The end of film for TV production?

[K Borowski]

You should read Soderbergh's comments about RED. Another thing to consider is look at the impact that camera alone has already made in such a short time. Wait till Epic comes out.

 

What impact has it made? It looks just as abysmally bad as everything else that goes through 2K does in the theatre.

 

It is shown at less than 2K at home.

 

And, while I thought RED looked great in "Knowing," it clearly showed its limitations in "District 9" where it was subjected to harsh, high-contrast daylight exteriors.

 

 

 

As for you Michael, you start off lamenting my saying I thought Regal was pulling out all of it's 4K projectors, when, in-fact it was a smaller chain, but then go on to agree with everything else I said.

 

Congratulations, once again, for pointing out that I am a fallible human who makes mistakes.

 

What chain it is is irrelevant. What I would say is relevant is that:

 

1.) Sony is the only company currently making 4K projectors.

 

2.) Very few chains have them.

 

3.) Those that do usually have an amount that you could count on one hand in the United States, EU, or even on another continent.

 

4.) One of those chains (it doesn't really matter which one, as each chain, in the U.S. that has them seems to have on the order of three or four) is sending theirs back due to lack of 4K content.

 

 

So, trying to get back on topic with this thread:

 

 

Where is the improvement in quality in the theatre?

 

Where is the improvement in the quality of television?

 

I'm sorry, but when I think of the future, I think of moon bases, talking computers, and flying cars. What about 2K DIs (degraded through 1-3 generations of film copying) and digital television acquisition can you liken to the former?

 

Where is the stepping-stone, the milestone, the feat the future generations will look back upon and say "Wow, THIS was the beginning of what we have NOW, where we stepped out of the box and demanded something better?"

[K Borowski]

That depends on 1) screen size, and 2) whether the viewer prefers better contrast (the DLP Cinema technology has noticeably better blacks than the Sony SXRD system) or smoother edges (primarily visible only at very large screen sizes).

 

OK, so 2K is good enough then on smaller screens. Why should I go and shell out $10+ (Euro$ 8+ £7+) to see a film, once, that I can own for twice that much, at as-good a resolution in four months' time?

 

Are you meaning to say that I am paying all of that extra money for the "theatre experience" of over-priced popcorn, texting teenagers, and 15 minutes of trailers?

[John Holland]

Karl , i am 100% with what you have been saying about 2K shite !! . You wont win with Mr Most a long time lab/post man , they just see $/£ in the rip off DI process . Labs know film is /will go but for long while ! so have invested lots in DI . Its still crap !! But its all about profits , and not quqlity !!

[Michael Most]

And how many of those successful productions of Soderbergh's were shot on the RED Michael? Proven track record or not, it doesn't make their use of a digital camera suddenly canonize digital. It seems funny that Che, the movie that many REDHeads are saying is a symbol of the RED revolution, is a bust.

 

As far as Peter Jackson, he will not match LOTR and his career can only be on the decline from there. And I wouldn't count on The Hobbit being shot on RED. Producer? Pft...that title carries no weight anymore...Joe Simpson is a movie "Producer." Hell, even Beyonce's dad is a Producer now.

 

For the record, Soderbergh's movies and shooting format are: Traffic - 35mm; Ocean's Thirteen, Twelve, and Eleven - shot on 35mm; Solaris - 35mm; Erin Brokovich - 35mm; Out of Sight - 35mm; Sex, Lies, and Videotape - 35mm...Che - RED One. Nuff said.

 

If you really believe that the shooting format is a determinant of a picture's commercial success, then there's little we have to discuss. Put something on the screen that people want to see and you've got a success. Put something up that they don't want to see and you have a failure. It's as simple as that. What it's shot on has no bearing on this. Since the vast bulk of studio pictures are shot on film (and continue to be), there's likely to be only a small percentage that are shot on digital formats that are hits - simply because there's a fairly small percentage of studio pictures shot on digital formats in the first place. But I would contend that's for reasons other than some sort of guarantee of commercial success. In fact, the #1 picture at the box office for almost 3 weeks recently was "Final Destination", shot on a digital format. Another one was "District 9." And perhaps you're forgetting a little picture called "Star Wars Revenge of the Sith," a few years before Red even existed. I don't attribute that success to what they were shot on any more than I attribute "Transformers 2"s success to being on film. And if we're going to talk about Soderbergh, he has always ridden a line between commercial success and personal, quirky projects. He likes doing that. He shot "Full Frontal" on hand held DV cameras. He shot "Bubble" on F900's. And, yes, he shot Che, The Girlfriend Experience, and The Informant on Red. So what? Possibly unbeknownst to you, he almost shot Oceans Twelve on the Viper. Would that picture have been any more or less successful as a result? I seriously doubt it.

