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Will Montgomery

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Posts posted by Will Montgomery

  1. Such a great start! Reminds me just a little of the Arri 535 design...just the outside of course.

     

    PL would be wonderful for professionals, but if your target is more hobbyists, I'd suggest Canon mount because of all the glass that's available these days in that mount. I love Nikon but their opposite focus direction can mess with some people.

     

    There are many inexpensive C-Mount lenses available in the surveillance market, but they are not usually very good glass. The older c-mount lenses can be good, but most have aged poorly.

     

    Is there a possibility of multiple mount options? Since lenses are such a major investment, having a PL, Canon & Nikon option these days might help you sell a few more...but perhaps too difficult to achieve.

  2. Going out on a limb here, but are the leader perfs on the correct side? It could have been wound backwards...I think you would notice when forming the top loop so probably it's ok.

     

    Before you put the pressure plate back... (I seem to remember not having to actually remove it, just tilt it back but it's been a while on the K3) do you hear the shutter click as you advance the film manually?

     

    Last thing I can think of...since you don't have the loop formers...you are forming the loops and manually making sure the film is going through the sprockets right? It should slide into each side of that sprocket motor from the top, not from the front/side like it would in an autoload situation...at least I think...it's been a long time since I've had a K3...

  3. Same here, I have about 5 400ft from the last 4 years, of just my kids stored on color neg and TriX. I feel comfortable knowing I'll have that footage forever. I have little faith that i'll be able to access all the cell phone footage 20 years from now.

     

    That's why I shot as much Kodachrome as I could before it disappeared.

  4. I'm working on a project where I've shot a band in a studio on Super 16 for one song and BMPCC for the other, using the same PL lens on both. Fairly low-light...so far the digital image looks amazing. I'm sending out the film today and should have it back and scanned before January 1st (hopefully!). Vision 3 500T on Super 16 will undoubtedly be more grainy, but I can't wait to actually compare the two formats in a real working environment, shooting the same things with the same light (which is not necessarily the way to do it...film should have more light). My gut tells me the film will be great, but I'm not sure if it will be great enough to offset the costs.

     

    With Super 8, it would be a different analysis because the format has such a unique look. Super 8 is much more of an artistic choice that doesn't really have a direct counterpart in the digital world. Yes, we can use plugins to approximate it, but nothing that would fool anyone in this forum.

     

    If you are a skilled DP and have the post help you can get an Red or Alexa to look pretty damn good and close to 35mm...16mm in my opinion is a little harder to match looks with a digital camera, but Super 8? Much harder to make a digital camera look like that...even more so with Regular 8mm.

  5. My guess is more like July or August of 2017. I believe it's more difficult than they expected plus dealing with the processing/transfer package and all the people that have no clue what real film is all about...I can't imagine the helpline phone calls they'll be getting once people realize they are paying $70-$100 for 3.5 minutes of footage.

  6. I've been enjoying my 16mm print collection recently and I was wondering what it would take to get studios to release new 16mm prints to the public. Consider this a thought experiment.

     

    Technically it would not be difficult to create a high-quality negative from a Blu-Ray or 4k source. Expensive, but not difficult. If the print was only authorized for home use, just like home video...would a studio consider licensing such copies for a reasonable sum?

     

    (I do realize that many collectors may not feel a "film out" is the same as a copy from the original production negatives which may kill the idea altogether)

     

    For it to make financial sense you'd undoubtedly have to make quite a few copies for sale, but if it was all licensed properly from a studio and they received all sorts of free publicity from the release, I wonder if they'd be interested?

     

    Of course the price of each print would be in the $600 range just to cover print stock costs (not including the new negative output or the lab!)...but we've seen some print titles like Star Wars, ect. go for $5000 in good shape. It would be a very small market but for the right titles it seems like it could work.

     

    Not sure what a studio makes on a DVD or Blu-Ray...30% maybe after manufacturing, marketing, ect.?

     

    Of course all the rights holders would have to agree and negotiate their cut so that's why it's probably dead in the water but it sure would be nice to have new, clean prints that won't fade like the Eastman print stock did.

