's - anything beyond that and you have to make very careful decisions and hope that it turns out okay in the editing room. And if the actors blow that take, it's either on the cutting room floor or you end up overshooting and buying more film later. To me a 7:1 ratio is quite low, and I don't care for shooting that way again if I could ever help it. I think it's particularly dangerous for people who have little or no experience shooting and editing at all (who are usually the people who try to shoot on such ratios). It's asking for a disaster and endangering the point of the whole exercise - which is to make something that showcases ability. It's like asking someone to audition for a top music school and giving them for an audition a piece that only very advanced singers with years of professional training can do. - G.

I remember one guy on the usenet who really learned things the hard way. If you want to look up his thread on the Google groups, his name was Wonder21. He got 10000 ft of free 5298 somehow, and wanted to shoot an entire feature with an Eyemo. I chuckled when I read his post because it was similar to what I was thinking of when I started my current project (although I had a higher shooting ratio, and I wasn't lucky enough to get free film). Anyway, I told the guy, as did everyone else practically, don't do it. So this poor kid went ahead anyway, got all these amateurs to act in it, rehearsed it to death, and for five months shot it all. Then to save money he got all of his film developed at once and guess what? It was all fogged beyond salvation! No such thing as a free lunch... I think my current project was also about learning the hard way. Beforehand I'd shoot with a higher ratio and I was a bit spoiled. Now I came to the realization through a step up experience what is good and what is not. I hate the feeling of being limited. If something interesting happens I'd like to be able to roll the camera and not be burdened with thoughts like"I gotta turn this thing off as soon as possible". I remember when I started shooting film I was using Super 8, and since the filmstock was so expensive I'd do these ultra short takes that were like 2 seconds long. I got back my film and it was all full of these very short takes. It was all home movie stuff so it's not like it so mattered. Also, there is only so much you can rehearse to death, but when it comes to rolling the camera things never go exactly like you want them to. As they say, a performance can usually be only as good as 70% of your best rehearsal. Or, sometimes the opposite happens, a rehearsal is sour but when you jarr someone into a take, they give it their all. There is a function of chaos that enters the picture. - G.

Request to Tim, could we have a separate forum topic on Cores? Just kidding - although it would probably be more peaceful of a place than the 16mm versus video threads :) Yeah, I also remember the yellow cores for 16mm, there also orange ones. I know there are third party places that also sell cores, I have black 3" 16mm cores. The green core I have is definitely EKC - labelled. By the way, are the Eyemo spools still metal, or have they switched to plastic? I just went to MPE not too long ago and they gave me plastic 100' 35mm camera spools (they even had a 1 and 2 on opposite sides like the 1/2" audio tape - made me wonder why - unless there's a "double 17.5 mm" format out there :blink: ) - G.

If I could pick up a 35mm Oxberry for so little I'd get it for sure. As long as they're in good shape (they do require qualified care), and you have a good table with calibrated geared movements, it's really a great camera. I've shot titles on it as well. The movement is a precision shuttle which is used by film scanners and film recorders. - G.

If short ends make the difference between shooting on film and tape, or even 16 new versus 35 short ends, go for the short ends all the way. Grain mismatches are something I'd live with, definitely preferrable to scan lines, softer overall images, motion artifacts, and blown out whites, or the grain of 16mm. - G.

I've used short ends a lot. With 16mm it's less of a pleasant situation, any film that has been stored for a long time will be grainier, and the chances of mishandled/poorly stored film is greater. I have gotten burned with 16mm film, but so far my experiences with 35mm have been quite satisfactory. I have to be honest that I haven't gotten any of my material printed yet, that will really be the time to tell how well it actually went. The big annoyance is of course frequent reloading, especially a problem with 35mm (which is why 200 ft of 35mm ends and 200 ft of 16mm ends cost the same per foot). You roll out on shots (which is why short ends exist in many cases - a camera op doesn't want to roll out on a long shot), so you may end up shooting more. But the economy per foot is terrific. One fifth to one sixth the price of new film is really worth the suffering in my opinion, unless you're on a big show where you can't gamble as much and where time is very expensive. You can always rent more mags but that also costs more money, and it will keep your loader boy busier. - G.

