How to load 35mm camera?

[eddiefruchter]

How does one go about loading 35mm filmstock?

[Kevin Zanit]

35mm films is bought in rolls on cores.

 

It is loaded into a magazine in either a darkroom or changing bag.

 

The loaded mag is then placed on the camera and threaded.

 

You can not buy pre loaded mags, as the mags are part of the camera system.

 

In 16mm you can buy film on daylight spools. This allows you to load the film into the camera in subdued light.

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[eddiefruchter]

How does a changing bag work? How big is it? How do I see inside?

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

It's a largeish, usually fabric enclosure, generally with several layers of metallised reflective (therefore very opaque) and tough black fabrics. Often kind of cuboid, but it's fabric... sometimes they have a frame you can erect to kind of hang it off, to give you more room to work inside. Other types look like the kind of thing they deliver your pizza in, and are more flat. Cuboid ones I've seen up to about a two foot cube. Either type will have one double-zippered opening to put the mag and cans in, and two armholes with at least two sets of elasticated cuffs to prevent light leaking in around your arms.

 

How do you look inside? While you're working with unprocessed stock you don't; you can't, it's still sensitive to light. You do it by feel. While the crew yell at you because it takes forever. You thread it through all the little slots and rollers praying you got it right because if you got it wrong, you can't check in the light; you won't know until your dailies come back scratched up.

 

Quite a hideous way to operate.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

Film is sensitive to light until it is processed. Hence why it is loaded and unloaded in the dark, although depending on the camera design, there may not be much threading to do in the dark. Some cameras have a pretty simple mag design but a complex movement. Some cameras have a separate take-up chamber that can be threaded in the light (but unloaded in the dark.)

 

Considering so many film productions train an intern to do this work, it's obviously NOT the hardest thing in the world to learn... you get it down through repetition. The first few mags may cause some nervousness and frustration but it gets easier the more you do it.

 

In some ways, 35mm is easier than 16mm since it is bigger.

 

The only systems that don't require loading in the dark are pre-loaded cartridge designs like in Super-8. Or small daylight spools, but even those require subdued light and with very fast film, loading in the dark is still a good idea. And only certain cameras take daylight spools.

 

Keeping the mags, changing bag, tent, darkroom, etc. clean and free of dust is critical. Being organized is important too, such as labelling mags after they are loaded, separating exposed from unexposed cans of film, etc.

[Max Jacoby]

You thread it through all the little slots and rollers praying you got it right because if you got it wrong, you can't check in the light; you won't know until your dailies come back scratched up.

You make loading a mag sound like it is a lottery. It is not. If you do it properly, there is no need to worry about it afterwards.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

> If you do it properly...

 

Well, that's exactly the point, isn't it? You have no idea if you've done it properly until it's far, far too late. You'd have thought they'd have come up with some kind of cassette system by now.

 

Phil

[Brad Grimmett]

Hi,

 

> If you do it properly...

 

Well, that's exactly the point, isn't it? You have no idea if you've done it properly until it's far, far too late. You'd have thought they'd have come up with some kind of cassette system by now.

 

Phil

Oh, come on Phil. People have been doing it this way for a long time and mistakes are rare. It seems complicated at first but it's actually very easy to do correctly over and over again with very little worry of anything going wrong. Video cameras jam and have problems probably just as often as any loading mistakes.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Even if I accept that there are as many problems with video cameras as film ones (which I don't), you're at least liable to know about it before you wrap your cast and crew and strike your sets. The problem with only knowing about it the following day (or more likely the following week), for me, is that it's liable to cost at least thousands to correct. Most of the stuff I do is one day shoots where reshooting a certain amount of it simply means a complete rehash. The risk would be impossible to countenance.

 

Phil

[David Mullen ASC]

The problems you describe are quite rare. I just completed a 33 day shoot with only one mag problem the whole time -- a noisy mag (swishy sound, slapping did not help), which I swapped out to another loaded mag and had them reload the noisy mag. This is not rocket science, loading a roll into a mag. If mags were such a crapshoot as you describe, no insurance or bond company would ever be involved in the movie business.

[Rob Belics]

Heh. My 14-year old actor son started loading mags for student film projects this year. Hasn't screwed one up yet.

[eddiefruchter]

Such latent hostility :P

 

Now, how do I unload the damn thing?

[Max Jacoby]

Now, how do I unload the damn thing?

Depends if you want to short-end it or not... :P

[Kevin Zanit]

I must agree. Loading mags is not exactly rocket science.

 

 

Thats the loading procedure for a Panavision mag . . . real hard.

 

 

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Kevin Zanit]

Or an Arri mag:

 

 

This only slightly harder because you have to thread the film into gears on the rollers (as opposed to Panavision's loose rollers).

