Tyler Purcell

Sure, Cinelab in New Bedford MA and Color Lab in MD. Both can do prints no problem.

Isn't the scanity 4k? They have a new one that just came out this year that does 8k. That scan is pretty serious tho, I do a lot of 4k scanity work and it doesn't look THAT good. Interesting, digital orchard must have the new machine.

I think a lot of that is down to the camera and lenses. No way are any of the cameras I'm using in any way shape or form capable of delivering an image AS SHARP as an Arri 35mm camera. Arri's aperture plates touch the emulsion side of the film, so they can achieve perfect flange distance and optimal sharpness. Alas, Aaton's were never designed to do that. But ya don't get hairs in the gate either. We recently scanned a film shot with Arri Ultra Primes with a 416 and it blew my doors off. We both stared at the monitor wondering what the F they shot it with and when we found out, I was like... ahhhh yea of course. 50D, stopped down to F11 in the desert with Ultra Primes and a 416, with a 4k scan? I mean it doesn't get much sharper honestly. I think with an Arri scanner, it would have been glass. Where I agree, the footage you demo is night and day sharper than anything I've got to show, I also think there is much more to it. This is why I'm gonna have to do a test to lay this issue to rest. I'm gonna go to one of the rental houses and do a little test. Sadly I can't use Aaton gear due to this gate/flange issue they have, I wanna use fully calibrated ARRI cameras and of course, a better scanner. What scanner is your material scanned on? Looks like a Arri Scan XT?

Thanks, yea the finished feature we plan on making, which will be a 3 year adventure, will be on BluRay. We actually just scored the biggest deal we've had thus far in the train scene, so we're super stoked for next year. May actually travel to the east coast next summer to start shooting the bigger project. Time to re-build my camera and lenses again! hahah ?

Na, none of what happened in the 70's and 80's has anything to do with the end of film, zero percent. What killed film was the following (not in any particular order) 1) SAG/AFTRA merger 2) Deluxe/Technicolor signing a agreement to stop manufacturing prints globally. 3) Digital cinema projectors being "good enough". 4) Labor unions allowing for the end of projectionists. 5) Kodak filing bankruptcy. 6) Fuji ending production of camera negative. 7) A push by filmmakers to "try the new digital technology'" so they don't fall behind in skill set. 8 Theaters being forced to upgrade, without having any input on the situation. Remember, camera film is a VERY SMALL business compared to print film. One 35mm film print is roughly 5000 - 7000ft. There would be upwards of 4000 prints made for each movie. That's 28 million feet of film PER MOVIE! There was what, 100+ movies released a year? The print business "was" the business. Camera negative WAS probably 5-10% of Kodak's business. When that went away,, that was the end of film as we knew it. The whole thing was a mafia hit job on Kodak. I still believe to this day, it was purposeful thanks to their anti-competitive business practices. Yes, today. But not when the prices go up 40% over the next few years. Believe it or not, but Kodak's prices have only doubled in the last 20 years. That's actually not bad considering 20 years ago you could get a good working car for $2k and today, it's more like $7k. Eh, I mean you're talking stills people. One sheet of film off the coating machine is good enough for an entire year of still film. They can make enough still film to last the stills guys for a decade in probably a week. They would not be in business at all if still film was the only thing around. Nobody serious is processing motion picture film in their bathroom. Also, Kodak would not be in business either, with those onesie, twosie guys, who shoot 200ft of 16mm a year. That is not a sustainable business model, neither are short ends or for that matter, renting film cameras when parts are nearly impossible to get for every camera. Give it 10 years, when all the damaged camera parts have been gobbled up, who is going to keep the cameras running? The cost to manufacture new parts will put all those consumers on the curb. The only people who will be capable of affording it are people shooting 100 million dollar blockbusters and having the guys at Panavision make them a new camera. :cough: Nolan :cough:. That's what people don't get. This whole road we're on today, this is it man. We are at the end of the road. The recession that's pending and increased pricing on film, chemicals (lab prices), will prevent the mid-low people, from shooting motion picture film. That's just fact, it's happening right now, I see it every day when I'm quoting for jobs and people won't go for it anymore. Last year? No problem. Recessions = no extra frill money. People will use plugins to create the film look, there are some great new AI driven ones that are very good. So with that said, there will be a flood of cameras hitting the market in 2024/2025 as people get out of their packages to pay bills and with limited people having the cash to purchase them, the prices will fall through the floor. This is already happening. There is a beautiful 416 for sale that hasn't sold for $60k. Two years ago, they were $100k. So the prices are already tanking and rental houses are already dumping cameras, they're always the first to do so. With the slow down in the industry it's inevitable. Kodak is 5 years too late to the market with this Super 8 camera and $4k over budget. $1499 and they would have sold thousands internationally,, but at this price, with everything happening in the world today, I just don't see it. Film will stick around, but not because you and I shoot, but because Nolan does. Because the studios still do YCM separations. Because prints are still being made for special one off experiences... again, studio guys. I bet Nolan alone made Kodak's year in 2023. It sure made FotoKem's year. I hate to disappoint you, but no... we aren't even a blip to kodak. Maybe the mid-low business is 1% of their over-all sales? This year I shot close to 20,000ft of 16mm and dang, maybe 40 Super 8 cartridges and a dozen 35mm still rolls? That's peanuts man, not even worth mentioning in the grand scheme of things.

