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Looking For 16mm Digital Scans For Resolve


Max Field

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Hey so I've always wanted to play around with the grading of a 16mm source in Resolve just to see how the colors react, etc.

 

Does anyone have some 16mm digital scan files laying around on their hard drive they could send over via email or WeTransfer? Or link a website that has a healthy archive of some? My Google searches haven't been producing the best results.

 

Thank you for your time.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

We have a selection of shots (short - just 10-15 seconds) of S8 and 16mm, at various resolutions, up on DropBox:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/07pino7nwgl6h97/AADY8Kdeh3DcOIyDF0MDN_Uda?dl=0

 

Files are in HD, 2k and 4k, cropped and overscanned for 2k and 4k. All are flat, ungraded scans in ProRes format (because it's just too clunky to do DPX sequences on DropBox).

 

With DropBox, you should download each one individually. If you try to do the whole set, DropBox will zip them all up and that usually corrupts the files. So it's best to just grab the ones you're interested in one at a time.

 

-perry

Edited by Perry Paolantonio
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Files are in HD, 2k and 4k, cropped and overscanned for 2k and 4k. All are flat, ungraded scans in ProRes format (because it's just too clunky to do DPX sequences on DropBox).

 

Thanks for the demos Perry. Quick newbie question: is there a standard 709 conversion lut to use with the scans? The alexa 709 lut seems to work pretty well. I also get similar results with the "cineon to linear" and then "linear to 709."

 

P.S. I've got my first Bolex coming in the mail next week, so I'll probably be bringing some little projects your way the next couple months.

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Thanks for the demos Perry. Quick newbie question: is there a standard 709 conversion lut to use with the scans? The alexa 709 lut seems to work pretty well. I also get similar results with the "cineon to linear" and then "linear to 709."

 

P.S. I've got my first Bolex coming in the mail next week, so I'll probably be bringing some little projects your way the next couple months.

 

We don't use luts for grading at all, and we only work with film scans, so on our end, we have a pretty dialed in method for doing it manually.

 

I would start like this, on the flat scan, in resolve: Use Lift/Gamma/Gain controls, lower the Lift on each channel so R, G and B are all just touching the bottom of a waveform monitor (use the RGB parade to look at this). raise the overall gain up to about 90 or so on your waveform. Use the gamma and lift controls together to get the main blob on your vectorscope more or less into the center.

 

I usually try to have one black and one white in anything I grade, unless the shot obviously doesn't call for that. Something I learned in a photo class in art school that's stuck with me.

 

There's more than one way to do this, but this works well for us and it's quick. In most cases, this will get you an acceptable starting point for fine tuning in another node. We're running a render right now on our Resolve, but when it's done, I'll do this and post a screen shot of what it would look like. Only takes a few seconds.

Edited by Perry Paolantonio
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Sorry I did not have any readily available scans I could give out, I brought some of my own film into Cinelab to scan today but it sounds like Perry got you what you wanted.

It's the thought that counts, if you have really clean looking 16mm I'd still be more than thankful for a prores file.

 

Thanks to everyone.

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Curious since your line of work might have the answers. The overall image of this looks crisp however it's quite grainy. Will your lab run a grain reduction process for an additional charge? Or do people usually prefer the look of the grain?

 

Thank you.

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It was older film stock, most of the rest of the video was shot on 7231 B&W stock.

 

Here is the video (and my talky talk about it) http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2011/01/18/131957821/video-premiere-the-low-anthem-ghost-woman-blues

 

The older color stock had a high D-Min and I may have pushed it thus bringing out the grain, which is what I wanted.

 

There is no grain reduction in data scanning, that would be managed in post, with 1080P scans on our Spirit-2K we have a DVNR box for realtime grain reduction.

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"The overall image of this looks crisp however it's quite grainy."

 

I think this is subjective, I personally don't find this clip overly grainy, it looks like 16mm to me.

 

I think that people like grain, many shows add real film grain these days, overly clean imagery is pretty dull to me.

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