Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

Something from yesterday's office... I've got a small collection of Tru-Vue films in the Archive. eBay photo: Fair use Within the collection, which is mostly vintage burlesque, there is a series of shots from a 'behind the scenes on a movie set' roll. Looks like the sets are about 1939-40, although did not look at them all, as I don't have the Tru-Vue stereo viewer. As you can see in the photo above, the film is wound super tight. It is very hard to deal with for scanning. I tried storing the film in a reverse wind for a few days and while it did relax the film some, it still is very tightly wound. All the Tru-Vue films I've seen are the same tinted color. The film has to be scanned at an angle on the scanner or you get a error message if the film extends beyond the top and bottom of the frame. So you can only get in a few frames at a time. And with stereo, every 3rd frame is a dupe. I will have to buy a film holder that the kids use for camera scanning film with a camera. You shove the film through it, and it holds the film flat. (Hopefully it holds this heavily curved film half-ass flat.) The you take a photo of the film in the film holder over a lightbox. Even when taped on the scanner glass, the film buckles and is not flat. I got some anti-Newton ring glass somewhere; I could tape that over the film. But it introduces more dust and it is in storage and who knows where it is. There are a lot of nice scenes from the movie set on the roll.

Very interesting. Thanks for the exploration rundown Charles! I never had any idea about the gambling den. Did you take any photos? Decay photography is a big deal nowadays. They have a Facebook group on it. I had heard that from a piece on the Sunday Morning show they had about an abandoned house photographer. The guy they showcased used Google satellite view or some such thing to find them. He looked for decayed roofs. You sound like a prime candidate for decay photography. Maybe something to look into if you are not already in it...and you got any spare time. I was never into decay photography, but I remember seeing it from my early photo forum days. It is a good social documentary record of things. The closest I may get to decay photography is some rodent damage photos. ...or some rusty reels / cans in the cine' reel and can archive.

Back in the day, 1970's / 1980's, when living in L.A., I used to go to Chinatown a lot. Beside the movies, I liked the steamed buns. The chicken store would have chickens in the cage. You pick the one you want They slit the throat and threw the chicken flapping in a trash can to bleed out. Then they plucked it and processed it for you to go. A few years later, they hid the process from you and did it in the back room. More year's pass, and you saw no live birds in the store. You bought the processed and packaged birds just like in the supermarket. The Chinese theaters had the real kung fu movies. One such theater was up some side street, don't remember its name. It was a little hole in the wall, but they had great Chinese / Hong Kong kung fu films. Here is a clip from a cute kung fu comedy film they made in 1994. Clip from Shaolin Popey II: Messy Temple : D.D.Teoli Jr. A.C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Well, that is how it goes Dom. Lots of people get email replies from Lasergraphics. Me? Nothing from Lasergraphics, even after many years of trying. Some people have more luck with things Dom. And in the big picture, if something does not work out...I've got hundreds and hundreds of other areas to work in. And sooner or later some luck appears, and things do work out in another area Dom. As long as you don't get attached to one thing, one position, one view (Perry) you can be flexible in your mindset Dom. Now, Dom, what does bother me, some, is never getting one reply from nearly a hundred email solicitations I sent around the USA over 5 years to sell me a gallon of the person's tap water. I do lots of water tests Dom and I wasn't able to hit every city in America that I wanted to test. nsfw Distilling water is a quick acid test you can do to find out what residue is in your water. – Daniel D. Teoli Jr. (wordpress.com) So, I would write to people around the USA that should have had an interest in their tap water; such as newspapers, bloggers, water conservationists, etc, to sell me a gallon of water. Some of them were even people I've done business with. I told them I would pay the shipping, buy them the 4-liter bottles and give them the results of their tap water and pay them $22-$25 for their trouble of filling the bottles at their sink and bringing the box to the post office. Nothing. Never one reply Dom. And it was not only emails. I would advertise on forums to buy water...Nothing. People are pretty **(obscenity removed)**ed nowadays Dom. They have no courtesy. I'd have more respect for them if they would write back with a short email saying to **(obscenity removed)** off. But it is too much work to hit the reply button I guess. It is kinda sad that I have to work in the social documentary areas I do work in Dom; as a photographer, filmmaker, audio archivist, cine' archivist, etc. I run the People's Archive. No $$ in it, is all open content. Once $$ comes into play Dom, you only do things for profit. If no $$, you won't do it. I do it for love, the only time $$ is thought of is when I ask the question of; do I have enough $$ to do a project? And it is not like I'm some selfless person. It is just what is necessary to do the work I do in the quality and quantity I do it in. Believe me Dom, I'd love it if it produced vast riches for me, I've got nothing against $$. If I had a choice Dom, I'd do something else. But as Weegee had said...it is in our blood. We got no other choice Dom. And the sad part Dom, is not the work, which I love. The sad part is people don't answer emails or show the slightest interest in contributing time to the Archive. And I'm not looking for volunteers to do the work. Beside water tests, I've written to many people asking for interviews, letting me record oral or video history for the Archive, record photography, things like that Dom. Basically no interest from any of them Dom. Then they die and the history is lost forever. As far as Spam? I read my spam...all of it. I archive my spam...I don't trash it Dom. (Now, I don't archive 100% of the spam. Too much dupe spam. So, I archive the notable ones.) Internet Archive Search: spam DDTJRAC ...or I may archive groups of spam once in a while. It is easy to trash stuff that may be important to the historical record someday Dom. That was what I was trying to get across to Perry who wanted to trash a collogues academic paper on scanners that he thought was not up to snuff. We don't need to destroy history; we need to preserve it. Especially in this day and age Dom. Now, in Perry's defense, I didn't always archive spam. One day something clicked and...BOOM! I've trashed thousands of spams over the decades. So, maybe something will click in Perry someday? All you can do is plant seeds. It is not our job to make them sprout. Same with the work Dom, you just send out the emails, RPPC's, etc. If some sprout fine and if not, you suck it up and move on.

