"Club Penton" - Ask questions to Hollywood insider "Penton-Man"

[Jeff Kleist]

Well, maybe they'll give us Jurassic Park or Star Wars in the meantime. Oh wait, let's wait for Jurassic Park IV in 2013 and until 2020 to see if George ever does that third "tangential" Star Wars trilogy he mentioned back in 1979.

Well, one of those should be sooner than that

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Well, one of those should be sooner than that

Theatrical moves like JPIV? Or you talkin' the Blu of JP, Star Wars?

[FourToedStatue]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Harrison Ford said they have their MacGuffin for Indy 5 and they're scripting. I'd count more on 2011-ish when the movie comes out (Summer 2011 would be suicide though, it's jam packed already)

I hope that 5 is darker and takes place before Kingdom.

[Vincent Pereira]

Originally Posted by FourToedStatue

I hope that 5 is darker and takes place before Kingdom.

They could use that de-aging CGI that they used with Brad Pitt in BENJAMIN BUTTON. I was pretty blown away with those results.

Vincent

[Jeff Kleist]

It's going to take place in the 60s

Hopefully Shia will have OD'd on something

[FourToedStatue]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

It's going to take place in the 60s

Hopefully Shia will have OD'd on something

Hope the Macguffin is biblical at least.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by FourToedStatue

Hope the Macguffin is biblical at least.

Why?

I don't recall Sankara Stones in the Bible.

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

If you miss focus then the shot is screwed up period. No amount of Photoshop work in post is going to fix it.

The blurring that occurs in a defocused image can actually be mathematically inverted to some extent, and there is software that implements this process known as deconvolution. From the examples I've seen, it can certainly work well for individual still images, but it may be that it hasn't yet been made to work well with movie scenes where the degree of mis-focus may vary from frame to frame.

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Well informed movie watchers should realize from the get-go that a lot of Minority Report is diffused (mostly with black net) so it won’t be super-sharp and in fact, there will be halation with the bright imagery. Unless this post provides a heads-up to some, I wouldn’t be surprised if some folks misinterpret the halation for edge enhancement, esp. when it occurs around actors’ heads in one scene I’m familiar with.

Has the advent of Blu-ray caused people to photograph movies differently in the first place, due to knowing that techniques such as these may cause the image to fall below people's expectations when it eventually reaches Blu-ray?

[SpaceDog]

Originally Posted by FourToedStatue

Hope the Macguffin is biblical at least.

I do hope it's more religious dogma/mythology and less scifi/aliens.

I wish there wouldn't be so much of the Mutt, but I get the impression that Lucas/Spielberg are enamored with him.

[FourToedStatue]

Originally Posted by PeterTHX

Why?

I don't recall Sankara Stones in the Bible.

At least supernatural.

[Penton-Man]

To the four industry-aspiring members who PM’ed me for the specs of a fairly recent feature film boasting a 4k digital intermediate workflow –

I’ve taken the time to delete the title of the film, the filmmakers, and other privy information, so I could post it publicly rather than responding with a copy and paste to all four of you, individually. If you have any questions as to what something means, best to ask Bobby, Anthony, RAH, Jeff, or some of the other knowledgeable club members, as I doubt I’ll be checking back in again.

Here it is –

The digital intermediate for _______ was made _______at _______ in _____ Calif.
Original camera negative (mostly Kodak 5218) was assembled as lab rolls for dailies telecine, and these rolls were the source of the Dl scans. Camera format was Super 35mm 2.40 common top (.945x.394). Please reference the master ________ framing chart in verifying the framing of all versions. Scanning for the Dl was on a Spirit 4k at 4096 x 3112 resolution to .dpx, 10-bit log files. Visual effects were delivered to ____ as data.

Color correction was done on a FilmLight Baselight EIGHT, viewed on a
_____ 2k DLP projector in the DCDM_XYZ_239 color space. Final
rendered 4k files of the 2.40 data from the Baselight was formatted for
4096x1742 (matching .866x.732. outside the projectable image area
of .825x.690). including all color correction.

