Ed Davor

tungsten, or HMI? Thanks

Hi, I'm sure someone will spot this right away, and save me some time searching the internet for a match. So, does anyone recognize this light? It looks like a 5k to me, but which brand is it, and is it HMI or tungsten. Thanks

And what about that Night of the Ad Eaters show where they screen countless ads on the big screen? I've never been to one, so I don't know how were they projected in the past. Any experiences?

Thanks both of you for your answers. What I'd like to hear is more examples like Satsuki mentioned, where an advert was printed to 35mm (and obviously not recorded to film from SD source). Any other memories and experiences? I remember reading some articles where it is mentioned that an ad has been scanned from film, post-produced in digital (special effects, titles etc.), and recorded out back to film, then telecined for TV. A cinema presentation wasn't mentioned, but can one assume that since they went through the effort of recording it back to film that it was done for cinema releases?

Hi! In my movie going "career" I haven't had a chance to see them, or maybe I don't remember them... but was advertising in cinema ever as big as it was on TV, or was it always a byproduct of TV advertising? I assume that back in the days when TV adverts were distributed to TV studios in form of 16mm and 35mm film reels, showing ads in cinema would have been as simple as cutting in trailers. But what about more modern times, when ads were edited, graded and mastered on video tapes? I'm thinking 90's and 2000's. A couple of hypothetical scenarios come to mind: parallel grading, editing and optical work for making 35mm prints, or DI work and film-out (in the 2000s I guess). But did such things ever happen, or did cinema adverts die out at that point? Thanks

Antonio, I'm not sure what seems to be the problem here? Is there some kind of ban on importing chemicals in Mexico? http://www.kullphoto.com/fujihuntchemicals.htm I think this is from US. I'm sure if you google you'll find other places in US where you can find Fuji chemicals. Also try ebay, but make sure they are unopened. But, really, what's your problem with Tetenal? It works just fine, and it's more simple to do.

Hi, Right now there's the Tetenal kit and the Fuji Hunt kit. Tetenal is a 3-bath system, and Fuji Hunt is the full E6 process. There should be no noticable difference as long as the chemicals are fresh. Tetenal might be a bit contrastier, just a bit, but that's difficult to judge without proper testing.

Thanks everyone for your contributions to this thread. Some very interesting bits of information came out here. I do my own E6 processing at home manually in a tank. The tolerances for the temperature of the first developer are 0.5+/- degrees Celsius, which is very strick when all you have is warm tap water and a lab thermometer, but I manage to stay within limits. I've never tested with a gray card and color checker chart to see just how sensitive it is. But there are supposed to be color shifts when you change temp in E6. By the time it gets to bleaching the tolerances are much looser.

So, does that mean that side-by-side, 5247 had higher contrast/gamma in the linear portion of the curve?

I'm not suggesting 5293 was worse than 5294. I've seen bad examples of 5294 too. What I was speculating on was, as you said it yourself, that there was a trend to underexpose 5293 beyond its limits. Though what looks "neutral", "clean" etc. is certainly subjective in cinematography. Anyway, I wish to go back to something you mentioned earlier about certain labs "cooking" the film a bit more. You mean pushing it slightly (without it being a requested "push process")? This is really interesting. Would you name any names from your personal experience in terms of the differences between labs? As for the higher temperature ECN2 process. Are you suggesting that the very nature of early ECN2 had some drawbacks compared to late ECN in terms of image quality?

Thanks David for the detailed answer. You are right about the differing opinions. I found a couple of cinematographers quoted as saying that they feel 94 is grain free. For example Russell Boy said he found 94 to be: "very fast, very grain-free, with a nice contrast range." On the other hand, I cannot number the times I've heard people complain how grainy it is. And Aliens bluray transfer confirms it (and it's a pretty good transfer, they didn't seem to use much noise reduction, so it has a lot of detail too). I've searched for a couple of more examples of 5293, and I have yet to find one example where the colors look "clean". It's all brownish mush on the skintones in the shadows, almost monochromatic shadows. Perhaps this is due to the fact that a lot of them shot 5293 at EI 500 and even 1000. One cinematographer claimed that 1000 is it's true rating, and that Kodak would eventually re-rate it at a "conservative" rating of 640. P.S. Does anyone have any idea, what was used for Body Double (1984)?

