Matt Wells Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 I was watching Michael Palin's "Pole to Pole" series the other day, all shot on standard 16, 12-14 years ago now, with the stocks available then. It looks superb and all filmed 'off the hip' and on the run. You can pick up some very good value std 16mm gear. Matt
Premium Member Tim Carroll Posted May 19, 2004 Premium Member Posted May 19, 2004 If you spend the time and do your homework, you can put together a regular 16mm package for a good price. We were able to get the ARRI SR1(German electronics), two mags, two onboard batteries, charger, flight case, Cinematography Electornics speed control, lightweight rods, Zeiss 10-100 T2 lens w/Pelican case, and have the camera and mags completely overhauled by ARRI in New York, and the lens cleaned, lubricated and adjusted by Paul Duclos in LA, all for ten grand. It is going to run us roughly five grand to have the camera and mags converted to Super 16 with a PL mount, and another three grand to have the lens converted to 11-110 with the PL mount. But right now, we just use it regular 16 and telecine it to 16:9. And I do believe that if we take care of it, it should last us for many years. We are looking at it as a long term investment. Where as our video camera, which has paid for itself a number of times already, it almost more of a disposable, because I fear in a few more years, it will have very little value and if anything goes wrong with it will cost more to be fixed than it is worth. -Tim Carroll
Sandy Thomson Posted May 19, 2004 Author Posted May 19, 2004 Well folks, I think this thread has probably about run it's course. I've learned a lot from the various posts and thank all for your contributions. There may be a certain amount of preaching to the chior here because this is not a video site, but the comments seem pretty objective, just the same. Now it's time to research the editing side at the same time as I'm inquiring into the market to see what the economics are on the selling side. Once I'm back in the business doing something I'll let you know how it's going. I think I'll have one or two corporate "captive" accounts to get me started but then I'm on my own. I started out thinking I had no choice but video and that film was anachronistic for the kind of work I'm planning. It now looks like s16 with good gear is going to work for me at least at the head end. It's going to feel like an old shoe!
Marty Hamrick Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 I started out thinking I had no choice but video and that film was anachronistic for the kind of work I'm planning. It now looks like s16 with good gear is going to work for me at least at the head end. It's going to feel like an old shoe! I thought that way for awhile until I got into a couple of good edit sessions with some of the popular NLE systems.It's just like cutting film without the grease pencil and dirty hands and it beats those old match frame multiple playback decks hands down. My biggest obstacle is convincing my freelance clients that film is worth the extra money for stock and processing.Many want the film look and really don't understand the difference between the real McCoy and electronic gimmicks.Good luck and welcome back. Marty
Mitch Gross Posted May 19, 2004 Posted May 19, 2004 Well, it depends very much on the specifics of the SR-2 package - I'm not sure you would want to try and rent it out with no primes. Different requirements, sure, but we're talking practicality here. A basic set of primes -- Zeiss SuperSpeeds Mark1s 9.5, 12, 16, & 25 -- will set one back about $5000. So it's not completely out of hand in costs. If you want to start talking about videotap, followfocus, mattebox, filters, etc., etc., then yes, it is possible to spend a lot more. But you could be buying much of this for a video package anyway so that's not a fair comparison, and the deals are certainly out there.
Premium Member Michael Nash Posted May 20, 2004 Premium Member Posted May 20, 2004 Just a thought, Sandy: For the documentary nature of your programs you may want to shoot with more than one camera on ocassion. I think film has an advantage for you in this area, since you can keep a small MOS camera body on hand and pull from the same set of lenses when it's needed. If you were to shoot video, you'd have to acquire/rent an identical video rig as your main camera on those days for the footage to match. That's not always a big problem, but if it's only ocassional it could become a headache to call around and find the right gear. And footage from different video cameras or formats CAN match, but there's no guarantee. With the same filmstock and lenses your footage should match just fine.
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