John E Clark

My working with people in 'optics' is ancient... but to me 'definition' is a marketing term to avoid any connection with 'real' resolution... But then MTF and line pairs per <unit of measure>... are probably the more technically correct measures of goodness in regard to fidelity of detail... But for humans... just make the image more constrasty and it will 'look' sharper...

Well, the Man With No Name series from Sergio Leone has become the classic 'modern' western canon... There's also "Once Upon a Time in the West"(1968) As the 70's rolled in there were a number of Westerns that broke with the previous 70 years worth... "The Wild Bunch"(1969) -- unfettered violence... "McCabe & Mrs. Miller"(1970) an 'anti' hero story...

I wasn't able to take the time to go through the use of the online calculators in detail... but It seemed to me that 1) for a given beam size, the corresponding beam angle on the two lamps was different. 2) I didn't quickly see the lumen output of the bulbs used in each lamp head. From the ARRI calculator, the beam angles on 'flood' and 'spot' were different for the two lamps, so that could explain the differences. I would say, see if a rental house can do a 'student' deal, and rent you the lamps over the weekend, to experiment with...

For that 'old time look' you need to crop your media to a 4:3 aspect ratio. This was the traditional rectangle one sees in most 'old' movies before the 50s and on Televisions, until the advent of HD displays. Letter boxing was used for a while to give the original aspect ratio of a film, embedded in the standard TV 4:3 rectangle. When shooting for 4:3 on a camera that is only HD, you would have to make marks on the LCD display to compose the shot correctly. I don't know what cropping tools are available in FCPX... there was such a tool in Final Cut and Final Cut Express...

Yes, a given light bulb's output is 'lumens', in order to get lux, one needs to divide by 4 x pi x r^2, the surface area of the sphere which origin at the bulb and the r^2 gives the inverse square law... But lens and reflector modified this equation... So if one wants to ignore the loss from the lens and reflector, a focused beam will have the lumens of the bulb passing through the surface of the base resulting 'cone', using the lamp as the apex of the cone. Ignoring the 'curvature' factor of the intersection of the cone with the surface of the sphere, one can 'easily' calculate the lux for a given diameter of the base of the cone... Or look it up on the Arri site... or just measure it with the lamp at hand...

You have misunderstood what a 'fresnel' does... It has changed the 'beam angle' of the resulting cone of light. Without going into various trigonometric calculation along with integral of the lumens passing through a portion of a spherical surface, the rule of thumb would be that the circle of light from a Fresnel lensed light is smaller at a give distance, so more of the lumens from the lamp are passing through that circle, than is the case of the open face, which has a larger circle of light at the same distance. This is why getting the photometric data for the lamp is better, since one doesn't need to do any math calculations, and even then... manufacturer's lie, or don't really know the actual light path through their lamps, such that they can a priori calculate the effective lux/footcandles delivered at a given distance. Of course, one should actually verify with a light meter what the actual output is... This is also why cheap light manufacturers what only list the wattage of the lamp are next to useless and must be measured when one gets the lamp if one is ordering on the cheap.

"Alice in den Städten"(1974) "Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann"(1975) "Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages"(1975) While most people will point to Werner Fassbinder and his 15 years of producing films... I tend to select non-Fassbinder examples of the 60's/70's when German Film was in recovery. On the other hand if I were to return to school to get a PhD in Film history, I'd write my thesis that the US Hollywood films of the 30s and 40s were predominantly German Film translated... While there was a surge of german expatriates in Hollywood in the 30's, the significant collaboration between Hollywood and German Film had existed in the silent period of the 20s, when talent both in front of the camera and behind, were exchanged between the two film communities. With that in mind, I'd recommend: "Die Büchse der Pandora"(1927) "Metropolis"(1926) "Der Blaue Engel"(1930) In the case of "Büchse" and "Blauer Engel" I'd recommend going to Frank Wedekind's original "Lulu" series plays and reading through them. I'd also recommend reading "Professor Unrat" by Heinrich Mann (Thomas' other brother...) as well... I don't know that Thea von Harbou's 'novelization' of "Metropolis" adds anything...

