Dirk DeJonghe

The processing chemicals are the same but the time in developer to reach gamma 0.65 is longer on Orwo than on Kodak 5222. Every type of emulsion requires a different developer time and must be tested beforehand for best results. At the aim gamma of 0.65 you will find a certain film speed to be used, don't trust the manufacturers speed information until you have tested.

in my experience most B&W stocks are less than their rated speed. This was confirmed about two years ago when I exchanged sensotometric strips and processing with Kodak Chalon. I processed their sensitometric strips and vice versa. You have tro adjust the processing time to get a particular gamma, usually 0.65 and accept the speed you get. My clients usually rate 5222 at around 125 ISO or less. If you would process 5222 by accident in positive developer instead of negative developer, you would get around 400 ISO and excessive contrast and grain.

Several short animation films have been done like this. One of the issues to watch for is that some digital SLR cameras have a slight vibration when the mirror is swung to the up position just before capturing the frame. This only shows up if you have a sequence that you can play at full speed, you don't see it on single frames. Any house with a film recorder should be able to take your hard disk with image sequence and record it to 35mm negative.

What you also can do is to make a B&W Interpositive 5366 from the 5222 negatives, from this you then make a color intermediate negative on 5242 and this you can intercut with the original color negative or intercut with the DN if you are going to make one. In this case you will have to do some tests to determine the best contrast, play with the processing times of the 5366 until the 5366/5242 match the rest of the production for contrast. The main reason for putting the B&W negative on a separate B-roll as David suggests is also to allow additional filtration on the printer to compensate for the missing orange mask. Whatever you do, B&W negative and color positive are not really made for each other and will take some experimenting to get a good result.

hello Stephen, We charge about 5 Euro per minute for SD, about 10 for HD. This is with Keykode flex files. We may charge a little extra for the time spent copying to your hard disk depending on the time needed to setup the link. Technical grading would be about 125 Euro per hour extra. All prices approximate and exclusive of VAT (none if exported). Have a look at our website too,

Hello, We have a Shadow telecine and can transfer direct to our video server as uncompressed HD/SD format 10 bit LOG DPX files. These files can be copied to any hard disk you have (USB2.0, Firewire) Using Glue Tools you can import these files easily into any Mac based program such as Final Cut.

It is the old VND 160ASA daylight stock for VNF-1 process (early 1980'ies technology). Polyester can be spliced with tape or with ultrasonic splicers. Cement splices will not work. How fresh will that stock be, who will process it?

I started my career in 1973. ECO 7252 was fairly new then, 7255 was obsolete. I started processing 7252 in about 1976. I was the last European lab to process ECO-3 when we stopped it in about 1990. Even then the film had to be fresh to give good results. With enough light it would give stunning results on telecine. It was very low speed tungsten, would need lots of light for anything larger than interior tabletop sets. The probabilty of 7255 still being fresh enough to give acceptable results is less than nihil even if you can manage to find ECO-1 processing at any price.

If you are talking about S16, 35mm print, lowest cost and highest quality then the obvious solution (time-tested) still is a direct blow up to 35mm positive. If you need more than a few prints, then IP blow up is still slightly cheaper than DI and you will definately get the film look and S16 feel. Why make it complicated?

The current Agfa print stock is the CP30, can be processed in ECP2 chemistry of course. it is available in polyester only. With regard to contrast and saturation it sits halfway between the Kodak Vision and Premier print stocks. I appears slightly sharper than the Kodak stocks and the blacks are more neutral. It is very suitable for printing from dupe negs 5242. In this case it looks more like the answer print made on Vision than the Kodak stock itself. In many cases our customers ask for a blind test between Kodak and Agfa print stocks and in the majority they opt for the Agfa look.

As a lab we do about 1 or 2 features per year shot on 3 perf and released on 4 perf via optical printer. One of the films 'Een ander zijn geluk' by Fien Troch, DoP Frank vanden Eeden even received personal congratulations from Vittorio Storaro who was president of the jury at the Thessaloniki festival. Another one finished earlier this year was 'Si le vent souleve le sable' by Marion Haensel, DoP Walther Vanden Ende. The first film mentioned was shot in 2.35 Super 35 3 perf, the second one in 1.85 Super 35 3 perf. In all cases the sharpness and quality was excellent and we really had to work hard to make the digital inserts match the quality of the optical blow up. Both films mentioned were shot on Aaton 35-III 3 perf cameras.

