Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

For the everyday Jane or Joe, 'M' disc is rated at 1000 years. I have optical media archival tests underway now to be completed next spring. So far M disk has far outlasted regular DVD in sun exposure. Silver DVDs die in 3.5 weeks. Gold DVD lasts about 4.5 weeks. The old Kodak gold DVD lasted about 5 - 6 weeks. M disc has been in the sun for 6.5 months and no issues at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC M Disc can go up to 100gb, but is a variant of Blu-ray. So far M Disc Blu-ray have held up, but will not know until tests are complete if M-Disc Blu-ray are as good as original M Disc DVD. It is good to have your material archived on as many things as possible. But flash drives are said to lose data after 10 years if not accessed. I've tested flash drives after 5 years with no access and they worked fine. 10 year tests are forthcoming. Silver CD-R's have a longer life than silver or gold DVD-R's. Silver CD-R's lasted almost 3 months in the sun. But not much you can use CD's for nowadays due to low storage ability. Here is a test on a 15 yo CD . This is from a CD video recorder. https://danieldteolijrarchivalcollection.wordpress.com/2019/01/14/15-year-cd-r-archival-burn-test/ Blue, dye based CD's are terrible and die after a couple weeks in the sun. Some critics poop on optical media for archival work. They like tape. I have CD's going back to 1983. They are still readable with no end in sight for access ability. Tape going back to the early days is very hard to access do to the lack of hardware. Don't discount optical media for archival work. Only shortcoming with optical is low ability to store mass amounts of info. Too bad they didn't do some archival tests on all the faded red film we have now. Maybe they could have developed something better. Archival testing is of the utmost importance for preserving history. https://danieldteolijrarchivalcollection.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/just-because-it-is-marked-archival-it-does-not-mean-it-is-archival-2/

I guess if you are good at it, it is natural, 2nd nature so to speak and no list needed.

Try shooting high ASA / ISO and slight diffusion filter. You can underexpose and fool around in post. NIK software and some other brands have many presets for special effects. Lightroom has sharpness and clarity sliders you can work on. OP, really, the ballerina photos in question don't appeal to me. They just look like grainy, poorly exposed, flat, un-sharp photos. Sure I like art. But they are not good examples of art to me. You can increase / decrease the white light around the windows and door with post processing as well. It looks like some of the light may be from dodging. OP, you should join a photo forum. They are more experts at post processing still photos. Try to draw from a full purview of diffusion options to see what is the range of effects you can explore. I am highly skilled at post processing street / doc work to look good. But I don't spend much time on how to degrade photos. I like my doc work to look sharper not fuzzier. Buy one of those Lomo film cams and give it a try. I don't use them, but the devotes that like degraded images love them. Add a diffusion to that and see what haps. https://www.google.com/search?q=Lomo+photos&sxsrf=ACYBGNQs-ii2rbJWgyBRZ1sUBwVP7v8ROw:1570408258452&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiSvZbT8ojlAhUB1qwKHYNUD3cQ_AUIESgB&biw=857&bih=614 OP, when you get all your experiments done, open a free WordPress blog and post all your diffusion experiments there. Then we can point to you for options the next time the diffusion question pops up.

Tyler, it started out as titles. But now the discussion has morphed into titles as well as video clips. I noticed when I saved titles and reused them they were more pixelated than fresh titles never recycled. When I wrote the post I did not have the problem I have now which is lots of video that needs editing. And I want to export that edited video to reuse later as a fresh import. Is that possible with video editing or do you have to keep the video that you put into the editor current and never export it as it will lose quality if reimported? Say I have an hour of video and need to cut it down to 10 min. I want to export in a format that can later be re-imported with no loss. Here are my export options. Mp4 Avi Mov Mpeg1 Mpeg2 Wmv Mkv Flv M2ts h264 Webm Ogv Swf Will any of them yield an export with no loss when it is re-imported? Or do I need different software? Thanks

What is that Photoshop or P.S. Elements? I've heard of Gaussian blur. But I only use Lightroom. Pentax as a well as some of the old view camera lens makers made soft focus lenses. I think some of the view camera soft focus lenses used various metal sieve like screens inside the lens that could adjust the amount of softness. (But don't hold me to their build, I'm no expert.) If using for cine' maybe you can adapt the Pentax SF lens or the T mount single element lens. The Pentax 120 SF lens is adjustable only by F stop as to softness. https://www.google.com/search?q=pentax+soft+focus+lens&sxsrf=ACYBGNThT26o1SpagCk8iPtaTLbfwgGuwg:1570386579871&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwij_YLyoYjlAhUNWK0KHeBUAwEQ_AUIEigC&biw=1371&bih=691 I have a used Pentax 120 SF lens I traded for eons ago when I had an old film Pentax MF cam. Never got around to using it. Bought it for glam shots. But whenever the girls would look at my portfolio they would never come through for modeling.

My Fair Lady had some good commentary about how they did things in the old days. As far as lighting tests, etc. I think it was the 50th Anniversary edition, but saw it a while back. They used stand-ins and shot the scenes for lighting and film tests days before the actual shoot. They left very little to chance. Real masters of their craft. Also great restoration before and after examples.

