Super 8mm rushes telecine Kodak Vision2 500T

craig forster · October 10, 2007

Here is a link to some super 8mm rushes I shot for a Music Promo recently, using mainly Vision2 500T and 1 roll of 200T. The final Promo is a mixture of DV and Super 8mm. I had very limited lighting kit, and the location we filmed in was very dimly lit bar/restaurant. It took 2 days to shoot.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OAP4Ym7LZhY

Anthony Schilling · October 11, 2007

The exposure looks fine, and there were some cool shots. I don't know if it was what you were going for, but a little too much zooming in and out, and looking around. I'd let more movement happen within the frame. If you want to keep some home movie aesthetic... hand held at 18fps is usually enough.

craig forster · October 11, 2007

The footage was shot with 2 different cameras, a Nizo proffesional using a pressure plateand a Bauer 715XL. The amount of footage from the super 8 making it into the final cut was very limited. We were mainly using S8 to run at 54fps, to get something out of smashing bottles on peoples heads! The shooting style differs from the other cameras we were using on the video, we were only looking to steal moments here and there, which it why it looks a bit zoomy and wobbly! The final video can be found at the following link. You may have to download a driver to play divx, but it only takes a minute, and is worth it to see the full resolution of the video.

http://stage6.divx.com/user/gkandtherenega...;-The-Renegades

October 11, 2007

Cool looking footage!

What I'm really interested to know is how you got it to look so good on YouTube?

best

s

craig forster · October 12, 2007

Cool looking footage!
What I'm really interested to know is how you got it to look so good on YouTube?

best

s

It was simply a quicktime movie created through final cut pro, just downsized to 360x202 pixels

Andy_Alderslade · October 12, 2007

The footage was shot with 2 different cameras, a Nizo proffesional using a pressure plateand a Bauer 715XL. The amount of footage from the super 8 making it into the final cut was very limited. We were mainly using S8 to run at 54fps, to get something out of smashing bottles on peoples heads! The shooting style differs from the other cameras we were using on the video, we were only looking to steal moments here and there, which it why it looks a bit zoomy and wobbly! The final video can be found at the following link. You may have to download a driver to play divx, but it only takes a minute, and is worth it to see the full resolution of the video.

http://stage6.divx.com/user/gkandtherenega...;-The-Renegades

Hey Craig, the whole video looked great - who would ever have known that super 8 would cut in so well with DV!

What DV camera did you use? What did you expose your stocks at?

Best,

Andy

craig forster · October 13, 2007

Hey Craig, the whole video looked great - who would ever have known that super 8 would cut in so well with DV!

What DV camera did you use? What did you expose your stocks at?

Best,

Andy

The Dv camera was a DSR-450, with a Fujinon Genius lens A14x8 video lens. We also had a sony Z1 roaming around getting bonus shots.

The main S8 camera was a Nizo Professional using a pressure plate, I was somewhat dissapointed with the pressure plate, as the footage still has quite a bit of jitter to it. but I was mainly using it to run at 54fps. The second S8 camera was a Bauer 715XL, running at 24fps, this had no pressure plate, but some of the footage seemed alot steadier than the Nizo.

I didnt use an 85 for the exterior scenes, as I didnt have one at that time (got one now!) but was pleased with the results from the lab, after they had tweaked the colours. It needed further tweaking in NLE to match the DV footage. I shot 1 roll of 200T and 1 roll of 500T on the exteriors. Using the 500 when we were filming later in the day, and under the canopy of trees. Inside the club was all 500T on both S8 cameras, generally getting between f2.8 and 4 on the lightmeter, depending on where we were. All of the slow motion was shot at 2.2 having compensated for the loss of light from the prism. I allowed 1/2 a stop for both cameras from the meter reading. This was a bit of guessing game with the Bauer, as I didnt know what kind of adjustment to make for the light loss.

Michael Lehnert · October 13, 2007

Thanks for sharing your footage! Great stuff and nice to see 7217 & 7218 closely intercut and working well in the Super 8 format.

Interesting to read what you have to say about the Frame Master pressure plate by Gottfried Klose (a.k.a. GK-Film) he sells via Andec in Berlin, DE: Your experiences enforce the mixed results people get when using the device. What was your motivation to use it?

Could you maybe briefly comment on the mechanical/optical state of the Nizo professional and Bauer S 715 XL microcomputer. Did they receive regular CLA jobs, i.e. where they checked and lub'ed before shooting?

(seems an odd question, but I have my reasons in respect to establishing a usage pattern for the FrameMaster device)

What exposure time for the S 715 did you base your external light-metering on? And was there a specific reason why you did not want to use the built-in Wratten 85 in these cameras?

Feel free to also elaborate a bit about your post chain or DI workflow. I assume your telecine was not done in Liverpool, or was it? ;)

craig forster · October 13, 2007

Thanks for sharing your footage! Great stuff and nice to see 7217 & 7218 closely intercut and working well in the Super 8 format.