"Black Swan"(2010) is listed in IMDB as using a combination of Fujifilm Eterna films... but I believe Fujifilm has discontinued making motion picture film stocks... "Moonrise Kingdom"(2012) was shot on Kodak Vision 3, again via IMDB info. "Grit" can be produced via such processes as 'push processing', or the like, and perhaps in the case of 16mm to 35mm 'uprez' some due to the enlargement.

This was the case for almost all non-metroplex theaters, often found in 'downtown' locations, and catered to a type of clientel that could not afford $10-15 ticket prices. In LA there are perhaps 5 or 6 theaters that have under $5 ticket options, in some cases depending on matinee or the like... But in most places the 'safe for suburban children' metroplexes are the norm. For the specifics of Drive-ins... probably due to the shrinking of the American Family and the use of the SUV style car rather than the old station wagon... is as much 'at fault' and sort of a lessening of the Car Culture in general. Heck... we don't have rollerskating waitresses at the Drive-in Malt Shop any more either...

As far as I know, the 'live action' portions of "Hugo" were filmed via 3-D digital cameras. The irony is that the subject of the film, Georges Melies, was an early film maker who used hand tinting to make his films in 'color' in an era when Color was not otherwise an economical possibility. In other words, Melies was not satisified with 'pure film'... but wanted more... and that more, in such areas as creative control of the image, would have to wait for at least the Digital Intermediary process to be invented. Even more... in the Melies era, Film film was not very responsive to the 'red' portion of the spectrum. That had to wait for the late 20s and the general use of "Panchromatic" B&W film stocks... Here's a sample of a hand tinted Melies shot...

There were ironies in "Hugo"(2011) 1) Digital Film depicting a story taken from 'early Film Film history'... 2) 3-D... both of which were 'new' to Scorsese. A deeper irony, is that the subject of the film was Melies, who created films that had any number of 'special effects', and had the films 'hand tinted' to yield a more 'realistic', albeit unreal/fantasy stories and imagery... presentation. In a word Melies had to wait almost 100 years for DI process to be invented...

If you get married, the choice will be made... the Kitchen and Bathroom, as well as a useless chunk of carbon to impress her parents and friends. Oh, and there's the 10 year anniversary upgrade on that useless chunk of carbon, because the original one was so cheap and small... That or the divorce settlement which will stick you with the kid's support through college.

Troma may be an option... I've only been at one event were Lloyd Kaufman presented and had a 'handshake' meet and greet afterwards... but from the site they do want finished films. An probably a truck load of legal documents proving 'you own your film'...

Spike Lee used Sony VX 1000's for "Bamboozeled"(2000). That would be DV format. Don't know if he used the PAL (slightly more lines of resolution, and 25 fps...) or the NTSC version. My guess would be the the PAL version, and slowed to 24 fps for the film out. In any case, some of the BTS shots showed a large number of cameras running to capture multiple views, allowing for the cutting in interesting ways. The film is a classic 'parody' film, depicting a number of black stereotypes lampooning of certain 'black' tropes. It may be 'hard' for some people to watch, especially if they have been conditioned to have a visceral response to certain politically incorrect phrases and situations...

The two frames are from Scorsese's 'Mean Streets'(1973) and are part of what may be considered the New Wave Hollywood. The then 'young' up and coming filmmakers who have created the 'classics' of today for the era, used techniques and had images that would have caused the Studio cinematographers apoplexy (and the movie moguls who bankrolled them...) until the style found a large market... then in the late 70's and 80s everyone was 'adding haze', shooting with 'push processing' to get that gritty 'real' look. The New Wave Hollywood was characterized by getting cameras and attendant 'portable' sound equipment out into the 'streets' pushing the process to the max to work with less production equipment. The French New Wave was itself a reaction to 'studio' productions in France... and a looking to US Film Noir for 'gritty reality' stories and styles. The other 'new wave' prong would be zee Chermans in the form of Fassbinder and Herzog... who were recovering german filmmaking from the 3rd Reich...

Artists have used 'processing gimmicks' since 'art' began... you can not tell me the only way to get a nice wash of 'yellow' is to use cow's piss... excuse me... "Indian Yellow"...(Ok, maybe it wasn't ever made from urine... maybe that is an example of an artistic urban legend...) But the point is, there are many 'gimmicks' that artists use to create an aura of exceptionality to otherwise banal processes...

