Film stock and compositing

[Orangeaugustus]

Hi, this may not be the correct forum for this topic but….

I’m going to be working on a project that will be shot on film (actual stock I’m not sure of yet, probably Tri-X kodak). I wondered if anyone has had any experience with filmstocks and green-screening and which filmstock is the best to use (this will be shot on 16mm). Also, which lab would also be the best for processing? My last question is of whether to have the stock transferred to betacam or not. I’ve heard varying opinions about its advantages with composited footage. I’m used to seeing composited footage from dvcam tapes and I’m not exactly thrilled by the results.
Please let me know if you’ve encountered any of these issues.

Thanks,
~Mark

[Tom]

Orangeaugustus wrote:

Hi, this may not be the correct forum for this topic but….

I’m going to be working on a project that will be shot on film (actual stock I’m not sure of yet, probably Tri-X kodak). I wondered if anyone has had any experience with filmstocks and green-screening and which filmstock is the best to use (this will be shot on 16mm). Also, which lab would also be the best for processing? My last question is of whether to have the stock transferred to betacam or not. I’ve heard varying opinions about its advantages with composited footage. I’m used to seeing composited footage from dvcam tapes and I’m not exactly thrilled by the results.
Please let me know if you’ve encountered any of these issues.

Thanks,
~Mark

a nice link with lots of infos on stock and compositing issues regarding telecine

http://www.fischeredit.com/post/green/

basically they should use the stock with has as less grain as possible

hth
tom

[Orangeaugustus]

Thanks.
Yea, I was concerned about film grain being a problem area. Mostly what I’m going to have to do is run some tests and see what works.

~Mark

[paul_round]

As previously stated, finest grain stock possible. When you say betacam, do you mean regular betacam or digibeta? betacam is no good because it is a composite system, wheras digibeta is component, essential for good keying and dvcam is a no-no too. If possible, (unless it’s already been shot), try to get the effects shots done on 35 not 16

[Orangeaugustus]

I’ll have to see what I have to work with. I’m not sure if the transfer decks we have to our use are digibeta. As for the stock, we are just shooting 16mm. We don’t have access to 35mm film cameras nor do we have the budget for 35mm stock, unfortunately. I want to make the keying as clean as possible, but I also want to make sure that everything matches with the composited footage.

~Mark

[kalthans]

to the original poster:

first, do you realize that TriX is a black-and-white stock? i assume you misstated your stock choice (maybe you were talking about Tgrain stocks or maybe Vision or Vision2?)

i can completely understand your budget limitations and why 16mm is a requirement. if you are locked into using 16mm then i would suggest using one of the Vision or Vision2 stocks with a speed no higher than 100ASA (7212 or 7245). This is especially crucial if you are doing any keying. the size of the 16 negative is drastically smaller than the 35 and you will be fighting grain & detail on your key the whole way.

before you make a final committment to 16mm might i suggest trying HD? the price of HD has come down dramatically and if you are xferring your final product to NTSC (betacam, digibeta) then you might end up with an image comparable to 35 but with a acquistion cost similar to 16.

as for xfer format for your effects work: again, budget needs to be considered. i would strongly advise against DVCAM or any highly compressed format. Digibeta should be your baseline choice. if you do not have access to Dbeta then straight BetacamSP is your next best bet. (Actually, Paul….betacam is a component format, just analog component at a low sample rate). you can get fairly decent color-signal separation from BetaSP sources (in fact, back when the only choices were D1, D2 and BetaSP i often xferred by greenscreen/bluescreen material to BetaSP over D2 because it was MUCH easier to key from since D2 was composite digital and D1 was expensive and not every facility had the decks).

good luck on your project

let me know if you have any other questions

k

[Orangeaugustus]

Yea, I caught that after I had posted. whoops. It’s been a while since I’ve used film. Ive done a bit of reading up on vision 2 and I think that’s probably what I’m going with. As for equipment, I would love to shoot on HD, but I’m limited to what my particular school has for equipment. That may have changed over the summer, but given the cost of HD, I doubt it. Oh well. Thanks for all of your input. I’m altogether new to this and I didn’t think it would be simple, but at least now I have a point of reference.

~Mark

[kalthans]

another point to consider when you do your 16mm -> tape transfer:

as with most things in life you get what you pay for. given that you are on a bugdet your two options when contacting transfer facilities will be:

#1 they give you a good deal on a decent colorist and decent equipment because you are a student and they want to help.

#2 they give you your money’s worth and give you a crappy colorist using crappy equipment that they reserve for cheap dailies runs.

obviously you’ll be better off with the #1 scenario. every xfer facility i’ve dealt with has been very cool and approachable with helping students. they won’t give you their $1500/hr suite+colorist, but they will help you as much as they can. go there with your hat in your hand…have very good estimates on the amount of footage you’ll shoot and what your target budget for telecine is and they will probably work with you as much as they can. it’ll probably end up being a lot more than what you want to spend, but you get what you pay for.

now, most colorists should automatically know that when timing bluescreen&greenscreen material they need to lay off the heavy color-correction and just balance the primaries in the scene to match the other footage. this is critical because any heavy color correction can introduce unwanted secondary and tertiary colors on the transition region between the key-source background and the foreground that can be very difficult to remove and keep good edges. on 16mm this problem will be additionally magnified by the small size of the neg compared to the final output.

good luck.

k

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