Rakesh Malik wrote:I think that's part of why Arri makes cameras that no one but rental houses can buy.
This is what Panavision always were in the film days; they lost their way in the digital age. Once they were the only game in town, at the top; Arriflex were very much in the shadows then. So it can always change; nobody stays top forever. The demands of large feature or broadcast production, make it increasingly impractical again for owner/operators, particularly where more than one or two cameras at a time are needed.
As truly impressive as BMD's new Cines seem to be, and I am very impressed; they will have to seriously up their support and service strategy, for these models, if they are to be taken seriously there, no matter their feature set. They can't have a simple consumer 1 year guarantee return to base/replace if defective plan on them any longer, IMV. This kind of professional support will cost some too; so it will be interesting to see what develops, if anything. Possibly some kind of 3rd party extended warranty/support?
timbutt2 wrote:Again, I used the math above to determine that the URSA Cine is far more affordable for Indie Filmmakers to shoot VistaVision than it was with motion picture film. That's a great democratizing of the medium.
The comparative cost of shooting on film and digital, no longer has any relevance; almost anywhere. Virtually no small films will be shot on 35mm; and only a few diehards, who can afford to, such as Speilberg and Tarantino, on major films. Whilst media costs have always been and still are often a significant cost to the low-no budget films, they are no where near the major part of the overall budget on most features and TV programmes; even if they were still on celluloid. It's slightly misleading Tim, to suggest huge savings that way or that one particular brand's card/drive media offers those huge production savings, over others either now.
VistaVision was simply 35mm on it's side and apart from running through the gate at a faster, therefore more costly rate, it was never branded in negative film cans as such. It simply was Paramount's answer to rival studios new Roadshow formats in the 1950's, such as Cinemascope. Although not anamorphic; the larger negative area combined with Technicolor imbibition release printing; made it superior in many ways, particularly in the hands of directors like Hitchcock. The approximate frame size is the only similarity with FF digital; since pixel count/resolution can be identical at different sensor sizes, whereas that is impossible with film grain - the bigger the negative, the better the resolution.
As well, the overriding main reason for, higher than 35mm Academy negative frame sizes was increased resolution, for larger huge widescreen cinema screens and/or greater fidelity with reduction printing down to 35mm print release; the added complication, often poorer quality at first, and expense of large format lenses; and greatly reduced DOF, were not seen as real advantages then; these formats were not chosen primarily for a 'look', as a lot of younger filmmakers think now, about larger sensor sizes. It was customary to light everything up or down to one often, favoured f stop, and often that would be around f5.6, where the lenses then performed best; to have consistent and relatable DOF across shots; and to maximise as much DOF possible, unlike the fashion today.
In any case, I very much doubt if any low budget independent, anywhere at any time, has shot on VistaVision ex Paramount cameras.