FILM OUTS:
Film out was done on ArriLaser recorders, anamorphically scaled in-
camera to 4096x3484, recording to Kodak 2242 Estar intermediate stock
for printing on Kodak Vision 2383. Printing was done to LAD aims
109-106-103 using the 470 LAD patch.

Multiple original digital negatives were output for North American release printing. An additional negative was used solely to create photochemical IPs/INs for printing outside of the U.S.; this negative should be considered the "Gold Standard" film element for _______due to its pristine condition.
Black and white YCM separation protection masters were made to
Kodak 2238. full-aperture, texted, as negative. A separate reel was made of textless shots.

----------

VIDEO/DIGITAL CINEMA VERSIONS:
The date in the Baselight EIGHT was also rendered to 4k lull aperture
(4096x3112) files, which were then used as the source for all home video and digital cinema versions.

The home video versions were created in a ___ _____ in the
SMPTE Rec 709 color space (from the film color space of the source
files), and rendered out to 2k (2048x1556) .dpx files. The 2k data was
then transferred to Sony HDCAM SR 4:4:4 tapes for distribution. Two versions were made: 2.40 letterbox within 16x9, and 1.33. Per the specific request of the Director ________, there is no 1.78 version. Note that for the 1.33 version there are many split-screen optical effects that are letterboxed.

The DCP for distribution was created at ______ to the DCI v1.0 spec. DCDM TIFF 4k XYZ TIFF flies were generated to create
the JPEG2000 MXF-wrapped files, along with the MXF-wrapped
Broadcast Wave 5.1 audio files.

----------

DATA BACKUPS:
Each of the three versions of the data - 4k formatted for 2.40 film out; 4k full aperture; 2k full aperture (for Rec 709)- was backed up to two sets of LTO 3 data tapes. Recording was done in the tar format, per SMPTE recommended practices, with one tar per frame.

The names of the files follow this basic syntax:
O13_nk_format_colorspace_Rnn_yymmdd_ccn.ffffff.dpx ,
where: There is a block for resolution (2k or 4k), framing ("Scope" for an anamorphic image on the Academy center, "Full Ap" for full aperture as in the camera negative) and color space (RGB or 709); Reels are
expressed as two-digit numbers with leading zeroes; the date of the
render, with the number after the "cc" being the color correction version.
The six-digit frame number begins with 000000 on the "Picture Start"
frame in the leader, with 000192 being the first frame of picture in the reel (corresponding to 12+00/01:00:08:00 in normal film-speak).

Thus, for the first frame of Reel 1:
O13_4k_Scope_RGB_R01_070415_cc8.000192.dpx
O13_4k_FullAp_RGB_R01_070415_cc8.000192.dpx
O13_2k_FullAp_709_R01_070415_cc8.000192.dpx

Because all of these versions were done under the control of
Director _______ no one in the future should endeavor to conform and re-scan the film negative and re-color time the film to potentially take advantage of any improvements in scanning and digital intermediate technology. His decisions were rendered onto the film-outs, and the various data and video versions, and should be considered definitive and final.

[Penton-Man]

To the aspiring cinematographer who asked me which TV shows are still being shot on film –

Here’s a fairly comprehensive list of shows that are ‘still’ being shot on film……and by ‘still’ I mean this upcoming season which is to start shortly (unless, some have been cancelled which I’m unaware of, as I only ‘track’ my favorites). They’re in no particular order, other than the initial few in each category being my subconscious favorites and easy to innumerate first. And no, I don’t care if imdb or any other online consumer data base claims otherwise………they’re probably either wrong or out of date.

16mm –
Friday Night Lights, Chuck, Burn Notice, Scrubs, Monk, Crash, The Border, The Middle, Saving Grace, Degrassi, One Tree Hill, Heartland, Eastwick, In Plain Sight, Greek, Men of a Certain Age, Eastbound and Down, Lincoln Heights.

