35mm Issues which HD doesnt have ?

[Jay Gannon]

It's amazing the difference a climate controlled underground former limestone mine can make.

That is true, but until recently most reels we're in humid horrible vaults.

 

[Stephen Williams]

I know several filmmakers who have lost entire rolls of film by accidental exposure.
)

Interestingly I know of 10 rolls of 35mm film that got opened by customs due to the 'do not xray' stickers. The edges if the film were flashed but the normal image were fine, a couple of shots on 1 short end roll required slight reframing, thats all. s16 would be more of an issue.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Most planes are shielded against high altitude radiation, so unless your flying in a small private jet with an unshielded cargo area its fine.

You mean you expect me to fly COMMERCIAL!?

Just kidding....

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I think what's more important in such an essay would be what the exclusive advantages and disadvantages of each system are, not what errors might occur where. You can avoid problems like hairs in gate etc., but you can't avoid that the biggest common roll size is 1000' and that you have to develop and print/scan it to see the results.

Doug Underdahl's posting on page one is a very good starting point!

Indeed.

One time had a camera with a gate that moved off-center (why I'm not sure, MY AC could tell you) and so the frame was off-kilter for the last few hours of the shoot, which covered a huge, expensive set-up with dozens of child extras.. In digital, weird things can happen, but you see them right away and worst that can happen, in my experience, is you lose 1 take.

Of course you might drop your hard drive, just like you might drop you film can, or make a dress out of your film negative for your girlfriend. At this level of you might also potentially give the finger to a traffic cop along the way, put your finger in a light socket, or do any number of other things that would result in your never making it to set at all, rendering the reliability of your filming tools moot.

Seriously though, although in thousands of clips our Red drive has only faltered once, making 4 seconds of one clip unusable (not sure why it did that) if you want the reliability of film then you could rent a whole bunch of 16 GIG cards (run about as long as a film reel) , and never dump them until safely by a computer with several discs.

 

[Stephen Williams]

Indeed.

One time had a camera with a gate that moved off-center (why I'm not sure, MY AC could tell you) and so the frame was off-kilter for the last few hours of the shoot, .

Hi,

I suspect it was the ground glass not the gate that moved, however your 1st assistant should have spotted it when he checked the gate, looking through the lens port as the mirror moves accross the frme you can see the ground glass relative to the film.

 

[Dominik Muench]

great food for thought in here, thanks heaps guys

 

[chuck colburn]

Actually the 1st AC is responsible for focus. Which is why you camera/lens test before thr production starts. The operator may or may not see a blown split.

 

[Kwan Khan]

Nice thread...

 

[Philip Allister Anderson]

Just wanted to throw a quick comment about focus. I was taught by old-school guys and they made sure I didn't look at a monitor to pull focus. Your eyes see 3d and the monitor doesn't. Secondly when you are in mediums or close-ups you can't see the actors feet and hips in the monitor, which provide important clues as to when the actor is getting ready to move. Thirdly to save time you should be getting marks off of stuff in the set so when the actor decides to change stuff up you can compensate without spending all day putting marks on the ground. You can't see how an actor fits in the space through a monitor. If you aren't pulling focus by looking at the actor you'll buzz all the time. It's tough to see a 2" lean in a monitor. Monitors should only be used to confirm you got focus and check framing when things are hectic.

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Rackover, lens cap, lab scratch

Rackover, lens cap, lab scratch

With a Rackover camera such as an NC or BNC you can forget to rack it over and shoot blank film, you don't know until you get the workprint back!

With cameras that use a side parallax finder like an Eyemo, filmo, or non-RX Bolex you can shoot with the lens cap on and not know since the viewfinder looks fine, something that cannot happen with an electronic through the lens finder.

Lab Scratch, when you take the film to the lab you hope the only scratches on it will be from the camera, but when you go to pick it up and they tell you "there's no charge your film was scratched in the lab", you know what the difference between keeping track of your digital files yourself and sending your film shots to other's hands means...

 

[John Brawley]

You can take most of these faults and apply them to RED ( or any other camera). It just depends what kind of bias you want to skew with it.

Film
-Hairs/dust in the gate

Fingerprints on the sensor

-Video tap does not show exactly what the images captured really look like

LUTs like redcolour won't show you exactly what the images captured really look like.

