where to get empty sound cartridges?

Justin Miller · January 18, 2005

I realize and accept the fact that Super 8 Sound film will never be made again my Kodak. What?s the point? I doubt even Super 8 makes that much money for Kodak and in order to even resurrect sound film, they would need proof it?s worth the investment. So I guess it?s up to fanatics like to make it happen. That?s cool. I accept that. So it means I got to get going.

The main thing holding me back is the lack of Super 8 Sound cartridges. As long as sound film can be used in 50? carts I think it can be resurrected since there are still many cheap cameras out there that will use them. But where can I get the plans for them? Will I have to pay Kodak royalties to use them? How does Kodak reload them after they are used once? I really need to understand this process. Beyond that getting the film in large spools and sound striping is easy.

GeorgeSelinsky · January 19, 2005

There's some German company that prestripes Kodachrome 40 and puts it into the 200' sound cartridges. The film is expensive. I frankly don't know why someone would bother paying so much for recording single system S8.

If you want to get into the business of making some film product keep in mind this will take time and energy away from your creative tasks and probably won't make you much money (which explains why Super 8 costs so much - there is little demand so you need to charge more to make it in your interest to work with it).

- G.

Justin Miller · January 19, 2005

Actually I think that German company you are thinking of that prestripes K40 didn't put them in cartridges at all. They just sold is in 200' spools. Anyway they stopped selling it as it was not cost effective.

I found a distributor for the film and I have the sound striper. I just don't have the carts for the film! I agree, this takes away from the time I could be making movies. But I'm doing this for the benifit of the world and future filmmaker who want to learn on Super 8 while still having sync sound!

Oh, I know they are selling K40 DS8 in 100' reels. Think we could get them to also sell it in 400' reels?

GeorgeSelinsky · January 19, 2005

But I'm doing this for the benifit of the world and future filmmaker who want to learn on Super 8 while still having sync sound!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's very magnanimous of you, but I think that there are better, more practical options out there for today's filmmakers. What's wrong with shooting Super 8 and using a minidisc recorder for instance? Fairly portable solution, and the sound quality is better.

It would be a better idea to develop a projector that can project Super 8 or 16mm with interlocked digital sound coming from a computer. That could be a worthwhile enterprise if you want to help Super 8 become a better format. This way people can splice their reversal originals and project them along with high quality digital sound.

- G.

Justin Miller · January 19, 2005

Have you tried to sync to a minidisc? Most cameras run at a variable speed and are not crystal sync. It's tedious to have to sync the audio later.

But please tell me what options are better and more pratical that are not over $100 without tedious synchronizing in post. I wanted to use Pedro's 1K generators, but unless you have two seperate inputs, the 1K pulses bleed into the sound track.

There are projectors that interlock with a digital track. I have one. But this doesn't resolve the tedious nature of trying to sync film and audio that have slightly different running speeds. Also these projectors are more expensive than buying 1 cart of super 8 sound film. People are willing to pay alot for the old stock. What if we can give them new stock for the same price as they are willing to pay for old stock?

Edited January 19, 2005 by J. Miller

GeorgeSelinsky · January 20, 2005

I wanted to use Pedro's 1K generators, but unless you have two seperate inputs, the 1K pulses bleed into the sound track.

There are projectors that interlock with a digital track. I have one. But this doesn't resolve the tedious nature of trying to sync film and audio that have slightly different running speeds.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm interested in what kind of projector setup you are using. You bought this? Where?

What concerns having two separate inputs, virtually all audio recorders today are stereo. Getting a split Y miniplug connecter is a piece of cake.

The sound stripe has lower fidelity, you have to invest a pretty chunk of change to get a striper (and making sure it works in the dark, and works well), you have to make sure you have a working sound projector with heads in decent shape, and if you edit the old fasioned razor way with the sound stripe, it's very limiting.

You really have to move forward with technology. Filming single system mag stripe is something that belongs to the past. Double system has every advantage, unless all you want to do is make home movies. I don't think that market is serious enough to warrant the expense and trouble of reviving the mag stripe. To each their own of course...

- G

Edited January 20, 2005 by GeorgeSelinsky

Justin Miller · January 20, 2005

It was a modified T610. One of the first done here:

http://www.super8sync.com/English/B1008S.html

Unfortunately one day it fell from the stand and shattered. It has not been working as well since. It was a sad day.

This is my sound striper and film groover:

http://www.super8cinema.com/services/sound_striping.html

As far as I know it's the last professional outfit in the US. I just put a few hundred feet of film through it this week.

GeorgeSelinsky · January 21, 2005

$0.35/ft??? That's a LOT of money! I'm not saying this outfit is necessarily ripping you off, maybe it is an expensive process (and the magnetic material may be costly to procure), but I think this is hardly a functional way of doing sound Super 8. If it's going to cost people an extra $17.50 to get prestriped raw stock (oh yes, then there's also putting it back into the cartridge and the cost of a S8 sound cart), you can forget about it. At that price I'd rather shoot double system 16mm any day.

About the digital conversions, very interesting. I only wish this person's webpage was a bit more clear, he seems to have come up with some very interesting stuff but it's hard for me to understand everything and there's a lot of missing info. His stuff certainly considerably cheaper than Clive Tobin's though, all due respect to Clive.

- G.

Edited January 21, 2005 by GeorgeSelinsky

January 21, 2005

Forgive me if this has been previously mentioned.

Here's a method I contemplated long:

http://users.aol.com/fmgp/sync11.htm

$300 for the converter, plus you need a nagra, or some other stereo (or multi-track) recorder that lets you resolve the pilot tone to 60hz. two system recording, synced, and with any camera that has a PC flash contact.