 

Regarding Peter Jackson, I consider your comments to not only be a bit inane, but also disrespectful of someone who has shown himself to be quite a visionary director. If you think his name as a producer carries "no weight," you are blissfully unaware of how District 9 came to get made in the first place. And as for the Hobbit pictures getting shot on Red, my sources tell me you're likely wrong there, too.

 

For someone who I have to assume wants to find some serious success in the film industry, you certainly seem to be very bitter towards those who already have.

[Michael Most]

Karl , i am 100% with what you have been saying about 2K shite !! . You wont win with Mr Most a long time lab/post man , they just see $/£ in the rip off DI process . Labs know film is /will go but for long while ! so have invested lots in DI . Its still crap !! But its all about profits , and not quqlity !!

 

You don't know me. And if you did, you would never say what you just said.

 

One can live in the real world and try to make it as good as it can be. Or one can live in a fantasy world and spend the rest of their lives complaining why the real world isn't like that. I choose the former because I enjoy actually making a living.

[John Holland]

I dont know you as a person !! but i do know your working background !! and its wasnt aimed at you as human being ! it was aimed at maybe the only [ great shame labs] that sem to rule the industry !!!!

[Michael Most]

I dont know you as a person !! but i do know your working background !! and its wasnt aimed at you as human being ! it was aimed at maybe the only [ great shame labs] that sem to rule the industry !!!!

 

You can't sell what your customers don't want. And you can only sell what they do want.

 

In general - there are exceptions - directors of photography, directors, and producers today value the flexibility that a DI brings more than they value the more pristine quality of contact printing. Nobody talks them into DI. In some cases, it's a necessary part of the process - for instance, if the picture is shot on 3 perf (it's technically possible to assemble 3 perf negative and optically print to a 4 perf IP, but not too many places in the world can do that today), or 16mm, or a digital format, or a mixture of formats. Or if they want to achieve some sort of unique look, a popular sentiment these days. But in any case, it's the DP's and directors that have pushed the rise of digital intermediate, not the vendors. Company 3 was talked into doing DI work by Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer, not the other way around. If you think it's somehow evil electronic, money grabbing post companies that have perpetrated some sort of scam on the industry, think again. That's not how any of this happened.

 

And, BTW, digital intermediate and electronic post in general are some of the most notoriously low profit businesses in the industry. If you don't believe that, talk to some colorists and editors who have either had their salaries slashed in the last few years or been laid off altogether. Or talk to those who worked for long standing industry vendors who have had to shut their doors (Pacific Title comes to mind..).

[John Holland]

As for Salaries ! we are all going through that !!! Just to me i can see the benefit of going through DI process if there are lots of VFX involved !! But if not why ? Shooting S-35 seems to require now to have go through a DI , why ? go back what 10-12 years to "Gladiator" "Titanic" chemical finish and looked stunning on big screens !! Afraid cant say that now about S-35 going 2k DI . It will improve i know , but it isnt there yet ! A bit like when Kodak brought in 5247 and ECN 2 before it had been sorted out !! End of rant !

[K Borowski]

Karl , i am 100% with what you have been saying about 2K shite !! . You wont win with Mr Most a long time lab/post man , they just see $/£ in the rip off DI process . Labs know film is /will go but for long while ! so have invested lots in DI . Its still crap !! But its all about profits , and not quqlity !!

 

While I agree that a lot of lab men are like Most, John, there are certainly many in the lab industry who care a great deal about what they are doing.

 

Dominic and Rob here, as well as the late John Pytlak, are certainly examples of people who place a great deal of care into what they do.

