Portrait of an Urban Beekeeper

Please enjoy the full documentary "Portrait of an Urban Beekeeper". Feel free to spread it as much as you would like. If you enjoyed the film and would like to leave me a tip, visit the film's vimeo page.

You can learn more about Steve Repasky as well as buy his honey at his website: www.meadowsweetbees.com

The music in the film was written by Tom Brosseau from his album Posthumous Success. I highly recommend listening to his music.

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Interested in working with me? Have a good idea for a documentary? Drop me a line

Kodachrome is Dead (a Post-Mortem)

Kodachrome box, taken on Kodchrome (Dec 12. 2010 - 11:35, f1.7 1/4th sec)For the past 75 years, photons bouncing off various people and objects have sometimes been captured, at the click of a button, on the surface of a film called Kodachrome. Kodachrome is not only one of the most recognizable brands of photographic film, but its history ecompasses the entirety of accessible color photgraphy. In 2009, Kodak stopped production of Kodachrome and on December 30, 2010, the only lab left in the world with the ability to process it discontinued that service. I decided to shoot one roll of Kodachrome before it was too late and I just received the results via airmail from Kansas.
Grossmünster's last interaction with Kodachrome (Dec 5. 2010 - 16:02, f2.8 1/60th sec)The whole time I was shooting this roll of film, I kept thinking about photons (yup, I'm a nerd). Many of my subjects, such as Zürich's Grossmunster, have been shot on Kodachrome countless times. As I clicked the shutter, I thought that this would probably be the last time the photons boucing off these objects would come in contact with Kodachrome. Having never shot Kodachrome before, I felt a bit like an archeaologist, wandering the city of Zürich, exploring the properties of something that is now relegated to history. I was very careful in making each shot, and had a list of people and places I wanted to photograph. I also marked down the time and exposure settings for each shot for posterity. I snapped the last photo (a blurry self-portrait) and sent off the film on the 17th of December, just 13 days before the deadline.
Some kind of police protest at the Rathaus (Dec 8. 2010 - 13:49, f2.8 1/60th sec)I waited patiently to hear news from Dwayne's or see that my credit card had been charged so I could confirm that my film made it on time. After two weeks and no sign, I got nervous and gave Dwayne's a call. I was told by a very friendly staff member that my film made it with three days to spare. However, they were running behind by about three weeks due to the volume of film that they had recieved in the days approaching the deadline. That was understandable, considering one man turned in 1500 rolls by himself. The box finally arrived and I got the first look at my film.
View from the Lindenhof (Dec 9. 2010 - 15:02, f4 1/125th sec)

The film looks just as good as I thought it would. Very clean and sharp, nice color renditions. However, it was (as I expected) a pain to scan. Kodachrome is very unique in the way its color layers are arranged. This makes it tricky for scanners to deal with (and one of the reasons why they discontinued it). I had to tweak the settings individually for each scan because I didn't want to invest in an it8 calibration slide. I think my scans are pretty good, but still not 100% of the originals. The one thing that really stood out to me about Kodachrome is its excellent rendering of skin tone.
Pascal Grob of www.fashionbitsandbobs.com (Dec 9. 2010 - 15:48. f1.7 1/60th sec)Overall, though happy with the film, I understand Kodak's decision. Kodachrome has a unique look, but not so unique that more modern slide films can't do the same work. Kodachrome has to be processed in its own special way, where other slide films share the same process. Also, in the end, most film is digitized anyway, and the process to digitize Kodachrome is cumbersome. I am glad I had the experience of shooting this historic film, but all good things must come to an end.
Portrait of the author, taken by his wife (Dec 12. 2010 - 16:05, f1.7 1/60th sec)Related Posts
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One Roll of Kodachrome

I am in the middle of a generational divide. When I was a child, there were no digital cameras. Digital photography only became a somewhat viable replacement for film when I was in my late-teens. All of my photography classes in community college and at Brooks Institute were film-based. I purchased my first digital SLR in 2005 (a Canon 300D) and seldom looked back. Today, though I know film well, I am more comfortable with digital. 

