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I finally started setting up the film lab!!!


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Today's report: I gathered up trim peices for the door frames. By helping clean out a garage, I was able to get a ton of new (unused) wood trim for free also a stack load of joint compound for taping and texturing which I will begin ths week. Little by little, things are falling into place. The work on the roof should also resume this week. Short report today but hopefully more to come in the DAYS to come. B)

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I may have just done the dumbest thing I've done in quite a while, BUT....I'm relitively sure it's the ONLY thing I could have done. I had originally planned on putting my editing room (and KEM flatbeds) at my home but subsequently changed my mind. I had then considered putting the KEMs in the labroom and making it a dual purpose room but decided it would be too crowded in there with the all those machines ESPECIALLY if I can get ahold of an optical printer (which I DO plan to do IF I can find one at the price I'm willing to pay) so after many days of wresling with the problem, I decided on the pain in the ass solution of sacrificing my costume and prop rooms in order to use the space for an editing room and chemical storage/editing supply room. It's the small rooms located brhind the "Life Pod 2" door in the lab pics.

 

The reason this was the "pain in the ass" solution is that although these rooms are relitively small, they where also stacked to the rafters junk and a HUGH mess. I spent the last 2 days clearing out box after box of cloths, cloth and props and moving them to the beligered cargo bay set which is now almost filled to capacity. I STILL have a good day or more left of just relocating junk. I need to start thinning out my accumulation of crap once this is over.

 

I decided this needed to be done now before the lab was uber-cleaned and sealed as the editing room and storage will also have to be sealed and cleaned and it should all be done at the same time. I am discovering one thing, Just how much work it is to do this sort of thing. The lab room now has several boxes which are in various stages of being filled with stuff from the floors of the other 2 rooms. I do have to admit I have made progress but it is a bit disheartening to see the room I busted my ass clearing out with a fresh layer of poop covering the floor, but it has to be done. I post more pics of the 2 smaller rooms in the next few days. That's all for now. More tomorrow-The Captain B)

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Today's report:

4 days of living Hell!!! That's how I would discribe clearing out and cleaning up the prop and costume rooms to re-designating them as an editing and storage room. I re-ittererrate- THIS WAS THE DUMBEST THING I EVER DID!!!! I've been breathing clouds of dust and lifting tons of stuff so I NOW have sore lungs and sore muscles. If it weren't for the massive amounts of inhailed dust particles (That's WITH a dust mask on BTW), it might actually be healthy for the exorcise. anywhy it's finaly cleared out and relitively clean. Here are the pics:

 

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this is what will become the editing room. There is room enough for bith KEMs and support equiment

 

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Here is the storage room for chemicals and filmstock

 

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Here is whe maylay that used to be the cargobay set for The Black Sky. This set is 70 feet long. I REALLY need to thin out my costumes and set pieces

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HERE is a couple of pics of my new camera truck. Things are moving forward but MAN is this a Hell of a lot of work. I started rebuilding and sealing up the windows in the editing and storage rooms. All the shelving that you see in the pictures have been removed and I will decide what to put back in order to make the rooms as efficent as possible. I bought "the Editing Room Handbook" by Norman Hollyn as someone suggested so I now at least have a guideling to follow. I'll also make allowances for more equipment such as an edge coder and sync table. I don't know it these rooms will have a positive air pressure or not as the lab will but I WILL do my best to keep them dust free. I also intend to build a small darkroom in the truck for changing out mags so we don't have to go through the trouble of dealing with the cramped space inside a changing tent most of the time. I want to make it collapsible so the truck can also be used for grip work on smaller video shoots. Anyway, more pics to follow and more reports as things progress. B)

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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Thanks Matthew. Today's report:

 

I've spent the last 3 days rebuilding windows and I looks like I've got more days ahead of me doing the same thing. It's imparritive that I do the work though. The windows have been in the building for years with virtually NO mantinance done to them ans as a result the paint is gone on them and the bare wood is cracking and splitting. The glazing is dryed ad cracked and falling off so that dust and dirt is comming in easily. I have rebuild one window and repained the sash. I will weather strip it and move on to the next on them pain the storage room, seal it's door with weatherstripping, replace the needed shelving, install a refigerator for filmstock and move onto the editing room next door. I hope to be finished within one week on the storage room. The editing room will be less work as it is paneled and will only require the windows to be rebuilt and extra electrical to be ran in. That will leave the lab it's self. All the shelves from the other 2 rooms are teporarly being stored in the lab but once the other 2 rooms are done the left over selves will be moved to the projection room. (My next project down the line). Anyway, sense pics of glazing windows are boring I thought I'd show some pics of Black Sky Production Studios from the outside so you can see why I love the building enough to go though all this. Here they are:

