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Shooting on Print Film


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Hi all,

Can't remember from where, but I've heard of the ability to shoot on print stock just as one would on regular motion picture stock, with the idea of having a very punchy and contrasty look. Does anyone have experience with this? Looking at the Kodak catalog, it seems print stock primarily comes in 2,000' rolls, which would make the process of downspooling a bit tedious...

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I maybe dumb here, but print stock gives you an inverse image, it's not "reversal". If you shoot on it, you will get a negative image when processed and a pretty poor one at that. You can however, shoot on intermediate stock, which will give you a negative and then you can make a print from that. However, intermediate stock is very low ISO like 5 or so, I think? Not exactly ideal, your actors would probably be sweating before you got the camera rolling. There are other issues with shooting intermediate stock as well; it doesn't use the same perf type, so quite a few cameras that are designed to fill the perf, will not fill the perf and probably damage the perf. Some cameras don't care like the Aaton's and older Arri's like the 2C. But any modern camera, will care for sure. 

In the end, nobody really shoots on anything else but camera film. That's what it was made for and that's what people use for a reason. 

 

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I thought you shouldn't run print stock through your camera, as it has an polyester base which is much harder to tear than the acetate base of negative stock. Should a problem occur while the film runs through the camera, it would not tear and might damage the movement.

Edited by David Sekanina
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2 hours ago, David Sekanina said:

I thought you shouldn't run print stock through your camera, as it has an polyester base which is much harder to tear than the acetate base of negative stock. Should a problem occur while the film runs through the camera, it would not tear and might damage the movement.

Yea that too, but most cameras won't jam. 

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This quick summary might be helpful:

https://walkens.com.au/product/mfs-vision-2383-35mm-cine-print-film/

Key points:

- Made for development in ECP-2D but can be cross processed in C-41 

 

- Heavy blue bast shot unfiltered, use orange filter for more natural color

- clear base film, no remjet to remove

Now you have me interested in shooting stills with it!

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5 hours ago, Jacob Mitchell said:

Thank you everyone for the pointers!

I would be curious to have everyone's thoughts on this, shot on 35mm Ektachrome Print stock!

 

Also, Karim, that print 35mm looks incredible, I'll have to buy some.

That looks like modern Ektachrome color camera stock, there is no way they had enough light to shoot with print stock. 

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print stock has KS perfs and long pitch when the normal camera negative has BH perfs and short pitch. If your camera has register pins it may damage the camera a lot if trying to run this type of stock through it, especially if it's polyester base stuff (the reg pins not landing on the perf holes and the holes being of wrong shape so that the pins can't actually fit into the perf holes without tearing the film and damaging the pins. may cause so much resistance that you can't even run the camera at all for the motor not being powerful enough)

I am regularly shooting sound negative and stills b/w stocks on Konvas cameras and they work fine with them. A camera like this which has a simple pulldown and enough tolerances can handle multiple types of stocks and the wrong pitch does not matter that much either because the camera can compensate for it a little. I am sure that cameras like Arri2c and Cameflex can handle KS long pitch just as well

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On 7/31/2021 at 10:43 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

Yea that too, but most cameras won't jam. 

if it has register pins it will definitely jam unless one is specifically modifying the camera to tolerate both the wrong perforation shape AND the too long pitch between perforations. They are both a serious problem.  There is, though, the possibility to use a Soviet 35mm camera like Kinor35N in its original state because Soviets actually used the KS perf and long pitch negative film in their cameras and the Kinors were originally built for "print stock" specifications

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2 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

if it has register pins it will definitely jam unless one is specifically modifying the camera to tolerate both the wrong perforation shape AND the too long pitch between perforations. They are both a serious problem.  There is, though, the possibility to use a Soviet 35mm camera like Kinor35N in its original state because Soviets actually used the KS perf and long pitch negative film in their cameras and the Kinors were originally built for "print stock" specifications

If you read my post above, the comment you quoted was related to that information: 

"There are other issues with shooting intermediate stock as well; it doesn't use the same perf type, so quite a few cameras that are designed to fill the perf, will not fill the perf and probably damage the perf. Some cameras don't care like the Aaton's and older Arri's like the 2C. But any modern camera, will care for sure. "

So yes, you have to use a single pulldown non-registration pin camera that doesn't have a claw that FILLS THE PERF, that's the issue. Some single pulldown cameras DO fill the perf, but others don't like the Aaton's. 

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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1 minute ago, Tyler Purcell said:

If you read my post above, the comment you quoted was related to that information: 

"There are other issues with shooting intermediate stock as well; it doesn't use the same perf type, so quite a few cameras that are designed to fill the perf, will not fill the perf and probably damage the perf. Some cameras don't care like the Aaton's and older Arri's like the 2C. But any modern camera, will care for sure. "

I thought it was still commenting on the print film jamming issue because no one uses polyester based BH negative in movie cameras ( so polyester film jamming = polyester KS long pitch film jamming)

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2 minutes ago, aapo lettinen said:

I thought it was still commenting on the print film jamming issue because no one uses polyester based BH negative in movie cameras ( so polyester film jamming = polyester KS long pitch film jamming)

Looks like a mistype, since I mentioned jamming as the #1 issue two posts above. IDK, musta been tired. 

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On 8/3/2021 at 9:10 PM, Jacob Mitchell said:

Thank you everyone for the pointers!

I would be curious to have everyone's thoughts on this, shot on 35mm Ektachrome Print stock!

 

Also, Karim, that print 35mm looks incredible, I'll have to buy some.

This is excellent stuff Jacob. I'm sorry I didn't understand which Ektachrome print film were you referring to? Did you mean the Ektachrome E100 made for still cameras with KS perforations?

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