Super 8 to 35mm

F Bulgarelli · December 14, 2004

Hello forum,

Is it possible to blow up super 8 negative to 35mm? Has anyone here done it?

what does it look like?

I'm thinking about shooting a section of a 35mm short on Super 8 and then do the blow up to 35mm as a part of the whole piece.

We will be going to a release print.

Thanks fo your help,

Francisco

David Mullen ASC · December 14, 2004

Probably the simplest thing would be to transfer the Super-8 to 24P HD-D5 and have that recorded out to 35mm. Not necessarily cheap though. I know that "American Family" on PBS, shot in HDCAM, has occasionally had Super-8 footage transferred to HD, at Laser Pacific maybe.

Another method would be to transfer to 50i Digital Betacam (PAL) and use that for a transfer to 35mm. You would shoot at 24 fps, it would be transferred at 25 fps to 50i, it would get converted to 25P in post for the film-out, and the final film would be projected at 24 fps.

I don't know of any direct S8 to 35mm optical printers -- if there are any S8 to 16mm optical printers, you could blow it up to 16mm and then again to 35mm.

I had some Super-8 footage in "Twin Falls Idaho" but I just projected the footage onto a white wall and rephotographed it onto 35mm without any syncing. There is a pulsing to the image.

F Bulgarelli · December 14, 2004

Thanks David,

Your technique sounds lie a good idea. Do you mind if I try it?

francisco

Dirk DeJonghe · December 14, 2004

Studio Gamma in Liège Belgium has a Super 8 wet-gate for his Oxberry optical printer and he has made blow-ups from Super 8 negative to 35mm IP; not direct blow up to positive because he cannot color correct scene-by-scene.

From this 35mm IP, a 35mm Dupeneg was made and this was color corrected as usual.

John Pytlak RIP · December 14, 2004

As mentioned in another thread, Kodak did an internal demo using a Super-8 gate on a Spirit DataCine to make a DI, and then wrote out a 35mm duplicate negative for printing. Looked surprisingly good, but "size does matter", and the graininess will betray the origin of the image. Certainly usable for a home movie "look" as part of a feature.