Che Roadshow!

[Shawn Nelson]

I just found out a few days ago that Soderbergh himself is bringing the full Che (parts 1 & 2) around the country and he's in Portland tonight!

Ken (Red #1443) got our tickets. I'm going to try and get the mic for the Q&A and ask him a question about using Red :-).

[Justin Kirchhoff]

Awesome Shawn...I hope he makes it down to Texas. I'd love to see it.

[Sean Rawls]

Hey Shawn,
Yep I'm going tonight to the 7:00 show. I hope Cinema 21's projection is good, usually I think their prints/projector look like poo. But man I'm excited to see this. Should be interesting to hear Soderbergh talk, all his exposure on these boards, not to mention his films:whistling:, have really convinced me he might be one of the best things happening in American cinema.

Are you going tonight? Hope I see you!

[Johnny St.Ours]

Where do you find out where else he's going?
Portland's a bit of a commute for me- but I'd sure like to see it

I found DC on the list, but no idea when it happened/ or when it's going to happen. I'd drive for that. I'd go to NYC, too, but I have a feeling I'm too late

[Brandon Fraley]

Where do you find out where else he's going?
Portland's a bit of a commute for me- but I'd sure like to see it

yeah, I can't find any info about the roadshow online.

[Shawn Nelson]

Hey Shawn,
Yep I'm going tonight to the 7:00 show. I hope Cinema 21's projection is good, usually I think their prints/projector look like poo. But man I'm excited to see this. Should be interesting to hear Soderbergh talk, all his exposure on these boards, not to mention his films:whistling:, have really convinced me he might be one of the best things happening in American cinema.

Are you going tonight? Hope I see you!

Sure am! Ken Kupelian and I will both be there (got our tickets pre-ordered). We're also meeting up at a brewpub beforehand if you care to join! Any other local filmmakers you know going?

[Curran Giddens]

Nice! I was hoping we would be able to see part 1 & 2 back to back in the theaters. A Che marathon!

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Crap. I guess it already came through seattle without any fanfare.

[Brandon Fraley]

where are you guys seeing these dates?

[Gavin Greenwalt]

I just googled Che Roadshow Seattle. And a news story popped up.

[Dan Hudgins]

Its worth going to see if just to see how the Cinevator prints turn out, #1 is on "normal" Kodak stock, and #2 is on Fuji stock according to SS, he was in San Francisco for opening night. He wanted to use the deeper black Kodak stock but it was not in the budget, it costs a little more.

http://www.cinevation.net/cinevation.net/index.jsp;jsessionid=0334ADBA9D4D6BD8905E428F30D21 E81?company=cinevation.net&page=p_product.jsp&cat=Cinevator&id=8

Cinevator seems to be 2K which would mean the prints are 2K(?), but maybe sharper than if a printing negative had been made on the Cinevator and then contact prints struck on a high speed contact printer.

Some people seem to think that #2 is sharper, but when I saw it #1 in Scope looked better, it depends on the lens that is in the projector and if it is in focus. Flat lenses need to enlarge the image more, and since Cinevator has a LCD monitor in it, it seems, you are making the pixels bigger in a Flat print as projected. Scope uses a larger area and more of the filmrecorder pixels, but the lenses are harder to get to focus right, so its hard to tell what will look best in any movie house...

[Shawn Nelson]

#2 definitely feels sharper. But wasn't #2 done in ana crop mode and #1 done in full 4k spherical?

[Brandon Fraley]

#2 definitely feels sharper. But wasn't #2 done in ana crop mode and #1 done in full 4k spherical?

other way around, gets confusing because they shot #2 first.

[Dan Hudgins]

I was told by someone from Fuji factory in Japan that Fuji color print stock has a higher contrast than the Kodak print stock, that may have contributed to the somewhat blownout look of part#2.

Because Cinevator runs at sound speed in order to transfer the sound in real time the max sxposure you can get limits the black level with normal processing, it would be possable to increase the developing time from 3.5 minutes to 5 or 6 minutes to get a darker image, but the highlight fog tends to go up, at 10 minutes you hit the "wall" unless you have some special anti-fog added maybe?

I'm testing a 3 or 9 pass approach with my DANCINEL.EXE (tm) and a LCD monitor to expand the tonal range on print stock past what you can get in a single pass, it also gets more tones than the video board can reproduce in a single pass. I don't know if the movement in the CInevator is good enough to run the film through three times with different gamma, contrast and brightness adjustments, but if you could you might get better tonal range and deeper blacks. If you make 9 passes with color seperation and IR/UV cut-off filters you might get better color also.

[Craig Ryan]

I really wanted to see these films on the big screen, but looks like I missed out on the SF showing.

