Robin Phillips

Dont process the files in Adobe premier, use After Effects or Resolve to break them up into editing dalies or prores masters. IIRC Premier will spit them all out at 8bit, so if you decide to stay with your prores files or DNxHR files for finishing you'll have lost alot of color information

its happened before. The real thing that can hold back a 10k film isnt so much budget but lack of practice/experience and talent. That being said, I've seen super low budget USC 310s and 508s (2nd semester projects) that have played at Cannes...

damn it man you sold your 416?

PMed you Paul's email

all good. there are 4:3 fiber screens made for the SR2 and SR3 that basically have a darkened on the side to prevent transmission of unwanted light if you're shooting 4:3 or N16. This darkened area is actually part of the fiber screen, so it can be removed when its re-marked, giving you the full super 16 surface area on the screen to work with. This is the sort of screen I sent to Shurco to have done for my custom 2.39:1 screen, and they confirmed when I sent photos of it that they can modify that type screen to full s16.

you're right, typo on my part, full name is Shurco tool company, Paul is the guy to talk to. Shurco can convert N16 fiber screens to super16 too.

I dont have any for sale, but Shruco in LA is re-doing a 4:3 sr3 screen for me into a custom 2.39:1 (arri made a 2.35, but not a 2.39). If you have a donor screen you can have them resurface it. catch is they can take a while. Cinematechnic or Alan Gordon (both in LA) may have donor screens for sale

you probably wont find one outside of working with a trusted colorist. PM me if you'd like and I can share some samples of what I've done with neat video. If I feel I need a little more pop, or an upscaling to 4k, I typically do the largest sample of grain reduction I can, add 10-15% sharpening, then re-composite with the original (anywhere from mixing back 25% to 75% depending if I need it upscaled). You do wind up having to render alot, and you need to make sure you're in 10bit or more, but I've been very happy with the results. Kinda the best you can ask for outside of either shooting s16 anamorphic x1.33 (expensive) or just shooting short end/recan 35mm (sometimes on par with s16 price wise)

for the record, I hate you all for starting this thread. I now have a Chevys quesadilla and pepsi craving that shall never be satisfied...

These stills look like something went very, very potato. Like, QC should have caught it before it left potato. As someone whose been doing a bunch of tests and tinkering around with grain reduction pipelines, I'd strongly recommend two things: 1 unless its a mag scratch test, use a fresh 100' roll of film to rule out problems there, especially for any resolution or sharpness/flange depth tests. 2 scan WITHOUT any grain reduction. Neat Video alone is so powerful (and can re-composite your grain back in if you went too far) that its really kinda dicy to play with anything from the lab, especially if the person doing the grain reduction isnt from the days of lots of tv shows shooting super16. The only lab/scan place I'd even remotely consider letting run a spirit's SCREAM on is Fotokem, and thats just cause I've seen them actually do it tastefully. The catch is they are expensive, and if you're doing tests why not just use tools in Davinci or Neat Video and save the headache (and money)?

As everyone else has said, formatting doesnt matter much (other than to guestimate time required to shoot). Really whats important is laying out each action, reaction, or tactic change by a character that moves the story forward (not tiny redundant character actions unless its vital to that end), and keeping things in the present tense. Its a great exercise that will require you to think in images instead of heads talking. Otherwise I think Celtix is still cheap and aids in formatting. BTW my automated reminder note for students: if you do use dialogue, always remember that dialogue is action in films. its used as a tactic to achieve a goal, vs dumping exposition. If you find a character talking to just explain something, throw out that dialogue and re-write the thing they're explaining as a visual action simply and visually (or change a behavior of a character to be hiding said info, or trying to squeeze said info out of someone etc).

