The Film Wizard!

Sam's New Question is:

Hi Sam,

I am supposed to ask you if there is any way to make a garbage can blow
up, without the people blowing up the garbage can getting arrested?

My son and his friend (along with teacher supervision) are making a movie
and guess what… their vivid imaginations call for a garbage can blowing up. 

I, of course, have no idea how to make this happen
with anything legal and non-deadly.  

We thought of you, do you have any ideas, like maybe trick
photography?  Remember they are only 9 – 10 year olds!

Thanks in advance, for any ideas.

Janice Hall
Seattle WA

The Wizard Answers...

Dear Janice,

Thanks for writing.  Yes, there are a couple of ways
to make something "explode" onscreen, that are pretty
safe, but look good.

I would get a lightweight plastic garbage can, for
example.  No heavy metal.  Fill up the camera frame
with the can, so you can see it (and the stuff inside)
fly out in a cloud of smoke.

Tie fine nylon fishing line to the lid, another
to the can, others to lightweight stuff in the can.
(Wadded paper and stuff.)  
Give each line to a different kid.

Run a 1-2" "shop vac" vacuum cleaner hose to the 
underside of the garbage can (cut a hole in it),
and duct-tape it so it points at the lid.
Put a tablespoon of flour in the hose.  

Either have a kid on the other end of the hose, ready
to blow into the hose, or plug the hose into the
"outlet" of the shopvac.  In that case, put a kid
on the shopvac switch, ready to turn it "on."

Have everybody ready, and roll the camera.

Have a countdown, and on "Zero" everybody pulls
their string, and blows the flour out of the hose.
Explain to everybody there's no "bang," but it
looks really good.

When you edit, add a "kaboom" noise behind the
"explosion."  (If anybody has an editing system,
they can add a flash to the "explosion," too.)

That's the way I'd do it.  

Don't let anybody make a "real" explosion, not even a
firecracker, because it won't look good on-camera,
and somebody will get hurt.  

(Even the person blowing our safe flour "smoke"
should be careful not to blow it in somebody's face.)

Best to you,

An Earlier Question for Sam:

Dear Sam,

Explain, please, Professor -- what exactly A/B roll refers to.
And how do I get CHEAP, high-quality titles for my low-budget
35mm feature film?

(Please answer in your copious free time, when you are not
Producing and Editing and such.)

Chow mein,

Laurie Agard
Santa Cruz CA

The Wizard Answers...

Dear Laurie,

It takes more than a couple of college degrees and a cranky
attitude to be a Professor.

Wait - No, it doesn't.

But I digress...


AB ROLLS EXPLAINED

If you make a film that's all spliced together into one
single-strand of negative, you have one roll. We call that the "A"
roll. (Or "single-strand.")

Running the A roll through the printer will copy those frames
onto the print stock. So far, so good.

If you now run another roll, the same length as the A roll, through
the printer onto the same piece of print stock, it will add the
frames of that roll (the "B" roll) onto the print.

If that roll is titles, titles will print into the A roll picture
information. If that roll is picture, you get a double exposure.
If the A roll fades OUT at the same frame where the B roll fades
IN, you get a dissolve.

You can see that there can be an unlimited number (alphabet?) of
rolls. A "C" Roll, a "D" Roll, et cetera. Even an "I" roll, which is
what people do when I carry on like this.

Of course, each time you run a roll through the printer, the lab
charges you another time. So A/B roll printing is twice as
expensive as A roll printing. A/B/C Roll printing is treble the
cost, et cetera.   Not exactly twice or thrice, but close enough.

It is much cheaper to optically-or contact-print only the
scenes to be dissolved onto a separate piece of internegative, and
cut those pieces into the single-strand A Roll, just like another
piece of camera negative.

If you're really a cheapie, you cut in only the dissolve frames,
which jumps and gets grainy, and looks awful. I'm sure you've
seen old movies that do that.


CHEAP TITLES AND OPTICALS

In the interests of budget and quality, there is a wonderful
compromise between those two cheaper options, an optical
procedure suggested to me by the great Jim Stewart of

Stewart Motion
Picture Services
725 S San Fernando Bl
Burbank CA 91502

818.845.6610
http://www.stewartmps.com
titles-opticals@stewartmps.com

Email Jim your info, and he'll tell you how much your
opticals will cost, and how long the job will take.  In a hurry,
I'll bet, and WAY under the $15-20k most optical houses charge.

