Freya Black

No it doesn't. It is copyright infringment which is a very different thing both in law as well as in reality. All of these arguments that equate copyright infringment with stealing a can of coke etc are in fact a terrible debasement of copyright. Copyright is a positive thing, it is something that was created to protect the rights of artists but has become horribly twisted with large corporations owning copyrights etc. The large corporations are keen to dispense with copyright altogether, and that is why they are playing the game they are, and equating movie piracy with murder and stealing of physical property etc. They want laws that will allow them to control peoples ability to copy and to dispense with our rights to copy altogether. Also people are talking here as if movie piracy is a new thing, but it has been around for a lonnnnnng, looooooonnng time. I suspect that to this day I have still only ever seen "a clockwork orange" on a very dodgy 7th generation VHS dub complete with warbly sound etc. Many soviet films were only available in the west on bootleg 16mm prints. It's been around a long time and probably always will be around. love Freya

No I meant your photos have big black borders around them! :) I guess it must be because you reduced the picture size but not the canvas size which I guess must mean that the place where you posted the pictures didn't care as much about the physical size as the file size, so maybe it would have been better to increase the ,jpg compression when saving instead? *shrug* Anyway, this is all besides the point, thanks again for the pictures! :) love Freya

I have to confess that I'm not too sure who the actor is (even tho I saw layer cake), I'm rubbish at that sort of thing. However what's the problem with his hair colour for gods sake!???? I can imagine the kind of thing they might say! The press is so backward and prejudiced. Honestly I don't know where they dig up the trolls who write this kind of trash. It's amazing the new kinds of hate these people can dredge up each day. Now I'm rooting for this actor and I don't even know who he is. *sigh* love Freya

I'm sure I've heard of HEIDELBERG, tho for a moment I was thinking of the uncertainty principle. Sometimes I get a little confused. Anyway, yes Heidelberg, I've heard of it, but what's this Mannheim thing? Is that a village somewhere? ;) I looked up Mannheim on the internet and apparently you have a beautiful water tower with carved demons to protect the water or something. Sounds just up my street! :) I will contact you off list in a second. love Freya

Er yes, they are incredibly tiny (and why all the black!!!) but I am very grateful. Nobody has ever poted me pictures of the crank before so it's really interesting. I managed to blow them up larger and while they went all pixelated (I need one of those machines Harrison Ford has! ;) ) I was able to get a vague idea of what it looks like a little. At least I know it's mostly just a single cog on the other side. Thankyou! I wonder if there is a place I could even buy ready made cogs? love Freya Ah! Watch oil! I wonder if I can find some of that somewhere. It sounds like a good tip! Then I can get my filmo running like clockwork! Oh, hang on, it is clockwork... Anyway I think it is a good tip. People have mentioned Arri oil to me before, but it's not the kind of thing you can just wonder down to the shops and buy, and I suspect it would be very expensive if I could find it, but watch oil, that sounds like something I might be able to find at a watch repairers or something. You never know! Sewing machine oil is readily available tho and I think it's got to be better than 3 in 1! You might as well use it really, unless you can track down some more magical oils! :) There are parts of the Konvas that are supposed to be lubed with grease too. I remember someone talking about some super magical grease they tried on their Konvas that really did the job! Maybe it was some strange Teflon thing? I wish I could remember what it was now. love Freya

Ooops! I only now looked at your website proper and realise you have a conventional reel and that the films on their own are seperate! It wasn't actually me asking if you were in Germany. I just assumed you were in Australia because that is what it said next to your name. I assume too much which is very bad because I would be unhappy if people assumed things about me. Well actually, maybe not, just as long as people assume good things! :) Will you be in Germany over the summer? I'm planning to travel over the summer if I can get cheap flights and am almost definitely going to Hamburg on my journeys as one of my best friends lives there. Maybe I could travel to the strange place you live in down in Southern Germany and we could try and fix the sound? I would need a floor to sleep on tho. If you want we could shoot a film down there too, on my little filmo and you could D.P. for me? :) It might be fun, although obviously no money and a filmo is very restrictive and I also make weird experimenal work etc etc, but hey... Maybe I can travel around europe making films as I go!!! :) I don't know how much it would cost to get to that place you live in tho. I have to say I've never heard of it before! Anyway, maybe it's a crazy idea, so don't be offended by my suggestion and I certainly won't be offended if you think it is too insane. ;) love Freya