In the time period when I was shooting a lot of film, I shot mostly black & white Ilford stock, some Provia, and of course plenty of various color negative films. The one film I never got to shoot, however, was Kodachrome -- and if I ever want to, I have to act fast. Kodak announced on June 22, 2009 that Kodachrome would be retired. Dwayne's Photo in Kansas is the only certified lab left in the world who can process whatever film remains, and December 30, 2010 is the last day that Dwayne's will process Kodachrome. Any unshot rolls left in the collective photographer's freezer after that will transform from potential art to simply worthless rolls of polyester and silver-nitrate.

The Film
Recently, I decided I should shoot a roll of Kodachrome before it's too late. It was a bit challenging to find -- no local stores in Zürich have any left. On ebay, it is expensive and of unknown origin/quality. I eventually made my purchase through a Swiss online shop, and it was pricey for a single roll. I ordered it over a month ago, since I intended to finish this project before November 30th. My reason for this deadline was based on the fact that everywhere outside the U.S. Kodachrome is sold with the processing cost included. To receive the processing with the cost of the film, you have to send it to Kodak's office in Lausanne, who then forwards the film to Dwayne's. The deadline for processing through Kodak Lausanne was November 30th. It seems that the company through which I ordered my film had as much trouble tracking down a roll as I did, because they took over a month to send it. Needless to say, I was disappointed, which is why I am not mentioning the company's name. Now my only choice is to send my film directly to Kansas and pay for processing a second time. The roll I recieved is the standard 36 exposure Kodachrome 64 with an expiration date of 11/2010 and the batch number of 1563 -- which wikipedia confirms is the last batch ever.

The Camera
I own a few different film cameras, and I took a long time to decide which one I wanted to use for my first and last roll of Kodachrome. I have a Canon Rebel 2000, but it seemed too new and plastic-y to shoot such a classic film with. I also have a Leica Z2X, which was a tempting choice, but because the camera doesn't have any manual settings, it also seemed like a shame to shoot the Kodachrome on it. I finally decided on an old camera that I had actually found several years ago in the garbage -- an Olympus 35RD. This camera is perfect. A classic, fixed-lens compact range-finder with a 40mm f1.7 Zuiko lens, it is one of the last cameras made with an automatic setting that can be also operated completely manually even with no battery inside. This last feature is particularly great, because the light meter on mine doesn't work well, so I will be carrying my Sekonic light meter with me when possible (that in combination with an impressive free light meter iPhone app as well as the Sunny 16 rule).

Before I could shoot with this camera, I needed to send it in for repairs. Every 35RD still around has a sticky shutter due to the kind of grease they used when they were built. I took it to Claudio Fabio of camera-service.ch, who did an amazing job. He fixed the shutter, the light-sealing, and replaced a few faulty parts. I shot a test roll with it and it works like new. Here is a shot from that roll:
200 ISO Müller Color Negative (probably rebranded Fuji Superia) Shooting starts now.
The camera is loaded and I have already taken four shots around Zürich. I have made a list of the subjects I want to shoot with this precious roll. I want to finish it before December 15th because it has to make it all the way from Zürich to Kansas before the 30th. As soon as the slides are back, there will be a new blog post with my impressions and some shots. I also intend to occasionally post iPhone photos to my Twitter with the subjects of particular exposures. Stay tuned.

Why I Make Films.

A room full of rodent bones.There are many reasons why I decided to become a filmmaker. Many of the reasons are fairly normal; The thrill of creating something new, the joy of collaboration, the allure of fame, etc. However, one of my primary motivations is quite different, I think. I make films because of the strange and random situations I get to experience in the pursuit of making a film project. When I am in a unique situation, I always think that I would never have had this experience if I wasn't in this business.

The following is a list of things I have done with the end goal being some kind of motion picture project(in no particular order).

  • Saved Matt Czurchy's pants, so he could go home.
  • Met someone in a parking lot because they had a russian accent.
  • Shoveled Mud until 5am
  • Met friend in London for two hours just to shoot a music video.
  • Sat behind Morgan Spurlock at a swank Hollywood awards show.
  • Went on a very long quest for enourmous wings.
  • Been Backstage at a fashion show.
  • Hiked the longest glacier in the alps with the father of trick skiing.
  • Watched goats walk through a restaurant terrace.
  • Been at a long-out-of-business 50's diner at dawn.
  • Sped through downtown LA, shining a strobelight out of the window.
  • Went to SF to meet the EFF.
  • Drove an hour and a half to give someone pants.
  • Cleaned a room full of rodent bones.
  • Video production with a still camera.
  • Attended a World's Strongest Man competition.
  • Had Sushi with a web startup that eventually went belly up.
  • Had Free champagne and free reign of a hip dance club.
  • Ate Spaghetti with H.R. Giger.

