GeorgeSelinsky

I'm coming in a bit late here... I did a 130 minute feature all MOS, I shot on an Arri IIc and we post dubbed everything. I think there are only two ways to shoot, it's either MOS and post dub or the real sync deal. Using FFT filters is going to make your audio suck, and bad sound is a real deal breaker. The great thing about MOS is that you have one less thing to worry about on the set. You don't need to worry if a truck drove by or if you're using a noisy dolly, and that's one or two less people you have to have on your skeleton low budget crew. Mind you, if you have a soundman, you need a good one just like you need a good DP who will give you well exposed, sharp images with clean tripod moves, etc. Finding a competent one cheaply isn't easy. Also, these days you don't need to rent a studio to post dub. All you need is a low budget NLE system like Adobe Premiere, some sound recording software, a TV monitor, a quiet padded room (watch for that computer noise!), a nice condenser mic with preamp (can be had for under $600) and you're all set to rock and roll. Granted, now you're going to have to get your actors to do extra work, and if they're not being paid or if they were jerks on the set that's kind of a bummer (be sure to have a clause in their release that permits you to dub their voice using another actor). I'm always a nice guy, I give them food and make them comfortable, so work goes smoothly and it can be very fun for them. We can work on changing the performances, adding dialog, etc. The big minus is that some actors need work and time to come up to speed of their original performance, and sometimes if you have real mouthfuls or funny quirks in your sentences (like "ummmmthat's it") then it gets very tough. Then comes foley work, which initially is tedious (the footsteps is the real killer), but when you discover what you can do with it, it's quite fun and enjoyable. I had someone who had no prior film experience help by performing the foleys, and he ended up becoming very good at it and enjoyed himself tremendously. I think MOS projects work out okay if you're not on a deadline and you have time to play with, when nobody's being paid by the day and you have a good working relationship with your actors. You can go out with a crew of one if necessary, shoot something, then come back and add the sound layer by layer. You have to think of each sound individually, it's actually a very educational experience. But I'm afraid that as much as I enjoyed the flexibility of post-sync, I'd never rely on it to do a major project that had its funding in place. I wrote an article about it with tips, read it here: http://www.geocities.com/gselinsky/nonsync.html Lastly, it's important to note that most films (esp. first time films) have too much dialog in them. The less, the better.

Those emulsions are all old, we're talking late fifties technology here. I actually like the low con look of unfiltered B&W. For negative it's an interesting look. For reversal you really don't need to filter for contrast because the stuff is so darn contrasty to begin with! The one stock I'm not too crazy about is Tri-X (at least the old stuff I used to shoot). The high con thick black charcoal grain look just doesn't do it for me, I prefer the gray sandy Double X instead.

Does anyone know a place where I can rent a working Arri S for a song? Most places want $150 and up. There was an indie filmmaker place that used to rent'em for $40 a day. Anyone have any leads? Thanks!

I know I'm not the only one here. I've shot 35mm color negative, and I thought I'd never go back. But after having done a short film on 16mm black and white negative just now, it's like falling in love all over again. I just LOVE the stuff. That gritty look and feel is just unbeatable! Okay, so that this is not a totally useless posting, I'll say my favorite B&W stock is Double X negative, followed by Plus X reversal (two totally different looks)...your turn?

Too bad that 15 years ago it wasn't me who bought them off you, lol I don't believe that the US dollar plummeted by a factor of three in three years. I suspect the demand simply is higher for T-scope, that's why it's so high.

For those interested, I have parts for the Krasnogorsk 3 up on Ebay right now: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI....cSELL.m315.lVI

Cough cough COUGH! I just got a quote for $4,500, that's US dollars too! That's a bit more than a Super 16 conversion. Time to stalk Ebay, lol...

I'm also toying with the idea of techniscope right now, esp. since you can get a digital intermediate these days for under $100K. I was wondering if anyone knows of a place that does conversions of the IIc to techniscope, or perhaps sells IIc t-scope bodies. I asked Visual Products, they don't do it...

