Jon O'Brien

It can be difficult to track down 35mm and 70mm film screenings here, but last time I saw 70mm not too long ago I was again struck by the look of what I was seeing. It was so satisfying to watch the movie. It felt like an event. When I go back to 'normal' dcp screenings I notice that, at least at my regular cinema, movies shot on film look noticeably less good than the ones shot on digital (to my eye). But film on dvd at home looks great on my tv screen (eg. 'Far from the Madding Crowd', 2015). By the way, does anyone know if 'Phantom Thread' was shot on 4 perf spherical?

How did it look in dcp compared with 70mm?

Perhaps some of my experience may be useful to you - though I've been shooting Super 16 (on a Bolex Rx5). I have two lenses on it, a Switar 16mm Rx and a Nikkor 50mm on a C mount adapter. Both lenses are great but I actually really like the look I get with the Nikkor. Beautiful, with subtle rendering of colours. I kept it stopped down a bit, plus also being 50mm there weren't any problems. A very good and low-cost lens set, as I already had the Nikkor. The Switar only cost me about $250 AUD.

What type of batteries were used in the original Arriflex battery belts for the IIC camera and other models of circa 1980s? Would these be NiCad? Thanks for any advice!

Sounds a bit like short story competitions. Does your short story ever get read? Probably - but that first paragraph better be good.

Very nice look. Well done.

And the footage. And that's the long and the short of it, to be sure. Well 'tis that time of year.

The title shot of 'We of the Never Never' is a beautiful helicopter shot over a vast Australian plain, straight ahead and catching up and flying over a horseman on a galloping horse. A shot that really shines and lifts your spirit. The Australian cinematographer Gary Hansen strapped a hardwood plank on top of the skids underneath the chopper and lay there with the camera because "he wanted the shot." They say he was set to become one of world's great cinematographers but tragically was killed just months later after finishing the shoot - sad to say while doing more helicopter work while filming a commercial. He did an amazing and wonderful job on 'We of the Never Never'. Well done Gary!

Some interesting things in there, that raised a smile. “The optics in the projection room, compared to what I knew from my time as a photographer, looked horrifying to me. It had pincushion distortion and color fringing several millimeters wide. It seemed useless! But those lenses were used to make great movies ..." “Henryk was not just a cameraman. He was a manufacturer and a skilled producer, and very tied into the industry. He convinced Vittorio Storaro to shoot anamorphic, to make it look more amazing, not so clean, more emotional ..." "Henryk had a very good eye." I find it interesting how lenses (and formats) can have an emotional effect on a film that goes beyond technical specifications.

I suspect the new Kodak Super 8 camera will sell well enough for it to be worthwhile for Kodak. It is just too much of a 'different' anomaly and also 'new' and trendy, and there's growing interest in film. There's just nothing else out there to quite compete with it. And shiny and new smelling too out of the box. Not a grotty old camera from untold ages long ago.

Thanks John. Was it 4 perf like Scope?

Camera was an Arri BL-3.

Technovision - what exactly is (or was) it? I've done some looking of course but so far haven't found a clear answer. Some on the internet say it was an Italian version of 2-perf, and others say it was an anamorphic process. The reason I ask is that I'm interested in the 1982 Australian production of 'We of the Never Never', which at the end credits says filmed in the Technovision process.

That's how everyone figures it out. A famous line from Indiana Jones, too.

I've been wondering the same thing. I hope to make a movie, but I want to write, direct and shoot it also. Or maybe write and photograph it, and get someone else to direct. I thought maybe put "A film by ... (me)" at the start. With actor's names etc. Then fade in. At the end, apart from full credits with all involved, processing, film, colour etc, just have a single credit "Written, photographed and directed by". That way doesn't look like you're trying to sell tickets on yourself. There's nothing narcissistic about - it's just practical. People want to know who did what. Who made the thing.

Except for one extremely brief shot where the camera tracks forward a short distance, the whole of 'Deliverance' seems to be composed of static shots and simple pans on a tripod. No fancy camera moves. But a powerful film nevertheless with great cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond. I thought it worth comment that sometimes the simple style works best. I don't know how the focus was achieved though, with the close-up shots of the canoe action approaching camera. Depth of field/lens choice maybe would have helped a lot.

