GeorgeSelinsky

I generally agree with your sentiment. The only thing is if I can find a way of replicating a specific SYSTEM that I already was familiar with, that can sometimes serve as a starting point for a departure to another look if so desired. Also, that's important if you ever want to match VNF footage, which I might want to do. - G.

One of the things I wonder about is the brightness range of camera original Ektachrome versus a given DV camera. I really wish there was a way of plotting the two next to each other. I think that the Ektachrome would be able to hold the sky as well as the DV did, that's the thing. Maybe the dupe would already start blowing it out like you have on your last image. The next step would be color reproduction. Btw I have a reservation about digital grain, I think it looks fake as all hell and when it's faked on DV, the compression artifacts get really nasty. - G.

Greece is certainly a good suggestion, with all those beautiful cultural artifacts everywhere, and the islands. A country like Romania is also unusual and interesting, a cross between western and eastern Europe (and also not very expensive). Check out some pics on the web. - G.

Yeah, agree with Sam on that. Thanks for the post though, Thomas. It looks like a reversal dupe actually. I just downloaded a demo of the Magic Bullet software. It splotches a very annoying logo right over the image so it's hard to really tell what the heck it looks like, but if you choose a wide shot you can make it out more or less. I used footage from a 1 chip Sony camera, it's not bad but it's no Ektachrome either. It doesn't have the motion rendering (that is only available in Magic Bullet Suite with AE). The color is interesting, I tried the "Buffalo" setting (I guess that's supposed to make it look like 7239 given that this is what Buffalo 66 was shot on) and all it seems to do is crush the blacks and pop up the saturation. The "Posterize Time" filter in Premiere (for going from 60 fields to 24 p) is total BS, btw. It turns your resolution into crap and the motion rendering isn't smooth at all. I think AE's built in filter was better. I would really have to test the f*ing hell out of this setup to get anywhere with it, and I'd definitely have to try using a better camera. Maybe I'll get decent results. This sucks. I loved how you could get the short ends of Ektachrome so cheap at one point, it was almost like shooting film for pennies (like at 9 bucks a minute, 10.50 a minute for push - a real bargain compared to color negative). You could load it into a Bolex, shoot with Kern Switars, and it had such a cool look esp. when projected. I wish I had bought freezerloads of it then, had I only known. I guess you only realize how much you miss something when you loose it. It's ludicrous, it costs MORE TO SHOOT EVEN Super 8 now than 16mm VNF recans, and we're talking maybe an 8 year difference. Now I gotta play with all this video nonsense to make it look like something half passable. Yuck. To paraphrase the Stones, "I know it's only Ektachrome but I like it, like it, yes I do..." - G.

Interesting, I would think that at an asa of 25 the grain would be extremely minimal (like the grain on 7245). Maybe the older intermediate stocks were more grainy, but again, maybe the T-grain is really such a drastic improvement that we can have blowups from asa 100 film looking better than from ECO. It's a bit tough to test this, although I spotted yet another few cans of ECO for sale on ebay again, "refrigerated fo 20 years" - combine that with Rocky Mountain's processing at $0.69/ft and you have a really good deal :P . Unfortunately the stuff I shot on ECO I am almost 100% sure I threw out, I was a kid back then and had no idea of how to shoot film well :lol: I did nail the exposure though... Anyway, I am aware that the VNF films are of a high gamma, so that's why I decided that video would be able to approximate them better (and man, if you overexpose Ektachrome it's about as bad as video I'd say). I think a 3 chip camera can come reasonably close to matching the VNF palette (after all, those films didn't have masking that helps give film its excellent color reproduction). Please do post those examples, Thomas. I'm interested in exactly how these settings are arrived at in AE, I can manipulate color balance but I've never played with color reproduction characteristics. - G.