[David Mullen ASC]

It sort of goes like this in mildly increasing levels of contrast:

Vision 2383
Fuji 3513 DI
Fuji XD
Vision Premier 2393

Somewhere in the middle is Agfa print stock.

Fuji 3513 DI is a very common print stock that is only slightly higher in contrast than Vision (it originally was designed to match Vision in contrast, and then Kodak later lowered the contrast of Vision a little bit.)

None of these stocks are so high in contrast that highlight detail visible in one would be blown-out in the other, the range is not that extreme. Mainly what you see with the higher contrast stocks is deeper blacks and higher saturation, which can compensate for the somewhat dull "flattened" look of digital images being transferred to intermediate dupe negative stock.

To put this in perspective, the most expensive stock listed (Premier) is only, I believe, 10% more than the least expensive -- in other words, a couple hundred dollars more when making a 35mm release print of a movie. However, that adds up if you're striking 6000 release prints (though you'd likely get a discount due to volume.)

[Dan Hudgins]

Somewhere in the middle is Agfa print stock.


I liked Agfa CP-20, but have not tried CP-30 yet, they seem to have made changes to the yellow, which is the part I liked...

Do you know anything about Luck print stocks (China), I have not found them in the US, Lucky seems to use (or used?) chemicals from Kodak, so they may have a deal not to export to the US, anyone know what the deal is with Lucky as far as cost and look as well as getting it into the US?

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSSHA11949620071112

http://www.luckyfilm.com.cn/eng/index.html

http://www.luckyfilm.com.cn/eng/products_1_3.html

Quote:

[Lucky Color Positive Film 5244/2244/6244/7244 is a good definition, fine grain color print film. It is designed to be processed in high temperature processes such as Kodak Eastman process ECP-2.The release prints made from the original negatives of Lucky Color Negative Film 5123, Eastman Color Negative Film 5274 or their duplication negatives feature rich color and sharp image effects.]


As to the contrast of the print stocks, the blown out highlight detail issue is larger than just the mid-tone contrast, if the printstock has a sharper foot to its curve that can reduce the shading of the highlight details. Fuji print stocks may have a straighter curve, or thiner layers and be more sensitive to bromide, the thin exposure of the LCD light valve in the Cinevator may interact with the foot of the Print stocks curve in ways more complex than just what happens regarding the mid tone contrast.

It would be good to test the Cinevator with all printstocks to see what differences show up. SS said he used Fuji stock to get a different look in CHE #2, so there must be a difference in order for him to have made that pick?

The Bromide volume in the developer can alter the foot of the curve, so the amount of highlight detail you get from one lab or another could vary even on the same print stock. My point was that not ALL the blownout look may be due to the RED ONE or exposure, the Cinevator, print stock, and lab are also part of the end result. Its worth going to see CHE #1 and #2 to see how the same RED ONE camera looks so different on the two print stocks done on the same film recorder, and I guess at the same lab.

[Sean Rawls]

Yeah #2 felt sharper, but I enjoyed the anamorphic look of #1.

Sharpness aside I found these two films wildly inspiring. We all sit around on these boards and critique every technological minutiae, while Steven Soderbergh is out in a jungle using a barely functioning prototype. The feeling of realism I got from Mr. Soderbegh's fluid cinematography really worked for both of the films. "Just pick the camera up and shoot"

During the Q&A Mr. Soderbergh said that parts of the movie would have been flat impossible if they were shooting on 35mm (the climactic Bolivian jungle scene). I also got to meet Mr Soderbergh after the screening, he's a very nice guy!

[Brandon Fraley]

No roadshow around here, but i went to go see Part 1 last night.

I thought it looked spectacular. After hearing so much negativity about the image quality I had low expectations, but the anamorphic print was plenty sharp, noise almost non-existant and colors and tones excellent. To think this was shot with pre-release builds is staggering to me.

Again, I thought it looked fantastic, but the only flaws I can point out were a few evening shots with an acceptable amount of noise (recognizable RED noise) and fire often looked quite poor. And there was only one single shot where I noticed a partial exposure from muzzle flashes.

The blown out fire was the only thing that disappointed me, and I'm curious how recent builds would react to those scenes differently. Quite a few of the jungle scenes had blown out hot spots where the sun poked through the canopy, however that didn't bother me at all and still looked really good and appropriate to my eye. The scenes back in Argentina were incredibly noisy, but it looked intentional to me. I'm curious if those were shot in 16mm like the UN stuff.

Completely surpassed my expectations. Great work to Soderbergh and the RED team. And by the way, an excellent film as well. I'm going to see Part 2 this week. Any one know why this isn't getting more buzz? Did it not come out in time for the Oscars?