John E Clark

From various 'flea market' tours, I have come to the conclusion that few 'children' keep those shoe boxes for more than a generation. Granny's shoe box ends up in the swapmeet stall more likely than in someone's cherished memories... One can buy 10 year old computers with harddrives, and find 'interesting' stuff... But yes, there is an archiving problem in that old technology often is lost within a few years. I have some 9 track mag tapes made in the early 80's which are 'lost' to me... they contain some early digitized video the Wife did while at school, and I do have 2 U-matics to play some 3/4 Beta tapes when I get around to that digitizing and preservation activity... But then Film film on 'non-safety' media wasn't all that well preserved, and was a fire hazard to boot... I actually looked forward to the day I could buy my own digital systems at prices I could afford. I think Netflix is indicating how things are going to go... the old model of 'one place to view moving picture media' is disappearing. I happen to like the theater experience, and with the installation of digital distribution things have gotten a lot better for me personally, since most digital distributions include captions, and the Wife no longer has to sit there missing 90% of the film 'sound', nor do we have to travel great distances to see the few Open Caption presentations. The biggest problem, and I think digital is going to allow for some 'creative' solutions, is the Metroplex... I personally consider the Metroplex to be more directed to the death of cinema than 'Digital' vs 'Film'. This is due to the need to have all the theaters 'filled' as much as possible, and even more chilling on 'cinema', only have material that does not offend.

There's always this sort of solution... One I've been meaning to do when I have some 'spare' time... http://publiclab.org/wiki/desktop-spectrometry-kit-3-0 For those who have middle schoolers in the house, this would be a good science fair project.

I'm not saying that the collaboration can't be viewed as 'art'... just not quite equivalent to the single painter works, even in view of 'auteur' theory, unless of course the work is soly from the efforts of the single artist. As it is, I gave up worrying about 'art theory', when I quite smoking, and the Hip Bagal in LA closed... The 'best' theory I've heard since, is when I was in Melbourne and talking with a fellow about his group which would 'squat/tresspass' on abaondoned buildings, put up an art exhibit, and then move on when the police came and took everything down... (I think there's a European equivalent...). How did he deal with the loss of the works... "They're just pretty pictures in the end, nothing more'...

Some of this comes under the category of 'perspective', such as the following... Through the 'viewing window'... When viewed from the side...

You would have to see if shooting at 720p @ 60 fps does the slomo you want, then if the uprezing to 1080p to match the rest of your project 'works'... that is not so obvious as to look faked up. 60 fps only gives you a bit more than 2x, the slomo scenes in 'hollywood' productions are done at much higher frame rates, and attended increase in illumination. For each 'stop' of increase in the shortness of the shutter speed for the higher frame rate, one needs to double the light. So if you were 'ok' at 1000W @ 24 fps, you'd need 2000W at 2x the frame rate, etc. You can fiddle with the shutter speed a bit at higher frame rates, but for maintaining a 180 deg shutter, need to up the light. There may be some sort of 'software' that simulates higher frame rates, which you can search for and see if that solves your problem... although it may have to be 'freeware'... if budget is a problem. That or rent a camera with a higher frame rate at 1080p

Die ewige Wiederkehr des Gleichen... but it is never quite 'the same'... The art of film, other than works done by a single worker... are prehaps more like artchitectural structures than 'paintings'... in that a group contributes to the end result. As such, architecture tends to be a bit more conservative than more 'plastic' arts. The 'auteur' theory attempts to put a single person in the driver's seat of the work, but again, unless that is a sole person... or a fascist director... the work will be a composite of contributions.

