Clampet15

There are always two sets of rights involved with music: The rights to use the actual recording in your film and the rights to use your own re-recording of the song in your film.

 

You need the later set of rights. These rights can be granted from the person who wrote the song (or whoever controls the rights to that song). To be frank, the odds of you getting the rights to rerecord a Beatles song on your own are non-existent.

 

You may have some luck if you utilize a service that handles this type of thing. This all costs money however.

Kevin Zanit

Thanks for the info. I'll look into it because if I record the song myself, I would only tag a few violin riffs from the song and pretty much do everything else different with different instruments. I would hope a riff played differently, but sounding similar, would not be copy right protected.... but then again it is the Beatles.

So, after two long years I am finally hitting the home stretch to finishing my first feature length. Right now I am in the post production stage of composing music for my film. My production team and I have come to the conclusion that the Beatles song Eleanore Rigby would be awesome to have as an opener. Now we know the actual song usage we could never afford for our low budget movie... and seeing how we are all musicians we think we could pull off recording it. My question however, is if we covered this song without words would we have to get the rights from the label - and if anyone knows, would It be possible to sample the actual song and create a new unique song from portions of it without acquiring rights?

- Brandon Schwindt

With older color negative film that may have increased fog levels, a stop or so of overexposure will help get the scene information up the curve and off of the fogged higher speed grains. I would avoid push processing, as it will just increase the fog level and graininess, and increase contrast.

So what I have shot is what I have shot. Just don't mess with the push process and see what comes out? Unfortunatly the age was unknown to me at the time of shooting, so I rated it at 500. I guess this falls into one of those unfortunate lessons I needed to learn about shooting films. Thanks.

-Brandon

Hello, So i'm finally in the post production of my first feature. I recently had half my film transferred out to digital. I had a few rolls that were really old kodak 500T stuff that came out looking.... lets just say artzie... and some, not there. So after I punched myself in my head for buying cheap short ends off of ebay, I came to the realization that I have one more 400ft roll of old kodak 500T left to develope with my other load of stock. Now, the environment that I filmed this roll in was different (more light), but never-the-less, a very old stock. So my question is, Should I push the stock a stop or two durring the developement, or just let them do it digitally in post when transferring it. I know the grain is going to be increased either way, but I would like to know what might be a better way to go about it. Thanks

-Brandon Schwindt

I use CinePost in Atlanta: www.posthouse.com for rank transfers at 135.00 USD per hour to DVcam. If your project is "super low budget" go for a super low budget transfer. Keep your EDLs organized and you can always conform your edits back to your film reels in a color correction session at some place like www.fsft.com

 

or just work with your cheap rank transfer and call it good.

 

Your extra money might be better spent on your next project. If your feature gets picked up the distributor will likely pay for the high-end post production.

 

Steve

Yeah, I'm thinking thats the best way to go with the lowest budget route possible. I'm pretty confident I can at most, make the footage look decent. I am pretty much using all of the footage, so going back later on wont be to hard. I'll make sure to keep track of the EDL's just incase I get lucky one day. Thanks.

There are still some places that take some additional care with a on-light. One of them is Spectra Film and Video. I sent them a good deal of neg expecting a typical one-light and got back footage that had obviously been tweaked (including an 85 filter problem I had). They have some especially low rates for 16mm, but you must contact them for the info since it is not posted on their web page.

Thats is very good to know, seeing that is was spectra that I am talking to right now. Looks like my mind is set. I still might send just a demo roll to check it out. But I am glad to hear they do a good job. Thanks.

Hello, I'm currently in the final stages of shooting my first feature length. I'm in the process of looking at labs with the best pricing, seeing that I'm a student and this project is super low buget. I found one lab online that has some pretty great prices and student rates, but I have just one question before I send off the goods. The pricing they gave me for a one light vs. a graded is about a 500 dollar difference. Now this might not be much money in the industry, but thats a hefty chunk to me when its comming out of my pocket. Now I am finishing this project on digital, so my major concerns are resolution (which I assume the both are pretty close to the same), and of course color. I totally get the idea behind using the highest quality image possible when going in, but I know for a fact I am going to be grading this stuff after the fact either way. My main question is, If I just go ahead and get a one light even though I did use different stocks and what not, will I be able to create a decent looking picture after tampering with the image in post. I would just hate to pay this place an extra 500 bucks for something I can very well do myself on my own. But I would also hate to pay over a thousand dollars for a bunch of crap.

-Brandon

When all else fails, just pretend to be in college and claim this thing is a student project. I'm in college... but not doing anything with film yet, but when anyone of authority (police), ask me what the heck I'm doing at 2 in the morning in a upscale shopping/loft area with a bunch of cameras and actors with fake blood on them and their shirts off making a ruckuss, I tell them "student project". Works everytime. But, I would never promote lieing. So definatly go to college.

I work for an optical clinic. What I use is an optical micro fiber cleaning cloth for glasses (these can be picked up at any wal-mart vision center). Some would say not to spray it, but if you do not, better make sure your cloth and lens are dang clean and free of dust. Any amount of dust over time will scratch the lens. I recommend picking up some lens cleaner from there too. Do not, whatever you do, buff it with any kind of paper product. You might as well be rubbing bark all over it. Any paper product will eventually leave little scratches all over your lens.

