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Essence isn't actually converted in those rules. When you get into the kind of minutiae you're talking about, you may as well simply just transplant the Essence rules into Cinematic and be done with it--it's easier.

That being said, the rules in ESP 3 are very old versions of my system, which I have revised several times since then, having a much better understanding of the system than I did at the time. Now I handle Essence very simply.

1. Ignore the character's personal Essence pool (and Increased Essence as well--these do not come into play at all in Cinematic Unisystem)

2. Each round, have the player roll Willpower + Essence Channeling. The resulting success levels represent the amount of Essence available to the character that round, drawn from wherever it's available, be it himself or the surrounding ambient Essence. Thus, if a Willpower + Essence Channeling roll results in 15, that's 4 success levels--the character has 4 Essence this round. Holding Essence over multiple rounds works as standard.

3. I pretty much only use Essence Channeling for Chi Abilities these days. For psychic powers, I ignore the ability to boost Strength with Essence--it doesn't exist. For Necromancy, I treat it as any other skill roll (Attribute + Necromancy); for powers requiring Essence, the Essence cost becomes the requisite success levels to activate the power. For other forms of Magic, I use the Ghosts of Albion and Buffy systems. Ghosts of Albion represents "essence-based" magic, while Buffy-based Sorcery is Taint-based, and carries the risk of addiction (per the Magic Box) and Madness (adapted from the Abomination Codex and Armageddon).

The most important thing when dealing with Cinematic Unisystem is this: Don't overthink it, and don't sweat the details. Keep it as simple and elegant as possible, and just about EVERYTHING should default to an Attribute + Skill (and/or Quality) Test or Task, and the resultant Success Levels.

Hope that helps!

@Marcus: Thank technowraith--he sent me a PM that summoned me back!

@tw - Chi Drain is a moot ability in Cinematic, since personal essence pools don't exist; Essence Drain in a Cinematic game becomes a non-issue.  It should simply be removed from play.  If you replace it with damaging effects, it becomes redundant with Chi Bolt, so it serves no purpose.

Yes, if you're reading closely this means that races like Atlantean Immortals, spirits, etc., require some hand-waving to deal with in Cinematic.  I adjust "essence drain" to mean "affected by magic/supernatural powers." I also have a house rule that beheading takes care of almost anything with a head. Immortals and Nephilim each get 1 minute to re-attach their head before death sets in, but other than that...

Best not to overthink these things--if something doesn't work easily and intuitively on conversion, just throw it out. Otherwise you end up with rules upon rules, and subsystems upon subsystems, and the Unisystem loses all of its elegance.

Honestly, I have few "hard and fast" conversions in my games. I do a great deal of winging it. For example, I have two types of vampires: Strigoi (Buffy vamps) and Moroi (Ghosts of Albion and/or WitchCraft vamps). Strigoi are soulless dead possessed by demons. Moroi have souls, being those who had too much reason to stick around, or who were forced back into their bodies by another Moroi at the moment of death. I also have two distinct species of Werewolves: Buffy/Angel werewolves, and WitchCraft werewolves. WC werewolves work off of willpower checks instead of Essence expenditure. They also tend to view the far more common Buffy weres as filthy mongrels. If I need a conversion of sorts, I usually just go with my gut and then tweak how it works as we go, always defaulting to some sort of test or task based on success levels for making the power work.

Also, to clarify, this is for my Cinematic games.  I also run classic Unisystem games that are just as kitchen sink, but use WitchCraft, Armageddon, Con-X, and AFMBE rules all mashed up together, and drop Drama Points on top for good measure.  My Doctor Who game works on that principle.