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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: Keeping Film Alive
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Jack Ondracek
Film God
Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002
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posted 09-02-2017 08:09 PM
Frank, that can be done here, but I don't know how prevalent it is. A year or so back, one or two studios tried to mandate it, but went silent on the topic for reasons unknown.
We prefer to send checks, because I can itemize the total, both charges and credits, which also print on my computer check stubs. My checks have double stubs, one of which we attach to the pay sheets we file here. If a studio ever questions whether a payment was made or how a check was applied, we have all of that in the computer. A second look to the bank tells us whether the check has cleared.
On rare occasions, we've had a studio misapply a payment. Having that detail in our system has saved our butts more than once.
In our case, single checks usually cover several films and frequently cover at least two weeks... another reason for the line-item detail.
I've never tried electronic transfer, and I'm not sure if it would cover all of our particular needs. In any case, I only hear it come up when a studio wants money yesterday. The banks I use impose a fairly stringent time deadline to arrange one, and I think the cost is substantially more than 85 cents.
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Daniel Schulz
Master Film Handler
Posts: 387
From: Los Angeles, CA USA
Registered: Sep 2003
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posted 09-02-2017 09:49 PM
I have a couple of random thoughts on this.
I frequently hear comparisons between film aficionados and vinyl aficionados. Usually in a somewhat dismissive tone, accusing film people of being these weird, fussy romantics who stubbornly refuse to embrace the future, and have scientifically disproven theories about the superiority of analogue vs digital.
Here's the thing - while the accusation of romanticism may be true of vinyl fans (vinyl, despite its obvious charms, is a fatally flawed medium in terms of frequency response, channel separation, bass extension and so on - digital sound, when done correctly, really is vastly superior), the analogue vs digital case with film is not so clear cut. Nolan isn't really being a romantic, he's just saying that as an imaging professional, who watches his own dailies for a living, he has yet to see a digital acquisition and projection system that is better than the results he sees with film. And you know what? I think he's right. I'm lucky in that I live in a city that had a 15/70 print of Dunkirk, and I'm sorry, but there is no digital system that looks *that* good. I think it would be helpful if the digital partisans were less dismissive of Nolan's POV that if you are after the absolute apex of motion picture quality, film is still the way to go.
All of that said - for mainstream presentation digital obviously has a whole host of advantages. Most people don't live in LA, New York or London. Most filmmakers don't shoot on film, much less IMAX film. Literally no one apart from Nolan, PT Anderson and Quentin Tarantino are doing a photochemical finish (without a lame 2K Digital Intermediate). I think it is 100% clear that to the vast majority of the viewing audience, digital presentation is a great way to experience motion pictures, whether they originated on film or with digital cameras.
My hope with the ongoing film renaissance is that filmmakers will have the option of at least *aquiring* their image on 35mm or 70mm stock, with all the lush advantages there, at least until such time as digital cameras are up to par (and they are getting close).
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-04-2017 04:21 AM
Well, I totally agree on that.
I've often had discussions with vinyl affectionados that spend large proportions of their monthly paycheck on overpriced boutique hardware. Yet, any professional digital system will blow their setup out of the water in regards to clarity and dynamic range.
It's just science. And science is also clear on the film v.s. digital discussion.
Film, especially large formats, still can do stuff digital can't. I'd say we're pretty much in the realm where a digital camera can resolve anything 35mm film can. Yet, we're not yet in the realm of 65mm yet.
The same is true for projection. While I'm pretty sure a top-of-the-line 4K setup can outperform anything a 35mm setup can do, we're not even close to what 70mm can do in resolution.
With audio, we can now easily achieve resolutions so large, it greatly surpasses anything a normal human being can possibly distinguish. We're simply not entirely there yet with imaging technology.
We're still in the realm, where the artifacts of the underlying technology interfere in how we perceive the image that was generated. Both film and digital have perceivable artifacts.
While film can without certainty beat the 2D resolution of any currently available digital alternative, digital has its own advantages, like the availability of larger color gamuts with the latest iteration of equipment, perfect stability, flicker-free presentations and higher frame rates. (Although the HFR aspect is still a pretty controversial one and has been done with film too.)
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 09-04-2017 05:18 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
IIRC, no one is making brand new film projectors and film projector parts anymore.
What I think could force the issue within a few years is the declining availability of xenon arc bulbs. It's now three months since I started work as a service tech. In that time, I've done (either solo or as part of a team) around a dozen new digital projector installations. Only one of those has been a xenon arc projector, and even that one was actually bought a year and a half or so ago, and sat in storage for a long time, because the booth refurb it was bought for got delayed for unrelated reasons.
Everyone now seems to be opting for mercury vapor lamp projectors (e.g. NEC NC900 or Barco DP2K-6E) for smaller screens, and RGB laser for the larger ones.
