Motion Picture Films

[randall_pukalo]

I see Kodak and Fuji have some interesting motion picture films, such as a

high resolution 50 speed daylight, and 500 speed tungsten. I am interested in

trying a few rolls of each. Question is, how difficult and expensive is it to

bulk load (I would have to buy "short ends" and load into canisters myself),

and where/how much to get it processed?

Also, is the general quality and resolution of these films superior to still

films?

[craig_shearman1]

Bulk loading is easy with a Waton, Lloyd, etc. bulk loader and empty cartridges. But all the standard bulk loaders are built for 100-foot rolls of film and movie film usually comes in rolls of either 400 feet or 1000 feet. You can buy "short ends" from some suppliers that might fit into a bulk loader. The bigger issue is processing. Most movie film is ECN-2 (not sure if that's the latest, but it was the process at one time) which is different than C-41 even though it's still color negative. Can't really process it yourself because it has an antihalation "remjet" backing that has to be removed in a movie processing machine and will gunk up minilab processors or tanks and reels at home. Seattle Filmworks and Dale Labs used to sell movie film already loaded into 35mm cartridges and processed it. I think Seattle is out of business but Dale may still be processing and or selling the film. If they are, that's the easiest way to give it a try. As for quality, I'm not sure that movie film is necessarily any better than still film. Movie film gets projected 50 feet wide, so you would expect that it would have to be extremely sharp. But remember that there are 24 pictures going by each second, and you're viewing them from 50 feet away. Consequently, you never get a good look at any one frame. When you do see a blowup from a movie frame (as opposed to a still photo shot on the set) you'll see that it's usually pretty grainy and soft. It's basically half frame to start with, since the film runs through the camera vertically and it four perforations high as opposed to horizontally and eight performations long like in an SLR. Shutter speeds on a movie camera are between 1/30 and 1/60 of a second so fast action is never frozen on the film. It all blurs together with the persistence of vision principle that makes movies work, so you never notice on the screen that it isn't really sharp regardless of how good the film stock might be. Short answer is that I don't think movie film is going to give you anything you can't get out of still film, and that playing with it is a lot of trouble.

[gene_e._mccluney]

I have always understood that the color negative movie film has a anti-haliation coating

(rem-jet) that had to be manually removed, however, there are some b/w movie stocks

available, and I wonder if they too have this rem-jet coating?

 

McCluney Phtot

[larrydressler]

Gene

 

The B&W films do not have the remjet bacling. I use Kodak 5222 Double-X film. It is a fine film and the Plus-X movie film is just like regular Plus-X .

 

Larry

[helenbach]

<a href="http://www.dalelabs.com/">Dale Labs</a> in Hollywood, Florida still process ECN-2 film in short lengths. They do it in batches, so turnround time varies. It is $4 for dev only, other services are available.<p>

 

Best, Helen

[helenbach]

There's a recent thread <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00IwNM">here</a> that includes info about home processing and removal of Rem-Jet.<p>

 

Best, Helen

[edgar_njari]

Sorry but what Craig said is not true.

 

A frame of cinema print really tells you nothing about motion picture film. It usually holds about 20% of sharpness and resolution of the original negative because its a 4th generation copy, and is very grainy. Has really bad colors, and contrast etc. Usually its a piece of crap, but its good enough for Hollywood.

Original negative on the other hand is just as high quality as still film. And the latest generation of motion picture films has actually been better than still film, but now new Portra films will be updated to the same technology that was used in motion pictures for about 5 years or so providing the same fine grain as the vision2 line of motion picture films.

[edgar_njari]

But just so you don't have to believe my word

 

Here is a frame blowup from a frame of footage shot in 1989, on Kodak 5245 50D motion picture film.

 

The area blown up here is ONLY about 15mm wide (its a crop), so don't compare it to a 35mm still frame which is many times larger.

I've seen 36x24 frames that look like that or worse.

Consider that, and also consider that this is almost 18 years old film technology and that modern motion picture stock (the new 5201) is

finer in grain and sharper than this one and has cleaner colors and crossover.

 

http://free-os.t-com.hr/redmist/5245EXR.jpg

[Tim_Lookingbill]

The many years I've gone to the movie theater, I've never seen

any thing that looked that good and sharp.

 

The DVD's I view on my computer are leaps and bounds better in

sharpness and color rendering than what I've seen at the many

modern cinema 10 movieplex's I've been to as far back as the

first Star Wars release.

[edgar_njari]

Need I explain it all over again?

