Dominic Case

Hi - I don't visit cinematography.com very often now, but just happened on this question. David Mullen - as always - remembers well. In fact it was often common to make an IP before the answer print was finalised - or immediately afterwards. That IP would become the master from which Dupe Negatives were made for the release print run. But also a the IP would be used to print a number of short sections (on an optical step printer) that included all the shots for the trailer. This might be frame accurate, yielding a one-piece trailer negative, or possibly, if full takes were printed to minimise handling damage to the IP, then the dupe neg would have to be fine-cut. However, since as many trailer copies would be required as prints of the feature itself, it would not be unusual for the trailer to go through two more generations to produce additional dupe negatives for bulk printing. In earlier times it was common to make the trailer from out-takes, so it would follow exactly the same work-flow as the feature: edit work print, match-cut the original negative, then make an IP and an DN. However, later there was a requirement that the trailer only included material that was in the actual feature (to avoid accusations of false representation). Now it is quite common to shoot and release trailers during (or even before) production on the main picture but the questions of generations of film, and of exact shots, are either meaningless or irrelevant! Finally, I can't be certain, but I am pretty sure that Titanic's trailers would have been made in a moe traditional way - but yes, film-outs from a digital master using an EDL and film recorder would have come in soon after that.

Hi - my first visit to this site for some time! The chinagirl? Used as print and process control both when making intermediates (IP and DN) and making prints. Cut into the leader, and printed at a standardised printer light, the mid-grey patch on the chinagirl is read on a densitometer after printing and processing and the readings compared with aim values. In the case of intermediates this is the most accurate check that the reel has been exposed correctly. In the case of prints, it provide a more objective control than a subjective judgment that the colour "seems right". After the dupe negative has been made and checked, the duped-through chinagirl would normally be replaced with original negative again to make for more accurate assessment of the subsequent prints. I can't speak for all labs, but in my experience it was rare to cut chinagirl into camera rolls for rushes printing (when there was rushes printing!), as it would have consumed a huge amount of chinagirl negative (which took considerable effort to produce to an accurate standard). There is a curious collection of chinagirls (dollies, ladywedge, etc) here:

I know that the lights are now all but turned off (or is it on?) all over Australia/NZ as far as labs are concerned, and I see on this forum that there are only a couple operating in the UK still. Just to help with something I'm writing, it would be great if people could let me know if they still have labs (and which ones) still providing a commercial negative processing service in their part of the world. And how that compares with (say) a couple of years ago. This might also prove useful to other people on this forum. Thanks in anticipation.

From Screenhub, an Australian web news service: "Deluxe, the last significant processor of motion picture film stock in Australia, has announced that it will close its Australian film laboratory on April 19th, 2013. Customers have been told they can access services at Technicolor in Thailand, or send stock direct to Deluxe in Hollywood. Local cinematographers are aghast." So now there will be no commercial film processing service in Australia or New Zealand. It had to come of course, but where does it leave local filmmakers who want to shoot on film. Or are there none?

Indeed, if that's the problem. It's hard to believe that any transfer operator can have sent this result out without querying it. It does highlight the value of shooting a few frames of a colour chart on the head of each roll (or at least one roll per batch sent for processing). It can settle almost any uncertainty. It'd be interesting if you cold post a frame with the correct colours, once you have it re-transferred.

Sorry - haven't looked at this forum for a while. Deluxe Sydney is assuring people that they will be offering 35mm neg processing for a while yet, but they are indeed the only option left. Village in Queensland had been borderline for a long time, and Deluxe Melbourne (previously Cinevex) closed at the beginning of this year I believe. Shipping costs, risk of X-ray, and distance away if anything does go wrong would be the main things to take into account when considering processing in NZ, HK or Belgium (or anywhere else for that matter), but unless you are in Sydney itself and not expecting overnight turnaround, none of those are going to make a big difference wherever you choose. That said, Village opened up the QUeensland lab on the site that Deluxe had previously vacated, because Queensland DoPs and producers weren't prepared to ship negative to Sydney. Still that was a few years ago. Perhaps shipping is less of a hassle now??

If you can get hold of it, have a look also at an Australian feature shot in the early 90's called "What I Have Written". (Director John Hughes, DP Dion Beebe - one of his early gigs). I worked with Dion on the look and effects, sections of which we described as "almost black and white, almost freeze-frame" - but not quite). We took La Jetée as a reference, with still-ish sequences representing memories (or are they imagined scenes written in a novel? - that's the question the film asks). We considered shooting stills, but ended up shooting cine at 6fps (to get some motion blur), selecting key frames in a moving shot and step-printing them to freeze the action for the right amount of time until the next key frame came up. However, like Chris Marker we couldn't afford much film, so those sequences were shot in 16mm - and the 6fps helped with stock costs too, although that was mostly for creative reasons.