So I wanted to test an M42 lens someone gave me on my Krasnogorsk-3. It was a 28mm lens and it looked great through the viewfinder. Loaded up some new Vision2 250D and headed out to the park on a really bright day here in Texas.

 

Brought by new light cine-light meter and took readings on everything before shooting. Most of the readings were about f2.8 to f5.6 depending on the shade. So I carefully set the aperture and shot about half a roll before realizing I wasn't seeing much of a difference in light through the viewfinder as I change the aperture. Then it hit me that the lens was auto and therefore had been stuck wide open on f22 the whole time.

 

I changed back to the regular Zenit lens and finished the roll out.

 

So Video Post & Transfer here in Dallas processed and transfered the test on their Spirit. I stopped by and saw them working on it and said, wow, I guess the lens was working, it looks great. They laughed and said, "not really... look at this..." and they showed me the un-corrected stock completely overexposed to the point of hardly seeing anything. I couldn't believe that they could save such a drastically overexposed shot to the point of me only seeing some increased grain, otherwise it was great.

 

Between the latest Telecine software and this Vision2 Stock, we can sometimes really screw up exposures and see them come back ok on transfer.

How is your experience with the post house in Dallas? I know this is a little off subject, but I live in the dfw area and was recently talking with them about pricing for a student feature I'm doing. From the sound of it, they are able to work some miracles, which I just might need when this thing comes around to post time.

One last question. Would the quality be a lot better if when I get the footage transfered, I drop it on dvd or hard drive instead of mini dv. I'm sure it would be, but I dont think i could afford to do the hard drive, but maybe so on the dvd's. Are they the same type of file?

Thanks for all the great info guys. I will definatly shop around. I have some 100' loads from my film I will use and get some samples from each place.

Ok, so I have read as much post on these forums that my eye's can stand about transfers and what not of 16mm film. I'm currently still shooting my film right now (hopefully it will be done one day). My budget is really not big at all, so I plan on just releasing this thing digital instead of going back out onto film. My question is, does it matter if I get my film transferred on a rank or spirit if I'm just going to throw it into FCP and color grade all the colors myself untill I'm happy anyways? I totally understand it is allways better to have the greatest possible image going in to work with, but for bugetary reasons, would I be sacrificing a lot of quality to just get a one light from some place that does the transfer for 15 cents a foot on a rank vs. some other place with an ungodly price with a spirit?

hi there- actually with the scoopic the metering is not through the lens, it's a seperate little window above the lens, so you would have to change your asa dial with the addition of NDs (if all of your metering is with the camera's meter- which is kind of a crummy meter, by the way)

 

You'd be better off with a seperate meter, and just set it to your "new" asa (in this case, 64 with the NDs on the lens)

Thanks for the extra info. I'm told that the scoopic MS's light meter is the better of them all. I recently got some footage back, and outside of the crummy transfer I got, It came out reasonably good. So hopefully the whole film come out good as well.

Great job man.

I do agree that maybe a little less camera shaking. I thought that it was a good element during the intense fighting parts. But I felt like a was watching the blair witch project after a while. Good job though, I really liked the super 8 look for this piece.

-Brandon

Since you have a built-in meter, it will take account of the filters you put in front so don't change the asa rating.

 

Just as to remind, going down from 250 to 50 exactly is not that easy. A ND 0.6 will cut 2 stops, taking you down to 64 ISO. Might be close enough to your need. Adding a ND 0.15 would take you down to 45 if you can find one... You'd need a 0.10 filter to get closer to 50 but that's even more difficult to find, I guess...

Yeah, I planned on just dropping it to 64. Since I am going straight to digital, I will just fine tune it in fcp. Thanks.

I'm shooting a film on my Scoopic MS, and as of now I have not had to filter anything with it. I'm trying to filter some 250D asa film down to around 50D. I have the filters and all, but once they are in, do I need to reset the ASA meter to 50 ASA or keep it at 250 ASA on the camera? Thanks.

Pretty dang good. What did you guys use to shoot the music video with? Film, Digital?

You might be right, depending on how primitive their film chain is the speed of the transfer might fluctuate. Proper telecine machines transfer each frame at a time so their speeds are as accurate as your camera.

 

If you are worried about syncing the sound then you might try slating head and tail, but then if you are using a MOS camera, the camera might be too loud for you to use the production sound and you might be only able to use it as a guide track for looping in post anyway.

 

A proper telecine is one of the things that makes the biggest difference to the quality of the final image. I've seen Super8 footage that looked amazing because it had been transfered on a high end shadow telecine by a talented colourist. Places you might look at for telecine are flying spot in seatlle, who will probably produce great results, or if you really must skimp, then you could transfer on the machine at tfgtransfer, which at least is a proper telecine machine even if it is years and years out of date.

 

However, if you are spending all that money, then I really think you should get a decent colour corrected telecine. If finishing on video it is probably one of the most important parts of the process.