Going through some articles in old editions of American Cinematographer (available through Questia subscription), I tried to find the filmstocks used for some 80s movies, and what I was surprised was to find that Fright Night was all done on 5294. I haven't seen Fright Night in theater, but the difference between this film and for example Ghostbusters, on blu-ray is a bit confusing to me. Ghostbusters looks kind of contrasty, consistently so, in both Blu-ray editions (one from, what I guess was an old IP, and the other a 4k scan of the OCN), so you can't blaim the transfer. The color rendition is pretty poor in shadows and pastel tones. And the whole thing is very grainy. Aliens and Terminator share a similar look (though the production uses a lot less color). On the other hand Fright Night looks less harsh, smoother. I was under the impression that it was done on 5247 for that reason, but I was wrong. Another similar stock 5293, looks very harsh in terms of contrast and either it has a bad case of color crossover in shadows, or I'm seeing a really bad dupe on the Gremlins Blu-ray. So can someone try and explain, why, for example Ghostbusters and Fright Night look so different? One thing mentioned about Fright Night was that the stock was rated at 200 EI. Could that account for the difference in color rendition? P.S. Both Ghostbusters and Fright Night Blu-rays were sourced out of a 4k scan (presumably from OCN in both cases). Here are some examples from Ghostbusters: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Ghostbusters-Blu-ray/105617/#Screenshots a a couple of examples of 5293 from Gremlins. This looks exceptionally problematic to my eyes in terms of contrast and color fidelity. But maybe it's just an old dupe.

Hi, Is there such a thing as a cheap portable way of viewing 35mm film in motion? I have some 35mm materials at home, which served as memorabilia only, but it would be neat to run it and look at it in motion, with or without sound. Silent is fine. I think there are relatively cheap portable projectors, but they are out of question due to limited space. Is there something with a lens eye piece or a groundglass, but not as bulky as a moviola? And as cheap as possible of course. Thanks

As far as I can gather from reading that chapter, and this is only my understanding of it, is that the point of breaking down the roll is to get the scenes and takes in numerical order, especially if there are multiple cameras, then it seems this way of doing it gives you a daily in which all the angles of a single take are exhausted before the reel moves on to the next scene and take. But it does seem to be a lot of work compared to the simpler way of just sincing it and projecting it. As for the beep tone. I digged around some more in order to find more about it. This is what I've been able to find mentioned in a couple of books: there is a button on the Nagra which generates this tone, and the recordist would, in some cases press it two times to signify the end of the take, so at the end there would be two beeps. And as for the start of the take, you are right, the camera actually triggers it. I've found a description of this in an old Arri 35BL manual. The lamp would flash a couple of frames of film and one of the pins of the sync cable (in case the syncing was done by a cable and not by radio) would give a triggering signal to the Nagra's reference tone oscillator, so the beep would be automatic and synced with the flash frames at the start of the take. Otherwise the cable would transmit the 50/60 Hz continuous pilot tone. But the same interface was used for the start mark also. I always thought that the flash frames were only due to the fact that it takes some time for the camera to achieve the proper speed, thus overexposing a couple of frames. And while this does seem to be the case, the flash seems to have been augmented with the lamp. Did Panaflex (the older ones, gold, platinum...) use the same trick with the lamp?

I think I managed to find the answer about the alignment tone. It isn't cut into the soundtrack. It's generated by the tape machine itself when you start it. The beep sound heard in all of these "outtakes", is most commonly from a Nagra tape machine.