Well, it's been a long time since I posted here. Just passing and noticed this thread. Brian (Hi Brian!) asked what we wouldn't be able to do if film disappeared. One very physical process that would be lost would be hand-painted or scratched film: frame-by-frame animation on the film itself. Of course this is a very "experimental film" process: a poetic form rather than the conventional narrative form. But apart from people like Norman Mclaren and Stan Brakhage, I'm sure there must be people on this forum who've tried this. That's my thought for today!

Depends where you are. Your film lab would be the place to start for recommendations, but few labs have ever employed fine-cut neg matchers, who tended to work independently. And there are now very very few still in business. Don't confuse basic neg cutting (splicing camera takes together) with fine frame-exact negative matching, which calls for a much higher level of skill and care - especially for a 4-perf anamorphic negative with its extra-narrow frame lines. A badly-spliced negative could ruin your film. I'm sure there is plenty in Dov Simens' book that is still very valuable: but since 2003, DI postproduction has moved from being the exception to being the rule, and this has brought many changes in the landscape.

Funny, apart from the quaint British vernacular, this sounds like a comment from critics at the beginnings of cinema itself. I think Murch has correctly identified the weaknesses , not the fatal flaws of current 3D (stereo) systems. Most aspects of cinema have weaknesses: the skill that needs to be developed is to trade on the strengths and minimise the weaknesses. Stereo 3D does suffer from the focus/convergence mis-match, but less so at greater distances. It's true the 3D effect is weaker there, but it isn't non-existent. And the occasional burst through in front of the screen is then more effective: like any effect, it's best used sparingly.

I'm no arbiter of internet etiquette, but I don't see anything very helpful in using one forum to slag off about another forum. If you have an issue with CML I suggest you take it up with the moderators there. Funny, I never had any problem. Never heard of anyone else who did either. Perhaps email just isn't for you, Keith.

That's fine for you and for the original poster - but it's not a term that is available to the rising numbers of women in the business. In this part of the world at least, the term cameraman tends not to be used for that very reason. After all, we don't have "editman" or "microphoneman" - and "continuity girl" went the way of the dinosaur. OK, don't bother to reply about "best boy". It's a curiosity, not a useful example. What is wrong with "Cinematographer" - after all, ACS, ASC, CSC, BSC and countless numbers of other organisations seem comfortable with it -and many of them include levels below accredited DOPs among their members.

Don't waste your time on the CML website. It's far and away best as an email list. It's designed for working professionals on location who want answers to problems without fancy trimmings.

The AFTRS course is, as you say, a FOUNDATION course. Don't think of it as the only course you'll do. What you will get will be a stupendously intensive course in making films with the pick of the bunch, and some great lecturers. Sure, you don't get a degree from that course, but you can go on to other courses at AFTRS or elsewhere. How many graduates of QUT or Griffith have won academy awards? You tend to get work through the contacts you make, rather than by having a certificate or diploma. Contacts at AFTRS would be great - and of course it is right next to Fox Studios Australia, so if they ever get any big productions in again (curse the weak US$!) you'll be well placed. And Animal Logic, Cutting Edge, Spectrum etc are also on the lot.

Karl, I can't understand why you choose to pick an argument here. Well actually, I suppose I can. I have to admit to getting irritated sometimes when I read on this list of people who want to try "crazy" things for no apparent reason. But then I remember that I probably tried something similar years ago. No profitable venture, no cost-saving, just to see what happened, to see what the effect would be. I had the benefit of working in a lab where I could grab short ends of stock, cajole my optical printer mates into doing the bits I couldn't, and run odd processes in between machine tests. I didn't have the benefit of websites or chatrooms where I could ask 1,000 people for advice, so my inexplicable behaviour was a little more hidden (and fortunately tolerated by the lab management of the time). If I'm able to answer the odd question on this forum - about sensitometry, about colour separations, about cross-porcessing, about negative defects, it's not because I studied the official texts, and stuck to the straight and narrow "correct method". It's because I tried a whole bunch of crazy stuff to see what would happen. You can't prove rules by following them. And by the way, it is totally correct that this industry is based on scientific understanding and scientific methods. Yes, I have a science degree. It is also based on rule-breaking (we call it creativity,or even art).

I couldn't think of anyone better to regard as an expert on 3D cinematography than Geoff. He's shot 3D from features to commercials and shorts: he's used just about every type of camera - for the sake of learning about them; he is a great sharer of knowledge (to the extent that BKSTS made him a Fellow (FBKS) and SMPTE awarded him the Eastman Gold Medal for his services to education in the industry - that's a good double in anyone's book!). And he doesn't have a product to sell (except Geoff Boyle), so you can have some reason to trust what he says. And maybe he's available B) I'm puzzled by the question. If you don't follow cml, you can always check him out on his website. THat would answer the question.

As Karl says, remjet is just carbon. But it doesn't necessarily go down the drain. Most wash water in the better film laboratories is recycled, so the carbon will be filtered or otherwise separated out. Then it joins company with other nastier sediments (the non-recyclable chemicals from the processing solutions) that are (at least where I used to work) then compressed and carted off for suitable disposal.