Interesting to read what you have to say about the Frame Master pressure plate by Gottfried Klose (a.k.a. GK-Film) he sells via Andec in Berlin, DE: Your experiences enforce the mixed results people get when using the device. What was your motivation to use it?

Could you maybe briefly comment on the mechanical/optical state of the Nizo professional and Bauer S 715 XL microcomputer. Did they receive regular CLA jobs, i.e. where they checked and lub'ed before shooting?

(seems an odd question, but I have my reasons in respect to establishing a usage pattern for the FrameMaster device)

What exposure time for the S 715 did you base your external light-metering on? And was there a specific reason why you did not want to use the built-in Wratten 85 in these cameras?

Feel free to also elaborate a bit about your post chain or DI workflow. I assume your telecine was not done in Liverpool, or was it? ;)

Our motivation to use the pressure plate was based on the results we saw on the andec website. They look to make a considerable difference to the shot steadiness. So we bought one a few days before the shoot.

I have no idea about the cameras CLA jobs, the cameras came from reputable sellers off ebay bought about 2 years ago. This was the first time I have shot with them.

Its probably unfair of me to critisise the pressure plate on this forum, when I havent had the simple service the camera would need to be running at its full potential. I'm sure this is probably the link you are establishing?

The exposure for the s715 was 24fps at 500iso and then 1/2 stop open to compensate for the prism. I didnt shoot with the S715, so I had another shooter with me, but thats how I explained the set up of his meter. Why do you ask? Is it because of the shutter angle of the S715? This did concern me during prep, because I couldnt find enough information about how much to compensate, for the XL (xtra light). I decided to go the way I did because even if we had a little over exposure, it wont be enough to worry about, (its a pop promo, anything goes!!) and I'd rather over expose to get a good negative, than under expose. Also, the 2 x s8 cameras along with the Z1, were getting bonus material really, we didnt know if we would get anytyhing out of the s8, as the cameras were not tested prior to shooting! risky I'm sure you'll agree, but we are pleased with the results!

From my readings on this forum, I discovered that the internal 85 filters on these camera will not engage with the Vision2 stocks, as they dont have the notches in the cartridges. It is possible to cut notches into the cartridges to allow the 85 to engage. I looked into this and it seems a bit too fiddly for my liking, so left my faithin the colourist at Todd-Ao!!

The s8 was processed and telecine'd at Todd-Ao in London, It took just over a week to come back as they were really busy. It was telecined on an URSA, and transfered to Digibeta. In the meantime I have digitised and started roughly cutting through the rushes. We got a DV xfer of the s8 done so I could bring straight into FCP. It took about 3 days to get a good cut, then another couple of days to fine tune, and colour correct in FCP. Job done!..

craig forster · October 13, 2007

If you cant get the finished video on stage6. The vid can be found on these links aswell :-

http://www.gkandtherenegades.com/

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=...188072672468060

and here is the behind the scenes footage if anyone is interested!!!!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zXZrqwRRXhI

Michael Lehnert · October 14, 2007

Thanks for taking the time to reply so extensively. I appreciate it.

Its probably unfair of me to critisise the pressure plate on this forum, when I havent had the simple service the camera would need to be running at its full potential. I'm sure this is probably the link you are establishing?

Correct. As things stand from reading "ciny.com" over the past years, plus occassionally strolling over to "filmsht.com", cameras with not-too-good mechanical conditions seem to profit more from the FrameMaster than cameras that get regular CLA. This means that the better cameras are maintained, the less the FrameMaster ameliorates frame stability or reduces frame variance, and is hence a meaningful or useful device. However, these are just subjective colportage findings, no "objective testing" was done to prove or falsify what I collected as info.

The exposure for the s715 was 24fps at 500iso and then 1/2 stop open to compensate for the prism. I didnt shoot with the S715, so I had another shooter with me, but thats how I explained the set up of his meter. Why do you ask? Is it because of the shutter angle of the S715?

Correct. Most people here shun reflective light meters in form of digital spotmeters and the fully-cross-calculating built-in TTL light meters in favour of incident meters. Yet most of their compensation for the prism is guessing (the loss is actually around 25% in Bauer cameras) and the shutter angle required for the metering is unknown or calculable only for a a few cameras. XL is especially tricky, as this can mean anything beyond 200° (Nizo sound cameras are widest with 225°).

As I am a come-out no-longer-closeted follower of reflective metering, following the likes of Ansel Adams in not fully comprehending the incident metering practices ( ;) ) for the Super 8 format, I am always interested in finding out how people go about that business, as this helps me to learn. There has a lengthy discussion about that here with, unfortunately, many key points ? which you kindly provided me with here (thanks) ? left unanswered.

From my readings on this forum, I discovered that the internal 85 filters on these camera will not engage with the Vision2 stocks, as they dont have the notches in the cartridges. It is possible to cut notches into the cartridges to allow the 85 to engage. I looked into this and it seems a bit too fiddly for my liking, so left my faithin the colourist at Todd-Ao!!