That is OK, we don't have time to keep updating posts. I just put the post card in here to give some extra info. I got a huge Archive of photos, ephemera etc. So, I like to put it to use if possible. If no one sees them, the material is not of much use. The postcard is from eBay. I don't have any of the saltwater pools in the Archive. I've been closing down the Archive as far as new acquisitions. I started last week once it sunk in cine' film is just too hard to deal with for scans. The paper material? I got enough for many lifetimes, so not adding more fuel to the fire. Plus, there is the money and space problems coupled with the recent inflation. I found out about the Plunge on the special features on The Camerman. They also had a great special feature on old crank cameras...The Motion Picture Camera. I was looking for a copy of the film on crank cameras on VHS to break some clips out of. (The Motion picture camera : early cinemachinery from the Malkames Collection.) It was supposedly released on VHS. But it is very, very rare. WorldCat does not even have one copy listed. The Motion picture camera : early cinemachinery from the Malkames Collection (VHS tape, 1979) [WorldCat.org] The copy of that film on Criterion DVD had lots of post work. So I didn't want to cut up their stuff. I do try to be a little considerate, but as an archivist, we are always dealing with stuff that was made by someone else and had / has a copyright. Plus, the collection where the film emanated from is still going. So, it is a balancing act. And in this case, that material did not seem to come under my purview of worries about preservation. The Malkames Collection (malkamescameracollection.com) You film camera guys / gals would go crazy for The Motion Picture Camera film on the crank cameras. It also goes beyond the crank cams, into the early age of studio cine' cams. Just that one film is worth double of the cost of DVD in my opinion. The Motion Picture Camera (1979), a documentary by A.S.C. cinematographer and film preservationist Karl Malkames, in a 4k restoration The Cameraman (1928) | The Criterion Collection I had heard you can cut up songs for 30 second fair use samples /discussion if they are copyrighted, but don't know if that is true. And even if true, I don't know if that would extend to 30 second fair use clips for movies. If it is true, then I would not be so considerate and would cut up some clips. I generally stick with what is allowed by law over endless debates on consideration. It is always a battle between the 'greater right or the greater good' being an archivist. You lurkers...get The Camerman...great film. ...and watch the specials, many more interesting things on it. Internet Photo - Buster Keaton - The Camerman 1928

I thought the scanning companies invented it, but it is old school.

I had written this company to ask if they sold or had any paper ephemera related to the vintage cine' cameras that I could acquire or scan for them to donate to the I.A. NO reply. Really sad how things are nowadays with correspondence in an era where correspondence has never been easier.