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And here are some pics of Mel's lighting and grip truck. He's DPing Blood Moon and we have unlimited access to the equipment anboard with is EXTENSIVE:

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More pics after the sorage room is done! B)

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Well, it's been a while sence I have reported, so I thought I'd file a short report just to assure everyone I have not gotten dicouraged and quit. I have spent the last few days sence my last report rebilding the glass paned windows in the storage and editing rooms. This has been a long, slow process because they have to be taken apart and cleaned up, painted to seal the wood frames, the individual panes have to be stripped of the old glazing and thoroghly cleaned then bedded and reglazed. They have to be set aside to alloe the glazing to set up and the repainted, have new locks and hardware put on them, the window shashes have to be cleaned and painted and then the window have to be weather stripped and reinstalled. This is turning out to be a total pain in the ass, but in order to keep the period look of the building and still make sure the rooms are keep dust free, it is absolutely essental. The problem I have run into (asside from never having done this before and learning as I go along) is that removing the panes is a delicate proceedure that has resulted in about 5 to 7 broken panes in addition to the several that were already broke and needed to be replaced. I had 2 extra windows that had about 15 usible panes out of the 18 (9 each) that they came with. I have gone through all of them and had to cut 4 more. I finally started to work on the last of the 4 windows today which I got dis-assymbled and ready for sanding. That resulted in 2 broken panes which I will have to cut tomorrow. I also had an unexpected problem that was my own stupidity. I had set the 2 storage room windows in place so that the sun could help dry set up the glazing. Good plan right? Except that we had a horrendious wind storm as is common in this sh*thole city, complete with choking, blowing dust and gale force winds. sence I had meant to only set the widows in their frames temporarilly before they were repainted I didn't screw the hinges back on them. The have a lock at the top an a lip at the bottom that should hold them securely in place even in the wind, well it doesn't. I came in to find one lkying onthe floor. I was amazed to see only one pane was shattered and everthing else was completely in tact. I guess I in a way reallylucked out that the damage was not more sever. I STILL have abotu a week's worth of work left to do on the windows. I can only hope the rest of the work doesn't go THIS slowly. I suppose I could have just replaced the windows instead of rebuilding them but having more time than money at the moment, it wasn't an option, besides, I love the old time look of the place and should I ever decide to shoot the exterior of that area for a scene, it will look right for the rest of the structure. Anyway, just a short update. more to follow-Steve, AKA The Captain B)

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Back to books and technical processing info . . .

 

You really need to get hold of the H24 manuals that have been mentioned a couple of times. They are only available by download from the Kodak website - here but you will find all the answers you need.

 

As well as my book that you've mentioned (Film Technology in Post Production) you you should try and find a copy of my earlier one Motion Picture Film Processing - it's much more oriented to what the lab operator needs to know about processing and printing.

 

Leslie Wheeler's book Principles of Cinematography was the definitive text but it is a little dated now (that's why I wrote my first one a while back) but it is incredibly thorough. It was first writtin in 1953 from memory, and the copy I have is the fourth edition from about 1969. By the way his son Paul Wheeler wrote an excellent book on Cinematography too (Practical Cinematography) - and it really is about cinematography, unlike his father's book which is about labs, despite its title. (Paul also wrote Digital Cinematography).

 

Someone asks: - How fast does your machine run? Is there a standard speed? It all depends on the lace-up length of the racks in each tank. Development for example is three minutes. In a typical machine running at 50 fpm, there are three racks for the developer, each with 50 feet of film laced into them. As an example, that might be 8 turns of film around a rack just over three feet high: total length 50 ft. If the machine is smaller or has fewer racks, it has to run slower.

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Back to books and technical processing info . . .

 

You really need to get hold of the H24 manuals that have been mentioned a couple of times. They are only available by download from the Kodak website - here but you will find all the answers you need.

 

As well as my book that you've mentioned (Film Technology in Post Production) you you should try and find a copy of my earlier one Motion Picture Film Processing - it's much more oriented to what the lab operator needs to know about processing and printing.

