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Dirk DeJonghe

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Everything posted by Dirk DeJonghe

  1. Printing color negative onto 5369 Panchromatic High Contrast stock gives very good results but the stock is very expensive, making it suitable for a very limited number of prints.
  2. I would say the reason is both savings on raw stock and longer running times. The format was 2.35. There are plenty of Aaton 35-III 3-perf cameras around here. They are quieter too on 3 perf. It all depends if the lab is equipped and interested to do 3 perf. Picture quality is not an issue.
  3. Last year we completed the film "Een ander zijn geluk" www.eenanderzijngeluk.be/ It was shot on Super 35/3 perf using an Aaton 35-III camera and Zeiss HS lenses mostly used wide open. The DoP Frank vanden Eeden created a stunning visual style, earning him personal congratulations from Vittorio Storaro, president of the Jury at the Thessaloniki Film Festival. Because of some technical problems we had to do about 10 minutes digitally to mix with the optical blow up. The 3-perf negative was first printed directly to 4 perf positive for grading purposed, the IP was an optical blow up to 4perf Anamorphic and the dupeneg was optical 1:1 printed for maximum sharpness. The main problems in 3-Perf work are the Keykode operations, since they run at 64 perf intervals,not divisible by 3.
  4. Dominic, It's now perchlorethylene (PER) and I wouldn't recommend it for hand cleaning for health reasons. Tetra or trichlorethylene is no longer available, banned product, used to clean very well. Isopropyl alcohol is fine for hand cleaning but flammable. These new micro-fiber pads should do fine when moistenend with alcohol.
  5. hello Bernhard, I currently have two ways of doing SD: our Marconi telecine machine (21 years old but still OK for rushes) and our Oxberry scanner (not real time but highest quality). I am in negociations with Thomson and others for an HD/SD capable telecine to be able to do real-time HD transfers. This new machine should be installed before the summer. For very high quality SD or HD we use the scanner to scan direct to DPX 10bit RGB log files that are then graded in Baselight and output as DPX to DDR as data all the way. Only the last step from DDR to Beta Digi is in video domain. I scan at twice PALresolution for PAL so this gives absolutely perfect results after Baselight output to PAL. Scanning the negative on one light to 10 bit Log DPX files means that practically all the information is captured in the file; Our workflow is a bit slow right now but improving as we go. We scan about 20 minutes per day. If you want you can send me a few frames that I can scan and put on tape for you to see the quality.
  6. I have a comparison between the Spirit 1 and the Shadow, same images to data DPX. I think the Shadow is sharper but has slightly more aliasing.
  7. You may want to have a look at my website under 'downloads'. There is a method many of my customers use to determine the real speed of film stock taking into account the processing, lens, exposure meter and all other variables. Basically you try to find the point where a -4 stops grey chart just begins to register. That means you have 3.5 stops underexposure latitude. You determine the overexposure latitude in a keylight test after having run the first test. It's a two step process but very precise. Thanks to Ansel Adams. 'Place the shadows and let the highlights fall in place'.
  8. If you need more than 3dB then something is wrong with the processing,exposure or telecine.
  9. For shorts films with no distribution a direct blow-up may be the most cost-effective solution. You get very high picture quality, lowest cost, and the option to make an IP/DN later using the same grading data. No fancy grading effects are possible. For feature films, very few direct blow-ups are made because the distributor won't pay the price. The production company has to provide either a duplicate negative via IP blow up or a DI negative. Both scanning and recording prices have gone down considerably in the last couple months, a 2K DI with full digital grading is now only somewhat more expensive than a IP/DN blow up if you take the video mastering into account.
  10. Count about 6 Euros per cut, from supplied video and EDL with FLX files to cut negative. Negative cutting is one of the cheapest operations in the lab but also one of the most critical ones with potentially disatrous results.
  11. Do not forget to clean up after processing. These chemicals don't belong in the drain. They need to be collected and disposed of by qualified companies. You will be suprised to learn that this proper chemical disposal costs more than the original ingredients in some cases. Depending on location it could be extremely costly if caught dumping chemical solutions.
  12. Paul, Lasergraphics uses a monochrome CRT tube, not LCD monitor. On another subject, I am comparing a Panasonic BT-LH1700WE broadcasst LCD SD/HD monitor with my current CRT based Barco grade 1 monitor. The feature set is nice, even a built-in waveform monitor, automatic switching from SDI to HD-SDI etc. But completely unusable for serious work: no blacks, they look cut-off.
  13. In my experience, the latent image of color positive stocks ages worst, with up to 3 B&H density points loss of speed over 24 hours. When I record to positive stocks on my Lasergraphics, a compensation has to be added unless it is a very short film. 20 minute reels take about 20 hours to record so I plan it to finish about 12 hours before processing. Camera stocks and intermediat stocks are much less of a problem, I could not detect a practical difference between immediate processing and 24 hours later. There may be a difference but it gets lost in the noise.
  14. last time I looked, informed people who buy used cameras do all sorts of film tests before giving the cash to the seller. These tests include steadiness test, framing tests, scratch tests, noise tests etc. if you buy from a reputable dealer, he will have no objection for you to run these tests and others in his facility. The exterior paint condition of a film camera is absolutely not of importance, this is NOT seen on the screen.
  15. Just last week I had a similar incident. A group of film students (3rd year) making their end-of-year film. They had absolutely no idea they had to budget for post-production as well as production. Unless you project the original, 5000 US$ is not going to get you very far on an 6-7 minute film. It would probably not cover just the optical sound negative and internegative blow up.
