Aapo Lettinen

so it would be from 3k to 10k developing costs and then the final system installed in the camera should cost between 400 to 800 usd depending on the complexity and the camera model

it would be much easier to make a new in-camera optical audio system from scratch than to develop a new mag striped sound film from scratch. Maybe some very low-end mag striping service could be possible with the normally available resources but anything which would need to be high quality and reliable would be very expensive for the person doing it. Custom making mag striped sound film would be possible with a Kickstarter project or similar crowdfunding campaign. Otherwise pretty much impossible by my opinion unless someone wants to throw in tons of his/her own money as a kind of charity campaign to make few other hobbyists happy. Developing the optical sound system for a camera would cost something between 3k and 10k if done right and if the camera model is easy enough to modify. Most of the cost is prototyping and physical testing ( = hard work) which takes lots of time and needs lots of film stock and processing. The largest issue with optical sound for 8mm is that the projectors need to be modified too (though much easier to modify than cameras) . By my opinion, in-camera sound for 8mm is mostly a niche feature which is only practical for home videos and other experimenting. If making short films or docs you would use dual system audio anyway and that only makes the in-camera audio usable as a scratch track. If you want to shoot a "home video" and watch it with a real projector, then it would be fine. But otherwise pretty useless. Personally I would like to have a modified camera which can shoot normal film so that I would only have to pay once and then it could shoot all the available stocks without needing to source the one special film stock which is made single batch at a time crowdfunded and would be unavailable for years at a time.

it can vary case by case but in most situations the foreground lights need to be moved most often and if you have small g/e team then it can mean that the foreground lights need to be relatively small and lightweight. if having a bigger team, then you may have possibility to tweak it better and use larger/more difficult to handle gear for the foreground. I see it like this: background: stays mostly the same all the time. big lights which don't need to be moved often. large hmi or multiple smaller units can be possible because you need to build it once and then it stays relatively the same. foreground: this is where most of the action often happens and you need to tweak the lights shot by shot. the units need to be able to be moved quickly even with minimal crew. On smaller shoots this often means Led units, possibly battery powered midground: often you only need to add some accents unless some of the actors move a lot in this area. So if actors on the midground, then you need to light it... otherwise, only add what you absolutely have to. this way you save lots of time

I rated the st9 about 12 iso which worked pretty well. One needs to work with the lab to get the developing optimized but normal b/w developers work with it. I used self made metol-vitaminC developer for most of my tests

Heh, the watermark is my method of preventing youtubers from "borrowing" my footage for their compilations. The original negative is completely clean of any markings on the picture area but the morse tank highlight pumping is evident in my example as you noticed and the scanning place managed to enhance the effect somehow with their scanner settings

well, I have learned in the industry that not getting the credit for the hard work usually means that those people hate your guts and they want to damage your career and would rather not work with you ever again if they absolutely don't have to. I would want to find out why that is the case in those post houses. Surely you could find work in places where they credit the technical people like it is customary in almost every other production out there? I mean, it is normal to credit the unpaid interns and daily workers too. Vfx artists and technical people always get the credit. but if they hire another company to do some part of the work then if you work under them, it may be possible that the credits don't end up in the final movie because someone lost the memo and forgot everyone in that subhire company

st9 will look approximately like this in 35mm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFLUux-W6og

I have shot some ST9 in 35mm and liked the results. Purchased a 2000ft roll couple of years ago from the lab I use. they probably have it in stock, you can ask https://www.postproduction.be/ I have had great communication with the ORWO factory and purchased directly from them stocks like 16mm 2R N75 stock. Have you tried to email from another email address if it is a spam filter issue etc?

I was thinking making a preset for every different film type to be used. there is not that many so it is possible. but will of course need testing and that makes the development phase expensive