I never tried shooting color and pulling away the chroma, but I've seen it done and to be honest - I don't like the look. It's not bad per sey, but it's just different from the real B&W that I'm used to seeing in older films. I personally prefer shooting the real thing (Plus X, Double X), if you're bothering to shoot on film that is.

You should just have mixed the R9 bleach yourself, it's such an easy formula - Potassium Dichromate + Sulfuric Acid (car battery acid). They used to sell car battery acid in Sears, although post 9-11 I think it's hard. You don't even need a scale, there are tablespoon/teaspoon equivalents. Basically B&W reversal is 1) a high con first developer like Dektol (I used to use Rodinal for the super sharp grain), 2) the R-9 bleach (will process Plus X at 50 asa), 3) A clearing bath, which is Sodium Sulfite, 4) second developer can also be Dektol, 5) any off the shelf fixer. - G.

Two questions: 1) How even and smooth is the processing, and 2) How much chemistry does the tank require? The areation in agitation usually kills the solutions pretty fast, so the less room it takes the better...

I guess if you just stick with small interior locations and outdoors during daylight you're in the safe zone. For that matter you could probably get a similar look if you used 7245 and had all daylight balanced lights indoors (i.e. Kinoflows, etc). Here you have 50 asa with T-grain, it probably would look as good as the ECO. I remember back in the filmschool days I had my magic marriage, 7245 outdoors, 7248 indoors, and if things got really bad then 7293. It worked wonderfully.

I still can't imagine the pain that ASA 25 film would require. You've got this small 16mm camera shooting and 5K lights standing with a ton of gennies running, lol. Outside of Texas Chainsaw, I'm curious, are there any other ECO features that have made a big splash, or was it just low budget exploitation stuff?

I remember when I was in filmschool in the mid 90's the VNF Ektachrome was really cheap as short end, which is why I started using it. I never dealt with a news cine lab though, that was already long gone by then. For some reason I don't seem to recall hearing that VNF Ektachromes were used for narrative features. I've seen experimental filmmakers use it, and documentarians, that's about it. The Ektachrome Commercial feature craze was before my time.

Greetings to all... I'm trying to come up with a feature project that is going to be shot for a European audience primarily. That means the budget is going to have to be pretty tight. My problem is that ideally, I wanted to shoot on B&W 35 or should the money not be raised, Super 16. I ran numbers and it seems that HD beats B&W Super 16 pricewise. An added benefit is that by shooting in HD I can shoot in color, in case the financers insist on a color film for sale. Ideally speaking I would like for the project to have the look of a B&W 35 film shot in the 60's, 1.66 ratio. Before proceeding to doing a test, I wanted to get some opinions here on recommended starting points. I'd be working to get the color-gray response to approximate 5231/5222. I don't have any experience shooting HD, only film or standard def (unless you count my Aiptek Go HD, insert Ernie from Sesame Street laugh....) I would imagine if we go to a film out, I can have the film recorded onto Plus X 5231, that might help matters. I imagine if we raise enough for a film out I can shoot as flat as possible on the camera and then let the filmout/color correction software do the trick. Any suggestions appreciated in advance!

I'd say that the first serious hit that 16mm had was when broadcast TV started dumping their CP-16's in favor of the new camera-recorder units (probably Umatic back then). That caused all the inhouse broadcast TV labs to shut down. Then Betacam SP began to heavily eat into the documentary 16mm market. But Hi8 and DV was when all the indies went bannanas, on top of doc filmmakers (who tend to shoot a lot of film per show). Prior to that, while there were a few brave souls who shot narrative features on video (Frank Zappa being one of the earliest trailblazers with "200 motels" in 1970), everyone pretty much agreed you had to shoot film if you wanted to be taken halfway seriously. I think the only thing that has gotten cheaper is regular 16mm equipment, since HD TV sets became popular everyone wants to shoot Super 16 and the R16 cameras are really just for students and dabblers/experimentors (although I am sure that many spunky film students at my old alma mater are pounding their fist on the table to get the Arri S's, projectors, and Steinbecks converted to S 16 :) You can pick up a reflex Bolex for very little these days. I've seen regular 16 Eclairs listed for under 4 thousand, ten years ago they'd be 5 grand (but if you have a Super 16 one, price shoots up to 7-10K depending on the package). But the problem is that you could only use that camera for yourself, I find it hard to imagine getting work with a regular 16 package these days.

