Don Cunningham

I know of shots that are blown-out due to overexposure and at least one shot underexposed. Does anything stick out as ok, good, or "that's really great"? I have since managed to grab a few ND filters.

Let me start by stating I have no formal training in cinematography and I was unsure of sharing this here. However, it is currently being shared for a limited time due to being nominated for a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award, so I figured I take a chance with feedback. I wanted to study filmmaking but my high school counselor did not know how to guide me over 25 years ago, so I received my BFA in theater. Of course I ended up serving four years in the military then finding myself doing everything but my true passion. In 2017 I decided to take a stage play that I wrote in HS and make it into a short film. Having grown up watching classic Gothic horrors, this was always a dream project of mine and so I wanted to capture it on film just as the filmmakers that inspired me. With no prior experience, I shot a test roll here and there of 16mm on a Bolex H16 I acquired on Ebay. Texas Sun caused some issues since I didn't have any ND filters, but that is part of trial and error. I also purchased a Filmo 70HR (I had some issues with the magazine) I used as a secondary camera. Aside from a grant I received in my town to assist with the scoring, everything was self-funded. Film stock was a mix of about 75/25 (fresh/expired). It has played a good number of festivals and picked up a handful of honors. This has proved a very educational experience.

Most likely. If you are unsure then try one stop. Black and white holds up fairly well.

If the person you purchased from was the original buyer, then you should not have issue with the B&W stocks since they were cold stored. If he was not the original buyer, the results may vary depending on how they were stored prior. I have shot multiple rolls of B&W of unknown storage conditions and 90% have been just fine without any compensation when shooting. I had two rolls of Double X that had issues with one having some "flaking off" like dust in-camera (caused an interesting image though) and one being super grainy. Those two appeared to be from the same lot as they were repackaged by a long-gone lab.

This has always been a good read: https://www.gammaraydigital.com/blog/prores-or-how-we-learned-stop-worrying-and-love-compression

Thank you for the responses.

A friend in town purchased new batteries for their CP-16A and let me use the camera to test out. I shot three rolls (color neg, b&w reversal, then some expired VNF I had on hand). The first roll came out OK, but had some jitter/smearing where the camera was turned off and back on. The second roll had the jitter/smearing throughout scenes. The third roll was all out jitter/smearing except for a few frames here and there (I didn't even bother having that roll digitized and just took scans off of my Epson flatbed to check it). Thoughts on the cause of this? Did something change after first using it to just have this constantly now? Here is a video of the camera running with a dummy load: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vne1g2s8l5mzjnn06auhh/20240721_145709-1.mp4?rlkey=nldtgvxt7lrb2jwapexfi6czh&st=6l33uacc&dl=0 Here is footage from the first two test rolls: And some frames from the last test:

I recently purchased an Elgeet C mount Cine-Stereo camera lens. This did not come with the projection lens or a finder lens, so I am going on the "let's see what I can do with it" mode for some fun. Because there is not a finder lens, I opted to try it out on my Bolex H16 Reflex for aiding in composing shots. Film used was Tri-x. I haven't had the roll scanned yet but instead did some quick review scans on my Epson flatbed to try and play with anaglyph conversion. Here is the original side by side then the rough conversion I did in Photopea.

I have an extra XLR power cable if you still need one. PM me.

Cinelab in the US has such services. I have not utilized this service yet, but hope to in the future: https://www.cinelab.com/#/maritime/

I'm going through the filing and see he listed his own painted artwork with values attached. Wonder if they would sell that much at auction. The business was listed in Utopia previously but the address for the owner is now listed as Cedar Park. Seems to be quite a story in there.

There is not a definite answer as each studio and/or label works differently. One case is (Horror of) Dracula. BFI released their "restoration" on blu ray in 2013. Well, lots of folks started to claim it had a blue cast to it. There was even a documentary video and the person grading the restoration spoke oddly, almost stating that he was providing what HE thought it should look like (it's been some time since I've seen it so don't hold me to it). After some nagging from fans, Warner Archive released a disc in the US in 2019. They utilized the BFI master as a starting point but referenced IB Technicolor prints. What they released was almost on point with 35mm presentations. I had owned a 35mm Technicolor pint and screened it in 2018 so do know first hand. Here are grabs from the two Blu Rays and a cell phone picture from the showing of my print. In the end, it depends who is on the team and the budget.

The original negative is the preferred source for best presentation. However there have been instances where a print or notes have not been referenced while grading and things such as day for night have not been done on the new grade. That can really stick out when you have vampires out in daylight!

I have provided elements from my film collection to a couple of labels over the past five or so years and each one worked differently. What I have are print elements for films in question, but different versions than what was made available by the studio or licensor. Two very different outcomes. Label 1 - I offered them access to my 16mm print for a fresh scan, an over the air VHS recording from the 1980's, and a low-end telecine I had made a few years prior via a moviestuff sniper unit. They did not want to spend any additional money, so went with the later which I felt was not good. The presentation looked awful. Label 2 - I offered them access to a 16mm partial print which they wanted scanned in 2K. Now, in this particular case this is the only found element with English titles known to currently exist and the only film based element with certain variant scenes. The label paid to have it scanned at 2K and I paid the slight difference to have it done at 4K for posterity. Other sources had to be "spliced" into the final master for the export version because my print is incomplete. This has just been released. It comes down to budget and who is producing the disc. Label 1 was a higher end non-studio label and label 2 is a boutique label. I will say that the boutique label was a pleasure to work with.

If you want Black and White, shoot black and white. I just completed a short that used an 85/15 mix of fresh and expired/dated film stocks. Testing the various dated stocks wasn't feasible, so I just loaded the Bolex and went..keeping like batches together. Some 7231 came out gorgeous just as if it was fresh! Then I had two rolls of 7222 that must have been stored in the worst way. In the end I made it work for the project.