 

I've talked to lab owners who will say, flat out, that they are producing worse-quality work because that is what a lot of the clients want, better flexibility at the expense of quality.

 

But what I cannot get past is that all of this is a needless compromise.

 

How can an industry built around providing a premium product that cannot be got at home (motion picture theatrical exhibition) be actually putting out a worse-quality product (2K DIs with three generations of contact-print copying) than what you can get at home with 1080p from 35mm neg.?

 

 

It just boggles my mind that 4K and IMAX haven't made a comeback, just hyped up 3D that is worse than what they had in the '80s.

 

I think the only thing that is letting the television industry jettison film right now is the lack of real competition from theatrical exhibition. If the quality is dropping there, TV feels no need to compete with sharp 35mm stock and good story lines.

 

Let's not even get started on crime/medical dramas.

 

IDK what sort of programming you have to deal with in the U.K., but I will take the real-life drama of shows like "The First 48" which are shot on whatever video cameras are available, over the dry, cliche story lines, weak acting, and thoughtless cinematography of the CSIs and the Law & Orders any day.

 

Filmmaking, even TV used to be about visuals and story lines, not just cranking out 25 shows a season. Seeing the production values they had in the '60s is a constant reminder of that. Those shows probably look sharper than some of the crap shot today because they did it with 50ASA stock and 100ASA stock instead of 500 stock without a tripod and available lighting.

 

Where is the craft? Who cares what it is shot in light of the lack of thought in the actual production design?

[K Borowski]

Just to me i can see the benefit of going through DI process if there are lots of VFX involved !! But if not why ?

 

Exactly. Why put a show with all practicals, stunts through a DI? What possible advantage is there to throwing out resolution in a situation where digital image correction isn't needed? If 25% 38% 50% of the movie is in need of some sort of digital manipulation, you'd be a fool not to consider a full DI, but if less than a quarter of the movie needs a computer, why use the computer, other than trying to fit in with the crowd?

 

 

Shooting S-35 seems to require now to have go through a DI , why ? go back what 10-12 years to "Gladiator" "Titanic" chemical finish and looked stunning on big screens !! Afraid cant say that now about S-35 going 2k DI . It will improve i know , but it isnt there yet ! A bit like when Kodak brought in 5247 and ECN 2 before it had been sorted out !! End of rant !

 

I think, John, that there is a certain logic with this one exception of shooting S35 to consider DI instead of optical blowup, but anamorphic films or classical 4-perf. films are now seeming to be all going through the DI workflow too. It is this that I cannot understand.

 

David was saying some time back that the reason "Gladiator" looked so good is that it was shot on slow stock (100 200 speed, mostly, IIRC). That seems to be a lost art these days as well though.

 

ECN-2 is the beginning of a long line of quality cuts, no doubt. There was that, ECP-2D with the cyan soundtrack, continuous motion contact printing, all to save time in printing. It has become about quantity, not quality, and that is truly sad.

 

Now that the volume of film coming in is going down, it almost makes more sense to go back to the quality lower-speed,intermittant motion contact printing route.

[Phil Rhodes]

You can't sell what your customers don't want.

 

Careful, Mike :)

 

What you can do is convince them they want it, which is both why so much cinema is so terribly abysmal, and why it's so very difficult for anyone who isn't one of the half dozen biggest companies to get a look in.

 

I don't think it's a good idea to try and make any point in a debate like this about what people want. We've long since transcended that and are now working in a field where we can make anything so long as people can be persuaded to pay for it. Wanting it is not quite the same thing.

[Michael Most]

While I agree that a lot of lab men are like Most, John, there are certainly many in the lab industry who care a great deal about what they are doing.

 

Oh, I get it. Now I don't care about what I do. Reporting the practical side of the industry, the one in which very few can actually afford things like 4K DI processes, and the one in which directors are always demanding that something look different than anything else that's ever been done, and the one in which directors of photography want to take advantage of the ability to highlight the area of interest more than they could in practical photography, and the one in which producers want to be able to use multiple formats interchangeably for creative purposes - and reporting all of this as opposed to living in a dream world in which everything is captured perfectly in principal photography, all post work is photochemical, everyone shoots on 4 perf 35mm (or better yet, 65mm), all production and post budgets are unlimited, and all labs treat every release print as if it's a custom one-off print - means I don't care, regardless of how many years I've spent in the industry attempting to improve the state of the art both practically and artistically. I see.

