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"Out of phase"


Mikael Lemercier

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I think shooting with the cameras shutter out of phase creates a vertical streaking effect, caused by highlights burning a line up the negative as the film is pulled down whilst still being exposed. Cant be dont with all cameras but im pretty sure any 435 is capable of it. Correct me if I'm wrong?

 

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I "used it" by accident on my first feature back in 1992, thanks to the crappy UltraCam camera I was using...

 

The most famous examples are: the opening battle of "Saving Private Ryan", the appearance of the sniper near the end of "Full Metal Jacket", and there's a fist fight in the auto factory in "Minority Report" that used it briefly as I recall.

 

How bad the streaking is depends on how much out of sync you are.

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I "used it" by accident on my first feature back in 1992, thanks to the crappy UltraCam camera I was using...

.

 

David,

 

It's just 2 allen screws that holds the shutter timing, I am suprised the AC did not notice at the check out.

 

Stephen

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David,

 

It's just 2 allen screws that holds the shutter timing, I am suprised the AC did not notice at the check out.

 

Stephen

 

It was the third UltraCam dropped onto us in the San Bernardino desert where we were shooting. The first one worked fine, and then Leonetti said that wanted it back because it needed to go out on a TV series and it was the only one convertable to 3-perf. So they gave us another UltraCam on location and it blew fuses every take. So they brought us another UltraCam on location and that one shaved film off in the gate on every take. So they brought us another UltraCam on a Friday and it seemed to work fine until dailies on Monday showed us the shutter timing error. At which point Leonetti blamed the film stock and the lab for the problem.

 

None of us, the lab person, me, the film stock rep, or the Leonetti rep recognized what the error was -- I had never seen the effect before. It was the camera assistant who guessed at the problem and found the error after-the-fact.

 

So I can tell you that the first UltraCam worked fine and was prepped thoroughly by the AC's, but after that, it was Leonetti driving out to the desert in the middle of our shoot and swapping the cameras between takes - all the while assuring us it was prepped back at the shop.

 

After that fiasco, Panavision generously donated a Panaflex for free for us to finish the last two weeks of the show. We were making a 35mm movie on a budget of $40,000 cash basically.

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It was the third UltraCam dropped onto us in the San Bernardino desert where we were shooting. The first one worked fine, and then Leonetti said that wanted it back because it needed to go out on a TV series and it was the only one convertable to 3-perf. So they gave us another UltraCam on location and it blew fuses every take. So they brought us another UltraCam on location and that one shaved film off in the gate on every take. So they brought us another UltraCam on a Friday and it seemed to work fine until dailies on Monday showed us the shutter timing error. At which point Leonetti blamed the film stock and the lab for the problem.

 

None of us, the lab person, me, the film stock rep, or the Leonetti rep recognized what the error was -- I had never seen the effect before. It was the camera assistant who guessed at the problem and found the error after-the-fact.

 

So I can tell you that the first UltraCam worked fine and was prepped thoroughly by the AC's, but after that, it was Leonetti driving out to the desert in the middle of our shoot and swapping the cameras between takes - all the while assuring us it was prepped back at the shop.

 

After that fiasco, Panavision generously donated a Panaflex for free for us to finish the last two weeks of the show. We were making a 35mm movie on a budget of $40,000 cash basically.

 

David,

 

I can see why they sold their fleet off!

 

Stephen

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I think shooting with the cameras shutter out of phase creates a vertical streaking effect, caused by highlights burning a line up the negative as the film is pulled down whilst still being exposed. Cant be dont with all cameras but im pretty sure any 435 is capable of it. Correct me if I'm wrong?

hi Emmett

that's it! have you got some others examples of pictures?

 

The most famous examples are: the opening battle of "Saving Private Ryan", the appearance of the sniper near the end of "Full Metal Jacket", and there's a fist fight in the auto factory in "Minority Report" that used it briefly as I recall.

Hi David,

thank you for the examples.

 

The later 435 cameras can be set to mistime the shutter electronically. The 435extreme can do just about everything but make expresso.

 

hi Mitch,

you 're right about 435, and with the 435es (without mistiming eprom) you can just running one motor of your choice( shutter or mouvment).

regards

Mikael.

Edited by mikael lemercier
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I've done tests recently for a commercial I did, and I will upload the test footage on my website soon. There you can see the effects of streaking at all angles of mistiming, from 0 degrees to 180 degrees.

 

You can see the commercial here:

 

http://www.adamfrisch.com/commercials/gree...indexmovie.html

 

The streaking effect is at the end of it and it was varied between 120/130 degrees to about 170 degrees at the most.

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It was the third UltraCam

Sounds like Ultra"Crap" to me. I bet the boys at Panavision are patting themselves on the back for helping you out way back when. I know you're pretty loyal to them, and I can see why.