I thought you were specialised on the sub 1M productions and commercials / docs. You should ask the line producers of these 50M+ shows to correct the credits and imdb

variable density optical sound is theoretically possible on Super8 if one develops the optical assembly and electronics for the camera and the reading system for the projector (none exists yet so one needs to make the whole sound system from scratch). It is much easier to do for a camera which does not use a cassette system so I think I will make a system like this in the future for 16mm and Double8. I have all the components and most of the plans done but the system needs lots of precision machining and tons of film tests (film tests make the system expensive to finish) which is why I'll probably evaluate this project again next year when having more financial resources and time. The advantage of using optical sound would be that any normal film could be used

no need to be sarcastic all the time, you know what I'm talking about ? most of the Netflix movies looking like those scripted low budget documentaries but with slightly better production design and actors ? using the same key light for every shot and so on. "Hasty and cheap" looking most of the time and most of the stuff actually looking like they had the sets of all the shows built back to back into the same studio lot and when calling "cut" they just panned the camera 180° and started to shoot a take for the other show when the current one setups for the next scene?

to me, the main issue with today's cinematography is that very few people seem to be interested in mastering their lighting skills, especially the younger generation. It is extremely camera/technology centric nowadays and most people just don't seem to care that much about the final image as long as it is technically perfect on the pixel level. bad lighting and grade makes any format look like crap, whether being film or digital. But the issue is that if you want to master those skills, purchasing more fancy gear does not help at all. so it is much easier to just purchase the new fancy camera than to spend five or ten years finessing one's lighting skills. the whole "painting with light" approach lost, nowadays it being more like just recording something quickly so that the viewer can see and hear what is going on in the scene and then trying to polish it later in post to make it watchable. just making standardised lighting for all the scenes and then adding some stock music in post to try to set the mood for the scene

pretty interesting looking CP16R package on eBay if someone was interested in reg16 cameras: https://www.ebay.com/itm/255001539197?hash=item3b5f46b27d:g:fB4AAOSwPplgtljX

on documentaries the film works pretty well for MOS stuff, insert shots and flashback scenes. But shooting talking heads on film does not work very well in most situations so you will generally want to shoot the talking heads on video in any case. That makes it a multi format production which is generally fine even when you have to explain the producer why it makes sense to make the movie that way. Most documentaries are multi format anyway even when shooting all digital... there is just not enough light and personnel and grip gear to make the same camera work in all shooting situations so you need to change camera scene by scene to make it work

the biggest issue of the film workflow is that you need to wait before you can verify that the end result was what you intended it to be and to see if something has to be reshot or not. For the director and the DP the wait time can be OK but the producers really really hate the extra waiting because there is always the 20k to 200k usd uncertainty in their minds that something has to be reshot. with digital they can ask the DIT to quickly check everything on the card and make a extra copy for them and then clinge on the copy and tell themselves that the scene is perfect now and no uncertainty can chew on the budget of that shooting day anymore. So the main thing is the producers fearing to go over budget if shooting on film. To them there is a additional risk when using any film based workflow and they always want to eliminate all the risks they can. The artists working for them generally have very little to say on that.

forum member David Sekanina was making a new silent super16 camera. Don't know about the current status of the project but I think that is the only new sound sync 16mm camera in development at the moment (modifying the existing camera models does not count) Custom electronics are relatively straightforward to do but custom precision mechanics are challenging and time consuming ( = EXPENSIVE) to make. there's another threads about the issue with exactly the same conclusions: silent and precise movie camera is not cheap to make from scratch and it takes enormous amount of time and resources. There is very few persons willing to pay the real costs for making this type of product. Meaning that one needs to do certain amount of free work to make this type of camera available, making it a "semi-commercial" project which is not likely to get any funding unless a kickstarter or something could work

well, most of it is like discussing whether you can play the same melody (the same notes) on synth and grand piano. People playing the same melody on both and then testifying that no one could tell the difference because the notes were the same! it starts to become a problem when you are trying to use the piano to play a melody originally composed for a cello or violin... well it has to work because the notes were the same so no one shouldn't be able to tell the difference heh ? of course it is understandable that for some persons and institutions cinematography is just like choosing a paper for a book which will be published. no one cares about the exact specifics of the paper as long as it is not super annoying to handle and the print quality is good enough. so "not annoying and not too cheap looking" just like most of the Netflix stuff and the Marvel type of stuff which is very good looking but every movie looks always exactly the same (no difference in the visual style), only the character count will increase every time ? for other persons and projects it is like choosing the right instrument for playing a concert piece. If "not annoying and not too cheap looking" is not good enough for the persons and institutions, then the format choice DOES matter and people start to feel it. maybe if playing some crappy pop music it does not matter that much (you can play pop music by whistling the melody and drumming the table to get the beat. no need to use real instruments for it, no one will care. Kinda like making a movie with the iPhone: as long as you can hear and see what is happening then it is perfectly OK and does not need to be enhanced further ) . if playing classical stuff, then it might matter a little if you are whistling the melody or if you are playing it with a cello or something. BTW how many of you are annoyed by the look difference when you are replacing tungsten lights with led units? especially on low colour temperatures like 2500 - 3200K-ish? to me, most low temperature LED stuff looks like crap for skin colors and it is why I am still using tungsten if wanting anything under 4000K and if it is not too difficult to do with real tungsten lights. For higher temperatures the LEDs are generally OK because one is used to making high temperature "cool" lights with HMI or fluorescent so the poor spectral distribution/response is not a problem in most cases.