 

OK, Karl, I give up. Everything digital is counterproductive. We should go back to only photochemical imaging, no matter how much it costs and no matter how creatively limiting it might prove to be. The cinematography in television today completely sucks, the DP's working there are complete hacks, and clearly everything in the 60's and 70's was far more creative, original, and artistic. We should eliminate 2K altogether because clearly nobody thinks it's any good and theatergoers aren't going to stand for it. We should get rid of DI's in general because they clearly do nothing but ruin otherwise great cinematographic achievements. Nobody should be concerned with cost - ever - because it's all about art, and you can't put a price tag on art. And once we do this, we'll have a thriving lab business once again, nobody will be able to make a movie unless they're highly qualified, 65mm theaters will be built and flourish, we'll travel down chocolate rivers and see rainbows every day.

 

I hope you're happy. But as for me, I'm done.

[K Borowski]

Oh, I get it. Now I don't care about what I do.

 

OK, Karl, I give up. Everything digital is counterproductive.

 

That's not what I meant, but you did say somewhere in here something along the line that 2K was good enough as long as the audience was entertained.

 

I guess you are right that things aren't so black and white and we live in a world that is one big ugly shade of grey.

 

 

I'm NOT arguing against 2K, nor the control it allows. I'm arguing against putting entire films through it.

 

I would argue just as vehemently against high-speed contact printing and shoddy control on the optical end, if it would do anything. That is a battle already lost though.

 

I took a densitometer up in a projection room once, and casually took the grey "HIT/AIM" patch, a little circle that is supposed to be grey, and read it on each of the film prints we had. They were all over the place, over a stop too warm on some prints, so clearly there is a lot of shoddy work going on in the optical realm too.

 

 

What I am trying, unsuccessfully it seems, to convey and successfully argue to you is that 2K is great for some things (S35 to anamorphic blowups, SFX work, selective color correction, contrast reduction, and shot matching), but that optical or 3.2/4K is clearly still needed for others (anamorphic, films that aren't shot on 3-perf. or S35, films without extensive SFX but instead are driven by the script).

 

But yeah, I think the standards, for both printing & DI resolutions can and should be higher in the real world. The simple act of properly setting a replenishment rate and running control strips and calibrating printer lights on a regular basis should make this possible.

 

I still don't completely understand why you can see color shifts on reel changes, made from the same internegative no less. So, no I am not championing the optical realm of the "real world" either. The release prints these days are as bad as they ever were, maybe worse.

Edited September 23, 2009 by Karl Borowski

[K Borowski]

One final thing, and then I am done too: I would probably be in favor even of 2K DIs if they were to come up with a process to burn straight to release stock.

 

That would give a comparable resolution to traditionally contact-printed films.

 

The current situation is the worst of both worlds though, a 2K DI from the OCN burned out to neg film and copied three times really is the worst possible merging of the two technologies.

 

An engineer so in love of diagrams and charts that he finds them more compelling than seeing the results of his work in the theatres must have improvised the current system.

[John Holland]

Mike i think you may have gone a touch to far there ! Most cinema punters cant see the diference on the screen . More interested in what pile of vile food they have in their lap ! Its me you and people who really enjoy good looking images !! We all know 65/70mm isnt ever going to happen again . But the DI thing just isnt there yet quality wise , it will be , but not yet . anyway this has nothing to do with the original subject !! TV .

[Matthew W. Phillips]

For someone who I have to assume wants to find some serious success in the film industry, you certainly seem to be very bitter towards those who already have.

 

I'm not bitter...I'm just not the type to stroke someone's ego nor change my whole way of looking at things in life because someone else said something. I like film...end of story. I don't care if Barack Obama doesn't like it, I still do. Is that a bad thing? Should I totally bow down and worship Peter Jackson and Steven Soderbergh? Why would I? They haven't done anything for me...it's just ridiculous the level some people in this industry are elevated when, like Keith pointed out, it took many other talented people to make Peter Jackson look good for his pinnacle. Even Brian Dzyak stated in a thread that the only person on the set who doesn't have to have skill is the Director. I'm not saying Jackson doesn't have skills, just saying LOTR probably would've been good even if he hadn't.