 

After it is through the first roller you have to pull it out to that tab marked loop (to set the loop size) then thread it back in.

 

You will know if you did not do it right because the gears will be chewing your film. You will hear it as you thread it and see it once you are done because the film will be dented.

 

Not real hard, honestly. The only hard mag I have ever used was the Aaton 35 mags.

 

 

 

Kevin Zanit

[Max Jacoby]

This only slightly harder because you have to thread the film into gears on the rollers (as opposed to Panavision's loose rollers).

This is not the case anymore on Arricam mags, as they are based on the Moviecam design.

[Phil Rhodes]

Drawings! Diagrams! 9P! P9? Loop? Grinding gears?!

 

Yearrrgh!

 

Push-click-whirr.

 

Phil

[Kevin Zanit]

:::This is not the case anymore on Arricam mags, as they are based on the Moviecam design::::

 

True, but most people using Arri cameras are not using the Arricams (yet).

[Rob Belics]

My 14-year old actor son is using an Arricam on student films and hasn't screwed one up yet! :lol:

[eddiefruchter]

I know this is off topic, but, Audiris, you look like you're 17? What is this short end stuff you're talking about? Do I need special cases to store the film short term, or is the packaging from Kodak good?

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Short ends are where you've shot part of a roll, and you want to take what you've shot out of the mag (to send it off for processing, or just to free the mag up) but you want to keep the stuff you haven't shot back for future use. Camera assistants, along with their incredible tactile dexterity and see-in-the-dark ultrasound fingertips, get to learn the knack of tearing off the film at a perforation so as to be able to extract and can the takeup and feed sides of the mag separately.

 

This means you need an extra can. Storage is generally in a black plastic bag in a metal can (yes, what Kodak supply it in), taped shut.

 

And an Arricam on student films? That's one well-funded student. Once again we have a situation where the least experienced people generally end up with the cheapest, trickiest equipment which is most liable to cause them problems. Arricams on student shorts are most certainly not the usual.

 

Phil

[Kevin Zanit]

A short end is when there is film left in the mag with a length of 100 feet or more (in 35mm) and 40 feet or more (in 16mm).

 

It is just one more step in unloading the mag.

 

I was on a commercial a few years ago where they told me to just waste anything under 200 feet! I have never thrown away that much film in my life. On day 2 I just started keeping anything that I would normally trash. Production did not mind, and I put it to better use.

 

P.S. When I was 14 (I actually started working with this stuff at 7, weird kid), I was working with Panavision stuff fairly regularly. It doesn't mean that was good. One could also learn to appreciate good gear by working with crap. It also makes working with the better stuff a lot easier by comparison.

[David Mullen ASC]

Obviously a cartridge design is simpler to use (does the A-Minima use a pre-loaded 200' cartridge?) which is why when 8mm was redesigned as Super-8, a cartridge system was designed for it. But the assumption is that a "pro" can handle a roll of film. Besides, the problem with cartridges is that you have to shoot the whole roll because the whole thing goes in to be processed. On a cheap format like Super-8, the waste is not a big financial burden, but obviously in 35mm you don't want to waste the end of a roll just to send it to the lab.

 

On the flip side, there have been (rare) problems with mags and cameras jamming, ruining footage. Famously, the house was burned to the ground at the climax of "The Sacrifice" only to have the camera jam, requiring the house be re-built and re-burned to the ground. Just today, I read in Cinefex about an expensive helicopter shot with extras on the ground in Hollywood for the tornado scene in "The Day After Tomorrow" -- when they landed the helicopter, they found that the camera/mag did not take up properly, ruining the footage. So they reshot it later but without the extras and were forced to add them using all-CGI. Mag jams are obviously not an issue with digital, but then, there really isn't a digital equivalent to 35mm unless you count prototypes like the Genesis or Dalsa Origin. And when someday you have the equivalent numbers of digital movie cameras out there as 35mm currently, I'm sure the law of averages will work out that the same amount of footage will be lost due to some sort of equipment or human operator mistake.

[Brad Grimmett]

(does the A-Minima use a pre-loaded 200' cartridge?)

No it doesn't. I've never loaded one, but I worked on a job with one and the guy loading it had a bit of a time with it. I've heard other people complain about them a bit too. I think it's more an issue of getting used to it than anything else.

[DanStewart]

It's not really difficult, just a bit unusual.

 

http://www.abelcine.com/Products/frames/AM...techcenter.html

 

Going off topic a bit, does anyone else find it to be a bit noisy? The one I shot with seemed to be noisier than a typical SR2 (albeit without the barney).