I'm New to Super 8, Could Use Some Advice!

[Carl Looper]

I'd suggest, however, that in reality (as distinct from aspiration) the outcome could very well be somewhere between "worse and the same".

 

HOWEVER this won't be due to such a result being intended. It won't be due to some peculiar monk-like fetishised devotion to the historical information they currently possess (machines, formulas, data sheets, etc). If it occurs it will be due to information they are missing, and that is something that can't be elaborated, because it's unknown.

 

But as always, throughout history, the solution has always been aspiration, inspiration and experimentation. If one can't reproduce a formula (due to missing info) the answer is to come up with a new formula - and typically a better one, because instead of just following a given formula blindly one is forced to analyse the logic behind a formula. And in doing so, one typically sees how it can be improved.

 

And if one has this as an aspiration to begin with, then there's no delays at all in biting this bullet.

 

C.

Edited January 14, 2015 by Carl Looper

[Carl Looper]

That all said, it is difficult to interpret the words "closely reproducing this formula".

 

What are they communicating with this line? I'd suggest that they are just trying to reassure you that if you like what you see in the datasheet, then you should like what you see in the filmstock they come up with. They are starting with this formula (ie. not ending with it).

 

There are of course some ambiguities here. For example, many filmmakers I've met actually like grain, and could very well find any reduction in grain is not an improvement but a worse result! But we can treat such positions as exceptions to the rule, rather than as a rule.

 

I myself don't actually care what they come up with. It will be what it will be. If it's granier, with weird colours, I'd find that just as compelling than if they came up with a fine grain stock and a strictly Newtonian colour distribution. So long as it doesn't cost too much, that it runs in a camera, that it can be processed, and that it gives some sort of visual result on the screen - that will be more than a start. It will be a film.

 

C

[David Cunningham]

I am one of those people that likes grain, but in super 8 you cannot have too fine a grain. The format is just too small. Even 16mm only comes close to sometimes being too low grain. I find that really only applies to 35 mm and larger films.

[Carl Looper]

I like grain as well. From very coarse to very fine. But not absent grain, as it is in video/digital. And not attempts to "fake" or reproduce grain in the same. Nor attempts to elliminate grain (in film transfers to video/digital)

 

The great thing about real grain is that the fundamental material responsible for the grain has both a random size, and a random position. Both of these operate to produce a statistically neutral carrier signal for the image. The downside is the perception of "graininess" (a downside for some) but the upside completely outweighs this downside (for me anyway), and that is that the image (perceivable "through the grain") is so much more ... real. That's the only word I can find to describe it: the material provides for a completely compelling realism.

 

Of course, this assumes that realism is a desireable attribute.

.

C