Dirk DeJonghe

Line up the clapper board on the picture, unlock the sound track, search for the clap sound on the sound track, make a mark on the sepmag with a grease pencil, align sync marks, relock pic and sound, add spacer to picture or sound as required. After syncing, the picture and sound for each scene may be put on a shelf for later assembly in edit order. During playback with picture and sound locked, you can 'trim' and shift the sound by whole frames or fractions of frames to fine-tune sync, while continuing to view picture and sound in real time

A flatbed, Steenbeck or KEM type was the preferred way to edit films with sepmag tracks when film was still being physically cut. I have an 8 plate (2 picture 2 sound) Steenbeck and a sixplate 35mm KEM in daily use. They work just as well as 25 years ago. Picsyncs are a UK local phenomenon, never caught on in the rest of Europe.

As long as you let it defrost first, you can safely put the unused stock back in the freezer as many times as needed. Freezing high-speed film will lessen fog buildup by chemical aging but not the fog buildup from gamma-rays. So, even in the freezer it will accumulate fog over time. Lower speed films (50 ISO) keep much longer.

From what I understand, production has already ceased, stocks are being sold off.

We can do this. but you would still have splices in your mixed print that might be distracting. Also the price of optical prints is much higher than contact prints. If money would be no object, we could blow up both formats to 35mm IP from an AB cut negative, then do an optical reduction to 16mm DN from which normal S16 contact prints can be made.

Get a 30 day trial license for PFClean from Thepixelfarm. Use the Clean Lens Dirt tool. I don't understand why the lab delivered this print to you. Dirt on the gate of the printer is a reason to refuse the print, it should never have been delivered to the customer in the first place.

For color negative the list is very short indeed. For B&W you still have Orwo (Filmotec) as well as Kodak. Probably some others as well.

If you only watched your images on a computer monitor, look at them again on a proper HD video monitor. The gamma curve between a computer monitor and a video monitor is different. Put the two next to each other and you will notice a dramatic difference in apparent grain because the computer monitor stretches the blacks and dark grays.

I can only think you mean a direct print from the negative instead of a release print from the IP/DN. Usually we make a first trial print from the cut negative (when negatives were still cut) then an answer print until everything was as desired, then an IP/DN would be struck and release prints made from that. Obviously the quality of a direct print from the cut negative is a lot higher than a release print from IP/DN.

If the tape splices are the problem (the film is 70% colour and 30% B&W polyester print), then one way to get rid of splices is to print as AB roll negative with a special filter pack for the B&W section but without physical splices. Everything would then be printed on a single piece of colour print film and the B&W section would come out slightly less contrasty and maybe with a slight colour bias. I will talk to the London loop specialist and ask his opinion on this, he runs our lubricated loops succesfully in major London galleries (but they are all colour prints only).

Hello Patricia, Could it be something with the loop mechanism, not the projector? The film needs lubrication to run smoothly through the projector (it was lubricated) but the lubrication also means that it may 'telescope' more easily in the loop mechanism outside of the projector. It is hard to tell from the small picture that you attached. Some clients in London are very happy with the lubrication procedure we applied and they run 16mm prints in musea too. Telescoping could be due to too much or too little tension in the loop mechanism, but I am not familiar with the device you are using. I don't think the B&W sections and the splices have anything to do with it.

Over here, the Cantar is very widely used in fiction work. You can use the external Origin C+ as both a master clock and an external TC generator attached to any suitable audio recorder. Before you proceed any further, you have to check with your lab or postproduction facility if they have the means to handle Aatoncode (picture and sound). I think most major production centers have this capability.

Suitable audio recorders need to have a suitable timecode generator and separate timecode track. A master clock is used to set the time-of-day and date. The camera and audiorecorder are then jamsynced to the master clock and the precision of the timecode generator in the camera and recorder is such that they will drift less than a frame in an 8-hour period. The Aatoncode on film is read by the Aaton Keylink reader during the telecine transfer and the corresponding database can be exported as a .FLX, .ALE file to be imported into an edit system. Aaton's own Indaw audio workstation can also be used to do real-time syncing. Aatoncode really shines for multi-camera shooting. I have done opera shoots with 7 cameras with public that was not to be disturbed by clapperboards etc.

