Merrick Distant, Kodak Product Systems Engineer

The latest member of the VISION3 Film family is KODAK VISION3 50D Color Negative Film 5203/7203. The VISION3 Film platform is the result of a confluence of technical innovations that gives filmmakers greater creative flexibility and a better starting place for postproduction. Here, Kodak’s Product Systems Engineer Merrick Distant answers questions about the science behind the new film:

What are the new features of the new KODAK VISION3 50D 5203 / 7203 film?
DISTANT: We incorporated many of the features that customers have come to like about our other VISION3 films into this new low speed, daylight balanced offering. The result is a film that renders images with similar color and contrast, providing more detail in the extreme bright areas and at the finest grain available. Improvement in the signal to noise (S/N) response over the entire exposure scale results in more usable detail at the extremes of exposure, a benefit in digital postproduction applications.

When the production challenge is ‘how to limit costs’, the answer can often be ‘shoot film’ – if the filmmaker is willing to look beyond the obvious. With film, not only does ‘one size not fit all’, it doesn’t need to because with film, there are plenty of formats to choose from.

We could talk about 65mm film as the ‘gold standard of quality’ (just ask Christopher Nolan whose cinematographer Wally Pfister ASC shot parts of ‘The Dark Knight’ and the upcoming ‘Inception’ on 65mm) – the use of Super 16 for TV origination in Europe and its growing use in the US -- or the unique look possible from Super 8 footage cut into a finished theatrical print. But for this discussion, let’s just look at 35mm film.

Currently a Product Systems Engineer in the Entertainment Imaging Division with primary responsibilities for the systems integration and imaging science on new product development programs for origination films for the Motion Picture industry.

Multiple assignments within Kodak’s Motion Picture Division, spanning Coating Engineering, Formulation Engineer, and Systems Engineer of Motion Picture films.