Elliot Rudmann

Weird that they'd be that different in their reporting.

 

Kodak Motion Picture Film: "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" now playing on PBS

Tune in to PBS to see The National Parks: America's Best Idea, a new documentary from the award winning Ken Burns. Ken Burns shot some 400,000 feet of 7219 film., which was scanned at 3K to get all of the details.

Funny, the most recent issue of ASC magazine (Oct 09) says that the film stocks used were EXR 100T 7247, and when Kodak discontinued that, they went to 7212, and also used 7217 and 7218 stocks.

Either Kodak or ASC (or both) doesn't have the right information.

If you're referring to a timecode/keycode window burn, which I think you are, you can ask the post-production house that transfers the footage to specifically not burn it in the final image. Try calling them up or specifically say that you don't want window-burn on your transfer when you send them your film. It shouldn't be an issue for them.

Thanks for the replies.

 

Yeah, a flat scan to dpx is what I'd like... I'm going to firstly telecine it in SD (I've got free use of a Marconi and Bosch) and do an EDL, so that should help somewhat. I'm fine with having to do careful correction in post later, that's okay.

 

I'm not too sure about sending my film to the US though, unless it'll be sizeably cheaper - how safe would it be, I mean would customs open the package and totally bugger it all?

 

I hadn't factored in EDL into thinking about costs before.... I can easily do that on the Marconi (it's got a funky memory system thingy), and even edit down the film physically, so I only send what needs to be scanned. Do modern machines handle film with edits (tape, not cement obviously)

 

That way I could send, for example just one 800ft or 1000ft reel, and at $0.50/ft, I could afford it...

 

Thoughts?

I think if you send a package internationally and claim it as a "gift" customs typically don't bother scrutinizing it. This is just what I've heard and I can't claim it as fact.

Whatever you do, don't cut the negative yourself after you've had it telecined!!! Because then your EDL is useless.

During your transfer you could get a flexfile w/a keycode list and then pay the lab to cut down all the rolls and splice together your final keycode selects, which is more money you probably shouldn't spend. It would just be easier to send the full rolls that have the shots you want scanned especially if you're going to be only shooting 2500 ft, which could probably be combined into just two 1250 ft lab rolls (traditional lab rolls are 1200 ft). Using your EDL with source timecode, post houses here could just scan select takes on each roll with handles. If you're going to end up going with this SD transfer>offline edit>export EDL>DI Scan>online-edit route, it may be easier to keep everything local, especially if your final cut is very short. Just call up some post houses and find out what rates you can work with. I would ditch the idea of cutting down your negative though.

Hey guys,

 

Just got an converted S 16mm eclair and am looking to get a 10mm (or thereabouts) lens for it, using the c mount adapter. Ebay has plenty of c-mount 10mm lenses, but can anyone give me some insight on which ones will vignette S 16mm and which ones won't ?

 

Here's one I was looking out and it seems most of the seller's don't even know!

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...E:X:RTQ:US:1123

 

Thanks for all the replies in advance!

Hey Patrick,

Many sources have told me that the Switar 10mm F1.6 (preset) c-mount lens does not vignette on the Super 16mm frame. Variables like how closely you focus the lens and how stopped down you are will make a difference, but I will know for certain next week (after I scan some of my own S16) if the lens covers the entire Super 16mm frame from a range of apertures and focus distances. Not sure if this will be helpful to you though because it's an RX lens and you should be cautious of using bolex RX corrected lenses on a non-bolex camera, as they are engineered/calibrated slightly different from other c-mount lenses. The schneider 10mm cinegon is also one to consider.

What was stated above are prices from "some" places about 9 to 18 months ago.

Chris, as an individual who works at a DI company, I can say for certain that those are recent prices for 2k scanning for typical film projects. However, companies like ours will not turn down film jobs from students or lower-budget projects particularly in this economic climate, so we are willing to negotiate better prices, how much depends on the post house. I was merely informing him that these were approximate rates that he should expect to hear.