[terence_spross1]

Actually, Edgar, Craig said in has 2nd to last sentence: <I>so you never notice on the screen that it isn't really sharp regardless of how good the film stock might be.</i> So you are both in agreement that watching movie film isn't definitive about its quaility though your lists of reasons were different. Kodak has always made change incrementally to film, many are improvements, some started in motion picture film and others started in still film. These changes then sometimes made their way to other films. Anyway, I'm not convinced that the Portra of today came entirely from innovations in the Eastman movie film. <p><p> The largest difference in quality of motion picture film and still film is the allowable amount and size of imperfections. The movie film market can tolerate an imperfection (dust, coating imperfections,etc) on frames more often than still film that is going to be individually scrutinized. So when the process isn't perfect (and what is ever perfect) the person who makes the decision to scrap or not(read $$$) applies different criteria to films for both markets.<p><p>That being said I was pleased with when I processed 5247 (years ago) and did not find flaws in it. <p> <p> By the way, Randall, I had no problem removing the anti-halation coat after a standard C41 tank process. At the time I was hand spooling in the darkroom, without a bulk loader, so if you use that method, longer rolls won't be a problem either.(Use cotton gloves).

[gene_e._mccluney]

The reason that DVD's sometimes are much better than film projected in a theatre is this:

For a DVD, the digitization of the film is made from a earlier generation part, sometimes

even the original camera negative. The film you see in a theatre is a 4th generation away

from the camera negative, and is printed on ultra-high-speed printers that are intended

for speed and not ultimate quality. There is still an improvement in the final 35mm print

the theatre gets, if the original camera negative is improved.

[edgar_njari]

"Anyway, I'm not convinced that the Portra of today came entirely from innovations in the Eastman movie film."

 

I didn't say anything like that.

 

I said that the new Portra we are all waiting for might have that 2-electron sensitisation technology which was present in motion pictures (but not in still film yet) for some time now which gives visibly finer grain when compared to regular T-grain. (which was used in EXR and Vision stocks)

 

In reality, R and D is done on both fields and every new invention in one field is carried into the other with some minor delay.

 

But in the end, both of these films take advantage of the same technologies.

 

I'm just responding to the uninformed stereotype (though I did seem to have misread Craigs post) that motion picture film is different from still film in quality because its a bit cheaper (though not as cheap as some think) and because cinema prints are grainy and look faded and crapy.

Cinema prints are prepared with the same "care" as food in fast food restoraunts. In other words, you don't wanna know how.

The film doesn't even stop to take an exposure of one frame, it just rolls in a continuous fashion, that reduces sharpness.

Plus its a 4th generation copy. And depends on the quality of the IP and the IN.

For example, someone mentioned Star Wars. Well there is information that the internegatives for Episode 1 were a bit thin (underexposed)

for some reason and that prints lacked saturation and contrast because of that.

Judging MP film by looking at prints is like judging still film by looking at minilab prints.

The quality of both are on the same level in their own domains.

 

The myth was born in 70's when people used 5254 and printed it on ECP print film then complained how it fades.

ECP print film was never ment to last more than a couple of years, unless you freeze it. Its no wonder all their slides turned magenta.

 

 

And there is one more important thing in the end.

 

There is some crossover "mismatch" between still negatives and MP negatives, meaning that the contrast of different color layers is not the same, which might results in crossover issues in prints, when you print still film to MP print film or when you print MP negative to still papers.

There is some blue-yellow offset in shadows and highlights because of that.

I don't know why is there a difference, but both still papers and cinema print films are calibrated to compensate for that, and are not easily mixed.

To get perfect crossover and color balance without using a scanner and photoshop it is best to use still film with papers and MP film with MP print film. But of course if you are scanning you can easily correct it.

I think that the result of that is that when you print a MP stock on paper you get yellowish highlights and blueish shadows. And its vice-versa when you use still film for motion picture printing.

[stric]

Photography is truth. Cinema is truth 24 times a second.

Le Petit Soldat

[helenbach]

Yeah. Theatre is life, cinema is art and television is furniture.

 

But apart from that, MP film will soon be the only source of tungsten-balanced negative film in 35 mm, if that is useful to you. It is to me, because I use 5229 (500T) film in a still camera quite a lot, and I appreciate its ability to cope with a wide scene brightness range.

 

As far as the difference between what you see in a movie theatre and what the film is capable of goes: Seeing a first-generation print, even a one-light transfer, is a revelation. It's a shame that we don't see that quality in movie theatres.

 

Best, Helen

[leicaglow]

Also Randall, Do you remember 10-20 years ago when some outfits offered the amazing service of slides and prints from the same film? I can't remember the name of it, but one of the biggest was in Seattle. They simply cut 35mm motion picture film down to useable lengths and sold it as a special service. I was never impressed with the quality of the material, but some swore by it. They were awfully contrasty I know.

