Patrick Cooper

Thanks David. This sounds like an intelligent strategy and plan of attack. "The main thing is to not intercut them for the same dramatic scene if possible." This actually reminds me of a scene I saw in the movie D.O.A at the cinema last year. There was one scene where characters were exchanging dialogue indoors and then all of a sudden, there is a shot where the whole colour rendition and 'look' is quite different. I can't recall whether the rest of the scene continued with this different 'look' or whether it was a few shots that were like this. Though it was so glaringly obvious that a different film stock was used here.

I have selected Fuji Eterna 250D for a 16mm project in which much of the time I will be using slow telephoto lenses in late afternoon light. However, there will be many times during the project where i will be filming scenic landscapes with shorter and faster focal length lenses. For consistency, I think I would shoot the whole of the project on the 250D film but I really like the vibrant colours and overall 'look' of the 64D footage on Fuji's demo dvd. Thus, I am tempted to use 64D for the landscape shots but it seems quite likely that it will create too much of a contrasting look to the 250D footage. Has anyone intercut Fuji 64D with Eterna 250D film before? If so, how well do they cut together? In the case of my project, it will end up on video.

This question is in relation to both printing and telecine. I am wondering what the definition of 'grading' is? Additionally, what would be the main differences between a lightly graded print / telecine and a fully graded print or telecine? If one wanted to view 'rushes' of their footage in a cost saving manner and requested that the print or telecine NOT be graded, would they end up with a reasonable looking image or is grading considered almost essential to create a decent looking image?

"This can be good choose of cheap Super 16 camera ?" Sounds ideal to me!

Would there be enough time to shoot some comparison tests?

"I'd still like to see some of the aggressive options that were put on some of the higher end Super-8 cameras in Super-16 camera, such as multiple filming speeds, single frame, time-exposure, time-lapse." A Bolex H16 has all of those features! Time lapse of course is all manual but there's nothing to stop you from purchasing an interval timer. When I first started doing time lapse in super 8 with my Canon 1014E, I had to expose single frames manually while looking at a stop watch for reference. It took me a few months to get hold of an accessory interval timer.

Good to read about the progress of this film, David. And I do like supernatural thrillers! Also good to hear that you are pleased with Fuji Eterna 250D as this will be the same film stock that I will be using for a project of mine soon - though I'll be shooting it in 16mm rather than 35mm - (first time I will be exposing negative movie film.) Pity you were not able to go out and film more 'beauty shots' around the location. That sounds like an opportunity to be really creative and let loose and not be restricted to a rigidly set shot list. "...since the humid weather in New Orleans meant that I had a lot of hazy clouds moving past the sun." I hope that the weather over there is not too humid to affect camera gear..... In Australia, I live in a relatively dry state but over in Queensland, it's not uncommon to discover fungus growing in lenses.

On One TV show that I was an extra on, we were given no meals, only coffee. This is despite being told on the phone previously that food would be provided on the day. Later on during the day, we extras discovered some mobile vans just near the set that were selling hot dogs etc but I didn't bring my wallet because I was under the impression that we would be given free food. So I starved that day.

"...but my last question about 16mm is if you have to load reels in complete darkness." I believe that with magazines that generally hold a large capacity of film, these must be loaded in complete darkness. Not all 16mm cameras use these magazines however. Most 16mm cameras accept daylight spools which can be loaded in subdued light. I have loaded Tri-X 200asa 16mm film with daylight spools in my bedroom during the day with lights turned off and the footage turned out fine. A daylight spool typically contains 100 feet of film which lasts for 2 and a half minutes when running at 24 frames per second. The magazine loading cameras usually take 400 feet of film which lasts for 10 minutes at 24fps. "I have like working with Kodak Tri-x for 35mm and thought i'd stick with that. Can the 100 speed 16mm be loaded with a safe light?" Hmmm...when you mention 100 asa films, are you referring to Tri-X or 100 asa films in general? I'm not familiar with the version of Tri-X in the 35mm still format but in 16mm, Tri-X is 200asa. There is a Plus-X 100asa film though. And a safe light is not necessary when loading these B&W films if they comes on daylight spools. If you are loading such films into a magazine, there should be no light at all like mentioned before!