And countless more.

From what I can tell, filmmaking is one of the only jobs that can give such unique experiences while still being the same job. Does that make any sense? 

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Film is Dead.

 

Well, maybe not dead -- but the revolution definitely will not be shot on film. I had the pleasure to shoot with a RED ONE for the first time this weekend and it really is the game changer that everyone says it is. I have been a fan of shooting video for a long time (I guess I am just of the digital generation), but the RED ONE  is the first digital video camera to really compete with film in all categories. For the record, I would like to make comparisons between Common video formats(MiniDV, HDV, Digibeta, etc), Film and the RED ONE.

Resolution

  • Video: Ranges from 640x480 pixels to 1920x1080 pixels with a variety of different pixel apsect ratios (rectangular pixels) thrown in there for good measure.
  • Film: No pixels, but comparable to 4k. Though most digital intermediates are done in 2k resolution
  • RED: 4k -- 4096 x 2304.

 

Recording Medium

  • Video: Lots of tape formats, some proprietary solid state and hard disk formats.
  • Film: 35mm or 16mm Negative Film.
  • RED: High Speed Compact Flash, Raided SATA drives, anything that accepts HD-SDI

 

Dynamic Range

  • Video: Varies wildly but averages between 4 and 6 f-stops
  • Film: Depends on the stock, but reliably 11 stops.
  • RED: Technically 11, but in reality around 9.

 

Image Plane Size

  • Video: Anywhere from Tiny up to 2/3rds inch.
  • Film: Super 35mm -- 24.89 mm × 18.66 mm
  • RED: 24.4mm x 13.7mm

 

Hardware Cost

  • Video: Starts from as low as a few hundred, tops out around 100,000
  • Film:  A new Arri 435 is around 75,000 body only. Prices vary in the + 20,000 range
  • RED: 17,500 body only.

Shooting Cost

  • Video: Some tapes and hard drives for editing. Quite cheap.
  • Film: Raw film stock, Film Processing, Telecine. Hard drives for editing. Quite expensive.
  • RED: Some CF Cards, Maybe a RED RAID, Lots of hard drive space -- probably a raid for storage. Not cheap, but cheaper than film.

 

Frame Rates

  • Video: Most commonly 24, 25 and 29.97. Some newer cameras can shoot up to 60fps
  • Film: As fast as your camera will let you go. Ultra high speed cameras can shoot 10,000 fps. Up to 120 is quite common
  • RED: Varies depending on resolution. Up to 30fps at 4k, 60fps at 3k, 120fps at 2k

 

In all these categories the RED is fairly equivalent to film, but beats film in terms of cost. A few other areas where I think the red wins are speed of use and safety of footage.

Ease of use: We shot a short film in 48 hours in 4k resolution this weekend. This would have been incredibly difficult with film. Film needs to be processed and telecined before you can begin editing. Both processes that would have taken valuable time. It probably would have been impossible here in Switzerland due to the lack of 24 hour facilities.

Safety of footage: Film advocates will say that a hard drive can crash or a CF card could fail. However, film is obviously more perilous to use than digital. Just one little light leak and your footage is ruined -- not to mention what can happen in the lab to make your work unusable. With file based digital shooting you can make as many back ups as you want on set. With film your camera original is all you have until you have a work print made.

One of the areas where I found RED more difficult to use than Film was focusing. The RED shoots 4k, but as of now, all of the monitoring options only go as high as 720p. This makes it difficult to see what is in focus. There is a pretty nifty focus assist that outlines in focus areas with red lines, but this is not perfect. That said, with a little practice, I was able to pull focus fairly well.

There are a few other great things about the RED: REDCODE RAW, Speed Ramping, Stop Motion, User definable buttons, Modularity, etc. Too much for me to go into right now.

I am ready to shoot on RED again as soon as possible. Last weekend makes my dread shooting HDV again.

 

PS. I know I left out cameras like the F23, the Panavision Genesis and the like. They have lots of the same benefits of the RED but so far none of them shoot 4K.