I'll not argue on the point of youtube vs you, other than to note, I was unaware of your film until you posted the youtube video... but then perhaps I'm not in the demographic for your film anyway... On the point of casinos and indian reservations and jobs... When I was young I lived about three miles from an indian reservation, and the only 'news' one heard from the reservation was when someone killed someone else, with alcohol usually involved. Fast forward after 35 years or so of 'indian gaming'. The reservation now owns significant tracts of land, several hotels in the main city, one or perhaps 2 golf courses, as well as most of the reservation inhabitants are employed at something more useful than drinking, shooting, and when needed hitchhiking into town for more booze... So, in my opinion, yes 'gaming' can produce 'wealth'... provided one doesn't let the Mafia in the back door... Criminalizing things is the surest way to get the Mafia (or local equivalent) in. To be sure the Mafia is involved in various brackish waters of legitimate businesses... but crminalizing pushes such activities in to the high seas of crime. With that in mind, by requiring a 'credit card' or other proof of 'legitimate id', would only produce more opportunity for identity thieves to sell stolen card numbers on the internet to more people who want to circumvent such measures.

I see you're film is being legally distributed via Amazon... is there some exclusive deal that would disallow you to distribute through Google, and thereby give 'incentive' for Google/Youtube to more quickly respond to potential copyright violations that would take away more directly from their sales?

I did not watch a Allen film after "Annie Hall"(1977), with any enthusiasm, and other than "Zelig"(1983) didn't watch any at all until 'years' after their release on VHS/DVD... I did watch "Midnight in Paris"(2011) when it first became available on BD, because everyone claimed Allen had 'changed'... well of course I followed the plot/jokes/etc... the Wife was totally lost... The films of the 80s and some in the 90s tended to be New York centric, and as such, had no appeal to me in the least. Many contain 'insider' jokes, which I for the most part did 'understand' the references... but could have cared less...

There is a similar sort of problem in the reproduction of Art... I've been to a number of galleries, in the US and Europe, and in most cases the 'reproductions' found in books range from 'good' to mostly 'fair' to 'abysmal'... then there's Internet.. The Wife and I were permitted to take pictures of Klimt's "The Kiss" (actually we had been given permission to only take images of another Klimt... the morning that we were to arrive at the Belvedere, that painting shipped out to a exhibition in Korea... and our laison offered 'The Kiss' as a consolation...). But even those images don't really convey the original... and we were only allowed to shoot without tripod 'in situ'... So we do have some details of the painting technique that aren't particularlly available in most books, brush strokes, etc. but still 'color' is elusive...

Re: Color -> B&W... I've never really been satisfied with the results for stills, relative to using 'real' B&W. Even using 'poly contrast' print materials was somewhat of a compromize to me... There was an Ilford still film, XP2, which used a C-41 process. I have no idea if there was ever a similar motion picture film, but alas... it had its own set of problems beyond not quite yielding the same results one would have by using silver based negatives, but it did allow for processing via most places where still film was processed.

I prefer Artemisia Gentileschi's version...

Since I live in So. California, I can't really give specific advice on employment options/opportunities. Here in the US there has been some amount of press about the disparity between men and women in various production capacities, such as director, writer, cinematographer. There have been some large companies such as Disney which have various types of internships. The only entity I 'know' of in the UK would be the BBC. They may be 'full up' on interships... I have also heard a few things about communities which have funds to support some amount of eductional grants for schooling/training... again only have seen these sorts of things s brief references. In the US there are possibilities for government grants or loans for eduction, but often the advice is to not go into deep debt on 'film making' schooling... since given the available job opportunites at the end of the schooling, it may not ever pay back... I gave some 'advice' a few days about about equipment... which apparently was out of the price range the person was looking for to setup some form of film making activity... But I'll sort of give an estimate of about 1000-1200 GBP for an equipment budget that would provide an incredibly rudimentary filmmaking camera and audio package. That doesn't include a computer for editing... Forming a group is important, but it also requires that one find people who are as interested and dedicated as you are, otherwise the group tends to fall appart quickly.