Otherwise, like Chris said, scanning 2k dpx files straight to hard disk with a flat log-linear pass will be the least expensive route. But you should expect to do some color correction yourself as it's an equivalent to a one-light pass and may not make every shot look perfect.

Getting 2k scans isn't cheap, you're looking at prices (at least in the US) from $1.25 to $3/foot if you're lucky (£ .76 to 1.83/foot approximately) and that might not even include color correction and the time they'll charge you for file-creation or tape-layoff. I'm not sure what the prices are in the UK but your best bet is to call some post houses, get rates, and try your hardest to bargain with them. If £1000 is all you have then I'd say 2k scans (or even an HD telecine) is unfortunately out of your league, unless you get really lucky of course. Even an SD transfer will put a large dent in your wallet so this is something you need to consider when budgeting out your film projects. Film is expensive, a good film transfer is even more expensive. Good luck!

Where can I get the best deal for a student in LA for a 100 ft roll of Color 16mm film? Converted to Mini DV.

 

Not to call any names but I called a lab and they wouldn't give me a student discount and were charging me like 200 dollars. Sounds like Bull to me...

 

Thanks guys

Try giving Filmworks FX a call. 310-577-3213 http://www.filmworksfx.com/ - I once interned there for a few months, they have good competent people and offer student discounts. Realize that you might not get the best deal with only 100 ft of film, as most labs/transfer houses charge a minimum price for such a short amount of footage. $200 seems a little high for an unsupervised SD transfer of 100ft, but understandable. Price can also vary depending on what telecine machine they use to transfer. Filmworks FX uses an ursa diamond y-front which is pretty good for standard definition transfers. HD transfers cost considerably more. Good luck.

-Elliot

Color reversal. Surprised Chicago doesn't offer reversal processing. Thanks for the info.

Doesn't surprise me at all, there haven't been that many major/independent motion pictures shot on 35mm (or hardly 16mm) in Chicago in the past few years, and for those that have been shot, the majority shot with negative film. The only group that Filmworkers Club could appeal to by offering 16mm reversal color or black and white processing is probably the lower-budget student/amateur base. For such a low demand, it's just not smart business to offer it.

Will the HD cam still allow me have a full HD image (1920x1080) or is there a better option? Or else does anyone know a place here in London that could give me a digital file output from Telecine.

Best option in my opinion would be to get uncompressed 2k quicktime files of your shots via the method I outlined previously,(you'd get 1708x1218 resolution for regular 16mm, and do the repositioning/resizing to 1920x1080 yourself at the end, rather than the post house doing it unsupervised). Scanning on a dedicated film scanner will get you better image quality than telecine, but that also comes at a moderately higher cost depending on what posthouses you go to and what deals you can get...

Getting an HDCam or HDCamSR tape as a backup is also a smart, but costly, idea. SR is better because it holds 4:4:4 color space, but comes at a higher cost. If you save money and go to the straight-to-harddrive route, make sure you back up your files!

Hi All,

 

Let me start from the begining.

 

I have shot a 14min film on standard 16mm colour and had it transfered onto DVCAM at 16:9 with burnt in keycode. I have edited the footage on FCP. My intention from here was to do a neg cut ( according to the keycode of course) with 20 frame handles on each edit point. From here I was hoping to get a final grade done and receive the footage back as a digital file where I can eliminate the handles and add the sound.

 

I am just about to cut the neg and decided to call the Telecine guy's to arrange a booking. However, my process seemed to puzzle him. He said he is unable to give me a digital file unless he puts it through FCP himself which would pump up the price beyond my budjet. Alternatively, I can get it tranferred to HD cam and put it in FCP myself. This will just be the small HD cam tapes as thats the only type of deck I have access to.

 

My questions are....Will the HD cam still allow me have a full HD image (1920x1080) or is there a better option? Or else does anyone know a place here in London that could give me a digital file output from Telecine.

