Mixing 16 & S16?

Ryan Ball · February 28, 2005

Just curious as to whether or not you can shoot regular 16mm film with a B camera on a super 16mm production and mix the footage. What would have to be done to get the two formats to jive if the film is going to be finished on video?

Also, are there any major benefits of shooting s16 if you're just going to video?

Thanks.

Jeremy · February 28, 2005

Just curious as to whether or not you can shoot regular 16mm film with a B camera on a super 16mm production and mix the footage. What would have to be done to get the two formats to jive if the film is going to be finished on video?

Also, are there any major benefits of shooting s16 if you're just going to video?

Thanks.

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Super 16 and regular 16mm use the exact same film (assuming it's one perf, which it usually seems to be these days). Super 16 just lets you record an the image into that extra space on the side with no perforation. Therefore, you're actually recording a widescreen image onto the celluloid. If you want widescreen with regular 16mm, you have to matte the image to create the widescreen (ie black bars over the top and bottom portions of your frame).

If you're finishing on video, there shouldn't be a problem. The Super 16 image will have slightly finer grain, but it shouldn't be that noticeable (if, again, you're finishing on video). If you're finishing on film, you have to keep in mind that there are no Super 16 projectors, so you'd have to blow it up to 35mm, or get a regular 16 print made, which would negate the reason to shoot Super in the first place.

Tim Carroll · March 1, 2005

I agree with Jeremy.

If you want to finish on video, you can get by with shooting everything in 16mm. When you have it telecined (transfered to video tape), you can have the operator take a 16:9 image from the 16mm frame, just like you can with the Super 16mm frame. The only difference, as Jeremy mentioned, the grain will be finer on the Super 16mm transfer, but not noticably smaller to anyone but an experienced filmmaker.

-Tim Carroll

andrewbuchanan · March 1, 2005

I've done this before. It looks okay. I did it out of necessity. If I did it again, I would try to get a slower stock from the same series (like Vision or Vision 2) for the regular 16. Then I would match colors contrast etc. in telecine. This would hide the grain a little better. I would not recommend doing this for projection. This differences on a 7 foot tall screen would be pretty stark.

Ryan Ball · March 5, 2005

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

Just wanted to know if my Krassie would make a decent B camera on a S16 shoot. Guess I could get away with it.

John Pytlak RIP · March 5, 2005

As others have said, each film is transferred using the appropriate image area. The larger image area of Super-16 reduces grain and improves sharpness, so choose film and exposure accordingly.