Jump to content

Marty Hamrick

Basic Member
  • Posts

    544
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Marty Hamrick

  1. Part of what I do from time to time is restoring old films and prepare them for telecine transfer.Sometimes the folks I do this work for want a film to project as well.I work with alot of 16mm mag striped newsfilm,in fact not long ago I rescued about 40 years worth of some imporatnt historical newsfilm when the station that owned it wanted to throw it out.I'm still organizing much of it.It amazes me that much of this important history was being trashed.I have film of Batista in exile that was headed for the dumpster as well as Hurricane Dora hitting Jacksonville in 1964 and the early Cival Rights marches when Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. was in St.Augustine. Recently some super 8 projects were given me that were done back in the 70's on multiple formats.Some Ekatsound,some Optasound double system and even some old Bell and Howell Filmosound (anyone remember those beasts?).Not everything needs to be telecined.I have to sift through much of this and figure out what sound goes with what picture and separate wheat from chaff to save on telecine costs.Much of it would be easier to sync and rough cut if I had an old S-8 flatbed or Optasound ESTEC,but no one seems to know where such can be dug up. I even had some regular 8 film with mag stripe that I managed to save the soundtrack on for transfer.I found an old Fairchild sound projector at a flea market in St.Augustine. Hope some of you might have some suggestions. Also John P.,most of this film is in amazingly good shape considering that it wasn't stored in exactly the best of conditions,nor was it processed under the best lab conditions (TV station processors)however do you have any suggestions for preserving and protecting old originals? Marty
  2. I would love to see a forum for super 8,but if one never appears on this site there is another super 8 message board on http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimateb...ubb=forum&f=409 and super 8 in the digital age on http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimateb...ubb/forum/f/405. Have fun. Marty
  3. I don't think I've ever seen an ACL for the 1000 dollar price range he's talking about.Once you throw in a couple of mags and lenses,the price I've seen is upward around1500 to 2500. If you don't need a silent running camera the Beaulieu R-16 can be had with a pretty decent Angenieux zoom and a 200 foot magazine for around a grand.It's not crystal but I have shot sync with the motor select switch in 24 (constant speed)and had very little drift. On the downside it's whiny and can be finicky.The pressure plate has to be checked to make sure it's properly seated when you thread it or the focal plane will breathe on you. I will say if the ACL is your choice,do be sure it's the French model and not the English. Marty
  4. The survivors of the nuclear holocaust will make celluloid oit of the mutated vegation and emulsion will be made from irradiated rust from old videotapes that wont work anymore because the Earth shifted it's magnetic axis and everything recorded magnetically will be gone...See,I can be just as silly. If you try to pay a visit to the PBS film vaults though, maybe you won't need a DVD or tape :lol: That's cool,I have a couple of really nice restored 16mm projectors,I'lld settle for a 16mm print in good shape :D Marty
  5. I emailed CBS to try to find if there was a way copies of this old classic series could be had.They replied that CBS no longer owned the copyright to the show and had no idea where I could find it on VHS or DVD.Anyone know where it might be available?It was a documentary show titled "The 21st Century" and it was narrated by Walter Cronkite,later by Mike Wallace and aired between 1967-70. Marty
  6. I used to have a Dodge Colt Vista wagon back in the 80's.Mechanically it was crap,but it sure could hold some gear. Marty
  7. I wish this guy was in charge of organizing my station's ENG vans. Marty
  8. You don't happen to know where in Florida this guy is do you?He sounds familiar. Marty
  9. Don't know of any websites unless maybe you do a Google search.The Bell and Howell cameras you describe are great little workhorses.They were very popular for TV news back in the day.They're virtually indestructable,you hear stories about them being dropped out of helicopters and used in riots as weapons,it's almost like someone carved a camera out of a rock somewhere. Not much we can tell you that isn't really self apparent by looking at it.It has multiple speeds,100foot capacity,spring wound,the motor will run I think 22 feet of film per wind.It has a 3 lens turret and C mount lenses should be easy to come by although you may have some difficulty finding the appropriate parrallex objective for the viewfinder.Hope this helps. Marty
  10. Hi Mitch and Mike, Thanks for the recommendations.Things change fairly quickly on the grip and lighting end as well as the camera end.Lighter and more portable,less power consumption. What vehicles do you like for film or EFP?I used an old Chevy high cube for a few years until it just about died.Then the company bought a mid sized van.Better on gas and parking but cramped and I missed the racks for C-stands.For news I use a standard size SUV,but I need that extra space for anything else. Marty
  11. The ENG design is what attracted me to Aaton.At the time I was shoting alot of TV station promos and shooting on ships and in tight quarters.There were times when 35mm would've been better than the 16 and Betacam I was shooting.I also had a friend that shot for Nation Geographic Explorers that swore by it.I was just wondering if anyone had used one what they thought of it. Marty
  12. Anybody here ever use the 35mm Aaton?Almost bought one once. Marty
  13. Phil,you know a url,perhaps Sony's website that has details on this?My station will probably be stuck SX for some time.Post Newsweek is slow to spend big on hardware changes. Marty
  14. I would suggest a Bolex Rex IV or V.The V can take a 400 foot mag and will grow with you.Only used a Kras once and liked it fine except I've heard stories that if you get one where the factory worker had too much Vodka the night before,you may get a lemon.Most folks I've known with a Kras have them worked over from one end to the other driving the cost up,which to me defeats the purpose of buying a cheaper 16mm.Both cameras can be easily converted to super 16. Marty
  15. If you're ever in the area again let me know,I'll try to hook you up with the grips and gaffer types here as well as the important stuff like the best watering holes.I used to skydive in Fernindina. Marty
