the blog of jon terada

You know, I wrote earlier that I went with my friend Cisco to the Hive Gallery in Downtown LA. I saw an artist name Chrystal Chan who I thought did some rather pleasing light fantasy art. Here are few pieces. You can reach her website here

Went with Francisco to the Hive in downtown LA. He was showing a painting there. – Yay Cisco! -

You can see his painting in the center of the picture. His myspace is here.  Check him out!

I think I finally have everything back in shape. I had to change the theme to tarski but I think it is OK for now. As you can see I added a post about comicon. I will be adding a few more as time allows. Who knows, maybe I’ll even add a flash slideshow!

Yeah!

upgraded to WP2.6 from v2.5 and have run into some difficulties. My embedded pictures do not work. What a bother.

I have a problem where I have to install the newest version of whatever software no matter what.  I have to learn better.

Went to SDCC 2008.  Boy are my feet tired. I finally met Stjepan Sejic.  He is the artist on Topcow’s Witchblade and I am a real fan.  I found out that in addition to being a comic artist he is also a 3DS Max user.  We talked a bit about modeling and rendering. He really likes ZBrush because his photoshop brushes import perfectly to ZBrush.  Something I will have to make note of.  Here is a pic of Sejic (L) and Ron Marz (R)

Jim kindly wrote me back and wanted to add a few bits and pieces.

The process for release prints from Super 35 was as follows:

1) Original Cut Negative Answer Print (with all opticals, titles and camera footage conforming to the flat full frame format).

2) Full Frame Timed Interpositive printed from the original negative.

3) Converted 1-Lite Printing Negative (either 1.85 flat or 2.33 anamorphic) printed from the full frame internegative.

4) Standard Release Prints

Most producers did not understand that unlike normal 1.85 or anamorphic formats direct contact prints from their final cut negative could not be properly projected. An additional optical format conversion to the standard 1.85 or 2.33 was necessary before theatrical release was possible. This was very disturbing news both in time (usually 2 to 3 weeks) and cost ($20,000 to $50,000 depending on who did the conversion). The relationship between many producers, Directors and DP’s would begin sour at this point.

Also adding to their dismay was the all too often discovery that the 2nd Unit had not been aware of the technical requirements of Super 35 and had not used cameras with the correct full frame apprature[sic] or ground glass.

All sorts of interesting things would appear in their footage, such as crew members holding up fake walls, men in suits wearing only shorts beneath their coats, microphones, lights, cables, flags and my favorite, a grip with a donut picking his nose.

This meant that an additional optical blow-up and repositioning was necessary to make their footage conform to the 1st. Unit photography. This added more time and cost to post production. The resulting dupe negatives had to be cut into the original negative before answer printing, thus making them a generation down from the original. (In the digital world dupe quality loss is no longer an issue, but in the photo-chemical world it was a big deal.)

Low budget productions usually relied on lots of stock footage to show things they could not afford to film themselves. As Super 35 was a relatively new idea, almost no existing stock shots were in this format. Also adding to this problem was the fact that the printing elements supplied by stock libraries were usually several generations away from the original camera negative, so the additional conversion blow-ups made the shots look even more “dupey” than usual and therefore not blend very well with the original photography.

As you can see, when the producer started to get an idea about the costs of shooting super35, they started to skip a full optical reposition of the entire film and only pick and choose sections.  DP and directors became upset when they saw that their composed shot was now ‘uncomposed’ by the actions of the producer.  The DP or director (director usually) had to fight for shots to be included on the optical list but it was often a losing battle on low budget films.  Ah, the good old days when directors threw film cans around…

The moral of the story?  Planning is good.

I had lunch over at the Coral Cafe in Burbank with Jim Stewart last week and we started talking about film formats.  I have been working with super35mm (and super 1:85) plates recently and it was on my mind. Since I am a creature of the digital world, I have never worked on a common top plate – only common center.  Jim, being an film optical guy has had many common top jobs.