"Would a camera like this be a good idea?" That Bolex on eBay looks like a non reflex model. If you are happy with the limitations of a non reflex model, then it might be one for you (though it could be a hassle at times!) I notice that the ad states that it comes with a Pan Cinor lens. I'm not sure if that is the Pan Cinor lens featured in the photos but if it is, this lens may have a reflex viewfinder of it's own. This will allow you to have continous through the lens viewing with this particular lens. "Do Bolex's generally stay in good shape/even if sold as-is they will probably work?" Bolex cameras are robust, durable and well built. Most models are mechanical so electronic problems are usually a non issue. Great thing about a Bolex is that you don't need a battery to operate the camera - you simply 'wind it up' before filming. Though obviously you need a battery for a light meter. Some Bolex models accept an external motor so you have the option of running them on electricity if you want to. They are very precise and generally reliable, including really old models. However, that's not to say that Bolexes are completely free of troubles. Occasionally, Bolexes do surface that have problems. With some cameras, the lubrication that was used on them several decades ago has dried up and as a result, some parts have become extremely stiff and rigid and won't budge. And occasionally, there may be other issues as well. Although I have never used a Bolex myself, I do get the impression from Bolex users that they are generally reliable cameras overall. Indeed, Bolexes have a good reputation. They would underdoubtably be the most versatile 16mm movie cameras in their price range (though some Kinor camera users might argue with that.)

"What is the difference between reflex and nonreflex?" "Also, does focusing work the same as with a typical SLR?" These two questions are closely related. A reflex Bolex actually is an SLR camera. In other words, light passes through the lens, goes through a prism, bounces off a couple of mirrors and then reaches the viewfinder, allowing you to see exactly what the lens is seeing. Focussing is acheived by rotating the focus ring on the lens until the image on the ground glass looks sufficiently sharp, or alternatively, measuring the distance from the subject with a tape measure and setting this distance on the focus ring. If you are relying on the ground glass in the viewfinder screen for focussing by eye, always focus with the aperture wide open. This will give the shallowest depth of field so that focusing will be most precise and the viewfinder will be at it's brightest as well. After focussing, close down the aperture to the appropriate f stop. You'll notice that the viewfinder image will darken when you close down the aperture. A non reflex Bolex does not have through the lens viewing - well sort of. With non reflex Bolex cameras in general, what you see is an approximate view of your subject matter. This is more accurate for subjects that are at a fair distance from the camera with a standard or wide angle lens but problems occur if you are filming a subject that is fairly close or if you are using a telephoto lens - it is likely that part of the subject will be cut off by the edge of the frame. There are some non reflex Bolex models that offer temporary through the lens viewing. Basically, these models have a viewing device on the top of the camera that you look through. You then swing the taking lens into the top position and you can compose the image looking through the lens so you can be assured that what you see is what you will get on film. Then you have to remember to swing the lens back into the 'taking position' in order to film. So with this system, you really only have through the lens viewing before filming starts, not during filming. By the