If I were to put on my 'purist' hat... I think there have been no B&W films that don't look like crap relative to True and Faithful Holy Black And White principles. While I'm sure someone is going to point out some film, perhaps on the 'fest' circuit which was actually shot in B&W stock, printed on B&W stock and projected with a reasonably conditioned projector... most major films that I can think of in the last 40 years that have been presented in B&W were shot on Color Stock, and Futzed into B&W. The Futzing being crap for the most part... I had better B&W on my my crappy 60s vintage TV when I watched TV... (Never did have a color TV until I wasn't watching TV anyway...). I even hated the C-41 B&W XP2 film from Ilford... for Still Fake B&W... I even hated poly contrast B&W papers... hate, hate, hate... but... they did allow for printing much easier for printing up 1000-1500 'proofs'... So, one takes a hit on aesthetics to make a economically viable product...

Yeah... back in the olden days this was the 'realism' look... I mean was the focus puller drunk or the DoP as well when he asked for the 'added grain' processing for that 'gritty look'. Or....

I think 'Taxi Driver' would be shot digitally if it had been available at the same 'level' it is today... In fact, I think someone may be shooting the 'Taxi Driver' that will be the classic of tomorrow, right now somewhere on the crappiest equipment they can barely afford, steal, or otherwise requisition...

The Glass character is attacked by a she-bear. Eventually Glass kills the bear at great injury cost to himself. His 'mates' eventually leave him and two 'mates' to bury him when he's dead... eventually those two abandon him, and one thinks he makes Glass 'dead'... The story is a novelization based on some 'true' events. One can class the film themes as 'man against nature', or 'man hell bent on revenge'... or both... As for is it real or is it memorex... unless there's full body sensaround, smell around, etc... one will never experience the Real unless of course... one has had a near death bear and subsequent abandonment experience... The 'closest' I've gotten to anything in the 19th century was my grandfather telling me about seeing Buffelo Bill's Wild West show... and an aging grand aunt who was born on the way to California in 1850... she was over 100 when she died... Ok... said grandfather showed me how to harness up a horse to a wagon... never used that skill ever... although I did crank start my Renault Dauphine a couple of times... just for that old time experience...

Well... not really... I was watching a BTS segment on the restoration of "My Fair Lady"(1964)... The negatives had to be salvaged, and in some cases only internegs/positives were available. In some cases, even though there were B&W separation negs made... the 3 stocks 'shrunk' differently, leading to registration issues when combining them. And this was for a Oscar winning classic... supposedly held in the studio vaults... some of the BTS shots in the 'vault' looked like my closet filled with negative film boxes... fallen over... in a jumble... It is true that digital recordings need to be 'refreshed'... but having a film negative is no guarantee of preservation.

I'm boycotting Tarantino of late.

I've not been to a film print presentation in several years. The last one perhaps was when the Harry Potter series was doing a 'marathon' before the premiere of the final installments. Some of the marathon presentations were Film film prints, and some where Digital projections... I could tell the difference, in the 2 popular areas... milky blacks for the Digital presentations, and sprocket jitter on some shots, and especially the credits. In watching "Revenant" I was not aware of 'milky' blacks... or for that matter blown snow. If you have ever shot snow, even on 'cloudy days'... it is quite easy to get blocked up whites, or near silhouette trees... So, for me, in terms of certain image defects, I did not see such, so I was not taken out of the film even momentarily due to such.

Of the 'best picture' nominees, I only saw "Revenant" and "Mad Max: Fury Road" in theaters... I don't think I sat there for a minute think... 'gee is this Film film vs Digital film'... at all.. even though I know "Mad Max" was shot digitally, and even more... used various cameras such as the Blackmagics and Canons... that I've used... Didn't know what "Revenant" was shot on... nor did I care... At this point, had I a 35mm film camera... it would join the Hasselblad and my 4x5 in the closet to be sold in the estate sale following my death... otherwise unused since being placed in the closet...

Fairly 'big light' sort of situation... top light in many shots, at 0:53 or so, you can see a large softbox way up high, with a large flag to cut the soft box from illumating the people in the second floor archways, but does give the soft light to the talent on the floor. Lighting also seems to change, so the setup above may have just been for a portion of the sequence.