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3-perf to 4-perf transfer?


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Hello,

 

I shot a short film on a 3-perf camera on B&W negative, and need to finish it in 4-perf print on a contact printer for a theatrical projection.

 

Aspect ratio is 1:1.85.

 

The negative capture area is the same on 3-perf and 4-perf for 1.85, is it not?

 

As far as I understood it's a fairly simple process that uses some black border cropping on the print.

 

 

Is that so? Am I missing anything? Is there anything that might prevent or complicate the transfer to 4-perf print?

 

Thanks in advance for your help!

Edited by Gleb Volkov
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It's either an optical printer conversion, typically you cut the negative, time for an answer print, then knowing the printer light values, make a contact-printed timed IP from the 3-perf negative, then you put that in an optical printer and create a 4-perf 35mm dupe negative, from which you make a print.

 

Now of course it is possible to put a cut 3-perf negative into the optical printer and create a 4-perf 35mm print directly, but that is less common, both because you put your negative at some risk using a spliced roll but also because all of the printer light corrections would have to be done in the optical printer. Today, you'd have a hard time finding a lab to do that.

 

And there is the other issue of getting the negative cut and whether you'd have to make it single-strand (so any fades and dissolves would have to be done in an optical printer and dupes cut it, or done digitally and recorded back to 3-perf and cut in) or A-B roll cut, which then means you would have had to pick standard lab lengths for the fades and dissolves, plus now with an A-B roll negative, you can't easily do a single step blow-up from a 3-perf negative to a 4-perf print in an optical printer (which as I said, was already unlikely).

 

The more common approach today is to do a D.I., get the negative scanned, color-correct digitally, do all the transitions digitally, and then use a film recorder to put it out onto a 4-perf 35mm negative, then make a contact print.

 

As Tyler said, the 3-perf image area is "super" and the 4-perf 35mm print projection area is smaller, within "Academy" width to allow a soundtrack on the side of the print.

 

Which of course brings up sound...

 

All of this seems rather complicated just to make a print for a short film. If your intention was to make a print, you should have shot it in 4-perf standard 35mm (1.85 or anamorphic 2.40) so that you could cut the negative and make a contact print.

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Thanks for the detailed answer!

 

It wasn't really a choice of shooting 3-perf to begin with, I was just faced with this fact on site at the last moment. So now trying to figure this out.

 

The entire film is a one-shot fitting on a single 400' roll of film, 5:30 m.

There's no cutting involved, except trimming the edges and maybe adding titles.

It's completely mute, there's no sound track required for a projection.

 

So which way would be the simplest for me at this point?

Edited by Gleb Volkov
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You'd have to consult a lab to see which of the options I laid out is more doable. Even just putting titles on the roll requires a splice to deal with unless you do a D.I.

 

So many labs have retired their optical printers that most are going to recommend doing a D.I.

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You need both an optical reduction plus a 3Perf to 4 perf change. This is done by having a 3Perf movement in the projector and a 4Perf movement in the camera of the optical printer. Once this is done, you still need to put a mask by exposing a mask film on a contact printer. It has been many years since we did 3 perf work on the optical printer, but all the parts are still there. What is more, when doing direct optical reductions from B&W negative to B&W positive, you may run into halation problems, depending on image content (black halation around backlit hair for example). This is because of lack of anti-halation layer in the B&W positive, this problem is much reduced when going via Interpositive/Duplicate negative.

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Thanks for the detailed explanation!

 

Upon further research I am now trying to go another route:

The projection will be on a Kinoton lab projector, which is supposed to be able to screen 3-perf with a simple flick of a switch.

I'm planning to make a 3-perf (rather than a 4-perf) positive and just screen this way.

 

If all checks out this is supposed to be a simpler route.

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Very few 3Perf projectors around.

But lots of 4perfs. Is there an economic way I wonder to convert them to 3perf. And Tyler, I believe you were considering some months back of manufacturing a 3perf/2perf machine :D Any further thoughts on this ?

It does seem a lot of trouble to make a 4perf print from a 3perf original. And I guess you'd have similar sorts of problems with 2perf original.

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Very few 3Perf projectors around.

Far as I know, there aren't ANY 3 perf projectors around. I'd bet there were only a few, 4 perf projectors modified and they're probably long gone.

 

3 perf came around right at the end of cutting on film, so there would be no reason to project 3 perf camera positive. Filmmakers would simply transfer the negative to video, cut on video, conform the negative and reduction print it to 4 perf.

 

Adding sound to 2 or 3 perf is easy, Dolby Digital already resides between the sprockets. Adding a timecode track to the outside edge were SDDS is, would also be simple.

 

My 2 perf and 3 perf table top projector idea would be specifically designed to run a modified format. However, it costs a lot of money to develop. I did see a very similar design recently that kinda threw me off a bit, even though it was 4 perf, the concept was very similar.

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If you're doing a photochemical finish and you're very tight on shooting ratio, 4 perf winds up being less money then 3 perf, by a very small margin. 2 perf reduction printed and turned into anamorphic, is less expensive. With a digital workflow and scan back to film, 3 perf is the best way to go.

 

From my understanding, you can't time the film during the IP/optical reduction process. If you COULD, then you WOULD save a considerable amount of money and time. However, I think you need to first time the film and make a 3 perf IP, then do a reduction print to 4 perf. That means you'd be 5th generation by theatrical, which is really bad.

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We can time the film during optical reduction/blow up and make fades as well; our optical printer has the B&H light valves and fader. We did many hundreds of S16 productions where only a few direct blow-ups were made purely for festivals. First a trial print was made on S16 contact positive, then viewed and color correction fine-tuned, then in many cases only one blow-up print was made. We did the same for 3Perf, but no contact print here, only reduction to 4Perf direct.

A properly made direct blow-up from S16, with good lenses and good photography still is mind-blowing quality even today.

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I didn't realize those were S35!

 

I was actually recently watching some deleted scenes from "Remains of the Day" on youtube and they look like they're from a workprint – the image is 1.37 and you can see the boom pole dipping into the frame occasionally, with dust spots here and there. I was thinking about projection mattes and such, and wondering how common something like that was in the photochemical era: shooting full-aperture for a 1.85 finish.

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Usually prints get masked to 1.85 by the projector. If you shoot in 3-perf 35mm, which has a 1.78 : 1 full aperture more or less, then when converted to 4-perf optically or digitally, you'd end up with an image with a 1.78 : 1 matte, which is then further masked by the projector to 1.85.

 

A few times, someone will put a 1.85 hard matte in the IN for the release prints but it is less common. For one thing, the slightest misframing by the projectionist will cause a black border to appear on the top & bottom, which is why if you are going to put a hard matte in the print, a 1.66 or 1.78 matte is a bit safer for 1.85 projection.

 

Allen Daviau was known for shooting most of his 1.85 movies with a 1.66 hard matte in the camera gate, until he did "Van Helsing", where the vfx people asked him to shoot full aperture for everything. Same thing happened to Dean Cundy on "Jurassic Park", I believe ILM requested that he expose full aperture even though his lens was centered for standard 1.85.

 

I used to put a 1.37 Academy hard matte in my Panavision cameras for my standard 1.85 movies, just take expose a little less excess picture info but also to make sure the dailies transfer colorist understood that this was not a Super-35 movie.

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If you do direct blow-ups or reductions, it is essential to print a black mask because the unexposed area outside of the negative frame would be transparent. We would take our standard 1.66 or 1.85 mask and then take the frame leader for this particular production and adjust the optical printer until the frame leader arrows fit exactly in the mask. If going via IP/DN this would be done at the IP stage.

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