Bingo. I mean how many people have you seen on the Facebook groups showing off cabinets full of beautiful Super 8 and 16mm bodies they have zero intent on ever using. One guy has every single Super 8 and 16mm camera made from the very beginning of the format through the 416. He just puts them in cabinets and looks at them. I'd beg to say more than 50% of the cameras out there are museum pieces, never to be used. Another 20-30% of the cameras out there are sitting in cases never to be used. There is only a TEENY, TINY, ITTY, BITTY, NEARLY INSIGNIFICANT amount of Super 8 and 16mm cameras actually being used. I'd say it's probably close to 3 - 5% of the total amount of Super 8 and 16mm cameras made. Now, a new camera would be great for the pro's, but would it change anything? I doubt it. For sure wouldn't effect the lower end market one bit.

Sure, but that wasn't my point. You "CAN" make S16 look fine. It's just, many filmmakers choose to under light, so they're forced to shoot with higher ISO stocks, which lowers the crispness. Also, you can easily get 2.5k out of 50D. How much hight resolution are you getting out of 2 perf? Maybe 1k more? So you're still well below 4k height wise with 50D. Then you're saying that 500T is sharper, which of course it is, but now you're BARELY 2k. So shoot S16 50D or 200T pulled a stop and you're golden on S16 to retain just north of 2k. With 2 perf, there is NO WAY you're getting a 4k out of 500T, impossible. How much sharpness do you need? Throw this up on your 4k TV and tell me this is not sharp enough.

Well, the studios have exclusivity contracts with Kodak. So they literally were not allowed to shoot any other film. That's why Fuji stopped manufacturing. They weren't getting the 2 million feet of color negative jobs. Can you imagine if Kodak had competition? It would be another planet today, but alas those days are gone. Kodak will make another mistake shortly, you wait and see. They're raising prices on still film 10 - 20% for 2024. We know they're also going up on motion picture next year. How many more price hikes will it take before people just stop shooting. Once the youth have no interest because they can't afford it, then it's over. It'll turn into a fad art thing and something only top professionals have access to. Kodak will price all of us out of the market. This $5400 dollar Super 8 camera is very much evidence of that. You can buy 10 4008 Beaulieu's for that kind of money AND have a few of them re-built. You'd have enough cameras to last you for the rest of your life in parts alone. The concept of a $5400 Super 8 camera that does nothing special, is an outrage and proves how far away Kodak is from reality. Will they sell some? Sure! It's the new fangled box that all the rich kids will want to look cool. Even though none of those people have ever bothered shooting with a real super 8 camera before. Kinda like the CyberTruck release. They'll just buy to say they have one and throw it on a shelf. Bet ya all the big YouTubers have one on their background sets to show they're "filmmakers" lol ?

Guarantee you, with 1.5x anamorphic lenses on Super 16, you'd never notice the difference between 50D S16 2.40:1 and 250D S35 2 perf. Once you matte down the image to 2.40:1 on a TV or your computer screen, nobody is gonna care. It's just aesthetics at that point. With 3 perf or 4 perf S35mm, at least you've got a HUGE negative to work with. I guess that's my point. I'll see if I can do this test at some point in the near future. Reason we haven't is because our scanner(s) can't do 2 perf. I know, it's annoying. So I'd have to ship it out to Nicky and have her do the scan, which takes time and costs money. But yea, next time I get a Penelope in for service, I'll run a test.

I had one, they don't work at all. Total scam product. Everyone who has bought one, has the same problems I do. They simply jam constantly because the modern film stocks don't have the same lubrication as the older film stocks. So sure, 40 years ago they worked fine, but not anymore. I could care less about what the format "was", the only thing that matters is what the format is today.