When the "Aviator"(2004) came out, and some amount of to do was made of the 2 and 3 stripe Technicolor process that Scorsese wanted to emulate, I looked into 'how would one know what these looked like...', unless of course one had a pristine print and projector in one's private home theater... I was referred to a film museum in LA, I think it may have been the Academy Museum, and ask if they had any dye transfer stills from the two processes. Unfortunately I don't have the time, and have forgotten the exact reference to follow up on such things...

I'm sure there are people who use Alexas to shoot 'tv' shows for broadcast, and I suspect some of them shoot in HD/Rec 709 mode to avoid having to process to that spec in post. When Film film cameras were used extensively for TV, they were... well... Film cameras... In that era, when a Film camera was used to specifically record a TV screen, it was called a kinescope... despite using Film as the capture medium. Once tape recording became possible for TV signals, kinescopes disappeared unless for some form of specialty work, such as 'editing' those early video tapes...

I do distinguish between 'TV' and 'Cinema', but it is mainly on content and style of treatment, rather than the technology of capture and delivery. Since I grew up before the the use of 'home' Tape/DVD/BD presentation, the only place where I saw most 'cinema' movies, was on TV... often after 10-11 pm Saturday nights... and for more popular films seen on TV, were 'pan and scanned' to fit in to the 4:3 TV aspect ratio... In addition, some films were edited for 'TV' to conform to FCC regulations on what could be shown said on TV. And further... due to the technical aspects of TV, 3:2 Pulldown, bandwith limiting the signals, etc, so as to 'fit' into the signals of NTSC. (PAL had similar, but only need to speed up 24 fps to 25...)... That to me is 'TV'... and by extension, 'video'... limited resolution which is apparent both in color and spatial aspects. Digital film on the other hand, has been working towards removing thos limitations, so I do not see a theatrical presentation, digitally projected as 'video' or 'TV'... To me it is Digital Film. From my view, then what is happening, is that more cable content, and some broadcast TV content is tending to look more like theatrical film techniques, such as single camera, specific lighting for the shot, lighting that has more contrast/depth, and less avoiding of certain set/costumes that were problematic for TV broadcasts... which may still be problematic, but can be dealt with by 'broadcasters' rather than the originators. To me, the Alexa is not a 'video camera', but a Digital Film camera, because I think the designers were directed to 'Film' and not 'Video'... If they had been directed to 'Video' then they would have produced an HD, Rec. 709 device, and spent marketing bucks to convince users that was the 'best'...

I should perhaps been a bit more clear... From Box Office Mojo(*), it seems that 2002 was the 'highest ticket sales in terms of number of tickets sold' year, and has been declining ever since. However, the sales in dollars, has increased, with last year being about $10B. Elsewhere I've read in various industry blurbs, that some observers conjecture that 3-D sales has 'bouyed' the ticket sales income, even while in general ticket sales counts are declining. I think that floation device is losing some air... * Box Office Mojo may or may not have absolutely accurate numbers, but since I don't have access to expensive industry reports, it seems to serve some amount of information on the financial aspect of how 'well' movies are doing.

A spot meter is a reflectance meter with a narrow angle of view... perhaps I sould have said a 'cheaper 30 deg. (or more) angle of view reflectance meter'...

For me there was no question, 1 deg. At approx 20, a 1 deg. spot will measure a 4 inch disk, roughly the area of an adult human. At 5 deg. same distance, the disk will be about 20 inchs, and so would include hair, which if contrasting the face complexion, would yield potentially a wrong reading. At at distance where a 5 deg. coves the face... it would be just as easy to walk up to the subject with either a wider (and cheaper) reflectance meter, or even an incident meter. Of course there will be some distance where a 1 deg. yields wrong results.. but it's further out... and even in 'nature/scenics' one can get reasonably good readings with the 1 deg. for 'large' objects...

Well... speaking of "Game of Thrones"... as I was typing the above... the Wife sent me a notice about an IMAX presentation of Episodes 9 and 10 of "Game of Thrones"... with 'digitally remastered in to the image and sound quality of The IMAX Experience®'... etc. etc. etc...

