35 mm blow up.... Is it Possible ?

[Leo Bolanos]

I just got two XH A1s and love them. I`m planning to shoot a full length feature film using this babies and a pair of letus extreme 35 mm adapters and a set of 12 nikon lenses, mate boxes and such. I`ll use a blackmagic HD extreme card for capture and adobe premiere cs3 for CC and editing. My only concern is: is the image quality of the XH-A1 good enough for a blow up to 35mm ? Has somebody attempted to do this, and if so, what results did you get ? Thanks for your comments guys....

Leo.

[Petri Kaipiainen]

The average projection quality of 35mm film is worse than HD video*. In this respect XH-A1 is plenty good enough, just remember that many film transfers have been done also from Pana DVX100 material, which has only about 756x380 pixer resolution with wide format, XH-A1 has either 1440x1080 or 1920x1080 with straight capture (Can you do it form XH-A1?). HDTV or 2K resolution shown in new digital theatres looks sharper than 35 mm.

HDV compression has its caveats, not too much small moving detail and no fast lighting changes combined with detail. If you are capturing straight from camera without HDV compression, that does not need to worry you.

') in one widely published test the average vertical resolution for 35mm film in theatres was only about 750 TV-lines, less than the 1080 lines HDV gives.

[Philip Williams]

"The Signal" was shot on an XL-H1 to tape with HDV and sold at Sundance to Magnolia studios for about 2 mill.

Crank 2 is being shot largely on an XH-A1 to tape for theatrical release. In fact, from the pictures I've seen, they're only shooting with the stock lens or a WA adapter (no fancy 35mm lens kits, rails, etc..).

So if you shoot a film with the XH-A1 and its not deemed suitable for transfer to 35mm, rest assured it won't be the camera's fault :)

[Jerome Marot]

Originally Posted by Petri Kaipiainen

') in one widely published test the average vertical resolution for 35mm film in theatres was only about 750 TV-lines, less than the 1080 lines HDV gives.

Just for the record: 1080 lines is the maximum theoretical resolution of the HDV format. Real-life resolution of the A1 is closer to 800 lines.

This being said:
DV has been used for 35mm transfer
HDV has been used for 35mm transfer. For a list of movies shot on HDV, look the imdb at: http://www.imdb.com/SearchTechnical?for=hdv
HDV resolution is indeed close to 35mm movie projection.

[Oren Arieli]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Blair Witch Project shot on Hi-8 or standard 8mm and transferred to 35mm for release? $250million worldwide gross, not too shabby!

[Keegan Flynn]

Originally Posted by Petri Kaipiainen

The average projection quality of 35mm film is worse than HD video*

Whoever came up with this must have been sampling some pretty terrible theaters.

[Christopher Drews]

Originally Posted by Philip Williams

So if you shoot a film with the XH-A1 and its not deemed suitable for transfer to 35mm, rest assured it won't be the camera's fault :)

Hah! Well said Phillip. Content is everything. If I shot a feature on my BetaMax (which I assure you still works) and had great content / market - it would sell.

Originally Posted by Oren Arieli

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Blair Witch Project shot on Hi-8 or standard 8mm and transferred to 35mm for release? $250million worldwide gross, not too shabby! :)

It's an exception to the rule Oren. Many terribly shot / technically aweful films have made it to international / domestic markets but didn't gross $250 million in receipts. Add 28 Days later (although technically wonderful) - was shot on an XL1-S, granted everything + 250th shutter and true 16:9 - but on the 35mm release / thectrical print, most people couldn't tell the difference.

Don't focus on the format - if your feature is good enough your distributor will even help you meet the deliverables (currently 1080i HD-CAM SR w/ 8 channels of splits). Focus on a compelling story and tell it like Orson Welles would of if he were alive today. Wait - he is alive in Kane/Ambersons/Shang-Hi/SeeNoEvil. Watch old/new movies, download their shooting scripts, compare your shooting script to theirs- rewrite, rewrite, rewrite - repeat. ;)

-C

[Petri Kaipiainen]

Originally Posted by Keegan Flynn

Whoever came up with this must have been sampling some pretty terrible theaters.

Depends on how you look at it, they were all major venues from different parts of the world. If you say they are terrible, then all 35mm theaters are.

Here is the study: http://www.cst.fr/IMG/pdf/35mm_resolution_english.pdf

[Leo Bolanos]

Originally Posted by Petri Kaipiainen

XH-A1 has either 1440x1080 or 1920x1080 with straight capture .

I believe this is not possible. How can you capture 1920 from the XHa1 outputs ?