Thanks everyone for your detailed responses. I think I made a mistake calling those codes "edge codes" because the name "edge code" is reserved for the codes printed on the film by the manufacturer. I just called them such because they are on the edge of the film. But I did mean those footage-count codes stamped with ink. As for cutting the roll up into scenes before assembling it back again into a daily reel, here is where I got this idea. In the book "Practical art of motion picture sound" by David Lewis Yewdall M.P.S.E., the author says the following: Before you can actually sync the dailies, you must first break down all the footage, which I now describe in detail. As you wind through the rolls of workprint, you develop a rhythm for winding through the film very quickly. You watch the images blur by, and every so often you notice several frames that “flash out”! These were overexposed frames where the aperture of the camera was left open between takes and washed out the image. These flash-out frames are at the heads of each take. Pause when you come across these flash-out frames, pull slowly ahead, and with the help of a magnifying loop, determine precisely which frame the slate sticks meet as they are snapped together. That is where the clap is heard on the mag track. Use a white grease pencil in marking the picture once you have identified the exact frame where the slate marker has impacted. Mark an “X” on that frame of film where the sticks meet and then write the scene number, angle, and take number (readable from 146 • Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound the slate) across the frames just prior to the “X” frame. Find the scene and slate number on the lab report form included with the roll of workprint, and mark a check next to it. Roll the workprint quickly down to the next group of flash-out frames, where you pause and repeat the process. After you have marked the slates on the entire roll of workprint, take a flange (a hub with a stiff side to it, or, if you like, a reel with only one side) and roll the workprint up. Watch for the flash-out frames, where you cut the workprint clean with a straight-edge Rivas butt splicer. Place these rolls of picture on the back rack of the film bench, taking time to organize the rolls in numerical order. You should probably practice how to wind film onto a flange without using a core. For the beginner, this is not as simple as you might think it is, but you will quickly master the technique. After you have broken down all the picture, take a synchronizer with a magnetic head and commence breaking down the sound transfer..... ..... abridged .... You are now ready to start building your daily rolls. Professional picture editorial departments always build the daily rolls starting with the smallest scene number and building out to the largest. By doing this, the director and picture editor view an entire scene and its coverage starting with the master angle; then they review the Apple (“A”) angle takes, then the Baker (“B”) angle takes, then the Charley (“C”) angle takes, and so on. You also review scenes in order; for instance, you would not screen 46 before you screen 29. It helps to begin the process of continuity in theminds of the director and picture editor. Obviously SOMEONE does it like that, regardless of the fact it seems the more common practice is NOT to brake the footage into scenes. Perhaps this is done when there are more cameras and the DP or the director wishes to see all the angles intercut from multiple rolls of film. Maybe I missed it, but I still don't seem to have a clear answer as to why so many takes in uncut "bloopers" and "outtakes" start with a 1kHz blip. I've watched a lot of outtakes, anywhere I could find them in my old DVD collection, and a large number of them has a alignment tone, wherever there is audio. Some have a combination of a punched hole and an alignment tome. Some have neither. Could someone explain at which point do SEPARATE takes (not the start of the reel) get an alignment tone cut into them? Or is it perhaps something that a sync camera sends out into the tape recorder after it starts? P.S. I've even found one rare case (from 70s) where the tone is saw, and not sine, which was odd. Thanks