All of the 35mm camera film I've been shooting always had the same color and size cores - white, 2". I've shot hundreds of rolls by this time, most of them short ends. Btw, I have an old 16mm Kodak core from what must have been right after WWII (from Europe), it's green. - G.

Thanks again for the advice, and Phil, you're very kind to offer something like that - but every bit of sound I recorded in sync with picture has that noise, we're talking 9-10 hours of audio here ;) Unfortunately I can't fork it over for Sound Forge :( There are some settings that I've played with on the Goldwave demo and they do help sometimes, but the R2D2 effect is either present or it sounds like the whole thing was filmed underwater. A non-blimped Arriflex makes a lot of noise, like a coffee grinder purring away. Also, it's not always consistent throughout the take, the film might be louder for a second or the motor will be slowing down or speeding up, so that affects it too (as well as camera moves and pans). Mostly the sound was recorded on a digital handheld camcorder that wasn't too far away from the camera (like 3-10 feet depending on the circumstances), and those omni mics pick up everything. In some instances I even had a regular cheap tape recorder sitting there and recording. The audio really sucks, but if I had used a boom mic that would have complicated matters for us. I need the audio just for dubbing purposes, it's not going to be a production track by far (maybe there are two or three exceptions where it might work). I have to say that this digital noise filtration is really an awesome thing - never seen anything quite like it. - G.

Phil, I tried Goldwave and it's really neat, thanks for the suggestion! I took a noiseprint and it works very interestingly. Of course the filtered sound sounds like R2D2 is having an orgy in the background but it's a useful tool for dubbing, in some situations it might make life easier. I plan to have one track with the camera noise and another filtered, and pop it to and fro to see which track is more helpful to the actor. I'm going to search around for others too, see what's out there. Goldwave wants 40 bucks after X amount of time, which I'd love to give them if I had. - G.

That only makes sense if you're finishing on tape and you know what takes you want already. It's good to get a cheap transfer done first, just so you know what you've got, and then you can pair the footage down to what you really need transferred supervised and then go deluxe. If you have even a 5:1 shooting ratio it makes economic sense. - G.

Getting film dailies is the best, but editing on film - forget about it. I've done it before and I don't care to repeat the exercise. If I were king, I'd get film dailies and video dailies. - G.

I set out to make my current film on a 2.5:1 ratio, or at least "try" to do it like that. I did begin by shooting some scenes 2.5:1, but they were very simple things that didn't require too much emoting. I even went as far as to use a windup Eyemo to shoot them, all post dubbed. It was really a coffee bet type of thing but I soon realized it was totally impractical (it's a bad idea to gamble when you've gone through the trouble of shooting 35, getting a lot of people together, locations, costumes, etc). I upgraded and bought an Arri IIc, and my ratio ended up at a 7:1 - still low but just useable imo. I am also anticipating shortening a lot of scenes probably. I've used mostly amateur actors, which has of course cost more film. If I had professionals acting every role and they were rehearsed to death I could have concievably cut that ratio down to about 5:1, but anything lower than that and you 1) either have no coverage, or 2) have to live with poor takes (poor for performance and technical reasons), usually both. You are also forced to edit a certain way without much flexibility at all. That sort of makes the whole enterprise worthless. - G.

Refrigerated? For how long, 69 years? Unlikely! Anyway, even if it was deep frozen and kept at perfect humidity I'd doubt it wouldn't exhibit some fog and heavy grain. In addition to the natural course of events you also have problems like cosmic rays (I know, sounds cool doesn't it?) and ambient radiation. - G.

I remember Christian Appelt mentioned something about a noise reduction software used to remove the noise of loud cameras like the Konvas. Right now I'm having a bitch of a time removing noise from my tracks for dubbing purposes. In some cases the sound recording was just horrible, and I really need to get a cleaner track to make it easier for dubbing. Anyone have any ideas? I remember Cool Edit had some interesting noise filter. - G.

You probably mean Tri-X, because Super X pan (or was it Super XX pan) was discontinued ages and ages ago. - G.

Well, you could do the removal in post, right? Take the D-1 or HDTV video and just blot it out in a cheaper suite than the telecine? I have a problem now because my lab has been giving me back dailies that haven't been as clean as I'd like them to be. - G.