[Matthew W. Phillips]

What part of Sac are you from? I'm from the Roseville area.

 

Peace

 

Dustin

 

I'm over near Madison and I-80. Despite the heavy tone we've been exchanging, we should hang out and maybe you can show me what your rig has to offer? I'd be happy to show you some film stuff I've done too...not as comparison but maybe for appreciation.

 

Let me know if you're interested.

 

Matthew

[Michael Most]

I'm NOT arguing against 2K, nor the control it allows. I'm arguing against putting entire films through it.

 

Except that ship has already sailed. DI is now the standard. A production generally has to get studio approval to do a photochemical finish. I think you need to look at this as two steps forward, one step back - but a step that will be followed in time by another 3 steps forward. Everything changes, and often improves, especially in the area of digital processing and the cost factors involved in it. What we do today is not going to be what we're doing 3 years from now. Your concerns will be addressed, you just need to give it some time. One could argue that CD's were a major step backwards from vinyl recordings, but many if not most of the complaints about early CD mastering were eventually dealt with as time went on and mastering engineers gained a better understanding of the medium, not to mention technical improvements that led to things like the DVD.

 

But yeah, I think the standards, for both printing & DI resolutions can and should be higher in the real world. The simple act of properly setting a replenishment rate and running control strips and calibrating printer lights on a regular basis should make this possible.

 

I still don't completely understand why you can see color shifts on reel changes, made from the same internegative no less. So, no I am not championing the optical realm of the "real world" either. The release prints these days are as bad as they ever were, maybe worse.

 

I think you're actually coming around to some things I was trying to point out earlier. The eventual answer to this is digital projection, but at a higher quality than you've seen up until this point. A 4K pipeline is a good answer, there might ultimately be other good answers. But taking the chemicals out of the equation when dealing with supplying thousands of screens with consistent images is ultimately a good thing, regardless of how one feels about film as an origination medium.

 

As for color shifts on reel changes, adjacent reels can be and usually are printed on different printers and developed in different soup. All film elements are balanced on <2000 foot reels for printing. The order in which they get printed can be very random, as can the time of day. As much control as large labs run, chemicals are inherently an inexact science. Minor fluctuations can and do result in noticeable shifts. That's just the way it is, and one of the many issues that, quite frankly, digital projection really does solve.

[Keith Walters]

Back in the early 1990s I saw a memo from Warner Bros concerning acquisition formats for their TV shows.

Basically, they didn't care overmuch how the final product was delivered, although they suggested an NTSC D-2 digital tape would be the least problematic.

What they were very firm on was that there had to be an archived 35mm camera negative suitable for re-scanning for any future HDTV format that might be adopted.

3-perf was acceptable, though they did warn producers about the risks of saving money on stock, only to waste the same amount or more by using a less-competitive non-standard format (which 3-perf pretty much was in those days).

Now, in a complete turnaround, Warner Bros seem to have a definite policy of originating their cinema release projects on HD, using the Genesis in particular. They have certainly done more than anybody else at any rate.

Which is going to amount to painting themselves into a resolution corner when and if 4K cinema becomes the mainstream. I suspect that alone might be one reason other companies haven't been so keen to "embrace digital". If you can be absolutely sure nobody is ever going to want to see your film after 2 years, well fine, but how can you be absolutely sure.

The current cinema infrastructure and session scheduling practices are based around the practical problems of handling huge rolls of film. When cinemas eventually move to all-electronic projection, whenever that happens, you will almost certainly find that session scheduling is going to be nothing like it is today, and there may well be a market for “re-runs”. Only instead of “Digitally Restored” the new buzzword might be: “Re-scanned for 4K”

But then, when 4K OLED screens start appearing in people’s homes, the cinema down the road will start advertising “Enjoy our breathtaking new 6K Experience!!”

[K Borowski]

But taking the chemicals out of the equation when dealing with supplying thousands of screens with consistent images is ultimately a good thing, regardless of how one feels about film as an origination medium.