 

Nice work Adam! I really dig it. Did you shoot upside down or did they just do it in post? I assume when the camera turns right side up that it was a post move.

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you 're right about 435, and with the 435es (without mistiming eprom) you can just running one motor of your choice( shutter or mouvment).

 

 

For the Arricams and the 435Xtreme there's a little box called Timing Shift Box that plugs to the camera and lets you turn the timing out of phase.

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I've done tests recently for a commercial I did, and I will upload the test footage on my website soon. There you can see the effects of streaking at all angles of mistiming, from 0 degrees to 180 degrees.

Hi Adam,

I like your commercial. I'm curious about your tests, wich camera did you used for it?

regards.

Mikael.

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It was the third UltraCam dropped onto us in the San Bernardino desert where we were shooting. The first one worked fine, and then Leonetti said that wanted it back because it needed to go out on a TV series and it was the only one convertable to 3-perf. So they gave us another UltraCam on location and it blew fuses every take. So they brought us another UltraCam on location and that one shaved film off in the gate on every take. So they brought us another UltraCam on a Friday and it seemed to work fine until dailies on Monday showed us the shutter timing error. At which point Leonetti blamed the film stock and the lab for the problem.

 

None of us, the lab person, me, the film stock rep, or the Leonetti rep recognized what the error was -- I had never seen the effect before. It was the camera assistant who guessed at the problem and found the error after-the-fact.

 

So I can tell you that the first UltraCam worked fine and was prepped thoroughly by the AC's, but after that, it was Leonetti driving out to the desert in the middle of our shoot and swapping the cameras between takes - all the while assuring us it was prepped back at the shop.

 

After that fiasco, Panavision generously donated a Panaflex for free for us to finish the last two weeks of the show. We were making a 35mm movie on a budget of $40,000 cash basically.

 

You've got a great memory! :) All I recall is the blue paint chipping off the mags. Ultracrap is what we were calling it.

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A friend worked on a series of spots for the summer Olympics a few years ago shot by Tony Wahlberg (sp?) also using mistiming intentionally. Sorry, that I don't have any links or examples of them but I thought they looked great at the time. I only saw them when they aired.

 

Best

 

Tim

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I was always partial to the term "UltraJam" since that's what they always did.

 

Hi Mitch,

 

Never had a jam myself! There is a danger of missing the last roller, then if the power is low leading to low take up tension, the film might just get caught on the main sprocket. I think that could be the issue.

 

Stephen

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Mistiming between the shutter and film pulldown can also occur in a projector, where it is called "travel ghost":

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/students...4.9.6&lc=en

 

http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manuals/TAPGUIDELINES.pdf

 

http://www.cinematography.net/Pages%20GB/%...ter%20phase.htm

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Mistiming between the shutter and film pulldown can also occur in a projector, where it is called "travel ghost":

 

http://www.kodak.com/US/en/motion/students...4.9.6&lc=en

 

http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manuals/TAPGUIDELINES.pdf

 

http://www.cinematography.net/Pages%20GB/%...ter%20phase.htm

 

Generally speaking, that tends to be more tolerable to a certain degree - I used to work a lot in projection booths and we'd run RP40 loops and walk up to the screen to take a look. Oftentimes in certain cases it was very noticeable up close, but quickly fell out of visibility after 10-15 feet. Part of that may have to do with the intermittent movement, however - projectors generally use intermittent sprockets instead of claws. Since most projectors aren't necessarily tested against POMs, I'd guess that many are out of phase by minor percentages, but can get away with it usually.

 

But this is all dredging up old knowledge, so I might be wrong...

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Generally speaking, that tends to be more tolerable to a certain degree - I used to work a lot in projection booths and we'd run RP40 loops and walk up to the screen to take a look. Oftentimes in certain cases it was very noticeable up close, but quickly fell out of visibility after 10-15 feet. Part of that may have to do with the intermittent movement, however - projectors generally use intermittent sprockets instead of claws. Since most projectors aren't necessarily tested against POMs, I'd guess that many are out of phase by minor percentages, but can get away with it usually.

 

But this is all dredging up old knowledge, so I might be wrong...

It's definitely noticeable on my Simplex SP 35mm projector if the shutter is misadjusted. When I got the projector I noticed a little pulldown ghosting and got rid of it by inching the projector by hand and adjusting the shutter so that it was closed when the geneva mechanism was pulling the film down. In truth the Simplex mechanism is designed such that the shutter hasn't blocked the light 100% when the film starts moving and again when the film has almost stopped. Obviously the Simplex engineers who designed the SP knew where the trade off was between shutter dwell angle and delivering the maximum duration of light to the screen. After adjustment I looked for ghosting up close to the screen on mine and really couldn't see any - a test film might show it but not a pretty much normal print.

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