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Jon O'Brien

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Everything posted by Jon O'Brien

  1. I've been thinking that this has got to occur sometime soon in the digital cinema camera market. Just how much better can these cameras get? After the Arri Alexa 35 and so on ... they can maybe increase the definition a bit more but, really, to what point? Why bother? People spend a lot of money in post making the footage from these cameras have more of a film look because the digital imagery produced by them is too perfect. A bit of imperfection is the way to go, and now has to be added back in, after shooting. The funny thing about the digital revolution is that an unexpected or unintended side effect has occurred as the technology has improved. Film scanning has improved to the point where shooting on film makes more and more sense because you automatically get a great looking image without having to fiddle around with it in post. You don't need to do anything to it to make it look great and filmic. Shooting on film gets rid of the electronic look that a lot of digitally shot footage inherently has. For big budget movies film is affordable too. Shooting on film gives feature movies an inherent interest because film is the traditional medium for narrative movies. I've seen people scoff at the suggestion but I feel that really Australia needs to get back to film cinematography for at least some of our feature production shot in this country. That is if we truly want to be competitive. A fully digital infrastructure is still second rate on the world stage. That hasn't changed.
  2. A very exciting project and one I want to get around doing soon, too, on 16mm or S16. When it's art, or something traditional, hand made, hand painted, etc, that kind of thing, film is a wonderful medium that complements the subject. Yes, shooting digitally can be made to look beautiful too, but film has the natural edge and inclination towards giving the right artistic or traditional vibe to a project. So for this sort of short film I think real film is perfect, especially 16mm where you can see the grain but there's still enough quality in the image to make it look classy too. I want to do the same thing but with a violin luthier/maker. I'm thinking of turning it into a short drama work, writing the script for it. it would need minimal acting skills, or just 'being oneself' and no acting at all. There's something fascinating about the work of the luthier, the shop, the natural materials, the music. Fantastic project to work on.
  3. Shot on 35 mm .... Wow. For a movie like this, this is a very important element. Anyone with even an ounce of art in them is drawn to a feature movie shot on film. There's something about film. There just is ... you can't get around that fact. Film is still king. For some movies, digital kills it. I could hardly sit through The Hobbit. I couldn't stand the look of it.
  4. An interesting development if that occurs. Imagine the world without RED cameras, or at least without the word 'RED' on them. Speaking of the Canon C300 III, this camera seems to be very impressive, with a dual gain sensor somewhat similar to the Arri Alexa. Yes, Nikon might be seeking to produce something comparable to the C300.
  5. My policy is to get everything looking as good as possible in camera. So the footage you get back needs only minimal work in post. The Davinci relight tool is incredibly useful for situations where you just couldn't get the lighting good enough for some reason (maybe you had only one small light with you on the day and you really needed an extra light/s). I had a very slow start teaching myself Davinci Resolve. For the first months I didn't get very far at all but I persevered. Now I'm comfortable with it and am getting better all the time. I'd agree with that advice that cinematographers should know how to use Davinci Resolve. It is an incredible filmmaking tool.
  6. Bravo! Well done. I already have one, an old rewind assembly that a friend gave me. He used to be a cinema projectionist. I haven't used it yet. Great idea to save money. Each dollar saved is a dollar earned.
  7. There's more than a bit of a nod to David Lynch's Eraserhead (1977). I probably won't see it as it's not my sort of film but always good to hear about features shot on an SR3 and Tri-X.