I have a Bauer s 715XL, it has the angenieuz 6-90 and I didn't want to sacrifice those optics for a (more expensive) crystal sync super 8.

Also, there's one last place out in CA that adds a sound strip to super 8 film, can't remember name, i'll think hard - but I'm quite sure it wouldn't be worth it.

Justin Miller · January 21, 2005

yeah. I sold the nagra and the digital to pilotone converter after having it for two years. the thing was huge! have you tried carrying one of those around the park with you? no way am i going back to that. super 8 sound film would be much easier. a moot point for me since i have a crystal sync camera.

yeah, that's the price paul yost set for the last 5 years and I'm not about to change it yet. and since I own the equipment it doesn't cost me as much to sound stripe the film. the the time it takes to clean someone's film and sound stripe it, plus the time to setup the equipment and the cost of the supplies which are hard to get . . . well it all adds up. but if I can get the carts made and have an easy way to load them in the dark . . . .

GeorgeSelinsky · January 22, 2005

http://members.aol.com/Super8mm/JohnSchwind2.html/

He's got a batch of sound Ektachrome 160 that's been frozen which he's selling for $23 a cartridge. Not a bad deal being that they usually go for twice the price on Ebay, and it's certainly cheaper than striping your own :)

- G.

R Emerson John · January 23, 2005

Hi,

I'm new to this group just wanted to say hello.

But I have one question. Why is George in the Super 8 Only section pictured with a Arri 16 mm camera and mentions that he used to shoot S8 when started? Sorry but I'm kinda confused.:)

In reply to the person who mentioned that S8 can look better than 16mm, I think it's best to say

that it can look as good as 16mm. As for matching with 16mm, with all the new Vision stocks

available. I've seen some pretty good results so far.

Beaulieu 6008-9008 w/ang or snid lense 6-70, and or any Pro Nizo, Canon

1/4 BPM filter, and 1/2 Soft Grad depending on the situation

Ectrachhrome 160 puled 1-stop(over exp 1 stop), K-40 or the new Neg stocks

Rank Cintel to Digibeta at Cinepost

And of course proper lighting and exposure

As for sync I 've shot quite a few shorts, Music Videos with those Pro-8 cameras mentioned above, they can stay in sync pretty damn good for a wild motor.

I've been shooting for over 20 years S8, 16mm and now Prosumer-DV

Wow! what a great time for choices:)

Em

GeorgeSelinsky · January 23, 2005

But I have one question. Why is George in the Super 8 Only section pictured with a Arri 16 mm camera and mentions that he used to shoot S8 when started? Sorry but I'm kinda confused.:)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's actually a 35mm Arri II and it's my avatar which appears all over this forum. With that logic people could be asking me what am I doing on a 35mm only forum pictured with my trusty Nizo S8!

I love Super 8, I've shot quite a lot of it in my earlier days just as Dave Mullen who contributes here but probably, like me, doesn't shoot it regularly today anymore.

I am interested in following in the developments behind Super 8 and am hoping that the format becomes more viable to work with. There are some good developments out there like the Workprinter, and Kodak is still keeping the format alive.

The increased cost in laboratory work, however, is a big letdown. I used to get my film processed for $3.12 just twelve years ago. Since then the price has shot up by a factor of four. It's a little disappointing, because one of the greatest things about Super 8 was that you could shoot it for peanuts, compared to 16mm and 35mm.

Now of course there are filmstocks like Vision color negative (which is really awesome of Kodak to do), but you still can't put it in an envelope in Walmart and get it back for under $10. That to me looses about 50% of the format's attractiveness. Things like small camera size and instaload cartridges don't mean as much to me if the price of shooting the format nearly equate 16mm. I'll gladly stoop down on my knees and thread a spool of film through my Bolex in that case.

As I'm a director and writer, as well as a cinematographer, I'm always on the lookout for formats that I may want to use to tell my story. I would rather shoot on Super 8 than mini DV, even though the resolution war seems to be at a draw between the two (the colors and range still rule in S8).

When I hear some Super 8 filmmakers tell me that Super 8 can equal 16mm in image quality, I'm sorry but this is just wishful thinking. As John Pytlak, an imaging techician from Kodak who designs films, repeatedly affirms here: size does matter! There are some things that filmmakers can do more cheaply which won't affect image quality, but when it comes to choice of format or lenses, that is something that has a direct scientific relationship to quality (sharpness, grain).

Granted, if it was a choice between shooting on expired Anschochrome 500 in 16mm that has been sitting in a hot attic for years, with a camera that has an uncoated lens, or shooting the latest Vision 100 asa stock in a Super 8 camera with modern optics, you could have a point. But barring such extreme situations, it's irresponsible for Super 8 filmmakers to advertize Super 8 as being capable of equalling 16mm. Maybe they wish that was true, but that's simply not being realistic and truthful.

I also think its important to be critical of certain statements and suggestions people make because it's important to think through things. Our own David Mullen here usually throws in some devil's advocate questions and it's not to be maliscious, it's simply a question of "Did you consider this problem, that problem...". Development teams do this all the time. I myself used to spend hours thinking of various film engineering exploits, sometimes my ideas were quite interesting but then I realized one strong logical or practical flaw that made the idea impractical.

Sound striping Super 8 film sounds like a great idea since there are a lot of cameras out there that have been made to shoot the format, and projectors that can project it. But what about the new portable digital recording equipment out there, which is affordable, of a higher quality, and small enough to fit into your pocket so you can maintain the portability of Super 8? Is it worth going through the trouble of reviving the mag stripe or does it make better sense to adapt a newer approach that can cost less and produce better results? What would solution would be of greater benefit to the Super 8 format and Super 8 filmmakers?

- G.

Edited January 23, 2005 by GeorgeSelinsky