The editing would probably mostly be easy, but getting a good recording might be hard. I love the idea of getting German actors in too! :) That would be something. In fact you know you could dub it into some obscure or even made up language, just as long as you got good recordings! :) Maybe you can make friends with someone who knows about sound. It's a shame you are in Australia as I might try and help. As it is you should leave this off your reel. I know that's a terrible thing to say because it's nothing to do with your work, but people will still look down on you for that. They will judge the work as a whole and you may lose jobs for that. Maybe you could just show clips stills and or highlights. That way people can still see the good work you have done without getting stupid ideas into their heads. love Freya

They certainly do have pictures but only of the outer side! :) love Freya

I can tell because the sound is quite echoey as well (even outside the bathroom). It sounds like the microphone was too far away from the talent or that you were using a cardioid or omni microphone or something. *shrug* It really is a bit scary. However if you can get the original actors in you could loop the recording. In fact I suppose you could be really evil and use different actors. ;) The sound doesn't seem that in synch anyway (in the bathroom) and for most of the shot you don't see her lips so this should be extra do-able. The stuff in the kitchen might be harder to loop however but theres not much harm in trying this. I don't know if you have a sound friend who can help you. If not and you have no money, you could try to do it yourself even. Theres a few ways you could go about it. Firstly you could take the recording to the location, and play it back and then try and get the talent to repeat the words in the same way, and record them again very carefully. Do it a few times to be sure. Even better, if you have a laptop, you could take the recording on the laptop and use a program such as cooledit to play back the recording, while the talent tries to say the words at the same time. This way you can hear when things are vaguelly in synch. You could even go further and take some software like vocalign with you. Lastly you could loop the sound in studio conditions which might be the best way of doing it in a proffesional situation. Then you could record it dry and add appropriate reverb in post but perhaps that would be more difficult in your situation I'm not sure. I guess it all depends on what you have access to. love Freya

That's great! And you are saying you wouldn't even need keycode? That somehow the timecode might be enough? I've been trying to look into this because I like the idea, but I've not been able to find very clear information. The information I have read seemed to suggest that you might need to get a disk when you do your one light that contains the relationship between the keycode and the timecode on the tape, and that some software is needed to relate your EDL back to keycode, but I am somewhat confused by what I have read. As an aside, I was reading about arri/aaton time code systems, and heard about some people who are experimenting with locking the timecode for the camera to a video recorder connected to the video assist! They then do a rough edit on the video assist footage and transfer only the camera footage they need in the telecine based on the EDL and timecode! I love this idea! Although obviously there is the possibility that something could look fine on the video assist but be bad on the real footage. Still, it's an idea with some mileage in it I think! :) Apologies for drifting a little from the central point of this thread. love Freya

Apologies for that, it was just me misunderstanding what Adam was saying. :( love Freya

Hiya! I watched the fish film. It wasn't clear to me how Oscar got back in his tank but I guess we can assume he got lucky when he landed. :) The fish film looks beautiful. The trouble is that the dialogue is almost completely unintelligable. Mostly I can't make out a word until the end of the film. The bit on the mobile phone is nice and clear, but the bit in the bathroom, well I have no idea what was said, or what that whole part of the film was about. It detracted from the film really really badly. Maybe you could loop this dialogue? Theres a couple of places where the music really doesn't work for me as well. It seems kind of inappropriate, especially when he is trying to get the fish, as the music sounds like a triumphant march which is not what is happening on screen. Loved the fish, and I loved the use of colour, in fact the film looks sooo good that I can't believe how bad the sound is. :( love Freya

I've not seen many in real life, but most of the ones I have seen didn't have the chrome plating! ;) Then again in might have worn off. :) love Freya