Unfortunately, Kodak has discontinued the VNF Ektachromes, stocks that I found had an interesting color palette. Of course, many labs started charging ridiculous money to develop VNF film (Rocky Mountain and Bono want something like 0.59/ft for 16mm - alrighty there guys!), which offset the cost savings on the filmstock. I was thinking of a straight to taper that would look really great with the old ECO look, as if it was shot in the mid seventies. I know, the right thing to do is to shoot on color negative and then have the colorist do the magic. But recently I've been looking at some internet footage from the DVX100A (traitor I am), and I have to say I am very, very impressed with this camera. I know I may be asking others who haven't done it to hypothesize along with me mentally, but is it possible to use Red Dot's Magic Bullet and the DVX100A in 24p mode to get (or, shall I say, approximate with decent accuracy) the look of a film shot on 16mm ECO? What about the depth of field of the DVX100A vs regular 16mm, are we in an even remotely similar league here? Remember we're talking straight to video here. If I wanted to go to print I imagine that the DVX100A would be a pixel sea compared to ECO shot with an old Angeneux 12-120 wide open. I am choosing the DVX100A because it is the only 24p DV camera I could reasonably afford to rent or buy - although I'm ALWAYS scared of buying video cameras, it's called "and six months later they came out with model X which totally kills the previous one!!!!" Any speculative comments, educated guesses appreciated... - G.

Hah, you should have sat in our Sight and Sound film class at NYU, you would have seen the same exact thing in glorious 16mm projected on a large screen :lol: - G.

I've never done it before and I was interested in hearing what responses (if any) you'd get. I think there is one inherent problem with high quality direct from negative transfers - you have to filter the light source so that the video camera isn't forced to correct the color balance. I don't think it's a healthy thing to force the video camera to make such a radical correction, it may introduce noise and other artifacts. It seems that those who have transferred neg to video DIY have either relied on white balance or did a color correction in the computer, both methods will introduce noise IMO. If one does introduce a filter, that takes away some light, so that will force the video camera to have a more open aperture. I doubt it'd trigger the auto gain, but I don't know to what f-stop or sensitivity setting the designer of the Workprinter aimed for. Anyway, they're not so great at answering emails I've noticed, but do post any updates. - G.

It's interesting when you switch hats sometimes. I was at a park today wearing the soundman's hat to get an ambient track. I needed the sound of birdies, including some sea gulls, and some waves from the Long Island sound. What could be simpler? The day was very nice for winter: clear sky, 50's, and absolutely no one at the location at all. If I had to film (which I did before) this would have been the perfect time. My cinematographer's instinct tricked me into thinking this would be the best day for taping the audio, too. I show up with my sound recorder and mic, then put on my headphones. I see and hear that the surf is absolutely dead, you can barely hear the water lapping. That meant I had to move closer, which I didn't want to do since the shot I'm matching to needs less proximity and more general reverb. I saw some sea gulls milling around and was hoping they'd start making noises for me. But being that I was the only guy there, they immediately moved on to another place. I saw a whole flock in another place, started gently walking after them. No luck, they're too scared of me - I stick out too much. Then I say screw it and decide to start taping. I immediately start hearing an airplane roaring over my head. I wait. I start recording after the plane passes over and hear a noise - it's the wet rocky sand under my feet. I stand on a rock and wait for the sandy rocks under my feet to stop crackling. The gulls finally start making noise. I start recording, but then a gust of wind starts and blows off my mic's wind screen, it nearly lands into the water. As soon as everything settles again, a plane begins roaring overhead, and just as this one fades out you can hear another one fading in. It seems this park is right over a major flight path, something I never suspected when I was filming there. Then I went into the woods to see if I could get any sounds of birds. Nothing! While I see robins and woodpeckers in my window every day, here in the middle of the forest they're nowhere to be heard! At the same time, the planes kept overlapping each other, there was ALWAYS one plane slowly fading in as the other plane was fading out. After 40 minutes of this torture I simply gave up, and hoped that what little useable audio I recorded, I could salvage. I went to another park just to check, that one was way too close to a major traffic artery. Now I have to find a park that is far from both a flight path and traffic artery, that is not heavily populated and has no other sources of noise. Sounds like a fun job :lol: - G.