That is a determination that will take you time and experimentation to make. As they say, everyone's a critic. When I'm directing on my set everyone always has an opinion about something, and some of them have absolutely zero experience in film. We are all an audience, you might say. But there's quite a difference between being an audience with an opinion, and being a director who's able to formulate a concise vision and then have that guide the making of a film. We're talking about being able to have not only a vision and articulate it understandably in a way that is practical, but most importantly, make intelligent decisions when confronted with several (or sometimes less than several) choices. That is where the work comes in. Being a cinematographer/DP is being an artist who works with a director. A cinematographer has his or her own opinions as does everyone else. Some directors will occasionally even ask their DP how a performance went, because DP's are up front with the action and often have their eye in the finder during a take (although I discover that it's hard to be a director and camera operator at once - operating takes away a lot of energy and attention). But the biggest input is of course visual, and this is where your taste is critical. Yes, the "technical stuff" is pretty important, without that you can't do the job of a DP - period. You really should take a bit of pleasure in it too. Notice how much we talk about equipment and things like lighting ratios, film stock designs (photochemistry even), and with the advent of digital video - horizontal lines, compression ratios, color space, formats, etc. This banter is a normal part of what we do, its a marriage of science and art, and we depend on the technology to practice our art. By far none of us are rocket scientists (although some people have me wondering here), and I personally did poorly in math when in high school, but we all, pretty much, have an interest in the "technical stuff". Anyway, sounds like you gotta do some soul searching and get on a few film crews as an assistant. You gotta get a taste of what it's like and then try it on a small scale on your own perhaps, if you're feeling bold enough to try. Just be aware that this is a hell of a lot of work, and most important, it's practice, practice, practice. - G.

My lab seems to be more or less straightforward on the issues, I didn't see any lineup costs nor were they mentioned when we did a rough pricing (not to say they aren't there). Anyway, good thing to have a heads up. - G.

? Never had those, what are they exactly? - G.

Well, let me do the math here, because I myself am interested... Assume a standard 110-120 minute feature going the optical route, Negative cutting is about $10,000 First answer print is about $7,500 Optical track is about $4,000 Second answer print is like $3,500 Add another two at around $5,000 Then we have an interpostitive at $22,000 ..and an internegative at another $22,000 Check print at $4,000 Afterwards, there's a HDTV transfer, which you can get for about $600 an hour. A fairly conservative 12 hours of that and you have $7,200. Then there are other smaller costs like downconversions which aren't as important here. So roughly it costs $85,200 to go optically with all deliverables in place. That's still 15 thousand bucks cheaper than the cheapest digital intermediate. I'm sure at 100 grand you don't have much time to be flexible in the DI suite, it's probably nothing more than a glorified film timing session with contrast control added as an extra. I would totally love to try it but I also think it's a bit pointless to shoot 35 then downgrade it via HDTV, I'd rather go the 2K route and I believe that only becomes an option at or above 150 g's - from what I've read. Other opinions appreciated. - G.

Yeah, a Vision 1000 which pushes as well as the 5218 definitely has my vote (sort of like the old Ektachrome 800/1600P for still photography, a 400 asa film that was designed for pushing). I really think the 5289 should be retired in favor of something like that. I know, there are many people out there who still shoot 100 asa stocks and that's fine, but I think that pushing the envelope of available light is very important. I love the flexibility it offers. And btw, I can't imagine shooting what I did in available lighting conditions that day on video, the contrast would be murder, not to mention the electronic noise. - G.

I just got my dailies (monthlies, hahaha) back and I am amazed. I shot a real run and gun scene at a social event, where I needed to get footage of people in real situations, unaware of my presence, so lighting was nill in many circumstances (save for one part). I grabbed every natural light I could find and put people under it, in one case with mixed sources. I shot with Kodak 5218 and I pushed it 1 stop just to be super safe and give myself an extra stop's leeway with focus. While I haven't printed it yet, what I can see on the video transfer is that this film pushes excellently and exhibits the lowest grain and best color in the shadows that I've ever seen from shooting at such an ASA. I really can't wait to get a print made. I don't even think I'd use the Vision 800 anymore, it's grainier at its natural ASA than 5218 pushed 1. I'm rarely so excited that I'd go out of my way to write this at 3 am, but I gotta take time to hand it to the guys with the test tubes at EKC - I'm very impressed. You guys really created a dynamite filmstock. - G.