I've seen lots of good short films made on budgets ranging from $500 to $500,000. It really depends on the script, but I'm guessing you're not doing scifi craziness. the 480/546 class at USC I think had the budgets capped at either 10k or 15k, with film and processing needing to be paid for from that budget. 1st up - insurance. DO NOT FILM WITHOUT THIS. its not worth the risk. If you're in a class at a school that will provide an insurance cert, awesome. If not, its probably gonna be 1200-1500 for a 12 day stretch. Since this will save your ass in the event of any accident, this is your first expense. You'll need Property, General liability, and Workmans Comp. Add ons for hired auto insurance, pyro etc are additional costs. Are you shooting thru weekdays, or more than one weekend? Consider paying the crew and talent at least favor rates (unless they're your good friends AND good at what they do). But pay the gaffer. seriously. Also probably sound (even if just their kit fee). Both jobs are kinda thankless on a short. Food and water - people dont need the fanciest stuff, but if you do 4 days of pizza it'll bring down the moral and set energy on day 2. Production design / costume design - depending on the subject matter this may or may not be as high a priority, but as someone else said, if something looks bad/cheap the best crew in the world wont save it. Though really creative lighting can, subject matter permitting. Consider creative solutions before spending money, but expect to spend some here. You may be able to design yourself (or between you and other key crew), but you'll likely still need some various things. You may need to pay for locations. Some insurance policies may require a financial transaction for the policy to cover, so even if its a free location it never hurts to do a rental contract for $1. You probably dont need 4k, it may even reveal the "budget" (again subject matter depending). While HHDs are getting cheap, for the love of god get a bare minimum of 2 drives to store a duplicate of the footage. Normal procedure is to have 3 copies of footage on digital. Back up project files to google drive as you work. A hair/makeup person will make life easier, though if you're in LA you may find talent whose down to just apply their own base if their really on board with what you're out to do. I've always kinda felt with high res digital you really want a dedicated person though. Even $500 for some kind of score or music license goes a long way. Same with a sound mix, which you really will need for a festival run. I'd note depending on if you're doing anything crazy in a public space, or with a prop gun that MIGHT be in view of the public, get a permit and, if need be, rent a police officer to babysit you. If you're in a safer area or super near the sub-station, sometimes they'll settle for giving you only 1 cop instead of 2 (urban areas usually send partners). It'll be annoyingly expensive, but a hell of a lot cheaper than the consequences of SWAT descending on your set and shooting your actor. (note that a cop on an adrenaline high responding to a gun call almost certainly wont notice the film equipment, only the gun). This advise is at the end cause it may not be applicable, but if it is applicable this is expense #2 right after INSURANCE.

I'd throw out there that these stills are pretty darn clean grain wise, and you'll need to remember that the grain varies across the frame based on brightness/darkness of a given spot. I'd recommend trying Neat Video, IIRC they have a direct plug in for Resolve now. Its pretty amazing honestly, I've been able to do some nutty degrain, sharpen, regrain with upscales that look great. It may give you results more to your satisfaction. I'd throw out there though, given the white walls you've got in the material, the grain will actually make the image less videoy and feel a bit more natural given the grain variance of the otherwise simple and constant background

Hi all, anyone have a used arri K2.52082.0 dovetail insert with thread handy they'd be willing to sell?

i s that email correct? just sent you a message and it bounced

I think theres one on ebay right now FYI

this turned out great dude

you can definitely use empty daylight load spools on the take up side. As Uli said, it is a little louder, though if you're in a rush or dont have a changing bag its better than using a core. since you mentioned a core adapter, not an empty core, keep in mind one of the rules of shooting film is a core adapter sent to the lab will never return. so if you've used a collapsable core adapter on the take up side, before sending it to the lab stick the box back into a bag, remove the core adapter, and pop a normal core in where the adapter was.

The fact that this is intentionally achievable with the SP16 is kinda amazing... How many of these suckers did they make before closing up shop?

maybe try bolting a blackmagic hyperdeck shuttle to the camera? not sure if the sdi record signal will send out to the hyperdeck but its worth a try

did you get the shots back as DPX or as prores? if DPX, bring it into after effects or a similar program and re-interperate the footage at the intended frame rate and see what happens. Its possible the metadata went potato. If not, the next step is to see if something went weird in the telecine/scan. You can also always shoot a new short end and send to a different transfer house (though thats obviously annoying).

my understanding is Andree from Clairmont is servicing all the alan gordon cameras at the time of sale so theres definitely a benefit to buying from them. AG does have a waiting list right now though

Does anyone know off hand if the SR3 video handle (non-ivs, original sr3 version) will work with a c mount 1/2.5" sensor camera as oppose to an intended 1/2" sensor ccd camera? Obviously it would be a cropped in a bit (roughly 10% if my napkin math is correct), but would it still be wide enough to see the ground glass's frame guide marks? Anyone tried this?

if its red 8k, shooting that and then downsampling to 4k will definitely overcome any downsides of the bayer sensor. Now if they want you to work in 8k for a 4k delivery... yoish

please definitely post the results when you get them back from the lab. Be it a success or not it'd be great to see what shook out