Max Jacoby

Are there people who are still watching Star Trek???

Has anyone tried the new Optimo 17-80mm T2.2 zoom lens yet? I just spoke to my focus puller and he said that the dop of the feature we'll be doing in a couple of weeks wanted that lens. Arri Munich apparently have 2.

What they are doing is not BANNING. They still screen all the American films that are shown in the US as well, they are just limiting the number of screens these films can be shown. Is is called 'Exemption Culturelle'. Like I said it is based on the attitude that films are art and not just there to make money. Smaller films are given a chance, so what is not to applaud about that? The same is true for South Korea and their film industry has really beneficted by that.

Care to tell us who that is? :D

Gee, you are really very tolerant of people who don't share your opinion. You know, it is very useful to every once in a while listen to people who don't have the same taste as you do, it might actually help you to expand your horizon...

What the French do is NOT censorship. They believe that cinema is not just a business, but also an art form. They want to ensure the cultural diversity of their cinema by helping to give smaller films a chance against the big Hollwood popcorn flicks. Anyone who has ever been to Paris will know that the amount of movies getting screened there every week is simply mindboggling. This pluralistic approach which supports minorities is something that is sorely lacking in the US where most foreign films only get a very limited release, if they get distributed at all.

I guess an Arricam with all the accessories (mags, remote focus, mattebox, etc...) plus a full set of prime lenses (either Cooke S4 or Ultra Primes) and an Optimo zoom would come in at around ? 500.000. I was on a shoot recently where we were taking the magliter with all the camera equipment on down a narrow road. A guy whose period car was parked by the road obviously was worried that we might scratch his car or something. As we approached the car, I told the other camera assistant loud enough for the guy to hear: 'Careful, I don't want this car to scratch out 200.000 ? camera.' :D

Of course there will be films coming out that are shot on the XL2, but they won't look good...

That doesn't sound very believable, even if they are just talking about the US. It certainly isn't the case in Europe.

I think the ratings on 'Eyes Wide Shut' are a good example: US: R (& digital silhouettes during orgy scene) UK: 18 France: U The US and on a lesser level the UK definitely have problems with nudity. As far as I know the one country where there is no censorship is Belgium. In Luxembourg every movie gets released first without censorship. Only if there is a public outcry at a movie does the censorship board come together to hava a look at it. Of course that NEVER happens, so one could argue that there isn't really censorship either.

I always like to have at least 2 loaded mags ready. In case you need to change mags and something goes wrong with lacing up the new one (like a torn perf), you always have a backup. You never want the whole set waiting for a new mag.

I've been projectionist on Spiderman since it came out.I haven't seen any artifacts or anything else that would stand out indicating it was from a DI. It being a 4K DI, it looked very sharp. Better than most 2K DIs. But from the look itself, you can still recognize that it is a DI. I didn't mind the DI look too much actually, I found it acteptable for a comic book movie. It looks a bit flat and glossy and the colors are not supposed to be realistic anyway. As I said, my main problem was with the photography which didn't strike me as particularly inspired.

Okay, so they are 'handpicked strawberries', whatever that means. What does it mean, in fact? I've just come from the film and I really don't share your enthousiasm about the cinematography. While I thought it was solid, it certainly never struck me as outstanding. I found it quite conventional looking. They didn't really push any artistic boundaries. Also there were some close-ups of Kirsten Dunst where she just didn't look good. As for the film itself, there are so many scenes in that movie that are just plain bad. The scenes with people talking to themselves, explaining their motivations. The train scene with Spiderman getting carried over people's heads like a rockstar and then the kids saying: 'We're glad you're back', 'We won't tell anyone'. Practically any scene with the Aunt. it's just too much. I take T2 over this film any day.

Funny that you should think that, since Bill Pope said that he tought the DI made the skintones a bit plasticy looking...

Do you know if they are using the Cooke or Zeiss lenses?

What lenses would they have subrented? JDC? Hawks? As far as I know the Moviecam Compact doesn't need an anamorphic finder, since the anamorphic eyepiece does the unsqueezing. On all other cameras (Arricams, 535, 435, Moviecam SL) one needs to change the whole finder.

A film I did last summer involved lots of car rigs, which obvioulsy take their time. The 1st AD kept on asking literally every 2 minutes: "How much longer?" until the focus-puller told him: "I'll be much faster if I don't have to answer you every minute" That kept him quiet for a few days. :P

I have yet to meet a Dop who doesn't like shooting with the Primos. They are state of the art lenses, just like the the Cooke S4s and the Ultraprimes. Dops don't use Primos to do Panavision a favour. Oh give it s rest Phil! You are once again insulting film camera crews. Do you really think they enjoy lugging boxes around? Even though the equipment comes in different boxes, everyone always only takes out the necessary, puts it in a set bag and leaves the bloody boxes behind.

Well in my experience you can't make something out of nothing.

Tattersal said that he shot Episode 2 at a T3.2, which is the quivalent of T11 in anamorphic, so he definitely was after more depth of field. What was your shooting ratio on that film, David? I hate it when you have less than a 15 to 1 ratio, because as a 2nd AC you always get these annoying questions from the production office all the time like: 'Why are we shooting so much?' ' Last year I did a feature where we started with only 85.000 feet which of course was way too low. I always had to go beg for more filmstock. In the end we used around 100.000 feet, which still wasn't enough though.

Where is Orpington? I have been in London for the last 3 months.

Pete I find all this number crunching incredibly useless. This is based on nothing except the manufacturers specs. Unless you do some side by side tests and have them projected in a theatre, your whole comparison isn't worth anything. And saying that the XL2 will look very sharp on a smaller screen is just not true.

Yeah right... The funny thing about Episode 2 was that the live action elements, shot on HDCAM were softer than the CGI elements, which were obvioulsy done uncompressed. That made for a very interesting viewing experience. I remember one dop saying about the movie that he liked the way it looked, except the stuff with the actors... :D

As far as I know they are not using the Pro35 adaptor. And for Georgie shooting HD, well his Star Wars is an animation movie anyway as far as I'm concerned, so shooting film doesn't make much sense. On top of that he just likes to indulge his technology fetish...

Well I did think last year's 'Orange' commercial with the very long exposures looked incredibly nice. And the 'Add (N) to X' music worked very well too.