Creative endeavor is like water flowing out to the sea - eventually somewhere it breaks through. But just to get started and get your head above the parapet you need a leg-up of some kind. What if you want to learn guitar but you're a nobody and can't play a note. You will have to scrape together the money for a guitar, strings and book or you're never going to be a guitarist, of any sort.

True, but (I'm sure you agree) 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' was actually an immensely well-made, rich and quality 'small' movie with real charm in its characters and story. We don't see much of that earthy, practical-and-optical fx type adventure film today with wit and humour both in the lines and the 'in-camera' gags. I remember the trailer for Raiders in the cinema. It looked like garbage but turned out to be a classic. Okay so it wasn't truly a small movie but it wasn't a mega blockbuster.

That's a great way of putting it. I hadn't thought of it that way before.

This sort of thing has happened before. Films were getting a little bit tired at one point, you know (and I've mentioned this before) with films like 'The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes' which I went to see a re-run of as a kid, then along came the disaster movie blockbusters like Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake and Towering Inferno. And then that fashion started to totter briefly and the feature movie industry looked a little uncertain, then quickly along came things like King Kong and Logan's Run in 1976 and suddenly ... BOOM ...Star Wars in 1977. Followed rapidly by Spielberg's rise (I think I got that chronology right). That feature movie boom starting around 1977 arose from someone finally giving the bright new young kids the reins and the bucks to make some big pictures. But the thing is that Lucas and Spielberg were truly dyed-in-the-wool real filmmakers. They actually strongly represented movie-making tradition. I suspect if studios handed older-teens to early twenty somethings the filmmaking reins today what we'd see would be some sort of internet/film/video game type amalgam. I'm not so sure it would be a leg-up for filmmaking, unless it fell into the hands of young people who were truly devoted to traditional filmmaking as we understand it. When I talk to younger people today at work etc they all seem to be games focused. I talk films but they talk games and internet.

About the only superhero movies I enjoyed and still enjoy is Superman I (1978) and to some extent Superman II. That's because the character was really an archetype of someone who is truly good. That was in fact part of the joke of the movie(s). There's religious undertones, pretty obvious really, in Superman. He was a light-hearted allegory of God in human form come to save us from ourselves. Of course good entertaining pictures don't have to be about 'nice' things though - I'm not saying that. Great small pictures can explore dark themes as that's part of our world. Personally I'd want to make pictures though that do offer hope at the end and some kind of uplifting conclusion. The original 'Alien' was a very creative picture that was very dark but did have a reassuring ending (forgetting about the films that followed).

What I've observed lately just around here is that there is an audience for quality, 'artistic' (for want of a better term), character-and-story driven 'small' shows for older audiences, definitely not in the 16-25 age bracket. I think people around middle-aged and older (I'm early 50s) are wanting to get out of the house and see a nice, good movie that is entertaining, informative and about people and about life (not about, let's face it, pretty crazy superhero types who almost verge into the narcissistic). These audiences want to get out and get a meal and/or a coffee, have some fun, and feel that they were entertained and saw something that was good quality (literally, the look of it too) as they walk back to the car. Beautiful photography is a part of this (I deliberately write photography to emphasize image look). When I went to see 'Darkest Hour' not all that long ago the cinema was packed out like a sardine can. My friends and I arrived just before 'opening curtain' and I must have gotten pretty much the only seat left. So the tent poles are good for the industry/jobs but they also provide an industry infrastructure for the smaller more human-interest type shows as they train up crews and actors. I think there's a real market there for smaller pictures that are excellent quality all round. Films that would make good plays. Things like that.

Well, the mega productions create jobs for hundreds of people, which is really great. For instance at Village Roadshow studios at Oxenford, Gold Coast, Australia. Not far from me.

If that business model starts to fail, the mega-CGI tent-poles, then they will have to come up with something else. Go back to what movies were like prior to such massive fx blockbusters? You know, the difference between Transformers and Spiderman, and Babette's Feast and Sunday Too Far Away?

Randy, is the black screen for reducing light on the actor's face?