 

As for color shifts on reel changes, adjacent reels can be and usually are printed on different printers and developed in different soup. All film elements are balanced on <2000 foot reels for printing. The order in which they get printed can be very random, as can the time of day. As much control as large labs run, chemicals are inherently an inexact science. Minor fluctuations can and do result in noticeable shifts. That's just the way it is, and one of the many issues that, quite frankly, digital projection really does solve.

 

Have you ever worked in a film lab? That simply isn't true.

 

The tolerances on film are very very very fine, +/- 1/4 stop. They are certainly much more exact with the first three steps than with the release printing step, but even here, there is no excuse for variance across reels, nor is there for variance from the same internegative.

 

It is not an inexact science, it is very very exact. With the same print and the same emulsion batch going through the soup, you have an even FINER amount of control possible than with negative film, because you can determine exactly how much exposure a given print has and determine a far more precise replenishement rate.

 

The "soup" you refer to, ECP, is an exact process calibrated to within a quarter degree Fahrenheit (0.14°C), if I recall correctly. It is standardized and they mix in 100-L (26-3/8 U.S. gal.) batches to minimize any inconsistencies that you'd get with smaller kit sizes.

 

So this notion of "chemical film" and "different chemicals" is simply, totally untrue. These are standardized processes done at standardized temperatures. Unless a lab gets totally greedy/lazy/stupid and doesn't run control strips to determine if any of the densities drift outside the acceptable +/- quarter-stop tolerance, this process is simple, controllable chemistry, not alchemy with "witches brews" and "uncontrollable chemicals."

 

One might say "Oh, well, it's a quarter stop of variance at each step," but since this is corrected on a step-by-step basis, or at least should be by balancing a simple friggin grey dot on the end of the roll there is nothing inexact about it. Even with 20+ Y.O densitometers you can easily balance to within +/- 1/30 of a stop if you are careful about it.

 

It's all a matter of A.) caring B.) knowing basic basic H.S. chemistry and pre-algebra and C.) knowing how to add and subtract. Really.

 

From what I had observed, at least the last time I was up in a projection room with a densitometer, was that as long as the prints were on the warm side (to keep people from looking sickly blue or green) anything went.

 

Let's get this straight: It has nothing to do with the inexact nature of the process, it has to do with apathy/ignorance of the operators and maybe the greed of the owners in churning this stuff out at quickly as possible.

[Paul Bruening]

The "soup" you refer to, ECP, is an exact process calibrated to within a quarter degree Fahrenheit (0.14°C), if I recall correctly. It is standardized and they mix in 100-L (26-3/8 U.S. gal.) batches to minimize any inconsistencies that you'd get with smaller kit sizes.

 

The larger part of the Kodak lab manual covers chemical testing and standardizing procedures. I don't know enough about chemistry to make a whole lot of sense of it. I've always followed the monkey-ready instructions on time, temp and replenishment. What I gather from it all is that it can be very precise. Whether any particular lab is using that part of the manual or is doing the monkey-ready stuff is probably kept behind closed doors.

[K Borowski]

What I gather from it all is that it can be very precise. Whether any particular lab is using that part of the manual or is doing the monkey-ready stuff is probably kept behind closed doors.

 

Well, Paul, it is a simple matter of plotting control strips. You measure the densities of the strips, which are pre-exposed and are correlated to a hypothetical standard (that even Kodak cannot achieve, if that makes you feel any better) which has D-min (minimum density - base density plus fog), LD (low density), HD (high density), D-max (maximum density), and Y-max (maximum density of just the yellow dye).

 

I honestly forget now with ECP if, being positive it's a blue dot or a yellow dot. Know it is yellow for ECN.

 

Anyway, you plot base fog (D-min.) for proper fixation, LD (which gives you your speed and measures developer activity ), HD-LD (which gives you your contrast and again checks activity and concentration), and D-max-Y-max, which tests for retained silver due to improper bleaching..

 

You do this for all three colors, red, green, and blue.

 

There used to be an independent bleach test strip way back in the day, but not anymore.

