Philip Kral

As a fairly new DP struggling to network and get his name out there, I've been somewhat bothered by the same frustrations that Mr. Frisch has been experiencing. About feeling like a cameraman instead of a DP. I can't help but feel that the digital age is partly to blame, I turn my back to add or adjust a light and the director takes one glimpse of the high res image on the monitor and usually tells me "I'm OK with this, lets just shoot." On film, no one seems sure but you if there's enough light where there's supposed to be. I find it interesting that other DP's that have a lifetime more knowledge, experience and reputation then I do is having similar issues. I guess you can say I second and third those statements too.... or just second Mr. Holland, lol. To be fair, on the opposite end of the spectrum I've also run into a few directors who do want to make "cinema magic" but are such micro managers about it that they damn near take over your job. Makes me feel like a glorified grip and rental house sometimes.

Lonny brings up an interesting point, are you looking for a run- and-gun camera similar to Super8? Or where you looking for like a heavy duty production camera? One of the advantages of using film, is that all the cameras shoot the same stuff- it's just what luxuries or bells and whistles you want to have with it. There are a lot of good handheld (Or as Lonny put it, Run-and-gun) cameras such as the K-3, Canon Scoopic, Bolex and the R16 Beaulieu. They take 100ft of film (pretty much the equivalent to the 50ft of super8), although some can be adapted to take up more film (Such as Lonnys R16) My first camera was the cheapest I could find- a Bell and Howell Filmo. Now my portable camera is Beaulieu R16 too (Mine is an old spring wound model). Awesome camera. Many of these cameras are also driven by a spring wound motors, which makes them always ready to go without batteries. I agree with Lonny that a Bolex wouldn't be a bad place to start, Bolex's where like the DSLRs of the day, making filmmaking affordable with a camera that had all the bells and whistles (single frame, rewind, etc). I recommend doing some Google search's and compare them with other cameras you'll see on this topic. It's probably worth mentioned that one of the options you could be looking for in a camera, is if the camera is regular 16mm, Super 16mm or Ultra 16mm. They all take the same film, but the gate is bigger on Super 16mm and Ultra 16mm, so naturally you can get a higher quality image. Naturally the price reflects this, many of the cameras I've mentioned come with those gates. Unless you're looking for something bigger (Something that takes 400 feet of film) and can be used to sync sound too?

Can't Blame Matt, for me Pro8mm is a mixed blessing. To make a long story short, their prices have always been high, and the effort they put into transfers for "the little guy" has also been under par in my experience. But, for the most part, the customer service has always been good to me when they screw up my order. The credit I have to give them is they do a lot of work keeping the format alive, and they have hard to find film stocks time to time. But I have to agree that being the sole supplier for the Logmar can be quite a bummer, we all knew the Logmar was going to be quite expensive... knowing Pro8mm, who knows how much more they're going to tack onto the price? (E.g. Rhondacam, for 400 dollars- I'll buy a Canon 310 on ebay and paint it pretty colors myself!)

Just curious, who still adds the magnetic strip to 8mm film?

Funny this post came up, I picked up the Sept 2014 issue of Film and Digital Times magazine 2 days ago in Adorama and it had a short article on the Blackmagic scanner, I had almost totally forgotten about it. The article gives very little information other then "A 16mm gate is available as an accessory. It will be ready later this year for around 29,995." In the meantime, the year's running out quick. Blackmagic's never really been know to keep their customer base/ public very well informed.

I can't help but wonder that someone out there that no one has heard of, has the facility's/ capacity to make movie film. Even more so if this film is panchromatic and they're doing the chemistry themselves. Makes me want to hear more of the backstory (Are your machines custom made? Are they from an old factory? etc) But It does peak my interest: 1. Yes. 2.Depends. 3. 1 4. 1 every other month. 5.Maybe I'm sorry my answers aren't so simple either. I utilize all kinds of speeds, depending on the project. I understand that you would like to make one run of 68 film rolls at a time of the same speed. Therefore, I'll take whatever speeds are the most popular for the first run you need. (E.g. If the other 33 filmmakers want 100ASA film, then I'll take it!). I also agree with Gregg, It's hard to estimate how much film I'll shoot a month. However, for 10min@ 80 bucks, I could probably shoot a bit more side projects then usual. As for the film chemicals, sometimes I develop my own film to save time/ money when doing tests in B&W. I also still do a lot of still film photography in B&W. I may consider buying chemicals from you depending on the pricing. Excited to see where this goes.....

