Robert Hughes

Mukesh, one thing you may also want to consider is the cost of using the various formats of equipment you are asking about. A new DigiBeta record deck without camera costs about $50,000. A new HDCAM camcorder deck may cost upwards of $100,000. All the rest of what makes a video studio run will cost you tens of thousands more, and generally anything HD related is twice the rental cost of its SD equivalent. As for quality, you need to understand that X by Y pixel resolution is not the only standard by which quality can be measured; signal-to-noise, color stability, low light sensitivity, ease of editing, the list goes on. By the time you get to the point in your career where you need to worry about quality differences between, say, DVCAM and DigiBeta, both formats may obsolete in the commercial world. A miniDV camcorder you can buy down at X-Mart is miles beyond the limit of your abilities right now as it is; learn to get the best out of the equipment you have available and prepare yourself now for the time in the near future when you need to make the decisions on questions such as this thread asks.

Nature cinematography? Consider the connection to Nature photography - you've got color, texture, form, balance, harmony. But with cinematography you've also got ACTION! Frantic, cautious, peaceful, excited, all the ranges of movement inherent in the plant, animal and mineral kingdoms. Make a demo roll with as many different types of scenes, as beautiful as you can make them, and remember it's not hanging on a wall of a gallery, it's going on in real time, so get a flow going. Make people want to see next scene, and leave them wanting more.

As for lighting with Super 8, with few exceptions more is always better. Plus X 100 looks great in light haze to full sun, because the Super 8 cameras will stop way down and give you a very sharp picture without a lot of grain. If you need to shoot inside, use Tri X or Vision 2 500 color negative stock. And turn on the lights. PlusX is not a very slow stock, it's ISO 100 which is considered a medium speed film. Here's a point of reference: in William Mortenson's classic 1940 book, On the Negative he lists 5 classes of film speed: Very slow, slow, moderate, fast and hellishly fast. His idea of very slow was Dupont Ortho film, with an equivalent ASA rating of 4 to 6. He considered films of ASA 12 to 24 to be medium speed emulsions, and PlusX ASA 50 film to be a high speed film. Of course the PlusX we use in Super 8 is twice as fast as the the negative stocks he used, more equivalent to the "Hellishly fast" TriX of 1940 with an ASA speed of 64 to 100.

Double post. Remember how VHS replaced Super 8 in the market. Super 8 didn't die - it's still a viable topic on this forum, almost 30 years later. Where's the VHS topic? :unsure:

I think the question about the future of s16 versus RED is similar to the question of sailboats versus powerboats. Certainly the latest Evinrude 600HP monster can make a vessel go faster than a sail will; so what? They are different formats for different purposes. s16 won't fail anytime soon; as Nate said, you can convert a $100 Filmo into an s16 camera and shoot in places you'd never dare take a $17,000 toy like RED. Or you can buy a new Aaton or Arri s16 camera, or rent it, or shoot 35, or Super8, or HDCAM, or VHS, or any of a dozen other formats. The market is too mature; no one product can demolish all that has existed before it. How many times does this bear repeating; RED has amazing hype, but no substance. When it finally gets out of the lab, RED won't fail; it'll be fine. And 2 months later, JVC will offer a similar package for 1/8 the price; that's what I'll be waiting for. As for the CEO of Kodak not having time for film, that may help explain why Kodak is in the organizational mess it is. It's like having the CEO of Pepsi Cola running Apple Computer; we all remember how well that worked out.

Well, I had to know, so I Googled it. Yep, we had one of them on the set...

IMO, the biggest factor for image sharpness with Super8 zoom cameras is to shoot with plenty of light, so the iris will stop down to f/11 or f/16. Almost all the zoom lenses of that era have poor definition when shot wide open. The Canon 814 has one of the better zooms, but it will also benefit from stopping down.

