Max Jacoby

Oh that was a horrible DI. While I was watching the film, I kept on asking myself if this was shot on video (despite the filmgrain present). There are some exterior sunlight scenes where skintones had a disgusting brownish video-look. Even if it wasn't a HD DI, it still looked like one.

I have found that there is a higher than average proportion of dyslexic people in the film industry. It is actually very good if you know that a person you are working with is dyslexic. I have had some bad experiences (wrong filters, run-outs), so now I always double check with them.

I am a bit perplexed, someone told me that British Terrestial Television is in 14/9. Is that true for every program? So basically either of my televion's setting (4/3 or 16/9) will distort the picture...

There is also a Laserdisc, but alas it is Pan&Scan

What about Mac?

Can anyone recommend good DVD Authoring sottware?

The one good thing about low shooting ratios is that it forces you to think how you will edit everything together. Which on most big budget films were they have tons of stocks to burn isn't the case, they don't get 'shots' anymore, just 'coverage'.

I'd love to try them. Hopefully Arri Munich will have them available next time I go there. If only there was a proper Elite zoom lens as well to go along with the primes, an equivalent to the Hawk 46-230mm T4 would be nice. Otherwise it'll probably have to be a converted Optimo.

The Optimo is a Dop's dream lens and a focus-puller's nightmare. It has less dof than primes... But Arri have an LDS version of the Optimo as well, at least the focus-puller can see exactely how little dof he has.

I saw 'Northfolk' the other day here in London. I thought the scene towards the end where the men are the graveyard (with Nick Nolte in the 'shed' with the cross) looked amazing! Really heavy, overcast skies and gorgous blacks. What were your workhorse lenses on this film? Did you use the 40mm much? I shot with the Hawks recently and although we had a 40mm, we didn't use it at all, too much distortion. I like the 75mm best, it gives you a good wide angle with minimal distortion. The 50mm is okay, but we only used it if the 75mm wasn't wide enough. Ps: Did you ever take a sip of Nick Nolte's 'Red poop'?

David, What was your lenspackage for 'Northfolk'?

'Human Nature' I didn't like it nearly as much as his music videos, which are simply brilliant.

Depends on the budget really, but on most feature films I work on, we usually take a full set: Ultra Primes: 10mm (or 12mm) to 180mm Cooke S4 : 14mm to 135mm (sometimes combined with an Nikon 200mm) There is always a zoom (the most popular being the Angenieux Optimo 24-290mm), which comes in very handy if the second camera has to go off to shoot something else. But usually during the course of a production, some lenses, mostly wide angles, will get send back. On the last film that I did, 'The Merchant of Venice', we exchanged the UP 14mm for a second UP65mm after the 3rd week.

I was very surprised too by his win as I felt of all the films nominated it was the least good looking. I liked it even less than 'Cold Mountain'... But to quote Sick Boy from 'Trainspotting' regarding the Oscars: 'It's a sympathy vote, it doesn't mean anything'

My personal favourite is your 'Build your own home-made HD camera' post. Absolutely hilarious! You might have stumbled across a new catch word here: 'HDIY' Come on, fess up, which video company are you working for?

I didn't say 'only'. :D But anyone who posts as much on technical topics as 'Ultra Definition' better know what he is talking about. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be his case, hence the constant corrections other members have to provide. I work almost exclusively in 35mm, but I do read the HD forum to educate myself and I find his incorrect posts and HD/UD wet dreams very annoying and unappropriate.

Do you? I question whether you are even qualified to make 'technical contributions' since you don't really reveal who you are and what your occupation is. This is a forum for working professionals and I'm afraid you don't give the impression to be one It is very easy to hide behind a pseudonym and spit lies into the world.

And what are your qualifications if I may ask? Since I can't find any credits under 'Joe Tallen' on www.imdb.com, nor does this name show ANY results with a search engine, all your posts are pretty worthless in my opinion. And please don't go insulting members like Mitch on this forum who actually know what they are speaking about.

No it didn't. It looked soft and smeary. Awful skintones. I was very dissapointed to see such inferior work from Black Bob. There is this new trend toward DIs that I find very disturbing. Whenever you read AC or ICG magazine, Dops always rave about being able to contrast and color, etc... Like Philippe Rousselot on 'Big Fish' recently, making DI sound like the best thing sinced sliced bread. I mean, have you even looked at a projected print of your film??? I have yet to see a DI that gives as nice skin tones as an optical print. At best they look halfway decent, at worst they look like crap. See 'Kill Bill', 'Big Fish', 'X-Men 2', 'Confessons of a Dangerous Mind', etc... Just because it looks good on your monitor doesn't mean it looks good on a print.

I remember that in the American Cinematographer article on 'Heat' Dante Spinotti said that they never used the 50mm T1.1 wide open, because the lens wasn't sharp enough at that stop. Depends, the close-focus for the V-Series is 2 feet (50mm, 75mm), while for Hawks C-Series (which aren't as good optically), it is 3'3". All the info you need is on www.vantagefilm.com. I think if you are shooting anamorphic, rating the 5218 at 400 asa is plenty. You certainly won't have any grain issues. From my experience you can push the 5218 easily one stop without getting noticeable grain. I remember in 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' Eduardo Serra pushed the 18 for a few night scenes and they held up very well during the rushes. And that film was shot in Super35, so in anamorphic it will even be less of a problem.

Yeah, I nearly pissed myself laughing at the following: Now what 'typical' movie would that be? Are you talking about Porn maybe????

The lab was Color-By-Dejonghe in Belgium. They went through an IP and IN (opical blow-up). Close-ups and medium shots looked very good, obviously when you had wider shots, there was a bit of grain and it wasn't quite as sharp as 35mm (optically printed, not digitally), but it still looked very good. I think the Dop had made an effort to get a very clean and sharp neg (200T and no diffusion) and the result shows. The film also was printed on Agfa CP30, which is an excellent printing stock. I was there for the grading of my film and they printed us a comparison between the Agfa and the High-Con Fuji (3513). The Agfa beat the Fuji hands down: more neutral and deeper blacks, nicer colors and better skin tones.

I saw 'Cold Mountain' yesterday. I am not really a big fan of John Seale's work and I feel that this film clearly showed that Super35 and 500T can be a bad combinaiton for daylight exterior scenes. Especially wide shots were annoyingly grainy. During the battle scene there was one shot that looked like a Super 8 blow-up! Throw in a DI and you have a film that looks not just soft, but also very flat without real blacks and plasticy skintones. Earlier I was at a lab where they showed me a reel from a Super16 feature cropped to 2.39 and blown up optically to 35 anamorphic. This film was shot on 200T and it looked less grainy than 'Cold Mountain'. Max

Ultra Definition, first you title your post: 'UD vs. 70 mm vs. IMAX, UD is better than 70 mm' Then you write: 'Ultra Definition is not here yet.' Please do explain how UD can be better than 70mm if it doesn't even exist yet. You are comparing apples to oranges, i.e. present to future here. Now what's the point of that? Max

If you are shooting with Arri cameras, get an ESU from the rental house. This unit will allow you to dial out the horizontal bar from the TV screen. You'll have to shoot at 25fps and 180° shutter as perviously mentioned. Max