You ask a very good question that I feel a lot of people in the industry are avoiding as it pertains somewhat to archiving. If it was shot on film, you simply rescan the negative. The sharpness won't exactly improve (It's been said Pixel equivalent- resolution wise- is around 6K for 35mm and just under 4k for Super16mm). However, if you needed 4K, 8K or however many pixels, as a negative is a pre-existing image all you would need to do it scan it with a sensor that has that many pixels. That's why every time a new medium comes out (VHS, DVD, Blueray, etc) they pull the negative out of the vault and do a new "restoration" job. More pixels/ quality =new scan. Digital on the other hand I'm not too sure about. Sure you can up-rez files, but at the rate we're going with resolution there is going to be a point where you're not going to be able to show your 1080 stuff on a 4K, 8K, 10K screen without it seriously starting to degrade. On the other hand, I would assume that if you where showing it on lets say a home TV, it would just reset to the lower res setup. For example, my TV does 1080, but if I run a 720 connection, it will adjust to it. Many movies shot for 2K are actually shot at much higher resolutions like their film counterparts (RED for example can shoot at 5K or 6K) so the RAW files will be able to be used for the upgrade for quit awhile. Like a negative, they'll just go back to the RAW files. It's an important question because at the rate we're going ("K"-crazy) even 5k footage is going to have trouble being re-released "up-rezzed" if the new standard goes beyond.

For once I'm kind of glad a board went off topic. :) .... I was about to think I was going to have to put my own 2 cents in.....

I don't even let the colorist do any of the color correcting anymore, as I have them send me everything flat when shooting negative. That being said, I still like shooting reversal for projecting actual film. For some strange reason, I never felt reversal film ever scanned right. A projected Kodachrome or Ektachrome image always looked amazing to me in person and looks like a noisy mess when scanned. I don't think I'm alone, otherwise there wouldn't be so many super8 videos from custom-made and personal machines on vimeo and youtube. I haven't been able to shoot any 200D yet.. I should get on that.

I should have been more specific, they will always bring out new cameras when it comes to digital. (Oddly, although now it's more of a niche market- my Super16 camera has been the only thing "keeping up," I love the format and it always seems to rival the digital headaches I get now a day. Something to be said about a long term investment.) Although with the Ursa, not only is the company implying that this one camera will indeed "keep up with the Joneses", but there's a lot.. and I mean a lot of unhappy BM customers who never got their firmware updates or many other things promised because the company quickly releases another camera in less then the time it takes to finally ship a camera out (Many customers literally got their cameras within 6 months of when the new ones are announced with what seems to be a drop in support for the ones they just bought). I'm just discussing if anyone thinks this camera will deliver what it claims: to be the last camera body you'll have to buy for awhile. Just talking shop, that's all. Although I'm going to have to buy a new digital camera again sometime ;)

I guess I should have added that with my question: there's nothing mentioned about being able to upgrade the processor. If you need both the sensor and the processing upgrade, well it says nothing about being able to do anything in the future with processing power. Which what worries me, if you need both then there doesn't seem to be a way to upgrade one over the other. The RED one is the example about that "other company" I was referring too, although you can trade in cameras for a discount and although the Epic could be upgraded to a Dragon- many people had to ditch their RED ones for the newer models. I agree with what you are all saying, I have no interest in buying a BM camera as of yet because of how they treat their customer base and the fear that they'll just bring out a new camera altogether next year. But if it look like the camera delivers what it says, I would seriously consider it... just time will tell.

This is perhaps a stupid question, but I'm not an electrical engineer nor a computer programmer so I was hoping perhaps someone on here can shine some light on this. The new Black Magic Ursa's selling point is that it's going to be upgradable so it will (theoretically) never go obsolete. I know the sensor can be changed out. For example, if some day 6K becomes the next "big thing", many people assume you're just going to be able to purchase a 6k sensor for an upgrade. But is it really that simple? I would imagine if you upgrade the sensor, you would have to upgrade the processing power for the upgraded resolution and I see nothing mentioned about that. Any thoughts? It sounds too good to be true, as It reminds me of another company that promised a modular upgrade system that never ended up that way.

I shot some 16mm film this last week and I used some 250D Vision3 color negative that someone else gave me and I have no idea how old it is. The interesting thing is, after I had put the film back into the canister in the dark, I realized when I turned on the light that I have flakes of emulsion on my hands. Quite a bit of it actually. I wasn't using the film for a major production or anything, but I'm still a bit interested/ worried how the film will come out now. Does anyone have any idea what caused this to happen? As I said, someone gave me some spare film they never used- what conditions could they have kept it in that causes the emulsion to flake off like that? Heat? Extreme cold? Age? There's a slim chance that perhaps my magazine is cutting into the film or that maybe there's built up emulsion somewhere there too, I'll take a look over the magazines again. Perhaps run some clear leader through it and see what happens. If anyone has any tips on how to clean or check the film path that may be I haven't tried yet I'm open ears. I already ran another reel of film through one of the mags afterwords and it came out clean. I've never seen that before, any ideas?

