Transferring Still Me at FotoKem 

by Jim Hemphill 

When cinematographer Chun Ming Huang began work on Still Me, a 20-minute 

character study about a stroke victim’s difficult rehabilitation, he envisioned the story on 

film, but the production’s limited resources dictated the project be shot and edited on 

standard-definition video.

After the short attracted attention by winning awards at its first three festivals, director 

Beth McElhenny and producer Chase White were encouraged by industry professionals

to submit the film for Academy Award consideration, whom requires a 35mm print. 

“We had no idea the movie would get this much buzz,  and until we found out we might

actually have a chance with the Academy, we had no plans to transfer to film,” says Huang

who shot the picture at 24p with a Panasonic AG-DVX100. “Originally, we planned on going

straight to DVD, so I lit with the intention of outputting to video only.” 

The filmmakers took the project to FotoKem, where Huang worked closely with in-house

producer Rico Hernandez, who supervised the transfer from MiniDV to a 35mm composite

print. “In this case, the source material was a standard-def QuickTime file,” says John Nicolard,

head of digital production for FotoKem. “We loaded that into Final Cut Pro and output a

standard-def DigiBeta to start the process.” The DigiBeta was upconverted (via a Teranex box)

to HDCam-SR tape.

During the tape-to-tape color correction on the da Vinci 2K, Huang was primarily 

concerned with preserving the look of the original footage and prepping it for a different 

medium. “We didn’t do anything too dramatic,” he says. After the color correction, the 

filmmakers gave Hernandez all the text that needed to be laid into the movie, and 

FotoKem created HD end titles in After Effects that were added to the color-corrected 

master. An audio master was created as a 35mm SR optical track, and everything was 

brought into a DI suite to create a filmout file.

To record out to film, says Nicolard, “we have a FotoKem-specific linear-to-log 

conversion.” The conversion was done on a Quantel Pablo, where the digital files were 

prepped with a film look for 35mm recording. “We could have used this session for 

further color timing, but we avoided it because everything was done nicely during the

da Vinci session — and because the cost would have rocketed up!” says Huang. 

The logarithmic DPX file created in the Pablo was exported to a server, and an 

Arrilaser was used to record the file onto Kodak 2242 internegative. Finally, the SR 

optical soundtrack was married to the 35mm negative, and the final print was made on 

Kodak Vision 2383. “The most expensive part is the filmout,” he notes. 

The cinematographer adds that ending up on 35mm subtly changed the image 

quality for both better and worse. “I had to give up some information in the highlights 

and shadows, which is unfortunate, because the image gets a little washed-out. Using 

available daylight as much as we did, some things just had to give.” On the plus side, he 

was happy with the grain structure the image gained. “You can’t get that nice, true grain 

shooting video, and it helps a little in softening out the edges and getting rid of that video 

look. But it was a big challenge to make sure I retained as much of the grain as possible 

during the transfer process.” 

Huang recommends that filmmakers shooting on MiniDV who intend to transfer 

to 35mm keep a sharp eye on the shadows and highlights. “You have to make sure you 

give the colorists plenty of information to work with. It’s hard for me because my style 

can be quite contrasty; I light by eye, so I’ll usually take the exposure that looks good to 

me and go with it.” He also recommends shooting on 24p HD in 16x9 whenever possible 

because that eliminates some stages (and expenses) in the transfer process.

Nicolard echoes these sentiments, though he also advises that independent 

filmmakers shouldn’t get too hung up on technology when embarking on their projects. 

“Anyone who’s shooting MiniDV is generally doing it for budgetary reasons, because if 

they had the money, they would shoot HD or film. The most important thing is just to get 

your project made. If it’s good, people will respond to it.” 

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