off topic question regarding 35mm movie cameras

[Colorburst300]

Here's a question I should know and am a little embarrassed about asking, but anyhow..

When a crew films a movie and reviews the "daily's" on the screen, did the camera (usually a panavision) actually shoot the scene to film or to a different source, and are they then able to print the takes they want to film so as not to waste any film on unwanted takes? This may sound pretty silly, but there must be a method similar to this unless the scene is captured by video from within the movie camera to let them view the scene directly after filming it.

Any input?

[longhorn8]

I may be wrong, but the dailies are usually the telecined film footage sent back from the transfer house. However, if they are viewing the shots directly afterward (without sending the film away) the camera is equipped with a video tap to simultaneously record the takes on video and film. Once film is shot, its shot, so there isn't really any question of saving or wasting film, but I suppose they might save some money and not have the film processed or telecined if the footage was absolutely not worth keeping.

[Nigel]

When I shoot 35. We print only the "circled" takes. Meaning we only Xfer the good takes. No sense in spending the money on stuff you will only fast forward through if you are watching it on video and if we do print the dalies to film then same thing we only do the circled takes.

BTW--Most pro-cameras will allow you to use a video tap to watch the tapes at the end of the day. Beware that just because you have a good shot on the tapes at the end of the day your film could crap because of a hair or something else.

Good Luck

[Matt Pacini]

One thing I've always been curious about:

It seems strange to me that they only print the "good ones", and I put that in quotes, because when I'm editing, I frequently find something good in an otherwise bad take.
Either a good reaction shot, or something that works to fix something wrong, etc.
Do they just print those for dailies, and the editor gets ALL the footage for the real cut?
Or do they really figure when they hear "cut! print!" that the best final decision has been made then & there?
I'd imagine the editor gets everything, but I always thought this was odd, since they're making decisions on whether to reshoot something later, etc., based on the dailies...

Matt Pacini

[Nigel]

I would think that would depend on who you are as the editor and your relationship with the director and producer.

Ask an editor.

Good Luck