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

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

I suspect that Bobby Henderson, RAH and others could probably answer in a few seconds.

I know quite a bit of trivia regarding 70mm and have watched a lot of 70mm presentations since the early 1980s. However, I'm just a big fan of the format. Robert Harris makes a living actually working with 65mm and 70mm film. That puts his level of knowledge on the topic quite a lot higher than my own.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

I know quite a bit of trivia regarding 70mm and have watched a lot of 70mm presentations since the early 1980s. However, I'm just a big fan of the format. Robert Harris makes a living actually working with 65mm and 70mm film. That puts his level of knowledge on the topic quite a lot higher than my own.

It seems these days in some quarters, the *scientific* style is to dismiss the opinions of working professionals in the industry (with the implication that they are biased, paid-off or in general just clueless) and pay more attention to “fans” of whatever the topic of the day be.

So, I thought I would lump you in there with RAH to cater to that segment of society.
I hope you didn't mind.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Nathan P

.................
Thanks for keeping us all informed as to the truth behind why a movie looks the way it does. Your work and the work of the other insiders here is always much appreciated

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Interesting presentation, and I agree a bit too obsessive compulsive to watch a movie like that

As a long term member of AVS I'd like to think that I am trying to mostly be constructive and positive in my posts and not to worry that much anymore over whatever bickering is going on.
So I think I stand a fair chance of not turning into a lunatic.......

That’s good to know but, keep this past post in mind, because it is exceedingly relevant to the posting mindset over there in *science* and particularly significant if you personally desire to enjoy your Blu-ray movies in your home theater, since it sums up the real-world situation…………………

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...ng#post1329638

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Nowdays we dial numbers without dials. And we tape shows without tape.

I think a lot of people use "green screen" to mean the technique of chroma-key whatever the actual colour.

Perhaps on some consumer forums but, people that work in production do not use the terms synonymously.
For example, at the DCS meeting that I referenced a few posts back, one of the first questions posed to each of the compositors was to specifically discuss the attributes and deficiencies of shooting with bluescreen vs greenscreen.

Additionally, if you listen to anyone that worked on 300, they will specifically state working with “bluescreen” – except perhaps for a handful of establishing shots (5%?) which were greenscreen.

[lgans316]

Penton,

Any idea whether Paramount will re-release Shooter, Mission Impossible Trilogy etc with lossless audio ?

Now that DreamWorks has split from Paramount, what are possibilities of their BDs being given DTS-HD MA treatment instead of Dolby TrueHD ?

[Robert Harris]

As an aside, a bit of minutia re: the first two "modern" 70mm roadshows in the US.

Most are aware that Oklahoma! was shot both 65/5 30fps as well as 35/4 24fps. What may not be general knowledge is that some early roadshow prints of Oklahoma! were 65mm as opposed to 70, and ran with dubbers.

Around the World was shot totally in 65mm, ie. both 30fps as well as 24 to simplify production. What would have been 35mm prints produced for the UK were trimmed to 34 to get around an import tax. Also of interest is that many non-sync shots in the 70mm version appear slightly slowed down as coverage was not shot in 24. 30fps material was used for both versions.

This can occasionally complicate things today. When we were working on Spartacus (35/8 TLA), we used sets of synchronizers -- 35/4 & 35/8, as well as 35/4 & 70/5. We work with printed continuities, shot length, description, start and end footage of shot as well as cumulative.

Working with an optical house and sharing numbers became a problem when we received a call telling us that our numbers were incorrect.

The optical house had rented the sync block, and numbers were off by specific, and continuous amounts.

Oliver K. What went wrong?

RAH

[Oliver K]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

As an aside, a bit of minutia re: the first two "modern" 70mm roadshows in the US.

Most are aware that Oklahoma! was shot both 65/5 30fps as well as 35/4 24fps. What may not be general knowledge is that some early roadshow prints of Oklahoma! were 65mm as opposed to 70, and ran with dubbers.

Around the World was shot totally in 65mm, ie. both 30fps as well as 24 to simplify production. What would have been 35mm prints produced for the UK were trimmed to 34 to get around an import tax. Also of interest is that many non-sync shots in the 70mm version appear slightly slowed down as coverage was not shot in 24. 30fps material was used for both versions.

This can occasionally complicate things today. When we were working on Spartacus (35/8 TLA), we used sets of synchronizers -- 35/4 & 35/8, as well as 35/4 & 70/5. We work with printed continuities, shot length, description, start and end footage of shot as well as cumulative.