  16. here is how it works: -process the S16 negative, -transfer to SD video with keykode for off-line editing, -edit on off-line system (Final Cut, Premiere etc) -generate EDL or cutting list -have the negative cut -add titles etc, direct in S16 -grading on film analyser -make first trial print on S16 -screen S16 positive print and make grading corrections. -have optical sound negative made -direct blow up to 35mm positive on optical printer -optical negative is printed onto the same raw stock on contact printer before processing It is best to chose a lab that is familiar with S16 blow up work.
  17. There is one good way to test this: a blind ABC test. When the customer is not sure what stock he wants, we print a few sections of his film on different stocks and show it to him as stock A, B, C etc. We know which stock is which but won't tell him until after the screening to remain objective. We see differences in color rendition, sharpness, contrast between the stocks. Some are rejected right away, others are a matter of taste. It also varies if printed from original negative or from intermediate negative.
  18. On the "other" cinematography website there are some comparison images between different telecine systems you may want to look at before jumping to conclusions. Look for the topic 'TK direct to hard disk'. I don't see why an XTR would not produce the same image quality as a Panavision Elaine. Panavision is a shareholder of Aaton. The Elaine is more a 'studio' type of camera. Kodachrome is only made with long pitch perforations, this may give steadyness problems on any professional camera. You will find that even a 2K scan and filmout doesn't give you a better quality than a direct blow-up from S16 negative. I doubt if any scanners can handle the deep blacks of Kodachrome. if you want crushed blacks they can always be added later. I still feel that a properly made direct blow-up from 7201 will be cheaper and sharper than any other S16 to 35 operation.
  19. Kodachrome is a projection film with many compromises for other uses (prints, blow up, telecine). It has an unusual infrared transmission incompatible with any of the (no longer made) reversal Ektachrome print stocks. In the 70'ies this was giving reddish shadows when printed on the reversal print stocks. When printing onto 5272 internegative stock the contrast is way too high because the internegative stock was really designed to work with 7252 Ektachrome Commercial (ECO-3 process) which replaced 7255 (ECO-2 process) wich replaced Kodachrome Commercial (low contrast special for reproduction). All these stocks are gone. Ektachrome Commercial was very nice stock for sunlit scenes with low contrast and 25 ASA speed (3200K). With the 85 filter you were down to 16ASA. Hardly useable for interior work. Current Kodak 50ASA negative stocks (7245and 7201) will give much more comfortable shooting, can be intercut with any other negative up to 500ASA, and can be used for direct blow up with minimum hassle and perfect contrast and color reproduction. Making an internegative from Kodachrome will require aggressive flashing and pull-processing to keep the contrast in check. Lack of Keykode will complicate conforming. I would try 7201 direct blow-up to high contrast color positive such as Agfa CP30 or Kodak Vision.
  20. I never developed B&W reversal but I did tens of millions of feet of color reversal and am still doing B&W and color negative. The first developer in a reversal process is a negative-type developer just like the one in a negative process. You make or break the contrast there. Sloppy processing can partially be recovered in telecine but if you project it really shows up. Start by asking for a sensitometric test strip, you give the lab 5-6 feet of film and see what they make of it.
  21. Probably the pilotone output to Nagra recorder.
  22. Fulgenio, I always invite customers to do a test shoot. There is currently a major animation feature being finished. They gave me 4 minutes of material to shoot, when they saw it projected they admitted that another test had been done on an Arrilaser at a big-name house in Paris. The other test was screened and it was visibly inferior: less gradation in the shadows, suble face details missing etc. All this proves is that an Arrilaser doesn't give you automatically a better product, a pixel is stil a pixel and a byte still a byte. If someone would be foolish enough to give me a Stardivarius viiolin, I could still only scare cats. I hate it when someone calls and asks if I have such or such machine. How often do you ask the cook of a restaurant what kind of knives/pots/spoons he uses? For David: technology is there to help creativity but you know this already.
  23. After 35 years in the business, I have learned to look at the screen rather than at the nameplate of the machine before drawing any conclusions. It happens all the time: 'I want XYZ print stock', we show them 'A', 'B' and 'C', you pick the best.. In the film recorder business, the man behind the machine may make the difference, just like the man behind the camera, or behind the editing or compositing or grading system.
  24. Some packages run on dekstop computers, others are on dedicated hardware. The difference in features between both becomes smaller and smaller every year. Some packages are made to be front room applications with the client in attendance, others are backroom applications where the client only comes to look at a semi-finished product. I use both Digital Fusion on Windows and Shake on LInux. Both are very powerful packages, the limit is more in the operator than in the software.
  25. Except in mixing studios and labs where multi-speed projectors are available, most commercial multiplex cinemas in Europe run at 25fps, not 24 fps. I even called Kinoton, one of the leading projector manufacturers to confirm this. Because mains is 50Hz in Europe, it is easier to make the projectors run at 25 fps. I have also timed the projection time of many feature films we did, since I know the exact number of frames in the film, timing is easy with my mobile phone, then divide number of frames by the minutes it took to show the film and presto: fps of the projector. I have not yet found one single theatre that really runs at 24 but there must be some. Conclusion so far: the average multiplex theatre in Europe runs at 25. This said, it is better to have your 24fps film projected at 25 than your 25fps film projected at 24.
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