Jim's process is brilliantly simple, and all it requires on your
part is a little daring.  If you didn't know the traditional ways of
doing things, you wouldn't think it was daring at all.

(If you have an editing assistant or lab technician with just
enough knowledge to be dangerous, you will hear a lot of noise
how this isn't the "professional" way to do it, but ignore it.)

I've seen people violently oppose doing it this way, but it works,
and the results are good and cheap, two qualities so dear to my
heart.

Traditionally, an interpositive would be pulled from each piece
of negative, assembled on separate little rolls, each timed and
optically printed onto another piece of intermediate stock, along
with the titles or other piece of film.  It is intricate and involved,
with dozens of variables to get it to look good.  And that's
EXPENSIVE.

Instead, Jim has you do this:

1)  Cut your workprint on 35mm film, just as usual.  Mark all the
dissolves, or where the titles are to appear and disappear.  If you
are editing electronically, make a detailed Edit List.

2)  Have a negative cutter pull all the negative from your camera
rolls, and splice them onto a roll, to match your workprint.
Dissolves should have handles the length of the dissolve, on
either side of the splice.  (A one-foot dissolve will have one
foot of film fading out, a splice, and one foot of film fading in.
Printing will make them overlap properly.)

     a)  If your film is edited electronically, leave an additional
     one-frame "handle" at head and tail of each shot (to make up
     for the errors inherent in electronic editing.)

     b)  If your film is edited on film, the negative can be
     assembled to match the workprint as above.  You don't need an
     additional one-frame "handle."

3)  Jim will have a timed workprint struck from the assembled
negative.  From this, he'll determine how to time the interpositive,
and strike an IP from the original negative.  All the timing is done
at once this way, and all the usual snarl of timing problems go
away.

4)  Jim will print this IP onto an internegative, adding fades or
dissolves, or titles.  (The titles will be typeset from your fax
information.)

This IN will be cut into your negative roll, by the negative cutter,
to match your workprint.

Jim uses the process mainly for titles over action, and it works
well also for dissolves and fades.  Jim learned it from the
Legendary Roger Corman, and does titles and opticals this way for
Roger's forty-or-so films per year.

(I remember when I worked at Roger's top-secret Lumber store
studio years ago.  Roger had a ream of typing paper and a rubber
stamp as his letterhead.  Roger doesn't hate to spend money.
Roger hates to WASTE money.  That's why he does his titles this
way.  Why spend more, when you can get big feature film quality
titles for CHEAP?)

Why do you get a squawk from film folks used to doing it the
traditional way?  They're scared to cut the original negative and
make the IP.

Cowards!  If they gave the matter five seconds of thought,
they'd realize they're GOING TO CUT THE NEGATIVE ANYWAY!
So what's the difference?  Make up your mind, make
the cuts, and move on.  (Indecision is expensive.)

Keep it A Roll - single strand, if you can.

Best to you,

An Earlier Question for Sam:

Dear Sam,

A film producer I know in the Seattle area wants to build his
own 35mm film scanner. He intends to use a off-the-shelf slide
scanner and a Simplex projector head for this purpose. He
plans to have a machinist relative of his install a
pin-registration movement in the projector head, although the
only reference he has are the drawings in the Raymond Fielding
special-effects book. I am a little dubious about this idea.

However, I thought I'd ask your advice (you being the Film
Wizard and all).

Thanks,

John Sabotta
Seattle WA

The Wizard Answers...

Dear John,

Yes I am the Film Wizard.  Here's how I got that way:

I built three really big 65mm animation stands, for Richard Edlund's
Boss Film, and Disney, assembled the big IMAX optical printer, and built
a multi-format blowup printer with help of my mentor, Linwood G. Dunn ASC.

I spent a year of my life making lasers come out of 
Michael Jackson's eyes in 3-D 65mm for "Captain EO"
at Disneyland, and many years of my life working with
some of the best precision camera machinists in the world, 
specializing in camera movements.

I have gratefully gotten away from that, the tension is too
high.  (By the time the part gets to you, there is an
aggregate of HUNDREDS, if not THOUSANDS of man-hours on that
part.  One slip, and you are throwing away many, many hours, 
times many, many dollars.

Of course, it LOOKS easy to do.  Just slug the metal into the
machine, dial in the measurements, and away you go!

