HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU COUNT YOUR Ks?
Viewers since 12/6/06 

Siegfried Heep – Modern VideoFilm (Hollywood Section manager)
Daryn Okada – President, American Society of Cinematographers
Howard Lukk – Walt Disney Co. (SMPTE Fellow)
Dick May – Film Technology Co., Inc -  (Hollywood Section manager, SMPTE Fellow)

 Representatives of camera manufacturers:

Arri – Bill Russell & Stephan Ukas-Bradley,
Dalsa – Rob Hummell,
Sony – Dhanendr a Patel,
Thomson Grass Valley – Mark Chiolis.

 The Hollywood Section meeting on November 14, 2006 was a joint session with the American Society of Cinematographers.  Held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Linwood Dunn Theater, the attendance was the largest of any of the Section’s meetings, with 252 people attending.  Six members of the visiting China SMPTE group attended, including Secretary-General, Zheyang Chu.

 Prior to the presentations, a reception was held in the theater lobby, with catered food provided by Kodak, and wine and other drinks by the ASC.

 The topic of the evening was entitled “How Many Ways Can You Count Your Ks?”  The meeting opened with a filmed presentation (“through the miracle of the talking picture”) from 1926 of George Eastman greeting a meeting of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers at the Eastman Kodak Co., in Rochester N.Y.   This was followed by Chair Patricia Keighley greeting the audience and giving the usual announcements of upcoming programs.

 Dick May made a film clip presentation under the topic “For the first 100 years, all we had was film”, and ran short segments of features made in 1933, 1948, and 1969.  Each of these was photographed with different film technology (black and white, Technicolor, Eastman Color).

 Siegfried Heep of Modern VideoFilm then gave a tutorial on “What is a Pixel?”.   This was a PowerPoint presentation explaining the basics of digital imaging for those not particularly familiar with the technology.

 The program was then turned over to Daryn Okada, president of the American Society of Cinematographers.  He discussed the factors  considered when deciding to use film or digital capture devices and which one.  How the differences affect budget, schedule, lens and camera specs, technical support on site, and other related facto

 Howard Lukk of Walt Disney Pictures spoke about the use of safe image area for digital production and post-production, accompanied by PowerPoint illustrations.  His talk was followed by a digital showing of THE OTHER PROJECT.  This is a 13-minute movie commissioned by Disney, comparing film capture with the same subjects photographed using four different makes of digital cameras. During this screening the digital cameras used for each section were identified only with a letter designation, so the manufacturers were not apparent.  It was narrated by him and Daryl Okada.

 The next section had brief presentations by representatives of each of the digital cameras used in THE OTHER PROJECT, these being Arri, Dalsa, Sony, and Thompson Grass Valley .  Manufacturers were invited to present camera updates that have occurred since the shooting of the THE OTHER PROJECT one year ago.

 The final presentation was to again show THE OTHER PROJECT, this time with 35mm film projection, and no sound.  Prior to this screening of the film the various camera manufacturers were matched with their letter designation to be publicly identified for the first time.  This screening allowed for side-by-side comparison of each of the four digital cameras with the film capture on a scene by scene basis.  Questions were invited from the audience which were commented on by Howard Lukk and Daryl Okada.  

Patricia Keighley made her closing remarks, and the evening ended after a very satisfying two hours.

 Note:  Sieg Heep’s presentation is available by clicking the link below.

Click here for "Pixel Counts and Properties"  - PowerPoint        PDF file

 SUBMITTED BY:

 Name:_Richard P. May              Section Officer Title: Manager
 Company Affiliation & Contact Tel. No.: Film Technology Co., Inc.    310 251-5495