2mm taller, and 10mm wider (with full width) That's not that significant when you're talking about a format that's HALF the cost. If you do the math, which I've done so many times, even have videos about it, 2 perf is actually really not that cheap. People just think of; film, processing, scanning costs, but suddenly you're also renting a higher value system. You need a heavier duty tripod, you'll need S35mm lenses, the list goes on and on. For me, the big thing was just not being able to afford fast zooms. I can with S16, but with S35mm, just renting them was tricky. Wanna do a long zoom shot? Pfft, now you've got a literal cannon on the front of your body. I have a 320mm zoom for S16, that's like 600+ mm on a S35mm camera. Then you've gotta fight to get good high speed primes. By the time you're done, you've just spent 2x the rental cost. Also, that whole shallow depth of field thing which makes S35mm so nice, it just doesn't exist as much with 2 perf because the frame size is so small. It has nearly all the same problems as S16mm with getting that look. Gotta resort to longer lenses and being wide open, vs being able to use shorter lenses. Sure, you get a bigger image for sure, but at 2x the cost. With 3 perf at least, you're getting a MUCH larger image. You can fit almost 5 S16 frames into a single 3 perf frame. Much easier to get the shallow depth of field look as well, it just happens without any work.

I always felt the same way, but even with short ends, 16mm is still cheaper. Cameras are lighter, smaller, require less support, lower cost rental/lenses and such. 11 minute loads which is plenty for most shoots. I think if you do the math per finished minute, you'd see 2 perf is still around 2x more money than 16mm, plus it doesn't really give you any benefits. It doesn't use the full width of the S35mm frame, so you're not really gaining much real estate unless you're shooting widescreen. Personally, with everything going to TV these days, 1.78:1 is perfect aspect ratio, so S16 or 3 perf, is the best format for that delivery. The only negative of S16 are night/low light scenes. So shoot those on 3 perf 35mm with 500T pushed a stop? Then you save the money on the bulk of your shooting on 16mm and then save the 35mm for the few moments you need it. Where I personally haven't done this yet, I may for my next film.

I think I used the full kit in that night scene, 9.5, 12, 16, 24 and 50. I do have an 8mm as well, but it distorts a lot, I only use it when I need it. The night shoot was all half a stop under, but 500T can be pushed a bit. I was only concerned about the blacks disappearing, which they do in some places, but I'm able to bring it up a bit in post. The still grabs don't do the source justice. In a final color, it'll have a bunch of nodes with mattes.

Yep, I agree. A lot of my stock choice is based on how the day is going and what I'll need as the day goes on. Sometimes I'll use 500T when I need to speed up shooting and do some interiors where I literally have no time to light. I recently did a narrative where I had to do a few interiors and exteriors at night, which required 500. It really came out nice, even though it was under heavily. I was under around half a stop and on my Optar T1.3 lenses, so the fact I had any detail was good. The background of the city in the distance, still was visible, which was nice. This was lit with a single chimera and Pavo Tube.

Exactly, you get it. So how can you call something "awesome" when you know for close to the same money you can get 2x the quality?

Currently I own and have shot with: Beaulieu 2006 Beaulieu 4008 Beaulieu 6008 Elmo 240S-XL Elmo 1012S-XL Yashica Electro 600 The images are very similar on all of them, tho the Elmo 1012S-XL is probably the one I'd keep if I sold the rest. Heck if I know! I currently sport: Elmo ST-160 Elmo ST-1200HD Bolex 18-5 Bolex SM-8 My main projector is the ST-1200HD, which I've refurbished, so she runs great. I think it's critical to separate personal preference with reality. There are some very cool aesthetic aspects of the format, but that has no relevance to the quality. There were some benefits to Kodachrome when shooting and projecting, but Ektachrome is meh and ya can't project negative obviously. Also, there is really no cost benefit to Super 8 anymore. 16mm price per minute at 24fps is damn close to the same if you scan. It's only when you project, when you see a bit of savings on Super 8, especially at 18fps. Lots of people are getting into older formats like VHS/BETA/Hi-8 and such. They love shooting and have a lot of joy. Good for them honestly, I have fixed many a deck and camera for them. I for one, couldn't wait to move up to 16mm as a kid. I couldn't wait to stop shooting SD analog video. I went through HD so fast and onto 4k before you could even blink an eye. Today, nearly everything I shoot is 4k - 8k, I even scan and finish my 16mm films at 4k and distribute them 4k as well. So it really depends on what you're after. The aesthetic aspects or the images inside the format. I'm all about the image, I don't really care about the aesthetics. The tactile nature of the format, doesn't translate to your audience very well. So if you're doing it for yourself and nobody else, that's a totally different thing than what a filmmaker is thinking about. That's kind of my point. Filmmakers give two shits about aesthetics, it's all about the image and why would they blow $5499 on a camera that gives them the same image as any of the cameras I mentioned above.