MP4 looks better to me. More shadow detail, less contrast. VNX may be slightly sharper, but can't be for sure. In either case saturation looks too much for my taste. What I'm looking for is something like TIFF, but for video. With TIFF still photos you can import, work on it and export. Then re-import the TIFF and do more work and export. It stays the same and does not change when exported. What codec is like that for video? Or should one be shooting in a certain codec that is conducive to import and export without loss? I don't have fancy cinema cams. I'm using Fuji 1080p and Sony 4k still cams for video and don't know what options for video they do have. I just use them at the default video setting.

You mentioned shutter speed. This is a motion blur shot. I'm thinking I would have used one click higher shutter speed for motion blur if I could do it over. But who knows how that would turn out? Just a guess. With candid work motion blur is a crapshoot. You can't retake it and get the same results. Selection from Bikers' Mardi Gras artist's book by D.D.Teoli Jr. - Candid With infrared flash in the dark, motion blur is very hard. 95% - 98% of the light comes from the IR flash. You need available light combined with white light flash for motion blur.

It is common with still work. They sell filters and you can do it in post. They also have some old adjustable soft focus films lenses. I've used a single element diffusion lens. It is very soft. T mount- 100m f2, wide open, single element lens. Photo:D.D.Teoli Jr. ...don't tell anyone I took flower pix. Order a bunch of soft filters from BH. Make sure they are returnable and test them out digitally. Then do final tests with film. And if you use Vaseline, put it on the filter, then cap with another filter. Then keep cool so it stays put. We also used nylon stocking over the enlarger lens back in the day. I don't do much diffusion nowadays. But do like motion blur with flash sometimes. Good luck!

Other day someone mentioned a 'swish pan' as a transition in a commentary. Do you have a master list of shots to choose from as reminders of what the possibilities are? If not, is there a list of different type of shots? Thanks

Although not the DP, Director of 'They Shoot Horses Dont They' did some of the shooting on skates and gives a good technical commentary.

I was thinking they get paid by the movie. Didn't realize it is a day rate.

Depends on their overhead, wife, etc.

https://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Articles/1904-Fall-2019/Conversation-Scorsese-Tarantino.aspx From the website... "Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino are born storytellers, not just in their movies—which bear each director's unmistakable stamp—but in their deep-seated appreciation for the medium. While they hail from different generations—Scorsese was among the first wave of film school grads in the mid '60s, and Tarantino's rise coincided with the indie film revolution of the early '90s—their passion and knowledge of cinema place them on equal footing. No genre escapes their grasp, whether it's prestige studio releases or B-movie potboilers, splashy musicals or noirish thrillers, art-house fare or spaghetti Westerns. They've been dining on this grand buffet all their lives, and it shows in their own work, in the characters they've created, and the lens through which they view the world. This is a particularly conspicuous year for both filmmakers: Tarantino's Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood has galvanized critics and audiences alike since its debut at Cannes, while anticipation runs high for Scorsese's The Irishman, for which the director has spent considerable time in post dealing with digitally de-aging his leads. The two sat down for the DGA Quarterly to talk directors, influences and violence as catharsis, among other topics. This is an edited version of their conversation." – Steve Chagollan

https://www.videomaker.com/short-filmmaking-checklist-everything-you-need-to-do-before-the-shoot Some good, basic advice for those starting out. (By Fuji)

I'm happy with the 2K Retroscan software Tyler. I'm not too much for complex software, so I like the software. It is basic and easy to use. You can get TIFF or JPEG individual scans with it. As was said. The Restroscan is not a Lasergraphics. The Lasergraphics training and set up fee alone cost more than a Retroscan. In its price range the Retroscan is the best option for budget scanning unless you are wealthy or a big company. It would be nice if the Retroscan software could add a red faded film color color corrector like Lasergraphics has. Give it a few options of color correcting with one click. The only other 'dream' options I'd like would be a sound reader built into the scanner, not a sound module. And higher res scans...4K - 5K If you got sound and only have a silent scanner, the University of South Carolina came up with this software to extract sound. But I have not tried it yet. https://usc-imi.github.io/aeo-light/ I bought a LightPin 16mm gate but still have not tried it. My problem is too many irons in the fire. I have 100,000+ still photos going back to 2013 I have not looked at yet to sort. I hope to get back to film scanning in the next month or two. I will give you a report then.

A Hard Day's Night has good commentary on a number of the 3 disk Criterion set. Especially from editors.

I'm using a JVC VCR with 19u head. RCA jacks feeding to a Toshiba DVD-R recorder.

I'm duplicating a tape from 1976. No issues and it was a rental tape at one time. Just some hiccups at the beginning few seconds. Impressed that they hold up so well. I may have some VHS a little earlier than this one. Still looking through archive. What is your earliest VHS? Did it hold up for you? I guess video is similar to reel to reel audio. I had some from 1955 audio tape and it was OK. I had heard reel to reel tape is acetate, so maybe subject to vinegar syndrome.

Thanks for rundown. Are you saying the Blu-ray is not good? If so, is there a version does justice to the BW?

Is it worthwhile trying to find a S-VHS machine to dupe standard VHS tapes to DVD versus a regular VHS machine? I read the S-VHS machines had special heads in them and claimed sharper payback. If the S-VHS offer a better playback for standard VHS do you need to find S-VHS machines with S-Video outlet jacks? I've seen a lot of S-VHS machines that haver standard RCA jacks and no S-VHS jacks. Thanks

Thanks Perry. Is this it?

Thanks, makes sense to use scanning tech.

Do they generally have a video camera going for instant replay? Or do they do it the traditional way of waiting for the dailies?