I have to say in all fairness to NYU most of their instructors have worked in the business and got things done. Granted, none of them were really bigtimers (save for when Spike Lee or Martin Scorcese would teach a class, which was VERY rare), but they were professionals without a doubt. Yeah, I did see some teachers there who had an abysmal track record and just got in because they knew someone, but they tended not to last too long - students can drive a teacher out sometimes if they lobby hard enough. However, in most other university film departments you get people who may have held a small job somewhere in film but never really got further than that. The main issue here is that if you're a working pro in film, you really don't have the time to be a fulltime professor. Furthermore the money won't make it worth your while. The only reason bigtimers go to teach is pretty much for the satisfaction of doing so. In all honesty, you don't need a bigtimer to teach you, all you need is someone who did get something done in the business. Teaching film students every little detail and fine point about the business is really useless, they won't be able to really take advantage of it. The most important thing that I think you learn in film school aside from the fundamentals of the craft is what real professionalism is all about. When you leave film school it's like leaving law school, it makes you nothing but ready to learn and go further. - G.

Your suspicion is not wrong. In my introductory film class at NYU, they gathered everyone together. A DP was addressing us. He asked "How many of you want to be directors?". Out of 60 people, about three quarters raised their hands. "Now how many of you want to be script supervisors?". One person raised their hand. The DP said "Now this person will probably become a script supervisor. The rest of you most likely will not become directors." He was certainly right. Many film students later went to different schools, i.e. law school (that was a popular one), others went and worked somewhere in post production, and a few got production jobs. A few became DP's (more like AC's aspiring to be DP's), or worked in sound (I always have a sympathy for sound people for some reason). But every time I check my alumni newsletter, very, very few people ever make it out there and produce/direct movies. So far only three people that I went to class with made it anywhere - one as an actor in a small but noted indie feature, another as a director of a straight to video film (which bombed), and a third had his co-directed film featured in Filmmaker mag. Nobody else from my graduating class has made any dents that I've seen. - G.

I think that editing gives a cinematographer a very important lesson. Editing my own stuff taught me a lot. I've saved bad situations in the cuts, from bad performances to bad focus to bad lighting to bad continuity, etc... If there is one thing I ever learned from cutting, it's the time honored mantra, "Coverage, coverage, coverage!". You really can't do a lot when you don't have the coverage and cutaways, unfortunately. - G.

Well, what are the chances of a telecine eating your negative? I mean, to even get an IP made you have to have the colorist put your negative through a color analyzer, then it has to make it to a contact printer, which can screw up your negative in the dark where the lab attendant may not know until it's too late. Sounds like you're taking a greater chance there than with a telecine machine which is basically a film reel to reel mechanism. Granted, I understand there's more shuttling back and forth that goes on, but still, it seems that the mechanism on a telecine isn't so nasty. To this day I've never heard of someone who got their negative or IP element badly screwed up on a telecine. I have, however, heard of splices coming apart and going bad during contact printing (it happened on Velvet Goldmine). Let's just take a look at this contact printer: and then this Rank: What film path looks more treacherous and potentially hazardous to your negative? - G.

Lol, the crew of one and a half. I'm all too familiar with that scenario. We aught to start a support group on the internet... The co-director scenario might work for you best, because that's calling a spade a a spade. If you fund the project you'll be in a position to have more word - but bear in mind that you have to have respect for your partner's job. "Babysitting the actors" is quite a serious and critical task (try calling a DP's job "focusing and setting the exposure" and you'll see what kind of response you'll get on this forum!). You have to allow your partner some creative leeway and know how to diplomatically work with them. You can't have situations where arguments erupt on the set over a performance, that's going to murder the actors. In general I am against co-directing as a principle. I think that you either grab the bull by the horns, or confide in the fact that this job belongs to a person you can trust and work that way. There's always a fine line in any creative endeavor over who's in control and who has final say. It's much easier and better when it's one person calling the shots and leading the parade versus five. Of course, this is not always what real life is like. Conversely, the head in command would be a fool if s/he didn't know how to listen to the occasional suggestion. There are, of course, some cast and crew members that will sense a liberal open minded director and start jumping at every chance to look like a genius, so it's important to maintain the line. - G.

