Building Sound With 16mm Footage

[Jacob Kresak]

Hello all! 

I'm fairly new to shooting with film. I've shot Super 8 but never 16. I was doing some research and trying to determine what would be the best route for the film I'm beginning to work on. I am using a non-reflex Bolex H16 to film a short film with. All of the youtube videos I have seen are people who build a soundscape with tones, noises or music rather than dialogue. 

I understand you need a motor to run synch sound with this type of camera. I was curious on how difficult it would be to record the scene's audio and then ADR, replace and build an entire sound profile after the fact. Has anyone done this successfully without using a motor? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy the motor?

[Aapo Lettinen]

Do you have the nonreflex H16 or the h16rx? 

If you want to make sync sound dialogue scenes you may want to upgrade the camera unless it is like rex4 or rex5 model and have spent lots of money on it. 

You can get pretty good crystal sync camera kit with basic zoom for under 2k fully working. If a crystal bolex motor alone costs at least 1k it would make more sense to just upgrade to proper sync sound camera alltogether and keep the bolex for handheld mos stuff

[Jacob Kresak]

15 minutes ago, Aapo Lettinen said:

Do you have the nonreflex H16 or the h16rx? 

If you want to make sync sound dialogue scenes you may want to upgrade the camera unless it is like rex4 or rex5 model and have spent lots of money on it. 

You can get pretty good crystal sync camera kit with basic zoom for under 2k fully working. If a crystal bolex motor alone costs at least 1k it would make more sense to just upgrade to proper sync sound camera alltogether and keep the bolex for handheld mos stuff

I have a non reflex H16, I just bought it this month and didn't realize prior to purchasing it that I wouldn't be able to run sync sound without the crystal motor. So I wanted to shop for options on using this before going for a completely new camera.

[Tyler Purcell]

Yea, you could easily replace with ADR, because your actors can speed up or slow down to match in post. Shouldn't be a problem at all. Recording on site, no way. Not only will you never find 24FPS anywhere on that dial without checking with a strobe, but it's actually not that consistent. Even the electric motor driven versions aren't that consistent. 

[Aapo Lettinen]

yes ADR with dynamic speed corrections would probably work fine if the short run time of the spring motor is not an issue.

if wanting longer takes with electric motor I would invest on a self-blimped crystal sync camera right away instead of beefing up the non-rx bolex, one would be much happier with the workflow and end results. If one has lots of c-mount lenses already then the Eclair NPR or ACL could be pretty optimal. if one can manage with a single zoom lens then cp16r style camera could be good and if one wants something very handy which can be slightly louder than Eclairs but has possibility to buy new lens set then the Kinor16 could work pretty nicely (or getting it PL modified and invest on either PL or ArriSTD/ArriBayonet lenses to get them working on as wide range of cameras as possible) . If there is some cameras available nearby you can tell which options would be possible and we can comment pros and cons of each setup 🙂 

[Brian Drysdale]

Bait was shot on a clockwork Bolex:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_(2019_film)

[Aapo Lettinen]

it is possible to crystal sync non-reflex Bolex like most other cameras, could be interesting for artistic purposes!  the camera does not have any controls on the right side which would need to be accessed after the motor mounted so I would probably just not try to make it compact, instead aiming for simplicity and low costs. I would probably just mount one of my new 4-speed crystal motors to a large-ish support structure which mounts to the bottom of the camera and to one point on top of the camera, covering most of the right side. then running the 8:1 axle on the camera with belt drive reduction to get the correct rpm for 24fps on the camera axle. it should not be particularly noisy though the non-blimped bolex body is nowhere near a proper sync sound camera anyway.

but if the belt drive reduction gear and other mechanics would be made as a open source community project one would need to pay 650usd for my 4-speed crystal motor and then whatever it costs to diy build the belt drive system and mounting gear. I would expect somewhere around 800 to 900usd total price?  I could sell the 4-speed motors for cheaper if people would make videos to showcase the end result, would love to see the good ol bolexes hacked that extensively 😄 

planetary gear / other built-in reduction gear motor running at 180rpm output driving directly the 8:1 axle might work too if you just need something electric to run it and no sync needed. though if they have encoder they can often be crystal synced if needed... I just have bad experiences with Chinese reduction gear boxes which is why I like the belt drive idea more. But "direct drive with the built-into-motor reduction gear box" could work too if the motor is just such that the gearbox does not grind itself to dust during first 5 minutes like the typical Chinese stuff I have seen has done 😄 

Edited April 1 by Aapo Lettinen

[Jon O'Brien]

11 hours ago, Brian Drysdale said:

Bait was shot on a clockwork Bolex:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_(2019_film)

Bait looks great! I will definitely see it. Love the style.