  8. Yes like several others are saying I think Super 16 isn't really needed most of the time. The film stock and scanning are so good that standard 16mm looks great even when cropped to a wider aspect ratio. I would only really contemplate needing Super 16 if I were shooting a narrative drama film that needed a little extra sharpness especially if viewed in a cinema or on a large screen at a short film festival. I'd imagine the difference would only be slight, and even for most short films standard 16mm would be fine. Here is a reel of 16mm 50D I shot recently (it's very short!) which was just a test of two cameras and lenses. Make sure to watch in HD 1080p. I really like the look I got with the Wollensak f1.9 25mm lens. However the Bell & Howell 240 camera I used with that lens, an amateur level camera, had quite a bit of gate weave that I fixed in Davinci Resolve. The B&H 240 camera footage starts at the second shot (the first shot is with a H16 M). I will later maybe take a picture of the gate and post it on a current thread I have of the Bell & Howell 240 camera in the Camera Systems and Formats section. The main thing though is that, digitally, gate weave and up and down jitter can be completely fixed. In my test reel you can briefly see a slight 'jump' effect in the footage, in the shot of the waterside with overhanging leafy branch and the guy cleaning his gear (or a fish -- not sure what he's doing) in the distance. You have to look for the jumpy bit. This is where a particularly large side movement of the film wasn't able to be completely eradicated by the stabilizing feature of DR -- but that's an unusual case. Most gate weave etc can be completely fixed. And it may in some cases, as others are saying, actually be how the image was registered during scanning. In the case of this B&H 240 it must have been the camera however as the other camera used on the reel, an H16 M, had steady footage. Please forgive the pretty awful pan on the first shot. That white bird suddenly appeared and I started to film before I had the Manfrotto fluid head properly adjusted. Hope this contributes something useful to your quest for a camera. BTW I'm not advocating an amateur level camera -- just saying that instability can digitally be eliminated.
  9. I ended up getting a B&H 240 on Ebay that was at a really good price. It looks and sounds almost new and everything about it seemed fantastic. I put some film through it, with amongst other lenses a Wollensak f1.9 25mm, and the results were very impressive and very sharp. However the footage was unstable with an impressive amount of gate weave (side to side movement of the image). Is the 240 inherently less stable than other similar 16mm cameras? Obviously its FFD must be set exactly right as the images were so sharp and crisp. Very impressed with that lens and will be keeping it. I wonder if the gate weave on the camera can be fixed by a technician? It's otherwise a nice little, solid-looking camera with a very healthy sounding mechanism.
  10. I think if you've shot at 25 fps and then start a new project in Davinci Resolve, and import the media to the timeline, a box will come up saying something like "the project has a different frame rate to the timeline. Do you want to change the framerate?" or something similar. You are also warned that the framerate can't be changed later. I've been shooting at 25fps too for all of my video work and I get asked this each time I start a new project on DR. It seems the default setting for the timeline is 24fps. So, each time, I click yes to change the framerate. When it comes time to export the project I notice that it's always set to the correct 25fps. Hope that's helpful. I'm going to start shooting stock video footage too. Interesting. Sounds like there's more of a market for the 24fps footage.
  11. Looks good. Might have to go to the cinema to see that one. Keep 'em coming Stephen. You're doing a great job as Film evangelist.
  12. Here's my second test. It's much of the same material as the first test (didn't have much time available on the day and I just had to get these tests done). I like the look of this better. The sprocket hole does seem to add a bit of extra authenticity to Super 8 footage.
  13. I've not encountered that one myself. I'm not sure of your level of experience but have you disengaged the loop formers? I don't know if that would affect your camera issue (probably not) but I just throw it in here in case it does.
  14. Yes that's how I got my start, in my teens, projecting reversal originals. I've still got the projector -- a Chinon. I've no idea how to get it up and running again. It would be great to project reversal film again.
  15. Apparently there might have been a slight glitch of some kind with those two cartridges. The scanner said that he's not seen this before and he's going to get in touch with someone who scans a lot of Super 8 footage in the US and ask them if they can shed some light on the situation. I'm sure Kodak will sort it out. I'm just happy to be able to get stabilized footage (and it's very easy and quick to fix). In some shots I opted for less stabilization as a totally rock solid look on Super 8 doesn't really suit it. The brief shot of the cottage is one such shot that was made absolutely still. I don't actually mind a bit of Super 8 jitter. Anyway .... That's that test done. Onward to the next project.