way, although a non reflex and reflex Bolex H16 are almost identical in features and design apart from the viewing system, there is quite a difference in price between the two. Expect to pay a few hundred dollars more for a reflex model. "And what kinda film does it use? That is, do both sides have sprockets or just one? Is it still readily available from Kodak?" A Bolex H16 uses ordinary 16mm movie film. It used to be quite common for 16mm film to have two rows of sprocket holes (perforations) - one row on each edge. Single perf film (16mm film with one row of perforations) is now much more common. Both types will work equally well with a Bolex H16 - provided that it has a single set of sprocket teeth. I am not sure but there may be earlier Bolex models that might have two sets of sprocket teeth and these can only use double perf film - and double perf film is not in great demand these days. 16mm film is readily available from Kodak and Fuji. Please note that there are two main types of motion picture film - negative and reversal. Negative film yields a negative image. Reversal film has a positive image, like slide film. With reversal film, you can view the footage on a projector after processing. However, with negative film, in order to view a positive image, you either have to get a lab to make a positive print from the negative or get the neg transferred to video. Not surprisingly, negative film works out to be more expensive because of these extra steps - which ever step you choose. Television production and movies generally use negative film so there are a wide variety of negative film stocks available from both Kodak and Fuji as this is where the size of the 16mm market is biggest. Reversal film, which is more for student / amateur use, is unfortunately in low demand these days so there is little choice in film stocks in this category. Fuji doesnt even manufacture reversal 16mm films anymore. Kodak have discontinued most of their 16mm reversal films within the last few years. The only Kodak 16mm reversal films that I know of currently are Ektachrome 100D for colour and Plus-X and Tri-X for black & white. Although your selection may be limited, I recommend that you start off with reversal film when first getting into this movie making hobby. For one thing, you don't have to deal with film-to-video transfers or finding labs that make positive prints from negative film. As soon as your reversal film is processed, you can simply run it through your projector to view the results. Additionally, reversal films usually have finer grain than negative films of the same speed - the Ektachrome 100D is particularly fine grained and known to be a very sharp film with strong vibrant colours. For another recommendation, I think it would be a good idea to get into super 8 first and take up 16mm later down the track. Regardless if you use super 8 or 16mm, the basic principles of cinematography remain the same - frame rates, depth of field, exposure etc. Super 8 is a good training ground for 16mm. With super 8, film stock and processing are usually cheaper and the quality is still quite good, particularly if you get hold of a super 8 camera with a nice sharp lens. Mistakes will be less expensive in super 8 compared to 16mm. So when you later move up to 16mm, there will likely be less mistakes as you have 'learned the ropes' with super 8. The other thing with super 8, the cameras appear to fall into two main categories. There are the simple mostly automatic point and shoot cameras and then there are the auto / manual cameras with a wide selection of features like the Canon 1014. I recommend getting a super 8 camera from the latter category as you will learn more about the craft of cinematography from a manual camera. "Finally, could I get a sound projector but still use silent film on it?" Yes.