Anything from Anscochrome to HDV, lol. With such degradation through compression it's really impossible to tell. If I had to venture a guess maaaaybeeee the new Ektachrome - but you can get that look with telecine from any negative stock I imagine.

The way I recall it, Hi8 in itself was around for quite a while before it started making a serious impact in the film-film world. I recall that when Hoop Dreams came out everyone was like "Hey, that was shot on Hi8 and transferred to film, right?" and then everyone started whispering and thinking. At that time the kinescoping processes started getting more advanced too, with laser recorders coming in, so the quality of video to film was allowing for better images. Right at around that time DV was announced, and then when the specs started coming out that it had higher resolution, and in particular when the whole firewire concept came into play (took a while for it to catch on btw, many of the first cameras were firewire out only), that's when the wave really took off. Previously, low budget filmmakers would say "We'll shoot on 16 for under $30K then get someone to pay another $30K for the blowup to 35", then they started saying "...or we'll shoot on DV for a few thousand then get someone to pay $100K for a laser film recorder job". DV was the format that got the whole Dogme school going nuts, but Dogme itself was created in 1995 if I'm not mistaken and those were still the Hi8 days. The debate is would the video craze still have continued had DV not shown up and Hi8 been the format? I imagine it was likely, because the hype was already beginning then. Either way at that point the 35mm market was pretty safe. Then 35mm got its first heavy bout of competition when HD cameras came out. 16mm was still holding well (esp. Super 16 which fit the aspect ratio). But then when cheaper cameras were available that were under $50K that delivered an extra blow to the 16mm market, which was already bleeding because of DV. During the DV days I don't remember lab closures happening - as a matter of fact a few new ones showed up. But as of late two of my favorite labs in New York shut down (Lab Link and now A-1), and other labs have begun discontinuing their processing (or outsourcing it) and focusing on digital services.

From http://www.peaceman.de/inhalt/schmalfilm/s...wickler.en.html "Results are as good as home processing gets ? I assume most people doing this take some uniqueness of the results into early consideration anyway." Errr... not enough troubleshooting in the engineering department! I think it's possible to get lab excellent results with a home processing rig if your equipment works well.

I think that the first major smack in the face to 16mm was Hi8, in part because of Hoop Dreams which was shot on Hi8 and got a succesful distribution deal. That was the first time indies sort of perked up their ears because you could shoot something on a video camera that cost much less than a Betacam and was compact. When I was at NYU DV had just, just come out and it was still expensive. Some of us (me included) were talking about doing our first feature on Hi8. I think Blair Witch was a Hi8 project, if I recall. There were articles on how people would do micro-budget features on Hi8 and even Super VHS, then get them processed through "Filmlook" or shoot on the camera's 30 fps setting. So from there on, 16mm was already in danger even though it was certainly imho better than either DV or Hi8. But then the Super 16 craze came into play, and that sort of offset the problem for a while. When HD cameras emerged, then mathematically the resolution problem was beat. You could have better than 16mm resolution, but the grain structure, color, and contrast ratio for film was better and in my opinion, it still stays that way. Personally I shoot 16mm because I just love its look, and I haven't seen an HD camera that can duplicate that look exactly (if anyone knows of one, please tell me the model and settings, etc).