 

many thanks

-

instead of cutting the negative, why don't you just generate a keycode list or EDL (if there's source timecode burned in your DVCAM transfer) and give that to your transfer house so they can just scan in/transfer those selects (with handles)? Arriscan, Northlight scanners, and I'm pretty sure the Spirit Datacine's can accept EDL's/keycode list and selectively transfer from those. You can save some money by not cutting the neg, and save even more money bypassing the HDCam layoff and getting straight, uncompressed digital files/quicktimes from your transfer house. This is a standard workflow at the DI company I work at but we are in Chicago, so I can't really help you on the London side of things. Good luck!

If one is going to compare the sensor in the XTi and the 5D on a size only basis, without taking into account other camera variables like sensor resolution, picture processing algorithms, encoding, actual sensor manufacturing technology, cost of the actual cameras being compared, etc then it is going to be like comparing apples and oranges.

 

At least one has to compare two cameras that are in the same ballpark.

You asked what's wrong with smaller sensors. While I did gloss over some marginal technical variables, I gave the most realistic, concise example I could think of to illustrate one of the key differences when it comes to image quality. If Canon ever made two cameras with the *exact* same specs with the only variable being chip size, I would have used that as an example. Unfortunately it's not that simple.

What is wrong with smaller sensors / image areas? Does every project need to be shot on S-35 sized-imagers?

Well, when you examine a digital image taken with an APS chip @ 400 ISO and see that it looks virtually equivilant to a full frame digital image taken @ 1600 ISO...you wonder why you ever used the former to begin with; at least that was my experience when I upgraded my Canon Rebel XTi to a 5D. Also you have to take into account the myriad of amateurs concerned with the all-mighty "CROP FACTOR!" :rolleyes:

Looking for a Lab in Chicago that will process 16mm color reversal. It looks like I may have to ship to New York or Seattle. Any ideas? Thanks.

I'm afraid you're out of luck, Chicago's only lab, Filmworkers Club/Astro only processes 16mm negative. I think Color Lab in NY might process 16mm color reversal.

What I couldn't find out through that article is whether you have to still freeze the aperture.....?

Given that they came out with a firmwire update for the 5D M2 that allows you to manually select shutter speed and aperture for the video, I would assume not; why would they make the same mistake twice? Then again...maybe I'm giving them too much credit.

Hi,

 

A short film of mine, running 11 minutes has been accepted into a film festival, I am looking for a place to transfer the quicktime file to HDCam. One place, quoted me a price for the transfer and I was shocked by the cost (even if I supplied the stock). Please recommend a post house in L.A., San Diego, or any where in between that maybe a little more reasonable?

 

Thank you

The trick is to find a place that actually owns an HDCam deck, not a post house (usually the smaller ones) that doesn't own a deck but says they can do it while sticking you with an inflated charge that they pay to rent the deck from someone else. Fotokem and their student rates may be an option. Call around, there are a lot of those decks in LA.

Hey,

 

I'm getting ready to cut a feature and we're all going back and forth on how to finish the film. The DP is pushing for 35mm anamorphic, however the director isn't interested in the format unless we really exploit it by doing a photo-chemical finish.

 

We're meeting a lot of opposition from the lab and post supervisor on this. Has anyone had a relatively problem free anamorphic neg cut lately?

 

thoughts? Comments?

 

thanks.

In the Telecine/DI forum of this site, there has been considerable debate about the final quality of a 35mm anamorphic print originating from a traditional photochemical finish vs. DI finish. I'm confused when you say the director isn't interested in the format, yet that the dp is pushing for a 35mm anamorphic finish...wasn't the film already shot anamorphically? Is the DP pushing for a DI and the director pushing for an optical finish? Is the disagreement more about the quality of the final product or about the costs associated with how you guys can finish the final film?

I believe this scanner runs about 27 seconds per frame at 2K and 35 seconds at 4K.

 

-Rob-

Wow that's slow. Or maybe I'm just spoiled. Sanj - If you're going to start a business with this, you better hope your client-base isn't that strong! Any overlapping jobs could really inhibit your workflow.