Kaiser Copy Stand Museums / archives may use these along, along with a Phase One Medium format camera or some other medium format camera. The dual motor copy stand is $16.5K. The lights?? I had written to Kaiser a few times asking about the lights and stands. I don't have the room or $$ for the system, but was interested in this setup anyway just for personal information. NO reply. Well, this is how things go in 2022, although this was 2019. I do lots of copy stand work now. I had hurt my foot in 2021 and don't pound the pavement as I used to do street shooting. So, I'm trying to get all my ducks in order with archival work which requires lots of scanning and copy stand photography. I am also getting into camera scanning for negs and chromes vs flatbed neg and chrome scanning. For someone that hates studio work, I ended up in an odd place with my photography. But I adapt. Novoflex makes a good bellows system for close up work. I wanted to try it for film scanning. But it is very complex and require numerous adapters. Plus, I was not going to use standard camera lenses on it and needed some advice. I had written Novoflex about setting up their bellows for my camera...NO reply. I had also written a company that produces masks and scanning accessories for using your camera. Guess what...NO reply. Lasergraphics...Kaiser...Novoflex...company that makes scanning accessories...No breast feeding nowadays... RPPC - DDTJRAC Copy stand photography can yield a different look with paper and 3D as opposed to flatbed or sheet fed scanning. And yes, you can scan 3D objects with a flatbed scanner as I did with this. It just depends on the item. Full report: NSFW SHOOTOUT…Flatbed Scanner vs. Sheetfed Scanner vs. Copy Stand Photography – Daniel D. Teoli Jr. Archival Collection – II (home.blog) Do you do copy stand work? Neg scanning with a digital camera? Let's see your setup!

I found out this was a saltwater pool in Venice, CA called The Venice Plunge.

I picked up a large collection of French Scopitone films on VHS. France invented the Scopitone film jukebox after WWII. It is interesting seeing what French Scopitones were about. (Even if I don't understand French.) French Scopitone films can be more risqué than the tamer American Scopitone. The French got some crazy stuff on their early Scopitone from the Go-Go dancer era. Here is a Scopitone of a French cutie singing The Loco-Motion song. It was written in 1962 by Gerry Goffin & ‎Carole King. French Scopitone Loco Motion VHS D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : D. D. Teoli Jr. A. C. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive I have built up a few hundred VHS to digitize over the last few months. Been busy with other things and neglecting the VHS Archive. So, I got back on digitizing VHS this week. Since I have not been doing any VHS work, I had forgotten what a joy it is working with VHS as opposed to working with film. With VHS you just need a used $60 VHS player from eBay and a used $80 DVD recorder. Or you can record it on your computer via the VCR. Whatever you like. (OK, some tapes require 'the black box.' I'm still using one from the 1990's!) About the only issue I dislike with VHS is the low I.Q.. Film on the other hand...you had better be rich if you want to do decent scanning. I was thinking this week, if I had to do it all over again, I probably would never get into archival film. I mean, I love film...I am crazy for film; but love means nothing if you can't do anything with it. It is like loving a girl you will never get. It only causes pain. Well, as I told one member here, life can change on a dime. 'They' say the formula for happiness is: Someone to love. Someone to love you. Something to do. Something to look forward to. So, I keep on chugging away with the hope of something better 'to look forward to'...with film digitizing. Hope is all we got to keep us going sometimes.

It is just desaturated and darker. A couple of clicks and you are done. I was thinking about the contact lens. Thinking you could use yellow contact lenses to counteract the blue. Never wearing them, I'm not sure, but I believe contact lenses don't cover the white of the eyes. They are just in the center. If so, that won't work. Next time try tinted eyeglasses. But run some tests. Here is the deal with post work... If you are paying someone to do it, you are stuck with what they give you. You can pay more $$ and sit next to them for a pow-wow on the grading. But it usually cost more. At least that is how it is with timed film scans. You pay extra. When you do your own post work you can try different things. You can do 10 different grades in 10 minutes. (More or less) But some grading takes hours for just one frame. I'm very good at post work...with still photos. Even so, this took me 2-1/2 hours in Lightroom along with some single image HDR. Sunlit Slipper 1973 D.D.Teoli Jr. But I don't care who does that post work. I don't think you can fix those blue eyes unless you... 1) Go warm. 2) Or paint the eyes. 3) Or you have magic movie software.

Duplicate: Deleted

Lasergraphics support has been superlative... Started writing Lasergraphics around 2017 / 18 and numerous times after that...never the courtesy of a reply from Lasergraphics. Only years later one reply from their outside salesperson. That is shitty service no matter how you try to spin it, Perry.

That is all correct. On a rainy day you don't expect warm tones. But it would take that amount of warming to kinda fix the eyes. What should be done, if they like the cold look, is to just target the yes. But if much of the film has blue eyes and they don't make super-duper movie software that will just fix the eyes easily...it is not practical to do. Above is the image as-is with just the eyes desaturated and slightly whitened. The eyes are very blue. 100% desaturation was not enough. I needed 200%. In other worlds, the maximum desaturation adjustment in Lightroom 5 still didn't fix it. I had to target another spot of the eyes and do it all again. This is the image as-is with no adjustments. This is the image darker and desaturated a couple of notches. Nothing done to the eyes. It is just another way to make the eyes less obvious. But none of these grade's matter. It is what you can do with the movie software that matters not what can be done in Lightroom. Even if you got a film broken down into TIFF files, and you did it in Lightroom, it is very hard keeping things consistent from frame-to-frame hand-painting the eyes.