I did an experiment with 7222 as reversal and I remember that it came out with a lower ISO rating. I was surprised, because in still B&W photography, processing B&W still emulsions as reversal (the pre-TMax days) resulted in a 1.5 stop gain in speed from the negative ISO rating. I gather the negative still Plus X and still Tri-X had a different structure than Double X. The formula for the Double-X developer (D-96) is overall lower contrast than the standard D-76. The Elon to Hydroquinone ratio is even with D-96 (1.5g to 1.5g), with D-76 there is more Hydroquinone if I'm not mistaken. Also, the D-76 films are developed for 6-7 minutes at 68 degrees, the D-96 films are faster developed. All this must mean the emulsions are differently designed, and consequently different rules apply. The strange thing is that if you develop the reversal MP emulsions as negatives, you also get a loss in speed and apparently, horribly atrocious grain. I believe this is because reversal emulsions have one layer that is very coarse and another is very fine grained. The fine grained layer is what stays behind after reexposure and redevelopment while the grainier layer is eaten away by the bleach. That's why reversal films exhibit less grain at the same ISO than negative, in B&W. The addition of a slight silver solvent in the first developer also helps somewhat. If anyone ever tried using Agfa Rodinal as a first developer, that is pretty cool - you get this huge but interesting, sharp grain.

Yeah, I do think a lot of people are shooting their indie films digitally, esp. with HDV showing up. I can't exactly blame them either, although personally I still prefer the look of grainy silved nitrate Double X to some HD camera in B&W mode. I can take my Bolex which I paid $250 back in 1989, load it with film and get a great image. I don't have to go and spend $5,000 on some Canon that will be outperformed by a $4000 camera in five years. It's interesting as a side note, the 16mm reversal market I assume took a heavy hit when the high speed crash test cameras were replaced with digital ones (and the NFL for the slo-mo stuff, when I believe they switched to negative or video). Because of the large amounts of film used up by these cameras (400' to shoot something that lasts a few seconds), there was probably a steady enough market and then that went down. I think that played its role in shutting down the VNF-1 Ektachromes. Few people were shooting features on that. Apparently VNF-1 was a favorite of some documentarians but I think by the time they discontinued it, documentarians were long shooting video or negative and getting telecine, not having to worry about workprint costs anymore. Then there was also that cross processing craze in the 90's that I remember, but that seems to have died down (I wonder if people are still going nuts over skip-bleaching like they were on this forum several years ago, when that was the predomiant topic outside of film vs. video). Personally I have a nostalga for VNF Ektachrome because there was a time when short ends of it were dirt cheap. About 10 years ago. I could pick up a 400' recan for under $30. I'd take it outside at night, film at an F 1.4, and push the hell out of it (2 stops sometimes) at good ol' A-1 for $20 a roll (push price, normal was like $15 back then). The blacks would be blueish, but it looked really cool I think, especially those orangy halide street lights. Most of my NYU classmates shot EXR, they were too snobbish for the old stuff and somehow had the money to pay for the process+print (even though they never matched back anything, just cut the workprint).

Just contacted Pac Lab, they do process the old Ektachrome at 0.25/ft, and they run it every day. So that's a relief. I really loved that old Ektachrome look, so now I have 400 more feet to enjoy of it :lol:

A-1 was a good lab. The price on their lease skyrocketed, as Freddie told me personally, so they had to fold up. He told me he was looking to strike a deal with other labs, so he might be back, but I think at the moment he's MIA. I still have 400' of Ektachrome VNF-1 that I want to get developed. Rocky Mountain charges an insane amount, like $90 for 100'. A-1 charged like $0.20/ft. I'm going to try Pac labs, but they have no website. If anyone finds a decently priced VNF-1 joint please let me know... Btw, A-1 used to send all their B&W negative to Lab Link. They just ran reversal on premises, nothing else. - G.

Let me just start by saying - shooting on color stock for black and white, BLAH! My opinion of course. In talks with lab techs the only thing that will truly prevent your B&W from being tinted on a color print is an intermediate stage (IP/IN). Either that or you nail the exposure perfectly each time and keep the same lights for the whole thing.