     

    If you could create say 30 B&W prints of the restored 1933 King Kong and sell them to collectors for $1200 each...seems like it might cover costs even with the studio's cut.

  7. There was a time that dropping close to $1 Million on a high-end Spirit made economic sense. Even in Dallas the companies that spent ridiculous amounts on their scanners made their money back very quickly because film was the highest quality capture medium by far. They spent crazy money on their lounges and color suites so the agency folks would want to work there and bring their clients...a day at the "color suite" was like a vacation at a spa for a few days.

     

    Those days are gone...at least in this town. But, since those machines were long ago paid for, scans can be had at reasonable prices everywhere. They just have to post those crazy prices so when advertising clients come in they can get something closer to full price. Just like the prices on the doors of hotel rooms are 2-3x what you actually pay.

  8. Wow, wish I could delete this thread, but I'm equally technically-un-savvy there I guess. I called Duall, who gently explained to me that I can simply turn the viewfinder until I focus onto the grain, then lock the screw down. I had been just turning the screw that locks it in place...wow. My brain...is officially melted. May this hopefully help the person who is just as brain-melted.

    I was going to suggest this. We forget sometimes that the eyepiece has a focus.

  9. I've recently started shooting on 35mm and I have been extremely frustrated by the exorbitant quotes and turnaround times I am getting from post houses around the L.A area for scanning my films.

     

    You should have had your filmed scanned 10 years ago. It's at least half the cost these days. Remember, what you're often paying for is a good colorist which makes all the difference in the world.

     

    I think part of the idea of that Blackmagic scanner was to make new film acquisition more affordable and easier. There are lots of issues with it, but many of those issues revolve around scanning older stock. Brand new footage would be just fine on on that scanner and it would be affordable. The lasergraphics would be much more flexible and would be a better scan in general, but maybe that Blackmagic scanner would be worth a look at less than half the cost.

     

    12 years ago a Spirit telecine could cost you close to $1,000,000 with the extras.

  10. Not to burst your bubble but you do realize that just one reel of film that lasts about 1.5 minutes at the frame rate you're talking about will cost about the budget for your entire camera? Film, processing HD transfer & shipping will be close to $100 per cartridge by the time you're done.

     

    With that in mind, spend $300-$500 on a quality camera and have it serviced. For the style of your reel, you will really love working in Super 8 so having a decent camera will help...especially a good macro lens. The Beaulieu 4008 ZM II will allow you to use almost any c-mount lens. Or wait for the new Kodak camera and you may find some advantages on that too.

  11. Here's the thing, with wind-up 16mm camera you're only talking about 30 seconds at a time. With that you won't have a problem syncing sound manually. Just have someone clap their hands or look for anything that will allow you to sync those 30 seconds.

     

    I have a Canon Scoopic with crystal sync and one without. I can tell very little difference between the two whenever I'm syncing audio. It's trial and error, hit and miss, but certainly doable. Throw up a clapper and you're golden.

     

    Problems tend to come up with something like a long interview, but even then all you need to do is slice up the audio a little and shift as needed. Someone with a Zoom and a pole mic would be great or use hidden lav mics recording onto an iPhone.

     

    Unless you're shooting a multi-cam concert on Super 16 (Peter Gabriel in Paris comes to mind) I wouldn't try to use timecode...that can be a technical nightmare without an experienced crew.

     

    There's "the right way" to do it, then there's the practical way. If it's just you with a Scoopic, use a slate/clapper and say which take it is for your editing sanity then you'll just be nudging the audio a little as needed to stay in sync. You can spend a few hours syncing up all the audio then write that file out again to use for actual editing. It slows you down a little but it's worth it.

  12. Looks like you're supporting the lens from that grip and that's good, the MFT mount wasn't made for that weight. The lens weighs about 5x what the camera does I think.

     

    I wish BlackMagic would come out with a 4k sensor that's the same size as the S16 one in the BMPCC. That would make my day. All these great S16 lenses would have an even longer life.

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