 

Leslie Wheeler's book Principles of Cinematography was the definitive text but it is a little dated now (that's why I wrote my first one a while back) but it is incredibly thorough. It was first writtin in 1953 from memory, and the copy I have is the fourth edition from about 1969. By the way his son Paul Wheeler wrote an excellent book on Cinematography too (Practical Cinematography) - and it really is about cinematography, unlike his father's book which is about labs, despite its title. (Paul also wrote Digital Cinematography).

 

Someone asks: - How fast does your machine run? Is there a standard speed? It all depends on the lace-up length of the racks in each tank. Development for example is three minutes. In a typical machine running at 50 fpm, there are three racks for the developer, each with 50 feet of film laced into them. As an example, that might be 8 turns of film around a rack just over three feet high: total length 50 ft. If the machine is smaller or has fewer racks, it has to run slower.

 

I will have these books in my possesion within the next few month. Thank you for your guidence here, Dominic. I cannot tell you how much I very much appreciate the advice of an expert on this subject matter such as yourself taking the time to go through this with me and making these recommendations for learning material. Should the time ever come that I can help you, you will have my complete loyalty, Thanks again-Steve

 

 

Wow, that building looks like a damn saloon. :)

 

YEE HARR!!!

 

Anyway, I assume you know what you're doing, good luck, must be costing you an absolute fortune.

 

That's why I want to keep the building as piriod as possible. It'll make for som great exteriors especially when combined with some greenscreen flats so we can lose any modern references. Actually so far it isn't costing me that much, it's just been one Hell of a lot of work. But it will be worth it when I'm done. Thanks for the best wishes. I still am looking forward to seeing that super8 film of yours. Let me know when it's availible to see or at least when we can see some footage.

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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Back to books and technical processing info . . .

 

You really need to get hold of the H24 manuals that have been mentioned a couple of times. They are only available by download from the Kodak website - here but you will find all the answers you need.

 

I downloaded the entire manual and processing form. Thanks again for the link, Dominic. I really appreciate it. B)

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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Any updates captain??

 

Thanks for the interest, Matthew, it helps give me inspiration to keep on truckin'. I HAVE been neglectful in my reports so here goes:

 

I finally finished gazing the windows on Thursday and reinstalled them for a test fit. On the final window I broke 2 perfectly good panes trying to remove them and had NO replacements which REALLY annoyed me. I thought I was going to have to go the a glass place and have some cut because the glass cutters I had were old and dull and I ended up braking the extra glass I had trying to cut some new ones, but I remembered some picture frames I had among the props and thought "What the Hell, let's see in the glass in them is close to what I needed. I checked them and they looked close so I pulled the glass out of the frames, took them into the scene-shop and Damned if they weren't a perfect match! they were even the same thickness. I chipped out the old glaze from the window frame, sanded, painted and reglazed the window and let it dry overnight. then I did the test fit. I broke down some of the shelving I knew I was not going to use and stored it in the cargobay set. I then set about moving the floresent light that was falling down in the lab. It's the one that is being held up by the stand in the pictures. I found the rafter that was closest to the original placement. I dropped the light down and disconnected the elictric, then used the stand to hold it up while I screwed the light into the rafterabout 8 inches to the left. I reconnected the electrical and fired it up. It worked like a charm although I WILL have get into the attic and move the J box at some point because I don't like having the wires exposed. I pulled everything that was unnessesary out of the lab so I would have room to work. Yesterday,I felt like poop (I may have had a slight cold), a frigid wind was blowing hard and I needed a break so I stayed home and rested a little. Today I had to earn a little cash and ddn't get back till late AND I STILL was not one hundred percent so I decided to have a nice dinner, watch a Woody Allen movie, smoke one of my precious Macanudos and have a glass or two of Merlot so I made a Vera Cruz style whiting fish supper with a tossed Romaine and a glass of Chardonney. After dinner I poured myself a glass of Merlot, got a wooden match, sparked up the stoogie and sat down to watched Bullets over Broadway. I decided it was best to hit the studio again tomorrow, refreashed and ready to work. As I sit here finishing up the butt of the cigar, and sipping wine, I'm trying to decide if I want to go with the rubber weather strip I salvaged from a few car trunks a while back or go with foam weather strip. It'll probably be a combination of both, rubber for the windows that are exposed to the most wind and foam for the rest. I will also start caulking the gaps in the new framing I installed and begin the taping and texturing as well. Next week will probably be a short week as I HAVE so bring in some cash to keep the machine going so I'll be limited to 4 or 5 hours of work a day BUT the bills will get paid (it's always better to work with the electricity on and for some reason the what me to pay the bill, the unreasonalbe bastards!). After that we'll start painting and weatherstrip the doors. Then I'll bring in the machines and start the actual lab, starage and editing room setups. It's been a long haul but things are coming together. I spoke with the landlord when I paided this month's rent and he assures me they will be getting back on the roof repairs this coming week (he said he had problems with inspectors at the bar he owns and was dealing with that all last month).