I've got one of those, single lens version. It's the springwound consumer version of the GSAP gun camera used in fighter planes in WW2. As stated it takes the 50' Kodak magazines which work, eh, pretty well. Sometimes you run into a clunker or a poorly feeding filmpath. The magazine is home reloadable and accepts dual perf film only, as it uses both sets of sprocket holes, one for film advance and the other for pulldown claw. Mine accepts "C" mount lenses and the resultant image stability can be as good as from a Filmo, which is quite acceptable. The camera is cheap & rugged; I've gone ice skating with it; you could rig it as a skateboard cam or helmet cam.

Nate, PM me. I may have something that will work for you. Note your PM inbox is full and won't accept more messages.

Stanley Kubrick, in Barry Lyndon, reportedly hung thin black mesh in front of background walls to help talent stand out during daytime interior shots.

There's no point in buying either of those cameras, because RED is going to make all other cameras obsolete. Haven't you heard? :lol: But fer real, what is your impression of each camera? What is your need, and what level of experience do you have to make use of each camera's strengths? Remember that old racing adage, the most important part in a race car is the nut behind the wheel.

And as for dealing with rejection... you've just got to develop a bit of a thick skin. There are plenty of conceited, self-absorbed people out there who will rub you the wrong way, and you've gotta accept it's their issue, not necessarily yours. You have to believe in yourself, in your worth as a person and an artist, technician, businessman, what have you. If that film school didn't have room for you, go somewhere else, teach yourself what you need to know to do it, and go do it. Don't be halfhearted, go all out, and keep working it until you succeed. Go team! :rolleyes: By the way, I work as a manager at a large A/V company, and see plenty of media / film school graduates working as entry level technicians. Don't knock the work; it gets people in business, and if they decide to continue doing what they love, they'll keep doing it and pay the bills, too. It beats waiting tables.

I dunno what HMFIC means either, but my film schooling was in the 80's, so guess I missed out. My recommendations for anyone just starting out in film OR video is to get ahold of a 35mm still camera with manual focus and exposure. Still film practice gives you an understanding of the way that light gets captured on an emulsion, and is way cheaper to make mistakes with than motion pictures. You especially need to learn to: - get proper exposure, by using the light meter to set appropriate f/stop and shutter speeds, - get proper focus and recognise the difference between critical focus and "close enough", - frame a composition to have your image communicate its intent most clearly, - see the effect that different kinds of lighting have on your subject. Once you get to the point where you think you know it all, do some reading on both still photography and cinematography, then use what's available (like your dad's DV camcorder, or old Super 8 camera, orwhat have you) and start creating simple little stories for video. Get your friends involved, put them on YouTube, make them stars! That way they'll keep showing up when you ask them to work on the next project. Eventually you'll find yourself associating with like-minded folks and the ball gets rolling, with or without film school.

Call some film processing and transfer labs; sometimes they have retired equipment on palettes, with no plans to re-enter use. Otherwise, you could try that popular auction house. But before you do so, consider that running a film processing service requires hefty startup and ongoing expenses (think $K). Commercial processing machines hold a significant amount of chemicals with a relatively short shelf life, so unless you plan to run thousands of feet of film per week you'd be much better off mailing your film off to a film lab. Or get a job with the local lab and find out if that's the kind of work you'd like to do, handling chemicals, organising processing runs, troubleshooting quality control problems, dealing with clients, etc. Of course you can develop small amounts of film at home; a couple weekends ago I bucket processed a cart of Tri-X and it turned out better than I expected.

Before you drop a huge sum of cash on a camera, perhaps you could tell us a bit more about your project. What is it about? Tell us about casting, script, crew, production, scheduling, marketing, distribution, financing. Selecting what camera to use is about 20th down the list of priorities you need to concern yourself with.

Chroma keying? That's pretty much what they did in the Star Wars movies... As for your cast of thousands, good luck, Mr. DeMille. :rolleyes:

This type of question shows up all the time in gearhead forums. It's like asking which girlfriend is the best? The blonde, brunette or redhead? I suppose this would make more sense in the lighting forum...