  16. All fixed now. I used the stabilizer function in Davinci Resolve. I'm happy with the results. First few shots are from a Canon 310XL and the clip finishes with a Bell & Howell 670XL. It's just rough test footage to get a feel for how the cameras shoot. The footage was scanned at HD and next time I might try a 4K scan to get a slightly crisper look.
  17. Here is my up and down footage. As you can see it's a more regular and slower movement than the usual jitter. Please bear in mind that the scanner hasn't had time to get in touch with me yet and I'm not in any way being critical of anyone. I'm just curious as to what might cause this particular vertical movement in the image of the camera gate. This particular clip was all from a Canon 310XL that I bought for a good price on Ebay. It's in very good nick and doesn't seem to have seen much action. The up and down frame movement is identical in the other three camera tests, shot on two reels of 50D. It's even on the Beaulieu 4008 which is a recently completely overhauled camera.
  18. Wow, thanks so much Dennis for contributing to our knowledge of RX lenses! This is very helpful knowledge.
  19. Yes I agree Aapo. I probably shouldn't have used the word suffering as the meaning of it can be misconstrued these days. I meant making art won't be easy going at all times. But people differ on what they mean by 'art' ........ I think I will gracefully depart from this thread.
  20. I've recently done some film tests with four Super 8 cameras: Beaulieu 4008, Canon 310XL, Bell & Howell 670XL, and Canon 814 Autozoom. I used the cameras mostly locked off on a tripod for the shots as I wanted to check the cameras for registration. I'm aware that Super 8 typically has some vertical 'jitter', however the scanned footage I got back on the two reels has a consistent up and down, regular pulsing movement of the frame. It's not the normal 'Super 8 jitter' but something much more noticeable and renders the footage basically unuseable. I guess it can probably be mostly fixed in post or with rescanning but I wondered what caused it. I will try and get an example posted to show what it looks like. The sprocket holes are visible in the slightly overscanned frame and these are pretty much rock steady but you can clearly see that the image of the camera film gate itself moves up and down in a fairly steady rhythm in relation to the sprocket holes. To me logically it doesn't really seem to be a camera problem. Footage from all four cameras exhibit exactly the same type and degree of vertical movement. What causes this? I've emailed the scanning company to ask but it's the weekend and probably won't get an answer until next week. Curious to know why my footage looks the way it does. Is this typical for scanned Super 8? Compared to Tyler's footage, posted above, my footage has a slower, more uniform movement of the frame up and down.
  21. My own dad was an engineer type. He used to say: get a good paying job and do your creative things as hobbies. I tried that for quite a few years and that did just not happen. And all around me I saw hard working people doing the same thing and a lot of them either drank too much or just had bike riding as a hobby. Riding a b-------y bike!! Ha! I'm afraid if someone wants to follow the arty creative path in life they will suffer for it. But better to suffer doing something you love than something you don't like. Just got to choose your path as best you can. If doing engineering does it for you that is wonderful as you will certainly make money.
  22. Yes I read what I wrote and think I could have said it a better way. Engineers and project managers .... I've known quite a few over the years (most men I know are actually some variation of 'engineer'). Not having been attracted to even one iota of the subject of engineering my whole life so far I've had to face this sort of attitude that seems to say: get a real job, from the engineer types. Stop doing these creative, artistic things you always are driven to do. Just do them as hobbies in your spare time. Fair enough. I just hope that people who want to make films, or music, or paintings, or whatever, manage to find enough of that rare thing called spare time.
  23. It's all a bit daunting, reading the posts. Just remember if it all sounds too difficult that even driving a bus or being a cab driver is no perfect life, either. Or being an engineer or a project manager .... imagine how boring that would be, for an artistic, creative person. If you're creative just accept it and deal with it. That's my advice.
  24. "Super 8 is better than perfect" Love it. Well done Kodak!!!! You are most welcome Jurgen. I've gone back to thinking that a cinema release feature movie on Super 8 could indeed be a success. The grain and 'thickness' of the image if I can call it that (as opposed to 'thin' and 'perfect' as we see too often with digital cinematography) is just so alluring and fascinating. Such a strong medium in which a good story could be told so well by the right people.
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