If you do a telecine grade from the uncut rushes how will you ever get the scenes shot on different days (sunny/overcast/hazy, etc) right and matching? A Spirit datacine is halfway between a regular telecine and a real scanner, still prism with 3CCD and associated registration errors, no pin registration and associated gate weave. Also only the newer Spirit 2K/4K need to apply. Doing a graded telecine from rushes and color-correct later will give you less options, cost about the same (depending on shooting ratio) than doing a one-light rush telecine with rescan from EDL with proper Baselight grading from DPX files. We do about one or two quotations per month comparing the two. Doing graded telecine transfer from rushes will rarely give you a fully finished product after editing. To do a proper grading you have to see the film playing in sequence, be able to compare any shot with any other.

Typically scanners are adjusted to D-Min and can capture most of the image information without any grading adjustments. All further grading is done in postproduction from LOG DPX files or similar. No colorist is needed or desired during the scanning. On the other hand a scanner will generally be much slower than a telecine so capturing only the frames used in the final cut is the norm with a lower cost telecine tape transfer done beforehand to edit the film.

Eterna400T and Reala500D are no longer manufactured. The stocks that remain are sold at a reduced price but at customers risk. I had one customer who traveled to China for a shoot, someone else had to bring 10 rolls of 250T to China to replace the 400T that proved no longer suitable. Better to check the stock before you shoot or travel. Our local Fuji rep will only sell the stock if the customer knows what he is getting.

We have done processing for feature films that were shot on the other side of the globe (12 hours time difference exactly). Quicktimes can be uploaded via ftp or other electronic means. Never had an issue with shipping by DHL, Fedex with regard to X-rays. Distance to the lab is no longer an issue.

Simon, You probably mean a screen brightness of 16FL, (about 50 CD/m2?). There has been a lot of progress in projection optics since the last 20 years, look at what Isco and Schneider have to offer. This would mean better detail in the blacks. For those who really want B&W prints with very deep blacks, I still have a stock of 5369 (??) high contrast orthochromatic film. Gives incredible blacks with still nice grey scale. Very expensive, mostly used for titles and SFX old-style.

Jacob seems to be a US citizen, Phil.

David, I feel it is safer for the lab to expose the negative before the camera exposure. If something goes wrong, you use the reel for scratch testing the processor and move on. Flashing in the lab is very rarely done these days. I remember flashing an interpositive (before processing) so the final dupeneg could have blue shadows and yellow highlights. These effects are done in digital grading these days. Still, it is good to remember how it was done before digital. Dirk

Those decisions are not made by the lab or the DoP but by the distributor paying for the prints. B&W print stock is quite a bit more expensive than colour stock these days, and processing is much slower because of much longer wash times and lower temperatures. Also, if you strike a colour intermediate negative you cannot easily make a real B&W print from it for premieres and such. The 1.37 pillarbox is another compromise because most commercial theatres simply don't have the proper optics and screens to show anything else but 1.85 or 2.35

The new Fuji RDS is strictly a lab film for making digital separation negatives. It has vastly less flare than the corresponding Kodak stock and can be processed in Pos or Neg developer. it only comes in 35mm polyester and is green sensitive only (from memory). They got a deserved Emmy award for it. What it means in practical terms: you can now shoot colour negative or digital and after Baselight grading, get a recording to RDS from which beautiful B&W prints can be made on 5302. It is a much more modern emulsion than the 5231 or 5234 we were using before and it shows. Combine high-speed, low-grain, high-latitude modern colour negative stock with modern digital postproduction, scanning and recording and end up with a first class 35mm B&W print.

I fail to see a significant difference between line-scan and area-scan. In case of line-scan you have to move the film mechanically during the exposure with three different linearrays in place, with an area sensor, the film can be held firm on a shuttle while the successive red, green and blue exposures take place, each pixel falling on exactly the same place in the sensor. I have compared several different scanners: Oxberry, Northlight, Arriscan, Director, Spirit4K, Scanity.

I still have a 1000' roll of 5231 (unopened,late emulsion number, always in fridge) leftover from film recording, now switched to the new Fuji B&W RDS film.

Jannis, I am not looking for a lab anymore, I have found one quite nearby about forty years ago.