Max Jacoby

Phil I found Alf an exceptionally nice person to work with. The main thing is that he really loves his job. After a 6 day week on 'Girl with Pearl Earring' he'd fly back to England on his day off to do a football game. And that's not because of the money, but because he enjoys it.

How does the sound get into the camera? Via receiver or cable? Because for some types of shooting having a cable connected to the camera might not be practical.

Today I got an offer to do an HD feature as a 2nd AC. Probably F900, don't know yet if they are recording to tape or disk. Now in what way is HD different from a film shoot for a 2nd? - Is the sound linked to the camera or does one still do sync slates ? - Do you do neg report sheets (or is that left to the continuity)? Any other differences that I should be aware of?

I just got hold of a new one: 'New Cinematographers' by Alexander Ballinger. Lance Accord, Jean-Yves Escoffier, Daruis Khondji, John Mathieson, Seamus McGarvey and Harris Savides talk about their favourite films and how they lit them. Lots of illustrations as well, a very nice book.

The good one obviously. :D I once showed Alf the steadicam.com forum. He made a search for his name and one post gave us a good laugh: it was Phil saying that when he had to operate with lousy equipment people always wanted to do incredibly difficult shots. His complaint: 'Who do they think I am, Alf Tramontin?'

I know one steadicam operator who is so expensive that the only film that can afford to have him onboard full time is HP. But then he got that job because on the previous film he came in on the last day when they needed steadicam. The director said he wanted a steadicam POV shot, then disappeared into the editing suite while they set up the shot. When they called the director back, he went straight to his monitor (away from the set) and they did the shot. After the director had said cut, he got up : 'I said I wanted a steadicam, not a dolly.' When he went to the set and realized that it had actually been a steadicam, the op got hired straight away for the next film.

Yep. Since it gives you better quality than the negs output from the DI. So as DI technology improves, one can always go back and rescan the original.

Oh and good luck with finding work on the Harry Potter films...

What makes you think that he bought an Arricam? There are plenty of older, second hand cameras out there that cost reasonable amounts. Even the new Arri 235 body is only around ? 35.000. As far as I know there is ony one individual who owns an Arricam.

I know enough people who make a good living working in the UK

To that I would add that you should always try to be early for crew calls. I recently worked with a new video assist operator who was regularly late for the bus driving the crew to the set. After a while people from other departments started complaining to me and the focus puller about him. Which as you can imagine is not the way to go if he wants to get hired again.

Quite a change from the old days then, when Britain used to send all its criminals Down Under...

Laura Don't listen to Phil, this is merely one of his numerous attemps to eliminate potential competition by means of discouragement. He is quite successful at it you know... :P

I am not sure either about the approach of shooting everything on a 500 Asa stock, especially if it is Super35. Films like 'Cold Mountain' did not look too good grain/sharpness-wise in my opinion. Although your rushes (contacted printed off the original negative) look great, once you factor in the blow up (either optical or digital), you are so far removed from your origianl negative that wide shots are bound to loose sharpness. Especially if you shoot on Cooke S4s. And any error in exposure (especially underexposure) will be magnified. I just finished a film where it was refreshing to see that although we carried a 500T stock, it was seldomly used (even for night scenes). Hell, we regularly shot day interiors on 64D. With an ND6 sometimes!

And what would the other formats be? For theatrical release film is the only one I know. Certainly the 100 odd digital screens don't count as 'worldwide'.

It was a lot more than just one week. Despite it being bluescren, they had a regular shooting schedule, including reshoots.

With handholding cameras, it's not just the weight, but also how they are balanced. If you don't have to move around too much if might be better to put a big mag on a camera, since otherwise the camera might be too front heavy. The 535 and the BL4 are not exactlty cameras that you want to put on your shoulder for a whole day. If you know that there is going to be a lot of handheld (and steadicam) in a movie, you better get a lighter camera. The Arricam LT is the best one of the lot, since it is not only lightweight, but also fairly quiet. There are more and more films that use it as their A-Camera, like on 'The Bourne Supremacy' for instance (where they had 2).

On the shoot I did we had an ST, an LT (with 14 mags), 14 LDS UltraPrimes (12mm-180mm) and a short Optimo. I think it was pretty much a one day week rental we had there. If one were to rent that camera package in France or England, it would cost much more.

What cameras did you use again and how many lenses? The reason I ask is that I just got off a feature where we had 2 cameras as well and there the price was apparently ? 8000/week

There are no Elites yet available in that region. If you absolutely want to use them, talk to Arri Rental in Munich, they might be able to help. You can check the specs for the Hawks on the Vantage Film website. They have quite an impressive range, from 25mm to 250mm. Very nice lenses.

How much does one foot of film cost (purchase, development, telecine)? I'd be interested to know what the break even point is in footage, not in dollars. Also the 4 Perf IP/IN contactprinting isn't free either and David quoted the optical blow-up itself at 15K. Comparing 3 perf S35 to anamorphic is a bit tricky, since one needs to factor in the rental prices of anamorphic lenses as well. Also the lighting package might increase slightly. In the end it is also an esthetical decision, since shooting anamorphic will make for a different style than shooting S35. I worked with one Dop who wanted to shoot anamorphic first, but then switched to S35, which was a wise choice, since he could never light to a level high enough to shoot in anamoprhic anyway. After another wide open night scene, he said himself that he was glad to have picked S35.

John I am a bit confused by your conclusion that 4 Perf is cheaper than 3 Perf. Do you mean 4 Perf as in 1.85 or anamorphic, which do not have to be blown up? In this case you still did not factor in the lab costs for IN/IP for 4 Perf. As far as I understood it the numbers David gave are for either 3 Perf or 4 Perf Blowup. I don't think a lab will charge more for 3 Perf. So shooting 3 Perf S35 allows you to save 25% on stock and processing compared to 4 Perf S35.

The software can do this. Basically you can programm your ramp quite in detail, i.e. you can decide how much time the speedchange will take, and you can add several different speedchanges one after another. There was a demo verison at the Arri website for download a while back and we got this software for a feature film, but we never used it. This worked with a 535, so using it on a 435 or Arricam should not be a problem either.

I think all the Arriscopes have been sold to India. Arri Munich doesn't carry them in their rental catalogue anymore. When I was there a year ago, they had an old 40mm Arriscope lying around. It certainly wasn't getting used anymore. There is talk of them getting new Elite anamorphics, but I haven't heard of a concrete date yet. If you would like to know more, best phone up Manfred Jahn in Munich.

Actually you won't find anamorphic lenses in Munich. At least not yet :-) Of all the options Adam listed, Vantage Film should be able to give you the best deal. They not only have the most lenses availble, but also rental in Germany is less expensive than France or the UK for instance.