Stay away, don't get duped. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Exposure for film versus video is a good question. Video has a relatively short, straight-line exposure scale which works great under controlled lighting but has difficulties in uncontrolled lighting such as outdoors; shadows are too dark, and highlights get blown out. Film has more of a curved response, so that it sees into shadows somewhat better and tolerates highlights more before going to full white; negative film stocks are designed specifically to handle wide range lighting contrasts, whereas reversal stocks' exposure characteristics are more limited. The best way to find out how they work is to buy a cartridge or two of different types, like Tri-X (high speed b&w reversal), 7217 color negative, and Ektachrome 64 reversal. They all look different, and all look different from video. Ever see one of those "the Making Of..." specials on TV, where co-stars walk you around backstage and talk about a movie or bigtime TV show? Oftentimes the walkaround footage is video and the production footage is 35mm origination. It's enlightening to see how different the set looks as the show switches between video and film; in video the set is garish and fake looking, but on film it's perfect. Of course, if the show is lit for video from the start you won't see a difference.

Hello Rens and welcome to filmmaking in Super 8. I'm not acquainted with your model of camera, but you might try a couple web sites for more information: Michael Nyberg is "super8man": http://home.pacbell.net/mnyberg/super8mm/index.html The Super 8 Wiki has information on all kinds of cameras: http://www.super8wiki.com/index.php/Main_Page After you've had a look-see at those pages, consider some hard facts about filmmaking in general: film = money. After you've bought and processed a few carts of film, you will see dollars (or Euros) flying through the gate every time you pull the trigger. And super 8 only comes in 50 foot cartridges, which run for only a few minutes. If you're used to shooting 15 minute run-on takes with your digicam, you'll need to adapt your thinking to shooting only what is absolutely necessary; 20 second shots are considered generous. Another tough reality is that there is no such thing as new gear; all the Super 8 equipment around today is at least 30 years old, and likely showing its age. Accept that someday you too will likely need to pick up a jeweler's screwdriver and open up your ailing camera to clean, lubricate, and perhaps replace a broken part with something cobbled together or scrounged off a dead parts camera. I've done it, and you can too. Now for the cool part of filmmaking; no video looks like film, no matter what filters you put into the editing software. Well exposed and focussed film has character that just won't quit. You can transfer to video at home or at a professional telecine house and edit everything on computer, getting the best of two worlds. If you want the intentionally degraded look you can bucket process the film yourself - literally, developing the film in a bucket, and you'll get wonderfully hideous footage that can't be imitated in the video world. Multiple color and b&w stocks are still available, and you can get looks from old-home-movie to French Art House with the switch of a cartridge. Super 8 uses many of the same film stocks used in 16mm and 35mm releases, just cut down smaller. You'll notice much more grain in Super 8 than show up in the larger stocks, and of course video doesn't have grain. So go with the grain, and use film when you want "the look"; video will still be around for that soul-sucking, lifeless imagery it does so well :rolleyes:

OK, I'm staying on topic here. I use the Leatherman Kick. I think it's the best bang for the buck ($25 at Target) and has most of what I need in a pinch when I don't have a toolbox around: knife, pliers, wire cutter, 2 flat blade and a medium Phillips screwdrivers, and a bottle opener. No saw blades, compass, GPS or IP address. Takes no batteries. It isn't so big it gets in the way, like the all-out mondo toolkits do. And I carry a thumb drive on my keychain - it gets alot of use also.

Just for curiosity - is that the 71-Z model you have pictured? And what is different about the single frame movement?

Ask your transfer house to clean & prep the film prior to transfer; most likely they do it anyway. An ultrasonic cleaner is the preferred method.

The Leica Leicina and Beaulieu 4008 and 6008 are C-mount cameras that accept prime lenses.

2nd question first - s16 expands into the old soundtrack area, and requires repositioning of the lens to recenter on the screen. Also, since the s16 frame is full height, you run a larger chance of vignetting in the corners of the newly widened frame. But with Ultra16, you aren't using the full frame height and you are widening the frame symmetrically, so you have less likelihood of vignetting in the corners. 1st question? I dunno, let us know when you've done it. Are you going to weaken the gate frame by filing out the end of the pulldown claw travel?