Hey guys, I'm looking to set up a 35mm film scanner. I'm looking at buying the imagica 3000v. I've looked everywhere for some literature but there's nothing. Does anyone out there have any info and/or experience on this machine? Or maybe know someone who might?

 

Sanj

Try this link here; has a pdf brochure:

http://www.broadcaststore.com/store/model_...il.cfm?id=19876

Looks like a decent option, too bad it can't scan higher than 12bits/color (Arriscan/Northlight can go higher), you may want to figure out how fast it scans (@ 2k and 4k), and according to that pdf it does not scan to 10-bit log DPX files, kind of a standard image format with modern color grading systems (you want to grade with log files, not linear). Take this into account and there might be an extra conversion process needed. I'd give one of the Imagica reps a call and ask these questions before you make such an investment.

I am currently underway in converting a bolex to super 16. Grinding out the filmgate seems to be the most simple of the entire process and then things get more complicated as the turret has to be remounted.

 

My question is, if I use canon FD lenses via an adapter, will I have to adjust the lens turret at all, or will the lenses be able to fill the frame without any adjustment.

 

My lenses are 25mm, 50mm, and 100mm Canon FD lenses.

 

Thanks.

Since FD lenses are made for the 35mm format, they will have sufficient coverage for the Super 16 format. Just make sure the lens turret is properly centered as if you were using any type of lenses made for the 16mm/super 16 format and you'll be fine with any 35mm lens (like the FD's)

For lowest grain S16 images I would use 7212 (100T) with or without the 85b filter or 7201 (50D). If you are going to 2k telecine you should make either one sing.

 

Personally I would be more concerned about making the depth of field from the 2 formats match. So I would aim for exposing the film at around f16-f22, not a lot of ND, polarizing or color correction filtering, in other words.

 

But if you are shooting on the beach during the day and in the forest indoors, the footage doesn't necessarily have to match as the conditions are completely different. The grain could give it away, but 7212 and 7201 arguably have the tightest grain structure there is in 16mm stocks, so you should be fine with either one.

Use low grain stocks like Saul said, and at the minimum, try to get a good HD transfer, either from a spirit, or if you can afford it; scanning from a northlight or arriscan, which will yield the best results for super 16. However I would not shoot with the lens closed down to f16-22, especially on a small format like 16mm; that will introduce diffraction and most likely degrade the image quality. I wouldn't close the lens down past F11, but that's just me.

Repeat after me: "There is no such thing as a "crop factor." A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens on any format, ever."

A 50mm lens does not give the same perspective on a 16mm camera than it does on a 35mm camera. Come on Chris, haha, you know what he means! Whether or not a "crop factor" is technically real, the idea behind it is something worthy of his concern.

Just got a Hard Drive in from LA and it was damaged during transport. Thankfully I transfer the Neg to HDCAM SR first so it was a simple thing to replace it (data transfer) onto another Drive which will arrive today. This is far better than having to retransfer the actual Film and dealing with all the dust that undoubtedly appears on a second pass. Knowing Drives crash, I feel much safer having the initial transfer on HDCam SR :wub:

 

Here is a frame from time lapse... not bad for 16mm with Zeiss Super Speeds. Nice detail considering the Format (7212 @ :15 second exposures - ProRes HQ).

Nice grab David! Very clean for 16mm - what was it transferred on? A spirit?

It's great to have the SR backup, will they be pulling the footage from your SR tape to ProRes HQ? I ask because if you're going to ProRes HQ doesn't that introduce a second generation of compression (from the already compressed SR tape?). I know it's more realistic to go with ProRes over uncompressed for ease of hard drive space, but considering how fragile 16mm can be when it comes to compression, going from tape to a non-uncompressed form of data seems rather...unfulfilling... rather than transferring straight to data and then backing up to SR. Was your original Prores HQ file (on the hard drive that got damaged) extracted from SR tape, or taken directly from the scanner?