Every screen that goes over to a non-xenon illumination source reduces the market for xenon arc lamps even more. Movie theatre projectors account for around 95% of the market for these things, the other 5% being accounted for by military searchlights and a small number of very specialist medical imaging devices. If this application goes away, therefore, xenon arc bulb factories are going to shut down. As there is no laser lamphouse or other illumination source that I'm aware of available for film projectors, then unless a serious attempt is made to resurrect carbon arcs, how are film projectors going to be lit once it's no longer possible to buy xenon bulbs? The number of 35mm and 70mm projectors in use is too small for any serious R & D in an alternative light source to be commercially viable, I'd guess.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 09-04-2017 09:33 PM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Even if the major manufacturers like Ushio, OSRAM and Philips turn their back on Xenon in the foreseeable future, I expect several Chinese manufacturers jump into that niche.
Are you sure?
As I understand it (based on reading several "how a xenon arc bulb is made" articles and websites), the production process is very labor intensive, and very skilled labor intensive. The quartz blowing process, forming the airtight seals between the cathode and anode assemblies, and the xenon filling process (which has to be done at such a low temperature that the gas liquefies, and the fully assembled bulb warmed up to room temperature, very gradually and over days to pressurize the thing in a stable way), is something that can't be done by robots. Or at least, the R & D needed to develop robots that can do it hasn't been done, and the market for these bulbs is small enough that doing it would never be commercially viable.
As I understand it, Chinese manufacturing is strongest when it comes to the automated production of components in vast quantities; not the manual production of components in small quantities, and especially not when quality control is so critical. If an iPhone is DOA when you take it out of the box, no big deal. If a xenon arc bulb explodes while fitting it into the lamphouse, that's a slightly bigger deal.
Returning to topic somewhat, maybe something like this would work in a film projector? The challenge, I guess, would be to focus the light output on the gate.
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 09-05-2017 02:01 AM
quote: Leo Enticknap
Are you sure?
As I understand it (based on reading several "how a xenon arc bulb is made" articles and websites), the production process is very labor intensive, and very skilled labor intensive. The quartz blowing process, forming the airtight seals between the cathode and anode assemblies, and the xenon filling process (which has to be done at such a low temperature that the gas liquefies, and the fully assembled bulb warmed up to room temperature, very gradually and over days to pressurize the thing in a stable way), is something that can't be done by robots. Or at least, the R & D needed to develop robots that can do it hasn't been done, and the market for these bulbs is small enough that doing it would never be commercially viable.
Well, the Chinese are already actively selling them. Even some integrators around here offer them for sale. They even offer a warranty program similar to those of the big names (although I don't know if they're good for it).
Regarding retrofitting LEDs into a 35mm projector lamphouse, there was a pretty interesting discussion about it in this topic a while back. LED certainly has potential in this regards, but focusing the light output of all those different arrays evenly on the gate isn't all that simple. Not that it cannot be done, but it will most likely require some custom optics and/or mirrors.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 09-05-2017 08:11 AM
quote: Marcel Birgelen
Well, the Chinese are already actively selling them.
Interesting! I'd be very interested to know how their reliability and longevity compares to the longer established European and Japanese brands.
quote: Scott Norwood
Do xenon bulbs have a shelf life? If so, what is it? Is there any reason not to just put a bunch on the shelf right now?
I've never seen any official expiration date on one, but both personal experience and the comments of others would lead me to be cagey of one that is more than 4-5 years old. Like any other pressure vessel, its ability to achieve the designed operating pressure will degrade over time if not maintained (for example, it's illegal to have tires on your car that are over six years old in California, even with zero miles on them). As the seals at either end of the bulb weaken, xenon gas will leak out of them and they'll gradually depressurize. In the late 1990s, a company I was working for bought a consignment of 2kW Osrams for next to nothing from a chain that went out of business, with manufacture dates from 1982 stamped on the boxes. I tried three of them, and they simply wouldn't strike.
quote: Marcel Birgelen
LED certainly has potential in this regards, but focusing the light output of all those different arrays evenly on the gate isn't all that simple. Not that it cannot be done, but it will most likely require some custom optics and/or mirrors.
I'd guess that coming up with the custom optics and/or mirrors is a more viable engineering challenge (given the size of the remaining, long term market for film projection) than an entirely new illumination source from scratch. It might even be possible to come up with a kit that could be retrofitted into existing lamphouses, like the kit that Barco sells for converting a series 2 projector from xenon to laser phosphor.
quote: Scott Norwood
What is the selling point of the mercury bulbs?
User friendliness is a big one. No special safety precautions are needed when handling the things, and swapping them out is as easy (and in some cases easier than) as replacing the bulb in a consumer light fitting. You don't need a trained tech.
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