  16. That sounds about right.The lighting they had in the movie was very stark with deep shadows,apparently to give it the gloom and sinister look,which they went with throughout the whole movie.It didn't work for me for everything. Most courtrooms are flat and cold with large overhead florescents (I shoot in court about twice a week,we average 2 murders a week here :( ).The exceptions are the much older turn of the century coourtrooms like the one we have in Fernindina Beach,which is nort of where I am.That one looks like a scene from Perry Mason. Marty
  17. I didn't think it was just Europe at that time.I thought "ghetto"just meant a nieghborhood where the majority of the residents were of one particular ethnic origin.For example "Italian ghetto","Irish ghetto","Polish ghetto." I just thought it was one of those words where the meaning metamorphosed over the years like "gay".I remember when "gay" meant happy. Marty
  18. Anyone catch this one?I thought they went a little overboard on the really low level drama mood lighting.It was cool for the Spahn Ranch and night time creepy crawly scenes,but it was somewhat bothersome and overdone on the courtroom stuff(never seen LA's Hall of Justice in real life so I don't know how it's lit but I would've thought the 1975 version was more realistic there). The pseudo newsfilm...super 8?Too grainy and overdone,newsfilm didn't look that bad.The open was very well done though. Marty
  19. Hi Folks, One of my collegues from a competing station tells me his company (Gannett) is planning to convert everything over to a disc format before January 2005.They are currently shooting DVCAM.Anyone familar with the format and want to shed some light here? Marty
  20. I feel your pain there Mitch.Since I've been back in the shooting saddle now for the last couple of years,I've been looking for some basic items that will cross the line.I don't shoot 35 at all or haven't in a long time,occasionally get a call for 16/S- 16 and I shoot alot of Betacam type gigs.I was just wondering about tripod heads,sticks,filter sets and basic lighting that would fit in a van and be comfortable with either a film package or video package. The stuff I use for my staff news job is too beaten to hell to take on a client gig,unless the client is a news station from another market.Any suggestions? Marty
  21. I thought that way for awhile until I got into a couple of good edit sessions with some of the popular NLE systems.It's just like cutting film without the grease pencil and dirty hands and it beats those old match frame multiple playback decks hands down. My biggest obstacle is convincing my freelance clients that film is worth the extra money for stock and processing.Many want the film look and really don't understand the difference between the real McCoy and electronic gimmicks.Good luck and welcome back. Marty
  22. you edit cut/cut on SX?????? In the microwave trucks as well as the SNG truck we cut on SX masters, yes.In house we master/archive on SP. I have not experienced any problems cutting on SX out in the field except for the fact that the small,desktop size editors we carry in the ENG vans are not really desigend for the rigors of news field editing and are always in the shop at some point. From time to time an SP tape will hang up in the player side and not read the time code or control track.This can be overcome by dubbing that portion onto an SX tape and using that. The headaches I get is that the editors in each of our five ENG trucks have their own idosyncracies.The most troublesome to me is that one of them has a lag of silence in the audio after preroll.The first time I ever cut anything on it I thought something was wrong with the record deck not laying audio.The frame accuracy is off by at least 4 frames on another one, and still another deck stops alltogether after preroll and shows an "error 3 reel trouble" problem at least 40% of the time.I'm sure I'm not the only photog who's been tempted to toss the thing in the St.John's River. Marty
  23. What do you want to know?I shoot for a station in Jacksonville,Florida (market size 52).We've been SX for about 6 years,or really 60 % SX and 40% SP.We edit tape to tape on SX in our ENG trucks in the field and edit on a Leitch NLE system at the station. Marty
  24. I don't remember the project exactly but it was a government job.I think the client was Martin Marietta,the job came through the lab back in 1978-79 and they just wanted us to prep it and ship it out to an optical house for a selective piece of of the frame to be optically reduced down to 16mm.They were a good client but they were notorious for jobs of multiple formats and very mixed and diverse originals.It could make for a challenge to say the least. More than likely it was documentation film of a missile being launched or something else of a military nature.MM was doing alot of that at the time,much of their jobs required that the processing and timing techs had confidential and sometimes secret and top secret clearance to work on the jobs. I remember we had one pedestal foot pedal operated splicer back in one of the printing rooms that did 16mm,35mm and 65/70mm that we used to splice head and tail leader on it.Sorry I don't have more details but that was a long time ago. Marty
  25. If you're willing to shoot with a lot of light (something I abhore doing), you might get similar results if you shot 7245 and just let it go warm sans the 80 filter, then correct it in the printing. Even with a printer light correction instead of the f-stop killer 80 filter or the light eating CTB's, you'd probably get the same latitude if not better than you'd have with ECO, and the grain I'm sure would be identical (plus the archival stability would be optimal). > Funny you should mention that.Someone called me the other day about a warming look for a political spot and I was thinking about that,though not sure what stock.Don't know if the lighting situation will afford that much light though.That's one thing I DON'T miss about ECO.< To me the ideal situation would be to have a cross processable color filmstock, which could be developed either as a negative or as a reversal. That would mean no orange coupler mask of course, and it would also probably mean the modification of the current color processes (and/or the necessity of giving each film two different ISO's), but that would of course be the coolest thing for me. >Interesting.I wonder if such a stock could be made cost effectively enough with sufficient demand. Marty
×
×
  • Create New...