On another note; I'm looking forward to seeing how this new Prores 4444 codec compares to current Prores codecs and uncompressed data, especially for Super 16mm footage. The comparisons I've seen of uncompressed vs. Prores HQ of Super 16 footage (scanned on an Arriscan) lead me to believe that Prores is not, as of right now, a sufficient format from which to finish/online.

Hi Billy,

It's good to see that filmmakers have another option when it comes to high resolution scanning. Your website, however, leaves a lot of unanswered questions that I think you need to address. Given that you guys are using a custom made scanner, I feel it's important to be specific about a lot of things; considering that your client base may be more familiar with more traditional DI scanners.

"The imaging device 2KTransfer uses has a higher resolution than normal 2K standard." So are you oversampling when you scan, or is the sensor simply a bit larger than 2k native so that you have room to correct for gate-shifting?

"2KTransfer can deliver films in many different formats." Like what? Quicktimes? MXF? Image sequences? Also what native format does your scanner output? DPX? Cineon? Tiff? 16-bit? 10-bit?

Is your scanner capable of handling 2-perf/3-perf 35mm? Super 16mm? ULTRA 16?

Is your scanner only built for scanning full rolls or can it scan select shots from EDLs/keycode lists like most DI scanners?

On what system do you color correct? Is it set up for simple base-grades for dailies or is it more versatile for adding secondary corrections/windows, etc for more serious work?

Now, this purely my opinion, but if older film is "falling apart" through your scanner then I don't feel that your scanner is best equipped to handle such fragile film. Honestly, I think there are better scanners for this type of archival work; ones that utilize adaptive pin registration (with adjustable parameters to conform to film shrinking, torn perf, etc) or non-pinregistered archival gates (which scan into the perforated area). Now I understand some poorly stored old film is destined to break-down either way, but the slower transport system of a pin-registered scanner would significantly decrease the chances of older film being damaged.

I would love to see samples from this scanner, it sounds like you guys have a lot of experience, especially if you designed at Grass Valley! Did you by any chance have any involvment in the development of the Spirit scanner?

why are you using an uncompressed setup? Why not use the ProRes sequence preset? ...... I have used ProRes HQ as my default for all S16 work. To me it looks excellent.

I would strongly advise against using ProRes HQ as a finishing format for S16. I have done direct comparisons before and found that you lose a decent amount of shadow information in the scan that uncompressed QTs preserve. Uncompressed really is the way to go for 16mm transfers, especially if you're transferring on a Spirit which can't really capture the full image quality potential from a s16 scan like a dedicated DI scanner. Why settle for less unless you're going to rescan in the future?

Nick - your vevlia scans will obviously look better than any S16 scan because of the larger format and the virtually grainless characteristics of Velvia 50 slide film. What was the framerate of the uncompressed 1080p quicktime that Ascent 142 gave you? If your SRII shoots at 24 fps this is something the transfer house (especially one in the UK) should know about. Are you trying to go to Prores for an offline edit or final delivery? Compressing the files may reduce apparant grain (if you're compressing to a smaller resolution than HD), but it will reduce texture, sharpness, marginalize subtle details, and compress your tonal range (see my note about prores compression). I would edit w/prores and uprez to your HD uncompress quicktime for final output.

Any opinions here what the currently best dust busting software on the market is if there is no dust mask from the scanning stage available (program must figure out itself what is dust/speckle... and what is genuine image detail)?

Best meaning best accuracy for telling them apart and replacing faulty pixels with pixels that look 'correct' when stepping and in real time playback (no visible artifacts).

Our DI company uses Revival - software made by Davinci, it works wonders, and we use it all the time for features when there's dust or speckles that get into the scans. It does a pretty good job of removing film scratches too, but I've found that Shake does a very good job handling them as well. I can't say Revival is the "best" but it's a very versatile piece of software. Manual dirt removal is really the best way to go. Autopass or built-in dirt removal in the scanner can oftten be inconsistent and unpleasing.