Our First Film print!
Posted in Media Gallery, Production by TonWahoo! The neighbours from Filmmore provided us a test print with 1 minute of material for color tests. It was already totally exciting to hold the metal case in my own hands… for me the first film ever, a wonderful experience. :)
To get the film transfer perfect, we had assistance from a professional grader, Florentijn Bos. We spent with him a couple of times in the Filmmore grading suite to review shots, to discuss colors, and to learn what survives on film and what not. We then discovered that the Blender DPX export isn’t even 16 bits, and not even logarithmic 10 bits (as expected) but simple 10 bits linear (0-1023 maps to 0-1). Luckily the conversion to logarithmic (which is what you need for film) is a standard feature of grading suites. We will get log dpx files from them back soon to check what exactly is wrong with the Blender dpx code (apart from that we copied it from Cinepaint :).
Then today, this morning at 9.45, we went to one of the largest Amsterdam cinemas to view the 1 minute on the real big screen! Wahoo indeed! See the pictures below. You can see me in front of the screen wondering why I don’t see the individual pixels… to only find out that 35 mm film is just the start… we should do 70mm, or actually Imax! Hopefully the digital projection revolution will solve it soon…
March 25th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
What an exciting moment! Congratulations!
March 25th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Bravo à vous !! :)
March 25th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
So this is how a 35mm print looks like…
Good question:
Why can’t we se the indevidual pixels?
… and it wouldn’t be necessary renders with more resolution for 70mm or IMAX?
March 25th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Congratulations! Well done, guys. This is another milestone in Blender’s and CGI’s History!
March 25th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
It is shinyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy! *big curious eyes*
March 25th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
That’s great – you just can’t beat real film in my opinion. Have you tried holdng it up to the light? :)
March 25th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
great! this is going to really improve blender. Open source color grading is something I’d like to see in the future…
March 25th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Wait, you guys are doing test runs in a Pathe Cinema?? Woah, awesome!! :D
*would love to see it in Pathe Arena (IMAX screens there, but the cinema in the screenshot looks like De Munt, isn’t it?)
March 25th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
It’s from the Pathe ‘ArenA’ just by the AJAX football stadium.
March 25th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Making me excited also…Just seeing the tin can made me think, is it made yet!? Wish I was there to experience it in the cinema :(
March 25th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Making me excited also…Just seeing the tin can made me think, is it made yet!? Wish I was there to experience it in the cinema :( PAT Yourselves on the back!!!!
March 26th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Ahh, everything’s going so well.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:35 am
@william: it *is* ArenA? Oh, cool! The banner got me confused I guess :)
March 26th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Congratulations boys, that is indeed a nice feeling :)
March 26th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
that’s really exciting! and some interesting news about dpx formats!
March 26th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Excellent news guys! I feel the excitement too!
March 26th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Congratulations, you deserve it guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
March 26th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Will it be possible to buy the trailer or even the whole movie on 35mm film?
March 26th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
What would be the ultimate screening is to not only do it in IMAX, but to do it in IMAX3D. If anyone of you have seen it, it is really eye popping!!! You really feel like the image/object is within reach!
March 26th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
One step at a time guys. This is awsome news!
March 27th, 2008 at 8:44 am
Have you given any thought to music yet? I may be able to help – if you find any of my samples/styles appropriate, that is!
http://sparkyworld.com/composer/
March 27th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I can’t wait until the movie comes out! I’m so excited! Would be great to see this movie in full 35mm glory. How’s the rendering going guys?
March 27th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
About how much does it cost to put a ten minute movie like BBB on film like this to be played in theaters?
Just kinda curious.
(you guys are getting this done complementary of Filmmore,(I think) but I am kinda curious how much it would cost if you weren’t)
March 27th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
FANTASTIC! I too am interested in how much the film costs. Don’t you have to buy it by the foot?
sidenote: When’s the DVD box art going to get a makeover?
March 28th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Congratulations Ton and the Blender team! Another victory for Free Software.
March 28th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
WOW!! This is really GREAT!! 70mm too!!? Excellent!! Hey guys, here we have Cinema with a cool FX effects (funky moving and tilting sitting chairs, wind, smoke, … etc). You should make some layers for such a cinemas too! Well, for the next Big Blender Bovie maybe! Yeepee! \o/ :)
March 28th, 2008 at 11:42 pm
WOW Congratulations .
March 29th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Congrats !!!
March 29th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Hahaha, when I first read the title and saw the pictures, I thought the movie was already finished :D! I’m really exiting to see this movie and get my hands on the files.
March 30th, 2008 at 1:10 am
look !! :
http://www.pcinpact.com/actu/news/42722-LIDD163-pub-Linux.htm
I ask the site to upload your site:
March 30th, 2008 at 1:13 am
not updload, but talk, sorry ^^’
March 30th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Hmmm…. How long is Big Buck Bunny going to be?
March 30th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Dave: 8 to 10 minutes I believe.
March 30th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
How long Big Buck Bunny going to be? Ha! As long as will humans, computers and internet exist! \o/
March 31st, 2008 at 3:01 am
Thanks for exposing the flaw in DPX output. Will 16 bit/log imaging be supported with 2.46? How about the OpenEXR format? Does Blender export log EXR files?
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Wow! That has to be an amazing feeling. Did you just sit there for a moment, in awe, staring at the print? I would have. Congratulations! Thanks to all of you for advancing not only this software, but Animation.
April 4th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
so, at what resolution did you render the film to print on 35mm?
and then you just walked with a huge hard-disk over to Filmmore an they printed it for you or what? – I’m curious :-)
April 13th, 2008 at 1:57 am
I want to know the same details as requested by Mauro!
April 19th, 2008 at 2:25 am
Mauro & Entplex. The resolution delivered by blender was 1920×1080, but ofcourse cinema us 1:1.85 or 1:2.40. So I cropped it of to 1920×1038. On typical 35mm print you will get about 1.5k in effective ‘pixels’. So more pixels will not make it sharper. Unless you go to Imax or Digital Cinema 4k.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
PLEASE guys, make this film & trailer available on 35mm film for purchase. I’m a projectionist here in the US and would love to exhibit it at several of the theatres I work with as well as a film festival I help out with. It would be a great way to show a lot of people what Blender can do(!) & 35mm film is still alive and well!
I’d love to get Elephant’s Dream in 35mm if you can make that available as well.
A few others have inquired about this, but no clear response has been posted yet.
May 24th, 2008 at 1:12 am
I’m sure that was an amazing feeling. It’s surprising what you can do with free software and a little extra dedicated. I really like the way the whole open source system works. Each time you guys make a movie, it makes the experience even better in the next release of Blender. So I just wanted to thank you all for doing this and keep it up.