Working with an optical house and sharing numbers became a problem when we received a call telling us that our numbers were incorrect.

The optical house had rented the sync block, and numbers were off by specific, and continuous amounts.

Oliver K. What went wrong?

RAH

Thanks for the minutia, did not know about some material only being shot in 30 fps and presented in 24 fps - this must sound pretty weird. It is interesting that you mention these two movies as Walter Siegmund of Todd-AO fame was giving a very interesting presentation at this year's Todd-AO festival in Karlsruhe and spoke in depth about the problems of bringing Oklahoma! to the screen just in time for the premiere. Hearing him talk about those days made clear that he still has a lot of passion for Todd-AO, if it was for me I would have preferred to listen to him for a few more hours - he had so much to tell and I wondered how it would be to have all these great large format movies ahead of me in regular theatrical presentations. Later that day Around The World in 80 Days was shown in a rare 35mm Technicolor Cinestage print that was projected with a special anamorphic lens by Schneider with a factor of 1.5x, just the way that Mike Todd had intended.

Could it be that the problem you are referring to would be the one with the camera negative of Spartacus being Technirama Autoselect and therefore without dissolves ?
When Technicolor made the seps they had to run the dissolves down to leader and the end result was that going back and forth between rolls they went out of synchronisation on a number of reels, which amounted to 8 frames every other shot.

Or it is something entirely different ?

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

Or it is something entirely different ?

Something entirely different. Our work pictures are cut and conformed with printer functions inclusive.

Problem was that they had somehow ended up with a 35/70 sync that had been created specially for Todd-AO, apparently toward conformation of the mag units, which were 24fps as opposed to 30.

[Oliver K]

Now that is something I would not have thought to be possible - all Super Technirama 70 printers discarded, but you could still accidentally get a Todd AO sync block !

I hope it is OK to ask you here as you have mentioned Spartacus, if not I'll be happy to repeat the question over at your thread:

What would you suggest as both a financially acceptable and technically satisfactory way to obtain new 70mm prints of 35/8 TLA movies ? I know that due to all original printers having vanished you constructed your own optical printer for Spartacus, but I think that setup has long since been disassembled and unfortunately never was used ? Would that still be the preferred way to go as of today or might it be desirable and possible to derive a print from a digital representation of the 35/8 elements scanned at 6k or higher ?

[Robert Harris]

Originally Posted by Oliver K

What would you suggest as both a financially acceptable and technically satisfactory way to obtain new 70mm prints of 35/8 TLA movies ? I know that due to all original printers having vanished you constructed your own optical printer for Spartacus, but I think that setup has long since been disassembled and unfortunately never was used ? Would that still be the preferred way to go as of today or might it be desirable and possible to derive a print from a digital representation of the 35/8 elements scanned at 6k or higher ?

All digital.

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by lgans316

Penton,

Any idea whether Paramount will re-release Shooter, Mission Impossible Trilogy etc with lossless audio ?

Now that DreamWorks has split from Paramount, what are possibilities of their BDs being given DTS-HD MA treatment instead of Dolby TrueHD ?

While I hope Paramount reissues titles with lossless I also hope DreamWorks stays with TrueHD.

[Clark Kent]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

It seems these days in some quarters, the *scientific* style is to dismiss the opinions of working professionals in the industry (with the implication that they are biased, paid-off or in general just clueless) and pay more attention to “fans” of whatever the topic of the day be.

Unfortunately that is a vestige of the format wars. Certain insiders from the losing format tarnished the integrity of all insiders everywhere over at AVS with a biased and calculated agenda evident in their posting. It became obvious that some "insiders" could not really be trusted sources of information anymore and that has cast a taint on all the professionals who choose to go public on these forums. Thankfully most of the honest insiders ended up here.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Robert Harris

As an aside, a bit of minutia re: the first two "modern" 70mm roadshows in the US.

Most are aware that Oklahoma! was shot both 65/5 30fps as well as 35/4 24fps. What may not be general knowledge is that some early roadshow prints of Oklahoma! were 65mm as opposed to 70, and ran with dubbers.

Around the World was shot totally in 65mm, ie. both 30fps as well as 24 to simplify production.

Did they run simultaneous cameras, or shoot everything twice?

And, the biggy: What should we be wanting for Oklahoma on BD? A restoration of the 65mm 30fps presented as 1080i/60?

Gary

[Jeff Kleist]

Oklahoma was shot twice, in fact one version is preferred over the other because the dancing is tighter (I forget which) because they're all less tired

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Did they run simultaneous cameras, or shoot everything twice?