To preface this entry, Super 35 describes a film format where 35mm motion picture film is exposed side to side (L-R) on full aperture. It is anamorphic (squeezed) but the image is exposed on set using flat lenses. The anamorphic process would be introduced in the final step of printing an intermediate for release printing. Jim Cameron was a big proponent and I think because of his reputation the format found much favor even to this day.

This was never a standardized format unfortunately. It depends upon the ground glass in the camera to guide the framing and both the glass and camera can differ based on manufacturers. The differences in ground glass and manufacturers created framing issues which sometimes weren’t noticed until post production. Because of camera differences, a DP should have shot a frame leader (a frame chart shot on film using the ground glass/camera used on set) but it didn’t always help. Production never has enough time to do this kind of preplanning especially if there were multiple cameras and rental houses.

My friend Pete Kuran had this to say.

“The problem was whether you were using “common center” or ‘common topline.’  Cameron used common topline when shooting Terminator 2.  This is the most natural way to shoot super 35 because head shots are framed toward the top of the frame.  This framing can then be opened up to naturally fit a 4×3 or full frame image as well.

The problem with shooting common center, as was done on Star Trek IV (or was it V) was that often the framing was such as to get the boom mike visible in the frame because a lot of head room is generated from this formatting.”

Jim told me that during the optical days there were gotchas that occurred for inexperienced producers because Super 35 required some foresight as to how it was going to be projected. An inexperienced producer would hear the DP say that he is shooting it just like Cameron and not know that when the film was posted for a theatrical 1:85 release that there was a framing issue which had to be solved. That was where people like Jim came in; repositioning the film optically.

As you can see, the overall problem with super 35 was with the choices made by the DP on the set decisions. Tiny choices made on set would have huge repercussions when the film reached the optical stage.

Of course, since the image is exposed flat, the optical printer does not have to squeeze the final result prior to the release print. As Pete said, if you are willing to accept a slight cropping on the side you can also have a flat 4:3 print made.

What does that mean to an effects artist? Not too much because you are usually getting your scans at full aperture. You will get a frame guide from your super and either work to the guide or to the full frame. The best thing about this anamorphic format is that the scan you receive is flat and not squeezed. Working with anamorphic files can be painful. The greater surface area of the exposed image is attained by excluding soundtrack so the useful image extends (basically) from horizontal edge to edge.

I was visiting my father a couple weeks back. We did something highly unusual on the weekend and went shopping for music of all things. I have to preface this because I originally took him out because he still listens to music on a cassette Sony walkman – and the cassette are recorded from LPs. I thought, hey, my dad can do better – I’ll get him a mp3 player. Of course if I got him an mp3 player he would have no music to listen to because he rides OG with cassette tapes. So music first and then mp3 players.

I asked him what he was listening to and learned that he listens to Hibari Misora. To all who don’t know her she is the Queen of Showa and she died in 1989. Look her up if you are interested – lots of great videos on youtube. I didn’t know that I heard her all my life but I was never interested enough to ask. Shows you how attentive I was as a kid.

We went to a japanese CD store in San Francisco and picked up 2 CDs for $80 bucks(!). It really was the best $80 I could spend because of the time I spent with dad and that I think this is the first gift from me that he ever wanted.

I have to admit that I am liking what Ron Marz is doing with Topcow right now. Starting with Witchblade and ending with Stjepan Sejic is all that is needed to say. Sejic adds a more graceful pleasing contour to his drawings which distinguishes himself from prior artists. I have to admit that I never cared much for the Topcow house style so I may be a bit biased. I originally saw Sejic’s work on cgsociety so I am glad that comic publishers are trolling other art boards to look for talent. I remember looking at the cover of #105 thinking…haven’t I seen this stuff before. It got me interested enough to pick it up. I was not disappointed. Sejic is one of those new fangled comic artists who basically paint on the computer.

This is a good time to pick up the comic too, because Marz is taking the character into new directions and since it is Topcow, you can pick up a reader copy in the $1 bin where they lie undeservedly.

Sejic’s work can be seen on cgsociety and comicvine. Of course, Topcow is at Topcow.