Edgar Nyari

Hi everyone, I did some tests with a stroboscope light for an upcoming shoot, and found it extremely difficult to replicate a strobing light effect on film due to shutter and stroboscope sync issues. The perfect solution would be to use some sort of camera-strobe synchronization, which is out of the question. The camera is a 35mm film camera, and it's impossible to sync it in any way with the device I'm using. Is there a set of "magic" strobe frequencies that work best with 180 degree shutter on 24 fps, to give a nice flickering effect without too much skipping? Considering this is my only light source in this scene, and total darkness should be between flashes, should I perhaps shoot the scene in full light, then just edit in blank frames at any desired frequency? Is this ever done in editing? thanks Edgar

Arri 35-III MOS camera.

Here is some Kodacolor 200, developed in the local photo minilab, and scanned on a really cheap flatbed. Hand-registered. Didn't use sharpening because of the noise. Makes for a really interesting hobby. :)

I would agree that theater projection is the closest you can get to the filmmaker's vision, without actually being involved in some way in the filmmaking process. There are variations there too of course, but as far as I know DCP projectors don't use crazy "enhancement" filters. I think the backlight is only an issue if the TV has a weak black, in which case setting the backlight too high would make the blacks milky. Even in theaters a high contrast ratio is a "good thing". This was the debate back in the days when digital projection was first taking over. Many argued that the early projectors didn't have the contrast ratio that film projection does, but now that problem is solved. The dynamic properties of the display device, be it a PC/MAC monitor, TV or movie projector, are the lesser part of the problem IMO. Image "enhancement" algorithms are the real enemy here. I would just figure out how to turn EVERYTHING OFF, even "cinema/movie" profiles, and simply force the device to display the material without any image processing whatsoever (if possible) :)

I don't know much about current TV technology, but I had a pretty unpleasant experience once, when I attempted to show someone my short film at their home. I prepared a nice 1080P file and played it from an USB stick. To my horror I realized that their TV use some sort of motion interpolation at work, making my 24 fps footage look like 60 fps. There was also some sort fo filter on that brightened everything, and sharpened all the film grain in some scenes, while completely filtering it out in others. It all looked like noisy video footage in ultra-sharp high definition. I don't really trust TVs.

I once had a bad roll that flickered due to uneven x-ray damage. I've also seen footage flickering caused by a faulty camera that couldn't maintain a steady speed.

I'd love to see those results. Tarantino did something similar on Death Proof, at least for the first segment. The only difference is that they probably had to copy the prints back to negative stock, in order to intercut with the rest of the film. When you look at the first segment on bluray, I'm not sure how many generations is that removed from the original print (you might be looking at a telecined duplicate negative of the print, or maybe even a positive made from the duplicate negative), but it has an interesting hyper-analog look to it. Contrary to what stories might circulate in the media, all the damage and splices are REAL; they are not a digital effect. I have been thinking about doing the same thing that you propose. The only problem for me is cost.

This is a really interesting topic. It seems to me that you can probably draw a parallel between various generations of technology they used, rather than actual emulsions. For example, when T-grain came out, it was probably use in the Kodacolor emulsions of the early 90s. Some of the advances in "Vision" stocks were probably also reflected in the Gold films of 2000s, and also Portra and Supra. Then came the two-electron sensitization inovation of Vision2. Some time after that Kodak came out with a brand new generation of Portra films and Ultra Color. I suspect they intergrated some of the advancements of V2 in those new still emulsions. As far as the general "flavour" goes of each emulsion, I think they are quite different. Portra has an odd color palette, which renders skintones in a certain pleasing way, but looks a bit "thin" in the exteriors. Ultra Color is on the other end of the spectrum, and also has no parallel in MP world, except maybe Eterna Vivid. Gold was I guess "normal", but still more contrasty than a MP emulsion I think. That all being said, I plan to play a bit with still films in my movie camera soon. I ran some tests last night (coincidentally), to see how still film behaves in a motion picture camera. I made some measurements, and concluded that I can get about two and a half seconds from a roll of 36 exposure still film. It could make for an interesting (and cheap) hobby. I suspect there might be some problems like pressure plate reflections due to the lack of rem-jet, but we'll see. I do remember that someone used Kodak Gold 1600 in the early 90s for some nature documentary footage shot in low light. This is the only instance that I know of where someone used still film in a motion picture camera.

This is great! Thanks. As a user of short-ends, I wish there were more tests like this. Is there any reliable information as to when does x-ray damage happen? I mean film is shipped on a regular basis everywhere. If you buy fresh stock from various companies, they often ship it to you by mail. So what happened to that roll of 800ASA?

I'm not really sure if it is allowed to advertise crowdfunding campaigns on this forum, so I won't post any links yet. Before II do that, can some of the mods please comment on this issue? And if it is allowed, which forum section would be best suitable? It's about a short film called Instar which I directed and DP'd a couple of weeks ago shot on a multitude of formats: mostly standard 35mm, with segments in 16mm negative and even some 16mm reversal. Film itself as a medium is part of the story, so different looks and formats will play into it. The film is currently in the stage of postproduction and since it's self-financed by me and a couple of friends, we are running an Indiegogo campaign to help cover the costs of scanning. The negatives are still at the postproduction house awaiting the end of their holidays, so I don't have any stills or footage yet.

If you get about 3-4 MP with a still camera, then it must be a low quality lens or a low quality scanner in question.

It's hard to see anything at f22 in my groundglass even with the sun blasting on a summer noon. All I see is groundglass grain and a dark bronish image :)

Yes that's what I figured, that it can tolerate two stops without any significant problems. The highlights can be a bit compressed though, which I don't mind. I'm more worried about that small aperture. I have never shot anything on f22, and I did hear about the diffraction issue, but I have never seen to what extend that happens.

It's funny that this thread is on top today, as I had to deal with this exact problem today. I was shooting some "B-roll "material, which featured some railroad scenery in bright sunlight, on Eterna 500T. It just happened to be the sunniest day in the whole year (21st of June), and I just happened to NOT have any sort of ND filter at the moment, so I just shot it at f22 and hoped for the best. I caught a couple of moments when the sunlight got a bit hazy, so the light came down to about f32 (usually it reads f45...), but that was metering for the sun and not shadows, so I should be fine.

Maybe they use something like a YUV color system, where they can use the luminance from a finer grained and less-contrasty negative and combine it with color information (U/V) from the YCM separations, then convert back to RGB?