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first big newb mistake with film :)


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shooting my first film film today with 35mm short ends... silly me thought that when you ordered 600 feet you would get somewhere close to 600ft... not three 200ft cans with 40ft left inside... which makes the cost savings of shortends decidedly 'not worth it'. ... I'm not even going to have the 400ft minimum for the lab! :) DOH!

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shooting my first film film today with 35mm short ends... silly me thought that when you ordered 600 feet you would get somewhere close to 600ft... not three 200ft cans with 40ft left inside... which makes the cost savings of shortends decidedly 'not worth it'. ... I'm not even going to have the 400ft minimum for the lab! :) DOH!

 

You need to complain to whoever sold you the ends. Perhaps whoever shipped it thought you meant 60ft.

 

love

 

Freya

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IF you were sold 600ft of short ends you should contact them and demand they either refund you the difference or make up the difference.

 

If you were given the short end you could pass a comment about the poor quality of the can labelling by their camera assistant(s).

 

I wouldn't expect any short end footages to be exact, but I'd expect them to be in the ball park figures.

 

40ft of 35mm isn't a short end, in practise it's wastage. Allowing 5 ft leader at either end, the most all you could use it for is shooting an insert.

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shooting my first film film today with 35mm short ends... silly me thought that when you ordered 600 feet you would get somewhere close to 600ft... not three 200ft cans with 40ft left inside... which makes the cost savings of shortends decidedly 'not worth it'. ... I'm not even going to have the 400ft minimum for the lab! :) DOH!
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It was through Film Emporium

 

So just to be clear - if I ordered 600ft of short ends I should have gotten about 600ft... not around 120ft total in 3x 200ft cans.

 

 

That is my understanding yes - 600' is 600' - at least that is how I have sold on my short ends ...

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It varies from field to field how much you can over or under report, but, in general, you're only allowed something like 10% error in the U.S., AT MOST.

 

So if you get 540 feet (165m) or less with a 600-foot, label on it, you have a case with Weights and Measures.

 

I was talking with the auditor for Medina County one time, and he told me that, for every 5 U.S. (18.9L) Gallons of Fuel, they could only be plus or minus five cubic inches (~0.23mL) (+/-0.4%), and if all of the pumps were in favor of the station, they could still get in trouble.

 

Just remember though, that, legally leader still counts toward yoru foot total.

 

If I were you, I'd ask the lab to make a precise measurement. Forget exactly what it is, but 400 feet (122m) of 16mm, at 24fps will be about 11 minutes worth of run time.

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It was through

 

I have found their selection limited, and their short ends sometimes so short they are nearly useless.

 

You might try Media Distributors or Reel Good Film next time. Film Emporium ought to mak it up to you, that's way out of line.

 

Bruce Taylor

www.indi35.com

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It was through Film Emporium

 

So just to be clear - if I ordered 600ft of short ends I should have gotten about 600ft... not around 120ft total in 3x 200ft cans.

Something seems to be missing from your exchanges on this thread... mainly... What happened when you contacted Film Emporium about the discrepancy? Did you first give them the opportunity to correct the mistake, or did you just skip that step and instead start this thread about how you've been ripped off?

 

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but having dealt with them numerous times without a problem, I find it difficult to believe that if they did in fact manage to screw up as you described, they wouldn't have been honorable enough to correct the situation.

 

I apologize for leaving this post if you did contact them first, and if they did tell you something on the order of "too bad, tough luck, etc." Otherwise...

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Something seems to be missing from your exchanges on this thread... mainly... What happened when you contacted Film Emporium about the discrepancy? Did you first give them the opportunity to correct the mistake, or did you just skip that step and instead start this thread about how you've been ripped off?

 

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but having dealt with them numerous times without a problem, I find it difficult to believe that if they did in fact manage to screw up as you described, they wouldn't have been honorable enough to correct the situation.

 

I apologize for leaving this post if you did contact them first, and if they did tell you something on the order of "too bad, tough luck, etc." Otherwise...

 

To be fair he seemed confused as to whether this might be a normal expectation, so maybe thought there was no reason to contact the seller. Also he didn't mention who the seller was till asked so it's not like he came here and set out to bad mouth anyone but yes he should definitely contact the seller and discuss it with them.

 

love

 

Freya

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I will admit I did miss measure... being a newb I thought the mag readings were in feet but they are in seconds... making that 40ft roll a 40sec roll... still significantly short but about twice as much ... so I think I'm around 400ft out of 600ft. basically a 40sec, a 55sec and one that was good enough.

 

...and I just got a call back and explained that to the guy and he said he'll run it past the boss and call back but mentioned it 'shouldn't be a problem' to ship out the difference.

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I will admit I did miss measure... being a newb I thought the mag readings were in feet but they are in seconds... making that 40ft roll a 40sec roll... still significantly short but about twice as much ... so I think I'm around 400ft out of 600ft. basically a 40sec, a 55sec and one that was good enough.

 

...and I just got a call back and explained that to the guy and he said he'll run it past the boss and call back but mentioned it 'shouldn't be a problem' to ship out the difference.

 

 

95secs of 35mm at 24fps is near 150ft - given the information provided you're still missing %75 of the film you paid for

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95secs of 35mm at 24fps is near 150ft - given the information provided you're still missing %75 of the film you paid for

 

the third roll was close to full on the 200' mag but the meter on it doesn't go past 60 seconds and the meter on the 400' mag (which goes to 140) is not something I would describe as reliable... so I can't get an accurate measure ... I'll have a good measure once it hits the lab. ...and then I'll figure out a more accurate way to measure it after ordering and factor any shortness into the budget... reel diameter with a micrometer/caliper should get me most of the way there ...they measure them by weight.

 

adding 120secs to the 95sec so it's probably about 250' short... so just one more 200ft roll puts the total back at a reasonable price range. I think the culprit was rather large bags for the two rolls that were off... memory's not clear as the room was a bit dark :)

 

My main goal right now was to make sure the camera moved without exploding... develop the film and test out scanning it with a flatbed scanner (yes I have lots of free time) and then test out the workflow on my linux workstation.

 

this arri 2B is an almost completely alien device for me... such as the expanding core on the take up side of the 400' mag... do I just leave the film coreless for the lab? There's so much voodoo in running this stuff it's worse that audio recording :)

 

...and I would have never suspected wooden gears in this thing... do I still oil it with bacon grease? j/k :)

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I too have never bought film in seconds... and I'm interested in hearing what comes of all this; not really to knock any company off of my own radar, but just to see how a cock-up such as this occurred.

 

 

They arn't selling it in seconds... I'm measuring it in 'seconds remaining' off the magazine... so I load it and the mag says 55 seconds... I run over to the kodak film calculators and 55 seconds comes out as 82.5ft... on what was supposed to be a 200ft roll... which they estimated as being around 200ft long by weighing it... but I 'think' it had a bag for the 1000' roll which threw off their weight as it 'should' have had a bag for a 400ft roll... or maybe something else threw off the weight.

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though it's still short 100 feet... making the short rolls 40 meters and 55meters...

 

damn you metric users! why can't you use Imperial units like the rest of the Free World! :)

Edited by Sam Javor
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