I've never edited anything on film, so I'm trying to figure out the workflow between the lab processing of dailies and the final locked edit before negative cutting begins. So can someone help me out and fill a couple of gaps. I'll mark the parts I need help with in red. Or please correct me if I'm wrong anywhere else in this text. This is what I've gathered so far: 1. Dailies assembly (in case the lab doesn't do the entire work): a) A print comes from the lab (without an academy leader?) and also 35mm mag transfer of the sound. b) the print is cut into scenes, and the blade comes down at the point of the flash frames, where the camera starts (right?). An x would be marked at the point where the clapper hits, and some scene information written along the couple of frames before the clapper hits. Also, the part of the 35mm mag where the clapper is heard is also marked with a pen. NOTE: I sense that there is an alternative workflow here, where you just leave the reel as it was when it got from the lab and proceed directly to syncing. During dis-assembly of the lab print, no synchronization is done, just the sync marks are placed on both stocks for later. Right? c) The assembly of the daily reel is started by making a sync point on the academy leader "picture start" frame, by punching a hole in it and also a hole on an arbitrary point on a blank piece of 35mm mag stock (this I'm not sure about) .... then I guess you'd take a piece of 1 KHz alignment tone and cut it into the 35mm mag after the number 2 in the picture academy leader? d) The scenes prepared earlier are then cut-in after the synced leaders, each of them synced using the previously made synch marks on the film and mag stock, and by cutting out the extra length of the mag stock that you don't need (or perhaps adding blank mag stock in case the soundtrack is shorter, but it shouldn't be because the tape machine would roll first on the shoot). e) tail leaders are added. f) The dailies are viewed and if the sync is ok, they are edge-coded. 2. Editing. a) the daily reels are once again dis-assembled into scenes, just like when the prints got from the lab. b) the editor makes a new synced leader at the start of each reel he is about to assemble. c) When the editor uses a shot, he cuts away the slate part, leaving himself with no sync point other than the edge-codes. So at each step in the cutting process he cuts picture and sound in parallel and syncs it only using the edge-codes. A question: When watching a print of an "outtake" in bonus materials on DVDs and Blu-rays, I've noticed that each take has a punch hole and a alignment 1kHz sound at some point before the clapper hits(in some productions, in others not). At which point in the process would each take get a punch hole and a alignment tone? This is something I've missed in the above workflow obviously. And also, which frame is chosen for this? It obviously isn't the first frame of the take, because the punch hole appears later than the first flash frame. Is it any arbitrary frame between the start of the shot and the frame where the clapper hits? Thanks.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm starting to develop an interest into these techniques. Too bad It's all gone now. I might get a Moviola one day, just for the heck of it, to watch prints on. It looks fun, like driving an old noisy car.

Thanks for all the suggestions. Speaking of sound and picture editing. Are there any suggestions for detailed technical literature describing all the different procedures like syncing, film editing, leaders etc. Right now I'm scouring through the book called "Practical Art of Motion Picture Sound" by Yewdall, but is a great book. Anything similar for recommendation? Perhaps with more focus on editing (traditional editing, not nonlinear). Thanks

Greetings, Having seen Blow out (1981) recently, which seems to show the craft of sound editing for movies (ADR, foley and all the other stuff...) in a decently realistic depiction, as far as I can tell (I'm not a sound professional...so please correct me), I started wondering, if there are any other movies which show the traditional filmmaking process in more detail. Modern Romance comes to mind, as it shows the process of editing on a flatbed among other things. All That Jazz has some scenes depicting the editing process. I'm sure there are other examples, but I can't remember any right now. Anything comes to mind? I'm thinking, something that shows the gory details of editing, sound editing, watching dailies, dubbing, lab work etc.

Hi everyone. Just wanted to show everyone what this thread was all about anyway. Here is my final result with the simulation of the film leader. You can see it at the start of this little film. What I did in the end was take a piece of transparency, write on it, scan it, then animate that in After Effects. You can take a look at some of the other artifacts I tried to simulate which include: -a splice jump -"film look" - less than perfect photochemical titles (at the end of the clip) - film jitter This is part of the advertising work we did for this Kickstarter campaign (for an app), so feel free to back it too if you wish (sorry if this is against some rules). https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/walpie/walpie-your-feline-walking-companion

Hi, the recent thread about Ferrania and the overlap between some still and MP reversal emulsions reminded me of something I've been wondering often: Are there any cases that you know where cinematographers experimented with color negative film intended for still pictures, like Vericolor, Ektar, Portra and other professional emulsions, as a replacement for MP negative stock? I know the perforations are a problem, but still I wonder how doable is it, and did anyone do it for whatever reason. I know there isn't much reason to do it though. Also, I wonder how would those negatives print. Still film gamma, depending on the film, is around 0.6-0.65 or so, I think. What's the typical gamma of MP film stocks, in the later generations of film like EXR, Vision, V2,V3

Examples of a random image exposed on 5251, not of works of art

Here is a couple of examples for study. This is from a 4K Imagica scan of the early Bond movies.

I didn't mean literally like reversal. Reversal has a different density range altogether. But to my eyes, a frame of "modern" Ektachrome when scanned has about as much shadows detail as some of those old movies (I'm judging by blu-ray transfers though, not actual prints). Perhaps the latitude that John Holland speaks about was more in the highlights range?