Dirk DeJonghe

I highly recommend that you transfer at 25 fps for editing in PAL countries, even if you shoot at 24fps. Only by doing telecine at 25 fps can you achieve a one-to-one relationship between your film frames and your video frames. You import the foootage into your editing system at 25 fps, do the editing at 24fps (if you shot at 24 fps) and then export at 25 fps again for a reference tape and EDL for negative conforming. We do hundreds of films this way and it works best for everybody. If you shoot at 25 fps then it is 25 fps all the way; A lot of 35mm film projectors run at 25 fps too in commercial cinemas.. Think of your film as individual frames, like mileage between cities, they never change. If you project (drive) faster, you will get there sooner but the frames (miles) always stay the same. If you do 24fps transfer to 25 fps PAL, with pulldown, one frame is frozen every second and the film frames are no longer one-to-one with the video frames.

On my side of the pond, the price for a IP/DN or a second digital recording to DN are practically identical. Some producers still have very old habits, some of them still seem to want U-matic until we explain it is no longer a current format.

There is no need to cut the negative frame accurate, in fact it is better not to in order to avoid physical splices. just selecting the full takes is fine. Given a correct CMX3600 EDL and a video reference at 25fps screen output, we could scan the final S16 images to Full 2K resolution 10bit Log DPX uncompressed, wetgate if necessary for scratches. Digital conforming and grading is on Baselight in a theatre with Truelight calibrated projection. Any effects, slomo, dissolves, zoooms etc are done at this stage at no extra cost. In a single grading session on the Baselight, we can output files for filmout and for HD/SD video output. Files are recorded to 35mm intermediate negative, sound is recorded to optical soundtrack negative and synced. From this negative one light prints based on the digital LAD values are made, screened and if necessary small grading corrections can be made. About two years ago we worked with Amos Gitai on his film 'Free Zone" where the entire second part was done digitally, main shoot was on 35mm negative.

You loose 1/3 of a stop because of the 130 degree shutter instead of 180 degree normal, plus 1/3 of a stop for the semi-transparent mirror, so 2/3 in totql as several posters have pointed out. With negative exposing a full stop more would not hurt anything. Instead of 100 EI make it 50 EI and so on (divide EI by 2, couldn't be easier). There is much more latitude on the overexposure side of the negative than on the underexposure side.

There is a plug-in for Shake called Furnace that has two different deflicker algorithms. A really good compositor can also build one from scratch. I once had a problem with an HMI fixture on the left hand back wall of the set. Actors in front of the wall were lit by tungsten and the right hand part of the wall was lit with HMI without flicker. It was all solved in compositing with scanned frames and then recorded back to film. Insurance paid for it. Reshoot was not possible, actors were no longer available.

The contrast of the print stock is built-in, it is designed to give a pleasing look when prints from a negative are made. In the duplication process you multiply the gamma of each stock used to get the final gamma. Negative stocks have a gamma of about 0.55 Positive stock for projection have a gamma of about 2.70. Intermediate stocks have exactly gamma 1.00. If you print a negative to direct positive you get a gamma of 0.55 x 2.70 = 1.5 (rounded) If you print negative to interpositive to intermediate negative to positive you get a gamma of 0.55 x 1.00 x 1.00 x 2.70 = 1.5 (rounded) Gamma 1.5 was found to give a pleasing image when projected taking into acount losses in projection lenses, flare etc. Dominic and David, I am doing this from memory so some of the gamma values may be off by a few hundreds but is shows the point.

The problem with customer portable disks is that they are SLOOOOW. I can transfer 30 minutes of uncompressed HD in real time to my raidsystem, it could even be dual-link HD-SDI. There is no way a portable disk can record say 250 MB per second in a reliable steady stream. After the real-time recording it then takes about all night to transfer 30 minutes to the customers disk. This would become a problem if more than one hour per day needs to be copied. Also, I like to have an NTFS or Linux partition, not HPS+ or FAT32 (limited to 21000 files per directory). On an LTO-3 I get easily 80 MB per second read/write when hooked up to the local SCSI controller.

Jon, I feel DoP's should be intererested in the way a proper DI is performed. No longer spending time in the telecine suite but having a proper 10bit Log scanned digital file format on a high end grading system such as Baselight. No more wear and tear on the negative. Put any frame from any part next to any other frame from any part and copy/paste parameters. Why 10bit log files are much more intelligent than linear video type files. Film and video (SD/HD) deliverables from a single grading session. Uncompressed files with lots of reserve in the shadows and highlights. Placing the blacks and whites exactly where you want them. Many more reasons than I can think of.

Phil, The Northlight is still on my Christmas list. In the meantime I use the fine but slower Oxberry scanner but also a Shadow for real-time direct to disk transfers on my RaveHD as 10bit log DPX sequences (SD and HD). Just the transfer to the clients hard disk takes some time (filecopy from server to hard disk). I find LTO-3 very convenient too, faster than hard disk and inherent backup and long-term storage.

Phil, I know at least one place, not far from here..