Hi Anzer, I never thought about contact lenses. Who knows? Sure, a blue, cold cast has its look. But I think you are going to have a hard time with it as everything looks blue. It is very easy to make the eyes white and leave it all blue...if you can retouch each frame. I could have made the eyes whiter, but I felt it is cheating if you can't do it with movie software easily. That was why I wondered if they had some special movie software that could do a large number of frames at once just targeting the eyes. If any of you make a movie and the whole thing is off color, and you just can't fix it in post...turn it B&W. It may not be what you wanted, but it is better than nothing.

In a case like this Perry, Barabra's paper was the foundation and should have been built upon and not destroyed. If the corrections were not made, you should have posted your own rebuttal to correct what needed correcting. But maybe that would cause too much friction? Although you could have reviewed it is such a way to bring out good points and add the corrections that were wrong. That is something I like about Robert H's replies. He is to the point and does not make things personal and leaves the digs out. That is why I say he is more levelheaded than you in his replies. In archival work we preserve history and don't destroy it Perry, whether that history is imperfect or not. I just looked over the paper quickly, but I didn't see she mentioned / thanked you in it for the revisions. Maybe she did and I just didn't see it. I'm not much for text, I like images. Credit should always be given so you know what / who was involved in the development. Although in my case, I always ask if people want credit for help. A lot of people don't want to be associated with me and come up in a Google search. It is OK with me if they don't, but I still give them the courtesy of asking.

Let's talk about the Retroscan for a moment. I think my model is the Universal. It is not their newest $10,000 model. I don't pay attention to models; I just use things. Mine cost about $6,000. I've only scanned maybe 100 films with it. I've used it to learn about scanning more so than actual scanning. I figure why scan 1,000 films twice if I get a 4K scanner. But, in the big picture, 2K or 4K is not the issue. And no sound is not the issue. I can get by with AEO Light if I must. Here are the main problems for me with the Retroscan... 1) There is a problem with clear edge films. They make a laser light pin gate for that, but the laser light does not work on warped film. So Retroscan should come out with some sort of tool that blackens the edge on one side of the film to read it better. Sounds crazy...huh. But no one has made a better suggestion for clear edge film. I guess blackening the edge of customers films would be an issue. But for me...no issue. Even though an archivist, there are tradeoffs. If a better scanner can never be had, then I must make do with the 2K Retroscan or not scan at all. If I don't scan, there is a risk that the films will be trashed if I kick off. So, I do the best I can with what I got. And a tool to blacken the edge would take care of the clear edge issue. (I bet Perry is laughing his ass off.) 2) A warped film gate with the original LED lights needs to be made. The Retroscan will run about anything through it. But it runs it as-is warped more or less. A warped gate probably won't work with the light pin gate unless the gate could hold the film very flat. The light pin gate works by reflecting and it can't reflect evenly off of warped film. And the warped gate does not have to be perfect. Just make the film75% - 85% better. Again, if the film is warped bad, even the LED's have trouble with it if black edged. Those are the 2 fixes I need for the Retroscan. Other than that, it is a great little machine for the money, as long as you feed it what it likes.

Can't you just test this all? No budget for it?

OP....what does the raw footage look like?

Perry had brought up how some archives fail to keep scanner operators and the scanner knowledge leaves with the operator. This would be useful to bring new operators up to speed. In another thread I suggested the scanner company give you some standardized duped archival film and a DVD instructional series, so the operator can check their scans by comparing them to the provided sample scan. That would be a welcome tool when buying a scanner. Or if we are talking Lasergraphics...since they don't even want to give out half-ass instructions...they could charge $695 for it.

...a specialized rewash and polishing processor. What type of chemicals are used? You should be posting before and after photos of your work. Sounds fascinating Robert. Thanks!

Is there a video on the FF wetgate? I can't picture someone dribbling liquid on the sponge. Seems archaic. Internet Archive Search: childbirth teoli One of these films has a doc dribbling ether on a rag or mask on the lady having a baby. He keeps dribbling it on throughout to keep her knocked out. FF wetgate reminds me of that!

They need to get rid of Windows. I hate it. Why can't Perry invent a substitute? Those problems you have with your computer sound bad. My old computer would probably blow up. I already run a house fan into it for extra air when I process video. It pumps out hot air like a blow dryer!

After 30 years in the darkroom, my lungs have had it. I don't want anything toxic. Wetgate scanning is the rage. But it hurts res.

I guess the only way to settle all this is to scan the same film on different machines. Then compare. The rest is opinion. No one talks much about the Arriscan. I guess it is a $300k machine?