 

 

It sounds intimidating, but when you are just comparing from strip to strip and to the standard, it becomes rather simple. 0.30 is a stop. If you go plus or minus .08 (roughly a quarter stop) or I think it is .05 for base fog, you are out of aim. The key is to make corrections before hand, gradually.

 

As long as you mix correctly and have high-throughput, like the big labs, and big processing tanks, this stuff actually gets very easy to control to within 3-4 points (thirtieths of an F/stop).

 

So the notion that "big labs" have such a hard time keeping such big processes and large amounts of film in control are actually the exact opposite of the truth.

 

With large volumes of film, inconsistencies are averaged out over large volumes of different prints. You can test for individual emulsion batches and more-easily tailor replenishment rates to even a specific movie or a specific reel when you talk on the order of making 1500 or 1000 copies of each one.

[Michael Most]

Anyway, you plot base fog (D-min.) for proper fixation, LD (which gives you your speed and measures developer activity ), HD-LD (which gives you your contrast and again checks activity and concentration), and D-max-Y-max, which tests for retained silver due to improper bleaching..

 

Well, clearly you have a lab background - which actually explains an awful lot about the views you've expressed here.

 

I worked in a lab for the last 3 years - not directly in the lab, but in a combined lab/electronic facility run by someone with about 25 years of lab experience, from whom I learned an awful lot. But I've also been around this business for a very long time, most of it spent dealing with film, and over all of those years I learned a few things, one of which is that there's theory and there's reality. I worked with some of the best labs in our industry (I started out at MGM, so MGM Labs was where I picked up most of my earliest film experience) and although I never ran the lines, I did talk an awful lot to those who did. And one of the things I learned over years of watching dailies, answer prints, and release prints - as well as more recent experience with DIs - is that regardless of the control, regardless of how well it's done, the reality is that there are always variations. If I asked for a new print on one reel of a 5 reel television show there was always just as good a chance that the reprint would come out a bit red or a bit yellow or a bit blue compared to the original print. Not necessarily night and day differences, but enough that if I A/B'd them you could easily see the difference. You can talk about the exact nature of film lab science all you want, but the evidence that I've seen over the years says otherwise, at least regarding print processes (I always found negative processing to be pretty consistent).

 

So no, I wasn't just guessing and I wasn't making it up. The statements that I've made are based on a lot of time in screening rooms and a lot of answer prints. And most of them in some of the best labs in the world. And I stand by my statement that photochemical print processes - while very good - are not perfect. And they're not as consistent as digital processes can be.

[Paul Bruening]

No, Karl. What you're referring to is closer to the monkey-ready stuff. Do you even have a Kodak H-24 manual? "Module 3, Analytical Procedures" is the kind of stuff that only real chemists can use. You know, the mad scientist stuff with beakers and smarts.

[K Borowski]

If I asked for a new print on one reel of a 5 reel television show there was always just as good a chance that the reprint would come out a bit red or a bit yellow or a bit blue compared to the original print. Not necessarily night and day differences, but enough that if I A/B'd them you could easily see the difference. You can talk about the exact nature of film lab science all you want, but the evidence that I've seen over the years says otherwise, at least regarding print processes (I always found negative processing to be pretty consistent).

 

Sure, no two emulsions are exactly the same. Films are constantly changing, even the base. So, while it is probably impossible to match exactly the color if you were to reprint one reel of a movie, when you are making them all at once, from the same emulsion in the same batch of chemistry using the same light bulb running the same batch of control strips, with the same red, green, and blue filters, with the same operator. . .

 

I think you can see, too, how it is amazing how *close* they can get one reel's reprints considering each of those variables.

 

Even with all that in mind, if you were to tell someone to match a reel, they should be able to do it to within a fifteenth of a stop. But, each of those variables has to be accounted for. Computer calibration of processors and equipment has actually made accounting for all of that quite easy, believe it or not.

 

Problem is, a lot of people want to get replacement reels in a hurry. Why not just have the whole show re-done if you lose a reel of film, or get a different print?

 

 

Again, though, it's apples and oranges wanting a replacement reel a week or a year after the rest of a print run was done than, say, getting different colors the same day. The former is understandable, maybe even expected; the latter is not.