It doesn't work that way.  You are dealing with tolerances 
that are a fraction of the thickness of a human hair, or you 
should be.

It is foolish to build a machine from scratch, when you can 
buy one off the shelf - first law of engineering.  And 
expecting to do precision work on the FIRST piece you've ever 
machined, is fantasy-land.  (I know.  Been there, done that.)

Motion-picture work requires a steady movement, and the first 
rule of movements is:

I make and use the latter kind, and throw away the rest.  (9 of 10.) 

Just because a movement has pins in it does not mean it 
is STEADY.  There are MANY variables, pin size and curvature 
and alloy, and design, and SKILL being among them.)

Clearly, from your description, your friend is wasting his 
time and money, you're describing an utter waste of time.
I am not guessing, alas.  I have certainly wasted enough time 
and money in my life so far, usually with the insane notion 
that I was "saving money."

Your friend will probably spend many weeks (months, years...)
bolting the scanner into the movie projector, and having
someone trial-and-error a movement together.

Two immediate problems:

1)  That ol' Simplex projector wiggles and weaves film going
through it.  Even putting some kludged-together "movement" in
it won't fix that.  It's dirty and oily, and will rip film.
You're running negative through it, and if you're trying 
to recoup your enormous cost, it's negative that belongs to 
somebody else.  There is nothing more fragile, and with higher 
liability, than somebody else's negative.

2)  That "off-the-shelf" slide scanner is NOT the same format, 
precision, or quality of film movement necessary for motion
picture work.  Not the same format, precision, or quality of
data output, either.  He won't be able to use the data for
effects on a standard platform, and no one will buy the data 
from him.  There are no cheap, accurate, supported scanner
elements.  And then, what are you going to hook it to?

Industry standard for a long time was an Onyx machine running 
"Flame," or SGI machines running a variety of software.  Now
it's a PC box running various flavors of Linux.  That will
change too, just as soon as all your money is into the latest
and greatest platform/software.

And a host of problems to follow.  Your friend will finally 
give up (good), or buy the damn thing (better), or have the 
film scanned in at a good transfer house (the only sane 
choice).

The end result of his present choice will be a whole lot of 
unusable data of an unsteady film image.  Why bother?  Only if 
you're young, or stupid, or both.

(Again, I know.  Been there, done that, too.  I was not always
The Film Wizard.  Long ago, I was a poor, brilliant filmmaker
in Seattle, building high-precision film equipment out of
junk.  That's why I'm so vehement about it.  There's nothing 
worse than a converted anything.)

I'll answer your questions, though.  I feel especially 
qualified.

Yes.  As mentioned above, buy one - don't build one.  And 
don't buy one if you can get your film scanned by a reputable 
firm that will guarantee their work.  That's what you're 
paying for, why it costs so much.

No, because surplus means dinged-around-in-a-box. Even if
it was steady before, what the heck is it now?  But I'll be 
happy to build you one, or job it out for you. It will cost a 
GAZILLION dollars to start.  ($30K, actually). And take six 
months to a year, 'cause I'm busy.

If you would like a reasonably STEADY, but less-expensive
pin-registered movement of unique design, contact the 
legendary Mr. Jaakko Kurhi of Meritex in Oakland, CA.
510.581.9791
http://www.jkcamera.com/meritex_products.htm
jkurhi@jkcamera.com

Tell him the Wizard sent you.  Jaakko has been
helping filmmakers do the impossible for thirty years.

Jaakko's JK Printers now come with a computer-driven digital
camera, which will make your film-scanning dreams come true,
a frame at a time.

No.  I don't purchase any equipment unless it directly relates 
to being a FILMMAKER, not an engineer, copter-head, or 
special-effects dweeb.  "Please, Mr. Wizard, I don't wanna
be a Special Visual Effects Technician any more!"  "Drizzle,
drazzle, drozzle, drome.  Time for zis von to come home."

Yes.  CINESITE is an offshoot of the Eastman Kodak Company.
You've heard of them.  They do scanning.  CINEON is also an 
offshoot of EK.  They make scanners, and software, and have a 
megalithic corporation full of experts to help you.

Or look in the "American Cinematographer," for company names 
you've seen before, that do scanning.  

(And don't waste your time and money on 16mm.  And don't chew 
with your mouth full. And stop tracking mud across my nice, 
clean floor.)

Best to you,

© 2006 IndyCine, All rights reserved.