Getting back to the original question...
Having just been in the same situation, learning to load and operate a simple (an old Bell and Howell 70DR in my case) 16mm camera is not that difficult, espcially if you have shot still film on an SLR. However, it is quite expensive in the UK - I found it was nearly £100 per 100ft roll for colour negative to buy the film, get it processed (with a large minimum charge) and telecine. This means that if the results are not what you were expecting, finding out whether the problem is you or the equipment (or a combination of both) quickly becomes rather expensive and long winded.
Alan