Sometimes that has been the case, I can't say that the marketing and publicity strategy for Super 8 was an act of brilliance, even in spite of the hubub of the video era. I remember for a long time Super 8 was listed in the amateur category and any professional picking up a catalog would have no idea that Kodachrome was still manufactured. Kodak like any company has different people running things, one person may be very vested in keeping Super 8 a viable medium, another may be shouting out during board meetings "Let's dump it already and concentrate on the video market!". It seems today that there has been more of a change in attitude and even though Kodak had to get rid of mag striped filmstocks, K25, and the VNF Ektachromes, they seem more interested in hearing what a wider spectre of filmmakers have to say than before. At least that's my impression. Also, the heat is on right now because digital has become a very visible threat to the existance of motion picture film. Back when 3/4 inch Umatic was still a standard format, film still had a more comfortable edge. Now there's more of a survival mode attitude, and that benefits all of us really. All in all Kodak is a business, and its really up to them to make the most profitable decisions. If they are overlooking something interesting, our only hope can be that they'll listen. That said, Kodak is also aware that many people ask for things only so they can have the "possibility" of using them, it's not like they have real practical plans. For instance, I think it would be NICE if K-25 was still there, but I don't see myself really using it for anything major. However, if they knocked out all the color negative filmstocks except for Vision 200, I would be really, really motivated to speak with my mind and with my wallet. - G.

I always had the toughest time determining just what is a scene. If two people are talking and they walk from one room to the next, I usually count that as two scenes. If two people are in one location and they're talking, then we cut to another shot outdoors for a while, then we cut back in, I count that as two scenes, not three. But sometimes the narrative changes pace in the given scene, a new character comes in, etc. I gotta hear some script breakdown tips if anyone has them because I really am not that great at it. - G.

I myself am trying to figure out what to do with my own situation. For a feature, an IP costs around $12,000 to make if my math is correct (and without going to an interneg and a check print, there's no true way to tell what you've got on there). That's a lot of extra time in the transfer suite! A colorist I talked to from one telecine facility said that they can do cut negative no problem. I frankly don't know what to believe anymore, I get a lot of conflicting stories. It seems that most people even when they get an IP are still clocking in 8 to 12 hours with the colorist. - G.

You'll actually find that 35mm is more affordable than you perhaps imagine. Using short ends I am shooting 35mm for a cost that is just a smidge higher than using fresh color 16mm stock. If you got yourself a Konvas you too could be shooting 35mm for very little, so long as you're okay with transfers to tape (when you start doing film dailies, that's when 35mm starts costing a lot). I would love to use a 3200 speed B&W film (although P3200 is really a 1200 asa film that is pushed during processing). It's actually a cool idea, do a film with all existing light (well, perhaps augmented here and there with a fill card and stronger bulbs :)) using P3200 pushed to 6400. It would probably look totally surreal. The one problem is 100' loads, and of course the stuff isn't cheap. One could probably use Tmax 400 and just push that to 1600 or 3200 using a high energy developer. - G.

I just found out that T max P3200 is available in 100' lengths (recording film has indeed been discontinued). While this place doesn't have TMZ in 100' rolls, it has the other Tmaxes and the prices don't look so bad: http://shop.store.yahoo.com/ecamerafilms/kodakfilm.html

With color I agree all the way. It's hard to match a lab which runs daily control strips and has an automated temperature regulation and replenishment system. With black and white, I'm not so sure that most labs really give a damn. It's not like it's such a competitive market for them. I've seen many labs turn up pretty bad results in B&W, if they did that in color they'd have serious problems. Furthermore, you can save some big bucks if you run your own B&W (the smaller the gauge, the greater the savings), and you'd probably end up with more consistent results given the way some labs run their B&W baths... With B&W negative processing you have three very basic chemical steps, not much to go wrong. Reversal is a bit trickier but it's still not the same thing as running an ECN-2 or VNF-1 bath. So long as your processing equipment is in shape and you either replenish your baths or mix n' dump, you really don't have that much to worry about. - G.

That would be fun actually, I would love to try shooting some very high speed stock like that. I thought they discontinued it though, or maybe they just discontinued the B&W Kodak Recording film (which was available in 100' rolls and was pushable to 3000 asa). Theoretically you shouldn't loose speed with D-23 (unlike with Microdol-X). Check out this article on D-23, which also includes the formula for divided D-23: http://www.photoshot.com/articles/general/kodak_d_23.htm I think divided development would be a good thing to try for B&W negative MP processing (wouldn't work for reversal well though, because divided developers are pretty low con). It's pretty automatic and it's more economical - all you have to do is toss the accelerator B bath after a short while (and the accelerators are cheap chemicals), the A formula has an extended capacity so long as there is no contamination. I always wondered how divided development would work for a rewind tank, better or worse than standard development? Henry Horenstein's "Beyond Basic Photography" book warns on p. 97 that overagitating the B bath can lead to streaking, so maybe with a rewind tank one would have to slow down the cranking to reduce the risk of that happening. - G.