I'm not sure if it's the same lens, but I have a Zeiss 10-100mm that opens at its widest a 3.3 T stop. On my super16 film camera it vignettes up to about 75mm but is clear from then on. If it vignettes on a super16 frame I'm sure it will on a black magic. I personally use it for the farther focal lengths obviously. What mount is the lens?

I've been thinking of upgrading my digital cinema camera for awhile and I've been taking a hard look into the blackmagic cameras. It's hard to find some of the specs i'm looking for and I was wondering if anyone here knew if the 4k Blackmagic will 1) Have a Center-crop mode. (I'd like to still be able to use my super16 lenses) and 2) Is there a 2k or 1080 mode? (SInce If I did go for the 4K model, I wouldn't need the overwhelming pixel power ALL the time). I was just curious, the other digital cinema cameras have these option- it would be nice to know if this camera did too in contemplating purchasing one in the future. Thanks

I have an Ultra-t in 9mm, however it vignettes slightly on Super16. I've been told that there's a way it can be modified to fix this. Does anyone know who could provide this service? At a decent price?

Will, your not talking about the Kodak NY pickup at 150 Varick are you? I remember when they lost their location around 33rd St and I was really bummed. When I called a week or two ago, they said the Varick location was still there. Are they closing the one downtown too? That would be a real bummer.

I actually blew a board a few months ago, due to a short circuit and my stupidity. AZ spectrum can repair it (As well as add a video tap). But if more people are able to make mods/ repairs then that would really settle my mind for the future.

Holy crap, I hit the space bar to make another point and instead it posted this 3 times. Sorry about that, I was going to add that for steady work your still going to have to focus on a digital system. But any digital system will be a short term investment until the next "best thing" comes out. So try to keep in mind to purchase accessories and lenses you can use for multiple cameras. Now excuse me while I go and try to find out how to delete those other posts....

I personally just recently bought a S16 package. Although I would like to get some work out of it, I mostly bought it for the long term investment. That is, mostly personal projects and paid projects in the future. The way I see it, I just need one camera as long as film lasts (Even if we have to make it in our basements).

I personally just recently bought a S16 package. Although I would like to get some work out of it, I mostly bought it for the long term investment. That is, mostly personal projects and paid projects in the future. The way I see it, I just need one camera as long as film lasts (Even if we have to make it in our basements).

I had someone else take a look at it for a second opinion, they noticed the keycode numbers on the side where not only dim/ hard to see- but also a muddy red color. I was told it probably wasn't developed all the way/ correctly, considering that even if I was the one that screwed up the exposure- the keycode would still come out OK. I have the same theory as Anthony. For me, I sent it to Pac-Lab, I figure between black and white being their "bread and butter," that perhaps they fell behind on keeping their chemistry for color up to snuff.

It was on a 100 foot daylight spool, the camera never light leaked before. The camera in an Ultra 16 modified beaulieu, because the guillotine shutter doesn't cover the far end- sometimes the area by the sprocket holes is a bit fogged or overexposed (Since that end of the film is never 100% covered during transport). But I've never seen any light fogging damage in my other films, so I doubt the light leaked across the entire frame through that. I also can't get over the underexposure, it was consistent all the way through. I thought maybe my light meters off, but my other films came out fine. Problem is, they're all black and white or color negative. The exposures come out perfect in reversal black and white as does the color negatives (But they would probably just be corrected if the exposure was off). I don't want to blow another roll of Ektachrome for just a test.

I just received my film back from the lab. It's one of my remaining rolls of Ektachrome reversal 16mm film. Upon projecting it, i realized in horror that the majority of the footage- especially in the shadows- have a reddish orange tint. If the film was shot under tungsten lighting, I'd blame myself, but it was shot on a bright sunny day. I did not use any filters. The film looked consistently slightly underexposed, which may be my fault. I can't think of any other reason for the orange hue, other then that something went wrong during processing. Could it be anything else? X-rays maybe? Needless to say, with the discontinuation of Ektachrome, I find it kind of frustrating when my limited supply of it gets ruined.

Odd question, the machine that converts magnetic track to optical (When you make prints)- what's it called? I just realized, i've never seen or heard of one. But I know they exist, you couldn't combine your sound and negative together without it. Anyone?