A Crazy Super-8 Cartridge Idea

[Alessandro Machi]

I wonder if Kodak or some other enterprising entrepreneur could make "test carts" in which perhaps only 25 feet of film loaded into the cartridge, resulting in a significant savings to the filmmaker.

 

One doesn't necessarily need a full 50 feet to test a camera. If a film cartridge could be loaded with 25 feet and the price of the cartridge and processing reduced by 40%, the costs drop from around 50 dollars to 30 dollars to do a simple camera test.

[John Pytlak RIP]

I wonder if Kodak or some other enterprising entrepreneur could make "test carts" in which perhaps only 25 feet of film loaded into the cartridge, resulting in a significant savings to the filmmaker.

 

One doesn't necessarily need a full 50 feet to test a camera. If a film cartridge could be loaded with 25 feet and the price of the cartridge and processing reduced by 40%, the costs drop from around 50 dollars to 30 dollars to do a simple camera test.

 

Unlikely to happen. Sorry.

[Rick Palidwor]

As someone who often runs camera tests I think this is an interesting idea. Since it's doubtful Kodak would do it (see John's reply) you'd be looking to one of the independent suppliers. I don't expect it to cut costs too much though, since manufacturer, packaging, shipping and handling etc won't change much. But even a small saving would be worth it for someone like me.

Rick

[Alessandro Machi]

As someone who often runs camera tests I think this is an interesting idea. Since it's doubtful Kodak would do it (see John's reply) you'd be looking to one of the independent suppliers. I don't expect it to cut costs too much though, since manufacturer, packaging, shipping and handling etc won't change much. But even a small saving would be worth it for someone like me.

Rick

 

For Kodak it should not be a big deal. Half the the film but 60% the price means they probably don't lose money but save the beginner and the tester a significant amount of money. For the labs, it's a bit of an inconvenience but it at least identifies the beginner filmmaker or the experimenting filmmaker, that's not such a bad thing to know about a client.

[Anthony Schilling]

Why not just shoot 10ft of a cart in the camera your testing, and the rest in a canera you know works? The cart system allows you to do that quite easily.

[Alessandro Machi]

Why not just shoot 10ft of a cart in the camera your testing, and the rest in a canera you know works? The cart system allows you to do that quite easily.

 

That's a good idea.

 

However if I just want to project the test footage only it requires additional handling of my footage that I am trying to keep pristine for a rank transfer. I like the idea of just being able to keep the test footage completely isolated.

[David Mullen ASC]

Even if Super-8 came on rolls instead of cartridges and you could shoot tiny tests, under 1 minute long, you'd run into the same problem that 16mm and 35mm users run into -- labs have minimum length charges, so odds are high that even if Kodak made 25' cartridges, a lab would charge the same to process as a 50' cartridge. As for keeping only one test on a roll, you can do that now -- you'd just be wasting the rest of the roll.

 

If it's hard to convince Kodak to make Super-8 cartridges of 7201 50D because of the large number of cartridges that one wide-roll makes, and then warehousing all of those cartridges and then hoping that they all get sold before they expire -- now multiply that with the idea of Kodak putting these stocks in TWO types of cartridges as well and warehousing those, etc. It's not going to happen.

 

I'd go back to begging Kodak to put out 50D in Super-8 and just live with occasionally wasting part of a cartridge for an occasional test, because you've got to pick your battles.

[Mark Dunn]

Wittner http://www.wittner-kinotechnik.de/katalog/...ilmm/s8_60m.php does sell Super-8 in 200' rolls but they're meant for the Beaulieu, not for spooling-down. And there is a Russian reloadable Super-8 cartridge- perhaps Olex could find one. But Wittner perforates his own IIRC, so you'd have to be sure you weren't testing his perforating machine rather than your camera.

You could load up B/W for tests and process your own in a bucket- probably good enough for 10 or 20'- but if the different types of stock behave differently mechanically in the camera- IIRC this was suspected for 64T- you've had it.

[Rachel Oliver]

Even if Super-8 came on rolls instead of cartridges and you could shoot tiny tests, under 1 minute long, you'd run into the same problem that 16mm and 35mm users run into -- labs have minimum length charges, so odds are high that even if Kodak made 25' cartridges, a lab would charge the same to process as a 50' cartridge. As for keeping only one test on a roll, you can do that now -- you'd just be wasting the rest of the roll.

 

If it's hard to convince Kodak to make Super-8 cartridges of 7201 50D because of the large number of cartridges that one wide-roll makes, and then warehousing all of those cartridges and then hoping that they all get sold before they expire -- now multiply that with the idea of Kodak putting these stocks in TWO types of cartridges as well and warehousing those, etc. It's not going to happen.

 

I'd go back to begging Kodak to put out 50D in Super-8 and just live with occasionally wasting part of a cartridge for an occasional test, because you've got to pick your battles.

 

Hi;

 

I agree with David on this, Asking Kodak to produce smaller rolls of S8 is like trying to get an oil tanker to make tight turns, With S8 it's more a beggars can't be choosers scenario unfortunately, just portion out a part of a cart for a test and then save the rest for something else, this is the brilliant thing about the cart system. Come on kodak 7201 and 7285 in S8 please....

 

Olly

[Robert Hughes]

Think of it as a bottle of shampoo - a 25 foot cartridge, with an additional 25 feet FREE!