-Gathers dust particles at various times during the capture, post and display

Sensor dust shows up during exposure part at least.

-Cameras need more regular maintenance

(this is just not really true)

-If the film can is dropped there's a good chance the film will be entirely or atleast partially damaged but you won't know until you develop it

If a hard drive is dropped theres a good chance the film will be entirely lost. Not really true either. I've dropped cans with no affect at all. You can bruise the film I suppose, but I haven't seen it happen.

-Film stock costs more

True enough.

-The film can be damaged at several points during it's life- Loading into magazine, threading into camera, while the camera is running, unloading the magazine, improperly labeled developing instructions, improperly read developing instructions, it can tear during the developing process and cook too longer thus changing exposure, it can break/melt during theatrical projection in the projector, and of course all along the way any improper handling can add dust/scratches

The data can be damaged or lost at several points during the production and post production process. Mis-processed qts, wrong colourspace or iso applied, hard drives not verified, hard drives failing, data corrupting, accidental erasure.

-Accidental over/under exposure without knowing until seeing dailies, this is a huge problem if you can't reshoot the shot

Accidental over or under exposure can still occur on a red. Just check constant is there an instruction video on red expire threads here.

-Can't always use the monitor to see if focus is properly set

Very bad practice to use a monitor for focus anyway.

-On day exterior shots heavy ND's make it difficult to see through the viewfinder (this is more of an OFV problem than a film problem, but because all film cameras have one and only a couple digital cameras I thought I'd include it)

On day exteriors heavy nds make it difficult to not have ir contamination.

-Cold weather makes the film brittle and it can, again, get damaged

Cold weather makes the RED viewfinder go crazy.

-If light leaks into the eyepeice it can expose the film and cause problems
-If light leaks into the eyepeice it causes a double image on the monitor which frustrates the people watching it

If light leaks into the viewfinder you can melt the eyepiece.

That's all I can think of at the moment, hope that helps. There's obviously precautions and workarounds to solve most of those problems but those wouldn't answer your question of what issues CAN ARISE.

And of course the service one mentioned elsewhere makes me laugh. I'm on a show that had a RED that developed a very noisy fan. So the camera had to take a VERY long trip from Melbourne AUSTRALIA all the way back to LA for a cheap fan because no ones allowed to open them up.

This wasn't meant to be a serious attempt to refute the list, just that it's easy to skew any list of negatives the same way if you're creative. Plus theres more...Improper black balance. Fixed pattern noise. Oplf flares. Lack of optical viewfinder. Battery life. Hand hold ability. Dead pixels. Thermal / back focus issues. There's a huge list of both sides of these silly pissing matches.

jb

 

[Harry Clark]

Well said, John. Thank you.
Enlightened cinematographers must by virtue be somewhat format-agnostic. Others in the film business who hope to have longevity should be too...
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Stephen Williams]

With a Rackover camera such as an NC or BNC you can forget to rack it over and shoot blank film, you don't know until you get the workprint back!
...

Hi,

Usually there is a rackover switch so the camera will not run, Setting the shutter angle to zero, not putting film in the camera & not turning the camera on. Also leaving the camera running because it's silent & the film runs out as you shoot take 2. The thing is any one who makes those errors on a regular basis did not survive in the business, now they do if thats progress......

Driving cars & flying planes, there are things that can go wrong, cameraman always had a mental checklist, Focus, Shutter Angle, Camera Speed, apeture & rack over BEFORE starting the camera, it worked sucessfully for over 50 years even shooting NEWS!

 

[Dan Hudgins]

Factory

Factory

Usually there is a rackover switch so the camera will not run,

As they left the factory the Mitchell NC and HighSpeed did not have a saftey switch on the rackover. You only need to forget once to lose a shot, something that would not happen with an electronic viewfinder since the driector and others would be watching it.

 

[Stephen Williams]

As they left the factory the Mitchell NC and HighSpeed did not have a saftey switch on the rackover. You only need to forget once to lose a shot, something that would not happen with an electronic viewfinder since the driector and others would be watching it.

I worked on a downshooter that had the rack-over switch removed intentially, any new cameraman had to use this camera for a few days. A very useful way to select the people who could do their job reliably & were worth hiring.