Those are great tips! :) Not only does David Lawrence have a website but it works! In addition to that it doesn't require you to install flash 9 and Quicktime VR 11. It doesn't have a silly flash intro screen and biggest shocker of all, it actually has pictures and prices! Yes they actually say how much things cost! :) Mr Lawrence must just be visiting England. Nobody has told him how it works around here yet! ;) The Format filters site was also preety good in that they will actually sell directly to you and promise to send you a price list, albeit by e-mail and probably in some annoying pdf, but it's good. Better than having some weird complicated process to find out who their dealers might be or a dealer list on which the email addresses are hotlinks but the websites aren't (???!!!) etc etc etc Love the David Lawrence site tho. Loads of good quality low end lighting gear it would appear: http://www.studiolighting.co.uk/index.html I like the minature flo kit in paticular. Shame the tubes won't fit my standard T8 fittings, as they have both daylight and tungsten tubes and the prices look reasonable. Check it out. love Freya

That's very sweet of you Rolfe, but sadly I'm in Leeds and just pop down to London from time to time. OTOH if it turns out to be ghastly expensive to get the gels, then maybe I will want to test it out first! :) Hopefully it should be cheap because The fixtures are built to take gels and already contain very strange ones, so it will only need to cover the surface area of the tubes themselves. Bizarely I did used to live down there in a place called Merton Abbey which was near the land of Morden where the shadown lie, at the bottom of the Northern line. I used to like living there but I got made redundant and they shut the car boot sale round the corner, and well, all good things come to an end. I nearly did buy a tiny house there tho! :) love Freya

You mean he could attempt to do a grade on the Beta SP footage? I guess that's a possibility, I suppose it depends on how well the one light came out. Obviously it will only ever be Beta SP quality, but then, Beta SP is a proffesional format that has been used for years for broadcast and I expect an awful lot of DVD's have been produced from BetaSP masters. A lot of film festivals play out from SP to this day too. I guess it would depend on what magic the colourist could put in during a tape to tape grade. I'd like to hear more about your working process either way Adam. Sounds interesting and potentially useful unless I have misunderstood you. :) love Freya

I dont know what the cost of the neg cut will be but that seems lke the way to go. It also has the advantage that if you ever need to transfer again, to Hi-Definition or 4k or whatever other strange thing arrives in the future, then you will only have to re-transfer the cut neg. Keep all your off-cuts in case you want extras for a DVD or something one day perhaps. You can transfer direct from neg as I think most people do these days. It seems a little odd the idea of making some kind of print from it, just for the telecine, especially if it isn't graded. This will just drop your quality. Obviously you want a full scene to scene corrected telecine even if from the neg, so if the quotes from deluxe are horrendous then you may want to look elsewhere. Is seatlle near L.A.? I thought it was but my geography is scary bad. There is a company in Seattle called "flying spot" who have a shadow transfer machine and a talented and helpful colourist (Eric). I've not used them myself but have been impressed by footage transfered for others and have spoken to their colourist who seemed nice and helpful. I imagine they will be a lot cheaper than Deluxe. However, I bet there are loads of transfer houses in L.A. so you might want to ask around and find out what might be a cheaper option. Then again, maybe companies charge a premium for their L.A. location. *shrug* I hope it all works out, I'm sure it will and you will learn many valuable things. :) love Freya

I think sewing machine oil should be somewhat easy to find and might be better, but you can probably get away with 3 in 1 I'm not sure. I've always used sewing machine oil on my filmo. It might have been a motor issue. You might have exceeded the duty cycle time a little and then you gave it a rest and it was happy again. I think you can find details of the duty cycle times on the Raf camera site. I'm really glad to hear it is going again anyway! :) You will need to check the distance settings are accurate for your lenses. Apparently the marking can be a bit out. First you can check by eye through the viewfinder and maybe using a tape measure to check individual distances, then perhaps a film test. Perhaps you can help me. I want to buld a hand crank for my Konvas automat but I would like to know a bit about the standard hand crank before I start. Perhaps you could look at the rear of your hand crank and tell me what it looks like? Is it a single cog that meshes with the cog internally? If so what is the diameter of the cog and how big are the pointy bits. :) Any information you can give me about the hand crank would be great. love Freya

