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Vision3 print for projection


Luigi Castellitto

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Just to add, if someone is new to 16mm and has never made a print for projection, I highly recommend it. Grab an old 16mm projector and print a reel or two so you can see it...truly amazing. Fun to combine 100' reels onto one continuous 800' reel too.

 

Who else is still making prints in the U.S.?

 

Cinelab

VideoFilmSolutions

Fotokem

Colorlab

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Just to add, if someone is new to 16mm and has never made a print for projection, I highly recommend it. Grab an old 16mm projector and print a reel or two so you can see it...truly amazing.

Agreed. You can only fully appreciate the density, contrast, saturation, etc. when viewing a film print. There are cheap 16mm projectors all over ebay. I have a Bell & Howell 2585 and, provided you get one that's in good condition, you won't be disappointed.

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There is nothing like a fully timed 16mm projection print from Fotokem. Even their "one light" prints are better than most any other prints I've had made.

 

Especially if you shoot anamorphic, print it and project it. Beautiful! Mine remind me of the 35mm movies of my youth.

 

Even better, take an old 16mm Projector and have someone like Super16 Inc widen the gate for Super16 projection. Amazing to see super16 projected. Gorgeous!

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  • 3 weeks later...

I can vouch for Fotokem, I remember their prices being low and their quality for a one light print high. I didn't even see my tape splices.

Funny, I've been thinking of making another print recently, there is nothing quite like the feeling of it- that is- the process of shooting, printing then projecting. Strangely, it doesn't feel the same for me as when I shoot and project a reversal color film.... go figure.

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My experience has only been in projecting reversal film. What difference is there in the look of a projected 16mm print compared with reversal film? Is there a slight loss of sharpness? Also, is it possible to shoot anamorphic with a S16 camera, and then view it as 1:2.40 with an anamorphic projector lens? All of my experience is some years ago, and was with reversal Super 8 and regular 16mm. I would love to get into real film making again. I even look forward to hearing the sound of a projector again in a darkened room.

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Amateur 16mm CinemaScope used regular 16mm neg and print and a 2X anamorphic lens on the camera and projector, giving you something like a 2.66 : 1 image on the screen. Super-16 wasn't really meant to be projected in a S16 contact print, you'd have to have the reg 16mm projector gate shaved wider and you wouldn't have any sound on your print. It was designed to be blown-up to 35mm.

 

You could use a modern Hawk 1.3X anamorphic lens on a Super-16 camera to get a 2.40 image -- "Machine Gun Preacher" was shot this way -- but you couldn't make a print and project that in Super-16 unless you could find a 1.3X anamorphic projector lens.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Thank you all for advice.


A question: came back to me from lab a development Vision3 500 T, filmed with Krasnogorsk 3. Many users say that they edit with the NEGATIVE, and then send back to the laboratory to have the positive (with A-B or less). Boys, but how do you edit with the negative, in my editor viewer Muray (an amateur editor but with a very good definition and good light), I see ANYTHING! Only a red screen!

Only by putting the film in backlight I can see the images, maybe even with a magnifying glass.

Is this normal all of this? So how do you edit without workprint copy?

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You don't physically edit with the original negative, it's too valuable. You make a work print and edit that. The only time I've heard it done was in the days of b&w newsreels -- David Lean has told stories about being a newsreel editor and having to cut negative images, sometimes getting shots flopped by accident. But this was because the negative wasn't considered to have any value beyond getting the news out.

 

How are you going to run a roll of camera negative back and forth in a moviola or flatbed editor without scratching it? How are you going to make adjustments to your edit if you are chopping up the original negative?

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Camera negative is very fragile, it doesn't have the proper lubrication that a projection print has. This means, you have to be very careful and almost be in a dust-free environment to even work with it. One piece of dust lands on it and gets spooled into the reel, it could scratch it.

 

I recently took some junk negative I shot with some of the students from my film class and showed them how easy it was to damage. I ran it through my projector on a loop and within a few cycles, it was already scratched and dirty. The same material work printed, we have literally run dozens of times and it's been fine.

 

The other problem with working with negative only, is that your brain can't process what the shot looks like, its nearly impossible. You need a light table, some sort of magnifying system and a still camera to snap a quick image and reverse it digitally to even see what you've got.

 

Cutting negative is a whole other story, you have to use the old glue splice method. Standard "hot" splicers, use glue to join a small portion of overlapped material. Where work prints are spliced with tape, generally only on one side, because the tape comes right off, so you can make changes very quickly, the glue doesn't come off. Once it's glued, it will be that way forever, especially with an ultrasonic splicer.

 

So yea, you've gotta spend the money and get a work print made first. Then you can actually edit properly and then use the key code numbers to cut your negative with down the road.

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Tyler,

a camera neg does not need the same physical properties as a print. A camera neg, used as it's intended, is actually quite robust. A lot of negs have been handled or cut without a clean room. As a youngster I neg cut a half hour 16mm pet project (30 rolls), with detailed advice from a pro neg cutter. She threw sheets onto the floor. There was oodles of unspooled cut film lying apon those. I think we did a light wipe when we spooled. Ultrasonic cleaning before printing.

 

If we are just guessing or trying to make inference, we should identify ourselves as doing so. Repetitively doing otherwise, behaving as though we know more than we actually do, is very misleading for people wanting to learn....

Edited by Gregg MacPherson
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If we are just guessing or trying to make inference, we should idetify ourselves as doing so. Repetitively doing otherwise, behaving as though we know more than we actually do, is very misleading for people wanting to learn....

Gregg, I cut negative all the time, it's part of the class I teach. When "teaching" people, you tend to push forward the "proper" way. Even if it seems crazy and unrealistic. Cutting negative in an environment that's somewhat dust free, is a "smart" thing to do, even if it's not necessary for the final outcome.

 

I'm beyond certain anything I've cut, looks WAY better then your paper dragging film. I wouldn't be caught dead dragging film on pieces of paper. I cut on a light table with a piece of cloth below the film at all times and a heavily cleaned specialized super 16 sync block. Every reel is cleaned after assembly by myself and re-cleaned before prints are made. If there is one white dot or one small scratch (from the negative) on the final print that wasn't there on the work print we cut with, I have failed in my task as a negative cutter.

 

You may say it doesn't matter, but if you teach people it doesn't matter, they may take it one step further and dump negative into a trim bin or worse, let it hit a table. I'd rather discuss the best methods of working with CAMERA ORIGINALS, then the lazy way that "gets the job done". It's not like you've got dupes sitting around waiting for the moment you screw up.

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"If we are just guessing or trying to make inference, we should identify ourselves as doing so. Repetitively doing otherwise, behaving as though we know more than we actually do, is very misleading for people wanting to learn...."

 

Clearly this needs to be repeated. Some joke about loading magazines withe white cotton gloves may be more effective....

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A discussion regarding ultrasonic splicers on acetate negative:

http://www.film-tech.com/ubb/f1/t011261.html

 

It's not a question of whether physically cutting negative for the "offline" edit can be done, but should be done. It shouldn't except maybe in the rare cases where you know exactly where to make the cut to create a longer roll, for example. But not for traditional editing where you need to run the shot back and forth in a viewer to find the right frame cut on and where you might want to change where the cut point is after you've made it. Anyone doing a serious editing job is going to run the image through the Moviola or flatbed editor many times so it's crazy to do that with the camera negative.

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Clearly this needs to be repeated. Some joke about loading magazines withe white cotton gloves may be more effective....

Well, nothing I've ever shot has dirt on the negative. I have a 100% perfect record with that, thanks to proper film handling. Even my work prints are spotless because I use the same cotton gloves when cutting prints when I care about them.

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