shortends

[Niclas Tornblom]

hi, everyone!

 

im working on my first tv series as a 2:ac and it's going ok. but i have one serious problem, when im usining my shortends,,,they seam to be shorter then they should be.

...i have 60 meters left in the mag. I put it back in a can....label the can as "60 meters" then i put it back in the mag...and withdrawl about 5 meters for unload and loading...so it should about 55 meters in the mag...but it turns out to be only 50meters....why? do i have to withdrawl 10 meters instead? does any one have any suggestions?

 

the camera we are using is the arriflex 416, 16mm

 

sorry for my broken english, and thanks for all your help.

 

best.

 

Niclas

[K Borowski]

It's probably because the ends were actually being measured in feet, then rounded to meters, crudely.

 

 

I assume that you could be getting ends, say 190 feet (58m), and they are rounding up to 60m?

 

 

 

Or maybe the end lengths are just always rounded up, or guestimated badly.

 

 

There's a formula where you can actually measure film based on the circumference of the core and the circumference of the film itself wrapped around the core.

[Niclas Tornblom]

It's probably because the ends were actually being measured in feet, then rounded to meters, crudely.

 

 

I assume that you could be getting ends, say 190 feet (58m), and they are rounding up to 60m?

 

 

 

Or maybe the end lengths are just always rounded up, or guestimated badly.

 

 

There's a formula where you can actually measure film based on the circumference of the core and the circumference of the film itself wrapped around the core.

 

 

interesting. the thing is,,,that im doing my own shortends....so im always rounding in meters...but hrm, i guess im just guestimated the film badly,,,i wounder if i should round to the nearest five meters? let's say i have about 57 meters in the magazine...i would rounded to, 50 meters...57-5 is 52...round to the neares 5 or 10 so it should be 50meters...does this make any sense?

 

 

thanks!

[Dominic Gruenberg]

Did that always happen or only that one time? Can it be that it was just a miscalculation of some sort? If you put in a fresh roll with 122m and the digital counter says 62m, there's about 59,5m left on the mag. We withdraw only 2 to 3m and it always fits. :huh:

[K Borowski]

Personally, I am a foot-Fahrenheit-pound/slug purist, but from your standpoint, both KODAK and probably Fuji, because they were set up by the U.S. Gov'm't after WWII, coat in feet, use a more-precise measurement than you do.

 

 

I am not knocking the metric system; my father works at NASA and they landed men on the moon using feet, inches, nautical miles (1852-m increments) and then metric when they landed. . .

 

 

 

BUT, in this instance, an Imperial Foot is more precise than an MKS Meter for measuring film because it is three times more precise, unless you can use a DECIMETER or something.

 

 

If you cannot, I would recommend switching to Imperial Customary Units, even if they are illegal in your country, just so you can measure more accurately with your camera only because frames of 16mm and 35mm, despite being calculated metrically by width, are calculated by the foot frames-per-second-wise, and as the Imperial foot, is a more-accurate measurement, solely by being a smaller measurement in this application.

 

(If you could measure film by the millimeter, I'd recommennd using that measurement, but it isn't.)

[K Borowski]

interesting. the thing is,,,that im doing my own shortends....so im always rounding in meters...but hrm, i guess im just guestimated the film badly,,,i wounder if i should round to the nearest five meters? let's say i have about 57 meters in the magazine...i would rounded to, 50 meters...57-5 is 52...round to the neares 5 or 10 so it should be 50meters...does this make any sense?

 

 

thanks!

 

Yeah, Niclas, I missed that the first time, sorry.

 

Meters are LARGER UNITS, and they are rounded from FOOT increments used during the manufacturing process, so they are less precise.

 

 

If you could use FEET (foot) and understand that ther are 30.48 cm in an imperial foot, you'd be better off, solely because feet are smaller, and more precise in this application than meters.

[James Daly]

Some crews will give a buffer for these instances, pardon my use of Feet rather than meters for the example:

 

1000' roll loaded on camera, 750' shot yielding a 250' short end, BUT instead of calling the roll 750 out/250 SE, call it 760' out/240' se, to give yourself a 10 foot buffer, that way you won't roll out early. I guess in meters and in 16mm, call it 5 meter buffer? I don't know, I'm used to feet.

 

-James Daly

IATSE local 600

Camera Assistant

[Chris Keth]

It happens. I recently loaded on a music video where all of our short ends were consistently 10-15 feet shorter than the cans stated. After a few of those, I just wrote the mag labels with 20' less than was listed on the cans.

[Jonathan Bowerbank]

Probably best to always round down, to prevent roll outs.