Hey, why the big downer on Sweeden? I always like to think Sweeden is a preety advanced society, although I've never been there yet. :) Obviously here on this septic Isle everything is a big mess and it's hard to get prices for things or rent anything etc etc. The number of times I must have rung Kodak trying to get basic information and prices (or even the little vision demo DVD which should be easy to send me!), and then never did. I've ended up getting all my film from dodgy third parties. You manage to find a way around it all in the end but I bet it's not like that in Sweeden. :) I think somehow it's to do with u.k. culture and the way people look at things here, and the approach to buisness but I can't put my finger on exactly what it is. love Freya

I actually liked it a lot in places. My favourite bits were tiger girl and when it starts raining (what was that?). What was the portable light you used? It didn't seem to give off noticeable hot spots or anything? What kind of watts was the output? loe Freya

Can anyone recommend a supplier (or maybe more than one!) in the u.k. for 1/8 minus green? The few suppliers I know of locally only seem to have basic CTO and CTB and black wrap. I'm resident in Leeds but am often in London, if you can recommend suppliers in either or even better both areas, then that would be great! :) love Freya

Kodak have made a few 50D stocks. Their current offering is vision2 50D, a while back there was 7245 EXR 50D which was one of my favourite stocks but it seems a lot of people prefer the new vision2 stock for that more modern Kodak look and because it intercuts with other vision stocks better. Without any product numbers it's hard to know what you are shooting. These stocks are low in grain and look very nice but not very useful if you want a grainier look or are shooting in low light conditions. The Fuji 500D is amazing as you can shoot indooors by daylight. Kodak 250D might get you the stops you need when the sun is going down or you are in the shade. If you want to see your results right away there is the Ektachrome 100D which is a reversal film, which also gives you a very different look to colour negative films. There is Fuji 64D if you want to try a differnt look in slow film stocks too. They are all great stocks. love Freya

Sounds great, you really lucked out as I don't think I've come across a high ampage 6volt supply around. :) There are some threads about batteries if you search for the word power or motor or batteries/battery in the Konvas smart group. I think I remember batteriesPlus being mentioned but I don't live stateside so I have to confess to not having paid too much attention, but maybe you will find some useful info in there.. Sounds like you found some good 6volt batteries there for a good price tho! Incidently, what does it sound like when you hand crank it? Does the shutter move in the viewfinder? Take a lens off the front and crank it and see if everything at the front of the camera seems to be moving okay. (Don't touch the shutter but it should be rotating freely without scraping against anything). I hope you work it out soon, sounds like you are close to having it all up and running. :) love Freya

I've just found the Poly Lux XL's a bit cheaper still: http://www.thelightbulb.co.uk/product/detail.php?id=296 love Freya

Actually it is quite an achievement to find a power source for the Konvas. The rheostat motor originally is supposed to use 6 volts at 9 amps!!!! It can handle up to 8 volts, so most people use 8 volt batterys of a lower ampage. I'm not sure what exactly. Part of the problems with the Konvas are finding power for the motors. The other problem is that the motors are often unreliable. You are lucky to have a hand crank there! Those are usually reliable. :) Be very careful about leaving the motor running for long periods. The Konvas motors have a duty cycle which means you run them for a certain time and then you leave them to rest for a certain time. I'm not sure what the duty cycle is for the rheostat motor but I think 10 minutes may be a long time. Do be careful. The motor is the thing that usually breaks so take good care of it! People often complain that the fibre gears in the konvas automat might be a bit weak but I've never heard of people having problems with them. It could well be that it just needs some sewing machine oil and lube. It also might need a clean inside, perhaps it has got gummed up. My guess is it might need both! ;) If you go to the Konvas smart group there are photos there that show where the camera should be lubed and oiled. You could also ask for more advice there too! :) love Freya