And rightly so. I thought this was a Todd-AO job. They have excellent coloring and are IMHO the best places for S8 in Europe together with Andec in Berlin, DE (with On Line Video 46 in Zürich, CH added in for telecine-only services). From my experience with 7217 cartridges still produced in Châlons-sur-Saône, Kodak actually made them "166"-compliant and allowed normal operability of the filter switchgear, which means that you would find the filter notch on the lower front side of the cartridge. Has there been a change to that with the last or recent batch of film stock that I missed? :huh: I will have to check the content of my fridge, then... :mellow:

I have successfully "pinced" notch codes into non-compliant cartridges, from empty Kodapaks to Russian Reloadables, and it works well and doesn't break the plastic to compromise the cartridge's structural rigidity and light-"tightness" (although my camera gear doesn't actually require notch coding)

Job done!..

Great stuff! And the S8 material turned out well, esp. for an "initially tentative experiment" of yours with that format :) . One can actually see your S 715 operator with it in hand on stage in one shot towards the beginning of the rushes footage :D .

Sander Ferdinand · October 27, 2007

This did concern me during prep, because I couldnt find enough information about how much to compensate, for the XL (xtra light).

Hey,

I was reading the Bauer 715 manual and i came across this:

Existent Light Filming ( XL technique )

The XL feature of your camera allows you to film even under adverse lightning conditions. With the highspeed lens and the 200* shutter you gain two f/stops as compared to conventional cameras.

Might help you out.

,sander

Edited October 27, 2007 by Sander Ferdinand

Michael Lehnert · October 29, 2007

I was reading the Bauer 715 manual and i came across this:

Actually, do you have that manual as a PDF version? If so, might I kindly ask you if you could e-mail me the file ? I shall supply you with a e-mail address with a decent-sized mailbox.

The reason I ask is the circumstance that unfortunately, the filmshooting.com FTP is down and will remain so, hence the file there is lost. And Bjarne doesn't have a manual for that camera on his server.

Thanks for considering my request.

Sander Ferdinand · October 29, 2007

No need for emailing. I found the link on this forum:

http://www2.bitstream.net/~audadvnc/bauer_...9xl_english.zip

I'm getting a 715 soon with 4x vision2 200T. Any tips on shooting ? The camera reads v2 200T as 160asa so i'm guessing i will have to underexpose. Any idea how much f/stops ?

Thanks Thanks !

Michael Lehnert · October 29, 2007

No need for emailing. I found the link on this forum:

Thank you very much. I thought there was a hyperlink somewhere here in the forums, but my search didn't lead to any results, despite using the right search terms. Odd. :huh:

Nevertheless, many thanks!! :)

I'm getting a 715 soon with 4x vision2 200T. Any tips on shooting ? The camera reads v2 200T as 160asa so i'm guessing i will have to underexpose. Any idea how much f/stops ?

When using the (built-in TTL) exposure meter, the camera will overexpose 7217 V2-200 by a third f-stop. If you want to expose this film stock with the correct EI as ISO 200, you would have to underexpose through correcting the manual aperture control by closing the diaphragm by a third f-stop (i.e. going into the higher f-stop numerals, just in case anyone was wondering).

However, negative film is denser and features tighter grain with more intensive color-coupler reaction when slightly overexposed (as opposed to slightly underexposing reversal film for the same effect). Hence, leaving the camera to meter V2-200 as ISO 160 would do that job well already!

A recent ArriNews issue featured an article where the DoP exposed 7217 with EI 160 throughout to his satisfaction.

I also remember John Pytlack once recommending here to expose 7217 with EI 100 for best results, which would be an overexposure by one full f-stop.

Mind you, I use a Bauer A 512 as B camera which reads the EI of ISO 200 technically as 160 as well, like your Bauer S 715 XL microcomputer or any other late-generation Bauer, as a matter of fact.

However, I (theoretically) would not need to compensate for overexposure at all when using the TTL system with negative film stock. Why? The reason is that Bauer adjusted some cameras' exposure meters so that they would overexposed by approximately a third to a half of a f-stop by default. The reason behind that logic was that the thus lighter picture would result, when home-projected (!), into a much brighter light-intensive screening experience (never mind the washed-out colours and highlights: it's all about screened brightness that makes the family happy :wacko: ). So my Bauer A 512 would meter EI 160 by default as EI 125.

When shooting reversal film, that forces me underexpose by almost a half f-stop: first to compensate for the light meter default setting, and then to additionally underexpose the reversal film for a denser, tighter image.

So as long as your exposure meter hasn't been reset or adjusted to operate according to SMPTE/ISO standards during a regular CLA job, experimenting with the actual f-stop that your TTL system reads and comparing it to the reading of an external reflective lightmeter (like a spotmeter; using incident meters would not be the same) can give you some hints about the needs to operate your cameras exposure indices as you want them to.

Happy shooting!