The almost simultaneous release of two movies with similar themes has intrigued me for quite some time. Other examples of this include Dantes Peak and Volcano. There was also Saving Private Ryan and the Thin Red Line. And earlier, there were two Robin Hood movies that were released not too far from each other - one of them starring Kevin Costner.

Very clever suggestions, Dennis. Thanks!

I was an extra in a movie late last year and one of the scenes that I was in was a garden party. These small children had been on set for hours with little food and one of them was getting extremely restless. She had enough and started whining. Meanwhile the crew were setting up a shot and were about to roll and this little girl was whining continously, making a hell of a lot of noise. Oh the pleasures of working with children....

Incidentally, there are two films that share the title 'Fair Game.' The better known film features supermodel Cindy Crawford on the run from some association that seems to be intent on blowing up her character. The lesser known film is an Australian movie and features a woman in the outback who is taunted and abused by three young males.

Thanks John. I had a feeling I knew something about two of those types of prints but I just wanted to confirm the facts. Now this might sound like a really silly question but with regards to a 16mm work print, I am assuming that the perforation pitch would be identical to a standard projection print - in other words, a work print should run through a 16mm projector just fine?

A number of years ago, I handled a few 16mm cameras being sold by camera shops and individuals (with no film in them of course) - just checking them out and getting a feel for them. At the time, I was shooting super 8 and I was also had been involved in still photography for quite some time. I thought that there was something really special about the 16mm format - I guess partly because I am an avid watcher of wildlife documentaries and most films of this genre have been shot on 16mm. Of course, 16mm is also the format of origination for the majority of music video clips and there have been some really memorable 'video clips' that I saw growing up like Kate Bush's 'Wuthering Heights.' Not to mention the film segments of classic BBC tv shows from the 70s. I was a film student at University and during this time, I had been pondering the thought of purchasing a 16mm camera but I had reservations because of the high cost of the film and the processing. Even though I was in my third year in my film studies course, we were restricted to shooting on video in class. Apparently, the Honours students had the option of shooting on 16mm if they wanted to. So the only way for me to shoot 16mm was to do it in my own time outside of study. There were a few times when I came so close to buying a 16mm camera but I had always pulled out at the last minute, thinking that this would turn into an extremely expensive hobby. One Sunday, I was walking through a flea market and I noticed at one stall, someone was selling a pile of 16mm B & W 100ft unexposed films in their original cardboard boxes. They were many years out of date and were being sold for $3 each. The films consisted mostly of Tri-X with a few other black and white film types. After some thinking, I bought three of the films. Now at last, I had a legitimate reason to buy a 16mm camera. However, later that evening, I regretted my decision to only buy three of these films. Even though there was no way of knowing at the time whether these films would turn out any good or not, the unbelievably low price was too good to take for granted. I went back to the flea market the following Sunday but the seller of the films was not there. However, several weeks later, the seller was there with the remaining B&W 16mm films. This time, he was selling them for $2 each. Without a moment?s hesitation, I bought the whole lot and placed them in my fridge at home. Now all I needed was a camera. Several months later, I was at a camera fair and one seller had a Krasnogorsk 3 at his stall, along with various lenses and accessories for 16mm cameras. The K3 was a nice looking beast and handled well in my arms. I was very impressed with the viewfinder ? large, clear and easier to focus than the viewfinder of a Bolex. I also liked the idea that with the M42 mount, you could use lenses designed for 35mm still photography. I bought the camera for the price of au$400. Later at home, I loaded one of those old B&W films I had previously bought from the flea market (and which I had since learned were at least 15 years out of date) and loaded it into the K3 for a test. I ran the film through the camera with the side cover open and watched the film transport very carefully. The film went through very smoothly with no trouble at all ? no jamming or anything. Later on, I took the K3 on a ski trip to the Victorian snow fields along with 100 feet of Ektachrome 7240 film which I had purchased with the student discount. Most of the time was spent snowboarding but occasionally on late afternoons, I took out the K3 and exposed footage of skiers and snowboarders on the slopes, setting myself up in positions that provided interesting angles. I also filmed an establishing shot of the ski village from the summit. Back at home, I was impressed at how steady the footage was upon projection. My exposures were also spot on, despite snow scenes being a bit tricky to expose correctly. I used my Canon T70 to take light readings, searching for mid tones like the bark of trees. The colours of 7240 seemed to me to be more vibrant than when I had shot this same film stock in super 8. A little later, I also exposed one of the old Tri-X films (of ships at a harbour) and the footage turned out fine for the most part. The very first shot was a bit foggy and I was worried that the whole footage was going to turn out like this. The rest of the footage however was clear, and quite sharp. I have also bought a Takumar 200mm lens and a Tamron 400mm lens for the K3. I put these telephoto lenses to good use in filming birdlife in my backyard last year. I had used another of the old Tri-X films for this. It was Spring and pigeons had made a nest near the roof of my house. Meanwhile, some black birds had made a nest in a bush low to the ground near the back of my house. I filmed the black birds first but was unable to get some decent footage of the parents feeding the chicks because of all the leaves and sticks obscuring my view of the nest, as well as the fact that the nest was in shadow much of the time. However, I obtained some pleasing footage of black bird parents landing on the nearby fence with grubs in their mouth, ready to feed the chicks ? filmed with the 400mm lens. With the pigeon nest, I was able to use the 200mm lens to film the parent pigeon regurgitating food to it?s two very hungry chicks. I also have plans to film wildlife on an island quite soon. I have just ordered some Fuji Eterna 250D for this project. This will be the first time that I will be shooting negative movie film so I look forward to seeing the expanded latitude when viewing the results.

I was wondering on the differences (and specific applications) for the following three types of prints that can be made from a negative - Work Print, Release Print and Answer Print.