And, the biggy: What should we be wanting for Oklahoma on BD? A restoration of the 65mm 30fps presented as 1080i/60?

Gary

BD can't do 1080p/60?

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

Unfortunately that is a vestige of the format wars. Certain insiders from the losing format tarnished the integrity of all insiders everywhere over at AVS with a biased and calculated agenda evident in their posting. It became obvious that some "insiders" could not really be trusted sources of information anymore and that has cast a taint on all the professionals who choose to go public on these forums. Thankfully most of the honest insiders ended up here.

Well, thank you for continued vote of confidence but, I don’t believe that to be entirely the case.
The *scientists* still enjoy the exceedingly rare presence from any industry insiders (even following the conclusion of the format war), as long as said insiders of whichever technical discipline tell them what they want to hear regardless of whether it be the truth.

A recent case in point is when Torsten Kaiser visited the Baraka thread over there and disagreed with their assumptions and conclusions concerning the presence of halos on a handful of images discovered by the artifact hunters. They were unmerciful in their opposition to his professional opinion, so much so, that the poor guy ended up editing a significant number of his postings about Baraka.

A couple days later, he visits one of their ‘PQ’ threads and enlightens them with his comments concerning several Blu-ray movies that he personally found to indeed be lacking in picture quality for one reason or another, and they practically formed a line to kiss his arse.

Like I said, they embrace you if you tell them what they want to hear……at least in regards to the vocal majority.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

Since, we’ve meandered into Film History 101, does anyone know how movie making actually got started (or at least how I was taught it did) in the locale known as Hollywood and environs?

It all stems from Thos. A. Edison and “the Edison Trust”.

Well, the “Edison Trust” was also known as the Motion Picture Patents Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_...atents_Company

and essentially that’s (fleeing from the litigious nature of the MPPC for refusing to pay patent royalties,-because people considered it to be an unjustified monopoly)....... is how the motion picture business got started in California.
Specifically, Hollywood and environs were reportedly chosen as the Wikipedia entry says “because of its beautiful year-round weather and varied countryside, which could stand in for deserts, jungles and great mountains.”

I for one though, haven’t seen many jungles or what even looks remotely like a jungle in SoCal unless maybe it’s included in a ride at Disneyland.

[Penton-Man]

Jeff Kleist –
I just read your review of this Blu-ray from NHK.
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/review...welve.html#nhk

In case you missed this segment on NBC Nightly News from a few nights ago …………….
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#28382453

[Torsten Kaiser TLE]

"Penton",

Your tale re: my comments on BARAKA is incorrect. Just for the record, since my name was mentioned: No content was changed by me in the posts at AVS because of "opposition" from anybody at ANY TIME. I would not and will not change my comments because someone disagrees with me on facts and/or issues; I will only do so if there are errors on my part that require changing in order to secure that no misinformation is being passed on because of me. Two things needed to be changed in two posts; the first because of an error on my part in the [original] graphical CINERAMA Aspect Ratio representation to 70mm 5perf, the other because another "insider" pulled his entire content re: BARAKA including footage he specifically asked me to remove from the quote as well.

All other comments remained unchanged in content, mere formulations in sentences were adjusted for what I hoped whould be a better understanding of the subject matter.

With regard to BARAKA -- I said from the beginning that the release is not perfect, but the enourmous expectations raised by the marketing people at MPI (essentially claiming that this release would be better than anything else in existence) confronted by the subsequent up-to-1600% zoom-statements referring to its so-called "poor quality" from some AVS posters made a common ground on this subject downright impossible from the very beginning. I say it again: Coming from 8K directly to High Definition (HDCAMSR) leaves a lot of casualties - detail, sharpness, and resolution being just a few of them. The techniques involved in the downconversion and the subsequent encoding are KEY in order to retain the most of the detail that is left by the algorythms. As the other "insider" acknowledged, this was the area that they did have problems with. To be clear, BARAKA is not a shoddy or poor release by any means whatsoever, on the contrary. However, just as with portions of TDK, BARAKA does have some shots with aberations and some out of focus shots with "ringing" around stark contrast imaging "buried" into it on the 70mm level, which were "dug out" by the very sensitive and high resolution pickup to the EQ. This is, if you will, part of the "nature of the beast". The claims (and incorrect interpretations) by posters at AVS that "DNR" was applied as well as "EE" are mere, simplistic, easy-and-conveniently-to-be-used abbreviations to coin in a debate that does not reflect the much broader process.

To everyone here a great New Years Eve and a Happy New Year 2009.