The worst part about HDCAM (not SR) is that it is only 8 bits. If you do any kind of color correction there, it is easy to run into banding in the deeper shadows. 8 bit means 254 levels of grey per channel, 10 bit is 1023 levels, four times finer steps.

Just to continue on the same lines: -regular video is like reversal, -negative one-light log scanned digital is like negative, -telecine scan from negative is halfway in that you can do grading adjustments before committing to video, the resulting video no longer has the latitude of the original negative. I have a very convincing demo on my Baselight I show to visitors. It is a digital 2K Log scan from a Super 16 negative. It starts as a very bright white image with an even brighter circle on it. Waw, a nice sun shot is the reaction. I then start to pull down the brightness and it ends up as a dark moonshot with all detail visible on a pitch black night sky. A range of 80 printer points.

The main reason is that negative has a much lower contrast (gamma) than reversal. Reversal is projection contrast and negative is low contrast, the final projection contrast comes from printing on positive stock or digital or telecine transfer. So for a given change in exposure the negative will become less dense. During grading for print or digital, the correct zone of interest will be selected and this will be what is visible on the final output. On reversal, you have to fit the zone of interest during the shooting with very little room for error. Even with a correctly exposed reversal original, it will be hard to keep bright highlights and deep shadows in balance. In the old days there used to be a low contrast reversal ECO 7252 that was a beautiful low contrast reversal stock with very low speed (EI 25 at 3200K).

I don't understand the reasoning of HDCAM SR as a 'transport format'. Any good scanner can output uncompressed 10bit Log DPX files that are easily copied to any IT container such as hard drives, LTO3, DVD (small quantities). Why would you want your scanner to output to an expensive HDCAM SR VTR in order to recover the same digital files on the other end using an expensive (again) HDCAM SR? I can understand using SR tapes for final deliverables but not for transporting digital files between computers. I use LTO3 and get a speed of about 10 frames per second reading/writing HD format DPX files. A good LTO3 drive costs maybe 1/20th of an SR machine and will cost considerably less in maintenance and tapes.

Roughly ten or twelve years ago Kodak eliminated the cyan filter layer from color negative stocks designed for daylight loading spools. Until then a process-removable cyan filter layer was put in the stock only on these emulsion batches that would end up on daylight spools. This filter layer was very effective against edge fogging but not very economical for the small quantity of stock to be made specially for daylight loading. They changed the text on the packaging to 'Load in complete darkness' at the same time.

Can someone explain to me how to apply ND sheets (Rosco) to a window in a door? I know you have to use a liquid and then squeegee it out but what kind of liquid? Any tips? Thanks.

David is right, the way to add a mask is to expose an B-roll with a black rectangle on transparent stock. We have several versions and can make custom sizes on demand. Is is also needed on 16 to 35mm optical blow up in order to have black framelines on the positive or interpositive stock.

it should be very easy to paint out using pîxels from the neighboring frames.

I think there is a bit of dirt embedded in a roller in the processing machine. The roller would be about 177mm in diameter. I can only think of the drying cabinet having rollers of this size. For your information only, we are not involved in this production.

I have found that the speed of Kodak (and other B&W) negatives needs to be tested before production starts. In the majority of cases we find 5222 rated at about 100 giving good shadow details up to about 3.5 stops below keylight. I did some testing with sensitometric strips mutually exchanged with Kodak Chalons CTP and they came to the same conclusion. Grain increases with negative density in B&W, opposite of what is happening in color negative. If you really want to learn B&W read Ansel Adams 'The negative' it is still the reference for serious B&W work.

A lot depends on the shooting ratio and the number of prints required. For shorts where only one or two prints are needed for festivals, a direct blow up is most economical, if more than 8 prints will be required an interpositive/duplicate negative blow up is required. In that case, in some labs, the price delta with digital intermediate is small if you take into account the fact that a fully graded video version will also be required sooner or later. Doing direct 35 print from 35 negative is also economical if your shooting ratio is low.

keep in mind that the 'old Bolex' looses light due to the prism and 130° shutter angle. This would mean that you have to overexpose at least 2/3 of a stop just to compensate the light loss. This doesn't take into account old lenses etc.

We recommend shipping the unprocessed film via courier service such as UPS, FEDEX or whatever company is convenient. We have never had any problems with film shipped this way, it travels by cargo aircraft. Customers who want to carry their unexposed film in checked luggage are at the greatest risk, and the X-ray damage happens not in darkest Africa but in Paris, London, etc. Carry-on luggage is slightly safer but still a great risk. Buy your film locally and ship it out to be processed. Digitally repairing x-ray damage is very expensive.

We are not in London but we transfer telecine direct to DPX 10 bit log uncompressed to our server. The image sequence can then be copied to the customers USB or Firewire disk (not real-time). It takes about one night to copy about 30 minutes HD to a USB disk. The DPX 10 bit LOG files can easily be imported into Final cut using Glue Tools.

Jean-Marie, Don't worry, we have a very experienced film grader and he will help you to get the look you want even if you don't talk 'printer points' You can sit in on the film analyser session and you will see a simultated film print on the monitor. If you explain to the grader what you want he will work with you to get it close on the first trial print and then screen it with you and fine tune it. Looking forward to meeting you