David Leugers

As someone outside the profession, I would like to know what types of work are presently being done on 16mm. Anyone using 16mm in the industrial film arena? etc.

I wish I could comment, still waiting for my copy to show up. :) Anybody in the USA gotten theirs yet?

I almost laughed out loud on that one! He could have used just his fist to smash the trailing edge of the wing if he wanted to... naw, I think I'll chop off his hand instead!

Amen. And to see a Zeppelin done right, check out "Hell's Angels" made by Howard Hughes in 1929. That movie is full of real WWI aircraft and excellently done minature special effects work. One of the silliest scenes (almost all of the flying scenes were) was the night time rescue of the girl friend and her siblings. Unless the pilot had brought back from the future some night vision goggles... totally absurd. The laziness of the CGI is apparent when the CGI "engines" of the Neuports are not accurate and do not rotate with the propellor as the real aircraft had rotary engines which are not like more modern radial engines in that the whole engine rotates with the propellor... etc, etc...

I really hoped that I would love this film. While I certainly bow to the working cinematographers on this site when it comes to the business of image acquisition, I dare say I have an edge when it comes to aviation and the aircraft of WWI in particular. Aircraft is the one area of computer graphics that so far seems nearly impossible to get it right, and the results often destroy my suspension of disbelief. By the second half of the film I had to think in terms of watching a cartoon to get through it all. I am probably in a very small minority, but the lack of accuracy and authenticism in the flying sequences made this a very forgettable film for me, and I love WWI aviation films in general. What a shame the makers missed the opportunity to make a true and gutsy film and instead made what looks more like a video game of the film they should have made.

A 16mm projector with a 5-bladed shutter and a sync motor works great. The classic telecine. Easy to convert the B+H JAN using parts from International Cine Equipment Co in Miami. You'll need a good biplexer (basically a lens to project onto which you focus the camera onto for an aerial image). You can buy one from Moviestuff. If you are interested, I can build you a JAN telecine at a decent price.

120 format film has a real soft spot in my heart for taking still pictures. I have a relatively inexpensive Yashicamat24 that I will not part with. Pictures taken 15-20 years ago of my kids are some of the best images I have ever taken. My wife who shoots only digital pictures now, looked through the 120 photo album last week and couldn't believe how good they looked. Got me to get the old 120 out and to buy some film for it. Looking forward to the fall and enjoying the art of photography rather than the "point and shoot" of digital photography... I enjoy the craft of film and the results are definitely worth the effort to me.

I don't doubt you, but every Plus-X cartridge I have ever seen, going all the way back to the 1970's lists the film speed as Daylight EI 50 and Tungsten EI 40. Every publication including Kodak information lists this as the correct speed of the old 7276 Plus-X. I still have three cartridges left and that is the information on the box. Plus-X was so good, the fact that it has been improved is remarkable. I would love to have this stock available in DS-8mm. David M. Leugers

I can't offer an opinion as to which lab is the best, but it seems you've answered your own question. If you liked the services and the quality of Color Lab and they are less expensive than Du Art... seems you will have success there again. Maybe send a test roll to DuArt to see if you perceive a valuable increase in quality to justify switching labs.

Pretty much all B+W reversal film can be developed as a negative and vice-versa. I've had lots of 16mm Plus-X negative film processed as reversal with good results. No problem having your reversal film developed as a negative. Do a search at Kodak's website for info.

While I am not a "24fps" snob, I have shot all my movies (R-8mm, S-8mm, 16mm) at 24fps. I like the quality and smoothness. Back in the day when we all edited our films using a splicer, the splices were much less visable on screen at 24fps. In that vein, defects on the film are also less noticeable as well. Lots of reasons to shoot in 24fps, but 18fps is certainly OK if that is your preference.

To use as a prop for scenes where other newsreel camermen are captured in the image, you can't go wrong with getting an Auricon or two and some B+H 70's. You can pick them up very cheap. You can see them in almost every newsreel footage from the 1950's up into the late 1970's. To recapture some of the aura of the time period, if you can locate a good working Auricon with optical sound system, especially the pro-600 or Super-1200 models, you could use them to film with. This would give you images captured through lenses of the time (C-mount) and the sound quality to match. The look of the film footage would probably benefit from some careful selection of film stock and/or manipulation to get the look you want.

I got the chance to see this one in a very nice arthouse theater when it first came out. My wife and I loved it. A beautiful movie, and very unusual. Besides the excellent Tim Roth, the actor who plays his friend, the trumpet player, is simply marvelous.

I agree with Matt, ditch using gloves. Clean your hands with a baby wipe before handling (only handle if at all by the edges of the film). I used to rewind film fairly often onto 100 and 200ft spools. I have an old rewind set that has one of the shafts with a slight bend to it which causes the reel to wobble a bit when turning. This is perfect to keep the film wound out against the sides of the reel to help prevent edge fog. I never had a problem and since rewinds are so cheap on eBay nowadays, it would make since to me to make a wobbler for just such a use. David M. Leugers

If you are using the camera's auto-exposure feature, and your camera exposes film accurately at 18fps, then just load and shoot! If you are setting the aperature manually, then yes, compensate for the higher fps rate. David M. Leugers

I was talking about how the images looked to me. Of course, any subject that is important enough to make a documentary on deserves some leeway when it comes to using source material. I only meant that if some of the scenes from "..Electric Car" had been shot on film it would have looked better than what was available. I believe if someone is going to set out to shoot a documentary without using available footage, then shooting on 16mm film or HD is the way to go. The makers of "..Electric Car" didn't have that option. David M. Leugers

Between that and "Inconvenient Truth" (or "Fog of War") I was thinking how HD has made documentaries look slicker than they used to look (compared to the ones shot in DV, not the ones shot in Super-16.) While I agree HD is a major improvement for video documentaries, even regular 16mm can look better to me on the big screen. I am sure there are many who would disagree with me on that. I feel that parts of "Who Killed the Electric Car" would have been improved immeasurably if shot on S-8mm film, let alone 16mm, instead of the low resolution, soft focus, and lousy colors of much of the video used. Maybe this film looks better in other theaters with a better print? The theater I saw it in is well regarded for their perfect presentations as far as projection and focus of the image and quality sound. All in all, better the film was made than to decide not to due to inferior materials. David M. Leugers

"March of the Penguins" S16mm "Roger and Me" regular 16mm I saw "PI" which was shot on regular 16mm Tri-X B+W reversal stock if I recall correctly, in a theater showing the 35mm blow-up print. It looked fantastic and was obviously superior to the DV to 35mm films I saw during the same time period. I just saw the film (?) "Whatever Happened to the Electric Car?" and even though I thought it was a pretty good documentary about this issue, it was actually hard to watch the totally crap images in many parts of the film which made typical video - film transfers look like 70mm... it really detracted from the enjoyment and the experience of what I expect from viewing a motion picture on the big screen. This might be a good example to see if one wants to see how bad video can look compared to film origination. David M. Leugers