 

I also played around with my Konvas because as soon as the lab is finished, I want to start shooting some second unit stuff for Blood Moon Rising so I can start learning how to process film without the risk of screwing up some irreplacible footage before we start shooting the important stuff. I still have to finish the aluminum mattebox I built for it and strengthen the baseplate I fabricated but that shouldn't be too big a problem, It's an old reostate motored 1M. I got a pair of 400 foot mags for it and am a bit worried the 6 vt motor won't have enough UMMPH to pull them. They fit OK but the straight viewfinder on the camera hits right at the back edge of the mags so altough you can see though it pretty well, it may be a slight pain to use. I'll have to determine if I need to change the viewfinder to the more modern style articulated one. We'll just have to see. I DEFINATELY will have to add a foam eyepiece ring as the original rubber one is stiff and hurts to press your eye agains to open the viewfinder shuttert. I don't want to accidentaly flash the film though the eyepiece so I have to make sure the eyepiece has a light free seal when one looks though it to film, especially concidering how bright the sun is around these parts. That's pretty much everything up to this point. I'll post some new pictures as soon as I finish installing and sealing the windows. More to come soon. B)

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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A short and very wierd report today:

 

Have you ever asked yourself the "What else could possibly go wrong?" question, expecting it to be retorical in nature and not really expecting any kind of a concrete responce from the All Mighty in fact the kind of question you actually would rather NOT have a responce to at all if you had your drothers. I asked just that very question not 4 days ago when I made out a list of 13 things I still had left to do in order to get the lab operational and with my usual good fortune and razor tuned luck, and to my great surprise, received an almost instant, decisive and rather biblical reply. As though a plague sent by some kind of low rent Moses, we now have BEES living in the wall af the labroom! YES, the if they sting you and you're allergic, you die kind. See, there was a 3in hole in the stucco where an ancient waterline outlet had been removed in ages past, at the bottom of the exterior wall of the lab that I had eather through neglect or ignorance failed to patch and apparently a swarm of homeless bees mistook this for the insect equivalent of a Habitat for Humanity condo. They're descision to occupy the premises leaves me in a bit of a quandery, I now have to have decide what exactly to do. So far my new tenents seem to have confined themselves to the exterior of the building with one or two rouge exceptions who seem to be facinated with the floresent lighting fixtures that flicker in the cieling but I don't know how destructive bees are and I also have a very real and highly personal concern for myself or someone else being stung repeatedly should these these tiny but well armed squaters decide to atempt enforcing their somewhat shaky land claims. Bees are good for the environment and I read somewhere there was a shortage of colonies this year so I really don't want to kill them. I suppoe I'll have to find a beekeeper and see if he can have my little residents relocated. I have to admit, this was one contingency I hadn't planned for when I decided ti build process motion picture stock on my property. It's just not the sort of thing that instantly jumps to the forefront of one's mind when one utters the word filmlab. :blink: B)

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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  • 11 months later...
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Hi Cap'n,

 

My KEM flatbed telecine got here Friday. I got it put together, fired up, and working out in the shop. The picture on a Sony 19 PVM monitor has a bit of flatbed prism "float" to it. It's more than good enough for editing transfers but a DVD cut from it would be good for demo only. The Sony camera on it does have a Y/C AKA S-video output somewhere available on it so as soon as I can get a user's manual for it from Sony I'll be experimenting with using my TRV-30 to transcode its output to firewire. I'm not at all certain what it does about 3:2 pulldown but more will be revealed. One nice accessory came installed with it: A $1200 Denecke Cine Sync EC-2 frame and footage time code counter!

 

The first thing I tried playing on it was a Happy Feet trailer that turned out to be in Spanish - kinda had me going when I got the optical sound up and running and at first couldn't figure out what the little penquin was singing: "My Way" in Espanol!