[edgar_njari]

Making cinema prints, well slide films too, was always a challenge, because you had to keep a balance between getting enough density to make true black on screen (specially big cinema screen) and having the image have reasonable contrast. Mostly getting true black was the priority, so cinema prints always were a bit contrasty.

 

There was never really a way to get both things: a smoother contrast of video transfers, and bullet proof black on screen.

 

It's easier on paper, since you don't have to project direct light through it.

 

Though good projection has always revealed more shadow detail and put the contrast back into perspective, just like you always get more shadow detail from Velvia with a drum scan than with a flatbed.

A grocery-store flatbed with will always give you a crappy faded contrasty scan, while a drum scan is going to reveal a whole new world of detail in those shadows and give life to colors.

[bill_tuthill]

A friend of mine tried the Fuji 500T equivalent, and reported that

in general he got better results from a DSLR with custom whitepoint.

Could be that ease and quality of scanning were his problem, because

Edgar's 17-year-old example looks convincing, and I can appreciate

the blue-cast skin tone that moviemakers seem to love so much.

[edgar_njari]

Bill

 

The example I posted is not a good reference of color balance and contrast because, it is a rendering I made myself in photoshop from a log 10-bit cineon file. Since the file was scanned "as is on film" from the negative, without print corrections of contrast, I had to invent print contrast and color myself.

So don't judge color and contrast in that picture, it was more of a reference of resolution and grain

 

As for the Fuji 500T. Are you sure it wasn't 500D?

Reala 500D has to be the the grainiest motion picture currently in production. Unless you were refering to color and contrast and not grain.

 

You couldn't really work without either a custom profile or manual adjustment

Most of the scans of motion picture stock on still scanners I've seen so far had twisted colors because of the difference I mentioned a few posts back.

Don't quote me, but I think motion picture film has lower blue-yellow layer contrast producing crossover issues when using still scanners and papers.

For best results one would have to start with a raw scan, capturing the full range then making something out of it in photoshop (removing mask, adjusting contrast etc.)

[edgar_njari]

Here is a simulation of how the same frame would have looked like scanned on a still scanner using profiles for still film

 

http://free-os.t-com.hr/redmist/5245EXR1.jpg

 

This is just a simulation to illustrate what I usually the case when mixing these two worlds.

[craig_shearman1]

Edgar does make a good point that what you see in the theater is multiple generations from the original, so it's inherently worse than whatever might have been on the original negative. I don't contend that there's anything wrong with the film stock used for movies. My argument was largely that with the way movies are shot and projected, it's more an illusion of sharpness on the theater screen than actual sharpness, so no one should think that movie film is inherently sharper than still film or that the movie guys are getting something we can't get. Kodak and Fuji are constantly working to improve their movie film just as with still film, so at any given point one might be slightly ahead of the other in the latest R&D successes. BTW, I studied feature film production at NYU for two years, so I've worked with both still films and motion picture film.

[ted_marcus1]

<i>There is some crossover "mismatch" between still negatives and MP negatives, meaning that the contrast of different color layers is not the same, which might results in crossover issues in prints, when you print still film to MP print film or when you print MP negative to still papers. There is some blue-yellow offset in shadows and highlights because of that. I don't know why is there a difference, but both still papers and cinema print films are calibrated to compensate for that, and are not easily mixed.</i>

 

<p>Before I crossed over to the Dark (digital) Side of the Force, I sent my color negative film to Dale Labs for printing as slides on MP film. The "mismatched" slides always looked very good, and I never noticed any odd colors in the highlights, shadows, or anywhere else. As far as I know, they use a straightforward optical printing process with no digital intervention. How do they get around the "crossover issues"?

[bill_tuthill]

It was Fuji Eterna 500T that my friend used. Kodak Vision2 500T

is probably better, according to what I see on the web. Here is the beautiful portrait Edgar posted with more-normal skin tones.

Seems like RGB e9b9a9 is somewhat typical for suntanned Caucasian

skin, but this subject's skin looks paler.

[edgar_njari]

Ted, if you had better luck, what can I say, good for you.

The example I posted is an exaggeration, the effect is mild.

 

This is not something that comes from theory, just a practical observation I had. Not something Kodak says so or something you find in manuals. It's just what I've seen people come up with when using MP film. Allthough I do remember mr. Pytlak did confirm it once on one of the forums. But that's the only Kodak input I ever heard on this issue.

 

What negative film did you use, and what MP print film was it?

[edgar_njari]

Bill. Quite a few DP's I've had a chance to talk to actually say that Eterna 500T has slightly finer grain than vision2, which is kind of funny because vision2 was such big news when it came out.

 

By the way. The "portrait" is a frame from the test footage for 5245.

It was shot for test by Kodak in 1989 when 50D first came out.

Now it serves as the famous D-LAD test image.