There is no need to do anything special in the shooting except taking care that you have a 'good' negative. I would avoid shooting without proper filtration unless you are short of light. if you shoot without an 85 filter, the blue channel will reach overexposure before the red and green channels. This may give undesirable effects in the highlights. Everything you propose to do to make the NY footage stand out can be done in post.

In fact we have done several feature films where only 1 or 2 prints were required. We used the Lasergraphics P3 to expose directly to color positive stock. At our request Lasergraphics added black mask capability. Sound track is exposed on standard contact printer. We call this a direct digital blow up. It takes about 1 hour per minute of film, the latent image fading must be taken into account on long runs. Blacks are less deep than from a negative/intermediate negative. Sharpness is very good, grain is nonexistent, picture stability is excellent as it is pinregistered. For one or two prints maximum this is a good economical way to work if you can live with the slightly milky blacks.

Cineon is LOG by definition, DPX is usually LOG but there are many varieties of DPX. Most DI work is done with LOG images, you need a special viewer LUT to see the images correctly. Think of LOG images as digital negatives. Nobody is projecting a negative and expecting it to be 'normal'. There is a log of good information on Steve Shaw's website Digital Praxis

This looks like an optical problem in the lens or the telecine (registration) to me. Have you looked at the negative with a magnifier?

If it is E6 process, then no rem-jet backing is possible, no backing removal in E6 process.

the main problem is that B&W has a very different gamma and light absorbtion in the telecine. I would recommend keeping all color and B&W on separate rolls, the telecine calibration is vastly different for each.

If you work with 8bit linear images, you will very quickly end up with banding because there are too few steps in the darker parts of the picture. 12 bit is really the minimum for linear images if you want to do any color correction or compositing at all. Log 10 bit images such as Cineon or DPX solve this problem because they have finer steps in the darker parts and coarser steps in the lighter parts of the picture (unscientific explanation). The human eye is most sensitive in the darker parts and less in brighter parts. I did a digital grading on HDCAM material shot 8bit linear. Banding was unavoidable in night shots. Film is logarithmic, the human eye is too.

I couldn't agree more with Mike Most. Also the difference in quality going from good 2K to 4K is noticeable, but much smaller than the four-times increase in workload would suggest. Producers don't want to pay (mostly) the price premium. I use Baselight for grading, most of the work is done on proxies, instant playback on full res is possible be rarely needed for color correction work. Interactivity and speed are factors that are more valued on a grading session than 2K over 1K proxies.

When we make DVCAM/MiniDV output tapes from telecine transfers, they are made on a DSR-1500 VTR with full timecode/VITC capability. The VITC is generated by the Aaton Keylink keykode reader. The burnt-in timecode/aatoncode/keykode is also generated by the Keylink and placed in the black top and bottom part of the letterbox picture (if 16/9). Actually the DSR1500 is less convenient to work with than a Digital Betacam but many customers ask DV or DVCAM rushes these days. We prefer to include video TC, film TC if present, Keykode, video reel number in the visible information on the picture and do not want to rely on accurate EDLs supplied by the customer for negative cutting. These burnt-in codes are used as a double check on the data generated from the supplied EDL. This procedure has saved many films. Right now I am handling a PAL video where the customers swears it is 25fps but I see a repeat frame every second. This would be difficult to see if no TC/keykode is burnt-in unless there is some movement in the shots. You only cut a negative once. Has to be right the first time.

If properly stored, there should be nothing wrong with this stock. Low speed film ages slower than high-speed stock. It is slightly more saturated and contrasty than the Vision 2 replacement 7201. It doesn't tolerate underexposure as well. Processing is no problem, the chemistry ECN2 is unchanged.

We prefer rolls to be made up in lab rolls of about 1200 to 2000 ft before beginning the transfer. They are spliced and cleaned before transfer. If you bring individual rolls we will ask if they may be spliced together. if not a minimum charge of 15 minutes per roll will apply. Mixing single and double perf is no problem.

Film Recording is usually done to Intermediate 5242 or camera stock such as 5201 but not to 5272.

Ask your lab to do a sensitometric test to determine the processing time. In my experience this stock needs to be processed much longer than 7222 to get a nominal 0.65 gamma. After having established the proper processing time and if the stock is not too old, do an exposure test. I don't hink there are machine readable Keykodes either, but this may have changed.

I also know a school that 'overbought' on equipment. The have the finest audio mixing equipment available, and some very high priced Discreet products that only top of the line postproduction houses would consider. I know first hand they now have to cut back severely on student film productions because of 'no money left'. Ridiculous. Wrong priorities. What will the poor student learn by looking at the equipment instead of making films with it?