 

Here's a couple of cellphone quickies - the lines on the monitor are unavoidable - I haven't bought the genlock option yet for my cellphone. :)

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WEELLL, ANOTHER day on the roof!! I'm covered head to toe in roofing cement, every muscle aches, My face is sunburned AND I gotta go back up and do it again tomorrow! I've come to a conclusion, I HATE ROOFING!!!! BUT gotta be done. This was day 3 and the part that kinda pisses me off (after the heat, tar and heavy lifting) is that it doesn't LOOK like we did all that much!, I mean if I could turn around ad see a pyramid or the Taz Mahal or something but all I see after ALL this work and I mean ALL this work is the front section covered with new asphalt paper and grid-lines of the pookie that sealed them up. But I take comfort in the knowledge that all the HUGE holes are now water tight......I hope, 'cause I'd HATE to think this was for NOT :blink: I'll try and show you my extraordinary roofing skills in some pics in a day or too. There were a LOT of very large holes which surprised me and the back peaked roof will require some attention very soon as well. I'm getting low on cash, mainly because like an idiot, I keep buying film equipment :rolleyes: AND because of material costs, though I do have to admit I did well there. I took the slightly damaged stuff (torn corners on the asphalt paper, badly dented cans on the roofing cement) so I got it for 50% off. I guess I can't complain. The problem is WHILE I'm fixing this, I'm not working and MAKING money so it's been doubly expensive.

 

Tomorrow I should finish critical repairs to the peaked section of the roof and the patching and I'll have to wait to build up my cash before tackling the other needed repairs to the peaked roof. It seems to be holding for the moment but the monsoons are fast approaching and here in El Paso, we seem to get ALL of our rain at once sometimes in one day!!! So I will have to deal with this soon. The sun and winds are what's torn up the back have of the peak, parts of it look like an asphalt died lake bed. We are going to have the whole thing hot mopped as soon as I can afford it and that should solve the leak for at least a few years by which time I hoe to be in a better facility (better for film making that is, this building is still very cool) I'll look ungy but at this point I don't care! :D

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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Hi Cap'n,

 

My KEM flatbed telecine got here Friday. I got it put together, fired up, and working out in the shop. The picture on a Sony 19 PVM monitor has a bit of flatbed prism "float" to it. It's more than good enough for editing transfers but a DVD cut from it would be good for demo only. The Sony camera on it does have a Y/C AKA S-video output somewhere available on it so as soon as I can get a user's manual for it from Sony I'll be experimenting with using my TRV-30 to transcode its output to firewire. I'm not at all certain what it does about 3:2 pulldown but more will be revealed. One nice accessory came installed with it: A $1200 Denecke Cine Sync EC-2 frame and footage time code counter!

 

The first thing I tried playing on it was a Happy Feet trailer that turned out to be in Spanish - kinda had me going when I got the optical sound up and running and at first couldn't figure out what the little penquin was singing: "My Way" in Espanol!

 

Here's a couple of cellphone quickies - the lines on the monitor are unavoidable - I haven't bought the genlock option yet for my cellphone. :)

 

That really is way cool, Hal-9000, I think you're right, this would be perfect for a down and dirty editing dup.

 

Now, for my report, I FINALLY finished patching up that landing strip of a roof that has plagued me for 4 days straight. My brother and I went through 8 sheets of plywood, 12 full rolls of roofing asphalt, 80 gallons of roofing cement, 3 rolls of felt paper, a full box of blue rubber gloves, 2 boxes of roofing nails, a full roll of nail gun nails and a full 4-10 hour days. I spent the day patching the smaller holes that dotted the roof like fiberglass swiss cheese, so now that roof is completely dotted with black roofing cement repairs and I now have a roof that looks like a leopard skin print. It's actually kinda Pollock-esque....you know, if Jackson Pollock had been working in roof cement instead of paint. I was gonna take a picture but sense I was covered in roof cement myself and didn't want it in my camera, AND because I doubt if I could have mustered the energy to press down the shutter button. I WILL attempt to shoot one tomorrow....mostly because I can't believe the extent of this myself! I STILL have to roll on some silver roof coating the cover the smaller damage that's not YET leaking but no doubt will be soon, THAT however is a task for next week. We're suppose to have rain this weekend, that's if you can believe Doppler Dave (No Kidding, that's what he really calls himself) and for the first time in 3 years, I'm actually looking forward to seeing it, free from worry that a torrent of water is going to yet again flood my studio. All in all, I really would have RATHER had someone else do this........BUT I am glad it's done! N0W (assuming it holds) Onward to other tasks!! B)

Edited by James Steven Beverly
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