American Cinematographer - September 1990 - 56

15

Our

he insisted that's not the case. "In
telecine we try to get within a certain

new

range of color so that we can have the
latitude later in post color correction to
allow the director of photography to make
it look the way he wants. Yet we still have

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He admitted
that the monitor is
one of the biggest

laboratory. We call

look when I work in

to

dailies here
'best light,' which

electronic

trol over them. We
send our engineers

our

post."

is probably a step above what a one-light
would be. We encourage, as much as pos¬

sible, communication between the color¬
ist and the director of photography," said
Gladden.
The telecine colorist for Son of
the Morning Star is Julius Friede. He is
the electronic equivalent of the color
timer. Friede and van Oostrum spent some
time together early in production going
over other films van Oostrum had shot to

get a feeling for style. After the first day
of dailies, the bulk of their communication
was

in the form of notes

on

the

camera

out to calibrate the

shot

entirely on location in Montana.
"We telecine to either 1-inch

a digital signal, D2 al¬
down generations without
any quality loss whatever. The editing
process typically includes an on-line ses¬
sion and a title format session or perhaps
a recut. With D2 we can change the

lows

us

areas

to go

that

are

recut and dub down the

rest once the

piece is assembled, and we
have no generation or quality loss. Digi¬
tal video tape has proven to be a big asset
for shows that are going to finish on tape
as well as have cut negative."
Telecine for an episodic televison show will take 3 to 4 hours to run.
Typically the assistant will have 40 to 50
minutes of circled takes to lay down. In
the case of Son of the Morning Star, there
four weeks in the schedule when
units were shooting at the same time,
Some days there were 40,000 or 50,000
feet of film to telecine and it took 8 hours

problems. "We try
keep some con¬

production company's

monitors so that they are seeing in dai¬
lies what we are seeing here. But very of¬
ten the cinematographers are sitting in
the back of a camera truck with an old 3/
4-inch machine and someone's TV set.
That is not the proper environment to see
their dailies. They wouldn't gauge the
color of film dailies by running them on a
Moviola. A lot of cinematographers that
are more

experienced with electronic post

will accept the fact that it is right, that we
know what we're doing, and that we are

giving them the

range that they need.
"One of the other procedures

report, since Son of the Morning Star was
that takes

place in telecine," continued
we track all the edge num¬
bers. I would say that in 80% of the proj¬
ects we do, we provide a cut negative as
well as a master tape. Utilizing the
CMX6000 we are able to give a frameaccurate key number cut list for conform¬
ing negative. It enables a producer to
finish on video tape with a video master
or just use electronic post production as
Gladden, "is

an editorial tool with the final finish on
film. On Son of the Morning Star, the cur¬

rent plan is to do it both ways, subject to
time and budgetary considerations. The
film cut is used for European distribution,

high definition, and syndication sales. The
best PAL transfers come off film. All of the
Universal projects we do require a film
cut. It's the studio

policy, We are one of
the few facilities that has offered a cut

3/4-inch dailies cassette. That cassette is

negative on a regular basis for over a
year-and-a-half now."
The Post Group's sound tech¬
nology is as advanced as their electronic
image capabilities. Along with the D2
master of the images, they provide a
digital audio cassette that is first genera¬

what is used for duplicating other cas¬
settes for distribution to the myriads who

tion. From this an edited master is made
for sound effects and dialog.

were

two

or

longer. While making the D2 master,
Group simultaneously goes to a

The Post

alanQOMOI1

gauged."

getting and maintaining the

D2. Because it is

sections without tools for
field cleaning and mainte¬
nance. The real plus is the
choice of longer extended
reach from a more com¬

pending on how
their monitor is

would get from the

tape or D2. We encourage people to use

ready. You can
easily disassemble all

tape itself. But color difference, balance,
light and darkness are accurate, de¬

..

The ENG model is
cable

insists, "The only quality difference is the
difference between D2 and the 3/4 inch

"

dampened Canare cable
and Neutrik XLR goldplated connectors.
uncabled, but pre-drilled

make the master available to the director
of photography at any time, but Gladden

require

a

look at the dailies.
The Post Group is happy to

September 1990
American Cinematographer - September 1990

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