Yes of course, thanks for clarifying that, Charles. Sorry if my post was confusing. In fact the orange mask wouldn't act as a safelight, otherwise it would be impossible ever to print to the magenta and cyan dye layers on colour stock. But in this instance, if you were printing onto blue-sensitive 5302 etc, you would need to increase exposure by about 2 stops (about 24 printer lights) compared with printing from a b/w negative. And the red & green printer lights would be irrelevant.

Wow, Brian. I havn't used silver polish (or Brasso) on a negative for decades! I'd almost forgotten about it. I was taught the technique, but there are very very few people I've actually dared to pass it on to. It's a powerful method - and was also useful for dealing with scratches before the days of wet gate printing. But it can go horribly wrong. Thanks for the reminder of the trick. Marc, yes, continuous processing machines used in labs have to have the remjet removal tank designed carefully. Sprays are directed at the base side of the film in such a way that no remjet-laden water finds its way round to the other side. And yes, you would get a useable image if you printed with similar lights to what you'd print a normally processed neg with. Well - recognisable, not sure about useable.

Not surprising about Technicolor. They and Deluxe have been over-building global printing capacity for years now, making hay while the release printing sun shines. Now it's approaching sunset for film distribution. Printing isn't a big thing for Tech. anymore, anyway, and the N Hollywood plant has been threatened with closure, relocation or whatever for a while. It's old.

Colour negative is lower contrast than black and white because it's made that way to extend the useful exposure range of the negative, and also to balance with the higher contrast colour print stock. Colour neg in its correct ECN2 process will give yo a gamma of around 0.50, whereas b/w is normally developed to around 0.65. You might get a little extra contrast in your b/w processed-colour neg with longer developing time, but probably not enough to make all that difference. You also need to be careful with that remjet backing. As you say, it'll stuff up your developer solution, but also, any that gets on to the emulsion side of the film will be difficult - nay, impossible - to remove afterwards. When you get a good quality image from your neg you might find traces of very fine sparkle - that's the carbon remjet. So I'd be cautious of re-using the developer for that reason.

This will probably sound like an old grump but if you know you can google it, why don't you use that resource rather than ask people to spend their time to write a new definition? It won't tell you anything you couldn't find out by googling in less time than it look you to write the message here. In about one minute I found the following links (I've been working in a team updating the first one, though the updates aren't live yet). http://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/audiovisual_terms/ Mhttp://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Education/Film_Video_Glossary/glossary1.htm http://www.movies-dictionary.org/Film-and-Video-Dicitonary/Interpositive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpositive That said, Karl's and David's answers (as always) tell everything there is to know! One lab I worked at solved the interneg/dupe neg naming problem by calling it an interdupe. An interneg / /dupe neg is produced to make prints from, in order to protect the original negative. If the original neg becomes damaged, you have no film any more! If the dupe neg is damages you can simply go back to the interpos and make another one.

Alexandra - check Brian Pritchard's website - linked on his reply to you above - there is a richness of information on it. My own won't be ready for a while yet (probably not until everyone has stopped using film;-( but in the meantime look for my book Film Technology in Post Production which is in print, or for more detailed (but not too mathematical I hope) stuff on sensitometry, gamma etc, my earlier book Motion Picture Film Processing - now out of print but you can often pick up a second hand copy on line.

Not quite sure which way you are arguing here, Saul. My point (which I thought was reasonably "big picure", was that NZ as a sovereign nation has its own labour laws, which are put in place (as in any democracy) by the government elected by the people of that country. And that these laws, despite "this age of global interconnectedness" should still prevail over the wishes of any corporation, even Warner Bros. Of course it is because of this international trade that attention must be given to these corporate wishes, and it is entirely within the rights of the fairly recently elected NZ Conservative government to make adjustments on behalf of its people. The question here is really whether the NZ government has acted sufficiently clearly in the interests of the NZ people in this case. And that goes to a much broader discussion of the change in politicial philosophy of the government, and even of whether the age of the sovereign law of a nation state is really on its way out. BTW, my "sarcasm" as you term it was simply a reflection on the way in which a posting about the so-called Hobbit Law in New Zealand had so rapidly turned into a discussion about medical insurance in the US and Canada.

Hard to understand why everyone in this discussion, supposedly about NZ labour laws, refers to US and Canadian law. Believe it or not, different jurisdictions have different laws, and also different working environments. Although I'm not very familiar with this NZ issue, I believe that since any Peter Jackson film involves long months of digital work, the people affected by this change will be mainly digital effects people working for many months. As employees they would have benefited from working conditions that normal people get - such as sick pay, workers compensation insurance, leave etc. These are especially valuable to workers in film industries in most countries where work isn't regular, and there are often big gaps between films - especially with the US dollar such a basket case at the moment. I'm all for governments recognising the value of film production to their economies, as NZ has in this case - but it's hard to escape the feelng that the Keys NZ government hasn't swung it round so that the studio is the big winner and the actors and technicians are the ones paying for it all.