"Their kodachrome lab might have been viable if they had offered low cost transfers to video. It could have tripled the income from processing and really opened peoples eyes to how good kodachrome could look when it was processed and transferred properly." Interesting idea but unfortunately, 'low cost transfers' and quality don't usually go hand in hand. There is a reason why transfer houses charge so much for quality telecine - Rank Cinetel and Spirit machines are astronomically expensive to purchase and maintain. However, I guess Kodak could have had something like an optical printer type of device like a Workprinter that transfers film to video frame by frame. This sort of equipment is not super expensive and the quality is reasonably good. Then again, they would need to employ a colourist for scene by scene colour correction and the costs of this would be passed on to the consumer. Even so, I'm not sure if consumers would get the best appreciation viewing Kodachrome this way since Kodachrome by nature is a very contrasty film stock and a device like a Workprinter would have trouble coping with the narrow exposure latitude, particularly when exposed by novices under the midday sun. So it's back to square 1.

One frustrating thing about the Krasnogorsk 3's standard 17-69mm zoom lens is that there is no rear cap supplied. A standard m42 mount rear cap will not work because of the weird shape of the back of the Meteor lens. When removing this lens and using another lens in it's place on the camera, I obviously don't want dust to gather on the Meteor lens' rear glass element or anything to scratch it. Have any of the K3 owners here managed to improvise something that can fit firmly over the rear element with no chance of damaging it? Would there be any piece or part from common household items or photographic items can could be utilised?

"Over all very long lenses aren't as sharp as normal focal length lenses." Hmmm...this might be debatable....I have an old Vivitar 75-300mm for my Canon still cameras which is beautifully sharp! (despite being a zoom.) However, I have read in a Nikon book in a library that there is some technical reason that exists that makes it very difficult to design a 200mm focal length lens with good quality. Of course that doesnt mean that good quality 200mm lenses don't exist.

Hmmm....if you want to match specific shots to certain parts of the song, I guess a close up of the guitarists's fingerwork during the guitar solo is one idea that I could throw up.

"That said, my colorist noticed a major difference between my Meteor lens and my 35mm Super Takumar." That is interesting. According to the colourist, which one was superior - and was the difference in terms of colour, sharpness or other factors? "But with these cheap cameras there are so many other factors and they aren't always easy to focus precisely anyway... my eyepiece shifts constantly out of focus." Ive found the viewfinder on my K3 quite good for determining focus. It's certainly easier to focus than a Bolex! That is not so good about the eyepiece setting shifting - that would be irritating - this hasn't happened with mine. I was filming birds with the footage that I projected and in one instance, I remember focussing specifically on the eye of a pigeon. With the projected footage, I could clearly see that the eye was in focus but in terms of sharpness, it was okay - nothing mind blowing. Though another thing I did notice is that this lens seems to have unusually shallow depth of field for a 200mm lens. Most times, only small parts of the birds were in focus whereas when I use my 300mm zoom on my canon 35mm still camera, I find that most of the subject is in focus.

Ive just projected some Tri-X exposed with my K3 and a Takumar 200mm lens. I know people keep going on and on about the sharpness of Takumar lenses but I wasn't overly impressed with this particular lens. It's not a bad lens but I found that in terms of sharpness, it was a bit ordinary. Not exactly razor sharp. I can't recall what f stop I was using but I think I may have been close to mid aperture. Of course for some of these shots, I was filming through a glass window and after shooting, I discovered that there was some dust on the lens' front element so this may have affected the image quality slightly. However, there were a few shots from a previous day that were exposed outside with the Takumar 200mm that looked okay but nothing outstanding.

Space:1999 was a great show with an unusual concept. However, I was more of a fan of the second season - there were some really interesting stories in the second season. Though i admit, two great things about the first season was the theme song at the beginning with the electric guitar and Barry Morse. It's a pity none of those two elements made their way into the second season. The second season did feature a new character, Maya, who was a great contribution to the show. It's a pity that the series ended without a conclusion.