[Jacob Kresak]

15 hours ago, Brian Drysdale said:

Bait was shot on a clockwork Bolex:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_(2019_film)

I am a HUGE fan of Mark, I've wanted a 16mm for along time, but this film and Enys Men are the reason I went with a Bolex instead of a K3. I absolutely love the look and pallet of Bait. Didn't realize it was a clockwork though, I will go back and watch it again.

[Jacob Kresak]

18 hours ago, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea, you could easily replace with ADR, because your actors can speed up or slow down to match in post. Shouldn't be a problem at all. Recording on site, no way. Not only will you never find 24FPS anywhere on that dial without checking with a strobe, but it's actually not that consistent. Even the electric motor driven versions aren't that consistent. 

Oh that's a relief to hear. Thank you! I'm definitely just going to go ahead with it and try it out! 

[Jon O'Brien]

I'd heard of 'Bait' but didn't know it was shot on a spring wound Bolex. That is so cool.

I'm going to search this film out. There are so many films I want to see that are shot on film that this one slipped through the cracks.

I'd love to do that one day. Film an Australian feature on a 16mm Bolex. Or on an Arri. Doesn't really matter but I must admit the Bolex idea really interests me. So doable in my opinion. Just need to get the right small team together (oh, and the funding for it - insert smiley face here).

The chances of such a small and low budget movie recouping its costs if given a cinema release would be pretty high I'd think. That's if it's a great script with great actors, great locations, art direction, etc.

Imagine getting Russell Crowe interested in such a production! And some other epic Aussie actors.

Edited April 2 by Jon O'Brien

[Jon O'Brien]

I am actually wondering if this style of filmmaking could be the viable future of cinema. Because traditional big budget movies are crashing in a lot of cases. The talent isn't there any more.

Home-grown movies on a small budget, shot with simple gear, on film. Even with voice over dubbing. Focus on story and acting and great locations/settings but film on just 16mm. You know, you could even do it on Super 8. Use a Beaulieu with a 6-66mm on it.

Edited April 2 by Jon O'Brien

[Jon O'Brien]

Tip: if you want to shoot a short film or feature on a low-priced 16mm camera, consider also the Kodak K100 camera. Its image is possibly not consistently as steady as a Bolex, but on the other hand it can be completely steadied in post if working digitally. The K100 is very useful for longer takes, if needed for a shot or shots. But cheaper just to get an electric motor for the Bolex no doubt.

Edited April 2 by Jon O'Brien

[alexandros petin]

If you want to keep it low budget check out the bolex Cine Assist Animo One aniMo one motor (kinda weird name) that i think it doesn't break the bank.

I am not affiliated in any way, I am just also considering to buy it. Not a sync motor but along the many nice features it has, if you contact filmcurl you ll get details of a surprisingly steady motor for the price.

http://cineassist.filmcurl.com/

i think the creator is a member of the forum.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 09:09 PM by alexandros petin

[Jacob Kresak]

3 minutes ago, alexandros petin said:

If you want to keep it low budget check out the bolex Cine Assist Animo One aniMo one motor (kinda weird name) that i think it doesn't break the bank.

I am not affiliated in any way, I am just also considering to buy it. Not a sync motor but along the many nice features it has, if you contact filmcurl you ll get details of a surprisingly steady motor for the price.

http://cineassist.filmcurl.com/

i think the creator is a member of the forum.

 

 

Oh WOAH! Thank you so much for this, It's really cool to see someone is doing this. I was afraid of buying something so old for so much money. This might be perfect, I'm looking on their site now.