Led lights have gotten significantly better in recent years so that may be the sole reason. That is why I don't want to purchase any used led lights... the old ones tend to be aged, green and nasty

There is another thread where I had an idea of making Krasnogorsk2 or 3 crystal sync and adding a video tap but then I shot my own ideas down because the camera body is not good enough to justify a 1k - 2k usd conversion. That is exactly what has happened here. The camera body is not good enough to justify that amount of work hours and expense. It is a nice demo project but does not make any financial sense unless it is just for getting content to a youtube channel and you will get the revenue from ads and sponsors. Btw I could sell a simple user installable crystal sync controller for 200 to 300 usd which could run this type of camera. One would need add a motor and encoder but still the crystal conversion would only be couple of hundred usd if user installed. No need to pay 1k for it....

yep I needed to use a ear plug all the time on the camera side ear when shooting with the Cameflex. never need to do that with Konvas

well, there is "loud" cameras and LOUD cameras. for example the Konvas is a loud camera (sounds like a industrial sewing machine or some kind of power tool) but the Cameflex is a LOUD camera (we used the camera running sound as a actor cue mark when shooting a short film. saved a lot of film that way, I just instructed the actor to listen when the camera starts running, then wait about 1.5 seconds and start acting. Worked like a charm up to over 100ft away even with background noise present ? it was silent film of course) "loud" camera you can live with to some extent if shooting for example outdoors using tele lenses and some blimping. With the LOUD cameras you can't do much other than shoot MOS or do ADR

personally I would get a BL3 or 4 with pl mount and spend the rest on the accessories, spare parts and CLA. if you end up having some money left you can always purchase a 35-3 and use it for high speed and mos on your shoots

max. 10k for the camera body + mags OR with lenses and all the accessories? you will need a good tripod and lenses and other stuff which will cost about half of the total price of the package. I would probably look for a silent sound camera with pl lens mount and some kind of video tap possibility. Most likely either a serviced Arri 35BL (bl2, 3 or 4) or the Moviecam Compact. Someone suggested the 535b which is a good option too. The arricams are too expensive and most other options are too loud for sound shooting. One option is to get the Kinor35N (sometimes listed as "35H" if cyrillic not translated) if you can find one with a good lens set and which is modified to BH perfs (the camera shoots originally KS perforated film and needs to be converted for shooting modern Western stocks) . The Kinor is basically a Soviet copy of the Moviecam SuperAmerica with their own lens mount and some Soviet engineering. Every one or two years one pops up on eBay but they are relatively rare and may need some repairs before use (not that unserviced Western cameras would need any CLA before use as well)

By my experience, the biggest problem with Konvas cameras is that people don't have any experience with them and don't know how to use them correctly which gives an impression that they are bad cameras and unreliable. Additionally, persons who shoot with them expect them to work right out of eBay which is never the case with cameras which have been stored unused 30 or 40 years in a box in someone's garage in Ukraine. Of course it is in bad condition and dusty and all the lubricants are dried and it may even have small rocks inside (that is the one I use the most after servicing it) . The advantage of the Arri 2C's over Konvas is that the Arri has always been much more expensive so the previous owners probably could not afford keeping it in the garage all the time. They had to use it to get the money back from it and that means that someone took care of the camera and serviced it regularly. Thus it is in better condition "out of the box" than the garage camera but that does not mean that the garage camera could not be cleaned and lubricated and adjusted and then shoot wonderful images just like the Arri could. The Konvas has the advantage of having orientable viewfinder and massively cheaper lenses which I stated previously