American Cinematographer - October 1996 - 26

Tape To Film

Motion

Picture Titles

Digital Film

Recording

Is this a way to eliminate the
director's finder? "I'd just say it's a fast
way to get what you want with one
fewer piece of gear," Semler replies.
"It's just my common practice now, and

do it."
The cinematographer is cur¬
rently preparing for his directorial debut
on the film Firestorm. Will he light it with

anyone can
Effects Compositing

a

match?

-David E. Williams
The

HBO Pictures "Goth"
HBO Pictures

ture

keycode numbers. Upon pic¬

lock, Gamson created negative cut¬

ting documentation, and the negative se¬
lects were assembled. He then assigned
the selected reels new time code and
created an EDL for on-line auto-assem¬

bly of each show. Noelle Penraat
handled the negative cutting, while
Rob Issen, general manager of the Tape
House Computer Ink and Paint, created
animated maps with moving montages.
Elements

Tape House

Posts The West

-

code to film

were

shot

on a

double-fixed, pin-registered Oxberry ani¬

The Tape House recently pro¬
vided extensive postproduction service
for The West, an eight-part documentary
series for Public Television from New
York's Insignia Films.

mation stand and transferred jump-free
in one of the Tape House's Ursa Gold
Telecines. They were composited in the
Kadenza suite at the company's sister fa¬

The l/l/esftells the epic saga of
the American West from before the ar¬
rival of Spanish conquistadors up until
modern times. The documentary com¬
bines footage shot on location in 18
western states with animated archival

was

photographs and first-person accounts
journals read by
many of the country's leading actors.

from diaries, letters and
The series

was cut on

three

cility, Tape House Digital. Paul Barnes
the series' supervising editor, and
the optical title sequence was produced
by John Alagna of The Effects House.
Sound was edited on digidesign's Pro
Tools PostView Systems under the su¬
pervision of sound editor Ira Speigel. The
sound mix was done at New York City's
Sound One.
The
4949.

Tape House, (212) 557♦

Avid Film

Composers, each with 27 gigs
of memory. The editors imported the
Filemaker Pro database into Avid's
Chesterfield

Medialog system to streamline logging.
Tape House colorists John Dowdell and
Richard Dare used two of the facility's

Screenwriting
Fellowships
The Writer's Film

Ursa Gold telecines to transfer the 16mm

negative to DCT. Editors Peter Heady and
Jay Tilin handled the on-line edit in one
of the Tape House's digital suites, main¬
taining the project's all-digital path. Epi¬
sodes were auto-conformed by Tape
House editor Stuart Oppenheim.
Instead of making a showlength interpositive, the producers of The
West desired greater flexibility from their
negative. Notes Kantor, "While it's easy
to reshoot a still photograph on an ani¬

Diet Coke "Street Corners"
-

Lowe & Partners

mation stand, we wanted to preserve our

TAPE

HOUSE

DIGITAL

FILM

unique aerial and landscape shots when¬
ever possible." The producers elected to
protect the integrity of this material by
pulling full takes, while designating the
remaining negative to be pulled with 16
frame handles and assembled on single¬
strand rolls.

305

East

NYC,

46

NY

Street

10017

TEL

212-980-9200

FAX

212-754-4622

Elliot Gamson, president of
New York's Immaculate Matching, dic¬

tated the process using proprietary soft¬
ware. Gamson assigned exclusive time
code to all video dailies, and created a
database that cross-referenced time

http://www.tapehouse.com
Contact:

24

Alfie

Schloss

October 1996

Project

(WFP) is once again offering up to
five $20,000 fellowships to aspiring
theater, fiction and film writers in¬
terested in

screenwriting career.
year's deadline is October 15.
Originated at Amblin' En¬
tertainment and now sponsored by
the Kennedy/Marshall Company,
a

This

the Chesterfield WFP has thus far
awarded more than $800,000 in fel¬

lowships. Guests and mentors at
WFP events have included Steven

Spielberg, Warren Beatty, Nick
Kazan, David Koepp, Harold Ramis
and many others. WFP alumni have
written scripts for Paramount,
Warner Bros.,

Disney, Universal,
Columbia, MGM, United Artists,

American Zoetrope, Amblin Enter¬
tainment and other independents
and studios.
The Chesterfield Com¬

pany-WFP, (213) 683-3977,

e-

mail: www.infoboard.com/chesterfield.
American Cinematographer - October 1996

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 1996