Hi all, I don't know quite where to put a posting for "opticals", but since this section deals with processing it deals with labs too... I need to get some footage skip printed for my film (no stretch, just skip). I have never done opticals with an optical house before. I need basically this - to skip print about 100' of 35mm film (100' being original footage, to be reduced all by a 2:1 ratio to 50 '). What I intend to do is splice together all of the negative that needs skip printing (with handles of course), and then submit this spliced roll to the optical house. I assume that's the right way to go, instead of handing them individual strips of negative. It's probably cheaper too, since they don't have to rethread their machine. I'm assuming what they do is run the optical and make an IP, then they can contact print the IP to create a new negative (onto intermediate stock). Also, I would appreciate any additional suggestions and optical house recommendations from NY/NJ. - G.

Thanks for the good words Karl, I'm glad people are learning from my site! I really miss my darkroom days, it's becoming a lost art pretty quickly. Granted, motion picture processing isn't as enjoyable as making your own 16X20 prints, but it allows for flexibility w/o question (i.e. sepia tone B&W reversal - if you can stand the odor of the sulfide redeveloper). I don't know how D-96 compares to D-76 in terms of sharpness and grain. Sometimes some chemical processes are designed for the benefit of the film processing equipment, so quality may not always be optimal. There are lots of interesting developers out there, and it would be interesting to experiment with them and B&W MP film. I tried Agfa Rodinal on B&W reversal, it was interesting - sharp but grainy. I still haven't tried D-23, and its divided developer variant (one bath is D-23, another is a Borax accelerator), nor have I tried Acufine (it's pretty expensive but it boosts film speed). Anyway, if you experiment be sure to report your findings to the Movie Processing yahoo group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/movieprocessing One good way of experimenting, incidentally, is to do tests with short samples of film a few frames long, loading them into stainless steel developing tanks. Of course when it comes to rewind equipment you really can't get an accurate picture that way, but with spiral reel gear you'll get a good idea at least. - G.

Probably not since it is a noisy, non sync camera. Frankly, there's nothing about 35mm that makes it less "intimate for the actors" than 16mm. The mass of the camera isn't that significantly different - maybe a Mitchell BNCR and a Bolex don't quite compare, but if you compare apples to apples it's not that big of a difference. The same crew is required regardless of what format you shoot in - the same people are milling around your set. Actually you need more light for 16mm, and that is less intimate by design. The big problem with 35mm is more frequent reloads and that you have more filmstock to carry with you. That makes it much less pleasant when you're filming something like a doc, or docu style. The reason, btw, that Texas Chainsaw was filmed in 16mm Ektachrome Commercial (asa 25) is because they wanted to do a lot of handheld (and this was before good handheld sync 35mm cameras existed). I would NEVER want to work with so much light on the set though, there's no way in hell you'd get away without renting 5k's, a strong generator and getting a load of heat. Fortunately with today's films that's not nearly that much of an issue. Still, if you want to blow up to 35mm later you really want to stay in the 50-100 asa department as much as possible (although many DP's are going with the 200 asa vision now for blowup, and even permit themselves the use of 500 asa 7218). - G.

You can mix D-96 on your own (and most other developer formulae) if you order the chemicals from an outfit like the Photographer's Formulary (they'e on the net somewhere). I believe ID-11 is the standard chemical used to develop Ilford B&W neg films, and you can get that premixed. I never analyzed the ID-11 formula, but D-96 is of a lower contrast than D-76. D-96 has even amounts of Metol/Elon and Hydroquinone, D-76 has a heavier dose of Hydroquinone therefore making it a bit more contrasty. You might want to check out my movie processing page at http://www.geocities.com/gselinsky I have formulae posted on there, including D 76 and D 96. - G.