Exactly and everyone is so focused on "today" but film prices are going to skyrocket in the next two or three years. People are going to be selling their cameras like crazy, trying to get back their investment as they can't afford to shoot film anymore. Kodak is going to weed us consumers out of the business shortly. It's far better to just make film for the pro's who can afford it.

By comparing the final files to 16mm and 35mm? It's impossible to get a crisp image because the system uses a plastic pressure plate. So flange distance constantly varies. The bigger cameras like the Beaulieu series with C mount lenses, they struggle to maintain flange distance. Every lens is collimated slightly different and the mounts are not locked to the gate at all, so as the cameras get older, the lens mount itself slowly starts to move away from the gate. It doesn't take long to have the flange distance off. The film is poorly made as well, the perforation pulses and even though the registration is based on the side rail, that too changes dramatically camera to camera. There is a spring loaded side rail which is designed to hold the film and that wears, so the lateral registration falls apart over time. The cameras don't run at any consistent speed, so many have flickering issues. The automatic ISO controls don't work on modern stock well, so you're running manual exposure always. The lenses on the build in lensed cameras are poor, even tho there are some "fast" lenses, it's all a joke because there is a beam splitter in the way, so they're never THAT fast. Plus the built in focus aids, never work right. There is no actual ground glass. Even in the fancy mirror shutter Beaulieu's, have poor viewfinders. I never got that, it makes no sense. So no, they really never made any good cameras, even the ones which appear to be better, they're really all just crap. Don't get me started about the projectors, whooo eeeee such junk. Nobody ever really tried to make the format any good. Logmar did with their first iteration which pulled the film out of the cartridge and ran it around a sprocket drive and actual gate with pressure plate and hard C mount. It worked, but it's very expensive and it's not the best design sadly. The images out of the Logmar, scanned properly and with good glass, look ok. So we know it's not necessarily the film of course, it's just the cartridge, camera and projector tech which fails the format.

I have owned quite a few super 16 zooms in recent years. I really like the Canon lenses, but they have issues when run wide open. The Zeiss zoom's are pretty good wide open, they don't get instant soft and distorted like the Canon's do. The angenieux's have similar issues when wide open. So I use the Zeiss 12-120 (optex) quite a bit and it's a 2.4 but it's solid at 2.4. Then when I need something longer, I have a few Canon's to choose from with longer ranges, but only really good outdoors in bright light, stopped down to 5.6 or more. I've found they seem to be pretty good when stopped down. Then I augment with primes when I need speed. There appear to be 3 types of Zeiss zooms. MKI, 2 and 3. I think the MK3 was the shift to super 16, it seems to be the case, it has a totally different housing and is the proper 11-110. I have shot with one, it was a better lens than my MK1 Optex, but maybe not worth the money? In my view, if the optics are good, you shouldn't need to upgrade really. Canon has the best lineup. They have 4 options and all of them are pretty widely available. 7-63, 8-64, 11,5-165 are the main lenses. They did make an 11,5-180 as well. I have owned the three first ones and enjoyed my time with them. I prefer longer lenses if I'm shooting with a zoom, so the wider ones I dumped and I now have a Canon 11-160 with a built-in 2X extender that I recently started using. Rare lens, but works well if you can deal with it's issues. If you want some samples, feel free to hit me up!

I don't "think" it automatically results in bad images, I know. BIG difference. To the rest of your question, why do you care? I shoot a lot of super 8, but I'm ok accepting it's a shit format.

You're saying the resulting images of the Super 8 camera is a "good" thing? The ONLY point of super 8's existence is small, light cameras that are very portable. Once you take those aspects away, there is no point. So if that's the case, might as well shoot with an Alexa mini and simply make it look like super 8 later. At least you'll have a good working image.

Sure, but now the damn thing is bigger than an Alexa Mini! What's the point?

Accept, this isn't what Super 8 looks like for 99.5% of people. Most super 8 looks like complete junk. All of my recent super 8 stuff runs through Phoenix before even being edited. I run the raw files through because they're useless without it. A lot of times I have to wet gate FRESH FILM FROM THE LAB because it's so damn dirty, it's unusable in my opinion. I've tried many labs, same results. It's just the way the format is.

You can't even see the display outside in the sun. You can't tell if it's in focus. I guess you could add a high NIT external display? But now you've got a camera bigger than a Red Komodo. What's the point? I to this day, have no idea how anyone shoots outside in the sun with a monitor, even on digital cameras. I sure as heck can't.

Correct, it does not share the pin registered movement. I don't think you CAN run a pin registered movement with a standard cartridge pressure plate. I believe they are still using the same mirrored shutter design, which is why they're limited to 38fps. It's amazing to me, the Beaulieu design is so simple, it works so damn well, that nobody bothered copying it? That's what I'd use if I made a new camera.