recan reliability

[Josh Silfen]

I am shooting a low-budget feature, and I was wondering about the reliability of recans and short ends. I read some posts on the subject that said fog levels could vary for every can, etc. and that shooting with them is not ideal. In a hypothetical situation in which my choices were shooting 35mm with all short ends and recans, or super-16 with brand new factory-direct film stock from the same batch, which is preferable? What if the film ends up on video? What if it ends up with a theatrical release? Will different cans really not match? What if I have the lab do 'clip tests' on all the rolls beforehand? Will they be able to tell me if the pictures will match or not? I'm sure there are probably varying opinions on this, and I'd like to get a range of them. Thanks a lot.

-Josh Silfen

[Dominik Muench]

if the recans come from a proper seller like kodak youre probably fine, but if you get shortends from other productions you never know how they were treated and stored. i uses shortends before and was lucky, but only because i knew the guy. in your situation id probably go with the brandew 16mm instead.

[John Pytlak RIP]

Caveat emptor.

 

For anything important, it's always a good idea to run tests on each roll. The reseller is at the mercy of how the film was stored by the original user. You don't want film that has accidently been though a security x-ray machine, or spent days in a hot camera truck or in the trunk (boot) of someone's car parked in the hot sun.

[Chance Shirley]

I've bought 16mm recans and short ends from http://www.filmemporium.com and never had any problems with the stock.

 

That said, if you want to play it safe, super 16 looks great when shot using a good lens by a good DP. However, it looks different than 35mm.

 

So, other than the budget and "risk" factors, there's the aesthetic factor. If the project you're working on really needs that 35mm look, you'll have to shoot it on 35mm.

 

By the time a project ends up on video, it's a lot harder to tell the difference (to me, at least) between 35mm and S16.