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Yeah, Shooting this thing with a MOS camera has been very interesting. Through a system of camera barneys and zooming in to stay away from the mic, I have been able to capture sound without my loud scoopic ms making its presence known. I think I will probably choose TFGtransfers just for the money saving aspect. I have enough post software to alter the colors all I need. I'm hopeing the over all sharpness and everything will turn out good from there also. Thanks.

Anyone have a suggestion of where to start looking for a grant for a short film? I am ready to begin preproduction, but need some cash to get things going. I can't bankroll a whole movie by myself!

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Man, I tried the whole film grant thing.... for a long time. I live in Texas and let me tell yah, people out here aren't ready to drop money on films. Best bet is get a fiscal sponsorship through people like fractured atlas (www.fracturedatlas.org) or someone and try to get stuff donated. Plus if you just talk to people they give in pretty easy. I got fuji film to offer me 2 hours and 30 minutes of brand new 16mm film for a $1,000. Good Luck!

-Brandon

You're wasting whatever money you're spending not transferring it to video on a decent telecine.  I mean, what's the point of shooting in 16mm and then compromizing the image by using a film chain device to dump it to video? Isn't the point of shooting in 16mm to get better image quality? So why improve quality in one area only to take it away again in another? You're just spending more money and not getting much back in return.

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Yeah, I'm currently waiting to see what my test roll will come out looking like. I'm not sure if their using a 3chip camera to capture the image either.... But its starting to sound like there probably is no cheap way out of getting this stuff transfered, I'll most likely end up doing the telecline. Also, would their projector throw off the timeing of my film when it is being captured? I'm allready shooting this thing MOS wild sync, I don't need it off anymore than it's already going to be.

Huh?

 

How much do you think film stock and processing costs?

 

Are you getting stuff for free? Are you shooting a 2:1 ratio?

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Well I'm shooting all short ends or stuff off of ebay that I have tested. I only do one take (unless something goes completely wrong), with practice runs before hand. I get it processed at 16 cents a foot, and get it transferred for about 12 dollars per 100'. I plan on releasing this on dvd only.

Hmm Dominic, I was wondering the same thing.

 

Along those lines, if I'm reading correctly a large red flag goes up: If said transfer house is using a "film chain type thing" and your original camera negative is going through it, you are at a MAJOR risk of damaging your film.

 

-Sam

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thanks for the info. I have done transfers with them in the past with super 8 with no problem, but I'll take this into consideration.

We've read the technical answer (your transfer house has no idea!) . . . but I have a different question for Brandon/Clampet15 - or anyone else in the same position.

 

You say you are "pretty new to this whole film thing", and you are working with a transfer house that seems to know even less about film. OK.  And you are shooting a feature length movie on 16mm.

 

Now even if you were given the stock for free, you are looking at processing costs for - say - 20,000 ft of neg (you must have some kind of shooting ratio, I've conservatively guessed 5:1). And you must be paying the transfer place something too, however basic their service. If you are starting on film will you finish on film? - there's more cost.

 

My question - with due respect - is, what kind of money do people have access to, to shoot so much film with so little knowledge of how it works? How confident can you be that it will have been money well spent, where you could probably get a more reliable result on video for much less?

 

I sure wouldn't be shooting a feature length production until I'd done some shorter work to get more familiar with the materials I was using. I wouldn't risk my own money on it, or anyone else's.

 

I ask this from an environment where professional filmmakers with years of experience shooting film are turning back, sometimes with regret, to video, simply to make the dollars stretch far enough. And even where some film schools take cinematographers right through their course without touching a frame of film - because it's too expensive. This isn't a supercilious dig at beginners - I'm genuinely puzzled: what are we missing?

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Well, I've done work with video and film in the past. I have made a few short films on video, many music videos ect. So hope i'm not completely ignorant to the film world. But every shoot is a learning process. Basically I would have never asked about this if the transfer house hadn't misinformed me (I will reconsider using their services in the future).

Trust me though, I had thought about shooting this thing on video.... it would have saved me some considerable money. But having shot on video before, I wasn't getting the results I wanted. I ended up spending to much time in post to create a film look that really didn't look like film.

I plan on having this released on a digital format instead of having it blown up to 35, unless situation calls for. But all in all, my film will most likely be made for less than the price of a canon xl2 or other pro-level digital camcorders. So the learning experience and final product was worth it for me to shoot on 16.

Either they are pulling your leg or they are using a film-chain type of old transfer device (basically a projector and a video camera pointed at each other) that can only use prints, not negatives (unless you want to risk transferring a negative and getting a negative image on video.

 

For a real telecine transfer, you would process normal for negative and mark "prep for telecine" on the work order.

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Yeah, I figured they didn't know what they are talking about over there, seeing that they mostly transfer super 8 and such. They are using that film-chain type of transfering with a few different techniques with taking the negative and digitaly making it a possitive in the computer. Thing is, If this way looks good I could get all my film transferred for like half of the price it would cost for the telecline. I have one roll there right now, so I'm waiting to see the final result.