35mm – (that would universally be 3 perf, or in the rare instance, 2 perf like for Ghost Whisperer) -
Lost, “24”, The Mentalist, House, Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes, Fringe, C.S.I., Criminal Minds, 30 Rock, Ghost Whisperer, Desperate Housewives, Nip Tuck, Private Practice, Boardwalk Empire, Beastly, Cold Case (the flashbacks are 35mm), Big Love, The Closer, Glee, Two and a Half Men, Entourage, Mad Men, True Blood, Breaking Bad, Castle, Kings, Flashpoint, Brothers and Sisters, Hung, Copper.

By my memory, pretty much all other TV shows which are not listed above, are shot with digital cameras for this upcoming season.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by NutsAboutPS3

Has the advent of Blu-ray caused people to photograph movies differently in the first place, due to knowing that techniques such as these may cause the image to fall below people's expectations when it eventually reaches Blu-ray?

With the exception of intended direct to video productions, I don’t think so.

Filmmakers make films primarily for the BIG screen, i.e. theatrical presentation. The driving force that will modify practices in the principal photography and post production will be the continued expansion of Digital Cinema theaters in contradistinction to those that are still exhibiting by using film projectors.

[Jeff Kleist]

It's worth noting that Dollhouse WAS film but went digital this year to save money in their new lean and mean format.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by abintra

I hope not. I know there are at least a handful of people that greatly appreciate the knowledge you, and others, share.

Back in the day, I felt this place was a Band of Brothers in terms of “Company” strength as well as camaraderie. Now, the regulars of Easy Company have been proportionately whittled down to the size of a squad and what’s left of us are plagued with a lot of replacements……..and not many of the ‘good’ kind who truly desire to learn from more experienced professionals like at the beginning of Band of Brothers, but replacements of the type that exercise reckless and poor judgment where they shoot first and think later like the soldier *under the influence* at the end of Band of Brothers.

For example, I returned to read that Gladiator thread for just a few moments and what do I find – at least one post back-stabbing another Insider (Bill Hunt), which thankfully at least, has been moderator deleted by now.

I don’t have the enthusiasm to re-up for another Tour of Duty after just the latest in an ongoing line of aggravated unpleasantness and downright dismissive ness.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

, as I doubt I’ll be checking back in again.

.

Seriously?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

It's worth noting that Dollhouse WAS film but went digital this year to save money in their new lean and mean format.

There is more than one example of that having occured recently.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by db01

Penton, I understand how you feel, and just would like to say that although I do not visit this thread very often, nor do I post here. I have the utmost respect for you Sir! As well as for all of the Insiders here that generously give their time and insightful knowledge to all those who ask. For the ones who disrespectfully take the expert opinons and statements given by You and the other Insiders, and argue their pointless banter as if they are the experts, I say shame on you, and grow up! Best Regards, D.

Thank you.
I feel we are currently in the midst of the *twitter generation*, exemplified by absolutely no impulse control…….when in fact, there should really be a dnr (do not rite) filter between some members’ brains and their typing fingers.

Dr. Nancy and her guest psychologist sum it up best here and basically summarize my feelings on the matter………
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31388323/#32861816

[Batman1980]

FWIW Penton-Man, you're one of my favourite members, I've always respected you and your opinions and inside information you give us on this site. You will definitely be missed by me if you decide to depart from these forums.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Back in the day, I felt this place was a Band of Brothers in terms of “Company” strength as well as camaraderie. Now, the regulars of Easy Company have been proportionately whittled down to the size of a squad and what’s left of us are plagued with a lot of replacements……..and not many of the ‘good’ kind who truly desire to learn from more experienced professionals like at the beginning of Band of Brothers, but replacements of the type that exercise reckless and poor judgment where they shoot first and think later like the soldier *under the influence* at the end of Band of Brothers.

For example, I returned to read that Gladiator thread for just a few moments and what do I find – at least one post back-stabbing another Insider (Bill Hunt), which thankfully at least, has been moderator deleted by now.

I don’t have the enthusiasm to re-up for another Tour of Duty after just the latest in an ongoing line of aggravated unpleasantness and downright dismissive ness.

Damn it.