"Boardwalk Empire" closed after 5 seasons, and from the IMDB all seasons were shot on film... Some stories 'wind down'... and only a shark jump kicks them into a few more seasons... "Game of Thrones" seems to be still going strong, and by the IMDB specs, has been shot with Alexas for all of its seasons...

I don't think the decline in theater ticket sales is really related to the transition from Film to Digital. 3-D prices have tended to increase ticket sales numbers, but when one looks at the number of tickets sold, they are on a downward trend. There may be many reasons for that... and most industry magazines and articles tend to point to how 'media' is consumed these days with mobile devices, in home 'theaters', multiple viewing screens in the home, etc. Back in the olden days... before TV... there was only one place for motion pictures to be seen, then TV... which did cut into some amount of movie house ticket sales, and guess what... a round of 3-D films came out, the 'wide screen', as well as 'big color', bouyed up the theater experience... Fast forward, to modern times... with most people buying 'smart' phone/mobile devices, and many people transitioning from only viewing media via either movie house or TV (even cable providers are feeling the pinch on how mobile is affecting how content is obtained), there should be no wonder why 'theater' sales is down. Further, while there's a lot of hoopla about 'piracy', I'll bet that 90% of the vewing population uses legitimate means to view content, in the US and Europe. I'm sure that is the same for most places, but I can't be as sure as I am about the US/Europe. (I'm also sure someone will come up with some MPAA supported 'study' which says that most Hollywood studio execs are trying to find crayons to make their signs on card stock to stand at LA freeway entrances with placards like 'Will Produce Blockbusters for Food'... right...). But speaking of 'blockbusters'... I think one of the reasons for the decline in theater attendance, in addition to the alternatives mentioned, is that in many cases the 'material' just does not excit the viewers who would attend theaters... And that for 99.999% of the vewership is more important than is it Film or is it Memor... I mean Digital... As for why TV is gaining... I personally distinguish between Broadcast TV and content which is produced for 'cable' distribution, but for the most part would require much editing before the FCC would allow it to be broadcast via Broadcast TV. I think most of the shows that everyone talks about that have a great draw, are produced as 'cable content', and as such, are not regulated by the FCC to the same level as Broadcast, and have often dealt with subjects in ways that the broadcasters have avoided. So, while there are a few shows which may have been made for Broadcast TV that have garnered 'critical acclaim', for the most part cable content providers such as HBO or STARZ are the ones producing the 'draw' for cable... and given how things are going, there's beginning to be some break up in the love affair between cable content providers and cable distributors. Consumers are becoming more aware of how the Internet can allow them to view what they want, when they want, and where they want, rather than being dependent on the cable distributor's spigot, and having to buy 'bundles', of which 90% are 'throwaways' for most viewers.

There are several rights involved... there are your rights as the photographer, which until those rights are transferred to the other party, still hold. So, someone may not use your images until you are paid. There are the rights of the people who were interviewed, in the shot, etc. They maintain rights to their images until they sign releases. There is the 'rights' of a client who has paid for work. If the client has not paid... in full... then they have not paid for the use of the material. If they want to use the material... then they are required to pay... In any case, this is the stuff that puts lawyers' children through Harvard, and I'd advise you to see legal advice in your jurisdiction, as 'works for hire', and 'when copyrights are transferred' is a nasty collection of laws and court rulings... I'm not a lawyer, and apparent 'legal advice' is purely in the eyes of the reader, and further, I have never played a lawyer on TV or Motion Picture screens...

From looking at the film type for 5234... it is a 'duplicating' film and intended to 'add minimal to nothing' to the image... that would include its own 'grain'...

I would mention "Blender", which is a free opensource 3-d modeling program, and apparently now it includes general editing. But .... the learning curve is pretty steep... There's also Davinci Resolve Lite, which is also free, but that requires particular hardware...